Джумпа Лахири - Whereabouts [calibre]

I retrieve the spare key kept under a rock and open the door. I unpack my bag, build a fire, then prepare coffee. It’s a big country kitchen with a marble sink bathed with light that pours in through the window. Terra-cotta cookware, jugs and jars painted by hand. High up, just below the ceiling, there’s a row of iron keys mounted to the wall, forming a long, illegible epigraph. Superfluous keys that opened doors that no longer exist.

I put on my sneakers and go out for a walk before sunset. I follow the path that cuts through the wheat fields. There’s no mayhem here, it’s a tranquil corner of the world, with everything in its place, the hay neatly gathered in big circular bales. An area that’s resisted change, that remains unspoiled. I walk as far as a creek, check my watch, and then turn back. Solitude demands a precise assessment of time, I’ve always understood this. It’s like the money in your wallet: you have to know how much time you need to kill, how much to spend before dinner, what’s left over before going to bed. But time seems different here. My walk took an hour, but to me it felt much longer.

In the evening I cook for myself. When I’m in the city I usually buy prepared food in a store near my house, a simple can of good tuna and a fork might do, but I’m inspired to make a real meal here, even one that requires a bit of effort. I arrange a few chicken thighs in a baking pan, adorning them with springs of thyme, garlic cloves, salt, slices of lemon. I slide the pan into the oven. I like the crockery in this house, the thick yellow plates and the thin transparent glasses. I like the books, I leaf through catalogues of art exhibits in the city. I ignore the books I brought to keep me company. I always prefer being surrounded by things that don’t belong to me.

After dinner I read in front of the fireplace, nodding off now and then. I listen to their music and leaf through magazines from a year ago. I choose the daughter’s room to sleep in, where there’s a single bed, and the roof slants low over my head. In the closet, where the comforter is stored, I notice a few hoodies, a basket of bathing suits. I prefer this cozy space to the master bedroom, with its canopy bed of dark heavy wood.

The second day it’s even colder, and as I walk through the wheat field the ground is so hard that it no longer yields beneath my feet. The wind blows as I walk, and the lights in the distant houses make me sad. On the way back I feel the weight of being alone here, of not knowing a soul.

Before entering the house I notice something on the path. A small gray creature. I know it’s dead, and I, too, immediately stiffen. It’s a mouse. Even though I turn my head away I’ve already seen enough: the delicate, curved tail and the dense, soft coat of fur. But the really disturbing thing is that it’s missing a head. It’s been sliced off. How? And why? Was it another animal that did it? Some savage bird? The decapitated body revolts me, but at the same time it makes me think of a fig, and as I stand there in the freezing cold I think of the fruit I love most in high summer, and the spectacular red of its sweet sun-warmed flesh.

The animal is motionless, but something is churning inside me. The creature can’t harm me, but I’m terrified. In an instant, it stamps out the calm and quiet of this place.

I ask myself why the cut is so precise, as if the head really had been cut off with a knife. Is there another animal prowling around, with jaws capable of this? And why just the head, instead of eating the whole thing? But more important, I ask myself why I’m reacting so intensely to what lies before me. It’s a tiny dead animal, that’s all. Last night I’d rubbed olive oil over chicken thighs without getting the least bit upset. That raw, lifeless meat hadn’t disturbed me. The blood that stained the baking pan here and there was a perfectly normal thing.

I don’t want to look at this creature, or touch it. I only want to be as far from it as possible and erase its image from my mind. I wonder if I should just get into the car and head back to the city. But I have to deal with it, there’s no one who might help, I can’t justify calling the gardener to lend me a hand, that would be pathetic. I walk quickly past the creature, looking the other way. I’m flattened with the absurd terror that he might spring back to life and—now we’re talking about a fear that’s even more absurd—grab hold of me, cling to me, kill me.

Inside, I look for something to cover him. I find a can of peeled tomatoes, which I empty out and rinse well. Now I need something thin and flat to slide underneath and scoop it up. I find a cardboard box and cut out a square piece with a pair of scissors. That’s how I’ll go about it. But I avoid it, first I make myself a cup of tea. My little task fills me with dread, it saps me of energy.

Eventually I step out holding the can and the piece of cardboard. I remove the lid of the garbage pail and open the bag tied up inside. I cover the animal with the can, looking away the whole time, rattled. He’s devoid of life but I’m sweating, my heart’s beating fast and my hands are shaking. Once he’s covered, he has a little less power over me. I kneel down and slowly slide the piece of cardboard under the can, but right away there’s resistance, I need to nudge it slightly, insisting bit by bit so that the creature slides onto its little cardboard carpet. I do all this without ever glancing at the can.

I stand up holding my contraption, deeply aware, for a few seconds, of the animal’s weight. A few ounces that tip the balance, they plunge me to the depths. I realize he’s shifting in there. I carry the improvised casket over to the garbage pail and I throw it into the open bag, which I subsequently close. The cadaver vanishes, but when I return to the path I see that a few drops of blood have spilled from its body during the maneuver.

At night, thank goodness, it rains, and the next day, thanks to the sun, the bloodstain also vanishes. But that poor decapitated mouse, freshly killed, still reminds me of a fig in high summer: the flavor of its red flesh, the warmth in my mouth.

In Bed

This evening as I read in bed I hear the roar of cars that speed down the road below my apartment. And the fact of their passing makes me aware of my own stillness. I can only fall asleep when I hear them. And when I wake up in the middle of the night, always at the same time, it’s the absolute silence that interrupts my sleep. That’s the hour when there’s not a single car on the road, when no one needs to get anywhere. My sleep grows lighter and lighter and then it abandons me entirely. I wait until someone, anyone, drives by. The thoughts that come to roost in my head in those moments are always the gloomiest, also the most precise. That silence, combined with the black sky, takes hold over me until the first light returns and dispels those thoughts, until I hear the presence of lives passing by along the road below me.

On the Phone

Today one of my lovers keeps calling. He presses a key by mistake and reaches me without realizing it. I see his number on my cell phone, I say hello, and he’s already talking, enthusiastically, only not to me. I hear him while he’s having lunch, while he’s asking the waiter what the specials are, while he’s walking down the street, while he’s at the office. His roaming voice ends up in my ear, distant but familiar, present, absent. He’s laughing as he’s talking. While I’m privy to all this, he has no clue.

I’m at home today, I don’t have plans. I’m constantly cold, it’s that patch of autumn before my building turns the heat on, so I’ve put on a heavy sweater and I keep boiling water for tea. Even in bed, in spite of the down comforter, the sheets radiate no warmth whatsoever. They feel like a punishing slab under my bare feet.