FOUR KINGS: A Novel

by M. D. Elster

  I study the pages to either side, thinking of what was printed on the page that was torn out. It’s the second-to-last page from my favorite fairytale, the one about the fox-prince, the fairytale I had wanted my mother to read, once upon a time — my pleas for her to consider the merits of the story in earnest interrupted by the sound of thousands of German storm-troopers, all goose-stepping in rhythm.

  After flipping forwards and backwards through the book, after several minutes of gazing at the pages and not really seeing them (I have every line and curve in their illustrations memorized in any case), I slip the book back into its usual spot on the shelf, and think of how to proceed.

  There is a reason Colette does not want me to see that room — my stepfather’s office. I can’t imagine what she believes I’ll see there, or what she thinks I’ll remember. I decide: I will wait until nightfall, until I am certain Colette is in bed, and then I will sneak downstairs to investigate my stepfather’s office for myself.

  It is an evening that stretches my patience to its utmost limits. It feels like forever as I wait for Colette to retire to her room. Finally, she does, which only means I must wait some more. A thin bar of golden electric light blazes from underneath her door for an hour or two, and I can hear her humming along to records on the record player: Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, Dinah Washington, Frank Sinatra. Finally, her room goes quiet and the bar of light under her door vanishes, clicking off all at once, a vacuous blackness filling its place.

  I make my way on tiptoe, conscious of every creak and groan of the stairs. Downstairs, everything is very still; it is stuffy and stagnant, as if the molecules of air have been frozen into place by some kind of science fiction ray gun. The temperature is neither cold nor hot, the only sound is the ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall, its steady, low cluck…cluck…cluck. At the bottom of the stairs, I peek into the sitting room, where earlier I glimpsed a tarp over the gaping hole in the roof. The tarp has blown away, I see, and the hole offers a view of the now-windless, starry night sky. It is oddly mesmerizing, seeing the night sky while technically indoors. If I had more time and less worries, I would lie down on one of the leather sofas and while away the remainder of the night by watching for shooting stars. But time is precisely what I feel I don’t have.

  I move quickly down the corridor to the left of the stairs, to the door of my stepfather’s study. It’s a beautifully carved door: ornate and heavy, made of polished mahogany. It strikes me as strangely familiar — this sneaking out of bed, downstairs, and to a large, fanciful, imposing door. I reach for the knob and attempt to turn it… but to my surprise, I find it locked. Colette must have locked it, hoping to keep me out. Stretching on tiptoes, I slip a hand over the dusty molding of the lintel until my fingers feel something metal there: My stepfather’s spare key. Colette missed it, or else never knew about its existence. I put the key in the lock and cautiously turn the doorknob, uncertain what to expect on the other side. The door swings open on mercifully silent hinges.

  For several minutes I stand stock-still, staring into the darkness of the room that lies within. I experience a curious sensation of dread. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I feel an inexplicable sudden chill.

  I contemplate closing the door, locking it back up again, and sneaking quietly back upstairs to where my warm bed is waiting for me. But then, something stirs overhead; I imagine I hear footsteps in Colette’s bedroom, and in a blink of an eye, I dash into my stepfather’s study to hide and close the door behind me.

  Once inside, I am surrounded by the humidity trapped in the house, somehow rendered even thicker in the confines of the close, velvety darkness of the room. The air is laced with a familiar scent: My stepfather’s library of books, the musk of tanned leather upholstery, the oddly gamey scent of the ink he kept in the crystal inkwell on his desk, boxes upon boxes of the Montecristos and Quinteros he often smoked. There is an unfamiliar smell in the air, too… something metallic — is that… iron? I don’t want to switch on the electric lights; I can only imagine the long rectangle of light that the overhead chandelier will throw from the window. The glow of it upon the bushes, upon the lawn, might just be enough to alert Colette. Leaving the lights off, I feel around my stepfather’s desk, knowing where he often left the silver-plated lighter he bought long ago at Tiffany’s. It was an elegant lighter, a lighter he often used to toast his cigars.

  Luckily enough, as I blindly feel about, my hand hits upon the lighter’s cold metal casing. I grab it, flip the lid, and thumb the rough edges of the wheel within, desperate to be out of the pitch black that surrounds me. The room materializes in shades of orange and long, dancing shadows. There are a few candles on the mantle above the fireplace, I notice, and cautiously, I light one, carrying the candlestick with me.

  Hmm. The room, I realize, is a proper mess. Drawers are pulled out from my father’s desk and the crystal inkwell is toppled over on his leather blotter. A very old oil painting hanging on one wall (a portrait of a fox escaping a group of hunters, a painting he successfully brought over from Europe with great care) hangs askew on one wall. Everything in the room suggests that someone has been here, rifling its contents, looking for something… but who? Colette?

  I am deep in contemplation when my eyes come to rest upon the expensive Oriental rug beneath my feet. I know it to be a rug of peacock-greens, dark blues, pristine whites, and chocolate browns. I gasp, horrified to see the enormous stain and comprehend that I am seeing blood. On the edges, it has turned a muddy rusty color. But in the center, it is still crimson, still terrifying. I realize: This is the source of the iron scent I smell. And it is the place where my stepfather must have fallen — bleeding profusely, I imagine, and judging by the size of the stain — after being shot, grappling with death and coming within an inch of losing his life. I stare at the large, irreparable blemish in the Oriental rug, my stomach sour and twisting all the while.

  The reality of what happened to my stepfather, of the fact that someone attempted to take his life, is suddenly very present with me in the room, and once again, I feel an unsettling chill.

  I don’t know what else to do, so I begin to search the room. I search sporadically at first, but then, after a spell, I gather my senses. I make-believe I am a detective, and begin to tackle the room with a methodical approach. I can hardly say what I am looking for; perhaps it is more a question of trying to find exactly that item my predecessor was also trying to find. Whoever rifled the room was desperate to find something.

  I am also experiencing a strange sensation of déjà vu. My head hurts; I stifle a groan and wince with pain. The painting… my mind nags at me… there’s some business about the painting. I pad quietly over to the painting to inspect it closer. It is hanging quite askew, and I reach out a hand to right it, but the feel of its lightweight frame is familiar, and I have an impulse to lift the painting off the wall altogether. After a few seconds of deliberation, I follow through; it lifts up and away easily. I lean it against the leg of a nearby armchair. A thin breeze kicks up — ever so light — in the otherwise deathly still air of my stepfather’s study. The flame flickers at the tip of the candle, and shadows dance around the room. I worry I am about to see my stepfather’s ghost, and have to remind myself that he’s quite alive.

  With the painting removed, I stare at the wall where the oil portrait formerly hung, and realize I am looking at a panel with a tiny door cut into it. Though he has never alerted me to its presence before, though he has never shown me this hidden place within his study, immediately I know: This is my stepfather’s safe.

  It is unlocked; the safe door is ever so slightly ajar. I hook one finger inside and tip it further open. Again, I experience a feeling of déjà vu, and also again, my head hurts and I wince and bare my teeth against the pain. But despite the uncanny feeling of déjà vu, there is nothing to explain it, for there is nothing inside the safe. Did Jules steal something from my stepfather? Whoever rifled the room prior to
my investigation must’ve found what he was looking for — but… what could that possibly be?

  I am tired, and more than a little rattled. Adrenaline is pumping through my veins; my hands shake and I jump with every tiny noise. I sit down on a small dark brown leather settee and try to think. There is something more than I am remembering: Something more about this room, about my stepfather, about the hidden safe. Was I in this room on the night of the hurricane? I must have been — I can remember a gun going off, I can remember seeing a muzzle flash, and smelling something… sulfur? I must’ve been in this very room, the very night it was ransacked! Why can’t I remember?

  I curse under my breath, and make one last hopeless sweep of the room. I cannot remember anything about this room in connection with that night. My mind is useless. It may as well consist of marbles! Now I understand the roots of the old saying; it certainly feels like there is a bunch of marbles idly rolling around inside my head, scattering and getting lost, driving me crazier than I already am.

  And then, just as I am about to give up and tiptoe my way back upstairs, I see it: A tiny square of some kind of paper, poking out from beneath the upholstered skirt of a nearby armchair. I kneel, and fish it out from its hiding place.

  As soon as I get a better look at it, my blood runs cold.

  I know immediately what this is: This is the torn-out page that once belonged to my book of Flemish fairytales. I recognize the tint of the illustrations; illustrations are what made the book so expensive, and here someone tore out this page, seemingly on purpose. It is folded up into a tiny rectangle.

  Very slowly, I unfold the rectangle and flatten out the page, smoothing it on a sofa cushion, pressing it with the flats of my hands. For reasons I still can’t quite explain, I already know what I will find on this page: My mother’s handwriting, scrawled in blue ink.

  And there it is. I gasp. Anaïs, ma chère … it reads, and then abruptly switches to Flemish. Not my mother’s native tongue, but one she spoke well enough. A language she knew I shared with my father, long ago, back in the Blue Forest. Please, my dear, keep this quiet, and keep calm. Do not let anyone know what I have told you. My first warning here is the most important: You cannot trust your stepfather… the scribbled message continues, but I don’t need to read any further; I am now one-hundred percent certain I have read this before.

  “Argh — ow!” I suck air through my teeth and reach a reactionary hand to my temple. My head hurts again — this time, because the memories are flooding back to me: Memories of the first night I found this page. Memories of the last time I saw my mother. Memories of the night of the hurricane.

  And all at once, I remember everything. A strange calm comes over me as I realize: I know who shot my stepfather.

  CHAPTER 37.

  I wait until I can see the ghostly blue of early dawn tinting my bedroom window. The night has passed, but I haven’t slept a wink; I was too afraid I might close my eyes and forget it all. Once you have lost your memories and recovered them again, you realize how precious they are. I am also up early because I know what I must do, and I still need to avoid Colette, insofar as it is possible while occupying the same house.

  Before Colette has risen, I go downstairs and lift the telephone receiver. The Operator connects me; I suppose I ought to be surprised when Mr. Duval answers on the first ring, but I am not. He strikes me as the kind of tightly wound lawyer who lives on stale coffee and doesn’t sleep at all when he’s prosecuting a hot court case. I picture him practicing all night in a mirror, delivering his opening and closing statements to an imaginary jury, trying on different ties.

  I was originally scheduled to testify today, but now they’ve scheduled my stepfather instead.

  “Of course you know things have changed in recent days. If your stepfather’s own account goes over well, we may not even need to call you to the stand,” Mr. Duval tells me over the phone. He sounds impatient. He is surprised to hear my voice; I can tell he wants to get me off the line as soon as possible so he can go back to preparing, practicing, dressing. I hear the telltale, tiny, lip-smacking sounds as he desperately makes his way through a cigarette in what I can only guess is record time.

  “I’ve remembered the night of the hurricane,” I say. “I remember every detail from that night. My memory has come back to me — all of it. I promise you, I can give extremely clear, detailed testimony if you call me today.”

  “Hmm,” he says, and it is as if I can hear his brain ticking away. “Now that your stepfather is awake, lucid, and able to appear, I was leaning towards leaving you off the witness stand,” he says. “We haven’t really rehearsed you properly — you didn’t exactly inspire confidence during our visits. And the defense is liable to bring up the fact you’ve been in a loony bin, you know…”

  I bristle at the words ‘loony bin,’ but brush this off.

  “Listen, he’s the only parent I have left,” I say. “He brought me here from Europe during the war. My memory of the night of the hurricane is crystal clear. I can identify the killer with absolutely no hesitation, and that has to count for something…”

  “Well,” Mr. Duval considers. “You do make a good point. When I think about pairing your testimony with your stepfather’s, well, the loony bin thing might not kill us in the water. Jurors will find you very sympathetic. If you were to literally point a finger at the man who shot the only guardian you have left… well, that’s good stuff. And the more I think about it, the defense would be a fool to go after you too harshly. Hmm… yes, all right. I can see there might be an advantage to calling you first, and then your stepfather second to cinch the deal. Are you sure, though, that you’re up to this, that your memory is solid, that I can rely on you to deliver clear, concise answers — the ones I tell you to give?”

  “I’m sure,” I say.

  “Well… all right then. I’ll consider calling you to the stand. If things start to go sideways, I can always end the questioning, lickety-split. And like I said, the defense would be an idiot to go after you on the stand — why, with all your suffering and mental distress, you’re as much of a victim of this shooting as your stepfather.”

  “That is true,” I say.

  He suggests we both arrive at the courthouse early, just so he can get a good look at me (to ensure I’m not behaving erratically and I look the proper part, I assume), and more importantly so we can go over a few of the particulars of the questions he’ll ask and how I am to respond.

  “Wear something nice — not too grown-up, you know?” he says. I ask him what he means. “We want to remind the jury that you’re still a young girl, not an adult, right? Think Snow White. Say, your school require you to wear a uniform?”

  I agree to iron the outfit and wear it to court.

  “Thank you, Mr. Duval,” I say. “This opportunity means everything to me. I will ask Colette to have the driver bring me over early.” I say goodbye and hang up the phone.

  “Early?” I hear a voice behind me. I whirl around and see Colette standing in front of me in her nightgown and robe. She looks as though she hasn’t slept a wink, either. She reaches for the pot of coffee that the maid prepared twenty minutes earlier. “Why does Mr. Duval want us to arrive at the courthouse early?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, shrugging. “But he only means me.”

  She pauses, right in the middle of pouring her coffee, and looks at me. Her forehead wrinkles with concern. She frowns.

  “You’re going to the hospital, aren’t you? — to help the orderlies transport my stepfather to the courthouse?” I say.

  “Yes…” she answers hesitantly.

  “Well, then, I’ll have Émile drive me, and meet you there.”

  She appears to consider this, although “consider” may be the wrong word for it, because she looks as though she is trying to devise a way to veto this arrangement.

  “I’m not a child,” I remind her.

  Colette sighs. “All right,” she rel
ents. But it is written all over her face: She is terrified. “Anaïs, is he going to put you on the stand?” she calls after me, but I have already left the kitchen and don’t call back a response, knowing she is too frightened to repeat the question or press the matter any further.

  I iron my uniform, put it on. I comb my wispy blonde hair so that it lies neatly around my face and clip it back at the temples with two barrettes. The part-time chauffeur — Émile — drives me to the courthouse, where Mr. Duval scrutinizes my appearance and gives his approval. He pretends to give his approval begrudgingly, but I can tell he is bluffing; he is delighted by the youthful effect of my uniform, of my pale blonde hair, of my knee-socks, of my barrettes. We go over my testimony.

  Of course… everything I tell him, everything we practice… I have other ideas in mind for my actual testimony.

  We run out of time after about an hour — the clock strikes nine and it’s time for court to be called into session — but Mr. Duval seems satisfied with the content and clarity of my answers. He makes me memorize a few tips: The pitch and tone of my voice, when to look at the jury and when not to, the proper demeanor to adopt when pointing out Jules as the attempted killer.

  “Will he go away for very long?” I ask as Mr. Duval picks up his briefcase and ushers me towards the courtroom.