As if to confirm this, and to welcome her back from her long and miserable absence, the cabin glows with warm light now as twilight spreads through the forest, and the shadows smudge toward night. There is even a thin swirl of white smoke rising from the chimney, quaint as a picture book. A breeze tinkles charmingly through the chimes.
Meena approaches this scene cautiously, slowly, quietly, sneaking up on herself in what seems to her to be a dream, taking great care not to come crashing back in again too quickly, because she doesn't want to shake herself awake, not if she can help it. Could it be this easy then? Might she be able to Rip Van Winkle herself forward into a simplified future, push past this complicated present into another time, a stand-alone future in which the past has been forgotten or resolved or, at least, outlived?
She creeps up onto the porch and peers in through the window to see a room that is warm and bright and welcoming, aglow with lamp and fire light. She expects to see her older wiser self sitting there by the fire, too—and, she wonders, what will she have become, in the meantime? Matka?
But it is not herself that Meena sees, it's a changeling replica, smaller, thinner, paler, younger... it's Holly Gidding.
Meena blinks. Wrong path. Wrong cabin. A simple mistake, and she struggles to hold herself together and not be devastated by it.
Tonight Holly's dark hair is wet-looking and pulled back and slicked down like a helmet, flat against her skull. A single glittery butterfly clip lifts and holds her bangs back, clearing her brow above her sharp features. Her skin, though still pale, looks clear, even pretty in this light, and she has removed the metal from her face. The bud of her mouth is pursed in concentration as she squints down at some needlework in her lap. This whole picture forms an old-fashioned tableau: except for the clip in her hair, Holly might be a settler, a trapper's daughter, a pioneer wife.
She's so young, though, and self-absorbed. Meena finds herself transfixed by this vision of this girl, innocent of her attention. Holly tugs at a caught thread, frowns, brings it up to her mouth, and bites it off with sharp white teeth. Meena knows that she should turn away now—she's seen enough and has no good reason for being here—she knows she ought to drift back into the forest again, regain the trail, and find there the right way back to her own cabin, where she, at least for now, belongs—but she hesitates. She doesn't want to go. She doesn't want to be alone. She leans closer instead, and as she brings her hands up to frame her face against the window glass her shoulder bumps the bentwood chair and sets it rocking with a clatter against the rugged floorboards of the porch. Holly hears, looks up, and, caught spying, Meena swoons with shame. Her heart hammers in her throat, but Holly is smiling and bounding toward the door, calling, "Libbie!"
She's wearing overalls, a silky pink T-shirt, a baby blue cardigan sweater with white plastic rabbit-shaped buttons. She really is smiling, and she really does seem glad to see Meena.
"I'm sorry, I'm, I...," Meena stammers, but Holly has reached out and is pulling her inside, and isn't this just what she wanted?
"Come in, sit down, no one ever visits me, this is so nice."
Meena allows herself to be led to a chair—green velvet, with an old lace antimacassar on the back—and she sinks into it, suddenly limp with exhaustion, resignation, relief.
Holly's eyes glitter in the firelight. She pushes up the sleeves of her sweater, revealing the rose briar tattoo on her wrist. "I wasn't expecting you."
"I'll just catch my breath, if that's okay. I don't want to be a bother."
"It's no bother, really."
The fire is warm, comforting. "I was out walking. I guess I took a wrong turn. I thought I was home."
"Do you miss it?"
"What?"
"Home."
"I guess so, maybe."
"If I lived in California, I would never leave it. I'd never go anyplace else."
"And what would you do if you lived there?"
Holly shrugs. Her smile is self-conscious, shy. "Maybe I could be an actress," she says. Her face reddens. "Isn't that what everybody wants? What if I got famous? What if I was a star?"
"Well, if you're ever going to get away from here," Meena hears herself saying, "you should do it now, while you're still young enough to take chances." She might be Mimi Hanrahan, squawking at some hopeless-looking kid who's come into the White Elephant to shop.
"Is that what you did?" Holly asks.
"Yes, it is. But I was lucky. I had a boyfriend. We ran off to California together."
"What was his name?"
"Fox. "
Holly smiles at this. "And was he a fox?"
Meena grins. "Was he ever."
She's ashamed of these lies that she keeps telling. But she can't seem to stop them. She feels dizzied by the make-believe and the possibilities that it seems to be offering. Or maybe it's the altitude.
Holly is leaning closer. "Take me with you?"
Startled by the suggestion, Meena frowns. "Oh no, she says, no, no, I couldn't do that."
Holly shrugs. "Why not?"
Why not. "It's just not a good idea, that's all."
"Sure it is."
"But what about your brother?"
Now Holly is frowning. She peers at Meena. "You know, Libbie, everything isn't always what it seems."
"I'm afraid I don't..."
"Look, he lied to you, all right? It was a trick."
Meena still doesn't understand. "Who lied?"
"My brother. The great Will Gidding, full-time survival expert and part-time Armageddon freak."
Meena shakes her head. "I don't think I know what you're talking about."
"The whole thing with the dog. He set it up." Holly sits back, folds her hands in her lap. She seems to be enjoying Meena's confusion. "It wasn't dead."
Meena stares. "It wasn't?"
"No, it wasn't even real."
"But... How could it not have been real? There was blood, wasn't there?" Hadn't she seen blood?
"He just put it there so you'd run over it."
"But why?"
"To save you, why else?"
"Save me from what?"
"Damnation." Holly is smiling now. "But don't feel bad. You're not the only one who's fallen for it. It's this thing he does, on purpose, to catch lost souls. It's bait, he says, that's all. Like fishing. He's a fisher of men, he says. And women."
"That's crazy."
Holly nods. "No shit it's crazy. I thought I already told you that—my brother is a lunatic." Her own grin is goofy. She waves a hand at Meena and goes on, "Mostly people just give him money, to take care of the dead dog, and that's okay, too. But you're the first one who ever cried like that. I think you scared him."
Meena shakes her head. "Why are you telling me this?"
"So you can see what I'm up against and take me with you. When you go." She leans forward again, reaches out, lifts Meena's hand and enfolds it in her own. "I'll be good," she says. "I promise, I won't be any bother. And I can help you out, too. I'm really useful that way. Like, if you get a flat tire, or something, I know what to do. You'll be glad to have me around, I swear you will." She's squeezing Meena's hand now. "Please? I have to go, I have to get out of here. This is my life. It's my whole life, and I can't just sit here and watch it waste away..."
Meena pulls her hand back. "He's done this before?"
Holly nods. "Plenty of times."
"But I saw the dog move..."
"Did you? Are you sure?"
Meena tries to remember. She doesn't know what to think. She struggles to stand up, but her head is spinning, and so instead she slumps back down into the chair.
"Hey, I'm sorry." Holly's voice seems distant and dim.
Meena closes her eyes.
"I didn't mean to scare you." And then, "Hey Libbie, are you okay?"
Meena hears the squeak of alarm in this, but she keeps her eyes closed, and her head is filled with a swarming darkness in which she thinks she can imagine her father's death. She's feeling t
he blackness that came folding down over him as he lay in his bed, the bed he'd slept in alone for almost fifty years, almost her whole life. His senses closing down, slowly, one by one. First, taste and smell. Then touch, he's floating, can't feel the bed beneath him, can't feel the warm air around him, his skin has opened up, the flesh that separates him from the world has begun to disintegrate, it frays and thins and shreds, worn away to such nothingness that his inner self is exposed, vibrant as bare wire. Then his hearing goes—dimming, muffled, muted—and a deafening inward silence fills him. His eyes pop open, and he stares and stares, watches the ceiling open up and retreat. The objects in the room dim and disappear, they become one with the blackness, the world closes in and his eyes widen, straining to see, straining to stay.
Josef Krejci is an old man—he lies alone in his empty bed, in his dark room, in the middle of a hot August night. He doesn't feel the heat, he doesn't see the darkness, he doesn't hear the screams of the cicadas in the trees. His breath catches in his throat, it rattles in his chest: he gasps, he stares, and then the silence that surrounds him is his own.
"Libbie?"
Meena's eyes snap open.
Holly has come close and is bending near, her face a crumple of concern. "Please, let me help you," she says. "What can I do?"
The needlework that Holly has set aside seems to be a sampler of some kind—the letters of the alphabet entwined in deep green leafy vines and gaudy flowers. Such domesticity in a young woman, Meena thinks. A girl, really. Here in this cabin, on the verge of the rest of her life. Lucky that way. Nearby is a box of sewing supplies: threads, buttons, measuring tape, needles, pins. A small pair of steel scissors.
Meena takes a deep breath. She turns to Holly, smiling weakly. "Just glass of water, dear. Would you mind?" she asks.
And Holly is quick to respond; she's eager to be of help. As soon as her back is turned, it doesn't take Meena more than a moment to snatch the scissors from the sewing box and hide them in the crook of her folded arms as she struggles to her feet.
Cupboard door opening and closing. Ice clattering into a plastic glass. Water running from the tap.
The wind chimes shiver on the porch—and by the time Holly returns to the firelit room, her visitor will be gone.
And now the Aspenglo cabin is warm with lamp and fire light, too. And here is Meena Krejci crouched before a fire of her own—which it took her some time to light, struggling with matches, newspaper, shreds of bark and needles tucked beneath an arrangement of split logs that she carried in from the woodpile out back. The twilight in the forest around her has darkened, and night has arrived.
Her father has been dead for four nights. She has been away from home, alone, for three. Only once before in her life has she been gone from Linwood for this long—when she went with him to Chicago for a weekend—and never alone, never without him, never on her own. They drove in on a Friday afternoon and home again on Sunday morning and stayed those two nights at the Drake Hotel, in separate but adjoining rooms. They saw a baseball game, they ate dinner in a skyscraper, high above the street, they walked along the lake shore, and shopped in the department stores on Michigan Avenue—it was his birthday.
Now she kneels before the fire she's built, pleased to see that it has caught and grown to fill the room with warmth and a flickering orange and yellow light. The darkness outside the cabin feels deep, the forest seems thick with shadowy life. Meena imagines the animals that prowl its paths, recalling her old childhood dreams of wild beasts lurking in the bushes around her father's house on Otis Road. Someone had opened up the cages in the zoo at the park and the animals were free and were approaching, traveling swiftly through the woods, their paws silent on the narrow paths, now and then a growl, resounding, a growing murmur of movement as the monkeys went swinging silently from limb to limb in the canopy of trees overhead. The beasts lay in wait for her, breathing deeply, slowly. Eyes aglow in the dark, teeth agleam in the moonlight, the animals were infinitely patient, they could wait for her forever. She might have stepped into the darkness and let them have her. She might have chosen to give herself to them.
Some nights her father would retreat to his study after dinner and once the kitchen was clean she would slip in after him—maybe he knew she was there and tolerated her, or maybe he wasn't aware. As a child she had crouched in the shadow behind his chair, near the ornate wall vent billowing warm air from the old heater in the basement, blowing in her hair. Outside, snow, or rain? She couldn't see, because it was night and the windows were wet and black, reflecting back the inside of the room, so she could look up and see him there in the glass, reading a big book, history maybe it was, or philosophy, what was it? The newspaper? And there was music playing, piano and violin and flute. When she was older she found a reason to come in—bringing him coffee, pouring brandy, looking for a book. Maybe she lingered and he didn't look up, maybe he ignored her, maybe he didn't complain when she eased herself down on a chair near the book case and pretended to read, sharing his company, breathing him in—pipe smoke, lemons, alcohol, wet wool—growing sleepy in the warm room until the print on the page blurred, the book slipped from her hand and landed on the floor with a smack that startled her awake, disoriented and craving a cigarette. Or maybe he gave her a look of dismissal and so she stood in the hallway for a while, outside the open door, instead. Before retreating to the living room to watch television alone.
She and her father had stood together outside the bear compound in Ellis Park one afternoon, sniffing at the stench of the animals' close confinement, and he said not to bother feeling sorry for them because they liked it. Said if you opened up the cage to let them out, they wouldn't know what to do. They wouldn't run off, escape into the woods, rampage through the gardens, terrorize the neighborhood, no, they would just stand there and stare at you, uncomprehending. "They don't want freedom," he said. "They don't want to be let loose." They would stay put because captivity is safety, awash with the familiar reek of home.
And later Meena, in her nightgown, will be leaning over the sink in the tiny Aspenglo kitchen, working Holly's sewing scissors through her hair. Steel blades chewing, the hair coming away in her fist, dropped into the basin, curling like a dead animal, to be ground up in the fierce teeth of the disposal, and washed away. Then she'll look up to see a stranger's face reflected in the fire brightened pane of window glass above the sink—longer, paler, thinner than her own. Bladelike. Eyes wide, dark, shocked. Cheekbones sharp. Jaw long. The mouth a fierce gash, aslant with resolve.
A changeling child, Meena Krejci will have shed her outer shell of self. And thus exposed, she will have been reborn as someone else, a new person, pure being loose in the world—this solitary woman who has been calling herself Libbie.
Accounting
1969
Mrs. Grandon had stopped paying her bill at the store months ago, but Josef Krejci didn't know this because you were in charge of the books and he had entrusted their upkeep to you. Mrs. Grandon owed over four thousand dollars, a sum of such breathtaking extravagance at that time that you knew your father was not going to be able to take it lightly. First he would be angry with you, for letting the situation get so far out of hand, and then he would be angry with Mrs. Grandon, for what he would judge to be her recklessness and irresponsibility, and finally he would be angry with Mr. Grandon, for neglecting the financial obligations of his wife.
Everybody knew, your father had a policy: no more charges allowed on accounts totaling over three hundred dollars in debt. Who could ask him to carry any more than that? He was not a banker, after all, he was only a grocer, and he had a right to expect his customers to pay. He had every right. And it was your job to make certain that they did.
When Mrs. Grandon came in to pick up a few things that she thought she needed, you knew what she owed, so you should have stopped her. Her name was supposed to be on The List. That was what it was called, The List. There were other families who were on The List too of course, families like t
he Noones, who were turned away at the register—in a humiliating contest of their small want against Josef Krejci's stone will—if they couldn't pay cash. Gingi's mother thin and pale in a pair of men's pants, baggy, and a blue work shirt, stained, and a wool sweater coat, buttons missing. Mrs. Noone was known to drink whiskey; maybe she smoked pot. She went to bars and sometimes was asked to get up and sing with the band, her voice was deep and smoky, and she slept with Negroes.
Letters were sent, dignified, distant, and polite at first, then fixed and firm, and finally when all else had failed, vaguely threatening. "Dear Mrs. Noone, kindly remit." Or else. Although everybody knew that a person such as Mrs. Noone was likely to ignore the letters—or to laugh them off, or to try to work her way around them if she could, falling back on her family, that whole squalid clan of Noones, uncivilized and inbred, monsters that they were—most people responded to these tactics. They liked Josef Krejci, for one thing; they respected him. And why not? He was a good example: he worked hard and he didn't ask of anybody any more than what he asked of himself. He offered people simple payment plans. With a little interest added in, for his trouble. That was only fair.
Still, because of who she was and all that she had done for you, it didn't seem right that Mrs. Grandon's name should be there on The List, right next to somebody like Mrs. Noone. You watched Faye Grandon do her shopping, you saw her stand in line at the register, you saw Josef's fingers on the register keys, you saw the exchange of pleasantries between the two of them—his grin, her smile—and you saw him hand Faye a pen, you saw her sign the slip and hand it back to him, you watched Faye bundle her bags into her arms, you watched Josef watching Faye, and you tucked the Grandon account aside, in a drawer.
It wasn't that you lied, it was only that you didn't tell him. You couldn't, you didn't want to, you wouldn't. You were hoping you might be able to spare both yourself and Mrs. Grandon, even though you knew it had to be only a matter of time before your father found out the truth, and then there would be hell to pay. As you saw it, you had no choice but to go and have a talk with her yourself. Before the situation got very much more out of hand. You would explain the problem and then see if you couldn't take care of it between the two of you, without Josef Krejci having to know anything about it, without him ever having to be involved.
The Minor Apocalypse of Meena Krejci Page 22