Ordinary Grace

  “I closed my eyes, Jake, and pretended I was blind. I came down here without a problem. If I could do it, he could do it, too.”

  “But why would he hurt Ariel?”

  “Because she was pregnant and the baby was his.”

  “No. He’s too old. And his face is all scarred up. I mean, if I didn’t know him so well, I’d get the willies just looking at him.”

  “That’s the point. You know him well, and it doesn’t bother you. I think it didn’t bother Ariel either. She was in love with him.”

  “That, well, that’s just stupid.”

  “Think about it. She talked forever about wanting to go to Juilliard, and then suddenly she didn’t. She wanted to stay here. Why? Because Mr. Brandt is here.”

  “Maybe it was because of Karl.”

  “Karl was leaving for college,” I said. “He told us so. When I asked him if he loved Ariel and was going to marry her he said no. Now I understand it was because he didn’t love her that way. Who else was Ariel seeing? If it was another boy, wouldn’t we know? The only other guy she’s been close to is Mr. Brandt. Think about it, Jake. She was over here all the time.”

  “But wouldn’t Lise know?”

  I remembered the afternoon when I’d stood in the doorway of her bedroom watching her iron naked and she hadn’t been aware of me at all and I said to Jake, “She’s deaf. And I think Ariel sometimes sneaked over at night when Lise was asleep.”

  “But why would he kill her, Frank? Was he mad at her or something? It doesn’t make sense.”

  I picked up a rock and threw it at the river and said, “Adults do a lot of things that don’t make sense.”

  “Why haven’t Mom and Dad thought about it? I mean, if you’re so sure, why aren’t they?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they like him too much to even let that thought in.”

  Jake drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them and stared at the river. “So what do we do?”

  “We tell Gus,” I said.

  • • •

  We had a hard time finding him. It was Sunday afternoon and almost everything was closed. We checked Rosie’s parking lot and didn’t see the Indian Chief there. We wandered around town awhile and didn’t talk much because what we were thinking drove out all desire for conversation between us. Once the idea of what Mr. Brandt had done to Ariel came to me I couldn’t stop playing the scene over and over in my head. I kept seeing him heave her onto his shoulder like a rolled-up rug and stumble his way down the path and discard her in the river. I grew angrier and angrier and my insides knotted and I thought about just going up to Emil Brandt and throwing my accusation in his face. And I imagined the police—Doyle—grabbing him roughly and slapping on handcuffs and shoving him into the cruiser and taking him away.

  “I hope he didn’t do it,” Jake said out of nowhere.

  We were walking down Tyler Street toward home. It was nearing suppertime and I didn’t want our parents worrying about us so we were walking quickly but I was also propelled by sheer anger.

  I said, “He did it and I hope he goes to hell for it.”

  Jake didn’t say anything so I pressed him. “Don’t you?”

  “Not really.”

  I stopped and turned to him, seething. “He killed Ariel, Jake. He killed our sister, and if the police don’t kill him, I will.”

  Jake turned from my anger and kept walking.

  “Well?” I said to his back.

  “I don’t want any more killing, Frank. I’m tired of feeling mad. And I’m tired of feeling sad. And I’m happy that Mom’s back home and I just want things to be okay again.”

  “They won’t be okay, not until Mr. Brandt’s in jail and on his way to the electric chair.”

  “All right,” Jake said and kept walking.

  I hung back because I didn’t want to be with him anymore. I wanted to be alone with all the wretchedness of my mood. So we continued in that way with Jake leading and me grumbling behind until we reached home.

  Mother had food on the table, leftover ham for sandwiches and macaroni-pea salad and watermelon slices and potato chips and while we ate I heard the sound of Gus’s motorcycle and I got up and saw him park in the church lot.

  “I’m finished eating,” I said.

  “But you’ve barely touched your food,” Mother said.

  Jake glanced toward the window. “I’m finished too.”

  My father eyed us both. “You two have been awfully quiet. What are you up to?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  Mother smiled on us and said, “Go outside and have a good time. And if you happen to see Gus, tell him that if he’s hungry he’s welcome to come over and help himself to whatever we have.”

  We went to the church basement and heard the shower running in the little bathroom and when the water stopped I called out, “Gus?”

  “Just a minute,” he hollered back.

  He came out a couple of minutes later with his hair wet and a white towel wrapped around his waist. He grinned and said, “What’s up, guys?”

  “We were looking for you,” I said.

  “Took a motorcycle ride. Something about the wind in my face that gives me a sense of freedom. Guess I’m still trying to get rid of the feel of that damn jail cell penning me in.” He looked at us both carefully. “This is serious, isn’t it?”

  While he stood there naked except for the towel I told him what I thought. He listened and at the end said, “Jesus.” He idly rubbed his bare chest and said again, “Jesus.” Then he said, “Have you told your father?”

  “No.”

  “I think you should.”

  “Does that mean you think I might be right?”

  “I hope not, Frank, but it’s worth considering.”

  I asked, “Could you be with us when we tell him?”

  “Sure. Just let me get dressed.”

  We waited upstairs in the sanctuary. Jake sat in the front pew with his hands folded in his lap in the same way he sat when he listened to my father preach. I paced in front of the altar rail with my guts all twisted. The sun was low in the sky and the stained-glass window in the western wall at the back of the chancel was alive with the fire of a dozen colors.

  “Frank?”

  “What?”

  “What if we didn’t tell Dad?”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “Does it really matter who killed Ariel?”

  “Of course it matters. It matters a lot. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “What?”

  “Miracles happen, Frank. But they’re not the kinds of miracles I thought they’d be. Not like, you know, Lazarus. Mom’s happy again, or almost, and that’s kind of a miracle. And yesterday I didn’t stutter, and you want to know something? I think I never will.”

  “Terrific, I’m happy for you.”

  Which was true, although the happiness was greatly overshadowed by the terrible enmity I felt toward Emil Brandt.

  “I just think maybe we should let things go, maybe put everything in God’s hands is what I’m saying, and hope for some kind of regular miracle.”

  I stopped pacing and looked at Jake’s face. There was something so guileless about it and—I don’t know another word except beautiful. I sat down beside my brother.

  “What was it like?” I asked him. “Your miracle?”

  He thought a moment. “It wasn’t something that came over me, like I saw a light or heard a voice or anything. I just . . .”

  “What?”

  “I just wasn’t afraid anymore. I mean, maybe nobody else would even think of it like a miracle, but for me it felt that way. And that’s what I’m saying, Frank. If we put everything in God’s hands, maybe we don’t any of us have to be afraid anymore.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

  “I thought so, too. I guess I was wrong.”

  Gus walked into the sanctuary. “Okay,” he said. “I think it
’s best if we have this discussion here, keep your mother out of it for the moment. Who wants to fetch your dad?”

  I knew Jake wouldn’t go so I turned and left the church. The sun was just beginning to set and above the hills the clouds were already ablaze with an angry orange glow. I walked into the house and the first thing I heard was my mother playing the piano, the Moonlight Sonata. She hadn’t played since Ariel disappeared and I realized how empty the house had been without music. And there was my father on the sofa reading the newspaper as he often did on Sunday evenings when the business of the day was finally finished for him. I almost stopped and turned back because as much as I wanted Ariel’s killer known I wanted more for life to be normal again. But once the question of Emil Brandt’s guilt had come to me it was a consideration too awful to hold on to alone and so I went to where my father sat and said, “Gus wants to see you.”

  “What about?”

  “It’s important. He’s at the church.”

  “Where’s Jake?”

  “He’s there, too.”

  My father gave me a puzzled look and folded his paper and set it down. “Ruth,” he said, “I’m going to speak with Gus. I’ll be gone a bit. Frank and Jake are with me.”

  She continued playing and without looking up from her keyboard said, “Stay out of trouble.”

  As we walked to the church my father put his arm around my shoulder. “It’s going to be a beautiful sunset, Frank.”

  I didn’t answer because I didn’t give a crap about the sunset and in another minute we were standing with Gus and Jake.

  Gus said, “Do you want to tell him, Frank, or do you want me to?”

  I told my father everything.

  When I finished Gus said, “He makes sense, Captain.”

  My father leaned against the altar rail, deep in thought.

  “I need to talk to Emil,” he finally said.

  “I want to be there,” I blurted.

  “Frank, I don’t think—”

  “I want to be there. I have a right to be there.”

  My father shook his head slowly. “This won’t be the kind of discussion that a thirteen-year-old needs to be a part of.”

  “Captain, beg your pardon, but I think Frank has a point. He’s been involved in this mess all along. It was him who pointed you toward Brandt. Seems to me he has a right to be there, if that’s what he wants. I know I’m an outsider, but I thought you might want another point of view.”

  My father considered then he looked at my brother. “What about you, Jake? You feel a burning need to be there?”

  “I don’t care,” Jake said.

  “Then I’d rather you didn’t come. You either, Gus. I don’t want Emil to feel ganged up on.”

  I was amazed. My father didn’t sound angry at all. He seemed far too calm.

  I said, “He did it, Dad.”

  “Frank, it never pays to convict someone in advance of knowing all the facts.”

  “But he did it. I know he did it.”

  “No. What you’re thinking makes a certain sense, but it doesn’t take into account the kind of man Emil Brandt is. I have never sensed from him the depth of violence what you’re talking about would require. So I’m believing that we know only part of the story right now. If Emil is truthful with us, we may know it all and understand.”

  Through the chancel’s stained-glass window the setting sun shot fire and the altar and the cross blazed and the chancel rail and the pews and the floor all around my father burned and I couldn’t understand how amid all that flame he could stand so calm. His reasonableness was something that in the past I’d admired greatly but I found it maddening now. Me, I just wanted to get Emil Brandt strung up.

  “If you go with me, Frank, you have to be quiet and let me do the talking. Do you promise?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I promise.”

  “All right. Gus, why don’t you and Jake go keep Ruth company. She’s in a mood to play, and I know how she appreciates an audience.”

  Gus said, “If she asks where you’ve gone?”

  “Tell her anything you like,” he said, “except the truth.”

  38

  The drive to the home of Emil Brandt was no more than five minutes but it felt like forever getting there. Because of my father’s doubts, seeds of doubt had been planted in my own thinking and I thought maybe Jake was right. Maybe I should have said nothing and left the resolution of the whole mess in God’s hands. But what was done was done and when we parked in front of the old farmhouse I got out and steeled myself for the ordeal ahead.

  As we approached the porch I could hear Emil Brandt playing his grand piano inside. I knew the piece. It was something Ariel had composed and in the wash of its beauty I swore I could feel Ariel’s presence. We stood on the porch until the piece was finished then my father—reluctantly, I could tell—raised his hand and knocked on the screen door.

  He called, “Emil?”

  “Nathan?”

  Through the screen I saw Brandt rise from the great piano and come to greet us. He pushed open the door and said, “Who’s with you?”

  “Frank,” my father said.

  He smiled with pleasant surprise. “What brings you both back so soon?”

  “We need to talk.”

  The smile fell away and Brandt looked troubled. “This sounds serious.”

  “It is, Emil.”

  Brandt stepped outside and we took the wicker chairs where not long before he’d sat in good friendship with my parents. With the sun down, we sat in the moody blue of dusk.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Did you father my daughter’s child, Emil?”

  My father asked it so directly that it startled even me and I could see that Brandt was clearly taken aback.

  “What kind of question is that, Nathan?”

  “An honest one. And I would appreciate an honest answer.”

  Brandt turned his face away and held himself motionless for a long time. “She was in love with me, Nathan. Blind and battered as I am, she loved me.”

  “Did you love her, Emil?”

  “Not in that way, not really. I’d come to rely on her greatly, and I loved her presence in this house, and she reminded me so much of . . .”

  “So much of whom?”

  “Of her mother, Nathan.”

  “And that’s why you made love to an eighteen-year-old girl? She reminded you of her mother?”

  Was it anger I heard in my father’s voice? Profound indignation? Betrayal?

  “I know how terrible it sounds, but it wasn’t like that, Nathan. It happened once. Just once, I swear, and I was so ashamed. But Ariel, for her it was so much more. Of course. Something like that to one so young, it means everything, I know. She talked marriage. Marriage to me, can you envision that, Nathan? A man more than twice her age, blind as a bat and with the face of a monster. What kind of marriage would that be for her once she opened her eyes and realized the poor bargain she’d struck? And what about Lise? Lise could never have accepted someone else in our retreat here, especially someone who might, in my sister’s understanding, steal all my affection. Nathan, I told Ariel no. Honest to God, I did everything in my power to dissuade her from throwing her life away on a wreck like me. But she . . . oh, the young, they’re always so certain of what they want.”

  Brandt stopped talking and the silence was a great, heavy stone that settled on us all. He was blind but he nonetheless looked down as if his eyes were weighted with shame.

  “I tried to kill myself once before,” he finally said. His voice was like something that had come from a distance on the wind. “Did you know that? In the hospital in London after I was wounded. I fell into such a darkness. I couldn’t imagine a life for myself this way.” He put his fingertips to his monster of a face and then went on. “Do you want to know why I tried to kill myself this time? A more noble reason, or at least that’s what I told myself. I wanted Ariel to be free of
me, and I simply couldn’t see any other way.”

  “Except killing her,” I said.

  “Frank,” my father cautioned.

  “Killing her?” Brandt raised his head and a terrible understanding blossomed in his sightless eyes. “That’s what you think? That I killed Ariel? That’s why you’re here?”

  The screen door opened and Lise Brandt stepped outside and looked at us with concern and irritation as if we were trespassing. She said, “Emil?” Except that because of her deafness and the resulting oddness of her speech it came out something like Emiou?

  Brandt signed to his sister.

  “I wan them to go away,” she said in a drone.

  Brandt turned so that she could read his lips. “We have business to finish, Lise. Go back inside.” She didn’t immediately obey him and he said, “It’s all right. Go on. I’ll be in soon.”

  Lise drew herself back slowly like mist being sucked into the house and I thought that if I were her I’d hide myself and listen but of course that would do her no good. I watched through the screen as she vanished into the kitchen and I heard the faint sound of cookware rattling.

  “It’s true then,” my father said. “The baby was yours.”

  “She didn’t tell me about the baby, Nathan. She never said a word. And when I found out that she’d died pregnant, I hoped against hope that Karl might be the father.”

  “You hoped that Ariel might be sleeping around?”

  “That’s not what I meant. It just seemed impossible. Ariel and I had been together only once.”

  “She came here often after dark,” my father said. “Frank saw her leave the house several times.”

  “Yes,” Brandt admitted. “But she came late at night and all she did was stand out there in the yard and watch my window.”

  “You’re blind, Emil. How could you know this?”

  “Lise saw her. She wanted to chase her off, but I asked her not to interfere. I talked to Ariel and she promised to stop her nocturnal visits.”

  “Did she?”

  “I suppose so but I don’t really know. It was right after that that I tried to kill myself. And then so much happened.”

  “Did she come the night she disappeared?”

  “I’m sure she didn’t. If she had, Lise would have said something to me. Look,” he pleaded, “I didn’t kill Ariel. I couldn’t have killed Ariel. In my wounded way, I loved her. Not as she would have liked, but in the only way I was able. You have to believe that, Nathan.”