by Ronald Malfi
“How so? Just because of the divorce?”
Jerry leaned forward in his chair. “She’s filling harassment charges against him, Marcus. He’s sneaking up to her house at night.”
“Jesus. What has he done to her?”
Jerry shrugged. “I don’t know. Hell, he doesn’t know. He says he’s never been to her place. He swears it, Marcus.”
In my mind I had unwittingly conjured an image of Charlie Pronovella as a shriveled, insipid waste—a scarecrow-faced man who could not support the weight of his own pathetic body. I only hoped my mind was exaggerating.
“I should see him,” I said, rising from my chair.
3
Outside, it was a cold dusk. The sky was a swirl of florid pastels, abundant with great smears of clouds like something in a Sylvia Moss skyscape. It would rain before night fully claimed the sky. I walked across the darkening lawn, hands in the pockets of my trousers, kicking at the occasional pine cone and avoiding the sinister patches of burn nettles that sprouted from the ground. It had grown chilly and, vaguely, I tried to recall if I’d packed any clothes more weather appropriate than the ones I were currently wearing.
I paused before the great eastern barn where I had thought I’d seen Charlie loitering from the balcony of my room earlier that evening. The barn’s enormous double doors stood ajar. I peered into the darkness of the barn. It smelled faintly stale and fetid, like old manure gone to rot. There was the sound of rustling somewhere in the darkened rafters above my head. Rats, I assumed. Or bats.
Charlie Pronovella stood inside the barn, stroking the mottled stallion in the stable’s single bay. He stood with his back toward me and did not turn at my approach, despite my effort to make as much noise as possible. Had I seen this man on the street and out of the context of the compound, I would never have recognized him for who he was: wasted, gaunt, frail, hunched over in a curious question mark shape, this was not the Charlie Pronovella I’d known for ten years. Moreover, this was not the Charlie Pronovella I’d once witnessed win the Golden Gloves in New York City.
I cleared my throat, wanting him to turn and face me.
“Guten Abend,” he said, not facing me.
“Charlie,” I said. “It’s Marcus Llewellyn.”
“Hello, Marcus.”
“Took a train in this afternoon to see you.”
“That was nice.”
“Heard you weren’t doing so well.”
He did not respond. Instead, I watched him extend one wasted hand toward the elongated face of the stallion. He had gotten it as a gift for Gloria a few years back. I remembered. She had taken riding lessons and even competed but, in the end, turned out to not be so fond of the sport. It took up too much time and effort, she’d said. Sort of like Charlie himself.
“I’m going back inside for some Schnaps,” I intoned. “Thought you might prefer to join me. It’s been a while; we could catch up on things.”
“All right,” Charlie said, agreeably enough.
We walked back to the house together, though we did not exchange very many words. Charlie was lost in whatever realm of contemplation he’d been trapped in for the past few days, and I was occupied with studying my friend without actually letting on that I was studying him. Not that I thought he would notice. I could have stopped him and held him with both hands at shoulders’ length while running my eyes up and down his body and he most likely would not have said two words about it. He walked, I noticed, as if he’d been drinking, with a slight aloofness to his gait, as if his legs were two different sizes.
Back in the house, I led him into the parlor where, to my relief, Demitris had set a plate of sandwiches and a fresh carafe of coffee on a foldout card table. Just seeing the food reminded my stomach just how hungry it was.
Behind me, I heard footsteps patter down the carpet in that urgent manner I quickly associated with Jerry Lieder. Before I could intervene, Charlie poked his head out into the hallway, then gently closed the parlor room door before Jerry could enter. Out in the hallway, I heard Jerry’s shuffling footsteps come to an abrupt halt.
“Having some trouble with Jerry?” I asked, pouring us each a cup of coffee.
“Jerry’s fine,” Charlie murmured. “He means well.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “He does. Here.” I extended a cup of coffee out to him. Charlie just stared at it, both his hands stuffed into the rear pockets of his corduroys. He made no attempt to intercept the cup. “What?” I said. “You should drink some. It’ll wake you up.”
“I haven’t slept in three days,” he countered.
“All right,” I said, setting the cup on the table. “At least eat something, Charlie. You look terrible.”
“I mean, I’m sleeping, Marcus...I think I am...but then again, I think I’m up all night.” He shook his head, as if to clear it of some awful thought. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”
I sat in one of the armchairs and waited for Charlie to do the same. He glanced sideways at the other chair, knowing that I expected him to sit, but he did not do so.
“Charlie,” I began.
He eased backward into the armchair with what looked like some difficulty. Lord, he had thinned out. His face was gaunt and colorless, like a wax impression of himself. Once seated, I watched how his eyes roamed over the tray of sandwiches.
“They’re good,” I said.
“Not hungry,” he said. He quickly lifted his eyes. At first, I thought he had leveled his gaze on me…but then I realized the portrait of Gloria was directly above my head, and silently cursed myself for being such a damn fool and choosing this, of all the other rooms in the house.
“What’s been going on, Charlie?”
“Gloria left,” he said flatly.
“I know that. What’s been going on with you?”
“Strangest thing,” he said. His voice was completely matter-of-fact. “I’ve been displaced.”
“That’s natural,” I assured him. “You two had been married for a number of years. You loved her very much. This whole thing had come as a surprise, and it’s going to take a lot of time and—”
“No,” he said, maintaining that same slow, dilatory speech, “you don’t understand.”
“I don’t?”
“I’ve been displaced. Something’s missing. Something’s not—right—”
“I’m not following you, Charlie…”
“Everything,” he said, “has been moved a few inches to the left.”
“All right. Can you explain?”
He said, “You’re right there in front of me. I know that. But you’re also off to the left, too. You’re not centered. Nothing,” he said, “is centered.”
“Centered?”
“It’s me,” he said. “It has to be me. No one else seems to notice, and if the entire world looks slightly displaced to me without anyone else seeming to notice, then it would stand to reason that I’m the one who’s displaced, right? It would stand to reason that it’s me who’s slightly off a few inches to the right.”
Feet lurked beneath the crack in the parlor room door. I watched them without saying a word until they finally retreated.
“Charlie,” I said, “I’m afraid I don’t fully understand.”
“It’s how I wrecked the Rolls. Did you see it?”
“I saw what happened to it, yes.”
“It was the last time I tried driving.”
“What happened?”
“Reversed into a tree.”
“Why?”
“Because there was a tree there. What do you mean why?”
I said, “Did you perhaps do it on purpose?”
“Why the hell would I do a thing like that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Why would you?”
Charlie frowned and it was like watching a skull crease down the middl
e. “Quit it,” he practically whispered.
“Quit what?”
“What you’re doing, Marcus. I know what you’re doing. If you’re here to claim billable hours, you can just get back on the next train to London.”
“You know that’s not true,” I said. “We’re friends. I’m worried about you. Everyone is worried about you, Charlie.”
“I didn’t do what she says I did.” His voice had leveled out and he stared at me with sober eyes. “I didn’t go to her house and harass her, Marcus.”
“Then why would she make up such a thing? She’s called the police, you know.”
“Is that why you’re here? As my warden?”
I didn’t like the path we were taking. “We need to talk about you living here,” I said, changing the topic. “Why did you come here, Charlie?”
“To the farm?” he said innocently enough. “Because I was losing it at the loft. I feel a bit more focused here, more aligned. I think it’s because some of her still lingers in the air, keeping me more centered.”
“How long do you plan to stay here?”
“Oh,” he said, “who knows? Most likely until things fix themselves again.”
“How will they fix themselves?”
“When Gloria comes back.”
Lord, was there no avenue I could turn without running into these maddening roadblocks?
“You can’t stay here, Charlie,” I told him. My tone was deliberately stern. “She owns the place now. You can’t be here without her permission. None of us can, in fact. We’re all breaking the law right now. Are you aware of that?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It’ll matter when the police show up.”
He shrugged.
I was exhausted. The coffee was keeping me wired, though, which did little to alleviate my exhaustion. Also, having gone without food for the better part of the day had shrunken my stomach to the size of an infant’s fist, and the one sandwich I had been eating was enough to fill me up. Suddenly, I felt bloated and sluggish and wanted nothing more than to climb into my bed upstairs—thankfully, Gloria had not taken all the beds from the house—and fall into a quick, dreamless sleep.
Defeated, I rose from my chair, setting my coffee cup down on the fold-out table, and sauntered over to the parlor room door. I paused before exiting, turning back to my friend from over my shoulder.
“You can’t go to her house anymore,” I told him.
He glared at me: big bloodhound eyes. “I told you, Marcus. I didn’t go to her house.”
“We just need to keep things simple, okay? For your own good.”
He did not answer; he only smiled his meager, sunken smile, and turned back to the portrait. I waited for some time, either expecting him to finally say something or simply because I could not think of anything else to do. Then I slipped out of the parlor, closing the door behind me, and crossed to the main foyer and the stairwell. The house was silent; Jerry and Demitris had gone to bed. Outside, the storm had finally arrived, and with such force that I half expected the foyer windows to implode.
4
Whether it was something in a dream which initiated my startled rise from my pillow, or something—some noise—in the tangible world, I do not recall. But when I found myself jarred awake, sitting up in a strange bed, in a strange room, I felt a certain claustrophobic bout of fear gripping the base of my throat. Several panicked seconds ticked by before my brain was able to assemble the pieces of my day, concluding with how I’d gotten to my current surroundings. It was at that instant that I recognized the strange room, and that I knew I was at the compound.
But what had woken me?
I stood and went to the glass patio doors. The room was cold. A full moon hung in the sky, wisps of clouds threaded across it. Below, the lawns glowed in the moonlight and, beyond the property, the jagged outlines of birch trees lay pitch-black against the night sky.
I pulled on a robe and slippers and crept like a thief into the hallway. The corridor was dark, though multi-windowed, pasting illuminated rectangles of moonlight at askew angles on the carpeting. As silently as possible, I negotiated the hallway and descended the winding staircase to the foyer. The house was enormous and soundless. I was suddenly the only living creature in all of Kaiserslautern—in all of the world, for that matter.
There was no one down here.
But what had made the noise?
For the life of me, I couldn’t even recall what the noise had been, let alone if I’d dreamed it or not. This foolish bumbling around in the dark had very quickly lost its fascination. I turned and headed back to my room, avoiding from memory the stairs that had creaked too loudly on my way down, knowing that I would not find sleep as easily as I had earlier that evening. So, back in my room, I gathered my casework from my portfolio and, sliding a writing desk across the room until it was flush against the glass patio doors—absent of any lamps, the moonlight was all there was by which to see—I commenced with my article, reviewing once more the case of the mysterious North London couple which, on the heels of today’s events, seemed so completely removed from reality that I had to study the couple’s photograph again just to reassure myself that they were, indeed, real.
Peripherally, I noticed something through the patio doors, down below in the dark well of the yard. I looked in time to observe a ghostly white figure disappear into the stable at the rear of the compound. My heart temporarily seized in my chest. Though I had only caught a glimpse of the figure—had only seen it for a quarter of a second, surely—I knew, without doubt, without questioning my reason, that it was Charlie Pronovella.
A moment later, I watched as a dull yellow light filtered out of the open stable door.
Still in my robe and slippers, I hurried back into the hallway and back down the winding staircase. I moved quickly through the house until I blew through the kitchen quarters and arrived at the back door. To my utter astonishment, it was not only unlocked, it was open.
Reaching out with one hand, I pushed against the door. It creaked open even farther. I was accosted by a frigid nighttime wind. Tugging my robe more tightly about my meager frame, I crossed the threshold and stepped out into the night. From here, I could see movement in the glowing light coming through the open stable door. What in the name of God was he doing? Teeth chattering against the biting wind, I advanced across the lawn toward the stable. My feet clad only in worn slippers, burn nettles clawed at my ankles, my calves, but I never once wavered in my discipline. Finally, having arrived just outside the stable, I tiptoed to the open door and adjusted my vantage in order to permit me to see inside. For whatever reason, I was holding my breath. I could feel my heart jackhammering in my chest. My father, the poor soul, had died of a heart attack at the unfathomable age of forty-six; the memory of his discovery in the backyard of my childhood home in Winchester, already long dead, having fallen across and toppling over a pyramid of firewood, was suddenly all I could think of.
Inside the stable, Charlie Pronovella stood in the comfortable glow of an oil lamp, gently running his fingers down the length of the great mottled stallion’s face. The horse whinnied, perhaps sensing me just outside the door, but this did not appear to disturb Charlie. He massaged the horse’s face then, almost tenderly, raked his fingers through its thick brown mane. He said nothing while he did this, and looked like a somnambulist in his droopy boxer shorts and oversized undershirt. Once again, I was taken aback by the amount of weight he had lost. Charlie was a flyweight and had never been bulky, but his three months of sleepless nights and lack of eating had left him swimming in his undershirt. Seeing him in such a fashion caused a chord of fear to strike through me. It was only a matter of time before he completely wasted away until he vanished from existence altogether.
Strangest thing, he’d said. I’ve been displaced.
I considered calling out his name, saying someth
ing. But in the end, I merely turned and left Charlie to his own devices. Tomorrow was another day. I only hoped it would be a better one.
5
I spent the early part of the following day in grueling agony. My midnight jaunt across the compound’s lawn to the stable had left my ankles and shins red, puffy, and itchy from the burn nettles. The more I scratched the redder the welts on my skin grew. Finally, after my disgust with the entire matter had reached its zenith, I filled up the bathtub at the end of the upstairs hallway and sat on the edge of it, dipping my feet into the cool water. At my request, Demitris appeared in the bathroom doorway with a mixture of oatmeal and cornstarch, as well as some salve. He poured the oatmeal and cornstarch mixture into the bath and, moments later, returned with some coffee. My feet soaking, I sat on the edge of the tub, sipping coffee.
“How did this happen?” Demitris asked.
“Burn nettles. From the yard.”
“That wouldn’t be the burn nettles,” Demitris advised, peering down at my reddened, welt-covered shins. “Looks like poison sumac, to be honest.”
“Terrific.”
Later, upon heading downstairs, I passed by the open door to the parlor room and saw Charlie sitting in one of the armchairs—the armchair directly facing the portrait of Gloria, in fact. I paused in the doorway and uttered a gravelly hello.
“Guten Morgen,” Charlie managed without looking at me.
I turned away and went into the kitchen. Jerry was there, staring down at his cell phone.
“Something wrong?” I asked.