Ceremonies
Page 20
Right now, though, those damned cats are the closest thing they've got, amp; they fuss over them as if they were real children. One of them, Sarr's cat, may be a bit of a problem. She's the grey one, the oldest of the lot. She also happens to be the meanest. Maybe she's jealous of the rest, or maybe she was just born with an evil disposition. All I know is, she's the only cat that's ever bitten anyone -various friends amp; relations, including some local bigwig named Brother Joram – amp; after seeing how she snarls at the other cats when they get in her way or come too close while she's feeding, I decided to keep my distance. Fortunately, she seems a bit scared of me amp; retreats whenever I approach.
Probably best to keep away from all of them, in fact. Sneezing, itching eyes, whenever they're around. Should have gone to that allergist when I had the chance.
The Poroths seem pretty catlike themselves. Interesting case of people resembling their pets. Sarr is inclined to be morose amp; somewhat taciturn – a solemn, slightly suspicious tomcat – while Deb is bubbly amp; talkative, as animated as one of the kittens. Clearly a case of opposites attracting, despite the similarity of appearance.
At dinner Sarr said that some of the locals still use 'snake oil' for whatever ails them. Asked him how the snakes were killed, slightly misquoting line from Vathek: 'The oil of serpents I have pinched to death will be a pretty present.' We discussed the wisdom of pinching snakes. Learned there may be a copperhead out back, over near the brook. Somehow the Poroths neglected to mention this on my first visit. Will watch my step. (Though according to my field guide, far more people die each year from bee and wasp stings than from snakebites. Insect venom is more toxic.)
Supposedly there are frogs amp; turtles out there too. Have yet to see any. Maybe they only come out at night.
Over coffee, Sarr talked of the house he hopes to build someday, when the two of them have children. He'll build it out of stone, he said, 'three floors high amp; three feet thick.' Then he shut up, amp; I had to keep the conversation going through dessert. Hate eating in silence: animal sounds of mastication, bubbling stomachs. Didn't some Balzac character claim talk aided digestion? Probably true.
By this time they both looked ready for bed (though I doubt if sleep was the only thing on their minds), so it seemed wise to get out of their way. Brushed my teeth – not forgetting dental floss – amp; took the usual vitamins, just in case.
As soon as I left their place amp; came back here, I began to feel sort of lonely. Still some light left in the sky, but the lawn behind the house was already swarming with fireflies. Never saw so many. Knelt amp; watched them for a while amp; listened to the crickets. That's one sound the city doesn't have. Too bad Carol isn't here; she'd appreciate it.
Wonder if she'll actually come out. Hope my letter made the place sound inviting; hope I didn't lay it on too thick. Maybe I should have been more honest with her. Just as well I didn't mention how narrow my bed is, though – really no more than a cot. That's the sort of thing she can discover on her own. (Also, incentive for losing a bit of weight this week.)
Must remember to get a haircut if I can get into Flemington. May be my last one for quite some time.
Later: After making it through Otranto (not the most auspicious start), wasted nearly an hour arranging my books. First tried putting them in chronological order, since that's the way I hope to read them; but copyright dates can be ambiguous with the older works, amp; too many authors get broken up. Then tried chronologically by date of author's birth, but I didn't know most of these, amp; no way to find out. So back to boring old alphabetical order by author, with anthologies bringing up the rear. (After much deliberation, decided that the works of Saki had to be placed under M for Munro.)
Why am I so neurotic about my books?
Anyway, they look damned nice, lined up on the shelves.
Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794).
Sat up late pushing through volume one. All the elements of classic Gothic romance. Heroine passive but resourceful; hero / villain dark, mysterious, amp; cruel – predating Byron and Brontes. Lots of spook effects. (Understand they're all explained away 'scientifically' at the end of volume two; if so, a bad mistake. M.R. James speaks of her 'exasperating timidity' in this regard. Check reference.) Plot dated, but loved the descriptions of picturesque scenes, esp. Udolpho itself, rugged Apennine castle. Would be nice to put book on curriculum, but only one student in a dozen would read it. Too damned long.
Long for me too. In fact, had to keep remembering to slow down, be patient, let myself unwind. After twenty years of school, I've gotten into habit of skimming everything, as if novels were newspapers. Tried to put myself in frame of mind of eighteenth-century reader with plenty of time on his hands amp; no distractions.
Certainly no distractions here. No TV or movies, no goddamned Sunday Times, no friends to call or drop by… Nothing but the insects batting themselves mindlessly against the screens.
What was it Emerson said in his journal? 'Thank God I live in the country!'
Suppose it's time I got some sleep. Wish to hell there was a bathroom in this building. Poroths said they'd leave the kitchen door unlocked for me, but I sure as hell don't feel like stumbling all the way back there without a flashlight amp; maybe waking the two of them lip. Looks so goddamned dark out there. Where did all the fireflies go?
Maybe I should get a hollow metal oil drum to pee in amp; lift it for exercise each day as it fills, like the guy who started out lifting a calf every morning amp;, by the time it grew up, was strong enough to lift a full-grown bull.
Guess I'll water the grass in front of this building: pissing beneath the stars, just like my ancestors. Very romantic. (Though God knows what'll be crawling up my ankles.)
At least the crickets are still there to keep me company.
Back inside now. Felt vulnerable, standing there against the night, but must say the sky looked spectacular. I don't think I've ever seen so many stars amp; can't remember the last time I actually saw the Milky Way. That's something else the city doesn't have. (Though, typically, my first thought on looking up was, Jesus, it's just like the Planetarium!)
Anyway, stood there gawking till my neck got stiff.
But the real shock was the view I got of this building. The lamp on my desk must be the only illumination for miles, acting as a sort of beacon, amp; I could see dozens of flying shapes making right for the screens. When you're inside here, it's like being in a display case: every eye can watch you, from the woods amp; fields amp; lawn. But all you see is darkness.
It wouldn't be so bad if this room weren't open on three sides -though I suppose that does let in the breeze. Wish the trees didn't crowd so close to the windows by my bed. The middle sections of their trunks are all lit up where the light falls on them; between the undergrowth and roots, there's not even enough space back there to
Two A.M. now, and a few moths are still hovering outside the screens. A little green one must have gotten in when I opened the door. It's flying around this lamp now, along with several gnats too small to kill.
Lots of noise out there, too. How could I have said this place was silent? Trees moving, branches snapping, sounds of breeze amp; running water. Frogs now, croaking somewhere in the distance, with the crickets coming in behind them.
This is what I wanted, I suppose.
Just saw an unpleasantly large spider scurry across the floor near the foot of my bed. Vanished behind the footlocker. Must remember to get that insect spray, amp; flashlight.
Wonder what Carol's doing now.
June Twenty-ninth
Dear Jeremy,
Greetings from the Apple! I'm glad to hear you're enjoying yourself, and that you haven't fallen down any cisterns or caught poison ivy or been eaten by a bear. We'll make an outdoorsman of you yet!
You really deserve a nice long reply, but this one's going to be short, as I'm writing it on my break, with half a dozen people in this tiny office breathing down my neck. I just wanted to le
t you know that, thanks to good old Rosie, I'll be able to see you more easily than I'd expected. It turns out Rosie owns a car, and he told me I could borrow it this weekend, as he has some 'very important business' (he pursed his little lips and looked oh so stern as he said this) which will be keeping him in New York.
The only drawback is he needs the car on Monday for some Fourth of July affair, so I won't be able to take advantage of the three-day weekend. Still, it'll be nice to get out of the city, and we'll have some time together. I hope to get an early start Saturday morning, so if all goes well I should be there by noon. I wish I had some sort of map, but Gilead sounds like one of those little towns where everybody knows everybody else, so once I get there I'm sure I'll find someone to give me directions to the Poroths. I don't expect to have any trouble; remember, you're dealing with the third runner-up in the B.C. Y.C. Senior Girls' Pathfinder Competition.
Rosie's really done a lot for me, I must admit. He's a very dear person and treats me just like his own daughter-or, rather, granddaughter. He says he doesn't think I'm eating right, so tomorrow, before I come to work, he's taking me out for a champagne brunch at some fancy place on Twenty-first Street. Now that's the sort of life I think I could get used to -a glass or two of bubbly in the morning and I'll be floating all day! And yesterday he brought me a bottle of wine from, as he called it, his 'private cellar' (which is probably just a cupboard above the kitchen sink). Maybe I'll bring it out with me as a house gift this weekend.
I've also been working very hard, believe it or not. I want Rosie to feel he's getting his money's worth. Last Saturday I really buckled down and went through all those articles he gave me, so I could have the summaries ready for him when he dropped by here on Monday. I think that really impressed him, at least I hope so. I charged him for twelve hours' work (actually it took me close to sixteen), and he gave me a check for $ 144 right there on the spot. He took me completely at my word. After the way some people treat me in this stupid library, I really appreciate decency like that.
By the way, rather than go to the trouble and expense of Xeroxing those stories you'd requested, I'll simply bring you the entire book this weekend. It'll be a lot easier, and anyway, Rosie's convinced me that things like that are much more fun to read in the original. I'll sign it out before I leave work today.
Rosie's just amazing when it comes to books -1 mean the things he's learned. You'd be surprised, he's really quite good company, for a person his age. He's been all over the world (mostly doing some kind of heavy research in linguistics), and he tells the most incredible stories. I had him up to my apartment last night, just for coffee and cake, and he talked to me in something called Agon di-Gatuan, which means 'the Old Language.' He's-teaching me a chant in it and promises I'll be able to speak it fluently by the end of summer. It's like nothing I've ever heard.
Well, my break's just about over, and I'd better end now if I want to get this in today's mail. See you on Saturday.
XXX
Carol
P.S. Rosie gave me something for you. I'll be sure to bring it with me. He just loves to give presents. He's also very keen on order, decorum, rules, things like that, and is always telling me how 'old-fashioned' he is – 'and proud of it.' I don't think he quite approves of Rochelle. Last night, just as he was getting ready to leave, she walked in with a few of her friends, and one of the guys made some kind of joke about 'older guys stealing all the best girls.' It was meant to be funny, and Rochelle said I should take it as a compliment, but poor old Rosie looked very upset.
June Thirtieth
On some days he gives way to rages.
Morning finds him on the beach, walking back and forth along the water's edge, the battered old umbrella tucked uselessly beneath his arm. He pays no attention to the flocks of bathers, to the cries of children braving the assaults of the surf or playing on the rubbish-strewn sand, or to the oily, sun-warmed bodies of their elders lying inert upon blankets with radios and picnic baskets by their heads. Humanity, for the moment, is forgotten, its noise and filth and ugliness ignored. He is far too busy studying the patterns of the waves and, at other moments, squinting directly upward into the blinding blue dome of the sky.
To those on the beach, should anyone chance to be watching, this awkward little figure trudging through the wet sand in a baggy blue suit and soggy overshoes which more than once become soaked as a wave breaks over his ankles might seem a tourist from some other era; as he peers up and down the beach, he might well be in search of some seaside vista fit for the amateur painter or photographer. Or perhaps he'd be mistaken for some confused but harmless octogenarian who's wandered out from one of the old-age homes that line the avenue across from the boardwalk.
But the concerns of art and freedom are, in fact, far from his mind. More urgent matters have brought him to the shore today: matters of geography, sand formation, tides.
He is scouting locations.
Suddenly he pauses, grows rigid. Something up the beach has distracted him: a pair of lovers lying together, body to body, in the boardwalk's striped shadow.
Rage sweeps over him like a wave. Jerkily he begins moving toward them, lips tightening, color surging to his face. He can feel, in his fists, the pumping of their loathsome hearts; the air before him rings with ancient voices screaming for a kill. Oh, to perform the Voola'teine! To drown the pair, to burn them where they he, to climb the boardwalk and drop knives upon their flesh through the cracks between the planks. In a vision he sees thrashing young bodies buried beneath waves of smothering sand…
He calms himself in time and turns away. The day is young. He has other sites to visit.
That afternoon he spends walking jauntily through the park, swinging his umbrella, making silent calculations with the figures he discerns in the branches of the trees. As the sun slips behind a horn-shaped cloud, he spies a group of people coming toward him up the path: a slim, bespectacled man and his pale, wide-eyed wife, their little girl in her red sunsuit, and a baby recumbent in a stroller.
And like the sudden waning of the light, his rage returns.
His eyes narrow; his face goes dark; his little hand tightens on the umbrella. Trembling, he whirls and follows them, his face fixed in an amiable smile.
The family turns eastward toward the zoo; he follows, drawing closer. As they stop to exclaim at penguins, hippos, bears, he eases himself beside them, nodding fondly to the parents, watching benignly as they're drawn on toward the panther curled within a spot of shade, the lion dozing grandly in the sunlight, the tiger pacing madly in its cage…
He sees the air vibrate around the tawny form, feels its baffled hunger, shares the beast's longing to leap and slash and rend. Blinking before the cage, smiling at the children, he loses himself in a reverie of death: how he would love to press that vile infant through the bars! to lacerate its flesh! to crush its throbbing neck with his own hands!
And he could do it, too. Though he dares not. Not now.
But for one brief moment, while the gazes of the other three are turned toward the cage and the infant's gaze toward him, he allows his mask to slip. The grin disappears. Eyes go hard. Teeth show in a tigerish snarl…
Smiling once more, he strolls onward, momentarily relieved. Behind him, to the astonishment of its parents, the infant explodes into wails of terror.
North of the zoo, just off the path, rises a small stand of dogwood and magnolia bushes and, hidden behind them, a tiny patch of dark ground that shelters wildflowers. He stands poised in the middle of it now, features contorted as before, swinging about him with his umbrella. Swoosh! – foliage lies slashed to pieces. Swoosh! – heads of flowers are sliced off clean. Knuckles whiten on the umbrella; his complexion grows red; his breath comes in furious gasps between clenched teeth. The air around him shrieks with mangled leaves and tattered blossoms.
The episode lasts but a minute. Afterward, calm once more, the smile back in place, a fragile pink magnolia in his buttonhole, he slips back to the path
, umbrella at his side, and heads jauntily for home.
July First
The letter was waiting for him in the kitchen. Freirs read it over lunch. He looked up to see Deborah watching him intently from across the table.
'Remember,' he said, 'I mentioned something about having guests out?' Deborah nodded, while Sarr continued eating. 'Well, I hope it's not going to be inconvenient, but believe it or not, this friend of mine is thinking of driving out here tomorrow. I know it's a little early in the summer, but-'
Deborah silenced him. 'Now don't go worrying yourself. That'll be just fine.' She stood and began clearing away some of the dishes. 'We like having guests out here, don't we, honey?'
Sarr nodded without much enthusiasm. 'Mmm-hmm. Be glad to meet him.'
'Well, actually, it's a girl. Name's Carol. Someone I know from the city.'
Sarr looked up from his dessert with a tiny flicker of annoyance -and perhaps something else. 'She'll be staying overnight?'
'I think so.' Freirs fell silent, reluctant to say more.
Sarr's mouth made a thin straight line. 'We'll put her in the room upstairs.'
Deborah, moving past him, touched his shoulder. 'Honey, isn't that for Jeremy to say?' It drew an angry look.
'Upstairs will be fine,' Freirs said hurriedly, disinclined to make an issue of it. Let them go ahead and prepare a room for her; she wouldn't have to stay there. 'She should be getting here around noon tomorrow. Somebody's lending her his car. I was just wondering about the food situation. If you like, I could drive into town and pick up a few extra things.'
Sarr pushed his chair back from the table. 'No, no need of that. 'Tis a blessing to have guests in a home, and she'll be welcome here.' Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he stood. 'Well, guess I'd best see to those cuttings out there, before the worms do.' He turned and left the kitchen, his heavy footsteps echoing on the porch. Moments later they heard him descend the back steps and set out toward the fields.
Freirs waited till he'd gone. 'He didn't look all that pleased, did he?'