The Snow Garden

  “No. Sorry.”

  Eric nodded, his eyes flitting past Randall, probably checking to see if Mitchell was still in the street.

  “Can I come in?”

  Eric shrugged and let out a grunt. “Good to see you too,” Randall muttered as he brushed past Eric through the doorway.

  The dining-room light was on and Randall’s eyes flew to a stack of stapled student papers on the usually empty dining-room table. Eric crossed briskly out from behind him, and Randall watched as Eric began to leaf through them with feigned nonchalance. “You should really call,” Eric said absently, holding his back to him.

  No mention of Mitchell, Randall thought. Eric turned at his silence.

  “You look horrible.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Eric returned his attention to the stack as if Randall were too bright to look at. His altercation with Mitchell had agitated him, and Randall, woozy and squinting at the brightness of the dining-room chandelier, waited to see what Eric would say next. “Seems Mitchell couldn’t make it through all of these while I was gone.”

  How many times do I have to ask to be kept in the dark?

  Was Eric just averse to grading his own students’ papers? Randall doubted the imposition alone would lead to a shouting match. At the bottom of the pile, Randall noticed the label tag of a manila file folder. But then Eric lifted the stack with both hands and carried it to his satchel, which rested on top of the liquor cabinet.

  “More emphatically written treatises on why the Greeks removed the arms from all their statues?” Randall asked, summoning an old joke between them. Eric didn’t laugh, just took extra care to shove the cumbersome pile of papers into the straining confines of the leather bag. Once done, he turned, letting out a fatigued breath of accomplishment.

  “I think she dropped the course,” Eric sighed.

  Randall averted his eyes from the liquor cabinet that Eric blocked with his body. “I hope .you didn’t fail her,” he said. “Her stuff had entertainment value at least.”

  Eric couldn’t manage a laugh and his eyes fell to Randall’s feet. Randall could barely focus on Eric, feeling the distance grow between him and the scotch bottle that contained something other than scotch.

  “Rough night last night?” Eric asked.

  “You could say that.” Randall hesitated and drew breath, but the light was blinding him and he was surprised when the room went dark.

  “Better?” Eric asked through the sudden shadows.

  Randall grunted. “I was thinking ... Maybe tonight I could sleep here.”

  His eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness when Eric answered. “I don’t see why not.”

  Jean Pierre’s was all white linens and muted conversation. A lobster tank gurgled next to the host stand, and the other diners seemed to be locals Kathryn had never laid eyes on, or else professors in need of a refuge from the concentrated collegiate hustle of Brookline Avenue. Through the plate-glass windows, Atherton Bay lay in darkness pierced by the beacon lights of small ships making their way toward the Atlantic. Beyond the far bend in the coastline, Kathryn could make out the dark rise of the hill and the campus glowing atop its crown. It warmed her to be disengaged from the campus, if only for an evening.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Mitchell looked up from his menu, gave her a swift smile, and raised his water glass. She toasted it with her own. When he had picked her up, she had been relieved that he had dressed for the occasion; khaki trousers, a starched white oxford, and a loose-fitting blazer. But the fact that he had traded his glasses for contacts was what struck her the most. All of it made her feel less self-conscious in the form-fitting black cocktail dress she had borrowed from April without asking. Despite the more formal attire, he seemed more relaxed, and less eager to get a laugh out of her.

  “What are we toasting?” Mitchell asked.

  “Bosch?”

  Mitchell arched his eyebrows, surprised that she had picked up a conversation thread they had left behind in the car.

  “I don’t know his stuff very well,” Kathryn said. “But what is it about him that turns you on so much?”

  “He was a heretic,” Mitchell said, closing his menu. “There’s pretty sufficient evidence that Hieronymus Bosch was not a true member of the medieval church, even though he was painting for them. His works are filled with all these little symbols, and over the years scholars started figuring out that they were the codings, of heresy, basically.”

  “What do they mean?”

  “We’d better order before we get into this.”

  The waitress rattled off a million specials, none of which sounded as appetizing as the lobster. “You’re paying, right?” Kathryn asked as she ordered it.

  “I guess so. But how subtle.” He smiled briefly and averted his eyes from hers. Feeling like a forward woman if not an independent one, she smoothed her napkin over her lap.

  “I’ll make this as simple as possible,” he began again.

  “Don’t,” Kathryn said, resting her elbows on the table as she sat forward. “Confuse me. Please.”

  “Well, then.” Mitchell picked up his fork and began running the tines along the edge of the tablecloth. “The established medieval church held the view that the world was the mirror of God—that our creator basically poured himself into his work and he presided over it with a kind of constant, fatherly diligence. This was the conventional Christianity that Bosch supposedly believed in. But his work tells another story entirely.”

  Kathryn tried to pay attention to his words and not to the little flecks of yellow she had noticed in his brown eyes.

  “Many scholars—Dr. Eberman included—believe that Bosch was what you would call a dualist. Now that would put him directly at odds with the established church doctrine, because dualists believed that the earth was nothing more than God’s castoff—that God didn’t really take great pride in it, that in fact, he abandoned it. God presided over a higher, and more spiritual realm. Meanwhile, Satan moved in and made earth, our earth, his terrain.”

  “What happened to hell?”

  “It was still there. And you went there when you enjoyed your time on earth too much.” Mitchell smiled, then let his smile lapse.

  “Which sounds exactly like Christianity.”

  “No. Christians never claimed that our earth belonged to the devil. But that was Bosch’s worldview. All of his depictions of earth are of an inherently unsound and even sinister world. He couldn’t paint a plant without covering it in clawlike spikes. Storm clouds always hover on the horizon. Masses of humans collide in acts of war. Earth was chaos to him. It’s hardly the mirror of God.”

  Mitchell sighed. “And that’s where Christianity and dualism part ways. As a dualist, and entrenched in the belief that the earth is Satan’s terrain, you must believe that everything about the physical world is not just a temptation, but also a trap. To free yourself from Satan and the chaotic terrain over which he presides, you must devote your entire life to separating yourself physically, and, more important, mentally from your body.”

  His words had quickened and grown more urgent. He took a delicate sip of water. “So, to answer your question, not only am I obsessed with Bosch because I admire the fact that he was a rebel who managed to work for the establishment, I also believe that he secretly obeyed a religious doctrine that even the most dedicated Roman Catholic would have trouble aspiring to: the complete disavowal of one’s physical self,” Mitchell said, his voice verging on exclamation. “Not to mention the horrifying thought that God, the supposed heavenly father, presides not over our lives, but over some distant spiritual plane that can be accessed only by learning not to trust the very flesh we’ve been imprisoned in. Not just by loving your fellow man, or showing up at Sunday mass.”

  Mitchell’s passions struck her hard, and for a second, she thought she shouldn’t risk responding. “It doesn’t sound possible.”

  “What do you mean?”

/>   “Disavowing your physical self.”

  “I guess it would involve convincing yourself that your body is something to be overcome. Not obeyed.”

  “And sex?”

  Mitchell’s eyes met hers. “Out of the question.”

  Kathryn grinned involuntarily, then tried to bring one hand casually to her mouth, wondering if Mitchell had just given a forecast for how the evening would proceed. When she looked up, Mitchell was gazing out the window distantly. His words reverberated in the after-math of his monologue. Even before Jono had sidled into her life, she had often felt sexual desire to be a kind of poison, infusing the body with urges beyond reason, driving fantasy and reality together in a potentially fatal equation.

  “I’m boring you,” Mitchell said suddenly.

  “No.”

  The waitress delivered their salads, and Kathryn stabbed the leaves with her fork, trying to fend off the memory of walking Castro Street with Kerry back when they were little girls and slowing their steps at the sight of a thirty-year-old man walking with the support of a cane, both of them silently wondering how such a devastating disease could come from an act so cloaked in adult magic.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you either.”

  She looked up to see Mitchell leaning forward, his yellow-flecked gaze intent and a slight, sympathetic smile on his face. Between April’s condescending lectures and Randall’s recent evasiveness and perpetual distraction,' she found herself relishing someone else’s attentiveness to her moods.

  “What you’re saying, it reminded me of someone ...” She trailed off, realizing that if she continued this would be the first time she had ever discussed Jono Morton with a single person at Atherton.

  “How so?” Mitchell asked, gently.

  “My boyfriend, senior year of high school....” She faltered. This shouldn’t be this hard, she thought.

  “Your boyfriend was a dualist?” Mitchell asked,

  Kathryn laughed too fast. “No,” she said. “He was a drug dealer.”

  Now she was laughing by herself. Mitchell’s mouth had assembled itself into something that was both grimace and smile. His expression obviously wouldn’t go away unless she kept talking.

  “I’m sorry,” she went on. “I was reminded of him because I think if I hadn’t been so attracted to him, I might have been able to see who he really was a lot sooner than I did. Too many times with him I let my body do the talking.”

  Mitchell nodded. “I take it you two are no longer together.”

  “He’s dead.”

  Her eyes shot to Mitchell’s, waiting for the obligatory apology for a death in which the speaker had played no part, an apology that Jono Morton didn’t deserve. But instead Mitchell seemed to be diagnosing her emotions around her revelation. “Drugs?” he finally asked.

  “Oh, no. You could say he was smart in that respect. He knew better than to do them himself.” She regretted her response instantly, realizing that Mitchell would probably ask how he had died.

  If he did, she would lie. “We’d been together for about a month when I found out he’d been giving coke to my best friend, Kerry. She was kind of my partner in crime when it came to hanging out with older guys. Her brother was a bouncer at this hot new club down in So Ma—sorry, South of Market—anyway, he used to let Kerry and me in all the time if we promised not to drink. But of course, we found a bartender who would serve us.”

  “Your boyfriend,” Mitchell interjected gently.

  She nodded quickly, and continued. “Anyway, Kerry and I used to get drunk all the time, but drugs? Never. So when I found out that she’d been . . . getting coke from Jono, I lost it. And confronted him about it. Of course, he claimed he had only given it to her a few times. Claimed he wasn’t a dealer. And I made the mistake of believing him.”

  “Sounds like it ended up being a bad mistake,” Mitchell said almost tonelessly.

  “Maybe,” she said, looking over his shoulder out the window. She told herself to stop, but kept talking. “What makes it worse is that the things about him that made me look the other way were so superficial. We didn’t have great talks late into the night or share our deepest secrets. He was just this good-looking, brooding college guy I made the mistake of thinking was superior to me. After all, I was just a spoiled senior in high school who’d never even touched weed.”

  The voice in the back of her head telling her to shut up had grown less loud. Even though she felt a frightened, fluttery sensation in her chest as she continued, her breaths were coming easier. “I guess in some screwed-up way I thought he was going to teach me how to be an adult. As if just being with him gave me access to this world of independence that all the other girls in my class were missing out on.”

  “If only we could all learn so much from our mistakes, Kathryn.”

  She met his eyes again. Of course he had no way of knowing she just told him barely half of all that' had happened. But given her inability to tell Randall or even April, bringing it up at all seemed like a victory. Mitchell seemed gratified if not moved by her honesty, and somehow fully aware of how difficult it had been for her. She realized that her small triumph was not totally her own. Mitchell Seaver had an uncanny ability to put her at ease.

  “I imagine you’re looking forward to Thanksgiving.” Mitchell turned the Tercel out of the rambling neighborhood of mostly abandoned wharves and decrepit warehouses. This seemingly benign comment crushed the giddy buzz Kathryn had felt since leaving the restaurant.

  “Fuck,” she whispered. “Do the dorms stay open?” she asked.

  “They might. I wouldn’t know. Not going home?”

  “It’s only four days,” Kathryn muttered, trying to recall the last mention Randall had made of their trip to Boston. “I thought I had plans...”

  Last night, she had suspected that a drunken Randall and Jesse might have taken their roommate relationship to another level, and while that disappointed her, she had been prepared to suck it up. Then, when Randall made no attempt to track her down or speak to her the entire day, she had felt left out and offended, cut off by his silence.

  “Plans with Randall?” Mitchell asked.

  “I’d love to get through one day without talking about him.”

  “Deal.” Mitchell smiled into the black windshield.

  Kathryn was startled by the metallic clatter of the Tercel’s tires passing over the steel girders of the bridge, and when she looked up she saw the blinking lights of the barricade surrounding the torn opening in the bridge’s rail. “Oh God,” she groaned.

  “I know. I wish they would just hurry up and repair it.”

  “How is he?” Kathryn asked.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Dr. Eberman. How is he handling everything?”

  The blinking lights flew past the driver’s side window, and Mitchell glanced at her as if still unsure of what she had asked. “I think he’s handling it in his own way,” he said dryly.

  Kathryn sensed she had touched a sore spot, so she kept quiet. Maybe mentor had withdrawn from pupil in the wake of tragedy.

  They crested the hill, the university’s front flank rising behind the gates to the quad.

  “Break starts Wednesday afternoon, right?” Kathryn finally asked.

  Mitchell nodded. “Where were you and Randall planning on going?”

  “Boston.”

  “Why?”

  “It was close,” Kathryn said, her voice tight with anger: she was going to have to eat crow in front of her mother, and possibly to no avail, because it was probably too late to get a ticket. The midnight hour had long since come and gone. “It was Randall’s idea,” she added weakly.

  Mitchell slowed the Tercel to a halt next to the curb in front of Stockton, but Kathryn didn’t rush to get out. He released the steering wheel and turned a little to face her, his clasped hands folded on one leg. He hadn’t bothered to put the car in park.

  “Again?” he asked.

  Kathryn laughed at the brevity of his que
stion. “Sure.”

  “Good.”

  Kathryn prepared her body for the inevitable lean-in of a man’s mouth to hers. Mitchell didn’t move. “So I guess it’s decided, then?” she said, sarcasm tinging her tone.

  “Seems like it. Yes.” Mitchell turned back to face the steering wheel.

  Kathryn breathed once, twice, then brought her hand to the door handle. “Good night, Mitchell.”

  Halfway up the front walk, she glanced over her shoulder to see that Mitchell hadn’t pulled away from the curb. She gave him a weak wave over one shoulder.

  Great, she thought, A goddamn gentleman.

  Randall lay on one side, just outside the tug of Eric’s weight against the mattress, watching the digital clock on the nightstand. At a little past ten thirty, Eric’s weight lifted slightly and Randall went rigid, anticipating the sweaty slide of Eric’s arm across his chest. But instead, he heard Eric’s bare feet moving to the bathroom, the whine in the old shower pipes and then the splatter of water against tile.

  Eric’s satchel was on top of the liquor cabinet.

  It was the file that had bothered Randall, and something about the awkward haste in which Eric had bothered to conceal it. His fingers found the label tag, jutting out from the other papers, and he gave it a gentle yank. A handwritten note was clipped to it.

  I have confidence in this one—M

  Only two items were inside the folder; the first a stapled essay, four pages long and double spaced, the second, a small, square, computer printout, which in the darkness of the dining room was a jumble of letters so small they could just have been chemical symbols. Upstairs, the shower continued in a dull rush.

  Milky light from the streetlights outside fell across the living-room sofa; Randall sank down onto it. The printout bore the letterhead of Bayfront Medical Partners. Still, he could barely make out the dotmatrix-printed letters. Frustrated, he turned his attention to the essay. There was no title or header offering up the name of its author. Randall folded the printout and tucked it into the pocket of his jacket, still slung on the back of Eric’s reading chair.