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Back The Human Zoo Save as PDF
Chapters (37)
  1. THE HUMAN ZOO
  2. Also by Sabina Murray
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. Part I
  8. I
  9. II
  10. III
  11. IV
  12. V
  13. VI
  14. VII
  15. VIII
  16. IX
  17. X
  18. XI
  19. XII
  20. XIII
  21. XIV
  22. XV
  23. XVI
  24. XVII
  25. XVIII
  26. Part II
  27. I
  28. II
  29. III
  30. IV
  31. V
  32. VI
  33. VII
  34. VIII
  35. IX
  36. Acknowledgments
  37. Back Cover

I placed a chair by the wall and took off my shoes. The painting was not heavy and once I’d managed to unhook the wire from which it hung, I could easily put it on the floor. I had replaced the Alarcon with the Ventura and was just about to step off the chair when I heard Chet, who must have abandoned the steak, clearing his throat dramatically. I looked at him from the chair.

“I was just—”

“I know what you’re doing,” he said.

“You can put the Alarcon back.”

“Why would I do that?” He walked over and extended his hand to help me, and I stepped down from the chair. His hand was shaking, an obvious tremor.

“Why are you shaking?”

“Why are your shoes off?”

“I didn’t want to get dirt on the chair.”

I thought to ask after the steak but couldn’t bring myself to. Chet was still holding my hand. He breathed deeply in his throat but didn’t move. I was losing track of time and wasn’t sure how to bring the moment to a close. I remembered what it was like to kiss him but then immediately doubted the memory. It was so very long ago and so many kisses had interrupted whatever had been shared between us. I wanted to say something funny, to call attention to the fact that all the blood was draining from my hand, that my shoulder was growing stiff. I thought I could draw his attention to the paintings, to talk about colonialism and brushstrokes and patricide. But I couldn’t speak. I wondered what emotional dependence on Chet had been developing inside of me, this inconvenient love that I had been refusing to acknowledge as anything but the sentimental crush of a bored woman. And then I felt as if I’d stepped beside myself. I witnessed my hand released from his, moving to his face, my other hand rising to mirror it, and then I was kissing Chet, not passionately, but with such excruciatingly slow determination that the gesture seemed to be a seal of Shakespearian proportion. I pulled back and finally, finding my voice, said, “The steak.”

XVII

XVII

Was it Chet? Or did I just not want to go back to the States? Some lawyer was hammering out a divorce agreement, and although I knew intellectually that this was something that needed to be done, a part of me felt all the legal stuff was overkill, somehow irrelevant. Although I’d only been gone a few months, my American life seemed unreal, a world of meeting women for cocktails, and habits, like going to the gym for yoga, rituals I no longer had. When I tried to picture New York, I thought of people swearing loudly on the street as if scripted by Scorsese and then wondered if I was actually remembering a Scorsese film.