Obsession

by Sheila Kohler

She is in the bookstore near her rent-controlled West Side apartment, when she sees him, or thinks she sees him. She is almost certain it is he, though she turns away immediately, pretends to go on doing what she was doing before, studying the books in the biography section. She was looking for books about the Bronte sisters, whose tragic lives and early deaths she is now writing about, when she caught a glimpse of his face.

Now she glances back over her shoulder. He is standing in a belted, navy-blue raincoat before a table of books, looking down. He lifts his head as though he feels her glance. He gazes directly at her. For a second she stares into avid blue eyes, catches a glimpse of the smooth, sun-tanned skin, the sun-bleached hair, the flash of the white teeth, the thrust of the sharp chin.

She thinks of the kingfisher she saw once plunging for its prey into the Zambezi river--a remarkable sight: a sudden flash of brilliant blue, a splash of silver. The man she was with at the time told her that the kingfisher always beats its prey to death, either by whipping it against a tree or by dropping it on a stone.

She turns away quickly, pulls the fake fur collar of her camel-hair coat around her chin. She replaces the book she was handling, a biography of Branwell, the brilliant Bronte brother, who died such a tragic death.

She makes her way rapidly, breathlessly, through the crowds of people, almost knocking into someone with a stack of books in her arms, going fast toward the escalators, her hands moist, her high-heeled patent leather shoes tapping as hard on the parquet floor, it seems to her, as her heart in her breast.

It is late afternoon, the New York sky already dark through the big window-panes of the store, as she goes down the escalator, threading her way through people, and exiting through the revolving door. Only a week before Christmas, crowds of people are shopping for last minute gifts in the busy bookstore which is on the street where she lives.

She wonders what would have brought him all the way over here. Perhaps he has come for some medical conference, a meeting of heart surgeons in the metropolis? But why is he here on the Upper West Side, on her street?

She stands in the street for a moment, glad to be out in the cool air, her heart still drumming as she breathes in the smell of the cut Christmas trees, those sad stragglers not yet claimed, stacked there limply, passively awaiting their fate, perfuming the air.

Then she walks away briskly, going away from her home, the bookstore, going along the edge of the park, afraid he might be following her, might follow her into the dim lobby of her red brick building where she lives alone with her blue Siamese cat, Sam, since she and her husband separated a few years ago. It seems to her she can hear the squeak of his thick, crepe-soled shoes, even the rustle of his raincoat behind her, though surely such a thing is not possible in the city street. When she looks back she sees no one.

She remembers accompanying him, the distinguished heart surgeon, once, on one of his rounds at the hospital in Johannesburg where he worked. She remembers the squeaking sound of his crepe-soled shoes on the linoleum floor, all the students in the white coats hovering around him dutifully, nodding in agreement, "Yes, Dr Marais. Yes, indeed."

She keeps walking, on and on, walking up town, the dense tangle of dark bushes in the park on one side, the bright lights of the apartment buildings on the other. How much walking she has done in her life, she thinks, walking away, so often, from sorrow and despair. Since her husband left her for a younger woman, she has been more and more alone.
Is it possible that he knows where she lives? Was this meeting no coincidence? Did he search her out? Could he have found her address somehow? It is easy to find out so much one wants to know these days, with the internet, she thinks. Did he google her? Perhaps it is possible even to find a writer's address, if one sets one's mind to it. Could he have called her publishers, her agent, or even a friend? It would be easy enough to do.

The full story can be found in our current issue, Fiction 56. Please follow the 'subscribe' link for information on ordering.