Burning House

by Ann Beattie

  “What time was it when you came out?”

  “Seven. Seven-thirty.”

  They saw a white house to their left, just outside the woods, and turned back for Wesley’s house. Wind chimes were clinking from a tree beside the chicken coop—long green tubes hitting together.

  Nick hadn’t seen the chimes when he walked back to the chicken coop earlier. They reminded him of the strange graveyard he and Wesley and Benton had gone through when they were in college and Wesley was a senior in high school, on a trip they took to see a friend who had moved to Charlemont, Massachusetts. It was Christmastime, after a snow, and Benton and Nick had been wearing high rubber boots. Wesley, as usual, had on his sneakers. They had sighted the snowy graveyard, and it had been somebody’s idea to walk through it. Wesley had been the first one out of the car, and he had also been the first to sight the broomstick slanted into the ground like a flagpole, with wind chimes hanging from the top of it. It was next to one of the tombstones. There was a deep path leading to it—someone had put it there earlier in the day. It looked crazy—a touch from Mardi Gras, nothing you would expect to see standing in a graveyard. The ground was frozen beneath the snow—the person had dug hard to put the broomstick in, and the chimes tinkled and clanked together in the wind. Wesley had photographed that, and also a tombstone with a larger-than-life dog stretched on top—a Borzoi, perhaps, or some odd cross—and the dog appeared to be looking toward a tree that cast a shadow. There was snow mounded on the dog’s head and back, and the tree branches it looked toward were weighted with snow.

  “You know that picture Wesley took in the graveyard?” Nick said.

  “The dog? The one you told him would make a fine Christmas card?”

  Nick nodded yes. “You know what fascinates me about photographs? Did you ever notice the captions? Photographer gets a shot of a dwarf running out of a burning hotel and it’s labeled ‘New York: 1968.’ Or there’s a picture of two humpbacked girls on the back of a pony, and it says ‘Central Park: 1966.’ ”

  “I remember those, too,” Benton said. “I wonder why he never showed them? Nobody else in this family is modest. Even Elizabeth tacks her drawings up alongside Jason’s.” Benton kicked some moss off his shoe. “It irritated the hell out of him that I’d put my camera on a tripod and wait for the right shot. Remember how he used to carry on about how phony that was?” Benton had stopped to look at some mint, sticking out between the rubble. “He idolized you,” Benton said.

  “He’s dead and I work at Boulevard Records and handle complaints about chicken that doesn’t show up,” Nick said. “He didn’t idolize me.”

  They were coming closer to the house, and the tinkling of the chimes was faint. They were walking by the pumpkin vines that wove across the ground in front of the tall black-green trees.

  Nick was thinking of another one of Wesley’s photographs—one he had taken when he and Benton were still in college. The three of them had been in a booth in a restaurant in New Haven, on a Sunday, and Wesley had said, “Don’t move.” They were waiting for their order, and Nick’s hands were resting on the New York Times. The picture was pale gray and Nick had been absolutely astonished to see what Wesley had made his hands look like. One hand seemed to be clasping the other as though it was a strange hand. Both hands had been eerily beautiful, the newspaper out of focus beneath them—hands, suspended, with one cradling, or sheltering, the other. When Wesley showed him the photograph he had been so surprised that he couldn’t speak. Finally, having had time to think, he said something close to what he meant, but not exactly what he wanted to ask. “How did you get that softness?” he had asked Wesley, and Wesley had hesitated. Then he had said: “I developed it in Acufine.”

  They went quietly into the house and stood by the heat grate in the kitchen. Nick took down a pan hanging from a nail in the beam over the stove and filled it with water for coffee. Then he sat on the kitchen table. The only real detail they knew of Wesley’s death was that the life vests had been floating near the boat. Ena had told them about it the night before. The life vests had stopped in time for Nick. She did not say anything about the color, but Nick knew as she talked that they were bright orange, and the water was gray and deep. One floated beside the boat, one farther off. He had to catch his breath when the image formed. He was as shocked as if he had been there when they recovered the body.

  Benton was finding cups, putting the filter in the coffee pot. Benton turned off the burner. The bubbles grew smaller. Steam rose from the pan.

  “We’re both thinking the same thing, aren’t we?” Benton said. “Capsized boat, life vests floating free, middle of winter.”

  “ ‘Lake Champlain: 1978,’ ” Nick said.

  Ena was knitting. The afghan covered her lap and legs and spilled onto the floor, a wide flame pattern of brown and tan and green.

  “You look like a cowboy, Nickie,” she said. “Why do young men want to look like cowboys now?”

  “Leave him alone,” Elizabeth said.

  “I didn’t mean to criticize. I just wanted to know.”

  “What am I supposed to dress like?” Nick said.

  “My husband wore three-piece suits, and ties even on Saturday, and after thirty-five years of marriage he left me to marry his mistress, by whom he had a five-year-old son.”

  “Forget it,” Uncle Cal said. He was leaning against the fireplace, tapping his empty pipe against the wood, looking at Ena through yellow-tinted aviator glasses. “Spilled milk,” he said. “My brother’s a fool, and pretty soon he’s going to be an old fool. Then see how she likes him when he dribbles his martini.”

  “You never got along with him before he left me,” Ena said. “You can’t feign objectivity.”

  “Don’t talk about it in front of Jason,” Elizabeth said.

  Jason and Benton had just come inside. Benton had been holding a flashlight while Jason picked the mint Benton and Nick had discovered earlier.

  “Pick off the leaves that the frost got, and then we’ll tie the stalks with rubber bands and hang them upside down to dry,” Benton said.

  It had gotten colder outside. The cold had come in with them and spread like a cloud to the living room, where it stayed for a minute until the heat began to absorb it.

  “Why do they have to be upside down?”

  “So the leaves can’t speak and criticize us for picking them.”

  “You don’t hear all that stuff about plants having feelings anymore,” Uncle Cal said. “That was a big item, wasn’t it? Tomato plants curling their leaves when the guy who’d burned them the day before stuck a book of matches in their face the next day.” He lit his pipe.

  Squeals from the kitchen as Benton held Jason upside down. “Can you talk upside down?” Benton said. “Talk to Daddy.”

  Jason was yelling and laughing.

  “Put him right side up,” Elizabeth said, going and standing in the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room.

  Benton stood Jason back on his feet.

  “Aw, Lizzie,” Benton said.

  “Who’s Lizzie?” Jason said.

  “She is. Lizzie is a nickname for Elizabeth.”

  “No one has ever called me Lizzie in my life,” Elizabeth said.

  Uncle Cal was putting logs in the fireplace. Above the mantel was a poster of the Lone Ranger and Tonto on horseback. Cloudy sky. Mountains behind them. The Lone Ranger was positioned directly in front of a tall cactus, so that it appeared the cactus was rising out of his hat.

  “Lizzie is also the nickname for a lizard,” Benton said.

  “It’s nice you’re so clever,” Elizabeth said to Benton.

  “Lizzie loves me,” Benton said. He put his thumb to his lip and flipped it forward, blowing her a kiss.

  “Beautiful, beautiful,” Uncle Cal said. He was admiring the fire, with strong yellow flames crackling out of the logs. Ena had explained to them that there was only wood for one fire, and she had decided to save it until the family could be toge
ther. It seemed impossible for everyone to be in the same room at the same time, though, so finally she had told Cal to lay the fire. Benton and Jason were in the kitchen; Olivia was upstairs taking a bath. She was humming loudly.

  “I’m going to stay here a while,” Ena said. “No one should feel that they have to stay with me.”

  “I’m staying,” Uncle Cal said.

  “I’ve already called Hanley Paulson, and he’s delivering more firewood tonight. I can always count on Hanley. I think Wesley would have liked him, and the other people around here. Wesley didn’t move here just to take care of me.”

  “Is there something wrong with you?” Uncle Cal said.

  “No. Nothing is wrong with me. He wanted to be closer to me because sometimes I get lonesome.”

  “Don’t tell me you ran down some sob story that made Wesley feel guilty for living in the city,” Benton said, coming to the doorway.

  “Some people,” Ena said, staring at him with eyes hot from the fire, “think about the needs of others without having to be told.”

  “Christ,” Benton said in disgust. “Is that what you did to Wesley?”

  “I love it,” Uncle Cal said. “I wish I’d never blocked up my fireplace.”

  “Take down the paneling,” Elizabeth said.

  “And I wish I’d never painted my living room green,” Uncle Cal said.

  Nick was playing solitaire. Elizabeth was sitting and looking bored, shifting her eyes from the fireplace to the empty doorway to the kitchen. When things were silent in there too long, she got up to investigate. Benton was holding Jason on his shoulders, and Jason was fastening the bunches of mint to the wooden ceiling beams with tacks.

  “Come to kiss us?” Benton said to Elizabeth. “Legend has it that when you stand under mistletoe—or mint—you have to be kissed.”

  She looked at Jason, grinning as he sat high above them, one bunch of mint left in his hand. She went over to Jason and kissed his hand.

  “Kiss Daddy,” he said.

  Benton was standing with his eyes closed, lips puckered in exaggeration, bending forward. Elizabeth walked out of the room.

  “Kiss him,” Jason hollered, and kicked his feet, in damp brown socks, against Benton’s chest.

  “Kiss him,” Jason called again.

  Elizabeth sighed and went upstairs, leaving Benton to deal with the situation he’d created. Nick put an ace on top of a deuce and had no more cards to play. He went to the kitchen and poured a shot glass full of bourbon.

  “Would anyone else like a drink?” Nick said, coming back into the living room.

  “I swore off,” Uncle Cal said, tapping his chest.

  “Give me whatever you’re drinking,” Ena said to Nick.

  Everyone was ignoring Jason, crying in the kitchen, and Benton, whispering to him.

  Nick went into the kitchen to get Ena a drink, and Jason broke away from Benton and tried to kick Nick. When Nick drew away in time, Jason made fists and stood there, crying.

  “I’m your friend,” Nick said. He put half a shot of bourbon in a glass and filled it with water. He dropped in an ice cube.

  “I go to bed at ten,” Uncle Cal said.

  “Why can’t I?” Jason screamed in the kitchen.

  “Because she’s a naked lady. Decency forbids,” Benton said. “It will take me one minute to tell her she’s been in there long enough.”

  Olivia was singing very loudly.

  “I want to come with you,” Jason said.

  Benton walked out of the kitchen and went to get Olivia out of her bath. She was doing her Judy Collins imitation, loudly, which she only did when she was stoned. Obviously, she had taken a joint into the bathroom.

  Uncle Cal followed Benton up the stairs. It was nine-thirty.

  “Early to bed, clears up the head,” Uncle Cal said. He was sleeping in Ena’s room, on a Futon mattress he had brought with him that he tried to get everyone to try out. Jason liked it best. He used it as a trampoline.

  “I don’t think Hanley is coming tonight,” Ena said. She had gotten herself another drink. The fire was ash. She got out of the chair and turned up the thermostat, and instead of coming back to the living room, she began to climb the stairs, calling to Uncle Cal that he should do yoga exercises in the morning instead of at night, because if his back went out, she wouldn’t know whom to call in the middle of the night.

  The next evening Nick talked to Ilena. Manuela picked up the phone and started telling him about his messages. He cut her off. Then she told him about what had been delivered that day—as she described it, it was a milk-chocolate top of a woman’s body. She and Ilena had stood it up on the kitchen table, and the table was far enough away from the window that the sun wouldn’t melt it. Manuela told him not to worry. She read him the message on the card that was enclosed. It was from Mr. Bornstein, a man he vaguely remembered from some party in Beverly Hills. Mr. Bornstein was with Fat Productions. He had another company called Fat Chance.

  llena got on the phone. “Hi, Nick,” she said.

  “It’s winter here,” he said. “You should see it.”

  “I wasn’t invited,” she said.

  “You hate Olivia,” he said. “Anyway—it’s not the time to bring somebody new into the house when Wesley just died.”

  “I wouldn’t have come,” Ilena said. “I just felt like sulk

  “So what’s up?” he said. “You there sulking?”

  “My cervix hurts. And somebody stole our hose. Unless you did something with the hose.”

  “The garden hose? What would I do with it?”

  “That’s what I thought. So somebody must have stolen it.”

  “What would they want with it?” he said.

  “Strangle a Puerto Rican, maybe.”

  “How’s the dog?” he said.

  “He missed you and wouldn’t eat, so Manuela poached a chicken for him. The chicken made him forget his grief.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “When are you coming back?”

  “Pretty soon. Tomorrow or the next day, I guess. I was hoping it would snow.”

  “That creepy man keeps calling. The one Benton sells his stuff to. He’s having a costume party, and he called yesterday to say that somebody was still needed to dress as Commissioner Gordon. Then he called this morning to say that some body named Turaj was going as Gordon, but he still needed to find somebody to be the mother of Kal-El. Tell me there’s not going to be a lot of coke at that party.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “I guess that’s where the snow is.”

  “He’s so creepy. He gives me the creepy-crawls. I hope he doesn’t call here anymore.”

  “Just tell him that I can’t do it.”

  “That chocolate body in the other room gives me the creeps too.

  “Other than that,” he said, “is everything all right there?”

  “Manuela wanted a raise, so I gave her one.”

  “Does that mean she’s going to clean the bathroom?”

  “I told her you didn’t like her smoking cigars. She said she wouldn’t anymore.”

  “Great. Sounds like everything will be perfect when I get back.”

  “What would you know about perfection? I’m perfect, and you don’t appreciate me. I don’t even have an eroded cervix anymore.”

  “I hope you feel better soon, Ilena.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “See you when I see you. I might go to Ojai with Perry Dwyer and his sister this weekend.”

  “Have a good time in Ojai,” he said.

  They said goodbye and he hung up the kitchen phone. Elizabeth was leaning against the stove, staring at him. He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. She went to the window and looked at Jason and Benton, playing tag in the circle of light in the back yard.

  “He must be doing well,” she said. “He’s been paying child support.”

  “He’s got quite a reputation on the West Coast.”

  “Do you know the man he sells the p
aintings to?”

  “I saw him again when Benton was in L.A.”

  “Is he crazy, or does Benton exaggerate?”

  “Crazy,” Nick said.

  Nick stood beside her and watched Benton chugging along, pretending to be running as fast as he could to catch Jason, then moving in comic slow motion.

  “That’s like the picture,” Elizabeth said.

  “What is?”

  “That.”

  She was pointing to his hands, folded on the window sill. He felt a tingling in his fingers, as if his hands were about to move.

  “Benton told me that picture always embarrassed you,” she said. “You know—everybody in this family is embarrassed by beautiful things. That’s why Benton never shows Ena or Cal his paintings. Even Benton’s given in to it: he made fun of me for putting one of my watercolors up on the bulletin board alongside Jason’s. You’ve probably hung around all these people so long that you’ve fallen into the pattern.”

  “I’m not embarrassed by it. It was just a picture he took one day when I was sitting in some diner.”

  “You look like a holy person when you clasp your hands.”

  She looked out the window again.

  “What did you want to say to me when I was on the phone, Elizabeth?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I was being envious. I was thinking how nice it is that he has a friend who’ll fly from one coast to the other to pal around with him.” She coughed. “And I’ve always been a little jealous of you—that people study you, photograph you—and they don’t pay attention to me.” She put her nose against the window. “Saying that Lizzie was a nickname for a lizard,” she said.

  Benton did not go to Westport with them because Jason acted up. Jason said that Benton had promised that the two of them could play tag. He was about to cry, and Benton had been trying since the day before to get back into Jason’s good graces.

  After Nick had opened the door on the driver’s side of Elizabeth’s car, he realized that he had made a silly, macho move. She was sober, and he had been drunk since before he called Ilena. He should have let her drive the car.

  Elizabeth was shivering, her scarf over her mouth, staring straight ahead. He couldn’t think of anything to say. It had been her idea to get out of the house and go get a drink, and he was surprised that he had agreed. Finally she said something. “Turn right,” she said.