Viator

That evening, the town still awake, music from the Kali Bar (so named not due to any devotion rendered unto the Hindu deity, but because the owner and a hired sign painter had squabbled mid-job, a slight disagreement escalating into a feud as yet unresolved) squealing in the distance, he sat in bed and tried to sound out the melody of the wallpaper, whistling it under his breath—it was as chaotic as the room itself, a tune such as a child might produce while banging on opposite ends of a keyboard. Arlene, lying beside him, asked, What are you doing?, and, when he explained, she said forlornly, as if the oversight were a sorry judgment on her, It’s never occurred to me to do that.

—You’d think the manufacturer would have used a famous piece of music, Wilander said.

—Maybe it is famous. The wallpaper’s Chinese. Some Chinese music sounds all fractured. Atonal.

He shifted so he could lie propped on an elbow, looking down at her body, her belly and breasts pale and unblemished, but the rest of her, even the insides of her thighs, patterned with freckles, a patterning so heavy and distinctly stated in places, it made him think of a leopard’s spots.

—What sort of music do you like? she asked.

—I’m not much of a music lover.

—You must like something.

—I don’t mind music, I just can’t relate to it the way other people do. He pointed out the window, indicating the faint music from the bar. But I like hearing it from far away. Even if it’s just a bar band, it seems to promise something good.

After an interval she said, But when you get close, it’s not so good?

Alerted by a fretful hesitance in her voice, he said, That’s right. What I said…it’s a metaphor for how I relate to everything, not just music. Places, people. At a distance they’re fine, but up close—he made a sour face—eventually they become intolerable.

—Don’t tease me!

—Weren’t you trying to read that into what I was saying?

Another pause, and then she said, I know so little about you. Most of what I know doesn’t apply anymore. You don’t drink, you don’t work in finance.

—The last months haven’t counted for anything?

—Of course they have. But ever since I’ve known you, you’ve always been going through some change or another. I’ve never seen you solid.

—I’m not sure anybody’s ever solid.

—Solid’s your term. When you said you wanted to stay aboard Viator awhile longer, you said you weren’t feeling solid yet…or something like that.

—I was speaking about relative solidity.

—Okay. I haven’t seen you relatively solid.

He laid his head on her belly, looking past her pubic tuft toward the freckles that spread across her the tops of her thighs, tiny brown splotches like, he thought, the remnants of an island continent flooded by a milky sea. He felt the heat of her sex on his cheeks. He studied the freckles, wondering whether—if he were to stare at them long enough—an image might emerge, as from the splotchy walls of the ship.

—Thomas?

—Yes.

—What do you want after you leave Viator?

The prospect of leaving the ship seemed silly for an instant, like the idea of unscrewing one’s arm or building a house out of cheese, and he thought he must feel this way because his time aboard Viator had permitted him to gather sufficient strength and confidence to look beyond himself once again, to be here, now, with this woman, and to recognize her needs and his responsibilities toward her—it was daunting to (consider) doing without the perspective Viator had afforded.

—Is this something you have to think about? she asked.

He moved up beside her and threw an arm across her chest. Not the way you mean.

She angled her eyes toward him, waiting for him to go on.

—Nothing’s changed, he said. I want to be with you. If things were different, I might choose to live somewhere less desolate. But that’s not a real issue.

—You haven’t spent enough time in Kaliaska to know it. You only know the post, the pizza place, the bar.

—There’s more? He chuckled, gave her a squeeze. Kaliaska has a secret life? A hidden culture?

—There’s the people, for one thing.

—Oh, yeah. The people. I talked to a couple of the people this afternoon.

—You can’t judge everyone by Roogie and Cat, especially when they’re on a drunk.

—They’re not the only drunks in Kaliaska.

—Certainly not. People drink, they do drugs, they fight. When the fishermen come back after the season, it gets worse.

Seduced by the smell of her hair, Wilander inched closer, sinking back into a heady post-coital torpor; he rubbed the nipple of her left breast between his thumb and forefinger. She stirred at his touch and he wondered what she was feeling—she was ashamed of her breasts, thought them too large and pendant, insufficiently firm, incompatible with the slimness of her body, and was at times discomforted by his attention to them, but he loved their soft, crepey skin, their heft, how they dangled when she was astride him.

—Why do you like it here? he asked.