by Bruce Wagner
He had plenty to ponder on the ride back to Montecito.
A part of him wished to vanish again. In his mind, with only Jane Scull for companionship, he walked dark, faceless streets searching for cardboard to build a home. He saw them warmed by the blistering sidewalk fires of skid row as they made their way back to the bridge encampment, where they peacefully supped on all manner of discarded delicacies. Yet he knew he could never go back to such a life now, and would die before trying.
The boy! He believed—yes, he did—that it was the very same boy he had seen in the agency lobby some months back. They were, the both of them, staring at … William Morris! Marcus had turned to the child and remarked—no, inquired—why it was that there were no nameplates to identify the painted men. Why indeed! That’s what this thicket of a wicked, ineffable life sorely needed: captions and nameplates.
As they rushed along the coast through the night air, moon roof open, he read the letter again, for the last time:
My Darling Will—Her is the Booke you wantd me to Look after. And I have kild the man who did tern you in and also akuse you of Terible things that shold not be saed of anie personn. He saed you wold be Kild in jael and I had to reek Vengenke. He is the saem man who has taken me to Bed by Forse. I did this with him becos he Threaded you with Vengenke—he sae he kno you from downtow. But wen you were takken by the Poliec, it did not matter Any mor. Also, I am carieing a Chylde. I am sory to say it is not yurs. It is a Man what rapid me. But not the Man who I kild. I am telling Evrythgn you now tho it Hurtts me so, Will! Becos yuou must kno! I am NTO a Hore. I am a good womon who have Terible Luch. I am lovin you So Muc now, Will! I have ridden this with out help from the Butifull Gremar Book you gav me and wich I will hav ben Stuedyingy soon. I thot you mite lik to know that, Signned, Your Own Jane Scull.
Ps. I hav bin told ttha in TWIN TOWWER JAIL, one of the TOWWERS JAILS is for Woman. So if you feele I shold Tern Mysel in for the Kiling, we cold vissit, If that is alowd.
Pss. I hav left this note instedt of Seeing you and wantd too so muche. but I cuold not say these Things to yor face? and thot you wolde not Love me anymor. I hop I am wrong. Plaese rite bak soon.
From Yor deerest friend, who loves You as a Wif. Jane
He told Eulogio to pull into a beachside lot. The driver hesitated; Marcus said he had to urinate. He stepped into the Santa Ana night, loud with ocean, and walked to the sand.
Suddenly fearing for his rider’s safety, Eulogio chased after. “Where you going? Mr. Marcus! Where you going, please!”
He strode into the waves. As they rushed his calves, he tore the letter to pieces, scattering it to sea. He wanted to scatter himself with it, but no: he would not leave again. There were too many people he owed, living and dead.
At Montecito, another letter in the chain awaited. It lay on a bedside table and was from his wife.
CHAPTER 43
Words Alone
But O, sick children of the world,
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings
Words alone are certain good.
—W. B. Yeats
A FIRST LETTER [Indian Wells]
Marcus—I hardly know where to begin. I’m writing this for myself—I fled the holidays to a favorite desert spa but now I’m house-sitting for a client who’s in a balmier place. It’s been done up rather Balinese, Rangooney(?) too, with Tabriz rugs, Tang-this and Ming-that. In the middle of it all—or should I say the front—the long low fascia trimmed in copper. Not very “me” but then that’s probably a good thing.
Funny, but I have begun writing you, in my head anyhow, at least a hundred times in the last month but now the stars, literally, seem right. There’s a mystic hair-raising wind peculiar to this corridor that shivers the soul—always a spur to confessionals. I’m seated at a white linen outdoor table beside a great black maw of golf course. A handsome young man in a rather frayed monkey suit just brought me a steak and (nonalcohol) martini—O God, suddenly I’m writing short stories again, trying to please the professors with an undergrad lyrical turn of phrase—
I can’t care, or I’ll never write a word. I don’t even know who you are—but Father tells me you’re making terrific progress and I’m happy for you because I can’t imagine the horrors you’ve endured in your odyssey. I’ve had my share of agony and if I sometimes did not know or bother where I was, I always had the luxury (curse?) of money and a roof over my head. Maybe those things aren’t so important after all; tho I don’t wish to be presumptuous and romanticize what happened to you. That’s always been my impulse, isn’t it? I fight it still—finding the “Zen” bit in what for you was surely catastrophic. It was catastrophic for me too. Anyway, Father assured he’s given over scant details to you of my life after we married; since I seem to know a bit about yours, it’s only fair I attempt to enlighten.
I traveled quite a bit at first
(two hours later now) the morning you vanished, a part of me vanished too (oh, hideous cliché!). For a while, I naturally feared for your life, because the disappearance made no sense. How could it? Initially, we thought you’d been kidnapped—did Father tell you how certain he was he would be contacted for ransom? As for shell-shocked me, I retreated to the topmost room of that dreadful tower, all the while hating that we’d ever discovered the Colonne. Bluey finally pried me out. Doctors gave me pills for depression and pills for sleep; I didn’t learn I was pregnant till ten weeks later (my period had stopped but I chalked that up to the general trauma—is this Too Much Information?) and all those enforced Rx’s gave me a fright I’d done damage to our son …
Is this painful to read? Or do you feel nothing? Do you even remember who I am or what we had together? I ask not to wound you, but—truly, Marcus, I don’t wish to make you suffer but I must talk aloud in the tribal sense and free myself from that castle aerie. What could be more painful than what has already happened? I’d like to try to impart the history of the years since you left, without malice—I have no “malicious intent.” If my words are crude, forgive me. You were always the writer in the family.
My life became a “psychological” melodrama—I drew comfort telling myself you’d had a prescient glimpse of something awful, and you feared you might hurt me and that is why you went away … some dream you had that night of our wedding, that perhaps you saw yourself tossing me from the bloody tower; I was very Gothic!—had to tell myself you loved me that much. I know now there was no real explanation and never will be; I’ve always detested people who search for motive. Your illness is a cunning one but as your progress attests, the miracles of modern medicine may finally be rooting it out
nothing to do all those years but kneel at the altar of your unfathomable illness. I understood for the first time why my brother collects abandoned buildings—there’s a purity and a longing for something frozen between what-once-was and what-will-never-be-again. That’s what the tower became for me. I took to visiting it at night and still sometimes do (but haven’t for months)—now I do tell too much! Always my flaw. Your flaw was that you resembled those in my tribe—the tribe that tells too much—when in fact you told too little or said nothing at all with your torrent of words.
It wasn’t your fault …
I left L.A., had to, but where could I go? On top of everything, I was so embarrassed! The ego dies hard. I couldn’t deal with talking to my society “friends” (all of whom flew in for the wedding)—because of my silence, some very strange rumors began to circulate about what had happened … drugs and satanic murders and what-have-you—I didn’t want to know! It was quite the Hollywood scandale. I flew around the world, morning (and mourning) sickness in every time zone. Absolutely crazed—even retracing the footsteps of our Paris trip—at least I had the good sense not to revisit the Colonne, for that would have finished me off—and wound up at the Plaza Athénée, literally back in our old suite, immobilized. Do you remember when I
kept vigil there after your long walk to Versailles? Our son was born at La Croix Saint-Simon … I named him Toulouse—after your little joke. By then, the joke of my life seemed utterly cosmic … and there was something spritely about “Toulouse,” something playful and musical and unburdening.
I knew I had to get him home because I was secretly planning to become Debra Winger from The Sheltering Sky and go wandering in the desert (somewhere a bit more exotic than where I am now) and get boffed by gorgeous nomads until I lost my mind. So I dropped off our Toulouse at Saint-Cloud and began my peregrinations …
I’ve scanned the above and see I’m babbling like an ass so I’ll do the noble, foolish thing and give this to the driver to take to Montecito—tho I’d rather give it to one of those pigeons who specialize in airmail delivery. Feels like a message in a bottle. There I go mixing metaphors again. I do not wish you to answer this—it was not written to begin a correspondence. I don’t mean that to sound passive-aggressive; you’ve probably had enough of “jargon”!
I will not read anything you write so please do not bother—I wrote this for myself. The worst part is, I know that if I was still seeing a therapist myself, he’d applaud me!
Wishing You the Best,
Katrina Trotter
A SECOND LETTER
Marcus,
Please discount what I wrote. Clearly, there is too much—and too little—to put in a letter. I feel now I was overwrought; there has been so much pent up in my mind. I shouldn’t have sent it but it was too late to get back. The shrinks say that one is supposed to write those things then burn them, or put them in the mailbox with no address … how typical of me to fuck it up. There is really nothing that can be said. I do wish you well, and hope I did not stir anything up that will make things difficult for you; or any more difficult than they already are. I reiterate that was not my intention. I do, sincerely, wish you the best.
Katrina Trotter
A THIRD LETTER
M.—I feel my last entry did not say all I wished. I’m writing this final “installment” to say I am attached to you, not only through our son, but because I’ve spent so many years feeling your absence. I told Toulouse a lie—that you were dead—and in truth it was a half-lie, because you were all but dead to me, and to him. But in time he found out otherwise, as I suppose I knew he would, and set out to find you. He is an amazing boy. Marcus, if you feel you’d like to see him that is up to Toulouse and, of course, my father, to arrange. I would not stand in the way of that. So when I said I do not wish to see or hear from you, I didn’t want you to draw the impression I was ruling over you or would hold back my son from visiting. That is not who I am or what I’m about.
I wanted to clarify this because I would not like to wake up one morning and be told you have gone again without seeing our son, if in fact a visit is something he too would like to have. If Toulouse wished to see you but did not because of an impression you got from one of my letters, I would never forgive myself.
I just wanted to make that clear, as I felt it wasn’t from the previous correspondence. I hope you are continuing to make progress and remain well, and that nothing I have written is puzzling or upsetting to you.
It has been a great help to be able to write these things down and send them. Perhaps I have made a mistake. If indeed I have, then forgive me. I do not wish a response; I wish things were different, or that I felt differently, but I have long since moved on in my head and in my heart.
Sincerely,
Katrina
A FIRST LETTER
Dearest Katrina,
How kind your letters were, how kind and thoughtful, and how difficult it has been for me not to answer them; I have been mindful of your emotions, and of course, of the boy’s, and feel a great pang of selfishness in now breaking my silence—but I must, just as you, put some things down! If this returns unopened, so be it; I will make the next entry to my journal instead, a notebook which I have kept for many years and entitled “News from Nowhere.” Aptly named it is too, for that is the very strange place I resided all this live-long time. Until now.
I remember everything about you. While I appreciate your delicacy in referring to the powerful forces that conspired to have me living homelessly and somewhat deranged these past years, reading your words (which I have, over and over, in the wee hours of the night)—“Or do you feel nothing? Do you even remember who I am or what we had?”—has caused much sorrow. And I do not wish you had not written them. I encourage you—implore you—to set down, if you’ve a mind, every little miserable thing, to the end. It is a help rather than a hindrance. I stand on the prow of a ship now, in the head wind; each memory that slaps my face and stings my eye also revivifies, and makes me more human. I never felt that I lost my humanity in that other incarnation; but I did lose the one who was closest to me. I do not think it unwise you told the boy I was a goner; I might have done the same. What else could you have said? Please do not badger yourself over decisions and choices made in the wake of that upheaval.
In my travels, I met a wondrous dog named “Half Dead”—and so it was, as you wrote, that I had become. But Half Dead was a scrapper, and a good soul; I think I’m made of the same stuff.
Your father has been a godsend. He greets me without judgment, and I am moved by him—as I was moved by your courageous outpourings. I will understand if you do not choose to respond to my unsolicited phrases; be assured then, I will not bother you any more.
Your words about our son were sorely needed when they arrived. I thank you for them. You can be assured too that I will not impose myself on the boy, or badger him. I feel that I am here by the lights of some strange god, and will do nothing to fall from his graces. I hope I have not forever fallen from yours—and remain,
Marcus
A SECOND LETTER
Dear Katrina,
I hope I did not say anything to put you off; I mean, anything untoward or presumptuous. I’ve raked over the letter in my head and wish like hell I hadn’t written “dearest” at the onset; it was improper to imply an intimacy I long ago forsook. There are other things I wish I hadn’t said but I don’t desire to make this a catalogue. I’m not even certain that my letter was read; perhaps it would be better for both of us that it wasn’t. I do not mean to sound neurotic because that is not how I feel; I am merely mindful of not making false steps—I imagine that would be impossible! I waited a week or so before sending this out—I thought perhaps my first letter might be returned, and if not, that perhaps your father would have passed on a hint that any such correspondence from me was unwelcome. Which, of course, I would honor. But as I heard nothing, and received nothing back, I will humbly set down just a few short thoughts.
The medication I have been taking (thanks again to Louis) has worked wonders. Luckily, I am a fine candidate, neurologically, for such treatment. I have lost quite a bit of weight and am feeling rather fit. I don’t mean to boast. My life has settled in here; I go to the sea with my “men,” and often cook us lunch on the beach, which they invariably declare most saporific. (Do you remember the tall chef’s hat you once gave me?) My mother and father have been to see me. They look old, and poor Harry had a stroke. But he is soldiering on—
This IS diabolically difficult. You were so right when you said there was “too much and too little” to put in a letter. My God. Do you know that you never left my thoughts, Katy? Katrina? It is just that, in my disordered world, you had become someone else, someone called “Janey”—Jane Morris, the wife of William, that genius of English design. I cannot elaborate for now, for it is painful to set this down, because it is shaming; my illness is shaming and shameful. But the one thing I wished to say is that I never felt I would have harmed you. I do not have that in me. I am not wounded by your mentioning it; it seems a reasonable explanation for what you called an unfathomable thing. I have tried myself to piece together that night and that morning and the months that followed, but it is as if something ruptured. I only see colors and a driz
zle before my eyes—and the Tower itself. I remember the Tower receding as I ran, like a giant struck dumb and immobilized. It was the TOWER, it seems, and not you, from which I was running. The Tower had become a conspirator—against us, and our happiness. The Tower had to be placated. It was such a beauteous thing; we are often trapped within wondrous designs, without explanation (the intricate patterns of Mr. Morris’s tapestries being a felicitous example of this most unfelicitous condition). Even then, as I struggled in panic to escape, it loomed over me, gorgeous and well-made. I feel nothing for it now; should I be walked to that place this very hour, I am certain it would have no court or sway. It never was an icon of superstition for me, nor did it have a demonic voice—it simply became something that must be jettisoned, or it would have crushed the world. It is, as you said, unfathomable, and unfathomable to me now.
But I always thought of you, Katrina, and NEVER wished you harm nor thought I could be harm’s instrument. I ask for your forbearance and forgiveness and will not write if that is what you so desire. And I would not leave again without the boy’s “consent”; would not even dream of it. But it was wise and motherly for you to say what you did. I remain
Yours,
Marcus Weiner
A FOURTH LETTER
Saint-Cloud
Dear Marcus,
I thank you for your letters; and yes, of course, I read them. And yes, of course, I hesitated in responding, for a number of reasons—the primary being that I don’t want to lead you on. Any exchange might somehow charge off, by itself and without warning, in a wrong direction. You are mending now and I would not wish to contribute to anything that deters from that. You must spend your time in exercise and meditation, not in composing letters to me—letters that, if I can be blunt—cannot lead to anything. Our thoughts, I think (and I am not sure I have many left!) would probably best be confined to personal diaries. No?