babette and i moved down the wide aisle, each with a gleaming cart. we passed a family shopping in sign language.
i kept seeing colored lights.
"how do you feel?" she said.
"i'm fine. i feel good. how are you?""why don't you have a checkup? wouldn't you feel better if you found out nothing was there?""i've had two checkups. nothing is there.""what did dr. chakravarty say?""what could he say?""he speaks english beautifully. i love to hear him speak.""not as much as he loves to speak.""what do you mean he loves to speak? do you mean he takes every possible opportunity to speak? he's a doctor. hehas to speak. in a very real sense you are paying him to speak. do you mean he flaunts his beautiful english? he rubsyour face in it?""we need some class plus.""don't leave me alone," she said.
"i'm just going to aisle five.""i don't want to be alone, jack. i believe you know that.""we're going to come through this thing all right," i said. "maybe stronger than ever. we're determined to be well.
babette is not a neurotic person. she is strong, healthy, outgoing, affirmative. she says yes to things. this is the pointof babette."we stayed together in the aisles and at the checkout. babette bought three tabloids for her next session with old mantreadwell. we read them together as we waited on line. then we went together to the car, loaded the merchandise,sat very close to each other as i drove home.
"except for my eyes," i said.
"what do you mean?""chakravarty thinks i ought to see an eye man.""is it the colored spots again?""yes.""stop wearing those dark glasses.""i can't teach hitler without them.""why not?""i need them, that's all.""they're stupid, they're useless.""i've built a career," i said. "i may not understand all the elements involved but this is all the more reason not totamper."the déjà vu crisis centers closed down. the hotline was quietly discontinued. people seemed on the verge offorgetting. i could hardly blame them even if i felt abandoned to a certain extent, left holding the bag.
i went faithfully to german lessons. i began to work with my teacher on things i might say in welcoming delegates tothe hitler conference, still a number of weeks off. the windows were totally blocked by furniture and debris.
howard dunlop sat in the middle of the room, his oval face floating in sixty watts of dusty light. i began to suspect iwas the only person he ever talked to. i also began to suspect he needed me more than i needed him. a disconcertingand terrible thought.
there was a german-language book on a ruined table near the door. the title was lettered in black in a thick heavyominous typeface: das aegyptische todtenbuch.
"what's that?" i said.
"the egyptian book of the dead," he whispered. "a best-seller in germany."every so often, when denise wasn't home, i wandered into her room. i picked up things, put them down, lookedbehind a curtain, glanced into an open drawer, stuck my foot under the bed and felt around. absentminded browsing.
babette listened to talk radio.
i started throwing things away. things in the top and bottom of my closet, things in boxes in the basement and attic.
i threw away correspondence, old paperbacks, magazines i'd been saving to read, pencils that needed sharpening. ithrew away tennis shoes, sweat socks, gloves with ragged fingers, old belts and neckties. i came upon stacks ofstudent reports, broken rods for the seats of director's chairs. i threw these away. i threw away every aerosol can thatdidn't have a top.
the gas meter made a particular noise.
that night on tv i saw newsfilm of policemen carrying a body bag out of someone's backyard in bakersville. thereporter said two bodies had been found, more were believed buried in the same yard. perhaps many more. perhapstwenty bodies, thirty bodies— no one knew for sure. he swept an arm across the area. it was a big backyard.
the reporter was a middle-aged man who spoke clearly and strongly and yet with some degree of intimacy,conveying a sense of frequent contact with his audience, of shared interests and mutual trust. digging wouldcontinue through the night, he said, and the station would cut back to the scene as soon as developments warranted.
he made it sound like a lover's promise.
three nights later i wandered into heinrich's room, where the tv set was temporarily located. he sat on the floor ina hooded sweatshirt, watching live coverage of the same scene. the backyard was floodlit, men with picks andshovels worked amid mounds of dirt. in the foreground stood the reporter, bareheaded, in a sheepskin coat, in a lightsnow, giving an update. the police said they had solid information, the diggers were methodical and skilled, thework had been going on for over seventy-two hours. but no more bodies had been found.
the sense of failed expectations was total. a sadness and emptiness hung over the scene. a dejection, a sorry gloom.
we felt it ourselves, my son and i, quietly watching. it was in the room, seeping into the air from pulsing streams ofelectrons. the reporter seemed at first merely apologetic. but as he continued to discuss the absense of mass graves,he grew increasingly forlorn, gesturing at the diggers, shaking his head, almost ready to plead with us for sympathyand understanding. i tried not to feel disappointed.
