by Micah Nathan
Dan told me he was relieved, that he’d hated lying to me but he knew how serious and secretive Art was about the project, and Dan also said that he was going along with it more out of intellectual curiosity than anything else.
“So you don’t think there’s a formula?” I’d asked him.
“I didn’t say that,” he said. “Art believes in it, and I believe in Art, so there you go.”
“But you put your life in danger,” I said. “I helped Art carry you in that one night…the night you took those mushrooms and passed out in the garden.”
“We made a mistake,” Dan said. “It won’t happen again.”
I had a holiday dinner with Professor Cade, Howie, Art, and Dan, a Cornish hen for each of us with wild-mushroom stuffing, and a pumpkin pie that I brought home from Edna’s. This is my new family, I decided. This is my new past.
My housemates all had things to do over winter break. Art was leaving for London to stay with friends before meeting up with Ellen for a one-week stay in Prague. Dan was going home to Boston, and Howie was off to New Orleans, staying with one of his many cousins in some “amazing loft” above Basin Street’s biggest jazz club. I evaded, as best I could, their questions about what I was doing for the month. Dan and Howie both offered to take me along (I can promise you this much, Howie had said, slapping me on the back, you will get laid every day of vacation if you go with me), and Dan said I could stay in the guest bedroom of his mom’s house. One night I got so drunk I nearly accepted Dan’s offer, enticed by his description of civilized Boston with its mythical Brahmins lining every street corner.
“We’ll go to the Harvard library,” I said, spilling some of my drink in excitement. Gin and tonic soaked into my shirt cuff. “Shoot spitballs at the grad students and moon the faculty.”
“Only Harvard students are allowed access,” Art said. He was ironing his shirt over a towel laid across the dining room table. He had a date with Ellen; some Russian dance troupe was performing at the Mortensen Theater. Later that night she came to pick him up and she literally took my breath away: She wore a small, black dress, legs scissoring under wispy fabric, black folds rustling around her thighs.
“We could get in the library,” Dan said. “My dad willed half his collection to their rare-books room.”
“Or just have Dr. Cade call,” Art held up his shirt for inspection. “It worked for me.”
Howie left first, on a Friday night, throwing two suitcases into the trunk of his Jag and a bottle of white zinfandel on the front seat. He wore a T-shirt and shorts and sandals, and said he was driving nonstop, thirty hours straight through.
“You’ll have a fucking blast, I’m telling you,” he said, ducking under his car’s hood. He checked the oil while I held the flashlight for him. The temperature was well below freezing, too cold for snowfall, but Howie seemed immune to it, standing in his summer wear. He wiped the dipstick clean. “It’s hedonistic paradise down there. Have you ever been to New Orleans?”
He had asked me this before. I shook my head and tried to hold the flashlight steady. I was shivering. Why not go? The impulse was seductive, and as with most impulses, the seduction was the best part. I didn’t want to spend the month alone with Howie. I knew if I spent it with him, I’d be drinking every day. I was sick of alcohol and a little sick of Dr. Cade’s house, and all I wanted was a month to myself, with my books and maybe a few nights with Nicole before she left.
Howie and I said our goodbyes and I watched the sleepy red tail-lights of his Jag disappear down the driveway.
Dan left the next morning. When I made it downstairs there was a note from him to all of us, a piece of paper with his mom’s phone number. I took Nilus for a walk—it was a bright, wintry day, sunlight glaring off the snow-covered surface of the pond—and when I returned Dr. Cade had just arrived home, carrying a set of new luggage.
“When do you leave for Chicago?” he said, as I helped him with the suitcases.
I was shocked he’d asked me that. I’d forgotten the lie I’d told him that day at Campus Bean. I was also shocked he hadn’t heard the truth from anyone else in the house.
“I leave Monday,” I said. Confess now, I thought. He knows. Of course he knows.
There was a moment of silence, perhaps left by Dr. Cade for me to use for confession, but I remained quiet. He took off his hat and smoothed his silvery hair back.
“Excellent timing. My flight departs tomorrow morning, and Thomas won’t be arriving until Monday. I’m not certain when Arthur is leaving for London.”
I realized he didn’t know the truth. No one, it seemed, told Dr. Cade anything.
Dr. Cade left the next day. He wished me a “safe and wonderful New Year,” and presented me with a Christmas gift, a beautiful deep blue cashmere scarf. Then he got into his taxi and drove away. Nilus remained at my side, tongue lolling and tail wagging, but his presence made me even lonelier, and I lost all ambition to go on the long hike I’d planned earlier in the day. Instead I went to my room and read at my desk while Nilus slept by my bed, the windblown crests of snow on Dr. Cade’s lawn darkening from twilight to deep-sea blue, and then finally fading to black under a moonless sky. The radiators started to heat up, metal expanding in staccato ticks and baritone clanks.
Art, as far as I knew, was already in London. I had peeked into his room, earlier, and saw his bed made and all his papers gone. He’d left a travel checklist on his drafting table, words with boxes near them and checkmarks in each box (Passport, Phone numbers, Traveler’s checks, Pocket money). Another piece of paper lay nearby, with something typewritten in splotchy, uneven ink, as if the typewriter were very old:
…L’eternité.
C’est la mer mêlée
Au soleil.
Eternity. It is the sea mingled with the sun.
Most likely one of Art’s poems, I thought, and not a bad one at that, and then I left his room.
I called Nicole, but got her answering machine. She was probably walking around SoHo with her aunt, I figured, eating at trendy little cafés, flirting with the waiters.
I went to the attic and stood in front of the door. Behind it I imagined all those cages of cats, and ancient books spread over tables, and maybe even the heads of Bluebeard’s wives, all lined up on fondue skewers, waiting with open mouths and staring eyes to greet me. I pressed my ear to the door, listened for a few moments, then opened it and stepped inside.
It wasn’t at all what I’d expected. No long desks covered in flasks and beakers, no mortars containing brightly colored, pungent-smelling powders. No hanging bunches of drying herbs or pots of bubbling liquid, or blood-spattered walls and crates of feline body parts. It was a typical attic, a bit larger than most, if anything—and colder than the rest of the house, with a floor gray and fuzzy with age, an arched ceiling with cobwebs swaying between the exposed beams, a loose stack of aborted oil paintings (landscapes, still lifes, indiscernible portraits), rolled Oriental carpets stacked against the far wall like giant cloth logs, old furniture missing legs or drawers, and an armoire wide open with a bunch of clothes hanging inside. I searched through the clothes and found one jacket that fit—an old Harris tweed, herringbone print, with what looked like genuine gold buttons.
I rifled through old dressers and peered into the dark corners where mouse droppings were scattered around in dusty blots, and eventually I gave up and walked back downstairs. The house stood silent with me in its belly. The solitude I had once craved was now a slow fire in which I burned.
My friends were all gone. There was nothing for me there, so I left.
Chapter 9
When I arrived at the Paradise Motel, Henry Hobbes gave me a grand tour of my small room, which would have been comical were it not for the good-natured smile he kept up the entire time, as if he were setting an example for me of a man who, through sheer determination, had worked his way from financial disaster into private business ownership. He was short and fat, and his round, balding head made him look li
ke a medieval friar. His clothes were outdated, like he’d owned them for years despite several changes in waist size.
“It’s quiet, that’s another good thing about down here,” he said. “A person can get a whole lot done. Thoreau liked to keep to himself, you know, felt that it helped him to organize his thoughts.” Henry pointed to the far wall opposite the bed. “Anyway, the boiler is on the other side, along with hot-water tanks. So if you hear any clunks or thunks, don’t worry about it. It’s just the sound of everything running smoothly.” He winked.
My room was small, with a brown and yellow tiled floor, a single bed, and a beat-up chest of drawers leaning to one side because of a short leg. The bathroom had a toilet, a corroded, gray-paint-flecked industrial wash basin with two faucets, and an old-fashioned single-person shower with one of those circular curtains. Everything looked clean, but beneath the smell of pine products lingered the odor of mildew. There was little light—no windows, a lonely brown lamp atop the chest of drawers, and a lightbulb above, hanging like a gallows rope, casting chaotic shadows over the dull gray walls.
“There’s no heating system proper, but because you’re so close to the tanks and the boiler, heat should seep in through the walls and warm you just fine.” Henry ceremoniously handed me two keys. “Big one is for the basement, little one is for your room. Just make sure you lock the basement door after you leave. I got a lot of cleaning equipment down here, and it has a tendency to walk.” He lowered his voice as if the thieves could be listening. “I’m just as trusting as the next guy,” he said, giving me a conspiratorial wink, “but I also know human nature. You know those Mexicans who work for me?”
I didn’t, but I nodded.
“They’d just as soon rob me blind than earn an honest wage.”
He straightened up. “Any way,” he said, back to his old positive self, “you can use the front-desk phone anytime you want. I’m either up there or my son Luke is. Just make sure you keep incoming calls to a minimum, and honestly, I’d prefer it if you didn’t take any incoming calls, period. It ties up the line.”
I thanked him and put my bag on the bed. Henry smiled, a big, curvy grin arching up his round face. “Keep positive, son,” he said, patting me on the back. “You can’t let a woman get you down. Especially not at your age. You’re a good-looking kid; there’s plenty more fish in that sea.”
I had lied to him earlier, telling him that I broke up with my girlfriend and she kicked me out of the apartment. I don’t know why I lied—there wasn’t any reason, and I started to feel guilty, which prompted me to get under the clammy sheets and figure out how I was going to keep myself from becoming insane.
There’s nothing quite like being constantly cold. I woke up every morning stiff and sore, achy as if from the flu, my head pounding like it could split and burst at seams that ran along my temples and over the crown of my skull. Henry was wrong—the boiler’s heat stopped at the wall rather than continuing through, so I was left with a warm spot over a patch of peeling paint, and little else. Every morning I swaddled myself in blankets, made tea on a hot plate, and sat back against the warm spot on the wall, drinking my tea until I summoned the courage to get undressed and shower. I began to dread mornings so much that I became anxious the night before, but by the afternoon I was free, either sitting in Edna’s Coffee Shop or the Fairwich Public Library, leafing through plastic-covered magazines. I usually stayed in the library until close, and by that time I’d covered dozens of hobbies and recreational pursuits—car repair, home gardening, book binding, photography, watchmaking, cooking, antiquing, and the entire women’s magazine collection, spanning topics from bridal gowns to the special needs of winter hair and skin care.
One night, while sitting against the wall and reading some trashy novel I’d checked out of the library, I discovered what I thought was the reason for my room’s arctic chill. An icy draft sliced at my forehead and I found a hole in the ceiling corner, water stains blooming out from its rotted edges. It went straight through to the outdoors at ground level, and I could even see the tip of an ice-crystallized leaf, sticking out of the thin layer of snow like some fossil from a time when it had been warm.
I told Luke, who was sitting behind the front desk, a newspaper in his lap and a half-eaten powdered doughnut in one hand. He looked at me, white sugar in the corners of his mouth, and said he’d inform his dad and that was all he could do. When I asked for some duct tape to at least patch up the hole, Luke said he didn’t know where any was, and then he stuffed the remainder of the doughnut into his mouth, picked up his newspaper, and noisily spread it open, covering his face and shutting me out.
I bought duct tape myself but it didn’t help much. While no more snow congregated in the corner of the tiled floor beneath the hole, as the nights lengthened and winter settled in, my living conditions bordered on deadly. I slept in fits and shiver-wracked spurts.
One evening I opened my Aberdeen daily planner and was dismayed to see that only two and a half weeks had passed. Almost fourteen days left, I told myself. I fantasized about going back to Dr. Cade’s home, and living like a mouse, scurrying from my room in the middle of the night, stealing food from the refrigerator, waiting until Thomas left and then sitting in the living room in front of the fireplace, catching a quick nap while heat from the fire softly washed over me.
Sunday night I ate soup and watched the local news. At night the reception was better than during the day, and the picture was clear enough that I was able to masturbate to Cynthia Andrews, Channel 7’s six o’clock anchorwoman. She was attractive in that nondescript anchorwoman kind of way, and every Sunday I’d fall asleep to the images of my fantasy, unaware of my own violent shivering, my knees pulled up to my chest and the incoherent mumble of the television in the background.
Monday morning someone knocked on my door. I pulled the pillow over my head, but there was another knock, this one louder than the first. I thought it was Luke or Henry, finally coming to fix the hole. I slipped out of my cocoon of blankets, already dressed, and answered the door.
At first I thought I was dreaming. Art stood in the doorway, dressed impeccably in a fitted black turtleneck sweater, tan corduroys, and a burgundy pea coat. His hair was cut short and he had new glasses. He smelled faintly of cologne and fresh snow, the icy scent of the outdoors still clinging to him.
He took off his glasses. “Me first,” he said, holding up his gloved hand. He looked over my shoulder. “What the hell are you doing here?” He looked over my shoulder again and stared at me, incredulous.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said. Art brushed past and strode into my room. He stood in the center of it, hands on his hips, and swept his gaze from wall to wall. He filled the space, his head only a few inches below the ceiling.
“It’s worse,” Art said, putting his glasses back on. “Mildew.” He wrinkled his nose. “And it’s freezing. How long have you been living like this?”
“Two weeks.”
“And you were going to stay the entire vacation?”
I nodded.
“Why?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Dr. Cade’s friend is staying at the house,” I said. “And Paderborne closes for winter vacation.”
Art laughed. “Why on earth didn’t you go stay with Dan? Or with Howie?”
“I didn’t feel like it,” I said. I couldn’t think of a more honest answer.
Art sat on my bed. He had new shoes—ankle-high black leather boots, shiny like wet seal skin. “This is really amazing,” he said. “You’re like St. Daniel. Rejecting all earthly comforts.”
Art glanced up at the hanging light bulb. “Nice touch. Very film noir.”
“I thought you were in London,” I said.
He leaned back against the wall and swung his legs onto the bed. “I was in London. Great time, as always. My friend—George Pinkus, did I mention him before? We rowed together freshman year. He transferred to Cambridge. Sharp fellow. Anyway, he got ap
pendicitis two days ago. He’s laid up in the hospital and I’m biding my time in coffeehouses, and you know, there’s only so much dark roast one man can drink. Can you imagine I was stuck in London with nothing to do?”
“I could think of worse places,” I said.
“I bet you could.”
“What about Ellen?”
“What about her?”
“Weren’t you going to meet her in Prague?”
“Oh, yeah.” His expression soured. “She came to London. Showed up at my friend’s flat completely unannounced. She said the train ride to Prague would be romantic, just the two of us.” He looked at his thumbnail and started to pick at it. “Never mind the fact that I was looking forward to some quality time with George. I haven’t seen him in over three years. Instead he gets appendicitis and Ellen thinks we should leave early for Prague. You know what I think,” he looked up at me. “I think she didn’t trust me. I think she figured I was fooling around.”
“How insulting,” I said, not really meaning it.
“It is, isn’t it?” He nodded and sat up. His boots trailed dirt onto the bed. “What way is that to approach a relationship? It’s difficult, you know. Trying to maintain this mature, adult relationship while she acts as if I’m her child. As if I need to be watched. It’s not like I’m constantly looking over her shoulder.” He brushed something off the tip of his boot. Art could be amusingly fastidious at times.
“So you came home,” I said.
“She pissed me off, if you want to know the truth. Nothing good could’ve come from it. I was mad at her, she got mad because I was mad, we had this Prague trip hanging over our heads…so I decided to come back. Ellen ran off to her cousin’s apartment in Paris. She’s probably shopping right now, as we speak. Stuffing her face with chocolates.”