Vladimir(63)

I thought of lying in the graveyard on the day David didn’t come, the day we didn’t run off together to Berlin. I thought of looking into the eyes of the cat who stepped over my body. At the time, I remembered, I had been hit with a deep, heartbreaking depression. There are no happy endings, I had thought. I was too old to be having the revelation at the time, but it pounded in my chest nonetheless, the dramatic words bringing dramatic tears to my eyes. I wondered though, now, what I would have done if David had come. Would we have even gotten to the airport before I myself turned back? Surely I would not have left my daughter, my shining pride, even if the gesture was supposed to be modeling a kind of female independence and pursuit of happiness I believed would serve her in the future.

Unable to withstand it any longer, I took a brisk two-mile walk to the gas station at the top of the road and bought myself a pack of cigarettes. As I returned, turning the corner toward the house, I once again expected to see my car gone, Vladimir fled. But the car was still parked where I left it, and when I entered the living room Vlad was sitting on the couch, wearing nothing but a towel, the space heater blasting his bare skin, reading an old lake house copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. He rose when he saw me, gripping his meager covering.

“Sorry,” he said. “I fell in the water. Then I came back and showered, then I picked this up, then I lost track of time.”

“Let me get you some clothes.”

“Thanks.” He relaxed back on the couch and held up the book. “I forgot how good a writer Lawrence can be,” he added.

“The beginning is very good,” I said, my eyes locked on his face, trying not to notice that the towel had slipped quite low, so the V of his lower abdominals was visible. “But once the caretaker and Lady Chatterley actually get together it’s nearly unreadable.”

“The first paragraph—”

I made a sound of assent and interrupted, “?‘Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically.’?”

“Novels don’t do that anymore,” he said. “Big pronouncements about the way of life.”

“He undercuts it though, doesn’t he,” I said. “He says something like, ‘Or so Lady Chatterley thought.’?”

“Good memory,” he said.

“I don’t know why I remember it,” I said. “It struck me at the time, maybe.”

I was backing out of the room as we spoke, wanting to get away from Vlad’s aggressive state of undress as quickly as possible.

I came back with a pair of sweats and a shirt, put them on a chair (I found I could not hand them to him), told him to dress, and excused myself to the bathroom. In it I found his soaked and discarded clothes balled up in the tub, except for John’s sweater, which hung over the shower bar. It would ruin the shape of the garment to dry like that. I put the clothes in the washing machine, avoiding crossing paths with Vladimir, then brought the sweater out to the deck, where I laid it flat on a cushion in the sun and did my best to reshape it.

Then I sat on the deck chair and lit a cigarette. I was smoking for less than a minute when Vladimir joined me. He was clothed, to my great relief.

“You bad girl. Can I have one?” he asked. “That looks divine.” Something about the way he spoke—he could say the silliest word, divine, and make it sound like an artful, funny choice.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said, handing him one.

“Every once in a while,” he said. “I quit when Phee was born, but I sneak one when I can.”

And the tiniest pang of something passed over his face, the thought of his daughter, most probably.

But then he rolled his head, laid it on his shoulder, and raised his eyebrows at me. “I didn’t know you smoked,” he countered.

“I don’t,” I said, taking a drag.

And although I thought it might ruin whatever spell had come over him, I asked him what his plan was, and he said that before he answered he wanted to know mine.

I didn’t have one, I told him. I had brought him to the cabin because I wanted to show him the space and offer it to him as a writing retreat once it was winterized, as a patron might, because I had enjoyed his book so much. I told him that we had obviously gotten off topic and out of hand. I said that as it was study week and I didn’t have to teach, and I didn’t necessarily want to be in the same house with John while the hearing was taking place, I had considered extending my time here, so long as the weather remained mild enough that space heaters during the day and blankets during the night would suffice. I said I could drive him back now or whenever he wanted, that he was welcome to stay.

He asked if there was any more wine, and I poured us two copper Moscow-mule mugs full of red and brought them back out on the porch.

“You live quite the designed life,” he said when I handed him his cup.

“I’m just old,” I said. “I’ve had enough time to get the right things and get rid of the wrong ones.”

“You’re not old,” he said, and his voice was harsh in a way I hadn’t heard before. “You’re always saying that. Stop saying that.”

My lower eyelids filled with tears, but I swallowed them down, smiled, and thanked him for reminding me.

He looked out to the lake. His profile was not as beautiful as his face full on—his nose looked more rounded and long, his neck extended diagonally from his chin.