Leaving the Sea: Stories Read online

  This was just what it felt like, perhaps, to be alive.

  Or so these doctors seemed to be saying.

  Did other people, he wondered, feel this same way—listless, strange, anxious, dull, scared, you could pretty much go shopping from a list of adjectives—and did everyone else just clench their jaws and endure it? Suit up for the day and fight it out on the streets? Were people barely okay and yet not running, as he did, to the doctor, again and again, and was no one discussing, out of some deep personal bravery, what they were so quietly and politely enduring?

  For hours, it seemed, no trains came into the station. The tracks were quiet and the whole city was perfectly still, as if perhaps there’d been some agreement, deep in the brain of the city, that the machines would shut down at this hour, the vehicles grounded. Cars and trains and buses. A scheduled hiatus of activity on this clear, cold evening in Düsseldorf.

  Down at the station, commuters still occasionally pushed out through the tall glass doors, locals mostly, pulling dark suitcases across the ice. How they’d come to town without a train was a mystery, until he realized that striding across the square, faceless in the darkening evening, were simply people who had arrived from elsewhere hours ago and waited inside, where it was warm, for someone to come and get them. These were the arrivals. Arrivals wait. Not all of them get met. They’d been staring out at the square all night as the tiny, fuel-efficient cars ripped here and there without them. Finally they must have realized that their rides weren’t coming, so they bundled up, took matters into their own hands, and walked out alone into the cold.

  That night at the hostel, a visitor came to Julian’s bed. Some uninvited man crept under his covers, while he slept, and Julian woke up—suddenly, rudely, confused. This man was taking liberties. Before much could happen—before disgrace and shame and, who knows, the implication that he was even remotely okay with this—he’d fled to the bathroom.

  His heart was blasting, his sleep shirt wet and twisted. From the bathroom, looking back out into the gymnasium, the air thick with sleep, there was no sign of anything. No man, no sounds, just beds and bodies and darkness. As if the stranger had vanished. Hands had been on him while he slept, but when he thought about it he kept seeing himself lying there reciprocating. He couldn’t piece it together. What in the goddamn hell had happened? He checked his body everywhere, testing. For evidence? Damages?

  He’d been touched, that he was sure of. He’d been touched, it had happened, and now there was nothing to be done. He caught his breath, paced around the bathroom, splashed water on his face. He could shower, but he had no towel and it was too fucking cold, anyway. Someone had really been touching him. Now it was over.

  He crouched in a bathroom stall, trying to think. Some scene in whatever he’d been dreaming—he’d been having some kind of intense dream, oh God—had allowed for this to happen, made him stay longer than he should have in bed. A bit too long, as if he’d enjoyed it. At first whatever was happening seemed perfectly okay, just unreal enough. He was holding on to someone. It wasn’t really a sexual dream, per se. It was more like cuddling. He’d been dreaming of cuddling, and not with Hayley, but big deal. That’s how it worked. You could date the whole world in your dreams and it was okay. You could, actually, date-rape the whole world in a dream, too. You could kill and clean up after yourself. Or not, you could leave evidence all over the world and get caught and go to jail forever and wake up crying. So fucking what? The point is, he was cuddling someone in his dream, and he was doing it in that squirming way, he had to admit, that he hoped might lead to more, and then he woke against a body and what were you supposed to do? There was no way not to respond. Anyone would. He was aroused, technically, but he certainly did have to pee. Usually after a pee that issue resolved. Usually. But he was aroused before the man had crawled into bed with him, so this was bullshit.

  But was he? Oh, God. He wanted to cry foul.

  In the morning he tried to explain the situation to the front desk. He spat his useless English and he gestured and he slammed his hand on the counter. They were only puzzled, behind the glass partition, by what he told them, as if to say: Someone tried to hold you and you fled? But why, sir?

  He imagined someone calmly explaining: Don’t you know, sir, that this is why people stay at Müllerhaus?

  Instead he asked about other accommodations, and they offered him a private room, for twice the money. Then, no, they withdrew that offer, because it seemed those were taken. The only available beds were in the Turnhalle, where he was staying, and if he would like to change beds, he could do that, for a fee. Maybe a bed in another part of the room? Maybe that would be better for Sir?

  He lurked outside the hostel, watching the men light their cigarettes and head into town. They filed out silently, squinting against the day. Which one of them had done this? He scanned their faces and wanted to challenge them to have a dream like that, so sweet and comforting, very nearly a wet dream of cuddling, and then to wake up against a body—the heat, the moisture, the smell—this kind of thing is ancient and overpowering and we’re helpless before it—and not feel some slight rush of arousal. Really slight! You couldn’t do it. It could have been a dog and he would have nuzzled into it, feeling something. He might have given in and not cared. So what? Because it wasn’t really about the sexual parts of what lived and breathed right next to you. Man or woman or whatever. You were sort of aroused, if you got aroused, by something else. Not the person’s parts.

  Oh, it was pointless. He realized, standing out on Schützenstrasse, once the men were gone from Müllerhaus and the locals had zoomed into the homes and shops that would keep them during working hours, that he was exaggerating his indignation. The whole thing was a wash. He was worked up for nothing. No one was watching and he was putting on the fucking Ritz, for God’s sake, as if there was something so terribly wrong with someone kissing him at night.

  Was he really supposed to care at this late date who kissed him? Wasn’t it enough to be kissed by someone? What was the saying: beggars can’t be complete and total losers?

  At a restaurant called Altstadt he ate a full breakfast of cold cuts and long potatoes. It was early but he ordered a beer, and it tasted so good he ordered another. He smoked and had a coffee and sat looking out the window at a small, distant piece of the Rhine. Then, on his way out, he realized he was still hungry and sat down again for a piece of chocolate cake. He pointed at it through the display case and they brought over, instead, a cake that turned out to be citrus and ginger, which he devoured. He had another coffee and could have sat there all day but he had plans to make and if he didn’t get moving, he was going to be late.

  After his treatment that afternoon, Julian woke to a surprise.

  “Your friend is here,” said the nurse.

  Friend, thought Julian. Not possible. The word made him picture animals. Pets he’d never had.

  “Your friend waits there now,” said the nurse, pointing up.

  If he followed that direction, he’d leave the building and float through the sky before crashing to the ground. Head in this direction, sir, even if it takes you over a cliff. Waiting for you, maybe, will be someone who cares. Trust us.

  Julian cleaned up in the patients’ bathroom. On the way out a nurse flagged him over to the doctor’s office, where his very own doctor, who he hadn’t seen for days, was hanging film in a light box.

  The doctor greeted Julian and waved him over to a stool.

  Julian, instead, stepped up to the light box. The scan was mostly black, a portrait of darkness.

  “Is this me?” Julian asked. “My head?”

  The doctor nodded.

  “We are looking at your scan while you are here this day.”

  Julian studied the doctor. He was trim and his skin glowed. Like most doctors, the fanciest ones, he seemed offensively healthy, as if he kept the real secret of vitality to himself. He would live forever and people would crumble and die around him. You were supposed to feel
like death after seeing him, in terms of your complexion, your posture, your whole body. If necessary, this doctor would eat you to survive.

  “Well, we see something sometimes,” the doctor was saying, “in this kind of white blood person. The scan is really. This is why we scan. And,” the doctor continued, “we have this discovery to show you.”

  The doctor pointed his pen at a scuff in the film.

  “A little discovery. You can discover it here.”

  The doctor traced the outline of nothing that was, perhaps, a shade lighter than the nothing around it.

  Maybe Julian could see it. A very small shape, like a cloud. In his brain. Weather passing through. If you could draw a headache, this is what you would draw.

  “This is a concern,” said the doctor, looking at Julian hopefully.

  “Okay,” said Julian. “Where is it?”

  That mattered, right? His entire personality could be explained by this cloud. A cluster of rogue cells pushes on a nerve, blocks a vessel supplying blood to the deep limbic system, and suddenly you’re funny, witty, and charming. That’s what a personality was, the blood thirst of rogue cells, a growth in the mind.

  The doctor pointed again at the cloud.

  “It is here,” he said, more slowly.

  “No, I mean in me. Where is this thing?”

  Julian tapped his head. Maybe it wasn’t in the brain itself.

  “This is not our work.”

  “You didn’t make this tumor?” Julian grinned.

  “Well, tumor,” the doctor said, as if there might be some doubt. “We see a shape, yes? We do not make that name for it. We do not work on this kind of area? We do not fix this.”

  “Does anyone?”

  “Someone who must know what this is. Who treats the brain where you live.”

  Yes, someone must.

  “We will be sending this scan to your American doctor. And we think that the stem cell transfusions is not, for now, a good idea. Until this.”

  The doctor pointed at the cloud and tried, again, to look stumped.

  “This first. To understand this. Then, maybe.”

  Julian was impressed. The doctor had devised a pretty good tombstone.

  This first. To understand this. Then, maybe.

  Julian laughed.

  “What is it?” asked the doctor. As in, thank God this moron is going into denial now. He’s going to be one of those people who cracks jokes after getting news of a tumor. I will not need to wash his tears from my doctor’s coat.

  “It’s just that, if you tell me it’s all in my head now,” said Julian, “you won’t be lying.”

  “Aha. I see what you say. This is truly funny. But we will not be lying to you ever, Mr. Bledstein.”

  Oh, feel free, Julian didn’t say. Lie to me all you want.

  The nurse brought in the papers to terminate his treatment, seal off liability, severing connections between Julian and the clinic. He signed and signed and signed. His writing surprised him, his ability to do it. It wasn’t a language-blocking cloud, but, then, what was it blocking? What was it allowing? And how long had it been there?

  The doctor, frowning thoughtfully, trying to make conversation, stood by.

  “I am sorry we do not have a way to give you your money back,” the doctor was saying.

  “I could help you,” Julian said, “if you want.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I could show you a way to give me my money back,” explained Julian. “You know, how to transfer it back to my credit card. It’s not so hard.”

  “Oh, you must misunderstand.” The doctor blushed.

  “Yes, I must,” said Julian.

  Outside the clinic, standing on the plaza steps in her long corduroy thrift store coat, nearly hidden by a plaid scarf, was Hayley. She gave him a shy little wave, sheepishly smiling, forgiving, forgetting, denying, all in one cute fucking face. How on earth?

  “Jules! Oh my God, you took forever!”

  “I took forever?” He tried to sound arch. Here his Hayley actually was. Jesus Christ.

  “It’s freezing here.” She laughed.

  She had a gift for killing off oddity, making shit like this—sudden encounters in foreign countries—seem routine.

  Julian agreed that it was cold. Germany in February and all that. But he stood his ground. Specimen Hayley, trying to make good. How interesting. He’d see where this led. He probably had cancer.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “You look good.”

  How nice if that were true. He’d never looked good, even as a baby. Even before he was a baby, when he was just somebody’s fear. Once he was only dread in the pit of his mother’s stomach. He was born sick, conceived by his parents as their sick little boy. Was there a sexual position favored by his parents’ generation that guaranteed they’d birth a forceless runt, someone who would desperately need their help his whole life? Hayley should be ashamed of herself. He looked good. Still, he had to applaud her strategy. Cheer, denial, exuberance. If only he could. Tombstone.

  “Come here already!” Hayley shouted. “Come hug me, you stupid bastard. How are you? Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m seeing you.”

  He succumbed to Hayley’s hug, giving little back. Whatever he had done, or not done, to himself, not just over the last two weeks, but over the years, too, had rendered him immune right now to the pleasures of her small body wrapped up in his, to her breath, to the way her hair got on his face. Even the warm kiss she gave. Immune, indifferent, cold. Once it had been his choice to resist these overtures. He used to watch himself taking the low road, hogging the lane, during Hayley’s flirtations with forgiveness. But no longer. It was like being hugged by a machine. He held his breath and waited for it to end.

  “Oh, you,” she kept saying. “I missed you, you know.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You know?” She nudged him.

  Julian said they should probably start walking before they died. He didn’t want to die in Germany.

  They walked through the icy streets of Düsseldorf, hugging the Rhine, stopping to sit and shiver on a cold metal bench at the Rheinturm.

  Julian took Hayley through Old Town, along Carlsplatz, pointing out cultural zones with the indifference of a local. And he lied, effortlessly, about places he’d not even seen, like the Kunstakademie—looking at art was the last thing he’d wanted to do—even inventing a day trip to Cologne. Which he took last Wednesday? Or maybe Thursday? Hayley beamed up at him, her brave and adventurous American boyfriend, snuggling into his coat as they walked.

  Hayley kept saying that she couldn’t believe she was here. I mean, could he, she asked Julian? Could he believe it? And he disappointed her by saying, that, well, yeah, he could, because she was supposed to come, wasn’t she?

  “I know, but it’s crazy, right?” she said.

  Julian steered Hayley clear of Müllerhaus, but he kept it in his sights, a secret back door he could fall through. He didn’t interrogate her on her whereabouts these past two weeks, on the matter of who or what had detained her through the brighter, more exciting ports of Europe, and she didn’t mention it. She hardly spoke. Maybe they hadn’t fought and maybe they weren’t still, in some quiet, effortlessly Zen way, fighting right now. One day, people would swab each other with animosity sticks, and there’d be no way to hide it. Just as you could be tested for cancer, you could be tested for fury. Your anger would show, or your resentment, your detachment, your ambivalence, your reduced sexual attraction, no matter what you said or did. Your mood would be a chemical fact and if you lied about it then, poor, poor you. You’d be found out! Looking at Hayley, seeing her radiate, feeling her cozy up against him, it was ridiculously hard—in fact it was impossible—not to feel that this affection that she was suddenly smothering him with was meant for someone else.

  Maybe that person shared his name, and looked like him—the poor fuck—but so what. Hayley wanted a stranger—you are dead to me, he wanted to say to himself—a
nd Julian couldn’t help her. Instead of breaking up with your girlfriend, could you break up with yourself?

  “So I talked to your dad,” Hayley said.

  “Why?”

  “Well…” She looked at him funny.

  “Because I wanted to know where you were.” She punched him softly in the arm.

  Maybe she wanted to say: play along with this, Julian, please, please, because this is how it works. I am trying so hard right now.

  “You knew exactly where I was,” he said. “I’ve been right here the whole time. I’ve been at the clinic every day for two weeks. Where else would I be?”

  “I wanted to know that you were doing okay, and, you know, where you were staying.”

  “So you asked him?”

  “I knew you’d have been in touch with him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can care about you, Julian.”

  “I know you can, Hale.”

  She could care about him in theory, and maybe in real life, too. But he must have migrated to some third place, because both of those territories seemed very far off to him now.

  They crossed the Oberkassel Bridge, where the wind destroyed them, and finally Hayley admitted to being impossibly, horribly cold. And hungry. The poor thing’s nose was running and her face was red and she looked ready to freeze. Could they maybe head back now, she wanted to know? Would he mind so much if they left now?

  “Where?” he said.

  “To the room.”

  “Room? There is no room.” Tombstone.

  “At the Am Volksgarten. You know, where we…They had rooms. I didn’t know where you were and you weren’t checked in there.”

  “Oh, are you Madame Düsseldorf now? What have you been here for, like eleven minutes? Plus, I have a place to stay. And there isn’t room there for you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  It took all of Julian’s strength to look away.

  “I am perfectly lodged, thank you.” Tombstone.

  “Would you please stop it?”

  “I doubt it.”