Dream of the Blue Room Read Free

and then we shall perhaps find the truth.”
    “What?”
    “Friedrich Kekulé, the German chemist.”
    In college, I knew a guy who never read entire books, only first chapters. From these he gleaned quotes that he kept in a big red notebook under various headings: nature, romance, fear of death, etc. Once, in a Lower East Side apartment after three martinis, he confessed to me that he memorized these quotes as a way of attracting women. He’d drop them into conversations at parties, in bars, on first dates. His tactic seemed to work; he was rarely without a date. Ever since, whenever a man reels off an interesting quote, I find myself testing him.
    “Kekulé?” I ask. “Wasn’t he the one who said politics is just applied biology?”
    “No, you’re thinking of Ernst Haeckel. Kekulé found the molecular structure of benzene. It came to him in a dream.” He talks on about Kekulé for a couple of minutes before stopping midsentence. “I suppose I’m a bit of a nerd,” he says, blushing.
    We fall into an easy silence. Beneath us, the grumble of the engine, and in my bones a dull vibration. Every now and then the ship passes a cluster of lights along the riverbank, or changes course to overtake a barge laden with large rectangular boxes. The lights of passing sampans blink in the dark. One heads straight toward us, and I’m certain the Red Victoria will slice right through it, but at the last minute the tottering boat swerves out of our way.
    “What are they doing?”
    “Shedding their demons,” Graham explains. “In the old days, the Chinese believed that demons attached themselves to boats with an invisible cord. By crossing the bow of our ship so closely, they severed the line. According to their superstition, the demons have now tied themselves to this ship.”
    “So right now we’re dragging scores of demons?”
    “Yep.”
    I feel no need to end the conversation, or to move it to the next level. Every once in a while Graham slaps at a mosquito, or I shift in my chair to get more comfortable. I doze periodically through the night, never falling into a complete slumber. Whenever I open my eyes, unsure of my surroundings, I hear Graham’s voice nudging gently at the edges of sleep, reporting the time. “Two-fifteen,” he says. “We should be about seventy kilometers from Yangzhou.” And then, in case I’ve forgotten, “It’s me, Graham. We’re on the Yangtze. Your husband is below deck sleeping. You have succumbed to the charms of a strange man.”
    At 3:30, I stir and realize that my head rests on his shoulder. He has pulled his chair so close to mine, the metal frames are touching. His arm is propped on the shared armrest, and his hand dangles about an inch from my leg. My sarong has slipped up over my knee, exposing a length of thigh; if I were to lift my leg by a fraction, our skin would touch.
    “Are you awake?”
    “Yes.” He lets his hand drop, and for a second his fingers brush my thigh, sending goosebumps down my leg. It has been months since Dave has touched me in an even vaguely sexual way. I let my own fingers meet Graham’s, just briefly. I tell myself it means nothing, that the touch was accidental, but I can’t help but feel that I’ve crossed some invisible line.
    I think of Dave and the woman he rescued two years ago from a burning car on the Palisades. I think of their monthly meetings at a coffee shop in Chelsea, the way Dave always checks himself carefully in the mirror before going to see her. These meetings are no secret. Dave has always sworn there is nothing to them, that he just feels some duty to be there for a lonely and grateful woman. I imagine them together, their knees touching under a small round table. I think of her sipping a glass of iced lemonade, watching him from that burned face, scarred and shiny from the accident. Though he has never told me, I believe that she loves him desperately. I believe she looks at my husband and sees the man who saved her life,