Hologram

by James Conroyd Martin

  Most of the seven or eight rooms were piled with stuff. Just looking at what needed to be done in order to move back to Chicago was daunting and depressing. He would try to arrange for the movers to come next week. He would have to rent storage, to be sure. He walked through the laundry room, then into the furnace room, pulling the strings that lighted the bare bulbs. He came to the coal room at the front of the house. It was damper than he remembered, downright cold, in fact. His shoes made a crunching sound as he crossed the floor made up of crushed bits of coal delivered decades before.

  He saw the For Sale sign leaning against the front wall. The light from the glass block window above it revealed it to be in the same spot he had found it on the Friday before. Finding no string for the light, he reached up to turn the bulb in the porcelain socket above him.

  At his touch the bulb flashed on for just a moment before it flared—and exploded. Shards of fragile glass rained on and about him.

  “Holy Shit!” Kurt cried, pulling his hand back to safety. He was blinded for a few seconds. The thing had scared the hell out of him. He was certain he hadn’t been too rough—the thing had simply come apart in his hand like an eggshell.

  How to explain it?

  Brushing glass bits from his hair, he moved forward now, stepping on the crunching, grinding glass. He was lucky he hadn’t been cut.

  He had no sooner grasped the sign and turned around when he heard a noise from one of the other rooms.

  The laundry room. The washer had come on.

  “Meg?” he called. Had she come in?

  She would certainly be aware that he was there. The Caprice was in the driveway. The other basement lights were on. Was she trying to give him a good scare? Was she being funny? If so, it was a poor joke.

  “Meg!”

  He walked slowly now back through the windowless furnace room. It was dark here—the light he had turned on near the hot water heater had gone out. He reached up and let out a cry. The broken bulb there cut through the underside of his fore finger. He pulled it back and instinctively sucked at the blood. How had this bulb been broken? He felt the hackles at the back of his neck rise.

  He passed quickly out and into the laundry room. Here there was moderate light afforded by the glass block windows over the ancient laundry tubs. The bulb here, too—burning a few minutes before—had gone out. He heard the sound of glass grinding under his shoes and knew that bulb had met the same fate as the other two. How could they all have exploded at the same time? Was there some science to it he was ignorant of?

  The stink of dead flowers was in the air, but there was more to concern him now. Kurt stood staring stupidly at the washer. Set on Cold wash/Cold rinse, it was filling up with water.

  “Meg!” he screamed. But he sensed she was not to blame.

  He cautiously walked to the machine.

  Was this some strange electrical short going on? Dare he even touch it? Would he get a shock—or worse?

  Nonsense, he thought, summoning the strength to reach for and slowly lift the lid, the lid he was almost certain had not been down when he passed through the room a few minutes before.

  He peered inside.

  Water only, filling fast.

  Weird. He reached out to pull the Stop button.

  His hand had not quite connected with it when he saw the timing knob for the dryer—just to his right—turn, slowly, steadily, its gears clicking as it rotated.

  At the sixty-minute mark, the knob pressed in toward the control panel, then was released, setting the dryer in motion.

  Kurt stood there dumb, heart pounding like a hammer in his chest, his mind fending off panic as he listened to the washer start to agitate now.

  What the hell is happening here?

  The initial fear started to dissipate as he thought how absurd this all was. Here he stood watching two machines with lives and wills of their own. And Mrs. Shaw with his ticket out of Hammond would be arriving any minute. The thought buoyed him now, and he reached out to shut down the machines.

  His hand moved toward the four-way receptacle, then stopped.

  Neither the washer nor the dryer was plugged in! He looked to the floor behind the machines. The cords lay useless on the cement.

  Suddenly, above the din of the two machines, he heard a high, melodic sound from above—in the dining room. The doorbell.

  Mrs. Shaw! The repetition of the ringing told him that it had likely been rung a couple of times already.

  Kurt sprinted now for the back room and the stairway.

  The red basement door loomed in front of him like a stop sign. It was closed. Fully closed! He knew he hadn’t closed it. Who had? Someone—something—had closed it!

  He stopped in his tracks, heart pumping, pounding.

  What the hell is at work down here?

  “What’s going on?” he shouted.

  He heard the doorbell sound again.

  He rushed the door. Just as he reached the darkened brass handle, he heard a noise on the other side.

  The sound of the bolt being slid into place.

  His face pulsed hotly. What is happening?

  “Meg!” he called.

  No response.

  “Who’s there?” he shouted.

  He knew the door had been bolted on the other side, yet he instinctively reached and pulled just the same.

  Locked. He pulled again. A strong door, strong lock.

  The doorbell chimes had gone silent, he realized.

  Mrs. Shaw! He had to get her attention before they left.

  He turned and ran again into the laundry room, into the furnace room, slowing a bit now in the dark, and then into the coal room.

  He ran to the glass block window, calling out the real estate woman’s name. He pulled a plastic milk crate to the window, turned it on end—dumping out papers and books in the process.

  Standing on the crate, he struck at the window.

  “Help!” he shouted. “Mrs. Shaw! Down here!”

  When he paused and put his face flush to the window, looking to the right, he could see a bit of the front porch. He could see the red of a woman’s shoe.

  He called out again.

  And again.

  His knuckles were sore from rapping against the window. The glass was thick, too thick.

  Panic rising within him, he jumped from the crate and searched for something that would resound against the glass blocks. He found a rusty pair of grass shears.

  Climbing onto the crate again, he looked before he started striking. He saw feet descending the few stairs at the front porch, then disappearing as they moved down.

  They were leaving!

  Good God, don’t leave!

  He bashed the clippers against the window, simultaneously screaming at the top of his lungs.

  The old metal against the thick glass made more noise than his hands had done, but the trio had already moved too far away. He could make out their blurred figures now—two women and one man—down on the sidewalk near the street.

  In a rage Kurt threw the clippers across the room. He cursed violently.

  He turned to the window again, motioning wildly with his arms. Just look back! Just one of you look back, just once. You’ll see. You’ll see!

  The figures fell into profile now and were moving away to their cars.

  “Don’t leave, damn it! Don’t leave!”

  He stopped waving, fully spent. He slowly turned around, his back slumping against the cold wall.

  What am I in for now? He looked about at the shadows and a kind of despair he had never known took over. Here I am, a prisoner in my own basement, he thought, and the Robbins are off to frickin’ Disneyland. We’ve lost the sale.

  As if punctuate his thought, the plastic crate beneath his feet shot out from under him now with some unnatural force and flew like a cannonball against the opposite wall.

  Kurt crashed to the coal-strewn floor.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The discovery of Alicia Reichart’s
1934 obituary prompted Meg to backtrack to the years 1908 to 1911. She wanted more on Claude.

  The Calumet Room would close soon. The ten-minute warning had already come.

  Suddenly the Reichart name caught her eye. In a 1910 article on what constituted the society page, the talents of Claude Reichart, the pride of his parents and their hopes for the future were all enumerated. It was much like the other article Meg had found previously. But with a difference—here there was a picture, fairly crisp.

  Meg sat forward in her chair, rigid and chilled to the bone.

  She recognized the little angelic bespectacled face as the one she had seen in the coach house window on the day she and Kurt had first viewed the house. She was absolutely certain. And it was also the face of the boy—spirit or ghost?—who had chased Rex upstairs and out onto the balcony.

  “Five minutes,” whispered Miss Millicent, startling her. “Find something, my dear?”

  “Yes, a picture of Claude Reichart.”

  “Oh?” The woman advanced and hovered over Meg. “Goodness, what an attractive young boy. Look how full of life he was! And to think how short his life was to be! When did you say he passed on?”

  But he didn’t pass on, Meg thought, not really. That’s the whole point. “1911,” she answered now, “just a few months after this picture was taken.”

  “Isn’t that a shame?”

  It was a shame. More and more, Meg’s heart was weeping for the tragedies of Claude and Alicia Reichart. She felt their losses more keenly every day, it seemed.

  “Shouldn’t you be finishing up for the day?” Miss Millicent asked, glancing purposefully at her watch.

  “I will. I promise. I just know there must be something here about his death.”

  “If it’s been here all these years, dear, I’m certain it’ll wait till next time. Mystery is a spice, isn’t it?”

  No, it can’t wait, Meg wanted to say as Miss Millicent went about the business of closing up.

  Meg found it now—the keystone of her search. She had not been focusing much on the newspaper’s front pages, but as the front page for July 17th flashed by, she sighted something familiar. She brought the page back.

  There was the same picture of Claude Reichart, just below a two-column story at the right of the page. The caption read:

  REICHART BARN BURNS;

  ONE DEAD

  Meg shivered at the thought of a child burnt to death in a fire—and, somehow—this child especially. She was for the moment a vessel, and sadness filled her to the brim.

  Meg had no time to read the details.

  “I’m afraid it is time,” Miss Millicent said. She had her coat on. “Did you find something else, Meg?”

  “Yes, something,” Meg answered, pressing the button for the copy machine—and relieved that the woman was too involved in closing the room for the day to inquire further.

  Meg placed the two important finds of the day in her purse. She had, she thought, the final piece of the puzzle. Putting it together would now be up to her.

  During the drive home, Meg’s thoughts shifted to Kurt.

  How were they to keep their marriage from unraveling?

  He had been leaving several desperate sounding messages on the machine daily, pleading his innocence. Yet her heart had told her it wasn’t innocence she read in his eyes when he addressed the Valerie Miller issue.

  She turned into the driveway and for once allowed herself to study the old coach house as the car glided toward it.

  What was this aversion she had to it? Was it merely that face at the window she had seen months ago?

  There was no face at that window now. The structure defined the word dilapidated. The low stone and mortar wall and foundation seemed to be in better shape than the rest of the wooden structure’s two stories and hip roof. The carriage doors in the back had been boarded up years before, and those in front had been replaced in the 50s or 60s with cheap metal overhead doors—rusty, broken, and useless now. On the second floor, where living quarters had been fashioned, four windows faced the drive—two for the bedroom and two for the little living room.

  Meg and Kurt had planned to have the building demolished. She would be glad to see it gone—if they could still somehow keep the house. The thought of losing the house put her on edge. It was a dark thought, and she put it out of her mind.

  Meg was out of the car before it dawned on her that there was another car in the drive, next to hers. She didn’t recognize it and couldn’t imagine whose it was. No one seemed to be about the grounds.

  Had Kurt borrowed a car again? It wasn’t likely he’d come out on a Monday. Meg thought of Mrs. Shaw, and ruled her out because she owned a red Lumina—but maybe it belonged to one of her clients.

  Had Kurt given Mrs. Shaw keys to the house? Meg burned at the thought.

  She let herself in the side door. Five curving steps would take her up to the kitchen door.

  She paused now in the cool hallway, listening. And then she was nearly overpowered by the scent of violets, decaying violets. She was only just taking this in when a terrible, bone-chilling cold entered her—and then passed out of her, moving upward in the direction of the first floor door. It had come from the basement steps. She stood, motionless, thoughtless. She felt as if she had been violated, raped.

  A muffled cry suddenly wrenched her to alertness. The cry of a man.

  “Who is it?” she called, her voice breaking. She clutched her purse to her chest, her hand already searching for her mace.

  “Meg!”

  The voice was Kurt’s!

  “Yes! Where are you?”

  “Down here! In the basement, Meg!”

  Meg turned right, descended two steps, turned left, and moved down toward the bright red basement door.

  “Meg!” Kurt called again.

  “Coming!” As she came to the door, she could not believe what she saw. The door was bolted on her side.

  She pushed back the bolt, and Kurt pulled the door open.

  She had never seen him look frightened before. Not ever. He was white as porcelain, and terror clouded the blue eyes. Cobwebs clung to his dark hair. Blood spattered his white shirt.

  “Oh, Meg, thank God!” His breathing was labored. He leaned against a small chest-size freezer that stood near the door. “I . . . didn’t know what to do . . . these damn glass block windows. My God, it’s like a prison down here!”

  Meg didn’t hesitate, moving toward him in her concern, grasping onto his arm. “You’re hurt!”

  “It’s—it’s just a little cut—from the light bulb.—Let’s get upstairs.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Upstairs, Meg!”

  She held onto his arm as they moved up the stairs. He was trembling, she realized.

  They seated themselves at the dining room table, and the details of Kurt’s ordeal poured out.

  As Kurt became less frightened, Meg inwardly became more frightened. It was her fault. She had done this. She had opened herself up to this. If only she had known she would be putting others in jeopardy.

  His story told, Kurt rested in the first floor bedroom while Meg prepared a quick meal. She knew he wasn’t sleeping. She knew they were both taking inventory and stockpiling weapons for the struggle to come, the struggle between themselves. The struggle about the house.

  They hardly spoke at their meal. Meg ate slowly, surreptitiously glancing at Kurt, not wishing to bring up the subject of the house, and thinking again and again about the old newspaper article in her purse, the one she still had not yet read.

  The turkey pastrami and cheese sandwich and the beef barley soup seemed to restore Kurt. Meg could tell he was embarrassed about what had happened, how he had behaved. She knew his male pride had been damaged.

  He sat watching her; he had finished first and appeared to be waiting for her to finish. The moment she dreaded was coming.

  Still, it was she who spoke first. “Feel better?” She pushed away her unfinished soup
.

  “We’re getting out of here, Meg. Tonight.”

  Meg studied him. She had made the serve and his volley now was direct and lethal. The terror was gone from his eyes, and his face was set with determination.

  “Look, Kurt. I don’t need to ask why. Not after this afternoon. And I can’t blame you— ”

  “Meg, you’re not going to say you want to stay?”

  “It’s not that I want to stay— ”

  “Then it’s settled.”

  “Not quite, Kurt.” If only she could communicate her need, make him understand.

  “What is it? It’s about last Friday, isn’t it?”

  “No, that’s not— ”

  “Yes, it is. . . . I went to see Wenonah today.”

  “You did what?”

  “Her part in this wasn’t too hard to figure out—and I can see how she arrived at her circumstantial evidence. And, Meg, I wasn’t completely truthful.”

  Meg had been prepared for another denial, but she felt her heart catch now at his last admission. What was he going to reveal? She looked away, resigned to hear the worst.

  “Valerie Miller is a flirt, Meg,” Kurt was saying.

  “And not unattractive.”

  “All right, attractive enough. I’m not going to make excuses for myself. You need to hear me out. That night that Wenonah saw us . . . we did go into her apartment, and I have to admit the intention was for more than a little deli supper.”

  Meg turned back to him, tears brimming in her eyes.

  “I did,” he continued, “make a terrible decision. Of that I’m guilty. But thank God, I had time for second thoughts. I thought how my first marriage had fallen apart. You were right on about that—I was having an affair when Julie found out. The affair meant nothing—nothing!—but it destroyed my marriage. I became determined not to let history repeat. And I can tell you that I got the hell out of Valerie Miller’s condo as fast as I could.”

  “Oh, Kurt— ”

  “You can rip at me all you want, Meg, but I’ve been faithful to you. I want this marriage to work. I want you with me, Meg. And the baby.”

  Kurt took Meg’s hand now, his eyes fastening on hers. “I have been faithful, Meg—with the exception of one mental lapse.—Hell, even Jimmy Carter lusted in his heart.”