Steven Millhauser: The King in the Tree

That’s what I asked myself, sitting right there where you are.

What do you do when you’re dead-alive and your husband is a ghost? What do you do? You go up to bed. I went up to bed. I felt sluggish with weariness, but at the same time feverishly tense, as though I might explode. There was no question of sleeping in the same bed as Robert. But when I looked into the dark room and saw the bed empty, I felt. . I wanted to. . I mean, Jesus, to think that he’d gone to her — to that body —to you —well, it was too much. Then it all came rushing into me, a black wind. Do you know it, the black wind? It’s the wind after the first wind. It’s the wind that comes rushing in when you think the worst is over, sweeping you clean, till you feel like a room without furniture. I realized then that I wasn’t going to be spared. Not even a little. At that moment I heard a creak and realized that Robert had gone to sleep on the couch in his study. I felt grateful to him for removing himself from our bed — Robert was always sensitive, a very sensitive man— and fell with relief into a sort of half sleep.

That was how it was for the next few weeks. I slept without sleeping, woke without waking. I ran a low fever. I felt. . bruised all over, as if I’d been beaten up. Robert worried over me, without coming too close. He tried to show me that he wanted to take care of me but that he understood my desire to be left alone. A sensitive man, as I said. And you too — a sensitive woman. I can see that. I can feel that. Two sensitive people, giving off flames of hell. As for Robert and me, we barely spoke, though I didn’t shut him out. I think he thought I was punishing him. But I wasn’t doing something to Robert. I just — it was like — listen. Robert had gone away. Do you understand that? In his place was this — this man, a polite stranger, who hung around the house, making sure I didn’t. . die, I guess. Or hurt myself. You can hurt yourself, in a house. I was very weak. Once I even fell down the stairs. Can you imagine? Falling down the stairs out of sheer unhappiness? Nothing got broken, but I think it alarmed him, this man who was always in the house, imitating my dead husband.

Where was I? Sleep. Of course I didn’t only sleep. I moved about. I felt heavy, draggy — and light, very light, as if at any second I’d float right up to the ceiling. I lost my color; my skin was sickly white, like one of those old dinner plates you see glimmering out at you in a dark corner of an antique shop. I felt feverish and dead. Robert was — as I said, he was very good to me. I mean, what else could he be? He wanted me to see a doctor. Can you imagine that? Doctor, Doctor, my husband is seeing another woman. Do you have a pill for that, Doc? Maybe a shot in the behind? No, I’d never be able to keep a straight face. Besides, wasn’t Robert thinking of himself, as well as of his poor zombified wreck of a wife? Much better for him if she’s a happy, perky little wifey-wife. Thaaat’s all right, dear. Boys will be boys. A little fun never hurt anybody, for gosh sakes. All’s forgiven! Really! Not only that, you can bring her over here! Sure, why not? We have a big bed — there’s room for one more. I’ll make punch and sandwiches. Bring my binoculars. Well. Don’t get me going on that. If I was sick, if I was depressed, at least my sickness was mine. I wasn’t going to let him take that away too.

But, as I said, I wasn’t thinking a whole lot about Robert, at that time. I was actually thinking about. . you. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. It’s a natural thing. Up to that point, there had really been only the two of us — Robert and me. Now there were three. People say that about having a baby, you know: go in two, come out three. Well, we had you. There was Mommy, and Daddy, and cute li’l cuddly-wuddly you. So of course I thought about you. God, did I think about you. I thought about you all day long. I even thought about you that night I spent lying on the floor of the bathroom. Dizzy spell— lay there all night long, after coming downstairs at two in the morning. Do you know what it feels like, lying on the linoleum in the bathroom thinking about your husband’s cutie pie? Sometimes I imagined you as a big blond slut in a tight red dress. Other times you were a slim business-type in a snazzy skirt suit — you know, one of those jackets with a notched lapel and a trim skirt that zips up the side. Zip zip. Oh, darn, my zipper’s stuck. Would you mind giving me a hand, Robert? Of course it wasn’t you I thought about, exactly. Just: that woman. And so I thought about her. I became obsessed by her: by you. I tried to imagine you as Robert would: a desirable body. I. . undressed you, in my mind. I looked at you. I. . did things to you. Or rather, I did things to her, to them, to all women — no one was safe from me, in my mind. I’ve always thought of myself as a — a modest woman, but I wasn’t modest as I tried to find my way to the heart of Robert’s need. I imagined the friends of friends, women I didn’t know by name, wondering if she was the one. I unhooked their bras, I pulled down their underpants — the way I imagined Robert would. Just a body. What was a body? I had one, but it wasn’t the right one. Which one was that? Maybe a young one? — sophomore? — a no-bra, T-shirt kind of a girl — one of those hipless wonders, legs like a nutcracker. Could be. Who knew? Not me. There was one woman — a colleague of his. Someone without a name. Miss Colleague. I’d met her a few times, one of those touchy-feely types, always putting her fingers on everybody’s arm, as if she were afraid she wouldn’t be noticed unless she stabbed you to death with her nails. You know the type. Eyes too bright, chin too sharp, bra too pointy. Was she the one? Why not? What did they have, these phantom-women, that I didn’t have? I tried to picture things I’d never. . well, I won’t say never. But they never concerned me, especially, the things other women did in bed. Why should they? Things were fine between us, in that department. I mean, weren’t they? Of course things weren’t exactly the way they used to be — not after twenty-two years. You get used to each other. You don’t feel crazy anymore. It’s actually a good feeling. But I mean. . but I’m losing the thread. And so I made women naked in my mind. I tore off their clothes. I looked at their bodies. I turned myself into a man. My hips shrank. My arms grew hard. I was a lovely man; tense, dangerous. I was a lean teenager, mean and cool, prowling the suburban streets till dawn.

Women’s bodies! They were out there, millions of them, and men wanted them. It was just that I had the wrong body. A shame, really. I’d always figured I had the right body, but it turned out I’d gotten the wrong one by mistake. A shipping error. Sorry, lady, no refunds. Earlier, we’d been friends, my body and me — at worst I’d treated it with a kind of skeptical affection. Now I became ruthless. I judged it mercilessly. Upstairs in the hall there’s an old mirror — framed in mahogany — shaped like a shield. It’s one of the pieces of furniture we inherited from Robert’s grandmother. One day I took the hand mirror from my dresser and stood in front of the hall mirror, in my underpants. I turned around and studied my figure in the hand mirror. I put my weight first on one leg, then the other. I tried to desire myself, I tried to imagine myself an object of desire. And as I stood there, studying myself coldly but feverishly too, it came over me that what was upsetting wasn’t so much the harsh judgment I passed on my body as the knowledge that I was entering willingly into a world of humiliation.