The Ice Queen

I waved a book in front of him. It smelled like green fields, red wine, sunlight. The subtle scent of printer’s ink. “You’re interested in Italy?”

“I’m interested in you.”

He probably thought that was the answer I wanted.

It could have been. It might have been. Except it wasn’t.

“Seriously. You’ve got so many travel books. You’re not about to disappear on me, are you? Go off to Rome or Florence? You could find yourself another woman, someone pretty.”

He took the book out of my hand. Could anyone be looking at me that way?

“You’re the one I want.”

I believed him. I should have stopped. But it had already begun, the plan I had, the need I had, the direction we were stumbling into, the middle of our story, the most dangerous part, when anything at all can happen.

Lazarus blew the dust off the book and returned it to the shelf. The books were in order, city by city, country by country. He stuck the book into the South American section. He didn’t care about order. All at once I had the sense that he’d never seen this book before. This or any other on the shelf.

“Maybe we should go somewhere.” I wanted a reaction. The way children poke at dead things with sticks. Alive or not? Vicious or tame? “I’m serious. Someplace we’ve never been before.”

He looked at me. Ten years younger. The sort of man who should have never bothered with me. Beautiful. Didn’t he know that? Hadn’t he ever looked in a mirror? Or was it me he couldn’t see? Was it situational blindness — I couldn’t see red; he couldn’t see ugliness or deceit.

But he felt something was wrong. It was in the air, like dust motes or gnats. There was a ridge between his eyes. As though he was trying to figure out why I’d be talking about going away when everything we wanted should have been right here.

“Hey, come into the kitchen,” he said. “I fixed you lunch.”

Just like that. Not interested. Next subject. The here and now. Lunch on the table. Like normal folks.

I followed him down the hall. I had a blank feeling, as if somebody had taken what little there was inside me and blown it away. Now I was sure — he’d never read the books on his shelf.

For lunch he’d fixed me hot tomato soup. He liked it cold himself, with ice mixed in. He poured himself a glass of fresh orange juice.

“Vitamin D,” he said.

He needed to think about such things. His complexion was pale; he was never in the sun. I thought he might be fading in front of my eyes. I thought about the field-worker who had half believed he was working for a monster. I sat at the table. We didn’t have much to say. Outside the oncoming dusk was undulating, moving between the clouds in waves of blue light. I felt heartbroken and I hadn’t even known I had a heart to break.

That’s the danger when you come to the middle of the story. You may find out more than you ever wanted to know.

We stayed in the kitchen and watched the light fading in the orchard. All that blue, all that light. If I stayed, I would rinse the dishes and he would rest his hands on the ice in the freezer, then come up behind me and touch me until I was burning. I’d let the tap water run. I’d put my cold, wet arms around him. But that’s not what happened that day. We were moving into the after; the then and the now and the soon will be were becoming separate realms.

This had been happiness and we didn’t know it. We walked right past. Had no idea. Step after step.

I felt a stinging somewhere, a sharpness. We were waking from the dream of the kitchen, the afternoon, the way we wanted each other. When it grew dark we usually went into the bedroom, the bath. We were happy for the night. Now I was tired. It had been a long day. And we still weren’t done. I told him I didn’t feel well. I needed my sleep. I wasn’t ready to find out anything, I suppose. Not yet. I knew the truth would turn things around.

“Sorry,” I said when he walked me out to the porch.

“Sorry for what?”

For nothing. For everything. For all I was about to do.

“For being tired.”

He grabbed me and I kissed him until my mouth was burning. No ice. Not this time. He let me go, looked at me.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Lazarus said.

That’s what they all said, and then they went ahead and did anyway. When I drove home, I felt bereft.

I’d lost something; I felt it as surely as I had when I lost the color red, a color I’d never even liked, one I avoided. Now every shade was faded without it, drained, not just scarlet and crimson and vermilion but even rust seemed gray; coppers and bronzes were flat without their red tones. Without red, the dawn was milk, rubies were worthless.