A Ship Made of Paper

would have been impossible to get through them or past them even in daylight.

Nightlife.Daniel comes down the stairs.In flannel pajamas, a House ofBluesT-shirt.Here comes the approximate orphan, here comes the almost father, here comes the world’s worst ersatz husband.But he feels none ofthese things.Night is the time ofdesire and love seizes him, shakes him silly.Outside:a gay dancing little flurry ofsnow blows past the porch light.His heart sings like a cello inside his chest.

Being alive is a ceaseless project ofself-forgiveness, and Daniel forgives himself.He knows he is acting badly.He knows he ought to be feverish with shame.But he’s not, he has resisted it, like those doctors who tend a ward full ofinfected patients but who themselves don’t fall ill.Daniel has resisted his own feelings ofguilt, he has become immune to himself.

The beauty ofthe world is, finally, overwhelming, it’s too fragile, too perfect, he must turn away.He faces a wall and glances at the aerial photo-graph ofhis house hanging there.Last year two men appeared at the door, a squared-offpilot with a rough face and a failed mustache, a lanky pho-tographer inTrotsky glasses and a Planet Hollywood satin windbreaker.

For three hundred dollars they offered to fly over the house and take a pic-ture ofit from above.“We can see ourselves as God sees us,”Kate had said, strangely enthusiastic about the idea.The finished product was delivered six months later when the barnstormers were back inWindsor County, and it hangs now in the living room, behind the green sofa.

Daniel, whose lover’s heart has sprouted wings, now is airborne himself, and he enters the photograph in full flight, hovering above his own house and its snow-dappled ten acres.The smoke from his chimney, a slightly darker gray than the cold, sunless air, rises up, stings his eyes.His arms are extended, he swims away from it, wondering ifat any moment he will come crashing down to earth but somehow knowing he is safe.

He points his hands upward, hears the whoosh ofthe air as he zooms to-ward the dawn moon, which remains fully risen, stuck in the sky like a coin frozen beneath a thin sheet ofice.He tucks his chin in, peers down at the little town—the cold air crashes like cymbals against his eyes.

There is the river, a blue-gray serpent upon whose chilly scales the wan-ing moon reflects.The mountains to the west are humped in mist and darkness;the lights ofa few houses and headlights flicker like the sparkle ofdew on the coat ofa sleeping bear.

He flies in through the window ofhis parents’bedroom, where Carl and Julia sleep side by side on their backs, as still as carvings on a sar-cophagus.The electronic numbers on their digital clock, burnt-orange, pulsate in the darkness ofthe room.On Julia’s side ofthe bed, the night table is stacked with books, but all Carl’s table holds is a lamp and a wristwatch, as ifhe already knows everything he cares to know.Upon the old Crouch and Fitzgerald trunk at the end ofthe bed, where extra blankets and fragile quilts are packed in mothballs, they have lain their matching plaid robes.The tidiness and modesty ofthe room makes Daniel ache with love and a mysterious sort ofpity, a pity that is also the deepest kind ofrespect.The room smells ofliniment, eucalyptus, deter-gent, and slow human decay.Daniel hovers above them, wanting to touch them but hesitating, for either he is incorporeal or they are.He rests his ear near his father’s chest, listens to the ruminative thump ofthe old man’s heart.It is time to start spreading all that forgiveness he has been giving to himself.Thank you for feeding me, thank you for sending me to school, thank you for staying the course.He kisses Julia’s cool forehead, a smooth stone in a rushing stream.Thank you thank you.

He backs out through the window, the branches ofa tall hemlock scrape against him as he gains altitude.He sees a police car, the beams of its headlights are going from side to side.He flies alongside it.His old friend Derek Pabst is at the wheel, sipping from a Styrofoam coffee cup, his uniform cap on the seat beside him.He has xeroxed pictures ofthe boys who escaped from Star ofBethlehem taped to the dashboard ofhis car.He is driving fast, his lips are gray and pursed, they are like a wall through which no words can penetrate.Derek pulls offthe county road and speeds across a short, singing bridge onto an unpaved road.His tires churn up long choking curls ofdust.

Daniel is above the river now, sailing past the mansions.He enters Eight Chimneys.Squirrels are in the entrance hall, wildly chasing each other around.The air is cold in the old dank house, colder than outside.

He hears a sound and finds Ferguson in the huge, cluttered, far from clean kitchen in his pajama bottoms, standing in front ofthe refrigera-tor, scratching idly at his pale bare chest.He suddenly grabs the heel of a roast beefand a carton oforange juice, and he heads back upstairs with it, with Daniel following.On the second story ofthe house, Ferguson turns right, walking past a dozen closed doors, until he comes to the staircase to the third floor, where once the servants lived.Marie is wait-ing for him at the top ofthe stairs, naked.Her little tangle ofpubic hair looks particularly black against her colorless skin.The skin around her nipples is wrinkled with cold.She stands on her toes, writhing with hap-piness and anticipation.“Hurry,”she whispers.“I’m so thirsty.”As soon as Ferguson is on the landing, Marie takes the carton oforange juice from him, sniffs it, and then drinks it down.She finishes with a loud, comical Ahhhh,shakes the carton to make sure it’s empty, and then lets it drop and puts her arms around her disheveled, confused lover.He lifts her up as they kiss, she wraps her legs around him.

Daniel flies to Iris’s house with one beat ofhis winged heart, blessing every house beneath him as he sails toward his beloved.She is in bed, awake and alone, propped up with the pillows behind her, and her portable computer resting on the hammock ofblanket between her knees.He lights next to her, puts his arm around her, nuzzles her neck, kisses her cheekbone, the corner ofher eye, and looks at the screen.Dear Daniel,she has written, but that is all.Her fingers rest on the keys.When Kate writes, her expression is avid, she is being fed and enjoying every bite, but Iris has a kind ofshyness even within the privacy ofher own thoughts, as ifshe is observing one part ofherselfwhile the other is half hidden behind a pillar.

Thank you,he says to her.Surely there is some way she can hear this.

Thank you for being so beautiful, thank you for not being too beautiful for me, thank you for your life, thank you for your breasts, let me touch them, can you feel that?That’s my hand, this is my mouth, thank you for being so open and wet, thank you for putting me in your mouth, thank you for grabbing at the sheets when I kissed you between the legs, thank you for digging your fingers into my back, thank you for letting me sit at your table, thank you for letting me play with your dog, thank you for looking at me with your deep clear eyes…

Iris lets out a long sigh and shuts her computer off.She reaches right through him as she places the little Compaq on her night table.She puts the pillows back in their normal places and lies flat, pulls the covers up to her chin.

And it is then that it strikes him:this will not end well.He has exceeded his capacities, he has somehow gotten more than he deserves, he has the sudden terrible knowledge that happiness ofthis magnitude can only lead to sorrow.Joy lifts you up and joy casts you down.

Now she is turning offthe lamp on the night table.Her touch is too emphatic, the lamp totters, but she catches it before it falls, sets it right.

Good girl.He lies next to her in the darkness, no living ghost has ever loved more fervently.He brings his nose almost into the crook ofher neck and breathes her in, the smell oflaundered cotton, and some inef-fable spice.

Airborne again, flying close to the treetops, heading home.He slips into his own bed, Kate is sleeping deeply.A scent ofalcohol comes off her skin.He props himself up on one elbow, disentangles a few ofher hairs that have gotten stuck into the moist corner ofher mouth.“I’m sorry,”he whispers into her ear.

She opens her eyes.She looks damaged, badly used.“What did you say?”she asks.

[11]

They continued to walk, hoping to find a clearing, a way out.Once, most of this land was pasture, grazed by cattle, but it hadn’t seen a plow in over a hundred years and left to its own had become a wild place.They climbed yet another hill—this might have been steeper because they both had to hold on to trees to pull them- selves up, or else they were getting tired.

And once they had scaled it, all they could see was more trees—except on one

side, where there was a sharp drop-off, leading to what looked like a large pond filled with black water.