is too dry to eat on its own; unsweetened whipped cream makes the traditional accompaniment. We had a bowl in the fridge, but I didn’t mention it, leaning against the counter with my arms folded, advertising indifference. The truth was otherwise. For although I hated the way he had barged in, disrupting my solitude, making me self-conscious by reminding me of our drunken escapade; hated his impertinence (lemme get some of that);
hated what he stood for, the part of Alma to which I had no access, the knowledge that I was a visitor here—while all that was true, it would be an oversimplification to say that I hated him,
or wanted him gone. At many points I could have denied him entry. I could have refused to let him in the house. I could have ordered him to leave once he’d finished drinking or eating. I didn’t, because another part of me still sensed in him an opportunity for information. And I admit that I am not immune to the purely chemical effects of charisma. I could no more deny it than pretend that the night in Arlington had never happened: I wanted him to like me. He pushed the plate away, wiped his mouth on his wrist. “You’re a philosopher.” I nodded. “That’s cool. She must love that. Huh?” I shrugged. “I mean ...” He passed his hand over his head, laughed again. “You know? I never did get any of that stuff.” “Is that right.” “Oh, sure, yeah. I have learning disabilities. I mean, she used to get really frustrated with me.” I thought of something Alma had said during our first conversation. It is a terrible thing to be stupid. “How long did you live with her?” I asked. “Nine years.” “Did you like it?” He smiled. “I was a kid. What was I supposed to do?” “Has she always been sick?” “Ever since I’ve known her.” He paused. “She used to wake herself up. I’d hear her walking around upstairs, two, three in the morning. Sound familiar?” I nodded. “Must be rough,” he said. “On you, I mean.” I shrugged. “Sometimes she would scream in her sleep. Does she still do that?” Horrified, I shook my head. “For a while she did it every couple of nights.” He toyed with the crumbs on his plate. “The first time it happened, the neighbors called the cops. They thought someone was being stabbed to death.” Silence. “That sounds ... difficult,” I said. “It’s messed up, is what it is.” He smiled. “What can you do, though.” I said nothing. “So,” he said. “You’re in the back room. That used to be my room.” Alma hadn’t mentioned it. I stiffened. “Is that so.” “You know the thingamajig on the window? The painting or whatever you call it? The pattern on his hat matches the fur on the deer.” “That’s interesting,” I said. “You ever notice that?” I felt silly shaking my head. “No?” “I don’t look at it that often,” I lied. “Yeah,” he said. “Check it out the next time. Or, you know what—” He stood up and walked out. I couldn’t exactly yell at him to stop. I got up and went after him. “See?” Having entered my room without permission, he was now standing by the leaded window, gesturing like a game-show host. “Check it out.” I wanted to resist, but curiosity had gotten the better of me. I crossed the room. Lo and behold, the hunter’s cap and the deerskin were both rendered in the same orange houndstooth. “I always liked that,” he said. I nodded. We stood as one, admiring the art. “Man, I used to hate it back here. She’d lock me in to punish me. But, hey.” He laughed. “That’s a long time ago.” I said nothing. “What about the gun?” he asked. “You ever see that?” I had always taken her crack about owning a pistol to be just that: a crack. I shook my head. “Oh, you got to. Come on.” He exited toward the library, never looking back to see if I would follow. GROWING UP, my brother and I were under strict instructions not to go anywhere near the cabinet in the basement. This led us to want nothing more, and left alone one evening, the first thing Chris and I did—after eating an entire coconut cream pie—was steal the key from our father’s nightstand. I was six, Chris not yet thirteen. Together we scrambled down the basement steps, far more frightened of what our father’s reaction would be than of the guns themselves. My brother took down a hunting rifle and pointed it all over the place, making shooting noises. He offered it to me—forced it on me, really, as I had come along as an observer, not as a participant, and took it from him only after much goading. It was heavy, the stock warm from his armpit. I aimed at the far wall, sighting above a tall cardboard box labeled X-MAS LIGHTS in my mother’s neat, antiquated hand. “Do it,” he said. I didn’t want to, but he made fun of me until, shaking, I pulled the trigger—to no effect. The safety was still on. Chris laughed at me, and I threw the rifle down and ran upstairs in tears. That fall he began going out with my father for whitetail season, one of the few activities they could manage to do together peacefully. It was, perhaps, the situation’s inherent deadliness that kept their tempers in check, spilt blood and torn flesh enough to remind them of the consequences of rash action. They would disappear before dawn, coming home after dark with flaking lips and ski-cap hair. These trips transformed them; for days afterward they communicated on a frequency neither I nor my mother could pick up. To be so blatantly excluded reinforced my growing sense that I did not belong. Watching Eric pry a wooden box out from one of the library’s top shelves, I had the same uneasy feeling as I’d had all those years ago, when I thought I was about to blow a hole in the basement wall. “Here,” he said. Made of a dark, burled maple, it could have held any number of things: butterflies, playing cards, a chemistry set. The latch gleamed. “Open it.” The interior was lined with green velvet, similar to that on the base of half-Nietzsche, but rather more fine and soft. The gun itself had a narrow barrel, protruding from the chamber like a bone from flesh. Stamped on the base of the grip was an insignia too worn to identify. “I don’t know if it still works,” he said. “I mean, it’s pretty old.” I ran my fingers over the velvet, and then, with a transgressive thrill, lifted the gun out of the case. We are homo faber
—man, maker and user of tools—and every tool we make has an innate purpose. When a particular object’s purpose is so clearly singular, one experiences an almost irresistible urge to use it toward its intended end. Just as books are for reading and cakes are for eating, guns are for shooting, and though it had been decades since I’d held one in my hand, the chill of the metal brought on a terrifying impulse to destroy something. Disquieted, I replaced the pistol and handed the case to Eric, stepping away from him and it. “You see that?” He was pointing to the insignia, tracing its shape. “S,
” he said, “S
.” I looked at him. “Her father was big in the Austrian army.” “He was an instrument maker.” “He was. He also made land mines.” He snorted. “How do you think they got so rich? Pianos?” I said nothing. “Sorry to spoil it for you.” “She didn’t do anything,” I said. “She was a child.” “Yeah,” he said. “Well, okay.” A silence. “Did you take something from those girls?” I asked. He looked at me. “The one you... the one with the . . .” I gestured to my abdomen. “She was going on about you stealing something from her.” He continued to stare at me, then walked to the bookshelf. To get the case back into place he had to go up on his toes. “She said that, huh.” “Yes.” “What did she say I stole?” “I don’t know. She was pretty upset, though.” He laughed. “Oh yeah?” “I’m serious. She almost broke my neck.” “Well,” he said, turning around. “I don’t know nothin about that.” I said nothing. “Her room was a mess. Whatever she’s looking for, it’s probably on the floor.” He glanced at the grandfather clock. “She’s not coming down anytime soon, huh.” I shook my head. “Tell her I stopped by.” I nodded. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I know my way out.” THAT NIGHT I dreamt of a clearing in the forest. Through glassy leaves I saw movement, and I felt afraid, not knowing if I was hunter or prey.
14 A
lma’s reaction to the news of Eric’s visit was dismayingly subdued. “No doubt he came for his money,” she said. “Thank you for keeping him at bay while I rested. In the future I shall leave a spare check with you. You can give it to him right away and thereby free yourself of any obligation to entertain him.” “All I did was give him cak
e.” “And now we do not have enough for afternoon tea. For shame, Mr. Geist.” “What do you mean?” “See for yourself.” I lifted up the plastic cover; the rest of the Sachertorte
was gone. “There was plenty yesterday.” “Perhaps he took it when you weren’t looking,” she said. “That would be true to form.” I gripped the empty plate in both hands. “I can’t believe this.” “Patience, Mr. Geist. An old lady can survive one day without her confections. Now, you had a request.” I barely heard her; I was still fuming. “Mr. Geist.” “Pardon?” “You spoke of it a few days ago,” she said. “We never pursued the matter.” I remembered now: my mother’s call. I told Alma about the trip, describing it as a family reunion and omitting the memorial. “I said I had to ask you first.” “Naturally you may go. Although I feel obliged to note that you do not seem overly enthusiastic about the prospect.” “I’m not.” “In that case, you may use me as an excuse, if you wish to beg off.” I hesitated. “I really should go.” “Very well, then.” “It’ll only be for a couple of days.” “Please, don’t rush on my account. I can get along quite well without you.” She half-smiled. “You’ve never spoken of your family.” I shrugged. “May I ask why?” “It’s nothing personal. There’s nothing to talk about.” “You are too modest.” “I’m not. They never met Wittgenstein. They wouldn’t even know who that is.” “They produced you, Mr. Geist.” “I’ve never understood how.” She waited for me to say more. I didn’t, and she said, “Of course, your business is your own.” She sounded different then. Perhaps she was annoyed at me for acting cagey when she had revealed so much about herself. Or maybe she meant what she said, and what I heard in her voice was concern. Either way, the moment passed, and we moved on to more mutually agreeable subjects. ERIC BEGAN TURNING UP regularly for money. Alma’s equanimity with this arrangement made me prickle, enough so that I began ducking out the back whenever I heard him climbing the front steps. If I didn’t get out in time, I would be invited to sit with the two of them, the worst kind of torture. I would say nothing, counting the minutes, finally coming up with an excuse to go to my room, where I would clamp my pillow over my ears, stoking my own frustration by attempting to estimate how much she had given him over the years. Say, on average, a hundred dollars, once a week for ... pick a number, say fifteen years ... that came out to about eighty thousand dollars—an outrageous amount, considering he did nothing except stick out his hand. At least the maid and I earned our keep. What could he possibly need that much for, except to feed an addiction? This had to be stopped; it was not right; it was not good, not for him or her or anybody else. Then I berated myself: who was I to tell her how to spend her money, what nerve, what impudence. But then as someone who cared for her, I could not abide this rampant abuse of her generosity. If I didn’t speak up at some point, would anyone? And back and forth I went. What really got to me was how Alma came alive in his presence, becoming, for a short while at least, positively coquettish. His flattery was so transparently phony that I couldn’t understand how a woman of her intelligence and sophistication would fall for it. I found the process painful to behold. As weeks went on and I spent more time observing them, I began to understand why I couldn’t draw a bead on Eric’s personality: he had none. He responded only to immediate stimuli, and then only in pursuit of his own desires. He wanted money from Alma, and in order to get it, he rearranged himself as necessary. If she was feeling flirtatious, he flirted with her. If she appeared withdrawn, he was gentle and inquisitive. That he could so rapidly adjust his own mood to suit hers proved to me that he had no substance whatsoever. I couldn’t possibly do the same. I was a real person, with an independent mind; I lacked his chameleon’s gifts. But then how did he manage to fool her? Or, rather, why did she allow herself to be fooled? I tortured myself with this question. Endlessly I compared myself to him. I was the book; he was the movie. The more I turned the metaphor over in my mind, the more apt it felt. He was all surface, I had depth. He provided passive diversion, I required rigor and concentration. I was subtle where he was obvious, refined where he was crass, etc., etc., all manner of self-congratulatory sniping that did not improve my mood one whit. Because I could not deny the way Alma looked at him. I could not wish him away, and reluctantly I came to the conclusion that I had once again overestimated my own importance, and underestimated people’s capacity for self-deception. Sometimes, it seemed, a lady just wanted to go to the movies. Far more troubling, however, was the correlation between his appearances and her attacks. Within a few hours of his departure, she would be struck down, retiring to her room for the remainder of the day. In the evenings I would creep upstairs to leave her a tray of food, which always went untouched but which I stubbornly went on preparing. I could see the harm he did her, and that was enough to make me want to bar him from coming inside. It was not my place, though, and so I stood by, grimacing, whenever he rang the bell, interrupting our conversation; when he joined us, uninvited, for dinner. They would laugh and nudge each other with private jokes, and I would stew silently until, unable to bear it any longer, I shuffled out of the room, inventing appointments. I walked for hours, muttering to myself, kicking divots in the turf along the banks of the Charles. Or else I would stalk to the Science Center, sit down at a computer and check repeatedly for e-mails that never came. I scoured the Web for information on both Alma and Eric, believing that the more I knew about them, the more I could control them. A patently childish idea, and anyway neither of them had any presence in cyberspace. Alma, understandably. And Eric presumably because he had long ceased to participate in normal society. That I could not find his name anywhere told me that he hadn’t finished school (if he had even started it). As far as I knew he didn’t have a job, other than sponging off Alma and ruining my life. Or I would stand outside Yasmina’s building, my former home, picturing her inside, draining pasta as she chatted on the phone to her fiance, letting my hatred of him overlap with that of Eric, twin jealousies intermingling, each boosting the other exponentially, my sense of aggrievement mounting, working myself into such a frenzy that by the time I got home I was in no state to do anything other than lie in my bed in the dark, snorting and staring at the ceiling. “Patience, Mr. Geist.” Patience for what? What was I supposed to be waiting for? It was impossible for me not to hate Eric, especially as summer descended like a cloak and Alma’s attacks grew in both frequency and severity. She needed less
of him, not more. Yet he kept on coming, and she kept on seeing him in, only to be undone with pain after his departure, check in hand. I basically ceased to call Dr. Cargill, whose instructions were always the same: let Alma be, don’t panic, it would pass. I began to doubt the wisdom of this approach. True, it might have been thus dozens of times before. But what if this was the one time the symptoms proved fatal? What if something else had happened, something unexpected, a stroke or a slip in the bath? Anything could happen. June became July; July, August. Alma grew haggard, spending more time in her room than out of it, and leaving me free most of the day. I could have done whatever I wanted. I could have gone to day games at Fenway. I could have jogged around Fresh Pond. I could have watched the campus laze along, ogled the summer-school students. I could have acted my age, a regular young man in the prime of his life. But I denied myself. All day long I hung around the house, waiting for Alma to come out and ask me once again for conversation, longing to reclaim the rhythm I had so loved and which I felt fading, fading. I let all the blooming days pass me by unnoticed, and at night, when I was insomniac and I heard her above me, walking in circles, I wished that she could dial down her pride at least enough to let me come sit with her. In her position, I would not have wanted to be alone. Maybe that was my problem: I could imagine only what I would’ve wanted. For her, it was more important never to be seen in a degraded state than to have company. I did my best to accept this truth. She did not want me to pity her, and I tried not to. I don’t know how good a job I did, but I tried. Eventually I couldn’t help myself. I steamed open the e
nvelope she had left with me, and was shocked to discover that Eric’s check was not for a hundred dollars but five times that. Shocked—and furious. Because it added up to a fortune over the years, because he never failed to give the impression that he was on the brink of penury, because it was so much more than she paid me, as much as my birthday gift. It took tremendous restraint not to tear the check into bits on the spot. I didn’t, because as good as it would have felt, to do so would have been a short-term response to a chronic problem. No, what we needed here was real action, lasting action. There would come a day—I fantasized about it often—when I would stand up to him. Sometimes these fantasies involved me giving him a righteous telling-off. Sometimes they grew violent: I cuffed him, grabbed him by the collar, and tossed him down the front steps, his rump imprinted with the tread of my shoe, like in a cartoon. Always they ended with Alma breaking down, acknowledging that I was right, she had to cut him off, once and for all, I was her protector, her guardian angel, she couldn’t have done it without me, thank you, Mr. Geist, thank you, thank you. “GOOD TIMING,” said Eric. I came up the front porch. I’d gone out for a walk while Daciana cleaned, and my shirt was damp from having crossed over the river to the Business School and back. The Subaru was no longer in the driveway. “I’ve been knocking,” he said. “I was about to give up.” I told him to wait outside while I got his check, then went to the library, where I had tucked the envelope away on one of the shelves. Reaching for it, my eye was drawn by the glint of the latch on the gun case. “Lemme ask you something.” I hadn’t heard him behind me; my scalp tightened, and I turned, the check pinched tightly between my fingers. “What.” “Is everything all right here?” “What do you mean.” “I mean here. With you and me.” “Why wouldn’t it be all right.” “I dunno, man. I feel like you don’t like me very much.” “I don’t know why you think that.” “Because every time I come by you look like you want to skin me.” He smiled. “Hey, I’m just messing. Look, I want to tell you something. I think it’s fantastic, everything you do for my aunt. It’s great that she has someone like you. I’d do it myself, if I could.” I said nothing. “Seriously, though, I want us to be cool. Are we cool?” “Sure.” “Oh, man,” he said. “You’re a shitty liar.” I felt myself flush. “I don’t not like you.” “I think that means you don’t like me, either.” “It, it doesn’t mean that.” “So you’re saying you do like me.” “I ...” I looked at him evenly. “I don’t have an opinion.” His eyes seemed to bug out. Then he laughed loudly, a curiously artificial sound, like a sitcom laugh track. “Would you keep it down, please,” I said. “You are funny. You know that? You’re killing me, here.” “Do you mind? She’s sleeping.” “Yeah,” he said, still laughing. “Sorry.” Silence. I held the check out to him. “Hey, thanks.” Now that he had gotten his treat, I expected him to go, but he remained there, grinning at me. “Was there something else you needed,” I said. “No, man. I’m good. But. Look. You hungry? Cause I’m starving. You want to get some lunch?” I was in fact very hungry, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. I shrugged. “Come on. On me. Token of my appreciation.” In the ten minutes it took to walk to Central Square, I must’ve asked myself what I was doing a hundred times. The answer I gave was: for Alma. For Alma I would bear sitting with him. For Alma I would get him away from the house. “Here we go,” he said, holding open the door of an Irish pub. At that hour the only other patrons reminded me of my father: working-class men, their hunched postures telling of lives whose sole consolation had been a Barcalounger. The stereo piped something screechy and aggressive; with the volume on low, the overall impression was that the singer wanted to tear apart society, tenderly. We found a booth and ordered, and Eric took charge of the conversation, asking where I’d been born, how I’d come to Harvard, where I’d lived before I met Alma, how I’d met her, and so forth. Since he’d started coming around, I had done my best to avoid speaking to him. In a way I had set myself up for this lunch, because he could now ask me lots of questions without making it seem like an interrogation, questions that I could not refuse to answer without looking like a jerk. The combined effects of social conditioning and charisma make for a powerful truth serum: I knew what was happening, and still I found myself disclosing more than I knew to be appropriate. More than I had ever told Alma. We had not gotten to my brother’s death when the food came, making me grateful for something to put in my mouth. I waited until he took a bite of his own burger, then attempted to grab the wheel. “So what is it you do?” I asked. He paused, mid-chew. “Me?” “Yes.” “Well, what do you mean.” “I mean what do you do.” “Like a job, you mean?” “If that’s the answer.” “All right,” he said. “Well, you know. I have some things going on.” “Like what kind of things.” “Business opportunities,” he said. “I can’t really talk about it.” “Sounds top secret,” I said. “I don’t want to jinx anything, you know? I do what I have to do. We all have to, right? You do what you need to do. I mean, look at you.” I put down my burger. “How’s that.” “I’m saying, you’re right at home. You’re where you belong.” I said nothing. “I’m glad you’re around. Like I said, I’d be there myself if I could. It’s not—you know. I’ve lived with her, it wasn’t a good arrangement. But she needs someone around, and I gotta say, man: I’m glad it’s you. “... thanks.” “I mean, you really care about her, don’t you.” “Of course.” “I can tell. It shows. I care about her, too. You know? I worry about her all the time, though. This thing she has ... Don’t tell me it doesn’t worry you.” I said nothing. “Doesn’t it?” “It does.” “There you go. Course it does, you care about her. I mean, you have to ask yourself if she’s getting better.” He paused. “What do you think?” “About what.” “Is she getting better or not.” “... no.” “Getting worse, actually.” Silence. “It’s hard to tell,” I said. “Well, you ask me, my opinion, lately it’s a hell of a lot worse than I’ve ever seen, and I’ve known her a long time. Like, twice, three times a week now?” “It’s not always that bad.” “But it is sometimes.” I nodded. “That’s crazy, man. It was never like that when I lived with her.” “I guess so.” “I’m tellin you. Even from your end you must’ve seen enough to know she ain’t improving.” I conceded that she was not. “Right,” he said. “I mean, you and me probably know her better than anyone else at this point. So what do you think?” “What do you think I think, I think it’s awful.” “Nnn. That’s not what I mean. What I mean, in your opinion, is she happy?” I wanted to blurt out yes, of course she was happy, of course. She had me, after all. But could I honestly make that claim? I felt ashamed to realize that in all the time I’d known Alma, I’d never thought to ask myself that question. How does one measure happiness ? Can one assign it a quantity? The utilitarian attempt to do just that is now considered risible. Enumerate the soft signs, then: she still smiled when we talked (although, these days, how often did we talk?): still ate her chocolate (although how often did she feel hungry?). Did these behaviors mean anything? Were they artifacts? Where did the real proof lie? I thought back to our very first conversation, which had begun with the question of whether it is better to be happy or intelligent. At the time, setting those two concepts up in opposition had seemed eminently reasonable. Now, as I sat listening to the quiet fury on the stereo and the waitress telling the bartender to kiss her sweet ass and the men snorting into their beers, I wondered if the happiness I thought I’d given Alma was merely a wan projection of that which she gave me. “I don’t know,” I said. “If you don’t know,” he said, “the answer’s no.” I said nothing. “And, I mean, what if she gets worse. You must have thought about that.” “I hope not.” “Course not. I mean, sure, I wish I could stop it. That’s make-believe, though. So, I dunno. If it’s never going to get better, and if it’s getting worse,
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