The Garden of Blue Roses

by Michael Barsa

  "You don't understand." I tried to smile. "Henri is putting these notions in your head."

  "But that's not why I'm here," she said, gazing out the window. "I wanted to talk to you about the television show we have planned."

  "I have evidence, too," I said. "He's preyed on rich single women before. I can show you their names. And their obituaries. Even if he's not Keith, he's Keith by another name, and just as deadly."

  "Don't worry." She laughed nervously. "You'll only go in front of the camera if you want to. And you wouldn't have to talk about the garden at all. They just want to know about us for background purposes. I thought you might show your models. Thousands of people on television could see them."

  "Did you hear me? He doesn't care about you. Not really."

  "You might even start a modeling club. Be with others who have a similar interest."

  "He'll frame me for murder and then what?"

  "You might have them over to the house. We could throw combined gardening and modeling parties."

  "Then you'll have exactly what you want. But it won't be what you think. He'll drain you of every penny. He'll toy with you. Promise you things. And when you're too much trouble? He'll kill you. At best he'll leave you scarred and disfigured and too embarrassed to go to the police. And what will you have left? More bitterness and disappointment? The hard truth of your greatest failure yet?"

  She turned and looked at me curiously, like I was talking gibberish.

  "Ask him about Peggy Sporleder. She was so in debt after he'd finished her garden that she killed herself. Or so they say. Is that what you want?"

  She opened her mouth, but before she could respond the two men came in from the patio. "Here are some people I'd like you to meet," she said. "Milo, Angus, Leo."

  "Delighted," said the one with the diamond earring, who I think was Leo, smiling beneath a cloud of well-shaped hair. "Your sister has told us so much about you."

  "I suppose it's my turn to tell you things about her then."

  Everyone laughed in a polite, bubbly drone. Even Klara, whose smile had hardened into a rocky formation amid the folds of her cheeks and chin.

  The second man, Angus, began to speak from the moist pink spot in the center of his beard. He told us the opening segment of each gardening show contained a brief portrait of the owner, and while this portrait didn't normally include siblings, Klara had convinced them it would be nice to have an interview with me. He said this in a way that made it clear he didn't agree—that I wasn't interesting enough for his precious show.

  "Now we won't be talking to you about the garden, at least not at first," he said. "We'll be trying to get a sense of you, of what you like to do, what your hobbies are, sort of thing. Klara says you like models, you have a collection of them?"

  I nodded.

  "We can talk about that, you see? You can give us like a guided tour of them for the camera. Leo, make a note, we contrast his building models with Klara's building a garden. Brother on the inside, sister on the outside, sort of thing."

  He had a tendency to stir up his hands when saying "sort of thing," the phrase a generic stand-in for whatever he was too impatient to express.

  "Anyway, my point is you tell us a little about yourself, show us what you do, a few models, sort of thing. We don't need to get into the garden. We'll ask you about it at the end, but it'll just be a general question or two. So don't worry if you haven't been involved."

  "And the editing?" whispered Leo.

  "Oh yeah. We'll shoot a bunch of film, then edit it down, so you also don't have to worry about saying things just the way you want them the first time around. Now we're not going to have all day, so don't think we can keep shooting until we get it perfect—this ain't a movie. But if there's something you think about as we go, something you really wanted to mention earlier on, just say it, and we can work out the sequencing later on. Understand?"

  "Just behave yourself and everything will be alright," added Klara, which was gratuitous, even for her.

  I turned to her. "Will they be able to get those cameras into the attic?"

  She froze, as if hearing my words for the very first time. "What are you talking about?"

  "Because that's where I've moved everything," I went on.

  "You've what?" she said.

  "I work up there now."

  "How did you . . . ?"

  "I found your key."

  "Are you . . . ?"

  Crazy was what she wanted to say, but the word lingered stubbornly on those painted lips.

  She returned shortly after Angus and Leo had departed. I knew she would. I was still in the study, boxing up the USS Arizona. I sensed her hovering in the doorway, the rasp of her breathless rage.

  "What have you done with Father's things?"

  She'd visited the attic. I hadn't locked it for just that reason. I laid the Arizona diagonally across the box. It barely fit.

  "I burned them in the ditch alongside the house. I'm surprised you didn't notice. I suppose you had other things on your mind."

  I glanced at her. I could see she was tempted to rush outside. But her legs wouldn't comply, rooted to the same floor where she'd first told me of the accident. "I don't believe you."

  "You don't want to believe me. That's becoming a habit. So look for yourself. I covered the ashes with soil but it's not terribly deep. And Father's typewriter only melted a little bit. Those old things are quite impervious to heat."

  "There were manuscripts. Unpublished work."

  How she clung to him, his precious work. Did she have any idea what it took for him to write it? Or was she just unable to face the truth, that Father was now one step closer to being gone for good, that there was nothing left to preserve or curate or even visit in the night? "The world is better off without it."

  "That's not for you to judge."

  "Actually it is."

  "He should never have asked you to help him."

  "Help him?" I said.

  "You were the one who needed the help. Especially when you were little. But it's not too late. Have you considered what I've said? About seeing a professional? I wonder if this is all one big cry for help."

  "This?" I said, forcing it out of her finally.

  "The accident. Isn't that what you did to get back at him?"

  I shook my head. "You don't understand. I've tried to tell you."

  "Tell me what?"

  "That's not what I'd do if I wanted to kill Father."

  "So how would you do it?"

  "You'd have to . . ." I began fiddling with my battleship.

  "To burn his things?" she pressed. "Destroy his work?"

  "That would be a start."

  "And then? How would you finish the job?"

  You don't, I wanted to say. You can't ever kill a writer. Unless . . . "You'd have to find a way for people to forget him. To erase his memory."

  "That's why you moved your models into the attic and cleaned out all his things."

  She edged closer, holding out a hand, not threateningly—no, not like those times with the baton. I was tempted to believe she understood—that she saw me for who I was, that I wasn't alone. But then I remembered.

  "No," I said. "Exactly the opposite. I was trying to preserve his memory."

  "How?"

  "Did you ever read what Father wrote? I mean what he wrote on his own?"

  "Those early novels," she said, still speaking slowly, patiently, as if to a child.

  "Awful, right?"

  "Go on."

  "Did you ever wonder what happened?" I asked. "What changed?"

  She was almost touching me. Her fingers reached, exploring the air. "Say it, Milo. How he used you."

  I sighed. "He was the one who needed protection, not me. He was the one who needed saving."

  "
From whom?"

  "From himself. His belief that he could write. And then, at the end, from you."

  She must have heard something in my voice—something that knew. Her eyes shifted. An almost imperceptible movement to the window and its promise of escape—a mad dash through the woods to the distant gorge, then a step, a flutter of clothing, a thud against the stones.

  "Me?"

  "I found them," I said.

  Her hand wavered.

  "Under the floorboards," I went on. "He had a secret hiding spot."

  She bent slightly forward. Gravity was exerting itself. She was losing the will to resist. She had no idea about any floorboards. He'd never hidden anything from her before. Had she admonished him to destroy them? Was his keeping them itself a betrayal? I thought not. It was only my discovering them that made her afraid.

  "He was always tucking little things into corners," she managed.

  "Not like this. There was a whole stack of them."

  "Books?" she said, not even believing her own words anymore, just expressing hope out of an old undying habit.

  "I don't know," I said. "Could they become a book? I think not. But people publish all sorts of things these days. Private letters, anything. The more bizarre the better, I suppose, in order to sell, sell, sell."

  "Letters."

  "Your letters to Father, Klara."

  I let that statement do its work, draining her face, emptying her eyes, robbing her body of equilibrium and balance. Her sudden listlessness made her reach out a hand for support, only to find nothing there. She stumbled before righting herself. One of her earrings clattered to the floor. She didn't bother to pick it up, just said after smoothing down her blouse: "Where are they now?"

  "Burned along with everything else. You might at least thank me for that."

  "It was a difficult time for me, Milo."

  "A lot of people have difficult times, but they don't . . ."

  "I needed someone to talk to."

  She remained absolutely still as she said this except for the tears running down her face. They descended like streaks on a wet window, falling with that same haphazard quality, here and there through all the dark lines and grooves—grooves cut by years of unhappiness. Yes, I saw it now, how unhappy she'd been—and Father, too—and for a moment I thought of his last desperate pleas to me, how he'd kept saying how awfully sorry he was for what he'd had to do.

  "No." I shook my head. "You couldn't stand it. How he needed me more than you."

  "I was looking out for you."

  "Then why didn't you ever talk to me? Ask me how I felt? Oh, that's right. Because I was impossible. I was damaged."

  "Milo, I never meant to suggest . . ."

  "Do you know what I kept wondering?" I said. "At the end?"

  She shook her head.

  "Why. Why he was so afraid to write. Why he could hardly look at me anymore."

  "I didn't tell him . . ."

  "That I was a freak? That he was abusing me? When all along you were the horrible one? What you and Father did . . ."

  She began to nod.

  "Do you want me to tell a story, Klara? About the so-called accident?"

  "Don't do this." She was nearly whispering now. "Please."

  "You must know it already. How he drove the car into that ravine on purpose. To avoid facing you that night."

  "What should I have said? Father couldn't live with the shame? That maybe I was the one who'd killed him? I've carried this with me for so long and still I can't decide . . ."

  "It's not something you decide. It's something you just know."

  She nodded again, a stubborn gesture—a last little act of both defiance and resignation, a surrender on her own terms.

  "Now I know, too," I went on.

  I moved forward until she was only inches away. She looked like she wanted to say something. Yet she couldn't find the words. I put a finger to her lips, and then, against every instinct of revulsion, took her in my arms and pulled her close. For the first time she gave herself to me, let me hold her like that. I don't know how long we stood there embraced, engirdled, before I realized my own tears were gushing down. Was this shared grief? Or a glimmer of impossible hope? In the end it didn't matter.

  "I know, too," I said again, whispering it now into her ear. "And don't worry. Your secret's safe with me."

  ‘It's hardly something new in all of Art,' Keith said,

  ‘Although I've tried.' He looked resigned, and took her by the hand, led

  Her down into his basement studio.

  She wasn't too reluctant, no,

  She thought Keith was a real artiste,

  A budding oils-on-canvas man, the new Matisse,

  Until she saw the horror: Cubism of the Flesh,

  The dripping, fused remains of Allison and Beth.

  And then she panicked, shot Keith with her pepper spray

  And somehow managed it, a frantic get-away.

  The stairs she climbed, the hall she crossed,

  Expecting every moment to be tossed

  Back into Keith's most hellish dungeon,

  Where she'd be cut and stretched and bludgeoned,

  Become a terrifying form for human beings to take

  Unless you loved what nature couldn't ever make.

  Already opening his thick front door,

  She heard it, from the basement, this otherworldly roar:

  A sound to wake the dead, to scatter all the ghosts

  That crowded in her mind and make her focus on the most

  Important choice of her entire boring life.

  Because she knew she'd never get away, this town was rife

  With evil, always had been underneath its veil.

  So there, she turned, and saw the phone, and made the call,

  Long-distance, said his name and set it off the hook

  And waited for the monster down below to write his own doomed book.

  Father was the public figure. The writer everyone knew. I was in the background, part of the scenery, and happily so, for what did I want with all those fans and interviews and awards and acclaim? They would only sap my strength, dull my ferocious edge. I was the purest of writers, penning lines in my secret diary for the value of the work itself, to hear the music of my language come alive, those polysyllabic words that became oh-so-real worlds in my mind.

  Just how real became clear the following day. I slid the lock-box out from beneath my bed, hoping to describe my conversation with Klara—to capture every satisfying detail. Yet something gave me pause. I had the odd feeling that another voice was creeping in, threatening to take over, using my own words against me. Whose voice? Not Klara's, I was sure. Not after yesterday. That left only one possibility. But how?

  The box was heavy, with a combination lock. The click of its wheel fly had always sounded reassuring before. Now it was like an invitation to thievery—listen for the click that's different, that tells you the notches are aligning. The lid creaked when I opened it. There was A Portrait of the Artist, crisp as the day it was printed. I picked it up. I already knew. There was nothing underneath. My secret diary was gone.

  The trucks arrived mid-morning: camera trucks, sound trucks, catering trucks, trailers, the whole film-making circus that traveled like the US Army, distrusting the local terrain, hauling everything from home. Klara was trying to direct them but was mostly ignored, a gesticulating ghost, as waves of men and women in black tee-shirts that read "America's Best Gardeners Speak Out" and "Crew" streamed into and around the house. By the time I saw her again, in the living room, she was sitting in a chair beneath a spotlight as a woman smeared make-up on her forehead. I hardly recognized her. Her hair was a Jackie Onassis helmet, her clothes a bright blue blouse that plunged like a waterfall in front. But underneath I could see the truth. She was
stiff, listless, dead, imbued with all the sadness of a clown.

  "Is Henri coming today?" I asked her.

  All she could do was nod.

  Of course he was in a buoyant mood. I could see it from how he parked his car, carelessly, in the middle of the driveway, from how he'd dressed in a loose linen shirt and a leather necklace with something dangling at the bottom. A shark's tooth. How apt. I had to give Henri credit, he never tried to hide who he was—he gave us all the signs. He sauntered into the house with a smile, the rugged Frenchman at ease with his surroundings, greeting people in the entrance hall as if he already owned the place.

  "Ah, Leo! How is everything?"

  "Crazy. Like usual, crazy! Listen, we need to find a place to do your makeup."

  "Klara will not mind if we use her room."

  Footsteps clomped up the stairs. Henri was talking, saying there wasn't another garden as elaborate anywhere else in Vermont. "It is incredible!" He even began suggesting camera angles. "You should shoot the Helen Traubels against their primrose background and the hybrid teas straight down. Because they have already opened up and will fill the frame with color that way."

  "I think you may have missed your calling in the television business," remarked Leo.

  Laughter.

  "Actually, you know, when I was still in France I did a short film about several small gardens in the Montorgueil Quarter of Paris."

  "Really? You know I spent two weeks in Paris recently? Stayed right on the Rue Montorgueil. A fabulous area. But I didn't see any gardens."

  "Most of them are private. I'll have to show you my film. I think I still have a copy at home."

  Their voices echoed in the hallway, then died as they entered Klara's room. "Very good," I heard as if from far away. "I'll tell Alicia, from makeup. She'll be right with you." One set of footsteps back down. I knew I didn't have much time. I remained close to the wall, letting the interior of Klara's room gradually unfurl: the glass balcony door, the figurine-topped dresser, the foot of her bed, the hand-puppets hanging on the wall. Henri was behind the half-open lavatory door, rummaging through Klara's medicine cabinet with the cold professional regard of a pharmacist.