by Bruce Wagner
It occurred to Dodd that if what his old friend said was true—that the girl was “in touch” with her mother’s attacker—then the children themselves might be in danger. It disturbed him that Samson hadn’t played this bit of logic through. He was probably just exaggerating; it sounded like a TV thriller. Still, he would inform his staff of the situation and have them on the lookout.
He entered the house, replaying Dr. Janklow’s words in his head. Was the whole world beset with memory disease? He decided not to tell his wife the details of the fiasco at Michael’s. He could hardly tell himself.
They both went to bed with secrets, for that morning Joyce had gotten a call from the police about a baby found in the trash. She would name him Isaiah—the first soul the Candlelighters would lay to rest in Westwood Village.
When the cousin stepped from the elevator into his apartments, Toulouse and Lucy were literally wringing their hands in despair. The ladder dangled down from the attic; Amaryllis had fled.
After moments of furied search-party strategizing, Toulouse discovered the note scrawled on Edward’s intagliated Francis-Orr stationery:
My Dearest Edward, Lucie and Tulouse,
I shuold never have come to see you and feel so terrible that you may now be in truoble now on accuont of me. You have done so much and lavvished such attention and moneys on me. I have been only greedy and have not given even much of a thouhgt to the brother and sister I left behind. I was not able to say goodbye to Pull-Man and wish you would tell him how sorry I am that I couold not show him the respekt he deserves and not thank him for the many rides he gave me on his strong and lovely back. You will always be in my memorrie. Edward, I know you will get better and be everr-thing you can be. Lucie you will be a famuos writer and I hope that when I am old you will remmeber I was some help to you along the way.
And Tulose—please forgive!
Your friend,
Amaryllis Kornfeld the Venerable
“She’s going to kill herself!” cried Lucy.
“No,” said her brother. “She wouldn’t do that before finding ‘the babies.’ ”
“That’s what we should have been doing,” said Toulouse, fairly frothing at the mouth, “instead of dressing her up like … some fucking doll. We should have been doing something to reunite them—”
“It’s not too late for that,” said the cousin.
“Bullshit! It is—it’s always too late!”
With that, he stormed out. Lucy went after, but Edward shouted for her to let him be; and that some “fissiparousness” was to be expected.
Dusk fell as Toulouse left the main gate. Eulogio offered to drive him home, but the boy refused. The diligent servant shadowed him in a Town Car as he strode the serpentine road to Saint-Cloud.
The moon was full, and he had never felt such sorrow. The cold air stung his cheeks, but he walked so hard and fast that he soon sweatily removed his coat. She was out there somewhere alone—gone, as his father was and as his mother would be. And that was how the world ended, if you were lucky: with the jottings of your beloved’s farewell. Grandma Bluey sure had it right: the world (even that of the living) was nothing but scraps of paper, an album of death notices blown hither and thither by a careless, uncaring wind. Around and around they blew, and where they landed no one knew …
That was how the world ended—in a parade of shredded paper raining down. The miserable confetti of Good-bye.
CHAPTER 34
An Early Winter
The pomegranate, or Punica granatum, belongs to a small tree native to Persia, where it still grows wild. Moses assured the wandering Israelites that they would one day find the fruit, along with honey, fig trees and brooks of clear water, in the Promised Land. There is, of course, the famous myth having to do with the abduction of Persephone to the underworld, whereby the winter season is born. Demeter, Hades and six pomegranate seeds play their part—but we’ll leave that to various Four Winds mentors (and future professors of Dodd Trotter Middle School), for this book cannot include everything.
It is well known that the pomegranate does not easily give up its seeds and for that reason has never attained the popularity it deserves. But for William (who was not yet Marcus), such was the allure. He had always extolled the exotic fruit, staining his fingers with its scarlet juices at an early age as William Morris had stained his with inks and dyes; unlike Persephone, the suburban boy swallowed seeds in bulk.
Along this theme, another place (that had nothing to do with Mr. Morris’s England) had begun to intrude on William’s geographical consciousness—a place called the Red Lands. He could remember a woman making grenadine from the fruit, and syrup for cooking, and a kind fellow he thought to be his father showing him how to roll the pomegranate around the sidewalk and pierce its skin with a straw to suck the nectar. William smiled to himself, thinking he’d do the same for Jane Scull; it would make her gleeful, for like a child she was.
When he returned to the shelter in the afternoon, Janey wasn’t there. He took up supper duties, then set about preparing a special dessert for her alone. William heated sugar in a saucepan until it was pale gold, then swirled the caramel; whilst adding juice from the pomegranate, the caramel steamed and hardened and he stirred until it dissolved. He made a separate bowl of arrowroot and water and ruffled that into the mix. He cooked the whole sauce until it boiled and thickened, before covering it to let it cool. At about ten that night, he blended in the carefully shucked ruby-colored seeds of the ancient fruit, and when someone said Janey’d come back, he spooned the caramel sauce over three scoops of vanilla Häagen-Dazs.
Bowl in hand, he was suddenly disquieted—he had been so preoccupied with pith and pip and memories of the Red Lands that he hadn’t given proper weight to her uncustomary absence. Earlier, he had taken one of the counselor’s casual asides (that Janey was at a sobriety meeting at Clare) at face value, knowing full well she refused to attend those peculiar, mandatory gatherings with anyone but him. William found her sitting on a bench inside the shelter’s chain-link enclosure and saw immediately that she was in no mood for treats. She was pale and drawn, and drawn in on herself too.
“Janey, what is it? Are you unwell?” Her body shook, and she could not get a word out. “Shall I call a doctor?”
Her dress had a smear of crimson, as if one of his fruits had been crushed down there, and William, in his naïveté, thought her embarrassed by some menstrual clumsiness. But in fact she had come from her chores with Please-Help.-Bless, who was particularly indifferent to her frailties that night and had made her suffer greatly.
She glanced at the dessert offering, then stood up, kissed William’s cheek and took to her bed until morning.
Bluey came home. A conspiracy of sophisticated scans revealed the disease to be at an alarmingly advanced stage, the brain under siege by a riot of dementia; memories and faces had begun their anarchic stampede from tear-gas clouds of vanishing or misbegotten cells, while moods and emotions cowered, blackjacked in the rainy, atrophied back alleys of the cavum septum pellucidum (which was not so pellucid, or even lucid, anymore). Toulouse wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about—Grandma was still Grandma, more or less. At least, to him.
He strolled with the old woman along the perimeter of the maze (a metaphor too tidy by half, yet unavoidable when inviting a faddish archetype into one’s backyard). Those with the disease of forgetting enjoyed their wanderings, as monks had done in meditation labyrinths of old—though enlightenment was not the thing awaiting Bluey Trotter at puzzle’s end.
“The strange thing is, I remember everything—from half a century ago. Though sometimes I can’t remember my name,” she said, and smiled. “But I do recall the oddest details. San Francisco, 1947. A piece of jade I bought at Gump’s—clear as a bell. The amazing thing is, I haven’t thought about that jade or Gump’s in a hundred years. Vic Bergeron—that was ‘Trader Vic’—and George Mardikian … the restaurants, Toulouse. I’m so glad you’ve started calling yourself
that! Baghdad by the Bay—oh, Tull, it was just … creamy, like those pastries I love. Or a late de Kooning—do you know who that is? The painter, not the pastor. He had a rough time of it mentally, too. Do you know what San Francisco was like back then? There seemed to be no people there—just women in long white gloves. Swans … like the movie Vertigo. Oh, but Kim Novak was a beauty. But you’ve never seen Vertigo, have you, Tull? Of course you haven’t. Your mother loved that city; that wasn’t until so much later. But then! 1947! Oh good Lord, it was heaven—it was all heaven. And Capri!” she gasped. “How can I describe for you Capri? I remember the little chalk scribblings the boys made on the cliffside rocks, boys just your age. See them clear as day. You’ve heard of Capri? Well of course you have! My world traveler! Good Lord, you’ve been to more places than I have.”
She stopped near a leafy inlet and drew her fingers through her grandson’s hair. Pullman came over, and Toulouse watched a tiny shock wave of fear enlarge her eyes until the dog passed. She hadn’t recognized the animal.
They walked some more in silence, until reaching the side of the maze farthest from the house. “My parents never wanted me to marry him, you know. To them he was a trashman, a digger of holes. A mole. Worse: a clotheshorse mole! Now, your father, well, the situation was … those people—those Redlands people had no money, but what difference did it make? We didn’t care about that. One thing your grandmother is not is a snob. And your father … Marcus seemed a bit ‘lost,’ no? He had his Oxford side, St. John’s and all, and then he had his Hollywood side. Very Jewish that way. Well, we didn’t give a yap about any of it, your grandfather and I. We only wanted Trinnie to be happy.” She traced a line with her foot in the pebbly ground. “Your father … well—what was meant to be was meant to be. He was not mentally correct. Do you love him?” The question took him aback. Again, with a rakish smile: “Do you love him?”
“Grandma, I’ve never even met him!”
“I’m sure you will,” she said, with a pixie’s amusement.
“Sometimes I wish Lucy never told me he was … alive.”
“Oh, but someone would have. And you’d have been angry, no? Lucy is a great friend, no? You love Lucy, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
They passed a second entrance to the box hedge, and Bluey gave an inquiring side glance.
“Don’t think I’ll go in—not today.”
She gathered herself on a stone bench. He sat down beside her.
“Do you know what is truly distressing?” She had the hollow, watery eyes of an excommunicant. “The thing I’m terrified of?—”
“Grandma, what is it?”
He thought she would burst into tears.
“You promise you won’t say anything to anyone?”
“I promise.”
“Are you certain, Toulouse? Because I don’t want this to get back to your mother! And I sure as hell don’t want Louis bothered by it.”
“I won’t,” he said, genuinely wanting to ease her agony. “I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
She leaned in his ear and whispered: “We are running out of money.”
Toulouse was nonplussed; under contagion of the old woman’s derangement, he struggled to understand. He’d never given money much thought—its running-outs or running-ins.
“But … did someone say it?”
“No! No! Of course not! Of course no one said it. No one ever says it. No one ever says anything. It’s something I know and it does not need ratification or ratiocination. But I cannot discuss this with your grandfather, do you understand? Because that will ‘hasten’ me—in their eyes. They’ll send me away! Did you know Louis bought a set of buttons at auction for twenty-three thousand dollars? A set of buttons, Toulouse! From the Court of Louis the Fourteenth. He collects anything with ‘Louis’ attached, such is his vanitas—’vanity of vanities,’ sayeth the Preacher. And to what end? How are we to maintain the house, Toulouse? Do you know what that man hoards in his den? (You should know; you’re in there enough.) More than Croesus, that’s what! And your mother is cut from the same cloth. I told them to sell that house—that crazy cracked tower. I told them years ago. What good does it do just sitting there? Do you know what that land is worth? Families could live there fourteen times over! But your mother and grandfather would rather keep a haunted house. Well now I’ve come to haunt them—I’ll make them pinch a penny!”
“Grandma, let’s go back.”
“You cannot breathe a word—”
“I wouldn’t.”
She began to weep.
“Your uncle Dodd … I had such hopes for your uncle Dodd—that he would be the one to restore us. But he spends so much! Lord, he flies around in a plane that costs millions and millions—you need an entire crew and every one of those crew-people have their own lifestyles that must be maintained. And you have to pay! You’re supporting a whole city of people you don’t even know! Joyce says she makes him take pills so he won’t spend the money—his wife is an angel. But I do think they may be worse off than we are! The market is constantly crashing. But you wouldn’t know it from talking to Uncle Dodd! No you wouldn’t. He’s got his head in the sand, Tullie … Do you think they’ll ask for anything? Do you think they’ll ask Grandpa for money? That would be a terrible calamity. Because we simply do not have it!”
“Mr. Trotter?” She stood outside the Withdrawing Room like a child. “Mr. Trotter, may I come in?”
The old man was surprised, and pleased to see her. “Yes, Winter, of course.”
“I won’t take too much of your time.”
“Not at all, come in! Come in.” He was having his drink, and strolling amid the little tombs. “How’s our girl doing?”
“Not so bad today. Keeps to her scrapbooks.” She smiled rather painfully. “Says we lost one of the notices—that I misplaced it. Sometimes she even says I steal them.”
“Never was a shy one!” he said. “Always spoke her mind.”
“Spends most her time looking, looking, looking—then forgets what she’s looking for.”
He chuffed and clucked and shook his head. “Invidious disease.”
He sipped at his sherry and offered her some, surprised when she acceded.
Winter looked around at the room’s wonders, and he handed her a glass. He knew she had more to say. She’d been under a great strain and perhaps wanted a sabbatical; the timing could not be more inopportune.
“And how are you bearing up, Winter?”
“Me, sir? I’m all right. I’ve been through it before—with an aunt. In Reykjavík. But it’s not an easy thing …”
“No. Not an easy thing.”
“Mr. Trotter … there’s something been on my mind. And I—I wanted to talk it over.”
“Yes! Anything, Winter! Please!”
“Well, some months ago Mrs. Trotter said she bought me something. And I was very glad and very grateful of it at the time but now … now that her troubles seem to have gotten so much worse—”
“What did she buy you, Winter?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“Well, sir, she said—she said it was a condo.”
“A condo?”
“Yessir. A condominium.”
He chuffed and looked thoughtfully into the air. “Where?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Trotter. I never asked.”
“I see. And … well, she never mentioned—never mentioned any details?”
“No, sir. Not a word.” She looked at the ground, as if at a loss; he thought he would help her along.
“And you want to know if the papers are in order …” Winter looked up, confused. “You’re concerned that with the onset of Bluey’s ‘difficulties,’ the paperwork or records of ownership might be, shall we say, in flux.”
“No sir, I—”
He chuffed, trying to lighten the mood, which had become a trifle morbid. “Perhaps that’s the thing she thinks you’ve misplaced—perhaps that’s what she’s been searching for. I’ll look into it, Winter, you
have my word. And I’m glad you came to me. It’s an absolutely valid concern.”
“But, Mr. Trotter, you misunderstand!”
“Oh?”
“I don’t care about any condo—I never have! I never asked for anything and never expected anything in all my years with the family! But, sir—if she did do this thing—if she did buy this place for me—which was quite unusual in that she’d never done anything like it before in the thirty-five—if she did do this thing on account of—her ‘difficulties,’ as you said—if she bought this thing for me and doesn’t remember or never meant to in the first place … or wouldn’t have if not for her ‘difficulties’—”
The old man stopped her short. He chuffed a bit, and fiddled with a cuff link before meeting her eye.
“Winter, I am truly sorry if I jumped to conclusions. I do understand you now and it’s so good of you. Forgive me. Because there are people who prey on—not you, certainly not!—but in the time since all these ‘difficulties’ came to a head, so to speak, I have learned that my wife—that Bluey has written checks in the last six months to various charitable organizations, some of which have proved dubious. Some of these came from phone solicitations. There are whole armies of people, it seems, who prey on people such as my wife. We are actively going over all her transactions of the past year. We are doing it at this very moment. So I appreciate you coming to me, Winter. And I assure you everything will be looked into.”
“You won’t say anything to her, will you, Mr. Trotter? About my concerns?”
“Of course not,” he said, putting an arm around her.
“Thank you! Thank you so much.”
“Thank you, Winter. Now, get some rest. You look tired.”
“I will, sir. The night nurses have just arrived.”
“I’m going to move them in, Winter—we need three shifts. Two isn’t enough. Because it’s far too much for you, now isn’t it?” He felt an onrush of emotion for this selfless woman, who had served so long and so well. “We need three shifts, and we need the people already here so we’re not at the mercy of waiting—so you don’t have to wait. Extra pairs of eyes to watch over her … so you’re free to go to your room and look at television. Or to the Village to take in a movie. And not be burdened by waiting for someone to show up. That’s already in the works.”