Postcard from New Mexico

Deborah Levy

DEBORAH LEVY writes fiction, plays, and poetry. Her work has been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, broadcast on the BBC, and widely translated. Levy is the author of the highly praised novels Hot Milk and Swimming Home (both Man Booker Prize finalists), as well as The Unloved and Billy and Girl. She has also published the acclaimed story collection Black Vodka, and two parts of her autobiography: Things I Don’t Want to Know and The Cost of Living. She lives in London. Levy is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

On Oct 31st I swam amongst the last leaves of the fall in my hotel pool in the railyard district of Santa Fe. When I surfaced from doing the jet-lagged lengths I saw a flip-flop lying near the edge of the pool, ZEBRA written across its red sole. The sun had been fierce that morning but at 5pm (when I was swimming) though my body was warm in the heated water, I was shivering as I spliced through the leaves. I realised it was snowing. For a while, I continued to swim as the snow came down and the sky darkened. Earlier that day (wearing a summer dress) I had passed a restaurant offering rabbit and rattlesnake stew on its menu. I knew I had the adventure in me to try at least one spoonful of snake. That’s what I was thinking about while I swam in the snow in Santa Fe. And I was thinking about you.

Then later, when I was sipping mezcal (smoky, strange) by the log fire in the hotel, I saw a man talking to the staff at reception. He was holding up one flip-flop with ZEBRA written across its red sole. I waved to him and when he came over, I was pleased to tell him exactly where to find his missing flip-flop. He said, thanks, I ran out of the pool in a hurry because the weather had changed so rapidly.

I couldn’t work out why he felt it was better to run in a solo flip-flop and that (again) made me think about you.