Joy Williams - Breaking and Entering

It’s all right, Liberty said to it. See how easy it is now, she said. She knew she should not be talking to dead things. It was not something she should allow herself to do, and yet it had seemed natural to her for a long time. No one would admit how natural it was to speak with the dead.

She raised the heron’s head and looked into its eyes, which were strangely divided, even in death, one eye, it seemed, belonging to a creature still flying hard, hoping for the best, the other knowing there was another world but it was in the one just taken away. She lay down and spread the heron’s wing, moving it so it fell across her stomach. Cold seeped into her back. The bird’s dead soft wing covered her. I was a suicide, she said to it, and this is my dog. We move like ghosts, my dog and I. We are seen, addressed, even desired, but we are as ghosts. She talked to that which lightly covered her, and looked at the night through which a full moon steadily rose.

One of life’s hopeful mysteries was supposed to be that everything that happens keeps on being a beginning, but what kind of hopeful mystery was that?

Ghosts can speak most readily with the dead, she assured it. They know no boundaries. They wander but are not free. They long for lives that never were and live outside them, close as they can, outside them. It’s easy there in many ways.

The feathers of the bird’s wing stirred in the breeze, then settled. She said to it, I must tell you I have always been frightened of birds.

Something was pounding, beating at the edges of her mind. She was with Willie, trying to tell Willie something. It was about the bread, the bread she did not want to leave behind because she feared the birds would find it. The birds would come and eat it and then they would not be able to fly over the dark waters they must cross. They would avoid the waters and then the waters would become more frightening than the birds.…

She was with Willie. She had always been with Willie. This was not so long ago.

“Come in, come in,” Howard said. “Chrissie has built this meal from the ground up. Believe me, this is going to be one of the meals of your life.”

The house had been built in the fifties. It was all angles and hidden ducts in turquoise and gray. The lights resembled torpedoes. A Southwestern look had been imposed upon it. Cactus. Kachina dolls. Bent willow. Roadrunner appliques on the throw pillows. And the aquarium.

“Chrissie’s pride and joy over there,” Howard said.

“None of them are rare or anything, but they’re good fish,” Chrissie said earnestly.

“You’re not browsers, I hope,” Howard said. “No place for browsers here tonight. This is supper! The Big S.”

Drinks were mixed. The bar was behind a rotating bookcase that Howard exposed with a flourish. We all have to go sometime , a cartoon above the bottles said. Try the first door on your right .

“The fifties were a gleefully secretive time,” Howard said. “It wasn’t all just raba-raba-ding-dong.”

“I’m sorry I had to ask you to leave your dog in the truck,” Chrissie said in a small voice. “It’s just that my little doggie isn’t feeling well.”

“He’s fine out there,” Liberty said. “It’s all right.”

“He seems like a very nice dog,” Chrissie said. “Big.”

“So,” Howard said, “you’re traveling. No obligations, no commitments. Footloose and fancy-free.”

Chrissie had put out little bowls of nuts, of olives. She was spreading cheese on crackers. “This is the nicest cheese,” she said to Liberty. She smiled shyly. Her teeth were not good. They were all drinking. Music was being piped in from somewhere. There was the sound too of something like a toilet running.

“Living up to your names,” Howard went on. “Try living up to our names — Howard and Chrissie — it’s difficult.”

Willie was looking at a display of Indian baskets on a shelf. “You’ve got some nice things here,” he said. “Man in the maze, lightning bolts, spider webs.”

“It’s still a relatively easy thing to cheat an Indian,” Howard said.

“Apache, Pima, Hopi.” Willie shook his head. “These are old. The makers of these are long dead.” He picked up a conical basket that was woven in a design of diminishing concentric rings. At the bottom was a single dot. “These are valuable.”

“He’s casing the joint, honey,” Howard said.

Chrissie looked a little alarmed. She prepared more crackers with cheese.

“I’m just holding them for a friend actually,” Howard said. “I don’t know shit from Indians. They all mean something, but it’s simple beyond belief. See that one hanging? The one with all the crisscrosses? Indian thought she was copying the Milky Way.”

“A lot of the designs are based on the patterns wind makes on sand,” Willie said. “Designs made by no visible agency.”

Howard looked into his glass. “Let me freshen our drinks,” he said.

“It was wonderful of you to stop when our car broke down,” Chrissie said. “It was just genius what you did.”

“It was a jump start,” Willie said.

“But no one was stopping and when you stopped, I thought—‘I am going to be raped!’ ” Chrissie widened her eyes. Howard looked at her.

“Giving you a great meal is the least we can do,” he said. “I can give you a job too.”

“Howard’s in development,” Chrissie said.

“No thanks,” Willie said.

“We like meeting new people,” Chrissie said. She looked at Willie and smiled. She uncrossed her legs. “Howard’s paved over a good deal of Arizona,” she said absently.

“That was then,” he said. “This is Louisiana.”

“Howard enjoys a challenge. Wetlands are a challenge to Howard.”

“A swamp don’t generally stand much of a chance around me,” Howard said. “Concrete is honest. It’s a lot more honest than a swamp.”

Chrissie leaned forward, her knees almost touching Liberty’s own. “Is this your first marriage?” she asked. “Howard’s been married twice.” She seemed to find this amusing. She squeezed Liberty’s arm.

A spotted puppy staggered in from the kitchen. Liberty scooped it up and put it in her lap. The puppy was listless. Its heart pounded wetly beneath loose skin.

“I don’t think she should have been spayed so soon,” Howard said. “I don’t think she’s going to make it. What did the vet say?”

“I just took her over to the school,” Chrissie said. “A friend of mine did it. No charge.”

“No charge,” Howard said. He rolled his eyes.

Chrissie picked the puppy up. It gave a small yip, then fell silent. “I just have a few tiny things to do in the kitchen before we eat,” she said.

Liberty walked over to the baskets. She picked up a flat-backed breast-shaped basket. It was a rich earthen color, tightly coiled with a zigzag pattern. A Hopi woman, if she was a virgin, would not finish off a basket. The grasses would flow out from the last stitch of the coil. The flowing gate . A married woman who could have children would cut the strands a little closer. Open gate . The barren woman would tie off the grasses, stitch it tightly shut. Closed gate .

“She’s casing the joint, honey,” Howard called out cheerfully.

Liberty returned to her chair and looked at the aquarium, at the fish moving languidly back and forth.

Willie and Howard were talking about the Southwest. Howard was speaking animatedly about the saguaro. “They’re like condos,” he said. “All kinds of shit live in them.” Howard was clearly fond of the saguaro.

Willie seemed to be enjoying himself. It was as though he had entered a satisfactory game, one still wide open to choice and interpretation. Liberty constructed a yawn, wondering vaguely why she had chosen to do so. She finished her drink, noting that her ice cube harbored a hair. They ate dinner. Howard uncorked several bottles of wine.