“Little bitches. You know it’s that woman downstairs with all her lies she’s put in their heads. Like the Holocaust. Like that really happened. Oh, maybe a few hundred, a thousand even, but come on! Six million? That’s bullshit. Just a way for them to whine to get more stuff. The whole fucking world bends over backward for that lot and they still control the banks. Now my daughters won’t even say goodbye! Fuck her.”
And there it was. Holy shit. Tristan turned to Jack who stood stock still in fear and stunned amazement. The next thing the boys heard was the horrific sound of a dying man crying. The wheezing sound of an old engine, fighting to turn over, losing its power. Then there was the sound of things breaking. Bob must have been in a rage, knocking things over, or throwing things. And yelling. More yelling.
“You have to make amends. You have to say something. Make this right,” the old man pleaded.
“Fuck off! I didn’t do anything. You know that. Your daughter was a whore. Mark my words, those girls will end up like her. Slutty and crazy like their mother!”
“You called them your daughters! You admitted it. You did it to Faye. You ruined her! You’re a monster! I never wanted to believe it. Now she’s dead and it’s your fault. Monster!”
“Stop it, Dad. I’m warning you …”
“MONSTER!”
When Tristan heard the sharp sound of a slap, he could no longer stay listening on the other side of the door. He burst in to find the old man, crumpled in the corner, grabbing at his chest.
Bob turned quickly and told Tristan to get the hell out. But Tristan held his ground. Went over to the old man to help him up.
“We all need to just calm down,” he said.
Bob turned around in anger. The past was the past and he’d more than made up for it! Wasn’t he good to those ugly white things? He took them to see their crazy mother. Made the drive every other week! He had done his share of atonement, goddamn it! Every time he looked at them it was an act of atonement. Their pink rabbit eyes with the zombie-red centres. Their colourless flesh. Like they were something from Night of the Living Dead.
“Just go downstairs and take those ugly zombie girls away. Never want to see their freak faces again! Fuckin’ freaks.”
“They aren’t ugly. Don’t ever speak of them that way!” Tristan objected.
“Or what?” Bob challenged.
Bob grabbed Tristan, one hand at his throat and, with the other, he grabbed a dirty, discarded fork and held it at Tristan’s eye.
“You didn’t hear shit up here. Understand? The old man’s a fucking liar. If anyone fucked Faye, it was him. He was always a perv. Selling drugs to kids so he could have his way with them.”
Tristan would have closed his eye, but he didn’t actually register the fork because he didn’t see it. Didn’t really understand the threat till much later. What he did see was Jack. Beautiful Jack, who moved with ease and grace as he burst into the room, reached over for the empty sherry bottle, lifted it high in the air and then brought it down, full force, on Bob’s head. Bob was down. A pool of blood streaming from his nose and mouth.
Jack stood, in shock, not believing what he had done, his heart pounding in his chest. He stared at Tristan, at the dropped fork, at the unconscious man. He didn’t see the old man rise. Didn’t feel him take the bottle from his hand. Didn’t know that he wiped it on his dirty sheets, then held it in his own hands, wrapping his fingers around the neck.
“Tell Esther there’s been an accident and to call an ambulance. Then take the girls straight to the airport. Don’t look back, ya hear me? Don’t look back.”
Tristan took Jack by the arm, led him past the suitcases and down the stairs.
“Do you think I’ve killed him?” he mumbled.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think you just knocked him out. But what I do know is that you saved me. Oh my God, you were just like Hanna Schygulla in The Marriage of Maria Braun!”
And Tristan also knew that just like in the case of Maria Braun, it would be someone other than Jack who would be taking the blame. He never would tell Jack that the monster had held the fork to his bad eye and that it hadn’t really been a threat to his sight. That would remain a secret that would stay a secret and, in time, as the story would be told one day, it would become his good eye that was threatened by a madman holding a fork. But the story would not, could not, be told for a very long time and then, when it was, it would have to be disguised as fiction.
The twins sat in the car. Clara in front with Tristan driving, and Blanca in the back seat beside Jack.
“What happened up there?” asked Clara.
“Your uncle was drunk. Got into an argument with your grandpa. He said just to take you to the airport,” Tristan answered, his concentration on the road before him.
“But we should have said goodbye. We may not be back for months, maybe even longer!”
“Yeah, I thought so, too, but they really didn’t want to see you. Said to just get you freaks out of there so that they’d never have to see your ugly faces again. I’m sorry. It’s so cruel.”
Blanca knew there was more. She reached across and held Jack’s hand. It was shaking. She looked at him, caught his eye. They both knew that this would have to be their goodbye. Possibly forever.
As they drove, Clara realized that they were all looking ahead, eyes on the highway before them. There was no receding landscape. No view of what they were leaving. She knew they would never sit facing backward again.
* * *
Siegfried was packing his clothes, arranging his passport, money, and paperwork in his billfold. Everything was in order. He hated leaving Hilda, but there were so many things he had left unattended, so many clients to check up on. Besides, he knew he had to get Gareth to Hamburg before his parents changed their minds and convinced him to go to a community college for a year.
Everything was good, except that Hilda had refused to go with them. She said that she wanted to stay close to home in case Jack didn’t adjust well to university. She said, in time, she would come and share their life between two countries. But not just yet. And so Siegfried got down on one knee and asked her to marry him and she promised that she would think about it.
Siegfried had reached into his small bag of toiletries, and drawn out a small green velvet pouch and handed it to her. Hilda carefully loosened the strings and reached in to find a jewellery box. She pushed open the top, and found, not a ring as she had expected, but the match to the eye that Jack had stolen.
“This is the other one. I made eyes every year, you know, just in case,” he said, laughing, “but I stopped the year I met you because, if I ever went blind, I would want the eyes I had the day you walked back into my life. That was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. If ever I were to lose my eyes, I wouldn’t want to lose the sight of you. So I hope I caught that when I made these. Ask Jack for the other one. He has it in his darkroom. Put them under your pillow every night so that you dream of me when I am away. That way, you will not forget me.”
Hilda took the eye in its box and placed it beneath her pillow. What a strange man she had fallen in love with. And yet, nothing could have seemed more romantic to her.
“I will get the other one from Jack. But, you know, I still expect a ring. Not expensive, but it has to be gold. Cheap metals turn my fingers green.”
“Of course. And I will not expect an answer until I return with a ring. A gold one.”
When Jack returned from the airport he was in no mood to discuss eyes and their whereabouts but promised his mother that he would retrieve the match. He wanted only to speak with Siegfried, alone, before he flew off the following day.
Siegfried noticed that he was wearing a younger eye. An eye that still fit comfortably, but was not as hard as the last one he’d made him. It was the eye of the open-hearted Jack he was wearing. Not the show-off Bowie eye. Not the confident in-control eye, but the eye of the more sensitive young man.
“You told me to des
troy the Jabberwock.”
“Oh yes. But that is a metaphor. The Jabberwock represents our greatest fear. The monster we must all face. Sometimes it is the monster within and sometimes it is an external obstacle.”
“But I did face the monster. A real monster. And I destroyed him. And the girls still left and I will probably never see them again. I thought that if I killed the Jabberwock, they would love me.”
“You thought it was about love?”
“Yes,” replied a very sad Jack.
“And you have killed the Jabberwock?” Siegfried had no idea what Jack was on about. He knew nothing of evil uncles and ogre grandfathers. All he knew was that Jack had changed enough that he had the courage to wear his most vulnerable eye.
“Und schlugst Du ja den Jammerwoch? Umarme mich, mien Böhm’sches Kind! ”
“You know I don’t speak German,” Jack replied.
Siegfried opened his arms and embraced Jack.
“I said come to my arm, my beamish boy!” Siegfried laughed. “I don’t know what happened or what you did. I may never know. But I do know that you have changed somehow today. I also know that for you, it was never about love. I never promised you love when I gave you that first eye. I promised you courage.”
“But I wanted love.”
“No, you wanted courage. And that is what you got. Now go and find that other eye for your mother. It is very important that she has both eyes before I leave.”
The house was strangely quiet for the first time in Hilda’s experience. No sounds and, more poignantly, no anticipated sounds. Only her own footsteps, her own breathing, her own rustling of the newspaper as she gazed from the kitchen window past the deck. The leaves were just starting to turn, their outer ruffles picking up the slightest tinge of orange and red. This was her favourite time, when the sun still beat hard upon the earth, the air held the slightest chill, the leaves were still on the trees but turning a range of fire colours, and her garden was in its highest bloom. Indeed, her garden always was at its height just as others were harvesting their last shares. There were still tomatoes and basil. The root vegetables were still in abundance and the wildflowers she had planted, poppies and daisies mostly, were blooming abundantly between the veggies. And all around it was a border of marigolds. Not that they did much good because the aphids still made their way in and gobbled here and there. Then, of course, there were also the rabbits, both the wild and the escaped ones, nibbling at anything green. Some deer from time to time with their spotted fawn visited and feasted. Squirrels, too, helped themselves. Yes, she was feeding them all! Hilda never minded. She was good about sharing.
She knew that the monarchs were staging and readying themselves for the long migration to Mexico. That the geese would be flying endlessly in their V-formation. And that very soon the mornings would bring a layer of magical frost, a glimmering coating on the green, that would melt away by the warmth of the sun touching the earth with a mere stroke.
It was a difficult choice. To be alone in the big old house or to be with Siegfried in Hamburg for the autumn.
“Why can you not train him here?” she had asked him.
Siegfried just shook his head. They both knew better. He had all his materials and equipment there. Everything needed to train the young man was in his workroom. Besides, he had clients waiting for him. There was unfinished business. He had jumped a plane quickly for the sake of love at the start of summer, but he had left so much unfinished there in Germany. A large old apartment in Hamburg, the oculary, his workroom and all his equipment. They were all waiting for him as she had once waited for him.
It was only in the quiet of the house and in the view to the garden that she realized how great was her preference for the autumn season and how her late-blossoming garden was a reflection of her life. Only now did she feel full, confident, and strong. Strong enough to live alone. Strong enough to not fear the next day. Strong enough to know that being away from her love did not mean that love didn’t exist.
On their last night together, Siegfried held her close as they slept. She could still feel the imprint of his body upon hers, even while he was away. Perhaps this was why her alone time was equally enjoyable. Missing him was as sweet as having him.
Next week would be Thanksgiving and she would cook a feast. Jack would be home, and Margaret and Elizabeth with their significant others. Margaret seemed quite serious about this one and so he would be shown off, first at her dinner on the Sunday and then, doing it all over again, turkey, potatoes, and all, at their father’s the next day. If Jean could cook, that is. So full and uncomfortable carrying those twins in her belly. Hilda wished that they could move beyond the acrimony. Eventually share grandchildren as friends and not have to subject the kids to two sets of holiday meals. But the last time she tried to speak in a civil manner to John, he complained about his small house and suggested that they come to an arrangement so that he could have the old farmhouse back again.
“And who would feed the coyotes?” she had asked him. “You know, they come quite close now. They are fearless. You wouldn’t want your new little babies to be carried away as a snack!”
She hadn’t seen him since but there was an uneasy feeling that he might come after the house, demanding half of it now that he had twins on the way and their children were now grown. How unfair when her inheritance had paid for most of it.
Hilda wondered what Siegfried was doing right that moment. It would be six hours later there, pretty much time for coffee and cakes. She wondered if he was introducing Gareth to the things he had shown Jack once. Opening his eyes to an older world with its tastes, cultures, and slightly different customs.
There was nobody there to see her and so, instead of a healthy breakfast, she helped herself to the last thin slice of pound cake. Threw a few raspberries on top, just to make it healthy, and then doused it all in cream. She grabbed her coffee and sat in the cool air of the morning. It was fine. After all, it was coffee and cake time in Germany and her heart was there!
Beyond the garden she heard a rustle. The long grass moved and there he was, her coyote friend. With a fat brown bunny in his jaws.
Gareth strangely felt as though he had found his home. Sure, the language was a challenge and he often looked out of place but, still, as he walked around the city, he somehow felt that he belonged. He loved the trains through the town, the business on the streets, the food, the clubs, the shops! He liked going from store to store to buy what he needed, instead of just going into one big superstore. And, of course, there was the freedom. Eighteen years old, away from home, in another country, and making a little money, too! How much better was that than being in a dorm somewhere, attending classes, competing with other students.
His day was set up in a very organized way. After a breakfast, usually consisting of coffee, fresh bread or rolls with unsalted butter, cheese, a boiled egg or a few slices of meat, and a small, three-ounce glass of juice, he was to go into the oculary to watch and learn.
“You must train your breath. You have the ability with your eyes to capture the likeness of another’s eye, but it’s no good unless you work on your breath control. You blow too fast and hard.”
“Well, maybe I can make the eyes faster, then. Up our productivity to two or three a day.”
“Fast is not the desired outcome. Perfect is. You cannot do the part you like, fixing the colours and detailing the eye, if you cannot blow an orb worth painting.”
As long as Gareth put in a satisfactory morning he had his afternoon off to paint and explore. Afternoons usually started at two o’clock, after the main meal of the day. That was one of the biggest changes for Gareth, eating so much at the start of the day and then having not much more than a snack in the evening. Siegfried kept telling him how much healthier it was for him, but Gareth just felt like he spent the first three-quarters of the day stretching out his belly, only to leave it empty at bedtime.
In the evenings Siegfried would write letters or read a book. He’
d constantly encourage Gareth to go out, suggesting that he befriend Sabine next door. Gareth usually refused to go out, preferring to spend his time, late into the night, painting. He worked on smaller canvases as he didn’t have a garage or a big workspace. But the room he was given for painting was beautiful, with large windows looking onto Glockenblumenstraße. It had white walls, hardwood floors, and high ceilings. Off his studio was his bedroom. It was small, with a three-quarter-sized bed, something between a single and a double. But it was fine. The mattress was firm and the duvet was overstuffed with feathers. Gareth was happy.
“Why do the Germans just string words together? I mean, why not have an adjective separate to the word? Like the street your apartment is on. It’s like three words strung together as one word. You could have the word street by itself, but no, you have to just keep adding words onto words till they are too big to pronounce. What does it mean, anyhow?”
“Bellflower Street. It isn’t so hard. I think you will take a German class every day, as well, now. Just so that you get used to stringing words together. If you want to take over this business one day you will have to learn German.”
There it was. An opportunity to move from an apprenticeship to a business, without having to build it up from scratch. Gareth often wondered why the ocularist was helping him. Why he had chosen him. He had not been in the world of oculary long enough to understand the custom of passing on the art of the glass eye from one generation to the next.
“What about my painting, though?”
“You will do both. And you will do both well. Tomorrow I have a friend coming from Berlin. A very nice woman who likes to wear leather from head to toe, but do not let that influence your judgment of her. She has a gallery in Berlin, so she will look at your work, yes? I made an eye for her mother years ago. A very nice brown eye with light green flecks and a darker, almost black, rim around the iris. That does not matter. What matters is that you concentrate on your morning work. Today you will learn how to breathe properly. Come, lie down on the floor and we will do some breathing exercises until you have better control. Think of yourself as a flute player. A flutist doesn’t blow. The passage of air is controlled. It is all about control.”
Two White Queens and the One-Eyed Jack Page 23