The following morning I answered a soft knock at the front door—I wouldn't have heard it if I'd been anywhere but in the living room or the library—to find a man in his early twenties, dressed in a sport coat, white shirt, gray pants. He gave me a big, open grin, as if he were welcoming me to the house.
"Hi," he began, and stuck his hand out. I took it. He pumped my hand a few times, not too long, let it go. "My name's Allan Sibbe. I represent Dominion Properties, of Colorado." He reached into his sport coat pocket, withdrew a business card, handed it to me. "My card," he went on. The card read: "Allan Sibbe: Sales Representative: Dominion Properties/ Colorado," and gave a phone number.
"I'm not interested in buying property," I told the young man. "Sorry."
"I'm not selling property," he said. "Keep the card, please." I stuffed it into my pants pocket. "I'm not empowered to sell property, Mr. Harris."
"How'd you know my name?"
"Your mailbox." He turned his head to the left and nodded backward to indicate it. "What I'm doing, Mr. Harris, is showing properties. I'm not going to deny that these properties are for sale. One does not show properties that aren't for sale, does one?"
"No," I conceded.
"Of course not. My point being that real estate—land, Mr. Harris—is your very best investment. But of course that investment must be made at the right moment. Otherwise it's not an investment, is it? No. It's a risk. And the business of Dominion Properties is to eliminate risk, where possible—and it is often possible, Mr. Harris, as you'll see—and where it is not possible to refine it, to delineate it, to limit it to its very lowest limits." Another grin. He was clearly enjoying himself. "Land is your best investment. It stays. It lasts. It is! It produces. It nurtures. It becomes what you want it to become." A brief pause. "Do you understand that, Mr. Harris?"
"Sure," I said, though it wasn't entirely true.
"Of course you do. Everyone does." Then he added in a whisper, as if it were a secret, "They just won't admit it, will they?" Then he went on, voice at a normal level, "No sir, you can't make a better investment than land. This is the good earth here; we're talking about the soil, the thing that feeds us and keeps us alive." He was starting to sound a bit fanatical, and I wanted to bring the encounter to a close.
"Thank you," I said. "Thank you very much—"
"Perhaps, if I could come inside . . ."
"No, I don't think so. You'll have to excuse me, I have things to do."
"I'm sorry, too."
"Good-bye," I said politely but firmly, and I closed the door. I heard him shuffle across the porch, pull the screen door open, close it behind him, and leave.
CHAPTER SIX
My mother has never taken to Erika. She makes no bones about it, although she's usually a very tactful woman.
"It's as if I need to know more about her," she said once, shortly after Erika and I were married.
I said, "What more do you need to know?" I was ready to give her a list of all that she did know about Erika—her age, her education, her tastes in food and art, her political and religious views, et cetera.
She cut in, "That's not enough, Jack."
"It would be with anyone else, Mom."
"Maybe. Maybe not. But with her, with Erika, it's as if those things are merely . . . accoutrements." I chuckled.
"I mean it, Jack." My mother can sound pretty severe when she wants to. I stopped chuckling.
"I don't know what that means—'accoutrements.'"
"It means things added on, Jack. It means—"
"I know what the word means. I just don't know how it applies to Erika."
She thought a moment. "I mean it's all surface; it's like it's been tacked on."
"You're saying she's a phony? Is that what you're saying, Mom? Because I don't see her that way. I don't see her that way at all."
She shook her head, held her hand up. "No, Jack. No. Not in the least. She's not a phony; I think she's very genuine. I just think that I would like to know more, as I said before, but—I don't think I ever will. I don't think I ever can."
I should have gotten upset with her. After all, she wasn't giving Erika a fair chance. But I said nothing. And that's where the conversation ended.
My mother visited shortly after we moved into the house. She brought us a bottle of Dom Perignon, which all of us shared—including my brother Will, who had come up with my mother. I proposed a toast: "To us," I said, "to the house," and my mother and Will joined in. My mother was trying very hard to be friendly to Erika that day. They went for a short walk together, down Goat's Head Road, and Erika pointed out the cabin there. They discussed Erika's plans to start a garden, and together they scouted out the best area for it. Things looked pretty damned promising between them, and I thought that at last my mother had grown to like Erika. Later, however, when she and I were alone—Erika and Will had gone into Cohocton to shop for dinner—she said, "I'm sorry, Jack; I'm sorry, but I still don't like her." She stopped abruptly, then hurried on, "No, that's not true. No. I like her. I like the . . . person she is. I just have a mother's distrust of her." She grinned at the phrase. "That sounds awfully old-fashioned, doesn't it? And judgmental."
"Yes," I said, which surprised her.
She grinned again. "It's not judgmental, Jack. At least I don't intend it to be judgmental." A pause. After several moments she continued, "Your brother is quite fond of her. I'm sure you've noticed."
I took a deep breath to show that the fact that Will liked Erika meant very little to me. "Yes, Mom. I've noticed."
"Of course you have. And why shouldn't he be fond of her? My God, Jack—Erika's a knockout."
I shook my head. "She's not a knockout, Mom. She's good-looking, sure—"
"I'm not talking about her appearance, Jack. I'm talking about her aura."
Now it was my turn to grin. "Her aura, Mom?"
"Yes." She had a look of deadly seriousness about her. "The way she appears to men."
"How would you know about that, Mom?" Another grin. It was a frivolous question, and I wanted her to know that I realized it.
"Women know things about other women. And I know this about Erika: Men find her very, very appealing."
"And that's why you don't like her?" I didn't like the way the conversation was tending. "This is all getting kind of Freudian, Mom."
"Don't flatter yourself, Jack. When I say I have a mother's distrust of her, I'm not talking about being jealous. I'm talking about what she'll do to you without even knowing it."
"That's high melodrama, Mom."
"Life is high melodrama, Jack."
Which is when Will and Erika appeared in the kitchen doorway, grocery bags in hand. Will is ten years older than I, a good six inches taller, but twenty pounds lighter. He was about as "dressed down" as I'd seen him in years—black tailored slacks, a Harris tweed sports coat, a light blue button-down shirt. "Wonderoast Chicken," he announced.
"Whatever that is," said Erika, just behind him in the doorway, holding up another grocery bag. "And macaroni salad, beans, fruit salad, and . . . and . . ." She peeked into the bag, looked up squeamishly, fetchingly. "Something else. I have no idea what it is."
"We'll find out, I'm sure," I said.
Will said, over dinner, "Is there a migrant labor camp in the area, Jack?"
I nodded, took a small bite of Wonderoast Chicken, which was lean and tasty, said, "A few. But there aren't many migrant laborers. Especially this time of year."
Will shrugged. "I saw some people on the road—"
My mother cut in, "This is good chicken, Jack."
I nodded at Erika. "Erika and Will bought it, Mom."
Will said, "Maybe they were backpackers or something. You probably get a lot of that type up here, right, Jack?"
"That type, Will?"
"Sure. The backpacking type. Back-to-the-landers." He smiled smugly.
"Will," I said, "that's kind of what Erika and I are."
His smug smile broadened. "Sure you are,
Jack. Sure you are. I'd say you're about as established as a ten-dollar bill."
To end the conversation there, I said, "Maybe you're right, Will," then asked my mother, "How are the Twigs, Mom?" The Twigs are a woman's group she's involved in.
"They're okay. A little stodgy," she added, and that's when the singing started. An aria from Carmen. It was coming from outside, to the south.
"Good God," Will said.
"What's that?" my mother said. "It sounds like Carmen."
Will said that it was Carmen. Erika, whose back was to the house's southern wall, glanced quickly toward it. "Yes," she said matter-of-factly, "it's from Carmen."
"Is there a house over that way, Jack?" Will asked.
"No," I answered.
Erika looked back at the table, munched some more of the chicken, "This is full of grease," she muttered.
I went to the kitchen door, opened it, and peered out into the early evening darkness. I saw nothing. I pushed the storm door open. The singing seemed to be coming from within the woods a hundred feet away. I felt someone behind me. It was Will.
"Nice voice," he said. "Some neighbor woman, you think?"
"Singing Carmen in the middle of my woods at 8:30 at night, Will? The people are strange around here, but I doubt they're that strange."
"Obviously, they are," Will said.
My mother appeared behind Will. "Is she a friend of yours, Jack? A neighbor?"
"Will and I were just discussing that, Mom."
"I don't know what you were discussing, Jack," she said testily.
The singing stopped.
"Someone's record player," Will said. "Sound probably carries awfully well in these hills, Jack."
"Probably."
"It was nice while it lasted, anyway," my mother said.
And from behind us, Erika called, "Come back and eat. It's getting cold. No one likes cold meat."
Our first lovemaking was an event.
It happened at night, in January, at the end of a cul-de-sac where new houses that had gone up several months earlier still waited for buyers. A single streetlamp cast a frigid blue glow on us, and even today, seven years later, I can get an amazing mental picture of the two of us writhing naked in the snow, much too involved in what we were doing to care about frostbite.
She caught me by surprise. I was taking her back to her apartment after dinner and a movie and my mind was furiously at work thinking of ways to get her into bed. My mind had been furiously at work on that particular problem, in fact, for the two weeks and a few days that I'd known her. That was part of the game, wasn't it? A part of the conquest? Sure it was a holdover from senior high school, but it was a holdover that I enjoyed.
She looked earnestly at me from the passenger seat and she said, "Jack?—Let's fuck."
It threw me. "Let's fuck?" I said. I grinned nervously, glanced at her, looked back at the road.
"Don't you want to fuck?" she asked. That threw me, too, because her tone was much the same kind of tone that she'd use to ask if I wanted to have another cup of coffee. "Don't you want to fuck?" she repeated. Don't you want another cup of coffee?
I answered, feeling foolish and ill-at-ease, "You mean, just like that?"
She was wearing a beige skirt, a blue blouse, a long, bulky, white coat. She shrugged out of the coat, tossed it into the back seat, started unbuttoning the blouse.
"Erika," I said, "I'm driving."
She chuckled quickly, continued unbuttoning the blouse. "So, you'll stop driving and we'll fuck."
"Just like that?" I said again. She had her blouse unbuttoned completely; she hesitated; I glanced at her, saw in the light of streetlamps that goose bumps were rising on her breasts. I looked back at the road: "Jesus, Erika!" I was smiling; I couldn't help it. "Jesus, you'll make me have an accident."
"No"—she reached across the seat, put her hand on my crotch—"don't have an accident, Jack." She nodded to indicate a street sign just ahead. "Pull in there. We'll fuck in there." Underneath the street sign there was a sign that read, "Knollwood Acres: Prestige Living." I pulled into Knollwood Acres, stopped at the end of the cul-de-sac. By then, Erika was naked, and when I touched her I could feel the goose bumps on her.
"You'll catch a cold," I breathed. We were still in the car.
"Shut up," she said sharply.
I straightened in the seat, put my hands on the steering wheel; "You're confusing the hell out of me, Erika."
"I want to fuck. I need to fuck. Everyone needs to fuck." She got out of the car, stood with her back to me and the bluish glow of the streetlamp on her; she stiffened, clenched her fists at her sides and screamed into the still, cold air, "Fuck me, Jack! Everyone needs to fuck!"
What could I do? There were no lights on in the big houses all around us so I got out of the car, went to her, and put my arms around her; I was pretending, even to myself, that I was attempting to warm her with my body. But that pretense faded fast, and moments later, I had my pants off, then my shirt, and we were in six inches of snow making love.
I used to mention that night every now and then because it really was an amazing night and I thought it showed, beautifully, what really primitive creatures we were beneath it all. But, slowly, she grew to resent it, and once even grew angry when I brought it up—"That's not the way civilized human beings behave!" were her words.
"I'm sorry," I said, and meant it.
She shook her head slowly, in self-condemnation. "So am I, Jack. It's just something kind of personal. You understand, I'm sure."
"Uh—huh," I said, "I understand," though I didn't. The subject hasn't been mentioned since.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Several nights after my mother and Will visited I was awakened shortly after midnight by the frantic roar of snowmobile engines. I nudged Erika, asleep beside me.
"Erika? Wake up."
She grumbled "No," turned over, and murmured, "Go back to sleep, Jack."
I got out of bed and went to the window that overlooked the road and the mountain on the other side of it. The drapes were closed; I drew them aside a few inches.
I would have guessed, from the noise level, that the snowmobiles were in our front yard. They weren't. They were across the road, on the mountain, ten or twelve of them, all in a line, the white glare of their headlights bobbing on a narrow path that wound up the mountain.
I watched for several minutes. Now and again, one of the snowmobiles would stop, as if it were having trouble, and the others would stop too. There'd be loud talking, some curses—the snowmobiles were at a distance of at least half a mile, but sound carried well on the still night air—and at last the line would get going again. They were on their way to what looked like a good-sized house halfway up the mountain. I could see the suggestion of lighted windows through the trees, the underside of a roof.
After a few minutes, Erika said behind me, "What's going on, Jack? What's all that noise?"
I said, without turning to look at her, "Just a bunch of snowmobilers, Erika."
"Oh," she said, as if that were all the explanation she needed and she could go back to sleep.
"I think those are the crazy people they told me about," I went on.
Erika said nothing.
"A bunch of crazy snowmobilers." People who get their kicks out of making lots of noise in the middle of the night are essentially easy to deal with, I decided; you either put up with their noise or you do something about it.
"If this keeps up," I went on, more to myself than to Erika, "I'll have words with them."
"Sure, Jack," she whispered.
The following morning, a Monday, I went across the road. I found the snowmobiles' tracks in the mud and snow, though little else. I thought about going to the house and giving whoever happened to be there my two cents' worth about the roar of snowmobile engines at 12:30 in the morning, but my cowardice got in the way. I told myself, instead, that if it happened again, then I'd talk to someone—and started back.
I heard a man c
all from behind me, "Wait there, please," and looked around. He was on the path that led to the house. He was tall, dark-haired; he wore brown pants, a red flannel shirt, and an orange hunting vest. He was also carrying a rifle, barrel down, in his right hand, and he was walking very quickly toward me. He raised his left hand a little when he was still a good fifty feet away and said again, "Wait there, please."
"Sure," I said.
He stopped several feet from me and smiled thinly. "Tell me who you are, please," he said. He had a broad, flat face, a wide nose, and small brown eyes—it was actually the face of a fat man, and it looked ludicrous on his tall, thin body.
"Who are you?" I said.
He nodded to indicate the house at the middle of the mountain. "I live there. My name's Martin. And this"—he nodded toward his feet to indicate the path we were on—"is private property."
I shrugged. "Then I'll leave," I said.
"It's not that I'm trying to be unfriendly," he said, and his thin smile reappeared, "but we really do like our privacy, Mr. Harris."
"How'd you know my name?"
He pointed at my mailbox across the road. "Easy enough," he said.
"Oh." I paused, added, "Who's 'we'?"
"'We'?"
"You said, 'We like our privacy.' Who's 'we'?"
He nodded a couple of times, as if to indicate that he understood. "Yes. That's me and my family, Mr. Harris. There are quite a few of us—"
"I know. I heard you last night."
His thin smile broadened. "Did we disturb you? I'm sorry." He sounded sincere. "I'll try to see that it doesn't happen again."
"Thanks. I don't mean to complain, it's just that my wife—"
"Of course you don't mean to complain, Mr. Harris. And I don't mean to sound unfriendly, either." He paused, smiled very broadly, then said, "But our privacy really is very important to us."
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