Her Reflection
by Gary Inbinder
part 1
“Gaze into the mirror too often and you’ll see the Devil.” She had smiled at their reflection when she said that. Forty years later, Max Niemand thought he saw her reflected image, poking over his right shoulder. Long, silky, strawberry-blonde hair; sharp hazel eyes; sensual red lips. Her full breasts with erect nipples pressed against his bare back; her tapered fingers teased the short hairs on the nape of his neck. Her warmth enveloped him, like a down-filled comforter on a winter night.
Niemand blinked and the vision vanished — nothing but an illusion, a mirage haunting the desert of his imagination. Neither the Devil nor the woman dwelt in his mirror. He sniffed for her scent, inhaling the astringent bite of mentholated shaving cream; he rubbed his back where he thought he had sensed the press of her flesh and felt nothing but a dull ache in his aging bones.
Red-rimmed eyes glared at him, as if resenting what they had been duped into seeing. Why conjure her now? Time and distance had separated them beyond recall. What’s dead is dead.
He laid his razor on the damp faux marble countertop, washed the remaining white blobs of soap from his face and felt round the crags and seams of neck and jowl for traces of missed stubble. Then he swished his razor in the half-filled sink before scraping away the unshaven remains of his gray morning beard.
Waste-water swirled down the drain with a sucking sound. Like memories drawn into a vortex, he thought. He blotted up the scum and bits of hair with tissue, tossing the residue into the toilet. If only her image could be disposed of so easily.
* * *
A cardboard container labeled “Premium Bananas” rested on a shelf at the back of Niemand’s bedroom closet. Years ago, he had buried his sole remaining memento of their relationship in that nondescript carton.
He dislodged the box, grunting as he stirred the dust. Phlegm filled his throat; his nose itched; his eyes watered. Hacking and wheezing, he maneuvered the container off its shelf and through the cluttered veil of camphorated old clothes dangling like somnolent bats from their weighed-down perch.
Niemand shouldered his casket of remembrance the short distance along a shadowy corridor leading from bedroom to study where, like a weary pallbearer at a graveside, he set down his burden.
He switched on the desk lamp before suffering a sneezing and coughing fit that consumed several minutes and half-a-dozen tissues. At last, his allergic reaction faded away; relieved, he sank back in a leather swivel-chair and then reached down to rummage through the contents of the box.
Each dog-eared, faded brown packet contained letters and photographs, keepsakes of family, friends and acquaintances, most gone from his life and many departed from this world. He hadn’t opened the box in years; her apparition in the mirror had compelled him to do so. He retrieved a small envelope containing a single snapshot.
Long ago, when their relationship ended, he had numerous mementos: photographs; letters; a pair of her panties. She didn’t know about the panties or, if she did, she had never let on. Her lingerie had become mixed with his laundry; he had kept one piece of black nylon, lace-trimmed underwear secreted in the back of his dresser drawer. When she left him, he had slept with her panties under his pillow. That lasted for about a month. Then, one morning, he dumped the garment in the trash, thinking no more of it than a wounded man recovered from his injuries thinks of his discarded crutches.
For a while after their break-up, he had read her letters obsessively, until he decided that they revealed nothing, or more precisely, they did not tell him anything he did not already know. He shredded them along with her pictures; he saved one photo, entombing it in the banana box. He now held the picture in his trembling hand, scrutinizing it under the faint yellow glow of his reading lamp.
A handsome young couple stood on the foredeck of a fully rigged sloop docked at a quay. “She gave the captain her camera to take our picture,” he recalled. “That might have been the happiest day of my life.” He laid the snapshot on the desk under the light; rubbing his tired eyes, he tried to remember.
* * *
“Come on, Max, it’ll be fun!” That was the woman’s nature; she plotted and instigated — he followed. And when he did her bidding, as in the beginning of their relationship he invariably had done, she sometimes allowed him the illusion of leadership, making him believe her desires and schemes had really been his.
They had met in a lecture hall toward the end of their senior year at the University. She was a reporter for the school newspaper, majoring in Journalism; he was a Literature Major specializing in creative writing. Old Niemand groped round his memory like someone feeling his way through a dark maze; as best he could recall, she had sat next to him and started a conversation. In that respect, they were polar opposites; she was outgoing, cheerful, enthusiastic; he was taciturn and withdrawn. But at twenty-one, he was still vulnerable; he couldn’t resist an attractive young woman, especially one who had seemed to take such an interest in him. They soon became friends, but in friendship as in all things, Niemand was the sort who received much more than he gave.
A few weeks after they met, she was assigned to write a story about a sloop sailing around the world. She was rambling down the front steps of the Union building, where the newspaper office was located, when she spotted him among the milling students. He was walking toward the library, following an elm-shaded path that snaked round the green campus.
She waved and shouted, “Hey, Max!” He was too far away and his mind was on other things; he couldn’t hear her. Camera bag swinging from a shoulder strap, long hair streaming behind her, she ran the gauntlet of young women and men until she caught him by the arm. Smiling, eyes sparkling, she breathlessly rattled off her assignment, ending with an invitation: “Come on, Max, it’ll be fun.”
He was working on a term paper — researching, writing, and revising. Niemand approached a project like an efficiently run train, making all its scheduled stops on time until it reached the terminal. He politely declined her invitation.
She smiled confidently, enticingly. “The sun’s shining, the sky’s blue, we’re going aboard a full-rigged ship that’s sailed halfway around the world, to meet and interview her captain. Think what stories he’ll tell, about calm seas and storms, exotic lands, natives, tropical islands and all. You want to be a writer? Opportunities like this don’t come every day, Max. Carpe diem!” She paused a moment then added: “And I’ll help with your paper, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
He didn’t take her offer of assistance too seriously, although he thought she might be good for organizing notes, typing and so forth. After all, he was an honors scholar, while she barely maintained a respectable “B” average. But as she had indicated, the experience might provide material for a story. So, after a moment’s hesitation, he accepted.
She glanced at her watch. “All right, Max. We’ll take my car, but we need to get going. Can’t keep the captain waiting.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the library, down a flower-lined gravel path toward the student parking lot.
* * *
Old Niemand stared at the snapshot. He recalled the eighty-foot sloop moored at the quayside: sunlight glinting on masts and shrouds; the gentle lapping of water against her black hull; creaking hawsers; furled canvas flapping and ratlines singing in the mild breeze.
They had driven a few miles from campus and parked by a bridge spanning the muddy green river that bisected downtown. The place was usually crowded, but that’s not how Niemand remembered it. Why had there been so little traffic, so few people around the landing? It must have been a weekend, he thought.
The gangplank was out, as if welcoming them, but he hesitated to board.
She smiled at his characteristic cautiousness. “Come on, Max, the captain expects us.” Then she ran across the narrow plank, hopped down to the deck and made straight for an open hatchway. “Ahoy,” she cried.
She led, he followed. Niemand shook his head and laughed to himself. She reminded him of one of those salty heroines in the old Hollywood sea adventures.
“Don’t ‘ahoy’ me. What do you want?” a rough Australian baritone rumbled up from the ship’s bowels.
She answered, identifying herself. Niemand hunkered next to her, peering down a dark gangway in the direction of the gruff challenge. A tall figure emerged from the shadows and climbed up a stairway to the sunlit deck. They backed away to give him room.
The captain was a leathery man in his forties. He’d been working in the engine room; his bronzed, brawny arms and calloused hands were covered in grease. He mopped his high wrinkled brow with a red handkerchief; his golden-haired chest, glimpsed through an unbuttoned blue work shirt, glistened with sweat. But his craggy face and Aussie growl softened immediately as he succumbed to her singular charm.
Niemand had long since forgotten most of the interview; so much for the inducement of the captain’s tales. But he did recall drifting into a fantasy of sailing around the world with the young woman; the adventure of a lifetime.
After a while, shadows drifted over the deck, the swell picked up, cables creaked and shrouds groaned. The captain paused in the middle of an answer, looked skyward and observed: “Might be in for a spot of weather.”
With the sky graying, she hurried the remainder of the interview, and then took several snapshots. Finally, she asked the captain to take their picture on the foredeck and he complied amiably. As he was about to hand back the camera, she asked, “Captain, could you take us with you? We’d be cabin-boys — or something.”
The captain laughed. “Well, missy, you hardly qualify as a ‘boy’. As for your mate, no offense, but he seems awfully landlubberly to me.”
Niemand was embarrassed, but then he figured it was all in fun. Nevertheless, he detected a slight hint of disappointment in her face as she retrieved her camera and returned it to its case.
The interview over, they crossed the gangplank, and then turned back toward the captain, who smiled and waved farewell.
She waved back, shouting, “Bon voyage!” Then she gazed at the boat wistfully, and sighed, “Around the world.”
* * *
Copyright © 2022 by Gary Inbinder
