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In her
stunning new collection, acclaimed author N.S. Köenings
(The Blue Taxi) explores the themes of loss and personal
strength with a wide array of characters and in surprising,
original ways. These five long short stories are the sort
of transformative fiction that will stay with readers for
a long time and feature fully-realized characters and language
so lush readers can taste it.
At its
core, Theft is about people's ability to cope with
adversity, but what makes Köenings's stories stand out
is their incredible appeal to the senses and her attention
to symbolic details. In "Pearls to Swine," a middle-aged woman,
Celeste, invites two teenage girls to spend the summer at
her house in Europe; one a daughter of a friend who lives
in New York City, and the other is a girl from a halfway house
for pregnant teenagers. She thinks she is offering the girls
a chance for a quiet, relaxing vacation—clearly more
her desire than theirs—but what she offers instead is
the friendship that forms between the girls. The raucous wayward
local teen draws out sullen New Yorker Petra, and Celeste's
husband, in a surprising fashion. Despite the fact that pristine
Celeste's harsh, judgmental narrative casts a chilly pall
over the summer retreat, the girls make their own fun, much
to her chagrin.
Celeste
is obsessed with the loveliness of her home ("Just look at
those big fields, the pine trees in the distance! See how
pale and blue the town, the bath-houses, the spires, so small
from our fine heights!") but is completely detached from the
people in her surroundings. Her husband Gustave tends to the
garden, and has a topiary, symbolizing the strange walls that
surround Celeste and her husband. He also collects and mounts
dead butterflies, which seems less an homage to Nabokov than
a nod to Gustave's neutered desires. He stays mostly in his
study, but he is drawn out by the vibrant local girl, Thérèse.
The first
person narrative further accentuates Celeste's detachment.
She rarely interacts with her guests and her husband, but
internally she criticizes them, from their hair to their socks.
Even things that are beautiful about the girls are askew.
Her friend's daughter, Petra, gets her beautiful legs from
her father, but also his "Antwerp face with dusky, caterpillar
eyebrows." Celeste complains several times about Petra's ratty
green sweater, "the color of pea soup that slid all over her."
When
Thérèse shows up, her dress "the color of blood oranges, very
raw and sunny," you know there's going to be trouble. "Here's
what it was like in our house after the bawdy girl arrived:
loud, dangerous, and strange. Gustave liked her!" Later
Celeste avers that "Laughter can really harm a person, don't
you think?"
Koënings
gives the readers clues as to why Celeste is so closed off,
and why so many of her allusions are to food. When the taxi
arrives with Petra, Celeste notes that when she was a girl
the only time people saw cars like that was when "the S.S.
were out and coming to take stock." Later, lamenting Petra's
modern ways, she says that Petra "doesn't know a thing about
it, not Marias, not potato cakes, not hiding in a basement.
And she's never heard of chicory." Celeste buries her pain
amidst ruminations about food.
"Setting
Up Shop" gives readers a glimpse into a woman's life in a
small mythical town as she is wooed by the best husband there.
Zulfa would be Masoud's fourth wife if only she would consent.
To sway her, he sets her up in a business of her choosing:
a "Fancy Store" that sells beautiful unnecessary items like
embroidered gowns from Malaysia and perfumes from the Emirates.
In a way, Zulfa, as a potential fourth wife, is like the items
in her shop: beautiful and unnecessary. Zulfa suspects Masoud
will try to force her to marry him, but he agrees to a no-strings
attached arrangement and even splits the profits with her,
which she squirrels away in a lacquer box. Zulfa is saving
for her dream to travel the world.
Zulfa
claims to hate Masoud, but she misses him acutely when he
is away and spends much time ruminating on whether or not
he treats his wives better than he treats her. She's already
been through one failed marriage herself, but she comes across
as a capricious teenager, albeit one with a keen mind for
business negotiations and money. Köenings delightfully
describes Zulfa's moods, the flirtatious and chaste interactions
between her and Masoud, and the idle speculations of the townspeople.
Both protagonists are so intensely likeable that it becomes
hard to watch the story unfold as Zulfa's capricious nature
gets in the way of a proper marriage. Köenings uses pressure
applied by peripheral characters to propel the story forward,
but it's Zulfa and her dreams that drive the story out of
control.
"Wondrous
Strange" centers on the attendees of a weekly meeting of psychics.
Eva Bright, who has been struggling with her reticent psychic
abilities, falls into a trance and is momentarily possessed
by an African djinn. The djinn delivers a message to fellow
club member Flora Hewett regarding a treatment for her husband,
George, who is bed-ridden with a mysterious ailment. Both
the message and the messenger are shocking to the two de facto
leaders of the club, the Medium Fontanella, a formidable dowager,
and Maxwell "Blackie" Black, a milquetoast who tends to go
along with whatever Fontanella says. The group has never been
contacted by an entity of this sort before—they've always
been in contact with run-of-the-mill ghosts. And Fontanella
is highly distrustful of Eva, whom she believes to be faking.
Flora, despite her excitement at having finally been addressed
by a spirit, is uncomfortable going along with the prescription,
which involves killing one black and one white goat and burying
them in the backyard—a bizarre procedure for people who
live in this unnamed foggy seaside town.
"Wondrous
Strange" is alive with color—purples and blues of every
shade infuse the story: the water is "dull blue, so reassuring,
the dark color of slate," George's skin is "like a violet's,"
and young psychic Susan Darling finds a missing powder puff
by announcing "Purple… I sense lost purple here." Köenings
makes Flora's fear and excitement palpable as she secretly
enlists Eva and Susan to help her round up the outrageous
supplies for the treatment.
Köenings
has a gift for allowing stories to curl around readers like
smoke, meandering this way and that but never losing site
of central themes and characters. Every word is called into
service; although her stories are highly detailed, she does
not waste the readers' time with unnecessary minutiae. She
appeals to all the senses with her rich, evocative prose.
Köenings is a writer at the top of her game, making Theft
a complete joy to read.
(April,
2008)
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