ONCE UPON A TIME there was a mountain cave. It was deep and dark, as dark as outer space, and inside the cave was a treasure. Slaves worked day and night to mount up more treasure. They enlarged the cave with their bare hands, scooping the entrails of the earth, toiling on pain of death, out of sight of sun and moon, so that for them time was measured in hunger and fatigue. They were beaten and hanged, they died of starvation and disease, they lived with the treasure and they slept alongside it in that dank subterranean world. And although they were dirty, the treasure was clean. The cruel masters called the treasure Vengeance. All this happened in a land not so far away, the land of Goethe and the Brothers Grimm. The cave was called Dora. The name means “gold.”
Meanwhile, in the world outside the mountain cave, a great battle raged. The evil masters were defeated; the good masters discovered the cave, liberated the slaves and claimed the treasure. So that none would associate the treasure with the impurities of the cave where it had been born, with the suffering of the slaves who had fashioned it, and with the cruelty of the masters who had abused the earth and her gifts in order to possess it, the new masters took the treasure to their own home and made it cleaner still. They took some of the evil masters, too, and cleaned them as well. But they took no slaves, since nothing could make them clean. They called the treasure Apollo, after the sun god. Nothing to do with the earth at all. Earth was written out of the story.
She may have become angry about this.
AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN
ON THE FRONT PAGE, next to the milk on the porch, two school photos side by side. Claire’s — the same one they used yesterday — joined now by Ricky’s. He too is smiling, his dark hair slicked back, crisp collar open at the neck. The dead and the accused are always pictured like this, in images captured at an unrelated moment, because neither is available for a fresh photograph just now.
Above the pictures, the headline: Air Force Boy Arrested in Child Murder. His name has been misspelled: Richard Frolick.
Jack picks up the paper before his daughter can see it, and returns to the kitchen, scanning the article. No mention of a war criminal. “Allegations” of a “mystery driver”—the details of the air force hat, “a late-model sedan” with a Storybook Gardens sticker. Just enough to send the blood up to Jack’s face.
Mimi pours his tea. “’tention, Jack, c’est hot.” The radio news echoes in the kitchen: “A youth was arrested yesterday and charged with the murder of—” She switches it off.
Jack sits at the table and reaches, without looking, for his cup. The bail hearing is this afternoon. The boy will be home tonight. It crosses Jack’s mind to wonder what will happen if Froelich goes public with his “sighting” once Ricky has been cleared. But that’s Si’s problem, not his.
“Papa,” says Mimi. Jack looks up. She indicates, with her eyes, their son slouched over his cereal bowl, chin in hand.
“Elbows off the table, Mike,” says Jack, and is surprised the next moment to see Mimi staring at him, eyebrows raised, trying to communicate silently over the boy’s head.
Jack remembers and says, “Mike, what do you say to a round of floor hockey this afternoon?” The boy mumbles something in reply.
Jack refrains from reprimanding him and says simply, “What’s that, pal?”
“Baseball tonight.”
“That’s right, the big game, good stuff.” Jack is itching to remove the boy’s elbow from the table himself, to say, “Look at me when I’m talking to you,” but he catches Mimi’s glance as she refills the kettle, and returns his eyes to the paper. A dog starts barking somewhere outside. It sounds like the Froelichs’ dog, but it never barks like that — continuously.
Madeleine comes into the kitchen and says, “There’s a police car in the Froelichs’ driveway.”
Mimi looks out the window. So there is. The dog is tied up, barking at the house.
Madeleine says, “Ricky must be home.”
Her father glances up from his paper but says nothing. Rex keeps barking. Her mother switches on the radio and turns the dial till she finds music — a rock ’n’ roll station! An escalation of saxophones and big echoey drum-throbs — Martha and the Vandellas are on fire with desire. Madeleine waits for one of her parents to switch the station, but it doesn’t happen. Mike is making mush out of his Cap’n Crunch. She pours Rice Krispies and puts her ear close to the bowl to hear the snap, crackle, pop. Sexy music at breakfast, it’s a mad, mad world. She starts moving to the beat in her chair. The song makes her think of Ricky and Marsha kissing on the porch that night, and she gets a hot liquid feeling in her chest.
The song ends and cheerful voices sing, “Let Hertz put you in the driver’s seat, today!” Jack gets up, puts on his uniform jacket, folds the newspaper under his arm and, as he reaches for his hat, feels in his pocket for dimes, only to find the wretched key to the Ford Galaxy. He’ll toss it away when he gets to work. “See ya, fellas.”
“Jack,” says Mimi.
“What, Missus?”
She turns to the kids and says, “Ricky Froelich is not home. Not yet. The police think—”
Jack takes over, using his most patient voice: “The police think”—speaking slowly, much better his children should hear it lucidly explained at home—“that Ricky Froelich may somehow be responsible for what happened with regard to—”
His son interrupts, “They think he killed her.”
Jack takes a breath. He resumes speaking, his voice dangerously quiet. “The police are just doing their job, but they’ve made a mistake and pretty soon they’ll realize that—” he jams his hat on his head—“and Ricky will be home.” He is surprised at the sudden constriction in his throat. He hardly trusts himself to say goodbye to his wife, afraid his voice may have reverted to the reedy register of last night. What is that voice?
He kisses his wife on the cheek and she turns and kisses him on the lips — she doesn’t want him leaving the house angry, or thinking that she is.
He is halfway down his driveway when the answer comes to him: it’s the voice of an old man.
The police car is still in the Froelichs’ driveway ten minutes later, when Madeleine leaves for school. Mike has not waited — he seems to have forgotten that he is her jailer. Rex is straining toward the Froelichs’ front door at the end of his rope, still barking. “It’s okay, Rex,” she calls.
Foam has gathered on his chops, and Madeleine is worried lest the police mistake him for a rabid dog and shoot him. Perhaps she ought to wait until they come out, so she can tell them Rex is perfectly fine.
“Madeleine!” She turns. Her mother has called from the kitchen window. “Va à l’école, tout suite!”
She catches up with Auriel and Lisa. They have reassured one another with their dads’ predictions of a speedy homecoming for Ricky Froelich, and she asks Auriel how she knows that her father is going to let her have horseback riding lessons. “Cripes, McCarthy, I hope I didn’t ruin the surprise!”
Lisa has started riding and has quickly become horse-crazy. “Oh Madeleine, you should see Socks, he’s so cute, and his mother is—”
Colleen’s voice cuts in: “Madeleine.”
Madeleine is shocked. To be addressed by Colleen en route to school, in the presence of her other friends….
Colleen says to Auriel and Lisa, “Keep walking.” Auriel is about to object, but Madeleine says, “It’s okay, you guys.”
Colleen waits until Auriel and Lisa are out of earshot, then asks, “What are you going to say if anybody asks?”