Contours of Darkness (18 page)

'Optimally,' Jackie said, 'a man has learned to be passive and aggressive at the same time, and then can make love as good as a woman.'

'How can a man be both passive and aggressive?' Cynthia asked.

'By knowing his own mind,' Jackie said.

Cynthia sipped her tea and the three women fell into silence, letting the melancholy progressions of Satie's piano music supplant their talk. It came from four speakers hung in the corners of the enormous room and suffused the space. Cynthia kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs under her, relaxing in the soft fabric of the couch. She felt comfortable, content.

When Aaron had walked out the door she felt like a whore who had neglected to take her money in advance and had her trick leave without paying. Her first reaction had been anger, and unthinking rage which fanned out from her soul and blistered the air with its vehemence. Aaron sensed it at his neck as he jogged down the stairs and did not hesitate or look back. She clenched her fists and tightened her face, shaking in frustration, emanating black vibrations. But the explosion spent itself quickly, and she was left with only an emptiness the depth of which frightened her. She allowed it to be filled with self-pity. She flung herself down on the bed in an attitude of defeat, and took the peculiar pleasure one finds in that state of recounting how badly one has been treated. She w
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as building an impeccable case for herself as a hapless victim when her reason intervened and pointed out that no one had forced her into anything, that her participation was freely volunteered and often the initiating factor; it noted drily that she had enjoyed a passionate romantic interlude in the kitchen, sucked two cocks in the living room, and fucked majestically in the bedroom, a condition which could hardly be considered as evidence for collecting grievances.

She returned momentarily to a state of calm, and looked at the clock. 'Well, I'm naked and it's nine-thirty in the morning,' she said out loud, her voice popping out without her conscious projection. It surprised her into a realisation that she never spoke except to someone else, and all of a sudden that seemed a silly prejudice, as though what she said had no meaning unless it was heard by another. She smiled and let herself go on. 'So what if he leaves,' she continued, 'I still have myself.' Then, as though a more caustic voice emerged. 'And if he walked in through that door right now you'd jump right back into his arms.' The thought was unsettling, for she could see the truth of it, and that seemed to negate any autonomy she might lay claim to.

She thrashed her head about as though to shake herself into another frame of mind. It was becoming apparent that she was veering back to the central fact that Aaron after hours of delirious lovemaking, couldn't wait to get out of being in the same room with her. She knew that it was important for him to see Conrad, and did not begrudge him his need. But the way in which he abruptly removed himself after his orgasm, and his total lack of concern about her own needs and wants, stretched the limits of her compassion to breaking point and made him seem almost hateful in her eyes. She could not escape the conclusion that the problems of their relationship had insidiously undermined their very humanity, and that after attempting, with affection and good intentions, to forge themselves into a couple, found that effort produced those very evils they had come together to overcome. It seemed that they should part company if only in the interests of common decency.

This common perception, pinpointing the climax of over a year of growing discontent, gripped her and forced her into the emotion she had not wanted to yield to. Sadness crept over her like a fog, condensed, and was transformed into sorrow. She saw what all lovers see who are at the edge of accepting that there may be nothing essential to be salvaged from continuing in one another's company, that the creature that was them, the thing that was Aaron-and-Cynthia-together, would be gone forever.

'It's like he's dead,' she said aloud, and her heart, like a sky that has been threatening to loose its burden of thunder and rain, burst its prison of fear, and swelled until the sobs and tears spilled out in wild profusion. Deep ragged sounds erupted from her heaving chest and her cheeks glistened with wet. She rolled to her stomach and gave herself up to her unhappiness, crying in cathartic release, the profundity of her feeling sustaining in its fullness the vast turbulence of her spirit. Her shoulders shaking, her finely curved spine rippling, her buttocks quivering, her legs kicking, she clutched the pillow in her fingers and pressed her face into its comforting belly.

She wept because she did not know whether she loved him any longer. And within her, permeating all images and identities, the capacity to love a man gave her life, opening her to life, produced new life. For a long time the rift had been widening, and now he seemed so far distant that he could no longer even hear her voice. The pain was many feelings at once: an anguished clutching at a frayed sleeve, a flat wave of searing heat, a helpless twitching, a melting into grief. The stranger who had left so brusquely was the same man who had most thrilled her with booming joy; she held him and she lost him in precisely the same moment. This terrible duality which tore at her was, however, the only door she knew to the rapture of union, and only in relationship to a man did it seem to attain the devastating tension necessary to give birth to ecstasy.

She cried until there was nothing left, stopping four times, beginning again, winding down slowly, and when it was finished she lay still, floating in the peaceful throb of rejuvenation which follows a storm. All the conditions of her life were just as they had been, but she felt a detachment from them all, a sense that they really did not belong to her. It was something like the effect of marijuana, but more integral, involving her emotions as well as her intellect. Even Aaron appeared to be no more than a character in a book she was reading.

'I don't know how I'll feel tonight,' she thought, 'but right now I don't care if he never comes back.'

She propped herself up on one elbow and looked absently around the room. It made her restless. She lit a cigarette and went to make a pot of coffee. Her movements were rapid, almost spastic. The night's episode and the outburst of the morning, coming after many months of monotonous routine, had jostled her mind and refreshed her body, so that rushes of unaccustomed energy coursed through her. As she performed the kitchen ritual, the day began to present itself as a challenge, a space to be filled. With a start she realised that this was the first day in recent memory which was not either programmed or influenced by Aaron's presence. She recognised that her time was divided between office work, housework, and being with Aaron. The thought disturbed her and she put her focus on the fact that she was now free to do whatever she wanted.

'Now,' she said to herself, 'what do I want to do?'

She sipped her coffee and attempted to plan the day. But lacking practice in letting herself flow with her internal rhythms and discovering her involvements spontaneously, she began to list specific activities. She began to get discouraged when she came to: 'Maybe I'll go to a movie.'

The phone rang.

She was surprised to hear a strange woman's voice on the other end.

'It's Jackie,' said the caller,

Cynthia hesitated. She had no immediate connection with the name.

'We met at the meeting,' she said. 'Do you remember? We were drinking tea together and talking about how unfair it is that secretaries do more actual work than their bosses and get a third of the pay.'

The event lit up in Cynthia's memory. The interaction had been casual and she had been surprised when the other woman asked for her phone number and said she would like to get together informally sometime. She had forgotten the incident almost immediately.

'I called your office,' Jackie said, 'and they told me you were home sick today. I hope you're feeling all right.'

'Yes,' said Cynthia, falling easily into conversation. 'As a matter of fact, I'm not sick at all. My boyfriend and I. . . stayed up all night and both decided not to go to work today.'

'Oh,' said Jackie. Her tone was measurably changed, as though she had stepped back a number of paces. 'You see, Maureen and I - she's my partner - were talking about the meeting, and she was quite taken by you.'

'I don't think I recall meeting her,' Cynthia said, trying to reconstruct the evening.

'No, you didn't. But she saw you when the two of us were talking.' There was a pause. 'And she'd like very much to meet you, and we thought you might enjoy coming over this evening.' There was another silence along the wire. Then the voice went on, with a marked inflection: 'But it seems you're going to be all taken up with your boyfriend.'

The cadences of the sentences produced an odd effect, and Cynthia felt she was being gently prodded, tested for responses. It was not an unpleasant sensation. She cocked her head.

'Well,' she said, 'actually it looks like he's gone for the day.' Suddenly she became aware that she had no clothes on, and tingled with prickles of apprehension that the other woman knew that.

'Oh,' said Jackie, and again her voice revealed a different edge. Like a sculpture that shapes the space around it, the conversation underlined the nuances of the situation. 'Uh, we're at home now and we thought you wouldn't be free until after work but... do you have any plans for today?'

Thinking of the list she had been compiling, Cynthia laughed.

'You have a beautiful laugh,' Jackie said, and her words were like a light kiss on the forehead.

Neither of them spoke for a few seconds. Cynthia could hear the breathing through the earpiece. Her chest held a certain heaviness, as though a hand were firmly pressed there. The thoughts flitted through her brain so quickly that she had no time to examine any single one of them, and they created a buzzing in her head.

'I'd enjoy very much coming over,' she heard herself say.

Somehow, although there was no sound to indicate it, she knew that Jackie was smiling. Her voice was clear and warm. 'We're on Grizzly Peak road,' she said. 'You know where that is?'

'Yes,' said Cynthia, impressed by the address.

'It's number twenty-four, the first house on the right after the second long curve. Shall we say in an hour?'

The day shone with almost unnatural brilliance, vibrating with a light that is like nowhere else in the world. As her car climbed, up Hearst Avenue, past the arty North Side with its refined version of Telegraph Avenue's hustle, past the sports stadium, and on into the hills, care fell from her like lint from a rug being shaken. She was caught up in the sensation of flight, and it occurred to her that she need not stop, she could continue driving, moving, letting all her entanglements dissolve behind her. With stunning clarity she saw that the only thing which kept her tied to her responsibility was merely her
sense
of responsibility, a thing she could discard like a burnt-out light bulb. There was no serious intimation of what such a decision would entail, the years of struggle to destroy old habits of lifestyle: rather it was an exhilarating whimsy, a reaction of relief from the almost morbid compression of the past twelve hours.

The house was almost hidden behind a bank of eucalyptus trees, and as she stepped out onto the driveway the perfume of their leaves bathed her in a shower of goodness. The effect that even a touch of nature has on the town dweller, the softness of forest life coming after the regimen of concrete and neon, buoyed her even more. She was feeling quite happy as she knocked on the thick door, and stood with an easy stance, her tank-top shirt and tight shorts showing her figure off in its trim, almost athletic elegance.

The woman who had opened the door took her breath away. As tall as Cynthia but so thin that the first impression one received was that of a skeleton, she wore a deep-brown sheath dress simple enough to have been worn with equal propriety on the beach or at the first night of the opera season. Her hair was black and coarse, pulled back severely to the back of her head, and bunched in an enormous knot. She wore no makeup or jewellery. Her feet were bare, and a bright red dot on her forehead at the point where the third eye is reputed to function attracted immediate attention. She had deep fluid eyes, a full nose, and skin the shade of burnt umber.

'My name is Maureen,' she said.

Cynthia blinked. 'How could I have missed seeing you at the meeting?' she said, the other woman's beauty lifting her out of the reserve she ordinarily responded with.

'Sometimes we are more receptive to what lies around us than at others,' Maureen said, speaking distinctly, almost with an air of patience. 'The world never ceases being full; it is up to us how much of it we wish to drink.'

There was an indeterminate noise behind her and Jackie's voice rang out, bell-like and playful. 'Are you going to let that girl in or begin a discourse on Hindu metaphysics in the front yard?' Maureen's eyes lost their outward-looking cast and turned inward for a moment; then she opened them to Cynthia again and gazed so directly and steadily into her own that she felt a wave of giddiness pass over her. Maureen smiled and her mouth curved with the same delicate lines that grace Indian temple carvings.

'Please come in,' she said, standing to one side.

Cynthia entered the immense room and found Jackie sitting on the floor in front of a dozen balls of twine, a half-finished macrame belt in her hands. Her eyes swept across the space and took in the heavy furniture, the oils on the walls, a massive oak bookcase, a grand piano, the whole of it resting on a thick green rug with gold and red scrollwork design. One entire wall was a single plate-glass window which overlooked a stepped garden surrounded by trees. She was taken by an impression of wealth.