Steven Millhauser - The King in the Tree

That’s the old Ping-Pong table. We used to play quite a lot, in the old days. Ping. Pong. Ping. Pong. A ridiculous game, really. My only sport. Robert took it very seriously, the way he took most things. His backhand was so-so, but he had a very good forehand smash. Did you know that about Robert? A very good forehand smash.

Oh and another thing about you. Another thing. You don’t like it when I use coarse words — I can see it in your face — your mouth — but you also don’t like it when I go the other way— use words that are way up there, like — oh, like ecstasy. It bothers you. I can see it does. Do you want to know something? You live in the flatlands of language. No dizzy mountain views, no hellish undergrounds — just: flat. The Kansas of things. No attic or cellar in your house of words.

How often I lured you down here and accused you of your crimes! Because you broke my heart, you must surely die. Because you turned my husband into a ghost, you must surely die. Because you stole my body from me, you must surely die. Because you lack imagination, you must surely die. Heart-wrecker! Wifekiller! Manslayer! Then I cracked open your head with that shovel, stabbed you with those gardening shears, strangled you with my own hands. . the sweet feel of your neck crushed under my thumbs. You have to hate very hard to do that. Have you ever hated anyone hard enough to want to kill them? I thought about it a lot, my hatred. Love, for me, turned out to have a limit: Robert’s faithfulness. But my hatred for you breathed the pure air of infinity.

The trouble with hatred is that it doesn’t really take you very far. It takes you quickly to a certain point, and then you can’t get beyond it. Do you know why that is? I can tell you. It’s because when you hate someone, when you really hate someone, you always turn them into a caricature. The Lady in Black Lace Underpants. The Girl with the Golden. . but you fill in the missing blank. Even as I hated you I knew — I knew — that I wasn’t really seeing you — at all. I was guilty of your crime: lack of imagination. I knew I had to be calm — calmer. I had to get at you a different way. And so, little by little, I began to make an effort, a painful effort. I began to imagine you.

Don’t misunderstand me. It was never a matter of being fair to you — of being nice. It was simply a question of getting a more accurate picture. So that I would know what to do.

My insight — my stroke of genius — because I’d become brilliant through hatred, brilliant — was this: to imagine that you weren’t so different from me, after all. Not different from me! You! Of course I struggled violently against it. It wasn’t bearable. You! And there were dangers — serious dangers. If you weren’t all that different from me, if you weren’t just a body, then I might be threatened from a new direction, one that I— but it was a risk worth taking. Slowly I gave way to it — I welcomed it — I abandoned myself to it completely. Imagining you! Yes, that was the stroke, the liberating blow! That was my deepest revenge! Because once you were like me, once you were more or less human, then you were capable of — well, of whatever I was capable of. Suffering, for example. Suffering! Unhappiness like fire! Maybe you weren’t a witch. Maybe you were — oh, who knew, lonely, bereft, at the end of your rope. An unhappy woman. Sure, why not? In love: that, too. Fine! Wonderful! A woman in love. A woman in love would be capable of. . feelings. Sympathies. She might even be capable of imagining me.

That’s when I decided to put my house up for sale. There was a chance you would come. . You had to come. Because really, how could you resist? A guided tour — and what a guide! — of those unreal rooms. . in the haunted mansion. . Of course you’d already invaded the house and rolled around in my sheets. Did you like it? Was it thrilling? I cut up the sheets the next day, tore them to shreds. The appalling brash-ness of that visit — whatever else it said about you — suggested a taste for. . shall we call it adventure ? It told me you might jump at a chance to break in again. And maybe you hadn’t had time to look around, on that occasion. I imagined Robert leading you through the dark to keep you from attracting attention, as you held his hand and moved through dream landscapes of foglike furniture flashing out at you here and there in the light of a streetlamp. You were returning my visit, though you didn’t know it at the time. And of course you never did get to see her —the famous wife — me. So there was that. To attract you. It must be — oh, it must be an almost irresistible pleasure, I imagined, to see the wife of your lover: to sympathize with the poor woman, as I felt you beautifully would, while secretly triumphing over her. To say nothing of comparing your body to hers, as you’d surely want to do. Robert’s wife. That’s his wife. Why didn’t he just kill her? But maybe you were searching for higher pleasures — the pleasure of guilt. . the thrill of remorse. . and other sophisticated pleasures of that kind. Because I think we can agree, you and I, that you are a woman who likes her little pleasures. Of course there was a pleasure in it for me too. Your visit would tell me something I desperately had to know: whether or not Robert had told you about his confession to me. Because if he had told you, then you would never come. But I knew you would come. I wanted you to come. I was banking on it. I would advertise — like a spider — and you would come — like a fly. And I would show you my house. I would tell you my story. Then, when you’d seen everything, when you’d understood what you’d done— you, a woman of feeling, a woman like me —then you would know what to do. You would do the right thing.

Oh, you wouldn’t do it at once, that very day. But one day, or say one night, at three in the morning, when you wake up for no reason and can’t fall back to sleep, when every little thing in your life feels wrong, when you look into your heart and see rats, bats, and dead men’s bones, when your soul is nothing but a lump of black ice, then, if you listen closely, you will hear my voice whispering in your ear. Then you’ll get up your courage. It isn’t difficult, you know. So many ways! In every room a sharp instrument, a blunt object, dangerous devices of all kinds. Pills in the cabinet, poison in the basement, knives in the kitchen drawer. A rope. A high window. Simple as ABC. Easy as pie. Did you know there’s a gun shop in town? A woman like you would have no trouble. The temple. The mouth. The heart. The smooth place between the eyes. Think of it! Your arm outstretched on the bed, your head flung back, your hair strewn across the pillow. Very becoming, very. . romantic. You do like to think of yourself that way, don’t you? I mean, a romantic woman. A woman in a movie — windswept hair, dress blown against your legs. But no — no — now that I think of it, maybe other endings are more your style. Here’s one. The ice on the road, the sudden curve, the wildly turning wheel. Is that a good one? Do you like it? That was no accident, you know. Did you really think it was an accident? An accident? Come on. You know what it was? It was Robert’s way of solving the problem. Yes! If it hadn’t been for you. . Yes! You! Murderer! You! Coming to my house! And that awful telephone. Robert’s what? He’s what? Black ice? I hate telephones. . voices without faces. . ghosts in dead houses. . talking to you in the dark. Whispering. Shhh. I knew you’d come back. I knew you would. Did you know I knew? About you and Robert? Deep down did you know? I think you knew. I think you did. Or peaceful scenes. . on the rug beside the fire, the small brown bottle beside you. . or slumped in a favorite chair. Peace, at long last. Because you’ll never have it any other way, you know. I’ll never have it any other way. You did wrong, my dear. I’m afraid so. Of course you never meant to hurt anyone. Of course not. You were very, very considerate. But there you have it: Robert dead, and me. . as you find me. I’m afraid you made a real mess of it. There’s no escaping it. So you might as well get it over with. I think so. Do it. Do it. Do it. Why don’t you? Of course you can probably get by, for a while. There are crossword puzzles, and mystery novels with nice big blood drops on the cover, and men with. . oh, what’s that word. . it’s on the tip of my. . oh, I have it. Desire. But sooner or later. One day or another. Somewhere down the line. That sudden uneasiness as you look out a window. That moment of panic as you climb the stairs. What will you do? How can you live? Where will you go? There’s nowhere to go. There’s nothing to do. No one to see. Don’t you know? Why go on? And always the little voice whispering in my ear, always the sad ghost rustling in the dark. That is why I wanted to show you my house. To tell you who we are. So that we would know. What to do.