Colum McCann - Let the Great World Spin

Do you hear me?

This jar of ashes is not what my son is.

— What’s that now, Claire?

And it’s as if she is rising again from a daydream. She has been watching them, their moving mouths, their mobile faces, but not hearing anything they’ve been saying, some sort of argument about the walking man, about whether the tightrope was attached or not, and she had drifted from it. Attached to what? His shoe? The helicopter? The sky? She folds and refolds her fingers into one another, hears the crack of them as they pull apart.

You need more calcium in your bones, the good doctor Tonnemann said. Calcium indeed. Drink more milk, your children won’t go missing.

— Are you okay, dear? says Gloria.

— Oh, I’m fine, she says, just a little daydreamy

— I know the feeling.

— I get that way too sometimes, says Jacqueline.

— Me too, says Janet.

— First thing every morning, says Gloria, I start to dream. Can’t do it at night. I used to dream all the time. Now I can only dream in daytime.

— You should take something for it, says Janet.

Claire cannot recall what she has said — has she embarrassed them, said something silly, out of order? That comment from Janet, as if she should be on meds. Or was that aimed at Gloria? Here, take a hundred pills, it will cure your grief. No. She has never wanted that. She wants to break it like a fever. But what is it that she said? Something about the tightrope man? Did she say it aloud? That he was vulgar somehow? Something about ashes? Or fashion? Or wires?

— What is it, Claire?

— I’m just thinking about that poor man, she says.

She wants to kick herself for saying it, for bringing him up again. Just when she felt that they could be getting away, that the morning could get back on track again, that she could tell them about Joshua and how he used to come home from school and eat tomato sandwiches, his favorite, or how he never squeezed the toothpaste properly, or how he always put two socks into one shoe, or a playground story, or a piano riff, anything, just to give the morning its balance, but, no, she has shunted it sideways again and brought it back around.

— What man? says Gloria.

— Oh, the man who came here, she says suddenly.

— Who’s that?

She picks a bagel from the sunflower bowl. Looks up at the women. She pauses a moment, slices through the thick bread, pulls the rest of the bagel apart with her fingers.

— You mean the tightrope man was here?

— No, no.

— What man, Claire?

She reaches across and pours tea. The steam rises. She forgot to put out the slices of lemon. Another failure.

— The man who told me.

— What man?

— The man who told you what, Claire?

— You know. That man.

And then a sort of deep understanding. She sees it in their faces. Quieter than rain. Quieter than leaves.

— Uh huhn, says Gloria.

And then a loosening over the faces of the others.

— Mine was Thursday.

— Mike Junior’s was Monday.

— My Clarence was Monday as well. Jason was Saturday. And Brandon was a Tuesday.

— I got a lousy telegram. Thirteen minutes past six. July twelfth. For Pete.

For Pete. For Pete’s sake.

They all fall in line and it feels right, it’s what she wants to say; she holds the bagel at her mouth but she will not eat; she has brought them back on track, they are returning to old mornings, together, they will not move from this, this is what she wants, and yes, they are comfortable, and even Gloria reaches out now for one of the doughtnuts, glazed and white, and takes a small, polite nibble and nods at Claire, as if to say: Go ahead, tell us.

— We got the call from downstairs. Solomon and I. We were sitting having dinner. All the lights were off. He’s Jewish, you see …

Glad to get that one out of the way.

— … and he had candles everywhere. He’s not strict, but sometimes he likes little rituals. He calls me his little honeybee sometimes. It started from an argument when he called me a WASP. Can you believe that?

All of it coming out from her, like grateful air from her lungs. Smiles all around, befuddled, yet silence all the same.

— And I opened the door. It was a sergeant. He was very deferent. I mean, nice to me. I knew right away, just from the look on his face. Like one of those novelty masks. One of those cheap plastic ones. His face frozen inside it. Hard brown eyes and a broad mustache. I said, Come in. And he took off his hat. One of those hairstyles, short, parted down the middle. A little shock of white along his scalp. He sat right there.

She nods over at Gloria and wishes she hadn’t said that, but there’s no taking it back.

Gloria wipes at the seat as if trying to get the stain of the man off. A little sliver of doughnut icing remains.

— Everything was so pure I thought I was standing in a painting.

— Yes, yes.

— He kept playing with his hat on his knee.

— Mine did too.

— Shh.

— And then he just said, Your son is passed, ma’am. And I was thinking, Passed? Passed where? What do you mean, Sergeant, he’s passed? He didn’t tell me of any exam.

— Mercy.

— I was smiling at him. I couldn’t make my face do anything else.

— Well, I just flat-out wept, says Janet.

— Shh, says Jacqueline.

— I felt like there was rushing steam going up inside me, right up my spine. I could feel it hissing in my brain.

— Exactly.

— And then I just said, Yes. That’s all I said. Smiling still. The steam hissing and burning. I said, Yes, Sergeant. And thank you.

— Mercy.

— He finished his tea.

All of them looking at their cups.

— And I brought him to the door. And that was it.

— Yes.

— And Solomon took him down in the elevator. And I’ve never told anyone that story. Afterward my face hurt, I smiled so much. Isn’t that terrible?

— No, no.

— Of course not.

— It feels like I’ve waited my whole life to tell that story.

— Oh, Claire.

— I just can’t believe that I smiled.

She knows that she has not told certain things about it, that the intercom had buzzed, that the doorman had stuttered, that the wait was a stunned one, that the sound of his knocking was like that against a coffin lid, that he took off his hat and said ma’am and then sir, and that they had said, Come in, come in, that the sergeant had never seen the like of the apartment before — it was obvious just from the way he looked at the furniture that he was nervous but thrilled too.

In another time he might have found it all glamorous, Park Avenue, fancy art, candles, rituals. She had watched him as he caught a mirror glance of himself, but he turned away from his own reflection and she might have even liked him then, the way he coughed into the hollow of his rounded hand, the gentleness of it. He held his hand at his mouth and he was like a magician about to pull out a sad scarf. He looked around, as if about to leave, as if there might be all sorts of exits, but she sat him down again. She went to the kitchen and brought a slice of fruitcake for him to eat. To ease the tension. He ate it with a little flick of guilt in his eyes. The little crumbs on the floor. She could hardly bring herself to vacuum them up afterward.

Solomon wanted to know what had happened. The sergeant said that he wasn’t at liberty, but Solomon pressed and said, None of us are at liberty, are we, really? I mean, when you think about it, Sergeant, none of us are free. And the hat went bouncing on the military knee again. Tell me , said Solomon, and there was a tremble in his voice then. Tell me or get out of my home.

The sergeant coughed into a closed fist. A liar’s gesture. They were still collecting the details, the sergeant said, but Joshua had been at a café. Sitting inside. They had been warned, all the personnel, about the cafés. He was with a group of officers. They had been to a club the night before. Must have been just blowing off steam. She couldn’t imagine that, but she didn’t say anything — her Joshua at a club? It was impossible, but she let it slide, yes, that was the word, slide. It was early morning, the sergeant said, Saigon time. Bright blue skies. Four grenades rolled in at their feet. He died a hero, the sergeant said. Solomon was the one who coughed at that. You don’t die a fucking hero, man. She had never heard Solomon curse like that before, not to a stranger. The sergeant arranged his hat on his knee. Like his leg might be the thing now that needed to tell the story. Glancing up at the prints above the couch. Miró, Miró, on the wall, who’s the deadest of them all?