Open Doors

by Gloria Goldreich

  “Where?” she had asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. Here. Jerusalem. California. New York. As long as we’re all together. Dad would have liked that.”

  “Yes. He would have.”

  Elaine marveled at how effortlessly they spoke of Neil, his name, the memory of his likes and dislikes, falling from their lips with gentle ease. Time was doing its work.

  She had thought, during the drive from Taos, that she would speak to Denis during lunch about her decision to leave New Mexico after the opening of the clinic and the gallery. The tiles she had worked on were fired, the enamel baked to a subtle glow that would easily complement those she had completed in Jerusalem and Encino and those she had designed during her stay in Moscow. It was time to unite them into a single cohesive unit, into the mural she had envisioned. Neil’s life, Neil’s legacy, an enduring visual memorial, ready to be installed.

  She would complete the ceramics she had promised to Jane Cunningham and then she would return east and assemble the tiles in her own studio. She imagined the texture of the tiles against her fingers, the scent of the wood she planned to use for the frame, the sapphire color of the ink she would use for the last remaining tile, the micography she would practice and perfect. She wondered if she should share her idea for that micography with Denis as she mounted the stairway to his office. Suddenly she heard a door slam and the sound of running steps. Instinctively, she thrust herself back against the wall, barely avoiding the man who hurtled past her, his narrow face contorted in a mask of fury, his rasping voice spewing epithets of hatred down the narrow passage.

  “Faggot. Faggot Jew! Ambulance chaser! Bastard.”

  She smelled his bilious breath and, with sinking heart, recognized both his words and the harshness of their utterance. His greasy blond hair, caught up in a ponytail, whipped across his black leather jacket. He was the same cyclist who had sideswiped past her in Santa Clara, who had hurled abuse at Andrew.

  Breathless and frightened, she remained perfectly still until he ran from the building, leaving the door open so that she heard the roar of his motorcycle as he drove away.

  “Mom, Mom, are you there? Are you all right?”

  Denis, his brow furrowed, rushed toward her.

  “I’m fine,” she assured him as they went into his office. “But what was that about?”

  “The guy’s an idiot. A retard. He got involved in an accident and he wanted me to represent him. I refused. Not my kind of case and not my kind of client. I was ready to refer him to someone who does that kind of work when he got abusive. I threatened to call the cops and he bolted out of here. I guess you know the rest.” Denis shook his head, shrugged into his jacket. “Let’s go. He’s not going to ruin our lunch.”

  “Of course not,” she agreed, struggling to keep her voice light but knowing that their lunch was already ruined.

  “And please don’t tell Andrew what you heard,” he added.

  “I won’t,” she agreed and realized that she had promised as much to Andrew.

  She wondered how many secrets they could keep from each other, Denis protecting Andrew, Andrew protecting Denis, before those protective silences darkened into a lingering shadow. Her own life, and Neil’s, too, she realized now, had been shadowed by the words their children left unsaid, the feelings they left unshared. Their joy and involvement had been diminished because their sons and daughters had protected them from their own sorrows. They had feared to shatter the self-contained tranquility of a parental marriage so tightly woven that it left no room for interstices. That fear had imploded, destroying ease and honesty. They could have helped. They would have wanted to help.

  Elaine thought of Lisa bleeding in a Roman clinic, of Sarah wandering rootless through the streets of Jerusalem, of Peter in desperate search of intimacy, of Denis who had refrained from speaking of his deepest yearnings. Their revelations had been late in coming but she was grateful that they had come at all. And she was grateful, too, that her own role had shifted, that she had accepted the challenge of their needs, abandoned all passivity. Her words and actions impacted on their lives. They were, all of them, in a new time, at a new place.

  She looked at her son and thought to warn him of the dangers of concealment but she remained silent. There were lessons that could not be taught. Denis, who understood the subtlety of a charcoal brush stroke, the beauty of scudding clouds and gentle touch, would acquire that knowledge in his own time.

  She took his arm and together they walked through the brilliant sunlit streets to the small garden restaurant where they sat beneath a network of vigas, the long beams garlanded with wreaths of crimson chili peppers. Their lunch was not ruined. They sipped their margaritas, dipped tortillas warm from the oven into earthenware bowls of guacamole, and spoke, without constraint, of Neil, of the music that he had loved, of his wry humor that had so often ignited their family’s laughter, trading memories, sharing love.

  “Neil.”

  “Dad.”

  Their glasses clinked in tender toast as a flame-colored oriole perched patiently on the low-hanging branch of a pepper tree, took wing and soared through the cloudless sky.

  twenty-five

  That night Elaine carried the bookends and the vase up the mountain trail. She had already decided to position them on a low shelf just beneath Denis’s drawings and she paused beside an overgrowth of wild roses, thinking that the pale pink blossoms would add just the right color. She climbed a small boulder to reach a spray of flowers and turning slightly, she caught sight of the clinic. Her heart stopped.

  Tongues of golden flame licked at the darkened windows and clouds of smoke soared skyward. The gallery area was on fire.

  She whipped out her cell phone and breathlessly punched in 911. She shouted into the phone, heard the strange rasping of her voice, her terror fraying each word.

  “Fire! At the clinic on Jones Trail. Fire!”

  She heard her words repeated and repeated yet again as emergency services were alerted.

  “Jones Trail! Just kilometers from the new clinic.”

  The dispatcher’s voice was calm, controlled.

  “I’ve got that, ma’am. Trucks are on their way. Stay away from the flames, ma’am. That wood is full of dry piñon and cottonwood. Go back, far back.”

  But she tossed her phone away and sprinted forward, her own package discarded on a fallen log. The paintings and sculptures for the opening exhibit had not yet been installed but Denis’s drawings and Andrew’s photographs hung on the pristine walls. There were negatives for the photographs but if the drawings were burned they were forever lost. She would not let that happen. She could not let that happen. She ran without regard for trail or path, her breath coming in harsh gasps. She felt the wind whip across her face, heard the brittle chorus of trembling branches and then the sudden roar of a powerful engine. She pressed herself against a tree as a motorcycle careened past her, two men riding in tandem, wildly shouting into the night. A beer bottle was tossed against a tree. She recognized their voices, recognized the lank blond hair of the cyclist who swerved crazily and accelerated, his wheels scattering stones and branches in harsh cacophony.

  She rushed on, ignoring the encroaching heat. She followed the oddly melodic sound of slowly shattering glass, her face damp with sweat and tears, her arms and legs scratched by thorns and nettles, until at last she reached the building.

  The door, always so carefully locked, was ajar, and she plunged into that flame-lit darkness and struggled toward the farthest wall of the gallery, her way lit by fingers of fire. Frantically, she unhooked the drawings, ignoring the wire that sliced into her fingers, hugging them to her body. One, two, three, four. Yes, she had them all. She bolted through the door into a night that was suddenly alive with the lights that blazed from the fire truck, the shrilling of sirens and the blaring of voices.

  “Over here! There’s a water point!”

  “Aim the damn hose to the left!”

  Luminous whips of water f
logged the flames and she thrust herself out of their path, her throat aching, her breath coming in painful gasps.

  “Hey, there’s a woman. Someone help her.”

  Booted feet ran toward her and a man in a rubber coat eased the framed drawings from her grasp. Strong hands carried her away from the heat and laid her gently on the ground. She looked up and saw Denis and Andrew kneeling beside her. Denis’s face was pale and Andrew’s eyes were wet with tears.

  “Mom, what were you thinking?”

  “Your drawings. I had to save your drawings,” she said.

  “Damn my drawings. You could have been killed.”

  He lifted her to her feet then and with Andrew holding one arm and Denis the other, they walked very slowly down the trail, rutted now by the vicious impact of the motorcycle tracks. They paused to retrieve the small carton that contained her own ceramics, wondrously intact, their glazes shining into the night.

  “I wanted to display them at the gallery opening,” Elaine explained, sliding her fingers across the golden surface of the bookends, so carefully fired to a radiant smoothness.

  “If there is an opening,” Andrew said wearily. “Those bastards did a pretty good job on us.”

  “There will be an opening.” Denis’s voice was resolute. “They’re not going to win.”

  The timbre of his voice, his calm certainty, were his father’s legacy. Elaine leaned heavily against her son, taking comfort from his strength and his support, as she looked up at the starlit sky. She was widowed but she was not bereft. She held precious memory close, thrilled to the sound of a remembered cadence in Denis’s voice, moved by the agate blue of her husband’s eyes in a grandchild’s gentle gaze. She understood that grief diminished but love endured.

  There was an opening, held on schedule in a building bathed in softly filtered light. The fire had been brought under control so quickly that the damage was minimal. Windows had been replaced and crews of volunteers had whitewashed the stucco walls, erasing all traces of smoke. A team of Navajo carpenters had arrived without notice and installed new beams, laid a slate patio. Andrew worked through the night developing a new set of prints and his photographs and Denis’s drawings were carefully repositioned, Elaine’s ceramics were placed just as she had envisioned them, a spray of pink wild roses offsetting the purple of the slender silver-flecked vase. Because the evening was cool, a small fire burned in the kiva fireplace, dancing flames that warmed and did not destroy.

  The room was crowded with friends and well-wishers. A group of Native American weavers presented Denis with a rug of desert hues, the sage green of cacti, the ochre of sand, the sapphire blue of a cloudless sky and the vivid Aztec red. He and Andrew spread it across the floor of the gallery and two small girls removed their shoes and danced from color to color as their father played his guitar. The guests looked at them, looked at the paintings and photographs, at the handicrafts set on low tables, sipped their wine and smiled happily. Small red dots began to appear on object after object, indicating that they had been sold.

  Elaine, regal in a dress of black wool offset by a heavy copper necklace of Pueblo design, her dark hair braided into a single long plait, wandered through the room, smiling at her son’s friends, greeting acquaintances, answering questions about her own work. Jane Cunningham, who had come from Taos with two other gallery owners, paused to congratulate her and to remind her of her promise.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Elaine assured her. “The new pieces will be ready and delivered to your gallery before I leave Santa Fe.”

  Her own words surprised her. Her decision had come unbidden but she knew with instinctive certainty that it was time for her to return east, to take up the life she had left behind and to plan for a future that would be hers alone.

  “Great,” Jane Cunningham said. “And remember. My offer still stands.”

  “I’ll remember,” Elaine promised as Jane drifted across the room to speak with Phil London who, for the first time since Elaine’s initial meeting with him in Taos, seemed relieved of his burden of grief and loss. It might well be, she thought, that this clinic, dedicated to the memory of the man who had been his companion for so long, validated a life so sadly and painfully ended. Elaine closed her eyes and thought of her mural, the mosaic of memory she would soon set in place tile by tile. She envisioned its completion and thought of how she might word the plaque that described it so that his name would endure and the gift of his life might be forever remembered.

  “Elaine.” A man’s voice, soft and tentative, a man’s hand gentle upon her shoulder.

  Startled, she opened her eyes and turned. Herb Glasser smiled down at her, took her hand and bent to kiss her cheek.

  “Surprised?” he asked.

  “Astonished.”

  “As I told you on the phone,” he said, “New Mexico is not all that far from California. Peter told me about the gallery opening. He and Lauren planned to fly out here just for the evening to surprise Denis and Andrew. So I thought that I’d tag along and surprise you.”

  “Well, you succeeded,” she said and wondered if he had noticed how the color had rushed to her cheeks and how she trembled ever so slightly at the touch of his hand.

  Her sons rushed toward her, Lauren and Andrew trailing behind them, smiling to see the two brothers and their mother embrace, their faces bright with joy, their voices light with laughter, all lingering shadows swept away.

  Later that evening, after Andrew and Denis and Lauren and Peter had left for dinner in the city, she and Herb sat on the patio. They stared up at the starlit sky.

  “Cassiopeia,” he said softly. “Perseus. Andromeda. Cepheus.”

  She smiled.

  “Neil, my husband. He, too, loved looking at the stars, repeating the names of the constellations.”

  “We have a lot in common then. Your Neil and myself.”

  “You do.”

  She lifted her hand to his face, touched the softness of his lips, the creping skin of his cheeks, the thickness of his silvered eyebrows. He moved closer to her, lifted her thick braid, slid it across his neck, allowed it to fall gently onto her breast as his lips brushed her mouth, as their arms entwined and their hearts beat in arrhythmic unison.

  “Elaine.” Her name upon his lips was a plea.

  Gently, slowly, she pulled away.

  “Herb.”

  His name, so sadly whispered, fell softly into the star-spangled darkness.

  “I understand,” he said although he was not clear on what it was he understood. He wanted only to ease her unspoken sadness, to accept whatever tenderness she might offer him.

  “Soon,” she said, and from that single word he took hope and was content to remain on the patio, her hand encased in his as, mysteriously, a light rain began to fall.

  One week later, she packed three modular bowls in the unique blues and pinks of a desert sunset and delivered them to Jane Cunningham’s Taos gallery. The bookends and the vase remained in Denis and Andrew’s living room, house gifts long delayed. They each kissed her as she set them in place. The next day they drove her to Albuquerque and, as she boarded the plane, she turned and waved to them. They stood side by side, Andrew’s arm draped protectively over Denis’s shoulder. She had photographed them in just that pose on the day of their visit to Los Alamos. Andrew had developed that film and given her an enlarged print. She would have it framed in silver, she decided, and thought that she would position it amid the wedding pictures of her other children. Almost at once she changed her mind. She would place it on the bookshelf next to the fading sepia wedding portraits of her parents and Neil’s, each stamped with the imprint of vanished studios in a land and a life abandoned.

  twenty-six

  Elaine arrived home from Santa Fe as winter slowly surrendered its frigid edge and the early winds of spring rattled the still sere branches of the slender maple just beyond the wide window of her studio. She glanced up at the tree as she worked, noting the hesitant sprouting of the bright green
leaves, still curled into their protective furls. She watched them each morning, marveling at how they grew day by day until at last, she looked up from the completed etching of the very last tile of the mosaic and saw that they were in full foliage, casting a long shadow across the lawn. Neil had planted that tree on the day her studio was completed, and she had captured it with her stylus, carefully mingling emerald and sap green for its tentative leafage. She smiled and slid the tile into the oven. It would be the crown of the mosaic, combining as it did Neil’s optimism and his legacy. He had bought a sapling but he had envisioned a tree. He had wanted her to look out at its beauty as she worked at her drawing table and so he had planted it within easy view. He had wanted his children and grandchildren to run and laugh in its shade. He had set it into the ground with great tenderness and she had watched his hands mold the earth that blanketed its roots. Neil’s hands, so slender and graceful at work in the garden, Neil’s hand so slender and graceful, resting in her own, as he died his too-swift death.

  She sat quietly, adrift in memory, until the timer rang and she opened the oven door and slid the tile onto the flat wooden spatula. She had not erred. The glaze shimmered, the verdant leaves seemed to waft in a gentle wind. The mosaic was complete. All that remained was the grouting. Tomorrow, she thought. She could begin the grouting tomorrow but now there were calls to be made. To Sarah in Israel. To Peter in California. To Lisa in Philadelphia. To Denis in New Mexico. It was important that they all be together when she told them of her decision.

  She calculated the time differences. She would call Sarah in the morning. But later that evening she would call Peter and Denis. She could reach Lisa at once and that, perhaps would be the easiest call to make. Lisa would ask discreet questions, perhaps make discreet suggestions. She was half prepared for Elaine’s choice but then, Elaine thought, “I’m only half prepared for it myself.”