Mary Gaitskill: Veronica

Mortified, I divided like Veronica in her sick-vision. Shut up, I told myself, shut up!

“After I got off the phone with you, I decided I wanted to live,” continued Veronica. “All of me. I got up the next day at five-thirty in the morning and made myself go out to the deli on the corner for poached eggs and toast. No wonder I was so weak — it was the first real food I’d had for days. It was so good, Alison, I can’t tell you. I felt life coming back into my body. It was still dark outside and I had this wonderful feeling of safety and warmth. I loved watching the countermen setting up, filling the sugar dispensers, putting out all the little creamers. I flirted with them and they flirted back, even though I looked like hell.”

Her voice was the same bitterly inflected instrument I had just despised. But now there was hope in its center, and that subtly made it sweeter. The sweetness didn’t go with the habitual hard showiness of the voice, and the incongruence gave it a wobbly, unprotected quality that pierced me. I love her, I thought. I love her.

But then she said something with such force that a tiny bit of spit flew from her mouth and landed on my hand. I jerked it away as if I’d been bitten. There had been no thought or even feeling behind it. It was pure reflex. For a second, the conversation stopped. Then Veronica changed the subject. There was no sweetness in her voice.

We left the restaurant and took a walk down Seventh Avenue. The sun gave everything a glow that crackled in the stark cold. Hungrily, I took in the aging patchwork of buildings, the rhythmic pattern of traffic, the people, walking with miraculous order and civility. I had no hateful thoughts. I enjoyed our walk.

The next night, I went to see a play with Veronica, her old friend George, and David, a boy George was dating. When I heard George would be coming, I was surprised — the last I’d heard of him, Veronica had called him a “misogynist.” But when I arrived at the restaurant before the show, my surprise evaporated. The two men were wearing suits and ties; Veronica wore a suit, too. The men were leaning slightly toward her, their faces expressing pleased alertness, as if they were courtiers in the presence of a queen known for her extraordinary wit and didn’t want to miss the slightest nuance of her royal demeanor, let alone her words. They were lavishing this attention on Veronica like praise, ensconcing her in their regard as if it were flowers. They knew she was sick and they were very likely afraid they were about to get sick, too. But their bodies did not speak of this. They sat erect and open, as if the best of life was ahead of them. They gave their courage to the sick woman so that she would be upheld.

When George stood to greet me, I surprised him with a full embrace. He and David complimented me on photos they had seen, not mentioning that they hadn’t seen any for a while. They asked me about Nadia again and again. Veronica drank soda water, but the rest of us shared bottles of wine. We talked about films, books, magazines. Veronica and George quoted lines from All About Eve back and forth intermittently. (“I heard your story in passing.” “That’s how you met me, in passing.”) We had big desserts and then piled into a cab as if we were wearing capes and carrying walking sticks. (“I told my story in bits and pieces.” “That’s how I met you, in bits and pieces.”)

When we got to the theater, I went to the bathroom, leaving the others in the lobby. When I came back, I saw them before they saw me. George was talking to Veronica, his back to me. David was behind Veronica, looking over her head at George. He was taller than George and I could see his expression clearly. He looked bewildered and scared. I thought, He is even younger than I am. Then he saw me looking at him and smiled brightly. We all went to the play.

But when I got into bed that night, the hate came on me again. With no conversation or pots of flannel hash to dim it, it came big and loud. Gnawing and terrified, it ran back and forth in erratic diagonals, exuding grotesque visions: a handsome gay man, a hairdresser I’d just had dinner with — hate made his teeth and nose pointy and foregrounded like a dog’s snout. It squeezed him together with the flute-voiced men at the restaurant and with Duncan in Central Park, pulling his ass open, his body reduced to a dumb totem with a single meaning. And with Veronica, her ugly face, her proofreader’s kit — her rulers, her box of colored pencils — her prissiness, which denied the shit of the world and so drew it down upon herself.

Sweating, I twisted in my bed. I thought: I tried to be so liberal, so free. I lied to myself. Those men were always about death. And Veronica chose them. That’s why she’s dying.

I sat up and turned on the light. I saw myself in the mirror, disheveled and shrunken, my head looking strangely small on my long neck, my eyes remote and ashamed. So this was who I really was. I wanted to blame my father, but I couldn’t. This was who I was. I thought of David’s face in the theater, the way he’d smiled when he saw me looking. I thought of Mrs. Lowry, the way she’d tartly said, “Well, you should.” I thought of the rivulet of hope and sweetness in Veronica’s voice. Sadness brimmed; it bore up my hate like water bears ice and carries it away.

I stayed in New York for ten days. During that time, I saw no one but Veronica. “I told my aunt you’d come to visit me,” she said. “And she asked, ‘How much did you pay her?’ I said, ‘Dolores, would you listen to yourself? She’s my friend. She came because she cares about me.’ ”

I arrived back in L.A. at night. John picked me up and took me to dinner at an all-hours place with a boiling dark air. He looked angry. He kept telling me I had to learn to drive if I expected L.A. to work out for me. I drank too much and took him back to my place. Maybe I felt I owed him. Maybe I liked him. Maybe the demon whispered, Do it with him! In any case, it didn’t work out. He kissed me too hard and touched me with violent shyness. We rolled awkwardly on my sectional couch; it came apart and almost dumped us on the floor.

“You’re so beautiful,” he blurted.

“I’m not beautiful,” I blurted back. “I’m ugly.”

He reared away, frowning. He was taking it as an insult, and with reason. But it would not be taken back. “You’re beautiful,” he said angrily.

“No I’m not. I’m ugly.”

He slapped me. I fell off the couch. He sat on the edge of it and held my shoulders. I could see in his eyes that his heart was pounding. “Stop saying that!” he said intensely.

“No! I’m ugly, ugly!” My voice was ugly.

He slapped me again. I tried to stop him. He held my wrists. Now we were really in it. The room was buzzing with the energy of it. “Tell me you’re beautiful!” he said, coldly now. I wouldn’t. “You’re beautiful,” he said, and slapped me again.

“John, please stop.”

“Say you’re beautiful.”

But I couldn’t get the words out. He slapped me until my ears sang. Finally, to stop the hitting, I said what he wanted to hear. He let go of me and sat back as if deflated.

“Don’t you see?” My voice broke. I was nearly crying. “Don’t you see how ugly I am?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t.” He crossed his legs and looked away.

I asked if he wanted a drink. He said no, that was okay. He said he was going to go but that he could tuck me in if I wanted. I said no, that was okay. I saw him to the door; we kissed quickly, on the lips.

We didn’t see each other for a few weeks. Then I called him and asked him to drive me to a job, and things went back to normal. Except I didn’t see anger in his eyes for a long time. I saw sadness.