Bereavements

by Richard Lortz

  “A pretty girl, very. Attractive. And nice. Good-natured. Couldn’t cook! But tidy. And virtuous. Sweet most of the time. A bit of a temper.” He paused. “She died less than a year after we’d married. And then the pretty girl—attractive did I say?—became lovely, incredibly beautiful. And the virtuous, saintly. Loss does that. Grief. I had married a girl and buried an angel. And loved her a thousand times more than I had in life.”

  Now the connection came. “Jamie . . . ? Handsome as hell; a bit astonishing that way, but otherwise—” he shrugged “—just like you, Angel, or me growing up. Any kid; any rich kid I should add.” Suddenly he remembered something. “How would you like . . . There are no pictures around, God knows she doesn’t need them, but I do have a color snapshot of him, if you’d like to see.” He reached for his wallet. “It’s here, along with a dozen nephews and cousins, uncles and aunts . . .”

  It was a waist to head shot, in a garden, by a pool, among sunlit flowers and leaves, the boy holding what appeared to be a Japanese kite.

  Angel stared without blinking for what might have been a full two minutes, resisting Dori’s several half-gestures to take the photo back.

  “I guess,” he murmured softly, his hand beginning to tremble, “he could’ve been . . . a movie star . . . if he wanted.”

  The picture returned to his wallet, Dori was surprised to see how pale and—what?—angry and sick Angel looked. In a sudden expansive, healing gesture he grabbed the boy in both arms, hugged him fiercely, then let him go, his eyes saddening.

  “Actually,” he said, “we were depending, sort of, on you, y’know. Now.”

  Angel took a moment to respond. “F’what?”

  “For. . . Well, you know: Mrs. Evans. What we’ve been talking about.”

  “Me!”

  Dori nodded. “Life seemed—brighter, with you around. God knows—there was a Christmas this year!—as bad as it was after that—accident in New York. But maybe New Year’s will make up for it. Maybe there’ll be another celebration, a good one this time—the best.”

  Angel lowered his eyes. He didn’t agree with Dori. “That was before . . . before we got here,” he said. “Now something’s different, it’s changed. I don’t think she . . . wants me anymore.”

  Dori frowned, hesitated, becoming depressed himself because of the boy’s depression.

  “Oh, I’m sure you’re wrong. I know it. She wants you; she wants you, Angel . . .”

  Dori could have been right. He could. But whatever Mrs. Evans had said to him, whatever it all meant, there was he knew, something altogether final in it. She hadn’t abandoned him as he’d feared; no, there wasn’t that intolerable kind of thrown-out, discarded-refuse feeling in his heart, but she had essentially left him. He was alone.

  Oh, there was Delia, of course, who was friendly and fun, who never tired of answering his questions and whom he loved to watch as she cooked and did all the many things that needed doing around the house.

  One odd thing: she kept insisting he looked ill—everyday more peaked—”and tired; are you?”

  “No.”

  If she hadn’t broken her thermometer, she’d have taken his temperature every hour on the hour. As it was, all she could do was feel his head, each time doubtfully, but reassured.

  “Well, you don’t look like you, anymore, that’s all I can say, nor act the same; not that first-day boy who danced around the tree, always out in the snow, off on his sled or skiis.” She lifted his chin with a teasing smile. “Where’s that boy, Angel, where? Forever indoors, dreamy and mooning around, as if you hated the snow, as if you couldn’t wait for Palm Beach. Why you act more like . . .”

  She flushed quickly, turning pink about the white lace collar, and shooed him off on the pretext that she had some Christmas thank-you notes to write, as well as other private things to do.

  At such times, and they kept increasing, when Delia made herself unavailable to him, watching Jodi was sometimes fun, and Angel spent hours in the immense steamy greenhouse, frequently helping as best he could, while the man watered and planted and pruned and weeded and cross-bred and fertilized and mulched and carefully adjusted the thermostats and inspected and oiled the strange, faintly-hissing machinery that controlled the heat and the amount of moisture in the air.

  And there was Dori, of course, very much Dori, when he was there, which now was hardly ever, since he was daily sent on any number of private errands, usually chauffeuring people—invariably dark-suited, brief-cased, sober-looking business-type men back and forth between Long Island and New York.

  So . . . Seldom Dori.

  Never, Mrs. Evans; she wouldn’t see him at all, conducting her business, whatever it was, behind the thick, locked double doors of her spacious bedroom suite on the second floor of the west wing, where he was forbidden to go.

  And Delia eventually became impatient, having Angel tagging behind her, upsetting her with his eternal questions, particularly the why, why, why of Mrs. Evans behavior. Finally, she had to tell him, for pity’s sake to give her some peace, let her go about her chores, begging him, “dear boy,” to amuse himself, “run off and play.”

  So finally, inevitably, the only thing left was the house. And its forty-two rooms. With the exception of those Mrs. Evans occupied, and the servants quarters, Angel set out to explore every one, stealing the great ring of keys from the dusty hook where silly Jodi probably imagined he’d safely and secretly hidden it.

  Of course, he knew from the very first key in the very first lock—as his desire and desperation grew—exactly what room he was looking for. And with the twenty-second key in the twenty-second door, he found it.

  It wasn’t one room but several, contiguous, the first merely an entrance or small hall containing a leather chair, presumably more for ornament than use, a gold-shaded black lamp, a round table, and on it, a brass bowl of flowers, long withered and dead. White dust, like a fall of the finest snow, covered everything.

  Angel plucked at a few dried petals that broke to flaked cereal in his hand, eyeing the other rooms—those he could see at a glance.

  Like the wedding table in Great Expectations, it was obvious that nothing had been touched since Jamie’s death. The entrance room had been locked, and presumably Mrs. Evans had never gone in again. What need, what worth to see his belongings, when she had the boy in the flesh to visit, locked in his tomb below?

  The second room, spacious and square, of richly-stained wood, was—what? The “study?” The “sitting” room? Certainly, the “studio.” There were two easels, a drawing board, several unfinished canvases, and intricate clusters of black-hooded lamps on the ceiling, so many it strongly resembled the equipment that illuminates a stage.

  Two walls were shelved, ceiling to floor, and filled with books and knick-knacks, the countless personal things—trash or treasure—every boy collects.

  Posters, too: science fiction, movie stars and monsters, sports pros, photos of surfers, a pretty girl or two. And an immense stack of old MAD magazines, a few of which he picked up and thumbed through without seeing a thing, so restless and nervous were his eyes—moving constantly, “drinking in,” searching, seeking, looking—for what?

  Mystery of mysteries, he had no idea what it was, what it could be, only the necessity and urgency of finding it, an ache growing in his chest, his breathing becoming shallow and short.

  He turned to the books for a moment’s respite, and read a few titles: Moby Dick, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Tom Sawyer, War of the Worlds, The War Lords of Mars, The Art of Skin and Scuba Diving, Forbidden Planet, UFO’s: Fact or Fancy?, The World Almanac; a whole shelf below of the Oz series, and ten or twelve Tarzan’s. He singled out a few he himself had read: Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, Tarzan the Unknown, Tarzan and the Ant Men . . .

  There were even “dirty” books on another shelf; at least two or three. He pulled one out and looked at some of the many postures of love, then quickly put it back. It brought too much of a chill, and the remembered lock
ed, lost sweetness and terror of his father’s arms . . .

  The thing he wanted, the thing he sought, whatever it was, was more personal, more intimate, more secret than anything he’d found. It wasn’t here, and knowing this, he felt himself drawn to the final room.

  He walked the length of a small hall with a bath on the left, then into the bedroom, feeling strongly—quite like that game we play as a child when a hidden object is to be found—that he was getting “warmer” and still “warmer.”

  The far wall was composed entirely of small, vertically elongated diamond-shaped panes of Venetian glass, some stained quite dark at the top for shade, but ranging downward into pale almost colorless amber. Evidently the window faced east, for the sun, now sinking behind the house in the west, had washed the hills of snow with its rose, blushing warm color into the room.

  The window, however, was the only unusual and unique feature to be seen, everything else was rather ordinary: an oversize bed with a brass headboard, a few simple chairs and lamps, a chest of drawers, and a bureau—with a large, oval, somewhat ornately-framed mirror, the wood carved into flowers, above it.

  Angel stood still, a soldier waiting for orders, or a psychic whose control has not yet said what to do. Better—the game again: where was warmer and still warmer?

  The bureau, of course! to which he moved with a curious autonomous ease, much calmer now, knowing that what he wanted was to be found very near.

  But what? Where?

  Jamie’s jewel box?—two sections, four drawers, each lined with black velvet, containing—oh, half a dozen cufflinks, most of them gold, rings of all kinds, pearl studs, three Indian head pennies, medals, medallions, old buffalo nickles and other coins, some maybe ancient, with smooth-worn, blurred helmeted heads of men who looked Roman or Greek.

  Warmer . . .

  Two belt buckles—one brass, the other silver; to the right—at least a foot in diameter, a sunburst, a half-sphere of delicate pink coral and a few weirdly-shaped seashells.

  Warmer . . .

  A white ivory comb. It couldn’t be that! But next to it— warmest, yet!—Jamie’s brush, and, tangled in it and through it, like a spider web of sun, a few strands of Jamie’s hair. With fingers that shook, Angel unwound them from the bristles, his care that of the expert who, breath held, disconnects the wires of a live bomb that might any second explode.

  This? This! A few hairs from the head of a boy long dead? Impossible! He had missed what it was he knew he was there to see, and, fevered, distraught, searched the bureau once more, pushing things roughly aside.

  It was here! It was! And in the next instant, smelling a scent so sweet it seemed to crackle all the nerves between his eyes, he stood still, knowing he had found it at last, knowing exactly where to look.

  The mirror, you fool!

  He stepped back quickly to afford himself a full, knees-to-head look of himself in the glass, then raised his eyes.

  What he saw wasn’t Angel, of course—for long. Behind the shimmer of a golden haze, as if sea-spawned, half-liquid, black eyes melting into blue, dark hair an issue of the sun, the reflection of a smiling, naked boy strained through to shape itself to new and living form. Like the cameraed, time-sped opening of a flower, image crowded into image until the “real” became “unreal,” secondary—almost, but not yet quite too faint, too nebulous, to see . . .

  Dori found him, curled up, asleep on the floor in front of the bureau in Jamie’s bedroom. Or had he passed out?—drunk, half-doped, the curious thought entering the man’s mind that perhaps the boy had found something Mrs. Evans had left lying about and taken it.

  He shook him, slapped him, called his name. None of these would do. A sudden pang of wild, sharp panic made Dori place his hand to Angel’s heart. The beat was steady, strong. With a groan of relief, Dori carried him to the bed.

  As Angel’s head touched the pillow, his eyes opened a drowsy crack. Seeing Dori, he smiled, closed his eyes, opened them again, this time knowing where he was and why, and what had happened.

  “Hi!” It was Dori, smiling, holding his hand. His next words were rough, but the manner loving. “What the hell are you doing up here? You’ve got all of us half crazy. We’ve been looking for you for almost two hours.”

  “Who was lookin’?”

  “Why, I was, of course, and Jodi, and Delia.” Without pause he rushed on, knowing whose name Angel had been after. “What’s up? You felt like Columbus today and wanted to explore? But got tired and fell asleep?” Why was the boy so pale!—lips parched, breathing shallow, black eyes like a young deer’s in a forest with the first scent of fire in the wind? “Do you want some water?”

  There was no reply, but Dori went for it anyway. When he returned, Angel was standing in front of the bureau, staring at himself in the mirror, so darkly solemn in expression and demeanor, the man put the glass down, burning his brain for something quickly light or funny to say. Or anything.

  “Like what you see? I do. Good-looking kid; goddamn handsome boy.”

  Why had he said that? Why did it seem necessary, essential right now? Because Angel’s shocked reaction to Jamie’s picture had been one of admiration, envy and hate? Because Mrs. Evans had ostensibly abandoned the boy?—locked away in bedroom or tomb, making herself inaccessible to everyone but her lawyers, seeing those only because she had to set her affairs in order before she killed herself? (Dori believed it would happen this time, and very soon.) But he’d said it above all because he’d found Angel here, in Jamie’s room, not sleeping as he’d first thought, but truly unconscious on the floor, after some—(it was impossible to say, or to ask)—after some hysterical outburst, raging despair, hours of passionate weeping, perhaps, murderous self-hatred . . . accusing, loathing himself because he’d failed; hadn’t “measured up,” wasn’t, couldn’t be, what that incredible woman relentlessly demanded: Jamie.

  At moments like these, Dori found it impossible not to despise Mrs. Evans, weaving his hate into the strange paradox of his almost boundless simultaneous love.

  She had been cruel, ruthless, demonic in her grief, but her grief, exposed, examined, was a deployment of her maniacal self-involvement, affording—for her own perverse pleasure and pain—bizarre, theatrical displays and extensions of monumental self-love.

  Who had killed that wretched little boy who ripped open his veins on her icy door? Who had murdered the actor, cut his throat half-through?—if one cared to follow the torturous emotional paths that led to his death.

  And finally—Angel. The last of her “boys.” What a courtship! What a seduction that had been!

  Book VII

  NOW WHAT about Jamie? And his white-capped tomb—a palace of frost in its wooded valley of well-tracked snow: glittering, almost festive with icicles, the whole north face of it a blue-glazed mirror.

  Footprints: Angel’s; made days ago, when he often got off his sled to circle the building, look closely, feel the touch of its marble and ice, the ice and bronze of its door. He had, of course, peered through the bars of the windows several times, only to see his own queer, intent face gazing back.

  Footprints: hers; countless, back and forth, from and to the house, so many, so often, they’d tramped down a path so clear one might think she’d had someone take a shovel to do it. But also her single-line prints wandering off into nowhere, and back again, or crazily zig-zagging their way from the tomb. These, to Angel’s half-ashamed guess, were made on those nights when she had “taken something” (or too much of something)—her addiction to, or (to be kind) her penchant for, a variety of drugs and occasional alcohol being the most ill-kept secret of the house.

  Sometimes there were deep, body-made impressions in the snow, as if she’d stumbled, fallen, then regained her footing. There were also—and these were the ones frightening and terrible to see—some that appeared to have been made by thrashing about; as if, after falling or throwing herself down, she’d twisted, rolled, flailed arms and legs like a child convulsed, in the throes of a tantr
um, or an animal snared, a paw or a leg caught in the jaws of a trap.

  Footprints: heavy, booted, deep-set; not Jodi’s (who was much too frail for the task; not, of course, Delia’s) but Dori’s. Even a clear print of the flashlight he’d dropped on one of the nights he’d gone out to find her and carry her back to the house.

  And footprints (finally): just a few—light, faintly made on the steps of the tomb that Angel couldn’t decipher at first, but had to conclude were Mrs. Evans’. Whose else could they be? They were small, no larger than his own, and only once did he see them, after a brief fall of snow. Then, to his mild surprise, he saw they were bare, they were prints of her naked feet.

  She had removed her shoes, or lost them, and this was hardly a surprise after all. Once he’d found one of her mink coats lying yards from the tomb; other times, a wool hat, a silk scarf, black gloves, a scatter of blue pills. Twice he’d seen wine bottles, the last one half filled (or half empty) most of the burgundy having bored a ragged wound in the snow. Lying next to this one, had been a delicate long-stemmed champagne glass which he brought back to Delia who, requiring no explanation, washed it and put it back where it belonged.

  Angel knew he was ill. But ill in a way he couldn’t define, that had no name at all, perhaps, unless—with his long Catholic exposure—it could be called “mortal sin.”

  He had only to think of his father, recreate, re-feel with his body, not his mind, that intolerable mixture of love and revulsion, comfort and panic, safety and danger, bliss and the most deadly of spiritual threats—the loss of selfhood, of soul—to have a rush of blood pulse around his eyes, stain and burn in his cheeks, literally an instant fever that might last minutes at a time, or go on for hours.

  It wasn’t his sin that his father had taken his body in a corruption of love; it was that Angel had given it, just as in another strange way, he had totally given to Mrs. Evans a heart he could in no way take back.