Lynne Tillman - Cast in Doubt

I was not terribly happy with the passage. It was likely I had not gotten it right, for no matter how I looked back at Gwen and myself, to recapitulate our past and to examine my perceptions of her, then and now, she and it — the past — slipped away, seemed just out of reach. I was too clumsily grasping at it, whatever it was, and it slid through my puffy fingers. Indeed even recent history was difficult to remember with precision. I wasn’t quite sure precisely how long it was that I hadn’t seen Helen. At first it seemed Gwen had arrived instantaneously, right after my telephone call to her, but now I believe more time had passed. But I was unaware of it. Time does that; I do that — refuse to acknowledge time’s passing. I let it slip through my fingers. So, as often happens, I was glad to hear John’s knock upon the door, interrupting my meditation and labors.

Now, gazing at John, my mind wanders to Helen, from Gwen to Helen, and to John, back to Helen, then to Gwen. I may be clumsy, inadequate, even unequal to the task of grasping Gwen and my relationship with her. Perhaps I am no longer an expert judge of Gwen. I feel, at least temporarily, unable to delineate her character and the quality of our relationship. The essential eludes me. As I watch and listen to John, I imagine too that Helen, like the grains of sand which measure time, has passed through and by, and that she may have slipped figuratively through my arthritic fingers. Though I mustn’t blame my ineptitude solely on age, I suppose. I might have fumbled the ball when I was young. In any case, there is still time.

After some initial reticence, John is forthcoming. It is not hard to pry from him the secret he alluded to in the hospital, about Helen’s sister and her past. He is a trifle skittish. But after discussing the shelves for a while and sitting on the couch, and after I poured us tea and observed the obligatory conversational gambits, he relaxes entirely.

It’s beautiful here, he remarks, looking toward the window. I am always touched when young American men notice beauty. Especially beautiful ones. I offer him a few biscuits which ought to be fresher, but he seems not to notice. Then I mention my visit with him in the hospital and then, first putting my cup to my lips and pausing, I ask him what he meant by saying “not like her sister, man.” John nods his head up and down several times, and it seems to me he is eager to divulge this information.

He speaks with an air of casual authority. Everyone thinks — and Helen indicated to him, at least obliquely — that her sister was a suicide. She was four years older than Helen, was finishing college, was obese, and very miserable. Helen and she got along all right, but not terribly well. Helen’s arrival in the family was a disruption for the older one; and she was, like most children, jealous of the attention Helen received as an infant. Still she was, according to many, her father’s favorite. To myself I note that, like Helen, I am the baby of my family. Helen’s parents fought a great deal, and it was rumored that the noble father — for so he was viewed — was engaged in an affair with a woman not much older than the older sister at the time of her alleged suicide. There were no brothers.

The dark events were matters of great speculation, involving some rather shocking questions about the psychiatrist father and the sister and the effects upon the sister of the illicit coupling of the father and his lover. It was very nasty business. John thinks the sister was found in a bathtub. That’s what he heard, but not from Helen. I didn’t ask — discovered by whom? — for even I felt the need to expunge the ghoulish image that “found in the bathtub” elicits.

In my family, I remark to John, determined to be as forthcoming and open as he, we are two brothers, sons. He is older than I, I continue, and we do not get on…But just then Gwen pushes open the door and enters the room, in medias res, so to speak, as she did when Yannis and I were engaged in our troubling conversation.

Are my shoes here? Gwen asks; then Gwen sees John. They recognize each other. I perceive it in a flash, a charged flash. That special expression of chagrin passes over Gwen’s face ever so fleetingly, and I am sure that she must have wanted to sleep with him, as I do now. A shadow hovers over my heart, an emotional storm cloud looms. It has been ages since Gwen and I longed for the same man. I think about this for no more than a second, though. I push it aside and study them. They are young. They are chatting. They are absurdly young.

Actually I am also disconcerted by having had confirmed what I suspected — that Helen’s sister was most probably a suicide. It is just the kind of grotesque fact that sets my mind to work. As if from nowhere, an idea plants itself inside me and grows. I think the idea locates itself first in my head, which seems heavier and more diffcult to balance on my neck. But then it flies downward, toward my heart, which palpitates in shadow. It is a simple idea; and my heart beats to its rhythm: I must find her. Helen may be in harm’s way. I must go to her. My heart beats fast, fast, faster, faster. She may be in trouble, it goes. She needs you, Horace, it says, find her. Find her, Horace. This kind of thinking, I tell myself, must induce heart attacks. I place my hand on my heart. It ticks. I walk about the room and sit down again.

I say nothing of this to my guests, for even in such a condition, I am conscious that the assumption of Helen’s need, produced as it were by and in my body, derives from a great anxiety that may have little to do with Helen. Yet I feel that it does. One can easily hold such contradictory ideas and emotions and still pour drinks for friends, I have found.

They have not noticed my anxiety. They talk to each other aimlessly, effortlessly. They are gossiping, discussing bands and clubs. I am both relieved and annoyed. Why does one always want to be noticed, in some way? I open a bottle of retsina and place three glasses in front of us and pour each full to the brim. Let us toast — to the three of us, here in Greece together. Gwen can barely contain herself. She is almost gleeful at my inarticulateness, at my witless toast, innocuous enough for all occasions. She winks at me and John. I gulp down my drink and pour another.

I had nearly forgotten John. He of course must be as anxious as I am about Helen. Thinking this makes me suppress my anxiety about her, and I realize once more the strange situation I am in, with Gwen and John. It is as if we are framed and constrained by an uncertain and unspoken desire that lingers in the air like a perfume distilled from electricity, not flowers. I look at both of them, fixing on my visage a patient smile to indicate that I am calm, even sanguine, which of course I am not, as I never truly am. Why should one be? In the next instant, I decide that John and I should make the journey together — to find her, to find Helen. John would want to, I am sure of that. But that would mean leaving Gwen on her own. This plan could wait until after the party. I dither internally and drink.

But I wanted Helen at the party. And first things first. It — the party — can wait, first things first. Helen must be found. I glance at Gwen and wonder if she has been reading my thoughts, since I believe she can and that she is, in some sense, my twin, and don’t twins know instinctively what the other one is going to do next? Don’t they dress alike without planning and so on? For her part Gwen is impassive, waiting for someone else to speak, to do something, anything, and it is clear she will not be the one to take charge, make the advance, parry and thrust. It is more in keeping with Gwen that she not be the one, but be the one who bides her time, who waits. The one who waits, a rather clever title, I think. But for what Gwen is waiting, actively waiting, if that is possible, and John is also waiting, discomforted but keeping his cool.