They went single file into the night, Joris leading.
9
Even in the dark the disconcerting bulk and reach of the main house came through. The place was lit to the gills — the whole interior flushed with light, walkway fixtures blazing, shrubbery spotlit. And Ned had been told that there was more to the edifice than at first met the eye, e.g., three lower levels were built onto the back of the house, down the far side of the hill. Joris was plying the front-door knocker, a masterpiece of the smithy’s art.
Ned tapped Gruen’s shoulder. He said, “Hey remember the plan to buy an old manse in some rundown neighborhood near a good university and all of us retiring there together? Get a handyman special and work on it?” The idea had been to die together one by one as friends.
No one was answering the door.
Gruen said, “How I got along so well with Douglas was this. I said everything he said was great. I never said anything worse than Food for Thought.”
Ned said, “Probably a good idea, about the insights he kept sending.”
Gruen said, “Some of it was interesting. He had his cosmological scenarios. But I lied to him about following the syllabus. That was too much. I got hold of some of the titles, though, physically, thinking … someday, okay. He knew I wouldn’t read everything. Reflections on the Causes of Human Misery I didn’t finish. And it was short, an essay.”
“Ah, Barrington Moore,” Ned said.
“Barrington Moore. Who wrote a lot. Douglas loved him.”
The door opened and they all went in.
They seemed to be progressing from one waiting area to another. They had taken their coats off. They were in an annex off the front hall and they were still waiting.
There was ambient music. It was Dvořák. Ned said, “Douglas hated background music.”
Elliot appeared but only long enough to say he’d be right back. They were left to study the woodwork. It was like being inside a large armoire with soft lighting.
Since it was a sin to waste time, Ned decided to use the moment to agitate for the Convergence. He took a folded petition and a Bic pen from the inside pocket of his jacket.
Joris unfolded the petition, glanced at the heading, refolded it almost immediately and handed it back to Ned. His expression was apologetic.
Ned was startled. He assumed Joris had misunderstood what he’d given him.
Ned said, “It’s for Senate Foreign Relations. Next week the resolution authorizing force goes up. I’ll get a few more signatures around here and overnight it with the others I have on Monday.”
Joris shook his head. He made a negative sound. Ned stared at Joris. Gruen, not current in the stage their discourse had reached, said, “Another thing I never read was the sort-of-manifesto he wrote. It was against war. Strike When the Gorgon Blinks! It was a little long. I feel bad about it.”
“I never saw it,” Ned said, “so how long ago was this?”
“I don’t know. Wait, I think Grenada was in it.”
Ned turned to Joris. “They’re going to do it. Unless we—”
Joris cut him off. “I don’t care. Let them.”
Ned felt a pain inside as much like acute indigestion as anything else. It wasn’t indigestion and he was feeling cold.
“I don’t believe you,” Ned said.
“Believe me,” Joris answered, as Elliot rejoined them, beckoning.
• • •
The interior of the manse was a poem to money and woodcraft. What had it been like for Douglas to conduct his life in perfect hand-carved settings. They were being led to the kitchen. He would like to have a name for the style of the rooms when he gave Nina his account of the trip. Rustic modern might do it. I hate money, he thought, which is adolescent of me. Sometime after college, Douglas had fallen into a huge bequest. Had he known it was on the horizon when they were egalitarians together at NYU? Nothing had been said.
They entered the kitchen, a wonder of its own, like a layout for some glossy culinary-supply catalog. On the subject of money again, if he was correct it was Douglas who’d observed that you never had the full attention of someone with a large stock portfolio while the market was open.
There was Iva, and Iva was a splendid-looking woman. She was standing at the far end of the kitchen island, weeping but not sobbing, keeping on with some cooking project. They drew around her. Iva was slicing the poles off many small onions. She seemed incapable of saying more than Thank you, in a murmur, saying it over and over. Bread was baking. There was a pan of fresh biscuits on a side counter. The woman was evidently in a cooking mania. There were platters of sliced meat set out, warm meat, he gathered, because the plastic film covering the platters was fogged.
She embraced each of them. To Ned, she felt overheated. He thought, You blend an undertone of perspiration with a good perfume and it’s erotic. The kitchen was very hot.
Now she was chopping cilantro. Hell she was theatrically beautiful. She had a Tartar face, almost, a face from the image-world of vintage Russian movies or operettas like The Merry Widow. Her skin was tended-looking. Her shaped eyebrows were art. She had suave hair the color of brass. It was pulled straight back and a single heavy braid fell over her shoulder. She was wearing a too-big long-sleeved white shirt with a mandarin collar. About her sturdy bosom the less said the better. She was wearing black elf pants. He didn’t know any other name for them. She was forty-three. Nina was six years younger. Iva was barefoot. She was solid. Nina would say she could stand to lose three or four pounds. Naughty Marietta was another light opera.
That was it for the cilantro. She had expertise. She had moved on to opening jars of pimentos and artichoke hearts. She said, with difficulty, “I know you are all hungry.” Everybody nodded vigorously to vindicate her berserk industry. It was funny to Ned that she still sounded so German after living in America as long as she had. Of course, she was Czech, but Czechoslovakia had been part of the greater German culture-zone, so possibly she sounded Czech, in fact. How would he know?
The grouping in the room was odd. Elliot was standing apart, superintending. The others had all been able to make some kind of personal condolences to Iva, and Ned hadn’t. Now Elliot seemed to be nudging the group prematurely toward the dining room.
Ned touched Iva’s arm. He said, “I loved Douglas. He was my friend and I loved him.”
He’d had no intention of soliciting a second embrace. But possibly he had moved too abruptly, judging by her reaction, a vehement gesture that utterly baffled him. She seemed to be pointing at her armpits.
Elliot interpreted the moment for him in low, tight words, to the effect that she felt she hadn’t had time to clean up properly. It was odd. She had embraced everybody freely a minute earlier. “She’s fragile,” Elliot said.
Iva said, “Tomorrow we can sit.”
“Sure,” Ned said.
“She was in Kingston seeing the body today. She’s exhausted,” Elliot said.
She undid two or three shirt buttons, pulled the front of her shirt forward and shook it. More tears came, and tears and perspiration seemed to be uniting in a yoke around her throat.
Ned wanted to say something about Hume, or rather to Hume. The boy’s father was dead. Ned wanted to tell Hume he had loved his father. Then he would have said it to both of the survivors and he would be easier waiting for the next developments. “Is Hume here?” he asked, keeping any urgency out of his voice.
Iva seemed to be trying to formulate something to say. The effort failed. Elliot was beside her, consulting, and then almost immediately leading her away. He pushed his palms toward the friends, briefly, to enjoin patience. It was confusing. Elliot said something about eating in the kitchen as he left. There were stools that could be pulled up to the island.