Gretchen watched, fascinated. She found it beautiful and fitting, a promise to herself that she could not formulate in words. But she could not watch it with Boylan at her side. It was too unjust, filthily unjust, that these two magnificent bodies could be bought by the hour, like animals in a stable, for the pleasure or perversity or vengeance of a man like Boylan.
She stood up, her back to the mirror. “I’ll wait for you in the car,” she said.
“It’s just beginning, pet,” Boylan said mildly. “Look what she’s doing now. After all, this is really for your instruction. You’ll be very popular with the …”
“I’ll see you in the car,” she said, and ran out of the room and down the stairs.
The woman in the white dress was standing near the hall doorway. She said nothing, although she smiled sardonically as she opened the door for Gretchen.
Gretchen went and sat in the car. Boylan came out fifteen minutes later, walking unhurriedly. He got into the car and started the motor. “It’s a pity you didn’t stay,” he said. “They earned their hundred dollars.”
They drove all the way back without a word. It was nearly light when he stopped the car in front of the bakery. “Well,” he said after the hours of silence, “did you learn anything tonight?”
“Yes,” she said. “I must find a younger man. Good night.”
She heard the car turn around as she unlocked the door. As she climbed the stairs, she saw the light streaming from the open door of her parents’ bedroom, across from hers. Her mother was sitting upright on a wooden chair, staring out at the hallway. Gretchen stopped and looked at her mother. Her mother’s eyes were those of a madwoman. It could not be helped. Mother and daughter stared at each other.
“Go to bed,” the mother said. “I’ll call the Works at nine o’clock to say you’re sick, you won’t be in today.”
She went into her room and closed the door. She didn’t lock it because there were no locks on any of the doors in the house. She took down her copy of Shakespeare. The eight one-hundred-dollar bills were no longer between Acts II and III of As You Like It. Still neatly folded in the envelope, they were in the middle of Act V of Macbeth.
Chapter 5
I
There were no lights on in the Boylan house. Everybody was downtown celebrating. Thomas and Claude could see the rockets and roman candles that arched into the night sky over the river and could hear the booming of the little cannon that was used at the high-school football games when the home team scored a touchdown. It was a clear, warm night and from the vantage point on the hill, Port Philip shimmered brightly, with every light in town turned on.
The Germans had surrendered that morning.
Thomas and Claude had wandered around town with the crowds, watching girls kissing soldiers and sailors in the streets and people bringing out bottles of whiskey. Throughout the day Thomas grew more and more disgusted. Men who had dodged the draft for four years, clerks in uniform who had never been more than a hundred miles away from home, merchants who had made fortunes off the black market, all kissing and yelling and getting drunk as though they, personally, had killed Hitler.
“Slobs,” he had said to Claude, as he watched the celebrants. “I’d like to show ’em.”
“Yeah,” Claude said. “We ought to have a little celebration of our own. Our own private fireworks.” He had been thoughtful after that, not saying anything, as he watched his elders cavorting. He took off his glasses and chewed on an earpiece, a habit of his when he was preparing a coup. Thomas recognized the signs, but braced himself against anything rash. This was no time for picking on soldiers and any kind of fight, even with a civilian, would be a wrong move today.
Finally, Claude had come up with his VE Day plan and Thomas conceded that it was worthy of the occasion.
So there they were on the Boylan hill, with Thomas carrying the can of gasoline and Claude the bag of nails and the hammer and the bundle of rags, making their way cautiously through the underbrush toward a dilapidated greenhouse standing on a bare knoll about five hundred yards from the main house. They had not come the usual way, but had approached the estate on a small dirt road that was on the inland side, away from Port Philip, and led to the rear of the house. They had broken in through a gardener’s gate and left the bike hidden near an abandoned gravel pit outside the estate walls.
They reached the greenhouse on the knoll. Its glass panes were dusty and broken and a musty odor of rotten vegetation came from it. There were some long, dry planks along one side of the sagging structure, and a rusty shovel that they had noticed on other occasions when they had prowled the grounds. When Thomas began to dig, Claude selected two big planks and began to hammer them into a cross. They had perfected their plans during the day and there was no need for words.
When the cross was finished, Claude soaked the boards with gasoline. Then they both lifted it and jammed it into the hole that Thomas had dug. He put dirt around the base of the cross, and stamped it down hard with his feet and the back of the shovel, to keep everything firm. Claude soaked the rags he had been carrying with the rest of the gasoline. Everything was ready. The boom of the cannon floated up the hill from the high-school lawn and rockets glared briefly far off in the night sky.
Thomas was calm and deliberate in his movements. As far as he was concerned it wasn’t anything very important that they were doing. Once more, in his own way, he was thumbing his nose at all those grown-up phoneys down there. With the extra pleasure of doing it on that naked prick Boylan’s property. Give them all something to think about, between kisses and the “Star-Spangled Banner.” But Claude was all worked up. He was gasping, as though he couldn’t get any air in his lungs, and he was bubbling, almost drooling at the mouth, and he had to keep wiping his glasses off with his handkerchief because they kept clouding up. It was an act of huge significance for Claude, with an uncle who was a priest, and a father who made him go to Mass every Sunday and who lectured him daily on Mortal Sin, keeping away from loose Protestant women, and remaining pure in the eyes of Jesus.
“Okay,” Thomas said softly, stepping back.
Claude’s hands trembled as he struck a match and bent over and touched it to the gasoline-soaked rags at the base of the cross. Then he screamed and began to run, as the rags flared up. His arm was on fire and he ran blindly across the clearing, screaming. Thomas ran after him, yelling to him to stop, but Claude just kept running, crazily. Thomas caught up with him and tackled him, then rolled on Claude’s arm, using his chest, which was protected by his sweater, to smother the flames.
It was over in a moment. Claude lay on his back, moaning, holding his burnt arm, and whimpering, unable to say anything.
Thomas stood up and looked down at his friend. Every drop of sweat on Claude’s face could be clearly made out, in the light of the flaming cross. They had to get out of there fast. People were bound to arrive at any minute. “Get up,” Thomas said. But Claude didn’t move. He rolled a little from side to side, with his eyes staring, but that was all.