Lydia Davis: Can't and Won't: Stories

Four Lords of Parliament had mentioned my sister in their maiden speeches, because she had done so much for the disabled, and she treated the disabled, my mother said, like anyone else. She talked to her drivers the same way she talked to the Lords, and she talked to the Lords the same way she talked to the disabled. Everyone loved her, and no one minded that her house was a little untidy. My mother said the house was still untidy, and my sister was still letting her figure go, she invited too many people into her home, and she left the butter out all day, she told too much of her private business to her friend the Indian grocer on the corner, and she wouldn’t stop talking, but my mother and father felt they had to keep quiet because how could they say anything against her now, she had done so much good and was so admired.

I’m proud of my sister, and I’m happy for her because of the award, but I’m also happy that my mother and father have finally been silenced for a while, and will let her alone for a while, though I don’t think it will be for long, and I’m sorry it took the Queen of England to do it.

story from Flaubert

Last week I went to the dentist, thinking he was going to pull my tooth. He said it would be better to wait and see if the pain subsided.

Well, the pain did not subside — I was in agony and running a fever. So yesterday I went to have it pulled. On my way to see him, I had to cross the old marketplace where they used to execute people, not so long ago. I remembered that when I was only six or seven years old, returning home from school one day, I crossed the square after an execution had taken place. The guillotine was there. I saw fresh blood on the paving stones. They were carrying away the basket.

Last night I thought about how I had entered the square on my way to the dentist dreading what was about to happen to me, and how, in the same way, those people condemned to death also used to enter that square dreading what was about to happen to them — though it was worse for them.

When I fell asleep, I dreamed about the guillotine; the strange thing was that my little niece, who sleeps downstairs, also dreamed about a guillotine, though I hadn’t said anything to her about it. I wonder if thoughts are fluid, and flow downward, from one person to another, within the same house.

Dear Frozen Peas Manufacturer,

We are writing to you because we feel that the peas illustrated on your package of frozen peas are a most unattractive color. We are referring to the 16 oz. plastic package that shows three or four pods, one of them split open, with peas rolling out near them. The peas are a dull yellow green, more the color of pea soup than fresh peas and nothing like the actual color of your peas, which are a nice bright dark green. The depicted peas are, moreover, about three times the size of the actual peas inside the package, which, together with their dull color, makes them even less appealing — they appear to be past their maturity and mealy in texture. Additionally, the color of your illustrated peas contrasts poorly with the color of the lettering and other decoration on your package, which is an almost harsh neon green. We have compared your depiction of peas to that of other frozen peas packages and yours is by far the least appealing. Most food manufacturers depict food on their packaging that is more attractive than the food inside and therefore deceptive. You are doing the opposite: you are falsely representing your peas as less attractive than they actually are. We enjoy your peas and do not want your business to suffer. Please reconsider your art.

Yours sincerely.

This morning, the bowl of hot cooked cornmeal, set under a transparent plate and left there, has covered the underside of the plate with droplets of condensation: it, too, is taking action in its own little way.

One undertaker, taking a body north on the highway, in France, stops at a roadside restaurant for a bite of lunch. There he meets another undertaker, a colleague known to him, who has also stopped for a bite of lunch and who is taking a body south. They decide to sit at the same table and have their meal together.

This encounter of two professionals is witnessed by Roland Barthes. It is his own deceased mother who is being taken south. He watches from a separate table, where he sits with his sister. His mother, of course, lies outside in the hearse.

One year, she says

“He’s away in the Badlands.”

The next year, she says

“He’s away in the Black Hills.”

We can see by the way they look from behind, as we watch them walk away from us down the train car, past the open doors of the toilets, through the sliding doors at the end, into some other part of the train, we can tell by the backs of them, these two women, in their tight black jeans, their platform heels, their tight sweaters and jean jackets in fashionable layers, their ample, loose, long black hair, the way they stride along, that they’re in their late teens or maybe their early twenties. But when they come back the other way towards us, after a little while, from their excursion through the train to some strange and magical part of it up ahead, when they come back, still striding along, we can now see their faces, pale, haggard, with violet shadows under their eyes, sagging cheeks, odd moles here and there, laugh lines, crow’s-feet, though they are both smiling a little, gently, and we see that in the meantime, under the magical effect of the train, they have aged twenty years.

Eating fish is something I generally do alone. I eat fish at home only when I am by myself in the house, because of the strong smell. I am alone with sardines on white bread with mayonnaise and lettuce, I am alone with smoked salmon on buttered rye bread, or tuna fish and anchovies in a salade Niçoise, or a canned salmon salad sandwich, or sometimes salmon cakes sautéed in butter.

I usually order fish, too, when I eat out. I order it because I like it and because it is not meat, which I rarely eat, or pasta, which is usually too rich, or a vegetarian dish, which I am likely to know all too well. I bring a book with me, though often the light over the table is not very good for reading and I am too distracted to read. I try to choose a table with good light, then I order a glass of wine and take out my book. I always want my glass of wine immediately, and I am very impatient until it comes. When it comes, and I have taken my first sip, I put my book down beside my plate and consider the menu, and my plan is always to order fish.

I love fish, but many fish should not be eaten anymore, and it has become difficult to know which fish I can eat. I carry with me in my wallet a little folding list put out by the Audubon Society that advises which fish to avoid, which fish to eat with caution, and which fish to eat freely. When I eat with other people I do not take this list out of my wallet, because it is not much fun to have dinner with someone who takes a list like this out of her wallet before she orders. I simply manage without it, though usually I can remember only that I should not eat farmed salmon or wild salmon, except for wild Alaskan salmon, which is never on the menu.

But when I am alone, I take out my list. No one will imagine, from a nearby table, that this list is what I am looking at. The trouble is, most kinds of fish on the restaurant menus are not fish one can eat freely. Some fish one cannot eat at all, ever, and other fish one may eat only if they come from the right place or are caught in the right way. I don’t ask the waitress how the fish is caught, but I often ask where the fish is from. She usually does not know. This means that no one else has asked her that evening — either no one else is interested, or some are not interested and others know the answer already. If the waitress does not know the answer, she goes away to ask the chef, and then comes back with an answer, though it is usually not the one that I was hoping to hear.