Хлоя Бенджамин - The Anatomy of Dreams

I couldn’t tell her that I’d started dreaming of Gabe—his taut, springy legs, the way his eyebrows leapt when he laughed. Sometimes, the dreams followed a familiar story line, something that had happened at Mills—Gabe and I filching trays from the cafeteria, then sneaking out to Observatory Hill and sliding down on our backs—but there was something slightly off. Gabe’s head was shaved, while in real life he’d had thick brown hair that stopped at his chin, or the sky was a dull black, a chalkboard black, and I couldn’t see stars.

It was the feeling of the dreams that I always remembered most. I was entirely at peace in a way I never was in waking life. But it was different from the sense of self-possession I had when operating a camera and different from the muted, colorless way that David slept. It was a deep-rooted kind of comfort, a feeling of utter appropriateness. This was where I belonged: on this hill, beneath this sky, devoid of stars as it was, and beside this boy—a boy who was, by then, a man, and who for all I knew could be anywhere.

One warm night in May, I dreamed of him again, but this time, my eyes were open. I could see all the details of David’s room—his swan-necked adjustable lamp, his tidy bureau, his poster of a cartoon woman begging at her boss’s feet, her speech bubble reading, “ Please , sir—don’t make me use Comic Sans!” And I could see, outside the window, a man who looked exactly like Gabe.

I peeled my eyelids open farther, but the scene didn’t change. The man was standing at the foot of a lamppost at the end of the block, looking at a piece of paper. He glanced down the block in the other direction, and then he looked toward our apartment.

I stumbled out of bed and into my shoes. I was wearing an old tee of David’s and a pair of raggedy shorts from high school that, narrow hipped as I was, still fit. The legs that led me out of the apartment didn’t feel like mine—they were only my dream legs, I thought, and nothing I did with them would be of any consequence when I woke up. So I was brave: I didn’t stop to grab my keys, and I let the door lock behind me. In the pink glow of early morning, the streets looked softened and empty. It wasn’t until I walked uphill, closer to the lamppost, that I saw a body standing behind it.

At first, the man didn’t look very much like Gabe. His hair was short, and he was stockier than Gabe had been in high school. But then I noticed his sharp jaw, his chipped bottom tooth and wide shoulders—the same shoulders I had held on to at night and followed, that November morning, to Keller’s house. Still, it was difficult to be sure. Like a hologram, he kept moving in and out of focus, flattening curiously into the background before springing alive again.

“Can you see me?” he asked.

I nodded. He was staring at me with such force.

“I think I’m dreaming,” I said.

“Is it a dream,” asked the boy, “if you know you’re dreaming?”

“But I don’t know if I am.”

Behind me, there was the quick slap of footsteps on pavement, and I turned. “Sylvie!”

It was David. He was barefoot in boxers; he hadn’t even put on a T-shirt. It was the most spontaneous thing he had ever done for me. I walked toward him, and he collected me in his arms like a wild rabbit, stroking my face, my arms. Now my eyes were closed, and I could see stars, or something like them—glittery, silver bursts beneath my lids, as if I were going to faint.

But then the silver cleared, and there was David, panting as he held me out at arm’s length. I tipped my head back. The sky above us was the warm indigo of new blue jeans, speckled with white lights.

“Look,” I said. “There’s Venus.”

“Venus?” David shook his head. “Sylvie, what was that?”

I remembered and turned around, but the man by the lamppost was gone, and the entire block was empty.

“I saw someone I knew.”

“What do you mean? What the hell d’you—”

“I swear, David, there was a man right here. Thinner than he used to be, with shorter hair.”

David’s voice lowered. “You’ve seen him before? Some man in the neighborhood? A thin man, with short hair?”

“No,” I said. “I only saw him this once.”

I was dizzy. I leaned against the lamppost, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hands.

“What are you talking about? You said you knew him from—”

“Before. I knew him from before. Let’s take a look around the neighborhood, okay? See if he’s still here?”

“I don’t have any shoes on,” said David. “I don’t even have a shirt. I came out here because I was worried you’d lost it, Sylvie—I felt you get out of bed and then I saw you walking down the street in your goddamn shorts, and I didn’t know whether you’d been— compelled by somebody—”

“I was sleepwalking,” I said, more quietly, for suddenly it was clear to me. “I dreamed I saw someone, and I got out of bed. I used to do it as a kid.”

David shook his head, blinking. We eyed each other for a moment. Finally, he stepped toward me, and I sank into his chest.

“You scared me, Sylvie. I was really frightened.” He paused, lifting his chin from the top of my head, and scanned the block. “You must have dreamed it. If someone had been here, we’d be able to see him now.”

It was true. Gabe wouldn’t have been able to get very far. The lamppost was uphill from our apartment, higher than most of the neighborhood, and we could see the streets that spread below. Except for a garbage truck making the ­early-morning rounds, they were empty.

That afternoon, we arranged a picnic to take to Stinson Beach, packing David’s cooler with water bottles and the grapefruit he liked to eat without sugar. He had graduated less than a month before, and though we’d talked lightly about whether or not we would stay together, we hadn’t come to a decision: we were both reluctant instigators, experts in avoidance. I hoped the beach trip would be romantic, but the strangeness of last night was still with us. As we drove down Highway 1, we were both on edge. A green Corolla swerved out from behind us and accelerated into the next lane.

“Damn Corolla,” said David, slowing to let it pass. “Been trailing us since we left Berkeley.”

I leaned forward and looked into the Corolla. A broad-shouldered, red-haired woman sat in the driver’s seat, steering ahead of us. I sat back again.

“Everyone’s trying to get to the beach,” I said. And when we arrived, it did feel that way. Small camps of people stretched down the sand: families setting up beach umbrellas and folding chairs, college students with beers stuck deep in the sand. We spread our towels near the shore. David took out a tube of sunblock and began to slather his legs.

“Something a little disgusting about beaches, don’t you think?” he asked as I set up my tripod and camera. “Everyone swimming in this communal . . . bath .”

He was grinning. Sometimes he said things he knew I’d object to, just to get a rise out of me.

“Stay dry, then. I’m going to bathe. But first,” I said, lifting the tripod and camera up with both arms, “I’m going to film it.”

“Don’t you think you should ask for consent?” called David. “These people are going to be in an Oscar-winning documentary one day—don’t you think you should make sure they don’t mind? I smell something smelly, Sylvie, and it just might be a lawsuit.”

But I was already walking down to the water, laughing, the sun hot on my back. I wore a yellow bikini that I’d bought on Telegraph Avenue that week, feeling daring and unlike myself. I nestled the three legs of the tripod into the sand and took off the camera’s lens cap. It was such a bright day that the iris had to be considerably adjusted. I was focusing the camera, squinting at the horizon line, when I saw a body slicing easily through the waves.