Red Clocks. Leni Zumas
French but can speak it, the tongue of his Montreal childhood, in his sleep. Like being a teacher of walking or sitting. For this predicament he blames his wife. During his first conversation with the biographer, years ago, over crackers and tube cheese in the lounge, he explained: “She says to me, ‘Aside from cooking you have no skills, but at least you can do this, can’t you?’—so ici. Je. Suis.” The biographer then imagined Susan Korsmo as a huge white crow, shading Didier’s life with her great wing.
“Shrimp are sky-high in cholesterol,” says Penny, the head English teacher, deseeding grapes at the table.
“This room is where my joy dies,” says Didier.
“Boo hoo. Ro, you need nourishment. Here’s a banana.”
“That’s Mr. Fivey’s,” says the biographer.
“How can anyone be sure?”
“He wrote his name on it.”
“Fivey will survive the loss of one fruit,” says Penny.
“Ooosh.” The biographer holds her temples.
“You okay?”
Thudding back down into the chair: “I just got up too fast.”
The PA system sizzles to life, coughs twice. “Attention students and teachers. Attention. This is an emergency announcement.”
“Please be a fire drill,” says Didier.
“Let us all keep Principal Fivey in our thoughts today. His wife has been admitted to the hospital in critical condition. Principal Fivey will be away from campus until further notice.”
“Should she be telling everyone this?” says the biographer.
“I repeat,” says the office manager, “Mrs. Fivey is in critical condition at Umpqua General.”
“Room number?” yells Didier at the wall-mounted speaker.
The principal’s wife always comes to Christmas assembly in skintight cocktail dresses. And every Christmas Didier says: “Mrs. Fivey’s gittin sixy.”
The biographer drives home to lie on the floor in her underwear.
Her father is calling again. It has been days—weeks?—since she answered.
“How’s Florida?”
“I am curious to know your plans for Christmas.”
“Months away, Dad.”
“But you’ll want to book the flight soon. Fares are going to explode. When does school let out?”
“I don’t know, the twenty-third?”
“That close to Christmas? Jesus.”
“I’ll let you know, okay?”
“Any plans for the weekend?”
“Susan and Didier invited me to dinner. You?”
“Might drop by the community center to watch the human rutabagas gum their feed. Unless my back flares up.”
“What did the acupuncturist say?”
“That was a mistake I won’t make twice.”
“It works for a lot of people, Dad.”
“It’s goddamn voodoo. Will you be bringing a date to your friends’ dinner?”
“Nope,” says the biographer, steeling herself for his next sentence, her face stiff with sadness that he can’t help himself.
“About time you found someone, don’t you think?”
“I’m fine, Dad.”
“Well, I worry, kiddo. Don’t like the idea of you being all alone.”
She could trot out the usual list (“I’ve got friends, neighbors, colleagues, people from meditation group”), but her okayness with being by herself—ordinary, unheroic okayness—does not need to justify itself to her father. The feeling is hers. She can simply feel okay and not explain it, or apologize for it, or concoct arguments against the argument that she doesn’t truly feel content and is deluding herself in self-protection.
“Well, Dad,” she says, “you’re alone too.”
Any reference to her mother’s death can be relied on to shut him up.
There was Usman for six months in college. Victor for a year in Minneapolis. Liaisons now and again. She is not a long-term person. She likes her own company. Nevertheless, before her first insemination, the biographer forced herself to consult online dating sites. She browsed and bared her teeth. She browsed and felt chest-flatteningly depressed. One night she really did try. Picked the least Christian site and started typing.
What are your three best qualities?
1 Independence
2 Punctuality
3
Best book you recently read?
Proceedings of the “Proteus” Court of Inquiry on the Greely Relief Expedition of 1883
What fascinates you?
1 How cold stops water
2 Patterns ice makes on the fur of a dead sled dog
3 The fact that Eivør Mínervudottír lost two of her fingers to frostbite
But the biographer didn’t feel like telling anyone that. Delete, delete, delete. She could say, at least, she had tried. The next day she called for an appointment at a reproductive-medicine clinic in Salem.
Her therapist thought she was moving fast. “You only recently decided to do this,” he said, “and already you’ve chosen a donor?”
Oh, therapist, if only you knew how quickly a donor can be chosen! You turn on your computer. You click boxes for race, eye color, education, height. A list appears. You read some profiles. You hit PURCHASE.
A woman on the Choosing Single Motherhood discussion board wrote, I spent more time dead-heading my roses than picking a donor.
But, as the biographer explained to her therapist, she did not choose quickly. She pored. She strained. She sat for hours at her kitchen table, staring at profiles. These men had written essays. Named personal strengths. Recalled moments of childhood jubilance and described favorite traits of grandparents. (For one hundred dollars per ejaculation, they were happy to discuss their grandparents.)
She took notes on dozens and dozens—
Pros:
1 Calls himself “avid reader”
2 “Great cheekbones” (staff)
3 Enjoys “mental challenges and riddles”
4 To future child: “I look forward to hearing from you in eighteen years”
Cons:
1 Handwriting very bad
2 Commercial real-estate appraiser
3 Of own personality: “I’m not too complicated”
—then narrowed it to two. Donor 5546 was a fitness trainer described by sperm-bank staff as “handsome and captivating.” Donor 3811 was a biology major with well-written essay answers; the affectionate way he described his aunts made the biographer like him; but what if he wasn’t as handsome as the first? Both of their health histories were perfect, or so they claimed. Was the biographer so shallow as to be swayed by handsomeness? But who wants an ugly donor? But 3811 was not necessarily ugly. But was ugly even a problem? What she wanted was good health and a good brain. Donor 5546 claimed to be bursting with health, but she wasn’t sure about his brain.
So she bought vials of both. She