Silentium by Beth Ashworth

At another table sits another couple. The boy says, “But my fingers locked up on the cello. That was the hardest because I’ve always felt bass instruments understand me.” The girl stopped using words a long time ago, and expresses herself with her middle finger under the table. Paul watches them because they are there, and sometimes watches Janie who is also there across from him, blending into the chair, her body one of many wooden bars, her head somehow floating. Her hair is blonde or white and thin, and so are her clothes. She shakes her head at the waitress, looking satisfied with the odor of grease and cheese and sweet tomatoes that clings to the air. Confused, Paul indicates coffee on the menu. And then, they sit.

Coffee comes, shooting steam. Paul has been listening to all of this, but he’s not sure what Janie is thinking. She’s been exploring the space between the table and the ceiling and tapping things with her fingers. They were set up by friends, and when Paul walked into the restaurant, she was already sitting at a booth. When he joined her, she mouthed “hello” like he was passing on the street. He stared. Then one by one, each of his fingers appeared in a wave. She smiled with her lips and nodded.

He raises the cup to his nose, and the porcelain heats his lips and the rest of his face sweats. Setting it down, he tests the liquid with his pinkie. There is a pile of sugar and he adds some without looking, and stirs. His spoon hits the insides of the mug like a bell clapper. Paul doesn’t like coffee, and he watches the couple against the wall.

“I tried them all. The piano was first. There’s this piece by Chopin that sounds like a thunderstorm—have you heard it? At least when other people play it. In my hands it’s all evaporation and precipitation. I feel the lightening but I can’t get it into my fingers. Or maybe it belongs in my arms. Hell, I don’t know, it’s just not there.”

The girl’s dark hair has fallen over one eye and she throws it back with a twist of her neck. She looks concerned with her head weighted on one side, and under the table she’s got both middle fingers up, circling around for emphasis.

“Do you know what that’s like? See, there’s this trap that a small animal can fit inside. Or walk into I mean. The door is just big enough for it to fit through. But inside is this food and if the mouse or squirrel or whatever it’s built for tries to take the food out the door, it won’t fit. But does it drop the food?”

The girl taps her middle fingers together.

“No! Of course not! It came in for the nut or bread or whatever these animals eat, and it’s not leaving that behind. But then it can’t get out. That’s the point, that’s how this particular trap works.”

The girl raises one middle finger tentatively.

“Well of course, eventually, he’ll fall asleep or eat it on the spot, or something. Sure. Forget it, that’s not the point. The point is, I’m telling you: I’m in the trap. Music let’s me in to look around, I find something I really want, but I can’t get it out. It traps me. It’s a struggle I know I’ll lose going in, but I mean I’m not a mouse, I’ve got cognitive abilities. Come on, this is just a metaphor. The point is: it’s always a struggle and I will always lose. The important thing is what I get out of the struggle. Sometimes, it’s nothing. I can’t imagine a struggle with the triangle. Or, ha ha ha, the tamborine. Even the guitar has enough teenagers twiddling it around that it can’t be too hard.”

The girl’s fingers retreat into her hand.

“Jesus, of course I didn’t know that, I wouldn’t have said it otherwise. And I’d love to hear you play. I was obviously joking. But you must know what I’m talking about, then. That feeling that everything you want is just out of your reach. It’s exhilarating. It also caused me to knock the sound post out of a violin… I slammed it against the ground because it wouldn’t stop squeaking. Bass instruments are more my style.”

Paul’s coffee cup is still full. Janie started biting her fingernails a minute ago.

The waitress appears, and looks back and forth between them. No one says anything. She takes out her palm-sized green pad and marks on it, her head bobbing up and down and smiling while she writes. She tears a receipt off one perforation at a time and tosses it into the air. She is gone by the time it lands.

Paul empties his wallet onto the table, and they leave.

*

The lake makes wind and it’s almost cold as they walk through the darkness. The lake was there when they opened the door, so they both walked to it. They walk side by side but not arm in arm. Janie opens her mouth and words come out like smoke clouds in the night air, but no sound. Paul isn’t watching her and doesn’t realize they are having a conversation.

Janie is chewing a cinnamon flavored toothpick from the restaurant and the scent is the only thing Paul notices about her. He listens to their footsteps echoing on something hidden. There are other people on the walkway but it’s late. The weather is just right with a jacket, and a few young mothers sit and let their toddlers run around in circles. But it’s dark, and between streetlights, there is nothing.

Janie is pretty, thinks Paul. She’s not unattractive, anyway. He wonders if he could love her. Would she clean and cook and sew? Would her breasts slowly droop into middle-aged boredom? Would she get cancer and leave him holding two kids? Would she snore?

The next light shines on a man with a baby carriage. Paul watches it from a distance as they approach. Janie keeps blowing out words, her eyes bulging, her mouth moving and her fingers twisting around.

The man is talking to the stroller, but Paul can’t see if there is anything inside.

“And when I was nine I would throw our cat across the room. I wanted to see what would happen”

His voice comes to Paul tiny, riding on the lake air.

“I don’t know. Once he hit the wall pretty hard. I ran out of the room and pretended to watch TV.”

His shoulders shook with laughter.

“And…

“and you might as well know that I cheated on your mother. Our neighbor, Carlie. It wasn’t anything special. That’s why it’s so awful.

“I always thought that moral lines existed because if you crossed them, you’d be devastated.

“But it’s not like that at all. I mean, sure I feel bad sometimes.

“Like when your mom makes that turkey-cheese meatloaf, or

“or wraps herself around my arm when we watch TV. But remember this—it’s not immoral because it makes you feel bad.

“It’s immoral because it’s too easy. I started wondering what all I was capable of. I mean, reading diaries, that’s nothing, really.

“It didn’t make me think too hard.

“When I cut off the ambulance, well, that was an honest mistake. I checked the obituaries the next day… no damage done.

“But this.

“It made me wonder if I could do something truly bad. I felt like the rules didn’t apply to me.

“Or maybe they don’t apply to anyone.”
The man must have caught sight of Paul and Janie because he stops talking. As they pass, a baby’s cry leaks out from the stroller and the man wheels it back and forth, humming lullabies. Janie breathes along to one.

They hadn’t quite stepped out of the light when the man whispers, “So I wanted you to know. Now, I mean. I just wanted you to know what an awful person I am, right off the bat.”

*

The light reveals a bench. Janie’s been silently mouthing things, saying nothing.

Paul wonders how long they’ve been walking.

Their footsteps slow as they approach the bench.

Janie turns red, but luckily it’s dark, and Paul isn’t looking at her anyway. She barely touches the sleeve of his jacket, but Paul doesn’t notice it more than the breeze.

They sit down and look at the lake.

The water is triangles and squares and circles all trying to fit together. The horizon line separates a black sky from twisting gray and blue and white.

Janie’s mouth says that it’s so perfect. She presses her lips between her teeth, then closes her eyes and waits.

Paul looks at Janie, whose eyes and mouth are closed, and thinks she must be absorbing the atmosphere. The streetlight makes her hair glow and her hot breath puffs out of her nose and swirls around her face making it look soft. Paul thinks that he would like to touch that face, feel her cheek or her earlobe, pinch her hair between his fingers. But he doesn’t want to destroy her meditation. He doesn’t want her face to change.

So he says “the water looks cold.”

Janie opens her eyes. She’d been so wrapped up in her monologue that it takes hearing Paul’s voice for her to realize he hadn’t spoken all night. She looks at him. In the darkness, both of their eyes look gray.

Janie notices that Paul is swallowing a lot and Paul notices that Janie’s mouth is hanging open. She wants to touch his lips, but something makes her say in a hollow voice, “Yes. I can’t imagine swimming in water like that.”

Paul pictures his heart bouncing off each wall of his chest cavity. “You are beautiful and I would like very much to kiss you right now.” He says this to himself. To Janie he says, his voice cracking, “my dad took us sailing in this lake and he would always make us jump in the water. Sometimes it was so cold I thought I couldn’t breathe.”

Janie’s lip quivers as she mouths “What color was the boat?”

The couple looks at each other desperately.

Paul answers. “Red.”

Janie stares into the lake. Paul closes his eyes and listens to the water.