Father is saying, “forever.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Then what do you propose. Give me a better idea and I will do it.”
“You know what I think.”
“No. No. Aside from that. I told you already, I will nevernever, never consent to that, never. Can I possibly make myself clearer?”
“I have no other suggestions. I’m already at wit’s end.”
“And I’m not? Do you imagine that this is easier for me than it is for you?”
“Not at all. Frankly, I would think that it has been a great deal more difficult for you. You are vastly more sentimental.”
Father says a word David has never heard before.
“Louis. Please.”
“You aren’t helping me.”
“What would you like me to do?”
“Help me.” Father stops pacing and stares where Mother’s face should be. He looks like he’s on fire. He points up at the ceiling. “Don’t you feel anything.”
“Stop shouting.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t feel it too.”
“I will not have a conversation with you when you’re like this.”
“Answer me.”
“Not if you insist on sh”
“Look, Bertha. Look up. Look. You can’t feel that? Tell me you cannot, I don’t believe that anyone has so little heart, not even you, to pretend as though you can walk around without being crushed by that weight.” Silence. “Answer me.” Silence. “You have no right to sit there and say nothing.” Silence. “Damn it, answer me.” Silence. “You do not behave like this. Not after everything I’ve given you. I’ve given you everything you’ve asked for, been exactly what you demanded”
“Not everything, Louis. Not exactly.”
Silence of a different kind: infused with terror.
Father upends a table. Ceramic dishes and a wooden cigar box and crystal figurines sail across the room, producing a mighty crash. The glass tabletop shatters. Mother screams. In the passageway, David cringes, ready to bolt. From another place in the room comes a second, smaller shattering, and when the noise finally subsides, he hears weeping, two different rhythms in two different registers.
HE WORKS OUT THE CLUES. It takes a few days, because he has to wait until he goes to the Park with Delia in order to confirm his hunch. As they return from their walk, David counts windows and discovers that he has been wrong. The house does not have four stories. It has five.
How this could have escaped him until now, he does not know. The house is big, though, and he has often been scolded for wandering into forbidden territory. A whole wing remains off-limits, and David, generally lost in his own head, prone to long bouts of stationary dreaming, has never been one to overstep, not under threat of a whipping.
But to get to the bottom of this, he must break the rules.
The entrance to the rear wing lies through the kitchen, a place thick with steam and hazards. He has never ventured beyond the sink. Four days later, when he is supposed to be in his room, reviewing his German lesson, he sneaks downstairs. The cook is rolling dough. David straightens his backbone, puts on a bold face, and walks past him. The cook never looks up.
Through a swinging door he comes to a second room, where a pile of raw meat lies on a huge, scarred table. With its reek of fat and flesh, its spattered walls, its lakes of blood pooling round the table legs, the room exerts a queer, morbid pull, and David has to remind himself to keep moving, not to stop and examine the heavy, menacing instruments hung on the wall, the bloodstained grout …
He comes to a hallway checked black-and-white. He tries a number of doors before finding the one he wants: an alcove for the service elevator.
He gets in. Unlike the main elevator, this one has a button for a fifth floor.
As the car rises, it occurs to him to worry about who he might run into up there. If the girl is indeed there, what will he do? What if there are other peoplea guard, say. Or a guard dog! His heart skips. Too late for worrying. The car bounces to a stop and the doors open.
Another hallway. Here the carpeting is loose and worn, pulling away from the walls. At the end of the hall are three doors, all closed.
The wind sings, and he looks up at a skylight. The sky is cloudy. It might rain.
He walks to the end of the hall and listens. Nothing.
He knocks softly on each of the doors. Nothing.
He tries one. It is a closet full of sheets and towels.
The next door swings open and the smell of camphor rolls over him. He stifles a cough and steps inside.
The room is unoccupied. There is a small bed, neatly made, and opposite it an armoire, painted white with horses and other animals, a peaceful little scene. He throws it open and jumps back, ready to fight off a snarling beast.
Bare hangers stir.
Disappointed, he tries the third door and finds a bathroom, also empty.
He returns to the bedroom and walks to the window. From it he has a wonderful view of Central Park, perhaps the best in the house. The trees are soft and green and shivering beneath the slaty sky. Birds turn circles over the Reservoir. He wants to stick his head out and see more but the window is nailed shut.
He tries to put together what he has learned, to set out all the clues in front of him, but they do not add up. Perhaps he will learn when he gets older. Or perhaps he was wrong: there was no girl, and he imagined the entire episode. It wouldn’t be the first time he accidentally grafted one of his fantasies onto a real memory. He might have misunderstood his parents’ argument. He doesn’t understand, and he knows he doesn’t understand, awareness making ignorance twice as painful.
Spirits sinking, he turns to go. For a moment he hopes something will have changed. But the room is still empty, the bed still mute, the floor still dusty and plain.
Then he sees something he missed. Under the bed, against the wall, almost invisible; he kneels down and reaches for it and grasps it and pulls it out and holds it up. It’s a girl’s shoe.
14
woke up in a bed at St. Vincent’s, and the first thing I said was, “Where’s the art?” Marilyn looked up from her magazine. “Oh good,” she said. “You’re up.” She went into the hallway and returned with a nurse, who began subjecting me to a battery of tests, hands and instruments shoved up my nose and down my throat.
“Marilyn.” It rather came out as Mayawa. “Yes, darlin.” “Where’s the art?” “What did he say?”
“Where’s the art. The art. Where’s the art.” “I can’t understand him, can you?” “Art. Art.”
“Can you give him something so he won’t bark?” Some time later I woke up again. “Marilyn. Marilyn.”
She appeared through the curtain, her smile fatigued. “Hello again. Did you have a nice nap?” “Where’s the art?” “Art?”
“The drawings.” My eyes hurt. My head hurt. “The Crackes.”
“You know, the doctor said you might be a little disoriented.”