Edith John

by Jeffrey Greene

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

But was he to take all of this at face value, buy a video camera and offer himself for inspection like those poor devils on the computer dating services, hoping to find favor in her eyes? Maybe he’d stumbled into someone’s performance art project using unwitting participants, the subject being modern romance among the bookworm set. Or perhaps it was a test to see if his sense of humor was sufficiently developed to be in on the joke.

He could stop now, keep her video as a souvenir of a misbegotten search for the ideal woman. But then he’d never know if she were some species of trickster or con artist, or what she seemed to be: an eccentric, lonely woman who’d made a guarded but sincere attempt to reach out to him. He ran the risk of being made a fool, but wasn’t it worth it, to finally meet the person he’d been wondering about for ten years?

He tried to think of someone in his small circle of friends who might lend him a video camera, but decided it would arouse too much curiosity and, instead, found a used one at a pawn shop for a reasonable price. It took him several days to feel comfortable using it but, at last, he was ready for his screen test.

Keeping his manner light and humorous seemed the best approach, emphasizing his wit rather than his looks, which were decidedy modest. He wasn’t ugly or overweight, had kept most of his hair and was well over six feet tall. His lack of physical grace and athleticism had actually bothered him less in high school, where he had stoically accepted his unpopularity, than it did now, in middle age, with its narrowing chances and acute sense of passing time.

After several failed attempts at light banter with the blank face of the camera, he made some notes, which he wrote in large print and taped to the table just under the camera. It proved harder than he thought, and he spent the better part of a weekend preparing his three-minute video, doing take after take.

He had gotten a haircut, shaved and put on his best suit for the occasion. He arranged books on the table beside his chair, which he would casually reach for and open to a bookmarked passage when he needed to quote a favorite author. On the whole, he thought he’d done as well as could be expected for so camera-shy a person.

He mailed his video to Edith John on Monday and waited, with even greater trepidation than when he had called her, for her response. It came in Saturday’s mail. This time the tape was labeled “Tape #2,” and came with no accompanying note. It was the same book-lined room, with its single, portentously empty chair, seen from the same angle, yet he couldn’t help noticing that the room was now more dimly-lit.

After a brief silence, a figure wearing a large, floppy straw hat crossed from the foreground, turned and sat down in the chair. She was wearing a dark, formal dress with a silk shawl around her shoulders, a big pair of sunglasses and kept her gloved hands folded in her lap. From what he could see of her face, she seemed to be an attractive, slender woman in her mid-forties, with dark, shoulder-length hair and a nervous manner.

He liked what he saw, but had terrible doubts about her own reaction to him. After arranging herself comfortably in the chair, she finally looked up and faced the camera, though keeping her chin tucked against her chest. Her full, lipsticked mouth formed a brief smile, showing him a glimpse of good, straight teeth, then she began to speak.

“That I’m here as promised obviously means I liked what I saw on your video, Robert. Did you doubt it? I hope not. I knew your face would match your very pleasant voice. I suppose in the end we’re just like everyone else, aren’t we? Some measure of physical attraction is the necessary precondition for all that follows, even for people like us, no longer quite so young.”

She paused, fiddling with the ends of her shawl and looked away for a moment. She abruptly got up and walked out of the camera’s view, and he heard water running, then she came back and sat down with a glass of water in her hand, from which she took a careful sip.

“Excuse me. My mouth was dry. As I said, I liked what I saw and heard, Robert. It seems we have much in common. On the other hand, I don’t know for sure that the man I saw on the video was you, any more than you know that this isn’t a sympathetic friend of mine, or even an actress hired for the occasion. You’ve gathered, I’m sure, from my book collection, that I could easily afford to hire an imposter and even send her to our first meeting, putting off the inevitable unmasking.” She drank more water, then put down her glass and held out her white-gloved hands palms up.

“But what would that accomplish? Yes, Robert, it’s really me. The hat and dark glasses are merely further evidence — if you still need any — of my perhaps abnormal shyness and mistrust, not, as you’re probably wondering, an attempt to conceal scars or defects, physical or otherwise. I know how all this must seem to you: suspiciously elaborate, bizarre, even ridiculous. But I’m a very private person, and I must ask you to indulge me for just a little while longer. I promise that when we finally meet, you will, for better or worse, see me as I am.

“So, now that you’ve had your look at me on camera, you may see no reason to put off our meeting any longer. Don’t I trust you enough to meet in a public place? Of course I do. And yet, I have this terrible fear, not of you, but of our shared human nature. It may sound foolish, but I’m afraid that when we meet, talk, eat and drink together, one or both of us will be... how can I say this? Not disappointed, that’s not what I mean. Disenchanted? Disabused? I’m not sure, but what scares me is that the excitement I feel now at having met such an interesting person, excitement that I hope you feel as well, might dissipate on contact.

“I think too much, you’re probably saying. I mistrust the spontaneous possibilities of real life and cage myself in words and the fears conjured by words. Living one’s life through books has its costs, as I’m sure you know. I have a confession, Robert: the person you see now on your television, speaking to you openly and honestly, is not the mute, cowering little mouse you would meet in public.

“That terrible phrase: ‘in public.’ For me, it might as well be, ‘in the arena.’ Here, in my own room, I can be myself. Everywhere else, even in bookstores, I’m like a hunted animal, furtively seeking my food on the shelves while avoiding glances, terrified that someone might speak to me. I’m too shy to initiate conversation with anyone, so I leave my signature in the books I exchange, a kind of message to whoever buys them. It means, ‘I was here, where you’re going. If we were to meet and talk, if that were possible, we’d talk about this, that we chose the same book to read, walked in each other’s footsteps.’

“I want to meet you, Robert, the way you want to, face to face, really I do, but before that happens, I need to know how you feel about everything I’ve said today. So, could you call me, as soon as you’ve seen this? Be honest, be open, be hard on me if you need to. But let’s make sure we’re really right for each other before we commit to the point of actually meeting in person. Thanks so much for your patience and understanding. I’ll be waiting to hear from you. Goodbye for now.”

She stood up, defensively hunching her shoulders and hurried off-camera. He contemplated the empty chair for a few moments, with the glass of water on the table beside it, then ejected the tape and sat for some minutes, staring at the blank screen, his right hand absently kneading his temple. Finally, he picked up the phone and dialed her number. He got her answering machine again and left a message.

“Hello, Edith, this is Robert,” he said, noticing how much less nervous his voice sounded now, after her confession of extreme — if not pathological — shyness. “I just saw ‘Tape #2.’ Please don’t worry about my reaction. Be hard on you? How could I? I’m shy, myself, always have been. I’m glad you liked what you saw; so did I, very much. That’s a big hurdle cleared right there: we like what we see. Add to that, we like many of the same writers, the same bookstores, we’re both in our forties and unattached, right? It all sounds very encouraging to me.

“I think — I know — we’d have a good time together in person. We’d close the place, I’ll bet; we’d have so much to talk about. It sounds like you have trouble feeling comfortable in public places. Well, luckily, I’m more used to being out in the world, and that’s a good thing, isn’t it? That one of us can lean on the other? In other ways I might have to depend on you, but when it comes to getting a table in a café of your choice, I’m your man. All you have to do is show up. Video communication is fine as far as it goes, but the monologue is such a limited form, don’t you think? And the mail is so slow, and I’d much rather talk to you than the camera.

“What I’m trying to say, Edith, is that there’s a choice to be made here: between your fears and your desire for companionship. Remember, I’ll be afraid, too, the first time we meet. We’ll be two scared people, sweaty palms, pulses racing, the works. But let’s do it. Let’s do it soon. What have we got to lose? So call me, please, and tell me you will. I’ll be waiting. Goodbye.”

He waited, and after an hour he knew she wasn’t going to call back. It was a punishing blow to his pride. He had thought his arguments were convincing. But now he realized that he had underestimated the degree of her shyness. She simply wasn’t ready for direct contact, much less a face-to-face meeting.

She was beginning to remind him of his cat, a half-feral orange tabby he’d adopted at a shelter. Even after several years in his apartment, she trusted only him and still hid whenever he had a visitor. But cats can’t be reasoned with, and surely a person as intelligent as Edith John could be coaxed, over time, into trusting him. He stayed up another hour or so, then gave up and went to bed.

On Monday he came home from work and found a message on his answering machine. It was Edith, and he understood now why she hadn’t called all weekend: she needed to be sure he wasn’t home.

“I’m so sorry for not calling you, Robert. I tried. You’ll never know how hard I tried to pick up the phone and dial your number. But I just couldn’t. It’s useless to say that, I know. You’re disappointed in me and probably disillusioned, maybe even disgusted. You wouldn’t be the first. I can’t blame you.

Am I an agoraphobe? Perhaps an anthropophobe, one who fears other people. Or even an arrhenphobe, afraid of men. Maybe all of the above. But I’m not afraid of you. I’ve felt your kindness, even from a distance. I suppose what I’m really afraid of is myself, my own failure to live fully in this world. But I’ve thought a great deal about what you said the other night and have decided that you’re right. There is nothing to lose by trying. So, yes, let’s meet. You pick the time and place, leave me a message with directions, and I’ll be there. I promise. Goodbye.”

All right, he thought, his heart pounding strangely in his chest. He had pushed hard for this, and now it was going to happen. After ten years of wondering and imagining, he would soon be sitting across a table from Edith John. But hadn’t he already learned more about her than he’d bargained for? Was there still savor to the mystery, now that he knew how much she struggled to achieve even the most casual relations with other people? He had drawn her partway out of her shell, only to discover a kind of pallid cave creature, blinded by the sun and half-paralyzed with terror. But behind her fears and insecurities, there was still the fellow traveler in literary worlds where he had never hoped to find female sympathy. Would he ever meet another woman like her?

Yes, of course he wanted to see her, to talk to her, to discover her. But where? It would have to be some quiet, self-effacing little café, in one of the as yet ungentrified neighborhoods of the city, where they could have a degree of privacy, but not so run-down or hidden as to alarm her. And they should definitely meet for coffee, not lunch or dinner. Maybe late afternoon would be best, say four o’clock on Saturday, at the Berber Café in Georgetown. They had outdoor tables in a small, leafy courtyard, well-hidden from the street and served Turkish coffee, espresso and Middle-Eastern pastries. He left a message with directions on her machine, suggesting, if the weather was fine, that they meet at one of the outdoor tables.

It was wet and chilly for the next few days, but by the weekend the weather had cleared, the temperature in the high sixties. He was on time, wearing a suede jacket that he didn’t really need. He asked the waiter for a table for two outside, adding that he was waiting for a lady. The waiter nodded and told him that the lady was already here, and he led the way to a table near the back of the courtyard. There was a large sycamore tree partially blocking the view of the table, but it was empty when they reached it.

“I just seated her a minute ago,” the waiter said. “She may be in the washroom.”

“I’ll wait for her,” Robert said, though his hopes were sinking.

“Would you like to order something while you wait?” he asked.

“Yes, an espresso, please.”

The waiter nodded, then reached down, picked up a paper bag in the chair and set it on the table. “She must be around here somewhere,” he said, a hint of sympathy in his voice. “She left this.”

He waited without hope for her return, then finished his coffee and opened the bag. It contained a letter addressed to him, a wrapped present that he guessed was a book and an unlabeled VHS tape. The letter was short, her handwriting as beautiful as ever:

Dear Robert,

I didn’t lie to you. I promised I’d be here. What I knew I couldn’t promise was that I’d keep my nerve and stay. I used up all my courage in 1988 when I took a step — a leap, really — into an abyss. It changed my life but, unfortunately, it couldn’t change me. Do you know the aphorist, Antonio Porchia? “He who does not fill his world with phantoms remains alone.” Do me one last favor, Robert: watch the tape first, then open the present. Only then will you thank me for standing you up. But please believe that I’ll miss you. You were the best one by far.

Edith

It was the same scene: the empty chair, the bookshelves, the table. With this difference: there was a pair of framed photographs on the table, of a man and a woman who appeared to be twins. The woman, as far as he could tell, was Edith, and she seemed to have been in her early thirties when the picture was taken. The large, deep-set brown eyes under arched, rather heavy brows were fiercely intelligent, yet seemed filmed over with a distracted inwardness, as if she were dreaming awake. Her features were strong and symmetrical, the mouth rather large and set with determination and character, but looked unused to smiling. Her eyes, nose and mouth seemed harmonious, but something about the whole was disturbing; he couldn’t quite decide why. Perhaps the jaw was a tiny bit too square. The resemblance between brother and sister was downright startling.

Now the camera had moved to a shelf, holding not books, but videos. It slowly panned the hand-written titles, all of men’s names, names he didn’t know. Then he saw: “Rennie Volcker, Tape #1, Tape #2, Final Tape.” And next to it, his own: “Robert Freas, Tape #1, #2,” and beside them, a cassette tape. The camera moved in closer: “Robert Freas, Telephone Calls.” The tape abruptly ended. He reached for his gift.

It was a slender book of aphorisms by Antonio Porchia, titled Voices, published in 1988. He opened it, and on the flyleaf was a signature, written with a black fountain pen, in a hand he couldn’t fail to recognize, the letters rendered with calligraphic precision:

Edward Johns.