When they got to his place she watched as he unlocked the gate. She
waited on the sidewalk, pizza box in hand, looking around, her senses
alert in strange territory. And Radix, coming back up the sloping
driveway, saw her back to him in simple black dress, the body adrift
from its normal moorings and was struck by what seemed a kind of self-
congratulating confidence in her posture.
Anyone looking down from the apartment buildings might have
registered surprise at this white woman standing there holding a pizza
box ̶ the fuck she doing here? Radix knew what she was doing here.
Whatever pressed down on her everyday soul ̶ fear, loneliness, those
workaday dull pains ̶ had lifted, had taken wing for awhile. He sensed
her delight in this temporary freedom from her routines.
"You live here all alone?" she asked, as he opened the door and picked
up the mail from the floor.
"There was someone sharing the apartment with me, a friend, but she
sort of took off."
Not used to this kind of impromptu entertaining Radix ushered her in;
and Judy Wiener sensed his discomfort. He had to be a little self-
conscious about the situation, about her finding out more about him
than he wanted to reveal. She made every effort to seem relaxed.
She offered to help. He said he didn't need help serving pizza in his
apartment. He heard her footsteps as she walked around, little cries of
interest as she peered into rooms.
"I can't believe you live here alone, in all this space."
"More space than I need, and I'm renting. There's a fellow upstairs, he
owns the building. I hardly see him. And in the basement, a man and
his wife, she's pregnant."
"What do they do?" She leaned over the pizza box, tearing off a cheese-
clinging slice.
"I don't really know. We're all kind of busy, coming and going at
different hours, if you can imagine that.
"I thought you found that lifestyle only in the quiet leafy suburbs."
"You know what I mean. Though at night people from the apartment
buildings across the street come down and camp out on my stoop.
There's no way to avoid that."
With the pizza almost devoured, the soda cans half-empty, there were
lapses of silence; street noises filtered in.
"So how do you feel now?" Radix asked.
"Okay," Judy Wiener leaned back and sighed.
"Bet you never dreamt you'd be sitting one day in this room."
"No, never in my wildest," she laughed.
"So what do we tell them?"
"Tell whom?"
"When we get back, what do we tell the supervisors? how do I explain
to my A.P. where I've been all afternoon?"
"You don't need to explain anything. Your classes were covered by a
substitute. I don't think they're going to ask any questions."
Someone shouting on the sidewalk right outside their windows turned
their heads for a moment.
"We are the good people? Aren't we the good people, Michael?" She
was suddenly unsure and vulnerable again. "They don't pay us much,
they ask us to do a hell of a lot. Why should they fuss about a little
thing like where we've been all morning?"
It seemed a good moment to clear away the pizza box and soda cans.
She'd taken off her shoes and stretched her feet on the coffee table,
clearly in no hurry to get back. "And thanks for the improvised lunch.
It was good. Now all I need is a siesta."
All his assumptions about Judy Wiener, it occurred to him, didn't
support the woman sitting in his living room, her head thrown back on
the chair. He stood behind her and made a playful attempt to
massage her shoulders. She said nothing, keeping her eyes closed. He
leaned forward and kissed her upturned forehead. Then he took her
hands.
She looked up at him a little puzzled; this was her teaching colleague,
a man alone in a sparsely furnished apartment; always kind and
considerate, holding himself apart.
"Siesta?" he said, the faint smile on his face gauging her reaction; not
quite certain about the mood of the entire morning, the uncharted
waters they now found themselves in.
She felt the insistence in his fingers; she hesitated for bare seconds,
conscious of her own uncertain breathing. She smiled and held fast to
his grip, lifting herself up.
In the hallway to the bedroom he turned and held her in an
embrace; her body shuddered. His hands ran down her back and
gripped her firm, patient buttocks. She pressed closer to him.
The bedroom was mere steps away, but they would have to
disengage, draw back, and in that moment some fresh uncertainty
might slip between them. She made no protest as he started to
undress her; stepping out underwear, helping him unbuckle his
trousers; clinging to him again.
(from "Ah Mikhail, O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 