Lydia Davis - Almost No Memory

The love affair as they conducted it was irregular, intermittent, and painful to her, painful because in the arrangements they made at long intervals, after months had gone by, he always did something she had not known he was going to do and it was often in contradiction to a plan they had made. She would borrow an apartment especially so that they could have a comfortable place to meet, and he would agree to come there late in the evening, and then he would not come, and after calling him where he was, and hearing his sleepy voice, she would pace from room to room in the borrowed apartment wringing her hands. On another occasion he would say firmly that he would not be coming to the borrowed apartment, and then come to her there without warning. Or they would meet for lunch and nothing more, and then he would suddenly propose that they go to a motel. In the motel, to her surprise, he would say he wanted to keep the room and meet there that night, and she would be happy, and all evening, at home, would wait for him to call and say when he could meet her, and then finally she would call him and hear him say he had not kept the room and could not see her.

But if he always did what she did not expect him to do, and if she knew this, why didn’t she think ahead and see that whatever he said he was going to do, he would not do? Though she was not a stupid woman, she did not do this. And what he did that was unexpected was also unkind, almost every time, but perhaps that was more interesting than if he had been kind and reliable, as she wanted him to be, as well as charming and open to her, as he often was: how happy he had looked the last time she had seen him, sitting by her in a bar where they had just met, purely happy in his face, until she said he looked happy and asked why, and he said a few other things and then the truth, that he was happy to see her, after which he looked just slightly less happy.

She was not yet quite finished with crying and raging, but unable to stay there in her apartment, in a place that seemed to contain only her and what had happened and the disappointment of it. She was on her knees on her living-room rug, trying to think where she had put some keys, the keys to a friend’s apartment. She wanted to go to this apartment even though she knew the friend was not home and would not be coming home. She could not have gone to him with her trouble, and she supposed, even through the fog of her drunkenness, that she should not go to his apartment with her trouble either. But she would not be stopped from something she wanted so badly. She needed to let the walls of a different place that belonged to a different time relieve her, a little, of herself and what had just happened.

She took a large, heavy drawer out of her bureau and emptied it on the rug. It was awkward to carry and awkward to turn over. She went through everything in it, not seeing very well, but couldn’t find the keys, and put everything back, and put the drawer back in the bureau. Then she took a shoe box down from a shelf, lighter and easier to carry. She emptied it on the rug, but the keys weren’t there either, so she was still on her knees, crying, and then lying face down on the rug, because she couldn’t find the keys. If she couldn’t find them, she didn’t know what she would do with herself.

She stopped crying, washed and dried her face, and tried to remember where she had last seen them. Then she remembered that they weren’t loose, but sealed in a white envelope, and once she remembered that, she knew where she had seen that crumpled envelope recently, and found it in a wooden tray on her desk. She put the keys in her pocket, called a taxi, left the apartment, rode through the silent streets of several different neighborhoods, past two darkened hospitals, to her friend’s apartment, and once inside fell asleep on his living-room rug, a thicker and more comfortable rug than her own.

* * *

She woke up when the clean light of dawn was coming through his tall windows, and left the apartment soon after, to avoid meeting him. By now she could return to her own apartment, as though she had climbed up to some high, difficult place during the night and climbed down again by morning.

She would never tell her friend she had slept in his apartment. It had been a long time since she had used his keys. His reaction, if he knew, would be interesting. In fact, this friend would possibly have been the most interesting person in the story, if she had put him instead of his apartment into it.

She was sick that day from all she had drunk. It would be more interesting to be well after drinking so much than to be sick, but she preferred being sick to being well that day, as though it were a celebration of the change that had happened, that she would not be sitting out in the Mediterranean sunshine with her lover that summer. After this, she would have almost nothing more to do with him. She would not answer his letters, and would barely speak to him if she chanced to meet him, but this anger of hers, lasting so long, was certainly more interesting to her, because in the end she found it harder to explain, than the fact that she had loved him so long.

Today I am riding in a canopied car on rubber wheels through Jungle Larry’s African Safari. We pass a strangler fig tree and some caged cougars. A female leopard hides from us behind a rock. High up on the trunk of a palm in the Orchid Cathedral, one flower blooms beside a rusty faucet. Afterward we throw our trash into the mouth of a yawning plaster lion and leave for the Seminole Indian Village.

The Village is closed, and though the Village Shop is open we do not buy anything, perhaps because the Indians that wait on us and watch us pick through the beaded goods are so very sullen.

Later I sit in a short row of people at the front of an air boat, and with an unpleasant racket we skim the saw grass, moving fast suddenly. Animals everywhere in the mangrove swamp are disturbed, and one by one, with difficulty, herons and egrets rise up before us for miles around into the white sky.

All day I have been looking at a landscape charged with the sun, and when as instructed by the captain of the air boat I watched the water for alligators, the broken light of the reflected sun sparkled painfully. Now it is evening and my eyes ache as I sit in the lamplight incapable of thinking.

I look at what is around me: the papered walls, the gold-leafed decorations, the table in lamplight, my hands on the table, and in particular the back of my right hand on which today a woman has stamped the figure of a huddled monkey that is now becoming indistinct and ugly, and though I try again and again I can’t remember exactly where or why this happened.

In the playground near the river, toward evening, in the lowering sun, on the green grass, only one family. Swings creak and cry out going back and forth. Shadows of swinging children foreshorten, fly over the grass into the weeds. (1) Fat young white woman pulls white baby by one arm onto quilt spread on grass. (2) Little black boy struggles with older black girl over swing, (3) is ordered to sit down on grass, (4) stands sullen while (5) fat white woman heaves to her feet, walks to him, and smacks him. (6) Little black boy whimpers, lies on his back on grass while (7) fat white woman plays with baby and (8) young black man orders black girl off swing. (9) Young black man begins wrestling in play with long-haired white girl who (10) protests while (11) tall, bony, wrinkled, mustachioed white man in baseball cap stands with arms crossed, back hunched, walkie-talkie attached to right hip and (12) black girl lies down with face in baby’s face. (13) Baby peers up and around black girl when (14) white girl protests more loudly as (15) young black man slaps her buttocks and (16) older white man watches with arms crossed. (17) White girl breaks free of young black man and runs toward river crying as (18) young black man runs easily after her and (19) older white man in baseball cap runs awkwardly after her, one hand on walkie-talkie at his hip. (20) Young black man picks up white girl and carries her back to fat young white woman who (21) takes her onto her lap as (22) little black boy sits up in grass and watches. (23) White girl squirms in arms of young white woman, breaks free and runs again, crying, toward river. (24) Black girl, taller, follows, overtakes her, lifts and carries her back. (25) Young white woman holds white girl who struggles, hair covering her face, while (26) black girl swings on swing holding white baby and (27) white man stands still, back hunched, hips forward, eyes invisible under visor of baseball cap. (28) Young black man goes off toward concrete hut in setting sun and (29) returns to call out to white woman, who (30) leaves white girl and follows after him with baby to concrete hut while (31) black girl continues to swing alone and (32) black boy sits on grass alone and (33) white man stands still with arms crossed looking out from under visor. (34) White woman returns with black man and bends to gather quilt and bag from grass. (35) White man in baseball cap holds small sleeping bag open while (36) young white woman puts baby in. (37) Young white woman orders black boy up off ground. (38) Black boy shakes head and stays on ground. (39) White woman slaps black boy, who (40) begins crying. (41) White woman carrying baby walks away with young black man and two girls while (42) older white man follows, holding crying black boy by hand. (43) Family leaves playground and enters dusty road. (44) Family stops to wait for white man in baseball cap, who (45) returns slowly to park, picks up pair of child’s thongs from grass, and (46) rejoins family. (47) Family walks on, heading toward marsh, short bridge, and red sky.