“Just drive, real slow, let this guy here pass us, yeah, very slow, until I tell you to stop.”
He had chosen the most beautiful hour of the evening for his return, he thought. He wasn’t thinking now of the visions or the dark mandate. He was so brimful of happiness all he could think about was what lay before him, and about Rowan. That was the test of love, he thought dreamily, when you can’t bear to be this happy without the other person with you. He was really afraid that the tears were going to come pouring down his face.
The cab driver started talking again. He had never really stopped talking. Now he was talking about the Redemptorist Parish and how it had been in the old days, and how it was all run-down now. Yeah, Michael wanted to see the old church. “I was an altar boy at St. Alphonsus,” Michael said.
But that didn’t matter, that could wait forever. Because, looking up, Michael saw the house.
He saw its long dark flank stretching back from the corner; he saw the unmistakable iron railings with their rose pattern; he saw the sentinel oaks stretching out their mammoth branches like mighty and protective arms.
“That’s it,” he said, his voice dropping senselessly and breathlessly to a whisper. “Pull over to the right. Stop here.” Taking the beer with him, he stepped out of the cab and walked to the corner, so that he could stand diagonally opposite the house.
It was as if a hush had fallen over the world. For the first time he heard the cicadas singing, the deep churning song rising all around him, which made the shadows themselves seem alive. And there came another sound he had forgotten completely, the shrill cry of birds.
Sounds like the woodland, he thought, as he gazed at the darkened and forlorn galleries, shrouded now in early darkness, not a single light flickering from behind the high narrow and numerous wooden blinds.
The sky was glazed and shining over the rooftop, soft and shot with violet and gold. It revealed starkly and beautifully the farthest end column of the high second gallery and, beneath the bracketed cornice, the bougainvillea vine tumbling down luxuriantly from the roof. Even in the gloom he could see the purple blossoms. And he could trace the old rose pattern in the iron railings. He could make out the capitals of the columns, the curious Italianate mixture of Doric for the side columns, Ionic for the lower ones set in ante, and Corinthian for those above.
He drew in his breath in a long mournful sigh. Again, he felt inexpressible happiness but it was mixed with sorrow, and he was not sure why. All the long years, he thought wearily, even in the midst of this joy. Memory had deceived in only one aspect, he reflected. The house was larger, far larger than he had remembered. All of these old places were larger; the very scale of everything here seemed for the moment almost unimaginable.
Yet there was a breathing, pulsing closeness to everything-the soft overgrown foliage behind the rusted iron fence blending in the darkness, and the singing of the cicadas, and the dense shadows beneath the oaks.
“Paradise,” he whispered. He gazed up at the tiny green ferns that covered the oak branches, and the tears came to his eyes. The memory of the visions was perilously close to him. It brushed him like dark wings. Yes, the house, Michael.
He stood riveted, the beer cold against the palm of his gloved hand. Was she talking to him, the woman with the dark hair?
He only knew for certain that the twilight was singing; the heat was singing; he let his gaze drift to the other mansions around him, noting nothing perhaps but the flowing harmony of fence and column and brickwork and even tiny faltering crepe myrtles struggling for life on strips of velvet green. A warm peace flooded him, and for a second the memory of the visions and their awful mandate lost its hold. Back, back into childhood he reached, not for a memory, but for a continuity. The moment expanded, moving beyond all thought, all helpless and inadequate words.
The sky darkened. It was still the brave color of amethyst, as if fighting the night with a low and relentless fire. But the light was nevertheless going. And turning his head ever so slightly to look down the long street in the direction of the river, Michael saw that there the sky was pure gold.
Deep, deep in him were memories, naturally, memories of a boy walking out this street from the crowded little houses near the river, of a boy standing in this very place when evening fell. But the present continued to eclipse everything, and there was no straining to recollect, to impress or to improve the soft inundation of his senses by everything around him, this moment of pure quiet in his soul.
Only now as he looked lovingly and slowly again at the house itself, at its deep doorway, shaped like a giant keyhole, did the impression of the visions grow strong again. Doorway. Yes, they had told him about the doorway! But it was not a literal doorway. Yet the sight of the giant keyhole and the shadowy vestibule behind it … No, couldn’t have been a literal doorway. He opened his eyes and closed them. He found himself gazing trancelike up at the windows of a northern room on the second story, and to his sudden worry, he saw the lurid glare of fire.
No, that could not happen. But within the same instant, he realized it was only the light of candles. The flicker remained constant, and he merely wondered at it, wondered that those within would choose this form of light.
The garden was thickening and closing up in the darkness. He would have to rouse himself if he wanted to walk down along the fence and look back into the side yard. He wanted to do it, but the high northern window held him. He saw now the shadow of a woman moving against the lace curtain. And through the lace, he was able to make out a dingy flower pattern on the high corner of the wall.
Suddenly he looked down at his feet. The beer had fallen from his hand. It was foaming into the gutter. Drunk, he thought, too drunk, you idiot, Michael. But it didn’t matter. On the contrary, he felt rather powerful, and suddenly he blundered across the intersection, aware of his heavy and uneven steps, and came to the front gate of the house.
He pushed his fingers through the iron webbing, staring at the dust and debris tossed about on the peeling boards of the front porch. The camellias had grown into trees which towered over the railings. And the flagstone path was covered over with leaves. He stuck his foot into the iron webbing. Easy enough to jump this gate.
“Hey, buddy, hey!”
Astonished, he turned to see the cab driver next to him, and how short he was when he wasn’t inside the cab. Just a little man with a big nose, his eyes in shadow under the bill cap, like a troll of the oaks in this heightened moment. “What are you trying to do? You lost your key?”
“I don’t live here,” Michael said. “I don’t have a key.” And suddenly he laughed at the pure absurdity of it. He felt giddy. The sweet breeze coming from the river was so luscious and the dark house was right here in front of him, almost close enough for him to touch.
“Come on, let me take you back to your hotel, you said the Pontchartrain? Right? I’ll help you get upstairs to your room.”
“Not so fast,” Michael said, “just hang on a minute.” He turned and walked down the street, distracted suddenly by the broken and uneven flagstones, pure purple, too, as he’d remembered. Was there nothing that would be faded and disappointing? He wiped at his face. Tears. Then he turned and looked into the side yard.
The crepe myrtles here had grown enormously. Their pale waxy trunks were now quite thick. And the great stretch of lawn he remembered was sad with weeds now, and the old boxwood was growing wild and unkempt. Nevertheless he loved it. Loved even the old trellis in the back, leaning under its burden of tangled vines.
And that’s where the man always stood, he thought, as he made out the faraway crepe myrtle, the one that went high up the wall of the neighboring house.