The Names

We came to refer to these as the 27 Depravities, like some reckoning of hollow-cheeked church theologians. Since then I've sometimes had to remind myself it was my list, not hers. I think it was a fair analysis of her complaints and I took a self-destructive pleasure in calling out the accusations as if from her own unforgiving heart. Such was my mood those days. I was trying to involve her in my failings, make her see how she exaggerated routine lapses, make her appear shrewish to herself, the bitch of legend.Every day I'd recite a few entries, go into deep meditation, working up new ones, polishing old, and then come back at her with the results. For aggravating effect I'd sometimes use a female voice. It was a week-long operation. Most of the items brought silence. Some made her laugh sarcastically. I had to learn that people who try to be perceptive about themselves are taken for self-hectoring fools, although it's more accurate to say I was trying to be perceptive about her. The oral delivery was a devotional exercise, an attempt to understand through repetition. I wanted to get inside her, see myself through her, learn the things she knew. Thus Kathryn's cutting laughter. "Is this what I'm supposed to think of you? Is this the picture I have in my mind? A masterpiece of evasion. This is what you've compiled.”What a funhouse mirror is love.By the end of the week I was using a vibrant liturgical voice, sending it toward the distant ceiling of our renovated Victorian house in Toronto's east end. I sat on the striped sofa in the living room, watching her separate her books from mine (bound for different garages), and I stopped reciting long enough to ask casually, by the way, "What would happen if I followed?”Now, six thousand miles from that cobblestone street, the family sits down to dinner. Ten octopus carcasses hang over a clothesline near our table. Kathryn goes into the kitchen to exchange greetings with the owner and his wife and to look at the heated trays, the meat and vegetables lurking beneath oil slicks.A man standing near the edge of the quay lifts his cane to waggle a warning at some children playing nearby. Tap would use this detail in his novel.

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