“Will we come down there for Christmas? He wants to know.”
Martin does not respond. He has resorted to fingernail scissors for fashioning the knobs of a millipede’s body, and his fingers are blistered from it.
“Martin, I just spoke to you.”
“I heard you, love. I just don’t know the answer yet.”
“The answer to whether you’ll fly to see your son and grandchildren for Christmas?”
“That’s right. I don’t know the answer. I don’t think they’ll be too happy with my bug-making at the dinner table.” He chuckles. “I might get foam dust in the turkey.”
“What’s so funny? Do you think you’re funny?”
“Come on, Phil, I’m only joking. I wouldn’t really bring my bugs to Nashville.” He pauses, breathes in. “But I don’t think I should go. I’ve got too much work to do.”
His wife stares at him, her eyes stygian. He looks back at his millipede.
“You can go if you want, of course,” he adds. “I wouldn’t want to stop you from going.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that,” she says, and heaves herself up from the couch.
After that, Martin works alone. He becomes bogged down with a monarch butterfly whose colors are coming out muddy. It is important, he knows, to create a few really vibrant pieces. Among the monochromes of the insect world, there is always an occasional peacock—a spirit-lifting splash of color. He repaints the butterfly’s wings, then puts them aside to dry before setting to the delicate task of adding the black veins and spots. As he holds the fine-tipped brush, Martin’s fingers tremble. He commands them to steady, but they shake until he is forced to put the brush down.
After breakfast each morning, he goes into the studio and sits alone. All around him, arthropods stare with vacant eyes. Their bodies appear flimsy and childish to him now, the work of a deluded fool. To begin work on a new creature would be to waste another scrap of his life. Whether he’d be better off wasting the same time in Nashville, cramped in his son’s frilly guest room, he doesn’t know. He picks up Time magazine and stares at the cover: a soldier poised on a hill in Afghanistan. The world is a mess. Here is a young man, younger than Claude, forsaken upon a barren land in the sights of hidden riflescopes. Martin, with his ladybugs, might be on another planet.
When Philomena startles him awake, he sees that the sun has gone down. He comes groggily to the dinner table and looks at his wife. Perhaps she sees the entreaty in his look, because the next day she comes wordlessly to the studio and helps him again.
They do not go to Nashville. Martin hasn’t needed to argue the issue. He heard Philomena on the phone one evening. You know your father, she was saying quietly. That’s true, but still, it means a lot to him. And finally, wearily, Next year, I promise. But you’ll still come up for Easter, I hope?
They decorate the tree to the songs of Bing Crosby, as is their tradition. Philomena, in an act of clemency that warms Martin’s heart, eschews the usual angel and ties his monarch butterfly to the top.
The day before Christmas, the Gregorys surprise them at the front door with a ginger cake.
“Will you come in for tea? A cocktail?” Philomena asks, while Martin scrambles to hide insects in the broom closet.
“No, no, we’re on our way to the city,” Bill says. “We just wanted to spread some cheer.” He shades his eyes and peers into the house. “The project going well?”
Yes, of course, Martin assures him. He’ll be done by New Year’s. Philomena glances at him.
“Wonderful,” Bill booms. “Well, don’t be strangers,” he calls as they go back out into the snow and climb into their carriage, a Mercedes SUV.
By the time they finish the last insect, in April, the house is overrun. Together, Martin and Philomena joyfully hack the last lonely pink slab apart where it lies. A flattened yellow patch of grass remains while the rest turns green and Philomena’s marigolds sprout their first leaves.
Martin goes on foot down Minuteman Road to report the good news. Although he’s been forced to avoid the Gregorys all winter, his embarrassment evaporates as he inhales the spring air. He feels almost young as he trots up their driveway and rings the musical doorbell. And yet he finds himself out of breath when Coraline answers. He gasps, “It’s finished.”
She wears a look of concern. “What’s finished?”
He laughs, bending to catch his breath. “The project is ready to go. When can we start installation?”
“Come in,” she says, smiling, and calls for her husband.
They are set to begin work the week before Easter. The timing is bad, Martin admits. He wants to see the kids as much as his wife does, but the project can’t be delayed any longer. He doesn’t want to lose credibility. To his surprise, Philomena smiles. She calmly goes to the phone, asks Claude and Melinda if they can postpone their visits until summer. It will be better this way, Martin assures her after she hangs up the receiver. When the project is finished, they’ll have time to relax together, to grill outside and go to the beach as a family.
“It’s all right,” she tells him, putting a hand to his shoulder. “We’re almost there.”
She is, at that moment, the woman he unveiled at the altar forty years ago, the flash of her jet eyes like a stomp to the chest.
Together, they pack insects into cardboard boxes and load the car. The Gregorys have considerately vacated their home for a fortnight, allowing the artist to work undisturbed. The house is already decked in scaffolding. Anyone passing would assume that the new neighbors are simply adding some finishing touches, a few last details to bring the preposterous house completely over the top. Martin smiles to himself. No one would guess the nature of those details. No one would imagine, in a thousand years, the kind of creative risk the Gregorys are about to embrace—the rare kind of people they really are.
It makes sense to start at the front, where the impact will be instantly felt, and so they will be sure not to run out of bugs for the facade. Martin gingerly climbs the scaffolding to the top plank of plywood. The platform feels solid enough, but when he glances at Philomena on the ground, he feels the beginnings of vertigo and clutches a pole.
“Why don’t I stay up here, honey, and you can bring the insects up to me a few at a time,” he calls, keeping his gaze firmly on the bricks of the house. “Just whatever you can handle at once.”
Several moments later, he hears the heavy creaking of the scaffolding ladder, and then his wife’s hand is there, offering a tarantula. He laughs. “Good place to start.”
Philomena continues up and down the ladder each day of the week, and Martin uses industrial epoxy to affix the insects to the house at the painstaking rate she brings them up. It’s a lot of climbing, he knows, but she does not complain. On Good Friday, she wheezes up the ladder, smiles at Martin, then dips into her bucket and presents a swallowtail. It is a splendid specimen, zigzagged with yellow. He finds a spot for it next to a welter of houseflies, where it will glow brilliantly. Philomena balances patiently at the top rung, gripping the plywood plank with one hand and using the other to unload another insect. Martin reaches down for a praying mantis at the moment her grip relaxes. He watches as her fingers release the plank slowly, gracefully, without understanding the meaning of it. Then there is a judder of scaffolding poles as her body crumples and drops to the ground.
Martin feels suspended high above the earth for an instant, saying, “Phil?,” even as he moves to scramble down the ladder. The ground is soft, still muddy from spring rain. Philomena lies on her back. Her face is pale, and she looks at him in a kind of bemused surprise. He begins to feel for her pulse, but considers the passing moments, and instead runs down Minuteman Road to their home telephone.
When the ambulance comes, he rides in the back and watches the medical men. Their huddle obscures his wife from view. He feels absent from the vehicle, as if he is
still on the scaffolding platform, holding the praying mantis. He continues to feel absent at the hospital as the doctor lays a hand on his shoulder. Sudden coronary arrest. A main artery jammed with plaque, narrowed over the years. Martin walks away from the hospital, through the parking lot and driveway, to the edge of the street. Then he turns and looks at the building that holds his wife, built of plain white cement blocks. It looks back at him, brutally mute.
The kids stay with him after the services. Claude and his wife settle into the guest room, and their two girls use the trundle bed in Claude’s old bedroom. Melinda chooses to sleep on the old brown couch. She dusts the house and vacuums, sucking up bits of foam that have found their way into the braid of the rugs. She cooks vegetarian dinners in the wok she gave them one Christmas, which they’d never used. Martin walks from room to room and sits in every chair. He cannot find a comfortable spot. Every place has Philomena in it.
The Gregorys leave a condolence card in the mailbox. Martin is glad they didn’t knock. He remains in pajamas, unshowered. He sleeps long, dreamless nights and takes ugly afternoon naps. He speaks only when necessary. The grandkids grow tired of playing board games and begin to whine softly, but are chastised by their parents. One morning, Martin walks through the house—past Melinda brewing coffee in the kitchen, Claude and the girls playing outside the window—and goes into the studio. There is still a square of insulation board remaining. With the blind motions of habit, he takes a serrated knife and carves the tapered abdomen of a wasp.
An unknown period of time passes before his daughter appears in the doorway.
“What are you doing, Dad?”
“Just keeping my hands busy.”
He knows how he must look, the few tufts of dirty white hair fanning out from his head, his pajama top buttoned haphazardly.
“Would you like to help?” he asks.
“What do you mean? Help with what?” Melinda stands stolidly in a clean black sweater and jeans. There is a tone in her voice that Martin doesn’t like.
“What do you think? With the project,” he answers, keeping his eyes on the bug.
There is a long pause, and then Melinda speaks with open rancor. “You have to be kidding me. You’re still doing this? Don’t you understand that Mom is gone?” She takes a breath. “She died, Dad. Doing your stupid project.”
Martin does not speak. Melinda turns and leaves the doorway. He takes an X-Acto knife and begins scoring the foam.
They are quiet at the dinner table. Melinda forks the salad into bowls with obvious anger, and Claude will not look at his father. At the end of the meal, Martin pushes his chair out from the table and says, “I know what you’re all thinking. That I’m a selfish bastard for trying to finish this damn project.” His voice quavers, and he glances at the grandchildren whose eyes stare back roundly. “But I have a commission, and I’m expected to deliver it. I am a professional.”
He takes his empty plate to the kitchen and rinses it, then strides into the studio. A terrible draining sensation takes hold of his stomach as he stands in the room, surrounded by insects. Slowly, he fills a cardboard box with painted bodies.
The following day, he drives a loaded car to the Gregorys’ house. The draining sensation in his gut has been replaced by something heavy and solid like an iron brick. He drives up to the scene of his wife’s collapse and feels a dull distance, as if he were viewing it through a periscope. He sees, through the periscope’s tunnel, that the scaffolding has been removed. A small group of insects clings to the upper corner of the house’s face like a mole.
Martin goes to the door, clothed in his denim work shirt, and shakes Bill Gregory’s hand. He accepts repeat condolences, and then asks when he might resume work.
The Gregorys cautiously express their appreciation that he intends to finish. They consult briefly, out of earshot. Finally they agree to let the project recommence, with the condition that they hire a crew to install the rest of the piece. Martin, of course, will serve as artistic supervisor.
It feels good to get out of the house. Martin’s family has made no move to decamp, nor have they sought rapprochement. The accusation in the air is oppressive. He goes out into a fine spring day and walks along the side of the road to the site. The iron brick remains lodged in his gut, and the periscope vision persists. Far away, he hears a sound that he identifies as the trill of birds. The scaffolding is in the process of being replaced by men who do not appear to be artist assistants but construction workers.
The Gregorys give Martin a pair of binoculars, with which he can survey the work from a director’s chair on the ground, and for several weeks he enjoys shouting out the names of the insects to the men. Despite their casual manner, the men are prodigious and accurate workers, and Martin watches as, day by day, the house grows a beard of exoskeletons and wings.
At last, Martin’s family takes their leave. He observes their preparations through the periscope and feels little emotion as they load Claude’s car with luggage and some of Philomena’s things. He knows that he should be affected. He should plead with them to stay, ask for more time to grieve, more consolation. Or perhaps he should ask to accompany them, sell the house and live the rest of his days warm and watched over in Nashville. Instead, he bends down to let his granddaughters hug him and waves from the front door as the car reverses out of the driveway.
The men affix the final insect on the last day of May. When they take the tarps and scaffolding down and pack up their equipment, the house looks dazzling in the noon sun. Martin backs away, all the way to the road. Not a glimpse of the original brick is visible. The entire facade is completely shrouded in dark, voluptuous texture. Here and there, dashes of color—fuchsia butterfly, lime-green caterpillar—pop like jewels. It is exactly, incredibly, the way Martin imagined it. The manifestation of the house from his dreams, the improbable pinnacle of his career. As he stands at the end of the driveway, he sobs like a child.
The Gregorys come out to join him. Bill pats him on the back and Coraline holds his hand kindly. They are very pleased with how it has turned out, Bill says. It is a masterpiece, unlike anything they’ve ever encountered.
Martin is unable to speak for a moment. “I just wish Phil were here to see it,” he says.
Within days, the first phone calls come in. The Gregorys field these with aplomb, listening to the neighbors’ grievances and politely asserting their own rights as Old Cranbury property owners. They’ve been preparing for this kind of reaction, they tell Martin. They know that not everyone shares their avant-garde tastes. With a little time, they predict, the calls will taper off. People will grow accustomed to the sight, perhaps begin to appreciate its aesthetic value. Eventually, Swarm might even become a beloved town landmark.
But, over the summer months, the calls overflow to the town hall. The house is a travesty, disgusting to look at. It is bringing property values down. One passerby telephones in a panic, thinking the creatures are real. The house was already bad enough, some snap, but this is a middle finger to the rest of the town. There need to be regulations to suppress people like the Gregorys who believe the world is theirs to deface.
Finally, in November, Martin reads in the Old Cranbury Gazette about the lawsuit against his patrons. The art installation is incorrigibly offensive to the residents of the town. A black-and-white photograph of the house accompanies the front-page article. Martin sees his own name captioned beneath the image, and his breath catches for a moment. In the fuzzy photograph, of substandard resolution, the piece does look horrific, like the scene of a crime.
All publicity is good publicity, he reminds himself. Lying alone in bed, habitually on the right-hand side, he allows his mind to drift through the possibilities. The art media will surely catch wind of the controversy, and there might be a write-up in one of the monthly publications. The longer the Gregorys resist, the better for his own career. Perhaps other suburban iconoclasts will
contact him about commissions. He feels a sweet shudder at the thought, despite the heavy awareness of the empty space at his left.
Later that week, Bill Gregory comes to the door. He shakes Martin’s hand firmly, gives a brief, beleaguered smile, and announces that they are going to take the piece down. The battle is grueling already, and it has only begun. The situation is emotionally depleting for his wife, in particular, who has not taken well to being the town pariah.
They will cover the cost of de-installation, Bill says as he rises from the couch. And Martin, of course, will keep his commission payment. As Bill speaks, Martin sits quietly and watches his neighbor’s gesturing hands, the gold wedding band making designs in the air. He watches the knob in Bill’s throat move up and down the pink column of his neck. When Bill shakes his hand, Martin receives the grip impassively. As Bill leaves, the storm door lets in a crisp breeze before closing with a flatulent sigh.
The next week, a truck comes to Martin’s house. A man rings his doorbell and asks where they can put the crates. There is no room in the studio—the garage—he tells them. He signs a paper and closes the door. He watches through the window as the men unload wooden crates onto the driveway. Then the truck pulls away.
Martin steps outside, and the autumn sun hits him flat in the face. He walks, partly blinded, toward the maze of crates on the pavement, each sealed tight. Fingering the perimeter of one lid, he feels the divots where each screw is firmly countersunk. There are at least twenty screws in this one lid. He sits down on the box. The sunlight crowns his head, indiscriminately loving. The fiery trees flap their excitable hands.
He thinks of the little pond behind the house, icy in winter, covered with algae in summer. He remembers chasing frogs with the kids, capturing dragonflies. Just now, the water would be clean and cold beneath a scrim of vibrant leaves. He entertains a vision: a pond bejeweled by insects. Floating grasshoppers and bees, the water shuddering alive. The foam would keep them afloat, and he would go in after them, sink down among them. He would drop through them with his iron weight, completing the piece and bestowing its meaning.
The Wonder Garden Page 11