The Watcher

6

Days come and go, added together like pearls on a string. The shades vary, but the color is always gray. No sun, no green leaves. I step outside the door only when it’s necessary—to throw away the trash, sometimes to buy bread and milk. Otherwise I observe the changes in the light from my spot at the kitchen table. That’s where I sit and work, where I set up my computer and spread out my notes. There’s an office next to the kitchen, but the woman who owns the house, my sister’s friend, stores most of her stuff in there and keeps the door locked. It doesn’t matter. My life hardly takes up any space. The kitchen table is fine for the work I do.

I freelance for a publisher’s reading service, where aspiring authors send their work to have it read and evaluated. The quality varies. Some manuscripts are compelling and well written. Others are incoherent and trite. This time I’ve received one of each. In both cases, my job is to explain informatively and concretely what works and what doesn’t work, to discuss and give examples. It’s challenging work. It requires attention and time, and it forces me to focus on something other than myself. Even if my sister doesn’t seem to think it’s enough. Authors write, right? They don’t just dink around with other people’s texts.

Every once in a while, my mind drifts off and I catch myself resting my chin in my hand, gazing out the window. The yard is pleasant and inviting, little flagstone paths wind their way through various types of bushes, and there’s a garden bench that’s been painted blue. And yet I never see anyone out there. I hardly ever see any of the neighbors at all, apart from the family across from me, whose kitchen I have an essentially unimpeded view into and thus occasionally catch a glimpse of.

“Don’t expect anyone to come knock on your door and welcome you,” my sister told me when she helped me move in.

This is not a place for people trying to meet people, she explained. This is a neighborhood for people who keep to themselves and prefer that others do the same. I was waiting for her to add You’ll fit in perfectly here, but she didn’t.

Beyond checking in about Friday dinners, she likes to text me, wondering how I’m doing and if I’m feeling better. I respond briefly to her messages. One time I did write a longer message, but I quickly lost my train of thought and stared at the words before erasing the whole thing again. Every sentence I write to her bugs me. Once, ages ago, she was closer to me than anyone else. Now we don’t know anything about each other.

At night I lie awake. When my sheets are so damp and wrinkled that I can’t stand it anymore, I get up and go downstairs where I yet again repeat my restless wandering between rooms. I drink water in the kitchen, then stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom and stare at myself. Sooner or later, I wind up in the living room in front of the bookshelf. I sort and re-sort, go from alphabetical by title to alphabetical by author, from color-coordinated spines to grouped by genre. And then back again.

Stories. In one way or another, they’ve always been my safe spot, the hub around which my life rotates. When we were little, Mama used to read aloud to us every night. We curled up on either side of her and listened raptly. It was the high point of the day. I loved the stories about princes and princesses who in their different ways were forced to fight to vanquish evil. My sister was six years older. I remember when she stopped being interested and started to pull away.

“I mean, they’re just fairy tales,” she said.

Mama put her arm around me and winked conspiratorially.

“Fairy tales are no trifling matter.”

The read-aloud sessions of childhood gradually ebbed, but I kept reading on my own. The stories weren’t just about heroes and heroines anymore, but about extremely real, imperfect people. The battles they waged were just as much against inner demons as against external threats.

“Just like real life,” Mama said, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear.

Mama. I’m never so close to her as when I stand at the bookshelf. Even so, she’s more distant now than ever before.

When Friday comes, I eat dinner at my sister’s place again. It’s actually my turn to have her over, but when I mumble that I haven’t really had a chance to get settled in yet, my sister quickly says we can just do it at her place.

“What about Walter?” I ask.

She says it’s fine.

I wonder if that means he’s going to be home this time, that maybe he’ll join us, but then it turns out not to be the case. Evidently he’s out bowling again.

On the whole, this dinner is a repeat of the previous one. My sister does her best to get me to eat more.

“It’s important that you eat, Elena, especially now.”

She talks about an interview she heard on the radio, some author who had overcome writer’s block after several years. He had a number of clever thoughts and suggestions apparently. She’ll send me the link to the interview so I can listen to it later. She doesn’t mention Peter, though, and when the children in the apartment upstairs are at their loudest, she quietly bites her lip and avoids making eye contact with me. Still, I know she wonders, wonders what this separation will lead to and how things will turn out for me and Peter, whether we’ll really go our separate ways.

Don’t you think I’m wondering the same thing? I feel like yelling at her. Don’t you think I ask myself every second of every day what the fuck I’m doing? Don’t you understand that every minute, every hour without him feels like a lifetime? That I would do anything to turn back time, to be in his arms again? But this isn’t about what I want. This is about our reaching a point where there was no longer any choice. I don’t say any of this out loud, or very much of anything else, either.

On Saturday morning, I’m back at the kitchen table. There’s a dull buzzing in the back of my head, a sound that doesn’t go away but does at least recede when I begin working. I open the two documents for the reader’s report and start summarizing my opinions about the characters and the language, the plot and the narrative technique. When that’s done, I take great pains with my concluding recommendations for the authors. In one case, I suggest some publishers to send the text to. In the other I encourage further revisions before taking that step. I email the reports to the agency and attach my invoice. Then I close the computer, lean back in the chair, and look out the window. And now? What do I do now?

The sky is hidden behind ominous clouds. The unreality intensifies the buzzing in the back of my head. On Monday morning, right when they open, I’ll call the agency and see if they have more work for me. My sister is right about one thing. I need something to concentrate on, something to dig into, until the pain subsides. And what if it never subsides? I close my eyes and then open them again just as the light in the kitchen across the yard turns on.

The woman with the honey-colored hair comes in, wearing a white blouse and high-waisted pants. Her hair is up in a tight ponytail and she looks pretty put together, the way she usually does. The only time I’ve seen her otherwise was that night when she peeked down at her husband through the gap in the upstairs curtains. She walks over to the kitchen table now, over to a bouquet of flowers. It’s a large armful of roses. They look like the long-stemmed variety. They extend above and beyond the edges of the vase, and their dark crimson color stands out in sharp contrast to the table, the kitchen cabinets, and the lamp, which are all a severe white. The woman with the ponytail tenderly touches the flower petals, leans over to smell them, and then starts arranging the stems. Every now and then she takes a step back and inspects the arrangement, but she doesn’t seem satisfied, because she keeps fiddling with the flowers, really taking her time.

Eventually something else captures her attention. She turns her face toward the kitchen doorway. A couple of seconds later, the Suit Man reveals himself at the edge of my field of vision. I call him that because I have yet to see him wear anything else. He doesn’t walk over to his wife but remains standing in the doorway. It looks like they exchange a few words, maybe he does most of the talking. After a few minutes, she turns back to the flowers, but her hands remain motionless in the middle of the bouquet.

My gaze returns to Suit Man. He’s still there, but there’s something indecisive about his body language. Then he takes a few steps forward and quickly kisses his wife’s cheek before leaving. The front door opens, and he emerges with a briefcase in one hand and a carry-on bag in the other. Only now do I notice the taxi waiting by the curb. Suit Man lets the cabbie deal with his bag and seats himself in the backseat with his briefcase. His wife stands at the kitchen window and watches him. Her face is like an open wound.

When the taxi pulls away, her expression changes and she turns her back to me. She seems to be looking for something over by the sink, and when she turns around again, she’s holding a large pair of scissors. A second later she raises the scissors and aims a powerful chop at the roses. I stiffen. She does the same thing again, and yet again. She slices through more and more stems, and red petals rain down. The woman’s face is blotchy and her motions furious. I’m transfixed, unable to move from this spot. All I can do is watch as she continues slaughtering the bouquet, alternating between the scissors and her own hands. She chops, cuts, and rips apart the flowers.

She doesn’t stop until every flower is completely destroyed. Then she tosses aside the scissors and clutches her head in both hands, squeezes her eyes closed, and opens her mouth wide. The sound of her scream doesn’t reach me, but I can clearly see her entire body vibrating. I wrap my hands around my upper arms and hug myself. My palms are ice-cold.

The scream appears to give way to crying as the woman slumps onto a chair, her face falling to the table and disappearing from my line of sight. I remain motionless for a few minutes, waiting for her next move, but all I can see is part of her high ponytail sticking up over the bottom edge of the window. Then it’s suddenly as if the kitchen across from me recedes, as if I’m watching it from the other end of a tunnel. That strange sense—intense presence blended with strong oversensitivity—comes over me again. Dig where you are.

My eyes fall to the computer in front of me. My fingers move of their own accord, opening a new document, finding their way across the keyboard. Sentence is added to sentence. It’s as foreign to me as it is straightforward. Authors write, right? And I’m writing, I really am now. For the first time in ages I’m writing something of my own, something new. This insight leaves me with an effervescent feeling.

When I look up, I can no longer see any ponytail. The woman appears to have left the room. Only the massacred roses remain. I feel a sense of urgency. I turn my attention back to the screen and read what I just wrote, then glance over at the kitchen across the yard and then back at what I’m writing again. What am I going to do with this? Where is this going? I stare at the blinking cursor. All I need to do is select all and hit delete. Just do it now, forget it and move on.

I raise my hand. My fingers hover in the air for a moment before they hit the keyboard. But they don’t hit delete. They hit save.