Sourland

his spine. And he breathed quickly, audibly — as if he’d been running. As if he were about to declare something — then thought better of it.

At the organic food and gardening co-op where Hadley had once shopped frequently, when she’d prepared elaborate meals for herself and her husband, and now only shopped from time to time, tall lanky Anton Kruppe had appeared perhaps a year ago. He’d always been alert and attentive to her — the co-op manager addressed her as Mrs. Schelle. Since late March in her trance of self-absorption that was like a narcotic to her — in fact, to get through the worst of her insomniac nights Hadley had to take sleeping pills which left her dazed and groggy through much of the day — she’d scarcely been aware of Anton Kruppe except as a helpful and persistent presence, a worker who seemed always to be waiting on her. It was just recently that he’d dared to be more direct: asking if he might see her. Asking if he might drop by her house after the co-op closed one evening, to bring her several bags of peat moss that were too heavy and cumbersome for Hadley to remove from the trunk of her car by herself. He’d offered to spread the peat moss wherever she wanted it spread.

Hadley had hesitated before saying yes. It was true, she was attracted to Anton Kruppe, to a degree. He reminded her of foreign-born classmates in her school, in north Philadelphia; pasty-faced skinny boys with round eyeglasses, tortured ways of speaking as if their tongues were malformed. Hadley had been attracted to them, but she’d never befriended them. Not even the lonely girls had she befriended. And now in weak moments she was grateful for anyone who was kind to her; since her husband’s premature death she’d felt eviscerated, worthless. There is not one person to whom you matter, now. This is the crossing- over. For long entranced minutes like one in a hypnotic state she found herself listening to a voice not her own yet couched in the cadences of her own most intimate speech. This voice did not accuse her nor did the voice pass judgment on her yet she knew herself judged, contemptible. Not one person. This is the crossing-over.

She had signed the paper for her husband’s cremation. In her memory distorted and blurred by tears as if undersea her own name had been printed on the contract, beside her husband’s name. Signing for him, she’d signed for herself as well. It was finished for her, all that was over — the life of the emotions, the ability to feel.

Yet with another part of her mind Hadley remained alert, prudent. She was not an adventurous woman, still less was she reckless. She had been married to one man for nearly twenty years, she was childless and had virtually no family. She had a circle of friends in whom she confided sparingly — often, it was her closest friends whom she avoided, since March. Never would she have consented to a stranger dropping by her house except she’d learned that Anton Kruppe was a post-doc fellow in the prestigious Molecular Biology Institute; he had a Ph.D. from MIT and he’d taught at Cal Tech; his area of specialization was microbial genetics. She’d seen him at a string quartet recital on campus, once. Another time, walking along the canal towpath, alone. Wearing earphones, head sharply bowed, his mouth working as if he were arguing with someone and so lost in concentration his gaze drifted over Hadley unseeing — his favored co-op customer in cable-knit sweater, wool slacks and boots, a cap pulled low over her head, invisible to him.

She’d liked it that Anton Kruppe hadn’t noticed her, at that moment. That she could observe the young man without his observing her. Thinking He’s a scientist. He won’t see anything that isn’t crucial for him to see.

Now, in her house, Hadley felt a frisson of power over her awkward visitor. He could not have been more than twenty-nine — Hadley was thirty-nine. She was certain that Anton hadn’t known her husband or even that she’d had a husband, who had died. (Hadley still wore her engagement and wedding ring of course.) Her power, she thought, lay in her essential indifference to the man, to his very maleness: his sexuality clumsy as an odd-sized package he was obliged to carry, to proffer to strangers like herself. He had the malnourished look of one who has been rebuffed many times yet remains determined. There are men of surpassing ugliness with whom women fall in love in the mysterious way of women but Anton Kruppe didn’t possess anything like a charismatic ugliness; his maleness was of another species altogether. Thinking of this, Hadley felt a swell of elation. If he kisses me tonight he will smell of — garbage.

Hadley was smiling. She saw how Anton stared at her, as if her smile was for him.

She thanked him for the pumpkin another time. Her voice was warm, welcoming. What an “original” gift it was, and so “cleverly” carved.

Anton’s face glowed with pleasure. “W-Wait, Hedley! — there is more.”

Hedley he called her. At the co-op, Mrs. Schelle with an emphasis on the final e. Hadley felt no impulse to correct him.

With boyish enthusiasm Anton seized Hadley’s hand — her fingers must have been icy, unresponsive — and pulled her with him out to the driveway. In the rear of the pickup was a large pot of what appeared to be cream- colored chrysanthemums, past their prime, and a long narrow cardboard box of produce — gnarly carrots with foot- long untrimmed greens, misshapen peppers and pears, bruised MacIntosh apples the co-op couldn’t sell even at reduced prices. And a loaf of multigrain bread that, Anton insisted, had been baked only that morning but hadn’t sold and so would be labeled “day-old” the next morning. “In this country there is much ignorant prejudice of ‘day- old’ — everything has to be ‘new’ — ‘perfect shape’ — it is a mystery to me why if to 6 P.M. when the co-op closes this bread is good to sell but tomorrow by 8:30 A.M. when the co-op opens — it is ‘old.’ In the place where we come from, my family and neighbors…” Moral vehemence thickened Anton’s accent, his breath came ever more audibly.

Hadley would have liked to ask Anton more about his background.

He’d lived through a nightmare, she knew. Ethnic cleansing. Genocide. Yet, she felt uneasy in his presence. Very likely, it had been a mistake to have invited the eccentric young molecular biologist to drop by her house a second time; she didn’t want to mislead him. She was a widow who had caused her husband to be burnt to ashes and was unrepentant, unpunished. Since March declining invitations from friends who had known her and her husband for years. Impatient with their solicitude, their concern for her who did not deserve such concern. I’m sorry! I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to leave the house. I’m very tired. I don’t sleep any longer. I go to bed and can’t sleep and at 1 A.M. I will take a sleeping pill. At 4 A.M. I will take another. Forget me! I am something that is finished.

Thinking now that possibly she didn’t have to invite her awkward visitor into the house, a second time; maybe Anton wouldn’t notice her rudeness — wouldn’t know enough to interpret it as rudeness. He’d set the mums and the box with the produce onto a white wrought-iron bench near Hadley’s front walk and was now leading Hardley around the side of the large sprawling stone-and-timber house as he’d done previously, as if he’d been summoned for this purpose. He’d boasted to Hadley of being “Mister Fix-It” — he was the “Mister Fix-It” of his lab at the Institute — his quick, critical eye took in the broken flagstones in the terrace behind Hadley’s house which he’d “repair” — “replace” — for her, on another visit; with the scrutiny of a professional mason he stooped to examine corroding mortar at the base of the back wall of the house; he examined the warped and lopsided garden gate which he managed to fix with a deft motion of his hands — “Now! It is good as ‘new’ — eh?” — laughing as if he’d said something unexpectedly witty. Hadley was grateful that Anton had made no mention of the alarming profusion of weeds amid a lush tangle of black-eyed Susans, Russian sage and morning glory vines in her husband’s garden that had not been cultivated this year but allowed to grow wild.

“Thank you, Anton! Truly you are — ‘Mister Fix-It.’”

Hadley spoke with more warmth than she’d intended. It was her social manner — bright, a little blurred, insincere and animated.

There was something admirable — unless there was something daunting, aggressive — about her visitor’s energy — that brimmed and thrummed like rising yeast. Hadley would have supposed that after a day presumably spent at the molecular biology lab — work-weeks in such labs could run beyond one hundred hours during crucial experiments — and several hours at the co-op Anton would have been dazed with exhaustion; yet there he was, tireless in his inspection of the exterior of Hadley’s house — inspecting windows, locks, dragging aside broken limbs and storm debris. You’d think that Anton Kruppe was an old friend of the family for whom the discovery that one of the floodlights on Hadley’s garage had burnt out was something of a coup, arousing him to immediate action — “You have a bulb to replace — yes? And a ladder with ‘steps’ — ‘step-ladder’ —? I will put in — now — before it is too dark.”

So adamant, Hadley had no choice but to give in.