Passenger(13)

Then she rolls over and falls immediately to sleep.





SIX





Daylight.

Patrice removes herself from the bed and washes in the bathroom. When she does not return after a long while, I listen and think I hear her sobbing on the other side of the bathroom door. I wonder if she’s thinking of Barry, her husband Barry. I picture a small apartment with shag carpeting the color of rust, wood-paneled walls with garish paintings in cheap frames, sun-bleached card tables and lots of wicker furniture. And Barry. I picture Barry—or, rather, the essence of Barry, for he is just a blob, a form, an indistinct distinction in my head—slouched in a tattered recliner staring at the television that is not on, that is black and blank and useless, while he thinks, Patrice, Patrice, Patrice. By this time, the sun is full in the sky; it forges an assault through the single window. Leaning over in bed, I pull tight the shade, cutting off the outside world.

Nearly twenty minutes later, when she emerges from the bathroom, Patrice tugs her clothes on over her wide hips. In the new light, her body looks old and sad. There is a horizontal crease bisecting her belly where she tries to suck in her gut. Her breasts are pale, bottom-heavy and pendulous, with faint, wide areolas capped with the mere suggestion of nipples. Her silver bracelets jangle like a slot machine’s payoff. It is a sad exercise, watching this married, middle-aged woman dress at the foot of the bed. I am disgusted with myself. I am you, writing this to myself. A fresh start, a clean slate, and this is what I do.

“Are you okay?” I say, not moving from the bed.

“Terrific.” She tries hard to sound positive, but the streaks of mascara running from her eyes betray her. “How about you? Didn’t you sleep?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“Afraid.”

She utters a laugh as she snaps, with some difficulty, the button of her pants. “Afraid of what? That I’d suffocate you with your pillow? That I’d smother you do death?”

“Afraid it would start all over again. From scratch.”

“What—what are you talking about?”

“The forgetting,” I say. “The disremembering.”

Her lips tighten, leaving just a colorless slash beneath her nose. She straps on her bra and pulls her halter down over her head. The flesh of her forearms jiggles.

“Don’t you remember what I told you?” I say.

“Listen,” she begins, “last night was a lot of fun. I like the mystery angle and I was goddamn drunk enough or stupid enough to play along. But it’s a new day out there. Let’s drop it, all right?”

“I wasn’t playing. I’m being serious.”

“What’s your name?”

“I told you I don’t—”

“No,” she demands, “I don’t want to hear it. I want to know your name. I feel lousy as it is and I’d like to at least know your goddamn name.”

“I can’t tell you my name.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I don’t know it. I don’t remember it.”

She nearly stumbles climbing into her heels. When she looks up at me, her auburn hair matted and frizzy, her dark eyes sloppy in their sockets, she looks like she wants to lash out and strike me. “You’re a real son of a bitch, you know that?”

“Patrice…”

“Forget it. This is my fault. I should have never come here. Goddamn it, what’s wrong with me? I should have never come here…”

“Patrice, please…”

“Don’t you come back to the bar,” she barks. “Don’t you come near that place, you got me? I’ll have Tony toss you out on your ass if you do.”

I listen to her heels clack down the hallway. She slams the door on the way out; the sound reverberates forever through the empty apartment.

I do not realize how exhausted I am until I climb out of bed. My head still throbs, but now my muscles ache, my eyes are sore, my stomach is so empty I can almost feel wind whistling through it, and my throat is raw from the smoke at the Samjetta—an orchestra of agony.

In the shower, I let the water go as hot as I can stand it. Steam chokes the tiny bathroom. Examining myself in the mirror, I grow more and more fearful of my appearance. I am undernourished to the point of emaciation. My eyes look as if they’ve been blackened by fists.

“Who are you?” the Auschwitz Jew in the mirror wants to know.

I am you.

I dress and feel somewhat nauseous in the half-gloom of the bedroom. Peeling back the shade of the window, I wince at the over-bright day. Outside, people cross back and forth in front of the renovated buildings, and a few construction workers in bright yellow helmets and vests stand in a cluster at the corner of the street.

For a time, I consider going door to door, asking any of my neighbors if they know who I am. This idea seems absurd, but it also seems like it will yield the best results. So I retain that as a possibility.

Before leaving the apartment, I rewrite the address on my palm.

I descend the stairs to the first floor lobby. I search for an office in the lobby but do not find one. In the main lobby, posted to a bulletin board above the row of mailboxes, I locate a phone number for the office. It is a 410 area code, which means it is local, but there is no address. Following a cursory glance over my shoulder, I tear the paper from the bulletin board and stuff it in the pocket of my canvas coat.