The hostess greeted me by name. Usually I sit at the bar, but that night I asked her for a table. “For me and my friend,” I said, indicating the box.
“Oooh,” she said and, when I nodded permission, pried open the top. I asked her what she thought. She bit her lip. “Dizzy,” she said finally.
Indeed.
I ordered dinner for myself and a carafe of sake, which I set in front of the box of drawings. “Cheers,” I said. “Drink up, motherfucker.”
Before I left, the hostess asked if I would show the art to the manager. I obliged. Soon the entire staff had gathered round, oohing and aahing their approval, or disapprovalI couldn’t tell. Either way, they sounded fascinated. I showed them how the drawings connected, eliciting further admiration. Their reaction delighted me, and seeing the work through their eyes, I remembered why I’d been attracted to it in the first place. It was enormously complex, enormously rich. If I looked hard enough, I would find a clue. Had to be there. Had to.
It was chilly that night, October hardening. There was no moon, and many of the streetlights were burnt out or obscured by the scaffolding that crops up in my neighborhood like kudzu. Once I stumbled and almost lost control of the box. A block and a half can seem pretty far to walk when you’re wearing a Savile Row suit and topcoat and carrying fifty pounds of paper. At that point, though, I couldn’t possibly indulge in a cab: my building was less than ten yards away.
I set the box down on the sidewalk and arched my back. It was eleven thirty, and I was tired. I wouldn’t be able to get to the art tonight. I’d get up early the next morning and work until I found something or until Samantha changed her mind.
In New York you don’t notice other people. They’re there, always, but you don’t see them. Who pays attention to people on the street? My neighborhood is safe at night. That’s why I didn’t turn around to see who was walking a few feet behind me. In fact, I don’t think I was aware of anyone else, not until I got hit on the back of the head with something extremely hard and heavy, and by then I was unconscious.
On Friday nights Mother reads while Father listens to the radio. David does not make noise. He sits on the rug and plays in his head, he has lots of games he plays. Or he tells himself stories. His favorite stories to make up involve a great exploring pilot named Roger Dollar. Roger Dollar always gets into trouble but then he always gets out because he’s clever and he has a suitcase full of tricks. Sometimes David will play with the train but then he forgets to keep still and sooner or later Mother will tell him to be quiet. If you want to make noise you can play in your room.
David does not like to play in his room. He hates his room; his room scares him. His room is tall and damp and dark. The whole house is tall and damp and dark. When he was born his mother painted the room a bright creamy boy’s blue. But all colors look the same in the dark, and no paint can prevent the bureau from turning into a hulking beast. David will lie with his blanket jammed up under his chin, shivering because the room is so cold. The bureau will gnash its teeth and open its jaws to swallow him. David will scream. The maid will come running. When she sees that he is fine, only having a nightmare, she will scold David for being such a fraidy-cat. Does he expect to grow up and be strong, or does he want to be a fraidy-cat all his life? No, he wants to grow up. Then why does he act like a fraidy-cat? Why isn’t he brave? Why doesn’t he shut his eyes and go to sleep? The maid’s name is Delia and she looks like a monster, too, with blotchy cheeks and bony fingers and a nightcap sitting high on her head, like brains swelling out of a broken skull. She yells at him all the time. She yells at him if he is late and if he is early. She yells at him if he eats too much and if he does not eat. She bakes cakes but won’t give him a slice, she leaves them under crystal domes until they turn stale and crumble. Then she discards them and bakes new ones. David doesn’t understand. Why bake a cake if not to eat it? What else are cakes for? Once he tried to take a piece and she whipped him. He now regards the cake stand as a betrayer, giving it a wide berth when he passes.
On nights when he screams, she will scold him and perhaps whip him, if she is in a sour enough mood; then she will leave him there, in bed, among the monsters. He will try to be brave, he will try to go to sleep. Roger Dollar would not scream so there’s no reason for him to scream, he ought not to be such a fraidy-cat. But then every time he opens his eyes, he will see more of them: the bureau, yes; also the mirror, the miniature wooden valet, the carved posts at the end of his bed. His hat rack, so cheery in daylight, teems with snakes, hissing and spitting and crawling up the mattress toward the only exposed part of him: his eyes, they are going to bite him, bite his eyes, slither into his face and then he will be unable to scream, they will eat his tongue, he had better scream while he still can …
Nevertheless he learns not to scream. He learns his lesson. At home you must keep your mouth shut and not say anything. That is the rule.
On Friday nights (Father calls them Family Nights), David sits on the rug and plays in his head, because although Mother does not often yell her rules are the same as Delia’s, and more swiftly enforced. Sometimes he wonders if they are in fact sisters, Mother and Delia, so similarly do they behave. David has noticed that Delia sometimes talks to Father the way that Mother does: with sass. She is the only employee who may do so, and she does it under Mother’s protection. Certainly David cannot sass. He has been warned. How it is that Delia can sass to Father and Mother can sass to Father and Father can sass at everyone else but David cannot sass to anyone, he does not understand. When he sasses he gets whipped. Does Delia get whipped when she sasses? Does Mother? Does it happen out of his sight? There are many things he does not understand. David turns six soon. Perhaps then he, too, will be allowed to sass. Perhaps that is what it means to grow up.
The news on the radio is all about the Depression. Like Delia’s untouched cakes and the rules of sass, the Depression is another thing that David wants to understand. Father talks of tightening his belt and Mother in response says that they must live like human beings. David does not understand the connection. If you tightened your belt, why couldn’t you live like a human being, except with tighter pants? Could you live like a human being if your pants were falling down? Of course not. David sides with Father, decisively.
The Depression has always existed. Yet his parents talk about Before. Before, we used to have more help around the house. Before we made adjustments. Delia talks about Before, too; Before, she had a friend, and now there is nobody for her to talk to. David can see that Delia is lonely. Why? There are plenty of other people around her. There’s Mother and Father and the cook and the driver and the butler and the man who comes to take the pictures and the doctor with the oily leather bag and all sorts of people, all the time. The house is never empty. So why does Delia seem so lonely? And if she’s so lonely, why does she act so nasty? David can easily see that more people would smile at her if she smiled herself. That much he understands. There may be a lot she knows that he doesn’t, but at least he can feel smarter about that.
The Depression, as far as David can tell, has something to do with the weather. So says Father. We’ll have to weather it. Or horses: we’ll have to ride it out. Perhapsand here David feels on uncertain groundit has to do with ships, and leaking. He wishes he understood better, because these storms and horses and leaky vessels exert a strong effect on his parents’ mood, particularly Father’s. Sometimes Father will come home in a terrible state, casting a black spell across the household. Dinners will be silent, no sound but squeaking knives. Father might start to talk about the news but