Alice Munro
(Part II)
[1] The following weekend he knocked on my door.His expressions of humility was exaggerated, almost enough so to seem mocking, yet in another sense it was real and I felt unsure of myself.
[2] “I won’t take up a minute of your time, ” he said.“I never meant to be a nuisance.I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry I offended you last time and I apologize.Here’s a little present if you will accept.”
[3] He was carrying a plant whose name I did not know; it had thick, glossy leaves and grew out of a pot wrapped lavishly in pink and silver foil.
[4] “There,” he said, arranging this plant in a corner of my room.“I don’t want any bad feelings with you and me.I’ll take the blame.And I thought, maybe she won’t accept furnishings, but what’s the matter with a nice little plant, that’ll brighten things up for you? ”
[5] It was not possible for me, at this moment, to tell him that I did not want a plant.I hate house plants.He told me how to take care of it, how often to water it and soon; I thanked him.There was nothing else I could do, and I had the unpleasant feeling that beneath his offering of apologies and gifts he was well aware of this and in some way gratified by it.He kept on talking, using the words bad feelings, offended, apologize.I tried once to interrupt, with the idea of explaining that I had made provision for an area in my life where good feelings , or bad, did not enter in, that between him and me, in fact, it was no necessary that there be any feelings at all; but this struck me as a hopeless task.How could I confront, in the open, this craving for intimacy? Besides, the plant in its shiny paper had confused me.
[6] “How’s the writing progressing?” he said, with an air of putting all our unfortunate differences behind him.
[7] “Oh, about as usual.”
[8] “Well, if you ever run out of things to write about, I got a barrelful.” Pause.“But I guess I’m just eating into your time here,” he said with a kind of painful buoyancy.This was a test, and I did not pass it.I smiled, my eyes held by that magnificent plant; I said it was all right.