“Here, here is what he marked a long time ago.” He gave it to Laura.
She took it to the lamp and gently read it aloud:
No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
The agony of this, wanting so much to talk to him, to appeal to him. I did what was natural to me, I did it because I didn’t know what else to do. But was this true?
An overwhelming desire for the power came over him. The restlessness was driving him mad.
The wind tossed the rain against the black windows. Beyond, he heard the waves pounding the shore.
Laura looked so patient, so quietly respecting, so silent. She stood by the lamp with the Keats in her hands. She looked at the cover, and then back to him.
“Come,” she said. “I have to check something. Perhaps I made a mistake.”
She led the way down the hall into the master bedroom.
The little paperback book How I Believe was still lying on the table where she’d left it early that morning.
She opened it now and turned the brittle pages carefully.
“Yes, this is it. I wasn’t mistaken. Look at the inscription.”
Beloved Felix,
For You!
We have survived this;
we can survive anything.
In Celebration,
Margon
Rome ’04
“Yes, well, Margon gave it to Felix at some point, yes,” said Reuben. He didn’t quite understand.
“Look at the date.”
He read it aloud, “ ‘Rome ’04.’ Oh, my God. He disappeared in 1992. And this, this … this means he is alive and … he’s been in this house. He’s been here since he disappeared.”
“Apparently so, at least at some point in the last eight years, yes.”
“I looked right at this and I didn’t see it.”
“I did too,” she said. “And then it hit me. And how many other things do you think have been brought here or taken from here over the years without anyone noticing? I think he’s been here. I think he left this book here. If Marrok could get into this house secretly, if he could hide himself in this house, then Felix might have often done the same thing.”
Reuben paced in silence, trying to make sense of it, trying to know what, if anything, he could do.
She sat down at the table. She was paging through the little paperback.
“Are there notes?”
“Little check marks, underlining, squiggles,” she answered. “Same light strokes as in the Keats. Even check marks and underlining have the stamp of a personal hand. I think he is very much alive, and you can’t know who or what he is, or what he might do or want.”
“But you know what Marrok said, what he accused me of.”
“Reuben, the guardian was in a jealous rage,” she said. “You’d had his precious Marchent. He wanted to make you pay. He thought he’d left you to die. Very likely he didn’t attack by accident at all. He couldn’t finish you off, no, but he thought the Chrism would likely do that. He didn’t call 911 to save you. He called on account of Marchent, so her body wouldn’t lie there alone and neglected until Galton or somebody else found it.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Reuben, you are so gifted. Don’t you know jealous rage when you see it? The monster’s words were steeped in envy. All that about how he would never have chosen you, never given you a second glance, about how it was your fault that he turned his back on Marchent. That was envy from start to finish.”
“I understand.”
“You can’t know anything about this man, Felix, from what the monster said. Look at it squarely. If Felix did write this letter, if he’s alive now as this letter seems to indicate, he’s allowed you to inherit this house. He hasn’t sought to interfere by hook or by crook. Now why would he do that? And why would he send that unpleasant little creature, that strange little beast, to see to it that the owner of the house was killed, and the house lost to the probate courts again?”
“Because he’s taken the only things he wanted?” Reuben offered. “The diary and the tablets? He took them right after Marchent died?”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe it. There is so much more here, parchment scrolls, ancient codices, they’re everywhere. So many odds and ends that Felix collected. Why, who knows what’s really in the attics, or in other places in this house? There are trunks up there you haven’t opened, boxes of papers. There are secret rooms in this house.”
“Secret rooms?”
“Reuben, there have to be secret rooms. Look, come into the hall.”
They stood at the place where the southern hall met the western hall.
“You have a rectangle of hallways here—the west, the south, the east, the north.”
“Yes, but we’ve been in all the rooms that open off them, more or less. On the outside you have the bedrooms, and on the inside, you have linen closets and extra bathrooms. Where are the secret rooms?”
“Reuben, you are scientifically challenged. Look.” She crossed the hall, and opened the first of the linen closets. “This room is scarcely ten feet deep. It’s the same all the way around the inside of the rectangle.”
“Right.”
“Well, what’s in the middle?” she asked.
“My God, you’re right. That has to be a huge square space in the middle.”
“Well, I searched this afternoon when you were with Jim. I went into every closet, bathroom, stairwell, and nowhere did I find a door opening to the middle of the house.”
“So you think there are things here, hidden in some secret rooms, things he may still want?”
“Come. Let’s try something else.”
She led the way into the bedroom that had become her office. She’d moved a small desk from the wall to the windows, and her laptop was open there.
“What’s the actual address of this house?”
He had to think. It was 40 Nideck Road. He’d memorized the zip when he’d been ordering equipment for the office online.
At once she typed this into the search window with the words “satellite map.”
As soon as an aerial view of the coast and the forest appeared, she zoomed in on the house itself. She clicked on the house until the image got larger and then larger. There was a great square glass roof, plainly visible, surrounded and concealed by the gables that faced the four points of the compass on each side.
“Look at that,” she said.
“My God, I didn’t know anybody could do that!” he said. “It’s not just a room, it’s a huge space. And the gables completely hide the glass roof from view. Can you zoom in tighter? I want to see the details of the roof.”
“It’s not going any tighter,” she said. “But I see what you see. Some kind of trapdoor or something on that roof.”
“I’ve got to go upstairs, I have to check out the attics. There has to be some way to get in there.”
“We’ve been all through them,” she said. “I didn’t see any doors. But there’s no telling how many times over the years that Felix or Marrok may have come here and gone into that secret part of the house through this trapdoor or some other secret entrance we have yet to find.”
“That explains it,” said Reuben. “Marrok was inside the house the night Marchent died. They couldn’t find any evidence of anyone. But he was in that middle room or rooms.”
“Look, maybe there’s just more of the same in that space, you know? More shelves, bookcases, whatever.”
He nodded.
“But you don’t know,” she said. “And as long as you don’t know, there’s hope that you have something to bargain with here. I mean Felix may want what’s in that space; he may want his entire house. And he won’t get it back simply by killing you. It will go on the market again, go to strangers. And what’s he going to do then?”
“Well, he can keep sneaking in as he’s done in the past.”
“No, he can’t. As long as the house belonged to his niece he could keep sneaking in. As long as it belonged to you, perhaps. But if the house goes to an absolute stranger, somebody who wants to turn it into a hotel or, worse yet, demolish it, well, he stands to lose everything here.”
“I see your point—.”
“We can’t put together a complete picture,” she said. “This letter just reached here. Maybe he doesn’t know himself what he wants to do yet. But I doubt seriously that the man these people have been describing ever sent that sinister Marrok to put an end to our lives.”
“Oh, I hope and pray you’re right.”
He moved to the windows. He was hot all over, anxious almost to the verge of panic. Yet he knew the change was not coming. And he did not even know whether he wanted it to come. He knew only that these physical sensations and these emotions were unendurable.
“I’ve got to search for a way into that space now,” he said.
“Is that going to help you with what you’re going through right now?”
“No,” he said. He shook his head.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“Listen, Laura. We have to leave here for a little while. We have to drive.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not leaving you here alone. We have to go now.”
She knew what he meant, what he was planning to do. She didn’t question him.
The rain was coming down heavily as they left the house.
He drove south, picking up Highway 101 and pressing on at top speed towards the voices and the cities of the bay.
25
MOUNTAIN VIEW CEMETERY, Oakland: giant trees, scattered graves great and small, under the slow relentless rain. In the distance, the ghostly glitter of downtown.
A boy screaming in agony as two others tormented him with knives. Ringleader: just out of prison, wiry, naked arms covered in tattoos, T-shirt wet, transparent, body shivering, drugged up, choked with anger, savoring revenge now on the one who betrayed him, delivering up now to the gods of violence his enemy’s only son.
“What?” he taunted the boy. “You think the Man Wolf will save you?”
Out of the nearby grove of oaks, Reuben appeared, closing in on the leader like a dark bestial angel in plain view of the two acolytes who turned screaming and fled.
Slash of claws, jugular ripped, figure doubling, falling, jaws closing on his shoulder, splitting the tendons, the arm loose, no time to chew this irresistible flesh.
He bounded over the fields of the dead after those who were racing in panic ever deeper into the darkness. He caught the first and ripped out half of his throat, throwing him aside as he went after the remaining tormentor, catching him in both paws and lifting him to his waiting jaws. Luscious, this pulsing feast, this dripping meat.
On a patch of blood-soaked grass lay the boy victim, nut-brown skin, black hair, curled up now like a fetus in his leather jacket, face bleeding, belly bleeding, swooning, in and out, in and out, eyes struggling to focus. Boy of twelve. Reuben bit down and picked him up by the collar of his thick jacket as a cat would pick up a kitten by the nape of its neck, and carried him easily this way as he ran along faster and faster till he came to the lights of the street. Up over the iron gates. And then he left his small charge on the corner before the darkened windows of a small café. Silence here. No late-night traffic. Streetlamps shining on empty shops. With his powerful right paw he shattered the glass of the café. The alarm shrieked. Yellow lights flashed on, garishly illuminating the wounded one on the pavement.
Reuben was gone. Back through the cemetery, he trotted, tracking the scent of those he’d slaughtered. But the kill was cold now, uninteresting. He wanted what was warm. And there were other voices in the night.
A young woman singing a low agonizing song.
He found her in the woods of the Berkeley campus, this old university landscape that, in a faraway lifetime as a human boy, he’d so loved.
Amid the towering eucalyptus trees, she’d set up a sanctuary for her final hour—treasured book, the wine bottle, an embroidered pillow against the thick bed of fragrant leaves that curled like peelings, the small sharp kitchen knife with which she’d cut both her wrists. The blood and the consciousness oozed from her as she moaned. “Wrong, wrong!” she said under her breath. “Help me, please.” She could no longer hold the wine bottle, no longer move her hands or her arms, her matted hair covering her wet face.
He hefted her over his shoulder and made for the lights of Telegraph Avenue, speeding through the dark groves of the campus, places long ago where he’d studied, argued, dreamed.
The densely packed buildings were throbbing with voices, heartbeats, the thud of drums, talk and the talk of amplified voices, the wail of a trumpet, the din of competing songs. Gently he deposited her at the open door of a busy tavern, indifferent laughter exploding inside like broken glass. As he moved upwards and away, he heard the cries of those who discovered her. “Call for help.”
The voices of downtown were calling to him. Big city. Choices. Life is a garden of pain. Who shall die? Who shall live? A horror took hold of him as he moved south. I did what seemed natural for me to do.… I heard the voices; the voices called me; I caught the scent of evil and I tracked it. It was as natural as breathing to do what I did.
Liar, monster, killer, beast. An abomination … this will end now.
The sky was the color of soot when he came over the flat cluttered roof of the old gray brick hotel and down into the hatch roof of the fire stairs, slipping along the low dim hallway, silently opening the unlocked door.
Scent of Laura.
She had fallen asleep at the window, arms folded on the sill. Beyond, the leaden clouds were paling, growing shiny behind the featureless rain over a jumble of chalklike towers, freeways vibrating like bowstrings as they arched to the right and to the left. Layer after layer of cityscape between here and the great Pacific was dying to embers in the mist. Jangle and throb of the awakening streets. Garden of pain. Who will harvest all this pain? Please, let the voices die away. No more.
He lifted her and carried her to the bed, the white hair falling back from her face. She woke to his kisses, eyelids shuddering. What was it in her eyes as she looked up at him? Beloved. Mine. You and me. Her perfume flooded his senses. The voices went out as if someone had turned a dial. Tap tap came the rain against the window. In the icy light, he slowly peeled off her tight jeans, secret hair, hair like the hair that covers me, and folded back the flimsy blue fabric of her blouse. His tongue pressed against her neck, her breasts. Voice of the beast rattling deep in his chest. To have and to have not. Mothers’ milk.
26
HE CAUGHT GRACE when she came in the door of the house. No one had been home when he arrived, and he’d already packed up just about all of his clothes and books and loaded them into the Porsche. He had just gone back to check the alarm.
She almost screamed. She was in her green scrubs, but she’d let her red hair down and her face was as always starkly pale against her hair with those sharp reddish eyebrows emphasizing her distress.
At once, she threw her arms around him. “Where have you been?” she demanded. He kissed her on both cheeks. She held his face with two hands. “Why haven’t you called?”
“Mamma love, I’m all right,” he said. “I’m up at the house in Mendocino. I need to be there now. I just stopped in to tell you that I love you, and that you mustn’t worry—.”
“I need you to stay here now!” she demanded. She’d dropped her voice to a whisper, wh
ich she only did when she was near hysterical. “I’m not letting you leave here.”
“I’m leaving here, Mamma. I want you to know that I’m okay.”
“You’re not okay. Look at you. Listen to me, do you know what happened to every test they ran on you in the hospital?—everything, blood, urine, biopsies—it’s all gone, gone!” She mouthed the last word, but no sound came out. “Now, you are going to stay here, Reuben, and we are going to figure out how and why this is happening.…”
“Impossible, Mamma.”
“Reuben!” She was trembling. “I won’t let you go.”
“You have to, Mom,” he said. “Now, look into my eyes and listen to me. Listen to your son. I am doing the best I can. Yes, I know there have been psychological changes in me since this happened. And baffling hormonal changes as well. Yes. But you must trust me, Mother, that I am handling all this in the best way that I can. Now I know you’ve been talking to this doctor from Paris—.”
“Dr. Jaska,” she said. She seemed just a little relieved that they were addressing the real questions. “Dr. Akim Jaska. The man’s an endocrinologist, a specialist in this very kind of thing.”
“Yes, well, I know that. And I know he’s suggested a private hospital, Mother, and I know you want me to go to this place.”
She didn’t commit herself. In fact, she seemed a little unsure.
“Well, you’ve been talking about it,” he said. “I know that.”
“Your father’s against it,” she said. She was plainly thinking out loud. “He doesn’t like Jaska. He doesn’t like the whole idea.”
She began to cry. It was just boiling over. She couldn’t help it. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Reuben, I am frightened,” she confessed.
“I know, Mom. So am I. But I want you to do what’s best for me, and what’s best for me is to leave me alone.”