Zinnie sat at the wheel of her battered silver Datsun on a side street of Forest Hills Gardens. This was not the first time she’d done this. Years ago, before she’d been on the job, when she’d been in college and night jobbing up on Austin Street, she used to come through here with Freddy and they’d dream about their future. Pretend that one day they’d be able to afford one of these places. Fairy tale castles. That’s what they looked like. Come to think of it, she had the same car then that she had now.
Forest Hills Gardens is a neighborhood within all the other neighborhoods. It’s set off limits on smooth, broad lawns, under old-fashioned street lamps that work. The cobblestoned roads have wrought-iron gates, big gates, the kind the artist uses to depict heaven’s entrance, at each periphery. There’s an abundance of red crawling ivy and lead-paned windows. Many of the houses have towers and turrets and it’s all benignly nestled under eminent, lofty trees. Regular police don’t have to bother in there, they’ve got their own intrepid security service. There are no cars. There is a reason for this. If you park in there, they boot your wheel and plaster your windows with some mucky glue that you can’t get off for thirty-seven years. So nobody parks in Forest Hills Gardens without a permit. Even for twenty minutes. Already, Zinnie had had to lower her shield through the window at the diligent if mothballed guard weaving conspicuously in and out the silent streets. She watched his bumper round the bend and went back to her reverie. A last yellow leaf went floating to the just-blown curb. So this was bliss, eh? This was the spot she found herself thinking about when she was on a stakeout over in East New York, holed up in a truck with one eye on a door and one on the clock and neither of them going anywhere. There was a box bay bow window in a mansion across the road. She sipped her Styrofoam cup of black coffee. There were stuffed animals packed into that window. Some real child lived there, she realized, amazed it wasn’t just a castle in Spain, the way it looked. She wondered what a kid from a place like that would be like. Like her own son who hung out in closets? All right, used to. Used to hang out in closets. She had to admit that this Swamiji had accomplished what four years of therapy had not for Michaelaen. Unbelievable. In three weeks he’d gained his trust and even introduced him to yoga. True, Michaelaen’s interest there stemmed from some televised inclination toward the more glamorous and hostile ninja kung fu. But Swamiji had used that enthusiasm to goad Michaelaen into opening the door on his own darkness. This morning Michaelaen had confided to her that Swamiji said he had “met his dragon head on.” “Yeah?” Zinnie had not turned, for fear of spooking him. The psychiatrist had told her she was stopping him from reaching deeper every time her eyes filled up with tears. Michaelaen didn’t want to upset her and so he stopped his own self-investigations.
“What did he look like?” Zinnie had asked. He’d continued to cut out the cardboard figure of Uncle Scrooge from the back of the Corn Pops box with a scissors. “Like Mrs. Dixon,” he’d said. Her heart had almost stopped beating and she had all she could do to not whirl around and take him in her arms. She had said nothing, hoping he would go further, and she was rewarded. “I mean like me watching Mrs. Dixon watching the children,” he’d corrected his picture of his dragon.
“Okay,” she’d said softly, biting her lip, and she didn’t say any more, just looked at him and took a big breath. So he had done the same. That had been the end of it. And, she’d hoped somehow, the beginning.
Zinnie turned on the car radio. The Schubert serenade was playing. Right away she thought of Narayan. Those heartbreaking liquid eyes. She didn’t know if this feeling was love or lust, because it sure as hell felt like both. She could kick herself. There was nothing possible about the situation, no way this could work out. And she couldn’t let Michaelaen see her with this guy, let him see them in a romantic situation that would lead nowhere. The poor kid was confused enough by having a gay, if honorable, father. Although, Zinnie continued to believe, it was other people who were confused and not them. She, Freddy, and Michaelaen all seemed to deal perfectly well with Freddy’s gayness. The only fly in the ointment was their mutually over-protective attitude towards each other when anyone would “put it to them.”
She looked back at that lucky kid’s dolls in that fairy tale house, and she thought of Michaelaen’s quickly, politely put-away toys in Claire’s own great, colorful house. Who was she kidding? She’d never even get to see the inside of a house like that, let alone live in one, own one. She would never have that life of handsome reserve. She would always live along somebody else’s edge. Yes, she was proud and no one gave her what she wasn’t already entitled to, but did it have to be so hard? Did it? These people. They had maids and roses and they didn’t even look at them.
Zinnie appraised the villas left and right. She wondered what these people thought when they woke up under down comforters and the first thing they saw were lead-paned prisms of sunlight, like shimmering jewels on a Persian carpet. Narayan had grown up rich like that. Claire had told her. He was the first grandson of some maharaja, or something. And he’d gone to live with the ascetic Swamiji freely. No one had forced him. No wonder Carmela was always trying to get him to come to one of her shindigs. She was such a snob. Zinnie supposed if Narayan had had money once, he could probably get it again. If it was, after all, his inheritance, Zinnie wondered if this meant inheritance in India or an inheritance you could take out and buy a home with in a place like, say, this?
A yellow cab pulled up. A woman got out. You could tell she was rich. Not just had money. Rich. The color and cut of her short thick hair. Highlights you couldn’t see. The drab subtlety of her loden coat. The woman lifted a garbage can and carried it into the driveway. Her driveway. There was something in that movement, in that simple act, that made it all seem suddenly achievable to Zinnie. She crossed the imaginary bridge. Rich, untouchable lady. Garbage can. Never the twain shall meet. But they did. It had, magically. Easy. And so, who knew, might she. That woman in this notoriously Irish Catholic paradise appeared to be some sort of Iranian. Or Western-educated Syrian. Something definitely not white bread. And here she was. At home, picking up her own garbage can and walking into her own palace backyard. True, it was one of the smaller palaces. Not even as grand as Carmela’s. But it was stupendous nonetheless.
The whole neighborhood was a parody of English country estates set conveniently nose to nose so they could fit in one privileged area cut off from the poor people’s world. Instead of forests stuffed with game for the hunt, they had their canyons of Wall Street and Madison Avenue to sport in. Zinnie wondered if that woman’s husband was lighter or darker than she. Just a thought. So what, she wasn’t allowed to think? She put her foot down on the gas and hightailed it out of there.
Claire knocked one more time on her mother’s kitchen door, but she knew she wasn’t there. The light would be on. The puppies snipped and whined. Stan had foresightedly boarded up the dog door for the time being, and they couldn’t get out to do the world or themselves any harm.
Floozie watched them disdainfully from her perch on Claire’s bag. These were the brothers and sisters who’d turned their backs on her when she’d been apprehended for the reprehensible behavior that had led her to death row. Never mind that they’d had nothing to do with her arrest. Had any of them come forward? Even to the door? Shed a tear? No. She sniffed and looked rather across the street at Iris von Lillienfeld’s old pooch out on the porch. This then, she had heard, was her grandmother, and that then was where she’d look. The love of her grandfather’s, the Mayor’s life, or at least, she readjusted her reverie realistically, the last bitch with whom he’d shacked up.
Claire murmured and sputtered, linked up her hand luggage (where she went, she went loaded down as a pack mule on Ios) and smacked her boot soles against the flat, painted porch floor. It was cold. Claire followed Floozie’s gaze across the street. Lord knew she didn’t get over to see old Iris von Lillienfeld enough these days. They crossed the street. Floozie looked back to see if the other dogs
were watching. They were. She sucked in her cheeks and lowered her eyes. Let them have a good look.
Here lived (some said still lived) Iris von Lillienfeld, brilliant if eccentric old foreign woman in a magnificent Queen Anne Victorian, a house young girls meandered by on their way home from school, their books clutched to their fanciful breasts; a house about which they would dream through high school, even on through college, marriages, and then walk past with their own children, still dreaming, a house that set you off, a boy-oh-boy-if-you-could-only-get-your-hands-on-it house. If that old woman would only die. But she wouldn’t, would she?
And the house was filled with dolls, old dolls, bisque antique dolls that she had clothed in excellent, hand-pressed and mended antique togs, for whom she cleaned and which she petted and kept as in some silent orphanage of dreams. Here in her own world, Iris rose and dressed herself in champagne togs to do the job: fragile slips and dresses adorned with cameos on eighteen-carat chains and braids of emeralds woven through her vague coiffure. Iris came and went and walked about in a red silk coat with a gold embroidered dragon on its back.
Today Iris, ironing doily collars on a pint-sized ironing board set on top of a regular one, threw her hands up into the air when her wobbly squinting produced the face of Claire at her door.
“Ja, vot a surprise!” She flung the kitchen door open and took Claire into her bony embrace. Then she spied Floozie. “And who is this? My Natasha’s enkel?! My Natasha’s grandson?!”
“Granddaughter,” Claire corrected, smiling, loosening Floozie’s suddenly timid frame out onto the porcelain-topped table. Floozie looked skeptically about, slipped this way and that and looked pleadingly to Claire. Claire put her bag underneath the dog so she would be on more familiar ground, and the two women stood there inspecting the furry little gal.
“She favors my Natasha, I think,” Iris appraised her critically.
“Yes, she’s more poodle than, er, whatever it was that the Mayor was.”
“Poodle? Natasha is not a poodle! Vot are you thinking? Natasha is a bichon frise.”
“A what?”
“A bichon frise. I voodn’t have a poodle.”
“Oh.”
“Vot’s her name?”
“Floozie.”
“Floozie? Vot kind of a name is dot? Why not just call her trollop? Or hussy?”
“Aw, no. Gee. It’s an affectionate term. Endearing.”
“What’s endearing about an insult?” Iris put the kettle on. She might be old but she kept her kitchen fragrant and clean as a German bakery. Everything was white. The counter gleamed and the ceiling had one of those big ice-cube trays of fluorescent lights. This was all in direct contrast to the rest of the house, which was sort of dusty and dim with extravagance.
“Vot about calling her ‘Duchess’?” Iris offered.
Claire looked at her dog. “She’s got her name. Have you heard who’s staying at my house?”
“Your mother told me. How’s the little dollink doing?”
“Oh, Dharma, yes. All right, I guess. Do you know who else?”
Iris’s eyebrows went up. “Kinkaid told me that. Got you coming and going.” She rubbed her hands as though she were applying lotion.
Claire noticed an iron pan cooling on the sill. “Leeks?” she sniffed.
“Mmm,” Iris looked away.
“What? What’s the matter?”
Iris looked back shrewdly. Claire assessed vibrations well. She shrugged. “So? I cook a little something for an old man nobody cooks for anymore. So sue me.”
“Who?” Her first thought, because of the guilty look she’d seen pass over Iris’s face, was her own father, Stan. But of course that wasn’t it—Mary cooked for Stan three times a day. She couldn’t imagine. Then—“Not Mr. Kinkaid?”
“Come on,” Iris swatted the dog off the table. “Keine Tiere auf dem Tisch. Pfoof! Weg!”
“Well, well, well.” Claire grinned, then saw by Iris’s tightening upper lip she’d been too familiar. There was something rigidly aristocratic about Iris, and it didn’t take much to put her off, close her up to idle scrutiny. She decided to let it alone. “Heard any new poop on Mrs. Dixon?”
Iris snorted. “If anybody knows anything dot’s your mother.” Tit for tat was Iris.
“Yes. Well, my mother’s feeling pretty bad about everything just about now.”
“Pfoof. Wasn’t her fault. Wrong place at the wrong time. Simple.”
Claire and Iris looked doubtfully at each other. Everyone knew by now that Mrs. Dixon had escaped by bopping Mary Breslinsky on the head with a typewriter and climbing through an air-conditioning vent from a room she and Mary would sit in to discuss Mrs. Dixon’s forthcoming book. A room not particularly heavily guarded owing to Mrs. Dixon’s deteriorating health. Supposedly deteriorating health. Now, they figured, those arthritic hands and crippled back had all been an act. A trick. Mrs. Dixon was in the pink of health and had had no use for the wheelchair she’d been driven back and forth in, and which she had so slickly left behind.
“I’ll bet she’s in Boston,” Iris said. “Didn’t she have a sister-in-law?”
“Better tell the cops if you know anything about a relative.”
Iris looked stricken. “I heard dot on the news.”
“Oh. Just so long as she doesn’t come crawling around here anymore, that’s all I worry about. It gets pretty tiresome doing graveyard shifts over at my house. I’ve got the three kids with me, you know. And it’s not like you can let them out alone for a minute.” She overheard the unpleasant whine in her own voice. She cleared her throat and lowered her pitch. “I just wish they’d catch her. Wherever she was headed—she’s there by now. They should have thrown away the key when they had the chance.”
Iris shook her head sadly. “Hard to believe anyone could molest and kill children like that. Let alone someone you know.”
Claire couldn’t bear the thought of Michaelaen watching Mrs. Dixon photographing one of those same children she later molested and killed.
Iris said, “Claire. Dear. I know it’s very hard for you to understand. We can be very sophisticated in the ways of the world and still know nothing of evil. Real evil. It’s not enough to say, vell, she was abused as a child as well. I mean, she was. Mrs. Dixon was. I know. So, see, evil doesn’t start from thin air. But there are others who were abused and turned out to be normal, if sadder, adults. Where the evil takes over is the frightening element, nicht Wahr? Nobody knows about dot.
“Now, how about dot for a nice doggy?” Iris cooed, changing the subject. Her old Natasha had hobbled in to inspect Floozie and the two of them were making nicey-nice underneath the stepladder there.
“How does Anthony like having a dog?” Iris asked.
“Oh, just fine. She fits right in, this one.”
At the sound of Anthony’s name, Floozie bolted to the door and had a look out. Was he coming? Was he coming?
Claire moved uncomfortably in her chair. Usually, Iris couldn’t do enough for her, pulling out cakes and rugalah. Perhaps she’d come at a bad time. Maybe Mr. Kinkaid was on his way? Kinkaid might be an obnoxious, belligerent, racist pain to her, but to Iris, who had spent so many years feeling, what? useless and alone, Kinkaid might have the quality of being, well, alive.
“So,” Claire said and stretched, “just thought we’d stop over. See how you are. We’ll be off, then.”
Like that of so many flamboyant dressers, Iris’s mind was comparatively no-nonsense. And she noticed that under Claire’s blue eyes were circles she had never seen before. She tipped her chin. “Got troubles, girlie? What’s dat Johnny up to?”
“Troubles with Johnny?” Claire smiled wryly. “Not really. I mean, he bought a horse without telling me, a racehorse. But no.” She shook her head. “Not really troubles. Not when you have somebody like Dharma living with you. Now, she’s got troubles.”
Iris walked beside her to the door. “Her troubles are finally over, from wot I heard.”
“Oh, yeah? What did you hear?”
“Pfff. Lots. Mrs. Dover was carrying on all over the place, from vot I understand. Small wonder she was pregnant when she died.”
“She was? Who told you that?”
“Why, Jerry Mahegganey. From the funeral parlor. You didn’t know?”
“No! How pregnant was she?”
Iris shrugged. “Not so much that it showed. But enough that she was.”
“Yeah? No kidding?” She stopped short.
“What?”
“No nothing. I just wonder if she’d told Dharma. Confided in her.”
“Huh. Vot I vonder is if she told the husband.”
“Mm. Come on, Floozie. We’ll come back soon. Okay?” She looked for a shot of warm confirmation from somewhere beneath Iris’s pale blue cataracts, but Iris looked away. The cat, Lü, the Siamese, had come in, as old as anybody’s hills and with eyes as blue as any of theirs. Claire remembered Lü. His name meant “the wanderer” in the I Ching. You never knew where he was till he was right there beside you, he was that quiet. She had the uncanny feeling he was there to see them out. Claire carried Floozie out with a make-believe good-bye grin on her face. Lü stood there intense as an Egyptian statue, watching them watching her, and something told her something was not right. She cast her eyes down on the wooden painted stoop cracks as she went carefully down the steps, looking up quickly at her loose and shimmering reflection in the window and was reminded of a feeling, not tingling, but some strange sensation on her right side. Some sensitivity, like numbness, or stinging or more like both, all along her cheek and right shoulder and down her arm, until she suddenly remembered when she’d had that feeling before. Years ago, four or five years ago (a long time, but that was how peculiar and distinct the feeling was). And not just a feeling: she could almost see the effect on her skin, stung red on that side of her body, like a niacin flush and a bitterness in her mouth like some drug one would take in the old days. But she remembered the feeling and the moment as though it were yesterday. It was when she’d first come home from Europe and was living at her parents’ house across the street. She had helped Iris move her giant foxglove from the shady side of the house to the sunnier side. Not having thought to protect herself, she’d wound up with this stinging numbness all over her hands, on her ear, the ear upon which the foxglove had leaned, her right ear, as though whispering its premonition, not itching exactly but irritating to the point of wonder. She realized what a strong and violent plant that flower was, for all its beauty, and marveled once again, standing there looking, looking at her own reverberating ear in peril’s mirror.
Foxglove Page 20
