Norman Rush: Mortals

“You are so beautiful,” she said.

“So say we all,” he said, being wry.

A line came to him, I am the mirror you breathe on . It wasn’t quite right, though. If he wrote poetry what he would want would be a line that united holding a mirror up to the mouth and nose of a particular beloved to see if she was still alive with the mirror being the fixed register of her personal beauty. Could the line be I am the mirror your breath is for? He thought. No because it’s slightly sinister. No because it’s stupid. This was why genius would be so handy if you had it. Iris had no real appreciation of how beautiful she was. She was sealed off from that by her past, complications in her past, and he lacked the genius to strike through and say Look what you are! Look! and have her believe it.

Her hair was black and shining. She wore it centrally parted, with the wings caught together in a heavy shell clip low on the nape of her neck. He put his hands into her hair. The top of her head came to just under his eyes. Her immaculate part bisected an oval of highlights at her crown. Africa was too hot for hair this long, but she knew he loved it that way. She was almost a type. Euro-patrician would be the type, although her eyebrows, which were straight, like dashes, contradicted it. She wouldn’t tweeze her eyebrows into arcs. People often presumed she was French. Her face was too graphic and lively for the type, also. And that was another thing he enjoyed witnessing, the slight shock registering when people met her for the first time and she was absolutely normal toward them and not fixed in the modes of underlying vanity or distance the culture had taught them would go with a presence like hers. He moved his hands to her back, under the broad straps of her sundress. Her nose was of the essence of the type. You could easily forget that it was a biological organ. Also it was euro-patrician that she flared her nostrils when she got incensed over something. She was getting too much sun. Her teeth were ideally white and almost childishly small. Her gray eyes were perfect, or their axis was, the tilt slightly upward from the root of her nose. The line She makes the female face seem nude was also not quite right and was also from the days when she’d inspired him briefly to wrench himself toward poetry, got part of what he felt and part of why he needed to protect her. Her underchin was taut. Age seemed to be touching her in only two spots — her mid-throat, in the form of a single fine line across it, and just under the corners of her mouth, in the form of incipient softness.

“Look how you dig me,” she said.

“I think someone could see us here,” he said.

“Not unless they put their face against the screen.” But she closed the door to her room.

Her voice was another thing that went against her type, because it was too clear and strong or unregulated, sometimes. Her clowning went against it, too.

She pressed against him. He moved her away, saying “May I?” and pulling the yoke of her dress out so that he could look down at her small, plump breasts. They disagreed about her breasts, but she was wrong. She had never nursed. They had no children. Small breasts are best for the long haul. Even if it was nobody’s fault that there were no children he felt guilty because not having them had left her perfect for him. Their sex had zeal in it. He didn’t mean zeal, he meant something else. Their life together was erotic in a longitudinal way, he meant. The erotic was always there, not sporadically there in little segments set aside. At least that was the way it was for him, and unless it was an incredible act, it was that way for her too. But why should it be an act?

“Are you up to something?” she asked, and then fell against him, ending the episode.

Nobody knows who I am, he thought.

They were together in the kitchen. He was being companionable while she got the food onto the table. The lights were on in Dimakatso’s quarters. Ray had a feeling the meal tonight might be vegetarian. They seemed to be drifting that way, which was ironic in a country with the healthiest, best-tasting grass-fed and cheapest beef in the entire world. Botswana beef had an odd taste. It was sweet.

The light in the kitchen was a trial for both of them. The room was lit by a fluorescent donut that belonged in an industrial museum. The house was all-electric. The fluorescent fixture emitted a fizzing sound from time to time that suggested it was about to malfunction. It would capture their attention and then the sound would quit and life would go on.

Iris said, “Everything spoils so fast in Africa, I hate it.” She made a face as she unscrewed the lid of a mayonnaise jar she’d just taken out of the refrigerator.

“This needs to go directly to the Mayo Clinic,” she said.

“Haha,” Ray said, stating the laugh to show he was less than amused.

She looked at him for an explanation.

God damn me, he thought.

“What do you mean by that Haha?”

“Nothing.”

“What, though?”

“Well I just wondered if you’re trying to be funnier than usual for my benefit. I mean are you trying to be funnier?

“You don’t have to, you know.” God damn me, he thought.

“What are you talking about, Ray?”

“I don’t know, I felt for a minute that maybe you were trying to mimic my brother. I mean he presents himself as such a wit. His letters to you are all about what a wit he is. What I’m saying is you don’t need to be more amusing than you already naturally are. You can relax. You don’t need to keep me amused.” He thought, Anyone would hate this, I have no right to do this, But I had years of his wit to live with and that was enough.

She stared at him. Plainly he had hurt her in several ways.

“Oh boy. I’m sorry. I think this is what it is. I think I’m aggravated about Rex’s sudden interest in writing to you all the time. His sudden desire to be your pen pal. You don’t know him. You may think he’s clever but there is, believe me, nothing there, he’s useless, he …”

She broke in. “Well, you remember the potato salad I made last week that you praised to high heaven?”

He was in the pantry, searching for a new jar of mayonnaise.

“Can you hear me? That salad was made with baked potatoes instead of boiled potatoes.”

Ray emerged from the pantry with the new jar of mayonnaise, which he handed to her.

“You mean now Rex is sending you recipes?”

“It isn’t a recipe just to comment on a potato salad he had at a fancy buffet somewhere. He thought it was delicious so he asked the host what there was about it, that’s all, and he passed that along, and you enjoyed it, I’m pointing out.”

Dinner tonight would be deviled eggs, rice salad, Swiss chard, and slices of grilled daikon radish with some indecipherable toppings on them.

“I’m careful about the sun,” she said.

If all was well he would normally pour his predinner Castle lager into a glass and drink it sitting in a chair, watching his wife cook, like James Joyce, sipping. He was restricting his alcohol intake. Tonight he drank from the can, standing up. She understood these things. She was no fool.

He was waiting for her in the living room. He was on the sofa, his feet up on their vast glass coffee table. Somebody had made an error in allocating this coffee table to them. Glass coffee tables like it were standard government issue for expatriate houses, but their table was larger than any he’d encountered anywhere, larger than the one in the ambassador’s residence. The stupidest thing in this house was the pleated ivory Naugahyde room divider mounted in the archway between the living room and the dining room, which they kept belted to one side, permanently out of use.