The Pagan House

by David Flusfeder

  ‘Well, no, not yet. I’m still conducting investigations.’

  ‘Yeah right. Oh, I see. That accounts for you being so busy all the time. You’re investigating.’

  ‘Look. I’m sorry.’

  To cover his embarrassment and shame he made the awful mistake of biting into the slice again.

  ‘No, no. Please. A man of your responsibilities. How’s your pizza?’

  ‘Zzhumsztug.’

  ‘I guess it is top secret. You must lead a really thrilling life.’

  ‘Zzhumsztaszh.’

  ‘Really? You don’t say? Well, it would be nice to stay here and talk about old times and all but I’ve got other tables to wait on.’

  ‘Zhsnngyay.’

  ‘Sergei? Uh no. I don’t think he’s come in today.’

  He had achieved it. He’d swallowed. ‘I don’t think he’s gay.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You know, Warren, who lives at my grandmother’s? He’s not gay. He’s got a woman. My grandmother said so.’

  This statement intrigued her. Enough to keep her at his table. ‘So?’

  Edgar looked shrewdly around. He implied the invisible presence of dangerous individuals, the immanence of evil machinery. ‘So, everyone thinks he is. Some people call him Warren the Fag.’

  ‘Um. Yes?’

  ‘So.’ Edgar wildly, wet slice of pizza drooping in his hand. ‘He’s not what he seems. If there’s one thing bogus, then maybe everything else could be too. You see what I mean? Maybe he killed the cat.’

  Edgar felt guilty impugning Warren, because he liked Warren, who was scrupulous in all his dealings, but Warren was gone and he had always been obliging, so maybe he wouldn’t mind being used like this.

  ‘Right. I get it. That’s really sinister. There’s a cat that’s dead and Warren pretends to be gay but he’s not. Is the FBI involved? I think they should be.’

  ‘But that’s not all—’ He went on before she could interrupt or leave, and in his stoned inspiration he reverted to London-speak. ‘He did these labels right, so everyone would know where everything was when he was gone, so nothing really bad would happen to her, and he left because my uncle’s an arsehole but he did these labels before they had their argument so maybe he engineered the whole thing because he wanted them out, and the best way to get them out was to show everybody including them how bad they are when they’re in, you know what I’m saying?’

  If she followed what he was saying she believed in it as little as he did.

  ‘Which means,’ he persisted, ‘he’ll be back soon to show everybody how needed he is.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about but in the meantime you’ll have to excuse me, I must attend to my other customers.’

  He resumed his ordeal, she folded napkins at the maître d’ station. She looked his way at least twice.

  Having eaten way beyond his capacity and further, his body blocked with food, his soul utterly contaminated and impure with food, and leaving only about a third of the damp horror remaining, Edgar dropped the ten-dollar bill on the table and vomit-coughed out a goodbye and exited the restaurant without too inept a performance at the door. His body is weighed down with fat and gloop, he can feel cheese throughout, sluggish cheese slowing his blood, his vision has turned yellow, he’s sweating cheese.

  9

  The real stockholders in our institution are the men and women of the invisible world.

  Home Talk, John Prindle Stone, June 1851

  In the official history of the Onyataka Association, written in 1891 and republished in 1919, 1943, 1985 and 2001, there is no mention of the Operations Against Shame and Bashfulness. These were classified as belonging to the ‘class of heavenly things’ that was fit only for the saints. In the official history, relations between the Mansion House and its neighbours, as between the Perfectionist satellite communities and their neighbours in Brooklyn and Niagara, were untroubled. (In the official history, Complex Marriage was begun by George Pagan and Harriet Stone; there was never any jealousy or reproach; there was no breeding programme; few attempts were made to push aside the veil between the material and immaterial worlds; and all was easy and unanimous in the new dispensation.) In the official history, the inspiration for the Blackberry Festival was entirely hospitable: there was nothing tactical or strategic about it.

  In truth, word of George’s naked appearance spread through the vicinity. He was the beast of the undergrowth, the devil in the thicket, denounced at town meetings, at trading posts, from church pulpits. And yet—or, as Mary Pagan suggested, because—there has been a consequent increase in willing converts to the Perfectionist cause. And how disappointed some of them are when they see the family so modestly and unorgiastically at work and at play, every moment a prayer, salvation to be found in newspaper work, in farming, building and selling an animal trap, shelling peas, manufacturing plates and dishes, whose first designs are made by a committee of children led by Mary Pagan. Most are turned away. A few are invited to stay, as probationers. Free love, John Prindle tells the curious and the prurient, has its price, to be paid in God’s coin.

  On the balance sheet of the world, the Association prospers; its neighbours prosper accordingly. Local merchants, traders, farmers, all profit. Every worker employed, on most enlightened terms, at the new tableware factory in Turkey Street, which is now renamed Creek, is another potential enemy recruited, another soldier for the march to Paradise. Each dish and plate produced from Mary’s, and the children’s, designs is a charming artefact of the war being won. But still, as in Vermont before, gossip ferments and threatens. At a Home Talk John Prindle announces his army’s latest initiative: ‘We shall use the weapons of charm and diligence and sincerity, lower our drawbridges, open our gates, let the neighbours see us as we are, in all our virtue that does so much outshine theirs.’ At the end of the summer the Blackberry Festival shall take place, a grand occasion of Christian hospitality.

  10

  Edgar, exhausted, returned to the house. It was an exertion to pull open the screen door. He leaned against the doorpost, forehead to the wood. On the wooden radiator cover inside the hallway were several knick-knacks—a brass hand-bell, a ceramic shepherdess, two silver spoons. Edgar looked at these with the utmost gravity. All he wanted was a quick efficient visit to the bathroom, drain himself to the furthest reach, and then to sleep. He couldn’t stop looking at the knick-knacks. The missing lines of blue paint on the shepherdess’s skirt hurt him. He wondered if he should break the figurine, put her out of her agony. Soon he would have to contemplate the stairs.

  ‘Eddie? Is that you?’

  It wasn’t. He didn’t know at this moment who he was. Slowly though, he, or someone vaguely occupying his shape, walked to the living room and burst out laughing when he got there.

  It wasn’t his father he was laughing at, sitting on the sofa, looking down at the glass in his hand, making the whisky wash around like a drunken tide; and it wasn’t Frank, standing by the bureau, his lips pouting like a teenager’s; and it wasn’t Lucille, who was dressed for some reason for Warren’s opera, full in the dark pantalets and skirt and blouse that the women of the Association used to wear, her voluptuousness revealed more emphatically when buttoned and pinned; and it wasn’t Jerome, wearing his windcheater and holding his picnic bag, either on the point of arrival or departure; and it wasn’t Fay, who was sitting on the hard chair, hands demure on her lap. He was laughing, he finally decided, because the room was so empty of the slightest reason to laugh.

  Faces soured towards him, except Fay’s. ‘Hello dear. You might want to help Warren in the kitchen,’ she said.

  Edgar stopped laughing. He wanted this day over. He was thirteen years old and everything was mildly horrible. He looked for help from his father, his uncle, his aunt. None provided any. No one met Edgar’s gaze, considerate maybe of Fay’s delusion, annoyed probably at his ability to find humour in a mirthless room. Edgar had not seen his grandmother out of h
er bed since her return from hospital. Her hair was wild but she looked happy.

  ‘In the kitchen?’ he said.

  ‘That’s right. He’s putting a tray together.’

  Edgar moonwalked through to the kitchen, pitying Fay for her fantasy. Should he be supporting it or, gently, destroying it? Should he put together a tray himself? What sort of things would Warren put on a tray? Olives and cashews, crackers and cheese. He could get Michelle to help him. Issue stoned, black-lunged, pizza-engorged instructions while she performed the intricate skills of opening cupboards and lifting things on to a tray. Everything was easy to find in there, because everything had been labelled by Warren before he went away.

  ‘Hey Eddie. How’s it going?’

  Warren was at the dishwasher, unshaven, gloveless, in unpressed jeans and wrinkled T-shirt. This was more surprising to Edgar even than his return, because Warren was always most fastidious in matters of hygiene and appearance.

  ‘Warren. You’re back.’

  ‘So it seems. You might want to carry this through.’ Warren held out a tray that contained a bowl of olives, plates of crackers and cheese.

  Edgar stared at it with great dignity and poise. ‘Maybe we should put out some cashews too,’ Edgar said.

  ‘Why not?’ Warren said gaily.

  Fay was exultant, the rest of the household in consternation. Warren took brisk command of everything, reminding everybody how integral he was to the life of the Pagan House, suffering Lucille and Frank to acknowledge his triumph without any need for him to draw attention to it. Edgar helped Fay carry her easel out to the back lawn, where she sat draped in cotton and muslin against the evening breeze, drawing trees and bushes and an empty blue field.

  Edgar was so tired that he wanted to defer sleep as long as possible. He lay on his bed, floating on time, listening to it stretch out all around him. Edgar adored his theory about Warren. This must be how Jeffrey felt about his opinions. That he didn’t believe it to be true made it beautiful.

  There was a knock on his door. Warren, newly washed and shaved, restored to creased jeans and freshly pressed T-shirt, held out a package wrapped in gold paper. ‘Happy birthday. I know it’s a bit late but we got you something,’ he said.

  ‘That’s really nice of you. Thank you,’ Edgar was able to say. Tears of gratitude were frighteningly close.

  Warren noticed his discomfort without, Edgar hoped, discerning its self-pitying cause. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Hope you like it.’

  This was his only birthday present. Edgar sat on the bed, picking at Scotch tape, tapping his fingernails against the wrapping paper. He felt guilty. He had said bad things about Warren, who was the only one who had thought to give him a birthday present. Edgar assumed it would be a good choice, because everything Warren did was good, except running away for a weekend.

  The present was a book, A History of the Onyataka Association. On the flyleaf was an inscription: To Edgar, a souvenir of his time in Vail. The tears of his self-pity dried as he failed to work out how Warren could possibly know his secret name.

  11

  In the morning Frank, truculent, muttering, defeated, threw family belongings into the Lexus. Lucille fixed her lipstick in the rear-view mirror. Michelle sat in the back seat, chewing on a sleeve of her sweater. Paul lounged beside her, spinning a basketball on his finger, breathtakingly casual. The weeping virgins of Vail mourned at the kerbside as the Lexus drove away.

  And then his father was going too. Edgar’s father tossed his suitcase into the trunk of the Cadillac and climbed into the car. Jerome, despite Warren’s reappearance, was still defiantly gardening. Wearing his straw hat, he slowly pushed a wheelbarrow towards the compost pile.

  ‘How you making out, Eddie?’

  ‘Like a bandit, Jerome.’

  Edgar’s father hit two quick stabs at the horn and sat forward with his arms draped over the steering-wheel. ‘Okay, Eddie. Let’s hit the road. Time waits for no man.’

  Edgar composed his bravest, cruellest face.

  ‘What’s the matter? You got wind? Come on. Climb aboard.’

  ‘You don’t think? Maybe we should stay a bit longer?’

  ‘No Eddie, I don’t. You know how it is.’

  Edgar was afraid that he did not know how it is, nor that he would ever know what it was.

  ‘Let’s be making tracks. Nothing more for us to do here. Where’s your stuff?’

  ‘I think we ought to stay,’ Edgar said. ‘Bad things happen when I’m not here.’

  ‘Hey come on. No kidding around.’

  ‘No,’ Edgar said.

  He has never said no to his father before. The novelty of the act provides its strength.

  Edgar’s father frowned. He lowered his glasses to inspect his son.

  ‘Is it Fay you’re concerned with? Don’t you worry about your grandma, she’s a tough old bird. She’ll outlive us all.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘It’s a sure thing. Everything’s copasetic. Let’s make a move.’

  Edgar shook his head. ‘I’m going to stay.’

  He rested one arm inside the car to make it impossible, just yet, for his father to leave.

  ‘I’m not staying,’ his father said.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Edgar said.

  He has given his permission and it makes him fearful and vulnerable. No one had ever told him that adulthood would feel so cold.

  ‘You’re a great kid, Eddie,’ his father said, and applied his mouth to where Edgar’s cheek could have been. He pushed Edgar’s ear the wrong way with a bristly rub of his chin.

  Warren came out of the house to say his goodbyes. He looked surprised and, Edgar thought, disappointed when Edgar told him he was going to be staying. ‘If that’s okay?’

  ‘Sure it is. Of course. No problem. Just thought it was all a little dull for you here.’

  They watched Edgar’s father leave. The Cadillac turned, its front left tyre mounted a Vail sidewalk, squeezed over it and, with a bump, the car was facing the right way, it picked up speed as it approached the bridge, and was gone.

  Warren dispatched Jerome later that day. ‘I’d like to pick your brains,’ Warren said.

  ‘Gladly,’ Jerome said, blinking suspiciously.

  ‘I wonder if you’d know someone who could do a little research for me? It’s a number of historical details I’m missing for the opera. Maybe it’s not important but I like to be a stickler for accuracy.’

  ‘What kinds of details?’

  ‘George and Mary Pagan mostly. The service held at their wedding. Hymns. Their address in New York City before they fell in with the Perfectionists. Anything more that can be dug up of Mary’s letters and journals. Is there anything that survived the burning of the forties? And Mordecai Short, I know he came from Pittsburgh but—’

  Jerome had been nodding, interested but impatient, going Yep yep yep. Finally he interrupted: ‘I think actually you’ll find he was born in Vermont, he may well have spent some time in Pittsburgh, but he was a New Englander, that’s for certain.’

  ‘There. You see? I’m all adrift with this. There’s a number of other things also, a whole slew of them, I’ve made a list. It’s for the programme notes, historical outline. But you know how it is—between Fay, rehearsals, there isn’t the time …’

  ‘You’ve looked through the library at the Mansion House?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘You’ve picked Janice’s brains? She knows everything there is to know about the Association.’

  ‘And drawn a blank. She didn’t know Short was from Vermont. I need to get to the collection in Syracuse. Probably a day there is all that’s required … If there’s anyone you can think of who could do this, I’d be very grateful.’

  ‘And you really think it’s necessary?’

  ‘I don’t want to make any mistakes. You know, if you get one or two facts wrong then the whole edifice crumbles.’

  Jerome considered. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said. />
  ‘You? But—’

  ‘There’s no one else who can be trusted to get these sort of things right. I would have said Janice, but if she didn’t know where Mordecai Short was born …’ He shook his head sadly.

  ‘Come on, Jerome. I can’t put you through the trouble. It’s visits to Syracuse. Days in the library.’

  ‘You said just one day.’

  ‘Well, I hope that’s what it is. It could stretch to longer, I don’t know. You know how slow they are in there, I really couldn’t guarantee …’

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘I even think I might enjoy it.’

  ‘Well you’re a life-saver, Jerome, you really are. And there’ll be a dedication in the programme for you.’

  A more confident boy could leave his crumpled tissues where they lay, to dry and crisp by the morning. Edgar went to dispose of them in the bathroom. On his way back he nearly ran into Warren going into Fay’s bedroom. Edgar froze in shadows as Warren stepped into the corridor, tying the cord of his dressing-gown and securing it in a double knot. He wiped his hair down and entered Fay’s room, pushing the door softly open. Edgar crawled down the corridor because for some peculiar night-time reason that seemed easier, and more appropriate, than walking.

  Edgar scuttled into his bed. After he had closed his bedroom door and covered himself with the bedclothes safely over his shoulders, his imagination failed him when he tried to guess what Warren might be doing in Fay’s room at night.

  12

  Warren was returned, his enemies scattered, except for Edgar, who had no allies. He called his mother.

  ‘You still haven’t given me your father’s cellphone number.’

  ‘Uh. It’s not working. That’s why.’

  Mon asked him for the number where he and his father were staying, and Edgar said it didn’t accept incoming calls.

  ‘I thought you were in a motel.’