With that perfect excuse to sneak over to Weber's house, I suddenly had no desire to go. But Eliot piped up and loudly announced his willingness to be chauffeured around and shown all the interesting sights in the neighborhood.
An hour later we were halfway there, feeling like ten-year-olds who were sneaking into an «R» rated movie without their parents along.
It was love at first sight for me and Remsenberg. White wooden houses hundreds of years old sat quietly next to each other in that proud, justifiable arrogance old beauty often has.
There was no real town center – no stores or gas stations. Only the houses simply but perfectly maintained, very sure of their great value. What an uncommon place.
An old man in a plucky Tarn O'Shanter hat who was walking a sweet-faced greyhound gave us directions to the lane where Weber lived. Turning on to it and feeling my hands go a little sweaty, I was reminded of those roads in rural Italy that are lined on either side by cypress trees which commonly give you the feeling they're soldiers waiting to be reviewed. Only here on Long Island, there were cedar trees with a solid, rocky look to them which said they had stood guard over this part of town for a long time.
The road twisted here and there. Finally, after a strangely sharp right turn, it became a narrow dirt road. I pulled the car over and we both got out to have a look. Sure enough, Eliot found the mailbox a few feet away under a tree with the name «Gregston» written under it in small, unobtrusive letters.
«Eliot, I think we should walk in, don't you? If he is in there, we don't want to surprise him. What if he's with someone, or something?»
«And maybe you're scared stiff, Cullen James. Where's your spirit of adventure?»
«In Rondua, Mr. Tracy. Let's go.»
The driveway meandered in and out of a neat, very thick forest of trees and was only wide enough for one car at a time. It went on for about a quarter of a mile. Then you were socked in the eye with _one beautiful view!_ Weber's «Laughing Hat» house sat plunk on the edge of a bay and fitted perfectly into the surroundings of sea and birds flying everywhere. It was a little Victorian gem, white and cobalt blue, which reminded me of a Carl Larson illustration for a children's book. Every detail was singular and kooky – gingerbread moulding, orange copper drains, giant bay windows that gave the impression the house was all eyes looking carefully out at everything.
There was no car around. Tiptoeing up closer, we saw no lights on inside either.
«Damn it! I wanted him to be in there with Meryl Streep.»
«Meryl's married, Eliot.»
«Frankly, my dear, so are you. You want to go inside? You've got the keys, right?»
«Yes, but I don't want to do that, Eliot. I feel voyeuristic enough as it is.»
«Oh my! I've been a peeping Tom all my life. There's just never anything very interesting to peep _at_! Are you sure? Can you imagine what he's got hidden in those closets?»
«No, I really don't want to. But I think we can peek in through the windows. That'd be okay.»
We made a complete circuit of the house. Since so much of it was glass, we got a good idea of his taste from out there. There were lots of empty white walls, wooden furniture covered with black silk pillows, some posters of work by artists I'd never heard of before but liked a lot: Leslie Baker, Alex Colville, Martina Niegel. And there was no one «kind» of picture or theme – they were as eclectic as you could get.
Neatly arranged on the low ebony living-room table were big art books and a copy of the Italian men's _Vogue_ magazine with guess who on the cover? Weber Gregston. What I couldn't see, Eliot described to me, and vice versa. After a while I felt like a relative who's come to take stock of things after a member of the family has died.
«Tell me you're _sure_ you don't want to go in.»
«Eliot –«
«Okay, I was just asking. But let's leave him something to let him know you were here. Remember how he said he'd like that?»
Neither of us had a pen or paper, so a note was out. Eliot suggested we make a little pile of stones at the door, but that reminded me too much of a Jewish cemetery.
«Wait a minute. I know.» I fished down deep into my purse and came up with the last postcard Weber had sent from Florida. There was a brass mail slot on the front door and I shoved the card through it.
«Maybe he'll just think you didn't like what he said on the card, Cullen. Let's go in and write him a real note.»
«Come on, Eliot. You'd just steal something if you went in.»
It was dark when we got back home and Danny was lying on the couch reading a book. Mae was sitting on the floor hitting her favorite stuffed animal – an ugly green squirrel – with a plastic spoon.
«Hallo!»
«Where have you two been? I was beginning to worry.»
«Oh, we drove around! All over the place. I took Eliot to Westhampton. . . . I'm sorry, Dan. We should have called.»
«Yes, that's right. What are we going to do about dinner?»
The tone of his voice and the snip of the words sent Eliot and me scuttling off pronto into the kitchen to get things going.
A few minutes later Danny poked his head around the corner to say he was going out to the store to buy some brownies.
«But Dan, we've already got . . .»
His eyes told me to be quiet; he wanted to go away from us for a while, and _not_ just into another room of the house. I wished we hadn't gone to Weber's, no matter how much fun we'd had casing the place out. When Danny James went out for brownies at six in the evening, it meant he was angry as hell and didn't want to be around his wife. It also wrung my heart to realize he was mad because he'd been worried.
I waited until I heard the car door slam and the engine start up before I dared to look out of the kitchen window. I felt Eliot's hands on my shoulders as he leaned over me to have a look too.
«We're such little shits, Cullen.»
«Boy, don't I know it!»
«Can you imagine how he'd feel if he knew where we'd really been? Oh, my God!»
«Spare me. Let's just go and make a _very_ beautiful dinner and pray he comes back in one piece. He hasn't done something like this since we were in Italy.»
I brought Mae in from the living room and put her in the high chair. Then we set to work making a king's feast. Eliot started to sing «Can't Help Loving That Man of Mine» but stopped dead as soon as he saw the look on my face.
Danny's return half an hour later was marked by two sighs of relief from the kitchen, but no hugs and kisses all around. He walked into the kitchen, put a bag on the counter and walked out again.
I looked into the bag and my heart broke all over again. Next to some frozen brownies was the newest issue of my favorite magazine. Damn him! Damn all good people who make you feel so keenly aware of your own smallness, ineptitude and spite with the flick of their wrist or an unconscious blink of the eye.
I wanted to run into the living room waving my spatula, to yell at him, «Why do you have to be so damned nice? You make me feel one foot tall!»
But I didn't do that; I turned the potato pancakes over instead.
Our dinner was eaten in silence; the final nail being driven into the day's coffin when Dan insisted on doing all the dinner dishes.
Eliot and I went into the living room and sat looking helplessly at each other.
«Maybe there's a Weber Gregston movie on TV.»
There was a tremendous crash in the kitchen and Danny yelled, «Mae, don't!»
He had dropped the casserole dish on the floor and, fast as only a child can be when it's interested in something, Mae picked up a fanged piece of broken glass that had landed on her chair.
When I got there, the shard had bit deep into her silly putty hand and there was blood all over. . . . All over everything. Mae looked at the red gush interestedly – it was something new for her.
Danny saw me bolt for her and threw up his hand to stop me in my charge. «Don't scare her, Cul! Do it slow. If you scare her it'll be
worse!»
Perfect sense. My face went through six changes while I took slow giant steps toward her.
«Good job, kiddo! Let me have a look.» I could feel the hysteria rise inside me like vomit.
The cut was very deep. A gut-sickening gash that had no end.
«What should we do, Dan?»
«Oh, my _God!_»
That did it. Eliot's whoop on first seeing what had happened scared the hell out of Mae and the whole thing exploded right there. Mae started to scream.
«Eliot, shut up and call the operator! Tell her what's happened and ask for the nearest emergency service or doctor. Whichever one is closer.»
Eliot stood unmoving in the doorway, his hands pressed to his mouth.
«For Christ's sake move, Eliot! Cullen, get her over here. Let me try and clean it up.»
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Eliot disappear. I lifted the blood-ribboned Mae up and out of her wooden high chair.
Danny took hold of her at the sink. The first thing he did was lift her up so she was right at eye level with him. He gave her a big smile and wiggled his evebrows.
«Hey baby, what a hand! Look at all of that great blood! Let's wash it off a little, huh?»
Seeing her Daddy smile calmed her a little, but the screams soon returned when he began rinsing the hand in cold tap water.
«Cul, go get a clean handkerchief or something; anything, a rag. Just make sure it's clean. I'm going to try to make a bandage.»
Eliot blasted through the door with the name of a doctor a mile away.
«Go call him. See if he's home.»
«No, let's just go, Danny. We'll waste –«
«No! If he's not there, we'll just have to come back here again. Call him!»
The doctor wasn't home, but his answering machine gave the name of someone else. The doctor _was_ home and told us to come right over. He would be waiting for us.
Danny wrapped her hand and then carefully bound it at the wrist with a rubber band from my hair.
When we got in the car. Mae was really on the edge of something bad. The pain had obviously arrived and she didn't like one bit the shift we'd made from warm house to cold car.
Danny told me to drive because I knew the way. He sat next to me with Mae on his lap, jiggling her up and down and singing little songs in her ear.
In the backseat, Eliot asked if there was anything he could do.
«Yes, sing. Let's all sing a song. Mae likes it when we sing, don't you, Kiwi?»
I looked at Danny and loved him for everything he had in him: all the stores of strength and sanity I knew from our everydays together, and all the extra parts he had for moments like this, when coolness and clarity were the only things that mattered.
Eliot started singing. Unfortunately. He didn't stop singing until we were getting out of the car in front of the doctor's house.
Later, when the doctor told us we had bound Mae's hand a little too tightly, I felt like telling him to . . . My husband had wrapped that hand and nothing he did could be wrong.
«Mom, this is Night Ear. He'll show us around.»
We stood at the gates of another city that looked so much like Kempinski: the same turrets, campaniles, mobs of black birds flying to and fro over the high stone walls. We were outside Ophir Zik, the City of the Dead. I knew nothing about it except that I didn't like anything about its name.
When we left Kempinski days before, Pepsi had climbed on to Mr. Tracy's head and they moved off ahead of us. I assumed it was because they had important things to talk about, but that assumption didn't make things any easier. Pepsi was still a very little boy and even in mystical Rondua, where rabbits pulled magicians out of their top hats, I felt it was just too soon for this not-even-three-foot-tall fellow to begin assuming the responsibilities of a man, much less those of a monarch.
But then again he wouldn't be a monarch unless he possessed all five Bones. So far he had got only two, and one of those old unnecessary Mom had found for him.
More and more, I asked myself what function did I serve here? Somehow, from _somewhere_, I had come to Rondua with Pepsi. Was I therefore a messenger, meant only to deliver my dream-child to the right people here and then be gone? No, because of everything that had happened so far: I had had to introduce him to the animals, I had had to explain certain things about Rondua to him, I had helped calm his initial fears about being there in the first place. Then / had found the first Bone of the Moon and shown my son how to carve it. So, was I just a messenger? Maybe I was fooling myself, but I was sure it was much more than that. But what? Since Pepsi had been treated so respectfully by Sizzling Thumb and the mayor of Kempinski, I had felt increasingly left out of things and more like an unnecessary part than ever.
Once it even struck me that if I had to stay in Rondua longer, it would be better for me to go back to the Plain of Forgotten Machines and hang around with them. I'd fit right in with those things – I could splutter and hiss importantly and serve no purpose at all. Just like those other pretty heaps we'd passed on that day so many weeks before.
Why do brats like me like to lick our wounds so much?
Night Ear was an old hermit who chose to live on the outskirts of Ophir Zik. He made his small living by showing visitors around the City of the Dead.
«The ones who live inside are comfortable with each other. But they resent the living, so it's best not to talk with them. However, if you must, look away. Don't look them in the face, and address your questions to no one directly. They'll know who you are talking to.»
We followed him through a ruined arched gate. The cobblestone path that led into the city gradually steepened upward. Soon my legs were tired and I found myself taking smaller steps and watching my feet to make sure they were going where I wanted them to.
Children ran helter-skelter through the wobbly, uneven streets, but their happy laughing faces made no noise. Nothing. There was no noise anywhere. Not the shouts of children, dogs barking, the bang of buckets and metal on stone, the squawks of birds or people saying hello across a narrow alleyway.
Women in colorful babushkas with their sleeves rolled up and faces red as children's candy leaned out of their windows and watched interestedly as we passed. But they watched in silence too: old hens as nosy in mute death as they had been in loud life. To my surprise, one of them threw an apple down to me. It was shiny and delicious looking, but it made no sound when it landed in my hand. I looked at Night Ear to see if it was all right to eat. He waited until we had rounded a sharp corner and were out of view of the woman.
«It's not a good idea to eat that; it'll only make you tired.» He stopped and looked at me craftily. «But you _can_ eat it, if you want. If you do, it will tell you many things about death you never knew.»
A young good-looking man rode slowly by on a bicycle with his girlfriend balanced on the bar in front of him, her hands tightly over his on the handlebars. They were both smiling and looked as if they couldn't have been happier. But they made no sound. The bicycle shuddered and bumped over the old gray-brown stones, but it made no sound and they were soon gone.
It was more odd than frightening. I had almost grown used to the quiet when we came upon a sunny wide-open plaza and I saw Evelyn Hernuss, Danny's first wife, sitting at a cafй and watching us. Forgetting what the guide had said, I hurried over and – looking directly at her – said her name.
«Hello, Cullen. We're not allowed to shake hands with you. How many years has it been, though? You've done so much since I knew you.»
We spoke for a few minutes about . . . what? My marrying Danny. She knew all about that. She said it was «okay,» that she was happy for both of us, but the look on her face – so full of stopped dreams and sadness – said it wasn't okay at all. What could I do or say? For a brief moment, I felt as if I had killed her and sent her here.
«Mom?»
I looked down at Pepsi without really seeing him. He was crying. I looked from him to Evelyn, and then back again at him. His fac
e was wet, but he kept nodding at me as if he were agreeing with something I had said.
«Why are we here, Pepsi?» I looked again from him to Evelyn, then back again.
«Don't you know?»
«Not at all, my love.»
«You have to! This is where I was before you came back, Mom. I lived here. You killed me once. Don't you remember that?»
A pain the size of the world swept through me and to this day, I have no idea whether it was physical or spiritual or what. What I do know is that death itself could not be any worse than that pain. Nothing could.
Pepsi was the child I had had scraped out of me four years before on a sunny summer day. My abortion. My son. Getting rid of my evidence. My son – my dead, wonderful son.
Leaning my whole sagged weight against a wall, I wept again in the midst of that dreadful silence for what I had done. I wept until I felt crushed by the weight of both the world and the dead.
I had been wondering why I was in Rondua. But not once had I ever really wondered about the identity of this beautiful, sassy child who had gone everywhere with me and called me Mom. My son. My son here, my son from the other world.
I was in Rondua for only one reason: to help Pepsi however I could to find the five Bones of the Moon and thus keep him from this city for the rest of time.
Why we were both being given this second chance I had no idea, but it was there and I would ask no questions. Without the Bones, Pepsi would be here forever. With them, he would be free, he would be able to streak across mountains on Martio the Camel's back or swim by himself in gold lagoons. I was here this time not to find the Bones myself, but to help Pepsi home. . . . Through and out of Ophir Zik, the City of the Dead, to life somewhere on the far other side of this universe.
Does it ever really happen that we are given a _real_ second chance? Another turn to bat, a few magical feet more to skid before we hit the wall and ruin everything?
No, in real life that didn't happen. In Rondua, I would save my child.
Part Three
1
Dear Mrs. James,
Bones of The Moon Page 12