She turned to me—turned only her head as if she hoped I'd prove a temporary interruption. "Yes, Milo?"
"Have you seen Father's pipes? I was wondering if Henri might like one of them. Since we have no more obvious use for them."
"Pipes?" She laughed, a fluttering sound that suggested a courteous, exuberant politeness—nothing like real mirth but often as close as she came.
"I thought perhaps because he was French . . ."
"Do all Frenchmen smoke?" This was Klara, dabbing her eyes, turning that rigid smile on Henri.
"I'm afraid not."
"Of course not. How ridiculous. Milo, you are being ridiculous."
"They're very nice pipes."
"Yes, but if Henri doesn't smoke . . ."
"He might want to learn."
"He works outside, with his hands, in the sun. He doesn't want to smoke a pipe."
"Perhaps I might simply look at them?" Henri offered.
We hunted around the living room because neither Klara nor I really knew where Father kept them—he'd pull them out of crevices in the bookshelves or from the windowsill whenever he needed one. Eventually we found one in the cabinet below the television, with a few morsels of Father's tobacco, Balkan Sobranie, still lining the bowl.
"It is a very nice pipe," Henri said, holding it the way Father always did, his forefinger knotted around the stem.
"You can have it," I said.
He shook his head. "Not for me."
He handed it back. I took it by the lip, careful not to touch the stem, where his fingers had smeared dirt. I remembered Father's own big hands as he puffed away on those occasional Sunday afternoons, how he'd grin as I crawled to escape the smoke.
"I'm sorry about all this nonsense with the pipe," Klara whispered to him.
She led him back to the sofa, determined to carry on, which meant opening a rose book and ogling its abundant and sharply photographed varieties. Henri ran a hand across the page. He didn't seem to care that he was smearing dirt there, too. Or perhaps that just made everything more real. He murmured approvingly as she turned the page, as if the roses were trusted friends he wanted to introduce and they wouldn't mind his liberties. His fingers traced little circles around the pictures as he talked about nestling a garden into nature and preserving the ‘wild' in wilderness.
"Yes," replied Klara, shrinking a little as she struggled to agree. "Yes."
Then he paused as if assessing whether this was the right time to press further, whether she'd been sufficiently wowed. He kept one dirt-streaked hand on the book in her lap. She tried to avoid looking at that hand—so dangerously near, separated from her essence by only a few thin layers of paper and cloth—or at anything else. "I hope it is not too soon to ask a favor," he said.
She shook her head.
"You know I've been working for Elizabeth Silfer for months," he went on.
"She's been so generous to let you come here."
"She hosts occasional dinner parties for my gardening clients. Only this summer, because I am here with you, she is having her dining room remodeled."
It took Klara a moment to catch on. When she did she nearly jumped up and toppled the book, which might have spoiled the moment and saved us all a lot of trouble. "It would be an honor. Truly. Wouldn't it be an honor, Milo?"
"Wouldn't what be an honor?" I asked.
"To host the next dinner party."
I held up the pipe. I meant it to seem like I was considering the offer. But he was already touching her shoulder, saying: "It is an honor for me, really—to build my dream garden here. A dinner party will be the perfect occasion to show it off when we have finished, don't you think?"
She nodded. It was settled then. I lowered the pipe and watched the muscles above his nose. They kept tightening and loosening as he smiled, as if someone else was inhabiting that ruddy skin, pushing and pulling to make it work.
Klara was always reminding me NOT TO RUN OFF WHEN WE HAD GUESTS. But on that day I was sure she wouldn't mind. I marched upstairs to my room. I switched on my bedside lamp—a gooseneck—and angled it down for better study. The pipe wasn't one of Father's favorites. It was too straight and plain for his taste. He preferred the elaborately curved ones that he could hold below his chin. He'd smoke this one mostly in the car, I recalled, or when he was in a hurry. I looked at the smear of dirt, the lines and swirls from Henri's fingers. Then I had a moment of inspiration. I opened the closet. Behind my winter boots lay a fingerprinting kit. I took out its brush, a tin of aluminum powder and acetate film. Carefully I brushed the powder across the dirt and pressed the film on top.
Nothing.
I tried again. Same result. Not even a smudge on the film. That's when I heard the faint sound of Henri's laughter from downstairs. No, I told myself. There was no gardener, no dinner party, none of this was real. I closed my eyes. I was dreaming again. I'd fallen asleep while working on the trireme. Any moment now I'd wake and there would be the squirrels and the hawk.
I opened my eyes.
The pipe was still there.
I threw it in the wastebasket and hurried to the window. In the driveway glimmered a silver Peugeot. How odd. I'd always thought gardeners drove pickup trucks or bicycles. Then I saw the man himself, meandering across the driveway, admiring the trees, the scrubby grass, the bushes around the fence, as if they were all his own, or would be soon. He paused at the garage door. It was a double-garage, and he stood on the right, exactly where the Volvo had been parked.
Would he have opened it if Klara hadn't flitted toward him, her skirt undulating like a jellyfish? I was sure he would have. But she got to him first. She was breathless, excited. I couldn't hear what she said. She pressed something shiny into his palm. He smiled as he dropped it into his shirt pocket, where he'd put the check, then began caressing her bony fingers. I couldn't believe it, yet I could, as he turned them over and pressed his lips against the pale inside of her wrist. Klara froze, her mouth open, before giving a quaint curtsey, an odd thing to do even for her. She kept standing there as he drove off in a cloud of dust—as the breeze rustled her skirt and the dark hair that hung haphazardly at her shoulders. I thought of her outing yesterday. Had she met him then, too? I also recalled previous errands—not as long, but long enough.
Eventually she trudged upstairs, looking as if she'd spent the day digging ditches or plowing rocky fields by hand.
I was waiting for her at the top of the stairs.
"Pipes?" she said wearily when she saw me.
"Father always loved them."
"I suppose you were trying to be nice. Were you trying to be nice, Milo?"
"No."
She strode past me, shoulders lowered, face impassive, as if she hadn't heard me, hadn't wanted to hear. But I refused to be deterred. She sat at her dressing table full of Lladro figurines—half-clad angels and unicorns—all this childish old-fashioned stuff she couldn't bear to throw away. She had her elbows on the table, palms pressed against her eyes. "I wanted to see if he smoked," I explained.
She picked up a comb, then set it back down. "He doesn't. Believe it or not, most gardeners don't."
"I know."
She sighed, uncertain what I was implying. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. He'll begin next weekend. Can you be on your best behavior by then?"
"But . . . "
"Yes, Milo?"
"Father loved these woods."
"He's not here anymore."
"They were his inspiration. And now you're going to . . . "
"Maybe we need a change."
"If only you'd talked to me first."
"I'm sorry, Milo. Everything's happened so fast."
"Like giving Henri a key?"
She picked up the comb again. This time she pulled it furiously through her hair. "You were watching."
"We're all alone out here
, miles from anyone. Have you thought about our safety?"
"He may need to use the bathroom. Or someone on his team . . . "
I gripped the doorframe. "Team?" I felt my voice rising. I couldn't help it. "How much do you know about these people?"
She stared at the blank wall in front of her. "You're being ridiculous again. Just like that nonsense with the pipes. Henri is a well-known gardener. He's worked for Elizabeth Silfer for months."
"And before that?"
"He came from upstate."
I lowered my hand, trying to appear calm, having seen that my direct questions were having no effect. "What about our peace and quiet?" I offered. "We've just begun to . . . "
"To what?" she snapped, turning to me.
"To understand each other."
She threw up her hands. "You spend all day working on your models. Whole afternoons go by when hardly a word passes between us. Is that understanding?"
"Yes," I said, my voice suddenly small.
"Don't delude yourself."
I bit my lip, tasted blood. "How can you say that?"
"I'm sorry, Milo. It's just . . . " Her face softened. "I know you don't want a gardener, or guests, or a dinner party. You'd rather we lived here alone. But do you remember after the accident, when you begged me to stay and not go back to teaching? I told you I would but said we needed to make an effort to get to know people in the area. Do you remember what you said? That you'd always wanted to feel part of a community too? Well that's all I'm trying to do. That's all."
I had no idea what to say. I'd never begged for anything after the accident, only suggested that it would be good for her own peace of mind to remain at home. And when I'd said I wanted to feel part of a community I'd simply meant the two of us, Klara and I, because no one else had ever understood us anyway. So why was she saying such mean things?
I walked away without another word. I was far too upset to face my galley slaves—or even to read Thucydides. I went to the patio and its Roman, my one true and steady friend. His nose had been hacked off and his ears looked like a boxer's, yet he still bore the rugged handsomeness of a youthful Rocky Balboa. Rocky—the only film Mother ever took us to, her not-so-subtle warning against the ills of poverty. "Do you see why school is important? Do you want to end up like him?" she'd whispered as Rocky was mercilessly pummeled, and it was all I could do to laugh, desperate to stand and shout: "At least Rocky can fight back!"
I approached the Roman and put a hand on his forehead and explained everything as best I could. Is it just my imagination that's making me wary of the gardener?
Tu es miser, he said. You're unhappy.
But why?
Cum Caesar venisset, Pompeius miser erat.
He often spoke in parables. "When Caesar came, Pompey was miserable."
What can I do?
He said nothing at first, then I saw him nod, narrowing those sage and stony eyes. Scruta illa frutices.
Examine those bushes?
I turned. I thought this was another parable. Then something caught my eye. A gleam of metal. The spade. I glanced back at the Roman, wondering what I ought to do with it, but he'd said what he had to say—the rest was up to me. I removed a silk handkerchief from my blazer pocket and stepped carefully across the dirt. I reached down and lifted it by its rubberized red plastic handle. It was about eight inches long and came to a sharp point, with "Made in China" stamped across the back. It looked new, hardly used. I regarded its heft, its size, then it suddenly came to me, where I'd seen a spade like this before. The same place I'd seen Henri's scar.
I dropped the thing as if it were a hot potato. I stared at it. Then I picked it up again. Surely this must be a coincidence, I told myself. Every gardener must have a red-handled spade and scars. I thrust it into my blazer pocket and drifted back inside. Yes, I told myself, just a coincidence, because what I'd imagined wasn't possible—was a violation of the fundamental divide between fiction and life. Still I remembered the odd feeling I'd had when first meeting Henri. And then . . . It came back to me suddenly. Something he'd said when describing the importance of landscaping. I could swear he'd given a sly smile before the words had left his mouth. He must have known I'd recognize them. And I had. I hadn't wanted to, but I had.
"There is no beauty without context."
No horror, either.
Excerpts from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Psychopath
(Dedication): "To Milo, who knows why."
"Now listen, Keith, you can't have beauty without context.
It's like a killing without pretext,
Like everything you hate: all artifice and little art,
An empty flourish of technique, no heart."
But Keith had doubts. Was this another rule?
Another boundary that was just a tool
For bold transgression? It was hard to always shock,
To make it new, to pick the lock
Of ordinary life. But isn't that the role of art?
To take what's normal and show its true and terrifying heart?
He thought all this as he sat down to work,
His toolbox and his spade, scarred hands so full of dirt
That he could hardly grip the needle or the string.
Behind him was the waterfall, the trees, the ring
Of boulders he had made. The camera on its tripod
All set to show the truth behind the great façade
Of skin. He looked up at the sky and saw the crows
And said: be patient! Then he smiled, bestowed
On Alice all his comfort and his charm.
Here, he said. Let's start with your arm.
I awoke the next morning to the sound of rain lashing the windows and beating the roof. The house felt under siege. I curled beneath my blanket and squeezed my eyes, but it went on and on, with crashes of thunder like cannon shots and rustling leaves like advancing men. I heard Klara shuffling in the hallway, closing windows. She'd recently begun leaving them open at night. Then she dashed downstairs. I imagined water sliding down our kitchen walls and dripping from the low warped ceiling, leaking through the old casement windows and the heavy front door, seeping into the dank basement, filling the patio, flooding the grounds until our house became an island in a roiling sea. And Klara moving through the rooms clutching her nightgown, her face lit green by every lightening flash as she chose whether to do battle or succumb.
I missed breakfast. By the time I trudged downstairs Klara had buckets in the kitchen and rags wedged beneath the old French patio doors. Something brooding and dim was on the stereo—probably Chopin—and she stood in the living room, near Father's vast library shelves, with her nightgown loosely buckled and her face puffed from the morning's exertions. The storm still raged. But she was absorbed in reading. She didn't even notice me until I cleared my throat. I tried to smile with my usual pleasantness, but everything suddenly weighed on me: my irrational yet inescapable fears about Henri. I recognized the book.
"Father used to read this to you, didn't he?" she said.
I shook my head, refusing to be drawn into the memory, even as she intoned the words: "I remembered, shuddering, the mad enthusiasm that hurried me on to the creation of my hideous enemy . . ."
"No," I said. "Please."
"He was always fascinated by these old horror stories."
Why was she doing this? Why pick out Frankenstein, of all things, on a morning like this? "Are the leaks very bad?" I asked, glancing around.
"Not as bad as I'd feared."
She returned to volume to the shelf. "I received a letter from Father's literary agent," she said.
I struggled to recall the man's name. He'd only ever come to the house once, from New York, in his Audi and pressed khakis. "When was this?"
"Yesterday, I think. I didn't open it until this
morning."
"What does he say?"
"He asks about unpublished manuscripts. Especially the sequel Father was working on. I know there must be something in the attic, but . . ."
I glanced at the rain-streaked window. There was a face. Hovering just outside. It looked melted, smeared by the water's refraction and its own glistening wetness. It saw me and smiled—not a white-toothed smile but something horrible and maggoty. I knew it must be an illusion, a warped rendering of the swaying trees beyond, but for the moment this knowledge did me no good. I heard Father's gravelly voice in the wind: "Don't let them destroy the woods."
"Did you get it?" I asked Klara, determined to snap out of this. "The manuscript, I mean?"
"I don't have the heart to. It's still too soon. I'm thinking of your peace and quiet too, don't you see?"
All that day and the next it came down, sheets and sheets of rain. This was the way of Vermont summers. Every now and then a spell of winter's gloom breaks up the monotony of sun, sun, sun. I took advantage of the weather to work. I holed up in the study, trying to forget, to wash away everything from that dripping face to Henri's scar to Father's increasing agitation in the days and weeks leading up to the accident. I pushed it all out of my mind: Father's sleepless eyes, his irritability, the way he began to avoid me, even the time he tripped down the stairs and nearly broke his leg, yet seemed oddly disappointed that the injury wasn't worse. Yes, I washed it away, away, and soon the universe was no bigger than the miniature spear-points I sharpened, the chains I tautened, the support skeleton I laid down in preparation for the upper decks. I vaguely heard Klara drift around the house checking for leaks. But it meant nothing. I didn't even know who she was anymore. A workman? She might as well have been. I succeeded in this until the following evening, over supper, when we sat together at our usual places in the dining room. She'd lit a pair of candles. It was the storms. She was afraid of the lights going out. Their flickering flames shone against the wallpaper. "How is your model boat coming along?" she asked.
The Garden of Blue Roses Page 5
