Hum: Stories Read online

  We pull back into traffic and continue along the Boulevard of Heroes. The light is beginning to fade. As dusk sets in the city becomes less glamorous; the night brings out its dinginess. A giant billboard towers above the boulevard. One half of the sign bears the likeness of a scantily clad woman holding a drink to her lips, advertising Salte Ron, and the other half is a white background with enormous black print: El cambio está cerca.

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  “It’s the national slogan. Change is near. The country is so politically and economically volatile, the slogan almost always rings true.”

  On the radio, some tinny local music is playing. I glance over and see that my husband’s rash has spread to his face. Still, he is smiling, as if nothing could intrude upon his happiness.

  ***

  In Danzahar, V.’s fourth posting, we simply gave up. We had not made love in almost a year. We could not separate the act from the goal, and because the goal was unreachable, the act itself became a reminder of everything we couldn’t attain. For the first time, we did not embark on our vacation with the secret hope of making a baby. Maybe we were there to see V., maybe we were there to see the country. More likely, we were there to escape one another, the overwhelming solitude of our day to day lives.

  If V. sensed the change in our relationship, the defeat we had both accepted, he did not show it. He was a more enthusiastic guide than ever, taking us for several days to the countryside, which seemed in its peaceful greenness to be a separate country than the one represented by the destroyed capital. On the final day of our visit he insisted on introducing us to a woman named Gavrijela, by his description an energetic blonde of indiscriminate age who worked for the railroad company. Because the railroad had been decimated by the civil war, she held the job on paper only, subsisting on a token salary and the profits she made from selling small plastic bags of laundry detergent.

  V. thought it would be a wonderful idea to surprise her, and against our objections he insisted on driving to her apartment on the outskirts of the city.

  “Shouldn’t we tell her we’re coming?” I asked.

  “She doesn’t have a phone. I haven’t seen her in months because she’s been away visiting relatives. Trust me, she’ll be happy to see us.”

  We wound through potholed streets lined with bullet-riddled buildings. The war had been over for some time, but I could not help but feel the presence of death. The quietness of the streets, combined with the rapid way people moved—as if always looking over their shoulders, dodging an unseen bullet—lent a feeling of hopelessness to the place. V., who would normally keep up a running monologue, pointing out one landmark after another, noted a couple of ravaged government buildings and then, apparently at a loss for any viable tourist attraction, switched the subject to Gavrijela.

  “She is the cleanest woman I have ever met,” he said enthusiastically. “She washes her hair twice a day, using nothing but cold water and a couple of drops of baby oil. You’ll see, she has exceptional hair. And she’s very intelligent; she taught herself English.” He was quiet for a minute. “Don’t tell her I told you, but she might be the one. If things work out, I might even stay in Danzahar indefinitely.”

  Evening was falling as we approached Gavrijela’s part of town. There were no lights on in any of the buildings. “They haven’t had electricity in this section of the city since the war,” V. explained.

  We stopped in front of a five-story rectangular building that looked more like a barracks than an apartment house. The building was made of blackened brick, with only a few small windows to interrupt the monotony of the façade. There was a hole in the front of the building where the door should be, and the entrance was littered with leaves and trash that had blown in from the street. V. took a lighter from his pocket, and we followed the tiny flame up a concrete staircase to the fourth floor, then made our way down a hallway so dark it might have been midnight instead of six o’clock in the evening.

  “This is it,” V. said, stopping in front of a door at the end of the hall. In the flickering light of the flame his face looked so childish and eager I could not help but feel a kind of maternal affection. We had never given him anything, yet he had always opened his door to us, had always introduced his romantic interests to us with the unflappable optimism and barely disguised nervousness of a teenage boy introducing his parents to his first girlfriend. Always, it seemed, he was looking for our approval.

  The door opened slowly. A young woman stood in front of us, holding a long, tapered candle. “Hello,” she said, almost as if she were expecting us. “Come in.”

  V. let his lighter die. Gavrijela closed the door behind us. The darkness felt absolute; I groped for my husband’s hand.

  “I’ll light more candles,” Gavrijela said. She didn’t seem at all perturbed by this intrusion of strangers into her home. She went into another room and came back with several candles. She placed each candle in its holder, forming a semicircle around the room, lighting them one by one. As the room grew brighter, Gavrijela’s features became clearer. Her blonde hair was pulled back from her face in a ponytail, and her chin receded slightly. Her eyes were very blue, her teeth exaggeratedly small. I realized she could not be more than twenty-three.

  I do not know who noticed it first. My husband was occupied with a stack of books in the corner, but V. and I were both watching Gavrijela, the careful way she lit the candles, as if it were some elaborate ritual. She was standing in profile when I noticed the snug fit of her T-shirt, the way her belly protruded from her thin frame. Just then, while she was lighting the final candle with one hand, she brought the other hand to rest beneath her stomach, cupping it gently.

  I glanced over at V. He was staring at Gavrijela, openmouthed, truly shaken for the first time since I had known him. My first impulse was envy—that, and even anger. Anger that he could have accomplished such a feat, this man who had always had such poor luck with women, this man who moved from place to place, never staying long enough to settle. My husband and I had been trying for so many years, doing everything we were supposed to do, monogamous and determined and, ultimately, unsuccessful.

  V. took a couple of steps backward and sat heavily in a chair, momentarily unable to muster the stream of phrases that had always carried him effortlessly through every social situation. My husband, oblivious to the whole thing, picked up a copy of an English-language novel and began asking Gavrijela questions about the book. As they chatted about the writer, whom Gavrijela had studied at the university, V. took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and leaned his head against the chair. He only stayed that way for a few moments, Gavrijela didn’t even notice, but I understood then that he had never slept with her. Perhaps she had never had any romantic interest in him at all.

  By the time we left her place, V. had completely regained his composure.

  “She’s nice,” my husband said. He has never been one to notice details, and I realized that, absorbed as he had been with the conversation about the American author, he had no idea that Gavrijela was pregnant. “Who knows. Maybe next time we see you, you’ll be married.”

  “I’ve had a change of heart,” V. said, looking forward into the darkness as he expertly steered the car over the black, pitted streets. “She’s a bit young for me.”

  Several months later, we received a postcard from a tiny country we’d never heard of, bearing his usual neatly printed message: You must join me here for good food and offbeat adventures. Of course we came. We could not help ourselves, although if you asked us to define the nature of our attraction to V., the exact terms of our affection, we would be unable to formulate an answer. We simply go to him, year after year, country after country, as if something mysterious in his nature, or ours, demands that we do so.

  ***

  The Dockside Trilogy opens with a poem. Martinez was by no means a poet, and the poem is not very good. The faulty meter and awkward line breaks, combined with the poem’s political subject—an unid
entified revolution in an unidentified third-world country—make for tiresome reading indeed. Most of the critical papers on Martinez simply gloss over the poem, as if it did not even exist. It is a gruesomely bloody poem, in which a difficult birth is used as an extended metaphor for the revolution. The gist of it is that, after an arduous labor, touch-and-go for nineteen hours, the baby lives, but it is shriveled and bluish, and it will clearly be a very long time before the baby can survive outside of an incubator. At the end of the poem, the mother is hanging on to life by a thread—Phelan’s translation actually employs that phrase—and as a reader you have no idea whether or not she’ll make it. It’s a cheap ending for a squalid little poem, and in his anonymous “note from the translator,” Phelan writes, “I was tempted to do more than translate. I was tempted to simply edit the poem out of the text altogether. But a desire to be true to Martinez’s intention prevented me from doing so, unfortunately. If the baby were omitted, The Dockside Trilogy would cease to be a tragedy, and might arguably be called a comedy instead.”

  ***

  The driver rolls the window down, and I can smell the fishy odor of the harbor in the distance, mixed with diesel fumes. My legs are sore from the pressure of the large pot resting on my lap. I shift the plant so as to see out the window more clearly. The car slows to a crawl.

  “Is traffic always this bad?” my husband asks.

  “There was an election two weeks ago,” V. says. “They’ve been having parades almost every day, but the festivities are usually over by early afternoon.” He glances at his watch. “We’re supposed to meet Sylvana in five minutes.”

  Moments later, the car comes to a complete halt. Traffic in front of us isn’t moving at all. Up ahead, at the intersection, a long procession of cars and brightly decorated horses makes its way down the avenue.

  “The Avenue of the President,” V. says. “The city’s most celebrated avenue. Presidents change so often here, it makes more sense to name the avenue after the office itself rather than a specific president.”

  The driver, who until now has been completely silent, opens his car door, steps into the street, looks skyward, and lets out a celebratory yell. Then he climbs back in the car and shuts the door as if nothing had happened. He turns around and says something to us, gesticulating with both hands.

  “What’s he saying?” my husband asks.

  “He says change is coming. He says change is good. He says this new president will turn the economy around, and this is a bright new day for his country.”

  “What’s your opinion on the matter?”

  “Every president promises change, but each administration is almost identical.”

  Again, pain shoots through my legs. Up ahead, the harbor lights are shining. Car horns are honking, and a troupe of trumpet players passes on the parade route.

  “Sylvana must already be there,” V. says. “The restaurant is within walking distance of her work, and she’s always precisely on time.” He sounds nervous, as if something monumental depends upon this meeting. The wind has settled down, and a fine rain begins to fall. “We’ll have to eat inside,” he adds, more to himself than to us. Already, his plan for the perfect evening is beginning to fall apart. I imagine Sylvana gathering up her purse and running inside. Checking her watch, perhaps, ordering a drink without us.

  A girl of about sixteen approaches the car. She’s wearing a short black skirt, high heels, and a T-shirt that bears the new president-elect’s likeness. Her hair and face are damp from the rain, and she’s carrying a cardboard box filled with small bottles of Salte Ron, the national drink of choice. She holds the box up to the window. She must have pegged us for Americans, because she says in a quiet and precise voice, “Please to buy?”

  V. pays no attention to the girl, lost as he is in his thoughts of Sylvana. But the driver reaches into his pocket and drops a large silver coin into the girl’s hand. The girl accepts the coin, hands him a bottle, and moves on. The driver does not open the bottle, but instead places it aside and sits with his hands on the wheel, looking ahead. “A souvenir!” he says, which makes me wonder how much English he is able to understand. Has he been listening to us all along? In the side mirror I can see his face, calm and happy.

  The parade route is a flurry of sound and motion, but the traffic on the Boulevard of Heroes is halted. It feels as if the world is moving rapidly in some positive direction, while inside the car we sit utterly still, transfixed and waiting.

  I look over at my husband. The rash has spread all the way to his elbows, tiny welts have begun to appear on his neck, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He is staring out the window, more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him, ecstatic in his belief in the coming family.

  In the front seat, V. takes a small mirror out of his messenger bag. He holds the mirror low, as if to hide his vanity from us, and pats down his hair. He opens his mouth and smiles, turning his face from side to side to check the cleanliness of his teeth. Then he quickly slips the mirror back into his bag.

  Down at the harbor, Sylvana is waiting. What has V. told her about us? And does she really care for him, or is she merely another one of his fantasies? For a moment, I feel the secret pang of the selfish parent. I am ashamed to realize that I do not want Sylvana to be the one for V. I do not want her to love him. I do not want her to upset this delicate balance. Isn’t V., after all, in part a product of my husband and me, of our odd and lengthy friendship? And aren’t the three of us, in some way I have never before allowed myself to admit, perfect for each other?

  V. has become impatient. “Let’s walk,” he says. He presses a large stack of cash into the driver’s hand and opens his door, beckoning us to follow. My husband steps into the street, cradling the large plant in his arms. As the driver begins to count the cash, the traffic in front of us creeps forward. My purse strap catches on the broken seatbelt and I struggle to release it. The car lurches forward. V. notices my dilemma and reaches in, swiftly releasing my purse, taking my hand, and helping me out of the car. On the street, a small crowd begins to form. A shirtless man opens a bottle of Salte Ron and pours it over his head in celebration, showering me with the warm liquid. V. does not let go of my hand. We move quickly, our threesome, on our way to meet V.’s new love. A woman comes toward us, long dark hair, blue dress, arresting green eyes, and for a moment I think it must be Sylvana, but she keeps walking, the rough fabric of her dress brushing my arm as we pass. This city is filled with beautiful women. We pass them, one after the other. I gaze into the excited faces, certain that I will know her when I see her—the one who has captivated our beloved V., the one who may, at last, steal him from us.

  “Cambio esta cerca!” someone shouts. He pumps his fist in the air, tentatively at first, and then again with authority. Another voice joins in. And another. The chant rises up from the crowd, just a few voices at first, and then hundreds: “Cambio esta cerca! Cambio esta cerca! Cambio esta bueno!” The crowd of dozens quickly becomes a crowd of a hundred, a thousand, even more. I’ve lost sight of the restaurant, I’ve lost sight of my husband, I’ve lost sight of V., and yet I can still feel his firm, sweaty hand pulling me through the masses. Sylvana is nowhere, or perhaps everywhere. The noise is intoxicating, deafening, I can’t think, I can’t see. There is a sense of joy, of celebration, but also, unmistakably, of fear. The crowd has grown so large and fast that it is impossible to know where this will end. The bodies converge around me, a sweaty mess of elbows and knees, heads and hands, signs and banners. An older woman slides her arm around my back and pulls me toward her, as if to dance. Something crashes on the ground, blocking my path. The plant my husband had been holding lies on its side, the pot broken. I bend and reach for it, but V.’s small hand pulls me forward. Salte Ron rains down from the sky. Change is near.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I wish to thank the editors of the following magazines, in which these stories previously appeared, sometimes under different titles: “Hum” in The Missouri Review; “Medicine” in
Playboy; “Lake” in the Mississippi Review ; “Scales” in Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories, edited by John Klima, and Best American Fantasy 2007, edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer; “Hospitality” in Mid-American Review; and “Travel” in Stories from the Blue Moon Café II, edited by Sonny Brewer. Special thanks to Linda Swanson-Davies and Susan Burmeister-Brown at Glimmer Train for providing a wonderful home for several of my stories over the years, including “Hero” and “Boulevard.”

  Thanks to my amazing agent, Valerie Borchardt, for more than ten years of friendship and support. Thanks to Allen Wier and The Fellowship of Southern Writers. I’m grateful to Dan Waterman at the University of Alabama Press, the incomparable Rikki Ducornet, and the folks at FC2 for making this book possible.

  As always, thanks to Kevin, for the honeymoon and everything else.