by Carrie Brown
“She doesn’t talk?” Conrad asked, picking up a tray.
“Well, of course, she does, but she clearly doesn’t like to. She’s terribly shy. You know, Eddie and Kate had her hospitalized for a number of years at that place in Grant’s Falls until it closed down. There were awful stories about it. Don’t you remember? People strapped to their beds, and their hands burned with cigarettes if they wet themselves or something.”
“Is she that bad?” Conrad felt momentarily disgusted.
“Oh, no. Of course not.”
“Well, what’s the matter with her then?”
Rose shrugged, then picked up a teacup and ran her finger around the fragile brim. A low fluting noise left the cup, a soft treble. “The world is—too much with her,” she said after a moment, and she turned away from Conrad. “She’s fragile. I don’t know.”
But Rose had clearly adopted the girl. From time to time she would bring home some bit of news about her—that she had trained the clematis ‘Nelly Moser’, with the dark crimson slash on each sepal, over the gates of the cemetery. Rose said the sight had made Havelock Eddison, the town’s grim benefactor, who had made a fortune mining Bloodroot Mountain for iron ore, weep with pleasure at its beauty. She had successfully budded two of the magnificent heirloom roses by Mrs. Ashforth’s grave and started six new bushes by the gardener’s cottage. She had rooted several shoots of prize rhododendrons in an agar jelly.
But to Conrad, Hero was just another in Rose’s collection of damaged souls: the sour-smelling drifters who came to the door appealing for grace and were served Earl Grey and sponge cake from Rose’s good china; the blind, raving souls in the hospital’s permanent wing whom Rose organized early each spring to pot up bowls of paperwhite narcissus for the town’s schoolteachers, and late each fall to bury tulip bulbs in the beds by the hospital gates; the shut-ins and crippled children and unfortunates for whom Rose had such ready sympathy. Sometimes, shopping in the Smile Market with Rose, he would return to their cart, having fetched some item from another aisle, to find Rose standing with her hands being held by an old crone with watery eyes, who would disengage herself as soon as she saw Conrad and scuttle away.
“Who was that?” Conrad would ask.
“Oh, that’s Nellie Anderson,” Rose would say. “She cleans at the Congregational church.”
Conrad did not think of himself as a jealous man; but the broad range of Rose’s tolerance and sympathy had the twin effect of making him feel unkind by comparison—he was frankly disgusted by and sometimes afraid of the people Rose embraced with such tenderness—and also angry with her, as if because she was so liberal with her attentions, he himself was suffering as a result. He knew that wasn’t true. But nonetheless he found over the years that he didn’t like to inquire much about any of her pets, as he called them—though only to himself, for he had used the word with Rose once to shocking effect: he had thought she might slap him, and she had refused to speak to him for three days, a vigil of neglect that she made look maddeningly easy. Hero, though she had come along relatively late in Rose’s life, had fallen immediately into the category of people Conrad knew he was happier knowing nothing about. It wasn’t that he was unkind, he thought. It was that he couldn’t bear imagining even for an instant how terrible it must be to stand in their shoes. With her averted face and wide hands and foolish dress, Hero had made him feel, just in that one instant in his front hall, as though nothing he could do would ever be enough.
NOLAN ATE LUNCH at Eddie’s every day, Conrad knew. He sat alone at a table by the window, looking out through the curtains at the river from time to time in a suspicious way. He took in his food dutifully, alternating spoonfuls of ice cream and soup. Watching Nolan eat was like watching a dying man reluctantly take in just enough food to satisfy his doctor. Conrad, who considered his own kitchen and Rose’s parade of succulent roasts, fragile pastries, and glistening vegetables fresh from the garden an almost erotic nerve center, wondered how anyone could like food so little. He himself was helpless in front of a warmed plate, placed before him by Rose with the flick of a clean towel. Though she herself seemed to exist mostly on air, she liked to sit across the table from Conrad and watch. “How is it?” she’d ask, and Conrad, forking in new pink beets, roasted crisp and bathed in butter and thyme, or shepherd’s pie under a cloud of mashed potatoes, or angel food cake, iced with dark chocolate, would groan, reach across the table for her hand, kiss her knuckles.
What’s the point? he had wondered, watching Nolan chew. You could shoot yourself in the head and it would be over quicker.
Now, standing before Nolan in his office, his letter in Nolan’s limp grasp, Conrad wound his hat brim between his fingers, watched Nolan’s bow tie go up and down, up and down, and waited.
“Can’t print this,” Nolan said at last to Conrad’s shuffling stance. “Won’t. Don’t print stuff like this. Angels. Ghosts. Whatnot. Whatever you saw—nonsense.”
He folded Conrad’s letter neatly, set it on the desk, and flattened his palm over it as though it were an insect. He pulled at his collar. “I wouldn’t mention this to anyone else, if I were you,” he added, leaning forward slightly. “Good day.” And he swiveled around in his chair.
I’ve been dismissed, Conrad thought, and glanced at the hourglass. The sand had run out.
Betty Barteleme, the walleyed gatekeeper at Peak’s newspaper, lowered her glasses when Conrad came back into the front office. He lingered there, trying to find the words to say what he felt. Nonsense? he thought. What does he know?
Miss Barteleme sniffed, waved her letter opener at Conrad. “Go on home now, Conrad Morrisey,” she said through her nose as Conrad stood there, gazing at her, thinking. “You’ve bothered Mr. Peak enough already for one day. Go on home before I take a broom to you and your feathers.” But then, as if remembering Conrad’s recent loss, she softened. “There’s no point in waiting. He’s not going to see you again this morning. He’s a very busy man. Very, very busy.” She leaned over and patted his arm. “Go on.” And she waved the letter opener toward the door.
Conrad looked down, brushed at his trousers, saw a feather drift across the floor toward Miss Barteleme’s dimpled ankle, turning over on itself like a tumbleweed. Miss Barteleme, of the fat, powder white Pan-Cake cheeks and penciled eyebrows and two-tone pantsuit—sizing her up, Conrad imagined that she now fancied she herself had a way with words, as if the talent for it were contagious. She guarded Nolan Peak like a little flat-faced dog, irksome and loyal. Now here was Conrad, squared off in a wordless confrontation with this officious woman who acted as though any business of the paper’s readers was entirely irrelevant—even a hindrance—to the higher purpose of her beloved Peak’s mysterious mission.
Well, you two deserve each other, Conrad thought.
He looked away from Miss Barteleme, past the browning arms of a philodendron draped over the doorsill, and into the newsroom with its clutter of desks. Kenny Toronto was sitting in a swivel chair by the window, eating an egg sandwich; a beagle looked out at Conrad from under Toronto’s desk.
Conrad raised his hand in reply when Toronto looked up and gave him a smile. Conrad liked Toronto. He’d given up a promising career in the minor leagues for a local girl who didn’t want to leave home, but he had remained a happy man with a handsome demeanor, apparently without regretting that he had never pursued what might have been a lucrative and exciting career. He covered high school and recreational-league sports for the paper with what appeared to be genuine enthusiasm. Toronto’s house was also an unofficial sanctuary for wounded birds and animals—most people in town knew they could bring him a felled hawk with a broken wing, or an orphaned fawn, or a trapped raccoon with a shattered paw—not to mention a host of outlaw dogs and torn-up barn cats. Conrad himself had taken creatures to him from time to time. Once, Conrad had found a turkey vulture dragging a crumpled wing along the ground near the river. The creature had been enraged and wild with pain; Conrad had smothered it in a blanket
and still taken sixteen stitches in his forearm. After several months of nursing, the vulture had developed a fierce affection for Toronto, refusing to leave and lurking in a darkly appreciative way in the trees around the cages Toronto had built behind his house, coming to feed from Toronto’s hand when he called to it. Stella, Toronto’s wife, raised chickens and peacocks and had once nursed a bobcat cub to adulthood.
Conrad nodded to Toronto now, but another meaningful sniff from Miss Barteleme set him to shouldering into his jacket, and he began his retreat, leaving his letter behind on Peak’s desk, where he imagined it would soon enough end up in the trash. The frustration of it gave Conrad a hopeless feeling. It wasn’t even so much a letter as an invitation, he thought, an invitation for all to visit his garden, regard the ground, take from the sight of it whatever they wished. And for free, of course. He wouldn’t charge, the way some blessed with evidence of whatever you want to call it—grace in the form of weeping virgins and statues blemished on the hands and feet in the middle of the night—have seen fit to do. Of course, there was no evidence of anything in his garden now. Nothing to see. It occurred to him that perhaps that was a problem; he wouldn’t want anyone to be disappointed.
He stood at the door to the Aegis, ready to go, his hat in his hand, gripping the knob. He looked into the street, at the weak gray light that drained from the heavy bank of clouds over head. The mica in the sidewalk glittered, winked. Miss Barteleme glowered behind him, a tissue protruding from her sleeve. For a moment, Conrad imagined her, Miss Betty Barteleme, dropping slowly to her plump knees, rendered silent for once, her mouth in a gentle O, awestruck.
But then the telephone rang. Miss Barteleme threw Conrad a glance and turned to lift the receiver.
And in the opportunity created by the ringing phone, Conrad saw that he could make one more effort on his own behalf, one more appeal. Giving up now was just—what would Rose have said?—fainthearted. No man who’s seen an angel ought to be fainthearted.
Miss Barteleme waved the letter opener at him as he brushed past, her eyes and mouth popping protest.
Conrad stepped around the corner of the hall and then stopped, for Nolan had someone with him. Conrad looked through the glass partition. Nolan’s back was to him, but Toronto stood before Nolan’s desk. He looked up, caught Conrad’s eye, and then quickly averted his gaze.
“Look at this,” Conrad heard Nolan say.
Conrad paused, strained to overhear. He watched Toronto, realizing that Nolan expected a laugh, for it was Conrad’s letter Toronto was now holding.
But Toronto read quietly, his lips moving slightly, standing before Nolan’s desk. Conrad watched his face, not knowing what to expect.
“Well,” Toronto said at last. He did not look up from the page. And then, with an athlete’s agile grace, and before Nolan could say anything further, Toronto stepped out of the office, closing the door behind him. In the hall he stopped, looked up, and met Conrad’s eyes. Conrad glanced into Nolan’s office, saw him, dismayed, rearrange his collar, swivel around, and open his mouth to call after Toronto, “Kenny, don’t get any—” And then Nolan saw Conrad and froze.
Just then, having disentangled herself from the phone, Miss Barteleme came after Conrad, huffing and puffing, affronted. “Mr. Morrisey,” she said. “Time to go.”
Conrad allowed himself then to be taken by the arm and escorted to the door, but not without casting a look back over his shoulder toward Toronto, who put up his hand, a small wave.
Maybe there’s hope, Conrad thought. But then, surprised, he thought, That man really has the kindest face I’ve ever seen.
STANDING ON THE street before the plate glass window of the Aegis’s office, Conrad glanced into people’s faces. Laurel was a small town, not more than nine hundred people, and he recognized, at least vaguely, many of the passersby. But now every old man he saw reminded him of Lemuel, hawklike and proud, his mane of white hair and soft beard folding tentlike around his long face, making him look like an exotic Jacobin pigeon, its eyes peering through its feathered ruff. Every woman, small and slender, was, for a second, Rose. He put his hand against the door frame, steadied himself against the sensation that he had been uncoupled from his life. That he no longer knew anyone. That he was surrounded by strangers. Someone, a woman he did not recognize, passed him and nodded. “Good morning,” she said, her voice pleasant, sympathetic. Conrad stared after her.
He had no plans, no destination. He stepped off Main Street and walked down the hill to River Road. Behind him the town resolved into the small inverted bowl of its streets and roofs. On the far side of the river rose the coarse foothills of the Sleeping Giant, the last of the low-lying crests of the White Mountains. To reach Laurel from the south, one had to pierce the slumbering body of rock through its low granite heart. The mountain’s brow, nose and chin, rising chest, sweeping legs, and protruding feet looked unmistakably like an enormous man laid down heavily upon the sloping fields.
Conrad had been hired as a junior member of the engineering team some months after the tunnel project had begun. He remembered the moment when blasting had broken through the far side of the mountain, when a jagged hole of light had penetrated the dark rock. And he remembered, too, the feeling he’d had when he and Rose first arrived in Laurel. Surrounded on three sides by mountains and cinched in by the belt loop of the Mad River, which cut a gorge through Mt. Abraham and was continually fed by the rainwater washing down its granite slopes, Laurel felt comfortingly invulnerable. The low, rock-strewn grasslands to the west were given over mostly to dairy farms and, farther north toward Lake Champlain, to orchardists, who planted their hillsides with rising and falling Vs of trees, which gave the land a sprightly buoyancy.
Conrad had imagined that they had severed time itself when they arrived that first day in the town square. He saw how mountains rose up around them on three sides, how the forests and dappled orchards on the fourth side made a maze as dense and elaborate as any grown to thwart a fairy tale’s sorcerer. Nuclear missiles, airborne diseases, even the insidious contagion of society’s most perverse tendencies, would fall away against the town’s natural geo graphic baffles.
Parking their car and walking across the velvet grass to the ornate bandstand in the center of the square, they had looked around, pleased. A Victorian affair with ornate trim capping the hexagonal roof like the fringe on an old-fashioned surrey, the bandstand was used in summer for a concert series and, occasionally, for a blood-donation clinic. Then, nurses would mount the short flight of steps to the varnished floor within, their white tunics fluttering, a Red Cross banner tied to the posts and flapping mightily. A steady trickle of people, who arrived with their sleeves rolled past their elbows, would be admitted under the pink lights and given juice in white paper cones, their dark blood draining into pint bags.
For the town’s bicentennial celebration, Harrison Supplee, who owned the hardware store and took it upon himself to orchestrate most civic events, had asked Conrad if he wouldn’t see whether he might do something with the bandstand. “Spruce it up, you know,” he’d said vaguely, as the two of them had stood there one morning surveying it. Conrad, whose gilding business was by then an unqualified success, had looked it over, pronounced it sound, and spent the spring and summer evenings preceding the festivities gilding the interior framework of the bandstand. The delicately arched rafters and soaring cross ties had been painted with gold leaf, endowing the construction with a weightless grace. Rose said it looked as though you could pluck off a piece and it would melt in your mouth like sugar.
Those long evenings, as the sky grew dark, purple martins and bats had crossed the square, and Conrad had painted away happily in the glare of a utility light. The twin lamps by the hotel’s green awning had glowed yellow. Single blue lights burned in the rear rooms of stores fronting the square, throwing window displays—an old-fashioned mannequin, the shining, curved armatures of plumbing fixtures, the dark spines of books—into exaggerated relief. From a distance
, it appeared as though Conrad were a man on a boat, riding the dark surface of a still lake.
But that first day, sitting on the rounded benches within the bandstand, he and Rose had looked out at the square—the needle hands of the clock on the granite wall of the bank moving slowly around, the cordial progress of slight traffic, the flapping canopy over the doors of the hotel, the white spire of the Congregational church glinting in the sun. Rose had gripped his arm. “Oh, we’ll be happy here,” she’d said. “I can feel it.”
Now, arriving at the bottom of the hill at River Road, Conrad stopped at the bulwark by the water and stared out over the Mad River, its surface strangely flat and colorless between eroding concrete banks. Once he had seen a great blue heron down here. It had been a strange sight, like a man from the past who wanders through some complicated fold of time to arrive in the present, incongruously dressed, vulnerable, ugly of feature. Conrad, who usually had his binoculars with him when he went for a walk, had pulled them out and put them to his eyes, the world rearing up into close focus inside a tiny circle. Looking through his field glasses, he always felt that he had left his place on the ground, was balanced aloft like a bird, his eyes trained on the bulging and convex dimensions of the world. He had fixed on the heron, alighted on an old truck tire half-submerged near the bank. After a minute it had unfolded its wings and flapped away slowly upriver, as though saddened by the changed reality of what it had found.
Staring out over the river now, Conrad suffered a moment of terrible disorientation. Leaning over, he put out his hand toward the water, but no reflection met his palm, no answering shape rose to meet his flesh. One of his eyes, his left, had begun troubling him; his vision would fade in and out. Was it this that accounted for the fact that he seemed so insubstantial now, too insubstantial to have a reflection? Trembling, reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of coins, leaned over the water again, and let them trickle from his palm. The surface of the water scattered reassuringly as though under a quick shower of rain.