The Good Neighbor

by William Kowalski

  Things in general seemed to be moving about ten times as fast as they had when Hamish was a boy. There was no room in a time like this for ghosts and family curses, Hamish realized—not, at least, in the traditional sense. No one believed in such things any more. Yet that didn’t mean they had ceased to exist. They’d merely changed, like everything else, to infect the one thing that hadn’t changed: the human heart.

  “Yes, there is something wrong with me,” Hamish said now. “Look at what has happened to us, Ellie. Five of our brothers and sisters gone almost as soon as they came into the world, and now Margaret and Olivia taken by influenza just this year. Seven of us dead. And you and I living here like rabbits in this city, old and alone and—”

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  “We are not alone!” Ellen interrupted, sounding panicked. “We have each other!”

  Hamish looked at his sister.

  “Ellie,” he asked quietly, “why did you never want to marry?” Ellen always had her hands occupied with some small task:

  knitting, or cross-stitching, or, in later years, a newspaper word- puzzle. At present she was engaged in making a pair of booties, in tended for the granddaughter of a woman who lived down the hall. She flung her needles down now and stood, gasping for breath.

  “How dare you ask me that!” she screamed at her brother. “How dare you ask me that! After all the sacrifices I’ve made for you!”

  Hamish didn’t blink; he merely sat, watching her.

  “Yes, but why?” he repeated. “After all, I never forced you to stay with me. I tried to introduce you to—”

  “Be quiet, Hamish!” Ellen said, imploring him now. “For God’s sake, please, be quiet!”

  “But Ellie,” Hamish said, keeping his voice low and reasonable. “I’m merely asking—”

  “Oh, go and see your mentalist, damn you!” cried his sister. “Let him find out whatever it is that’s bothering you! Maybe then you can leave me in peace!”

  She stormed out and went to her bedroom, where she locked the door. Even an hour later, when Hamish thought she might have calmed down, he could still hear her sobbing; he tapped gen tly, but she ignored him, crying her eyes out, sounding for all the world like a ten-year-old girl.

  “I don’t understand,” he muttered to himself, heading back to his easy chair. “I simply don’t understand.” It wasn’t like Ellen to lose her temper; he hadn’t seen her so upset, in fact, since the day almost thirty years earlier, when their mother had called all the children home for the Blessing of the Stones. It didn’t occur to him that these two incidents were related, that they stemmed

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  from the same root, even though they were separated by so much time. Hamish had no idea, in fact, that for his sister, time had been standing still for well over half a century, ever since McNally came to Adencourt. What was more, he also had no idea that be cause he’d chosen to live with her all this time, he had been under the same, simple spell, and that all he had to do to escape it was to leave.

  There is still something desperately wrong, he thought as his head drooped slowly toward his chest, Ellen still sobbing in her bed room. That’s the only possible explanation. We are innocents. We have done nothing. Our only crime was to try to live. We must never go back to Adencourt, Ellen and I, or we might yet be taken, too—for he felt that same old apprehension creeping over him now that had pervaded all the years of his childhood. He had no wish, like some old men, to visit the place of his birth once more. He wished he had never seen it to begin with.

  I wonder if I will ever make it to Vienna, was his last thought, be fore dropping off to sleep.

  Part Three

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  18

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  Where Old Machines Come to Die

  In the afternoon, her stomach in knots, Francie headed up the plowed road on foot to the house at the top of the hill. It was not

  a visit she looked forward to, but she felt she had to make it. These people were going to be their neighbors, after all, and she desperately wanted to be on good terms with them. She under stood, as Colt did not seem to, that such touches were vital to their happiness. Perhaps she could smooth things over—make them understand that she didn’t feel the way Colt felt, and that he would not be allowed to desecrate their cemetery. She thought she understood how Flebberman felt, maybe, just a little bit. He’d grown up in that place. Those people in the graves were his peo ple. He must certainly think they were interlopers, with no right to make permanent alterations.

  Flebberman had been angry, and she was not good with angry people. They scared her, in fact. But she forced herself step by step

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  up the hill, dreading what he would say to her, not sure what she should say to him, except that she came in peace.

  The snow had begun to melt, and the trickling sounds all around her, made by unseen rivulets in the roadside ditches, re minded Francie of spring. She wondered if all this snow was here to stay, or if there was going to be a late thaw before winter set tled over them for good. She hoped it would melt. She wasn’t ready for winter yet. It hadn’t even occurred to her until today that she would have no car of her own. It had been nearly ten years since she’d needed one, after all. And apparently it hadn’t occurred to Colt, either. He’d taken off and left her without any form of transportation—or food, besides the little she’d bought at the supermarket. She was accustomed to stepping out the door, walking three blocks, and heading down into a subway station or hailing a cab. But those days would not be missed, for the station always smelled like urine, even in winter, and on hot, steamy af ternoons it was unbearable.

  She smoothed her hair self-consciously in preparation for being scrutinized. And she had brought a gift to smooth the way: a sort- of-new, or at least unopened, paper bag of herbal tea from a spe cialty shop in Manhattan. She’d found it in among the kitchen supplies and peeled off the price tag, recreasing the edges of the bag to make it look newer.

  ❚ ❚ ❚

  The Flebberman house sat on the crest of the hill, overlooking the valley. As she ascended, Francie saw that the Flebbermans en joyed a view of several miles in all directions. Tarmac roads danced across the countryside as if scattered by wild magnetic forces. Farms were sprawled in the same haphazard manner over hills and valleys, one here, another there, vast spaces of pasture- land and small patches of forest between them. Nothing moved against the blank canvas of the snow. She could see the river

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  flowing by their house, as fresh and silver as the belly of a fish. They might have a hill, but we have the river, she thought. Aden- court itself sat squarely aside the road, a fortress, a monument. Francie had never seen it from this perspective before. She stopped and gazed at it for a long time, both dismayed and pleased at how ugly it was from this height. It looked, she real ized, like it was built by someone who didn’t have the slightest idea what they were doing. At that moment, she felt an up welling of tenderness for the old place, as though it was not a house but a misshapen child.

  She turned again and plodded up the long driveway. White paint peeled from the dilapidated Flebberman home, and snow was still heaped and humped over mysterious objects in the front yard, lending them an artistic credibility that had surely never been theirs in warmer times. At the end of the driveway was a shed with no doors; in it she could see an old pickup truck, its body stricken with rust. A hand-lettered sign in the windshield advertised that it was “4 Sail.” As she climbed the plank steps of the porch, she could hear shrieks of childish excitement. She’d been watched, no doubt, from the moment she left her own front door.

  “Someone’s here!” she heard someone—a young girl—yell out. Then, as she knocked, an unconvincing silence fell. Behind the door tiny feet shuffled, and she heard children giggling. A moment later there were heavier footsteps, and the door opened.

  A heavy woman in a loose ho
usedress stood there with a tod dler in her arms, both mother and child blinking away the bright ness of the reflected snowlight, as if they were cave dwellers. She had bags under her eyes, and wrinkles that looked to be prema ture. Even her hair was limp and tired-looking. Terrified, Francie gave her best smile.

  “Help you?” the woman said, in a monotone.

  “Hello,” Francie said. “I’m Francine Hart. Your new neighbor.” The woman continued to stare at her, her mouth hanging

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  slightly open. Francie looked away; then forced herself to look back and smile again.

  “Yeah?” said the woman.

  “Yes. I, uh—I just thought I would come up and say hello. And—I’m sure your husband must have told you—there was a lit tle disagreement earlier. I just—I just wanted to come up and apologize. On behalf of myself and my husband.”

  “Ah-huh,” said the woman. She rolled her eyes back, not in dis gust or dismay but as if searching for something to say. “Where’s your husband at?” she managed finally.

  “Oh. Well—he didn’t come. He had to go back to the city.” “Ah-huh.”

  Francie cleared her throat and smiled at her again, less certainly this time. She held out the bag of tea.

  “I brought you this,” she said. “From the Manhattan Tea Brew ery.”

  The woman stepped backward, and two more children, about three years old, appeared on either side of her prodigious hips: twins, a boy and a girl, each chewing a finger. They stared at her, too, drool shining on their pudgy chins. The woman made no move to take the gift.

  “C’mon in,” she said, apparently having decided that Francie wasn’t going to go away.

  Francie stepped up on the jamb and teetered there for a mo ment. The moist smells of fresh laundry and diaper ointment wafted to her, as well as the heavy fug of bacon grease, and she struggled to repress a sneeze.

  “Fleb!” bellowed the woman over her shoulder. “C’mon in,” she said again to Francie, closing the door.

  “Thank you,” said Francie. She decided to try again with the tea. “Here, I brought—”

  One of the twins grabbed the bag out of her hand, and the other, sensing goodies, went for it. They whined at each other and immediately commenced a game of tug-of-war. The woman’s

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  hand came down out of the sky, yanking it away from both of them, and with the back of her fingers she swatted each of them on the ear, expertly, a swift, whiplike flick that made them howl. Francie winced.

  “That ain’t for you,” she said crossly.

  “It’s just tea,” Francie told her. “Lemon roiboos.”

  “Fleb!” the woman called again. “Comp’ny’s here! Lemon

  what?” she said to Francie.

  “Roiboos,” Francie repeated, in a smaller voice.

  Heavy footsteps, a man’s, crossed the floor above her head and came down a stairway somewhere. Then Flebberman appeared, minus his baseball cap. From the eyebrows down, his face was permanently sunburned, but his forehead was as white as paste. Upon seeing Francie he stopped, startled, and looked around quickly, as if searching for an avenue of escape. Then he appeared to remember that he was in his own home, and he grew suddenly more confident.

  “Ah,” he said. “Yeah.” You, he might as well have said, Francie thought.

  “Hello, Mr. Flebberman,” said Francie. “I hope this isn’t a bad time.” “Naw,” he said.

  “Well, I—look. Let me just be frank. I know we didn’t get off on the right foot, and I felt badly about it. If we’re going to be neigh bors, I wanted us to be on good terms. So I came up—”

  “She came up t’ ’pologize,” the woman interrupted. “Oh,” said Flebberman.

  “Yes,” Francie said. “That’s it.”

  Flebberman seemed even more surprised now, as if he’d been expecting an attack of some sort. Like his wife, he rolled his eyes, casting about for something to say. His jaw worked several times until he came up with something.

  “Meet the wife? Jennifer.” “Yes. Hi.”

  Jennifer the wife smiled again, mirthless.

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  “You wanna cup a coffee,” she announced. “C’mon into the kitchen.”

  She turned, and Francie followed her, Flebberman falling in be hind, all of them stepping over the twins, who were now wrestling amiably over some toy. The kitchen was a long room with ancient linoleum on the floor and water-stained walls. A pretty young girl sat working at a battered wooden table. Before her was a brown paper shopping bag cut open along its folds, and on it she was cre ating a sunset scene in crayon, her tongue between her lips. She looked up shyly as Francie came in.

  “’Melia,” said Flebberman. “Say hello.”

  “Hello,” said the girl, who was about nine years old, and looked as if she was on loan from a different family. Her hair was neatly pigtailed, and she wore a dress and knee socks. In her face Francie saw a sharpness that was utterly absent in the rest of her brood.

  “Hi, there,” said Francie, smiling, sensing a kindred spirit. “That’s a pretty picture.” The girl smiled back—the first Flebber man to do so.

  “Getcher ass up outa there and let us sit,” said Jennifer. “Aw, do I hafta?” the girl said.

  “We could sit in the livin’ room,” Flebberman said to his wife.

  Jennifer sighed loudly. “Well, I ain’t gettin’ a whole tray set up just to haul it all the way out there,” she said. “We can sit in here just as good, can’t we?”

  Francie, dying inside, spoke up quickly.

  “I really didn’t mean to stay long,” she said. “I just wanted to come and say hello. Meet everyone. And—” She was going to say “apologize” again, but she stopped herself.

  “No, it’s awright,” said Flebberman to her. To his wife he said, “Get out the plates and the silverware, for Chrissakes. And put that kid down. He don’t have to hang on you like a monkey every damn minute.”

  “You know how he gets,” said Jennifer warningly.

  “Well, try ’im once,” said Flebberman. “You ain’t gonna carry

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  him like that for his high school graduation, I hope.” He turned to Francie and raised his eyebrows. She saw that this was supposed to be a joke, and was simultaneously relieved that the ice had been broken and panicked to realize that she didn’t get it. She managed a smile. Jennifer put the toddler down. Instantly he erupted in ter rified screams, looking at Francie with wide, wet eyes. He dove for his mother ’s leg and buried his face in her doughy calf.

  “Fer cryin’ out loud,” said Flebberman. “This kid is scared a everything.”

  “Hey there,” Francie cooed. She bent down and wiggled her fin gers at him. He turned around and stopped screaming, cramming three fingers in his mouth.

  “Well, lookit that,” said Flebberman, pleased.

  Jennifer Flebberman stared narrowly at Francie for a minute, as if trying to figure out what kind of trick she was pulling. Then, with out a word, she took some paper plates from a bag on the counter and dealt them out onto the table as though they were cards.

  “It’s just because I’m new,” Francie said. “It doesn’t mean any thing.”

  ❚ ❚ ❚

  They sat at the table and ate cake with plastic spoons, while the twins swooped in and out of the room and the toddler crawled around their feet, cooing to himself. Jennifer did not offer to brew any of the lemon roiboos tea. Francie suspected it was going to end up in the garbage after she left.

  It was not a squalid house, but it wasn’t exactly clean, either. She hadn’t been offered a tour. From her chair in the kitchen she could glimpse brown pile carpet in the living room, a disembow eled sofa, a picture window that looked down the hill to the south. The girl Amelia stayed in the living room, peering some times around the corner. Francie could tell she was interested but shy, and she was not invited to sit with th
e grown-ups.

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  “This place was built about forty years after yers was,” Flebberman told her over the cake. To Francie’s immense gratification, he had warmed up to her considerably, and he was now in a talkative mood. “Branch o’ the same fambly as them. Used to be some other name, somethin’ German. Flavia somethin’. Flavia-Hermann, that’s it.”

  “Flavia-Hermann,” Francie repeated.

  “Somehow it got turned into Flebberman somewhere along the way,” said Flebberman. “Prob’ly durin’ one of the wars, when they didn’t wanna sound so German.”

  “And they were related to the Musgroves?”

  “The guy that built the house yer livin’ in—that would have been the Corporal—”

  “The Captain,” interrupted Jennifer.

  “—the Captain, I mean—he woulda been three or four genera tions back from my mom’s Aunt Helen,” Flebberman said. “I don’t know what that makes him to me, some kinda great-great-great uncle or somethin’. They had ten kids, and five of ’em died. Imag ine that? And no boys to carry on the name. No more Musgroves left a ’tall, and we here are the last of the Flebbermans ourselfs. ’Course I got two boys a my own. Haw haw. Go forth and spread the seed, my son!” he said, in the direction of his feet. The wet- mouthed toddler, laughing, pounded on Francie’s toes.

  “That house was a hairloom,” said Jennifer Flebberman bitterly. “Now, it sat empty twenny-fi’ years,” Flebberman reminded her. “And we couldn’t a ’forded to buy it anyway.” To Francie he said, “Aunt Helen left it to my mom, but she had to sell it. Couldn’t even ’ford the taxes. And the bank was the only one who would take it.” He shook his head. “Old place oughta be on the Hysterical Register, you wanna know what I think. You folks got