Scissors Read online

  One evening, over dessert, he declared, “The movement of things in general is from the earth to the sky.”

  Victor stood up and said, “Math homework.”

  Emma went to the window to have a cigarette. She stared into space, exhaling puffs of smoke. Robert tried to catch his wife’s eye but couldn’t.

  Ever since he’d thrown himself heart and soul into gardening, his family had looked at him as though he were some sort of strange animal. How could he make them understand that the only goal of all that activity was to bring him closer to them?

  For some time, Emma had been coming home later and later. At first Robert hadn’t paid much attention. But one evening when his wife returned flushed and slightly disheveled, he remembered her words: I don’t want to settle anything. I just want revenge, you bastard.

  It was after midnight. Emma was asleep upstairs. As for Robert, he couldn’t sleep. He was in the yard, pacing back and forth and considering the hypothesis of his wife’s lover.

  In the darkness, he smelled more than saw the flowers that embellished the lawn. Very early in the spring, he’d seized the opportunity to plant petunias, but he was surprised they’d bloomed so soon. From where he stood, he could inhale their faint but pervasive fragrance.

  An idea came to him. Tomorrow, as early as possible, he’d get his wife involved in the renewal of their garden. They’d plant things together on their scant acre of land and recycle their missteps, their remorse—all the compost accumulated between them.

  “Darling, does our garden have any importance for you?”

  Emma put down her still-steaming cup. “But yes … it always has.”

  “Has it?”

  “When we moved here, we promised we’d replant the garden together.”

  Emma lowered her eyes. Those days were long gone. “I’m sorry,” Robert said.

  Emma looked at him as though she thought he was going to tell her about another flight attendant.

  “I’ve taken the garden too much to heart, I haven’t left you any room. I’d like—”

  “I’m going to be late.”

  She stopped short. Robert had taken her hand. He ran his thumb over her fingers as though brushing petals. He said, “I’d like you to help me replant the garden.”

  Emma gently withdrew her hand. She nodded to him, swallowed a last mouthful, and left.

  A few seconds later, he heard the car start. He felt serene, well on the way to saving his marriage.

  He walked out to the garden. “Those petunias are a mistake,” he thought, inhaling their fragrance.

  A few days later, a Sunday, the yard was drenched in sunlight, and Emma and Victor were stirring the compost. A sudden interest in gardening had seized the teenager. Intent on removing the ivy from a low wall, Robert listened with one ear to the exchange between his wife and son.

  “You have to turn over the compost so the grass won’t stagnate,” she said. “Here, turn it over with this spade.”

  “Like that?”

  “Dig deeper. Really hump it!”

  Victor started laughing. It was the bright laughter that hadn’t been heard from him for years. Emma wet down the compost with the yellow watering can.

  This is my family, Robert thought. This is my garden.

  There was a continuous buzzing of bumblebees and flies. Robert felt like humming, but he was afraid of drowning out the murmur of life that was rising all around him.

  The next day Emma, with a gleam in her eye, shared an idea with him: “I have the solution for your petunias. We’ll mix in some columbine.”

  The overalls she had on were too large for her. One strap had slid down from her bare shoulder. As Robert finished uprooting the ivy, Emma came over to him.

  He had a strong urge to undress her, but Cathy, recently returned from her latest runaway episode, was in her room, listening to some deafening rock music and hopping around in front of her window. There was a chance she could see them.

  “I could get some that are already in bloom,” Emma said.

  “I don’t like that idea. Their scents are going to get mixed up.”

  “That’s the point.”

  “I told you I didn’t want intrusive fragrances. I’d rather replace the petunias with—”

  “Columbine isn’t intrusive. It has a fresh, subtle scent.”

  “You’ve smelled it?”

  “Nikos has some lovely columbines.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Nikos. His shop’s across the street from where I work.”

  The name meant nothing to him.

  “He’s a florist,” she said, emphasizing the word.

  Robert looked at her. “I’ve never seen the guy.”

  “He’s got excellent taste,” Emma assured him.

  “I don’t see what taste has to do with it.”

  She made a little rebellious face. “You can trust him. He’s good at what he does.”

  “Why should I trust him?” Robert grumbled, his eyes on the ivy. “I’ve never seen this guy in my life.”

  He gave in on the columbine front. Emma wanted columbine, and the garden was, after all, their joint undertaking. But those columbine plants annoyed him. With them, his conception of a healing garden was shattered. Emma’s fondness for aromatic plants that smelled of sophistication and luxury carried all before it.

  No more sage, fennel, angelica, or verbena, the herbs to which he’d wanted to consecrate his acre of land. Emma banished them with a declaration; she said they made the yard smell like a hospital.

  “A hospital?”

  “Some sterile place,” she replied, shears in hand. “I want a garden, not an old-folks home.”

  Robert protested: “I agreed to the white roses, and now they’re the only things you can smell.”

  “Of course. That’s the dominant note.”

  “We never talked about any dominant note.”

  “All gardens have one.”

  “But not mine! Mine’s supposed to be soothing!”

  “Yours? Yours?” she said, throwing away her shears. “I thought we were sharing this garden!”

  With her cheeks aflame and her shoulders hunched, she went back inside the house.

  She passed within a few inches of Robert, but he couldn’t distinguish her scent.

  A promiscuous jumble of fragrances prevented him.

  He’d restrained himself from mentioning the florist. But that man—the Greek, as Robert called him—was no stranger to their quarrels.

  Nikos Kalifatides (Robert had made inquiries) weighed heavily on his mind. And what was worse, he was infringing on his flower beds.

  Nikos had supplied the seeds, the fertilizer, and the watering advice that had fomented many an argument between Emma and Robert.

  Sitting by the window of a coffee shop, Robert paged through a newspaper with one eye on the building where his wife worked. The Greek’s shop (NIKOS—FLOWERS AND NATURE) was also on this side of the avenue. The lettering of his sign was heavily embellished with flourishes.

  “ ‘Flowers and Nature,’ ” Robert grumbled aloud. “What do you think you are, an herbalist?”

  At ten minutes past five o’clock, when Emma still hadn’t come out, he ordered another cappuccino. He was waiting to be served when he saw her, accompanied by a colleague. The two women were laughing, as though about a confidence they’d just exchanged.

  They crossed the avenue and headed straight for the coffee shop. This was so unexpected that Robert remained at the counter, paralyzed by surprise.

  Emma came in first. “What are you doing here?” she said.

  She hesitated to smile.

  “I came looking for you—”

  “Cappuccino latte, mocha, latte mocha!” the barman shouted, pushing a cardboard cup toward him.

  “Is something wrong? The children?”

  Robert shook his head vigorously. Reassured, Emma turned to her colleague. “My husband,” she said.

  “I see.”

 
She looked as sorry as Emma did.

  His wife must have guessed that he suspected her of having an affair. Nevertheless, she made no effort to set his mind at rest. She even came home from work later and later.

  Robert wanted to be clear about what was going on. He decided to pay a visit to the Greek.

  The man lived a few minutes from their house. To give himself courage, Robert made a detour to his usual bar. Gus, the owner, received him with that mixture of embarrassment and cordiality barmen reserve for the heaviest drinkers.

  “I’m on the wagon,” Robert announced, taking a stool at the bar.

  Gus was adjusting the sound system, lowering the volume. He nodded.

  “I’m devoting myself completely to my garden.”

  “So what’ll it be?”

  For the space of an instant, Robert had the feeling he’d never replanted his garden and all that activity had existed solely in his imagination. He was a penniless writer who cheated on his wife and had shown up in this bar to drown his shame.

  “Bourbon,” he said, laying his hands on the bar.

  He was staring at his spread fingers, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see Gus’s hairy hands go into motion. A glass of liquor landed under his chin.

  He took a swig and put the glass down again. It was nearly empty. The other customers—a mustached man in a sleeveless undershirt, a buxom redhead, and a puny old man Robert had never seen before—darted questioning looks at the barman. They took Robert for an eccentric or a wino.

  He waited until Gus’s eyes came back to his and then said, “I have a garden now. A garden and a family. I have no intention of leaving them to someone else.”

  “You’re right,” Gus said, putting up the bottle of bourbon.

  “Yeah!” the old man spluttered.

  “You gotta stand up for yourself, handsome,” the redheaded woman said.

  Robert thought he recognized her as a former actress who had always appeared in supporting roles. The two of them, the redhead and the old man, were drunk. Their half-closed eyes gleamed. Why were they laughing at something that wasn’t funny? He threw some coins on the bar and left.

  When he reached the Greek’s house, he checked the address. Yes, he’d come to the right place. On a copper placard, letters in the same style as those he’d seen on Nikos’s shop sign spelled out a single name: CHARMANCE.

  It was hot. The buzzing of insects grew louder and louder. Robert began to tremble. He was burning to see the guy come out of his house. Would he be able to refrain from hitting him?

  “ ‘Charmance,’ ” he muttered, as though it were a swearword. Robert hated neologisms, seeing in them only contempt for good usage. And he added that word to the list of his grievances against the Greek.

  The house was either old or fixed up to seem so and decorated with rustic accessories. A few little granite fountains, some wooden barrels painted with green varnish, and several black-lacquered buckets were set out on the terrace. A horseshoe adorned the front door. The shutters were open, but the house seemed empty. Robert’s gaze fell on a cart with no wheels but fitted with a handle and paddles, most probably an old machine for beating laundry. The Greek was using it as a flower planter. Robert recognized the columbine that Emma had introduced into the garden.

  A walkway ran along the right side of the house. He clenched his fists and started down the walkway.

  He could already imagine the blood reddening the gravel and the Greek’s body dragged under the plow that stood next to the path.

  Behind the house Robert found the garden. He stared at it openmouthed. The Greek’s garden was three times the size of his.

  The profusion of petals and stems, the alternation of greens and blues, violets and yellows, formed figures like those of an agile skater. Here and there, broad, flat areas of lawn reposed the eye. A water-lily basin made a crystalline, murmuring sound. Behind some brightly spotted orchids, Robert spotted a ginkgo tree, the kind he dreamed of possessing. It exhaled a pollen that combined each flower, each stamen, each pistil. And for the first time, Robert felt the inner peace, the sensation of harmony that his own garden, despite all the work he’d put into it, had never inspired in him.

  “Naturally,” he said aloud. “You’re a florist. That’s how you earn your living. You’re a real pro.”

  And he began to weep.

  He contemplated the Greek’s garden, but it was his own ruin he was looking at. It was the futility of his efforts.

  Robert noticed a small shed on his left, not far away. It contained tools, bags of fertilizer, and some clay pots. The shed adjoined a greenhouse with tinted glass panes like those in stained-glass windows. On a panel in the back of the greenhouse, there was a painting of a woman. She was wearing a blouse with an open collar and gazing at him. Robert told himself she looked like Emma, but it was hard to see at that distance.

  He didn’t go closer to check. He knew that whatever he did, devastating thoughts would torment him.

  The florist, as it turned out, was nowhere to be found. Tears ran down Robert’s cheeks, but he knew the Greek’s absence was beyond his control. There was nobody for him to hit, no rival to eliminate. No way out. He’d reached the end of himself.

  He wiped away his tears, retraced his steps, and after banging into the laundry contraption, got out of there fast.

  As she was going home from work, Emma had a bad premonition. There wasn’t a lot of traffic on the highway, but the drive seemed longer to her than usual. Robert worried her. Ever since he’d dedicated himself to gardening, he hadn’t been the same. His obsession with medicinal plants indicated—she was certain of it—that some grave malady was afflicting her husband.

  Why had he stopped writing? Did he want to be a horticulturist? The idea made her giggle and inadvertently sound her horn. She gripped the steering wheel and went on thinking. Even if he busted his butt for years on end, Robert would never be a patch on …

  Her thoughts turned to him. She regretted having allowed him to paint her portrait in the greenhouse. If by some awful chance Robert ever came across that painting, she refused to answer for the consequences. She’d told Nikos so. “You don’t know Robert,” she’d said. “You’d best keep a rifle within reach.” Nikos replied that he owned almost as many guns as flowers. Emma had shivered when she heard that.

  She pressed down on the accelerator. No, this Nikos, he hadn’t been a very good idea. She’d gone too far. And then there were the kids, Cathy and Victor. Would they forgive their mother if she told them the whole story?

  For the first time, Emma glimpsed what had pushed her husband toward drink. Delight and remorse. Guilt. She felt full of understanding for him. But fear of the irreparable continued to torment her.

  She parked in the driveway and rushed to the house. For a moment, she thought she had the wrong keys. Had he swapped them? Had he had the locks changed? These hypotheses vigorously exercised her mind before she finally managed to turn the key.

  A pair of overturned sneakers—Robert’s—lay on the carpet in the hallway. She ran to the living room, calling out for Cathy and Victor. Why them? Why didn’t she call Robert? He was the one she was worried about. Robert, the children, the house … they were all part of a single whole. She’d never felt that so strongly.

  Cathy and Victor stood at the sliding glass door with their backs to her. The two of them were staring out into the garden.

  She couldn’t see what they were looking at.

  Cathy shifted her eyes toward her mother and said, “What’s got into him? Why is he doing that?”

  Emma went closer, put a hand on her son’s shoulder, and looked out.

  There was no more garden. The soil had been turned over. In the entire yard, nothing green remained.

  What she saw was a coarse and dismal expanse, marked here and there by earthen mounds. Under those mounds, the roses, the columbine, and the petunias lay buried. The medicinal plants hadn’t been spared, either. Petals were strewn on the ground, but
all flowers had disappeared. It was as though a mole, a hundred moles, had gone wholeheartedly to work, had dug their burrows under the roots and made so many openings in the soil that every growing thing had been swallowed up.

  Now it was a field of compost, and you could inhale, along with the earthy smell, the potpourri of efforts Robert and Emma had made to replant their garden.

  In the midst of the disaster, there he was, on his knees. He wasn’t wearing his overalls, just an undershirt and a pair of boxer shorts. His sweaty body was spattered with earth. No shovel or spade or any other tool could be seen near him. He’d turned over the soil in the yard with his bare hands.

  He was staring wide-eyed into space; he seemed to be elsewhere.

  Emma turned to Cathy and Victor and figured it was too late. They’d seen the spectacle of their father pulling up and demolishing what he’d planted. Cathy had tears in her eyes. A vague smile was playing on Victor’s lips.

  Emma opened the sliding door and hurried over to Robert. She knelt down, removed a clod of dirt that fell on her thighs, and placed her hands on her husband’s shoulders.

  Robert sniffed a dense, sweet fragrance that drew him out of his torpor. He didn’t hear what was being said, but it was his wife’s voice. It was Emma’s voice, beyond any doubt. And he was conscious of being solidly planted with her, with Emma and their children, planted together in the same compost, moved by the same shocks and the same quakes, like some of the very tenacious roots he could see around him but had been unable to pull up.

  DOUGLAS

  … like some of the very tenacious roots … mmm … mmm … unable to pull up.

  All right. Attack.

  *

  If Raymond hadn’t existed, I would have invented him. He’s had all the experiences I missed out on. Never had the time. Never had the temptation, or the bad luck. There are so many lives out there. So many opportunities to suffer. I’ve always had … It’s funny. I’ve always had the feeling I wasn’t made for suffering. I imagined I could exempt myself from that. Even as far back as when I was in school, I didn’t think collective punishments concerned me. The whole class would get an F in something, and I’d look at the others and think, “Poor mutts, they’re really in for it now.” I’d be surprised to see that grade on my report card too. In my case, it was a mistake. And I always found a way of canceling the F, of coming out unscathed.