The Garden of Blue Roses

by Michael Barsa

  She stared at the table. "I know."

  She began never taking off her make-up. I believe this is called Method Acting. Really it's just forgetting who you are. She also started mixing Mother's drinks (Long Island Iced Teas in tall glasses) and chewing gum and talking like a New Jersey whore. I wish I could say the actual performance was any better—that seeing her in context made everything comprehensible. But it was an endless cavalcade of over-acting—bright young high schoolers putting on despair the way they'd put on a new shirt, constantly checking themselves in the mirror to see how it fit.

  Then there was Father. He said he wouldn't miss it, and for once he kept his word. He sat perched at the edge of the folding chair like a bird, a black-clad parrot mouthing her words and echoing, in haunting miniature, her every grimace and smile and fake-drunken lunge. At first I thought he was just playing along. Then I realized it was far more sinister than that. He wasn't mouthing her words after the fact, wasn't imitating her at all. No, what I realized was that he was actually controlling her, manipulating her like he did me, night after night. I began to sweat. My fists balled up. Yet I couldn't simply punch him—that would accomplish nothing. He probably wouldn't feel it, or my fist would go right through him. So during the third act I excused myself and hurried to the bathroom. I hovered over the line of institutional sinks and mirrors until I was alone. That's when I took the dime from my pocket. Roosevelt was a strong President and the year it was minted, 1971, was an auspicious one—all odd numbers with a symmetry of first and last digits. With its rough edge I etched a large X in the mirror. I centered my reflection over it, cross atop my nose. I'd never done this before, but somehow I knew it would work. Though my resemblance to him wasn't as pronounced as Klara's, he was right there staring back at me—the small bloodshot eyes, the heavy brow.

  When I returned he was gone.

  I felt powerful that night as I turned off the light—more powerful than ever. The wind rustled through the trees and an owl hooted as if to congratulate me for what I'd done. Still I couldn't help being uneasy. For the first time I felt myself in a fiction. One where truly anything was possible. Looking back, I realize that even then I knew it wouldn't be the last.

  After breakfast Klara strolled onto the patio. She stood with her hands on her hips, letting the breeze tease her hair. Meanwhile I hovered behind the patio doors, playing out various conversations in my mind: how I might tell her what I suspected and gauge how much she knew. I practiced such talks nearly every day, in steamy bathtub whispers or across the unlined pages of my diary. But I hadn't yet found a way to do it for real.

  At one point she took up her sketchbook from the chaise. She cradled it in one arm and began to draw. I could tell she was distracted. I decided it was now or never. I propelled myself onto the patio. "Oh, hello," she said without turning. "What do you think of a little bower over there?"

  She was gesturing vaguely into the distance. I didn't care. I was focused solely on my own careful words. "There's something wrong, Klara."

  "Really? Is it too near the woods?"

  "With Henri, I mean."

  "Is he ill? Did he call?"

  "He's—he's not what he seems."

  She sighed. "You're still upset about my hair."

  Then we both heard the car.

  "I am so happy to see you both," he said as he climbed the steps. He wore a weathered beige shirt and faded jeans. His hair in its ponytail was as glassy and shifting as a springtime flood.

  "I was just showing Milo where I wanted to put the bower."

  He glanced at the sketchbook, then at her. He was too polite to say anything directly about her dress or the white streak. "Perfect," he said.

  "Milo thinks it's too close to the woods."

  "Not after we cut them back."

  He glanced at me, and again I was struck by his eyes, how they shimmered with such clinical dispassion.

  He turned back to Klara. "Come, let me show you." They descended the steps. I didn't follow. I just stood there watching. He held his hands behind his back as they walked. "You mentioned the garden as a tribute to your parents," he began, "but mostly I see it as a tribute to you. Please forgive me if I am overstepping . . . "

  "No, please," she said, touching his broad shoulder. "It's true. For the first time in years I can see the possibilities. Of what I want."

  He stopped and glanced around. He seemed to be judging distances. Klara handed him the sketchpad. "Do not mistake me," he said as he began roughly drawing. "Your father was a great man. In many ways he made me what I am. But we all need to become our own people in the end."

  Klara paused. "Whatever can you mean?"

  "In his books one senses the dark mystery of wilderness. But we can tame this. You see, he has inspired me."

  He held up the sketchbook. I could just make out what it showed. The woods cut back, the land plowed into rows, its dark mystery expunged.

  I'd hardly moved when, around noon, a pair of workmen arrived with great bags of fertilizer across their shoulders. Henri and Klara were still traipsing about. He was talking about Gaia, Rebirth, Nature's endless recurrence—obvious manipulation-words—and I could see how they affected her. And me, too. I actually got the feeling he was saying these things for my benefit, in a sort of coded language—telling me he knew that I knew exactly who he was.

  Then he saw his men. Suddenly I sensed a different act, a different audience. He whistled at them to stop. They looked at him with more annoyance than fear, as if they'd rehearsed this moment many times against their will. "Take those bags back," he said. "I told you not to use sodium nitrate. It will only ruin these clay soils. How many times must I remind you to use my natural alternative? Is it in the truck?"

  One of the workmen nodded.

  "Come," he said to Klara. "Let me show you my secret formula."

  I watched them go. Yet their effect lingered on. The gusty, unpredictable breezes, the harassing flies, the shrieking birds—everything around me seemed agitated somehow, in flux. Even the recent rains could be interpreted as a sign of divine displeasure, of the heavens out of sorts. That's what Klara used to tell me when it stormed. Also how Father himself once wrote it, in one of his darkest, grimmest tales:

  The thunder crashed, the waves welled up and down,

  And Martin should have known ‘twas time to turn around,

  To listen to the signs and portents,

  The weather-churned and evil torments

  That plagued his mind, that fed his rage,

  That made him keen to set the stage

  For his own ruin. But in the end he didn't care.

  He knew himself; he measured what he'd done,

  Still saw the child, a neighbor boy, so curious about his gun,

  And pointing it at his own head, was playing with the trigger

  When Martin interceded, saved him. Hero to the neighbors, yes!

  And to himself? He'd placed the gun right by the bed, then got undressed,

  Said: "Here, young man, you owe me." He saw the look in that boy's eye,

  Betrayal, sure, but more. Respect for Martin's honesty?

  More like expectation.

  For Martin, like the ancient gods of Greece, had quite a reputation.

  (From Fair Weather Fiends)

  Yes, I knew something was coming—knew it in my bones—yet it wasn't until mid-afternoon that I saw what it was, what our own signs and portents amounted to. I was in Klara's room. Occasionally I do this, sit on her four-poster bed and smooth a hand over the crinkly pink cover she's had for years, an innocent girlish thing she could never let go. Would she now? I wondered. I was already becoming nostalgic. I picked over the items on her nightstand—a fat novel (Middlemarch), lip balm, hot water bottle for her back, an old Cosmopolitan magazine (devoid of white streaks). Really I was breathing in the scent from her pillow and thinkin
g of childhood—the smell of her dresses and knees, her laughter, her teasing—before everything had become so complicated, so adult, between us. I was in a kind of reverie, lost in those lost years, when it all came crashing down—when I heard a great crash at the bottom of the stairs.

  I jerked upright, suddenly alert to the here and now, half-expecting the door to fly open at any moment and for Klara to stand there aghast, accusing, agape. But all was silent. I crept across the room. I opened the door.

  "Hello?"

  "It's nothing, I'm OK," came Marta's voice—a plangent cry.

  I bounded down and found her there, at the foot of the banister, her dark arms and heavily stockinged legs clawing the air like an overturned beetle's. I gripped her crepe-paper arms. They were cool and spongy. I helped her up. "What happened?" I asked.

  She hobbled into the kitchen and fell into a chair at the wooden table where she ate. "The floor must have been wet. I didn't pay attention."

  "Had you been washing it?"

  "No."

  I went back into the hallway. Only then did I notice the dirt tracked everywhere. Not just dirt—also pine needles and leaves. I marched out the patio doors. There was a workman raking a hoe. It wasn't the tall hippie but a skinny young man with hair greased to a point like some drug-addled rock star soon to die from a heady dose of heroin and fame.

  "Have you seen my sister?" I asked him.

  He stopped work and glanced into the distance, at the birds circling over the woods. That's when it occurred to me that Henri had taken her out there, into Father's realm, and without waiting for an answer I hiked past the workman, hiked straight up the now-barren rise. The trees loomed impassively in front of me, giving nothing away—no broken branches, no footprints, nothing to confirm my fears. Still I knew they could have entered at a different path—there were several leading in. I strode along the latticework of branches. The ground became muddy and damp.

  At the next path I saw it, the fresh stamp of a boot heel.

  Before I'd made a conscious decision I'd plunged back inside, stumbling over fallen branches, trying to ignore the creatures chirping all around—that excited, eager sound. I crossed a shallow ravine. On the other side lay a mound of stones—an Indian grave, as we'd once called it. I hiked up to the intersection of the path that led to the clearing. I stopped and glanced every which way. Something was missing. The spade in the tree. I could have sworn it was right here.

  There rose a mocking clash of leaves.

  I panicked and hurried on, telling myself it must have been there, that I must have missed it or gotten the wrong intersection, the wrong path. Up ahead I saw sunbeams. A promise of happiness, warmth. I picked up my pace until the leaves had thinned and I spied, in the clearing, the telltale flash of clothes, different-colored clothes close together. Huddled. Huddled and bent over. I lunged behind a bush. Did I really want to see?

  I couldn't resist.

  Darkness. That's what it felt like—a great darkness clouding my mind, a vision of Satanic rituals and all the lascivious acts New Englanders used to imagine occurring in the woods. Klara and Henri were standing over the ruins of one of our forts. Her hair was disheveled. She was holding a Chilton's Auto Repair Guide and wire-cutters.

  "I can't believe this," she said.

  She was flipping through the book. Henri thrust his hands deep into his pockets, a gesture of seeming innocence. "It was hidden beneath that log. I do not know what made me look there. What does it mean?"

  "The pages are all wet and stuck together. It's very hard to read."

  A terrible memory came to me: the shadow I'd seen when I was last in the woods.

  "Here," she went on. "Diagrams of brake wires, with handwritten instructions for accessing them."

  "The handwriting. Is it Milo's?"

  "It's very smudged. I can only make out a couple of words. Oh God."

  "What is it?"

  She pointed. "Volvo."

  He touched the small of her back as she lowered herself down, her hand groping until it found a log to sit on. Henri sat next to her. "We should call the police, no?" he said.

  She shook her head.

  "You said you had doubts about your parents' deaths," he went on.

  "No, no."

  "We have a duty. The police could investigate. Inspect the car."

  "It's gone. Totaled."

  "We can't simply ignore what we've found."

  She paused. "Maybe this was just Milo's way of understanding what happened."

  "You give him great benefit of the doubt."

  "He's the only family I have left." She leaned against his shoulder. "Maybe I should have warned you. As a child he could be so quiet and innocent, then do something terrible, pretending it was a game . . ." She closed her eyes. "He had a hard time with our father. We both did."

  "A lot of people have had hard times with their fathers," Henri said. He looked at his hands. "Did I ever tell you of mine? He insisted my brother and I join the Army. He whipped us with his belt to get us used to the discipline."

  "I'm so sorry. I had no idea . . ."

  "What I am saying, Klara, is that I have changed. I grew up. I escaped him. So your brother . . . If he did this, it can be no excuse, what happened years ago."

  What was he saying? That history didn't matter? That we were all born yesterday?

  She glanced down. "There's something I ought to tell you. About me. It's not just Milo—"

  "Shh." He touched her chin. "What is past is past, Klara. You don't have to tell me anything." He reached down to pluck a dandelion. "How perfect these are," he said, pushing it into the hair above her ear. It hung there, drooping. "You deserve to be happy."

  I barely heard her voice through a tear-choked smile. "I don't even remember what that means."

  I had no idea how long I sat there. At one point I noticed insects buzzing against my face and moisture on the seat of my trousers. When I looked up again Klara and Henri were gone, the clearing empty, and I wondered if I'd been dreaming again—if this had been a trick of light and sound. Then I realized what I hadn't heard. She hadn't told him it was impossible—that I'd never sabotage the Volvo because I did nothing all day except build models out of wood and plastic and was a harmless house-bound boy. She would have said such things in my dreams.

  The young workman was gone when I returned—his hoe abandoned in the soil, the patio doors open, sounds of commotion emanating from within. Then he appeared in the doorway, smirking as if eager to see what would happen next. "Your sister is asking about you," he said.

  She was in the entrance hall, hair disheveled, face clenched in a grimace that would have been appropriate in charades to express divine wrath. "I can't believe you abandoned Marta," she hissed.

  I opened my mouth. I was still a little dazed. I wanted to rewind history's clock, to put our relationship on firmer footing for this moment. But I was compelled to speak the simple truth—that Marta had slipped on the dirt her workers had brought in, no doubt using the key she'd given them, and that I'd only left Marta to find her.

  "Me?" Klara said. "Why?"

  "I needed to talk to you."

  "About what?"

  "The difference between happiness and delusion."

  She threw up her hands and stormed out the front door, leaving me alone on the entrance hall's sea of chessboard tiles. Pawn on Queen Four. I heard a car engine hum to life. I went to the door. The workmen were helping Marta into the Peugeot. Henri was making a great show of inspecting the engine as Klara circled to the passenger door. "Get back inside, Milo," she commanded. "We're taking her to the hospital."

  "Wait."

  I moved forward. But I didn't get very far. Klara intercepted me, holding up a hand. "We'll talk later," she said, her voice soft, almost pleading. She was breathing heavily through her nose. Beads of perspiration hung acr
oss her upper lip, bringing into relief a thin line of hair. All around us was silence—the workmen had stopped moving—and her breathing was the only sound, her face the only object with any life. She pushed the white streak off her forehead. "Just go back and wait."

  "Don't do this," I said.

  "We have no choice. Marta is hurt."

  "That's not what I mean. Don't think you can write this story however you want."

  "Come quickly," called Henri. "She's in pain."

  Klara turned and walked away, choosing him. They drove off—averted faces, crunching tires—while the workmen vanished around the side of the house and the dust settled all around me. What would she say if I just walked off into the woods? I wondered. Lay down beneath a tree and never moved, becoming a mossy mound that someone found years later and wrote sad poetry about?

  Ode to a Forgotten Corpse.

  I wandered back inside. I stopped at the line of hooks in the entrance hall. The MG's key dangled there like a half-forgotten talisman. Father used to rub it—for good fortune, he said—before traveling the countryside looking for old houses to inspire the settings for his books. This was when I was very young, before he was satisfied with just having me.

  I took the key and rubbed it with my thumb.

  The garage door opened with a sound like cars rushing over a metal bridge. I saw the blank spot on the wall where the wire cutters used to be and an old workbench where I'd last seen the Chilton's Guide. Henri could have easily stolen them, but…when did he have the opportunity? That's when I remembered the footprints on the morning after the rains, muddy and filled with water, leading right up to this door. From where? I closed my eyes. From the house. That was why I'd ignored them, assuming they were Klara's. But if Henri had parked further down the driveway, where his car wouldn't be seen, and walked the rest of the way, he'd emerge from a hedge on the side of the house and approach the garage from there.

  I leaned against the MG—sleek and blue like a fish—as I pondered this possibility, knowing I wouldn't be able to prove it, wondering how much that even mattered now. I climbed inside. The car was cramped and smelled like Father—a musty, feral scent emanating from the cracked leather seats. I held my breath and turned the key. Chigger chigger—a clown's evil laugh. Was the car itself mocking me? I tried again.