explain what I can, which is not much. He sent it to me to bring to you because he wanted to be sure it didn’t get lost. It’s called
“Poetry?” Poetry wouldn’t be a problem, because any poetry by a family member, private poetry, secret, was ninety percent of the time going to turn out to be pathetic.
“Oh no, prose, definitely.”
I was raised by idiots, he thought. He wanted the last line of
He said, “I was raised by idiots.”
“Oh I know,” Iris said. “You can see that in Rex’s book.”
They had reached the car. He was exhausted, but he managed to load up and get them all set to go with celerity. His knee hurt.
First she had wanted to go into her den, her study, and sit there in the baking silence for a few minutes with the door closed. The mail, sorted out on a huge platter by him, she had ignored.
Afternoon was dying.
They had laughed at the alp her travel tunic made, dropped on the floor.
He waited.
She was lying full length on the sofa in the living room and he was preparing to rub her feet, at her request. He had aimed two electric fans toward her, one at her head, the other at her midsection. Nothing had been said about the house, the way it looked. He was back with the Nivea cream.
He sat down. Her naked feet were in his lap.
He said, “Do you want to pull off those elf pants, me to pull them off?”
“You want sex,” she said.
“Of course, but this is a separate matter because those things look hot. They look uncomfortable.”
“Stirrup pants is what they call them. You may remove them.”
“I am not sort of crushingly out for sex, my dear.”
“Oh mais non.”
“Well I’m not.”
“Sure you are.”
“Well I am and I’m not, you know how it is.”
Her perfect legs were out, there, perfect things, gleaming.
“You can have it if you want it,” she said.
“I know.”
“It won’t be full-dress. I’m so tired. But you know me. I’m happy if you need to.”
“Non, merci.”
“You have a right.”
“No I don’t. There is no such thing.”
“Please,” she said. “Please. Be real.”
She began rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, producing a sound, a creaking sound he hated to hear. It was too organic.
“Ray, I can accommodate you anytime.”
“No I think I’ll wait instead of taking advantage of a lagged-out wreck of a darling and guaranteeing that when I die I’ll go directly to hell.”
He sat at the end of the sofa and took her feet into his lap.
She had her forearm over her eyes. It was possible she was concealing tears, trying to.
She asked, “Did you masturbate?”
He hated this. It was mere liberationism. She knew who he was, for better or worse. He was someone used to there being more of the unsaid in love-talk, love-communications. I’m almost fifty, he thought. Of course this might be an attempt at seduction, getting him onto the slippery slope and then getting sex over with so she would feel better because she had taken care of an obligation.
“No,” he said, lightly, as lightly as he could. This subject was sediment stirred up, he was certain, by the weekend Antichrist, Morel, whose doom was coming. He would arrange it. He thought, He thinks I’m Bottom… I’m Tamburlaine… He’ll see.
He rubbed Nivea cream into the soles of her feet.
She was persisting. “Really not?”
He moved back so that her feet were decently remote from his genitals.
“No. It was part of waiting for you to come back, Iris,” Ray said. It was perverse, what she was doing.
“Did you have wet dreams?” she asked.
“Iris. Yes, I had wet dreams. Since you ask.” Suddenly, he was enraged. She was pushing him around.
“I masturbated,” she said, which was more cheap fucking damned liberationism, offensive, offensive.
“You did?” he said, but lightly, calmly, falsely, to his ears. He wanted to ask her if she had thought of him, if he had been involved in her imagery, if imagery had been involved in the act, which would be a tremendous mistake on his part.
“Did you think of me?” he asked, thinking that if she hesitated before saying yes, it would mean hell, of a sort, was here. She had not even glanced at the mail. Where was she?
“No,” she answered, not hesitating, which was a plus, a great plus. He loved her for her truthfulness.
Now the worst thing he could do next would be to ask further along this line rather than being superior to it. She could save him from ignominy by volunteering something, images from the movies, something innocuous he could live with. This was not like her. Why was she doing this if she loved him? She thinks she wants truth, he thought. Truth for him, when he saw her at the airport, would have meant some act like pressing his hands along her physical outline in the world, hard, like an idiot, a scene.
Tears were leaking out from underneath her forearms. She was trying to disperse and spread them around with arm movements so he wouldn’t notice.
Here we are, he thought. The tears could be over anything, anything, her sister, secret adventures, anything.
Her panties were red lace, ones he liked but not his greatest favorites, the one or two high-cuts she was willing to wear only for sex.
“Stop staring at my mons.”
“I’m not, or not exclusively, anyway. I’m staring at your whole pleasant body.”
“Peasant body?”
“Pleasant.” He enunciated.
“Sorry, my ears are still clogged from flying.” She tried to work up a yawn, but failed.
Now she had both arms crossed over her eyes. Her tears increased. At least she seemed not to be actively crying. Her rib cage movements were slight. She wasn’t heaving out the tears, it was more like leakage, an overflow. He decided to let her weeping run its course, to say nothing until he was solicited. It was always possible he was going to hear that these were tears of relief. He kept kneading the soles of her feet, feeling like weeping himself. What was it about individual vigorous pubic hairs poking here and there through the lace at her crotch that he liked to see, loved, in fact? It was festive, was why.
She said, “Tell me everything.”
“I think I kept you pretty up to date on the phone. Let’s see. Around here, not much. We’re still waiting for the Boka Report. There’s been plenty of funny business in the Housing Authority and it’s possible the vice president will be hurt. There’s a new press law, very objectionable. Somebody in admin at the embassy posted a complaint about the Batswana leaving rubbish behind when they eat in the building. The word pigs was used. Barrage of apologies.
“South Africa is looking okay. You know de Klerk got sixty-seven percent in the white people’s referendum. The oil embargo is off, not that it was ever really on.
“What else… I would say it’s going okay except for Natal. The killing won’t stop in Natal. And you know that Winnie and Nelson are separating.”
“I heard that. She seems to be awful. But it’s sad.”
