Had the explosion come from the White House?
Nothing was out of place. The potted pines or ferns or whatever Cristina had set in whitewashed uniformity on the steps of the terrace were as Malory remembered—as he remembered as Ottavia ran up the steps of the terrace to pick herbs for Tibor’s pasta. Only the gun was gone—the gun Tibor had handed to him and that Malory had placed back into the plastic bag and set on the table by the pond. And there was a yellow ribbon, barring the way up the first step of the terrace. A plastic yellow ribbon with writing.
When he thought back to the terrace—the lifting of the yellow ribbon, the walk up the steps, the arrival at the top, the discovery of the table holding the half-drunk glass of red wine, the wire-rimmed glasses he had first seen Tibor tweak over his ears twenty-three years earlier as he emerged from the organ case in the loft of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the Adirondack chair that must have held Tibor in the final moment before he shot a bullet through the roof of his mouth and spattered the ceiling that overhung the terrace and parts of the deck with what had once been his divided mind—Malory couldn’t remember reading the writing on the yellow tape: its warning, its infernal admonition from the police to abandon hope all ye who cross this line. All he remembered was the pull, the pull up the steps. And the music, the noise, the hum, the buzz, the ascent and descent of thousands of flies from roof to deck, from deck to roof, thousands of tiny angels, like the Jacob’s ladder of dust motes he had seen in another organ loft in another lifetime. The message of the flies—this was clear, this he understood.
“Hey, Mac!”
“Hello?” Malory wasn’t certain where the sound came from. He turned to the pond, but the gray surface was level and quiet.
“Hey!” An American voice, followed by the squawk of something electronic. “What’re you doing here?”
Finally Malory saw it, saw the man. He was sitting in a car parked on the driveway just to the side, between the trees that screened the view down to the Blue House. It was a car painted black and white, with a light on the roof. And although the light was unilluminated, Malory was fairly certain that the man at the wheel of the car was a policeman.
“I’m sorry,” Malory said. “I just came back to look.”
The man opened the door to the car slowly and swung his legs and his belly and then the rest of his body out into the open. There was also a mustache and a hat and a badge and a uniform.
“C’mon down from there,” the policeman said, drawing his fingers into his palm as if he wanted Malory to throw him something. Malory looked back at the table with the wineglass and the spectacles, and up at the ceiling. He walked down the steps of the terrace empty-handed and over to the policeman by the patrol car. “Now,” the policeman said, “what were you doing up there?” And although Malory’s answer could have been what he told Louiza in the loft of St. George’s, Whistler Abbey, or what he told Tibor in the loft of Santa Maria, he decided against a frontal response and instead followed the advice of Settimio. Discretion. He was no Roland. TiborTina would not be his Roncesvalles.
“I’m sorry, officer,” Malory replied. “I came back. Yesterday, I was here as a guest. But then there was an accident and I had to leave.”
“Didn’t you see the tape?” the policeman asked.
“Sorry. I’m not from around here,” Malory said. “I don’t know the customs.”
The policeman spoke into his walkie-talkie and passed these bits of information, along with Malory’s name and vitals which he gleaned from items in Malory’s wallet, to someone far away, Malory imagined, someone perhaps with Cristina, perhaps not. Malory looked around in the silence between crackles. He saw that the driveway beyond the patrol car bore the impression of a caravan of tire prints. He tried to imagine what had gone on after the Driver had taken him from the scene of the accident. The ambulance, the police. Cristina in her Yukon, Ottavia he hoped with her. And how had Louiza gone? In another vehicle. How many other vehicles had come and gone in search, in delivery? When had this patrol car arrived to keep watch? To keep watch over what?
“Mr. Malory,” the policeman said to him after the last squawk, “would you mind coming with me? They’ve got a few questions for you.”
“Excuse me?” Malory said. “Who is they? Where do you want me to go?”
“Just get in the front. Don’t worry, you’re not under arrest, just a few questions.”
“But where?”
“Don’t worry,” the policeman said again, “I’ll bring you back for your car.”
“I don’t have a car,” Malory said. “I came by taxi.”
“Well then,” the policeman said, “that’ll make life a whole lot easier. Now if you don’t mind …” And the policeman lifted Malory’s arms and methodically searched him for weapons.
They drove through the Farmers’ Market intersection and turned off River Road into the woods above the Hudson. Malory thought about asking to call Settimio—he wasn’t entirely certain how to contact the Driver. But he was more curious than nervous—he wasn’t under arrest, after all, and that must mean something. He had run from his own Driver in order to find out what had happened to Louiza and Ottavia, and he was still not entirely clear what had happened to Tibor and Cristina, despite the passacaglia of the flies. The policeman claimed ignorance and disinterest. But the drive beneath the screen of American leaves was pleasant. The dappled light of noon wrapped him in a camouflage that felt—despite the discomfort of ignorance—coddled and warm.
The police car pulled up to an iron gate. Through the windshield, Malory saw a pair of men talking into more walkie-talkies. Behind them, a yellow house. Clapboard—that was the word that came to Malory’s mind as the gate opened and the policeman drove through. Clapboard, like the White House at TiborTina. This is America, Malory thought. Clapboard. I like it.
“Wait a minute here, Mac,” the policeman said.
“Of course,” Malory said, thinking, what a wonderful clapboard house.
The policeman closed his door and locked Malory in. Malory watched him walk up the steps to the veranda that led to a sheltered front door flanked by a window checkerboarded into wooden sashes. A cluster of dried flowers and variegated corn hung off one column. The front door opened and the policeman disappeared. Malory looked up: above, a second story window nestled beneath a peaked gable, a gentle wooden drapery imitating the lace curtain that sat patiently just behind the glass. Malory looked up to that window. He wanted to be there. He hoped, although he didn’t know why, that the policeman would reward his own patience and invite him inside and he could explore that room.
The front door opened again.
“Okay, Mac,” the policeman came around and unlocked Malory’s door. “C’mon in. You’re just in time for lunch.” With a hand on Malory’s elbow, persuasive but not in menace, he helped Malory up the steps of the veranda and served him through the front door.
“Thank you,” Malory said.
“Don’t thank me, Mac,” the policeman said, “I wasn’t invited,” and closed the door.
Malory found himself in a narrow corridor. At the far end stood what looked like a kitchen. There were a few hooks on the wall, jackets and scarves—a woman’s, he thought—hanging even though the day was warm. The corridor smelled of beeswax and sunshine. Malory didn’t know where to go, but for the moment he didn’t mind.
“You can come in here,” a voice called out. It was a male voice, not dissimilar from the policeman’s but with a tone that compromised Malory’s sense of contentment. “First on the left.”
A sofa with faded yellow cushions. A fireplace, unlit, and above it the portrait of a man who might have been a contemporary of Isaac Newton, perhaps another young scientist who had sat for the portraitist, Keller or Kneller—Malory had lived in the land of Bernini long enough to squeeze these Germanic names out of his memory.
“Over here.”
Malory turned away from the portrait. A man was sitting at a round dining table. Behind the man, t
he midday light set a lacy screen that made it difficult to separate the man’s features from his outline. Malory walked to the table. The man didn’t stand up to greet him, but there was a chair at Malory’s side of the table and a cup of tea and a plate. With a scone.
“Sit down, Mr. Malory.” At this distance, Malory guessed the man was no larger than him, perhaps his age, although with more nose and less hair, and what there was of it was as pale and flat as the midday light. The man had a folder open in front of him in place of tea and scone. Some type of pocket recording device sat at the center of the table. Malory wondered what local police force kept such detailed files that a brief call on a walkie-talkie could identify him as a tea-and-scones man. But he knew it was in Settimio’s nature to anticipate his needs. And he knew that the reach of Septimania was longer than he had interest or ability to understand. “Please,” the man said. “Sit.”
Malory pulled out his chair. And as he did, he saw the piano tucked next to the table in the bay window giving out to the veranda. A baby grand with a light cherry veneer, probably nothing important. But its very lack of importance gave Malory a feeling of security, of nestled comfort. Whatever he was about to learn, whatever had happened to Tibor, to Louiza, to Ottavia couldn’t be that bad if there was music nearby.
“First,” the man said, “let me offer my condolences on the death of your friend Mr. Militaru.”
Malory heard the name, Tibor’s surname, for perhaps only the second time in his life.
“From all appearances, Mr. Militaru died from a self-inflicted gunshot that separated the greater part of the upper half of his skull from the lower. Death was immediate. Please, try the scone. It’s from the Farmers’ Market. They tell me it’s fresh.”
Malory listened as if deciphering an equation in a foreign language. But it was enough to settle the question. Tibor had shot himself. Tibor was dead.
“Where?” Malory began, but the man held up a hand.
“That is all the information I have.”
“Surely,” Malory said, “you can tell me where I am, who you are.”
“You’ll have a chance,” the man replied, “to ask questions. And maybe there will even be someone who can answer them. Someone else. Right now, I’m the one asking. So drink your tea and eat your scone. And then you can tell me why you left Mr. Militaru’s house so quickly yesterday evening.”
“Of course,” Malory said. The man pressed a button on the recorder and waited. Malory spoke. He spoke of his friendship with Tibor, his invitation to Tibor’s birthday, his position in Rome—as the director of a private foundation—and the security requirements surrounding that. His hasty departure was not of his own volition, but company policy. But as Malory spoke, his explanation played back into his own ears as something entirely tuneless and unconvincing. Backlit as he was, the man’s face was impenetrable. Perhaps there was no need to plumb the man’s private reaction. Perhaps all was for the recorder. But as Malory spoke, Malory wondered. Who was listening to the recorder?
Malory finished speaking. The man turned a page in his folder. He turned another. Malory took a bite of the scone. Tasteless. A sip of tea, cold.
“Can you explain,” the man said, turning a third page, “why we found your fingerprints on the gun that killed your friend?”
Malory could explain. Of course he could explain. Tibor had handed him the gun. He had put it back in the plastic bag as quickly as he could and then left it on the table. But the memory of what he had done, or hadn’t done, what he hadn’t prevented, made explanation seem imprecise, perhaps even false, ultimately useless. So this time, Malory chose another option and said nothing.
“Can you explain why, Mr. Malory, in addition to your fingerprints and the fingerprints of your headless friend, we found another set of prints? A set of prints a whole lot smaller? Maybe a girl? Maybe you know of whom I speak?”
Of whom he spoke? Ottavia? Malory thought. Maybe the man knew and was just feeling Malory out. Discretion. He felt Settimio just out of sight behind his right ear, whispering the word. And he said nothing. But he wondered who was listening.
“And finally,” the man stood and walked to the piano by the bay window, unmoved by Malory’s silence, “can you explain why we found a fourth set of prints on the gun, a set that is a perfect match with a man who, at a quarter to nine this morning, flew an American Airlines 767 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center?”
“Excuse me?” Malory said, unable to say nothing to a sentence so foreign in tone and meaning. “Can you repeat your question?” And although, at the beginning, Malory’s disbelief was far greater than the man’s, as the man explained the events of the morning—the four planes, the attack, the collapse, and all that followed—ten minutes of back and forth was enough to transfer that incredulity across the table.
“You really don’t know?” The man—who Malory thought was incapable of surprise—was clearly thrown off balance. “You didn’t see the TV, didn’t hear the radio, run into people on the street?”
“I’m sorry,” Malory said finally, the sound of E. Power Biggs on the taxicab sound system loud in his memory, the soundtrack of his ignorance. “Nobody. I wasn’t.”
“Come with me,” the man said. And something in the atmosphere changed. Malory still didn’t know what the man was talking about. But as he followed the man up the narrow staircase off the front hall, he felt for the first time not only that the man believed him but the weight of his own ignorance.
“Sit down,” the man said. Malory sat. The bed was soft and warm from the morning’s heat. It was covered with a quilt that broadcast an America of film and history to Malory’s untrained vision. But his fingers picked up another personality from the cotton squares, a familiar, downy heat that reminded him of the woman he had seen less than twenty-four hours before across a nearby pond. This was the room beneath the peaked gable he had seen from outside, the room he had wished to see. There was a bed, a dresser, and on top of the dresser, a television set.
“Here,” the man said, flicking on the TV. “Why don’t you look at this while you’re waiting? It’ll be an education.”
All afternoon and into the night, Malory sat on the bed and watched the TV. He watched the day rewind, replay. He watched the planes turn and return, the towers, the dust, the flames and bodies go in then out, down then up. After an hour he turned off the sound. But the images repeated themselves like the loop of Couperin’s Chaconne in a dance that accumulated force and power with each repetition. And each repetition brought an added understanding. Because of this, his plane was turned back at the airport. Because of E. Power Biggs, he hadn’t heard the news on the radio. Because of the walk to the pond, the talk with the policeman, the drive over to The Gables, he hadn’t seen the collapse, heard the name Osama, or seen the first tentative photos of the suspects. The hand that clutched the steering wheel—or whatever it was they had on airplanes—had, only a few hours earlier, left an impression on the gun Malory held by the pond of TiborTina. I danced with the man who danced with the girl who bombed the Prince …
And more. In between the videos, in between the lines of the newsreaders and the speeches of the experts and the disbelief of the witnesses, their chins lifted up to a sky that was raining the B-movies of their darkest imaginings, Malory heard the word caliph. It came in the middle of what sounded like a meaningless incantation, “the return of the Caliphate … restore the Caliph of all Islam.” But Malory felt its force. What if Ottavia were right? What if Aldana had borne a son of this Caliph-in-disguise? What if I am descended from Haroun al Rashid? What if all this destruction is to restore me to yet again another throne I never dreamed of, never desired? If there is one rule that explains everything, is there also one ruler to blame? Is this all my fault?
As the light of September 12 began to sift through the lace curtains of the upstairs room, Malory stood. Unable to turn off the image, he pulled the plug from the wall and held its prongs in his right hand as he pushed the curtain
aside with his left. There were two men below, smoking in the near dawn by the gate. Even with the TV unplugged, the sun continued to rise. Without untying his shoes, without removing his jacket, Malory let the plug drop and gravity carry him towards the bed and a comforter that smelled of time before.
Although he slept, and his dreams were free of Tibor, he found himself walking across the desert of the Maghreb, hand in hand with Judar and the Moorish brothers he had thrown into the pond. And he wondered whether that was Louiza’s hand behind him like Eurydice’s, and whether that was the hijacker’s fingerprints leading him on in front, and whether there really was a treasure at the end of the journey. Or simply a punishment for all he was, for all he stood for—Holy Roman Emperor, King of the Jews, Caliph of Islam.
When Malory awoke, it was to Bach, the music of Bach, the theme to the Goldberg Variations. Malory stood up from the bed, walked out into the hallway and down the stairs. The music was coming from the parlor, the baby grand. Another man was sitting at the piano, a broad expanse of tweed, the back of a head gone gray with only the memory of red in thick, polished staves running down to the back of his neck. The man was much larger than the man who had sat across the table from him asking questions the afternoon before. There was a walking stick propped up against the bass end of the keyboard. Malory had seen the man before, at TiborTina, climbing up towards the pond behind a man with a brush cut.
“I only play the Aria,” the man said without turning, without stopping. “Never bothered to practice enough to learn the variations.” The notes came out in measured doses. Measured, Malory thought, watching the hair on the man’s knuckles rise and fall in the morning shadows of the bay window, but not music. What the man was playing was Bach but was not music. It was a study for music, the notes leached of color as thoroughly as the cushions on the sofa. Nevertheless, the man played through, played through to the end of the Aria before he turned to Malory and stated his theme.
Septimania Page 27