Free The Houseguest by Kim Brooks Page A

so that their torsos touched. He loved it when they stood like this. He loved the feel of her body beneath the thin silk of her gown. When they fought, when they bickered, when they disagreed or bristled at each other, this was the place they returned to, the posture that reset them. There was a magnetism about it, more mechanical than erotic. When the world impinged or distorted, they came back to each other, to this position, the way a spring recoils from distortion. She leaned forward slightly. He put his hands on her face, lowered his head as they let their lips cometogether. Her lips tasted of sweet wine. Her hands reached for him, and as his body reacted, the familiar heaviness returned. She kissed him. He let her kiss him, but he couldn’t do more. She looked away, walked to the other side of the bed, and slid beneath the covers. When he did the same, she turned her back to him. Her back was covered by a gown with small yellow nubs on it—flowers or bows, he couldn’t tell which. The windows were open, but the night was quiet, the breeze too light to stir the trees. The only noise came from the guest room down the hall, dresser drawers being opened and closed, footsteps, small sounds.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” she asked. “You’re not yourself tonight. You’re acting even stranger than our houseguest.”
    â€œAm I?”
    â€œYou didn’t read the Yiddish paper again, did you? More about that awful fire?”
    â€œNo. Even worse. I spoke to the news vendor at the station. He stopped getting letters from his family.”
    â€œThat doesn’t mean anything, necessarily.”
    â€œSure it does. It means what it means, what we all know.”
    Irene turned to face him. Her cheeks were still splotchy from the washing away of her makeup. Her hair fanned out over the pillow. Even the scent of her cold cream was calming, comforting. “No,” she said flatly. “Maybe you could volunteer with me sometime at the soup kitchen on Lafayette, or work a little harder so we had more money for the orphans coming out of Germany. But lying here thinking about it, keeping yourself awake—how does that alter anything? Who benefits?”
    He smiled. After all these years he still found her sincerity charming. “You’re right,” he said. “As always. Forget I said anything. Let’s go to sleep.”
    She reached to the nightstand and turned off the lamp. A few minutes later she was unconscious. Lucky woman. He needed sleep so badly, but he was too tired to sleep.
    He thought of the woman, Ana, and the thought of her surprised him. Who was she? What did she want and what had she lost? This was all he wanted to know of anyone. Had Max known what he was getting them into? How long would she stay? Where would she go when she left? Irene, he could tell, was disappointed with their refugee. He didn’t need her to say so to know it was true. She’d probably been hoping for an old woman poor in English and opinions, a yen for gossip, someone from an irrelevant Galician backwater to whom she could be charitable but also superior. She was a native-born American, after all. A protégé, a project—that, he supposed, was what she had been hoping for when she agreed to go along, and now he could tell she felt tricked, and probably assumed Abe was responsible.
    He placed his hand on her back, and when she didn’t respond, he pushed off the covers, got out of bed, trod softly down the hallway, down the stairs. In the living room, he lifted a book off the shelf beside the fireplace, sat down in his favorite armchair, and began to read. The words felt heavy in his head. When he wanted to sleep he read in English; Charles Dickens was best. He saw industrial London, smokestacks and chimney sweeps, emaciated orphans and gold chains draped across the bellies of sweatshop owners. Everywhere one looked, east, west, future, past, human suffering stretched on