The Truth About Death

by Robert Hellenga

  The county agent was jotting something down with a pencil on a pad of paper. Barney was lighting a cigar. Rudy kicked a rock, and they both looked up at him, looking for a sign. He shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t want them to know that he’d decided to buy the property. He didn’t want them to know that in the twinkling of an eye, just like that, the old world had vanished, and a new one had been set in its place.

  SNAPSHOTS OF APHRODITE

  Rosalind was a Rose garden in flames, DiVita an indefatigable gardener, grafting new pleasures on the ancient stock, forcing them in the hothouse of desire to burst precociously into searing colors. The afternoon clerk at the Delta Towers pulled his thin lips back against his yellow teeth; the old men dozing in wingback chairs stirred and twitched their noses, old dogs smelling a bitch in heat, as she walked across the lobby, her sandals clicking like castanets on the parquet, her young woman’s haunches swaying like long-stemmed roses in a summer breeze, her young woman’s smells concentrated in an alembic of O Glory Hallelujah, thought DiVita, fingering the elevator button, summoning a chariot to carry them up to the gates of paradise—a room on the fifteenth floor of the Delta Towers Hotel. Fifteen dollars for the afternoon. A real bargain.

  “What does she put on her cunt?” Cosmo, the bartender at the Casino on Taylor Street had asked him. “You can smell it a mile away. It would wake the dead.” He’d raised his fingertips to his nose. “Wait till your pal finds out you’ve been dicking his wife.”

  Rosalind’s husband, Graham, a distinguished scholar with an international reputation, DiVita’s mentor and friend, was a good man—a deeply religious man, that is—who brought reason to bear upon his passions and desires. Such a man might have conversed with philosopher kings or banqueted with the blessed saints; but how could he have married his graduate assistant, an Italian girl half his age? And how could a girl like Rosalind have fallen for a man with a monk’s tonsure and a game leg? Though DiVita knew that some girls were attracted to gimps.

  They had been married two years, and she had just published a naughty story in The Gargoyle, the campus literary magazine, and Graham had threatened to paddle her if she pulled another stunt like that again; he’d put a stop to it in a mighty big hurry, he’d said. He’d threatened to put a private detective on her tail; and every morning he’d drive her across town to the Newberry Library, where she would check the footnotes for the long-awaited second volume of his History of the Investiture Controversy. In the evenings he’d pick her up at the front door of the library, unless he was prevented from doing so by his busy schedule. In which case he’d send DiVita.

  “It’s just a story, Graham,” DiVita had tried to explain, but Graham taught history, not fiction.

  “Just a story? Nobody could make up something like that.”

  “Graham, she’s twenty-five years old.”

  But Graham had waved the question of age aside. “There are places in Africa where they’d put her in a sack with a chicken and a snake and a dog and toss her into the river.”

  DiVita didn’t see the sense of it. But he was alarmed, and not without reason. Graham had bought a gun, a pistol, a .38 special snub nose with a two-inch barrel. He’d taken DiVita up to his bedroom to show him.

  * * *

  The fifteenth floor of the Delta Towers had originally been furnished in the style of a turn-of-the-century bordello, and some of the furnishings remained: velvet upholsteries, faded but opulent; lacquered wallpapers with erotic motifs; four-posters; and beveled cheval glasses in every room.

  “Okay, Mister, this is going to be the supreme test, and if you fail …”

  “Jesus, Rossi, where do you get this stuff?”

  “I don’t get it out of a book, I’ll tell you that.”

  Did she get it from Graham? DiVita rejected the idea instinctively.

  “Where do you get it?”

  “Shut up,” she said. “I’ll do the talking. If only you could see yourself now!”

  DiVita knew that it couldn’t last, knew that something would happen, something as inevitable as the hour of death. He expected that Graham would discover one of the notes that DiVita left in her pockets and purse. Or someone at the Newberry would get wind of it, or someone would see them coming out of the Delta Towers. He foresaw a scandal, a storm of outrage and indignation, and, at the eye of the hurricane, jealousy—so fair, she was, laughter-loving Aphrodite. Who would not have risked Hephaestus’s golden net for a turn in her bed? What actually happened, however, was totally unexpected, and failed to have the immediate result that DiVita anticipated.

  What actually happened was that they were photographed in their hotel room. The door was opened with a passkey, and the security chain was snipped with a menacing tool like the beak of a large and terrible bird, though DiVita didn’t really get a very good look at it. He didn’t move, couldn’t move, for Rosalind had secured him to the four-poster with two pairs of Fogal dot stockings.

  The men who photographed them were not professionals—they had trouble with the electronic flash, and one of them dropped the camera—but they shot an entire roll of film—twenty exposures—while Rosalind, thrusting her bare chest forward defiantly, swore at them in their own language: “Non mi rompere le palle.”

  Afterward the lovers stopped for drinks at the Palmer House.

  “What can he do?”

  “He could do plenty,” Rosalind said. Rosalind, who had taken everything very coolly, was beginning to crack. It would take more than a couple of drinks to get them through the rest of the day. DiVita pictured the two of them lying on the living room floor, pools of blood, Graham on the phone in the butler’s pantry, turning himself in.

  “Not if we can get past the first couple of minutes.”

  In the end they decided that there was nothing for it but to anticipate the arrival of the photos by making a full confession, throwing themselves on Graham’s mercy.

  But that sort of thing was not possible, because they neither knew what they wanted nor what they intended to do. DiVita, in fact, could not think beyond the next, say, thirty-five minutes, depending on traffic. The Marshall Field’s clock said ten after five. Thirty-five minutes. It was like waiting for a bomb to explode. You couldn’t know what you would do afterward, but you would do something, if you were still alive. And everything would be changed. Yes. But how? That was the question.

  On Graham’s doorstep—the threshold of a new life—they hesitated a moment before bearding the lion; but the lion, his face beaming, greeted them with such cordiality that they lost the initiative, if indeed they ever had it. It would have been impossible to interrupt his geniality with such a sordid tale; or perhaps it was that they had not decided how the subject should be broached, or who would do the broaching, or perhaps it was easier to sink down into the sofa cushions and let fate take its own course instead of trying to meddle with it. Such were DiVita’s thoughts. And he allowed himself to entertain the possibility that the men had broken into the wrong room, and that it had all been a mistake, and that the photos wouldn’t turn out anyway. Perhaps the shutter had jammed; perhaps the lens had been damaged. He tried to recall the precise sound the camera had made when it fell, listened to his memory for a crunching or cracking sound, for the small tinkle of a delicate Christmas tree ornament shattering on the carpet.

  Graham poured drinks and prepared hors d’oeuvres—artichoke bottoms spread with capers and homemade mayonnaise. The Esperanza, he said—part of a recent bequest—had docked at the Jackson Park Yacht Club, where it would remain for a decent interval before being sold. In the meantime, the dean had invited them all for a picnic lunch on board. Graham, sitting down heavily on the sofa, put a hand on DiVita’s knee. “You’re in.”

  It was the dean who would act upon the department’s recommendation regarding DiVita’s tenure. Either the university would open its arms to enfold him forever, or it would suggest, politely but firmly, that he might find greater scope elsewhere for the exercise of his talents.

&
nbsp; “Did he say that, Graham?”

  “No, he didn’t say it; he couldn’t say it, now, not till June. But you don’t think he’d invite you if he was going to give you the sack, do you?”

  DiVita nodded ambiguously. He had always assumed that Graham would remove this obstacle from his path, just as he had removed others.

  They drank more wine while Graham broiled steaks on the Weber grill.

  It was chilly outside, but Graham’s dining room with its Baccarat crystal chandelier and oak paneling was warm and cozy, elegant and romantic. The light from the chandelier, refracted from hundreds of scalloped prisms, gathered in limpid pools on the darkened glossy varnish of the lacquer and the wainscoting. After supper Graham built a coal fire in the old-fashioned grate. He had taken off his shoes, and the faint odor of his feet, encased in nylon stockings, mingled with the scent of the kindling and the crackling coal. Something tugged at DiVita’s heart like a kite on a long, long string, a string so long you couldn’t make out the kite at all. Everything seemed possible. They could talk it over together, work it out. He glanced at Rosalind. Was she thinking the same thing? He wanted to speak to her alone for just a minute, had to, to coordinate their timing, their plans, signals. But when Graham went into the kitchen to make coffee, and DiVita followed her into the tiny downstairs john, she said, “Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind?” She was frightened, upset. “Get out of here,” she said. “I can’t pee when you’re standing there watching.”

  Friday came and still no photographs. Walgreens, DiVita had observed, offered same-day service for an extra charge, but surely they wouldn’t have them developed at Walgreens. Wasn’t there a law against that sort of thing? But of course there were no doubt outfits that would develop anything overnight, no questions asked. Nonetheless, DiVita’s hope was turning into a settled conviction: the photographs had not turned out. He would have to be careful not to get caught a second time. They would have to find a safer pied-à-terre, or he could buy one of those little devices that he had seen advertised in mail order catalogs that you put on a hotel door to prevent break-ins. Maybe a new life wouldn’t be necessary after all.

  But on Saturday morning, when Graham swung his new Oldsmobile into the back parking lot at the Jackson Park Yacht Club, where DiVita had been making small talk with the Singletons—the dean and his wife—he knew at once that he had been deceiving himself and that the grace period was over. Graham, dressed for the occasion in white duck trousers and a dark blue double-breasted serge jacket, had come alone. His face was flushed, and he seemed to be having trouble breathing. DiVita, afraid to ask where Rosalind was, waited for the Singletons to express their curiosity; but the Singletons maintained a discreet silence.

  DiVita should have spoken sooner, should have broken the news over a drink. It would have been easy enough, he thought as he looked back and remembered how congenial the three of them had all been, drinking red wine with their porterhouse steaks. But now it seemed impossible. He had given up the initiative without a struggle. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the photographs, tried to see them through Graham’s eyes. But he couldn’t, and he was afraid like a child about to be spanked. But he was afraid for Graham too, afraid that there were limits to goodness and charity, and that Graham, the best and most charitable of men, was in the process of discovering those limits, discovering within himself what lay on the other side of goodness and charity. Well, why not? DiVita thought. He knew the territory well himself. But his limits were not Graham’s limits; he didn’t have to go far to reach them. But he thought of Graham’s limits as lying much further away, marking, like the Pillars of Hercules, the boundaries of the known moral world.

  The Esperanza, a sixty-foot ketch that had once won the Race to Mackinac but was now rigged for cruising, rode at anchor in fifty feet of water. Graham and the dean were both avid sailors, but DiVita, who didn’t know a yawl from a ketch, a sloop from a schooner, didn’t care for water sports. He was pleased, however, when the dean produced not one but two wicker hampers from the trunk of his car and stowed them in the dinghy—a sturdy-looking flat-bottomed boat with short oarlocks, the stern of which had been pulled up on the beach. Perhaps, over a glass or two of good wine. Surely Graham did not intend to confront him in the presence of the dean and his wife. On the other hand, maybe that was exactly what Graham had in mind: a public humiliation, a fitting end to his career at the university. Why else wouldn’t he have simply called the dean and said they couldn’t come?

  His immediate concern, however, was to secure a place in the dinghy so as not to be left alone with Graham. He wanted to speak to Rosalind, but where was she? What had Graham done with her? To her?

  Graham, who was inflating his new canoe with a foot pump, called to the Singletons to go ahead in the dinghy. He and DiVita would paddle out in the canoe, he said. DiVita, who had already settled himself in the dinghy, rose to obey. He was getting a headache, and he had to go to the bathroom.

  “Give us a push,” said the dean. “Just let us get settled first.”

  The little boat scrunched on the sand and then floated free. The dean pulled on the oars a couple of strokes before tipping the blue-green Evinrude motor into the water and pushing the electric starter. DiVita could hardly distinguish the sound of the motor from the buzzing in his own ears.

  The sand clung to DiVita’s wet sneakers as he walked slowly up the beach to the spot where Graham was inflating the canoe, which had by now assumed its true form, actually that of a pointed canoe rather than the rounded rubber raft DiVita had expected.

  “About got it?” he said, looking at Graham and then down again at the pulsating canoe.

  Graham kept pumping.

  “Want me to do that for a while?”

  Graham kept pumping.

  The left side of the canoe, to which the hose from the pump was connected, was as shiny and tight as the skin of a drum, but by the time Graham unscrewed the hose—the escaping air hissed like a startled snake—and screwed on the cap, it had begun to sag like the right side.

  “There ought to be a better way,” DiVita offered. “Did you read the instructions?”

  Graham kicked the boat with his game leg. “It’ll do,” he said, and then he added, “Marco, I want to have a talk with you.” His voice quiet but uneven.

  “What’s up?” It was DiVita’s turn to kick the boat, which didn’t look very seaworthy to him. “Aren’t there any life jackets for this thing?” Even now, now that the moment was upon him, he couldn’t help stalling, even if it would gain only a few seconds, even if the decent thing to do would be to speak honestly: My intentions are honorable, Graham. I just didn’t know how to break it to you; remember the woman taken in adultery? What was it again that Christ said? And the man, too. Whatever became of him?

  “They’re in the car.”

  “I’ll get them.”

  “Don’t bother.” It was an order. The imperative mood. “We won’t need them. It’s not that far out there.”

  “Isn’t it against the law or something?” It was all very well for Graham, an excellent swimmer, to do without a life jacket, but DiVita felt differently. “I’m not much of a swimmer, Graham,” he said.

  “Odd, you know; you’re such a good athlete.”

  “It’s all right. I’ve got to go up to the bathroom anyway.”

  “You can go on the Esperanza.”

  “What about the pump? I’ll run it up to the car.”

  “We’ll take it with us. We may need it.”

  DiVita would have preferred to have it out on dry land, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak or to give Graham an opening, so they carried the lightweight canoe down to the lip of the water. Graham was tongue-tied too, able to issue negative commands but not to say what was on his mind.

  If the boat had had more air in it, it wouldn’t have sat so low in the water, wouldn’t have been quite so unstable. But there was nothing to be done about it now. DiVita tried to keep perfectly still as he paddl
ed first on one side and then the other with a short-handled paddle.

  “You’ve got to feather the blade,” said Graham. “Just turn the paddle a little as you finish your stroke—and stay on one side or the other; don’t keep switching back and forth. I’ll do the navigating.”

  DiVita, kneeling in the bottom of the canoe, braced himself against a curved wooden shelf mounted on one of the struts that kept the frame rigid. He could not see Graham, nor could he hear the sound of Graham’s paddle, which cut noiselessly, like the blade of a knife, into the gray-green folds of the lake, but he could feel Graham’s powerful thrusts propelling them farther and farther away from the shore, and when Graham stopped paddling and the canoe began to curve to the left in response to his own splashy efforts, he imagined the thin edge of Graham’s paddle descending in a clean arc, splitting his head wide open. King Mark splitting Tristan’s head open with a long-handled battle axe. DiVita tried to head the boat toward the Esperanza, but Graham, using his own paddle as a rudder, steered them out toward the opening in the breakwater.