Christine Schutt - All Souls

CHF

"Places you don't think about on the body hurt," Astra Dell said. "More than hurt, ached. My nostrils dried up and the insides cracked and it hurt to breathe; the tips of my fingers felt swollen; my feet burned. You talk about fever. There was no relief, and I have a low tolerance for pain. I wanted to die. I played the awful game, the one where the people I love are sacrificed so I can live." Astra Dell said, "When I had that allergic reaction and my fever spiked to 107, I was delirious. Then I wasn't asking for anything — my body was clacking on its own — no help from me. I was along for the ride. My father told me. He was there the whole time. He said I was laughing, which is how hard it hurt."

Astra played with the hair-thin pretty silver bracelet Car had given her. "I love this bracelet you gave me," she said. "You know how I love jewelry, but this is the only thing I can wear now. All my other jewels, my rings and bracelets, are too heavy, and they get hot and press against my skin, but this bracelet. I could be wearing a feather. It tickles."

Car said, "How are you feeling now?"

"Tired, relieved. No more dosing after yesterday." Astra said, "I have the weekend to rest and then I am coming back to school." Astra said, "I miss it."

Car asked if Astra wanted some healthful snack, but she did not. Astra said, "The receptor cells in my mouth have been confused by the treatment. Most of what I eat tastes like metal. This is a side effect that passes quickly, I'm told. I want to enjoy food again. Does that surprise you?"

What surprised Car, and she felt it on the walk home, was her own appetite. The expensive coffee shop with its seacoast cottage interior was just down the block, and they made the most astonishing chocolate chip cookies. The glass case of cupcakes and scones, muffins, cranberry-blueberry-walnut muffins, studded nutty crusts, and burst berries. The famous mini-cupcakes, yellow cake with a twisted cap of buttercream frosting, a circus of sprinkles on top. Oh, she was hungry. She was hungry and she could eat, and Astra wanted to eat and Car wouldn't let herself eat, though she could eat whatever food pleased her and it would not taste like a penny, a penny or a key or a mouthful of nails. By the time she reached the expensive coffee shop, she had come up with a long list of metal objects. She was sucking on a doorknob when her turn came to order, and the word that came out was coffee. "With skim milk, please." Belt buckle, cuff links, clippers, and cutlery. The easiest way to get the figure you want is to be sick.

Alex and Suki

"Psychosexual," Suki said. "Psychosexual. I just like to say the word."

"It sounds sexy," Alex said. "Say Psychosexual five times fast," and she tried to do it herself but sissed out.

Suki said, "I am not doing very well in my classes. I am not going to finish in style, as Miss Brigham says." Suki said, "I want to goof off more than ever."

Marlene

Marlene would like to explain to Astra Dell why she had taken some of Astra's letters from Car. How she had wanted to know what it felt like to be Car Forestal. Once home, each letter shriveled like a trick every time — just a hankie from a hat, who cared? Nothing was changed; Marlene was still herself. She read one of the filched letters again. It was not loving. People make the most impact on the lives of others by being absent. Not so true. Her father had left her mother. Marlene was at school when he packed the yellow cardboard suitcase her mother remembered him carrying. Marlene's father had left her mother a hundred years ago. His name was Bob. As far as she was concerned, her father was just a stupid name that didn't send money. Marlene's grandmother, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Ted, her cousins Wendy and Steven, all relatives on her mother's side, were coming to Marlene's graduation. In the drawing for pews, Marlene had drawn seats from the middle of the church. Astra Dell was also in the middle of the church. Car Forestal was in the front.

Beyond Astra Dell, Marlene and Car Forestal had this in common: Their families were small; their fathers were absent.

Unattached

"I didn't want him to take an interest in my leaving New York. Of course, I didn't, Mother."

Tim Weeks had said the River School would be lucky to have her. He said he would be sorry to see Anna go but that he understood.

But what exactly was it that he understood? Did he know how disappointed she was not to have persuaded him to regard her beyond the status of a colleague? Did he understand that part of the winter's experience? A seven-month winter, October to May.

CHF

The easiest way to get the figure you want is to be sick. That was a sick thought, but she had thought it more than once. She drank a cup of bitter coffee and decided not to call him. Too much French pastry, Carlotta: her father, in front of the slender Dutch hostess, who knew so many languages. French, chief among them—

APs. The tests, the tests were coming up, and was she ready?

Unattached

The middle-school girls were shushing about boys in whispers. When I liked him and he liked me; he she he she. Other words came through— knew and asked and kissed —in the conversation Anna Mazur overheard as study-hall proctor. The only other stand-out words, before she told them to be quiet, were french fries and breath. The school conspired against her: Last-period study hall every other Friday in spring was a cruel assignment, especially today. Today she was meeting Tim Weeks for a walk in the park — her request.

She wanted to give him something to remember her by, but she had to proceed furtively, out of school, or else — and this made no sense she knew but she thought it — her mother would find out and tell her it was another stupid move. Women don't give men presents.

Maybe not, but Anna Mazur had a present for Tim Weeks in her bag, and it made her happy to see him walking toward her down the hall when she had a surprise for him. But they were not yet out of school. Lower-school dismissal was begun, and they craned over the stairwell from just above to watch the little girls jangle down the stairs, little walking packages, projects strapped to their backs. Some looked stunned, some sealed, still others tickled to death. "What was school like for you?" She had asked him this question before, and he had answered in the same way then as now. School was messy and unfinished, full of guilt. He was shy — largely mute — but physically way ahead of everybody his age. "I was faster. The gap diminished as we got older, but in elementary school I could run circles around my classmates, and I was treated specially. I was picked first for teams. I didn't have to talk to make my way among kids." Most of school was a sunny tedium, but there were flashes when Tim Weeks felt himself reverse the flow of the game, intercept, drive the ball. "You can be the most closed person, yet if you are an athlete and in that world, junior high school, you are part of the social scene. I eventually worked for the school playgrounds, coaching baseball. I've been teaching kids since I was seventeen. Never had to live in the adult world."

He said, "But I have a tremendous sympathy for those who don't have the same ease with life."

Anna Mazur was one of these and uncomfortable in life, which might explain the pleasure she felt in Tim Weeks's company. How, walking with him now on the bridle path around the reservoir, she felt favorably observed by strangers, approved, envied, light on her feet. Anything she had to say seemed of interest to him; he listened; he laughed. Was she really funny? She hoped so!