Mark Z Danielewski

by House Of Leaves (pdf)

  Reston recalls watching Navidson disappear around the house. He had no idea what would happen next. It was bad enough that he was without his wheelchair. Then he heard Daisy scream, a high-pitched burst bright enough to pierce the hard patter of the storm, followed by shouts, and then something Reston had never heard before: "It was like an immense gasp, only very, very loud."

  Reston was squinting in the rain, when he suddenly saw a shadow separate from the tree line: "By then dawn had begun to creep in but the storm clouds were still keeping the day pretty dark." Reston immediately assumed it was Navidson but then as the figure got closer he could see it was much smaller than his friend. "A strange walk too. Not fast at all but very deliberate. There was even something threatening about it."

  Chad just nodded at Reston as he passed by him and climbed into the car. He never said a thing either, just sat down next to his mother and waited for her to wake up.

  Chad had seen what had happened but had no words to describe it. Reston knew if he wanted to find out, he would have to drag himself toward the back of the house, which is exactly what he started to do.

  Daisy had stopped screaming because of Tom.

  Somehow Tom had managed to make his way through the heaving house to the upstairs hallway where he began to close in on the cries of the terrified five year old. What no one knew then was that Chad had already snuck outside, preferring the solitude of the early morning to all the packing and panic curdling inside.

  As we can see, Tom finally finds Daisy frozen in the shadows. Without a word, he sweeps her up in his arms and races back down to the first floor, avoiding the precipitous drop into the living room—the way Navidson had gone—by dashing instead toward the rear of the house.

  The whole place keeps shuddering and shaking, walls cracking only to melt back together again, floors fragmenting and buckling, the ceiling suddenly rent by invisible claws, causing moldings to splinter, water pipes to rupture, electrical wires to spit and short out. Worse, the black ash of below, spreads like printer's ink over everything, transforming each corner, closet, and corridor into that awful dark. Then Tom and Daisy's breath begins to frost.

  In the kitchen, Tom throws a stool through the window. We hear Tom saying: "Okay Daisy girl,make it through here and you're home free." Which might have been just that simple had the floor not taken on the characteristics of giant conveyor belt, suddenly drawing them away from their only escape.

  Cradling Daisy in his arms, Tom starts running as fast as he can, trying to out race the shock of the void yawning up behind them. Ahead, Navidson appears in the window.

  Tom pushes harder, edging closer and closer, until finally as he gets within reach, he holds Daisy out to Navidson who despite the fragments of glass scratching long bloody lines along his forearms, immediately rips her free of the house and into safety.

  Tom, however, has found his limit. Badly out of breath, he stops running and drops to his knees, clutching his sides and heaving for air. The floor carries him backwards ten or fifteen feet more and then for no apparent reason stops. Only the walls and ceiling continue their drunken dance around him, stretching, bending, even tilting.

  When Navidson returns to the window, he cannot believe his brother is standing still. Unfortunately, as Tom demonstrates, whenever he takes one step forward, the floor drags him two steps back. Navidson quickly begins to crawl through the window, and oddly enough the walls and ceiling almost instantly cease their oscillations.

  What happens next happens so fast it is impossible to realize just how brutal the closure was before it is already over. Only the after-effects create an image commensurate with the shutter like speed with which those walls snapped shut and shattered all the fingers in both of Tom's outstretched hands. Bones "like bread sticks" (Reston's words)[145] now jut out through the flesh. Blood covers his arms, as well as pours from his nose and ears.

  For a moment, Tom looks like he is going to slip into shock as he stares at his mutilated body.

  "Goddamn it Tom, run!" Navidson shouts.

  And Tom tries, though his effort only sweeps him farther away from his brother. This time when he stops, he knows he has no chance.

  "Hang on, I'm coming to get you," Navidson yells, as he squeezes himself all the way onto the kitchen counter.

  "Aw Christ," Tom mutters.

  Navidson looks up.

  "What?"

  Whereupon Tom disappears.

  In less time than it takes for a single frame of film to flash upon a screen, the linoleum floor dissolves, turning the kitchen into a vertical shaft. Tom tumbles into the blackness, not even a scream flung up behind him to mark his fall, Navidson's own scream ineffectually scratching after him, his twin, stolen and finally mocked in silence, not even the sound of Tom hitting the bottom, which is how it might have remained had not some strange and unexpected intrusion, out of the blue, returned Tom's end in the shape of an awful gasp, heard by Reston, perhaps by Karen who suddenly groaned, and certainly by Chad who crouched among the trees, listening and finally watching over the sobs of his father and little sister until something dark and unknown told him to find his mother.

  "Let you be stripped of your purple dyes, for I too once in the wilderness with my wife had all the treasure I wished."

  — Enkidu

  Toward the end of October, Navidson went up to Lowell to take care of his brother's things. He assured Karen he would join her and the children by the first of November. Instead he flew straight back down to Charlottesville. When Thanksgiving came and went and Navidson still had not made it to New York, Karen called Fowler.

  Following the release of The Navidson Record, Audrie McCullogh, who helped Karen build the bookshelf, briefly discussed the Navidsons' relationship in a radio interview (a transcript can be obtained by writing to KCRW in Los Angeles). In it Audrie claimed the decision not to get married always came from Karen: "Navy would have married her in a second. She was always the one against it. She wanted her freedom and then would go berserk when he was away. Her whole affair with Fowler was about that. Seeing someone else but not... agh, I shouldn't get into that."309

  After Navidson had vanished down the Spiral Staircase, Karen found herself trapped between two thresholds: one leading into the house, the other leading out of it. Even though she finally did succeed in leaving Ash Tree Lane and in some respects Navidson, she was still incapable of entering any sort of dark enclosed place. Even in New York she refused to take subways and always avoided elevators.

  The reasons are not at all obvious. The leading theory now depends on a history given by Karen's estranged older sister Linda. Earlier this year, she went on a public access "talk show" and described how they had been sexually abused by their stepfather. According to her, one fall weekend while their mother was away, he took both girls to an old farmhouse where he forced Karen (age fourteen) down into a well and left her there while he raped Linda. Later, he forced Linda down the well and did the same to Karen.

  The pharmacotherapy study Karen participated in never mentions any history of sexual abuse (see footnote 69). However it does not seem unreasonable to consider a traumatic adolescent experience, whether a fantasy or real, as a possible source for Karen's fears. Unfortunately when asked by various reporters to confirm her sister's claim, Karen refused to comment.

  Navidson also refuses to comment, stating only that Karen's already natural fear of that place was worsened by her severe "claustrophobia." In The Navidson Record, Karen describes her anxiety in very simple terms: "Green lawns in the afternoon, warm 100 watt bulbs, sunny beaches, all of them, heaven. But get me near an elevator or a poorly lit basement and I'll freak. A blackout can paralyze me. It's clinical. I was once part of a study but the drugs they gave me made me fat."

  More than likely no one will ever learn whether or not the stories about the well and Karen's stepfather are true.

  After a decade of distance, the house was supposed to be a new beginning. Navidson gave up assignments abroad and Karen
vowed to concentrate on raising their family. They both wanted and for that matter needed what neither one could really handle. Navidson quickly took refuge in his documentary. Regrettably for Karen, his work was still at home. He played more with the children, and every day filled the rooms with his substantial energy and natural authority. Karen was not strong enough to define her own space. She needed help.

  Except in those objects housing evidence of her adultery, Karen's affair with Fowler barely exists in The Navidson Record. It was not until the film began to succeed that details concerning this relationship, however spurious, began to emerge.

  Fowler was an actor living in New York. He worked at a Fifth Avenue clothing store, specializing in Italian cuts for women. He was considered consummately attractive and spent his evenings talking about acting down at the Bowery Bar, Naked Lunch, or Odelay-la. Apparently he picked up Karen on the street.

  Literally.

  Rushing to meet her mother for dinner, Karen had stepped off the curb and turned her ankle. For a dazed instant she lay on the asphalt amid the scattered contents of her bag—der absoluten Zerrissenheit.31° An instant later, Fowler reached down and lifted her back onto the sidewalk. He gathered up her things and paid attention to her. By the time he was gone, she had given him her number and two days later when he called she had agreed to a drink.

  After all, he was consummately attractive, and even more appealing to Karen, he was stupid.

  TTiis had taken place when Navidson and Karen were still living in New York City, a year before they bought the house in Virginia. Navidson was off taking aerial pictures of barges off the Norwegian coast. Once

  again, Karen resented being left alone with the children. Audrie claimed she was "desperate for a way out."311 Fowler's timing could not have been better.

  Audrie stopped short of revealing much about the affair, but Karen's sister, Linda, offered a pornographic recounting which many took seriously until they realized she had been out of touch with Karen for at least three years. The only source for this story comes by way of Fowler. No doubt the attention he received from the media was too much for a struggling actor to give up. Nor is there any question that he embellished to keep the media interested.

  "She's a great lady" Fowler first told reporters." And it wouldn't be cool to talk about it, about us, I mean."312 And then a little later to some tabloid reporters, "What we had was special. Ours. You know what I mean. I don't have to explain what we did or where we did it. We went to the park, had a drink, talked. I tried to show her some fun. We're friends now. I wish her well, I do." And still later, "She wanted a divorce.[146] That guy didn't treat her well. She fell down in the street and I picked her up. She'd never had anyone do that for her before."[147]

  Fowler probably never realized how wrong he was. Not only had Navidson carried Karen out of that house, he had picked her up a hundred times over the course of eleven years and carried her fear, her torment and her distance. In a rare moment, Reston called in on a late-night radio show and lambasted the host for promoting such ridiculous gossip: "Let me tell you this, Will Navidson did everything for that woman. He was solid. Once, for a thirteen month stretch, she wouldn't let him touch her. But he never budged. Loved her just the same. I doubt that punk would have lasted a week. So give it a rest @$$hole" and before the subject could turn to the house or anything else, Reston hung up.[148]

  Eventually Fowler moved on to other things. He married a pornstar and disappeared into a very disagreeable world.

  Rumours still insist Karen had other affairs. As beautiful as she was, it is not hard to believe she had suitors. Strangers were constantly writing her love letters, delivering expensive perfumes, sending her plane tickets to far off places. Supposedly she sometimes responded. There was someone in Dallas, someone in L.A. and several in London and Paris. Audrie, however, claims Karen only flirted and her indiscretions never went further than a coy drink or a curt meal. She maintains that Karen never slept with any of them. They were just a means to escape the closeness of any relationship, particularly the one with the man she loved most.

  It is pretty certain Navidson knew about "the love letters Karen hid in her jewelry box."[149] But what intrigues many critics these days is the manner in which he chose to regard that curious object. As semiotician Clarence Sweeney wrote:

  While Navidson refused to make her infidelities a 'public' part of the film, he seemed

  incapable of excluding them either. Consequently he symbolizes her transgressions in the sealed hand-carved ivory case containing Karen's valuables, thus creating a 'private' aspect to his project, which in turn prompts yet another reevaluation of the meaning of interiority in The Navidson Record.™

  It is safe to assume Navidson knew Karen better than anyone else. No doubt his knowledge of Fowler, the cache of letters, certainly the discovery of Wax and Karen's kiss, contributed to his decision to return to the house for one more exploration.[150] He left her to New York because by then he knew she was already gone. And she was.

  Jerry Lieberman who wrote the original People interview with Fowler had spoken with the would-be-actor for a possible follow up article but lack of interest in the affair caused him to shelve the story. After a little haggling, he agreed to send the tape of their last conversation. Here then for the first time is what Fowler told Lieberman on July 13, 1995:

  Yeah, she called me up, said she was in town, how 'bout a drink, that sort of thing. So we go out a few times. I fuck her a few dmes, you know what I mean, but she's not talking much now. Only thing she says is she's working on some film short. I asked her if there's a part for me but she tells me it's not that kind of film.

  I must have seen her two or three maybe four times. It was fun and all but she looked like hell and I didn't like taking her around. She'd changed over the months, pale, darker, didn't smile much, and when she did it was kinda different than before, kinda quirky, weird, real personal.

  She looked her age too. Too old for me really and with kids and all and well, dme to move on. Those things happen you know.

  Anyway I didn't need to worry that she'd get clingy or anything. She wasn't that type of lady. The last time we went out, she said she only had a few minutes. She had to get back to that film she was editing or whatever. Something

  about interviews and family movies. And that was that. She shook my hand and left.

  But I'll tell you, she was different from when I first met her. I've fucked around with married women before. I know how they get off on dicking over their husband. She wasn't like that now. She needed him. I could see that in her eyes. It wasn't the first time either I seen a married woman get eyes like that. Suddenly they want what they got off getting away from in the first place. It's all fucked up. And she was like that. All fucked up and needing him. But as that story usually goes, he wasn't around no more.321

  Which was true. Navidson was no longer around, except of course Karen still saw him every day and in a way she had never seen him before—not as a projection of her own insecurities and demons but just as Will Navidson, in flickering light, flung up by a 16mm projector on a paint-white wall.

  32'Courtesy of Jerry Lieberman.

  Mit seinen Nachtmutzen unci Schlafrockfetzen Stopft er die Liicken des Weltenbaus.

  - Heine[151]

  Karen Green sits on a park bench in Central Park. She wears a russet sweater and a black cashmere scarf. All around her we see people milling about, enjoying one of those sparkling February days New York City sometimes deigns to deliver. Patches of snow lie on the ground, children shriek, carriages clatter past taxi cabs and traffic cops. A war is going on in the Persian Gulf but those affairs hardly seem to matter here. As Karen explains, more than a little time has passed:

  It's been four months since we escaped from our house. It's also four months since I've seen Navy. As far as I know, he's still in Charlottesville with Billy— conducting experiments.

  [She coughs lightly]

  We used to talk on the phone b
ut now even that's stopped. This whole experience has changed him. Losing Tom, I think changed him the most.

  I've called, written, done everything short of going down there, which is something I refuse to do. I'm up here taking care of our children and looking after his film. He did some work on it but then he just stopped and shipped me all of it, the negatives, the tapes, the whole mess. Still, he won't leave Virginia. And to think, two months ago he told me he was only going to need a few more days.