by Ann Beattie
“Eight it is, then,” he said. Glancing again at a manuscript page (was it Duchais’s own work?), he worried that his frown betrayed the fact that he was not at all sure he could ascertain the subjects, even with repeated readings.
That night, late, Van Allan’s phone rang.
“On the way here, could you stop by Brown’s and pick up my dry cleaning?” Professor Duchais said. “There should be several items. If there’s only a blue robe, tell them there’s more. Have them call me if they need the ticket numbers. By then I might have found them.”
“Yes, sir. Is this the cleaner’s on Preston Avenue?”
“It is. And if you have time, run into the market and get me a bunch of bananas. Coffee of any kind, bananas, any sort of orange juice.”
“Yes, sir. A half gallon of orange juice?”
“A can of concentrate.”
“Okay,” Van Allan said. “What time would be good to bring them by?”
“Three o’clock,” Duchais said. “The only time there is. We’ll pretend that F. Scott Fitzgerald was talking p.m. instead of a.m.”
Van Allan needed clarification, but he was worried that if the man thought he was slow-witted, he wouldn’t hire him. He said, “Sir, Tim did tell me you were off 250 just before Montgomery’s, but what do I do after I turn?”
“Ask Tim to describe it.”
“He’s pretty sick. They thought he’d be better in the hospital when he got bronchitis on top of the mono.”
“The lamentable fragility of the human body,” Duchais said. “Sadly, even for the young.”
“So—three o’clock. And when I turn off 250—”
“Less than a quarter of a mile on the right. Stay on Kensington. You’ll see balloons tied to the mailbox. If you have time, call before you set out and pick up a few books for me if they’ve come through interlibrary loan.”
“I can do that.”
“When you talk to Tim, tell him how sorry I am. As for the dry cleaning, I could reimburse you or call the store with my credit card number.”
“It would be appreciated if you called, sir.”
“Just call me Duchais. Drop the Professor part, too, if you don’t feel too uncomfortable. Even if you do, it’s the way to make me feel more comfortable.”
“Will do. Duchais.”
“I don’t hear your TV in the background. Mute the gunfire when you picked up?”
“No, sir. I mean, no. We don’t have cable right now because somebody threw a football into our dish.”
“Called another student tonight and thought I’d interrupted a beheading,” Duchais said.
Van Allan, himself, hated violent television shows, but Tim had never missed either 24 or The Sopranos. On Saturdays, he retaliated by listening to the Car Guys on the radio. The laughter often drove Tim out of the apartment.
“They killed him in jail, didn’t they?”
“Sir?”
“Jeffrey Dahmer. Didn’t an inmate murder him?”
“I believe that is what happened. Yes,” Van Allan said, figuring he had missed something.
“Happened when I was in Cahors. The account was rather garbled. The way the French saw it, refrigeration itself was at fault. Newspaper printed the dimensions of the refrigerator. I’ll call the cleaner’s in the a.m.,” the professor said, and hung up.
It was raining when Van Allan turned by the mailbox from which floated one collapsing Mylar balloon. There were also two bronze chrysanthemums flanking the mailbox, which was itself a flying goose atop a cedar pole. Numerous other small errands had been requested in an early-morning phone call: Van Allan was to stop at the stationery shop for the International Herald, pick up Duchais’s mail at the department, and bring in mail from the mailbox out front, as well, if Duchais hadn’t yet lowered the goose’s wing. Duchais set upon him the minute he walked in: in the future, the broom propped against the side of the vestibule could be used to sweep out any autumn leaves. If the thermostat was still set at sixty—which Duchais often didn’t notice, dressed, as he almost always was, in cashmere sweaters—it was to be put at sixty-six: the housekeeper’s optimal temperature. She would turn it down when she left.
In his arms, Van Allan carried the transparent dry-cleaning bags, blue robe on top. Duchais took them from him and held them, in their slightly damp crinkly plastic, against his chest.
“My mother will be coming for drinks at four,” Duchais said. “We like to have a glass of wine in the study, with the ficus tree moved aside so we can enjoy a clear view of the backyard. The tree isn’t hard to move, because it’s on a rolling stand. Please put her blue robe on the sofa, so she can slip into it.”
“Do you want me to serve the drinks?” Van Allan asked.
“Yes. I’ll take down special glasses. You might open some nuts, or see if there’s cheese in the refrigerator. One of the things I hate to do is go foraging through the refrigerator, looking for cheese. Nuts and cheese should not appear on the same plate.”
“Okay,” Van Allan said, trying to keep his voice level.
“The driver should be invited to join us. He sometimes declines, and if he does, it means he’d prefer a bath, which you should draw. Take him red wine, but no food.”
Van Allan nodded.
“The driver’s religious beliefs are not my own, but I’ve found it’s better not to engage him on the subject. Some days these things seem to mean more to him than others. You should do as you think best.”
“Your mother’s robe,” he said, figuring out to whom the clothes belonged, reaching out to take them from Duchais’s hand. “I just put it on the sofa?”
“That’s right.”
“I remove it from the bag?”
“You operate, at all times, using common sense.”
Van Allan nodded.
“My mother and I, on rare occasions, have differences of opinion. If that happens, common sense requires that you not get involved.”
“I wouldn’t,” Van Allan said.
“What sort of relationship do you have with your own mother, if I may ask?” Duchais said. He was adjusting the venetian blinds.
“Oh, we talk on the phone and everything. She sends me cookies and everything. It’s, you know…it’s fine. She and my dad are divorced.”
“My mother has no idea who my father was.”
“Sir?”
“Duchais,” Duchais said emphatically. “She didn’t tell me about the confusion until I was grown. Amazing the things one might never be filled in on. My mother is quite the lady.”
Van Allan looked down. The tip of a leaf protruded from the sole of his shoe.
“You’ll want to be getting the study ready. There’s a rheostat by the door. I’ll leave the lighting up to you. Hors d’oeuvres should be put on the coffee table. As should the drinks, when you bring them.”
“Okay, Duchais,” he said. He gave a little wave he regretted, for its obvious halfheartedness. He did not know what a rheostat was, but hoped he could figure it out. He went into the study, turned on and adjusted the lights downward, noticed dust on the coffee table and wiped it away with the side of his hand. He looked at the ficus tree, centered in the window. He tried to push the stand, but it wouldn’t budge. Where a third wheel should have been, balancing it, there was a brick. With great effort, he picked up the pot and set it on the floor. He pushed the stand several feet to the right, replaced the brick, and—again, barely managing—slowly bumped the heavy pot to the lip of the stand. Concentrating fiercely, he lifted it onto its platform. He picked up the dry-cleaning bag from where he’d draped it on the back of the sofa and slid the blue robe off a hanger. He draped the other things, still on hangers encased in plastic, across the back of a chair. Outside the window, migrating birds fanned across the sky.
“Another thing,” Duchais said, and Van Allan jumped, so certain had he been that the professor had gone away. “Nice lighting,” Duchais said. “What I wanted to say was that the linen cocktail napkins are in the top drawer of the
Hoosier cabinet in the kitchen. I’ve taken the cut-glass wineglasses from the top shelf, but it’s always best to rinse them beforehand.”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s very nice your mother sends you cookies,” Duchais said. “Does she make them herself?”
“She tends to buy them at the farmers’ market in the summer. She tends not to send them in the winter.”
Duchais nodded. “If the driver doesn’t want to join us, and doesn’t want a bath, he prowls the house, which is perfectly fine. I guess that’s everything.”
“Okay,” Van Allan said. “I’ll go wash those glasses.”
“They should be used even if my mother might prefer a drink you wouldn’t ordinarily think of serving in a wineglass, such as a scotch and soda. Don’t worry: you’re doing a fine job,” Duchais said. “The driver is a longtime employee of my mother’s. He is, of course, entitled to his religious beliefs.”
Kryptonite, the German shepherd, had gone unmentioned. Once past his initial shock at the dog’s immensity, Van Allan realized it was docile, even if it did carry a deflated Mylar balloon in its teeth. The driver, whose name was either Kenny or Benny Smith—he did not look like the sort of person you would ask for clarification—was so tall and broad-shouldered that he obviously needed no such dog to walk at his side. Duchais’s mother also was not what he expected. She held Kenny/Benny’s elbow and teetered in high heels that still put her not much over five feet. She wore a red dress, a fur cape, and a hat trimmed with fur. “Here we go again,” she said, instead of hello.
“Very nice to meet you. I’m Van Allan Wrightsman. Please come in,” he said.
There was a moment of confusion as the dog, whose leash had been dropped, ran into the house and the driver picked up Mrs. Duchais, who seemed as light as a leaf, and carried her in. Van Allan felt like a child, scurrying after them, not sure what to do. The driver seemed to know exactly where he was headed, though, and Kryptonite converged at the door to the study at the same moment, having already circled the house. Mrs. Duchais was deposited on the couch. She took off her hat with trembling hands, and the driver removed her fur cape and placed it next to her on the sofa.
“If you’d care to put on your robe—” Van Allan began.
“Wouldn’t fit me,” the driver said. When he saw the expression on Van Allan’s face, he smiled, revealing several spectacularly gold-filled teeth. Mrs. Duchais settled herself farther back on the sofa.
“What can I get you to drink?” Van Allan said, wondering why his employer was not making an appearance.
“Whiskey sour, no orange or cherry,” the driver said. “Not in one of those heavy antique glasses, either. I like a simple juice glass.”
“Merlot,” Mrs. Duchais said. “Not in one of those heavy antique glasses, either. Just out of the bottle is fine.”
“Ma’am?”
“That was a joke,” she said. “Kenny, are you going to help me into my caftan, or am I going to sit here freezing?”
“I’ve done enough for the present,” Kenny said. “I think this is just the man to put that thing on you, while I mix my own drink.”
Mrs. Duchais turned toward Van Allan. The dog followed Kenny when he left the room. “I’m rich,” she said. “And you must be another of my son’s underpaid helpers. A student, I suppose.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Grew up in the South, with the ‘yes, ma’am’ stuff,” she said.
He nodded.
“I have a cousin in Atlanta, but I consider the South unfit for habitation. Kudzu and salty ham. Unfortunately, I’m all alone in the world and my son chooses to teach at a Southern university. All of Kenny’s relatives are in Richmond.”
He nodded.
“Well, I hope I don’t have to hint again that I’d like to put on the caftan, which I hope has been to the cleaner’s.”
“I just picked it up,” he said. “The bag is over there.” He pointed. She squinted, but did not turn her head. In the kitchen, cabinet doors opened and closed. Mrs. Duchais leaned forward, extending an arm. He quickly pulled the robe from the back of the sofa, gathered up some material, and eased her arm into the armhole. The material wadded up behind her back. He eased it around as best he could, and held the opening for the other arm where he thought she could easily reach it. She said, “My grandfather’s money was from Armour Meat, in Cuba.”
In the distance, Kenny’s words were now clear, with long pauses between every word: “Where is the sweet vermouth?” As if in answer, the dog began to whine. The light had begun to dim, and Van Allan wondered if he should turn up the lights. Before he could move, she said, “Do you have any idea where my son is? He makes it a point not to greet me. As you can see, Kenny and I have it worked out perfectly, but my son thinks we come in peculiarly, and he won’t come to the door.”
“Should I call him?” Van Allan said.
“Oh, he’d love that. Just like Rochester and Mr. Benny. Don’t you do it. Have more gumption than that,” she said.
He had no idea what she was talking about. From the kitchen, he heard Kenny say—so clearly, he assumed Duchais must be with him—“Nothing wrong with a martini for a change.” The dog walked into the study and sat by the sofa, panting, then thumping down with a great sigh.
When Van Allan heard footsteps, he expected to see Kenny. Instead, Duchais stood in the doorway, wearing a green tank shirt and neon blue swimming trunks patterned with fish. A towel was slung over one shoulder. He let his appearance register before he strode barefoot into the room. “Mother,” he said. The dog beat its tail, but did not rise.
“What ever are you doing?” she said.
“Mother, we’re on vacation today. I’m going to let you have the heat as high as you want, and I’m going to stretch out here on the sand, hoping there are no fleas.” He dropped the towel on the rug and lowered himself, settling onto his side. He recited:
“For dogs have fleas upon their backs
Upon their backs to bite ’em;
The fleas themselves have lesser fleas,
And so ad infinitum.”
He coughed. “Jonathan Swift,” he said. “Van, could you get me a glass of wine? I assume you’ve asked what my mother is having.”
“This is stupid,” Mrs. Duchais said. “I don’t know what point you think you’re making.”
Van Allan did not know where to look. He looked at the dog, who had dropped its snout between its paws and closed its eyes. When Kenny emerged with his drink and began to laugh loudly, the dog did nothing more than blink.
“May the good Lord bless and keep me,” Kenny said. “Whatever is happening here, may the good Lord abide with me.”
When there was no response, Kenny sat in an uncomfortable-looking chair with a straight back and, shaking his head, began to sip his drink.
“Put on some clothes!” Mrs. Duchais said. “You embarrass yourself, Harry.”
“This is Barbados, and I am at the Sandy Lane, basking in the sun,” Duchais said quietly. “In a minute I’m going to put out this cigarette”—he looked at his first and second finger, no cigarette clasped between them—“and have a delicious rum punch, which my new friend Van will procure.”
“Get up,” Mrs. Duchais said. She kicked a shoe in her son’s direction. “Harry, this is not an appropriate way for a man to greet his mother.”
“I’ll get that drink,” Van Allan said.
“I’m glad I settled on a martini,” Kenny said, behind closed eyes. “It’s a drink I can sip slowly.”
In the doorway, Van Allan looked over his shoulder. It was the moment when everyone might have begun to laugh, if that moment was going to come. There was silence. He no longer gave any thought to getting more light in the room. “Okay,” he said under his breath, as he went into the hallway.
In the kitchen, there was a perplexing array of glasses, which he thought might have been taken down and rejected by Kenny. He looked at a tall beer glass and at a tiny glass on an inch-high stem. He picke
d up the corkscrew to open the bottle of red wine—it was, he saw with relief, Merlot—that was prominently centered on the kitchen island and eyed the glasses until he found the ones he thought Duchais had been referring to: stemmed, cut-crystal wine goblets, clearly superior to the others. He filled two of them slightly more than half full, then poured an inch of wine into the beer glass, drank it down quickly, wiped his mouth, and carried the two glasses to the study.
Remote control in hand, Duchais was skipping through music. Something vaguely Hawaiian began to play: an instrumental, with lush, muted tones. Both of Mrs. Duchais’s shoes were on the towel, one near her son’s hip, the other near his shoulder. Her face was frozen. She reached for the glass of wine without speaking. Outside, it had turned darker. In the chair, Kenny had slid a little forward and seemed to be sleeping.
“Oh, ah kooka wooka la, oh, wooka wooka la-la,” Duchais sang. He reached up and said, “Thank you,” as Van Allan handed him the glass. “Oh, the shores of bee-yoo-te-ful Bar-ba-dos, ooooooh, Waikiki or Montego Bay, Jamaica, oh la laaaaaaaaa.”
Van Allan went back to the kitchen, poured another inch of wine, looked at it, puzzled, for some time, then tossed it down. Silence in the study. What he did finally hear, above the soaring music, seemed to be crying, which he decided not to investigate. He debated with himself when, if ever, he should return to the study to offer more wine. He could not decide what to do. He opened the kitchen door quietly and walked outside, breathing the cold air. He did not begin to run until he was almost to his car.
“Honest to God, the guy was a real stiff,” Tim said. “What you’re telling me does not compute in any way.”
“Did you meet the mother?”
Tim was hooked up to an IV. Not only did he have mono and bronchitis, he now had jaundice. The whites of his eyes were yellow. Even with pain medicine, it was difficult for Tim to talk. He shook his head no. He was bug-eyed from hearing Van Allan’s account of the day, which made his eyes more frightening.
“Okay, I’m gonna let you get some rest, buddy,” Van Allan said.
