The Glass House

by David Rotenberg

  “Yes, and that.”

  “But why would he be a part of a murder?”

  “He wasn’t.”

  “But that boy was hanged from a lamp post.”

  “Where, Ms. Spence? Where was he hanged? Across the street from what? A lamp post across the street from what?”

  “From the library.”

  “And?”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “The old Catholic church. That’s it? The church?”

  “Ms. Spence. The church and what?”

  It slowly came into focus for Trish. “And the Masonic Temple.”

  Andrew Parees nodded.

  “I thought they were mortal enemies.”

  “Enemies in the public eye—but allies when the need arises.”

  “Friends of convenience.”

  “They are side by side on the street, after all. Surely that’s no accident. Close enough that when need be they could cooperate. It’s how countries are born—and move towards greatness. Enemies joining together and sanctifying the union with—”

  “A sacrifice.”

  Andrew Parees nodded, then his face grew dark. “You have your answer. Now get out of my office—and don’t come back.”

  57

  TRISH IN CHURCH

  THE DOOR OPENED, AND A dim light came from the tunnel that Trish assumed led to the Masonic Temple next door—a physical link between two supposed enemies. Like the old cold war hotline between Moscow and Washington, she thought.

  Slowly a crouched figure made his way out of the tunnel. He didn’t seem surprised to see her. He closed the tunnel door, locked it and turned to her.

  “Ms. Spence, I presume.” His voice was pulled back in his throat. The slightest hint of a Scottish accent hid beneath the cigarette-smoke-stained voice.

  “Yes,” she said. “Andrew Parees called you?”

  “Naturally.”

  His old head seemed to nod, but then again he could just be bobbing his head in the strange rhythm common to a Parkinson’s sufferer. “Women aren’t allowed in here.”

  “It’s 2013. Women are allowed everywhere.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he said, giving a curt laugh. “What a moronic idea, women allowed everywhere.” His laugh became a giggly chuckle.

  “Not moronic. Modern.”

  His head shook more violently, and he said, “Foolhardiness. Next you’ll suggest women should be ordained.”

  “They should.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because women make up more than half of the world’s population.”

  “Illiterates make up more than forty percent of the world; should they not be in charge of forty percent of the world? Wasn’t that the rationale people used to vote for Sarah Palin: ‘She thinks like us’?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “It’s not the point you want to make, but it most certainly is the point.”

  “Not very tolerant of you.”

  The man drew himself up to a surprising height and with a completely centred voice said, “We’re tolerating ourselves all the way to hell, Ms. Spence.” His words were simple and unambiguous. He stood completely erect. The shaking had stopped.

  “You do know that the Enlightenment happened a long time ago.”

  “And Galileo.”

  “Yes, him too.”

  “Did you ever read the communist’s play about him?”

  “You mean Brecht?”

  “Yes. Have you read it?”

  “In college.”

  “Do you remember the most impressive part of that tainted piece?”

  “The pope’s ludicrous—”

  “No. Don’t be ridiculous. What was the most touching part of the play? Come on, even a cynic like you remembers that.”

  Trish nodded slowly. She did. “The speech of the young monk, Galileo’s assistant, pleading with him not to announce his discovery to the world.”

  “And why didn’t the young monk want the heathen to announce his apostasy?”

  “Because the young monk had peasant parents who had toiled all their lives, and the only consolation that they had was the belief that they were the very centre of God’s concern.”

  “Yes. That’s why the stars and planets—God’s creations—circled them. Circled mankind. But your hero, Mr. Galileo, tore down that simple belief.”

  “Because it was wrong—”

  “And the young monk’s parents lived their lives in vain because of this supposed truth. They lost their solace. They lost their joy. They lost everything because of what?”

  “The truth.”

  “And has that truth cleared a path to heaven for a heathen like you?” Before she could answer, he shouted, “There are rules that must be followed. Over twenty-five hundred years people have been discovering and distilling those rules. The path. And you and your kind think that you can, in twenty minutes, rewrite those rules? Make them fit your momentary whims? God doesn’t care about your whims and fads. He cares about obedience and contrition. You should be down on your knees, begging His forgiveness!”

  Trish forced herself to take a deep breath, then said, “That boy was kept in there, then, brought through this tunnel and hung from the lamp post in front of the library.”

  The old churchman put on a look of childish bewilderment, not meant to fool anyone, and said, “And who exactly would you be talking about, lass?”

  Somehow he’d made the word “lass” seem filthy.

  “And who is it that you are that you think you can criticize a man of God or the works of the Lord’s great church?”

  “Just someone committed to reason.”

  “From the dream of reason comes monsters.”

  “From the dream of reason comes truth.”

  The old man gave another harsh, short laugh. “Truth to do what? Truth to what end?”

  Trish had no answer to that.

  “I repeat, truth to what end? What good is this truth of yours if it doesn’t lead you to heaven? Or perhaps you think you’ll be the very first to live forever.”

  “No. I don’t think that.”

  “Then when you die—as we all must—what will become of you? Lie in cold obstruction and rot? Or be picked up by God’s breath and shown the path? It’s an idiocy to opt for lying in a box and rotting over going to heaven.”

  Shaking herself free of his assault, she said, “That boy was hung from a lamp post not a hundred yards from here.”

  “And if that’s true, it was done to sanctify this world. To keep the path to heaven clear for those who are wise enough to follow the rules.”

  58

  AT JOSHUA TREE

  SETH HAD NO IDEA HOW long it had been since they left the Coronado Hotel. He was so weak that he could travel only briefly.

  WJ knew that they’d eventually have to walk, so he holed up in another motel, this one just outside the park, and waited until the boy regained some strength.

  Finally the boy seemed to have some vigour, and they set out.

  Through the windshield Seth watched the moon rise over the desert. Venus had appeared first as if paving the way for the moon. Such a slender slice of a moon. Shortly thereafter Scorpio blinked into existence, its third torso star so red it stood out like a flag. It was shouting, he thought. Shouting for me.

  Seth craned his head to see the western horizon and watched—and shivered—as the Southern Cross rose above the California desert. And he knew in his heart that he was seeing the same sky as his father in far-off Namibia—or was it his father seeing? He simply didn’t know.

  But he knew he was close. To what, he couldn’t exactly say, but he knew he was close.

  He glanced to his left, where William Jennings was adjusting the rearview mirror. He’d finally seen it, Seth thought. That car with no licence plate has been behind us for almost an hour, like a wild dog, waiting, just waiting.

  A nasty thought flitted across his mind. Is that car my death?

&
nbsp; He turned to the side window and saw the shadows of churches. He’d been seeing them for the last half hour, and they were becoming more substantial—less shadows and more corporeal. Then he saw the outline of the library on Annette Street from the Junction, and he knew that all of his realities were slowly coming together at the tree—or was it a gaslight? He nodded as he thought, At this point, what’s the difference?

  He hit the button on the morphine injector two times quickly, and the machine slammed two massive doses into his bloodstream. He arched his back to accept the warmth and thought of it as waves—waves and him on his surfboard, rocking gently, the sun setting over the Pacific and him alive, well. Looking forward to all those years of life ahead of him.

  He allowed his eyes to see the undulations of the desert—Like waves, he thought. It’s all like waves. He glanced at his hand wrapped around the morphine injector—all five fingers remained. So there’s still time.

  He guided WJ deeper and deeper into the desert retreat, and the Joshua trees grew in height and number as the churches of Annette Street in the Junction took further shape and substance behind them.

  At a crossroads—marked 6 East and 1 South—he instructed the older man to stop the car, then to help him out.

  “Take the can we got at the store and the piece of tubing. Now fill the can with gas from the tank.”

  “How do I—”

  “Suction works even in the desert.”

  It took WJ a few tries and a small mouthful of gas—which momentarily made him stop—but Seth said, “Ever seen a fire breather in a stage show or carnival?”

  WJ nodded.

  “They swallow a tablespoon of gas every session they do. Four times a day, six days a week, and they’re still with us. So swallowing a bit of gas won’t kill you. Now fill that can.”

  Another effort and WJ got the suction right—and the small can filled quickly.

  “Cap it.”

  WJ did.

  “Now grab your cello and let’s go.”

  The march up the dune took almost all of Seth’s remaining strength, but he knew he would make it.

  The tree that Seth thought of as the Joshua tree was in sight, and it did its odd dance—tree/lamp post/tree/lamp post—and he heard his father’s voice: “I’ll be here waiting for you. I’ll always be here waiting for you.”

  No matter how much he’d learned to hate his father, he always thought that if things got really bad he’d return to the tree—and his father would be there waiting for him. He knew it made no sense, but did the cancer racing through his system, now attacking at random, make any sense?

  Or the old library on Annette now lit by gaslight standing out like a cathedral in the middle of Joshua Tree National Park?

  And there, far off, was the tree—on the top of the sand dune. There it was. Then it wasn’t—then it was. Then it was a gaslight pole—then a Joshua tree.

  Then the pain struck.

  Seth’s scream stopped WJ cold. He was twenty yards ahead of the boy, part of the way up the dune to the Joshua tree. He turned and shouted, “What?”

  Seth ignored him and doubled over. Vomit flew from his mouth and splatted against a flat rock lying on the dune like a sand shark.

  He sank to his knees and tears cascaded down his cheeks.

  WJ ran towards him, shouting, “Use the morphine, dammit. Use the damned morphine!”

  By the time WJ got to him, Seth was holding up the morphine injector and pumping the red button over and over again—to no effect.

  “It’s empty?”

  “Bingo.”

  • • •

  Viola shuddered.

  “What?” Armistaad demanded.

  “So many churches,” she said as she stared down the length of Annette Street in the Junction.

  “Yeah, fools and their cathedrals,” Armistaad said.

  Viola didn’t respond.

  “Do you sense them?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Are they near?” Armistaad demanded.

  Viola nodded. “Yes—very near.”

  • • •

  When Seth and WJ finally got to the top of the dune, the landscape opened, and there was an upland spring. Seth plunged his head into the freezing-cold water—it reminded him of the cold Pacific off Vancouver Island. For just a moment, tears formed at the sides of his eyes.

  “Now what?”

  Seth had almost forgotten that WJ was with him. He pointed towards the largest of the three Joshua trees, the one his father had sat under and proclaimed, “I’ll be here waiting for you. I’ll always be here waiting for you,” and headed in that direction.

  By the time they got there, the slender desert moon was bringing the vista to its ghostly self. Seth pointed at the wisp of a moon.

  “What?”

  “A moon too thin for stories,” Seth said—or was it his father speaking? He remembered when he’d first heard that. He was sitting on a rock in the Maritimes, his father on one side, his mother on the other, and they had told him that there would be no story tonight before bedtime because “it’s a moon too thin for stories.”

  “I’ve been to the desert before,” WJ said.

  “Really?”

  “To take in Burning Man.”

  Seth nodded. Naturally that would be his only reason to go to the desert.

  “Did you like it?”

  “Burning Man?”

  “That’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes you liked it, or yes that’s what we’re talking about?”

  Seth saw WJ hesitate. Finally he said, “I could see that all those around me liked it—were thrilled by it—but I was just there. Just there. Not moved. Just there.”

  “Like you are here?”

  Seth saw him about to say yes then decide against it.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What don’t you know?”

  “Whether I’m just here.”

  “With your cello.”

  “And you.”

  “Yes, in the desert with a dying boy and your cello. How does that make you feel?”

  WJ looked away and swept back his long grey hair.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Turn away. Don’t turn away. And leave your hair alone.”

  “It’s in my face. I don’t have a hair band.”

  “Leave it. Maybe with it across your eyes you’ll be able to see better. Don’t give me that look. You’ve spent years looking with your hair out of your eyes and you clearly haven’t seen a damned thing, so now let the hair go in front of your eyes and maybe you’ll see this place. See how beautiful it is, how otherworldly it is, how of all of us it is. Do you see the library?”

  “The what?”

  “Look up. Do you see Scorpio? Do you see the third star in its thorax? The red one?”

  “No, I don’t see any of that.”

  “You will.”

  “When?”

  “Take out your cello.”

  “Why?”

  “To jerk off with! What do you think you take out your cello for? To play.”

  “You want me to play?”

  “Yeah. I want you to play what you see all around you.”

  “The sand will—”

  “Hurt your cello? Maybe, but it just might improve your music.”

  “What does this have to do with dreaming?”

  “No real musician would ever ask that question.”

  He began to unwrap the cello from its casing. “But this an Andrea Amati. It was made in Cremona, Italy, in the middle of the sixteenth century. It was gilded to play in the French court of King Charles the Ninth. His mother was Catherine de Médicis. During the French Revolution the instrument was separated from the only other thirty-eight cellos of its kind. It is only one of three that survived. See the letters on the base side?”

  Seth looked. PIETATE was engraved there—piety.

  “
The neck was replaced in 1801, but these are still the original scroll and pegbox. You can see that originally it only had three strings. It has IVSTICIA carved on the treble side.”

  “Justice,” Seth said. “Latin for ‘justice.’ ”

  “This cello was exhibited in London in 1872 and 1904 and then in New York City in 1968.”

  “Is that where you bought it?”

  “No. In 1982, after it was featured in an exhibition in Cremona celebrating its three hundredth year.”

  “Must have cost a pretty penny.”

  “A fortune. A dragon’s haul.”

  Seth leaned against the Joshua tree—it felt cool, like metal. He felt its strength, its will to endure despite the realities of desert drought and freezing nights. He looked up and knew what he would see—a boy hanging from the lamp post, his fingernails painted black, trying to pull the rope from his neck.

  Seth looked down at his hands—his nails were darkening. It’s just the drugs, he told himself. But he knew it wasn’t.

  He looked at WJ—the man was still talking. Finally his lips stopped moving. Seth took a breath, then said, “You finished?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Are you finished with the lecture about that damned piece of wood?”

  After a moment of shock, WJ said, “Yes, I guess I am.”

  “Does any of that history really mean anything to you? Or is it just the expense and exclusivity of it that you care about? Do you play better music on that cello than you do on any other?”

  “Yes.”

  “Liar. You can’t really play music on any cello, can you?”

  “Yes I can!”

  “Liar! You want me to teach you—stop lying.”

  “But—”

  “So I ask you again, can you really make music?”

  After a long pause, WJ whispered, “No.”

  “Say it out loud,” Seth demanded.

  “No—never have.”

  “Fine. Then it’s no loss to you if we burn it?”

  “Burn it?”

  “Are you deaf as well as stupid?”

  A stunned silence. The desert wind picked up. The Southern Cross shone bright over their heads. Scorpio seemed to be changing, the red star now so bright it seemed to pierce the sky.

  “Leave the cello here on the ground and go collect some brush. There’s lots of dead things here, and they’ll all burn.”