The Summer Without Men

into the rented house where I raged alone. Sturm und Drang. Whose play was that? Friedrich von Klinger. Kling. Klang. Bang. Mia Fredricksen in revolt against the Stressor. Storm and Stress. Tears. Pillow beating. Monster Woman blasts into space and bursts into bits that scatter and settle over the little town of Bonden. The grand theater of Mia Fredricksen in torment with no audience but the walls, not her Wall, not Boris Izcovich, traitor, creep, and beloved. Not He. Not B.I. No sleep but for pharmacology and its dreamless oblivion.
    *   *   *
     
    “The nights are hard,” I said. “I just keep thinking about the marriage.”
    I could hear Dr. S. breathe. “What kind of thoughts?”
    “Fury, hatred, and love.”
    “That’s succinct,” she said.
    I imagined her smiling but said, “I hate him. I got an e-mail: ‘How are you, Mia? Boris.’ I wanted to send back a big gob of my saliva.”
    “Boris is probably feeling guilty, don’t you think, and worried. I would guess that he’s confused, too, and from what you told me Daisy has been awfully angry with him, and that must cut pretty deep. It’s obvious that he#x2019;s not a person who does well with conflict. There are reasons for that, Mia. Think of his family, his brother. Think of Stefan’s suicide.”
    I didn’t answer her. I remembered Boris’s hollow voice on the phone saying he had found Stefan dead. I remembered the yellow note stuck to the kitchen wall that said, “Call plumber” and that each letter of that reminder had an alien quality as if it weren’t English. It had made no sense, but the voice in my head had been crisp, matter-of-fact: You must call the police and go to him now . No confusion, no panic, but an awareness that the terrible thing had come and that I felt hard. This has happened; it is true. You must act now. There were drops of rain on the cab window, then sudden thin slides of water, behind which I could see the fogged buildings downtown and then the street sign for N. Moore, so ordinary, so familiar. The elevator with its cold gray panels, the low ringing sound at the third floor. Stefan hanging. The word No . Then again. No. Boris throwing up in the bathroom. My hand stroking his head, gripping his shoulders firmly. He didn’t weep; he grunted in my arms like a hurt animal.
    “It was terrible,” I said in a flat voice.
    “Yes.”
    “I took care of him. I held him up. What would he have done if I hadn’t been there? How can he not remember? He turned into a stone. I fed him. I talked to him. I tolerated his silence. He refused to get help. He went to the lab, ran the experiments, came home, and turned back into a rock. Sometimes I worry that I’ll incinerate myself with my anger. I’ll just blow up. I’ll break down again.”
    “Blowing up is not the same as breaking down and, as we’ve said before, even breaking down can have its purpose, its meanings. You held yourself together for a long time, but tolerating cracks is part of being well and alive. I think you’re doing that. You don’t seem so afraid of yourself.”
    “I love you, Dr. S.”
    “I’m glad to hear that.”
    *   *   *
     
    I heard the child before I saw her: a small voice that came from behind a bush. “I’m putting you in the garden, that’s it, and you mustn’t be sillies or willies or dillies … Absolutely not! Plop, here, here. Yes, look, a hill for you. Dandelion trees. Teeny wind blowing. Okay, peoples, a house.”
    From my reclining position in the lawn chair where I was reading, I saw a pair of short, naked legs come into view, take two steps, and then drop to a kneeling position on the ground. The partly visible child had a green plastic bucket, which she dumped out on the grass. I saw a pink dollhouse and a host of figures, hard and stuffed, of various sizes, and then the girl’s head, which startled me before I understood that she was wearing a fright wig of se kind, a gnarled platinum concoction that made me think of an electrocuted Harpo Marx. The commentary resumed. “You can get in, Ratty, and you too, Beary. Look, you talk to each others. Some dishes.” Running exit, swift return, spillage of small cups and plates onto the grass. Busy arrangements and then chewing noises, lip smacking, and simulated burps. “It’s not polite to burp at the table. See, he’s coming, it’s Giraffey. Can you fit in? Squeeze in there.” Giraffey did not fit well, so his manipulator settled for the entrance of the