Richard Bausch - Before, During, After

“Well,” Faulk said. “I’ll work something out.”

“A person has to keep his agreements. But as long as Mr. Baines gets his rent payments — you know.”

“Yes, I do know.”

The apartment was in a box-shaped brick row of them across the street from Donald Baines’s cottage-sized house. Faulk crossed and let himself in. He looked at the rooms — the barren place where he had lived through these months. How Natasha would hate living here. Cracks lined the ceiling, and a sheen had developed in places over the old paint, as if the humidity of the town had begun some process of melting in the walls. He cleaned the floors and the fixtures in the sinks and dusted the surfaces, then packed laundry in a bag and spent time on the telephone, calling in the ad about subletting. The inheritance from his mother paid nine thousand dollars a month. It was enough for them to live on. He could, if he had to, afford two rent payments for a while. Natasha would want to find something to do, to support her painting, until they could have their spring in France. This was a vague fancy at the edge of his consciousness. He was not thinking practically, since there would be a lot of matters to address if indeed they were to decide to live in France for a few months. He put details aside and told himself that things would be all right. And he felt a wave of excitement, thinking of her walking the beach in Jamaica and wanting to come home.

In the morning he tried to call her, but the line was busy. He tried four times and then left a message on the room phone. “I bet you’re on the phone with Iris, or with the airlines. I can’t wait, babe.”

6

She was indeed on the phone with the airlines, getting her flights rescheduled. It took an hour. The woman who helped her was very kind but spoke with a slight indistinguishable accent that made certain words hard to understand. Natasha guessed, using context, but felt the frustration of it. Now, certainly, you had to bring forth all the generosity you could muster. But she couldn’t shake the annoyance. She could hear Constance talking on the phone in her room, the voice strangely antic, as though she were addressing a small child. This was the third day of slow time.

Mrs. Ratzibungen had let everyone stay the extra days without charge, even as she was losing money steadily. People sat in the lobby and watched the news reports of the aftermath and the investigation. Natasha wanted none of it. She took another walk, this time on a path leading toward the mountains, the path rising steadily to a level nearly at the height of the palm trees, where she paused and looked at the country and the shoreline. In her travels in Europe she had never felt the slightest hint of the alienation and isolation that gripped her now. She wanted to be home. She wanted Memphis, the house where she had grown up — though that house was now occupied by others, and she had not been near it in almost ten years. But far more than anything now — oh, more than breathing — she wanted the affair with the photographer never to have been, those nights in Adams Morgan, and the beach, here. She wanted the whole of it obliterated, erased, rubbed out. Gone. The drinking and the unhappiness and the not caring what happened, the throwing away of hours, the sinking, all the weeks of deadening intoxication and self-loathing. These last three days.

She felt it now, returning down the path. Wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands, and her nose with her forearms, she slowly made her way to the entrance of the resort, muttering low under her breath.

Stop it. Stop it .

Lunch was being served. She took a sandwich and went to her room hoping for sleep. But sleep was fitful and tormented, so she simply lay in the bed, staring. And later she ate dinner in the restaurant, alone. She saw Constance out on the patio with Ratzi, a bottle of rum and a pitcher of orange juice on the table between them. A little later, near the end of the meal, the older woman came in and sat across from her, one hand fisted under her chin. Natasha had ordered a vermouth on ice and now held it, looking into the facets of color reflecting in the ice cubes.

“Mind if I join you?” Constance said.

Remembering once more, with a pang of guilt, that the other had paid for her stay here, she said, “No, I don’t mind.”

“I don’t seem to know anymore whether or not I’d be welcome.”

“You’re welcome. And stop it.”

Constance ordered a beer from the waiter, whom they hadn’t seen before. He was tall and olive hued, with small round black eyes. He brought her beer and walked away, saying nothing, and she held it up. “Well, here’s to our trip. Neither of us will ever forget where we were when all hell broke loose.”

Natasha raised her glass and drank.

“So you’re still going back to Memphis.”

“Still?”

“You’re going back. You haven’t changed your mind.”

“Why would I change my mind, Constance?”

“A lot of people are changing plans because of this, dear. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I’m still going to Memphis.”

They said nothing for a few seconds.

“It’s nobody’s business, anyway,” Constance said. “Where we’re going from here.”

Natasha decided to leave it alone. She nodded and drank.

“I think I’ve ruined our friendship.”

She could think of nothing to tell her.

“I know I got under your skin about that business — but I thought I’d apologized.”

“Forget it,” she said.

“But you’re different. Something’s changed.”

“I said forget it. So forget it. Please.”

“I’m going to California, though I’d rather go to Maine.”

She did not respond.

“I’m going to see my daughter. Who I’m pretty sure doesn’t want to see me.”

“I bet she does, actually. Given what’s happened.”

“She says she’s upset because I didn’t try harder to call her.”

Natasha nearly spoke the words aloud: Sounds like something you’d say . Instead, she drank the last of her vermouth.

“I don’t think anybody wants to go to New York,” Constance said. “And then, in a way, I think everybody does.”

“I just want to go home.”

“I don’t really know where home is.” This was the first time the older woman had ever made this kind of confession.

“You’ve got the house.”

Constance smirked. “Actually I’m not liking how it’s turning out. I feel selfish.” Swallowing the rest of the beer, she signaled the bartender. Before he reached the table, she called out, “Another one.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And could you bring me a shot of Mount Gay, too? Neat.”

He nodded and went off. Both women watched him go.

Natasha said, “I’m going upstairs.”

“Our last night, sweetie. You — you don’t want to sit and talk on our last night?”

“I want to sleep, Constance. That’s all I want to do right now. And I’m having trouble doing it.”

“You’re depressed.”

She gave no answer.

“Well, me too.”

“Can we not talk about it?”

“I think you’re depressed because things have changed for you, and you don’t know what to do about it.”

Natasha looked at her.

“You’ve hardly been out of bed the last two days.”

She drew in a breath and then managed to speak, with only the slightest tremor in her voice. “I want to be home, that’s all.”

“I really don’t mean anything, you know.”

They sat there without speaking for perhaps a full minute. Anyone walking through would have thought they were simply enjoying the evening light, looking at the other people in the big high-ceilinged room and at the scenes out the window — the several little tableaux of people eating and drinking and being together. Finally, Constance said, “Why don’t you have another vermouth. We could go out on the patio.”