Carpenter's Gothic

by William Gaddis

  Movement brought her eyes up, arrested by the clock; all that moved was the dapple of the leaf-filtered sun on the kitchen's white wall, still as breathing till she turned for the radio which promptly informed her that Milwaukee had topped the Indians four to one, but not of what game they were playing, and she turned it off, poured a glass of milk to carry up the stairs where she turned on the television and slipped off her blouse, sunk against pillows.

  Where can I change dollars? Dónde puedo cambiar dolares?

  She moved her own lips.

  Can I change dollars in the hotel? Puedo cambiar dolares en el hotel?

  Her lips moved with those on the screen.

  At what time does the bank open? A qué hora…

  — A qué hora… Even here, where the leaf-broken sun climbed from bared shoulder over her parted lips, the movement continued on the lids closed against it, penetrated in diffuse chiaroscuro where the movement composed the stillness and herself sealed up, time adrift as the sun reached further, shattered by the telephone. She spilled the milk reaching for it.

  — Who operator…? Yes it is, speaking yes, it's me speaking I mean who's the call from, who… Oh! Yes put her on operator yes, Edie? How wonderful yes where are you, are you back? I got your card from Eleuth… oh. No I'd just so hoped to see you… You mean you're there now with Jack? I thought he was in Geneva, his office told me He… Oh honestly Edie, did you…? Well didn't everyone tell you that's what would happen? just like that frightful little Burmese who ran off with all your… Oh I hope not no, wait I can't hear you…

  She came stretching the line off the foot of the bed where a mouse was flattening a cat with a sledgehammer and turned it off. — What? No it's, it was just some noise in the street Edie when will you be back…? Oh I wish I could I don't see how, we're just getting settled here and Paul's been so busy with all his… No it's a house it's a beautiful old Victorian house right up on the Hudson with a tower, there's a tower on the corner it's all windows that's where I am now, you look right out on the river and the trees, all the leaves are… No not yet we've just rented it, not from anybody I mean nobody we know but you'd love how it's furnished it's all, rosewood chairs and sideboards and the draperies in the alcoves all heavy silk lined and gold and the loveliest lamps and silk flowers I can't wait for you to see it it's just, c'est comme un petit musée, tout… Oh Edie, does it? really…? No well sort of practicing I guess yes, I mean the woman who came in to, today, who came in to lunch today yes a lady I've just met here, she's lived a lot in Haiti and came over for lunch and all we spoke was French, I haven't really… No I know there are just loads of interesting people we just haven't been here that long but Paul you know Paul meets everyone, he's been so busy with all his new clients there was a big story about one of them in the paper today and Paul thinks the next… what? No, honestly? He hasn't mentioned it to me but I mean what did your father say… Oh Edie honestly… Yes well Paul is sort of southern, I mean when he really wants to be but he's never even seen Long-view and he knows how your father feels about him, I can't imagine what he thought he could, wait a minute…

  The box of tissue was out of reach and she was up for it and back, — Edie…? sopping up the spilled milk, — no it's, it's all fine Edie honestly Edie it's fine, it's not really Paul's fault he's just, he gets short-tempered sometimes and things haven't gone that well for him since Daddy but he's really trying hard to… No, no it's just so much better with all this clean air after New York and thank Jack for that lovely man he sent me to, that Doctor… who? You mean the girl we knew at Saint Tim's? Oh how awful… yes and after that terrible boy with the motorcycle how really awful… No I know it Daddy always said that, he always said her father was the best senator money could buy but when we were in Washington he always… No, against her father? he's running against Celtic's father…? Oh I know it yes, you've met him down there? but I mean isn't he black…? Oh Edie honestly, you mustn't… No of course I won't I won't tell a soul but your father will simply die if he ever… Oh Edie honestly…! No I know it doesn't, but… Where, with Squeekie? I thought she was in Hawaii with that bass player she found in… oh how awful, really…? No I know it's just money but it's still rather awful, she just always believes whatever she… No he's still around, he was here last week he showed up driving a moving van someplace but you know he and Paul can't stand the sight of… No it's not just that it's that and the estate and all the lawsuits and the trust, Adolph and the trust I can't wait for it to be over, he's just so angry at everybody and he's got this girl Sheila she's all beads and her hair's an inch long and everything's Buddhism and dope and their friends, I mean I thought Buddhism was supposed to be getting freed from desire and selfishness and all these ego things they've got one friend with filthy hair eight feet long piled on his head like a cowpie that's what they call him, Cowpie, he's from Akron I mean I've never seen so much bickering and egos it's just all so depressing it's just so sad Edie, it's really just all about money and it's just so sad. I mean even this girl's father, Sheila's father, he's got a dry cleaner's down on the east side and pays her rent where Billy's living he thought Billy was rich and just blames him for everything, when she went off to India he tried to… what? Oh Edie I'm sorry I didn't mean to go on so, it just all gets… I know it yes I know it but… No she's still in that nursing home Jack found for her nobody sees her, nobody goes to visit her she doesn't know you if you do, she just seems to sleep and Adolph complains about the bills and nobody… No I'm fine Edie honestly, I'm fine I just told you nothing's the matter, I've been… I haven't no, I mean it was going to be sort of a novel but I haven't worked on it since we got here I haven't written a word I haven't even looked at it I've, I've been so busy with, with people here a cancer charity and I'm, I mean I've even started Spanish lessons I just started them, just now when you called, I'd just come back when you called…

  She pushed the milk-sodden heap away and brought a fresh tissue to her face, — Edie? I just so long to see you I wish you could visit, it's all so, it's such a beautiful day it's so gentle and warm for fall and the leaves are turning all yellows, all greens and yellows with the sun on them and there's one, one right down on the river with some red that's, that's just… Oh I hope so Edie I hope so, you were sweet to call but it's costing you a fortune, we'd better… Edie? goodbye…

  She sat studying the blood fleck on her thumb until cries from the street brought her to the windows, boys (for some reason always all of them, boys) shambling up the hill below her on gusts of bold obscenities turning her back for the hall, the stairs, down getting breath at an alcove window. On the corner opposite, the old man from the house above bent sweeping leaves into a dustpan, straightened up carrying the thing level before him like an offering, each movement, each shuffled step reckoned anxiously toward an open garbage can where he emptied it with ceremonial concern, balanced the broom upright like a crosier getting his footing, wiping a dry forehead, perching his glasses square and lifting his bald gaze on high to branches yellow-blown with benisons yet to fall. She fled for the kitchen. Phone in one hand, the other flurried pages of the directory till she stopped, and dialed. — Yes hello? I'm calling about, do you have flights to Montego Bay…? Yes well I don't know exactly which day but, I mean I just want to know the fare… What? Oh, round trip I guess, yes. I mean it would have to be round trip, wouldn't it…

  From the terrace, where she came out minutes later, the sun still held the yellowing heights of the maple tree on the lower lawn's descent to a lattice fence threatening collapse under a summer exuberance of wild grape already gone a sodden yellow, brown spotted, green veined full as hands in its leaves' lower reaches toward the fruitless torment of a wild cherry tree, limbs like the scabrous barked trunk itself wrenched, twisted, dead where one of them sported wens the size of a man's head, cysts the size of a fist, a graceless Laocoön of a tree whose leaves where it showed them were shot through with bursts neither yellow nor not, whose branches were already careers for bittersweet j
ust paling yellow, for the Virginia creeper in a vermilion haste to be gone. She looked up for the cry of a jay, for the sheer of its blue arc down the length of the fence and then back to lark bunting, red crossbill, northern shrike, lesser yellowlegs fluttering by on the pages of the bird book opened on her lap while here, in the branches of the mulberry tree above her, nothing moved but a squirrel's mindless leap for the roof of the house and she sat back, her stained face raised bared for the sun gone now even from the top of the maple, gone this abruptly behind the mountain with not even a cloud in what sky these trees allowed to trace its loss leaving only a chill that trembled the length of her, sent her back in where she'd come from.

  Stark through past the newel a figure stood outside the front door where a knock still seemed to echo, something sharper, more insistent, brisk as the close-cropped head cocked at her approach.

  — Yes…? she opened the door on brown speckled tweed, — what…

  — McCandless? He stood drawn up there in ochre trousers to barely her height.

  — Oh, oh come in yes I'm so glad you came back, we…

  — Is he here?

  — Who. I mean I thought you…

  — McCandless, I just told you. Is this the house?

  — Well yes this is his house but…

  — Who are you, his latest?

  — His, his latest what, I don't…

  — First time I ever knew him to have a redhead. Is he here?

  — I don't know where he is no and I'm not, I don't know who you are but I'm not his first redhead his, his latest anything, we're just renting his…

  — Just relax now, I don't want the details. When was he here last.

  — He was here this morning but…

  — Where did he go.

  — I don't know! I don't know where he went I didn't see him I don't even know him! And now wait no you're not coming in. . she strained the door against the point of his boot.

  — Just hold on now, hold on… the round eyes darted past her, down the front of the blouse she'd pulled on, back to hers, — no difference to me what he's dipping his dingus in these days, I just stopped by to talk to him. You just give him a message when you see him, will you? Tell him Lester stopped by for a talk?

  — But I don't see him and who, Lester who…

  — You just tell him Lester… the toe of the boot withdrew, — he'll know… and she got the door closed, watched the brisk strut of spindly ochre legs across the black crown of the road, still standing there when a black car pulled away from the hedge above in a swirl of leaves and flattened the dustpan on the turn down the hill. Back in the kitchen, the radio alerted her that thirty five million Americans were functionally illiterate and another twenty five million couldn't read at all and she snapped it off, filled a jar to water the plants and spilled it in a lunge for the phone, for a pencil, for anything handy to write on, — yes just a minute… she opened the bird book and got down the number under red breasted merganser. She was back up in the bedroom buttoning a fresh blouse when the downstairs toilet flushed. — Paul…?

  — Who is it.

  — Paul is that you? '

  — Now look Mister Mullins, I can't help you… he'd already seized the phone. — He's not here, he doesn't live here, I don't know where he is and I don't want to know, if you… Well why the hell didn't she just stay in India! There's not a God damn thing we can… yes I'm sorry too, goodbye!

  — Paul you didn't have to be so rude to him, the poor man's just…

  — Liz I'm sick and tired of the poor man! There's not a God damn thing we can do for the poor man and his crazy daughter the sooner he gets that through his head the better. He says she was supposed to go to some ashram two weeks ago he hasn't heard from her since, out there in the woods with your God damn brother seeking enlightenment all she's doing is getting laid, if they want to drag around wearing mantras and ringing bells what the hell are we supposed to do about it? Go right on cleaning up after your God damn…

  — Yes but, well I mean if you could just try to be… she'd come round behind him to switch on the light, — to sound a little bit reassuring…

  — What the hell is there to reassure him about! They're up in the woods shooting dope banging on their guitars like that night we had to sit through them playing down in that empty storefront they hung up some yellow rags and called it a temple? Sounded like a fire in a pet store what the hell's reassuring about that… He was up with an empty glass in his hand, — minute I walk in the door it's the same God damn thing, cleaning up after your brother the minute I pick up the phone…

  — Paul! what, that grease on your face and your shirt's, what happened…

  — Cleaning up after your God damn brother I just told you! The car right in the middle of the West Side Highway the God damn car stalled I could have been killed out there trying to start it, I told you he couldn't fix a rollerskate didn't I? Bunch of spades in a tow truck finally showed up and hauled it in took me for every God damn cent I had on me, in there for an hour trying to call you what the hell was going on? Busy busy busy what the hell was going on?

  — I'm not… she sat down, eyes lowered to his hand straining the bottle over the rim of the glass, — I don't know, I…

  — An hour Liz, I tried to call you for an hour. What the hell was going on!

  — Well it, Edie called.

  — For an hour? Edie called for an hour?

  — Well she, I mean it couldn't have been a whole hour she just wanted to…

  — Liz it was an hour, one solid God damn hour I couldn't reach you nobody could, that whole list I gave you? these calls I've been waiting for? State Department calling about this spade with his prisons and chicken factories did they call? and these pigs? Drug company bringing in these nutritionists for a look at these pigs did they call?

  — No they, I mean nobody called about…

  — How do you know they didn't. Look. You're on the phone for an hour with Edie, somebody calls they get a busy how do you know they called Liz I'm trying to get something going here, line up these clients tell them to check with my home office and you're talking to Edie? Just some support Liz, just backing me up till I get things off the ground that's all I ask isn't it? Sit around the house here you haven't got a God damn thing to do all day you can't just do that? Take this Reverend Ude, still scraping the red clay off his shoes he's got to have somebody that can step in there and get the job done, nationwide television a media center his Africa radio Voice of Salvation got all the God damn pieces he needs some good clear hard headed thinking in there to put them together, got him in today's paper's what he's supposed to call me about, if he thought he's hooking up with somebody's operating out of a back kitchen office files under a bag of onions think he'd ever call back?

  — But he did Paul, I mean that's what I…

  — What you what. He called and you're on the phone to Edie? Biggest break I've got going, he calls and he can't get through because you're talking to Edie what did she want.

  — She just, I told you she just called, she's on a trip and…

  — Her whole God damn life's a trip. He put his glass down empty, — why doesn't she just buy Eleuthera and slam the door.

  — She's not even there, she's in Montego Bay. She bumped into Jack Orsini coming back from Geneva and he took her to Montego Bay.

  — Didn't I tell you? Reads a ten minute paper in Geneva, stops at Eleuthera to pick up your flaky blonde they hop over to Montego Bay to sit around the pool and he writes the whole God damn thing off as a medical conference, isn't that what I told you? Did you tell her I want to talk to him?

  — Well she, it wasn't really the…

  — I told you last week, the next time you hear from him I want to talk to him did you tell her that?

  — Well not, yes I told her yes, yes she said he'd call you. She said he'll call you when he gets back, she…

  — I mean this is important Liz, I mean this is what I mean about these phone calls, getting thes
e important phone calls if we're going to get things going around here. Adolph told me Orsini's trying to hit the estate for another hundred thousand, did I tell you? Adolph says…

  — Oh Paul honestly, Adolph says… She was swinging wide the refrigerator door, — didn't I ask you not to get into that it will just make things worse…

  — Look don't get ahead of me Liz! You're always trying to get in there ahead of me, here put some ice in this will you? Orsini's sitting on this eight million dollar foundation your father set up for him now he comes up for another hundred thousand operating expenses, tells Adolph he wants to keep things going to carry out your father's wishes what happened to the eight million? Straps a few people down and puts them to sleep, checks their eye movements to track down their dreams now he needs a hundred thousand to publish their findings, I mean what the hell happened to the eight million? Look, Orsini may be looking around for an investment that's all. Some idle cash looking for a quiet place to hide out, straight business that's all, if he wants to spend his time lying around the pool with some spaced out…

  — All right! Just, just stop calling Edie a flaky blonde. When do you want dinner, there's this chicken thing.

  — Oh come on, Liz. What's she doing playing tickledick in the hot tub with Jack Orsini, put some water in this will you? I thought she got married, that Indian creep last winter called himself a medical student with the long dirty diapers I thought she was Mrs Jheejheeboy, where the hell's Mister Jheejheeboy?

  — Well she's not Mrs Jheejheeboy I don't know where he is, they're separated. Now do you want dinner?

  — Just like to see the look on her father's face when he paid off Mister Jheejhee…

  — He doesn't even know about it.

  — Know about it? Grimes? He pays off every time she ties the can to one, only time he got off free was the Burmese that took off with all her traveler's checks. Just like he paid off your brother Billy to keep his hands off Squeek, every time…