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Lenora heads up the stairs and knocks on his door. Part of her, a large part of her, is afraid he will have changed physically in undeniable ways— will have lost weight, all gaunt arms and cheeks, hair stringy. He will have a hunched look, and his gait will resemble her grandfather’s. She readies herself, hearing the locks come undone.
Who answers the door, however, is a marvel of a man. Not tall, but taller than her. Slim. Elongated face. A shroud of dark curls. Indian American?
“Hi—-” She stutters in the face of this stranger. “Is my— Is Daniel here?” She thinks of identifying herself as his daughter; the boy’s face (is he a boy? Just how old this guy is, she can’t pinpoint, flustered) seems to invite information. He is guarded yet there is such an open quality to his features that she has to stop herself; no need to volunteer more. Just waits as the boy looks at her then smiles in a way that doesn’t necessarily reach his large dark eyes.
Some kind of disconnect there, she thinks.
For a second she wonders if this boy will tell her that her father has just gone to lay down in his room, that his plane touched down this morning from an international flight, the TSA agent at customs was rude, and he is sleeping it off and shouldn’t be roused. She’s seen enough movies—that means her dad has been murdered at the hands of this man and his body is rolled up in the bedroom.
But her uneasiness dissipates, or enough to not keep her away. She is just tense and sleep-deprived and she has pepper spray on her keychain anyways. He's a slight man, and he welcomes her in. Her father, he says over his shoulder, has been at a coffeeshop all day working on his next book.
So he has figured out her identity.
She is, she assesses while his back is turned, bigger boned than this man. It’s plausible, his story of her dad’s whereabouts. And she is relieved, really, that her dad is mobile, still hitting the pavement, curious. Not cooped up inside. She fingers the pepper spray, the edge of a key.
“Is he…” She feels strange asking, but she isn’t one for shock. It stays with her longer than it does with other people. “Is he okay?” she finishes, lamely.
The boyish man has sat himself on her dad’s couch, and she finds herself in the chair nearest the door. She keeps her wallet and phone in her hands, purse beside her.
She wonders if he has meant for her to sit there, to feel safer next to the door.
“He is,” the man tells her matter-of-factly.
"Does he look terribly different?” She can’t help but ask it aloud now. “I’m not sure how long you’ve known him or…”
“He looks robust for his age,” the man assures, as if he knows perfectly well all she is asking. “A slight tremor in his right hand at times. Sharp as ever.” She smiles knowingly. She finds herself believing him. “I’m Armand.” He rises and holds out his hand across the coffee table. Glassy fingernails, cold skin. Gay? “I’m a recent acquaintance of your father, but I think I’m an accurate judge in terms of change, nonetheless.” Slight accent, nearly translucent within his words.
“Lenora.”
“I’ve heard so much about you.”
She waits for more. Nothing comes. Perhaps he too doesn’t like to offer too much information. Perhaps he has never heard of her a day in the lifespan of his recent acquaintance with her dad. A small smile refuses to falter on his face in these moments of silence. Lips closed, pressed together. She presses hers back.
Eventually she begins to feel too uncomfortable under his gaze so she stands, keys in hand. He is really quite dashing-looking, but in a way that doesn’t light up her vagina. Maybe because his age seems so indeterminate and vague, and thus her pheromones are uncertain. And he really is quite effeminate—- not her thing. Not her father’s either, she thought.
She scans the apartment for unchecked mail, opens the fridge for old food—they would not be tell tale signs of her father’s disease; she would, in fact, overlook those as signs, as his normal habits would appear similar to a disease’s disarray and unkemptness. She knows from the voice message he left that he had been out of the country recently. He had sounded a bit odd, to say the least, so much so she had wondered if the trip had actually even happened. Only his physique, and the sharpness of his mind over sustained communication, would fully clue her in on his state, though she has read that those with a high cognitive reserve can mask failings well, especially with family members.
She is, after all, a family member.
But the fridge is fully stocked, positively brimming with an array of ingredients and wrapped bowls. No microwavable meals in sight in the freezer; there’s even a candle that looks fresh and recently used on the counter. It is rather alarming. She bends down. Cinnamon flavored? Maybe this is an irregular symptom— a sudden flurry of domesticity and order in the person with dementia. Or is this all a symptom of the strange man Armand in the living room, wearing all black?
She peers into the bedroom. Nightstand with a lamp and books and a clock. Bed made. Windows, doors. Sheets of paper with her father’s normal scrawl, maybe a bit looser in places. Things that have always existed. Same with the guest bedroom except for a black suitcase at the foot of the bed, zipped. A pair of slippers.
In the bathroom a slightly wet toothbrush. She doesn’t notice two toothbrushes; she looks twice. She even looks under the sink. Toilet paper. She grazes a roll. The nice kind.
“I’m not sure when he will be back. He just left.” Armand tells her this when she returns to the living room area and sits back in the chair. How convenient, she thinks. Armand’s legs are crossed, his hands in his lap. His hair is so lush. She thinks she spots tones of blue. His skin—would he look best in jewel tones, she wonders, then catches herself.
She sets her phone and keys into the chair’s cushion crack “And you are… staying here?”
“I’m crashing here temporarily because of a fumigation issue at my home.”
She thinks of the lone toothbrush. “I see.” This guy appears impeccably clean, but she can’t imagine her dad sharing his toothbrush with someone. “How did you two meet exactly?”
“He interviewed me for a project.”
“Interviewed you,” she echoes.
“Yes.”
She leaves it at that for now. Small wonders. “Well, you don’t need to entertain me,” she finally says. There is some kind of something emanating off him, and she will bide her time. “I’ll just sit here and read until he gets back if you don’t mind.”
Armand is giving her an impenetrable stare. “Of course.” His shoulders relax a bit, she thinks. “I am simply crashing.”
She adjusts her watch so that the face is right in the center of her wrist. She feels his presence—who couldn’t? She can’t tell if he resents the feel of her presence. Not that he has any right. But why would he? Because he is her father’s underage lover? Is he afraid she is going to come in and try to monopolize Daniel’s time, or urge Daniel to get away from him?
How have these two been spending their time? Perhaps her father is always off at the coffeeshop and they are like two ships in the night.
She doubts it.
Armand gets up, excusing himself, and busies himself in the kitchen. Lenora sneaks glances at him; it’s a small apartment. His eyelashes are long and dark. His fingers are thin and nimble as he slices. He seems to be humming.
He looks right at home. As if he has lived here for years. More at home than she has ever felt here, or anywhere related to her family.
He delivers a plate of snacks and wine, setting them on the coffee table.
“For you,” he says.
“Thank you.” She means it. She has barely eaten all week for whatever reason. Not explicitly thinking about her dad, but perhaps distantly, in the background. She notices that Armand has situated himself back down on the couch with no food or drink for himself. She didn’t notice him taking any bites in the kitchen.
“I have that same iPad,” he offers suddenly, right as she has tentatively swallowed a sip of the wine—smooth and expensive; she reminds herself to take a look at the bottle—and this is, she observes, the first thing he has said to her unbidden. She is embarrassed to think he has seen all of the smudge marks on the screen from her fingerprints. Just where in the hell is that little towel she is supposed to use to wipe it clean?
The sky is overcast. The traffic—loud.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” she tells him, as if in explanation of the smudges. “I watched Dunkirk, the movie, twice. After it ended the first time I realized not a second had sunk in. So I immediately started it over."
“I haven’t seen that one.” His voice sounds tinged with melancholy. Is he sad he has missed out, or perhaps their inability to talk about the movie together?
She takes another drink, trying to absorb the complexity of all its flavors. Her palette has never been anything, sadly, other than dull. Her fingers are right where the stem meets the base. “Well, would you like to watch it now?” she asks.
His eyes widen. “Now?” He looks down at her iPad in her lap, up to her eyes, then back down at the iPad. “How?”
She laughs. “I can hook it up to his TV and we can watch it on a bigger screen.”
He doesn’t mention the oddity, that she has just seen it twice and is now seemingly ready for a third, or technically, maybe, round 2.5. She doesn’t mention the fact that, at his age, he should be fully aware of the TV and iPad’s capabilities to link up.
________________________________________________________
Overcast sky still. Nearly evening and the movie at its climax. Where is her dad? She was surprised she had actually fallen asleep in this chair with this stranger, Armand. She is, it appears, still alive. Has all of her faculties.
“Hm,” he says at the movie’s end.
For some reason, the sound feels comprehensive and apt. “I thought so too,” she agrees. An idea comes to her. Something about his curls. “Let’s watch a new one called Twinless. It was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Like the awards are actually honoring independent films this year rather than the pseudo-indie films.” Her glass, sitting on a coaster on the coffee table, is filled with wine. How many glasses has she had? Has she somehow lost count in this short span of time? Is this, in fact, a new wine? She can’t remember drinking any water.
“What is it about?” It doesn’t sound like feigned politeness. He gets up with ease and she wonders idly if he is going to the restroom. She can feel his presence even when he isn’t in the room, and it feels, oddly, intentional.
“Twins,” she calls out. “And inexplicable longing and loneliness.”
“Perfect,” he answers almost musically, his face and body elsewhere in the apartment, but she can hear him so near. She almost cringes at how earnest he sounds. What has her father done to this guy? How much money does her dad have in his bank account, she wonders, perhaps unrelated.
He is back with a glass of water. He sets it next to her on the end table with another coaster. He is gentle as he moves, like a bending blade of grass. She is caught off guard by the water, but grateful, and when she considers him she envisions expectation, ascending high and clear, but then, at the last minute, diverted, quickly stifled. She isn't usually this abstract in her thoughts. She takes a long sip, relishing the hydration, all the while watching his slender form. “I was raised on movies,” she tells him.
He shrugs slightly. “Me as well."
She catches him staring at her as she is pitying him, or something like pity. The sound of a train breaks the silence.
“Tedious,” he states. She feels alarm though: does he mean her look of pity, the color in her cheeks? “The train,” he clarifies. He gestures with his delicate, tapered fingers. “Long string of disruption.”
“It does seem to reach the soul,” she offers. He brings to mind a single candle in a church or a cave. But which part of him is the flame, which part the cave? She goes into the kitchen and rummages through the drawer. At least one thing is the same—still a sad assortment of odds and ends of candles, all scentless. She lights one, then two. She sets them on the coffee table. She prepares for that to be the end, but then, pausing briefly, heads over to light the cinnamon one on the counter. Staring at the flame, she sucks in the spice, then draws out the exhale as quietly as she can. Armand follows the flame.
“Wax has stayed the same for centuries." He doesn't look like he's breathing.
She tries to behold him in the soft, falling glow of evening. She is across from him again in the chair now. This stranger, for all she knows, this man who has washed up out of nowhere could be rich, happy, and healthy. Or a total monster. Maybe a monster who is rich, happy, and healthy. Maybe her father is the smitten, desperate one. She quickly averts her attention from that train of thought and starts to search for the movie.
“You don’t resemble him expect for around the brow.” He says it casually with no trace of self-consciousness. Her cheeks redden more, but she manages to look up and hold his eye contact. “Yes, I favor my mother.” The word mother doesn’t seem to jolt him. Maybe his youth doesn’t mean jealousy of her dad’s past. Or hell, maybe he really is simply a friend in want of company rather than a hotel’s isolation. There is something decidedly homey about this apartment, although she thinks this must be a new development.
Silence, stretching. In the candle light his face resembles a paint-blistered, blank wall. "So, do you really want to watch the movie?"
“Yes, Lenora.”
He looks so boyish, hair almost floppy in that moment, legs tucked underneath him, but she thinks she is anthropomorphising him. Why that verb forms in her mind, she isn't sure. “Using my Christian name. Now I believe you.” She feels alive jesting with him. A triumph of her personality over something. Like the thrill of turning a stranger away, away from them, turning the world away from him and her father so they can be together. What is happening? Why are these feelings touring through her mind?
He smiles at her. Is it authentic, who knows.
Halfway through the film he looks so tense and uncomfortable that she almost turns it off. “No, I’m enjoying it,” he says, head not turning from the screen as if he has read her mind. “Beautiful head of hair.”
Music plays out, and her heart breaks for the jilted lover in the movie.
"I think it's a wig, though," Armand confides.
"It's most definitely not a wig. I have a good eye for these things."
"I don't want to ruin it for you but I think it is a good wig."
"Do you think my dad wears a wig?"
Briefly Armand turns away from the screen toward her. He appears as if he is regarding her, but she thinks he is looking at someone else. It almost looks as if he has the remants of something glossy and wet smeared around his mouth. "Your father," he says, his voice softening into what sounds like a crumble, 'has the most rich hair I've ever laid eyes on."
She downs the last vestiges of wine in her glass.
At the end he looks down at his hands. He is fidgeting with them, then picking a piece of something invisible to her off a pant leg. “Thank you for sharing those films with me.” He smiles. “Fascinating.”
She furrows her brow, then has to laugh. She can't tell if he is just being polite.
“Do you think the actors are jealous of their own characters?" He tilts his head. "Or God is envious of man?”
“I’m not a believer," she replies. "Are you religious?” The sinking suspicion starts to form that this man is part of a cult and is trying to indoctrinate her father using strange tactics. Sure, Daniel Molloy seems impervious to that kind of seduction, but she can’t deny this man has an odd pull about him. A legitimacy that doesn’t scream Jehovah’s Witness. But there is something sort of desperate here, isn’t there?
Something fragile, yet his frame is off, the density not right. A felt memory of his hard arm under her fingers--when did that happen?
He doesn’t answer her. Maybe he somehow, inexplicably, hasn’t heard her. “I am going to use the restroom,” she announces, as if she must voice her intentions and whereabouts.
The toilet seat is cold and crisp, and she sighs at the release of her bladder. Through her buzzed hearing she tries to make out Armand’s movements. Does he have a job? It’s a Thursday. Has he taken off work due to the fumigation?
The top half of the window is frosted glass. In the mirror as she washes her hands she views herself with tipsy eyes. Her eyes are clouded like the glass. Her face is looking rather sallow. But it is, she guesses, still living tissue, bathed in blood. She bares her teeth. Fairly white.
Her hair is less full than Armand’s, eyelashes less alluring.
Figures.
“You know, I had to leave my apartment one time for several days because of a leak.” He regards her blankly upon her return. “I stayed at the Hotel Belleclaire near Broadway at 77th. Clean linens, comfortable bed. Near so many specialty grocery stores. I loved to walk around and imagine what would be my daily haunts if I lived in that part of town. Where I would do my weekly grocery run.” He continues to stare. “Such a lovely lobby bustling with people. The elevator frequently was shut down so I usually took the stairs, but yeah.” She pauses and takes a sip of water, eyeing him over the glass rim. “Great place.”
A look of relief washes over him and she studies him curiously. Has her subtle attempt to ask why he is here when he could be at the Belleclaire—who knew she had so many descriptors at the ready for that place—set him free? And then she hears the door behind her.
“Lenora!” It’s her father. Her grey-haired, no-nonsense, absent father. She could eat him, she feels such a surge of affection.
She stands and eyes him up and down. He looks really good, actually. She is surprised. And he is happy to see her. Is the man behind her feeding him home cooked meals? The word radiant comes to mind, but it might be too far-fetched. She finds herself tongue-tied.
“I met Armand,” she says into his ear as he uncorks more wine in the kitchen after he has set down his bag and coat. She watches his right hand like a hawk for shaking but he is a steady pour. Armand is in the living room, seemingly looking out the window and the city lights in the night.
“I can see that,” he says through gritted teeth. “He’s just staying—“
“Yes, he told me.” She thinks to herself. “How exactly did you two meet?” She sees him searching her eyes, hoping to read her mind.
“I interviewed him,” he finally says. She wants to scowl. God damn it, she thinks. Next he will be mentioning the fumigation.
“When did you get back from— wherever it was you were?”
“Early this week.”
“And Armand has been here since…?” Daniel rolls his eyes. “He looks like he knows the place,” she adds more gently, backing off.
“He’s one of those people who immediately adapts and blends in with any decor.”
“I’m not sure I would agree he is blending in with your shabby, grey rug and old couch….” She tapers off, then casually brightens. “I did notice a very populated fridge.”
“Look, he—“
“Are you afraid?”
He is, she can tell. But there is more to it.
“Is he unwelcome here or no?” It is point blank. Yes or no. She has decided she doesn’t need cobbled-together, misleading details. The typical obfuscations.
Her father sighs. “Christ. He’s welcome.” Affection underneath, not indicting.
“Hmm.” She takes him in, thick grey curls, maybe as thick as Armand’s. Living tissue needs living tissue, she supposes. She isn’t a puritan or an advocate for anyone’s denial, let alone her father’s. At face value he is alright, more than alright, maybe. But the fear— what is it? Fear that he will die soon and not get to spend a decade with this Armand?
“Looking at you, I would never guess your birthday is coming up. 72, is it?” She emphasizes the number, loudly.
Daniel narrows his eyes at her.
His age isn’t the fear, she knows now.
“Oh, is it?” Armand asks beside them now, the picture of innocence. Something showing on his face though he is trying to hide it. From whom, she can’t tell.
Daniel raps sharply, but with a tinge of amusement. “It’s months away in the future. Where it belongs.”
She smirks.
She mouths to this strange Armand that she will tell him the date later. Why not? She’s tipsy and this is weird and apparently this guy is welcome as much as, if not more than, he is feared. Her father can take care of himself; he let her take care of herself.
“I would rather throw myself out a window than miss it,” Armand insists, voice dropped low but light.
What a line, she thinks. And that weird earnestness again. She is almost in awe. Now he is staring off, seemingly into the middle distance known as the living room. A strange chameleon is in the kitchen with her and her father. Is the other aging man her father? She doesn’t know anymore. Truths aren’t rock.
Her father’s currency has always been shock and interest. That is what he loves. This Armand must be a treasure trove of it. She regards her dad's hair; it is a lovely head of hair, who could disagree?
She isn’t going to try to dissuade her father and his rich hair from whatever this is—unless she happens upon some unsavory details that means she does need to intervene. One of them will slip up eventually if that is the case. Daniel is picking up a piece of cheese from Armand’s assortment, cheeks flush with some kind of contentment. Something she and her sister and move never gave him, she thinks, heart sinking a little.
She knows he would fear indignity at the end. But maybe, with this guy, he would be spared some of the horrors of a decline. And it would take part of the burden off of her and her sister. Give room to the narrow channel that is their relationship with Daniel. And despite being his usual crotchety, biting self, there is a lightness to him now. You didn’t have to be an aura reader to feel it.
I’m tired. I’m stressed. Lay with me.
She is sitting in the balmy air of the apartment still, at the coffee table, as the two men talk, or maybe they are simply looking at each other. Her mouth has gone dry from the high tannins of the wine, gums above her top teeth aching. Who had said that about being tired. Herself? Was it her father or Armand? They are sitting around the coffee table, butts on the floor, drinking and she is still consuming snacks. Apparently the only one. Armand looks positively lithe and graceful even in this informal setting and informal posture. His knees are bent, an arm languidly dangling off of one knee. “I ate up all of Armand’s day,” she remarks. Daniel peers at Armand through his glasses, eye brows raised. Armand nods resolutely back at her father. Then he turns to her, eyes large and gracious. “If you hadn’t come, Lenora, I would have been forced to read one of your father’s smallish books laying around here to occupy myself in his absence.”
“Smallish books,” Daniel grumbles. “Thank god she came.” She likes how Armand says her name better; the thought comes effortlessly, no demurring. Armand is now rising, looking at her conspiratorially, excusing himself gracefully, going to check on the meal which is something spicy and savory, she can smell it. She has forgotten what he called it. For some reason she thinks of a dark and shapely owl as he stirs and pokes, overseeing the food.
Draw out this time with me. Some things are quick, but some things can be drawn out.
What is that circulating? It isn’t hers. Daniel or Armand’s voice. Their voices are not similar in any way. How can she be mingling them? Her temples are hurting. Are they trying to telepathically force her out. Preposterous, supernatural thought. Echolocation, she thinks, apropos of nothing. Echolocation is real. Bats hitting waves off of things. And owls? It does feel like that sentence just hit her off the microwave. She’s gone mad. Has Armand drugged her? Is her father drugged?
Her father has a small smile, but he acts as if he has his usual frown on. Does he know he is smiling?
Move closer.
The room is quiet except for the sounds of Armand in the kitchen. They are in a quiet house, near the sounds of all the traffic that moves closer.
Get closer. I am here under the bed where you left me.
What the fuck, she thinks. Have they recorded some subliminal-esque sex track? She shakes her head as if to rid it of whatever foreign influence it is under. It feels physical and as if it has invaded from the outside. She grabs at her brow, apparently the part of her that resembles Daniel, her father. The man sitting next to her.
“I think the neighbors next to me are stealing some of my mail,” she volunteers to make grounding, mundane conversation.
“What makes you think that?” He looks immediately suspicious. Do his eyes dart over briefly to Armand?
She shrugs, swirling what is left of her wine without expression. She bends to sniff it as if anything will register. “I don’t know.”
Her life, she knows, is so uninteresting to him. Inevitably, throughout the years, she has tried to test him with this or that. Pick at wounds. Work always came first.
Does Armand come first now, or work?
She is about to ask what he has been working on when Armand arrives, pronouncing the meal almost ready. His eyes soak up Daniel like a textile of the most receptive kind, ready and begging to be dyed. Then he resumes his duties in the kitchen, away from them.
“You go off wandering at night? What, like you aren’t part of and hindered by the food chain? You’ve got to watch out. You could trip.” Her voice is trembling. She can hear it.
“What are you talking about?” Her father says roughly. She has interrupted their silence unexpectedly, even to herself. Then her dad’s brows unwrinkle as if he is now truly, exceedingly worried and he gets up and is talking to Armand, low and harsh, in another room. She is too drunk to really hear them or even locate them. She is swaying. Does Armand sound contrite… did he do something to her? He has been lovely to her, she thinks, hasn’t he? Maybe a bit cold. But they’ve known each other all of two seconds, most of the time spent staring at a screen, each longing for something. What was she saying about the food chain? Maybe she meant the meal in the oven that Armand has prepared for them. She wonders if he will eat anything finally. She feels as if she is walking near a freeway as it is shaking with cars. She has become the freeway.
This could have been otherwise.
Singling me out in traffic.
She imagines the sounds of crickets, birds, singing. At the screen door of an old house, the wide eyes of the owl form of him, standing in the dark, eyes like dark shards of the Atlantic, or the Pacific, any body of water. No, like the near-black muck of the ocean’s floor, the rifts and riffs inside the ocean bed, impenetrable. A hole in the heel of her father’s sock.
Heavily, there is that.
Let me explain it again, let me—
Turned on by the heave of him.
She thinks of something from one of her undergrad philosophy classes. How humans always register differences in their environment, not what is the same—and thus finding the substance that is immutable making up the universe is impossible. That the true seer is the one who can search for, and then see, the obvious. She looks in the kitchen, squinting through the daze of alcohol percentages. Is this Armand sleeping off some kind of deficit at her dad’s apartment? Deficit of cash, no, that isn’t it. Companionship.
What is the same here? What has always been?
Armand sets out steaming plates, and whatever has gone on between her father and this man has been settled or at least pushed away. She wonders if her dad is going to ask her to leave. He is looking at her with a kind of fondness. Or is he looking at Armand? Armand even has a plate for himself. She finds her attention being pulled by the food, its aroma. It clouds out anything else. As she is eating a bite of rice an image comes to her, of Armand putting his head in her father’s lap, using Daniel’s thighs as a pillow. She can, even from the image as an outsider, register some kind of heat in her father. He is rubbing Armand’s hair with his palm and fingers, then grazing at the scallop of Armand’s head where hair fades to bare, unblemished skin. Armand grabs Daniel’s old wrist, playfully it looks to her, a smile hidden on his face perhaps, and then he holds it to himself, like a lover.
She blinks once, twice. It is sweet, oddly. And so detailed. She doesn’t want to see it. But in some way, when she sees it, the aged man isn’t her father. She isn’t grossed out by it. Something is blocking out the instinctual disgust in order to make something else accessible to her.
Nothing has changed around them. Armand is beholding Daniel. They are simply sitting in silence. Her father's hands are clumsy on the fork--disease or another kind of nervousness?--and Armand's eyes almost look the color of burnt milk. Her internal clamor leaking into the external.
Maybe she should leave. She’ll figure these two out from the safety—why did that word come to mind?—of her own apartment and solve this.
But then the image resurfaces of Armand’s head in her father’s lap. His mouth, now visible behind the curls of hair, is opening and the tips of teeth are white, whiter than hers, and strong. He opens his mouth and two of his teeth are becoming sharp, pointed, growing, yes, they are elongated. And he is rising now up onto his knees, and her dad hasn’t noticed anything unusual. Her father is turned on, still. Parts of him that have been in a semi-slumber for years, some parts maybe forever, awake now. Not wanting to wash himself lest it rid him of Armand. Armand, Armand, Armand. This Armand is rising and he wraps his thin arms around her father’s waist, an embrace, his neck against Daniel’s chest like a dark swan. And then he is snaking further up, up to Daniel’s bare collarbone above his ratty T-shirt, then to the nape of his neck, then adjusting to the side. Bending down and in. In, in, in.
Stroke me with your mouth. Coarse words in another language. No, innocent words. Like a boy. Armand is an innocent. Her father has missed his exit without even realizing it. Slackening of his hands. A stiffening of his hips. Daniel clutches him around the waist ardently, using his wrists. Armand pretends to push him away, then nuzzles deeper. "I... I...." Daniel laughs a halting, broken laugh, embarrassed.
What the fuck, her heart is going, what the fuck.
Shuddering with happiness. Armand on her father. An everlasting heat wave. She can see Armand’s silhouette reaching inside her father. Vividly, the curl of his hair brushing Daniel’s forehead. His amber, reconstructed eyes. It’s like a hallucination.
One of her favorite horror movies is May. In the movie, poor titular May wants to drink her lover’s blood, because she has just seen a film made by this lover where his characters drink and then eat each other. May wants it to be real life. The boyfriend is a poser, however, and acts disgusted. She can’t understand that the movie is different from real life and real desires. The boyfriend is appalled and scared. Yes, a wannabe weirdo.
Armand, she can see plainly now, wants his fill of Daniel Molloy, her father, and he is many years beyond weirdness. He means to drain him and leave him for dead. As punishment. It’s brutally direct, this realization. He is the real deal, straight from the horrors. The persisting horrors, and he is the horror. Armand and Daniel are fumbling at each other, lovingly, because her dad is still ignorant, and then her dad’s shaky wrists are panicking as he finally catches onto the viper’s intentions at his neck, and he is trying to pull Armand off of him. Or has he always known?… Armand is lifting him into the air, up, feet off the ground…
Enough, she wants to scream. Let him go.
But she doesn’t. Shh, he tells her. And she realizes this hasn’t happened. It is what the boy wants to happen. The kissing, she thinks, looking at him. Do you love him? she asks. More forcefully this time. Do you love him. She is growing angry and scared. Why must you kiss him before killing him? He doesn’t answer her. He is telling Daniel now, in real life, about the ingredients of the sauce.
Traffic outside. Armand is talking now about… buttercream. He is saying the secret is whipping the butter like crazy, and a small bit of cream cheese, also whipped like crazy. A pinch of salt.
Pleasant…fellow. But he isn’t, he isn’t. This is all an act, isn’t it?
There is not love. There is hate and betrayal. Her father, somehow, has broken up his 77 year marriage… did she get that right? Maybe 7… but still. How old is this man? There is a child and a blonde man, very dashing as well. Armand has killed the child—well, no, she is actually quite older than she looks. They drink blood and kill people and each other. And somehow her father has gotten involved in all of this. Is her father that interesting? He locates interesting things, it is true. But what do these men-things want with her father? Another one, with dark hair and light skin. Armand’s husband, or ex husband. Brainwashed and burnt. She gasps. By Armand.
He has put these images into her mind. He is asking her what she will do. He is staring at her without bottom. She can still talk back to him in her head. I flew like a madman to get here he is saying to himself. He is letting her eavesdrop. An image of her father at the subway station, unaware Armand is in the crowd, watching him. Her father is surrounded by other people, and Armand hates it. He wants to take him alone and silently.
This man… has done terrible things. She knows it in her bones now. And he is going to kill her father and there is nothing she can do. Or he is going to kill her and make her father live with the guilt and responsibility. Because this man has a strange relationship to ownership. Keep your cool, Lenora she tells herself. Her father will send her home even though he knows he can't protect her. Did he not think this through before the interview? Did he not care about her life even in the most basic sense? Armand's silent radiating when he looks at her father. His expressionless expression.
He likes you she says. Desperate.
He stills. Excuse me?
He likes you.
She says, uncertainly perhaps, but brave, You will be surprised what people will accept. She knows this because she is a lover of movies. She has this quality about herself too that has developed, she thinks. This capability.
He’s laughing, authoritative but with a hint of unease. Your father ruined my life he all but spits. Decades of—The love of my—
She cuts him off amidst his own cutting off, growing impatient, roused, feeling more and more that her train of thought will be successful. You aren’t able to see it because you haven’t seen him around other… people. Or in various contexts. This isn’t—-usual for him. Don’t you see?
Look.
He is thinking or seeing or doing something. Broadcasting, and burrowing inward. It’s a vortex of lights she can’t begin to grasp and make legible. Hissing and shattering like a malfunctioning television. A different kind of language. It is making her nauseated, deeply. Then—relief: a soft, continuous stream.
He jots down things that might interest you. She is rambling. I saw them in his bedroom. He writes down things to tell you when he gets back.
No response.
Everyone is a stranger. She searches her mind. Even human to human. He knows, Armand. He knows what you— that is obvious, but he knows how you are and his… my father’s moral judgment isn’t like other people’s.
He is anxious, stupefied, she can feel it in herself. Like he is buried in her too. She sees him going to bed early in a foreign place, somewhere like a great steel maw, going to bed even if he doesn’t need to, retiring his wakefulness. She sees the younger man, Louis. An absent look in his eyes even when they’re focused.
The night snaps back around her. In her. She can’t hurry. She must.
Armand has his head in his hands, listening to Daniel. Daniel is discoursing, nervously perhaps, on the layout of different territories in Brooklyn. He’s talking about Italian tenements. His voice is graveled, curious, opening itself to Armand even though he fears the unknown repercussion coming down the pipe line.
And you have pangs for him too she urges. You loathed when you felt me coming. Breaking into the world made up of you two. You hate me, sitting here even now, deflecting attention and taking up space. All of you is tinged with jealousy. And not just because you want to be the one to viciously deconstruct and eradicate him.
You’re at his mercy so fuck off and enjoy the tenement talk and his hair she says. Then worries she has gone too far. She has gotten worked up, heated. No, she doesn’t care about the man he was with for years whom Armand called husband and tried to placate and keep enthralled and soothed. She doesn’t care about the middle aged children he has killed. She doesn’t even care about him, really, except in relation to her father. Too obvious the point that Armand doesn’t care for her. Does he want her to inventory it for him?
She startles. He is still here in her head. He murmurs yes in her mind, right behind her eyes. She has little other evidence. She has just met this man. How can he ask this of her?
He is insatiable and crazy. But who wouldn’t be. He’s 500 years old and lonely and stuck in a body of semi-living tissue circulating foreign blood that gives out, never replenishes itself with its own. Where does it go and what does it do? It’s unflattering, his emotional landscape—rutted and switchbacks and rot—but she can understand, she can muster something within the limits of her own experience and ability to extrapolate and imagine.
Outside, behind curtains, the constant illumination of the city. Always has dropped so quick into a duskiness that is never able to release into pure black. A black the thing beside her must know, something that has always been here, and he is one of the few to have seen it. Lonely men everywhere. An epidemic, she’s read.
And ultimately, when all is said and done, she is at the mercy of Armand. There isn’t anyone higher or smarter or more careful to call upon. She is at the mercy of whatever this creature finds, or thinks he finds, in her father, inside himself, inside the black.