The rain-slick streets glowed in the moonlight; the storm clouds from whence the wash had come were long since spent. A solitary street lamp stood as sentry on the corner, its old bulb blinking hysterically, like a dying man gasping for what might be his last breath. Somewhere blocks away, a car horn sounded, echoing through the vast empty corridors of the city. The usual night sounds followed, having been disturbed only briefly by the rude punctuation of the horn—by usual, I mean those noises which abound in the silence of the city, a certain absence of sound that can be felt more than heard, a static symphony of dead calm. The city pulses with it at night, and I sit alone every night on the fire escape overlooking the street and I listen.

I wrapped my old worn army overcoat—a heavy wool knee-length thing with rank insignia on the shoulders—tighter around my shivering form and I strained to hear it again: The Silence. It took several seconds for the echoing sound of the horn to be obliterated completely, but soon it was gone, leaving only my night. I hunched down and shivered again, but I was at peace once more. There was no wind at all; rather, it was the stillness of the moist air that allowed it to permeate my clothing. I could feel that cold-chested shallowness, as if I had gone jogging in sub-zero temperatures, but I was not uncomfortable, for I was more alive at night in the city than any time or anywhere else.

That night was more than three months ago—three months? It seems like years—and I remember it as if it were yesterday, as if it happened only hours, or mere minutes past. How could I possibly forget? It was the night I met her.

It started low and sharp, a slight ripple in The Silence. I noticed it immediately; it stirred my consciousness to near full arousal, a new sound both foreign and familiar to me, which was unmistakably out of place, but not quite unpleasant or distracting. Rather, it seemed to blend in with The Silence, like the virtuoso in the Concerto of Nothingness. At first it had a certain anonymity to it, but as it grew louder and closer I recognized it as the steady klik-klak of a woman’s high heels. With great effort, I turned my head (as stiff as my neck was, being hunched and cold) in the direction of the disturbance.

She was a half a block away by now, headed right for my perch—or rather, below it. It was a little disturbing to see another human being out at night. I like the solitude of my nights with The Silence. I like to be alone with it. Yet seeing her coming towards me that night I felt a kind of relief, like she had saved me from myself with her mere presence.

I smiled. It had been nearly six years since my divorce. To say that I was lonely for a woman would not be an understatement, it would be a lie. My ex and I spent one year as lovers, one year as a married couple, three months as a separated couple in the throes of a divorce, and now I hadn’t seen or spoken to the Bitch in six years. The odd thing about our relationship is that I never loved her. I told her I did, of course, because it seemed like the thing to say at the time. I’m not bitter about our relationship ending, only happy that the Bitch is out of my life; I felt the same way when I had a wart removed from my middle finger.

I had stopped watching the woman when she moved out of the field of vision I created when I first turned my head; I hadn’t moved my head back or let my gaze shift to follow her, my eyes transfixed on the point where I first saw her. I sat very still, listening.

It had been at least five minutes before I realized that I was hearing The Silence again. She had stopped walking. I turned my head one hundred eighty degrees to look down the street where she had been headed, but she was nowhere in sight. I swore under my breath. It seemed unnatural to me—first the disturbance in The Silence, and now that disturbance was gone. I let my gaze fall back to between the gratings, to the sidewalk below me, to where she was standing, looking straight up at me.

I started. She tapped her toe and then her voice broke The Silence again, like a cannon shot.

“Do you have someplace to go?”

She asked it so simply, so lightly, as on a breath, that I wondered what the hell she had said. I sat looking at her for a while. She had long blonde hair that cascaded down the middle of her back and over her shoulders—it reminded me of a waterfall tumbling upon a rock, except that it was perfectly still. Her lips were full and the bottom of her mouth quivered slightly with the cold. Her eyes—oh, her eyes—were big and inquisitive. I felt as if her eyes could peer straight through me, into my soul, and I felt a chill. The rest of her was covered with a long wool drape, pale green in the lamplight, but it might have been white. I couldn’t see her feet, but my imagination drew a picture of black patent leather pumps—with heels, of course.

“I said, ‘Do you have someplace to go?’”

There was no impatience in her voice, nor condescension. It sounded almost like compassion. And her voice was sweet and new, like newly picked roses.

“What do you mean?” I inquired. “Do I bother you?”

I was not angry, but she shrank a bit at the tone of my voice, and I was immediately sorry I had said it.

But she smiled and straightened—God, the moon lit her face like its own shimmering reflection in still, black waters. “No, I mean, I hate to see anyone sleep outside on a night like tonight, and I was wondering if you need a place to stay.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Was she stupid? Or just charitable? A little of both, perhaps, but definitely crazy to make offers like that in the city. But I decided to humor her.

“No, I live right here.”

“On the fire escape?”

“No, in the apartment.” I pointed my thumb over my shoulder and shook it. “It’s nice and warm in there. Trust me.”

She crossed her arms, shifted her weight, pursed her lips. “I don’t believe you.”

“What are you, some kind of social worker?” I demanded. She didn’t move and made no reply. “Okay, I’ll prove it to you.”

I stood stiffly, stretched, and then opened the window behind me, the paint peeling and cracking in my hands. I stepped in and turned on the light.

My bedroom. The furnishings were sparse: a double bed, a table with a lamp on it, a chest of drawers, in the corner a closet with no door, and that sickly blue paint on the walls. I saw all of this before I turned on the light, having lived here since the Bitch and I parted company. I turned back to the window, feeling the damp night air ooze into the place and swirl about my ankles. I leaned out over the sidewalk and saw nothing.

She was gone. I felt a tightness in my throat; this was all becoming very odd. Was she only a hallucination, one that could be heard and seen distinctly? My mind could have been playing tricks on me; solitude can do that to a person.

Then I heard the klik-klak on the wood floor beyond the wall behind me. I turned at the sound of a light rapping knock, insistent, yet politely so. I left the bedroom and walked quietly down the dark hall past the kitchen, bathroom, and living room in succession, to the chained and deadbolted door. The outside hallway light was working, and beneath my door the light came, interrupted by two dark areas spaced one foot apart. I waited.

The knock came again, three quick raps played with one knuckle. I made a mental note to myself to notify the super about the damn downstairs lock again, then I unchained the door, turned the deadbolt back and opened the door all the way.

She stood before me, relaxed and erect all at once. Her arms lay limply at her side. “Do you usually take visitors this late?”

“I don’t usually take visitors at all. I like to be alone.”

She laughed, tossing her head back, then brought her eyes back down again to meet mine. “And of course, your first visitor happens along at two in the morning.” She looked past me into the apartment. I felt suddenly very exposed. “You look like you live like a hermit.”

“A loner,” I corrected. Her eyes bothered me. I looked away, but I could feel them on me.

“Loner, hermit…” she snickered. “Same thing.”

We stood there for a while; I don’t know how long, but it must have been five minutes. “Well, look,” I finally managed, “do you want to come in or did you come up here just to look inside?”

She smiled, and without a word walked—no, flowed—past me into the place and stopped, expectantly. I closed the door and chained it, leaving the deadbolt back so she wouldn’t feel too confined, being in this stranger’s home. I walked past her into the living room and flicked on the light switch, grimacing at the worn couch and scratched up coffee table with glass-rings on it. I took her drape and hung it in the hall closet. Then, as an afterthought, I removed my own coat and dropped it on the floor in the closet, having used the single hanger for her drape.

When I returned to the living room she was seated comfortably on the couch, legs crossed, hands folded in her lap. She wore a red dress that billowed slightly around her black stockinged legs, with a red leather belt that divided the loose skirt from the considerably tighter blouse with long buttoned sleeves; cotton, it looked. She looked as though she lived here, and I felt like a guest. But remembering that I was the host, I offered her a drink, apologizing that I had only bottled water and beer.

“Spring water would be nice,” she said, brightening, then “Mind if I smoke?”

My eyes went to the overfilled ashtray on the coffee table before her, and back to her. She laughed a little, and I smiled and took the ashtray to the kitchen to dump it.

As I took the glasses from the cabinet (one glass, actually, and one coffee mug), I couldn’t help but think how natural this all seemed, although I knew it was not ordinary at all for someone to take a complete stranger into his house like an old acquaintance. Hell, I never even had old acquaintances visit me. Nor did I ever visit anyone. Yet here I was playing host to a woman who had originally thought me to be a homeless person. I shrugged the odd feeling off as I poured the water into the glasses and decided to just play it by ear.

When I returned she was standing over my stereo, which sat opposite the couch, both speakers aimed at the center cushion. She was examining my collection of CDs.

“You have seven disks of just Aaron Copland music?” She turned to look at me, and those eyes read my soul again.

“Yeah, well, Copland turns me on, you know? I mean, his melodies are all so simple, just two voices, most times, playing off of each other. I always thought that kind of relationship between two different sounds was so hauntingly beautiful. And his style is so rustic, so American.” I was in my prime, and I smiled. “It’s as close to genius that I’ve seen in this world.”

“Oh?” She leaned back a little and crossed her arms, eyebrows raised, mouth mocking. “And how many worlds have you seen?”

“Just this one. It’s enough.”

She thought about that for a moment, then took her glass and crossed over to the couch. She hesitated before she sat, and as she sat, she spoke. “Play me something brilliant, then.”

I set my water down, and the ashtray, and turned to the stereo. My fingers switched on the stereo, selected the disk, placed it on the tray, all without the restriction of direct command from my brain. I pushed play and sat beside her on the couch and closed my eyes.

“Appalachian Spring,” I said. “Feel it.”

The music started, soft, low, one note rising and falling in pitch, joined by another, each its own melody yet both together as one. I opened her eyes and turned to see her expression, expecting to see what I felt when I first heard the piece—a brightness; elation which filled me and built within me as the music rose and swelled. Instead I found her looking at me.

“Why did you let me in?” It sounded and felt like an accusation, but there was no malice in her eyes; only that damnable innocent inquisitiveness.

I smiled. “Why did you come up here?”

It was her turn to smile, a smile that spread slowly over her face like a fire on the plains. “Curiosity,” was the only word she offered.

“Curiosity killed the cat, though.”

Her smile broadened. “You’ve got to die sometime.”

It was a simple cliché, but in her voice and expression there was something which told me that the “you” was actually me, and I felt a chill.

Her smile faded. “Married?”

I almost laughed, but I suppressed it. “I have one glass, one mug, one plate, one set of silverware—do you think this is an indication of a married man?”

“I mean, have you ever been?”

“Once, a long time ago.” I realized that she was starting to smile again. “How did you know?”

“Oh, I can tell. You like to be alone. You were probably listening to the sounds of the city at night when I found you.” She laughed when she saw the expression of surprise on my face. “Oh, I know. I do it, too. But I do it on the street. I like to listen to the stretches of silence between my own contributions to the night sounds.” She pointed to her shoes, which were now on the floor. I noticed that she had brought her knees up onto the couch with her feet to one side. Facing me fully like that, she looked like a sculpture, a statue of the purest white marble. It seemed as though all of my surroundings—couch, table, walls, stereo, apartment, world—had been carved from a single piece of stone. “Tell me about her.”

I looked away and breathed out huffily through my nose. “The Bitch. In six years I haven’t been able to say her name out loud. Or even think it, for that matter.” I paused, thinking. “Come to think of it, I can’t remember her name.” It didn’t bother me at all, this realization. I sort of felt relieved.

I must have been beaming because she laughed out loud. I laughed with her, freely; for the first time in six years, I actually laughed until I hurt. Then she deadpanned on me again:

“What was it about her that made you so happy to see her gone?”

She knew me. She didn’t ask silly questions like my friends did when I first got divorced, questions like “Are you okay?” and “How do you feel? Do you feel like crying?” I couldn’t tell them that I felt like throwing a party. But she knew.

“Nothing she said or did, really, just what she was. She and I started together in college. We dropped out and got married. I don’t know, it seemed only right, seeing as we were sleeping together so much. The sex was good, but I never really liked her at all. She was condescending, inconsiderate, selfish, greedy, gold-digging…”

“A bitch.” It sounded foul coming from her. I just nodded.

“A bitch. I told her I loved her whenever we were in the bedroom, and whenever we left I never said it. I know I never meant it. It was just something I said in the heat of passion.”

“Children?”

“One, sort of. She got pregnant and had an abortion without telling me. I wouldn’t have known, but the doctor called a week later and left a message that she may be extra fertile for a while, her insides being as clean as they were from the thing. I never gave her the message, but she wouldn’t sleep with me for a while. She knew. The goddamn Bitch knew!”

I realized that I was shouting, shaking with rage. The CD player fell silent, its duty done. I sat there on fire for several minutes, and when I became myself, I found that my guest’s hand was resting on my forearm, comfortingly. I looked at her sympathetic face and into her eyes, and her eyes no longer probed my feelings; they reflected hers, and I was no longer uncomfortable with them. Instead, they soothed me.

“Would you have liked a boy or a girl?”

I smiled. “A boy. Or a girl. To tell the truth, I don’t think it would have mattered. I just would have liked a child.” The smile left. “But I think maybe it’s best that she did have the abortion. I mean, the two of us together wouldn’t have been able to get along long enough to raise a child. And I know—it was in our nature—that we would have forced ourselves to stay together if only for the sake of the child. So maybe she was right in that, after all.”

She leaned forward a couple of inches, her eyes wide and her face calm. “Maybe she was. But don’t you justify her actions for her.”

I stared at her for a while, and I felt my body shrinking from her. “ What are you?” I asked, although as soon as the words passed my lips my mind told me that what I meant was “Who are you,” but, then again, at this point it was all the same to me.

She sat up straight, not a quick, questioning jolt, like I would have expected, but in a slow fluid motion that left me wondering when it was that she moved. I thought I missed it. “Who I am is of no importance. I am just someone who happened by while you were listening to the city. Odd as it may seem, I felt compelled to come up here. It’s not something that I do every night. But there was something in your nature that made me…”

“Curious.”

“Curious, yes, but also…I think you needed to talk to someone tonight, regardless of how much you like to keep to yourself.”

“What about you, though? You needed to talk to someone, too, I think.”

That comment got the desired effect. She allowed her expression to soften a little, to succumb to the weight of its own stress. For a moment it looked as though she might cry. After a while she turned her head to look at something very far away. I noticed that the thumb of her left hand was moving over a ring of skin on the ring finger of that hand, a patch of skin which was lighter than the rest.

“I’ve tried to put him out of my mind. It’s hard, though, when you’ve loved the way I did. I felt trapped by the relationship, yet I never wanted it to end. There was just something… wonderful about it all. Every day seemed like a dream—and a nightmare. I was so confused, sometimes I did things to hurt him without thinking about what I was doing. Before I knew it I had pushed him so far away from me that I could never bring him back.” She paused, waiting for my reaction. Seeing none, she continued. “After it was over, I still wore the ring as a reminder of what once was, as a reminder of how foolish I’d been.” I smiled and held up my hand to show her the band of gold encircling my own finger. She laughed. “You know, it’s comforting to know I’m not alone. But still….” Her voice trailed off and her eyes grew glassy. I waited patiently for her to continue, eager to hear my own reflections of the last six years coming from her mouth.

She sat still for a few seconds, then, regaining her composure, looked at me again. “You and I, we’re like rats in the cellar. Loners, we are, and yes, hermits too. Lost in ourselves and our surroundings, we wander aimlessly through the world, blind deaf mutes to all around us, seeing only ourselves in a sea of humanity and filth. And that makes us alone. Live, breathe, eat, all on instinct alone. And yet we are happy in our own rights that we are alone. Aren’t you happy you’re alone?” She was crying now, large helpless tears rolling freely down her face and dropping to stain her dress.

“Yes, I suppose I am,” I choked out, but I was near a breakdown myself. Her bottom lip quivered, and I reached over and took her in my arms, and she laid her head upon my shoulder and sobbed. I stroked her hair comfortingly, and said senseless things like “Shh…there, there…it’s alright,” but I knew it wasn’t. For six years of pain and anguish over my failed attempt at love I hadn’t found the words to express my true feelings, although I spoke of it often to myself. She’d capsulated my every emotion in the span of five minutes.

She’d stopped crying, and was now sleeping peacefully in my arms. I gathered her up and carried her to my bedroom. After I had laid her in my bed and drew the covers up under her chin, I went to the window and looked out. The city was moving once again, the eastern sky a deep rouge which faded to a deep indigo as it moved westward. I sighed and thought that for the first time in six years, a woman would be sleeping in my bed, and I’d be on the couch. And odder still, I think I actually felt at ease with her, more so than I had with anyone else in my life. She knew me for what I was, because I was a reflection of her own self. I yawned and stretched and went out to the living room.

As I settled down on the couch a sudden final thought on the evening occurred to me—I didn’t know her name. Oh well, I thought, I’ll find out when we wake up, and I closed my eyes, finding rare comfort in the sleep that swept through me almost immediately.

When I awoke, it was early afternoon and she was gone. The glasses on the table were back in the cupboard, my bed was made, the CD was replaced and the stereo was off. The only evidence that she’d been there at all was the faint hint of perfume that lingered in the covers on my bed. And the note:

I dropped the note on the bed. How could I not have recognized her? How could I have not recognized her voice, her face, her attitude? Yet looking back I thought, yes, it had been her. As a shadowy phantom from the past she had come and made it all right.

I sit on the fire escape overlooking the street now. The sharp and repugnant cold of winter has given way to the sweet and friendly warmth of spring. I’ve been here every night for the last three months. I sit here alone with The Silence, and it sickens me. Where once I was happy in my solitude, now it feels like a death sentence, to be here alone without her, to sit here night after night and listen for her footsteps. If I had any sense, I’d stop waiting for her to return.

If she has any sense, she never will.

The End