Childgrave

by Ken Greenhall

  Harry was pleased. He usually looked through collections of prints pretty quickly, taking a telephone call or two in the process. But after looking at a couple of the spectral portraits, he told his secretary to hold his calls, and he looked through the rest of the series attentively.

  “Rich and famous,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “You, Jonathan. That’s what you’ve just become—rich and famous. There is no person on this earth who wouldn’t take some pleasure in looking at these pictures. Two beautiful subjects and some striking ghosts.” Harry fingered his ascot. “And, Jonathan, do I detect an angel? An angel?”

  “That’s how it looks to me.”

  “Rich and famous. God, I knew my good years were upon me. Amour, paternity, and now a heavenly being to represent. My Pommard goblet runneth over.”

  “So, what are your plans?”

  “Audacious. Simply audacious, Jonathan.”

  Harry’s secretary came in and said a Dr. Kammerman or something of the sort was in the waiting room.

  I asked Harry if he was ill.

  “Just a surfeit of joy,” he said, and stood up and went to the door with me. “Now that I’m about to become a father, you won’t misinterpret this, I trust, Jonathan.” And Harry kissed me on the cheek. “You go and seek your own pleasures now, dear boy. I’ll be in touch.”

  The only person in the waiting room was a no-longer-young man who seemed to be trying to relive the 1960s. It wasn’t just his ponytail hairdo and elaborately informal clothes that made him seem like a throwback; it was his expression of uncompromising earnestness, which recalled the burning of draft cards, university offices, and flags.

  I hurried gratefully into the duller Manhattan of the 1980s. I walked home, making plans to visit Sara’s apartment that night. A few minutes after I got to the apartment, the phone rang. For perhaps the first time since Nanny Joy had been with me, I picked up the receiver before she did. I was certain I would hear Sara’s voice.

  “Jon Brewster?”

  It wasn’t Sara’s voice. It was an earnest male voice. I wanted to hang up, but, instead, I said, “Yes.”

  “My name is Richard Kammerman. We almost met at Harry Bordeaux’s office this morning.”

  “Yes. You’re the doctor who makes office calls.”

  “It’s not M.D., it’s Ph.D.—psychology. But listen, Jon, Harry showed me the spectral portraits, and they really wigged me out.”

  Among the things that irritate me are Ph.D.’s who use outdated slang and people who call me by my first name before they’ve met me. I decided I didn’t have anything to say to Dr. Kammerman. But, as I suspected, he had a few more depressing remarks to make.

  “Bill Freedman wants me to do a little essay on the portraits for the catalog he’s going to pass out at your show.”

  “Are you a photography critic?”

  “No, Jon. My thing is psychical research.”

  “I’m afraid your thing doesn’t interest me very much, Mr. Kammerman. I told Bill I don’t want essays about the show—especially your kind.”

  “This is dynamite stuff, Jon. Absolutely the best spectral photographs ever—and I’ve seen them all. They’re too good, man. Nobody’s going to believe them unless somebody like me certifies them. I just want to talk to you and your daughter and the woman in the pictures.”

  “That’s out of the question. Why don’t you just go back to your laboratory and do some telepathy?”

  “You’re skeptical, Jon. I understand that; I deal with that all the time.”

  “I’m not skeptical about people who do things; I’m skeptical about people who explain things. I’m going to talk to Harry Bordeaux now and have him call you off.”

  I broke the connection and started to dial Harry. Then I noticed my hand was trembling. Why was I so upset? Why was I afraid of Kammerman? He was obnoxious, but no more so than a lot of other people I had managed to deal with in a calm and rational way. Obviously, I wasn’t as upset by Kammerman himself as by the actions he was likely to take. I didn’t want him talking to Joanne and Sara—but was I trying to keep him from finding out certain things, or was I trying to keep myself from finding them out? Was it a case of what you don’t know won’t hurt you?

  I realized that a delicate balance was developing in my life. Sara and Joanne and I were making one another happy, and if that meant we had to close our eyes to certain things, so be it.

  I called Harry and told him to get Kammerman to leave us alone. Harry warned me that I was cutting down on my chances of becoming rich and famous, but I told him I was willing to make that sacrifice.

  It wasn’t until Joanne got home from school that I realized I had made a big mistake in my handling of Kammerman. Joanne was looking a little glum, and I asked her what the trouble was.

  “They’re all gone,” she said.

  “What’s all gone?”

  “Colnee and the other people. They went away.”

  At first that sounded like good news to me. Joanne had become so devoted to her invisible friends that she had begun to neglect the real world. I didn’t want her to spend the rest of her life in bed, shivering and muttering.

  “That’s all right, sweetie,” I said. “You’ve still got a lot of friends. You’ve got me, and Nanny, and everybody at school, and Miss Coleridge.”

  And then I made the disturbing connection. Did we still have Sara? It was Sara who had brought Colnee. Maybe it was Sara who had taken her away. I turned Joanne over to Nanny Joy, and I went out and got into a cab and headed for Sara’s apartment.

  Pamela Kim let me in. She looked a little flustered.

  “Is Sara here?” I asked.

  Pamela shook her head.

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “She went away, Jonathan.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know. She packed her things and left. All she said was that she was going home.”

  “Where is that?”

  “No idea. She never talked about that kind of thing.”

  I pushed Pamela out of the way and went into Sara’s part of the apartment. Her room looked pretty much the same as it had the first time I saw it. But it was so sparsely furnished that it would have been hard to tell if anyone was living there or not. The harp was still there, though; a large, gilded presence that dominated the room.

  Pamela had come into the room behind me. I said to her, “Sara will have to send for her harp, won’t she?”

  “No. She rented it. That’s what made me think there was something strange about her. A good musician gets very attached to her instrument. Playing a rented instrument is like sleeping with someone you picked up in a bar. Good musicians are usually too moral about their playing to do that.”

  Under other circumstances I might have been interested in what Pamela was saying, but at that time it just irritated me. Then I noticed that Pamela was holding a letter at her side. She raised her hand slowly, and I saw that the envelope had my name written on it. I took the letter and tore it open. Pamela left the room. I sat down and read the following words:

  Beloved Jonathan:

  I had a visit this morning from a Mr. (Dr.) Kammerman. He asked me a lot of questions—questions I didn’t answer—and it made me realize that my fondness for you and Joanne has caused me to make some major mistakes. It was a mistake for me to let you think we might be able to form any kind of permanent friendship. We don’t belong to the same world. For a time I thought I could live safely in—or at least on the edges of—your world, but the dangers and complexities are too great. If I had let our friendship develop, I would eventually have asked you to make a sacrifice—a series of sacrifices, some of them beyond what you could imagine. I would have asked you to give up your congenial, comfortable way of life.
>
  You are probably sweet enough (and frivolous enough) that you would have made the necessary sacrifices. But I don’t think you ever would have understood why they were necessary or what they signified.

  I hope you (or Mr. Kammerman) won’t try to find me. I plead with you not to try.

  Kiss Joanne for me.

  Good-bye,

  Sara

  I read the words twice, flinching and feeling as if someone were hitting me across the chest with a length of rubber hose. I put the letter in my pocket and let myself weep for a couple of minutes. Then I felt like destroying something, or someone—preferably creepy, meddling Dr. Kammerman. I wasn’t feeling well disposed toward Harry Bordeaux or Bill Freedman, either. But I decided the first thing to do was to find Sara, regardless of the instructions in her letter.

  I searched the room, frantically but thoroughly. The closet was empty except for a pair of shabby, low-heeled brown shoes. They had been made in Italy and sold in Manhattan; no clue to where else Sara might have lived. The drawers in her bureau held only a pair of white cotton gloves, strangely worn at the fingertips. Had she sometimes practiced her harp while wearing gloves? I was on my hands and knees, looking for something Sara might have dropped in packing, when Pamela came back into the room. I stood up, apparently looking a little dangerous, because Pamela backed away from me. “You really don’t have any idea where Sara is?” I asked.

  “No. I swear.”

  “Were you here when Dr. Kammerman showed up this morning?”

  “Yes. What an asshole he was.”

  That seemed like a fair appraisal. “Did you hear what they talked about?”

  “Most of it. He didn’t come in. I answered the door. He didn’t look like a doctor to me, so I kept the chain on the door and called Sara. She talked to him at the door—just for a couple of minutes. He said he wanted to interview her about some portraits. She said no, and she went and started to pack. She made me take some money and kissed me and left. She was crying.”

  Pamela’s eyes were puffy. She was holding a cigarette that had burned down to the filter. She was obviously almost as upset as I was. I wrote my name and phone number on a slip of paper and asked her to let me know if she heard anything from Sara or found out where she might be.

  I left, carrying Sara’s shoes, gloves, and letter, and went to the nearest telephone booth and called Lee Ferris. Her secretary put me right through.

  “Jonathan?” Lee said. “What in the hell did you do to Sara Coleridge, and where has she gone?”

  “All I did was fall in love with her. And I was hoping you would know where she’s gone—or at least where she comes from.”

  “Not a clue, Jonathan. All I know is that she’s a remarkably good and—until now—reliable free-lance harpist.”

  “I gather you talked to her today. What did she say?”

  “Good-bye is what she said. Ciao. She’s canceling all her commitments and adding a little tarnish to my glowing reputation. An agent has to be trustworthy, Jonathan. It’s known that my clients are prone to a bit of temperament, but they show up and they play the notes right. It’s those ludicrous pictures of yours, I suppose. Did you ever experience anything as outlandish as that gathering at your place on Saturday? It was like a mawkish séance, for God’s sake. Or did you put some Valiums in the vodka? No. Nothing that naive. Well, forget her, Jonathan. But, of course, you love her, don’t you? Do things really have to become so Byzantine? It’s enough to make one regret one’s pregnancy. If it weren’t for J. S. Bach, I think I’d make an appointment at the neighborhood abortion clinic. Don’t think I’m not sympathetic, but take my advice: Photograph some cab drivers and spend some time with Joanne. Take her out of that training camp for neurotics and apprentice her to a stonecutter or something. Forbid her to engage in paperwork or art . . .”

  Or to talk on the telephone, I thought as I replaced the receiver. Lee obviously wasn’t concerned about my problems. She was worried about being pregnant. It wasn’t too late for her to have a doctor relieve her of the dangers and responsibilities of motherhood, and I thought maybe that would be the best thing for all concerned. Lee and Harry were not going to be devoted parents. Lee, despite the advice she had just given me, would want the child to learn to conduct the St. Matthew Passion. Harry would want to be not the child’s father but his or her agent.

  Which reminded me that I had a few words to say to Harry. I picked up the phone again and dialed his number. His secretary said he was in the middle of a call to Europe, so I took a cab home and tried him again. He had his defense prepared by then.

  “I’ve heard all about it,” he said. “I’ve sent Kammerman back to academe. We won’t have any essay in the catalog, my friend. We’ll do it your way.”

  “Let’s not do it at all, Harry.”

  “Oh, come now. Rich and famous. Don’t you want that?”

  “I want Sara Coleridge, and you messed that up, Harry. You didn’t keep faith with me.”

  “Sara will be back. Or we’ll find her. Look, Jonathan, I miscalculated. I admit that. But I’ve got a lot on my mind. Lee and I are getting married next Saturday. Do you roller-skate?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Roller-skate. We’re thinking of having the reception at a roller-disco rink.”

  Harry’s attempt at flippancy just increased my anger and misery. He made me realize there was no room for mournful emotions in his life. He was in love with Lee, but his love was nothing like mine for Sara. If Lee should vanish, Harry would feel distress, but he probably wouldn’t miss a day at the office. And Harry’s attitude was probably healthier than mine. People like Harry kept the social and economic kettle boiling. He also had kept my temper boiling that day, and I thought it would be better for what was left of our friendship if I steered clear of him for a while. I said, “Let’s talk about it later in the week, Harry.”

  Harry thought that was a good plan. But before he hung up, he invited me to the wedding. “Don’t dress,” he said. “And bring skates if you have them.”

  For the rest of the week I spent my time either brooding or doing a little clumsy, unsuccessful detective work. I had dinner with Pamela Kim and tried to get her to recall something that might give me some idea of where Sara might have gone. But Pamela was no help. She had been immeasurably more interested in her cello than in Sara.

  She did give me the names of a few other musicians Sara had worked with, and I talked to all of them. Without exception, they were more concerned with things like the idiosyncrasies of instruments and conductors than they were with Sara’s disappearance. After that I couldn’t think of much reason to leave the apartment. I began to organize my days around the delivery of the mail and the ringing of the telephone and the doorbell.

  I did go to Harry and Lee’s wedding, and I found it uninspiring. I suppose my lack of enthusiasm was partly a result of my anger at Harry’s having sent Dr. Kammerman after Sara—a move that I was still convinced had frightened her away.

  To enjoy a wedding ceremony in the shabby, bureaucratic atmosphere of New York City’s Municipal Building, you probably have to be either the bride or the groom. Furthermore, you have to be so deeply in love that you have eyes only for your lover. Since I was only an onlooker whose beloved was not to be seen, I was aware primarily of the ceremony’s tackiness and lack of dignity.

  A number of Harry’s and Lee’s friends and acquaintances had taken the suggestion that they bring roller skates. As I had expected, it was a wildly varied crowd made up of people who seemed more interested in their own pleasures than in honoring the bride and groom. The ceremony was brief, and as soon as it was over, I went over to offer congratulations and to beg off attending the reception. My lack of goodwill faded a little when Harry and Lee turned to face me. For an instant they looked young, innocent, and devoted to each other. When I wished them
well, I meant it more than I had expected to. I asked them what their honeymoon plans were and found that they were going to spend the weekend at the Plaza Hotel. There was not time for anything more elaborate, they said. As a sort of wedding present, I told Harry to go ahead with the showing of the spectral portraits. I kissed Lee, who responded with some passion, but with a pensiveness that I thought was merely the happy-sad attitude that is traditional for such occasions.

  I went home and spent the rest of the weekend trying to add some happiness to my sadness, but not doing so well with it. Then, on Tuesday, I got a surprising call from Harry. It was surprising first because it didn’t come through his secretary, and second because I didn’t hear the usual hectic background noises. At first, I wasn’t even sure it was Harry. There was no joie de vivre in his voice—or any kind of vivre at all. He sounded like an ordinary human being who had been given one too many reminders that the light at the end of the tunnel might be accompanied by a lot of heat.

  “Jonathan?”

  “You guessed it, Harry.” No response. “It sounds like a quiet day at the office.”

  “I’m home, Jon.” I knew then that there was real trouble. He never called me Jon, and he never stayed home during office hours.