Annie Oakley's Girl Read online

  “Napoleon! Napoleon!”

  Your hands.

  “Napoleon — I love you. Napoleon — ”

  Everything is dark. Your hands are on me.

  “Wake up. It’s OK. You’re just dreaming. I’m here. You’re just dreaming.”

  I hear myself breathe and feel your hands trying to calm my body and I feel water going in my chest.

  “It’s only a nightmare. I’m here. Are you OK?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m OK. Did you hear what I said?”

  “I couldn’t make it out, but you were screaming something. Do you remember?”

  I hesitate, not looking at you. “No . . .”

  He and I are standing in a train station. One of us is here to see the other one off, but I’m not sure which is which. It’s cold and I only have on a sweater. He is bareheaded and his right arm is stuck inside his jacket. I feel very close with him and believe he feels so for me as well. We’ve just walked through the turnstile and are walking toward the track. We are silent.

  I feel cold wind drifting through the station from where the trains will come in. It’s a completely covered station and I can see yellow lines of light curving in as the trains come. There are several tracks. We are waiting by the first one. I feel very tender and know we will be parting in a minute.

  He turns and looks up at me. “I have something for you.” He speaks English with a French accent, low and woolly. He’s wanting to be secretive. “It’s only a little something, but I want you to have it.” He pulls a coin out of his left side pocket, holds out his open palm to me, and I see a small bronze coin. “For you.” He holds it out to me and I take it. “It belonged to my mother.” He looks into the distance. “My mother, she was a saint.” He holds the moment, then looks at me. “I want you to have it.” I look down at the coin as he presses it into my palm. “Oh, Napoleon,” I say very softly, gazing at the bronze dot in my palm. I raise my eyes to look at him tenderly. Then I step forward to embrace him.

  He snaps back, hissing through his teeth. “Not here — anyone could see us!” His eyes flash. I know he’s embarrassed about being two heads shorter than I am, and do not pursue my embrace. I look at him with apology in my eyes and he turns away to face the track where the train will arrive. He puts his hand behind his back as if both hands were behind his back, clasped and relaxed, but the other hand is in his jacket. I think how painful it must be to be so proud, and I know that he knows I understand this. I look at his firm straight back, the way his shiny heels touch each other, the firm lines of his thighs beneath his coattails. His shoulders are thrown back. We wait several minutes for the train, then see two yellow lines start across the opposite wall. The train is arriving and we move closer to the track to board. I can just see the circles of light and hear the train turning in a direct approach to the track. As the lines of light straighten and the train approaches, I remember which one of us has the ticket. When the train is about twenty feet away, I toss the coin in front of it. He spins around to ask me what I’m doing and I push him on to the track.

  You tell me I’ve been sleeping badly lately and I say why, and you say I turn in my sleep and I often wake up sweating and clenching the sheets tight in my fist. I tell you I’ve been dreaming about Napoleon and killing him and you ask who and I say, “Napoleon,” and you say, “No, I know it’s Napoleon, but who is it really?” and I say, “What do you mean?” and you say you don’t think it’s just Napoleon.

  You say, “It’s not Napoleon you’re trying to kill. It’s a real person. You’re trying to kill a real person,” and I say, “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” and I hadn’t.

  I’m standing outside the Great Hall. It’s a special day called the Hearing of Complaints and lots of people are here to petition him. Most of the people are men in old military uniforms. I’m one of the only civilians. The guard opens the door and I hear my name. He ushers me into this huge hall with tons of people standing along the sides. He’s at the far end, dressed in a furry leopard robe over his standard dress. The guard holds a silver platter out to me and I put the index card with my complaints on it. Then he gives me the plate and I walk forward to the throne and him. When I get there, someone stops me and tells me to read my case. I give a long speech with words like “whereas,” “heretofore,” “party of the first part,” and “breach of trust.” Then I get to the “acquired debts requesting payment.” I look up at him before I start reading. He looks uninterested. I know the other people have been petitioning for lands in Alsace-Lorraine, or the freedom of their Prussian village, or the repayment of their country estates.

  I look down at my blue-lined index card on the silver tray and read:

  You owe me thirty-one dollars.

  You still haven’t returned my favorite aqua flannel nightshirt or my blue bandanna.

  You owe me two Italian dinners, one movie, and a ride to Nashville.

  You owe me an incalculable number of breakfasts in bed.

  You haven’t returned my St. Francis medal or my Buffalo Springfield Retrospective album.

  You owe me half of the New Yorkers we subscribed to and every other month’s worth of the Book-of-the-Month-Club selection.

  When I look up at him, he looks bored. He turns to one of the attendants next to him and asks him something I can’t hear. The attendant looks at me and asks, “Is that all?” I want to say something else, but I don’t. I just nod and play it cool. Then the attendant next to him says. “We’ll keep your request on file for further consideration.” Another attendant comes and takes the card off the plate and turns me around so I can leave. When he turns me, though, I move quicker than him. I spin back around and Frisbee the solid-silver platter right through his leopard robe. The edges sharpen as it spins through the air and I can hear the sing of air over the sharp edge. It spins into him like a turning sawmill and it hits him in the stomach like a knife in an uncooked biscuit, and I’m spinning and every time I spin I have another plate in my hand and I throw it at him and it hits another place: across his face, his pudgy white thighs, the top of his slick black head. I keep going around and around and finding sharp silver Frisbees and I keep throwing them at him and they stick out of him like crooked red Venetian blinds.

  I start telling you about my dreams. At first I’m embarrassed and wonder if you don’t want to hear them, but you tell me that you do want to hear them. You care about them and you find them interesting, too, and so I tell you and you say, “I think Napoleon is Jerry.” You say you recognize the coin, the hill, the debts. I can’t believe it, but then I do. Then you ask me about Jerry and if he was anything like Napoleon, if he was short or spoke French or anything, and I say no. Then you ask me what it was like with him and I say I don’t remember.

  “Did you trust him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, sort of.”

  You look at me and say, “Look, either you trust someone or you don’t. It’s not a matter of degree,” and I say I don’t remember.

  We’ve spoken about Jerry before and you always ask me more than I want to tell, and it’s good for me, but sometimes it goes too fast and I say, “I just don’t remember what was real and what I’m making up.”

  And I wonder why I’m suddenly thinking of Jerry again because I haven’t for a long time, and what suddenly reminded me of him? You didn’t even know he was part of my history for a long time. Then I think about you saying that about trust, and the reason I couldn’t tell you or didn’t know is, if you do trust someone or think you do and then stop, does that mean you never really did? Also it means, how can you be sure if you thought you did, but then something happens and you think that maybe you didn’t or shouldn’t have.

  I’m writing on a parchment with a long, old-fashioned, pointy-tipped pen. It says, “I thought this would hurt you most.” It’s a suicide note and I put it in my lap. I’m sitting in a boat without oars or a motor. I’m wearing a long heavy brocade dress and my fing
ers look skinny and white. I push off from the bank and float down the Seine to the palace. I know he’s having a fête today and by the time I get to the palace, I’m dead. I’m dead but, since this is a dream, I can still see and feel everything, but from above and outside my body, like the movies. The boat catches in some bushes and people run down to see what’s happened. They see a beautiful maiden with a long brocade dress, dead, in a boat. That’s me. Then he struts up in his fine black boots. He walks on wet grass and mud by the river, but his boots remain immaculate. The sky is blue and everything is lovely. He has a glass of champagne in his hand. He approaches the boat. One of his attendants picks up the note and hands it to him. He gives the attendant his glass of champagne and reads the note. He rolls up his eyes, purses his lips, and shakes his head. He doesn’t say anything but drops the note on the ground and turns back to the party.

  This scene repeats itself over and over. Like trying to dial a phone number or start a car in a dream, you just can’t do it, he won’t respond at all. In the last repetition, though, there is a change. In this one, after he drops the note and turns away, I get out of the boat like a ghost and stab him in the back of the neck repeatedly with my pen. He dies slowly of blood loss and ink poisoning. His coat is all stained with red and blue. Then I get back into the boat and sit in the bushes.

  I’m reading a book on Napoleon and you say that you wish I could get off this obsession, that it’s not healthy for me, and I say you’re probably right. You ask me about Jerry again and what happened and I say either, I don’t remember, or, I don’t want to think about it. You say you’re glad you never met Jerry and you hope you never do because he sounds horrible and you wish I’d never met him either, and I don’t know how I feel about that because I think maybe I did trust him and I wonder how he is.

  We’re playing bridge at the Daniels’. Mark and Sue are partners and my partner is him. He sits across from me at the shaky card table with the plastic canvas-looking top and deals the cards. He only uses one hand because his other one is stuck inside his coat. His pouchy, white stomach rubs against the side of the table. The Daniels have gone into the kitchen to get us all more beer and potato chips for the next rubber. I watch him deal and say, “It would be lots easier if you used both hands.” He flashes his eyes at me. “It’s only me,” I say gingerly, “go ahead.” I pause. “Take it out.” He says, “I can do it with only one,” in French. Then he smiles. I think he’s teasing me and I get up to go around behind him, watching him deal. I stand over him and he starts humming the French national anthem. I’m sure he’s joking with me and I reach over his shoulder to pull his arm out.

  He cries out and drops the cards as the arm comes out with a pop. Instantly, there’s a huge blast and his body is shot off the chair by an escaping rush of hot air. His body spins around the room backward, bumping on and off things as it deflates and shrinks. I can’t tell if he’s shouting something underneath the blast of air. I try to follow the quick crooked path of flight his shrinking body takes, but it’s too fast and erratic. When all the air has escaped he falls on the ground and I can recognize his color scheme in the flattened plastic balloon.

  We’ve been talking about Napoleon. You wonder why I’m obsessed with him and why I can’t let him go. We see how he is Jerry, but I don’t believe he’s just Jerry. I don’t think of Jerry by himself, or what he’s like or was, but I know that he is part of Napoleon. You warn me against fabricating a mythology and not being able to control it. You warn me that I mustn’t think I know everything, or that history repeats itself in the same way (I try to remember where I’ve heard that before, but I can’t). You say you’re worried because I seem to be less open with you. You say I seem like I’m always thinking of something else that I don’t tell you. You say I sleep terribly these days and you wonder what it is. You say, “Tell me. I want to know. I care about it.”

  And I say, “Napoleon,” and you say, “Look, don’t give me that. Trust me, dammit. What is it really?” and I say, “Napoleon.” And you’re upset with me and you say, “Listen to me. I’m not Napoleon. You can trust me. Just tell me. What is it?”

  And I want to say Napoleon again because that’s all I know, but I know you don’t want to hear it again, so I say, “I don’t know,” and you say, “Christ, why are you so obsessed? Why can’t you just forget Napoleon? Why do you have to make up this mythology about yourself that isn’t even true and torment yourself and cover up what’s really there? Dammit, I wish you would kill him and get rid of him for good.” And I believe that you love me and I want to say thank you and I want to kill Napoleon. I want to kill him for you.

  And that night, you kill Napoleon.

  There is no setting. Just white space and he’s standing there with his back to me. I have a revolver and I’m aiming, but I can’t pull the trigger. I realize all the messes I have made trying to kill him. Then you’re there and you say, “All you have to do is pull the trigger,” and you take the revolver from me and plant one clean, beautiful, silent bullet in the back of his shiny, black hair. When the smoke clears, there’s no sign of anything, just clean and white and everything is clean and beautiful.

  I wake up instantly and everything is quiet and beautiful.

  I don’t dream about Napoleon for months or think about him. Everything is good except I’m thinking of something else that I don’t know and then I start joking about Napoleon, and one day you tell me you’re afraid that I’m letting my imagination run away with me. You’re afraid of something in the way I laugh about him, that I don’t dream about him, but I think about him when I’m awake still. Like I’m making a conscious effort. You tell me you wish I could be more trusting and strong and believing. You say you’re afraid of my being secretive and you wish you had more feeling of being trusted. You say you think I fear you and you wish we didn’t live with that, that it’s not healthy or constructive.

  Then you ask me if you can borrow forty dollars because you and Terry want to get to know each other better. You tell me you two want to spend more time with each other, and this weekend you want to go away together. And I say yes, and I think of something I want to tell you when you get back, but I don’t know what it is. Then I have this dream.

  It’s raining and I’ve forgotten his name. I go walking through the streets of Paris and asking everyone if they’ve seen a short, almost pudgy little man with a red vest, white stretch pants, black waistcoat with tails, black shiny boots, and slicked-down hair. Then I add that they might not have been able to see any of those clothes because of his large, heavy, navy coat. No one has seen him and I can’t remember his name. No one understands how vital it is that I find him. They don’t know that I have to kill him. It’s a night like in a Victor Hugo novel, black and grey and wet, and I feel like a sewer rat and I’m looking for this little man whose name I’ve forgotten. I can’t believe his name has slipped my mind. I remember everything about him: his coin, his clothes, the snap of his boots, how he plays cards, the money he’s borrowed from me. But I can’t think of his name. I keep looking because I have to kill him. I have a pistol. It’s large and heavy and has a hard wooden handle. I have to be careful because I have only one bullet and I’m afraid the powder and bullet might fall out. Then I run into an alley and I see someone from behind in a large, heavy, navy coat. He’s talking to someone. Very intimately leaning over and whispering. I think their bodies are touching each other. I stop dead and hear myself breathe. The person in the coat knows I’m there and knows who I am because I hear his voice and it says, “I’m not Napoleon,” and then I remember his name. He doesn’t move though, but stays still with the other person, only moving slightly, and I don’t know what to do. He said he wasn’t Napoleon, but I recognize the coat and know that only Napoleon would realize that I was looking for him and say, “I’m not Napoleon.” I know that if I don’t kill him now, I never will, but then I wonder, what if this person isn’t Napoleon, and then he says it again: “I’m not Napoleon,” still not turning towar
d me and I can’t see his face. Then I reason that, definitely, only Napoleon would know I was looking for him, so this must be him. I feel my body tense and I pull out the gun. I set the trigger back and start to pull. Then he turns around. The alley is dark and he moves quickly and his head is covered with a hood and I’m so upset about the gun that I can’t see well, but I’ve already started to fire and the bullet’s already going when I think I recognize him. And it’s not Napoleon, and it’s not Jerry; it’s you.

  I snap my eyes closed and scream and I don’t know if the bullet hits or if it even goes off or if the blast is only the sound of my own screaming and the quick red of my hard-clenched eyes and if I’ve really done it.

  A GOOD MAN

  Jim calls me in the afternoon to ask if I can give him a ride to the doctor’s tomorrow because this flu thing he has is hanging on and he’s decided to get something for it. I tell him I’m supposed to be going down to Olympia to help Ange and Jean remodel their spare room and kitchen. He says it’s no big deal, he can take the bus. But then a couple hours later he calls me back and says could I take him now because he really isn’t feeling well. So I get in my car and go over and pick him up.

  Jim stands inside the front door to the building. When he opens the door I start. His face is splotched. Sweat glistens in his week-old beard. He leans in the door frame breathing hard. He holds a brown paper grocery bag. The sides of the bag are crumpled down to make a handle. He looks so small, like a school boy being sent away from home.

  “I’m not going to spend the night there,” he mumbles, “but I’m bringing some socks and stuff in case.”