Louise Erdrich - The Master Butcher's Singing Club

THEY MADE IT ALL the way to Gorefield, Manitoba, before she found out what the nowhere was and why it pained him to have told her about it. This time, at a fancy hotel, they stayed in the bridal suite. The furniture was elaborate, all spindles and spools, and the upholstery looked like tapestries right out of a museum. The rugs were deep and probably Persian, but what did Delphine know. She had splurged on this room because she was curious, once and for all, whether they could fall in love. In a way, they did. Not at first. He kept his eyes shut while they were rolling around, and seemed to be in a state of deep concentration. Though it all felt mechanical, she did not want to disturb him. She was alert, a little bored. His hands sprang off her breasts or he tweaked her nipples in a way that was unthinking, even painful. She wanted to bat him on the head, and was about to give up, when, with a happy groan, he climaxed, or at least pretended to.

Immediately, he eyed her for approval like a dog.

She patted his head. After a while, she turned him to face her. That was when they looked into each other’s eyes and there commenced a mysterious bonding — something that Delphine had never felt before with anybody else on earth. They left time, left space, and just existed in the calm power of their eyes. They did not let go. Delphine felt loving energy rise in her and without any effort Cyprian went hard. She rolled on top of him and then they started moving again. The deeper they stared into each other’s eyes the more each wanted to make use of the other body, the more they loved. The whole thing went on and on until they were exhausted. Still, every time they looked into each other’s eyes, they started again to move, found themselves doing another thing, finding out something new. It was a strange experience, one they didn’t talk about afterward, or, unfortunately, manage to repeat.

TWO DAYS LATER, Delphine went down to the river on a walk. Cyprian had skipped out on her after their performance and had not told her where he was bound. That left her alone to amuse herself, and because she was good at that she didn’t sulk or mope but went to the town’s one point of interest. Delphine sat down on a low bench by the river and watched the river move on by. It was heading north, rapidly, she could hear the current lapping shore, dragging little sticks into it, moving dirt and leaves and fish along.

The night was peaceful, and a few steady lights shone just across on the other shore, enough to see a few feet ahead. Annoyed to hear voices, footsteps, Delphine slipped into the tall brush just beside the bench. She wanted her bench back, and not to have to talk to anybody. Soon, two men walked into the clearing. Once they got to the bench they shut up and then one sat down and the other knelt before him. Delphine was hidden slightly behind the bench off to one side. Although she was immediately intrigued, she couldn’t see what was taking place. Later, when she put it all together in her mind, she realized it was probably good she hadn’t seen it all at once. It would have been too much of a shock. She hadn’t known that men could get together like that.

“Oh my dear fucking God,” groaned the man on the bench. He put a period stop between each word and moaned the last one. His hands flopped out and his legs sprawled. The man on his knees was utterly silent. There was some movement. The man who spoke was wearing a suit, Delphine saw, because now he turned and held the backrest of the bench as he bent over. The kneeling man then stood behind him, white shirt glowing. There was something about that white blaze of shirt. Delphine peered into the smudge of air. The shirt was suddenly gone, the men were half naked, one was moving across the other with a fluid eagerness.

The men kept changing and dissolving. They rolled over each other like fish. Sometimes they were frantic with a small animal’s alacrity, then they slowed into a tenderer pulse. There was no way, now, that Delphine could leave her hiding place, not that she really wanted to. She could not see exactly how the sex was taking place, but she was curious. She put the mechanics together and nodded when she made each discovery. Suddenly she understood that Cyprian was the man who had thrown off the blaze of shirt, and then she did one of those things she often did that surprised her. She walked out of the bushes and cheerfully said hello.

Panicked, the men rolled away from each other. Her numb shock made her wicked. She sat down on the bench, began to talk.

“I was just out looking for you, honey,” she said.

“Delphine, I don’t know what—”

“Christ almighty,” said the other man, scrambling for his clothes.

Delphine crossed her legs, lighted a cigarette, and blew the smoke out gently. As she continued to speak, to elicit polite answers and draw up neutral topics of conversation, a dreamlike hilarity took hold of her. She made a small joke and when the two men laughed reality skewed. No questions made sense, her mind was operating on too many levels. Layers of dark curiosity. Still, she did not acknowledge what she’d interrupted but, wielding an amused power, continued to make irresistible small talk. The three bantered back and forth as they walked away from the side of the river. The men shook hands and went their separate ways. Side by side and gravely thoughtful, Delphine and Cyprian walked back to their own room.

I wonder what will happen once we’re inside, thought Delphine. She had the willful naïveté to imagine that now that this was out in the open she and Cyprian could at last be true lovers. She also had the wit to know this was simpleminded. Nothing at all happened once they got back into the room. It all seemed too exhausting to contemplate. They stripped down to their underwear, got under the covers, and held hands like two mourners, alert and lost, unable to speak.

IN THE NIGHT, deep in the dark, Delphine’s brain flickered on and her thoughts woke her. She let the roil of feelings wash over her and then shook Cyprian until he groaned. She meant to say something cutting about his betrayal, to ask didn’t he remember how they’d looked into each other’s eyes? She meant to ask him why the hell he never told her he was that way , to shout in his face or just wail miserably. But in the second before her voice left her lips, other words formed.

“How do you balance?”

Her voice was calm, curious, and once she asked the question she found that she really wanted to know the answer. Cyprian was also wide awake. He’d never really slept. He put his palms over his face and breathed through his fingers.

It was not an easy question to answer. When he balanced, his whole body was a thought. He’d never put the balancing into words before, but perhaps because of the dark, and because she knew about him now, and because her voice wasn’t angry, he spoke, tentatively at first.

“Some people think of it as a point, but it isn’t a point. There is no balancing point.”

She lighted a cigarette and blew the smoke into a white cloud over them. “So?”

Cyprian was as clumsy with words as he was agile in other ways. Attempting to describe what happened when he balanced caused an almost physical hurt. Still, he reached far in his thoughts and made a desperate effort.

“Say you have a dream.” He spoke earnestly. “In that dream you know that you are dreaming. If you become too aware of knowing you are dreaming, you wake up. But if you are just enough aware, you can influence your dream.”

“So that’s balancing?”

“Pretty much.”

He breathed out, relieved and empty. She thought for a while.

“And what is it,” she asked, at last, “when you fall?”

Cyprian caught his breath back, almost despaired, but again — because, in spite of who he was, he loved Delphine — he dug for an answer. It took so long that Delphine almost fell asleep, but his mind was working furiously, shedding blue sparks.