FUGUE #13, Spring/Summer 1996
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at my face. Its sudden and powerful presence almost distracted me from the knowledge that she had been pointing at my image. Before she entered the room that first time, she stood outside for several minutes, facing its single window. Behind her the wool-cocooned passers-by hurrying to escape the cold made a fakey and incongruous backdrop as if a silent movie was projected on an invisible screen. Both hands in her coat pockets, her cheeks and nose blotchy, she seemed to be doing nothing but staring at us. Since doing nothing was my only talent, I felt an ephemeral thaw in the frost encasing my heart; but by the time she turned, disappeared, then entered, I had already remembered myself. Mickey saw her coming and whispered, "That's Helene." "I know," I said, though until that instant I had no notion what her name was, no thought that I might need to know it. ''You know her?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. The possibility that I might know an older woman must have elevated me a notch or two in Mickey's estimation. I raised my glass in a mock toast, almost itching to find out what he knew. She didn't look much older than the co-eds we fooled around with or courted, but there was something different about the way she was unafraid to simply stand. And for a few moments she did just stand in the corner by the bar. I lifted my glass in front of my face, trying not to be conspicuous, and so, the first time I studied her, it was through a glass of beer. I could swear she was top to bottom the same color as the beer-the color of rich golden light, evening light-her skin, her coat, even her hair (which was so obviously dark the next time I looked, a few minutes later). Everything, of course, but her left glove, which looked like a purplish shadow, disturbingly well defmed from that distance. Then the distance disappeared. She was approaching our table, and I fought off an explosion of panic as if some huge, disembodied hand were about to aim a blowtorch at my heart. Her face impassive, she waited behind the waitress for her to take our order for a second or third pitcher. Mickey 40