The Blue Hour

by Richard Teleky

  “Because the police had to rule it out.”

  “Was Sheila giving him pot?” Hedy asked. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Sheila doesn’t like pot. She likes beer. And cigarettes. But that’s not important. Sheila was Guy’s friend. She cared for him.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Hedy objected.

  “It’s not a matter of belief. He told her all about his therapy…”

  “Therapy?” she repeated the word slowly. “He wasn’t in therapy.”

  “Didn’t the police tell you about it?”

  Neither answered me, and we sat trapped in distrust.

  “He was trying to make sense of his life. Of his past. And he told Sheila all about it.”

  “That’s gossip,” Hedy said dismissively. “Just because you don’t share our beliefs…”

  “Neil Breuler wasn’t Guy’s first boyfriend.”

  “You’re making me sick,” she said. “We told you about the woman at work…”

  “Maybe he was bisexual – who knows? But he was un-happy. That’s why he went to a therapist.”

  “If you’re right, he should have told us,” Hedy said. “We would’ve helped him.”

  Nick had let her take over. I could feel him dreading the next word, keeping still. Too still.

  “I think he wanted to, Hedy, but how could you have helped? Guy knew what you think about sex, and your guru’s stance…”

  “What do you know!” she cut me off.

  “Sheila said as much. Guy told her.”

  “So you’re taking her side? Has she been telling stories to the police?”

  “This has nothing to do with sides.”

  Nick moved to stand. He must have seen they could no longer shelter each other.

  “I think you should hear me out, Nick.” I tried to maintain a calm front. “Guy was drawn to older men. Neil Breuler and the others were all twenty years older.”

  Hedy leaned forward despite herself.

  “Like a father,” I said.

  For a moment I thought Nick was going to bang a fist on the table, but he didn’t threaten me, or tell me to leave.

  “You see,” I continued, dreading my next words, “he told Sheila everything. And your mother knew what was wrong, too. She told me that herself. During one of his vacations Guy confided in her – that he’d been molested. He never told her who it was, but eventually he told his therapist. It took him over twenty years to admit it.”

  “No!” exclaimed Hedy, her face flushed.

  “And his therapist urged him to keep a memory journal. I never found one the day I packed up, but it might have been on his computer.”

  Hedy kept shaking her head and her hair fell forward, the way it had when she was a young girl playing her cello. “We have his computer. The police gave it back to us. Nick,” she looked to her husband, “did you find anything on it?” She spoke hesitantly, as if for a moment she thought there might be some proof of my allegations.

  “Just his eBay records,” Nick said, with a tremor in his chin.

  “There,” Hedy insisted. “What do you want us to do? Show you his computer?”

  “The computer’s not important now. But Guy’s therapist also told him to stop hiding what had happened. That’s why he told Sheila. He trusted her, she was safe. He knew she had troubles of her own and maybe that comforted him. But telling her wasn’t enough. He had to confront the person who’d done it. You see, Guy never forgot.”

  “Who did this?” Hedy asked. “If you know, tell me.”

  For a moment I felt my stomach churn. Hadn’t they already suffered enough? Nick watched me as if a stranger had suddenly appeared at his dining-room table.

  “His father,” I said.

  Hedy yelped, like an animal caught by a trap, and covered her mouth with one hand.

  “I don’t know what went on between you two,” I said, facing Nick. “I only know what Guy said. But your mother warned you that somebody had touched Guy – that was her word – and she can’t understand why you cut her out of your life.”

  Nick slumped back in his chair.

  “Guy was making it up,” Hedy began to sob. “That therapist, that therapist must have brainwashed him. They do that. Everyone knows it. And it’s sick. Sick. Guy must’ve been brainwashed.”

  “Guy told Sheila everything, Nick. I’m not sure of the year, but Hedy said you had some kind of breakdown in the early nineties. Anyhow, I don’t know which came first, the breakdown or that camping trip when…”

  “That’s a lie!” Hedy said, putting up her hand, as if to block my words. Eerily, Nick didn’t move.

  I turned back to him. “What happened in his basement, Nick? You were there, weren’t you? When he died? Can we stop pretending that you weren’t there?”

  Hedy’s mouth fell open, and Nick’s face darkened with a surge of fear, which I felt, too.

  “You were there?” she asked softly, and for a moment her eyes locked with Nick’s, as if she might consider the thought. Then – at least it seemed to me – Hedy made a decision to go no further. And Nick remained silent.

  “I can guess a few things. Neil Breuler had broken off with Guy, he didn’t want to see him anymore. Not in the middle of a messy divorce.”

  My voice was the only sound in the room, leading me on.

  “Maybe that left Guy frantic. Maybe he thought his new life was collapsing. Remember, Guy was really quite innocent. Did he tell you about Neil? Guy must have been in a terrible state. Maybe he was going to tell Hedy and you argued with him, and in the midst of it something went wrong…”

  “That shrink put thoughts in his head,” Nick finally said bitterly. “And you want to believe this rubbish.”

  “He confronted you…”

  “Stop it,” Hedy cried. “You’ve got to stop. Please.”

  “He was talking crazy, he was accusing me of things that never happened,” Nick said, the muscles in his neck throbbing.

  “Yet two head wounds? The coroner couldn’t explain it. Guy must have been pushed with some force.”

  A tear rolled down Nick’s cheek. Was there a look of relief in his eyes? Impossible, but that’s what I saw.

  “Is that true?” asked Hedy, her voice now filled with uncertainty.

  “You don’t understand,” he replied. “He was saying crazy things, and when he backed away from me, his head cracked into the wall…”

  “You were there?” Hedy repeated.

  Nick turned his face from us.

  “And you panicked,” I continued. “But then Guy fell forward, hitting the cement floor with his forehead, and never moved again. Maybe he died at once, I don’t know, I’m not a doctor. You must have thought so.”

  He didn’t reply, and I looked back to Hedy. “You’re Nick’s life,” I said. “The measure of it. He couldn’t tell you.”

  She stared at me blankly.

  “The next day you heard from the police, and their investigation started up. No wonder Nick thought he’d had a heart attack.”

  Nick didn’t say a word, his hands clenched together.

  “I won’t listen anymore,” Hedy objected, with less conviction in her voice. “You don’t know what you’re saying. We’re always together. Nick didn’t see Guy without me.”

  “But you go out to estate sales alone, you said so.”

  Hedy glanced at Nick, her eyes flashing fear. “You have to stop,” she insisted breathlessly. “You’re talking about my husband. I know him better than anyone. This is some horrible fantasy. It’s disgusting.”

  I looked back at Nick. “I don’t think you ever meant to harm Guy.”

  Without a word Nick stood, towering, and I drew back. As he walked out of the dining room I wondered if they had a gun nearby. I’d made a hell of a mess, and the best of our past had been used up.

  “You fool!” Hedy exclaimed to me, and then ran after her husband. She would find a way to console him.

  A door slammed off the kitchen and I followed he
r there.

  Hedy stood in the hallway, by the door to a small bathroom. “Nick? Are you okay?”

  No reply.

  “Let me in,” she called. “Please, let me in. I don’t believe a word of it. Not a word.”

  We stood waiting together. “Nick!” she pounded on the door. “Nick!”

  Time seemed to stop. I could feel the blood rushing in my head. “Nick,” I joined her.

  Then I heard the siren of a police car approaching the farmhouse. The transmitter in my cell phone had worked, just like Lieutenant Foley said it would.

  The bathroom door opened slowly and Nick stood there with an empty pill bottle in each hand. He didn’t look at Hedy, or at me, but down at his hands, and she reached out as he stepped forward, a dazed assent on his face. “Nick, Nick!” she said in almost a whisper.

  “Let me help,” I offered.

  Hedy turned to me. “Get out of here!” she said with a glare of contempt. “You fool! Get out. You don’t know it, but you’re the one who’s lost.”

  22

  Monday, September 10

  The long hot summer finally burned itself out, but nothing is ever finished – perhaps Hedy was at least right about that. You may think I’m a melancholy cynic but I’ve kept my promise, I’ve put down what I’ve seen, as directly as possible.

  In half a year, the dramatis personae of my life changed completely. As a child I had no use for fairy tales and their idiotic endings, except for “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Of course the emperor was naked, what else could he be? As well, there are no true endings – no finality but death – so if I bring you up to date about what happened, it’s not because I believe in that thing called closure. It’s because I believe in facts.

  Last month I spent a week in Maine, looking at the ocean. One day it occurred to me that there might be some Yankee common sense in Emerson’s famous essay about friendship, since the events of the spring and summer rarely left my thoughts. Though Emerson considered friendship a form of love, he was cautious about it: “We over-estimate the conscience of our friend. His goodness seems better than our goodness, his nature finer, his temptations less.” A friend, he claimed, is a paradox of nature: “a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me.” Me. Since truth is essential to friendship, Emerson considered it “better to be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.” Without intending to, I’d taken his advice literally. But Emerson never tried to explain what it’s like to be a nettle.

  How well do we ever know the people closest to us? Oh, yes, we think we do, we tell ourselves we do, perhaps we have to, out of love. But love’s not enough to make us better than we are. I’ve seen so many people with plenty of love in their lives – devoted couples, cherished children, close families, dear friends – and they’re no less selfish for all the love they’ve known. And what about me? I have to live with my own betrayal of friendship. Though I never risked the loss of Nick and Hedy’s affection, when Lieutenant Foley suggested the cell-phone transmitter I might have ignored his prompting, no matter the reasons. This guilt is mine, along with the knowledge that I’d finally stopped thinking detachment could excuse my evasions. Maybe that’s what Hedy meant when she said I was lost.

  So where are we today? Like it or not, friendship has its twilight, its blue hour.

  On my return home from Maine, the autumn anemones that Sheila planted last spring were already blooming, their white and lavender flowers a startling beauty, though without any lingering scent. I set Hedy’s badger on the lamp table beside my reading chair. It stood for the best in her, the small creature’s face looking up to me, ready to defend its young, its lair. I wanted to see Hedy like that and forget the rest.

  Of course Guy’s letters from Harriet Beecher Stowe never surfaced. I made several attempts to locate them with phone calls and e-mails, as did Claire Warren, but our contacts came up empty-handed. The letters might have disappeared into a private collection, or Guy’s expert appraiser may have kept them for himself, or perhaps they never existed, except in Guy’s imagination. Was he seeking attention with some pointless delusion? I care about preserving the past, that’s been the work of my life, but, oddly enough, I don’t mind. Even if the letters exist, they would change very little.

  Mrs. Carney – Doris – moved in with her daughter temporarily after the shooting, but has stayed put, against Sheila’s wishes; the culprits were never caught. On a good note, Sheila’s antiques have surprisingly been estimated at a hundred grand, minimum, though buyers aren’t standing in line. And according to Lieutenant Foley, Mrs. Roberts returned to Knoxville several days after her son’s arrest, without seeing him.

  By the middle of August Neil was ready to move on. He’d found a new job in Toledo, an hour west of Oberlin, in a city where his life could be a blank slate. Theo’s subsequent depression frightened Daphne enough for her to intervene on her brother’s behalf. He now takes a daily anti-depressant and may or may not gain twenty pounds in the year ahead. Either the pills will work or his doctor will increase the dosage. Stavro might have his fill of his fiancé’s troubles and give up on her, or he’ll buy her some gold bauble and go on with the marriage. And one day, years from now, I might vacation in Florida, and a fat man on the beach will call out my name. When I turn, the voice could be Theo’s.

  Predictably, Nick survived his overdose, and he was eventually indicted on charges of manslaughter. The papers covered it all, over and over, but I didn’t read them. I already knew enough. It’s likely that his lawyer will fall back on an insanity defense, though they can’t count on a hung jury. Not when you’ve flipped the Oedipal equation. Filicide, it’s called. And Guy, poor Guy, he was born in the wrong family.

  Hedy will probably remain at her husband’s side, or as close as the law will allow. I don’t see her packing up and moving to a warmer climate. For the first time in her life she’ll have to face being alone. Meditating alone. Opining alone. Now I’ll never learn what she feared, or guessed. Or if she knew anything at all. Maybe she’ll sculpt more raccoons, or add foxes and squirrels to her repertoire. When we last spoke, before Nick’s suicide fumble, she’d mentioned ordering a new kiln.

  All of these things might happen, or none of them. This ending isn’t a closed one, summed up like an old-fashioned novel, but it’s not an open one either, a slick modernist gesture, because endings aren’t like that in life – they don’t change from day to day, until we’re dead. Life’s not open-ended forever, although we might wish to think that. But for now, Guy’s dead, Sheila’s recovering, Nick’s in jail, Theo refuses to answer the telephone, and with any luck, I’ll never see Hedy again. Of course I’m still perplexed by friendship.

  I can always get a dog or cat for company, for someone to talk to, but it hasn’t come to that yet.

  Acknowledgements

  Special thanks to Lieutenant Mike McCloskey of the Oberlin Police Force for answering more procedural questions than he probably anticipated, and to Oberlin’s Dawn Quarick, Medical Office Coordinator of the Lorain County Coroner, to Richard Riley of Ben Franklin/MindFair Books, and to Mariel L. Suffo-letto of Mercy Allen Hospital, for their gracious help. Once again, thanks to Iris Gorfinkel, M.D., for her kind assistance with medical matters, and Linda Beebe, Esq., for legal concerns relating to the Revised Code of Ohio Coroners. As always, my thanks to first readers Larry Fineberg and Lee Rainey; to the next eyes, Chris Doda, Priscila Uppal and Diane Young; and, finally, to Barry Callaghan for his thoughtful notes and much-appreciated encouragement. And, of course, my appreciation to Nina Callaghan for meticulous copy-editing and to Matt Shaw for careful proofreading.

  Richard Teleky, a professor in the Humanities Department of York University, in Toronto, is a critically acclaimed fiction writer, poet, and critic. His books include the novels Winter in Hollywood, Pack Up the Moon, and the award-winning The Paris Years of Rosie Kamin, and a collection of short fiction, Goodnight, Sweetheart and Other Stories; two poetry collections – The Hermit in Arcadia and
The Hermit’s Kiss; two non-fiction studies – The Dog on the Bed: A Canine Alphabet, about the human/dog bond, and Hungarian Rhapsodies: Essays on Ethnicity, Identity, and Culture. He is also the editor of The Exile Book of Canadian Dog Stories and The Oxford Book of French-Canadian Short Stories. His work has appeared in numerous journals in Canada and the United States, and he is a frequent contributor to Queen’s Quarterly.