Comfort Zone

By Marta Palos

At three in the afternoon the phone cut into his dream about his wife. He saw her laughing with her usual abandon, her head thrown back, her dark hair bouncing about her shoulders. A pleasant dream, unlike most. Whenever he saw her in his dreams, the scene was always the same: he sat on her hospital bed, watching her die.

He picked up the phone. It was his sister, no doubt calling about some bagatelle thing.

"Is that you, David?"

"No one here but me."

"You sounded strange. Hoarse. Must be your damn pipe."

"I dozed off over a job."

"Listen, I have something important to tell you. But not on the phone."

His sister never ran out of important things to tell, and her affairs always came first.

"I have an article to write, Lily. With a Wednesday deadline."

"It's only Sunday. Can you meet me in the park in about fifteen minutes? You need some fresh air anyway."

She hung up before he could say no. All right, let her go to the park. She would watch the clouds for a while, searching for an amusing shape in the billowing masses, the way she used to do when she was little. Eventually she would get tired of waiting and go home.

To the smoky inferno she called his apartment she wouldn't come. One more reason to go on smoking.

But the article bored him, the spring day was sunny and warm, and the park was at a comfortable walking distance from his apartment.

He found his sister on her favorite bench. She wasn't looking at the sky but at her wedding ring, turning it round and round between thumb and index finger. He sat down beside her.

"Make it quick, Lily. I have work to do."

"Don't rush me. It's about my first love."

He didn't remember her first love, or the twentieth, for that matter.

"Just imagine...after more than twenty-five years, his complicated name suddenly came back to me this morning, spelling and all. He was of Hungarian origin, though born in the States."

"Well, what was his name?"

"Andor Feheregyhazy," Lily's tongue stumbled. "Want me to spell it for you?"

"No, thanks."

Lily clasped her hands over her head, the sleeves of her blouse sliding back on her plump arms. In her youth her name matched her appearance. Her then slender arms resembled the curved petals of the lily, her long legs the stalks of the flower, and her blond hair the stamens with the pollen-bearing anthers. Now her hair was dyed a loud yellow, her skin had lost its elasticity, and she no longer had a waist but only hips and bosoms. And yet she was still a lily. Her long legs still carried her tall and straight, her features still echoed her faded beauty.

She pulled a piece of paper and a pen from her purse. "Here, I'm writing Andor's full name down for you."

"What for?"

"I want you to find him."

"You what?"

She handed the piece of paper over, and when David didn't reach for it, she put it on the bench next to him.