Kepler’s Dream

by Juliet Bell

  She didn’t seem to want to move, and I wasn’t sure what the procedure was here. Was I supposed to go hug her? Shake her hand? Curtsy?

  “Well! You’re dressed for ranch work, I see,” she said.

  My heart started to pound. Over blue jeans I had on my Bernie’s Burgers and Dogs T-shirt. Mom had brought it back from Chicago when she was there for an optometry conference, and I had worn it for good luck. Suddenly it seemed clear that I should have been in an outfit suitable for a concert, or promotion. At the very least, a nice shirt.

  “My other clothes are all packed,” I stammered. “Sorry.” No one told me there was a dress code! Don’t tell me I’m going to have to wear skirts all summer. “I’m glad to see you—uh—Grandmother.”

  I felt like I was speaking a part in some out-of-date play. Who in the world calls their grandmother “Grandmother”? But “Grandma” didn’t seem to fit. Dad had suggested “Grandmother” to me on the phone, and judging from her nod, he got that right.

  “You like to wear your hair cropped like that, do you?” she added, with a skeptical look at the hatchet job on top of my head. “Is that the fashion in Santa Rosa?”

  I shrug-nodded. In the cancer wards, it was. But I wasn’t about to go into an explanation of all that now.

  As I got closer, the object in my grandmother’s arms started yapping. It was a high, grating sound, and I almost jumped out of my flip-flops. I had no idea the furry thing in her arms was alive.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Hildy,” she said, scratching what I could now see was the head of a tiny animal. “There’s no need to be jealous. This is Brunhilda. Named for the German warrior. Where’s yours?”

  “My what?” I didn’t have a German warrior. Was I supposed to pack one of those, too? Why hadn’t someone sent me a list?

  “Your dog.” My grandmother’s voice dripped with impatience.

  “Oh. He’s in the truck,” I said. “I think the peacocks—you know—scared him.”

  “The birds? Piffle! They won’t hurt anyone. Why don’t you let him out? Introduce him.”

  This did seem like a good idea—like the knight going to get his special, magical sword that protects him against the Forces of Darkness. Lou was the only one on my side at this point. Miguel, after carrying my bags into the house, had disappeared.

  So I got Lou down and told him he was a good boy, and of course the first thing he did was run around and pee against a flowerpot near the house, which got Hildy yapping again. (I was going to stick with calling her Hildy. I couldn’t call a dog that size Brunhilda.) I thought that we might both be arrested for defacing the property, but my grandmother didn’t seem to mind.

  “What’s his name?” She looked down from her great height, her face a bit softer. “Some kind of hound, is he?”

  “Lou,” I answered. “He was a rescue dog, so we’re not sure, but he seems to have some Lab, maybe mixed with bloodhound.”

  Hildy was still yapping so my grandmother said, “Hush, Brunhilda!” sternly. “This is Lou, and he will be your guest for the next month or two, so you’re going to have to learn to get along.” She let Hildy out of her arms so the two dogs could do their dog thing together, sniffing and circling and checking each other out.

  “Lou will get used to the peacocks,” she assured me. “Everyone does, after a while.” There were maybe twenty birds wandering around on the ground near us, and four or five pacing along the roof above her head, looking nervous, like people waiting for a dentist appointment. A few others called out from the tops of the trees—a high, sad sound, like grief.

  “Come in, Ella,” my grandmother said at last. “Let me show you where you’ll be staying.” She opened the screen door, and in I went to the House of Mud.

  We came in to a dim, cool entryway. In the clutter I saw a tall umbrella stand holding a bouquet of peacock feathers; a metal tin the size of a barrel filled with cashew nuts; heaps of magazines on the floor; a broad table crowded with stone creatures (polar bears, penguins, seals); and two white wicker chairs that faced each other across a kind of gangway. Straight ahead was a wide screen that gave out onto a courtyard with flower bushes, more birds and one pretty, silver-barked tree. Around the corner was a packed bookcase, with every kind of magazine and catalog scattered across its top.

  “I hope you don’t mind a few papers and books here and there,” my grandmother said—which was like Niagara Falls asking if you minded getting sprayed by a drop or two of water. “I like to read.”

  I nodded. “Me too.”

  “Good.” A positive word from Mrs. Von Stern, at last! “This way,” she called over her shoulder like an expedition leader. She opened the door into a dark, cavelike chamber. “We go through the Haitian Room first.”

  It was hard for my eyes to adjust in the Haitian Room, as the only light came from a tiny half-curtained window, but eventually I could see acid-yellow walls almost entirely covered by colorful paintings: of beaches and marketplaces, cars and mopeds, wagons piled high with fruit. Hanging separately, in the corner, was a pencil drawing of a cute, round-eyed little boy.

  “I’ve collected these paintings from various travels over the years,” my grandmother explained in a bored tone. “And that”—she waved at the penciled boy—“is Walter, of course.”

  I stared. I would never have recognized that kid as my dad. I had hardly ever thought about him being a kid; it was hard enough to get a handle on him as a grown-up. No one ever got the idea to show me pictures of young “Walter.” I had seen photos of Mom, in albums at the house of my other grandma, in Los Angeles—the one who really was a grandma, when she was alive, the kind who sent Christmas presents and baked brownies. My favorite picture from one of those albums was of small, blond Amy at a table with kids and balloons—black and white balloons, it was an old photo—and a huge birthday cake with seven lit candles. She was leaning in, her lips getting ready to blow.

  “Ella!” my grandmother called sharply. “Must you dawdle?”

  I hurried out of there.

  Lou was trotting ahead. He and Grandmother (I still felt weird calling her that, even in my head) had gone out through a different door into the next room, which seemed like a great hall. The more of the house I saw, the smaller I felt. Was I somehow shrinking? There was no furniture in this room. I mean nothing regular like a couch or a rocking chair. Still, it was absolutely packed with … STUFF. Racks of bottles, wine, I guess, or maybe potions; a suit of armor; two mini–totem poles; another overflowing bookcase; and everywhere more paintings, of ships, giraffes, lakes, mountains. Across the floor lay a flattened animal with a fierce dead head that made the hackles go up on Lou’s back. Mine too. It looked like roadkill—if you lived in India, maybe.

  “That’s my tiger skin,” said our tour guide proudly. “I call him Tigger. Sweet, isn’t he?”

  Not really. Had she killed the animal herself? It wouldn’t have amazed me.

  “Now, this”—my grandmother walked down a few steps at the end of the hall and ducked her head under another doorway—“will be the room you and Lou share.”

  After the rest, it was surprisingly normal: a regular size, with two twin beds and a table between them. The kind of room you might find in an actual home, rather than a place that was a cross between a museum, a junk shop, and the set for a horror movie.

  One difference was the real daylight inside there. Along the near wall were windows that looked out onto the courtyard. Eventually I figured out that the House of Mud was built in the shape of a rectangle with the courtyard in the center, though you couldn’t do the entire circuit because there was a dead-end at my bedroom. But you could walk from my room all the way around and end up in yet another dark and dusty chamber, filled with papers, photographs, mouse droppings, and masks from Africa.

  I needed a map.

  “Here is a list of people who have stayed in this room.” Grandmother pointed to a stretch of wall by the doorway, thirty or so names going down, pen or pencil scribbles on w
hite paint. I saw my dad’s a couple of times, and next to it once … my mom’s. That made me shiver. Those were two names, Walter and Amy Mackenzie, I never thought of in the same breath. They didn’t belong side by side. “You may add yours when you leave,” she added. Sure, if I ever got out of there. “A pen is on the writing desk, where you’ll find stationery as well.”

  Another part of the conspiracy to get me to write letters.

  “Well, Ella.” My grandmother cleared her throat. “I’ll let you take a rest and freshen up after your journey. Dinner will be early—five thirty. You can come out to the patio at five, if you like, for iced tea. I imagine you’ll want”—she gave my outfit another skeptical look—“to put on some different clothes.”

  “OK.” I should have packed a ball gown! I knew there was something I was forgetting. “Thank you.” I remembered to say that, at least.

  “I hope you’ll feel welcome,” she said before leaving my cell,

  I mean bedroom, but as she was practically in Tigger Hall when she said it, I wasn’t even sure I had heard her correctly. Welcome?

  “Well, Lou,” I said to him quietly, when I was sure she was gone. “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Santa Rosa anymore.” He didn’t get the joke, though.

  Filling the time between “I hope you’ll feel welcome” and five o’clock was a challenge. I sent a few notes on my phone to Abbie; told Lou to stop drinking water from the toilet, a bad habit of his; and found a spider that looked like a tarantula, caught it under a cup, and left it near the outside door, which I tried but couldn’t open. (No escape there.) I spent a while looking at my face in the blurry bathroom mirror: blue eyes, straight nose and my “cropped” brown hair—my grandmother’s word made me feel like a dog sent to a crummy groomer. I tried to figure out if I really did resemble this lady who was (reluctantly) letting me stay in her house. I could only sort of see it.

  Finally I took a shower. Standing in the brown-stained tub, I tried to tell myself things could be worse.

  It took me a minute to figure out how, though.

  Then I came up with it: I could be stranded a million miles away from my mom who had cancer, staying with an old dragon of a grandmother who didn’t have any Internet connection or TV—AND there could be no running water.

  That would have been worse.

  On the dot of five o’clock I set out on my return journey to the main entranceway. I wondered whether I should write my will before setting off in case I never made it. (To Abbie, my autographed Giants baseball; to Auntie Irene, my authentic Bionic Woman Barbie; to Lou, my secret stash of beef jerky…) The Haitian Room was a little scary, because the place was dark as a grave, but I asked the penciled face of my dad to help us through, even if I couldn’t see him, and I guess that worked. When we got out to the stone polar bears on the table again, I almost waved at them in relief.

  My grandmother emerged from another door, now dressed in ruby red. She came out in such a way that I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of her bedroom back there. This made me wonder if that was where the buried treasure was—or dead bodies, possibly.

  “Ah! You’ve changed,” she said approvingly. I was wearing a cotton flowered shirt and a long skirt that made me feel girly, which I usually don’t, much. It was the closest thing I had to a gown. She said hello to Lou politely, and then helped me take him out into the courtyard where he could “relieve himself.” Tucked over by that screen door I saw a few other low bookshelves that I hadn’t noticed before. It was like the house was breaking out in a rash of books all over.

  “Now,” Grandmother asked, once Lou was out there meeting and greeting a few of the peacocks, “do you take iced tea?”

  “Um …” I stood stupidly, trying to figure out whether she meant had I stolen any, or did I want to take some back to my room, or what. “I, um-”

  “I’ve always wondered,” she interrupted, in the tone of someone who has just found gum on their shoe, “why people say um rather than simply not speaking. It’s such an ugly syllable.” She crossed to yet another door, disappeared for a moment, then returned holding two tall, filled glasses. “I took your um as a yes.” She handed me one.

  “Thank you.” It was around now that I started to think of my grandmother as a general major—the GM. I half wanted to salute her.

  We sat on the wicker chairs, sipping our iced teas. There was an uncomfortable silence. I am often pretty chatty, but I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  “Your father tells me,” the GM said eventually, “that you like to play soccer.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you mean yes?”

  “Y-yes.” I cleared my throat. “I’m on a team called the Hawks.”

  “Hawks?” She raised an eyebrow. “We used to have a pair of hawks that nested in the cottonwood trees. Then one morning, completely unprovoked, one swooped down and attacked a sweet little dove I kept as a pet. The hawk tore it to pieces, right in front of its mate, which died of shock a few days later.”

  “Oh. I—”

  “So I’ve never been terribly fond of hawks since then.” The GM took a sip. “Actually, I had Miguel shoot that bird, I was so mad at it.” She sounded slightly guilty. “And he did, too. Got him with one bullet. So don’t ever cross Miguel, that’s my advice. He’s a good shot.”

  She wasn’t exactly smiling as she said this, but I figured it had to be a joke. Didn’t it?

  “Tell me, Ella. Do you like to fish?”

  “What?”

  “‘Pardon?’”

  Oh (expletive deleted)! “Pardon?” I repeated, like a parrot.

  “Do you like to fish?”

  “No.” It is possible that some small attitude was beginning to leak through in my voice. The General Major was wearing down my manners. “Why?” I said. “Do you?”

  “Heavens, no.” Again, the raised eyebrow. “Can you imagine me sitting on a grassy riverbank, pole in hand, waiting for the telltale dip of the line?”

  I had to admit that I couldn’t.

  “But your father likes to fish.” Oh, so this was what she was getting at. In spite of the penciled boy in the other room, I kept forgetting that my dad was the GM’s son. It seemed so improbable—like Cleopatra turning out to be the mother of Davy Crockett. Also, she talked about him as though he were some distant cousin. Not her own offspring.

  “Has Walter ever taken you with him?” she asked. “—Fishing?”

  “Once.” I wondered if she even realized how often I saw my dad, namely hardly ever. She did know I didn’t live in Spokane, didn’t she? And that my mother had cancer? So far she hadn’t said a single word about it.

  “One time, Dad came to California for a visit.” To California, where I live with my mom, you know? “He wanted to take me on an early-morning fishing trip. So he came by our house at, like, four in the morning …”

  “Ahem!” she said. “Was it ‘like’ four in the morning, or was it actually four in the morning?”

  I blinked. “It was four in the morning.” I decided not to fight the grammar police. It was more fun to remember the story. “Anyway, he said it was easier to catch the fish when they were still dreaming and not awake yet. So we drove somewhere way up the coast, and got there before it was even light out yet. But there was a diner open and Dad said we should have breakfast. I wasn’t hungry at all, but he made me eat this huge breakfast, and then we got onto a small boat, with a rod and reel and a bucket of bait—”

  I looked up. She seemed interested, amazingly, so I kept going.

  “So we loaded up all the gear onto the boat and got on with a few other guys. But when the boat went out onto the waves, it got pretty choppy—”

  “Oh, Ella. Don’t tell me you lost your breakfast.”

  “No, no. I got to keep the breakfast.”

  She snorted, a sound that was maybe supposed to be a laugh.

  “But I did feel queasy standing up on the deck, so Dad said he’d watch my pole if I wanted to lay down—”

&
nbsp; “Lie down,” she corrected.

  “Lie down, and so I did, and I fell asleep, and I slept through pretty much the whole expedition and woke up when we were pulling back in to the harbor.”

  “Well!” Grandmother looked strange. It took me a minute to understand why. She was smiling, that’s why. “I think that shows excellent judgment on your part.”

  A compliment! That was a first. “And after that, as a joke, Dad liked to say I was this great fisherwoman, because practically no fish bit on his line all morning, but he caught four bass and a couple of snappers on mine. He gave one to my mom to cook for dinner.”

  “Quite right.” My grandmother nodded. “Speaking of dinner, shall we eat?”

  Still not a word about my mom. I was beginning to get annoyed. On the other hand, I was also starving.

  I followed her through the door that faced the entrance to her bedroom, and into another long, dim room, divided in two: the first half was a kitchen, the second half tables and clutter. There was one small round table in there, set for dinner, near a large raised fireplace with a fire roaring away inside it. (Evenings came on fast and cool there.) Along the side wall was another surface completely covered—I was getting used to this—with letters, magazines, photographs, money, stamps, marbles in a silver dish, glasses, pens, a few books, and a long cylinder that was either a spyglass or a stick of dynamite.

  “You sure have a lot of—” I started, but she cut me off.

  “I have a lot of things, I know.” My grandmother’s voice was brisk. “I implore you, never call it stuff. I can’t bear it when people come into my house and say, ‘Goodness, Mrs. Von Stern, what a lot of stuff you have!’”

  Another thing to remember. I’d have to make a list.

  “I collect. I am a collector, and I travel, and so after a time”—she shrugged—“objects accumulate.”

  This was what Ms. Nelson would have called an understatement. She made us write a whole page of understatements once. I enjoyed that. I have a slight dislike for anchovies. My dog isn’t very clean after a walk in the rain. I might prefer it if my mother spent less time in the hospital.