Howard Norman - Devotion

“Thank you,” David said. “That was thoughtful.” He fit the paper cup into the holder near the gearshift. Halfway to Heathrow he said, “I can still get a ticket for Copenhagen. I don’t teach for a week.”

“Better to wait, I think.”

The ensemble was at the boarding gate. Maggie led David off to the side, for as much privacy as could be had. “Get everyone else out of your apartment,” she said, “launder the towels and sheets, and I’ll consider staying with you there a night when I get back, if I want. If you want. I’m keeping my hotel reservation, though, David. At Durrants.” She boarded the plane. When she found her seat, she thought, Did I mean, Better to wait and consider all this carefully? Or did I mean, Better to wait until we can’t stand waiting? Or all of the above and more, or what? On the flight she distracted herself with a “to do” list for Copenhagen.

IN LONDON, David’s apartment was at 813 George Street. Typing there on his old Underwood manual, he composed a letter to Katrine Novak; his new devotion to Maggie was the motivation. He wrote it straight through in one sitting; he knew if he started to rewrite, there might be a hundred drafts; it was of course impossible to get it perfectly right. Still, he and Katrine had a history (quoting Chekhov, she once referred to their relationship as a “skewed love story”). Fact was, David had seldom visited Prague without spending at least one night with her. And while it was true those nights never somehow accumulated into a declaration of fealty, individually they had allowed for passion, the value of which, he and Katrine agreed, should never be underestimated. With the sound of George Street traffic drifting into the kitchen where he typed, David instructed himself to attempt a philosophical intimacy in the letter rather than nostalgia, otherwise it might suggest the possibility of a return to good things. That would be confusing, false encouragement, a lie. No, David needed to close things off.

April 15, 1985

Dear Katrine,

I never thanked you enough for translating the monograph on Josef Sudek — so, thank you, Katrine. That was October of 1982, if I remember right. I need to say good-bye in this letter — because I hope to be married soon. I think, hope, wish to be. The details may be hurtful to you. I don’t want that. Suffice it to say I have met someone I feel is the love of my life. I have not known her long. I did not know her during any of our time together in Prague. Though I might sound like I’m trying to absolve myself of guilt, actually I only look forward to the future with her. It would not do you or her justice to not tell you her name — Margaret. There it is, then. I won’t be visiting Prague.

While we never, either of us, said “I love you,” deep feelings were there, I think. I know on a number of days deep feelings passed between us. This of course is my summary, not yours. I must tell you this is the truth of things. My heart is closed to you. I would expect the same directness from you.

Often in your presence I felt the tremendous desire to sleep after supper. What was that, I wonder? You wanted to stay up in cafés all night. What an interesting life you lead. That must now sound patronizing. Of course it does. But it’s true. Your literary friends, your cafés. Your feverish political discussions. I envy it a lot — also sounds patronizing, I suppose. But nonetheless I mean it. Simply, I’m putting all of our time together in perspective. The one thing that unifies every hour walking in the city, every argument, every photograph you let me take of you, everything, was my gratefulness. That might have a hollow ring. I expect it does. I’m sorry if it does.

How to say it? The past has been replaced by the present with Margaret. To quote Anatole France, “Love has its own velocity.” (I can hear you just now: “You dare inform me about literature, I’ll shoot you in the heart.”) Katrine, you are a kind, good, sometimes selfish, mostly generous, very honest, beautiful soul whom I loved as much as I allowed myself to — and let’s be honest, as much as you allowed me to. It’s never just a matter of doing something “right” or “wrong,” is it? You either live steadily with the deeper emotional contingencies or you don’t, and to my mind we didn’t. Maybe too much distance and absence, London-Prague, who knows? We each had our cities. We both held back but lovely things still took place, didn’t they? Both of us tried each other out. In life you just try people out, isn’t that how you put it? I’m grateful you tried me out.

David

As soon as he signed his name, David went out to George Street and mailed the letter, in the box situated halfway between his building and Durrants Hotel.

THREE-THIRTY A.M., August 7, 1986. David is reading Manuscript of a Country Doctor. It is seemingly an endless humid night. Still, David feels a slight chill. The sentence he’s just read, “We all step into currents of despair,” may have something to do with it. He puts on a moth-eaten, dark blue sweater. Half a peach sits on a plate. The indoor cricket is chirping. The Bach suites for cello are playing.

Not fifty feet from the house a fox — a vixen — loped across the lawn. Head low, tail nearly straight out and wavering, as if batting fox scent toward the swans in order to create panic and confusion in advance of her arrival. The swans came awake. The fox circumvented the pen, driving swans in agitated clusters from one end to the other, whichever was opposite the fox. They stepped and shit right into their wooden water trough. The fox tested the wire mesh with her teeth. In the fog it was as if they were being harangued by a ghost.

Hearing the commotion, David went to the screen door. “What now?” he said.

He kept a rifle in the pantry, a.22 caliber, which had sufficed when a big raccoon somehow got into the pen last winter. He took up the rifle, slid three shells into the chamber and stepped into the yard. He could scarcely make out the pen. David raised the rifle, aimed in the direction of the pond and fired all three rounds. He mainly wanted to scare off the intruder, if in fact there was one. On the third shot he thought he heard a ricochet; possibly he’d hit the metal roof of the bird feeder on its post, and a few seconds later he felt an animal brush past his leg. He looked down to see it was a fox — gone into the fog. Just like that. The fox had actually touched his bare leg, a once-in-a-lifetime thing, he thought, astonished nearly to tears. The swan’s Great Enemy had graced David with its stealth and brazen playfulness, the very human being who might have just now killed her.

He felt so grateful, he was tempted, perversely but honestly, to sacrifice a swan to this fox, maybe just loose it in the woods, report it gone missing the next day to William, lying with conviction. Though he’d come to dearly love the swans, he now loved the fox as well. A thoughtless momentum took hold. Exhilarated, he went into the guesthouse, secured the rifle back in the pantry, grabbed a flashlight and hurried to the main house. He woke William up, saying “William, William, William” close to his ear, shaking him by the shoulder. “Wha-a-at?” William said, a bit like a star-tied goat. “Who the hell’s that?”

“It’s me, David.” David set the flashlight on the bed. The beam mooned out against the wall. (He remembered his own father, Peter Kozol, was good at doing shadow puppets.) “A fox brushed up against my leg, William. I fired three shots at it. Guess you didn’t hear.”

William had scarcely come into full consciousness. David rattled on about the fox. Finally William said, “Know what I thought first thing when you woke me just now? You almost got me killed in London. You fucking idiot. Not to mention everything else.” William turned on his side and went back to sleep.