by Chase Novak
The stair creaks beneath her weight. Cynthia stops, waits, listens. This time she does not call out her sister’s name but proceeds again toward the house’s second story, one stealthy footstep at a time. But when she is halfway up, something stops her. A sound. From below. What is it? Barking? A human cry? She turns. Waits.
Adam and Alice make their way through Central Park, heading toward the Upper East Side for no better reason than they are marginally more familiar with that part of the city. It is not even noon, but it looks as if evening has already rolled over the city. Dark, heavy clouds hover threateningly over the defiant spires of the great apartment houses on either edge of Central Park. Rain? Snow?
Alice shivers, and Adam puts his arm over her shoulders as they bow their heads and walk quickly into the wind. A woman in high-heeled boots has just had her umbrella flip inside out and she turns in a circle trying to get it under her control, as if the broken black thing were going wild with the pain of its own brokenness.
“Are you okay?” Adam asks his sister.
“I’m okay. Are you?”
“I wonder where we’re going.”
Alice smiles; this somehow strikes her as funny. “I wonder too,” she says.
After a few moments of silence, Alice says, “Mom and Dad aren’t like those two up on the balcony.”
“I guess not.”
“I still think they’re nice,” Alice says.
“Me too,” says Adam. “Most of the time. But you know what?”
“What?”
“We can never go back.”
Suddenly, they stop in their tracks. They both see it—the dark, windblown, somehow familiar silhouette of a man at the crest of a hill not more than fifty feet away from them.
“Fucking fuck,” Adam whispers.
Alice squints. Her nostrils dilate as she cranes her neck forward.
“It’s not him,” she says.
As the man jogs past, it becomes obvious it’s not him, and they hold hands and run, laughing, their hair streaming behind them in the cold wind as they move like beautiful wild creatures across the park. Not him! Not him!
They don’t speak of it, but they veer in a northerly direction as they continue their dash toward the Upper East Side, heading toward Berryman Prep, though they could not say why. Neither of them believes that this will be a safe place for them. If their parents are not sitting there at this very moment waiting for them, then they will surely come by at some point. Or someone from the school will call them. Do they think that Michael Medoff can somehow help them? Not really. They are not thinking of anything in particular. They are cold, they are tired, they feel frightened and alone, and they are heading toward their school because it is a weekday and that is where they belong. What they would really like to do is go home. They would even like to be locked into their rooms. They want to see their parents—even as they run from them. But all of that is wrecked, all of it is impossible. So they are running toward school because right now they simply don’t know where else to go.
In all the many times Cynthia has been in this house, she has never been in the cellar—why would she? Yet now here she stands. A door beneath the staircase. She puts her ear to it—silence. But she waits until she hears it. A low, rumbling growl. She turns the engraved copper doorknob—but it won’t budge. She twists it back and forth—but it is locked tightly.
She knocks against the old, heavy wood. “Hello?”
And sure enough: barks rise up, exhausted and hopeless, the calls of animals who have barked and barked and now assume no one will ever hear or care but who must bark nevertheless.
But wait… There is something else. Another sound. Another kind of sound. A sound within those sounds. A human voice.
With ever more urgency, she tries to open the door. Key… key… Where would the logical hiding place be? She reaches as high as her arm can stretch and feels along the crown molding over the door frame, the invisible dust like seal skin. She feels the cool metal teeth of a large, old-fashioned key.
Without meaning to, she brushes it off its perch, and it rattles to the floor, skitters along the bare wood, and comes to rest somewhere beneath an old, vaguely Victorian table upon which Leslie and Alex have piled hundreds of pieces of mail, everything from catalogs and magazines to Con Ed bills.
The dogs below begin barking with renewed vigor. But where has the key gone? It’s shadowy beneath the stairs, and even in the bright part of the day it’s nearly dark here. Cynthia gets on her hands and knees and reaches beneath the table, blindly groping for the key. She sweeps her hand back and forth. Dust has accumulated here, as thick as the web of seeds inside a cantaloupe. “Acchh,” she says.
Her back is to the front door, so she does not see the wedge of light that has fallen over her, as long and narrow as a sword. She did not hear the opening of the front door, and she does not hear the footsteps drawing closer and closer to her. She has no idea that she is no longer alone.
Leslie is looming above her, her eyes yellow with rage.
Michael can no longer tolerate the lonely tension of sitting in his apartment waiting for someone to tell him something. He has called every hospital in the city. He has called a few of their friends, not one of whom seemed to grasp the severity of the situation—“You haven’t heard anything from Xavier, have you?” has been taken by all of them as pertaining to some huge domestic squabble rather than as the emergency Michael knows it is. He can also no longer tolerate the bored, bureaucratic tone of the cop who answers his calls at the precinct and who tells him to “Sit tight,” as if Michael’s nervousness was slightly annoying and possibly even getting in the way of the search for Xavier—a search that Michael is certain is not taking place. And, finally, he cannot tolerate the hourly phone calls from Rosalie, whose suspicions of disaster are, as time passes, even stronger than his own.
And so he walks the streets of his city. Where to look? There is no logical place. He stops in the Greek coffee shop they both like, and he hits a couple of similar establishments, the one they go to when the one they like is crowded, and the one they haven’t gone to since Xavier found an eyelash in the yolk of his poached egg. Nothing. Michael weaves in and out of shops—shoe stores, magazine stores—and he scours the faces of passersby, as if one of them might betray in a glance some knowledge of Xavier’s whereabouts.
He walks north, following the route of the Lexington Avenue subway line, which rumbles beneath him as he goes. He walks quickly, then slowly, then quickly again; a half hour passes, an hour. He pulls his cell phone out of his jacket and sees it is actually Xavier’s phone. He flips it open to see if anyone has called. Nothing, nada, bupkes… He calls the landline in the apartment. Nothing… He calls his own cell phone and listens to the ring, but, no, that’s intolerable. The thought of that phone ringing in Xavier’s pocket as Xavier lies—what? Dead? In someone else’s bed? Cuckoo in some clobbered amnesiac state? Intolerable… Michael stops, tries to catch his breath.
He forces himself to calm down. Nothing could be less productive than losing hope. When he finally takes a deep, normal breath he realizes he has walked all the way to Berryman Prep, its schizophrenic architecture—half of it was built in 1894 and half of it in 2007—carved against the steely sky.
Alex walks the streets of New York looking for any sign of his children. His eyes sweep the crowded sidewalks left to right. He sees everything and everyone. His jacket is unbuttoned. He takes deep sweet breaths and when he exhales, long plumes of exhaust stream from his nostrils.
He thinks of Xavier, whom he has already tasted, marinating in his own juice in the holding pen. The thought sends a shiver of delight through Alex, a ruffle of pleasure in the pit of his stomach. It reminds him of how he felt as a young, young man when he thought about having sex, and just the dream of it could send a fandango of sweet pleasure all the way through him, as true as a tuning fork; just the thought of it, the fantasy, the possibility… He stops. A memory! When was the last time he had a real
memory? When had his mind sifted through the debris of the past and found something to seize upon? Memories are what make us human… and he is having one.
But as quickly and unexpectedly as memory comes, it departs, leaving him blank, confused. He finds himself standing on the corner of Fifty-Seventh and Fifth, with the businesspeople and the shoppers and the blind pencil seller with his delicious-looking dog. Where am I? he thinks. He wipes his nose with his sleeve. Looks around. Oh, yes. It comes back. He must find his offspring.
Seeing her sister after all these years has jolted Leslie back to a state of near humanity, and she sits with her now in the kitchen, weeping openly, so overcome with sorrow, and worry, and a swirl of other, unnameable emotions that it is nearly impossible to speak.
Cynthia watches her sister weep into her own hands. She surveys the kitchen with ever-increasing revulsion and alarm. The sink is full of dirty dishes—no: filthy dishes. Dishes that might be impossible to scrape and get clean and would be better thrown away. The floor is not so much dirty as oily, greasy. It is a trial even to walk from one part of the kitchen to another. How do these people live like this? It’s no wonder the children have disappeared—they are hoping to escape the gross microbial infestation of this place! It’s a wonder they weren’t removed! The dopey calendar on the wall is a year out of date. The only nod toward an existence beyond sheer animal survival is a vase full of cut flowers, but even here the gesture has turned rancid: the flowers are dead and blackened, and the water in the vase is dark green and has a putrid smell.
How can Leslie—who as a girl refused to drink soda from a pop-top can because the tab went down into the can, possibly bringing with it an avalanche of germs—how can she live this way? How?
“I’ve tried so hard to be a good mother,” Leslie says.
“I know, I know,” Cynthia says, though the only knowledge she has of the quality of Leslie’s maternal efforts is the state of this house, which suggests the profoundest sort of neglect.
Leslie uncovers her face, slaps her hands once, rather briskly, against her cheeks. “You know, I never really wanted children.”
“I know. I didn’t either. We’re not the breeding kind, it seems.”
“But you stuck to your guns,” Leslie says.
“I didn’t have an Alex pressuring me.”
“We can’t blame Alex. People are when they are.”
Cynthia furrows her brow. People are when they are?
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“I mean where,” Leslie says. “No. Who.” She lowers her eyes. “I’m very tired.”
“What are the police saying?” Cynthia asks.
Leslie’s eyes widen, and she looks as if she is going to say something but stops herself. “Nothing,” she finally manages. She tries to look directly at her sister, but it is more than she can do. Her eyes, instead, take in the disorder of the room. “Sorry the place is such a mess,” she murmurs.
“Do you mind telling me what’s going on?” Cynthia says. “Where is all your stuff, for God’s sake?”
“Oh, Alex sold it. Most of it. Some of it… you know, just sort of wore out.”
“And do you mind telling me why Alex is suddenly selling antiques that have been in his family for generations?”
“Because we need money. Things aren’t going so well at work. For either of us, really. The economy and all. And this place… it’s expensive keeping it up.”
“Yes, I can imagine. You have a whole house in the middle of Manhattan. Why don’t you move to something smaller? An apartment.”
“Privacy, I guess. You can’t put a price on privacy.”
Suddenly, as if to prove her point, howls rise up through the floorboards, muffled, distant, but unmistakable.
“Leslie!” Cynthia says. “What the fuck?”
“What?” Leslie says, as if she cannot imagine what the matter might be.
“What do you have down there?”
“Oh, that… Yeah. Our dog. Some of the soundproofing came down. It’s so difficult getting people to do anything, and Alex and I have to do everything ourselves.”
“Why do you need soundproofing for a dog?”
“Well, yeah, dogs. More than one.”
“How many?”
“Two?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“Three,” Leslie says. She shifts in her chair. She swallows.
“What is going on here, Leslie? I am exhausted. I’ve come clear across the country. And I did it for you. I did it because you are my sister and I love you. I love you in spite of…” She gestures toward Leslie’s face, her body, to indicate the damage done. “But now I want some real answers.”
“Don’t pressure me, Cyn.”
“What am I hearing down there? That’s not two dogs, or three…”
“I feel cornered, Cyn.” A note of hysteria has entered Leslie’s voice. She flexes her hands, stretching her fingers to their full length, relaxing them, stretching them again.
“I’m asking you what’s going on.”
“You’re asking and asking and asking!” Leslie screams. She leaps up from her chair, and her eyes dart this way and that, as if she fears something is about to come after her, or perhaps she is looking for a way to escape.
“Leslie! Sit down. You’re acting—”
“Don’t tell me what to do! My children are missing.” Leslie picks up the vase filled with dead reeking flowers and throws it against the wall, smashing it to pieces. Her face is contorted, her eyes two red wounds. She lunges for the sink and begins to empty it, smashing cups glasses plate and platters. “My babies! My babies! I have to have my babies!”
Cynthia cringes in her chair and her heart begins to race. She covers her ears against the nerve-racking sounds of all that shattering glass combined with the wails of her distraught sister. And—what’s this? Howls from the cellar. Louder than before. Louder than ever, as if the beasts caged below are rising on a ladder made of their own yowling agony and will be in this very room in no time.
Suddenly, Leslie is still. Drool pours from her mouth. Her eyes are cast down, and she breathes heavily, trying to calm herself. Gradually, inch by inch, she lifts her eyes and turns to Cynthia. She is breathing through her mouth.
“Something’s happening,” she says.
“Leslie,” Cynthia says.
“Something’s happening.”
“Shhh… shhh… sit down.”
“I’m changing,” Leslie says. “Oh dear God, please help me.” She sits down and covers her face with trembling hands.
“Leslie!” Cynthia cries. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
But as suddenly as Leslie ceded control of herself to the hunger and the rage within, she regains her composure.
“I need you to do me a favor, Cynthia. And I know—believe me, I know—you do not owe me anything. I have been a horrible sister. I have been a monster.”
Cynthia’s eyes fill with tears. Despite everything, it’s unbearable to hear her sister talk like this.
“What do you want me to do, Leslie?”
Leslie wipes the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. Slowly, she rises from her chair and makes her way across the kitchen. She pulls one of the cupboard drawers out—but with so much vigor that the entire thing jumps out of its track and she is left holding it as various carving tools clatter onto the floor, making their terrible racket. Leslie reaches for the largest of the several knives and carries it back to the table.
It is deeply frightening to Cynthia to have her sister approaching her with a weapon, and she is only marginally less frightened when Leslie slaps the knife down onto the table.
“Pick it up,” Leslie says, sitting down.
“All right,” Cynthia says, grabbing the knife. She feels safer with the knife in her hands. The blade is two feet long, eight inches wide. It looks as if it was made to carve an elephant.
“Now what?” Cynthia asks.
“Use it.”
“I mean use it. On me. Get me out of this. Please.”
“Leslie. You’re not in your right mind.”
“Do you think I don’t know that? I lock my children in their rooms at night. And you want to know why? Because I’m terrified of what I will do if I see them.”
“What do you think you’ll do?”
“Devour them. Rip the flesh from their bones.” Leslie lifts her chin, pulls her shoulders back; there is a note of defiance in her voice. “And now they know it too. Kids, they know everything. You really should have had children, Cyn. It’s an amazing experience. There’s nothing like it.”
“This is crazy talk, Leslie. I’m going to get you some help.”
“There is no help for me, Cynthia. I can’t even kill myself. I need you to do it. I’m begging you. Please.”
“Leslie…”
“Just do it. You’ve got the knife. Now use it. Use it! Use it, you fucking stupid cow.”
By now, Leslie has risen from her chair. She seems almost to be levitating, riding the current of her own fury. Her eyes show no white whatsoever. The veins, stiff and straight as chopsticks, bulge from her neck, and her face is crimson. Afraid for her life, Cynthia clutches the knife tighter and holds the point toward her sister to stop her from getting any closer while Leslie lets loose with an unending and almost indecipherable torrent of obscene insults, calling into question everything about Cynthia—her looks, her fertility, her truthfulness, her smell.