I couldn’t look at her.
“My mother spent my whole life trying to protect me from him,” she said. “Maybe she should have tried to protect him from me.”
“Does she know?” I asked.
“I came to you,” Susu said.
She came toward me.
In her hand was an envelope.
She handed it to me.
She put it in my hand.
Then she turned away.
She asked for a drink.
I filled her glass.
She drank.
On the envelope was written: S. Z.
I opened it.
Inside there was a folded sheet of paper.
I read it.
There was one sentence.
Handwritten, inked—
How does the story end?
Susu stared out at the water.
The birds flew dark-winged—
Snow was falling.
Night fell and was fallen.
I tried to give her the paper.
It fell from my hand.
It fluttered.
To the floor.
She picked it up.
She crumpled it in her hand.
And she threw the paper in the fire.
She watched it burn.
She laughed.
She held out her glass.
She wanted more.
“I’m a monster,” she said.
I handed the glass back to her.
She tapped her fingers on the windowpane.
“He knew,” she said.
“He knew all along. And he thought that it would be a good story,” she said.
“Is it?” she said.
And she stood.
She drank.
She set down her glass.
She sat.
She sat across from me.
I looked at her.
She became her father.
A storyteller in love with a story.
“I killed him,” she said.
“Why?” I asked her.
She paused.
She stared into her empty glass.
“Because that was how the story had to go,” she said.
She laughed.
Susu leaned back in the chair.
She rested her cheek against the velvet cushion.
Her features softened.
She was her mother.
She was Eloise Schell with that look on her face—just before she would call out, Hey Shelly—no hands—and plunge downhill on her bicycle.
When Father taught us right from wrong.
When Mother’s kindness was a beautiful thing.
“Aren’t you afraid?” I said.
“Of what?” she said.
“Getting caught,” I said.
“Caught?” she said.
“I don’t worry about getting caught, no,” she said.
“I only had one father,” she said.
She held her glass out to me.
I refilled it.
She drank.
“I loved him,” she said.
“Love?” I said.
“Am I being too vulgar?” she said.
The snow fell and fell.
“What will you do now?” I said.
“Now?” she said.
“What would you do?” I asked.
“If you had a lot of money?” I said.
She set her glass on the table.
“I’d go away,” she said.
“I want to give you,” I said. “Everything.”
“Your wife’s money?” she said.
“It’s mine,” I said.
“I don’t want your money,” she said.
“Why not?” I said.
“It seems like a punishment,” she said.
“It is,” I said.
“Rock, paper, scissors me for it,” I said.
“A game?” she said.
She was quiet.
She did not speak.
She placed both her hands flat, palms down on the table.
Then she made a fist.
We counted out.
One, two, three.
She chose scissors.
“Did I win?” she said.
There was a rap at the door.
Beatrice stood in the doorway.
She asked did we want coffee?
Did we want chocolate cake?
Susu said that chocolate cake sounded good.
She rose.
She stood—
And then she saw the broken swan.
A snapped neck; a wing; a black glittering eye.
Susu found the broken statue.
She held the broken glass in her hands.
And she began to piece the swan back together again.
Whores or no whores? That is the question.
That night the story ended.
Dr. Lemon passed from this life into the next.
In the manner of a saint.
I would not believe it if I had not seen it.
I saw it for myself.
I was with him as he lay upon the bed.
Under a white blanket.
At his head was a candle.
There were candles about the room.
Beatrice had lighted them.
A cold wind passed through the room.
And the candles flickered.
I felt all the pain of knowledge pass from me.
And there was an attar of roses.
Beatrice reached forward and closed her father’s eyes.
She did as he had asked of her.
She always did what he asked of her.
She placed a new penny upon each closed eye.
As payment to the ferryman.
My hair has gone to silver.
Like Moses before the burning bush.
Or any other witness to a miracle.
CHAPTER 21
Susu puts the broken swan back together
WE SAT AT THE TABLE IN THE BARROOM of that grand old Chicago hotel out of the sun and the heat, and he drank whiskey, and he ordered for me plum brandy. He said, “I am going to tell you a story.” He said, “Let me tell you how it ends first. This is how it ends: you are going to kill someone.” I laughed. He laughed. And the waiter came by with another round. “Who?” I said. He drank. He tossed the coin on the table. “Me,” he said. I watched the coin. “What?” I said. “You?” I said. I had never been drunk before in the afternoon. I said, “I couldn’t kill anyone.” He said, he joked, “Not even me? I’ll tell you how. I’ll teach you.” He said, “It won’t be so difficult.” He laughed. “Believe me: in the end you will want to do it. You’ll look forward to it. You will understand why it has to happen,” he said. I said, “You sound like someone in a movie.” He said, “Do you like movies?” He covered the coin with his hand. He asked me then, did I want to know how the story was going to begin? I said, “If you are trying to get me to sleep with you, I’ll do that anyway, so you don’t have to be mysterious or talk about murder or.” He spun the coin, no; it was my ring. He spun the gold ring on the white cloth. He said, “Don’t be vulgar.” He said, “You’re so beautiful, it doesn’t suit you, being vulgar.” He opened his palm and my ring disappeared. It was gone. I wasn’t afraid. I saw him. I saw him look at me. I saw that he was in love with someone else. He was in love with a story. It was not a story. It was a ghost story. I went away with him. The clocks stopped and the bells rang off-time and the night porter’s wife brought bread and raspberry jam in a chipped bowl. It was sweet. It was good, and we ate and ate we ate walnuts, pistachios, dates, figs, bread, and cheese we ate sunwarmed grapes and drank wine and glasses of liquor spirits ghosts of anise of wormwood of black plum and licorice and cherry we ate olives, eggs, and honey cake and we drank coffee and he wrote while I went wandering ruins. I swam in the sea. The sea did not scare me. The stars did not scare me. On the beach among the rocks there were snakes but the snakes did not scare me. He who is destined to hang
will not drown. Each morning I asked him a question. He would not, would never answer. I asked him how the story was to begin. Each morning I asked him my question. And then one morning he answered. I knew that this was the last morning. I do not believe that the story is over. I do not believe that it is a story. This did not stop him from telling it. He told me he taught me he led me by the arm down twisting streets by the light of lanterns through a carnival where girls sold flowers and we ate salt and we ate sweet. It is not a story. It was not a story. It was an ax. It was a fire. It was a flood. But it was not a story. It was a carnival. And we walked. A boy ran in front of us, snapped our picture with an instant camera, and then, waving the photo, held out his hand. We paused against the water to watch the picture go from shadow into us we stood and then we became us and we walked on in the flickering green lights and the ting ting tang closer closer as we passed by a boy a child a brother banging a drum while a dog jumped hop hop hop up and down and the flower girls laughed and a sister danced and he threw handfuls of coins so many they scattered the coins rolled the girls laughed and he threw coins into the basket and watched the girl dancing for her brother’s drum her skirt her stockings her little shoes and he took my hand in his. He is gone now and there will be no more of him. No more missed trains or days between stations. Or bread and butter and pots of jam. No more chocolate stars coins tossed or cards fallen. No more carnivals. No more omens or fortune-tellers or oracles or prognostications. No more soliloquies cigarettes or stolen lines. No more of him. I did what he asked of me. I did what he wanted. He asked me to kill him. He told me that this was how the story had to go. The author asked me to do it. He wanted me to end his story. He told me to. He dared me to. Because I was young and I wasn’t afraid of anything was I? Because I was his. I belonged to him. Because it was his story and this was how it had to go. I saw the burning king. I saw the king burning. I remember I remember. We were lost in a carnival a day all of flowers a night of falling darkness and we walked twisting streets he took my arm away along the water strung with lights. I was walking with him winding our way along a seawall stone steps children lighting our way with candles twined with burning knots of sage and we went down like we were making a descent down down down to his underworld. He said, “One day you will turn against me.” The sky was dark. The sea was dark. The night was burning. I said, “I won’t.” He said, “Then maybe it will be night.” A girl ran past us. He watched. There were effigies of straw strung up from posts and the night was lit by stars and small fires and colored lights strung in loops. The girl cried out in the darkness. A bell tolled, an hour passed, tea went cold in a cup, a bird flew from a branch, a spider crawled along a faucet, a hand pulled the chain on a lamp. We did not move. We stood on the stone steps. He held my face in his hands. It seemed like forever. A boy bounced a ball against a stone wall. Torches were lit. He said, “You would do anything that I asked, wouldn’t you? You aren’t afraid, are you?” He took my hand as the narrow walk gave way to a wide esplanade where children took up the burning torches and lighted the bodies on fire and girls sold flowers and we followed the stone street its turns along past girls holding wreaths of white with petals scattering past little boys throwing balls past the lemon and licorice sellers past the burning king and the children singing singing in paper crowns. I said, “Tell me the story.” There were ships with dark sails on the water. We walked. We passed a fortune-teller a strongman a tiny lady. He said, “There are rules to telling a story.” The bodies were burning in smoke and straw and flame. I waited. I waited. It seemed like forever and it might have been. A girl handed me a knot of flowers tied with a green string. He took the flowers from my hands. He untied the string. He dropped the flowers, the white flowers, to the ground, the petals scattered. He took the string and he tied back my hair. He held my face in his hands. And he said, “The rules apply to everyone else in the world, not to you.” And we walked. We passed we walked we passed men holding torches. Past women selling sweets. He bought figs and sugared dates there were pomegranate jellies and caramels and bright taffies salted and wrapped in waxen twists that we unwrapped as he talked of deceit as we passed the bearded lady and the fatman and the two-headed snake and he talked about desire as we saw the fire-eater the tightrope walkers the jugglers of knives as he talked of disease oh he talked like the ting tang ting of the tin drum coming from up ahead of us the hot night by the light of lanterns and strung with colored lights as he ate hot toasted sesame crisps from a little paper funnel poured them out into my hand burning my fingers as we walked and I said tell me about the sea about the stars tell me everything tell me teach me tell me about the future tell me about the monsters tell me about the ghosts, tell me. And he told and he told as we passed the mind readers the spoon benders the mermaid lady with her mournful calling refrain a card fallen is a card played tell me about the hearts and the diamonds tell me tell teach me every word and say every word but never say her name never say her name he never said her name until the last morning no tell me about the burning king as we walk through the world. We walked through the world. Past girls carrying white graveyard flowers with drooping tragic faces losing petals along the path and lilies they held lilies out to us as we passed. He only said my name once. It was a hot dull morning. We had coffee and oranges on the balcony. He stood at the crumbling stone peeling an orange. He looked down at the street below. He said, “I saw you years ago.” I came to the balustrade and stood next to him, holding my demitasse. The coffee was bitter black boiled through with cardamom and sweetened with honey. “It was snowing,” he said. “I called after you. I called Eloise, El—” He looked at me in the sun, and I pitied him. He put a hand to my face, and I knew that he wasn’t really talking to me, that he was talking to her, to my mother. He said, “You wore a coat with a fur collar.” He said, “You looked like a ghost.” And then he broke the orange into two, and he handed half to me. He said, “I’m sorry.” He said, “I’m sorry about the world. I’m sorry that this is all that is left for you, just bones and rotten broken things.” He looked down at the street. This was the last morning of coffee and oranges and green birds on the balcony looking for bread, because he fed them his crusts and crumbs: a croissant, a jam brioche, a napoleon, sesame wafers, seedcake, sugar crackers, crisps, biscuits for the awaiting birds. It was morning, and he talked, as he watched the girls on their bicycles, as we stood on the balcony. He was tired. He was weary. He had aged a thousand years in a night. A bird flew low, fluttered. I said, I asked him, “How does the story begin?” He picked up from his plate a heel of bread, buttered. He broke the hard floury crust to bits and scattered it for the birds. He licked the butter from his fingers. He turned. He went from the sun of the balcony back into the room all shadow. He went to the table. He sat. His back was to me. He did not answer. Each morning I asked him this: the same question. And he would never answer. Each morning I opened the box in which he kept his pens and he would choose one. I opened the box. I collected my things for the seaside: my postcards, licorice, a mystery novel that sentence by sentence unraveled so that I could not remember the sentence that came before the one that I had just read even as it passed before my eyes. He sat at the table. I was at the door. I looked back. A shadow fell across his arm as he chose a pen. I had a terrible feeling. I felt. I thought. I felt too young. I thought that I might never see him again. I hoped that I would never see him again. I was going to leave and then, because I was young, and I thought that I would never see him again, because the green birds and bread and oranges prophesied, promised omens, and that the foreign sky was too old, too hot, too ancient for me; I went back to him. I waited. I waited. He set down his pen. I did not know how to begin. And he said, “Start with the girl, the god, the rape.” There was sun from the balcony, but he sat in shadow. He untied the knotted ribbon that tied his manuscript. A sheet of paper fell to the floor. I saw my name written on it. And didn’t I feel terror then? He took my hands, one in each of his hands. He turned them over, palms up and
open, and he kissed first one, then the other, the inside of my wrist. Then he closed my hands into fists. And he let go. It was not early. It was not late, but it was time to go. I left our room. I ran. I began to run. I ran through the lobby, past the men on velvet sofas, past our lady of situations, and out to the street, even though the morning was gone to afternoon, hot and dusty. I ran. I was happy to be free of him and sad too. My fingers tasted of ink and oranges, and the birds collected their butter and bread and twigs and bones and took them to dark dark places. I ran all the way in sunlight down to the water.
CHAPTER 22
Sheldon rebuilds the ruined fountain
IT IS JULY. I have written as accurate and true a recollection of events as can be expected of a liar.
My manuscript, untitled—with the pages inked and demarcated by my initials—is finished. I want no one to read it. As the words gave me far more pleasure—and pain—to write than could be felt by any reader. I keep the story in a box. The box fits my manuscript exactly. Or is it the other way around? Will you believe me when I say that I myself built this wondrous box? It is cedar, with hand-fascinated corners. It is a puzzle of a thing. It is so smooth, and the grain so rich, that the box seems neither to open nor close. Is it a box? It is perhaps a shell. Or shall I call it a symbol? Fate finds forms for all things. And man makes his own metaphors. The little world of the story is a strange place. I sometimes wonder if these characters were real or only the monsters of my solitude. Who but a monster would be so lonely for a story? As for me: I have no more stories to tell. I live in the doctor’s house. I am repairing the house. I have begun with the garden. I have a shovel, a hatchet, and a spade. See? The ruined fountain runs with water from the ancient cistern. The roses climb and tumble. The vines tangle. The first grapes are ripening. They are hard and sweet. The flowers are in bloom. The birds have returned. The water, the dogs, the gods, the ghosts, the trees—are the same and not the same. In the fall there will be apples. My cat brings me mice. Beatrice is expecting a child. She hopes for a girl. She hopes for a girl with black hair and green eyes. At night I hear strange cries from the woods. Beatrice says our life is perfect. Beatrice says that we are happy. Perhaps she is not altogether wrong.
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