Burning Down the House

by Jane Mendelsohn

  Yes, over and over. It is the happiest memory of my life. That’s the time in my life when I figured out who I was going to be. When I met my first wife. When I became myself. Driving, rolling along, windows down, listening to that song. That and “Thunder Road.” My two favorite songs.

  “Thunder Road” might fit better into the show. Unfortunately, it’s not Talking Heads.

  The producer smiled as he slid back his card. I know, he said. You can put away the light, he called out.

  Back in the darkness he explained, So you can understand why this means so much to me.

  I do.

  So you’ll try to work it into the show?

  We’ll think about it, all of us. But this isn’t an apartment renovation or a custom automobile interior. It isn’t just some luxury product.

  Ian knew he should stop himself but he was too tired.

  The producer raised his eyebrows and inhaled.

  But you know that, Ian recovered.

  Yes, he said. I know that. But we’re talking about entertainment here. It’s supposed to please the audience.

  It’s a creative endeavor.

  It doesn’t exist without the audience.

  Well, let’s call it a collaboration then, among the artists, the work of art, and the audience.

  Okay, I like that. Collaboration.

  The producer stood up. The light was back on him, this time a purplish glow like a techno aura. So, you’ll think about it? he said.

  Yes, Ian said, thinking that he, Ian, had never figured out who he was going to be. Did that happen? Did people do that?

  Yes, he repeated. Absolutely.

  —

  In the theater after everyone leaves, the darkness is a deep shade of red. Maybe it’s from the red velvet seats. Maybe the glint of gold paint on the swirling ornamentation of the boxes and balconies gives off a reddish glow. There’s a smell of diffused sweat and old fabrics and wood, musky like incense. The silence is oppressive—the musicians, the actors, the dancers, all gone—and you can almost hear a whispering echo of their voices but then you realize you can’t and that’s when the lack of noise becomes a sound unto itself. Ian sits fifth row center in the dark with his feet up on the seat in front of him, just the way he sat that first time Poppy showed up for her internship. He goes straight in his mind to Poppy as soon as the lights are down. He imagines her sleeping, sprawled, her arms flung up around her head. Just a kid. He would like to wake her up, talk to her, ask her how she is, have a conversation. He doesn’t really talk to anyone anymore except for the people involved in the show. Or no one outside that circle talks to him. He has noticed a distant coldness from Jonathan, and from Miranda and Patrizia too when he last saw them. Even Alix has been preoccupied, too busy. Perhaps he was imagining the chill from Patrizia and Miranda and Alix but he knows that Jonathan has cut him off, knows that Jonathan was the one who found out, from the housekeeper who’d become suspicious and shown him the receipts, signed by Ian, Poppy’s mementos. He knows that Jonathan told Steve. And he doesn’t blame him. He also doesn’t actually miss him. But he misses Poppy. He thinks about Poppy, would like to see her and make sure she is okay. He worries about her, feels absurd and egotistical for worrying, as if his absence means anything to her, then realizes it probably does, and then senses a new relationship forming to her, and he allows himself to care and wonder. She’s probably out tonight with friends, he thinks, the others will be drinking although, since Poppy doesn’t like to drink, she’ll be having fun in a respectably debauched teenage way. Nothing too dangerous. Nothing too scary. But still he worries about her and wants her to be happy, suspects that she is not. I am not happy, he thinks. And I can’t be, he realizes, if she is not happy. I can never have that anymore, any happiness without her happiness. He thinks he is beginning to see some future for himself. He thinks he can safely say that there is someone in the world whom he cares more about than himself. Now he feels that he and Poppy are inseparable, in the sense that his life seems bound up with hers, that he is living his life for her. Not to be with her, but to care for her. He realizes that he is more alone than ever now, that he has left his old self behind, and that he is going, in some way, to put her life ahead of his. He doesn’t know how exactly this will happen. But that’s what he sees in the darkness of the theater, beyond the present, beyond the moment, past the stage. Into the hot white lights and directly through them, back out into the world.

  —

  The same distance separates the director and the teenage girl from the other people in their worlds. Both isolated, alone, tragic characters on an amphitheater stage, enacting some doomed, dishonorable story for the audience, as innocent as sacrificial goats, unaware of what the gods, DNA, destiny, the universal drive toward death, have in store for them. Ian feels himself gaining insight, reflecting, understanding. But he cannot yet fully grasp the fear he touches when he approaches the truth of what has happened. Is it a purely scientific problem or a moral one? An accident of nature or an intentional, ironic twist of fate?

  That his mind keeps circling, circling around the problem, tells us something about him, tells him something about himself. He will never give her up, never abandon her. His absurd perseverance has in it valor, humanity, some grace.

  —

  She finds it a little strange that no one is home, but Jasper shrugs and says, Why? It’s the middle of the day. They’re at work. As if it should be obvious to her. She understands that it should be. It’s a small place. Dark carpeting. One wall of the living room is painted a charcoal and the other walls are covered with bookshelves. Objects everywhere, on tables, cabinets, a jumble of decors, only the disorderly logic of things accumulated and nowhere to put them. He leads her directly to his room and shuts the door. Then he locks it. She is still adjusting, looking around at his electronics, his books, the bed. It doesn’t register that he has locked the door. Then he fires up his enormous computer, it’s huge, some massive gaming console, and unzips his sweatshirt. A sound like a missile whooshing overhead and on the screen appear images of people doing things she has never seen or heard of before. Violent, deranged things. At first, it’s incomprehensible, and then, suddenly, from every satellite in space comes radiating toward her an unadulterated fear. She does not exist except as fear. She has known pain and regret and other innumerable miseries but she has never felt this exclusive fear.

  Hey, she manages to speak up, Jasper, whoa.

  Jasper? he says.

  That’s when she remembers that she has given him the name Jasper, that she doesn’t even know his real name.

  As he pulls down the shades he says: I don’t know who the fuck Jasper is, but there’s no Jasper here.

  —

  It was a mistake, a sickening error, and she was living it while in her mind existing someplace else. She could be in two places and no one had ever noticed; this fact had been concealed from her until now. She was playing dead. Or maybe she was dead. Her body was in the shaded room but her being was in Felix’s room, where it had been the other day, chatting with him about his latest philosophical excursions. Her limbs were contorted and her flesh abused, but her thoughts were with Felix, sweet Felix. He is telling her about Marcus Aurelius. I love ancient Rome, he’s saying, and he describes for her Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. And now Felix seems to have transported both of them to the Forum, to the Colosseum, orangey-pink light slanting through classical arches. Listen to this, he says, taking the small book in his small hands. I don’t totally understand it but it sounds so beautiful, it’s something Marcus Aurelius says in the middle of the book. I think you’ll like it. And he reads: “You may break your heart, but men will still go on as before.” I do like it, Poppy says, out loud, because Not-Jasper is making her say those words, telling her exactly what to say, but what she means is that she likes the line Felix is reading to her. I do like those words, she says in her mind again without saying anything out loud, and I’m glad that you don’t understand them, sweet Feli
x, but I get it. Believe me, I do.

  —

  The shame she feels when she gets home is a dark void, and she has the sensation that a chain reaction of decay is being worked out through her, a hideous visitation, a possession by a not-living version of herself. Her hair falls in her face, her head downcast. She tries to sneak in without anyone noticing her and leave no footprint, glide conspiratorially to her room. People should know this, she thinks, that this can happen, this horror. That someone can be alive and die. Being alive is not really a matter of breathing or pumping blood or even thinking. It is an unknown. There is so much that is unknown. You can be alive and exist in a void and therefore not really be alive. That’s when she sees Neva, walking back to her room. From where? Roman’s room? Felix’s? Steve’s study? She’s fully clothed although it’s very late, really the early hours of the morning. In her simple clothes and stoic bearing she conveys some sublime combination of cerebral, womanly, and strong. She looks Poppy directly in the eyes. She does not look away.

  —

  Neva stood like a sculpture, rigorous, pure, steely, confident, yet also fragile, full of secrets, slightly surreal. She did not need to do anything but look at Poppy, and Poppy fell wordlessly into her arms. Poppy cried. They did not talk. Neva just held Poppy while Poppy cried and then Neva helped her get into her bed. Neva did not suggest that Poppy wash her face or change her clothes. Neva did not ask Poppy to explain herself. She just guided her, like a spirit made of nothing but awareness, a beam of heightened awareness, guided her to sleep. The last thing Poppy felt before she allowed herself to sink into oblivion was Neva’s hand brushing her arm as it covered her with a blanket. A simple hand. A radiant move. A vitality.

  —

  You may break your heart, but men will still go on as before.

  28

  AT 8:15 in the morning the restaurant at the Mark Hotel was not quite full. Many of the tables, most of the round ones encircled by deep wooden chairs upholstered in dusky-pink velvet, had been occupied, but in the rear of the room a table with a view of everybody dining, a rectangular table near a wall with a settee on one side, the side which faced outward toward the encompassing lookout, still sat empty. The vapor of coffee, into which mingled the aromas of green juices and scrambled egg whites and dry-cleaning fluid and fragranced toiletries, slightly stung the eyes. The room was noisily quiet, murmuring. Businessmen and -women discussed agendas and ate breakfast, hands lifted muffins, feet kept nervous time under the tables, fingers adjusted cell phones on the thick linen tablecloths, or touched suit pockets to check if they were vibrating. Brisk waiters shuttled among the patrons and served them more coffee, more fresh fruit, more soy milk. As soon as a new visitor entered the arena the assembled stirred, almost imperceptibly: eyes swiveled, napkins fell, reading glasses were put on, removed, and replaced again. Calculations, instructions, commissions, were altered based on who had mounted which chair at which table. Plans were formulated and revised, with a seeming certainty of purpose but in fact with only the appearance of understanding and, owing to the rising murmur, the surrounding tension, and the chemical scent wafting underneath the smell of food, people actually had little idea what they were saying or agreeing to.

  —

  At 8:17 Jonathan waited in the lobby of his father’s building for the elevator doors to open and disgorge Steve.

  The burnished-brass walls parted and Steve looked out over the scene with his big, expressionless, sleepy eyes, and Jonathan’s chiseled but smirking face, childlike for a moment with anticipation and a hint of hope, was the first thing that struck his vision. Steve nodded good morning and kept walking, past the gilded mirrors, across the shining marble floor, as Jonathan swung in line behind him and the two of them exited out onto the street, made a right, and walked to Fifth.

  Jonathan felt bold, resolute, with the irritating cheerfulness and assurance which radiate from someone who is anticipating a good fortune that they do not deserve. It seemed as if his dreams were coming true this morning: Steve had allowed him to accompany him to his sacred breakfast meeting at the Mark. Jonathan was truly going to take part. He had been briefed beforehand on some of the crucial matters. He was going into battle like a soldier being groomed for leadership, his rightful position. Moreover, he was being treated as a senior officer to one of the most fearsome of generals.

  The morning was clear and crisp. The sidewalk beneath his feet felt solid, bedrock, and he strode swiftly alongside if ever so slightly behind his father the several blocks to the restaurant. In the fresh morning air, the sounds of taxis whistling by, singing like bullets, answered by the dull roar of black SUVs lumbering past, like cannon fire, gave Jonathan the impression that he really was entering battle, and this thrilled him. Although in reality any proximity to an actual battlefield would have been the last thing he would desire.

  —

  They turned on Seventy-Seventh Street, ties lifting in the wind, and nearing Madison Avenue they entered the hotel. Steve, striding in like the regular he was, nodded to the men at the front doors, nodded again to the maître d’, and kept walking purposefully to the low settee, his settee. Snaking his way through the tables he scanned the room as if assessing the dead and wounded left behind on the battlefield.

  A good crowd, he said, glancing around.

  Busy today, said Jonathan, as if he always came here with Steve.

  The papers, said Steve, to a waiter, as he approached his table, and the waiter scurried off to get the Journal, the Times, and other international financial publications. Steve had already read them all on his tablet, he’d been up since five, but he liked the authoritative look of the stack of papers on his table.

  There were two people seated across from the settee, facing the wall. Steve and Jonathan walked around them and sat down as waiters pulled the table out, momentarily disconcerting and displacing the seated man and woman. They stood up awkwardly, holding napkins, and then rearranged themselves back in their chairs after the waiters had repositioned the table and Steve had been poured his coffee. Introductions were made. The woman chewed her food animatedly, eyebrows lifting, napkin in hand as she touched the corner of her smiling lips, listening to her associate speak deferentially to Steve. Steve kept his eyes half closed, slurped his coffee, set his cup down. The associate pulled on his cuffs when he’d finished speaking. The woman was about to enter the fray when Steve lifted his cup again and took another slurp. Everyone was silent, leaving the great man to his caffeine, saliva, thoughts.

  Having pondered for a while, Steve began to speak. He murmured slowly, mindfully, and although he appeared to be answering their request he was in fact asking them for a favor or, more accurately, an exchange. Something to do with not having to add a public plaza to an office tower if he gave them what they wanted, which seemed to be the installation of a particular chain of stores in the building’s retail space. The woman furrowed her brow and the man tugged at his cuff as they explained that they didn’t have the power to revoke the public plaza mandate. Steve inhaled, slurped, swallowed, pondered. When he opened his mouth again it was with regret. Without the extra space for retail that he would derive from the absence of the plaza, he couldn’t promise them a location in the building. He assumed a look of profound apology, a helpless, beseeching expression that came over his face seemingly at will. The woman, accepting defeat while at the same time maintaining her power to fawn, shut her eyes and, inclining her head, sighed deeply, showing through these pantomimes how she was able to appreciate and understand the great man’s words.

  We’ll see what we can figure out, her associate said, looking questioningly at the woman.

  Good, said Steve, abruptly, already standing up and pushing himself out of the settee, waiters rushing over belatedly to help with the operation. I’ll be back in a few minutes and you’ll tell me what you’ve come up with.

  Jonathan looked on as his father made his way to another table across the room. It was a table for four and it had one empty
seat. A waiter materialized to pull that chair out so Steve could commandeer his body onto the pink velvet. Simultaneously, another waiter appeared with a pot of hot coffee and filled the cup at Steve’s place. As Jonathan witnessed this maneuver—the man and the woman at the table twisted in their seats, also observing Steve at work—Jonathan’s perspective seemed to float to the top of the room, to hover amid the ceiling fixtures and gaze down upon the restaurant with its many tables and see that at each one of them, perhaps fifteen in all, there was a vacant seat.

  —

  From this lofty height each white-tableclothed table appeared like a big hooped skirt, a belle at a ball waiting for her partner. Flatware gleamed like jewelry. The china reflected the rosy velvet of the chairs and the amber lights that lined the walls like dewy skin reflecting the whirl of a party. This was a dance, a ritual, as orchestrated and as military as a nineteenth-century ball. Waiters’ heads swam among the tables like moving hands reaching out for ladies’ gloves. And amid the swirl, Steve moved methodically from dancer to dancer. Every table was his.

  —

  When Jonathan realized that each vacant seat was meant for Steve, that each table represented another breakfast meeting for the great man, he felt first proud, then surprised, then rejected. Proud that his father wielded enough power to fill the restaurant for his 8:30 breakfast meetings, surprised that he, Jonathan, had not been informed of this, and rejected as he understood that it must work this way every morning, that his father must have held multiple simultaneous meetings at this restaurant for years, without Jonathan knowing. It was trivial, in the scheme of things, and yet Jonathan felt betrayed. There had been so many other betrayals, so many slights and ignominies, patronizing, belittling remarks and demeaning speeches, but Jonathan took this singular display of power, this flaunting of his father’s generous aggression and hidden life, as if he, Jonathan, were a jilted lover discovering that he had been cheated on with everybody at the party.