by Paul Doiron
That was my initial impression of the hamlet, at least.
Then I turned a corner, emerged from a stand of pines towering over the road, and there on the banks of the river rose a majestic farmhouse and barn so perfectly preserved I involuntarily lifted my foot from the gas. In an instant I had seemingly traveled a century back in time. The clapboards gleamed white in the sun, and the red trim shined as if freshly painted. The roof shingles, wet with snowmelt, icicles dripping from the gutters, might have been nailed on mere months earlier. Even the vase-shaped elms out front had somehow escaped the blight that had decimated their kind from Maine to the Mississippi.
Friends accused me of being a young man with an old soul—the “youngest old fart” they’d ever met—and maybe they were right. For much of my youth, I had suffered under the delusion of having been born too late. I was a displaced person from the era of the Voyageurs who had set out across the Great Lakes in bateaux in search of furs; I was a temporal fugitive from the age of the Klondike Gold Rush when men literally bet their lives against nature with more than riches on the line. Sometimes I still succumbed to this mode of thinking. An overfondness for nostalgia was the crack running down the middle of my character.
I saw Chamberlain’s farmhouse, in other words, through some heavily clouded lenses.
Only as I neared the circular drive did I feel myself pulled forcibly back to the twenty-first century. Two newish-looking vehicles, both recently washed of salt and sand, reflected the sun like colored mirrors. One was a forest-green Toyota Land Cruiser; the other was a Mini Cooper Clubman with a hard top and a chassis the color of French vanilla ice cream. The Land Cruiser must have belonged to Mrs. Chamberlain; the luxury SUV suited a wealthy woman who had grown up on the South African veldt.
Who drove the Mini, I couldn’t guess.
Shadow had passed from comatose sleep into a more fitful state; he twitched his tail and growled as if dreaming. Lizzie had said he would doze for four or five hours—time enough for me to conduct my courtesy interviews. The wolf was ahead of schedule, and what would I do if he awakened in a bad temper, willing to break his teeth on the steel gate?
I decided to park some distance from the house to minimize possible disturbances to his rest.
As I stepped outside, I saw my breath sparkle in the afternoon sunshine. I loved the cold because it always made me more conscious of my animal self: strong heart pushing warm blood through my arteries, network of nerves sending electric messages from my fingers and toes to my brain, thin skin that was no defense at all against the elements.
I closed the door quietly and surveyed the massive house with genuine appreciation.
The front shrubs had been securely wrapped in burlap against the coming storms or covered with tent-shaped wooden shelters. The drive had been marked with reflective rods to guide the plowman so he wouldn’t tear up the lawn when he pushed aside the inevitable snow.
An antique sleigh had been parked beneath the elms. Its bells jingled in the breeze.
The front porch was stacked with a pile of wood that looked entirely decorative. Fir boughs trailed along the rails. Every window on both floors boasted its own green wreath.
The professor was dead. And Mariëtte Chamberlain had implied she lived elsewhere. So whose house was this that it should be so elaborately decorated?
There was no doorbell; just one of those old-fashioned brass knockers that made me think of Jacob Marley’s ghostly face.
Eben must be short for Ebenezer, I realized belatedly.
When the door opened, I half expected to see a house servant in a long coat or a maid in a bonnet.
Instead the young woman who greeted me was as far from a Norman Rockwell painting as I could imagine. She was nearly as tall as me with blond hair styled in a brushed-up undercut. Her blue eyes were rimmed with kohl. Her ears were studded with what looked like shrapnel. She wore a Buffalo plaid shirt, black jeans rolled at the ankles, and Doc Marten boots. We were probably the same age, give or take, but her affect was deliberately retro: a throwback to the grunge era.
“Run, while you still can,” she said in a throaty undertone.
“Excuse me?”
“Bibi! Is that the game warden?” bellowed a big voice I recognized as belonging to Mariëtte Chamberlain.
The young woman leaned close enough that I could smell the woodsmoke in her hair. She’d lately been tending a fire. She made a pistol shape with her hand, thumb cocked, index finger extended. “I’m serious, friend, if you value your life and your soul, get out while you still can. Quick! I’ll cover you while you make your escape.”
“Bibi!”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She pulled the door wide so I could enter. “It’s your game warden, Mother!”
Warm air spilled out, smelling of balsam and baking spices—cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg. An actual nutcracker, straight out of the ballet, stood on a small table beside the door. A gilded bowl of walnuts at his feet.
The ceiling creaked overhead, the boards complaining.
My view of Mariëtte Chamberlain began with her feet as she descended the narrow staircase. Ragg wool stockings and gum-soled shoes. Her legs kept on coming, impossibly long and clad in chocolate-brown corduroy.
She was so tall she was forced to duck her head as she descended. Rivard had derisively called her a “glamazon,” but there was little about her that struck me as glamorous. She had naturally blond hair cut in a short, severe style. She wore no makeup, nor any jewelry except for a gold wedding band. Her cable-knit sweater sported holes in the sleeves and along the hem. Based on her wrinkles and sunspots, I guessed her to be in her late sixties, but she might have been half a decade younger.
For all the damage to her skin, she remained undeniably striking. Her eyes, blue as beryls, were spaced wide apart. Her perfect nose showed no sign of the plastic surgeon’s scalpel. Cameras must have loved the exquisite symmetry of her face.
“Please forgive my daughter,” she said in that accent I hadn’t been able to place. “She has an idiosyncratic sense of humor that strikes many people as rude. Her father and I did our best to tame it, but whatever authority I had as a parent is long gone.”
“And please forgive my mother,” said Bibi, “for believing wealth excuses condescension.”
Mariëtte’s shoulders were broad in the manner of someone who had swum competitively and still did hundreds of laps in the pool. She projected more vitality than people half her age, her daughter included.
“I am hardly condescending to the warden.”
“You’ve dialed up the eccentricity pretty high, Mother. We both know that’s one of your stratagems when dealing with strangers. Mainers in particular. Befuddling them with your foreignness.”
“And we both know that your defiance is just as calculated.”
Bibi failed to suppress a smile. I suspected I wasn’t the first stranger to watch one of their performative squabbles.
The mother nodded at me. “Warden Investigator Bowditch, I am Mariëtte Chamberlain, née Van Rooyen. I’d like to thank you for making the drive here. I am sure you thought me rude, but I have learned that a woman needs to risk being thought a bitch if she hopes to get anywhere in this world. This is my daughter Bibi.”
“We’ve met,” said the young woman. With her Goth makeup and her crude piercings, she’d gone to elaborate lengths to camouflage her own natural beauty.
“Take the man’s coat, bokkie,” Mariëtte said.
As I removed my parka, Bibi Chamberlain appraised the gun on my belt. “Is that a SIG Sauer perchance?”
Few civilians, in my experience, could identify the make of a handgun at a glance.
“Yes, it’s a P239.”
“I thought I recognized the slide and beavertail. Weren’t the P239s discontinued? I have a secret fetish for firearms. Grandfather taught me to shoot with a Pistolet automatique modèle 1935A. It was a trophy his grandfather brought home from the War That Failed to End All Wars. If you have ti
me, I can show you Eben’s gun cabinet later.”
“I’d like that.” An interest in antique firearms was another of my weaknesses.
“Enough gun talk, I think.” Mariëtte took my arm and turned me toward the hall with even greater strength than I’d anticipated. “We’re having coffee and biscuits in the back parlor. I assume you’re not allergic to dogs. I doubt a game warden would be.”
The back parlor was, in fact, a winterized porch, with a view of white fields rolling a hundred yards to the river. The low-ceilinged space was warmed by a potbellied stove on which a dented pail was boiling fiercely. The water seemed to contain the spices I had smelled upon my entrance. There was, in other words, no actual baking in progress: just the false odors of home.
A water spaniel, all wavy brown coat and droopy ears, occupied a flannel bed beside the stove. It raised rheumy eyes at me and sniffed. I wondered what would happen if it caught the smell of the wolf on me—some dogs seriously freaked—but it sighed and lowered it hoary chin onto its paws.
“This is Plum,” said Mariëtte. “She was the professor’s boon companion. Plum survived the incident in the boat. Someone found her roaming the shore, barking at the water, presumably where my father-in-law had gone in. She hasn’t been the same since the tragedy. I believe her spirit was broken that day.”
“Oh, please,” said the daughter, whose own accent was generically American. “That dog has always been a sad sack.”
“Bibi!”
Mariëtte had chosen a seat for me, facing the room instead of the scenery. A Christmas tree dominated one corner: a nonnative Scotch pine with bristling branches. The decoration was minimal: red ribbons, silver globes. A manger scene with pewter figurines—shepherds, angels, magi—was artfully arranged on a blanket at the base.
“Your house is very beautiful, Mrs. Chamberlain. And very festive.”
“Christmas was the professor’s favorite holiday. Bibi and I have sought to keep his memory alive by continuing his traditions. But it only makes his absence more pronounced, I think.”
The mother sat down across from me, so she could watch the radiant fields over my shoulders. Her daughter settled into a love seat to her right. The natural light brought out the vivid blueness of both their eyes.
“You’re joining us, Bibi?” said Mariëtte.
The daughter removed an electric cigarette from her shirt pocket. It looked like a USB drive the length of a pencil. As she inhaled from one end, a blue light glowed.
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Mariëtte Chamberlain served the coffee from a polished pot. The cup was bone china, as was the plate on which she had spread an assortment of cookies. They were certainly not home-baked.
It seemed necessary to begin with a pleasantry. “Do I understand that you’re South African by birth, Mrs. Chamberlain?”
Out of the corner of my eye I caught Bibi grimace.
Her mother’s lips tightened; she had difficulty spitting out a response. “No, I am Rhodesian.”
Seeing my distress, Bibi said, “You might know the country today under the name of Zimbabwe.”
It was possible Rivard had set me up, knowing the ire I would elicit referring to South Africa, but it was just as likely that Marc didn’t know about the bloody histories of the former British colonies. He’d never been interested in the past, anyone else’s past at least. His own grievances and grudges, on the other hand, were sources of endless preoccupation.
Mariëtte gripped her knees with her hands and gave me a blue glare. “We were driven out—my family. Forced into exile after the United Kingdom sold us out to Mugabe. I hold dual passports, British and American, but Rhodesia will always be my home.”
“I apologize for the presumption.”
She glowered at me a while longer, then reached down and began to stroke the water spaniel with such force that the dog cried out. “You need to brush her coat, Bibi. Look how tangled it is!”
“Mother, you’re hurting her.”
I cleared my throat. “I should tell you in advance I only have an hour.”
Mariëtte glanced up from the dog, eyes still fierce. “What do you know about my late father-in-law?”
“That he died while duck hunting—”
“I am not asking what you know of his death. What do you know about Eben Chamberlain, the man? From your blank expression, I can see you know nothing.”
I sipped my coffee and let her instruct me.
“Eben Chamberlain held a bachelor’s degree in classical history from Cornell and a Ph.D. from Cambridge. But before he entered the academy, he served his country as a member of the foreign service.”
“He was a spook,” said Bibi.
“He was not a spook. After leaving the government, he began his teaching career at Bryn Mawr, moved to Princeton, and ended as dean of Bollingbrook. He wrote five books, the last of which, about Xenophon and the Ten Thousand, is considered the definitive text. He was a man of catholic interests. An expert in the cause to preserve heirloom apple varieties, he served on the board of the World Seed Vault on Baffin Island.”
“You left out his passion for ducks,” said Bibi, exhaling a vapor cloud.
Mariëtte indicated several lifelike waterfowl sculptures displayed around the parlor. “He achieved some acclaim as a wood artist late in life. His bird carvings are in the collections of the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art and the Wendell Gilley Museum.”
“They’re magnificent.”
I was particularly taken with his gadwall hen. The professor had captured the duck’s orange underbill. It was a subtle detail many carvers—especially those who didn’t hunt—overlooked.
Mariëtte continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “He was married to the same woman for fifty years—Glenna predeceased him—and they had two sons, also deceased. I was married to the elder of the two, Artemus. Eben left behind three grandchildren, all girls, of which Bibi is the youngest.”
I put down my empty cup beside my crumb-strewn plate.
“It sounds like he lived a remarkably full life.”
“Indeed, he did.”
“Show him the picture, Mother,” said Bibi.
Mariëtte handed me a framed portrait of the man. She’d kept it facedown on the table beside her and presented it now with great reverence. I tried not to get fingerprints on the professor’s distinguished mug.
“Here he is on his seventy-seventh birthday,” she said.
Professor Chamberlain had been a barrel-chested man with a narrow waist. His smooth cheeks had the ruddiness of an outdoorsman who enjoys a nightly nip. His nose was a ski jump. His steel-rimmed glasses were small and round. His hair, enviably thick for a man of his advanced age, was slick with pomade. He wore moleskin trousers, a houndstooth shirt, a Shetland sweater, and a tweed hacking jacket with a suede shooting patch on the shoulder and patches on the elbows.
He looked to me like a pompous ass.
I handed the icon to Mariëtte Chamberlain who returned it to the table, no longer facedown but propped up, so I could continue my appreciation of his manly form.
“Now that you know something about the professor,” she said, “you should know something about me.”
I made a show of peeking at my watch, to remind her that I was on a tight schedule. She ignored the gesture.
“I grew up in Salisbury, Rhodesia. My ancestors were Voortrekkers. My grandfather was a leader of what is today called the Second Boer War. He resettled in Rhodesia, carved a settlement from the bush, and our family farmed the same land for more than a century until the British stabbed us in the back. In the 1970s my branch of the Van Rooyens joined the diaspora during the Gukurahundi campaign.”
“Objection—relevance,” said Bibi. “The warden doesn’t want to hear your life story, Mother.”
“It is important he knows the woman with whom he is dealing. That I come from a family of fighters and survivors, the women as well as the men. It would be a mistake to trifle with me. I will n
ot tolerate being taken lightly.”
I leaned forward. “I don’t think I’ve given you cause to distrust me, Mrs. Chamberlain.”
“Not yet perhaps. I made the mistake of trusting your fellow wardens four years ago, when I had misgivings about the thoroughness of their investigation. I will not be patronized by a man in uniform again.”
“It’s a good thing I’m not wearing a uniform.”
My joke fell flat, even with Bibi. I doubted Plum appreciated it either.
Mariëtte continued: “I was modeling in London when I met Bibi’s father. Artie worked for the U.S. State Department. We lived overseas until his death—toxoplasmosis—after which I felt it necessary that Bibi and I should move to Maine. I wanted her to have as much time as possible with her grandfather.”
“My dad was a spook, too,” said Bibi.
“He was not a spook,” said Mariëtte.
“He was totally CIA. Career U.S. State Department official, final posting in Istanbul. I bet the Russians bugged the flats where we lived. I have this theory that my dad was actually poisoned—”
“It shouldn’t surprise you that my daughter writes cartoons,” said Mariëtte.
“They’re graphic novels, Mother,” said Bibi. “And I also illustrate them.”
“Glorified comic books.”
“What she hates is that they’re autobiographically based, and she’s the visual inspiration for the main antagonist. Women make the best villains, don’t you think? Men are so clumsy and obvious.”
I hadn’t yet found a reason to bring out my pen and notebook. “Do you live here together?”
“Bibi does. I have a house on Paris Hill.”
The daughter gestured with her vape when she spoke. “You’re looking at the sole resident of the Professor Eben Chamberlain House Museum.”
“Are those macabre remarks necessary, Bibi?”
“Grow a sense of humor, Mother.”
I leaned forward in my chair as if preparing to rise. “With all due respect, Mrs. Chamberlain, I am here as a courtesy to discuss the letter you sent me. And while your family history is interesting—”
