Son of Rosemary

by Ira Levin

  She dipped water onto his tongue, into his mouth; he sucked water from her fingers, swallowed. “I’ll get you down,” she said, “I’ll get you down...”

  He sucked water from her fingers, swallowed, tiger eyes thanking her.

  “Oh my angel,” she said, “who did this to you? What beast could do this?”

  His lower lip faltered against his upper teeth. “F-f-father...” he said.

  She stared at him. Said, “Your—father?” She backhanded tears away, shook her head. “He was here? He did this to you?”

  “Is here...” he said. “He is here...” His eyes closed, his horned head fell.

  Maybe he was hallucinating, but who else could have committed such an atrocity? Vengeance for Andy’s betrayal of his plan? For the candles being harmless?

  Satan didn’t jump out of the kitchen when she found it, or out of the freezer when she opened it.

  She took out the whole plastic drawer of ice cubes, and went with them in search of the bathroom; found it by a bedroom with another window of wintry sky, both rooms ultramesso. In the bathroom she found a few fairly clean towels, a pair of barber scissors, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol; she snagged two neckties from an open bedroom closet.

  Kneeling on the couch, she held a towelful of ice cubes close around his claw-nailed right hand and the thick iron nail sticking out of it. The nail had been rock solid before; there was no telling how far it went through the rosewood paneling and whatever was in back. She hoped the ice would contract the metal—and numb his hand against the worsening of pain that was already surely excruciating; wasn’t that how it had earned the name?

  She made herself wait, watching his sleeping, troubled-looking face. Had his horns sunk in a bit? Or was she getting used to them?

  She shifted her chilled hands—the towel was wet through—making sure the ice stayed close against the nail and his palm. She shook her head, wondering at the cruelty of a being who could do this to anyone, let alone his own son. He lives up to his reputation, Andy had said. Surpassed it, rather; the worst she remembered from the Bible was “the father of lies.” How about the father of bestial savagery?

  She shivered, seeing again—first time in a long time— the yellow furnace eyes she had looked into for an instant that night while he pounded into her, the coven watching all around. Andy’s tiger eyes, she had decided when he was still in his bassinet, were a golden mean between the extremes of those hellish eyes and her human ones; now it struck her that his less attractive traits and talents, like his lying and his power to sway people, might also be only half his father’s. Nice thought.

  She lowered the towel of melting ice, put it in the plastic drawer on the console, and got off the couch, wiping her hands on her slacks.

  She dragged the end of the couch farther from the wall at his right side. No nails in his ankles. She felt to be sure—socks and sneaker tops, no nails.

  She stood with her back against his hip, her shoulder under his arm; wrapped a band of dry towel around the inches of nail sticking out of his hand, and grasped the wrapped, cold metal with one hand over the other. “Out,” she told it, and pushed at it and pulled at it— slowly, not too hard. Andy moaned as the blood track below his hand freshened. “Got to do it,” she said. The nail moved; she pushed and pulled with one hand, bringing his hand along with her other, and as gently and carefully as she could, began dragging and twisting the nail out through his skewered hand, holding it still against the wall. Seven, eight, nine inches long the damned thing was; she tossed it away; it clunked on the carpet.

  She wrapped another piece of towel around his hand, tied it with a necktie, tight, and turned toward him, pulling his arm over her shoulder, trying to figure out a way to keep him steady while she got over the back of the couch to his other hand; but his arm raised and reached over her. She ducked, watching him, supporting him against the wall, as he turned and reached to the nail sticking out of his other palm. She said, “Ice first,” but he clutched the nail with his towel-wrapped hand and pulled, his eyes squeezed shut.

  She turned away, wincing—wood and masonry squealed—and she caught him, almost fell under him but got him up and draped over the back of the couch as the nail banged off the console. She bent, hugged his jeaned legs and hoisted them, hefted him up and over, darting around the end of the couch, stopping him, bracing him facing the back of it.

  She lowered him onto his back—out cold—and tugged him farther down the couch so his ankles were on the padded arm and his head low against the other arm. She wrapped his bleeding left hand in a piece of towel, tied it and put it at his side, fixed his other arm. Stood watching his GC sweatshirt rise and fall.

  Took a good, deep breath herself, pushing her hair back.

  She untied his sneakers and took them off, rubbed his socked feet.

  Checked the Lighting countdown as she left the room: -3:16:04.

  She got soap from the bathroom and a bowl of warm water from the kitchen and went back to him; unwrapped one hand and then the other, picked the conspicuous bits of stuff out of both sides of his wounds, washed them, trickled alcohol on them; wrapped them tightly with fresh lengths of towel and retied them.

  She unfolded a faded crocheted afghan over him, remembering it, she was pretty sure, from the Castevets’ living room.

  He needed a tetanus shot, surgery, hospital care; how could she get it for him with his horns and claws and eyes showing?

  She would have to trust Joe with the truth, there was no other way. Maybe, just maybe, he knew a doctor who could be trusted, or bribed eventually to stay silent, or of a private clinic somewhere.

  She washed Andy’s face, and the blood from his hair; separated the hair and dabbed at a swollen inch-long line of dried blood; left it as it was.

  She brought things back into the kitchen, washed her hands at the sink, and blood from her sweater; put the drawer back under the icemaker and flipped it on, filled a glass with cold water. Drank some, refilled it.

  She put the glass on the console and sat down on the floor by the end of the couch. Felt Andy’s forehead. Cool, but not too. She touched the tip of one of his horns— ivory-ish, sort of.

  She leaned back against the end of the couch, rested her head against the arm, close to his head lying against it. Sighed, closed her eyes. Listened to a muezzin’s call to prayer segue into cantorial singing, an operatic tenor.

  She opened her eyes and watched four different scenes on six screens—twin temples, a stadium with Egyptian signboards, the grand stairway of the QE2, twin shots of the crowded Sheep Meadow downstairs—all the counters down to -1:32:54 and running. Red digits on the console gave a translation: 5:29.

  She hadn’t realized it was so late, but cutting the towels, cleaning the wounds... Joe would be on his way by now, or almost; no point in calling him. He’d surely assume she had gone up early and would come right up himself.

  She watched the screens, listened to the talking heads, the anchors, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

  Andy’s head turned; she turned hers; his tiger eyes were watching the screens. “Hi,” she said. “Nice to have you with us.” He stayed silent, watching. “Thirsty?” she asked.

  He made a sound in his throat.

  She knelt, cradling the back of his head, holding the glass while he drank. “Joe’s going to be here soon,” she said. “There’s a good chance he’ll know someplace where we can get you some medical treatment. You’re going to be fine.”

  She lowered his head, put the glass down.

  He watched the screens.

  She said, “It’s going beautifully”—shifting around and leaning back against the leather couch arm again.

  Their heads close together, they watched, listened. “Ah, look...” she said, smiling. He cleared his throat. “Three minutes after they’re lit,” he said, “the candles begin releasing a virus that’s suspended in a gas. It spreads...”

  She turned to him. “A lab said they’re clean...”

  “Th
en they didn’t know what they were looking for,” he said. “That’s why I was nailed there, to keep me from telling you while there was still time to get the word out. I was going to.” He swallowed, looked at her. “I feel so rotten about it,” he said. “I keep thinking about that kid James...”

  She stared at him—as the Lighting music swelled, the choir singing out.

  “Rosie? You here?”

  “Joe!” she called. “Wait a second!” She started to get up; Andy’s bandaged hand caught her arm. “I feel so guilty, Mom,” he said, his tiger eyes tearing. “Lying to you, keeping everything from you—about the candles, about him—I just wish I were dead!”

  She turned from him to Joe coming in the door, tall and dapper—ultra-dapper—in top hat, white tie, and tails, a bundle of sky-blue-gold silk in one white-gloved hand, a picnic hamper in the other. “Funny,” he said, dropping the bundle on a chair, “I always thought this would be a festive occasion, but now, when it’s finally here, I all of a sudden feel—I guess ‘grave’ is the word for it. Hmm.” He planted the wicker hamper on the console. Took off his top hat, put it crown down alongside. “You,” he said, pointing a white-gloved finger at Andy, “are lucky you have such a loving mother, because if it was up to me, you’d spend the rest of eternity nailed to that wall.”

  Rosemary, on her knees, holding onto the edge of the console, looked up at him. “Joe?” she said.

  “Hi, puss,” he said, smiling down at her, tugging at white fingertips. “Tonight’s the night.” He winked a yellow furnace eye at her.

  Smiled at her as she climbed to her feet staring at him, while Andy muttered.

  He dropped glove one into the top hat, tugged at the fingertips of glove two. “Had to come along with him,” he said, smiling at her. “Couldn’t trust him to run the show himself, could I, him being half human, liable to go soft? Not with so much at stake, no way. And was I right or was I wrong, I ask you?” He dropped glove two in the hat.

  She stared at him.

  “I knew the dentist would get a cab or something thrown at him,” he said, straightening his white tie. “I know the way that mind up there works. This is mega-chess, the endless game; he’s white, I’m black. He got first move but tonight I wipe out his pawns.” He smiled at her. “His knights and bishops too, and the king. The queen I keep.” He bowed to her, winked. “That worked out neat, didn’t it? You were his logical move to make mush out of young Eat-a-pussy here, so I had Joe Maffia ready and waiting for my countermove.”

  She stared at him.

  “Who’s a lady in distress likely to turn to,” he asked, duding up his shirt front, “if not an ex-cop with just-maybe mob connections? Could anybody be more useful if she needs, say, a forensic chemist? Or house seats for a hit or a Mass? Oh hey, regards from Mary Elizabeth and her lesbian lover!” He grinned at her. “When I step into a cathedral, baby,” he said, “everybody has a seizure. But enough about my devilish machinations. Pride! I just can’t seem to shake it.” He shook his head, picked up the sky-blue-gold bundle, unfurled her pantsuit and blouse, drew out the sandals; offered her both handfuls.

  She looked at them, at him.

  “Go change,” he said. “And fix yourself up; he’s got the complete works of Elizabeth Arden in the guest bathroom. Over by the elevator.”

  She stood staring at him.

  “Come on,” he said, smiling. “Lighten up, like he says in the commercials. We’ll dance a little. It’s a better warm-up than this bullshit. That’s a great floor out there; it’s where I taught him. Ballroom is one of the few things you guys do that’s nice to look at.”

  She drew a breath. Said, “I would sooner die. Honestly. I mean it.”

  “Oh?” He lowered both handfuls, nodded. “I can see how you would feel that way,” he said. “It’s your species, after all. Plus the Catholic upbringing.” He nodded, looked at one of the nails on the carpet. Squinted at it.

  The blood-streaked iron nail rose in the air, drifted aside, rose higher, and hung with its head against the ceiling, some nine or ten feet above Andy’s face. He lay looking up at it.

  “Which eye?” Joe/Satan asked, looking at Rosemary, not at the nail up above.

  She put out her hands.

  “Just relax. Remember? I do all the work.”

  They danced on the slick black floor before the glittering diorama—the East Side, the Whitestone Bridge, Queens, the whole shootin’ match—under the luminous bottoms of rolling clouds.

  He sang along with Fred Astaire: “Before the fiddlers have fled, before they ask us to pay the bill, and while we still have the chance...” Held her closer, her waist, her hand. “Hey listen,” he said, “I’m sorry I was so obnoxious in there. It’s a very special night for me, you’ve got to understand that, and I’m kind of keyed up. And I’m not accustomed to getting backtalk, except too much of it lately from him.”

  “So you nail him to a wall,” she said, not looking at him.

  They danced, a piano and orchestra leading them.

  “Look,” he said, “I could have had the coven do the sensible thing with you way back when, but I didn’t; I made it the coma, and made sure you were in a good place and the bills were paid.” He turned her as she looked away. “We looked into each other’s eyes that night,” he said, “and don’t tell me you don’t remember. It may have been a scary moment for you, an awful one, I’ll grant you—but it was an exciting and beautiful moment for me. Once in a lifetime—one of mine, not yours, if you follow me—which you’re doing better now, see? And who knows?” He dipped her, lifted her. “Maybe I’m even smarter than I think I am. Maybe I knew, or just hoped somewhere deep inside, that if you were alive when the time came for Andy to begin his work, it might turn out that we’d look into each other’s eyes again, in a nicer, more civilized situation—that there was the possibility, so to speak, of a sequel for us.”

  She looked at him; he smiled at her. “See, we’re looking,” he said, turning her. “You like his eyes? I can do tiger.” He tiger-eyed her. “You like Clark Gable?” Clark Gable asked her, dimpling at her, turning her. “I can play Rhett Butler all night long, Scarlett.” Gable grinned his roguish grin, dipping her. “Up the stairs and never a fadeout.” Joe/Satan lifted her. “My effects,” he said, “are very special.” He winked.

  She looked away; he twirled her out and drew her back. Astaire sang, “There may be teardrops to shed...”

  “Now we’re getting to the good part,” he said. “In case you haven’t seen where this is heading. . . I’m talking about Eternal Youth, Rosie. Pick your age, twenty-three, twenty-four, whatever you like, and it’s yours forever. No aches, no pains, none of those pesky little brown spots, everything ticking along like the motor of a Rolls.” She looked at him as they danced; he nodded. “What I always promise and rarely deliver,” he said. “You’re old enough to appreciate it, aren’t you, and I’ll deliver it for you—not only the years you lost but the years ahead, all of them, in a lovely environment totally different from the hellfire crap you’ve been handed all your life. Room service that leaves this place at the starting gate.”

  Turning with him, she said, “Would you stop the Lighting if I—”

  “Oh please,” he said, “don’t start that business. No I wouldn’t. And I can’t, it’s too late. So it’s Eternal Youth, or death when you go downstairs. The gas spreads and stays around; it’s heavier than air; that’s why we’re up on top here.”

  She drew back in his arm, looked at him. Said, “What about Andy?”

  He shook his head. “He stays,” he said. “I don’t need him anymore and I can’t trust him, especially where you’re concerned. We can have other kids, all you want; young forever, remember? Think about it, Rosemary. I know it’s a tough decision for you to make, given all the circumstances and your background and everything, but you’re an intelligent person who can put things together—you knocked me for a loop when you worked out that stuff about Judy—so I’m sure you’ll see it’s the only deci
sion that makes sense.”

  They danced before the glitter and the clouds. He turned her, held her, put his cheek to hers. “Heaven, I’m in heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak...”

  In the shifting light of the screens, Rosemary sat bent in a chair, her hands folded, her head down.

  Andy reclined on the couch with an elbow on the arm and the afghan thrown back, watching with tiger eyes— shaking his horned head, lowering his lips to the straw sticking up out of the Coke can squeezed between the clawed thumb and first finger of his towel-tied hand.

  Joe/Satan leaned back in a chair with his feet in black silk socks on the console, watching with furnace-banked-down-to-tiger eyes, eating caviar out of a pound tin with a spoon. He checked his multidialed watch, taking care not to tip the tin. Swallowed and said, “Son of a gun, three minutes and twelve seconds and there they go. Look, the guy on the steps. See? And there, over there, that woman. Uh-oh, look where the candle landed.” He shook his head, stuck the spoon straight up in the caviar. “Incredible, the way they can time something like that.” He picked up his glass of champagne. Sipped. “Those guys were really good,” he said. “Where you going?”

  Rosemary left the room.

  She walked all the way through to the window.

  Stood there, her forehead against the glass.

  Gold dust lay sprinkled over the park fifty-two floors below, gold dust on the ball fields, gold dust in the Sheep Meadow, gold dust glittering as far north as she could see, thinner in some places, puddled with black in others.

  Half the city—GC’s inner circle among them—must have gathered to light their candles down there under the leafless midwinter trees. Drawn by druidic memories?

  Fire burned in two windows in the Fifth Avenue cliff. In Queens, a red glow tinted the clouds.

  High above, slow-moving lights crossed a cloud gap of starry sky—one of the few international flights that couldn’t be rescheduled to avoid the hour. But the pilot would have gone back and lit one token candle for all the passengers and crew members, who planned to light their own candles when the plane came down.