234
JOYCE CAROL OATES
of it, the richness of it. She tried to recall him and his face was con–
fused in her memory: she would have to shout to him across a jumbled
space, she' would have to wave her arms wildly.
You
lOV6 m6!
You
mwf
love'
m6!
But she knew he did not love her, and she did not love
him,
'he was a man who drew everything up into himself, like
all
men,
walking away, free to walk away, free to have his own thoughts, free
to envision her body, all the secrets of her body.... And she lay down
again in the bed, feeling how heavy this body had become, her
insides
heavy with shame, the very backs of her eyelids coated with shame.
, "This is the end of one part of my life," she thought.
But in the morning the telephone rang. She answered it.
It
was
her lover: they talked brightly and happily. She could hear the eager–
nesS
iIi
his 'voice, the love in his voice, that same still, sad amazement
- she understood how simple life
was,
there were no problems.
They spent most of their time on the beach, with the child and the
d6g;He joked and was serious, at the same time. He said, once, ''You
have defined my soul for me," and she laughed to hide her alarm. In
a few days it was time for her to leave. He got a sitter for the boy
and
took the ferry With her to the mainland, then rented a car to drive her
tip' to Albany. She kept thinking:
Now something will happen. It
will
come to an end.
But most of the drive was silent and hypnotic. She
wanted
him
to jokp- with her, to say again that she had defined his
soul
for him, but he drove fast, he was serious, she distrusted the hawkish
look of his profile - she did not know him ,at all. At a
gas
station she
splashed her face with cold water. Alone in the grubby little restroom,
shaky 'and ,very 'much alone'. In such places are women totally alone
with their bodies. The body grows heavier, more evil, in such silence....
On
the beach everything had been noisy with sunlight and gulls
and
~ves:
here, as if run to earth, everything was cramped ,and silent
and
dead.
She went outside, squinting. There he was, talking with the station
attendant. She could not think as she returned
to
him whether she
wanted to live or' not.
- 'i
She stayed
in
Albany for a ,few days, then flew home to her hU5-
band. He met her at the airport, near the luggage counter, where
her
three pieces of pale brown luggage were brought to
him
on a conveyer
belt, to
be
claimed by him. He kissed her on the cheek. They
shook
hands, a little embarrassed. She had come home again.
"How will I live out the rest of my life?" she wondered.
In January her lover spied on her: she
glanc~
up and saw him,
in
a public place, in the DeRoy Symphony Hall. She was paralyzed
with
