to the bathroom? How can you not be grossed out by gobs of hair in the sink? Disembodied hair …it’s like seeing a corpse. Beauty mat ers. How can someone not care about beauty?”
“I don’t mind if you clean up,” I of ered generously.
“I can’t spend my life cleaning up after you, and I resent it. And I just hate coming home from work to this; it makes me think you don’t care about me or about how I feel. Why is it so hard for you, Dana, to put a cup in the sink, or hang up a shirt?”
“I feel as nervous when things are neat as you do when they aren’t,” I said.
“You’re just lazy.”
“I feel more at home, cozier, if there’s a mess. This isn’t a museum, it’s a place where we live. I like having our stu al over the place. I
“I feel more at home, cozier, if there’s a mess. This isn’t a museum, it’s a place where we live. I like having our stu al over the place. I get scared when things are too orderly, it makes me think of being forced to do things. Besides, if I put things away I’l forget about them. I need to be reminded that there are bil s to pay, and activities coming up.”
“Look,” he’d say, pul ing an empty box of tissues out of a tiny garbage pail. “Even when you put things in the garbage you don’t real y bother. This box is bigger than the pail, what’s the point?”
“It’s a reminder. A reminder that it’s on the way to that great big garbage dump in the sky.”
“I don’t think it’s funny. I think you’re being selfish.”
“But why aren’t you the one who’s selfish, wanting me to conform?”
“I can’t believe anyone can prefer ugliness to beauty.”
“You have a very narrow definition of beauty, Daniel.”
That would hurt him. He felt then that I was at acking the most essential thing about him, the thing that de ned him: his passion for architecture. And I would feel remorseful and penitent. I’d start cleaning up, but Daniel’s mood would be ruined; the evening would be ruined. And I had no talent for cleaning up. “I don’t know how to organize stu ,” I said. “This place is too smal . There’s no room for anything.”
So Daniel built al sorts of clever shelves and cupboards for me. But nothing helped. I never reformed, and he never got used to my slovenly habits. We hired a woman to come two afternoons a week and bring order to chaos, but her good work never lasted. “Like the sand in Woman of the Dunes,” Daniel said when he was in a good mood and trying to joke about it. But most of the time he wasn’t amused and every now and then he walked out of the house in protest, leaving me to sit in the squalor and sulk.
SUNDAY
I WAS WORKING ON MY NOVEL when the phone rang. I ignored it, and continued writing.
He took her in his strong arms and murmured in her ear, “Angela, Angela. Why did I read that let er before I left for St. Petersburg? If Sir Anthony returns tomorrow, nay, if he returns tonight—
Fifteen minutes later it rang again. I answered this time, though I knew it would be Rafi.
“Hel o, is Dana there, please?” he joked.
“Don’t cal ,” I said.
“I’m right outside the hotel. Come have cof ee with me.”
“No, I can’t,” I said. “I’m busy.”
“What building are you in?”
Instinctively I looked out of my living room window, and there was Ra , standing next to Marik the guard, talking into his cel phone. He waved at me.
“Why? Why are you here?” I asked.
“That’s what it says I have to do on my list. Cal Dana.”
He raised his arm with the white sheet of paper, like a soldier waving a ag of surrender. “You don’t believe me,” he said. He crossed the street, came up to the window, which was only slightly higher than the top of his head, and tried to show me the paper with the green handwrit en notes.
“I’l meet you in the hal way,” I said.
I came out to the hal and took the list from his hands.
It was true, my name was there: Pick up bread, pickles, bananas, rol ed oats, vitamin E. Give glasses in for repair. Stain remover for sofa.
Cal Eve about piano tuner. Pick up Naomi at 16:15, remind Yolande about Thursday. Cal Dana.
I was the last item.
“Cal Dana, why?”
“My wife wants to meet you. She knows you—she saw you on television talking about your husband. You’re famous, Dana. Anyhow, she wants to invite you over for dinner.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
