Steven Millhauser - Voices in the Night - Stories

16

On her thirtieth birthday, Lucy Wheeler stood in her sunny-and-shady backyard surrounded by friends and family, who were laughing and telling stories and walking about with glasses of wine and paper plates of shrimp and barbecued chicken, she was looking at the red and yellow balloons her husband had tied to the branches of the old sugar maple, and half-closing her eyes she felt the happiness of her life flowing through her like sunlight through wine. At the same time she had the sensation that she was standing a little apart from herself, watching Lucy Wheeler as she stood there with a flush of happiness on her face, a striking face with its almost dark eyebrows and its rich blond hair pulled loosely back. She had been having these little moments of self-separation lately, these rifts, as she liked to call them, and now, as she stood among her friends and felt her happiness streaming through her, she had a sudden desire to leave herself standing there and walk away, out of the yard, out of her life, a desire so sharp that it made her look around quickly, as if she were afraid that something hard and cold had appeared in her face. The next day, when her husband was at the office and her children were at Jody Gelber’s house for the afternoon, Lucy Wheeler drove out to the Place. She had climbed up there once with her husband when she’d moved to our town six years ago, and she had admired the view. Now she stood alone at the top of a rise and felt something fall away from her. She remained standing there for a while and was startled to see on her watch that three hours had passed. She’d forgotten the kids, already her husband was on his way home, she still had to pick up some chicken breasts for dinner. She began driving over to the Place every day, after arranging for friends to care for the children. At night she would wake up at four in the morning, longing for the moment when she could return. At dinner she caught her daughter looking at her. “Is everything all right?” her husband asked one evening, and for a moment she did not remember who he was. One Saturday she drove out to the Place and stayed until the sun was setting behind the distant hills. At home she felt guilty, apologetic, defiant. A week later she stayed beyond sunset, beyond closing time. She wanted to watch the darkening of the sky, the fullness of night. She lay on her back on a low slope below one of the walls. When she heard a car driving up from the trailhead, she understood that someone was coming for her, and she thought of hiding, but what was the point. She heard the footsteps and saw the dark policeman drawing near. She thought: I am so happy. Is there something wrong with me? She thought: Now my life will never be the same.

17

After six years in the city, during which I met my wife, completed a law degree, and went to work in the legal department of City Hall, I moved back to my old town in order to raise a family. I had never thought of myself as the kind of person who would move back to his old town, but there I was, in a house with a porch on a shady street in a good school district. I worked in a local family-practice law firm specializing in mediation, divorce, and child support, and later was able to set up my own practice. We entered a life of backyard cookouts, neighborhood block parties, day care, ballet lessons, baseball practice, family vacations at a camp on a lake. I was in love with my wife, my family, my work. Smiles burst from me like breaths. One summer afternoon the two of us, Lily and I, drove out to the Place, where we sat on a bench and held hands as we looked down at the town. A week later I returned alone. I hadn’t been up there by myself for ten years, and I don’t know what it was I expected, now that I was done thinking of myself as a son and a student, but it was as if I wanted to set something right. The memory of my failed visit burned in me. I saw that I had done everything wrong that day — I had made demands on the Place, as though it owed me something. This time I asked for nothing. I merely wanted to get away from the town, for a while. Though the weather was warm, the sky was filling with dark clouds. I walked along the stone walls, under the stormy sky; down below, in the distance, I could see rain falling in slanted lines beside a burst of sun. I became aware of a sensation that was almost physical: a tightness, an inner thickness, was passing out of me. I glanced at my hands, as if I expected to see something flowing from my fingers. I sat down against a wall. I could feel my back against the stone, my legs against the ground. It’s difficult to say what I felt next. I’m tempted to call it a contentment, a deep peacefulness, but it was more powerful than that — it was like a dissolution, an unknitting of whatever it was I was. I was the stone in the wall, I was the grass in the field, I was the honeybee hovering above the blossom of clover, I was all, I was nothing at all. When the rain came, I remained sitting there. I could feel the water streaming down my face, beating against my shirt, blurring my edges, slanting through me.

18

There are those who do not like the Place. They point to extreme cases, such as that of Lucy Wheeler, as well as to many lesser instances of confusion, emotional disturbance, and psychic turmoil. The Place, they say, is a force of destruction, which undermines our town by drawing us away from healthy pursuits into a world of sickly dreaming. Many who defend the Place against such charges argue that it produces beneficial, life-enhancing effects, which are not only valuable in themselves but useful in strengthening the health of the town. Others insist that the terms of attack are false: life in our town is not by definition healthy, and events associated with the Place are in no sense sickly. Still others argue that the Place is an essential feature of the town, for without it the town would lack awareness of itself and, in that sense, would no longer be human. For those of us who welcome the Place but don’t claim to have penetrated its mystery, the arguments of its enemies are of special value. We ponder them, we develop subtle refinements and variations of our own, we do everything in our power to strengthen the case against ourselves, in an effort to lay bare what is hidden from us.

19

I was standing in a large hall, filled with people who looked like bizarre versions of themselves. Or more exactly: they looked like teenagers who had dressed up playfully, using a great deal of makeup and their parents’ clothes, in order to present to the world the older selves they imagined they would one day become. I had never attended a high-school reunion before. I’d planned not to attend this one, the fortieth, but at the last moment I yielded to an unexpected impulse of curiosity. As I stood trying to decide between two drinks that matched our school colors, I wondered whether I, too, resembled an unconvincing performer of myself, and at that moment I happened to see, standing some ten feet away, Dan Rivers. He was looking directly at me. I recognized him at once — the same eyebrows, the same quick smile, the same ease in his body. Not entirely the same, of course; but it was as though his features and gestures had settled into a more complete and unshakeable version of themselves. “I was hoping,” he said, coming up to me and reaching out both hands. “It’s been a while.” “If forty years is a while,” I said, taking his hands, larger than I remembered but still lean and tight. “I kept meaning to get in touch,” he said, “but, you know”—and there it was, that slow, one-shoulder shrug. “But now,” he said, “we can do some catching up.” We fell into the old easy talk, two seventeen-year-old boys in the bodies of aging men. Dan Rivers was married, with two kids; he was an architect; he had designed dams and bridges. At some point I asked whether he’d ever gone back to visit the Place. I suppose I wondered whether he remembered. “Oh that,” he said, with his boyish laugh. “Of course I remember it — junior year. That phase I went through. My son used to play fantasy games on his PC six hours a day. It all works itself out.” We talked family, travel, the cost of college. When I suggested he come over to the house, he looked at me with genuine distress. “I’d love to — but I’ve got to get back home. A conference. I was lucky to get away at all. But next time — next time — absolutely.” “Absolutely,” I said. He gave me a warm, long look. “I’m glad we met up,” he said. Someone was tugging at his arm. “Is it Emily?” he cried. “I can’t believe it!” “Hi, Emily,” I said. “Has it really been forty years?” she said. “It seems like yesterday.”