Norman Rush - Subtle Bodies

Nina was asked about her trip. She avoided temptation and understated unpleasantnesses along the way, like the deficits in amenity at the motel in Kingston where she’d spent the night. When she was through, she felt she’d gone on too long about the roadside distractions like the kaleidoscope as tall as a silo, the golem on display outside the ceramics studio, and the vast size of the two paintball dromes, the crumbling book barn where fallen siding let shelves of abandoned books show.

Everything was delicious. The conversation was normalizing, but Nina sensed that Iva was gathering herself for an act of some kind.

And it came. Iva stood up and rather violently unbuttoned her tunic and roughly shook herself out of it, complaining that it was too hot, she was having stress, it was too hot. Under the tunic she wore a low-cut black tank top, a little sprung along the neckline. Clearly they were all expected to join the complaint about the heat, but in fact no one else seemed to be too warm. Nina didn’t feel too warm, in fact, the room felt a little chilly to her. Was Iva menopausal? She was forty-three, kind of young for it, but it was possible.

“I apologize,” Iva said.

Joris was a good person. He took his jacket off in sympathy. He had a strong build, Nina thought. Then Ned annoyed her by taking his sweater off. God damn you, she thought.

Elliot tapped on a glass. He got up.

Under her breath, Nina said to Ned, “He’s ashamed of something.”

“Ashamed of what ?”

“How do I know?” Nina said, regretting her observation.

“You brought it up.”

“Can you keep your voice down?”

Elliot had a strong, carrying voice. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I have to ask everyone to move again. We have press, we have other media, we have some … individuals, as you’ll see. A lot of people coming. Only a few are here yet. Today is Thursday, Friday and Saturday we prepare, Sunday the memorial. There’ll be video people at work. Anyway.

“Tomorrow we need to sit down and plan. Saturday we go over what you’ve written and you rehearse.”

Nina thought, The otherness of men but why go into it. He needs to say something personal about Douglas, but first , it has to be logistics.

Restiveness was developing among the friends. There was tension all over the place.

Elliot wasn’t through. “Now about housekeeping …

“We need all of you in the manse. We need to use the whole tower, too. Nina and Ned, you come out of the cabin and there’s a bedroom for you next to the bedroom Gruen and Joris are going to share. Sorry about the cabin but we need that, too. We have people to help you move after dinner. Anyway the beds over here are an improvement.”

“Where are you sleeping?” Gruen asked.

Elliot was impatient. “You want to know where I’m sleeping? I’m sleeping on a futon in the media room with the phones, if you could call it sleeping.”

Joris knocked on the table for attention. Nina wondered why this man had to go to prostitutes. He didn’t seem the type, but possibly there was no type.

Joris said, “I’m telling you now I’m not writing something. I’ll talk. I’ll get up and talk, of course. You can put it on TV if you want to, fine. I’m talking not writing.”

Elliot held his hands in the air. “Well we can sort this out. I don’t know. Maybe you can read something.”

“No,” Joris said, half standing.

Iva put her hand on Joris’s arm and leaned toward him. She had something for his ears only, apparently, and in the act of getting closer she hunched her shoulders forward minutely. Nina caught it.

“Oh my,” Nina said to Ned, softly. But it was over before Ned could be a witness.

Something was mollifying Joris. He had kept his eyes in a proper direction during Iva’s encroachment. Nina had seen him blush.

Nina realized she didn’t know what she’d been eating. Everything had been delicious but her mind had been elsewhere. If she had to compliment Iva she wouldn’t know what to compliment.

She told herself to grow up. She thought, We had butter lettuce salad cups with something in them and clam appetizers and green bean casserole and lobster risotto.

Elliot was a puzzle, with his long, waxy face. He was the tallest and the thinnest, but he had dog eyes.

She realized she had gone robot with her food because her mind had been on her inner sanctum. She could swear that she was having a faint prickling sensation there, which was impossible. But there was something physical. No more wine, no X rays. Maybe she was imagining it. If it persisted, she would call Ma.

The help were clearing.

Oddly, Gruen had left lumps of lobster on his plate. He’d eaten only the rice. And his clam appetizer was untouched and she wanted it. Was he being observant when it came to shellfish? Maybe he just wasn’t hungry. She was worried for Ned that Gruen might not want to sign the petition. Hussein was the Bank of America for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Maybe nobody would sign, none of them. That was all Ned needed. It shouldn’t hurt him but it would. She looked at Elliot again. Could she see any indications that he might not sign? How could she? She was being ridiculous. Well, he was wealthy and he was in the business and finance upper tier so it was possible that he wouldn’t want to stand out, say, if the names of the signers got printed up in a Times ad. She didn’t know if that was the plan. Elliot was being remote. But from everybody, not just Ned.

She could feel that Ned was preparing to say something to the group.

Ned said, “I think we should just speak out. Free-associate. Get a timer and we each say what we have to say.”

Nina wanted to know what that might be. I am shuddering, she thought. Don’t let it be some ghastly remake of their idiotic exhibitionism.

Gruen said, “Yes, we could read things. Anything. From emails he sent to that thing he wrote about comedy. You said you wanted something about that, Elliot.”

“What thing about comedy?” Ned asked.

Joris said, “It wasn’t something he wrote, it was an interview in Der Spiegel about fifteen years ago. It was his explanation of what we were doing in those days. The interview was about Kundera and Dreyfus but it was after the Germans caught a neo-Nazi mental patient wanting to kill Douglas, in Stuttgart. But he talked about his NYU life, for some reason. He talked about what he called Abstract Comedy. Abstract must mean not funny. We were young, of course.”

“I was never told about this interview,” Ned said.

“It’s in German.”

“So let’s forget it,” Ned said.

“Forget it,” Iva said.

“We could be a panel,” Gruen said. “Reminisce.”

Elliot raised his voice. In his official tone, he said, “This is important. It has to be done right. There is a German foundation involved …”

Gruen broke in. “Wait I remember what Douglas said he wanted when he died.”

“Stop interrupting,” Elliot said.

“But this is what he said. He wished if we all outlived him we would go to some park and hide in the trees and when somebody came by we would shout Great Pan is dead . He said that.”

Joris groaned. Iva looked at Gruen coldly. Nina whispered to Ned, “He thought quite highly of himself.” Elliot heard this. He pressed his hair down with both hands and said something about coming to talk to them one at a time that night, late, or tomorrow.

The last course arrived. Nina murmured to Ned, “Oh. A dessert trolley .”

It was pouring again. Ned batted at the strings of rainwater trailing from the bulky cornice above the front door.