by Auster, Paul
It turns out that Stanley had been thinking about selling the place for years. Only inertia and apathy have stopped him from “taking the bull by the horns,” he says, but if the price is right, he’d chuck the whole thing in a minute. He can’t stand living with Peg’s ghost anymore. He can’t stand the brutal winters. He can’t stand the isolation. He’s had it with Vermont, and all he dreams about is moving to the tropics, to some Caribbean island where the weather is warm every day of the year.
Then why work so hard at whipping the Chowder Inn into shape? I ask. No reason, he says. He has nothing better to do, and it helps ward off the boredom.
It’s lunchtime. The four of us are sitting around the dining room table, eating cold cuts, fruit, and cheese. Now that the fog has lifted, sunlight blasts through the open windows, and every object in the room seems more defined, more vivid, more saturated with color. Our host is pouring out the sorrows of his life to us, but I feel remarkably happy just to be where I am, sitting in my own body, looking at the things on the table, breathing air in and out of my lungs, relishing the simple fact that I am alive. What a pity that life ends, I tell myself, what a pity that we aren’t allowed to go on living forever.
Tom explains that we don’t have the money to make an offer on the house now, but we might be in a position to do so in the coming weeks. Stanley says he doesn’t know what the property is worth, but he can contact a local real estate agent and find out. The more we talk, the more enthusiastic he becomes. I don’t know if he believes a word we say, but just being able to imagine a new life for himself seems to have turned him into a different man.
Why have I encouraged such nonsense? Everything hinges on the sale of a forged manuscript of The Scarlet Letter, and not only am I morally opposed to Harry’s criminal scheme, I have no faith in it to begin with. More to the point: even if I did, I don’t have any interest in moving to Vermont. I have only recently begun a new life of my own, and I’m perfectly content with the decision I made to settle in Brooklyn. After all those years in the suburbs, I find that the city agrees with me, and I’ve already grown attached to my neighborhood, with its shifting jumble of white and brown and black, its multilayered chorus of foreign accents, its children and its trees, its striving middle-class families, its lesbian couples, its Korean grocery stores, its bearded Indian holy man in his white robes bowing to me whenever we cross paths on the street, its dwarfs and cripples, its aged pensioners inching along the sidewalk, its church bells and ten thousand dogs, its underground population of solitary, homeless scavengers, pushing their shopping carts down the avenues and digging for bottles in the trash.
If I don’t want to leave all that, why have I pushed Tom into this pointless discussion about real estate with Stanley Chowder? To please Tom, I think. To show him that he can count on me to support his project, even though we both understand that the new Hotel Existence is built on a foundation of “just talk.” I play along with Tom to prove that I’m on his side, and because Tom appreciates the gesture, he plays along with me. It’s a mutual exercise in clear-eyed self-deception. Nothing will ever come of it, and therefore we can dream along together without having to worry about the consequences. Now that we’ve dragged Stanley into our little game, it almost begins to look real. But it isn’t. It’s still just hot air and hopeless fantasy, an idea as fake as Harry’s Hawthorne manuscript – which probably doesn’t even exist. But that doesn’t mean the game isn’t fun. You’d have to be dead not to enjoy talking about outlandish things, and what better place to do it than on a hilltop in the middle of a quiet New England nowhere?
After lunch, the rejuvenated Stanley challenges me to a Ping-Pong match in the barn. I tell him I’m rusty, that I haven’t played in years, but he won’t take no for an answer. The exercise will do me good, he says, “get the juices flowing again,” and so I reluctantly agree to play a game or two. Lucy accompanies us to the barn to witness the action, but Tom stays put, settling into a chair on the porch to smoke and read.
I quickly learn that Stanley doesn’t play the kind of Ping-Pong I’m used to. The paddles and ball are the same, but in his hands it isn’t a polite parlor activity so much as a full-blown, strenuous sport, a demonic, miniaturized form of tennis. He delivers his serves with a devastating, unhittable topspin, stands ten feet back from the table, and counters every shot I make as though I’m no more skilled than a four-year-old. He beats me three straight times – 21-0, 21-0, 21-0 – and once the massacre is over, there’s nothing I can do but bow humbly to the victor and drag my exhausted body out of the barn.
Covered in sweat, I return to the house for a quick shower and a change of clothes. As I climb the steps of the front porch with Lucy, Tom tells me he called Brooklyn fifteen minutes ago. Harry is out on an errand, but Tom has left word with Rufus to have him call us back. “To see if he’s still interested,” Tom says. “There’s no point in getting Stanley’s hopes up if Harry’s changed his mind.”
I’ve been in the barn for less than half an hour, but in that brief interlude I sense that Tom has been deep in thought. Something in his eyes tells me that our lunchtime talk with Stanley has altered his position concerning the new Hotel Existence. He’s beginning to believe it can work. He’s beginning to hope.
As it happens, the telephone rings the instant I step into the front hall. I pick up the receiver, and there’s Brightman himself, chirping away on the other end of the line. I tell him about our car trouble, about the Chowder Inn, and about Stanley’s eagerness to strike a bargain with us. “This is the spot,” I continue. “Tom’s idea might have sounded a little strange when we were sitting in that restaurant in the city, but once you get up here the whole thing looks eminently reasonable. That’s why he called. To find out if you’re still in.”
“In?” Harry booms, sounding like some half-mad nineteenth-century actor. “Of course I’m in. We shook hands on it, didn’t we?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Well, maybe it wasn’t an actual physical handshake. But we all agreed. I distinctly remember that.”
“A mental handshake.”
“That’s it. A mental handshake. A true meeting of minds.”
“All contingent on the outcome of your little deal, of course.”
“Of course. That goes without saying.”
“So you’re still planning to go ahead with it.”
“I know you’re skeptical, but all the pieces are suddenly falling into place.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. And I’m happy to report an excellent bit of news. Don’t think I didn’t take your advice to heart, Nathan. I told Gordon I was having second thoughts, and if he didn’t arrange a meeting for me with the elusive Mr. Metropolis, I was backing out.”
“And?”
“I met him. Gordon brought him to the store, and I met him. A most interesting man. Barely said a word, but I knew that I was in the presence of a real pro.”
“Did he bring samples of his work?”
“A love letter from Charles Dickens to his mistress. A beautiful specimen.”
“I wish you luck, Harry. If not for your sake, then at least for Tom’s.”
“You’ll be proud of me, Nathan. After our talk the other night, I decided I needed to take some precautions. Just in case things go wrong. Not that they will – but when you’ve been around as many years as I have, you’d be a fool not to consider all the possibilities.”
“I don’t think I follow.”
“You don’t have to. Not now, in any case. If and when the time comes, you’ll understand everything. It’s probably the smartest move I’ve made in my life. A grand gesture, Nathan. The splurge of splurges. A vast swan dive into eternal greatness.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. Harry is in full bombastic flight, blustering forth his enigmatic pronouncements for the pure, self-indulgent pleasure of listening to his own voice, and I see no point in prolonging the conversation. Tom is standing next to me by then. Without bothering
to say another word, I pass the phone to him and walk upstairs to take my shower.
The next morning, Lucy finally opens her mouth and speaks.
I am expecting answers and revelations, the unwrapping of manifold mysteries, a great beam of light shining into the darkness. I should have known better than to count on language as a more efficient form of communication than nods and shakes of the head. Lucy has resisted our attempts to pry something out of her for three solid days, and once she allows herself to talk, her words are scarcely more helpful to us than her silence was.
I begin by asking her where she lives.
“Carolina,” she says, drawling out the syllables with the same backwoods southern accent I had heard on Monday morning.
“North Carolina or South Carolina?”
“Carolina Carolina.”
“There’s no such place, Lucy. You know that. You’re a big girl. It’s either North Carolina or South Carolina.”
“Don’t be mad, Uncle Nat. Mama said not to tell.”
“Was it your mother’s idea for you to go to Uncle Tom in Brooklyn?”
“Mama said go, and so I went.”
“Were you sad to leave her?”
“Real sad. I love my mama, but she knows what’s right.”
“And what about your father? Does he know what’s right?”
“Definitely. He’s about the rightest man under the sun.”
“Why didn’t you talk, Lucy? What made you keep quiet for so many days?”
“I did it for Mama. So she’d know I was thinking about her. That’s how we do things back home. Daddy says silence purifies the spirit, that it prepares us to receive the word of God.”
“Do you love your father as much as your mother?”
“He’s not my real father. I’m adopted. But I came out of Mama’s womb. She carried me inside her for nine months, so she’s the one I belong to.”
“Did she tell you why she wanted you to come north?”
“She said go, and so I went.”
“Don’t you think Tom and I should talk to her? He’s her brother, you know, and I’m her uncle. My sister was her mother.”
“I know. Grandma June. I used to live with her, but now she’s dead.”
“If you give me your phone number, it will make things a lot simpler for all of us. I won’t send you back if you don’t want to go. I just want to talk to your mother.”
“We don’t have a phone.”
“What?”
“Daddy doesn’t like phones. We used to have one, but then he gave it back to the store.”
“All right, then. What about your address? You must know that.”
“Yeah, I know it. But Mama said not to tell, and when Mama tells me something, that’s what I do.”
This maddening, breakthrough conversation takes place at seven o’clock in the morning. Lucy has woken me up by knocking on my door, and she sits beside me on the bed as I rub my eyes open and begin my futile questioning. Next door, Tom is still asleep in the Buster Keaton room, but when he comes downstairs for breakfast an hour later, he is no more successful than I am in extracting information from her. Together, we go on grilling her for half the morning, but the kid is made of steel and won’t budge. She won’t even tell us what kind of work her father does (“He has a job”) or if her mother still has the tattoo on her left shoulder (“I never see her without her clothes on”). The one fact she’s willing to share with us is irrelevant to our purposes: her best friend is a girl named Audrey Fitzsimmons. Audrey wears glasses, we’re told, but she’s the best arm wrestler in the fourth grade. Not only does she beat all the girls, but she’s stronger than all the boys as well.
Eventually, we give up in frustration, but not before Lucy reminds me that I promised to pay her fifty dollars the moment she started talking again.
“I never said that,” I tell her.
“Yes, you did,” she answers. “The other night at dinner. When Honey asked you why I didn’t speak.”
“I was trying to protect you. I didn’t really mean it.”
“That makes you a liar, then. Daddy says liars are the lowest worms in the universe. Is that what you are, Uncle Nat? A no-good, lowly worm?”
Tom, who just a moment before was on the point of wringing her neck, suddenly bursts out laughing. “You better cough up,” he says. “You don’t want her to lose respect for you, do you, Nathan?”
“Yeah,” Lucy chimes in. “You want me to love you, don’t you, Uncle Nat?”
Reluctantly, I take out my wallet and hand over the fifty dollars.
“You’re some operator, Lucy,” I mumble.
“I know I am,” she says, tucking the bills into her pocket and gracing me with one of her gigantic smiles. “Mama told me always to stick up for myself. A bargain’s a bargain, right? If I let you welsh on the deal, you wouldn’t like me anymore. You’d think I was a softy.”
“What makes you think I like you?” I ask.
“Because I’m so cute,” she says. “And because you changed your mind about Pamela.”
It’s all very funny, perhaps, but once she runs off to play with the dog, I turn to Tom and ask, “How the hell are we going to get her to talk?”
“She’s talking,” he says. “She’s just not saying the right words.”
“Maybe I should threaten her.”
“That’s not your style, Nathan.”
“I don’t know. What if I tell her I’ve changed my mind again? If she doesn’t answer our questions, we’ll drive her up to Pamela and dump her there. No ifs, ands, or buts.”
“Fat chance.”
“I’m worried about Rory, Tom. If the kid doesn’t open up, we’ll never know what’s going on.”
“I’m worried, too. For the past three years, the only thing I’ve done is worry. But frightening Lucy isn’t going to help anyone. She’s already been through enough.”
At eleven o’clock that same morning, Al Junior calls from the garage down the hill and tells me the problem has been solved. Sugar in the gas tank and fuel lines, he says. This pronouncement is so mystifying to me, I scarcely know what he’s talking about.
“Sugar,” he repeats. “It looks like someone poured about fifty cans of Coke into the tank. You want to mess up a person’s car, there’s no faster or simpler way to do it.”
“Good God,” I say. “Are you telling me someone did it on purpose?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Coke cans don’t have legs, do they? They don’t have hands and fingers to flick themselves open with. The only explanation is that someone got it into his head to do a number on your car.”
“It had to have happened while we were eating lunch. The car was working fine until we parked in front of the restaurant. The question is: why would anyone do a shitty thing like that?”
“A hundred reasons, Mr. Glass. Some rowdy kids, maybe. You know, a bunch of bored teenagers out to play a prank. That kind of vandalism goes on around here all the time. Or else it was someone who doesn’t like people from New York. He sees the license plates on your car and decides to teach you a lesson.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You’d be surprised. There’s a lot of resentment against out-of-staters in this part of Vermont. The New York and Boston folks most of all, but I’ve even seen some morons pick fights with people from New Hampshire. It happened just the other day at Rick’s Bar on Route Thirty. A guy walks in from Keene, New Hampshire, which is about one inch from the Vermont border, and some drunken local – I won’t mention any names – smashes a chair over his head. ‘Vermont for Vermonters!’ he’s yelling. ‘Get your New Hampshire ass out of here!’ It turned into a real slugfest. From what they tell me, it probably would have gone on all night if the cops hadn’t broken it up.”
“You make it sound like we’re living in Yugoslavia.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Every idiot’s got his turf to defend, and damn the poor stranger who doesn’t belong to your tribe.”
Al Junior rattles on for another minute or two, lamenting the state of the world in a doleful, disbelieving voice, and I imagine him shaking his head as the words come out of his mouth. Eventually, we resume talking about my sabotaged green sedan, and I’m told that he’s about to get started on flushing the engine and fuel lines clean. I’m going to have to spring for new spark plugs, a new distributor cap, and sundry other replacement parts, but all I care about is getting the old jalopy up and running again. Al Junior predicts a clean bill of health by the end of the day. If he and his father have time, they’ll drive up the hill in two cars and deliver the Cutlass to me that evening. If not, I should expect them the following morning. I don’t bother to ask him what the repairs will cost. My mind is temporarily stuck in Yugoslavia, and I’m thinking about the horrors of Sarajevo and Kosovo, about the thousands of slaughtered innocents who died for no other reason than that they were supposedly different from the people who killed them.
Dark thoughts dog me until lunchtime, and I walk around the property alone, leaving Tom and Lucy to their own devices. It is the only grim patch during my stay at the Chowder Inn, but nothing has gone right this morning, and suddenly I feel the world pressing down on me from all sides. Lucy’s deft, tight-lipped evasions; the growing anxiety about her mother; the malicious attack on my car; the unstoppable brooding about massacres in distant places – all of these things pour into my head and remind me there is no escape from the wretchedness that stalks the earth. Not even on the remotest hilltop in southern Vermont. Not even behind the locked doors and bolted porticoes of the make-believe sanctuary known as the Hotel Existence.
I cast about for a counter-argument, for an idea that will put the scales in balance, and eventually I start thinking about Tom and Honey. Nothing is certain at this point, but at dinner the previous night I sensed a considerable softening in his attitude toward her. Honey has been begging her father to move for years, and when Stanley told her about our potential interest in buying the house, she raised her glass and offered us a toast of thanks. Then she turned to Tom and asked him why on earth would he want to trade his life in the city for a dirt road in Vermont? Instead of mocking her with a facetious answer, he gave a full and measured explanation, reiterating many of the points he had made at our dinner with Harry on Smith Street in Brooklyn, but somehow he was more eloquent than he had been that night – more urgent, more persuasive as he delved into his despair over the future of America. It was Tom at his scintillating best, and as I watched Honey looking at him across the table, I saw little tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, and I knew, knew beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Stanley’s buxom, big-hearted daughter was smitten with my nephew.