"Masks" by Ulrica Hume

Masks

The men have been banished into the forest to sleep on beds of sour grass. Good-bye, good-bye, don’t forget your sack coats, the women call.
And so the men go off to their mock battle, after first swinging by the convenience store to buy lottery tickets. Tom’s Nissan LEAF in the lot, their standing collars and gold buttons. All these hypocrisies. The men themselves are like trained bears in a circus, dangerous and helpless.
Linda’s husband, Tom, carries a vintage revolver. It is to ward off compassion, before the other has a chance. She would rather he left it at home, in its little casket. But he refuses, citing his re-enactment philosophy. Linda imagines his foolish image captured by the convenience store’s CTV security camera: Confederate shirt with suspenders, the pants riding under his belly. Rakish cap.
The remaining women gather in Linda’s backyard, softening, at ease, aware of their collective über-power. They smoke pot in secret, laughing at what looks like a squirrel in the tree, but cannot be a squirrel.
During the week, they all work together at the university, where Veronica heads the department of student affairs, and Linda is her assistant. Earlier Linda caught her otherwise racist husband gazing at Veronica with tortured ambivalence, his own want and need in the crosshairs as he enjoyed her bold sashay. For this alone, Linda is glad of his departure, it is difficult always trying to please, a kaleidoscope of affection, failure, the more beauty is found in other sources not her. There is an innate majesty about Veronica, even as she tries to blend. The other women feel ashamed of their whiteness around her. Veronica’s surrogate identity perplexes them especially, is she one of them or other, are they becoming more like her by association, do any of these superficials matter when they each have a unique unhappiness to contend with, a raging recalcitrance, the privilege to defy classification and simply be themselves. And so they pass round the pickle jar, sip sage tea, and gnaw on tough barbeque meat, they nibble jade-green lettuce leaves like domesticated rabbits, passive, inconsolable, but with the poignant fierceness of those who are trapped and will do anything to free themselves, like creatures in one of Caravaggio’s paintings.
It is a perverse dichotomy, to want Veronica’s mahogany skin and natural curls, her Masters of Social Science. But not the brother in jail. At church she prays to a neon-white Christ. She is enviably single.
Veronica is telling about a trip she recently took to Italy. The flight was choppy both ways. The women turn their sunflower heads toward her wise, calming voice. But this openness is unsustainable. Their jealousy ratchets up as she insists that, though she almost died, it was worth it for the delicious pasta and the opera. Also, she moon-bathed at some ruin. Linda feels that she has not really known her boss until now. She begins to imagine Veronica’s eulogy.
She took risks. She had a marvelous laugh.
It grows late. They wonder if they should rescue the silly men or just let them make mistakes. Some believe in tough love. Others simply miss the rounded backs of their mates, the warming. There is talk of beards with crumbs attached, large splayed hands.
In the crepuscular half-light, the women knowingly smile. There is a sense of betrayal, yet a silly mood persists. They discuss the menaces of the female body, whether blood is the color of a garnet or a cherry, how one must be tuned at all times to all channels. They wait. They are good at it. Waiting for a baby to burp, waiting for a husband to finish, waiting for a flirtation to recite the laments of Shakespeare in his quiet gaze. So much of life occurs within, and the mysteries overlap, and the women sorrow, then laugh like Macbeth’s witches.
Veronica passes out souvenirs: Venetian masks. These are handmade, lacquered gold, with elegant slots for the eyes, and a rain of sparkles, plumes. She found them at a shop near the Ponte di Rialto. The women put them on and feel weirdly safe.
She grew heirloom roses. She volunteered at a nursing home. She was learning to ballroom dance.
Toward dawn, a nauseating silence. Then one man and then another is spotted at the horizon, and there is a trudging effect. The men are trudging their way back, but the women, who have been awake through the night, see this as false. Yes, there is something false about the way they move through the tender world, as if their work is always done, when the women know that no, it is just beginning.
Nevertheless, they happily wave, an impromptu truce, which the men appreciate, for they have come directly from the battlefield. The women feel mysterious in their masks and clingy clothes. A nice feast is prepared.
The men eat. Nails and turf, pearls hidden in pita bread, noodles, grasshopper-shaped marzipan. They are not particular, being so hungry. After that, the women lie about exhausted while the men unfold their lottery tickets.
Veronica in the lawn chair resembles an Egyptian queen. The moon shows just above. Tom winks her way as he cleans his revolver, which is an engraved brass six-shot with a blue barrel. He is showing off, wearing his archivist’s gloves.
Clogged, he says. His foxy eyes. Then a blast so impossibly loud it is like snow falling.
The women slowly remove their glittery masks. They place these masks around Veronica’s body, in the loose shape of a horseshoe. Then they kneel before her. They see that her blood is not a color, but rather a sharp familiarity. This awe will serve them in the coming days and weeks and years.

Ulrica Hume

Ulrica Hume is the author of An Uncertain Age, a spiritual mystery novel, and House of Miracles, a collection of tales about love, one of which was selected by PEN and broadcast on NPR. Her work appears online, in literary journals, and in anthologies. She tweets @uhume.

Headshot: Ulrica Hume

Photo Credit: Staff