Back. Then. . . .

Margaret Atwood

“Hello, Steve. Oops, did I startle you? It’s okay, you can put your PJ bottoms on. I’m not peeking.”

“Jesus H. . . . Who are you?”

“I’m Robyn. Robyn Campbell.”

“Robyn. . . . ? I don’t know any Robyns.”

“You know me. I used to be Rose but I changed it to Robyn. That Rose name was too senile. Too analog, as the kids say.”

“I’m sorry . . . Rose? What are you doing in my bedroom?”

“I just thought I’d drop by. Say hi. I used to be your steady girl, back in 1956. I was crazy about you. You dumped me for that slut, Josie what’s her name. I cried my eyes out. I suppose you thought she looked better in a sweater, to put it politely.”

“Say again?”

“Bigger boobs.”

“Oh. Listen, whoever you are, you can’t just barge in here. Some homeless old bat staggering in off the street! How’d you get in the door?”

“Door?”

“It was locked. Wasn’t it?”

“I can look like the Rose of back then if you want me to but it’d be a bad idea. A beautiful young girl coupled with an ancient, lecherous fart. People would think you’re a dirty old man instead of a dirty young one.”

“I wasn’t that dirty. I was just a normal . . .”

“Right. Remember how we used to laugh about old people? We thought they were disgusting, they were spotty and wrinkled, they had warts, they scared us, and we were never going to be like them.”

“All young people are like that, naturally. But now I . . .”

“Remember the night you said, ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying,” we had to learn it in school, and then you said you were going to gather me because I was a rosebud?”

“Oh. Okay. Yes. I do remember a Rose Campbell, but . . .”

“I didn’t know what you meant by ‘gather.’ I was so innocent. Stupid, I guess you’d call it. Come to think of it, you did call me stupid. After you’d done the gathering, and I was in shock.”

“You don’t look like her. You’re . . .”

“A lot older? So are you, Steve. You used to have hair. Such great hair! Though you put goo on it to slick it back. I recall when that hair of yours receded like the tide, you must have been about forty, and you decided to shave your head.”

“This is weird. How would you know about that? I haven’t seen you for sixty years. More. If you are Rose . . . wait a minute. Didn’t you . . . ?”

“I know everything about you, Steve. You’re my specialty. For instance, I know why your wife divorced you. The third wife. Too much into the online porn, weren’t you? You shouldn’t have left the computer on where she could see it.”

“Who are you anyway? You’re not Rose! She’s . . .”

“Go on, say it. Dead. Why do you think that about me? So libelous! ‘Your Honor, he called my client dead. That is a gross insult, and so untrue and injurious.’”

“I read it in the obits. I keep track of them these days.”

“Yeah, the obits, an old-poop addiction. They like to gloat. Pat themselves on the back because they’re still alive, as if it’s some kind of an achievement. Yes, there was an obituary of a Rose Campbell but that was a different woman. Anyway, I’m Robyn now. I didn’t want to be a stupid rosebud anymore.”

“It has to be the same. The dates matched, the places, everything. There was even a picture of you when you were younger. I was sad about you, reading about you. I missed . . .”

“The way everything was, back then. I miss it too. I miss the way you used to be. So handsome. So energetic. Are you still that energetic? Though I suppose not, what with the porn. Need a little help these days? Viagra?”

“Stop talking about that! It’s obscene! You’re dead!”

“If I was dead, I couldn’t be here in your house, in your bedroom, talking to you—could I, Steve? You used to try so hard to lure me into that bedroom of yours when your parents were out. Gathering was what you had in mind, though eventually the backyard had to do. The moon was full, it was chilly. Not very comfortable, as I recall; the lawn had just been watered. Anyway, back to the so-called present. Did you go to the funeral? No, of course you didn’t. I took note of the mourners, I would have seen you.”

“What were you doing there? If it wasn’t your funeral?”

“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Such a joke! All those ignorant people thinking I was dead, making kind speeches about me though they didn’t know nothing, they didn’t know anything about me really. But of course, that thing in the coffin wasn’t me, not the real me, even though it was wearing one of my favorite blouses, the white one with ruffles. That so-called dead woman was just a shell, she was just meat, and shells and meat aren’t the essence of a person, are they? The essence of a person is what they’ve done and what other people have done to them. Their life story, you might say. Then, snap, it becomes their death story. And the people in the life story—they become part of the death story too. So that’s what you are now, Steve. Part of my death story.”

“This is . . . I think you should leave. Whatever you are. Just go away. The past is past, it’s over.”

“Okay, kiss me goodbye. One goodbye kiss.”

“No!”

“Getting cold feet? Or not just the feet? Maybe that’s a shudder of lust.”

“Go! I want you to go!”

“Lower your voice, I can hear you. I’m sure that’s true about the want—you always had a lot of wants. ‘I want this, I want that,’ and stupid me would do whatever. But those days are over. Now it’s about what I want. And what I want is you.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t want me! I’m not who I was back then, I’m different, I’m older. . . .”

“You look very silly and feeble, crouching in the corner like that. Cowering, you might say.”

“Listen, I’m sorry if I . . .”

“Hurt me? Yes, you did hurt me. I can see you believe now, you know it’s the real me. Remember what came next in that poem we had to learn? I’m surprised they taught it to us. It had the word ‘virgins’ in the title: there was a lot of sniggering about that! The whole thing was about sex, but I was so stupid I didn’t realize it. One day you’re alive and full of moonshine and wants, and then it’s tomorrow and you’re dying. It’s so fast, dying. You’ll see.”

“You need to leave. Right now.”

“‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,’ it was called. ‘And this same flower that smiles today, / Tomorrow will be dying.’ So right, don’t you think? You used to say I was your dream girl, that you stayed up all night thinking about me. Longing for me. But that didn’t last, did it? Along came slutty Josie and her enormous tits, and you were like a fly to shit, you buzzed off and you couldn’t wait to toss me into the toilet. Sorry for the potty mouth, I get carried away.

“No, I take it back, I’m not sorry. Finally I can say what I think and do what I like. No more ‘ladylike,’ no more ‘hide your feelings,’ the way they always said we should do. I used to torture myself by picturing you all over Josie like a rash. Gathering her. Wallowing in her. She died nine years ago, did you know that? Really fat by then, your ladylove. Now she’s just a pile of mush. You’re lucky it’s me here and not her. Though maybe I could call her up for you. Yoohoo, Josie. . . .”

“No! Please!”

“Then, after you’d tossed me out, you boasted about how obsessed I was with you: I couldn’t get enough of you, I hungered for your touch. Which was true enough, granted. But, as you said to anyone who’d listen—any boy, that is—I was yesterday’s lunch. Cold turkey. Haha. So funny. So cruel.”

“I was just a kid!”

“So was I. You never could keep your wandering hands to yourself, could you, Steve? The first wife, the second wife, the third wife, one after the other. Remember that song ‘The Wanderer’? The first time I heard it I thought of you. Then I cried some more. You spoiled my life. I could never trust any man after you. I could never believe them.”

“Out! Now! Or else. . . .”

“Or else what? Wave around a cross? Now where would you get a thing like that at short notice? They’re not exactly sprouting from the walls in this house. Go ahead, do your worst or else. Grab me. Throw me against the wall. Shove me out the door. Put your wandering hands on me. I’m hungry for your touch, remember? I always have been. Always.”

“Stay away from me!”

“I’ll make it easy for you. Watch: Robyn switches back to Rose, just like that. Dead, alive, eighty, sixteen, what’s the difference? Time doesn’t exist, Steve, as you’ll soon find out. Now we’re back then and we’re going to play it through once more, only this time with a different ending. The moon is full. . . .”

“No! I can’t. . . . This is horrible!”

“Yes, horrible. A good word for it. Is your hair standing on end? Not the hair on your head, that’s long gone: your other hair. It’s been a while since I gave you such a thrill.

“But watch me: I shimmer in the moonlight, I dissolve like mist, I reform, and, admit it, I’m far more beautiful than I have ever been. My mouth is rose-red, redder than red; my teeth are white, whiter than white. You used to love my teeth on your neck, little bites. Little love bites, you said.

“Relax. Breathe in the nostalgia, it’s all around you, it’s all around me, soft and fine, like tiny threads. Like spider silk. Stronger than steel, they say.

“I want. I want. I want. I’ll slip out of this blouse for you, this white blouse with ruffles, I love ruffles. So feminine, don’t you agree? There. The moon is full, we’re outside, on the moist lawn, under the stars. You’re shivering. Put your arms around me, just as you did. You slid your wandering hands inside my skirt, like this. You said, ‘I’ll love you forever,’ and I believed you.

“And now you will. Love me. This is back then, forever.”