Sabrina Orah Mark

When Walter B., one evening, explained to Beatrice that he “needed time,” Beatrice pulled the last bite of fish from Walter B.’s mouth and shook it at him. She wished he had said instead that he needed a timbrel, and off they would have gone together to the spectacle where the timbrelist often played. But Walter B. did not need a timbrel. Walter B. “needed time.” So Beatrice wrapped what was left of the fish in a red wool cloth and set out to find him some. It was cold outside. If I was time, wondered Beatrice, where would I be? She watched the humans in the distance breathe into the grass. If I was time, wondered Beatrice, how would I remind myself of where I was? She held the last bite of fish up to her mouth for warmth. It began to feel heavy in her hands. She wished he had said instead that he needed a timbrel. She wished she was for Walter B. the time he needed. But she was not. She unwrapped the last bite of fish and studied it. It reminded her of a world inside of which Walter B. was mostly gone. She rubbed her arms with it. She buried her face in it. It began to grow around her like a soft, white house. It grew, and it grew, until at last Beatrice was inside. She slowly walked through its rooms. In the first room, a pile of shovels. In the second, a pitcher of milk. When she stepped inside the third, Walter B. and the timbrelist were helping each other on with their coats. “If you were time,” called out Walter B., “where would you be?” Before Beatrice could answer, Walter B. saluted her, took the timbrelist by the hand, and left her alone in the soft, white house. Beatrice sat on the floor. Much later she would drink from the pitcher of milk. She would lean against the pile of shovels. But for now all Beatrice could do was sit on the floor. She would sit on the floor of the soft, white house until she grew hungry again for Walter B.’s last bite of fish.

A few days before the first snow the soldiers dressed like children began to appear. “Come quick,” said Beatrice, fetching Walter B. away from his scripture, “and bring candy!” Walter B. pulled on his robe and joined Beatrice on the balcony. “Oh look,” said Beatrice, “you can see their small, sweet eyes peeking through the bramble.” Walter B. threw a handful of red gumdrops into the air and watched the soldiers dressed like children scatter, and raise their arms in glee. “Feels sinful, doesn’t it?” purred Beatrice. They watched them stand in the field and chew. “Which one,” asked Walter B., “do you think is the hero?” “That one,” said Beatrice. “Definitely that one. The one with the mittens.” “Yes,” agreed Walter B., “the others seem less... festooned.” “And which one do you think,” asked Walter B., “is the traitor?” Beatrice bit her lip and looked around. “Maybe that one,” she said. “The one with the orange flower in the pocket of his vest.” Walter B. agreed, but to be certain he thought that he should ask. “Little traitor,” called out Walter B. The traitor looked up. “I knew it!” said Beatrice, clapping her hands. The traitor came closer. The wind shook the orange flower loose from his pocket, but he did not run after it. He missed his mother. The traitor came closer, but then he stopped. He curled into his flowerless vest and fell asleep. Walter B. and Beatrice yawned. The soldiers dressed like children opened their mouths as wide as they could, but there was no more candy. There would never again be more candy. And so they sailed away to another land.

Everything about the young foreign taxidermist was overdone. Did he absolutely have to wear the apron with the tiny red castles in the shop? Or weave, at night, in and out of the trees? I don’t think so. I would bring him buckets of ice water day after day hoping he would just cool off a bit. Fact is, he never did. But to be fair, he really was practicing what the papers called, “heroic medicine.” It was love. I admit it. It was fancy love. I was the envy of the world, being hitched up with such a genius, and that felt good. Of course, these days, I can’t touch rope or a small child without thinking of him. Without expecting his large hands to come out of nowhere. We were, as mother said, both “slowly losing our minds.” He’d talk for hours about hygiene, the Water Cure for example, and wrote an award-winning essay on the Electric Bath as a way to treat hysteria in the female fox. “Too many foxes,” he would say, shaking his fist, “too many foxes running around like chickens with their heads cut off.” In the winter months we would ride our bicycles down to the scrap-metal yard where he would make love to me in devout silence. The delight in his eyes when he found that small cage! He was both tender and rough, and I had never, and will never again, be as touched by another man. I didn’t notice the black mustache growing slowly but unmercifully on his left shoulder until two or three years into the affair. At first it seemed harmless. A small patch of dead grass. But eventually I couldn’t help but only see the large dark field. Its silent twitching. By then it was already early fall, and the fact is, it tore us apart.

Some thought it was because of all the babies I suddenly seemed to be having. Others, that I should pay for the damages. Fact is, I wasn’t getting any older, so I bought a small aquarium, and skipped town. Took up with a toy store owner until he left me for a more beautiful robot. Took up with a reader of instructional booklets. Never mind. I was lost. By the time I arrived at Mrs. Greenaway’s, it was clear I was nowhere at all. In exchange for room and board, I’d rearrange her furniture, her birthmarks, her quiet animals, until they took on more satisfying shapes. Sometimes the shapes were simple, like a mustache or a pipe. Sometimes they were more complicated arrangements, like the one of dead Mr. Greenaway’s closed barbershop. Over the years, as Mrs. Greenaway and I became more and more vague, the shapes did too. For identification purposes, we’d give them names like She Wasn’t Fooling Anyone, She Was Hurt and She Was Hurt Bad or The Insides of Doctors. One night when I was working on a piece I thought I’d call Symphony, Symphony, the shapes began to slip out of my hands. At first, as Mrs. Greenaway remembers, the sound of broken glass. Then the trumpets. Then the terrible music of all those babies I once seemed to be suddenly having, marching, like soldiers, in rows. Then their round wet bellies coming towards me. Mrs. Greenaway still talks about how expertly they gathered me into their tiny arms. And how they took me away not like a prisoner. But like a mother. Into a past I still swear I never had.

“Who is Beatrice,” wondered Walter B., “to give Beatrice up her hope?” Beatrice sulked under her cauliflower-colored hat. “It is like,” said Beatrice, “I can barely crack another joke.” “This is correct,” said Walter B. “It is most certainly like that. Nevertheless, whoever you are it is not up to you to give up your hope. And additionally you are spoiling the day.” “What is ‘giving up your hope’?” asked Beatrice. “It is when,” explained Walter B., “you have to ask.” * It all began with the appearance of The Unlikelies. It was difficult to anticipate in these small men sitting cross-legged on the living room floor the havoc they would bring. They held hands. They sang a song about trees, and as they sang their tree-shaped ears swelled with what Beatrice would later describe as pride. They asked for gently steamed vegetables. They seemed genuinely concerned. “Pick a heart,” they cheered, “any heart.” Beatrice picked one. “Expect for that one.” Beatrice picked another. “And that one, too.” “That was less joyous,” said Beatrice, “than I’d expected.” “The hearts you picked,” explained The Unlikelies, “had been picked yesterday.” “It is unlikely,” said The Unlikelies, “that will happen again.” Walter B. hid in the kitchen. Whose side The Unlikelies were on, Beatrice began to wonder. “Pick a heart,” they urged. Beatrice picked another. “Except for that one.” Beatrice picked another. “And that one, too.” With each heart Beatrice picked The Unlikelies grew larger. They seemed genuinely concerned. “All is dare,” they reminded Beatrice with their mouths full of broccoli, and carrots, and peas, “in blur and core.” By dawn, Walter B. could still hear Beatrice picking hearts. Their empty husks filled the floor. The Unlikelies huddled closer together. “Except for that one,” they mumbled sleepily, moving closer to the door. The Unlikelies were, by now, as big as the furniture. “And that one, too.” Walter B. hid in the kitchen. He imagined he would make out of all the husks a hearty soup. He rummaged for a pot. He would feed Beatrice the soup, drop by drop, until she forgot this highly unlikely event impossible to forsee by any hopeful thing. “All is spare in buds and more,” promised The Unlikelies, as they squeezed their enormous bodies out the door. * Days later, when Beatrice asked Walter B. if The Unlikelies were still standing outside in the sunlight, congratulating each other, Walter B. said “no.” But Beatrice knew they were there. And she knew they would return for her. They seemed genuinely concerned.