The Book of Illusions

  It was common practice in southern Vermont to leave your house unlocked, but I didn’t do that. I dead-bolted the door every time I went out. It was a stubborn ritual that I refused to break, even if I was going to be gone for only five minutes. Now, as I fumbled with my keys for the second time that night, I understood how stupid these precautions were. I had effectively locked myself out of my own house. The keys were already in my hand, but there were six of them on the chain, and I had no idea which was the right one. I blindly patted the door, trying to locate the lock. Once I had found it, I chose one of the keys at random and maneuvered it into the hole. It went halfway in, and then it got stuck. I would have to try another one, but before I did that, I would have to pull the first one out. That took a good deal more wiggling than I had anticipated. At the last moment, just as I was unjamming the final notch from the hole, the key gave a little jerk, and the key chain slithered out of my hand. It clattered against the wooden steps, then bounced God knows where into the night. And so the journey ended in the same way it had begun: crawling on all fours and cursing under my breath, searching for a set of invisible keys.

  I couldn’t have been at it for more than two or three seconds when a light went on in the yard. I glanced up, instinctively turning my head toward the light, and before I had a chance to be afraid, before I could even register what was happening, I saw that a car was sitting there—a car that had no business being on my property—and that a woman was getting out of it. She opened a large red umbrella, slammed the door shut behind her, and the light went out. Do you need some help? she said. I scrambled to my feet, and at that instant another light went on. The woman was pointing a flashlight at my face.

  Who the fuck are you? I asked.

  You don’t know me, she answered, but you know the person who sent me.

  That’s not good enough. Tell me who you are, or I’ll call the cops.

  My name is Alma Grund. I’ve been waiting here for over five hours, Mr. Zimmer, and I need to talk to you.

  And who’s the person who sent you?

  Frieda Spelling. Hector’s in bad shape. She wants you to know that, and she wanted me to tell you that there isn’t much time.

  We found the keys with her flashlight, and when I opened the door and stepped into the house, I flicked on the lights in the living room. Alma Grund came in after me—a short woman in her mid-to late thirties, dressed in a blue silk blouse and tailored gray pants. Medium-length brown hair, high heels, crimson lipstick, and a large leather purse slung over her shoulder. When she walked into the light, I saw that there was a birthmark on the left side of her face. It was a purple stain about the size of a man’s fist, long enough and broad enough to resemble the map of some imaginary country: a solid mass of discoloration that covered more than half her cheek, starting at the corner of her eye and running down to her jaw. Her hair was cut in such a way as to obscure most of it, and she held her head at an awkward tilt to prevent the hair from moving. It was an ingrained gesture, I supposed, a habit acquired after a lifetime of self-consciousness, and it gave her an air of clumsiness and vulnerability, the demeanor of a shy girl who preferred looking down at the carpet to meeting you in the eye.

  On any other night, I probably would have been willing to talk to her—but not that night. I was too annoyed, too put out by what had already happened, and the only thing I wanted was to peel off my wet clothes, take a hot bath, and go to bed. I had shut the door behind me after turning on the living room lights. Now I opened it again and politely asked her to leave.

  Just give me five minutes, she said. I can explain everything.

  I don’t like it when people trespass on my property, I said, and I don’t like it when people jump out at me in the middle of the night. You don’t want me to have to throw you out of here, do you?

  She looked up at me then, surprised by my vehemence, frightened by the undertow of rage in my voice. I thought you wanted to see Hector, she said, and as she spoke those words she took a few more steps into the house, removing herself from the vicinity of the door in case I was planning to carry out my threat. When she turned around and faced me again, I could see only her right side. She looked different from that angle, and I saw that she had a delicate, roundish face, with very smooth skin. Not unattractive, finally; perhaps almost pretty. Her eyes were dark blue, and there was a quick, nervous intelligence in them that reminded me a little of Helen.

  I’m not interested in what Frieda Spelling has to say anymore, I said. She kept me waiting for too long, and I had to work too hard to get over it. I’m not going to go there again. Too much hope. Too much disappointment. I don’t have the stamina for it. As far as I’m concerned, the story is over.

  Before she could answer me, I finished off my little harangue with an aggressive parting shot. I’m going to take a bath, I said. When I’m done with the bath, I expect you to be gone from here. Please be good enough to close the door on your way out.

  I turned my back on her and started walking toward the stairs, determined to ignore her now and wash my hands of the whole business. Halfway up the steps, I heard her say: You wrote such a brilliant book, Mr. Zimmer. You have the right to know the real story, and I need your help. If you don’t hear me out, terrible things are going to happen. Just listen to me for five minutes. That’s all I ask.

  She was presenting her case in the most melodramatic terms possible, but I wasn’t going to let it affect me. When I reached the top of the stairs, I turned around and spoke to her from the loggia. I’m not going to give you five seconds, I said. If you want to talk to me, call me tomorrow. Better yet, write me a letter. I’m not so good on the phone. And then, not bothering to wait for her reaction, I slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind me.

  I lingered in the tub for fifteen or twenty minutes. Add on another three or four minutes to dry myself off, two more minutes to examine my chin in the mirror, and then another six or seven to put on a fresh set of clothes, and I must have stayed upstairs for close to half an hour. I wasn’t in any rush. I knew that she would still be there when I went downstairs again, and I was still in an ugly humor, still seething with pent-up belligerence and animosity. I wasn’t afraid of Alma Grund, but my own anger frightened me, and I had no idea what was in me anymore. There had been that outburst at the Tellefsons’ party the previous spring, but I had kept myself hidden since then, and I had lost the habit of talking to strangers. The only person I knew how to be with now was myself—but I wasn’t really anyone, and I wasn’t really alive. I was just someone who pretended to be alive, a dead man who spent his days translating a dead man’s book.

  She began with a stream of apologies, looking up at me from the ground floor as I stepped out onto the loggia, asking me to forgive her for her bad manners and explaining how sorry she was to have barged in on me without warning. She wasn’t someone who lurked around people’s houses at night, she said, and she hadn’t meant to scare me. When she knocked on my door at six o’clock, the sun had been shining. She had mistakenly assumed that I would be at home, and if she wound up waiting in the yard for all those hours, it was only because she thought I would be returning at any moment.

  As I descended the stairs and made my way into the living room, I saw that she had brushed her hair and put on a new coat of lipstick. She looked more pulled together now—less dowdy, less unsure of herself—and even as I walked toward her and asked her to sit down, I sensed that she wasn’t quite as weak or intimidated as I had thought she was.

  I’m not going to listen to you until you’ve answered some questions, I said. If I’m satisfied with what you tell me, I’ll give you a chance to talk. If not, I’m going to ask you to leave, and I never want to see you again. Understood?

  Do you want long answers or short answers?

  Short answers. As short as possible.

  Just tell me where to begin, and I’ll do my best.

  The first thing I want to know is why Frieda Spelling didn’t write back to me.
r />   She got your second letter, but just when she sat down to answer you, something happened that prevented her from continuing.

  For a whole month?

  Hector fell down the stairs. In one part of the house, Frieda was sitting at her desk with a pen in her hand, and in another part of the house Hector was walking toward the stairs. It was eerie how close together those two events were. Frieda wrote three words—Dear Professor Zimmer—and at that moment Hector tripped and fell. His leg was broken in two places. Some ribs were cracked. There was a nasty bump on the side of his head. A helicopter came to the ranch, and he was flown to a hospital in Albuquerque. During the operation to set his leg, he suffered a heart attack. They transferred him to the cardiac unit, and then, just when it looked like he was recovering, he came down with pneumonia. It was touch and go for a couple of weeks. Three or four times, we thought we were going to lose him. It just wasn’t possible to write, Mr. Zimmer. Too much was happening, and Frieda couldn’t think about anything else.

  Is he still in the hospital?

  He came home yesterday. I took the first plane out this morning, landed in Boston at around two-thirty, and drove up here in a rented car. It’s faster than writing a letter, isn’t it? One day instead of three or four, maybe even five. In five days, Hector could be dead.

  Why didn’t you just pick up the phone and call me?

  I didn’t want to risk it. It would have been too easy for you to hang up on me.

  And why should you care? That’s my next question. Who are you, and why are you involved in this?

  I’ve known them all my life. They’re very close to me.

  You’re not telling me you’re their daughter, are you?

  I’m Charlie Grund’s daughter. You might not remember the name, but I’m sure you’ve come across it. You’ve probably seen it dozens of times.

  The cameraman.

  That’s right. He shot all of Hector’s films at Kaleidoscope. When Hector and Frieda decided to start making movies again, he left California and went to live at the ranch. That was in 1940. He married my mother in 1946. I was born there, I grew up there. It’s an important place to me, Mr. Zimmer. Everything I am comes from that place.

  And you never left?

  I went to boarding school at fifteen. Then to college. After that, I lived in cities. New York, London, Los Angeles. I’ve been married and divorced, I’ve worked at jobs, I’ve done things.

  But you live at the ranch now.

  I moved back about seven years ago. My mother died, and I went home for the funeral. After that, I decided to stay on. Charlie died a couple of years later, but I’m still there.

  Doing what?

  Writing Hector’s biography. It’s taken me six and a half years, but I’m close to finishing now.

  Little by little, it begins to make sense.

  Of course it makes sense. I wouldn’t have come twenty-four hundred miles to hold things back from you, would I?

  That’s the next question. Why me? Of all the people in the world, why did you choose me?

  Because I need a witness. I talk about things in the book that no one else has seen, and my statements won’t be credible unless I have another person to back me up.

  But that person doesn’t have to be me. It could be anyone. In your cautious, roundabout way, you’ve just told me that those late films exist. If there’s more work of Hector’s to be seen, you should contact a film scholar and ask him to look at them. You need an authority to vouch for you, someone with a reputation in the field. I’m just an amateur.

  You might not be a professional movie critic, but you’re an expert on the comedies of Hector Mann. You wrote an extraordinary book, Mr. Zimmer. No one is ever going to write better about those films. It’s the definitive work.

  Until that moment, she had given me her complete attention. Pacing back and forth in front of her as she sat on the sofa, I had felt like a prosecuting attorney cross-examining a witness. I had held the advantage, and she had looked me straight in the eye as she answered my questions. Now, suddenly, she glanced down at her watch and began to fidget, and I sensed that the mood had been broken.

  It’s late, she said.

  I misread her comment to mean that she was getting tired. That struck me as ridiculous, an altogether absurd thing to say under the circumstances. You’re the one who started this, I said. You’re not going to bag out on me now, are you? We’re just warming up.

  It’s one-thirty. The plane takes off from Boston at seven-fifteen. If we leave within an hour, we’ll probably make it.

  What are you talking about?

  You don’t think I came to Vermont just to chat, do you? I’m taking you back to New Mexico with me. I thought you understood that.

  You’ve got to be kidding.

  It’s a long trip. If you have more questions to ask, I’ll be happy to answer them on the way. By the time we get there, you’ll know everything I know. I promise.

  You’re too smart to think I’d be willing to do that. Not now. Not in the middle of the night.

  You have to. Twenty-four hours after Hector dies, those films are going to be destroyed. And he could be dead now. He could have died while I was traveling out here today. Don’t you get it, Mr. Zimmer? If we don’t leave now, there might not be enough time.

  You’re forgetting what I told Frieda in my last letter. I don’t do planes. They’re against my religion.

  Without saying a word, Alma Grund reached into her purse and pulled out a small white paper bag. It was marked with a blue and green insignia, and underneath the picture there were a few lines of writing. From where I was standing, I could make out only one word, but that was the only word I needed to know in order to guess what was inside the bag. Pharmacy.

  I haven’t forgotten, she said. I brought along some Xanax to make things easier for you. That’s the one you like to use, isn’t it?

  How do you know about that?

  You wrote a magnificent book, but that didn’t mean we could trust you. I had to dig around a little and check you out. I made some calls, I wrote some letters, I read your other work. I know what you’ve been through, and I’m very sorry—very sorry about what happened to your wife and sons. It must have been horrible for you.

  You had no right. It’s disgusting to pry into someone’s life like that. You crash in here asking for my help, and then you turn around and tell me this? Why should I help you? You make me want to puke.

  Frieda and Hector wouldn’t have allowed me to invite you unless they knew who you were. I had to do it for them.

  I don’t accept that. I don’t accept a fucking word you’re saying.

  We’re on the same side, Mr. Zimmer. We shouldn’t be shouting at each other. We should be working together as friends.

  I’m not your friend. I’m not anything to you. You’re a phantom who wandered in from the night, and now I want you to go back out there and leave me alone.

  I can’t do that. I have to take you with me, and we have to go now. Please, don’t make me threaten you. It’s such a stupid way to handle it.

  I had no idea what she was talking about. I was eight inches taller than she was and at least fifty pounds heavier—a good-sized man on the verge of losing his temper, an unknown quantity who could burst into violence at any moment—and there she was talking to me about threats. I stayed where I was, watching her from my position near the woodstove. We were ten or twelve feet apart, and just as she stood up from the sofa, a fresh onslaught of rain came crashing down on the roof, rattling against the shingles like a bombardment of stones. She jumped at the sound, glancing around the room with a skittish, perplexed look in her eyes, and at that moment I knew what was going to happen next. I can’t explain where this knowledge came from, but whatever premonition or extrasensory alertness took hold of me when I saw that look in her eyes, I knew that she was carrying a gun in her purse, and I knew that within the next three or four seconds she was going to stick her right hand into the purse and pull ou
t the gun.

  It was one of the most sublimely exhilarating moments of my life. I was half a step in front of the real, an inch or two beyond the confines of my own body, and when the thing happened just as I thought it would, I felt as if my skin had become transparent. I wasn’t occupying space anymore so much as melting into it. What was around me was also inside me, and I had only to look into myself in order to see the world.

  The gun was in her hand. It was a small silver-plated revolver with a pearl handle, no more than half the size of the cap guns I had played with as a boy. As she turned in my direction and lifted her arm, I could see that the hand at the end of her arm was shaking.

  This isn’t me, she said. I don’t do things like this. Ask me to put it away, and I will. But we have to go now.

  It was the first time a gun had ever been pointed at me, and I marveled at how comfortable I felt, at how naturally I accepted the possibilities of the moment. One wrong move, one wrong word, and I could die for no reason at all. That thought should have frightened me. It should have made me want to run, but I felt no urge to do that, no inclination to stop what was happening. An immense and horrifying beauty had opened up before me, and all I wanted was to go on looking at it, to go on looking into the eyes of this woman with the strange double face as we stood in that room, listening to the rain pound on top of us like ten thousand drums scaring up the devils of the night.

  Go ahead and shoot, I said. You’ll be doing me a great service.

  The words came out of my mouth before I knew I was going to say them. They sounded harsh and terrible to me, the kind of thing only a deranged person would say, but once I heard them, I realized that I had no intention of taking them back. I liked them. I was pleased with their bluntness and their candor, with their decisive, no-nonsense approach to the dilemma I was facing. For all the courage those words gave me, however, I’m still not sure what they meant. Was I in fact asking her to kill me, or was I looking for a way to talk her out of it and prevent myself from being killed? Did I really want her to pull the trigger, or was I trying to force her hand and trick her into dropping the gun? I’ve gone over these questions many times in the past eleven years, but I’ve never been able to come up with a conclusive answer. All I know is that I wasn’t afraid. When Alma Grund pulled out that revolver and pointed it at my chest, it didn’t strike fear in me so much as fascination. I understood that the bullets in that gun contained a thought that had never occurred to me before. The world was full of holes, tiny apertures of meaninglessness, microscopic rifts that the mind could walk through, and once you were on the other side of one of those holes, you were free of yourself, free of your life, free of your death, free of everything that belonged to you. I had chanced upon one of them in my living room that night. It appeared in the form of a gun, and now that I was inside that gun, I didn’t care whether I got out or not. I was perfectly calm and perfectly insane, perfectly prepared to accept what the moment had offered. Indifference of that magnitude is rare, and because it can be achieved only by someone ready to let go of who he is, it demands respect. It inspires awe in those who gaze upon it.