Colum McCann - Let the Great World Spin

She sat by the fridge and read his letters and smoothed his hair and told him it was time to go to sleep, that he should eat something, he should change his clothes, that he really needed to look after himself. She wanted to make sure he wasn’t fading away. Once, during a blackout, she sat against the kitchen cabinets and wept: she couldn’t get through to him. She stuck a lead pencil into the wall socket and waited. When the electricity came on the pencil jumped in her fingers. She was aware of how it might look — a woman at a fridge, opening and closing the door — but it was a solace, and not something Solomon would suspect. She could pretend that she was cooking, or getting a glass of milk, or waiting for meat to thaw.

Solomon didn’t talk about the war. Silence was his way out. He chatted instead about his court cases, the insane litany of the city, the murders, the rapes, the cons, the hustles, the stabbings, the robberies. But not the war. Only the protesters came in his range — he thought them weak, guileless, cowardly. Gave them the stiffest sentences he could. Six months for pouring blood on the draft board files. Eight months for smashing the windows of the Times Square recruiting office. She wanted to march and protest, to meet all the hippies and yippies and skippies in Union Square, Tompkins Square Park, to carry a banner for the Catonsville Nine. But she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. We must support our boy, said Solomon. Our sweet little tow-headed one. Who slept between us not so many years ago, curled against us. Who played train sets on the Oriental rug. Who outgrew his blue blazer. Who knew fish fork, salad fork, dinner fork, the broad tines of life.

And then, from nowhere, blackout, all blackout, ever blackout.

Johsua became code.

Written into his own numbers.

She lay two months in bed. Hardly moving. Solomon wanted to hire a nurse, but she refused. She said she would snap out of it. But the word was not snap , more like slide. A word Joshua had liked. I will slide out. She began to walk around the house, through the dining room, around the living room, past the breakfast nook, toward the fridge again. She put Joshua’s photo front and center. She leaned against it and talked to him. And the fridge collected things that he might have liked. Simple things. She cut them out and pasted them on. Computer articles. Photos of circuit boards. A picture of a new building at PARC. A newspaper article about a graphics hack. The menu from Ray’s Famous. An ad from The Village Voice.

It struck her that her fridge was beginning to look hairy. The phrase almost made her smile. My hairy fridge.

And then one evening, the little clips fluttered to the floor and she leaned down and read it again. LOOKING FOR MOTHERS TO TALK TO. NAM VETS. P.O. BOX 667. She had never really thought of him as a veteran, or having been in Vietnam — he was a computer operator, had gone to Asia. But the ad made her fingers tingle. She brought it to the kitchen counter, sat down, quickly wrote a reply in pencil, then went over it with ink, stole quietly out the door, slunk into the elevator. She could have mailed it right downstairs in the lobby, but she didn’t want to; she ran outside to Park Avenue, middle of the night, in a snowstorm, the doorman stunned to see her going out the door in her nightdress, slippers on: Mrs. Soderberg, are you okay?

Can’t stop now. Letter in hand. Mother seeks bones of son. Found in blown-up café in foreign land.

She ran down to Lexington to the mailbox on Seventy-fourth. The white breath leaving her for the air. Toes wet with snow. She knew that if she didn’t send it right then, she never would. The doorman nodded shyly when she came back in, cast a quick flick of his eyes to her breasts. ’Night, Mrs. Soderberg , he said. Oh, she wanted to kiss him right then and there. On the forehead. A thanks for peeping. It made her feel good. Thrilled her, to be honest. The cloth stretched tight across her chest, the outline of everything showing, the benefit of cold, a single snowflake melting down along the very front of her throat. Any other time she would have thought it crass. But there, in her nightdress, in the warmth of the elevator, she was thankful. There was a lightness about her that night. She cleaned the front of the fridge of everything but his photograph. Made it simple again. Gave it a haircut of sorts. Thought of her letter winding its way through the postal system, eventually to find another like her. Who would it be, and what would they look like, and would they be tender, and would they be kind? That’s all she wanted: for them to be kind.

That night she climbed in and snuggled against the soft warmth of Solomon. Touched him on the low of the back. Sol. Solly. Solhoney. Wake up. He turned to say that her feet were cold. Warm me up then, Solly. He propped himself on his elbow and leaned across.

And afterward she went to sleep. For the first time in ages. She had almost forgotten what it meant to wake. She opened her eyes beside him in the morning and nudged him again, ran her fingers on the curve of his shoulder. Geez , he said with a grin, what is it, honey, my birthday?

IN THEY COME. Cautiously dressed, all except Jacqueline, who has a deep plunge to her Laura Ashley print. Marcia just behind her, all flushed and feathery. Like she’s just flown through a window and needs to bash at the walls. Not even a glance at the mezuzah on the door. Thank heavens for that. No explanations. Janet, with her head down. A touch from Gloria on the wrist and a deep wide smile. They rush along the corridor with Marcia at the front now, a bakery box in her hand. Past Joshua’s door. Past her own bedroom. Past the painting of Solomon on the wall, eighteen years younger and a good deal more hair. Into the living room. Straight to the couch.

Marcia places the box on the coffee table, sits back against the deep white cushions and fans herself. Maybe it’s just hot flashes, or perhaps she got caught up in the subway. But, no, she’s all aflutter, and the others know something is up.

At least, she thinks, they didn’t meet beforehand. Didn’t come up with a Park Avenue strategy. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred. She pulls up the ottoman and circles the chairs, guides Gloria onto the sofa by the arm. Gloria, with flowers in her hand, still clutching them. It would be rude to take them, but they’ll need some water soon.

— Oh, God, says Marcia.

— Are you all right?

— What is it?

Gathered around her as if at a campfire, all of them, leaning in, eager for outrage.

— You won’t believe it.

Marcia’s face is flushed red, with little beads of sweat at her brow. She breathes as if all the oxygen is gone, as if they are at some great height. Ropes and helmets and carabiners indeed.

— What? says Janet.

— Did someone hurt you?

Marcia’s chest yammering up and down, a gold-plated bear falling against her chestbone.

— Man in the air!

— What?

— A man in the air, walking.

— Mercy, says Gloria.

Claire considers a moment the notion that Marcia might be a tad drunk, or even high — who knows these days; she might have munched on some mushrooms for breakfast, or downed a little vodka — but she looks perfectly sober, if a little flushed, no redness to the eyes, no slurring.

— Downtown.

Drunk or not, she is thankful for Marcia and this little blip of hysteria. It has guided them all so quickly into the apartment. A minimum of fuss. No need for all those niceties, the oohs and the ahhs, the embarrassments, what fabulous curtains, and isn’t that a nice fireplace, and yes, I’ll have two sugars with mine, and oh, it’s very cozy, really, Claire, very cozy, what a lovely vase, and, Lord above, is that your husband on the wall? All the planning in the world could not have ushered them in so smoothly, without a single hiccup.