Dinaw Mengestu - All Our Names

I followed the same routine after I entered. I couldn’t shake the idea that maybe Isaac was watching me from a corner to test my loyalty to the pattern we’d created. I poured myself a glass of water and drank it while standing in the kitchen. I moved to the bedroom, and though Isaac was gone, I still undressed, crawled into the bed, and quickly pulled the sheets over me. I had spent hours in that bed but had never slept in it. Once or twice I’d slipped into a semi — dream state, but without ever forgetting where I was or that Isaac was lying next to me. When completely exhausted, I’d fought off sleep by thinking of things to worry about. I’d imagine myself pregnant. I’d think of what would happen if someone I knew drove by and saw my car parked outside. I’d think, What if there was a fire in the building right now and I had to run out with hardly any clothes on? If anything kept me awake, it was the silly delight I took in imagining all the different ways my life, as I knew it, might crumble.

It was glorious lying in Isaac’s bed alone. The sheets smelled faintly like the baby oil he slathered on himself after each shower. I lay on my stomach, my arms outstretched, my finger caressing the carpet just a few inches beneath them. I wished it were always like this. Isaac was so much easier to be with when only the ghost of him was around, and I remember thinking that if he were dead or never came back I’d probably learn to care for him more than if he were to walk through that door right then and never leave. I was tired. For two weeks I hadn’t slept more than five hours a night. I happily closed my eyes and slept.

When I woke up, hours later, the apartment was completely dark — the shades in the bedroom were drawn, so not even the street lamps could be seen. It was after midnight, roughly the same time I always went home. I was more worried about staying too long than I was about Isaac’s absence. I knew his life was full of secrets, starting with the visa that had brought him here, and it was natural to assume that his sudden disappearance was another secret I’d probably never have access to. I didn’t have to think of anything grand to find that secrecy appealing. In a life of small-town wonders, a man with a passport that had been stamped several times was already extraordinary, and Isaac, by those measures, was remarkable. The more mystery I could attach to him, the more exceptional he became. When David later asked if I didn’t have my doubts about who Isaac claimed to be, I tried to explain to him that I’d always had my doubts, and that I tried my best to protect them. The last thing I wanted was to bring Isaac down to earth, to find out that he was just an ordinary exchange student who’d come to America. I wanted him far removed from life as I knew it, for as long and in as many ways as possible. This made it easier to tolerate, if not forgive, almost anything he did.

When I left work the following day, I drove straight to Isaac’s apartment. I didn’t expect to find him at home, but I was anxious nonetheless. I knew I could do whatever I wanted in that apartment. I could rummage through the closets and drawers, and this time, if anything made me nervous, it was that I was certain I was going to do so.

When I walked into the apartment, I had the feeling Isaac was gone for good. Though I didn’t imagine him dead, his presence was just as remote. There was no routine to follow, and a part of me wished I had brought a change of clothes to spend the night in.

I lingered around the kitchen and living room, dragging my finger along the counter and over the coffee table, searching for dust. Isaac’s apartment was always clean. Each time I came over, the place was immaculate, as if nothing had been touched since I was last there. He had the type of kitchen my mother would have been proud of: free of dust, without a hint of grease on the counters, in the sink, or on the stove. I didn’t like it. The longer I stood in the kitchen, the more uncomfortable I became. I had the sensation that, just by standing there for more than a few minutes, I was violating if not ruining it with my fingerprints and the dirt attached to my clothes and bag. Whether Isaac intended to or not, he had made it impossible to live in that apartment. We had filled it together — there was a gray couch in the living room, a small television set, plates and bowls and silverware in the kitchen, and lamps throughout — but the place felt emptier than if there had there been nothing inside it.

Life! That’s what was missing. Where were the pictures and stacks of unopened junk mail, the lone sock under the bed, the fingernail clippings on the bathroom floor, the soap stains on the sink, or the early traces of mildew on the shower curtains? I thought I was going to search for intimate details about Isaac, but instead I roamed the apartment for an hour looking for proof he existed. When I was finished, what did I come up with? A carton of eggs and a stick of butter in the refrigerator; a letter that Isaac had begun one month earlier that had only a date and the words “My dear friend,” which had fallen behind his pillow, a bottle of baby oil and two unopened rolls of toilet paper in the bathroom. I thought that perhaps Isaac was just covering his tracks, or that he knew when he left he wasn’t coming back, but this would have meant that there had been some hint of life to cover; no one who saw that apartment could have believed that a man had lived there every day for months.

That apartment was the only place Isaac and I had. Its emptiness felt personal. I could picture him scrubbing away any trace of me each time I left.

Before I understood all the reasons why I never wanted to be like my mother, I was deliberately terrible in the kitchen. I burned everything she asked me to watch and had a habit of dropping plates and glasses. I ruined the domestic chores dear to her because they were the only things in her life she could control. What had been semiconscious rebellion when I was a teenager had become second nature in my adulthood; anything I touched in the kitchen was destined to come out wrong. I had never cooked or eaten inside of Isaac’s apartment, but I was suddenly determined to do so. I thought of it not as trying to leave my mark but, rather, as trying to leave an impression on the place, a fingerprint that couldn’t be easily removed. I took the eggs out of the refrigerator, hoping not to burn them. I cracked all twelve into a bowl and then spent several more minutes fishing out the bits of shell that had fallen inside. I tried to beat them like my mother had shown me, with the bowl tilted at a slight angle, but it was too shallow, and I had gotten carried away and whisked too briskly. By the time I was finished, there was at least one egg’s worth of yolk on the floor and on my shirt. I saw the mess I had made, and felt a bit of relief. Life is messy, I told myself. There should be a bumper sticker that reads, “You can’t live without breaking some eggs,” or, “Don’t worry about the yolk on the floor.” And another one just for Isaac: “A man can’t live on eggs alone.”

Though I had begun recklessly, I was determined to make something that resembled a proper meal. I scrambled the eggs in three batches, with ample amounts of butter that turned them to a pale shade of yellow, a color that would have been perfect for the kitchen walls. I put the eggs in a wooden salad bowl that I had bought for twenty-five cents. I thought the brown and yellow shades would complement one another, and I was right: they made an elegant pair. I set the bowl in the center of the dining-room table and then stepped back so I could judge its effects clearly. I had no intention of eating those eggs; I hated eggs. The only thing I was interested in was how they looked and what kind of effect they had on the room. A trail of steam rose from them. I admired that — it added a bit of domestic charm to the scene — but it wasn’t enough.