The Masochist. (Fiction)

This story first appeared in Rosebud Magazine, 2004

My wife hears sounds all the time now. Sometimes they’re in the ceiling, other times they seem to be coming through the heating vents. I tell her I’ve listened, I’ve stood on the landing each night below her bedroom door. It’s an old house, pipes knock, floorboards creek. Outside of that, I don’t hear anything unusual.

Anna says I must hear them, she isn’t making this up. The sounds are there. They’ve been there for weeks now. She’s even accused me of making them myself. She thinks I get up in the attic and rattle things around. I tell her I haven’t been up there in years. With my bad knee, what am I going to do?

“You do sometink!” she yells.

Anna’s ready to accuse anybody now — me, my kids, even the neighbours. Neither of my children live in the city anymore. The closest one — my son, Jason — is up in Orangeville with his family. We haven’t talked since before my wedding. It’s been over a year now. If he was anywhere near the house, I think I’d know.

Sometimes Anna comes downstairs with her hair messed and her eyes wild and blue. She’s still beautiful in her own way. I do what I can to comfort her, but she doesn’t trust me anymore. Even before I get out of bed in the morning, she’s there at my door, telling me my house should be destroyed.

“That’s all is good for!” she yells. Then she’s off again, rummaging through the closets.

All I can do is make coffee and keep things tidy as best I can. These used to be Anna’s jobs, but now she doesn’t even get the mail.

Each morning, I stand on the porch, watching my grass grow in thickets. Everything has a look of destitution. The mail arrives and I wave to the postman as he leaves. Then I see Anna there at the window, staring at me through the drapes.

My sons stopped calling after I married Anna. Jason and Tom said I let her take over. I allowed her to run my life. I know all this is true. I’ve let my house go, I’ve ignored my family and friends. What can I do? Anna is the woman I married.

“You’re a grandfather, for God’s sake,” Jason used to say to me. “Think of that. Think of your family. Think of us.”

I told Jason I think about them all the time. I remember the Sundays we’d get together on the back lawn, him and the kids. Now the yard looks like a vacant lot. Anna used to admire the property. She still worked for the homecare agency back then. She bathed me every Tuesday and Friday. Now she says she can’t help me in and out of the tub anymore. Things need fixing, the caulking is cracked, the showerhead is broken. Everything is falling apart.

I tell her I’ll get them fixed.

“You fix, huh?” she asks. “What you pay with?”

Things are tight right now. I tell her I’ll cash some bonds, maybe take out a home improvement loan. She shakes her head, saying I’m a good for nothing. I know things aren’t what she expected. But we have to learn to love again.

“Come back in my room Anna,” I say.

Anna’s moved to Jason’s and Tom’s bedroom. She says I’m an old man with old man’s problems. I don’t come to bed until two in the morning.

“You tink I wait up for you?” she says, pushing my hands away. ““Naw, you!” she says. “Go,” she says, “Go away, old man.”

A single hair is caught in the corner of her mouth. I try to brush it away and she smacks my hand. “Naw, naw,” she says. She goes upstairs again, shuffling through the closets in my boys’ old room. Nothing is left up on the walls anymore. Anything Anna could carry, she put down in the basement.

It’s junk as far as she’s concerned.

From the moment she wakes up, she’s shifting things around, doing laundry, ironing her clothes. We have a dryer, but it’s on the fritz right now. That’s one of the things she complains about. “Good dryer, eh?” she says. “It’s no good. It don’t work.” She says she wishes she was back living with her relatives. “At least I sleep there,” she says. “Not here.”

She told her relatives about the house, about me and the noises. They’re on the phone all the time. I pick up the odd word in her language, the tone of voice, the way she clicks her tongue. “Yaw, yaw!” she says to them. Then she stands in front of my chair with her hands on her hips. She’s a strong woman. She used to lift me out of the tub, dry me, put on my clothes. I look at her now. I want to touch Anna’s skin. “Yaw, you,” she used to say to me in bed. “You love Anna, huh? You want Anna, ya?”

Now she slaps my hands when I try to touch her.

“Naw, naw,” she says. He face shines. When I try again, she makes a fist. I tuck in my shoulders, ready for anything. “Gawd,” she says. Her hands flop and she walks away. “Little man, you.”

Down to the basement she goes, her slippers clicking against her heels. The washing machine starts. At least that’s working. She washes her dresses and irons them while they’re still damp. Then they go on hangers. They dangle from the clothesline all pressed and starched. I stand on the stairs when she’s gone to bed. I see all her clothes hanging there. I smell detergent everywhere.

A man comes on Thursdays. He arrives in an old Chevy, waiting in the driveway, smoking a cigarette. His greasy hair hangs over his eyes. I hear Anna upstairs, hangers rattling, drawers slamming. She comes down in a pink dress. It’s too tight now, but standing there, her eyes dark with eye shadow, she’s beautiful again. She has the bluest almond eyes. But they’re also the meanest I’ve ever seen.

I watch her put things in her purse and make last adjustments.

“Anna?” I say. “Don’t go.”

She takes out a Kleenex and gums her lips. I stand between her and the door.

“Move, you,” she says. “Move, move, move.”

“Anna, please.”

“Go watch TV. Go, go.”

The man is looking at us. He smirks and throws his cigarette on the lawn. Wisps of smoke rise. He opens the passenger door and Anna gets in, swinging her legs like a teenager. I don’t know where he takes Anna. When she comes home, she looks at me in my chair and shakes her head. Her eyes form in narrow slits.

“What do I do with you?” she asks.

The home care people still come around once a month. Anna thinks it’s a waste of time. She’s a trained nurse, but it’s the law where we live. She gets on the phone and yells, “I take care of him now. I take care good.” They tell her they still have to make their report. “Stupid,” she says. She slams down the phone and looks at me. “You tell them Anna no good? You say sometink?” She goes upstairs, runs the taps, then calls to me from the landing. “Come here, you,” she says. “I wash you now.”

I limp towards the stairs.

“Now,” she says. “Come, come, come.”

Standing at the sink, she scrubs me with a washcloth. Her arms go up and down until my skin is red. Then she towels me off and pulls fresh underwear up my skinny legs. She sees a bulge in my underwear.

“Big man, huh?” she says. “Gawd.”

When I try to touch her, she slaps me.

“Naw, you. Go downstairs. Go, go, go!”

I wait for Anna in the living room, listening to her go through my closets, trying to find my good sweater. She makes me wear it when the health care people come. After they go, she puts it away again.

I sit in my chair and look out the window. Car lights go by. Years ago, my wife would have been standing at the kitchen door, expecting one of the kids to arrive. Now it’s healthcare workers, or that greaseball in the old Chevy.

It was an aneurysm that killed my wife. I can’t tell you the exact date. Dates mean nothing to me now. I miss birthdays and anniversaries. After my wife died, I wandered around the house. One day, I tripped and tore the cartilage in my knee. It got progressively worse until I needed somebody. Anna showed up from the agency.

I thought I’d found my saving grace.

“Come to Anna,” she used to say when she’d bathe me.

My arms would go around her neck, almost desperate. Now she avoids me every chance she gets. “Go away,” she says. “Go away, little man.” She pushes me away hard. I’m sure she doesn’t push away that greaseball.

I see him put his arm across the seat as they drive away. I never know when she’ll be back. After she’s gone, I climb the stairs to her room and get under the covers. They smell of lavender and orange. I found her toy between the mattresses the other day. I want to say to her, “We didn’t need toys, Anna. We had each other.”

Our wedding took place in the back yard, a small gathering, mostly Anna’s family and friends. There were gifts and food and, after the dinner, Anna took her people through the house. They rubbed the curtains between their fingers.

The gifts were packed up afterwards. Everything was wrapped in tissue paper and put on the top shelf of her closet. We don’t talk about it anymore. All we talk about now are the noises in the attic. Anna accuses me every chance she gets. Then she flops on the couch with a dishcloth over her face. I sit down next to her, but she pushes me away. “Leave Anna alone,” she says.

“It’s an old house, Anna,” I say. “It could be anything. Maybe you hear squirrels. They get in under the soffits sometimes. Or maybe racoons.”

She pulls the dish cloth away. She squints like she doesn’t believe me. Then she gets off the couch and picks up the phone. She’s calling a member of the family. “Yaw, yaw,” she says on the phone. “Yaw.” She puts down the receiver again and comes back to the couch smiling. “My boys come tomorrow,” she says. “We see.”

The old Chevy comes first, then a small rusty compact. They park on the street, the greaseball getting out, leading the other men around the side of the house. Anna’s on the back porch with her floral dress rising in the breeze. From the kitchen window, I can see her point to the roof. Cigarettes are smoked while the men talk and nod. Then one of them gets a ladder from my garage. He climbs on the roof. Footsteps crunch on the shingles overhead. Something metal scrapes in the chimney.

The greaseball sees me in the window and grins.

More scraping sounds. Dust falls in the grate.

Then there’s a crash in the living room. The fire screen falls over. Footsteps come running up from the back porch, then they’re in the kitchen, going through in their heavy boots. A chair falls over and I hear scurrying sounds. Something smashes against the floor. Anna yells, “Get him, get him.” Another smash and then Anna laughs. “Good, good,” she says. “Go, go, take him outside.”

I stand there in the kitchen with my fists balled up. They leave by the front door. Coming into the living room, I find footprints in the dust, a chair on its side. I look out the window. The men are getting in their cars. The greaseball stands holding a garbage bag. He sees me, holds it up, then throws it in his trunk.

Anna waves to them from the driveway. Then she comes inside, fanning her neck. “My boys do good job, huh?” She says she’s going upstairs. “I sleep now,” she says. “Finally I sleep.”

I’m watching the ten o’clock news. Anna hasn’t come down all evening. During the commercial, I get up and stand at the bottom of the stairs. Anna’s door is closed. I pick up the phone. “Trebamo cekati, moj milo,” Anna is saying in a soft voice.

There’s a large carving knife by the sink. I take it and limp down the basement stairs, finding the metal loop that holds the clothesline. I cut the line and watch Anna’s laundry fall on the floor. Then I see the cans of paint over on my work bench. I pry the top off one with a rusty screwdriver and pour the paint over Anna’s clothes.

I limp up to the kitchen and turn on the coffeemaker. Anna appears in her dressing gown. I give her a big grin,

“Why you smile?” she says. “What so funny?”

She sees the light on in the basement. Her eyes narrow. She starts down the steps slowly. Then she’s running, thump, thump, thump. I hear her scream. Then she’s coming the stairs again, heels pounding.

I sit down at the kitchen table and wait.

It’s a beautiful wait.

Copyright by Robert Cormack

Robert Cormack is a novelist, children’s book author and blogger. His first novel “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)” is available online and at most major bookstores.