Asymmetry - Lisa Halliday Page 0,6

His soft, rounded body, the fleshy hand with pudgy fingers suggested a mandarin who disapproved of traveling by foot. When he half closed his eyes while eating heartily, you could not help seeing him in a silk robe holding chopsticks between his fingers. But the expression changed all that. The feverish dark-brown eyes, restless or suddenly intent, as if the mind was focused on a very specific point, were the eyes of an Occidental of great sensitivity and culture.

The smell of rancid butter frying is not particularly appetizing, especially when the cooking is done in a room in which there is not the slightest form of ventilation. No sooner than I open the door I feel ill. But Eugene, as soon as he hears me coming, usually opens the shutters and pulls back the bedsheet which is strung up like a fishnet to keep out the sunlight. Poor Eugene! He looks about the room at the few sticks of furniture, at the dirty bedsheets and the wash basin with the dirty water still in it, and he says: “I am a slave!”

Alice picked up her phone.

NOKIA, was all it said.

But about the smell of rancid butter . . .

• • •

There was a party one night, a retirement thing for one of the editors, and afterward she slept with an assistant from the Sub-Rights Department. They did use a condom, but it stayed inside Alice when it should have come out.

“Shit,” said the boy.

“Where did it go?” asked Alice, peering down the shadowy gorge between them. Her voice sounded girlish and gullible, as though this were a magic trick and any moment now he might produce a fresh prophylactic out of her ear.

Instead, it was she who completed the trick—alone in the bathroom, one foot on her new toilet seat, holding her breath. It wasn’t easy, groping around with one hooked finger among the deep slippery swells. Afterward, and although she knew it couldn’t prevent every dreaded outcome, she got into the tub and flushed herself out with the hottest water she could stand.

“Any plans?” she asked the boy in the morning while he belted his corduroys.

“Dunno. Might go into the office for a bit. You?”

“The Red Sox are playing the Blue Jays this afternoon.”

“I hate baseball,” said the boy.

• • •

We appreciate your upcoming visit to RiverMed. The following information is for your benefit. If it fails to answer any of your questions, please present them at the time of your counseling session.

The total time for the procedure is usually 5–10 minutes. Once inside the examination room you will meet your personal nurse, physician, and anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist, who will inject a general anesthesia via an intravenous catheter inserted into an arm or hand vein. You will sit on the exam table, lie back, and place your legs in stirrups. Your physician will perform a bimanual exam (i.e., place two fingers in the vagina and feel your uterus). An instrument (a speculum) will then be placed inside the vagina and adjusted to hold the sides apart so that the doctor may see your cervix (the mouth of your uterus). Opening the cervix is necessary for the doctor to remove the pregnancy.

When the opening has been widened sufficiently using rod- or tube-shaped instruments called dilators, the physician will insert a tube or vacurette into your uterus. This tube is connected to a suctioning machine. When the machine is turned on, the contents of your uterus will be drawn out through the tube and into a bottle. Then the tube will be removed and a long, thin, spoonlike instrument inserted and drawn over the inside surface of the uterus to check that nothing remains.

When the physician has finished, the speculum is removed, your legs are lowered, and you will remain lying on your back as you are wheeled to the recovery room, where your condition will be monitored. After a satisfactory recovery, which usually takes twenty minutes to an hour, you will be transferred into a room where you may rest and dress. You will be individually counseled by a nurse and given final instructions before leaving.

You may bleed off and on for three weeks.

Please let us know if we can make you more comfortable. We hope your time with us will be a positive experience.

• • •

On the second Thursday in October, while she was tugging a brush through her damp tangled hair, she heard on the radio that they’d given the Nobel Prize to Imre Kertész, “for writing