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The humming silence fought for space against Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly.” Nathan Waite wondered why they would take such a nice song away, who would take it. His eyes cruised his Princeton dorm room in search of the who, but no one was there. He knew Cheryl wasn’t the culprit. She had left at least an hour earlier, hadn’t she? Keeping track of time these days only added to his confusion. Cheryl wouldn’t take his music. He looked at the closed door then back at the playing phonograph record. Pressing his palms over his ears, fingers clawing his curly red hair, tall, muscular Nathan stared at the phonograph needle rotating to the silent humming in his mind. Hadn’t he and Cheryl decided that the mental images and sounds he was experiencing were simply due to overstudy? Focus, he needed to focus.
He smelled the chlorine and musk of their lovemaking. Near the closed door their skis and poles leaned against the wall, tips touching like tentative new lovers. Nathan reached for the stack of four-by-six blue cards on his desk, his notes for his upcoming debate on U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He traced his trembling finger down the list of trigger words on the first card: why France gave up; hawk arguments; quotes. He didn’t remember writing those words, yet the handwriting was his. He heard war sounds—shots, missiles, human cries and covered his ears again. The cards fluttered into blue patches on the hardwood floor. They were no longer his cards, the words no longer his. No doubt they belonged to the same people who had taken his music. The silence roared. How embarrassing it would be to call for help only to learn it was predebate stage fright, over study, maybe mono.
Nathan hurried down the hall to the phone, inserted a quarter, and dialed his sister, who was likely still awake. Light shone beneath several student doors. Before anyone could answer he hung up. He inserted a second quarter and dialed his parents, hoping Dad would answer. When his mother uttered a sleepy “Hullo,” he hung up. She’ll worry, call back, never let me off the phone. Maybe his dad was out of town selling inventions to warring parties. Be a good soldier, that’s what his dad always said. Back in his room, Nathan gathered the multicolored, striped bedspread to his chest and paced. Focus. Think of Cheryl. Tonight Cheryl had worn the embroidered peasant blouse he liked, the Je Reviens perfume he had given her at Christmas. He dipped his nose into the floral scent in the bedspread and inhaled deeply. Je Reviens means I’ll come back, I’ll return, I’ll haunt. Cheryl never called his dreams foolish or accused him of not making sense. She didn’t make fun of his freckles or try to trim his unruly curls or try to fix anything about him. Cheryl would always be there for him. The yellow stripes were dominant in the bedspread. More yellow stripes … and bolder, too. Je Reviens.
For some reason Nathan thought of the pantomime he had seen Marcel Marceau perform. He dropped the bedspread on the bed and opened his hands in front of himself, moving them like Marceau’s Bip character, up and down the wall. His hands followed the wall to one side, around the corner, along the back, across the other side, until he was boxed in. It felt safer inside the box. Cheryl approached him as she had earlier, his red woolen ski socks flopping on her toes. The tenderness of her kiss made him feel like an Olympiad, rich as Rockefeller, smarter than the president of Princeton. A maker of music.
“I love you,” Cheryl said.
“I love you, too.”
He loved the way her nipples hardened at his touch. “Oh, Nathan,” she whispered, wrapping her lovely bare legs around his on the bed. Nathan saw his serious reflection doubled in her irises, drifted into the sanctuary of her dark eyes. He said, “I love you so much it scares me.” He kissed her heated ears, her neck, her lips, slowly paced her passion, explored her moist folds. Cheryl quivered. He kissed down the front of her, abandoned to fervor as she gripped his head.
“Oh ... Nath ... Babe ... Hon … ”
He eased into her gently, pressing lightly on the sensitive spot she had so patiently showed him. He pressed and eased, pressed and stroked, his hands moving across the wall as he penetrated slowly, steadily, moving her up ... up ... up ... the slope, pausing only once to let her catch her breath, urging her to the crest where together they leapt into the high heat of the sun ... flying into the wind over virginal snow ... flying, soaring ... FREEEEEeeeeeee.
Cheryl landed beside him with a soft, little sigh. In all the world was there a more wondrous moment? He rested his head on her breast and wrapped his arms around her, forever. “I’ll love you always,” he said, “always.”
That’s when her question ruined everything. “Hon? Maybe it’s time you saw a doctor. You know—to be sure?”
Being with you is all I need. He drew a deep, unsteady breath, and exhaled it slowly. The back of her fingers brushed his cheek. “Really. I’m okay,” he said.
“Sure?”
“Yes,” he lied.
They rehearsed his debate then. Cheryl failed to grasp his best argument. Sometimes his mind made him feel so isolated and alone. Sometimes he just wanted to trade it in or simply give up.
“Babe,” she said, “don’t pressure yourself.”
Nathan saw steam whooshing skyward from a train’s smokestack. He saw the tip of Cheryl’s index finger rest on the little red bow between her breasts.
“Babe? Nathan? Are you having one of those flashes? Are you?” He couldn’t remember saying good-bye. Je Reviens.
Nathan shuddered and consciously shook his body to free himself of the too-real dream. Cheryl said she wanted a houseful of children. He saw the scattered blue cards, stooped and gathered and put them in order. He removed the sheets from the bed and dumped them into the bathroom hamper. “Man, focus, keep your focus,” he said aloud. One or two kids maybe, not a houseful. “One or two … one or two only,” Nathan muttered. Experiencing an overwhelming responsibility toward their unborn children, Nathan pulled fresh sheets onto the bed. He saw himself skiing in bad form at high speed down a treacherous slope, like a black streak crossing white space.
Frightened at his inability to keep his mind at bay, Nathan reached into the shower, and turned the tap toward cold. He dropped his clothes in the hamper and stepped into the spray. Only when thoroughly chilled did he move the indicator to warm. Even so, his mind remained tightly wound like a Slinky. He crawled into bed, forced his breathing into longer exhales than inhales, a rhythm meant to induce sleep.
Before long Nathan found himself hurtling from one accident to another—his canoe overturned in whitewater, he rear-ended the car in front of him, fell through ice while skating. Up! Out of the ice he bolted, then skied dangerously fast down a steep slope with only a sliver of moonlight to guide him as he etch-etch-etched perilously over crusted ice, too fast, too fast. Ahead Cheryl screamed for help, “Nathaaaannnnn. Nathan!”
Nathan threw his weight and dug in his poles. Without warning he flew through space. Instinctively he tucked in his elbows and poles. His bindings released as he landed. A sharp pain traced up his left thigh and stabbed his heart. His mind sparked into shards.
Cheryl was screaming for help. Nathan disentangled himself from twisted sheets and blankets, snatched a ski and pole, and scuttled into the night. Unaware of the snow beneath his bare feet, he scaled across the campus, yelling, “Cheryl, I’ll help you. I’m coming. I’m coming.”
Inside her dorm, a uniformed man ordered, “You! Stop! Stop!” When Nathan didn’t, the man accosted him, wrestled the ski free. As he let go Nathan did a forceful one-eighty, and watched the uniform tumble down the stairs.
He struck Cheryl’s locked door with the pole, yelling, “Cheryl, Cherylll.”
Men pummeled him. Nathan punched and kicked and bellowed, telling them she needed help.
“Easy. Easy,” one of the three said, pinning his shoulders.
Why is no one helping her? “Help her!”
One said, “Pity what drugs will do.”
Girls wearing nightgowns and pajamas stared at him from open doorways. Cheryl stood above him, frightened, screaming with her mouth closed. How can she do that? Nathan summoned all of his strength to free one hand. He reached toward her only to see a handcuff clamp over his wrist. Lost. She was lost. He was lost. As they carried him away Nathan dropped his head and saw Cheryl upside down, her nightgown defying gravity! Je Reviens.