The Carving Circle

by Gretchen Heffernan

  She was beginning to scare him. Her voice was incredibly flat, but her face was hateful.

  “Liar! Now he’ll smell you and never come back!” she shouted and lunged towards him.

  Her teeth were bluish white in the moonlight. Her fingernails dug into his neck. He tried to push her off, he didn’t want to fight her, he kept shouting at her to stop, but she was vicious. She clung and bit. Her body, her skin was hot and jagged. He couldn’t believe her strength, her bones were sharp and powerful and her face was a scream. She was tearing out his hair when he seized her hand. Her mouth attacked his glove and she bit and spat until she reached his skin. He smacked her and she fell back into the bloodied snow. She was spitting with exhaustion.

  She let him pick her up and carry her back into the house. She was shivering by the time he put her in bed. He pulled the blankets up to her chin, she said nothing and closed her eyes. He fetched another blanket from his bed to wrap around her shaking body. When he returned he saw that her head had fallen off the pillow. He gently placed his hand behind her neck and lifted. She was unconscious and limp, but alive. He knew she couldn’t stay alive for long. He wanted it finished and complete, so leant down to her ear and whispered.

  “Don’t be afraid. I’ll bring you back,” then softly placed the pillow over her face and pressed.

  She gave one small lurch before she went still. It was appallingly peaceful.

  7.

  He couldn’t stay; there wasn’t enough food, yet he couldn’t leave her there. What if his father came back and found her? So he collected her body and walked to the door. Outside the world was quiet, but for his footprints and the crystalline clouds of his staggered breathing. Wisps against a starry sky. He knew what he had to do.

  He walked slowly towards the ravine.

  It was deep and hidden and he threw her down it like a stick. Her nightdress billowed before she began to descend. There had been nothing left of her, he consoled himself. Heavy flakes of snow added another layer of silent insulation. There was no sound. No wind. No mice, owls or fox. His animal had left as well. His animal was at the bottom of the ravine.

  Now he needed noise. He clapped his hands. He leapt up and ran aimlessly in circles, shouting, screaming and kicking snow into the air, until he collapsed and rolled himself into a ball. The snow melted around his heat. It cooled his forehead.

  He was wet and tired, so tired. Inside the house looked warm and golden. There were parts of himself he could not feel. He rose and walked towards the door. He closed the door behind him and locked it. He lay down by the fire and fell asleep.

  Her eyes filled his dreams.

  All night, her body slowly disappeared beneath a skin of snow, his dreams.

  He slept the following day. The next evening he entered the woods. The pines were black. The birch trees appeared to be made of silver moon skin. It made him look at his own hands, ungloved in the freezing air, chapped, stark and, he now realized, capable of death as well as rebirth, life. She had died in his hands. He had held her head like a large frozen egg. He shook her a little, just to be sure, as though death were something one could crack out of, as though she might rattle a clue.

  *

  The morning sky was white and startling and he stood underneath it alone. It did not feel heavy. He couldn’t stay in Pine Creek. But what if his father came back? It was possible that he was just stranded at a post in the mountains and would return in the spring. Anything was possible.

  He thought of the town Callisto.

  It seemed like a way to be close and far away. He craved an expedition, a place where he could sculpt in peace and learn to develop his gift of resurrection. A place where he could bring his mother back, healthy and sane.

  He walked inside and took the encyclopedia down from the shelf. He sat on the floor in a square of cold sun, the animals shone on the pages, and when he reached the Mississippi, he stopped. She was vein blue and Callisto, Illinois was attached to her like a cyst, like a knot, like a fist.

  *

  It is easy to get a passport when you have money and are the grandson of a French General. Over the next month, he reported his mother missing and bought a house in Callisto, near the river, north of town and out of the way. He shipped his books, his tools, a few sculptures, his father’s photography and his French cutlery.

  The night before he left, he took his carvings from the shelves and held them one by one. He opened the encyclopedia to Illinois, placed it on the table and stood his carvings around it in a circle. On the page he wrote, I am here, just in case his father returned, but also because he wanted to preserve the moment he began living his own life. He imagined dust coating the page and the Mississippi like a fine ice. Soon birds will nest and splat Illinois with their tiny white meteor explosions.

  In the morning, he carried a single bag to the train.

  It was as loud as a tunneling dream. It had silver bones, bolted joints, grilled teeth and a black face, he stepped inside its snarl, and clicked open a glass eye to breathe. Only the icicles near the steam dripped on the platform.

  The mountains were ripped charcoal drawings pasted to a blue sheet and as the train left, they began to smudge. He moved his thumb along the dark pines that bearded their bases. Enormous black lakes, like oceans, mirrored beside him. He was the only passenger in the compartment and could let himself think aloud, could let his mouth hang open as he stared at the racing. When night fell he saw a single light ahead. A station, he thought, or America, whatever it is, I’m heading straight towards it like a ferocious black moth. He opened his arms like wings.

  *

  All the way there he imagined he was sitting by the riverbank of the Mississippi. Skips of gold were on the swells. The sun was hot and the sorrow in him gagged like a sheath he’d swallowed. When I’m ready, he thought, I’ll begin pulling it from my ears, my eyes, my nose and it will slip from my fingers and land on the water like a gray scum, it will float downriver, it will break as it slams against the ocean, it will break and dissolve and I’ll never see it again. Then I’ll be empty and free for the wind to inhabit, he thought, he dreamed, the wind.

  8.

  Callisto, Illinois

  The walk from the station took him half a day. It was a different country’s heat. He followed the map, stayed close to the river and didn’t see another human soul. But there was sun everywhere, warm and penetrating and the sky was a lonely heartbreaking blue, and it occurred to him that the clearest view of a place was from a distance.

  Already, Pine Creek seemed like a life away, another life that belonged to someone that resembled him. He had begun to think of himself as a person he was about to meet.

  The house he had bought had two identities as well.

  From its west side stretched a flat green palm of prairie; a runway for the wind that whipped with paint-tearing force and left bits of timber bare and exposed like gray sores on a body. Its east side gently sloped to the river. It reminded Jacques of an old clown who’d applied only half of his white makeup.

  Both sides of the house produced waves, the grass and the water flowed together, so that it was immersed in constant movement, like an island one could walk to. A single track arrowed through grasses and into town, Jacques stood on it, and grasshoppers stuck to his legs.

  The key was in the mailbox. He opened the door and stood on the threshold. A cobweb stuck to his face. The windows were without curtains and sunlight slanted across the floor in a way that seemed cathedral-like and pious.

  “Pity you haven’t got a bride to carry in,” said a voice behind him.

  He jumped and turned around. It was an old and wrinkled woman with white hair that stood on her head like a dandelion clock. She wore binoculars around her neck, high waist jeans rolled halfway up her calves and men’s shoes. She laughed with all of her teeth.

  “You can use my ol’ bag of bones if you want, that don’t mean we have to consummate anything, mind you, unless …” she winked at him. He must have l
ooked as shocked as he felt.

  “Oh Jesus, sorry,” she laughed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be frisky until I’ve properly introduced myself. I didn’t mean to scare ya. I’m just being nosey, that’s all. Came to check out my new neighbor. How do you do? Names Birdie Dubois,” she said and stuck out her hand.

  “Nice to meet you Mrs. Dubois. I’m Jacques Beaumont,” he said and took her hand in his.

  “It’s Miss. Always Miss. I like it that way. Well, here you go,” she shoved a lump of tin foil against his chest.

  “What’s this?”

  “Banana bread. It’s a welcome gift but don’t get too excited, I’m a terrible baker.”

  “Oh. Well, thank you anyway,” he said.

  She nodded and smiled.

  “So are you going to invite me in or do I have to make up some excuse about incontinence?”

  “No, no come in, sorry, I, well I’m not used to visitors. I don’t even know where the bathroom is anyway.”

  “I do. Right over there,” she pointed to a half open door. “My God this is a rat trap. What the hell did you buy it for?”

  He was unable to answer. She was right. The house hadn’t been lived in for some time. Why did he buy it? To remake all that he’d lost, he thought, to grieve and sculpt, to become anew.

  “I’m not sure. I wanted to be alone. Actually, I am alone. I guess I’m waiting to find out why I bought it, why I’m here, if that makes any sense,” he said.

  “Honest answers seldom make sense,” she looked around with her hands on her hips. “At least the windows are still intact. And, good Lord, is that what I think it is?” Birdie pointed to a large object covered with a sheet in the corner.

  Jacques walked over and pulled the sheet away with a puff of dust. Mouse droppings flung across the floor like hen seed. It was a grand piano.

  “I don’t believe it! They left their piano!” Birdie walked up to it and traced a big B in the dust.

  Her fingertip was wet black and she wiped it across her jeans like paint.

  “Who’s ‘They’?”

  “The Zimmermans,” she said and struck a chord and the piano was badly out of tune. “Yikes. The Zimmermans, you know, the people who used to live here. Oh, the parties we had back when I was totally gorgeous and kissed all the men, and women for that matter, with my tongue. I can’t believe they left their piano. I could tune it for you? Can you play?”

  “Yes, actually, I can. My mother taught me. But I’m not really sure I should keep it.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because it must belong to somebody right? It feels strange having it here.”

  “Listen. Anyone who’d give a hoot about this piano is dead or livin’ with dementia in the dustbowl. You keep it. Better welcome gift then my banana bread and believe me this house could use a bit of levity, I know it. I feel it, I feel things.”

  She looked though the binoculars she had hanging around her neck.

  “Here comes Jimmy The Mail Man. He’s an ass, but it’s tolerable because he’s always on time. I’ll be back tomorrow with a dustpan and a mop,” she said as she walked down the porch steps and towards the river.

  “Thanks again for the bread,” he called after her and she waved without turning around.

  The house was incredibly quiet after she left. She was like a mini tornado. He unwrapped the bread, broke off a bit, put it in his mouth and spat it out again. It tasted like salt and detergent. Detergent. He could use some detergent. He was ripe with sweat. Jimmy knocked on the door. After this, he thought, I will bathe and sleep. When he opened the door Jimmy was obviously shocked.

  “Who are you?” Jimmy asked and Jacques felt a punch of confrontation. Birdie hadn’t been wrong.

  “Jacques Beaumont. Who are you?”

  “You’re Jacques Beaumont?”

  “Yes. Is that a problem?”

  “Nope. Just a surprise is all. We thought you was French.”

  “I am,” Jacques said and Jimmy laughed.

  “No you ain’t. Look. I got your stuff in back, five boxes right?”

  “That’s right. Let me give you a hand.”

  “I reckon you can manage,” he said as he opened the rear door to his van.

  Jacques carried each box to the porch while Jimmy sat in his van. His arm hung out the window, bent like a tanned chicken wing. The skin above his shirtsleeve was white.

  Jacques unloaded the five boxes and placed them in the corner of the living room. He opened one and took out his blanket and pillow. Upstairs he chose the smallest room because it had the best view of the river. A path as straight as a seam ploughed its way to the water’s edge. He lay down on the floor and fell asleep. He dreamt he was walking along the path and the ground behind him was unfastening.

  *

  That man’s an Accidental if ever there was one, thought Birdie. She had a bird for everybody and he was a bird spotted outside of his territory, that was for sure. The walk home from Jacques had been satisfying. She had seen an Indigo Bunting on a yellow maple and felt grateful, as she did every day, for her eyesight. Take my knees, she often thought, but leave my eyes and a window. She walked inside her house, threw her binoculars on the sofa and went to pour herself a glass of lemonade. Franklin, her parrot, was in the kitchen.

  “Franklin, you’ll never guess, but I spotted myself a human Accidental this afternoon,” she said and put her feet up on the kitchen table.

  “Accidental,” said Franklin.

  “Yep, you bet your green feathered ass. When I saw him I said to myself two things: O Lord he’s black and O Lord help him. Nobody expected a black man. The rumor was he was a Frenchman, but, of course, when you get to thinking about it, Frenchmen can be black too, obviously. He’s an outcast, and I gotta tell ya, I liked him immediately. Jacques Beaumont. Mr. Class and Manners. He pronounced my name properly with an accent Franklin. Dubois.”

  “Dubois,” said Franklin.

  “That’s right my darlin’ like opening your mouth for the dentist, ahhhh, not Oi Sea, like the frigging potato state. I don’t even like potatoes. And he’s a handsome son of a bitch, oh boy, if I was younger I’d have had him in the hay. Do your rolling now before your back plays up, that’s my advice,” she said to no one in particular.

  “He has skin as smooth as a horse’s neck. Honestly, you’ve never seen a man, a young man, mind you, a kid really, so out of place. That face for a start. Two cheekbones wide and smooth as the rounded ridge of a buckeye. That color too, a deep, deep brown. His nose fills the space between his wide set eyes. Kinda like an ox on hind legs, you know, handsome in an irregular, interesting way. There’s not a dent or a dimple on him. He looks like he was born serious. A serious mystery, no doubt. I tell you he’s running from something. He stinks of hidden places. Nobody comes here out of the blue, Franklin, nobody. It’s just not a place you stumble upon. You got to have relations or a secret, and Lord knows he’s not related to anybody around here. I hope they just leave him be, but I doubt it. I’m worried about him, Franklin.”

  “Worried,” said Franklin.

  “Me too.”

  9.

  Birdie arrived the following morning as promised. She brought a ladder, some cleaning supplies and a Sears catalogue. The phone was working, so Jacques ordered a bed, a refrigerator and a few other essentials, while Birdie polished and tuned the piano.

  She took a small bundle of sage from her bag, lit it until it was smoking, and then walked around each room muttering a low chant. Jacques cleaned the windows and removed a bird’s nest from the oven.

  “I’m going to light a fire with the rest of this,” she waved the sage in the air. “Just to clear your flue.”

  Jacques nodded yes. He was cleaning the baseboards and layers of dust came off like fur. He thought of Callisto and his mother and walked outside to collect some kindling. The land was bone dry, but he could sense fertility underneath the dirt.

  “We’re in a drought now,” Birdie had told him, “but usually
this soil is so fertile you can bury spit in the ground and a mouth will rise up singing, yep, it turns veins into roots overnight.”

  He thought about green blood. He took a deep breath and felt dirt clinging to his nostrils. Everything was subdued by a hot fume, the sky, the ground, the glare encasing the trees, the rolling glare on the river. The colors here did not come in big blocks, but as flashes, orange on a pheasant’s wing, the rush of a red wing, pink smears in the clouds.

  Back home in the mountains, the snow would still be blanketing his maman. He didn’t feel like thinking. He walked to the side of the river. The water slapped like syrup against the bank. He could even hear this swishing from his bedroom window. It was everywhere. He plugged his ears and heard his own heart swish, his black reflection on the water, behind his eyes, waiting for him.

  There was nothing he could have done. He unplugged his ears and the tall grass hissed with insects. The sound was a kind of radiance, a drum, and he listened to it until his mother disappeared.

  Boxelder bugs clung to the screen door and dropped like black and orange peas when he slammed it shut. The floors glistened with Pine Sol. There were little bouquets of herbs in each of the corners and geodes were on every windowsill. Jacques handed Birdie the sticks he’d collected. She made a tent above the sage and struck a match.

  “You ever seen a geode?” Birdie asked him.

  “Is that what this is?” Jacques picked one up and glittered it in the sunlight.

  “Yep. This area’s covered with them. They look like normal rocks until you crack them open and find they are full of crystals. I’ve known a lot of people like that. It’s only when you’re broken open that your true self is revealed,” she said. “You’ll be fine, you know. It’ll all be worth it, just wait, even if it takes a good long while, it’ll be worth it all. Just be careful.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, a little startled that he’d been so transparent.

  “I know you’re running from something. You don’t have to tell me what it is, but,” Jacques stopped her.

  “I’m here because my mother died,” he said.