But she didn’t. She turned her head slightly, side to side, trying to get a better look at me. She didn’t speak for a very long moment, leaves pattering against the front window, a gust of wind.
“They told me you wouldn’t come here,” she said. “They swore it was out of the question.”
“What happened to your eye?”
She touched the white adhesive, the pad of white gauze. “They told me they had you right where they wanted you. I used to wonder why women fainted. I thought it was a way of attracting attention to yourself. Jesus, I might throw up. I have to sit down.”
“I wasn’t even sure you’d be home.” This was not the complete truth. I had sensed her presence as I entered the house, and even now I could feel the heat of her body, the new brand of perfume she had dabbed below each ear.
Connie did not sit down. She found the remote lying on a catalog of Turkish carpets, using it to keep the pages flat. She turned off the television after a few tries. The catalog stayed open, brilliant sheets of color. “Joe Timm swore this was the last place you’d show up.”
“What happened to all your—” I tried to find the right word. “Wonderful artifacts?”
“My stuff.” She shrugged. “Long story. I had too much money in wood and fiber. Nobody wanted it. People looked at a big balsawood head and they’d think—superstition. They’d think—bad magic Metals are popular suddenly. Gold, and rocks. Gems.”
“And glass,” I said.
“Frankly, I’m not even dealing in stone statuettes right now. I’m keeping more money in cash. Staying liquid. You know what I’d like to do? I feel like calling Joe Timm on the phone and saying, here, there’s somebody I want you to talk to.”
“We both own this house,” I said. “It’s only right for me to drop by. What happened to Larkin?”
She didn’t want to say. “The pet shop python ate him. I didn’t stand around to watch.”
I was troubled by this news.
“I have to do all the thinking myself. I have to decide to get out of Ivory Coast dyed cottons and into Navajo turquoise and nobody can advise me. I have to be smart all the time. Joe Timm should retire.”
“You haven’t sold the house or anything, have you?”
“Joe Timm said they’d—” She buttoned her dressing gown. “He said they’d catch you and—I think his phrase was ‘render them both helpless.’ He was so sure of himself.”
“Are you in pain?”
“Richard, my life is in such ruins that it’s a joke.”
There was a whisper upstairs, someone crossing the floor. “You and Steve aren’t getting along?” I asked.
“Steve?” As if he was someone she could barely remember. “Poor Steve.”
“He isn’t working out so well?”
“Steve is terrified.”
“He’s always been a little nervous,” I offered, just to keep her talking. Steve might be listening to us, pacing the floor upstairs, although there was something about the tread that crossed and recrossed the floor that seemed careless, even happy, someone busy packing or taking an inventory. I tried to reach into the recesses of the house with my mind, but there was something impenetrable about the person upstairs.
“Maybe you could say he was a little nervous,” Connie agreed. “Like a hamster in a snake’s cage. He doesn’t want to be associated with me because of you.”
“But you’re going to have a baby—”
“I have to look at my plans. I might have the baby, I might not. Don’t look at me like that. You never wanted children.”
I was wrong. “What happened to your eye?”
“I scratched it gardening,” she said with a whimsical sulkiness I used to find appealing. “A daphne twig. Damaged my cornea. It’ll heal in a week or so. Why are you here?”
This was my chance. I could be frank. I could tell the truth. “I want the mirror.”
I could see her sort through the possible responses. She could play dumb, what mirror? She could keep her mouth shut.
“Language is always a little bit of a lie, Connie. When I say man you picture one thing—Steve, say—and I picture George Washington, Abraham Lincoln. Well, someone else. It’s very imprecise, language. If you take a hard look at it you realize it doesn’t mean very much at all.”
“My other eye weeps sympathetically. I can’t see very well.”
“Even if you tell me it’s up in the attic, where you always hide things you really want to keep, I might not quite understand what you mean. I might not remember that what you call an attic is just a crawl space with insulation stapled to the studs.”
“It’s Belgian,” she said. “From Ghent.”
“Really.”
“It’s the frame that makes it so valuable, that and the fact that it represents the best work of a firm that perfected the silvering technique. Actually, silvering is a misleading word. It was the cause of death for many of the craftsmen. They developed mercury poisoning and turned blue and had permanent nerve damage. They inhaled the paint they applied to the glass.”
“How unpleasant.”
“There isn’t another mirror like it in North America. But if you think there’s anything ghastly about the mirror, forget it. I had it examined at the lab that restored the Toulouse-Lautrec etchings, the one that bleached out all the mildew. I thought there might be a mummified face or some ancient blood behind the mirror, or mixed in with the amalgam. I was terrified of it, if you want to know the truth. And there’s nothing. It’s just a framed mirror and I wanted to keep it.”
“You weren’t afraid of cutting yourself?”
“Of course I was. But when I did and nothing happened I realized I could continue to own the mirror with impunity. Besides, Richard, maybe I gave the mirror to Rebecca Pennant’s family. Maybe her brother has it in Crescent City, after all. I was always able to lie to you pretty well. What makes you think you can see through me now?”
“You cut your finger?”
“Yes, look.”
There was a fine nick in one knuckle, a tiny smiling mouth. “I almost had a heart attack. I’m on tranquilizers, Richard. Stella Cameron told me about them. Better than Prozac, the new—”
“What makes the frame so valuable?”
“It’s made of Mediterranean briar, the same root they make tobacco pipes out of. It’s a very hard wood, fine grained, a very rare root.”
“A root.”
“Yes, like root beer. Please sit down.”
“You’re lying to me, Connie.”
“I want to do the right thing,” she said, pleadingly. “I can’t stand here and be frank with you, Richard. My heart is pounding. I feel sick.”
“I’m going upstairs to get it.”
“All right, take it. That’s what you want, you’ll take it no matter what I do. I’m helpless. We’re all helpless. What’s it like, Richard, being right all the time, and unstoppable?” She said it sarcastically, as though it was not true.
I said, “I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Do you think people want to buy a Taiwanese tiki from somebody who used to be married to you?”
“We’re still married, aren’t we?”
“Jesus,” she said, “it’s a wonder I don’t black out.”
“Who’s upstairs?”
“I used to do okay with Bedouin silver, but I wouldn’t touch the obvious stuff, Richard. Everybody sells gold watches that haven’t ticked in eighty years. Everybody sells those little coral cameos, Greek goddesses to keep your collar from hanging open. Anyone can make money selling Confederate battle flags. I was something different. I was special. I was a dealer in exotica, Richard, and you’ve ruined me.”
“Is Steve upstairs?”
“There’s no one upstairs.”
“You didn’t have a lab examine the mirror,” I said. “You knew it was precious, worth more than all the other imports you ever owned put together. You never asked where it came from or tried to trace it. You stowed it in the roof and prayed nobody would e
ver ask for it.”
“They did ask.”
“And you lied. You told them you didn’t know what happened to it. Why weren’t you afraid?”
She held one hand over her bandaged eye. “I deserved it. It was rare and it came to my house and it was mine. You know it’s true, Richard. If a package is delivered to a residence it belongs to the receiver, even if it’s all a mistake.”
“The recipient. It wasn’t a mistake. Someone sent it to me.”
“How was it labeled?”
It was addressed to me. But I couldn’t say it. Because I was not certain.
She said, “Maybe I ordered the mirror from Paris.”
“It wasn’t like an international package. No foam rubber, no padding. It was just—”
“It’s mine.”
“You didn’t cut yourself on the mirror,” I said. “It’s not from Ghent. You don’t know anything about it.”
“It belongs to me. Go ahead and steal it. Why not? You get everything else you want.”
“It’s dangerous.” I wanted to say evil. “Why do you want such a thing?”
“You know why.”
“No, Connie, forgive me, but I stand here completely mystified.”
“Because I come from Turlock, California, something you used to remind me of every chance you could. When I was a girl I used to think the best part of the week was when we washed all our cars. We’d soap them up and hose them off, and I was in charge of wiping them down, getting all the drops of water off before they dried to little white zits. That’s how I grew up. Looking forward to Sunday afternoon pickup truck washing, when we’d all join in, the whole family. I was a simple person, and I wanted to be special. And I was.”
I knew what it was, the first sound, the first muffled crash. I knew what it was, and I knew exactly what would happen next. Connie looked up at the ceiling, one hand holding her bandaged eye, the other over her heart.
I spoke gently, even a little sadly. “Connie, get out of the house.”
“I won’t let you.”
“Please, Connie. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Is this what you wanted, standing around asking about whether or not my eyeball was ever going to grow back? I’m not going to surrender to you like everybody else in the world, Richard.”
She stumbled on the stairs. She hung on to the banister. I wrestled her out of the house, onto the dark lawn. She was noisy, kicking, scratching. I had to be careful to be quick and at the same time not hurt her. She struggled, and I felt her kicking and twisting in my arms. A baby—there’s a baby in her womb.
When I turned back to the house the curtains were alight. There was a huff, a gentle explosion, and the scent of kerosene.
57
The wind was rising. Another breathy explosion blew out windows. I ducked involuntarily to avoid flying glass.
The explosions were hushed, the sound of splintering and fragmenting louder than the blasts. I had trouble pushing open the front door, the animal-pattern rug bunching, jamming the entrance. Already I could feel the heat.
Connie leaped onto my back. I shook her off, as gently as I knew how.
“Richard, don’t go in there,” Connie pleaded. “Please don’t go in there, Richard—please stay out here with me.”
She was clawing at me, and when I crossed the living room I dragged her with me. “I won’t let you do this.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” I had to shout, fire thundering.
“I don’t care about the mirror.” Her one healthy eye reflected flames. “I don’t care about the house. You planned this.”
Fire oozed down the stairs. Connie was crying, stumbling after me into the smoke. “And I’m not going to lose you again, Richard.” She was screaming to be heard. “What kind of a life do you think I’m going to have after this? What kind of life do you think I’m going to have for my baby?”
I swept Connie outside. Her bandage was smouldering, and her blouse twinkled, fine points of vermillion streaming smoke. I found the brass nozzle and pulled hard, straightening the garden hose. I drenched her while she sprawled, cursing me, telling me nothing that happened to her mattered anyway.
“I don’t want it,” she said. “I want to reach in there and tear it out.” She was bawling now, and I knelt beside her.
“Please keep the baby,” I said.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she said. It.
“Have the baby,” I said. I intended this as my farewell, my summation.
“You care! That’s what you want—a baby! It’s wonderful, Richard, to find this out after all these years. You wanted children. I could have had children, Richard. It wasn’t my fault. It was you. This is Steve’s baby, Richard. It isn’t yours.”
“It doesn’t matter who the father—”
“No, it doesn’t. It’s a human baby, right, Richard? Is that what you think? If you stay out here with me I’ll have the baby,” she said, her fingers digging into my arm. “You go in there and it’s all finished, Richard. It’s not just you. You always thought you were the center of the world. But what about me?”
I was on my feet but she hung on, a sleeve ripping. I slapped her. I tried to be gentle. Even hurting Connie a little caused me pain, and I knew it was too late in the story of our lives to change anything.
Sleep, Connie. Rest.
I left Connie lying on the dark lawn, one arm outflung as she lay in a daze. Her position was almost that of a person holding out a telephone, It’s for you. The hose was on full force, the brass nozzle lifting and tossing beside her.
The smoke was solid, filling the living room. I closed my eyes. I found the stairs and took three steps at a bound, and then the fire swallowed me. The heat was not what slowed me. I made myself not feel it.
My clothes writhed around my body, pant legs alive, jacket sleeves aflame. The smell of my seared flesh filled my lungs, and then my lungs were finished, each breath cauterizing the air sacs. I made my way into the room, wading against a tide, the floor waist-high with flames.
I called her name. The fire streamed around me, wind pouring through the broken windows. Richard, stay away. Did she say this, or did one of her thoughts reach me, like a cry from a shore?
I think I saw her once more, before my eyes were lashed by the fire and I lost all vision. She sat cross-legged, breaking the looking glass into fragments against the floor, at the bottom of a pool of light.
The ruptured spheres of hurricane lamps crunched underfoot. I could feel the satisfying grind of glass turning back into sand as I made my way, but the fire was deafening. Did she speak to me, once, parting her lips to utter flame? Or was I blind by then, imagining the scene, creating a mental image of the room so I could grope my way?
By the time I reached her she was gone. Her bones were a wooden cradle someone had cast into the bonfire, furniture no one would ever need again.
I told her I loved her. Or I tried to, with what was left of my organs of speech. I pressed my hands over the remains of the shattered mirror. She had done her work well.
Glass doesn’t burn. It bubbles, and fuses. Fire transforms it, turning it into cysts of silica.
58
There must be a vocabulary in the body that we never have to learn. Even in a coma there must be a monument-lined avenue, a capital city—what we really are. The executive mansion, its empty windows. The obsolete automobiles are few, the cars of our childhood, of all childhoods. Because when I was not a body anymore, was barely a skeleton, I still felt that there was something left, a trellis within the ivy, bones within the bones.
But of course I had always known this story, always known how it would end, even as I felt it not ending at all, a new chapter falling open, ancient—new only to me.
I had the dimmest sense of what was happening. Dr. Opal was consoling a weeping woman. He was telling her that the more you know the less you understand. I tried to take solace in this dream, my life leafing open before me, a collection of postcards.
> Here was a street. Here was a sycamore, the patchy beige and green of its bark. How could I know this? I couldn’t see, I could not walk. This was one of those last visions, what my life was like.
Water rose up around me. I lurched on tattered stilts, and fell. I lay at the bottom of a spill of running water. My bones disarticulated in the gentle flow. The sharp pebbles and the jagged minerals of my body intermingled.
Let me imagine that I remember sirens, fire trucks in the distance. It may be true. But it was impossible for me to receive any sound clearly, there was too little of me left. Minnows probed me, finding some nourishment in residue, in char. They were hungry. Their mouths were like the ends of mechanical pencils, the lead drawn in, leaving the hard, round holes.
There must have been some reason the early recordings were manufactured in the form of black disks, plates fused by craftsmanship into circles. Recordings on cylinders could have been practical, but it was a general consensus that these black dishes of music were more appealing.
I think it was because you could see the entire piece of music at a glance, or feel it with your fingertips. Here was the groove where the song began, and here, at the label, was where it ended. And there was that circle around the label where the needle could spiral inward and bump and bump until the hand freed it, the circle of jittery silence that begins and ends all music.
How many nights passed? How many times did I seek and find what I needed from the living?
I always returned to the creek, the sandbag-lined bank, the horsetail reeds, the drainage pipes, all of it familiar to my touch even though I could not see.
This blindness was a familiar country. The sound of a ’possum’s tail dragging as the animal crept through the reeds to its burrow was as clear to me as a spoken word. Each whisper named itself.
The sandbags had been filled with a mixture of sand and cement long ago. Now the canvas sacking was season by season wearing through, the inner core of concrete all that was left.
One evening I could see again.
I did not know what it was I was looking at, only that soon it would resolve itself, like a screen supervised by an absentminded projectionist. There were reeds. Reeds and a creek, and a family of marsupials, their pink snouts, their pink eyes, gazing back at me.
The Judas Glass Page 29