The Case of Lena S.

by David Bergen

  When Mason told Lena about Mr. Ferry, she said, “Maybe when he dies you’ll be rich.”

  “I don’t think so,” Mason said. “He wants me to introduce you to him some time.”

  “He knows about us?”

  “He asks.”

  “That’s creepy.”

  Still, one time Lena came with Mason to the house. She stood before Mr. Ferry and he said, “You’ve brought Lena.” He held out his hand and Lena grasped it and then pulled back.

  “Sit down,” he said. He offered beer. He said, “Do you like beer, Lena?” He smiled in her direction.

  “Sure. Yeah,” Lena said. “I could do that.”

  Mr. Ferry stood and walked towards the kitchen. He touched the wall occasionally but he walked with the assurance of a man who saw.

  “He’s not blind,” Lena whispered.

  “Yes, he is.”

  “He doesn’t act like it.” She went over to the shelves and studied the books. “Everything’s in alphabetical order.” She turned back to face Mason and said, in a low voice, “We must have order.”

  Mr. Ferry returned then carrying a tray with three glasses and three bottles of beer set on it.

  “Will your mother object to you drinking some beer? Mason?” he asked shifting his head in the direction of Lena, who held a book in her hand.

  Mason said that it didn’t matter. His mother didn’t care. Mr. Ferry sat and looked directly at Lena. Lena looked at Mason. Mr. Ferry folded his hands. He looked happy. He said, “This is wonderful that you had time to come visit, Lena. I guess you know Mason reads to me.”

  “Yes, he told me,” Lena said. “This is a very nice house, Mr. Ferry.”

  “Is it? That’s good. Tell me about yourself, Lena.”

  Lena blinked. “Really?” she asked. “Why?”

  Mr. Ferry lifted his hand and held it in mid-air. “Because I’m blind and I don’t know you. I like to have a mental image of the person I’m talking to. Little things are important. The shape of your nose. A crooked tooth. Colour is important to me, as well. What colour is your hair?”

  “Dark. Brown.”

  “You mean walnut, like this?” His knuckle tapped the small dark table to his right. The glasses of beer sat, untouched. Mason took a glass for himself and motioned for Lena to come get hers. She did this, stepping up and reaching over Mason’s lap.

  “Please, do help yourself,” Mr. Ferry said. He reached out for the final glass of beer and said, “And your eyes, Lena?”

  “Oh, they’re dark too, and wide.”

  “Wide. Do you mean large eyes, or set far apart? Or maybe you mean startled.”

  Lena shook her head. “No, not that.” She paused, then said, “Far apart.”

  “That’s nice. Some of the most beautiful women in the world have eyes like that.” He sipped carefully from his beer and then asked, “Are you pretty?”

  Lena looked at Mason. “I’m a boot, Mr. Ferry. Très ugly.”

  “Really? Is that true, Mason?”

  Lena made a face and leaned forward. Her hair fell across her face.

  “No,” Mason said. “She’s very pretty.”

  “I thought so.” Mr. Ferry paused. He said, “You play piano, Mason tells me.”

  Lena nodded and said, “True.”

  “I play the harp,” he said, and then waved a hand at Lena, as if tired of her. “Why don’t you look around while Mason reads?”

  And so she did. Mason heard her walking around on the main floor and then she climbed the stairs and the noises she made were distant and muffled and at times he heard nothing at all. After a while, she came down and sat and drank her beer while Mason read aloud. She watched Mason and Mason was aware of her watching him. He looked up now and then and when he did she grinned at him and one time she blew him a kiss. He was reading about a man who came to the city with lots of money and bought new shoes and socks and then went out to get drunk. On his way home the man lay down in the road and fell asleep. Along came a wagon and the driver shouted to him to move or he would drive over his legs. The drunken man woke, looked at his legs, didn’t recognize the shoes, and said to the driver, “Drive on, those are not my legs.”

  Mr. Ferry chuckled and said, “Drive on.”

  Lena stood and came over to Mason and bit his neck. He pushed her away. She wandered about until he was finished reading and Mr. Ferry had looked up and said, “Lena, are you there?”

  She came over to her chair and sat down. Mr. Ferry held out his hand. “Here,” he said.

  Lena looked at Mason and then gave Mr. Ferry her own hand. He touched her knuckles with a finger. “How old are you, Lena?” he asked.

  “Seventeen.” She shifted and crossed her legs, as if hoping that this movement would release her hand, but Mr. Ferry held on.

  “A good age,” he said. “What did you find upstairs?”

  Lena shrugged.

  Mason said, “She was just wandering around.”

  Mr. Ferry answered too quickly. “Was she?” He looked over at Lena.

  “You have cats,” Lena said.

  “Did you see my cats?”

  “Yes,” Lena said. “I did.”

  “The tabby is Albert. The fat calico is Minnie. Do you like cats?” He appeared to be studying Lena.

  “I guess so.”

  “You prefer dogs.”

  “Not really. Cats are okay.”

  “You have one?”

  “We did,” Lena said, “It died.” She looked at Mason and wrinkled her nose. “It was sick. My dad killed it because it was suffering.”

  Mr. Ferry seemed surprised. He still held Lena’s hand. He asked, “When you were upstairs, did you look in my dresser drawers? In my closet?”

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t.”

  “Why not? Weren’t you curious? It’s quite natural to want to search through people’s cupboards or read their mail. Don’t you think?”

  Lena pulled her hand away and turned to Mason and mouthed silently that she wanted to go.

  “What about you, Mason? Are you curious in that way?”

  “I don’t know.” Then he said that they had to go, that Lena worked and she had to get ready.

  “Oh. Where do you work?” Mr. Ferry asked Lena.

  “The Nook.”

  “Is that right? I’ll have to come in and have breakfast some day.”

  Mason nodded at Lena and said, “Is it okay, Mr. Ferry, if we go?”

  “Of course, of course. This isn’t a prison. Does it feel like a prison, Lena?”

  Lena shook her head.

  “That’s a no, then?” Mr. Ferry asked.

  “Yes,” Lena said, “It’s just that it’s late.”

  Outside, they stood on the sidewalk and when Lena let out a breath and said, “Whoaa.”

  Mason said, “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Act like he doesn’t exist.”

  “When?”

  “He knows everything.”

  “Ohhhh. He’s god now.”

  “He knows when you smile. He knows whether you’re watching him.”

  “Shoot me before I end up like that.” She took Mason’s hand and said, “I was looking at him and wondering if it would matter if he was alive or dead. I imagined taking a hammer and hitting him on the head. Does that ever happen to you?”

  Mason didn’t answer, though he turned his head away.

  Lena said, “I wouldn’t do it. But are you ever standing beside someone and holding a knife, like when you’re cutting onions or something, and you imagine stabbing that person?” She did a quick pirouette, her face all bright, and shrugged, “We could kill his cat, Albert.”

  Mason said, “Did you look in his drawers?”

  Lena squealed and grabbed Mason’s arm. “Holy shit, Mason. He’s got everything in packages still. Underwear, socks. Never been worn. In his closet there are rows of suits and shoes all lined up and I thought, does he ever go out? That man is anal and rich.”

>   “See, he knew.”

  “He was guessing.”

  “He knew.”

  “He wanted me to look. He probably gets off on it. Like asking me if I’m pretty. Does he always want to know the colour of someone’s eyes and hair?”

  “He asks weird stuff, like my shoe size or if my shirt is cotton or polyester. You get used to it.”

  “What about Seeta? Did he ever ask about her?”

  “Come on, Lena.”

  Lena said, “I can tell that he’s not dumb. He’s just very odd. He’s an old man, Mason. That’s all. A lonely old man who’s probably beating off right now. Oh, man, that’s so sick.”

  Mason didn’t answer. He pulled Lena in towards him. They walked on until they arrived at Mason’s house. They went inside and Mason called out to see if anybody was home but it was silent and he took Lena’s hand and said, “We’re alone.” They stood in the blue light of the open fridge and each drank a glass of milk. Later, in Mason’s bedroom, Lena sat on the bed, leaned back against a pillow, and said, “You wanna do something?”

  Mason lay down beside her. He put his head on her breast, on top of her sweater, and he said, “Let’s just stay here.”

  She held his head. She said, “If I were a jewel lying out on thin ice would you skate out to rescue me?”

  Mason felt her fingers against his ear, the pressure of her elbow on his back. His eyes were closed and the rhythm of her breathing lifted and lowered his head. She smelled faintly of soap, of Mr. Ferry’s house. He said, “Yes, I’d rescue you.”

  “Even if you might die?”

  “I’d risk it. I wouldn’t even think about it.”

  “That’s important,” she said. “That you don’t think about it. That you just go. That’s what I love about you.” She sat up. Folded her legs under her. She was wearing the red turtleneck she’d worn on the day she stopped outside the Bagel Shop on her way to voice lessons. It made her neck longer and it was as if her head was disconnected from her body.

  She said, “The thing I liked best at Mr. Ferry’s was all the books. I think sometimes if I could surround myself with books, maybe live in a library or a bookstore, then I’d be happy.” She paused and took Mason’s hand and said, “He doesn’t need them all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He can’t even read. They’re like trophies he can’t see. Some time soon take a book for me.”

  “I can’t do that, Lena.”

  “Why not? He wouldn’t even notice.”

  “I just can’t. Besides, I’m not sure he wouldn’t notice.”

  “Okay.” She let go of his hand. “I figured why not borrow a book or two. But fine.” She bounced off the bed and went to the bathroom. Mason heard the toilet flush and then it was quiet. Outside, the wind was snapping at a loose shingle. The branches of a tree scraped the gutter.

  Lena called, “Come here.”

  She was in Mason’s parents’ room, looking through his mother’s closet. “Look at this,” she said, holding up an orange leather miniskirt. She threw it on the bed and her arm created an arc and then fell back. She turned again to the closet and said, her voice distant, “Let’s get dressed and then we’ll go out. Your mom wouldn’t mind, would she? She’s got everything.”

  “We’re not going out, but you can try them on.”

  Lena turned to face him and asked, “You sure?” but she was already stripping down to her underwear. She put on red pantyhose. The orange skirt. A black top and tall boots with big heels. She bent over to zip the boots and her rear appeared as a pumpkin.

  Mason pulled Lena onto the bed. The boots hit his shin. She pushed him away and stood. Mason loved the line of her haunch. He followed her into the kitchen where they sat and drank Mason’s father’s beer. Lena said that in the skirt and tights and the top she felt like someone else, someone who couldn’t be Lena Schellendal. “I love that,” she said. “If you closed your eyes we could be somewhere else. Another city. Like Paris. You wanna call me Claire or Sophie or what?”

  “Bernadette,” Mason said.

  “Yeah, and you’re Gustave or Philippe and we’re drinking aperitifs and later we’ll have a late dinner and then we’ll go home and you’ll bend me over and nail me like the good French boy you are. I’m so dirty.”

  “I don’t think so,” Mason said. He saw her front teeth, the small gap there.

  She watched him for a bit, then said, “I like you.”

  Mason shrugged. Touched the hand that she had wrapped around her beer.

  “Lots of girls do,” she said. “They talk. Your name comes up. One time Annie Oliver was standing beside me putting on lipstick, this was in the girls’ bathroom at school, and she said, ‘Mason Crowe, he’s so laconic, I’d get pervy for him.’ ”

  “She said that?”

  “Yeah. So I had another look.”

  “And?”

  “She was right.”

  “Annie’s weird. We read some poetry once at a coffee house. I went, then she went. She laughs really high and fast and her breasts are too big.”

  Lena uncrossed her legs, passed a hand over her knees, and said, “Don’t you ever wonder what’ll happen? To us? To the world?”

  Mason said that he didn’t know. He said that growing old didn’t excite him and that the prospect of living like his father and mother was depressing. “The other day they were talking about sex,” he said.

  “In front of you? My parents never would. They don’t even fuck.”8 She held her beer in the air and said, “I don’t want to go there.”

  When they had finished their beer they went back into Mason’s parents’ bedroom, where Lena removed her clothes. Mason took the skirt and hung it up. He put the pantyhose away, pushing them deep into his mother’s lingerie drawer, feeling there the texture of silk and nylon, the eroticism of empty panties.

  Lena showered and dressed while Mason made tuna melts and then they sat in the kitchen and ate and at one point Lena said, “Look at us, Bernadette and Gustave,” and she simpered and Mason was keenly aware of the possibility that he could lose her.

  Lena called Mason and said that her father wanted to meet him. He was invited for supper a week from Saturday. “Okay?” she said.

  “Do I have a choice?” Mason asked.

  “Not really.” Lena’s voice dropped on the last syllable, her tone aimless, as if much of life was inevitable and simply to be borne. Then she said, much too brightly, “Wanna hang out?” She said she was going to the mall. She wanted to do some shopping and see a movie. “My Dad gave me his Visa. We had a fight and he’s trying to appease me.”

  They met in the food court of Polo Park. Lena was red-cheeked from the cold. She wore a Russian-looking hat with fur flaps. She said she wanted to see Ethan Hawke in Hamlet. She loved Ethan Hawke. Mason wasn’t sure if he wanted to but he just nodded and said, “Okay.”

  Lena started talking about Ms. Abendschade and how Ms. Abendschade was so strict about interpretation and how she probably wouldn’t like the play being set in modern times with video cameras and computers and skyscrapers.

  “A travesty,” Lena said. “She loved that word.”

  “Rigorous,” Mason said. “That was her favourite. ‘Class, what is required of you is rigorous thought, rigorous examination, rigorous reflection.’ ”

  “Come,” Lena said, “Let’s go shopping.” She flashed a white hand and stood. She pulled Mason up and they trolled the mall. Lena tried on a dark blue dress. Mason told her it was too short. “Bend over and all you get is panty.”

  She bent over and looked at herself in the mirror. “It’s fine,” she said.

  She bought it. Carried it out in a black bag with a hemp handle. It dangled from her fingers like something both despicable and delicate. She bought a pair of shoes and a T-shirt that was tiny and accented her belly. Some panties and a bra, a jean jacket, a pair of leather gloves, a bracelet of leather and beads, a tube of lipstick, eye shadow, Body Shop lotion. She offered to buy Mason a jacke
t. He refused. She stood holding her bags beneath the glassed ceiling of the mall and said, “All this stuff.”

  They went to the movie and sat in the back row and ate licorice, and at one point, when Hamlet was angry with his mother, Lena turned to Mason and said, “Put your hand between my legs.”

  He reached for her and they fooled around and the bags rustled at their feet and Lena said, “Buying things always makes me horny.”

  The movie wasn’t like the play. It was too brief, too chopped up, and Mason kept thinking how Lena was right, Ms. Abendschade wouldn’t have liked it. She would have called it doltish or said it wasn’t rigorous enough. Ethan Hawke didn’t love his mother. According to Ms. Abendschade, Hamlet wanted to sleep with his mother, was terribly jealous of Claudius, but even so, “the reechy kisses” and the “incestuous sheets” couldn’t goad him to action.

  Lena pushed her mouth against Mason’s neck and sucked. Took his hand and put it near her crotch where he fumbled with her zipper. Licorice on her breath.

  And finally, Hamlet called out, “I’m dead, Horatio.” Much had been made of that in class as well. Ms. Abendschade had been using a broomstick as a sword and she had brandished it and said, her face red with excitement, “Hamlet stands there, slain, and utters the words, ‘I’m dead.’ Not ‘I’m dying,’ but ‘I’m dead.’ ”

  They wandered through the mall after, Lena clutching her bags and Mason glowing in the memories of Lena’s body and slaughtered Danes. He smelled his fingers as they stood by the upper railing, near the clock and the fountain, and looked down. It was then that they saw Mason’s mother. She was standing by a display of watches and jewellery. She was leaning against a man and for a moment Mason believed that his father had suddenly returned home. She touched the back of the man’s head and he turned and Mason saw his face. It wasn’t his father. Mason didn’t know him. He was a stranger.

  “Look,” Mason said. He nodded in the direction of his mother.