The Ruined House

by Ruby Namdar

  Everything will proceed as usual, as it always does. Colorful catalogs of winter clothing will arrive in the mail, followed by even more colorful catalogs of summer clothing. Old shoes will wear out and the children will need larger sizes. Just let time’s peaceful flow go on, let nothing interrupt its routine! Yellow daffodils will reappear in the buckets of the florists and make way for red tulips and purple, white, and pink hyacinths. Saturdays in Central Park. Social events. The premieres of much-touted movies. Now and then a good meal, an especially fine bottle of wine. On Valentine’s Day long lines will form in the flower and confectionary shops. Sturdy red roses will open in glass vases; the light, shining through their petals, will make them glow like gemstones; in a few days they will wilt and be thrown down incinerator chutes. In spring we will go to the Hamptons, the Berkshires, and the Catskills, spending long hours in the mythological traffic jams of Friday afternoon and Sunday evening. In August the city will empty. In September the bedlam will begin again. In October, right after Halloween, the holiday season will be back with its hectic preparations and Christmas jingles that return to the stores and malls. Day follows day, year follows year. Slowly, imperceptibly, our lives’ spans are running out.

  3

  January 2, 2001

  The 7th of Tevet, 5761

  Early afternoon. A fine day. Andrew, his right hand resting casually on the steering wheel of Ethel’s old Roadmaster and the fingers of his left hand drumming to the beat of the music on the radio, followed the green, night-glow exit signs. Exit 12, Mount Vernon. Exit 16, New Rochelle. It was so familiar, it could have been yesterday. His memories were sharp and clear. Tiny, seemingly trivial details stood out in them like the sugar crystals on a gingersnap: the place where the road made a wide curve as if sketching an imaginary circle, the loud tick of the directional signal drilling at his brain like a merciless plastic mosquito. How could he not have been here for so many years? Had there been no opportunities, no need, to return? He steered the big car, which made him think of a large barge, toward Exit 16. The old Roadmaster knew the streets so well that it practically drove itself. Here was the house: the lawn, as trim as ever; the picket fence, still a spotless white; the garage door, rolled all the way down, just the way his father liked it.

  Andrew turned into the gravel driveway, careful not to trample the flower beds. He stopped a yard short of the garage door to keep from blocking it, switched off the ignition, and leaned back against the leather headrest while observing, to his growing astonishment, that nothing had changed. Nothing at all, as if time had stood still. It took him a moment to realize why his heart was beating as fast as the blinker signal that wouldn’t turn off. What an idiot I am. What an idiot. He’s alive! Dad is alive! He’s been here all along, living his quiet, honorable life, without complaints, without demands, without anger at the son who never visited, who never returned home. A torrent of emotion swept over him like a flood wave threatening to burst a dam. He wouldn’t be able to hold it in much longer. Dad’s been alive all this time and I haven’t known it! How could I not have known it? What kind of son have I been? I have to hold it in. I have to. Breathe regularly. Breathe deeply. Don’t cry. Whatever you do, don’t cry. If there is one thing Dad can’t stand, it’s crying!

  Andrew let out a groan. As if released by a hidden spring, his eyelids snapped open. Confused and disheveled, he sat up in bed. The large green, night-glow digits on the alarm clock showed the hour: 6:13 a.m. How could it be? So many years without a sign of life. With no contact. What kind of a son would do that? Enough, he must wake up! His chest heaved frightfully, spasmodically, his arrhythmic heart out of control. He must wake up now! Get out of bed, splash cold water on his face, and wake up.

  The darkness was thinning. His eyes, growing used to it, made out the shadowy, half-recognizable details of his bedroom. What had happened to the garage and the gravel driveway that crunched under the big tires of the car? Hadn’t they sold the old Roadmaster years ago and bought a new, smaller, more gas-efficient Dodge? His father had adamantly refused to buy a Japanese car. American industry, the country’s backbone, had to be supported.

  His chest calmed. His heart beat more slowly. Andrew got out of bed and went to the living room. Although it was getting light out, the day had yet to begin. The opaque curtain of a gray dawn covered the windows. It was 6:35, too early for his morning coffee. Should he try going back to sleep? Aimlessly, he wandered around the apartment, not knowing what he was looking for, preferring to remain in the pale, ghostly dawn light rather than switch on a lamp. The last fragments of his strange dream, though still hovering at the porous edge of consciousness, were now distinct from waking reality.

  It grew lighter. Andrew kept up his search. Opening the old, exquisitely carved eighteenth-century cabinet with its family mementos and expensive china, he found what had eluded him: an antique silver goblet, inherited from his father, standing on a shelf. It was an old Kiddush cup, early nineteenth century by the looks of it, with signs of Russian workmanship. He couldn’t recall whether Walter had ever used it. Perhaps for their Seders? They did have a Seder each year, that much he remembered. How little was left, just a few items: the Kiddush cup, an old wristwatch, several photographs, a certificate of honor from an old, now defunct labor union. A handful of keepsakes, the nostalgic shards of a man who never expressed the least nostalgia for anything. Andrew reached for the glass door, desiring to hold the Kiddush cup, to feel its weight and examine its silver filigree, but his hand froze on the way to it. No, not now! It was too melodramatic, too pregnant with meaning. What time was it? Seven. Too late to go back to sleep. Coffee, a shower, to work!

  4

  January 3, 2001

  The 8th of Tevet, 5761

  Ten a.m. Even the weather had put on its best face for the first day of the spring semester. The air was crisp and clear, invigorating, not cuttingly cold. The colorful jackets, scarves, and woolen caps of the students brightened up the brown lawns and gravel paths, creating the illusion of springtime in bloom. Andrew, smartly dressed, his new cashmere scarf wrapped around his throat, left the Christopher Street station and headed for campus. Although his first class was not until two, the university president’s secretary had phoned him the week before to ask him to come earlier for an important meeting. She had divulged no details; contacts with the administration had been enveloped in recent years in a strange mantle of diplomatic secrecy more appropriate to the corridors of big business and politics than to the noisy hallways of a New York university. Andrew supposed the call had to do with his new appointment, which was already regarded as a fait accompli.

  Bernie Bernstein, the president of New York University, elegant in a black cashmere coat worn over an expensive black suit, stood at the main entrance of the Administration Building, his hands youthfully stuck in his trouser pockets, taking note of the lively scene with the expression of a shrewd, worldly man of means pleasurably surveying his many assets. Behind him, a large bronze plaque engraved with the names of the university’s prominent donors majestically framed his burly figure, as if in tribute to his winning ways that had seduced many a woman and philanthropist. Spotting Andrew in the crowd, Bernie flashed him a hearty smile that Andrew returned with genuine affection. They knew each other well. Both belonged to the same generation and were products of the same intellectual and cultural milieu. Bernie, the boyish enfant terrible of the frightfully straitlaced Sociology Department, had an unpredictable, razor-sharp mind, vocal left-wing opinions, and a long list of romantic conquests that included, in the best egalitarian tradition, students, professors, women administrators, and bored faculty wives. Although his colleagues were surprised by his meteoric rise in the university’s administrative hierarchy, it would have been just as difficult to imagine him spending the rest of his career under the cold fluorescent light of the library, bent over a stack of stuffy academic articles.

  Andrew climbed the steps and shook the big, rough hand extended to him from afar. For a mo
ment or two, they stood looking out at the vibrant flow beneath them while permitting themselves an intimate silence. Bernie stirred first. His smile broadened and he touched Andrew lightly on the elbow. “Let’s get out of here and go have some coffee. I have something to talk to you about that will interest you greatly.” His tone of sly, unstated complicity piqued Andrew’s curiosity, as did his choice of an off-campus location. Something was going on. What, though? Just more of the absurdly self-important wheeling and dealing that had infected the institution’s top echelons since Bernie took over, their hush-hush, semi-conspiratorial tones more suited to a Byzantine court than an American university?

  Bernie had begun to talk about the reasons for their meeting in his deep, radio announcer voice. Andrew, however, soon abandoned his initial effort to follow him. There was something unclear, devious, in his remarks, something convoluted that concealed more than it revealed, as if purposely hiding its true motives. Half listening, Andrew concentrated more on its tone than its contents. Long practiced in the art of politely dull conversation and trusting himself to identify the moment when, his formal prologue concluded, Bernie got to the point, he let his mind wander while transmitting automatic signals of interest and attention. A slight but irritating tiredness, the result of waking prematurely from an interrupted sleep, weighed on his eyelids. From the depths of forgetfulness, a fragment of a week-old dream came back to him. In it, seven Rubenesque women, well favored and fat fleshed, had emerged from the lazy waters of the river to loll unsuspectingly on its grassy bank while he, a bare-assed, hairy satyr, having deftly infiltrated their ranks, swam like a playful guppy in and out of their sweet white voluptuousness.

  Andrew smiled at the pleasurable if not unembarrassing memory and blinked in the cold winter light, thinking of a large latte with an extra shot of espresso. Should he have it with a biscotti? Perhaps an almond croissant? Bernie, a man of infinite appetites, would surely eat something, too. He was quite capable of ordering and devouring a pastry without knowing what it was called or what was in it, let alone to what tradition of baking it belonged. All Bernie had eyes and taste buds for was power, influence, and more power. Nothing else mattered. But didn’t this make him like all the great sovereigns who were makers rather than spectators of history? Andrew himself knew all there was to know about biscotti. He was versed in its different varieties, could tell you where to buy the best of each, and had even successfully baked them himself. His command of life’s details was a reason for satisfaction—a kind of power, too. He was proud of his ability to scan the cultural scene in all its aspects, major and minor, and quickly to identify its hidden structures and covert pathways of meaning. His entire career, he reflected, was based on this gift—and as careers went, it wasn’t a bad one . . .

  He was surprised to find himself thinking so apologetically. Something in the meeting with Bernie, which had started out well, was turning sour. Bernie’s vitality made him feel, weak, childish, and circumscribed, more concerned with minutiae than with the larger picture. Andrew studied him. He hadn’t stopped spinning his dense web of thoughts, unaware that Andrew had long ago lost track of them. His suit was of a high-quality fabric; well cut, too; from time to time, it shone in the sunlight like silk; it was obviously tailor-made. Did Bernie choose his own clothes? It was hard to imagine someone like him keeping abreast of fashion or expending the energy needed to dress well. And how did his expensive tastes go with his radical views, which had earned him the reputation of a social maverick?

  Andrew took a deep breath and tried refocusing on the words of the president, who was droning away like the public speaker he was. “We have to face up to there being other forces at work behind the scenes. It’s not entirely up to us, if at all . . .” Andrew perked up. At last Bernie was getting down to business. Yet just then, at the very moment his intuition told him it was time for the mental alertness he was noted for, a strange, disquieting sound distracted him again. Distant yet near, unrecognizable but unaccountably familiar, it came from all sides, its deep, bestial roar bringing to mind the bellow of a huge, primeval beast. Andrew’s eyes grew wide. A surge of adrenaline signaled the presence of something momentous, solemn and formidable. He glanced around, trying to curb his unrest. They had left the campus and were walking down one of the quietly charming side streets of the Village. Everything looked normal. There was nothing unusual—nothing but a strange light shining on the street’s northeast corner and becoming brighter as the sound grew louder. Andrew couldn’t take his eyes off it. Whatever it was, it was weird. Bernie was still talking, but Andrew no longer heard a word. A shiver ran through him. His entire being was in a hyper state, one that he hadn’t experienced in a long time. The shaft of light grew more intense, more concentrated, configuring a precise circle on the gray sidewalk that glowed with a heavenly radiance. What could it be? A super-powerful spotlight? Was someone filming? Filmmakers, especially cinema students, used these streets as a site all the time.

  A huge, snow-white bull appeared from around the corner and strode slowly to the center of the circle with a regal, dreamlike gait. Between its horns stretched a red streak of wool, a wonderfully luminescent carmine ribbon. Its sudden manifestation was followed—from where Andrew couldn’t tell—by a second figure, no less startling and impressive: a bearded man, cloaked from head to toe in white linen garments, his head wrapped in a white linen turban. Advancing at the same slow, ceremonial pace as the bull’s, he brandished a long, hypnotically gleaming knife. Andrew held his breath in fascination. Never had anything aroused in him such a mixture of joy and alarm, longing and awe. More figures appeared, dressed in colorful garb, prancing and whirling around the white bull and the priest who led it. A powerful, penetrating, irresistible music filled the air, drowning out the everyday sounds of the city. What was it? Andrew racked his brain, feeling his heartbeat quicken. An ethnic parade? A Hare Krishna–like cult? Half walking, half dancing, the brightly dressed crowd kept streaming around the corner, blowing large, conched horns, plucking primitive-looking stringed instruments, and beating drums. Its guttural, mesmerizing song, dreamlike, too, swept all before it. The shaft of light moved slowly down the street, toward its far end. Andrew searched for the vehicle carrying the projectors, cameras, and sound equipment needed for such an extravaganza, but none appeared. He glanced overhead. Could there be a helicopter? An absurd thought. Any helicopter flying so low would be deafening. Where, then, for goodness’ sake, was the light coming from? A window? He turned back to the street. The bright circle was gone, leaving only a fading circumference. The exotic figures had vanished, too. For a brief moment, the shadow of the last of them flitted in the distance: an ancient priest, his head wrapped in a linen turban and a golden fire pan in his hand.

  Andrew pulled himself together. He was tingling with a strange excitement the likes of which he had never felt. Although the whole thing couldn’t have taken long, it seemed to have lasted an eternity, as if another dimension of time had sucked him into its whirlpool and cast him back out like a fish washed up on the shore. He had to tear his gaze away from the empty corner at the street’s end to fix it on Bernie, who was saying with a puckish smile, a smugly amused, Machiavellian twinkle in his eyes, “In short, my friend, you had better keep an eye on what’s happening under your nose, right under your own nose! I can’t tell you more than that. You’re a big boy and a pretty shrewd player yourself, we’ve known each other for a long time. . . . Here, let’s try this café, I’m famished! In half an hour, I have an international conference call. It’s something big, but I can’t go into the details.”

  Andrew nodded mechanically. The bright light had hurt his eyes, causing them to blink and smart as though filling with tears. The hypnotic jangle of the instruments still echoed in his ears. He studied Bernie’s face, trying to see what impression the strange event had made on him, but it registered no emotion, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. How could that be? Was he the only one who had seen the bizarre pageant? He
struggled to come to his senses and resume his part in the conversation, the crux of which, he realized as he regained his grip on reality, he had missed. Yet as crucial as it was to reconstruct the gist of Bernie’s curious insinuations and extract something concrete from him, the substantive part of their conversation was clearly over.

  Well, no need to be upset. He had other contacts in high places and would find a way to clarify the matter. But where, damn it, had the spotlights and sound equipment been? Wait a minute. Yes, that was it: on the roof! They must have placed the projectors on the roof of the building on the southwest corner. There was no other way for it to have followed the procession around the corner and down the street.

  He felt exhausted. His head ached and he could hardly keep his eyes open. But how could he possibly cancel the first class of the semester and go home to sleep? He needed some coffee, a double espresso. No, not an espresso. He couldn’t handle anything that bitter. A cappuccino, with lots of milk. Perhaps even a biscotti.

  5

  January 16, 2001

  The 21st of Tevet, 5761

  I am lying on a bed in a dirty, dimly lit room, in an old, half-ruined hotel, like a scene in Stephen King’s The Shining. Something terrible is happening: a dark force that keeps shifting its shape is pressing on me, about to crush me. It wants to kill me. I can feel the terror squeezing my heart like a giant pincers. A murderous angel is staring insanely at me. Its unshaven chin is as sharp and strong as a razor. It’s a young Jack Nicholson. Linda is wearing a wedding dress. She’s in an advanced stage of pregnancy. Her swollen belly protrudes through the thin material of her white bridal gown. Her bride’s veil is spattered with blood like in a cheap horror movie. She holds a huge kitchen knife and screams: “I’ll save you! I’ll save you!” She picks up the baby, holds it in the air, cuts off its foreskin, and throws it at my feet. The little foreskin wriggles on the sheet like a worm cut in two. The blood stings my toes. The angel cringes. Its frightening face shrinks, bursts like a soap bubble, and disappears. The pressure on my chest is released. I can breathe again. Linda hugs my legs. Her face, smeared with blood, presses against my bare thighs. “I’ve saved you!” she says, sobbing. “I’ve saved you! You’re my bloody bridegroom! You’re mine again!”