13
There are few places more beautiful than
Cambridge in its blooming days, days all the lovelier for the
preceding months of misery. For Alma, however, whose attacks were
triggered by heat, the spring thaw meant a greater likelihood of
being knocked flat by pain. Twice in three days she failed to come
down for breakfast, and when it happened again a few days later, I
dialed Dr. Cargill. Her advice—wait it out—left me restless and
dissatisfied, and to occupy my mind I set about making Alma some
lunch, which I put on a tray and took upstairs. Her bedroom door
was closed. Hearing nothing, I decided not to knock but to put the
tray down, allowing her to take what she would whenever she was
ready. I started downstairs again, then stopped and looked back.
The tray was a few inches from the door. What if she came outside
and stepped right into the food? Or worse: tripped and fell down
the stairs? I nudged the tray back a few feet. But what if she was
too exhausted to make it all the way over to the tray? I nudged it
closer. But what if the food spoiled, sitting out here on the
landing? She might get salmonella. I picked up the tray; I would
take it downstairs and leave it in the fridge. But what if she was
hungry and needed food and couldn’t call out to me? What if she did
call out and I didn’t hear her? Sandwiches didn’t go bad, did they?
I used to bring my lunch to school and keep it in my desk, where it
sat all day long, fermenting. But I was a kid back then, I had a
robust immune system, I never got sick. The elderly were especially
susceptible to food poisoning. They could die. It was a curse,
having these factoids at my disposal . . . But Alma was healthy.
Sort of. But this. But that. Up went the tray; down it went; back
it went, then forth. Finally I began to worry about waking her with
all my futzing around, so I left the tray where it was, halfway
between close and far, and went back down to the kitchen to call
the doctor again. When I got there, though, I couldn’t bring myself
to do anything. I didn’t want to cry wolf. I had to trust that her
chosen course of action (i.e., inaction) was best. But she had said
to call anytime.
But but but but but.
As I stood there, arguing with myself, my finger
poised over the keypad, the doorbell rang. I hurried to answer it
before the noise woke Alma.
Eric stood on the front porch, leering at me in a
way that confirmed everything I’d feared. We were connected now,
whether I consented or not.
“Hey,” he said. “Is my aunt around?”
“She’s not feeling well.”
“One of her . . .”
I nodded.
“That’s too bad.”
I said nothing.
“Cause I was kind of hoping to see her.”
“She’s not up for that.”
“Hm.” He smiled, as though it was my duty to move
the conversation along.
“Was there something else I could help you
with?”
“I need to see her,” he said. “It’s
important.”
“She’s resting.”
“No, I know. You know what, though, I think I’ll
wait for her.”
“It could be hours.”
“Right.”
“And,” I said, “and she needs it quiet.”
“Okay.”
A silence.
“So you’d really be better off coming back.”
“Look, man, I’m not going to throw a party. It’s
hot as hell out here.” And he brushed past me, crossing the living
room toward the kitchen. I followed.
“Can I get some water?” he asked.
“Help yourself.”
He started opening all the wrong cupboards.
Annoyed, I fetched him a glass.
“Hey, thanks.”
He drank, animal lapping sounds. When he faced me
next his shirtfront was wet.
“Told you it was hot.” He tossed me the empty
glass. “But it’s always cold in here, right?” He laughed, then
lifted the plastic cake cover, beneath which sat the remaining
third of that week’s Sachertorte.
“That looks fantastic. Lemme get some of
that?”
With the thinnest composure, I handed him a plate
and utensils.
“Nice,” he said, cutting a big slice. “She loves
her chocolate. She used to order it from Switzerland.”
I indicated the bars on the counter.
“Really? She still does that?”
“So it would seem.”
“Damn,” he said, shaking his head. “Some things
never change, huh.”
“I guess not.”
“You guess not.” He laughed again. “You guess
right.”
He bent to take in a forkful, knots of spine poking
up beneath his T-shirt. I realized with repulsion that it was the
very same shirt he’d worn that night in the bar. Whether it had
been washed since, I could not tell.
Correctly made, Sachertorte is too dry to
eat on its own; unsweetened whipped cream makes the traditional
accompaniment. We had a bowl in the fridge, but I didn’t mention
it, leaning against the counter with my arms folded, advertising
indifference.
The truth was otherwise. For although I hated the
way he had barged in, disrupting my solitude, making me
self-conscious by reminding me of our drunken escapade; hated his
impertinence (lemme get some of that); hated what he stood
for, the part of Alma to which I had no access, the knowledge that
I was a visitor here—while all that was true, it would be an
oversimplification to say that I hated him, or wanted him
gone. At many points I could have denied him entry. I could have
refused to let him in the house. I could have ordered him to leave
once he’d finished drinking or eating. I didn’t, because another
part of me still sensed in him an opportunity for information. And
I admit that I am not immune to the purely chemical effects of
charisma. I could no more deny it than pretend that the night in
Arlington had never happened: I wanted him to like me.
He pushed the plate away, wiped his mouth on his
wrist. “You’re a philosopher.”
I nodded.
“That’s cool. She must love that. Huh?”
I shrugged.
“I mean ...” He passed his hand over his head,
laughed again. “You know? I never did get any of that stuff.”
“Is that right.”
“Oh, sure, yeah. I have learning disabilities. I
mean, she used to get really frustrated with me.”
I thought of something Alma had said during our
first conversation. It is a terrible thing to be
stupid.
“How long did you live with her?” I asked.
“Nine years.”
“Did you like it?”
He smiled. “I was a kid. What was I supposed to
do?”
“Has she always been sick?”
“Ever since I’ve known her.” He paused. “She used
to wake herself up. I’d hear her walking around upstairs, two,
three in the morning. Sound familiar?”
I nodded.
“Must be rough,” he said. “On you, I mean.”
I shrugged.
“Sometimes she would scream in her sleep. Does she
still do that?”
Horrified, I shook my head.
“For a while she did it every couple of nights.” He
toyed with the crumbs on his plate. “The first time it happened,
the neighbors called the cops. They thought someone was being
stabbed to death.”
Silence.
“That sounds ... difficult,” I said.
“It’s messed up, is what it is.” He smiled. “What
can you do, though.”
I said nothing.
“So,” he said. “You’re in the back room. That used
to be my room.”
Alma hadn’t mentioned it. I stiffened. “Is that
so.”
“You know the thingamajig on the window? The
painting or whatever you call it? The pattern on his hat matches
the fur on the deer.”
“That’s interesting,” I said.
“You ever notice that?”
I felt silly shaking my head.
“No?”
“I don’t look at it that often,” I lied.
“Yeah,” he said. “Check it out the next time. Or,
you know what—”
He stood up and walked out.
I couldn’t exactly yell at him to stop. I got up
and went after him.
“See?”
Having entered my room without permission, he was
now standing by the leaded window, gesturing like a game-show host.
“Check it out.”
I wanted to resist, but curiosity had gotten the
better of me. I crossed the room. Lo and behold, the hunter’s cap
and the deerskin were both rendered in the same orange
houndstooth.
“I always liked that,” he said.
I nodded.
We stood as one, admiring the art.
“Man, I used to hate it back here. She’d lock me in
to punish me. But, hey.” He laughed. “That’s a long time
ago.”
I said nothing.
“What about the gun?” he asked. “You ever see
that?”
I had always taken her crack about owning a pistol
to be just that: a crack. I shook my head.
“Oh, you got to. Come on.”
He exited toward the library, never looking back to
see if I would follow.
GROWING UP, my brother and I were under strict
instructions not to go anywhere near the cabinet in the basement.
This led us to want nothing more, and left alone one evening, the
first thing Chris and I did—after eating an entire coconut cream
pie—was steal the key from our father’s nightstand.
I was six, Chris not yet thirteen. Together we
scrambled down the basement steps, far more frightened of what our
father’s reaction would be than of the guns themselves. My brother
took down a hunting rifle and pointed it all over the place, making
shooting noises. He offered it to me—forced it on me, really, as I
had come along as an observer, not as a participant, and took it
from him only after much goading. It was heavy, the stock warm from
his armpit. I aimed at the far wall, sighting above a tall
cardboard box labeled X-MAS LIGHTS in my mother’s neat, antiquated
hand.
“Do it,” he said.
I didn’t want to, but he made fun of me until,
shaking, I pulled the trigger—to no effect. The safety was still
on. Chris laughed at me, and I threw the rifle down and ran
upstairs in tears.
That fall he began going out with my father for
whitetail season, one of the few activities they could manage to do
together peacefully. It was, perhaps, the situation’s inherent
deadliness that kept their tempers in check, spilt blood and torn
flesh enough to remind them of the consequences of rash action.
They would disappear before dawn, coming home after dark with
flaking lips and ski-cap hair. These trips transformed them; for
days afterward they communicated on a frequency neither I nor my
mother could pick up. To be so blatantly excluded reinforced my
growing sense that I did not belong.
Watching Eric pry a wooden box out from one of the
library’s top shelves, I had the same uneasy feeling as I’d had all
those years ago, when I thought I was about to blow a hole in the
basement wall.
“Here,” he said.
Made of a dark, burled maple, it could have held
any number of things: butterflies, playing cards, a chemistry set.
The latch gleamed.
“Open it.”
The interior was lined with green velvet, similar
to that on the base of half-Nietzsche, but rather more fine and
soft. The gun itself had a narrow barrel, protruding from the
chamber like a bone from flesh. Stamped on the base of the grip was
an insignia too worn to identify.
“I don’t know if it still works,” he said. “I mean,
it’s pretty old.”
I ran my fingers over the velvet, and then, with a
transgressive thrill, lifted the gun out of the case.
We are homo faber—man, maker and user of
tools—and every tool we make has an innate purpose. When a
particular object’s purpose is so clearly singular, one experiences
an almost irresistible urge to use it toward its intended end. Just
as books are for reading and cakes are for eating, guns are for
shooting, and though it had been decades since I’d held one in my
hand, the chill of the metal brought on a terrifying impulse to
destroy something. Disquieted, I replaced the pistol and handed the
case to Eric, stepping away from him and it.
“You see that?”
He was pointing to the insignia, tracing its
shape.
“S,” he said, “S.”
I looked at him.
“Her father was big in the Austrian army.”
“He was an instrument maker.”
“He was. He also made land mines.” He snorted. “How
do you think they got so rich? Pianos?”
I said nothing.
“Sorry to spoil it for you.”
“She didn’t do anything,” I said. “She was a
child.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Well, okay.”
A silence.
“Did you take something from those girls?” I
asked.
He looked at me.
“The one you... the one with the . . .” I gestured
to my abdomen. “She was going on about you stealing something from
her.”
He continued to stare at me, then walked to the
bookshelf. To get the case back into place he had to go up on his
toes. “She said that, huh.”
“Yes.”
“What did she say I stole?”
“I don’t know. She was pretty upset, though.”
He laughed. “Oh yeah?”
“I’m serious. She almost broke my neck.”
“Well,” he said, turning around. “I don’t know
nothin about that.”
I said nothing.
“Her room was a mess. Whatever she’s looking for,
it’s probably on the floor.” He glanced at the grandfather clock.
“She’s not coming down anytime soon, huh.”
I shook my head.
“Tell her I stopped by.”
I nodded.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I know my way
out.”
THAT NIGHT I dreamt of a clearing in the forest.
Through glassy leaves I saw movement, and I felt afraid, not
knowing if I was hunter or prey.