“My mother’s a trauma center surgeon. She operates five or six times a day.”
“And she has been disappointed that you didn’t go into medicine, of course.”
“A little, more in my older brother, Jim, than me. His becoming a priest was quite a blow. We’re Catholic, of course. But that was something my mother had simply never dreamt of, and I have my theory why he did it, you know, the psychological angle, but the truth is, he’s a fine priest. He’s stationed in San Francisco. He works at St. Francis at Gubbio Church in the Tenderloin, and runs a dining room for the homeless. He works harder than my mother. And they’re the hardest-working two people I know.” And Celeste would be the third-hardest-working person, wouldn’t she?
They talked on about the digs. Reuben had never been one for details, didn’t get very far examining potsherds, but he loved what he did learn. He was eager to see the clay tablets.
They talked of other things. Marchent’s “failure,” as she put it, with her brothers who were never interested in the house or in Felix or in the things that Felix left behind.
“I didn’t know what to do after the accident,” Marchent said. She rose and wandered towards the fireplace. She poked at the flames, and the fire flared bright again. “The boys had already been through five different boarding schools. Kicked out for drinking. Kicked out for drugs. Kicked out for selling drugs.”
She came back to the table. Felice shuffled in with another fifth of the superb wine.
Marchent went on, her voice low and confiding and amazingly trusting.
“I think they’ve been in every rehab in the country,” she said, “and a few overseas as well. They know just what to tell the judge to get sent to rehab, and just what to tell the therapists when they’re inside. It’s amazing the way they win the doctors’ trust. And of course they load up on all the psychiatric meds they can before they’re discharged.”
She looked up suddenly. “Reuben, you will not write about this ever,” she said.
“Unthinkable,” he replied. “But Marchent, most journalists can’t be trusted. You do know that, don’t you?”
“I suppose,” she said.
“I had a good friend at Berkeley who died of an overdose. That’s how I met my girlfriend, Celeste. He was her brother. Anyway, he had everything, you know, and the drugs just got him, and he died like a dog, in a barroom toilet. Nobody could do a thing.”
Sometimes he thought that it was Willie’s death that bound them together, him and Celeste, or at least it had for a while. Celeste had gone on from Berkeley to Stanford Law School, and passed the bar as soon as she finished. Willie’s death gave the affair a certain gravity, a musical accompaniment in the minor key.
“We don’t know why people go that route,” Reuben said. “Willie was brilliant, but he was an addict. He was there to stay while his friends were just passing through.”
“That’s it, exactly. I must have done every drug myself that my brothers ever did. But somehow these things didn’t appeal.”
“I’m with you,” he said.
“Of course they’re furious that everything was left to me. But they were little children when Uncle Felix went away. He would have changed his will to take care of them, had he ever come home.”
“Didn’t they have money from your parents?”
“Oh, definitely. And from grandparents and great-grandparents before them. They went through it with breathtaking speed, giving parties here for hundreds of people, and financing rock bands of druggies like themselves who hadn’t a chance of success. They drive drunk, crash the cars and somehow walk away without a scratch. One of these days they’ll kill somebody, or kill themselves.”
She explained that she would settle quite a lot on them as soon as the property was sold. She didn’t have to do it, but she would. The bank would dole it out so that they didn’t blow it all as they’d done their inheritance. But they didn’t like any of this. As for the house, it had no sentimental value to them whatsoever, and if they thought they could fence Felix’s collectibles, they would have stolen them all a long time ago.
“The fact is, they don’t know the value of most of the treasures hidden in this house. They break a lock now and then and abscond with some pedestrian item. But mostly, it’s extortion—you know, drunken calls in the middle of the night, threatening suicide, and I usually end up sooner or later writing a big check. They bear with the lectures, the tears, and the advice for the money. And then they’re gone again, off to the Caribbean, or Hawaii, or down to Los Angeles on another bender. I think their latest scheme is to break into the pornography business. They’ve found a starlet that they’re cultivating. If she’s underage they may end up in prison, and perhaps that’s inevitable. Our lawyers certainly think so. But we all behave as if there’s hope.”
Her eyes moved over the room. He could not imagine how it looked to her. He knew how it looked to him, and that he would never forget her as she looked now in the light of the candles, her face slightly flushed from the wine, her lips very red, it seemed, and smoke-colored eyes flashing in the light of the fire.
“What gets me is they were never curious about things, never interested in Felix, never interested in anything, really—not music, not art, not history.”
“I can’t imagine it,” he said.
“But that’s what’s so refreshing about you, Reuben. You don’t have the hard-boiled cynicism of the young.” She was still looking around, eyes a little restless as they moved over the dark sideboard, the dark marble mantel, and once again over the round iron chandelier that had not been lighted, its stubby wax candles covered in dust.
“We had such times in this room,” she said. “Uncle Felix promised to take me so many places. We had such plans. I had to finish college first, he was adamant. And then we were going to travel the world.”
“Are you going to feel a crashing grief when you sell this place?” Reuben ventured. “Okay, I’m a little drunk, not much. But really, will you regret this? How can you not?”
“It’s finished here, dear boy,” she said. “I wish you could see my house is Buenos Aires. No. This is a pilgrimage, this trip. There’s nothing here for me now but loose ends.”
He wanted suddenly to say, Look, I’m buying this place. And Marchent, you can come here, anytime, stay as long as you like. Pompous nonsense. How his mother would laugh.
“Come,” she said. “It’s nine o’clock, can you believe it? We’ll see what we can upstairs, and leave the rest for the light of day.”
They visited a chain of interesting wallpapered bedrooms, and old-fashioned tiled bathrooms with pedestal sinks and claw-foot tubs. There were American antiques galore, and some European pieces, as well. The rooms were spacious, comfortable, inviting no matter how dusty or faded or cold.
And finally, she opened the door to “one of Felix’s libraries,” more a huge study, really, with blackboards and bulletin boards and walls and walls of books.
“Nothing’s been changed in twenty years,” she said. She pointed to all the photographs, newspaper clippings, and faded notes tacked up on the boards, and the writing still visible on the blackboards after all this time.
“Why, this is incredible.”
“Yes, because, you see, Felice thinks he’s coming home, and there were times when I certainly thought so too. I didn’t dare touch anything. When I found out the boys had been here and stolen things, I went wild.”
“I saw the double locks.”
“Yes, well. It came down to that. And the alarm system, though I don’t think Felice really sets it when I’m not here.”
“These books, these books are in Arabic, aren’t they?” he said as he moved along the shelves. “And what’s this, I don’t even know what this is.”
“I don’t either,” she said. “He wanted me to learn all the languages he knew but I didn’t share the knack. He could learn any language. He could almost read people’s minds.”
“Well, this is Italian, of course, and t
his is Portuguese.”
He paused at the desk. “This is his diary, isn’t it?”
“Well, some sort of diary or workbook. I would imagine he took his latest diary with him when he left.”
The blue-lined page was covered with curious writing. Only the date was clear and in English: “August 1, 1991.”
“Right where he left it,” Marchent said. “Now what do you think that language can be? The people who’ve studied it have several different opinions. It’s a Middle Eastern tongue almost certainly, but not derived from Arabic, at least not directly. And there are symbols all through the writing that no one can recognize at all.”
“Impenetrable,” he murmured.
The inkwell was dried up. A fountain pen lay there, with a name inscribed on it in gold. FELIX NIDECK. And there was a framed picture standing there, of the remarkable gentlemen all together in a more informal gathering, under garlands of flowers, with wineglasses in their hands. Beaming faces—Felix with his arm around the tall blond-haired Sergei with the pale eyes. And Margon the Godless regarding the camera with a placid smile.
“I gave him the pen,” she said. “He loved fountain pens. He liked the sound they made when they scratched the paper. I got it at Gump’s in San Francisco for him. Go ahead, you may touch it, if you like. As long as we put it back where it was.”
He hesitated. He wanted to touch the diary. A chill had come over him, an overpowering sense of another person or personality, he didn’t know quite which. The man appeared so happy in the photograph, eyes crinkled with good humor, dark hair tousled as if by a breeze.
Reuben looked around the room, at the crowded shelves, the old maps taped to the plaster, and back at the desk. He felt a curious love for this man, well, an infatuation, perhaps.
“As I said, if the right buyer presents himself, all of this goes to storage. ASAP. It’s all been photographed, you know. Long ago, I had it done. I have files of photographs of every shelf, every desktop, every bulletin board. It’s the only kind of inventory I’ve attempted, so far.”
Reuben stared at the blackboard. The chalk writing had surely faded. What was left was scratched into the blackness. But it was in English and he could read it, and he did:
“ ‘The glow of festal torches,—the blaze of perfumed lamps,—bonfires that had been kindled for him, when he was the darling of the people,—the splendor of the royal court, where he had been the peculiar star,—all seem to have collected their moral or material glory into the gem, and to burn with a radiance caught from the future, as well as gathered from the past.’ ”
“You read it beautifully,” she whispered. “I’ve never heard it read out loud before.”
“I know that passage,” he said. “I’ve read that before. I’m sure I have.”
“You do? No one’s ever said that before. How do you know it?”
“Wait a moment, let me think. I know who wrote that. Yes, Nathaniel Hawthorne. That’s from a story called ‘The Antique Ring.’ ”
“Why, darling, that’s quite remarkable. Wait a minute.” She began to search the shelves. “Here, here are his favorite writers in English.” She pulled an old tattered leather-bound hardcover from the shelf. It had gilt-edged papers. She started turning the pages. “Well, Reuben, you take the prize. Here’s the passage, all right, marked in pencil! I would never have ever found this on my own.”
He took the book from her. He was flushed with pleasure, and beaming at her. “It’s kind of thrilling. First time my master’s in English literature ever proved useful.”
“Darling, your education is always going to be very useful,” she said. “Whoever convinced you otherwise?”
He studied the pages. There were many markings in pencil, and those strange symbols again, dashed off, it seemed, revealing in their opacity what a complex and abstract thing written language is.
She was smiling at him with such obvious affection. But maybe it was a trick of the light from the green-shaded lamp on the desk.
“I should give this house to you, Reuben Golding,” she said. “Could you afford to keep it if I did?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “But there’s no need to give it to me, Marchent. I’ll buy it from you.” There, he had said it, and now he was blushing again. But he was ecstatic. “I’ve got to go back to San Francisco—talk to my mother and father. Sit down with my girlfriend. Make them understand. But I can and will buy it, if you’re willing. Believe me. Look, I’ve been thinking about it since the moment I got here. I’ve been thinking, I’ll regret this all my life if I don’t, and you see, if I buy it, well, Marchent you’ll always find the door open, anytime night or day.”
She smiled at him in the most serene way. She was both very present and very far away.
“You have your own means, do you?”
“Yes, always have. Not the means that you have, Marchent, but I have means.” He didn’t want to go into the details of the real estate magnates who had founded the family fortune, and the trust funds arranged long before he was born. But how his mother and Celeste would scream when he told them. Grace worked every day of her life as if she was penniless. And she’d expected her boys to do the same thing. Even Phil had worked all his life in his own fashion. And there was Jim giving up everything for the priesthood. And here, he would go into his capital for this house. But he didn’t care. Celeste would never forgive him. But he absolutely didn’t care.
“Rather figured you did,” Marchent said. “You’re a gentleman reporter, aren’t you? Ah, and you feel very guilty about that, too, I see.”
“Just a little guilty,” he said under his breath.
She reached out with her right hand and touched his left cheek. Her lips moved but she didn’t really speak. A tiny frown touched her forehead but her mouth was still soft and smiling.
“Dear boy,” she said. “When you write a novel someday about this house, you will call it Nideck Point, won’t you, and you’ll remember me in some way in it, perhaps, you know. You think you might do that?”
He drew close to her. “I’ll describe your beautiful smoky-gray eyes,” he said, “and your soft golden hair. I’ll describe your long graceful neck and how your hands make me think of birds when you gesture. And I’ll describe your voice, that crisp, precise way you say your words that make it seem like running silver when you speak.”
I will write things, he was thinking. I will write something meaningful and wonderful someday. I can do that. And I’ll dedicate it to you because you’re the first person who ever made me think I could.
“Who has a right to tell me I have no gift, no talent, no passion.…” he murmured. “Why do people say those things to you when you’re young? Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“No, darling, it’s not fair,” she said. “But the mystery is why you listen.”
Then all the old scolding voices went quiet in his head suddenly, and only then did he realize what a loud chorus they’d always been. Did he ever take a breath without hearing that chorus? Sunshine Boy, Baby Boy, Little Boy, Little Brother, Little Reuben, what do you know about death, what do you know about suffering, what makes you think, why would you ever try, why, you’ve never focused on any one thing longer than—. All those words just dried up. He saw his mother. He saw Celeste—saw her small animated face and large brown eyes. But he didn’t hear their voices anymore.
He leaned forward and kissed Marchent. She didn’t turn away. Her lips were tender, rather like a child’s lips, he imagined, though he had never actually kissed a child since he’d been a child himself. He kissed her again. This time, something stirred in her, and when he felt that stirring, the passion was sparked in him.
Suddenly, he felt her hand on his shoulder, squeezing his shoulder, and gently pushing him away.
She turned around and bowed her head like a person catching her breath.
She took his hand and led him towards a closed door.
He was certain this was the entrance to a bedroom and he had made up his mind
. It didn’t matter what Celeste would think if she ever knew. He had no intention of passing up this opportunity.
She drew him into a darkened room, and turned on a low lamp.
Only slowly did he realize the place was a kind of gallery, as well as a bedroom. There were ancient stone figures standing on pedestals, thick shelves, and on the floor.
The bed itself was Elizabethan, an English relic almost certainly, a coffered chamber of sorts with carved wooden shutters that could be closed against the night’s cold.
The old coverlet of green velvet was musty, but he didn’t have a care about that in the world.
2
HE WOKE UP out of a sound sleep. There was a low light coming from an open bathroom. A thick white terry-cloth robe hung on the hanger on the hook on the door.
His leather bag was nearby on a chair and his pajamas had been laid out for him, along with his fresh shirt for tomorrow, still in its wrapper, and his other personal things. His trousers had been folded. And his discarded socks as well.
He’d left his leather bag in his unlocked car. And this meant she’d gone out there in the dark alone to get it for him, and this made him a little ashamed. But he was a little too happy and relaxed to feel too ashamed.
He was still lying on the velvet cover, but the pillows had been removed from their velvet shams, and the shoes he’d kicked off in his haste were standing neatly together by the chair.
For a long time, he lay there thinking about their lovemaking, and wondered that he had betrayed Celeste so easily. But in truth, it hadn’t been easy at all. It had been quick and impulsive but not easy, and the pleasure had been unexpectedly intense. He was not sorry. No, not by any means. He felt that it was something he’d remember forever, and it seemed infinitely more important than most things he’d ever done.
Would he tell Celeste? He wasn’t sure. He would certainly not spring it on her, and it would have to be very clear in his mind that she would want to know. That meant talk, talk with Celeste about a lot of things, hypotheticals and realities, and the worst reality of all, that with her, he felt relentlessly defensive and inadequate and this had pretty much worn him out. She’d been too surprised that people liked the articles he’d written for the Observer. And that had cut him.