A THOUSAND DOLLARS doesn’t go terribly far in Cambridge. I could have found my own place in Roxbury or Southie, but I was reluctant to move across the river. Too far from Harvard—geographically and symbolically—and whatever I saved on rent, I’d lose in time spent getting to and from Alma’s. In a moment of weakness I flirted with asking Yasmina to take me back. I had a job now, sort of, which would impress her. Sitting at Drew’s desk, I went so far as to dial the first three numbers of her cell. That made me think about my own useless cell, which in turn revived my anger and pride. I put down the phone and went back to the computer to search the listings.
The apartment in Davis Square had looked decent enough, the Tufts seniors who occupied it a pleasant bonus. Their names were Jessica, Dorothy, and Kelly. All three were Asian-American and under five-foot-two. I expected them to slam the door in my face when they saw me, but they seemed unfazed, giggling to one another as they showed me the empty room. Its walls were off-white, thin enough to put my fist through. It looked out on the loading dock of the neighborhood CVS. There were foam ceiling tiles but no overhead light. One of the girls offered me her spare halogen. I asked when I could move in. They appeared relieved. With the rent coming due, they were happy to have found a replacement for their last roommate. They neglected to mention why he’d left, and in my haste, I neglected to ask.
Soon enough I got my comeuppance. Jessica, Dorothy, and Kelly looked benign, and for the most part they were. Two (I forget which) were pre-med, and one was studying to become an actuary. They kept the bathroom cleaner than I had the right to expect. They asked courteous questions about my work, responding with girlish squeals when I described Alma. On the phone, they spoke to their parents in Korean or Vietnamese. Elfin, blithe, button-cute, they might have been summer camp counselors, save for the transformation that took place at dusk, when all three turned into braying nymphomaniacs.
I’m big. But the men they brought home were positively grotesque. They looked like Belgian Blue cattle. If I ran into one in the hallway I’d have to press myself up against the wall to allow him by. They doused themselves in Gold Bond; they urinated all over the toilet seat; they paraded around shamelessly in ratty boxer-briefs flecked with dried semen. One such behemoth, coming out of the bathroom to find me waiting in my bathrobe, shower caddy in hand, whispered, snickering,
“Damn, bro. Talk about a screamer.”
“Excuse me,” I said.
In daylight, the girls seemed so wholesome. What did they say during those conversations in Vietnamese and Korean? Dearest mother and father, I wish you to know that I crave a limitless supply of linebacker penis? Already I’d paid a full month’s rent, making it impossible for me to move out without either returning to Drew’s or asking Alma for an advance—options foreclosed by both etiquette and common sense.
So instead I lay in my newly rented room, on my newly purchased air mattress, gripping my newly purchased cotton jersey sheets, stomach roiling as I listened to the ear-splitting animal passion of my newly acquired roommates. What sleep I did get was unsatisfying, punctuated as it was by episodes of heart-stopping wakefulness when Jessica or Dorothy or Kelly found her joy. I tried earplugs, but the sensation unnerved me; it was like trying to fall asleep while drowning. Worse, once knowledge of what was happening a mere ten feet away had taken root in my brain, I started hearing their moans all the time, even when I knew the apartment to be unoccupied. Nightly the wail of bedsprings started up, and I prayed to the half-head on my windowsill for reprieve. What would Friedrich do?
Alma asked if I was ill.
“I don’t wish to pry,” she said.
No doubt ill was her polite way of saying that I looked like road-kill. I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in three weeks. I was exhausted, my concentration slipping. And that morning I felt acutely uncomfortable in her presence, owing to a nightmare still steaming at the back of my mind.
It took place in the main reading room at Widener. Across from me sat a smiling Alma. What shall we talk about today, Mr. Geist?
I told her that I had come unprepared.
Ach, she said. In that case, let us table the debate.
She took off her clothes and we began to make love.
The strangest part was that while her face looked the same, her body was that of a young woman. More precisely, I should say that she, her dream-presence, seemed to drift back and forth between old age and youth: skin going slack, then tight; strength surging and receding. Her perfume, which normally I thought of as matronly, now carried a raw, musky undertone. She began to moan, softly at first, then growing louder and louder, and making things shake, and bringing books crashing down from the shelves, and chairs rattling, and the entire room spinning, picking up momentum, bulging at the walls, spinning, spinning like a centrifuge until in one mind-cleaving instant it broke apart, flinging wood and paper and flesh off into the infinite emptiness, which echoed with her screams.
Now, sitting with the real Alma, I struggled to suppress that image.
I said only that my new roommates weren’t ideal, and that I was looking for another apartment. She nodded, and that seemed to end the matter.
A week later, however, she asked how my search was coming. I told her there was a shortage of vacancies. “Maybe I’ll have better luck when the semester ends.”
“That seems a long time to live in discomfort.”
“I don’t really have a choice.”
“One always has a choice,” she said. “If I may? Allow me to propose a solution.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Live here.”
“Beg pardon?”
“There is a room in the back,” she said. “You may have it, if you wish.”
I smiled. “That’s very kind of you to offer.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Yes, but—and let me first say, thank you very, very much—but I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because ... I mean, I can’t. That’s incredibly kind of you. It really is. I appreciate it. But I can’t just move in.”
“You certainly can.”
Back and forth we went for several minutes.
“Look, it’s very tempting.” For some reason, I was doing my best to come up with objections. “I mean, I couldn’t afford a fair market rent.”
“Then you may live here free of charge.”
“Absolutely n—”
She raised a finger. “Provided that you discharge certain duties.”
“... such as?”
“Continue our conversations. I may ask you to carry out the occasional small task. To move something heavy, for instance. Should the need arise.”
“Ms. Spielmann—”
“Mr. Geist. Please. There’s no need to stand on ceremony.”
I thought. “I don’t know. I mean—well. Look. What about your health.”
“As I’ve told you, my condition is painful but not dangerous. You may speak to my physician if you’d like; she will tell you the same. She comes bimonthly. My health shall be her concern, not yours.”
For all her assurances, I had a hard time believing that she wouldn’t come to rely on me for more basic needs. I didn’t want to become a maid. Then I wondered if I was being overly cynical. Could I not see authentic generosity for what it was?
“Naturally, you will still need pocket money. Let us say this: in addition to room and board, the fee for your services shall include a small stipend—say, two hundred dollars a week?”
Considering the cost of housing, I’d be getting a big raise, even without the cash. And I would be living in central Cambridge, rather than two T stops out. But what if Alma changed her mind, grew to dislike me? I’d find myself out on the street again, without any job at all. I said this to her.
“You must learn to hold yourself in higher regard, Mr. Geist.”
I still couldn’t bring myself to say yes. I kept seeing flashes of her, nude and writhing—not a dream I wanted to fa
ce ever again. I’m trained to be able to prove or disprove anything, and I felt myself stretching to build a case against her.
She said, “You can’t make a proper decision until you’ve had the full tour.” She stood up. “Come.”
8
Though I had been coming to Alma’s nearly every day for six weeks, I had never ventured beyond the living room, using a powder room off the entry hall as needed. The other four-fifths of the house remained a mystery to me.
Thus it was that I followed her toward the kitchen with a sense of high anticipation. Unreasonably high. It was a kitchen, after all, not a dungeon or a seraglio; although, unlike many Cambridge kitchens, which have been outfitted with stainless-steel appliances and modern fixtures, Alma’s hadn’t been touched in forty years. The oven was no bigger than an average microwave and painted dark brown to match the cabinets. As for an actual microwave, there was none. On the stovetop sat a much-used kettle, scorch marks licking up around its bottom edge. I saw a breadbox, a toaster oven, a small transistor radio, a chipped crock with four or five utensils, and several bars of chocolate. A rotary telephone hung over the breakfast table.
“I confess that I am not much of a cook. The market round the corner comes once a week. Tomorrow is their day. Should you choose to accept, I shall telephone them and add to my regular order the things you like to eat.” She unwrapped one of the chocolate bars and broke off a piece for me. “My sole vice. I order it from Zurich.”
“Delicious,” I said. (It was.)
“The washing machine and dryer are through there. The housekeeper handles my laundry. She ought to be more than capable of handling yours as well.”
“You’re making it harder and harder to say no.”
“My aim precisely,” she said.
We returned to the living room, crossing to the second door and arriving in a darkened corridor, where she paused at the foot of the stairs.
“My suite is on the second floor, along with the television room. Should you wish, I can purchase a set for your private use.”
“I don’t think I’d need it.”
“Very well. I must make another confession: I do love certain programs. I hope you shan’t judge me harshly for it.”
I smiled. “No.”
“Perhaps I can induce you to join me, then.”
“I’ll try anything once.”
She winked and beckoned me on.
We came first to a linen closet (“You may have it entirely”), then to a tall room, octagonal in shape. The curtains admitted a shaft of midafternoon sun, which alighted on a music stand displaying Sibelius’s Humoresque No. 6 in G Minor. A violin case rested against a freestanding record player; a chickenwire cabinet housed LPs; over the arm of the loveseat was draped a large woolen blanket.
“My mother knitted that for me when I was a child,” she said. “These days I find it oppressively hot. Nevertheless, it brings back pleasant memories.”
She went for the violin case. My first instinct was to get it for her. Then I decided that this would be a good test of whether she intended me to function as a home helper. I held my ground, pleased to see that she bent and stood up with ease, placing the case on the loveseat. Inside was a violin with an unusual finish, red approaching purple. This she set aside, opening a hidden compartment in the case and taking out a black-and-white photograph of a man with a Vandyke.
“My father,” she said.
Rough, square, he had none of Alma’s delicacy. I found her, rather, in his enigmatic expression. Neither smile nor frown, it signaled that its bearer was about to pounce; in many hours of conversation, I had been its recipient (victim?) many times.
She looked at the photo a moment longer before putting it away. “Onward.”
Ahead, the corridor forked. We went first to the left, coming to a pair of doors.
“Your bathroom,” she said.
The chief draw was the tub—clawfooted and deep. As a boy, I’d loved to read in the bath. I felt my resistance weakening.
“I must tell Daciana to clean,” Alma said. “She neglects this part of the house. My apologies. This would be your room.”
Two rooms, actually, a bedroom opening onto an office, neither one individually large, but taken together quite livable. Alma switched on the light and I saw a queen-sized bed, tightly made; a highboy; a nightstand with reading lamp. Typical of an old Victorian, the ceilings were low, with crown moldings. I stepped down into the office, which was wainscoted and furnished with a writing desk, matching chair, and slightly threadbare chaise longue.
“There is no telephone here. I hope you shan’t find it inconvenient to use the one in the kitchen.”
I nodded, taking it all in. The door that opened onto the back porch was inset with a leaded window. Most of the panes were clear, but one had been painted. I looked closer: a tiny hunting scene, a man and a dog watching a clearing in the forest, the forequarters and head of a buck visible through the foliage. Its whispers of craftsmanship, of history, enticed me. Through it I saw the pair of rattan chairs, the quince tree, the yard with its thin snow cover. My mind skipped ahead to warmer months; with her permission, I could put up a hammock.... Most of all I relished the silence. I could hear the lightbulbs burning.
“I think a small portable heater might be in order,” she said. “Otherwise I trust it meets your needs.”
I nodded again.
“Very well. Now, if you’ll permit me, I should like to show you one more thing.” She headed back into the hall. “I do believe this shall seal your fate.”
AS WE MOVED DOWN the other fork, the darkness seemed to congeal, and I touched the wall to steady myself. Up ahead I heard a key in a lock, and then came a gush of warm yellow light. I stepped into a room about thirty-five feet square. Only later would I realize that it had once been several rooms, whose combined space accounted for nearly half the house’s footprint. At the time I was too dazzled by the abundance of riches: a spectacular herringboned floor; a bloodred Persian carpet; a cavernous fireplace outfitted with brass horsehead andirons; a grandfather clock; a globe; an antique rolltop secretary; lamps with brilliantly colored shades; foot-high sculptures in marble and bronze, Athena and Ulysses and others I could not identify; a pair of sumptuous easy chairs; between them, a round table with a leather top and brass nailheads—and above all, books. Thousands of books, the shelves jammed floor to ceiling, making up the most splendid jewel-box library I had ever seen.
“Do come in,” she said.
I wandered about, dazed. Many of the spines had faded. Of those I could read, about half were in German, the rest a mix of English, French, Latin, and Greek. Philosophy, literature, music, science, architecture, history, the shelves labeled and numbered in a spidery hand. In the corner stood an old-fashioned card catalog. This was the only part of the house that wasn’t ice-cold-to protect the paper from drying out, I would learn—and its rich woods and plush fabrics and intimacy enwombed me instantly.
“The work took two years,” she said. “These days I doubt I’d have the patience.”
I stood before the fireplace. The surrounding wall had been left free of shelving, lined instead with a green silk jacquard. The fabric was hardly visible, as most of the space above the mantel was taken up by a painting of a raven perched atop a skull perched atop a stack of books. A twig in its mouth, its head thrown back haughtily, the bird made a somber counterpoint to the lurid parakeets in the living room.
Around the painting hung several dozen photographs. Alma in a summer dress. With her father in a rowboat. Posing on a Viennese thoroughfare, blurry trams and women in high hats. Riding a bicycle. Among friends, six girls gathered around a pot of fondue, a pair of snowshoes hanging on the wall. Faces and places and laughter; a life, framed. I was spellbound. I wanted to ask about every one of them. All I managed to get out, though, was,
“Is that Heidegger?”
I didn’t need to ask. The old potato-faced sourpuss: I knew it was him. Occupying the better part
of a stone archway, hat in hand, and on his left, close enough for their arms to be touching, Alma.
“Indeed. That was a good time for him; he’d lost weight.” She laughed. “Martin never was one for exercise.”
Martin? Where was I? Who was this person? I looked at her, but she just smiled, Sphinx-like.
“So, now, Mr. Geist, my case is made. Whether I have made it successfully is up to you.” She opened her arms. “Do you need a moment to consider your decision?”
THE GIRLS WERE SAD to see me go. I promised to let them know if I heard about anyone who needed a room (and, I added to myself, was deaf).
“Where are the rest of your things?” Alma asked.
“This is it.”
“Mr. Geist. I hadn’t realized you were a monk.”
“Kyrie eleison.”
“Small c, if you don’t mind.”
On my bed she had laid out a pair of bath towels and a washcloth. “I shall instruct Daciana to change your linens when she comes.”
“Thank you so much.”
“You are quite welcome.”
My clothing fit in the highboy with room to spare. This was a good thing, as the closet turned out to be unusable, taken up by file boxes. As I set up my computer, I realized that I hadn’t bothered to consider whether she had an Internet connection. Of course not. I almost asked if I could get one, then reconsidered. I’d wait until my tenancy was more secure before I started making special requests.
I suppose I should’ve felt uncomfortable with Alma watching me unpack. But it felt like the most natural thing in the world, the two of us together.
“Your dissertation,” she said.
“In all its splendor.” I opened the closet and stuck the manuscript on a high shelf.
“Perhaps I shall read it on the sly,” she said.
“At your own risk. Remember what happened to my first advisor.”
The Executor Page 7