A Separation and Physical Intrusions upon Fantasy
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Kate Kitamura's A Separation is about a woman who travels from London to Greece to find her estranged husband so she can ask for a divorce. The book is her physical search for him, but more than that, it's the narrator's search through memory and fantasy for some understanding of the man and their relationship. In fact, the narrator's processing of events becomes as important as the events themselves, and we get to wander not only the globe but the fascinating maze of her mind.
In the following passage, the narrator has met a hotel clerk who she (correctly) guesses has been seduced by her husband. As the narrator interacts with a different hotel worker (a waiter), she also imagines the seduction, layering her fantasy with memories of her own experiences with her husband.
I sat on the terrace, the sun beating down on my face. The images came easily, I knew the ways of one half of the coupling, and it took very little imagination to see the rest. I could remember—with a dispassionate eye, it had happened a long time ago—Christopher’s way of approaching a woman, of entering her consciousness, he was very good at impressing himself upon a person.
I ordered a drink. It was hot, sweat pooled in the crevice of my collarbone. He grasped her wrist, pressing first his thumb and then his forefinger against her skin. She looked up, not at him, but to see if anyone was watching. The lobby was empty, there was nothing to worry about. The waiter brought my drink. Would I be needing anything else? No, I was fine. Let me adjust the umbrella, the sun is very hot. Before I could stop him he had dragged the heavy stand several feet, the base made a loud scraping sound against the stone floor.
The waiter gripped the edge of the umbrella and tilted it over my face. It was better, there was shade, it was true that the sun was too bright, and I thanked him. He led her by the hand, she walked behind him but urged him to move quickly, the shame if they were caught. The waiter did not move away. There’s nothing to worry about, he said. In that moment, she chose to believe him. She followed him up to his room. They were still on the hotel premises, there was nowhere else to go, she would have died rather than bring him back to her house, with her mother and father sleeping in the room next door and her brother and sisters, all of them living in the same house.
I’m fine, I said. Thank you again. He opened the door, he stepped aside and let her enter first. The waiter’s silhouette blocked out the sun. There is nothing else I can get for you? he said, almost wistfully. Inside the room it was cool, the windows had been left open and the door to the balcony was ajar, she tensed—suppose one of the maids was in the room, it was unlikely at this hour but possible—he dropped the room key onto the table, he checked his phone for messages, he was relaxed in a way that seemed miraculous to her, she could not imagine being so at ease in this luxurious room. No, thank you, really I am fine. At last he moved away. She thought he would offer her a drink—wasn’t that what was supposed to happen? She didn’t know, she had never been in this situation before, he could have called for room service, a bottle of champagne like the ones she had seen sent up to so many rooms, so many couples—but he put down his phone and then he turned and seized her by the shoulder without preamble, so that she was at once affronted and excited. Had it been this way? Almost certainly. I closed my eyes. It was a long time ago but I remembered it well enough, it would not have been very different, with this woman or another.
The narrator is very clearly imagining a scene, or making it up. But her fantasy is also based in the memory of her own experiences, which is fascinating because it tells so much about the character—her past, her present, and her way of making sense of the world.
But there's a third layer to the passage that I find even more interesting. The passage is careful to situate the reader in the real-time moment of the story as well as in the fantasy/memory, alternating constantly between the different realms. This technique keeps the reader hyper aware of the narrator's physical location in time and space. It also reminds us of where she is not. And it invites us to compare the two experiences—the bodied and the cerebral—to watch for where they intersect.
Over and over, the "real" scene on the hotel terrace crashes against the narrator's fantasy. In some moments, these collisions enhance the fantasy through increasing its physicality. "It was hot, sweat pooled in the crevice of my collarbone. He grasped her wrist, pressing first his thumb and then his forefinger against her skin." When we move directly from a description of the narrator's collarbone to the imagined scene of her husband grasping another person's wrist—both bones, both intimate—it brings the narrator's body into the sex scene that is otherwise only in her mind.
In other places, the physical reality seems to crowd the sexual fantasy. "She looked up, not at him, but to see if anyone was watching. The lobby was empty, there was nothing to worry about. The waiter brought my drink." Even as the hotel clerk is assured of her privacy, the waiter lurks. He's outside of the fantasy, but the deliberate omission of transition and the proximity of the sentences doesn't make it seem so. And again: "He led her by the hand, she walked behind him but urged him to move quickly, the shame if they were caught. The waiter did not move away. There’s nothing to worry about, he said." This waiter is bursting into the scene, even as those in the scene assure each other that they are alone. These intrusions become more intense, more chaotic as the passage proceeds. "He opened the door, he stepped aside and let her enter first. The waiter’s silhouette blocked out the sun. There is nothing else I can get for you? he said, almost wistfully." Because the silhouette appears as the imagined lovers are walking through the doorway, a moment when silhouettes are particularly expected, it feels as though the silhouette itself has entered the fantasy.
So what do these intrusions of reality on fantasy do for the passage? Inside the fantasy, they increase the urgency of the desire, I think. The sex becomes more exciting when the participants might be caught. Their moment of privacy becomes more precious with the sense of another looming near.
But the intrusions also emphasize the strangeness in the narrator's indulgence of this fantasy. In a conventional sense, her husband and the hotel clerk are betraying her. She's the wife, after all. But then again, she is separated from her husband. And then again (again), there's a voyeuristic aspect to the narrator's imagination. In creating this fantasy, she has made the scene just as real for the reader (and perhaps for herself) as any other scene in the novel. Yet because we're never allowed to forget that she is the one imagining it, we never lose the sense that she is watching. Dragging in the unsuspecting waiter intensifies that.
Of course, there's so much I could say about this passage—the characterization, the way we learn about both past and present. Also the ghosting of the husband and the ghosting of herself. And I'm always fascinated when multiple scenes (the memory, the fantasy, the reality) exist in the same plane in a way that can break the rope of one word at a time to create one of those brain explosions that immerse the reader more completely into a scene. Maybe I'll come back to talk about those aspects another time.