Jonathan Lethem - The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye

“Well, Arman,” said the duck, “they really had their way with us, didn’t they?”

“Yes, darling.” Albert Einstein drew on his cigarette. “Everyone had their way with everyone. Everyone always does.”

“I — for all the, for everything — it really was a party, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, darling.”

The duck cocked his head and opened his bill as if to speak, then suddenly stopped.

“What?” said Albert.

“I wish it could go on forever,” said the duck.

“I feel different from other people. Really different. Yet whenever I have a conversation with a new person it turns into a discussion of things we have in common. Work, places, feelings. Whatever. It’s the way people talk, I know, I share the blame, I do it too. But I want to stop and shout no, it’s not like that, it’s not the same for me. I feel different.”

“I understand what you mean.”

“That’s not the right response.”

“I mean what the fuck are you talking about.”

“Right.” Laughter.

She lit a cigarette while E. went on.

“The notion is like a linguistic virus. It makes any conversation go all pallid and reassuring. ‘Oh, I know, it’s like that for me too.’ But the virus isn’t content just to eat conversations, it wants to destroy lives. It wants you to fall in love.”

“There are worse things.”

“Not for me.”

“Famine, war, floods.”

“Those never happened to me. Love did. Love is the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

“That’s fatuous.”

“What’s the worst thing that ever happened to you?”

She was silent for a full minute.

“But there, that’s the first fatuous thing I’ve said. Asking you to consider my situation by consulting your experience. You see? The virus is loose again. I don’t want you to agree that our lives are the same. They aren’t. I just want you to listen to what I say seriously, to believe me.”

“I believe you.”

“Don’t say it in that tone of voice. All breathy.”

“Fuck you.” She laughed again.

“Do you want another drink?”

“In a minute.” She slurped at what was left in her glass, then said, “You know what’s funny?”

“What?”

“Other people do feel the way you do, that they’re apart from everyone else. It’s the same as the way every time you fall in love it feels like something new, even though you do the exact same things over again. Feeling unique is what we all have in common, it’s the thing that’s always the same.”

“No, I’m different. And falling in love is different for me each time, different things happen. Bad things.”

“But you’re still the same as you were before the first time. You just feel different.”

“No, I’ve changed. I’m much worse.”

“You’re not bad.”

“You should have seen me before. Do you want another drink?”

The laminated place mat on the table between them showed pictures of exotic drinks. “This one,” she said. “A zombie.” It was purple.

“You don’t want that.”

“Yes I do. I love zombies.”

“No you don’t. You’ve never had one. Anyway, this place makes a terrible zombie.” He ordered two more margaritas.

“You’re such an expert.”

“Only on zombies.”

“On zombies and love is bad.”

“You’re making fun of me. I thought you promised to take me seriously, believe me.”

“I was lying. People always lie when they flirt.”

“We’re not flirting.”

“Then what are we doing?”

“We’re just drinking, drinking and talking. And I’m trying to warn you.”

“And you’re staring.”

“You’re beautiful. Oh God.”

“That reminds me of one. What’s the worst thing about being an atheist?”

“I give up.”

“No one to talk to when you come.”

Morning light seeped through the macrame curtain and freckled the rug. Motes seemed to boil from its surface. For a moment she thought the rug was somehow on the ceiling, then his cat ran across it, yowling at her. The cat looked starved. She was lying on her stomach in his loft bed, head over the side. He was gone. She lay tangled in the humid sheets, feeling her own body.

Lover —she thought.

She could barely remember.

She found her clothes, then went and rinsed her face in the kitchen sink. A film of shaved hairs lined the porcelain bowl. She swirled it out with hot water, watched as the slow drain gulped it away. The drain sighed.

The table was covered with unopened mail. On the back of an envelope was a note: I don’t want to see you again. Sorry. The door locks. She read it twice, considering each word, working it out like another language. The cat crept into the kitchen. She dropped the envelope.

She put her hand down and the cat rubbed against it. Why was it so thin? It didn’t look old. The fact of the note was still sinking in. She remembered the night only in flashes, visceral strobe. With her fingers she combed the tangles out of her hair. She stood up and the cat dashed away. She went out into the hall, undecided, but the weighted door latched behind her.

Fuck him.

The problem was of course that she wanted to.

It was raining. She treated herself to a cab on Eighth Avenue. In the backseat she closed her eyes. The potholes felt like mines, and the cab squeaked like rusty bedsprings. It was Sunday. Coffee, corn muffin, newspaper; she’d insulate herself with them, make a buffer between the night and the new day.

But there was something wrong with the doorman at her building.

“You’re back!” he said.

She was led incredulous to her apartment full of dead houseplants and unopened mail, her answering machine full of calls from friends, clients, the police. There was a layer of dust on the answering machine. Her address book and laptop disks were gone; clues, the doorman explained.

“Clues to what?”

“Clues to your case. To what happened to you. Everyone was worried.”

“Well, there’s nothing to worry about. I’m fine.”

“Everyone had theories. The whole building.”

“I understand.”

“The man in charge is a good man, Miss Rush. The building feels a great confidence in him.”

“Good.”

“I’m supposed to call him if something happens, like someone trying to get into your place, or you coming back. Do you want me to call?”

“Let me call.”

The card he handed her was bent and worn from traveling in his pocket. Cornell Pupkiss, Missing Persons. And a phone number. She reached out her hand; there was dust on the telephone too. “Please go,” she said.

“Is there anything you need?”

“No.” She thought of E.’s cat, for some reason.

“You can’t tell me at least what happened?”

“No.”

She remembered E.’s hands and mouth on her — a week ago? An hour?

Cornell Pupkiss was tall and drab and stolid, like a man built on the model of a tower of suitcases. He wore a hat and a trench coat, and shoes which were filigreed with a thousand tiny scratches, as though they’d been beset by phonograph needles. He seemed to absorb and deaden light.

On the telephone he had insisted on seeing her. He’d handed her the disks and the address book at the door. Now he stood just inside the door and smiled gently at her.

“I wanted to see you in the flesh,” he said. “I’ve come to know you from photographs and people’s descriptions. When I come to know a person in that manner I like to see them in the flesh if I can. It makes me feel I’ve completed my job, a rare enough illusion in my line.”