I nod.
“You sure? I could . . . I dunno, maybe there’s a doctor on board, or something.” He twists in his seat, as if a man with a stethoscope dangling from his neck might happen to be sitting behind us.
“I said I’m fine.”
Poncho Man licks his thumb, leafs through his book. “Well good, because I was just getting to the good part. You’re not going to believe what Dewey says next.”
“I was just getting to the good part, Eve. Here, listen—‘Thought echo, voices heard arguing, voices heard commenting on one’s actions, delusions of control, thought withdrawal—’” My mother interrupts him. “What are you reading?” I hear the sound of Dad flipping to the front cover. “I got it from the library. It’s called Clinical Psychopathology.” I am fourteen now, pressing my ear against my parents’ bedroom door. “That thing is bloody ancient, Barry. Is that yarn? It’s falling apart at the binding.” Dad breathes heavily through his nostrils. “That doesn’t make it any less relevant, Evie. This guy who wrote it, Kurt Schneider, he’s brilliant. Could probably think circles around Makundi. See, look, he’s provided a way to differentiate between psychotic behavior and psychopathic behavior.” I lower my head to peek under the crack of their door. Mom’s ratty slippers shuffle across the room. “Psychopathic behavior? Jesus, Barry.” Dad sighs. “I’m just telling you what I saw this afternoon.” This afternoon, Erik-with-a-kay broke up with me at lunch. Later, when Dad picked me up, I noticed he was acting weird. “What you saw was our daughter upset over a boy,” says Mom. It’s quiet for a moment. And then—“Evie . . .” Dad’s voice is desperate, sad, soft. “She was asking herself questions, then answering them. Just like Isabel used to.”
“Okay, now I’m worried,” says Poncho Man.
My misplaced epiglottis flutters, then calms, then flutters again. I pull my travel-sized makeup remover from my bag and push past his knees.
I can wait no longer.
Walking down the center aisle, I hear the endless line of massive semis speeding by outside, kicking up giant bursts of rain. In the second to last row, Arlene is passed out on Jabba the Gut’s shoulder. He’s reading a Philip K. Dick novel, unfazed by his seatmate’s baby head.
Inside the bathroom, I slide the latch to OCCUPIED. The light comes on automatically, flooding the tiny room with a sickly yellow tint, as if everything were suddenly jaundiced. In the grimy mirror, I watch as my dead eye closes. This still freaks me out, as my actual perception is unchanged. The only way I know my bad eye is closed is that my good one sees it shut in the mirror.
Mom used to say how pretty I was, but I knew better. Still do. My features, independent of one another, might be considered enviable: strong jaw, full lips, dark eyes and hair, olive-brown skin. The attractive pieces are all there, but jumbled somehow. As if each facial feature stopped just short of its proper destination. I act like I don’t care, but I do. I always have. And my God, what wouldn’t I give to put the pieces together?
But I’m a Picasso, not a Vermeer.
From my pocket, I pull out my mother’s lipstick—my war paint. It’s a black tube with a shiny silver ring around the middle. I try my best not to use it in public. Even with a heavy dose of makeup remover, a reddish hue is noticeable around the cheeks, like a manufactured blush. But hue or no, I need this now.
I start with the left cheek, always. This habit is king, and it must be exactly the same, line for line. The first stroke is a two-sided arrow, the point of which touches the bridge of my nose. Then, a broad horizontal line across the forehead. The third stroke is an arrow on my right cheek, mirroring the first one. Next, a thick line down the middle of my face, from the top of my forehead to the bottom of my chin. And lastly, a dot inside both arrows.
“Even Picasso used a little rouge,” I whisper.
And then it happens . . .
8
Recall
TELL ME WHAT you see here, Mary. I stare at my reflection in the shaking mirror, clutching the sink for balance. I’m blind and wet, and my name is Mary, not Mim, and I’ve never been in a fight, never been on a boat, never quit a job, never been to Venice, never, never, never . . .
The bottom drops out, and I’m down, on my side, floating in a strange sudden weightlessness, as if in water or outer space. From far away—one, two, a thousand pleas for mercy, animallike screams, rabid and seething for survival. A minute, an hour, a lifetime—there is no time, there are no Things. I have no more Things. I have only scraping metal, screaming voices, and death.
And suddenly, my symphony of travel crescendos, achieving its rumbling, mighty End.