Michael Gruber - The Book of Air and Shadows

Now returning to England on the first ship landeing Plymouth 6 thJuly & wisht to goe to London for I desyred to turn my bill to gold coyne at some Jewes counting-house & shew youre father that I wase a fit man to have my deare Nan. Soe I did takeing boat next daye & found my Jewe and walked in my pryde with a heavie purse; but comeing thereafter to the Iron Man Inn & askeing wase told that some moneths before this thou wast wed to Thomas Finch fishmonger of Puddyng Lane.

Then was my heart sore for I had lade all my hopes on that marriage, haveing mee now no familie nor friendes nor home: & besydes Mr Tollivers fancies had worne to nubbin my olde faith in the pure religione & knew not what to think but considered I wase likely damned to Hell & did not cayre, or not much. Thus are sowles lost. Yet I had gold: & friendes of a sorte can always be got if you have it, so roistered many weekes Nan, I would I had not nor will I saye what foul thynges I did doe in that passage but awoke one morn in Plymouth in a trulls bedde & 2s. 3d. was all I had in purse. Now among my fellowe sottes there wase one Cranshaw who called hymself a gentleman of the coste, which interpreted is a smuckler & he says you are a stout fellow Dick & know the shiftes, come we wille grow rich together with bringeing in canary, sacke & other goodes from sea. Soe we did for some time. But that Cranshaw was as fond of drinking sacke as selling it & worked so ill & clumsy, boasting in tavernes & the lyke that one night the coste guardes took us & clapped us bothe in fetteres & soe caste in the Tower.

There Mr Hastynges kindlie came & visited me & he says lad you are for the rope sure nothynge can save thee, caught with uncustommed goodes: what foole thou-why camest thee not to mee, shall I denie thee worke? And I was sore ashamed to be brought so low. Yet I commenced to praye agaen which I had not for soe long & it did me confort, methoughte Gods mercie mayhap wold save e’en one such as mee, for Christ came to save sinners not the righteous.

Now Nan you knew all this or almost all, and twas for younge Richard I have wrote it out so I may speake fatherly to hym from the Grave: but now I shall tell what no man knowes except they were there & I alone yet live. Of a morn, mee lying in filthie straws in chaynes & thinking of how many better than I wast once so enchayned for Gods sake and wishing I was one of theyre number instod of what I wase a kynde of robbinge knave, there comes a warder saying, here rise & he unshackels mee & bringeth water to washe and attend my bearde and new cloathes. Soe he beckones & I must followe. Thus to a small roome in the White Tower, new rushes on the floore and a good fyre, tabel and chayres and meate upon the tabel & canary in cuppes & a man there, a stranger saying sit, eate.

Gosh, I’m sorry,” she gasped, pulling away from me in confusion. “You must think I’m awful. I don’t even know why I did that.”

“An instinctive reaction to danger escaped?” I suggested. “A kind of inherited reflex. The male rescues the female from danger, and saves the woolly mammoth cutlets, and the female repays him with a sexual display.” I added, after a pause, “I’m sure it was nothing personal,” hoping the opposite. She just stared at me. I opened the door to the building. “Are you all right? You’re not hurt?”

“A little bruised. And my knees are scraped. Ow!” At this, she staggered against me, trembling.

“We’re three flights up,” I said and put my arm around her shoulders. “Can you walk?”

“I don’t know. I just went all weak in the knees.”

“It’s the adrenaline. Here, let me help you.” With that I picked her up in the approved carrying-over-threshold manner and ascended the stairs. She slumped against me and did not object. Myself, I was still dizzy from the kiss.

I settled her on a sofa, supplied us both with a cognac, and went to fetch my first-aid kit and a plastic bag of ice. She had removed her ruined panty hose and had her skirt hitched up to expose her naked thighs. I gave her the ice bag to use on whichever of her bruises seemed most to need it while I bathed and dressed her knees as I had learned to do long ago in the army. I had to lean fairly close in order to pick out the tiny pieces of street debris. The erotic charge I received from this labor was nearly too much to bear, my face there close to, inches from, her delicious thighs, these lolling slightly open to enable my ministrations. I imagined she felt this too, but she said nothing, and I was able, just, to keep from diving headfirst into the shadow of that hitched-up skirt. I suppose I wished to hang a little longer under that delicious tension, something I got to enjoy when I was courting Amalie, and which we have most of us lost in this era of copulation lite.

She didn’t speak while I worked on her. When the dressing was complete, she thanked me and asked, “What did you do to that guy? Some kind of judo?”

I answered that I was a stranger to any martial art, but simply very strong, and I explained why. She took this in without comment and asked if I knew any of the muggers.

“No, of course not. Did you?”

“No, but I thought one of them was the same one who was watching me the other day, the big one who you hit over the head with his friend. It looked like the same SUV too. They were speaking Russian, weren’t they?”

“I believe so. I don’t speak it myself, but I go to a gym run by a Russian and I hear the language a lot. And you had that man on the phone with an accent…”

At this Miranda twisted her body so that she faced the back of the sofa and clutched a throw pillow over her head. Muffled sounds emerged.

Is this level of detail important? What does it matter at the present remove what one person said to another? For the record: she cried, I comforted her. And yes, I am enough of a cad to seduce a woman in an extreme state of dependent panic. She sighed and fell against me, her mouth against my neck. I scooped her up and carried her into my daughter’s bedroom. I put her on the bed and carefully removed her clothes-blouse, skirt, bra, underpants-she not helping much but not objecting either. I have to say that it was not, despite my ardor, anywhere near the Top 40, not remotely in the same class as Amalie, although their bodies were remarkably similar, the musculature and structure of the limbs, the pointed pink nipples.

Miranda lay not exactly comatose but as one in a dream, eyes closed. Something was going on, because she was making those little puffings with her lips that some women do when they are experiencing sexual pleasure, and she did that head-coming-up-off-the-pillow thing a few times, with her wide brow furrowed, as if in quiz-show concentration. In the end she made a sharp single cry, like a small dog hit by traffic. Then she rolled over without a word and seemed to go to sleep, in the manner of a guy married for years.

On the other hand, the first one is occasionally a dud. I kissed her on the cheek (no response) and covered her with a duvet. In the morning, I heard the shower go on early, and when I arrived in the kitchen she was there, fully dressed, looking fresh, asking if we could stop for a new pair of panty hose. No comment on the sexual events of the previous night and none of that familiarity of the body one more or less expects after a fuck of whatever quality. Nor did I raise the subject at that time.

I must havedrifted off because it is light and my watch says it is after six in the morning. There is a thick fog on the lake and dew gleams on every leaf and needle of the trees. The risen sun is only a bright pink glow in the clouds over the eastern shore of the lake. Very strange and unearthly, like being inside a pearl. My pistol is broken open on the desk, the magazine removed and the seven bright 9 mm Parabellum rounds are lined up next to it like toy soldiers. I have no memory of doing this. Could I have done it in my sleep? Perhaps I’m going slightly nuts, from the tension and the lack of sleep and from my perfectly fucked-up life. Seven rounds. There were originally eight.