The Affairs of Others: A Novel Read online

  I maintained my silence and kept my eyes from him as best I could throughout the episode. This made him bolder, though he had to work up to it through four station stops. Find the language that fit, the right level of force with me. I nearly laughed when he called me “bitch” the first time; not only was it a word from another world, it had a querying tone, as if he wanted me to approve it. When I would not kiss him at first, he pulled my hair but not hard, not right away. He had led me to the men’s room of a deserted diner. Me, a nursemaid, a bookish woman, and that day, a new widow to someone I’d loved more than I did myself.

  To the man half-asleep behind the register, he asked for a key and handed the man a limp bill. It may have only been a dollar. Once he latched the door, he positioned me against the sink, yanked down my drawstring pants, and then his voice went soft and stuttery as he explained that I was nobody now and that he owned me, that this was what I always wanted and needed as a woman, that we would do this as many times and in as many ways as he needed because he was “my boss now.” His phrase. Almost gentle like a young doctor instructing his patient if not for the violent bright of the fluorescent showing the grime everywhere and the sneer that kept steeling his mouth. I moved how and where he asked and when he could not come as he took me from behind he started hitting me on my back, first with an open hand and then a fist. He asked me to say things. I wouldn’t at first. Pleasing him was not the point. He knocked my head against the mirror. Then I did.

  He was after predictable things. But the words, as over-circulated as they are, can and do alter wildly with the scenario; they are porous so become filled with the squeaking timbre of the man’s voice, with the hollowness of your own; there’s the banality of the broken soap dispenser as you say fuck me, the haze and brown age spots of an ancient mirror over the sink as you say that feels good, and the blessed strangeness of it, degradation I’d allowed that day. I was wet, actually for a time, out of gratitude perhaps, that this act was nothing I would mourn as I was mourning suddenly and would yet mourn. That was the point, that day and on others to come. I had bruises, abrasions inside me, on my forehead, backside for weeks after, but, like Hope, I had hardly felt them either.

  * * *

  I missed my stop. I’d been pulled under. I became another vibrating body thrown in on itself, remembering to the rhythm of the train, of other bodies, half there, coming and going, seeing and not seeing. The girl and her makeup were gone. As was her admirer.

  At Union Square, I turned around, went back south. It exhausted me, the effort, made me feel too acutely that so much of human life is deciding when to resist and when not to, when you can be carried and when you cannot, cannot afford to be.

  Because I was weary as I reached the ferry terminal, where I came to search for Mr. Coughlan, the effects of the place did not dawn on me right away. The high ceilings, glass walls, its white metal bones. Its own environment much like an airport. What I did see as I climbed the escalator to the main concourse was a handful of security guards, chatting in desultory poses, half-bored. The patches on their blue jackets indicated they belonged to a private company. A few held yellow Labs on loose leashes. Affable, smiling dogs, tongues hanging. You had to pass through a line of low-grade metal detectors the size of tombstones to get to the waiting area. No one remarked me as I passed. There were only three shops: a bakery, a newspaper stand, and a deli; and lines of benches were made of a brindled brown and gray granite that sent a chill through me when I sat down.

  Another security guard stood in the far corner of the structure, on the side with the Statue of Liberty to his left, behind him. The harbor’s green lady was too far away and too small at this distance to be sure of what she was holding up (though I knew what it was; didn’t we all?), but from that distance it was clear only that she did so without fail, whatever the weather. I raised myself up and walked over to the man. I was too worn to smile convincingly so I didn’t. The water just outside took the sun and threw it in my eyes.

  “I’m looking for a friend, a tenant of mine,” I told the man carefully, squinting. “He was a ferryman in his day. I thought maybe he’d visit here, want to ride the ferry. He’s an older man, white-haired, not tall.” The face I addressed myself to was impassive with wide planes; bags tried to hide his eyes and his lips were dry.

  “Lady, a lot of people pass through here—”

  “Of course, I thought maybe he’d ride back and forth or maybe he’d sit here, for the view.” He looked over his shoulder briefly to check the view, as if to verify we saw the same thing.

  “No one’s allowed to stay on the boat anymore. They have to get off if they want to get on again, and we don’t encourage multiple trips.” He had no yellow Lab of his own, this man. He crossed his arms. I guessed he wasn’t far from retirement. His skin was the color of teak yet still managed to be sallow. “They get on here,” he pointed to loading doors 1 and 2, “get off there,” then to a corridor that separated the disembarking from the waiting area. Traffic control.

  “I’ll wait and see. Thank you.”

  He said nothing in reply, only looked me up and down, not with derision, but because suspicion was part of the job, of the urban days we shared now. It was also a punctuation mark: He returned to surveilling the great hall, had other things, people, to watch.

  Back in my stone seat, all I saw was outside, how the breeze ran over the water’s surface, stirring the sunlight there, turning it into waves. New Jersey’s shore across the way, to the west, was hazy with green growth and made to seem paltry, a scattered strip under the dominance of sky.

  The security man stalked off to join his coworkers; I heard a shot of laughter. Maybe they were tickled by the woman who thought they would recognize one old man in thousands of travelers, or by the notion that all old ferrymen collected here. Or maybe not, maybe I did not matter much. It was far-fetched that I’d find him—I knew that as well as they did—but I liked all the sky offered here. So would Mr. Coughlan. Of that I was certain, and it consoled me. It was not always easy to know expanse, real expanse in New York City, unless you were determined or rich. Most of us here traded in confines—of a train, an office, an apartment under or over a stack of them, of streets lined with tall structures that divvy up and often block the light. But here expanse, along with the day’s generosity or lack of it, depending on the weather and season, was given on all sides of the high glass box. Trees from Battery Park at the right edge of the view shook their moving parts in the air.

  I closed my eyes, memorizing it all, imagining room inside me for all of it, leaves shaking, clouds splitting, blue as vast backdrop to this and me and more, and feeling something loosen ever so slightly. It was worth the visit, to see what I could see. I considered riding to the other side, but I’d last ridden the ferry with my husband, from the old terminal. How he’d liked to stand in the front of the boat on the lower deck and whoop and laugh at the motion. He was, at times, vengeful in his pursuit of joy, of new air. It exhilarated me, his boldness; it made me bold. I hollered too, at the air, the screaming birds, at ghosts, as he’d like to describe them to me—of the British, who’d seized Staten Island at the start of the Revolutionary War, the same forces who soon occupied Manhattan and made its occupants suffer at every opportunity and those occupants who endured it rather than see their city burn. Ah, but those Staten Islanders (right there!), they wanted to secede from New York City as recently as 1989; they were still part of a place apart, their own island.

  We did not have to get off then to come back, so we did not—we were allowed to be children at sea, so we were—but now passengers were required to get off. If Mr. Coughlan was on the incoming ferry, he would have to pass by me if he meant to keep crossing the harbor.

  Around me a press of bodies would eventually form. A woman yanked her small son to his feet to walk until, exasperated by his refusal, she lifted him off the ground by his arm. A girl yelled at what I took to be her boyfriend, “Why you gotta say those things to me?”

/>   “Can’t I be me? Be who I really am?” he replied.

  Then they were gone, the smells of sweat and food and perfume, the conflicts, pleasure bolting to hit the high ceiling, the leisurely postures, shreds of conversations, of sex, and we few were left alone again. I was glad each time and also sad, inexplicably, for a moment, not to get up and go with the rest. Perhaps from some strange or ancient part of me missing the comforts of the pack.

  I tried to sort through the exiting passengers, filing through the corridor now. If he was among them, yes, as unlikely as that was, I knew I would spot him, even if I did not stand and press my face to the glass. He had a very particular carriage; he still had power in his arms and shoulders and they pumped with greater strength than the rest of him moving him along. He’d be wearing a cap, his ancient weather-resistant parka.

  I had the sense that someone was looking at me; I turned to see the security guard from the corner approaching. Maybe he planned to ask me to move on. No loitering, or not for long, since 9/11. He had a slight catch in his gait, a vulnerability in the knee, or perhaps the hip. A short-waisted man, his legs were long and thin; he operated them as if he was made to think about the bones inside them too keenly. I ducked my head. Whatever it was about sitting here and letting the fullness of the space work on me made me quick to emotion. For a second, I thought I might cry if he asked me to leave. “Ma’am,” he said in greeting, though he was older than me by at least twenty years. He eased himself onto the bench a few spots down from me. He leaned in, a confiding posture, his face more mobile than before, better circulated. Something in him had shifted as he watched me waiting for one old man or maybe it was the laughter he’d shared with his coworkers. How funny that is, under the right mix of circumstances, how we move in and out of our default attitudes, how we open and close.

  “Ma’am, one of the guys thinks he saw your man. An old captain, right?”

  I nodded.

  “He went over and back. Got off, got back on. Three or four times, they say. He talked up the guys, they let him shadow the deckhands. But that was a week or more ago. There’s been no sign of him since.”

  “But he was all right?”

  “Seemed to them he was.”

  “To who?”

  “Frank,” he said, pointing. Frank waved. “And Bobby, a deckman.”

  “Is Bobby here?”

  “Not today. He’s off today but usually he’s on one of the boats.”

  “Can I speak to Frank?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “He’s my tenant, Mr. Coughlan, my tenant. He’s not come home in many days now. His daughter is worried. The police have been called.”

  “His home is that.” He pointed to the water. “Or that’s my guess. Those old captains?” He smiled at something unseen. “They got balls.”

  * * *

  I walked back home this time—I didn’t need the subway anymore; I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge. You were made to climb the bridge, up to its high suspension over the river, the cables gleaming just as they were designed to, and because as you walked, climbing, you could not yet see the bridge’s midpoint, its other side, you could fool yourself into believing you were traveling into something unforeseen. The tourists and strangers climbed with and around you; people covered their faces with their cameras or aimed their one-eyed cell phones at the view. Windbreakers and khakis, western travel gear. All of us with either nothing in common or so much, depending on your vantage, at least sharing a direction, to climb and cross.

  When a girl approached me to take a photo—would you? please, thank you—I didn’t consider refusing her. A university-age girl from somewhere Scandinavian, from the looks of it, traveling with her mother and younger sister through New York’s cold spring; all three made me think of oversized daisies and of the boons of being foreign and blond, of living out of reach of or at least some distance from urban American habits and our overweening American expectations.

  The currents of air switched and tossed their yellow hair—they laughed at this and couldn’t stop laughing; their laughter so much the same. I had to move them against the stanchion my husband had often touched as we passed, out of the way of the wind and the foot and bike traffic, so I could capture all three faces without obstruction or eyes squeezed shut with hilarity. I laughed too and still had Frank’s voice in my ears instructing me just before I had moved on that Mr. Coughlan was “a tough old guy.” The sentiment relaxed me, so I did not mind the small talk on the bridge. We are on holiday. We’ve left the men at home. Brothers or boyfriends or a father. I didn’t know exactly and it didn’t matter. New York we find so very loud and pretty, and I agreed because it was right then, with the water ruffling below us, tugs muscling through the harbor, the old bridge seeming so resolute underfoot. I hope you have a lovely visit, I told them, and as the women gave me more pleases and thank-yous, I heard Frank the security guard assure me, “He’s no fool and sometimes we all want to walk out, you know? Vanish. Like that.” All his peers standing with us had assured me, just as the first guard had done, that ferry captains needed more freedom than most of us. I chose to believe them and now smiled through my goodbyes and the girl handing me her e-mail on a blue scrap of paper. If you’re ever in Aarhus, let me know. We will show you around. Come in the spring! Oh, of course, I said, as if that was as likely as anything else. Denmark in the spring.

  CONSENTING ADULTS

  AS SOON AS I was on land again, cutting home through Cadman Plaza Park, I felt my stomach go into crisis. I had forgotten to eat. I bought a roast chicken, cooked just that afternoon and warmed under lights; a hunk of hard Gruyère; celery and carrots; hummus; freshly baked, soft-in-the-middle chocolate-chip cookies; and a slice of blueberry pie. I had those Danish girls in mind when I detoured for a bottle of Argentinian Malbec. I imagined I’d somehow invite the girls to my building, lead them into my garden with wineglasses overflowing, and tell what I planned on planting, daisies, hydrangeas, and Bermuda freesia, even if freesia would not survive here. Yes, I felt magnanimous, and when I made it home and laid my groceries out on the table, I ripped a leg off the chicken and ate it as if I were an amiable giant with an amiable giant’s appetite. The warm oil of the dark meat slipped down my throat and gave me more license, breaking open a current of thrilling prerogatives. Yes, men like Mr. Coughlan need more air. Denmark in May or early June. How long had it been since I’d traveled or taken a photo? I drank the Malbec from the bottle. Though I tried not to gulp, I was yet a contented colossal who’d agreed not to step on anyone, to break ceilings or walls or the backs of bridges or squalling men, as long as I was fed, watered, and spoiled.

  I settled into my chair, yes, not unlike Mr. Coughlan’s chair upstairs really, a relic, too. I had almost as little furniture as he did, as little clutter, yet today there was not enough space in here, either. Still drinking, eating, my hands a mess, my tongue thick and purpled from the wine, I went to the window. Outside white pear-tree petals flurried in the day’s breath, I wanted to laugh out loud at myself but more than that I wanted to catch the white bits in my mouth. I leaned out the window, face up to the sky. When was it that I could hear her? Was my mouth already open, catching more than it bargained for, just as the sounds above me formed into something hard and undeniable, that when pitched at my head woke me?

  “Hit me,” Hope cried. “Now!” Then a scream that tightened the skin on my body. “Do it again!” she commanded.

  And I became small again like that, so small I do not know how I swallowed the last of what was in my mouth or gathered the strength to leave my apartment with the intention of stopping it and stopping her.

  * * *

  Music met me as I climbed the stairs. A cover newly thrown over the couple. I knocked. I rang the bell. But the music percussed and shouted; it absorbed everything. I leaned into the bell again, as long as I could to put off, moments longer, opening the door that I guessed would not be locked. My hand was on the knob. I had only persuaded myse
lf to turn it; it felt inert, a brick in the hand; but then it flew away, was pulled from me, and he became the door—Les as molten and obstructing as the first time I saw him.

  His eyes flew over my head, narrowed, and he leaned his torso into the hall just perceptibly as if looking first for an adversary, a body roughly his size. He blinked before he lowered his gaze to me, blinked again, then sniffed as if he was not certain that who and what he was seeing was me. Then he hunched over me, and smiled slowly the smile of having discovered a practical joke, one he’d puzzled out before it could harm or humble him. He smiled like I was a woman swatting at gods, and then he sighed, and on his breath came whiskey and pot and the high tide of a woman’s sex. I stepped back, he stepped forward.

  “It has to stop,” I said.

  “What?” The music surrounded us.

  “It has to stop,” I called over it.

  “What does?”

  “What you two are doing.”

  He drew the door closed behind him to fend off the music’s volume. He returned to face me as he ran his great hand through his hair, pushing it into form. Red knitted through the whites of his eyes; his pupils were overlarge and blunted. He looked again somewhere above and beyond me, his focus going, and then striking on a notion that appeared to delight him, he found my face again and offered, “But we are consenting adults.” He was drunk. He was stoned. Behind him, the music ended.