Voices in the Night Read Free Page A

trail that led partway around the lake. Here and there, on narrow strips of sand at the lake’s edge, people lay on their backs on towels in the sun. We made our way down to the shore, through prickly bushes; on the sand Monica pulled off her sandals, and lifting up her long skirt she stepped into the water and threw back her head to take in the sun with closed eyes. At that moment it seemed to me that everything was possible for Monica and me; and going up to her I said, “I’ve never seen you like this!” With her eyes still closed she said, “I’m not myself today!” She began to laugh. Then I began to laugh, because of what we had both said, and because of her laughter and the sun and the sky and the lake.
    On the ride home she fell asleep with her head against my shoulder. The long outing had tired me, too, though not in the same way. In the course of the afternoon an uneasiness had begun to creep into me. The glare of the sun on the water hurt my eyes; the heat pressed down on me; there was a slowness in things, a sluggishness; Monica seemed to walk with more effort, as if the air were a hot heaviness she was pushing her way through. The two of us, she in her straw hat and I in my cargo shorts, seemed to me actors playing the parts of ordinary people, enjoying a day at the lake. In fact I was a man weighed down with disappointment, a man for whom things had not worked out the way he had once imagined, a quiet man, cautious in his life, timid when you came right down to it, though content enough to drift along through the little rituals of his day. And Monica? I glanced over at her. The back of her hand lay on her leg. The four fingers were leaning to one side, the thumb hung in front of them—and something about those fingers and that thumb seemed to me the shape of despair.
    But when I opened my front door and stepped into the hall behind Monica, then the good feeling returned. In the mirror we stood there, she in her shimmering green blouse and I with a glow of sunburn on my face. Deep in the shine of the polished glass, her hand rose in a graceful arc to remove her straw hat.
    In the living room I snatched glimpses of her in both mirrors as she walked buoyantly toward the kitchen. In the sunny kitchen her cheerful reflection picked up a pitcher of water that caught the light. I looked at the second mirror, where she began to raise her glass of shining water, paused suddenly, and opened her mouth in a lusty yawn. “I’d like to lie down,” Monica said. I turned my head and saw her tight lips and tired eyelids. I followed her as she made her way slowly up the stairs and past the new mirror on the landing. For a moment her hair flamed at me from the glass. At the top of the stairs she walked sternly and without a glance past the oval mirror and intothe bedroom, where I watched her bright reflection lie down on the bed and close her eyes. I too was tired, I was more than tired, but the sheer pleasure of being home filled me with a restless energy that drove me to stride through all the rooms of the house. From time to time I stopped before a polished mirror to turn my head this way and that. It was as if my house, with its many mirrors, drew all the old heaviness and weariness from my body; and in a sudden burst of inspiration I took out the bottle of Miracle Polish, which was still two thirds full, and went down to the cellar, where I applied it to a new mirror that had been leaning against the side of the washing machine, waiting for me to decide where to hang it.
    Later that evening, as we sat in the living room, Monica still seemed tired, and a little moody. I had led her to the couch and tried to position her so that she could see her good-humored reflection, but she refused to look at herself. I could feel resistance coming out of her like the push of a hand. In the mirror I admired a shoulder of her blouse. Then I glanced over at the other Monica, the one sitting stiffly and very quietly on the couch. I