The Garden of Blue Roses

by Michael Barsa

  While Klara and Henri were engaged in more kitchen-klatsch I brought these items to my room and carefully arranged them on the bed. I wasn't sure whether I ought to say something or make some sign. In the end I just closed my eyes and breathed, then pulled the needle and thread from my nightstand drawer.

  One of the benefits of making models is that I've never been intimidated by fine manual work. I was always the one to fix Klara's buttons or sew a ragged sleeve. To her the work was demeaning—women's work—while to me it focused the mind. It soothed.

  I quickly sewed together the trouser bottoms and sleeve ends. Then I tucked the shirt into the tweed jacket and sewed the trousers to the shirt, leaving the shirt a little unbuttoned. Only afterwards did I realize that I'd forgotten one of the fedoras. I went back into the hallway. Still empty. Again I heard their voices. They were no longer in the kitchen. They seemed to be in the entrance hall directly below the stairs. I heard Klara say in a low voice: "I have to know. I'm sorry. I can't do anything until I find out."

  "You are not responsible for what Milo did or who he is."

  "Not directly, no, but it's possible that everything stems from my own negligence."

  "You are looking for reasons, explanations."

  "Please don't try to talk me out of this." I heard a jangle of keys. "I shouldn't be long. Will you be alright?"

  "I am not afraid of him," he said, "not for myself."

  "That's another thing I need to find out, whether we should be, whether he's capable of . . ."

  "And you think this doctor . . . ?"

  "Zeiss. I talked to him years ago. He wanted to do a scan. You see? I was negligent even then. I didn't want to face the truth. But now I have no choice. After yesterday . . ."

  The rest was lost as they made their way out the front door. For a time I just stood there, wondering what my sister could be talking about. It wasn't the first time she'd referred to her own responsibility for me. But I'd never heard her talk about a doctor before.

  I hurried back to my bedroom just in time to see her bouncing away in the old MG. Henri remained at the edge of the driveway. He was hunched, coiled like a question mark, his thumbs looped into the pockets of his faded jeans. He watched her go just as I watched him stay, and suddenly I was conscious of how alone we were—no Marta, no workmen, not a soul within miles. Just me and this infamous psychopath sprung to life from the pages of Father's book.

  He turned and made his way slowly back to the house. And to me. He'd expect me to be in my bedroom, where I'd be trapped, at his mercy. I picked up Father's clothes and raced into the hallway. I'd just managed to duck into my parents' room when I heard footsteps on the stairs—the loud, shuffling boot steps of a man with no need for stealth.

  In a few steps I crossed the room and grabbed the fedora, then I was back at the door, watching through the slit. In the dim, shadowy light of the hallway I saw his white shirt pause at the top of the stairs and those eyes glance up and down. He was drawn to the portraits. He reached out and touched the first one. Then he called out: "Milo? Do you want to come out and play? It is just the two of us. No use pretending anymore."

  It was the mocking tone of the bullies that had once tormented me. And like the worst of them, Henri knew just where to strike:

  "I know you believe in me. Come, let me show you."

  Where could I go? He was blocking the stairs. I began to perspire. That's when I remembered the narrow winding steps at this end of the hall. The ones we never used because they remained unfinished—a vestige of Father's aborted attempt to build a tower like in the castles of his native England. They were only accessible from a low passage that ran alongside Mother and Father's room. With the clothes and fedora in my arms I slipped down this passage, immured in stone, lost in shadows. I felt the walls. There. The wooden door. I turned the rusted lock and pulled.

  "I also know you are not really afraid. This is all exciting to you."

  It creaked open. I slipped through and hastily closed it behind me. Now I was in total darkness. I felt for the brickwork, then cautiously advanced, but caution meant little under the circumstances. The first stone step crumbled immediately underfoot and nearly sent me tumbling—only the narrowness of the staircase saved me. The next few steps were solid, and I was just getting into the rhythm of the descent when suddenly…nothing. No step, just empty space. What could I do? I teetered, then gave myself to the pull of gravity and jumped.

  I didn't fall far before I landed on what must have been a slope. I landed on my bottom and began to slide, finally stopping in a pile of leaves. No, not leaves. Paper. Mounds and mounds of paper, redolent of ink and dust. I picked myself up, shedding them, wanting them off me, I didn't care if they were old bills, though I knew they weren't. This was where Father had once tossed his unfinished, unwanted drafts, here in this unfinished tower. I stumbled forward and saw a crack of light, a metal door. I turned the handle and pulled. It screamed against its hinges. I blinked, I was free, at the side of the house near the woods. I'd lost the fedora, but I didn't care—I still had Father's clothes, and they were enough. I ran.

  The sun shone through the forest canopy in strobes and beams. I soon found myself back at the old Indian wall. I tossed Father's clothes over it. Then I climbed after them and crouched behind the mossy stones. I could no longer see the house, just a screen of twisted trees and underbrush. Still I remained alert to him, to that terrible voice, as I began gathering leaves, stuffing them through the shirt buttons I'd left open. A faint scent of Father lingered in those clothes, but it was soon masked by the smell of so much mulch.

  When I'd finished I quickly buttoned the shirt and tweed jacket and hauled Father deeper into the woods. There was no path anymore, just damp hilly earth, and I dragged him by the shirt collar, leaking leaves like a decapitated body might leak blood. I was nearly out of breath when I paused, sensing something ahead of me, something unnatural. There, behind a screen of trees. Encased almost entirely in vines and weeds. The rusted hulk of an old farm truck.

  I dragged Father to it. These relics were more common in the Vermont woods than one imagined—the legacy of so much farmland turned to forest. I managed to pry open the driver's door and peer inside. The leather bench seat had been eaten away to reveal rusted springs. The steering wheel was gone, the dashboard slick with moss. The entire interior had the crayon odor of old diesel fuel.

  "Isn't this fun?" Father asked.

  "Vroom, vroom!" I said.

  I grabbed Father and wedged him into the driver's seat. "Is this what it was like? Were you sitting just like this?" He slumped forward. Leaves tumbled out of his open neck. Then came a breeze, pulling more leaves out of him. I picked up a handful of them from the ground and threw them in the air, and they scattered over him, a bloody mess of leaves.

  "I always helped you, you know," I said. "Now I need a favor in return."

  Silence. Was he really dead? Just a pile of leaves stuffed into clothes? But by that token Jesus was just a carpenter nailed to some planks of wood (and why has no one ever seen the irony in that?). Then all of a sudden . . . A cloud moved in front of the sun. Everything became dark and the breeze died away. I felt oddly cold. That's when I heard his voice:

  Son.

  I opened my mouth. Not a sound emerged. This was what I'd wanted, I told myself, why I was here, yet I still couldn't form the words. Finally I managed: I'm in the middle of a plot. It's out of my control. I don't know what to do.

  You need my advice?

  Ironic, yes, but I didn't know where else to turn. I closed my eyes.

  Did you manage to create Keith for real? Bring him to life like you'd never been able to do on the page? And then did he turn on you?

  In a manner of speaking.

  How do I defeat him?

  How do you defeat a fiction?

  That's just it. I don't know.

  Where do
fictions live?

  In books. So I thought. But now . . .

  No, not in books.

  Then where?

  In the mind. Of the reader.

  What are you saying?

  Do you believe?

  That's when I remembered the reviews of Father's early work, how critics said he strained credulity and invited disbelief. Yes, I saw it now, the way out of this novel I was trapped in—out of the entire mental architecture I'd built up and only now realized was a cage . . .

  All at once I snapped out of it. I opened my eyes. There it was again.

  Snap.

  A branch, a twig. I turned around. The trees shook, jeering at me: over here, over here. "I know who you are," I called out to the mute woods. Another snap. I whirled the other way. He was circling, toying with me. "And Klara does, too," I went on. "I told her."

  It doesn't matter. She doesn't believe you. She thinks you're the fictional character.

  I picked up a stone and backed into a tree. All at once I turned and yelled and hurled it. It bounced harmlessly through the underbrush. I ran back to the house, leaving Father behind, bursting through the door and up the stairs. I locked myself in my room and stumbled to the window. I was never so glad to see Marta's station wagon or the old MG in the driveway, to realize there were people nearby, even ones who doubted me—anything to escape my relentless imagination.

  In the mind. Of the reader.

  I opened my door and heard Klara and Henri in the living room and Marta humming in the kitchen. Their voices girded me even though I could hear the conspiracy, the overbearing concern, in Klara's low tones. I went to the bathroom and splashed my hands and face and scrubbed my muddy shoes. Then I removed my clothes. I changed into pajamas and spent the rest of the day in bed.

  I told Marta I wasn't feeling well and instructed her to leave soup and crackers before my door. In the evening I drifted early to sleep. My dreams were of Henri again. He stood in my room, looking down at me, hanging his head. "How can you possibly expect to defeat me? You'd have to defeat yourself first." I stirred awake. I was laughing, giggling. Yes, I thought, I could defeat myself, my own belief, because really it was absurd to imagine that Henri was Keith somehow brought to life. I laughed at the shadows, at the window, at the moon-glow and rustling trees, laughed at my slender bed, thick walls, my antique dresser and night table, laughed at everything but the smell, which I suddenly noticed rising from beneath me, the smell of earthworms, maggots, decay. The smell that quelled my laughter, though not my nerves, the smell that forced me, slowly, to look down and see on the floor a badly sewn-up arm protruding from beneath my bed, the arm of Father's shirt stuffed with its damp and rotting leaves.

  The morning was cool and bracing and blue, and I was surprisingly calm given that Father remained beneath my bed, leaking and smelling of decay. I suppose there's a comfort in having the worst actually happen and realizing that you can sleep right through it. I felt refreshed, rested, ready to tackle the question of exactly how Father had gotten there, or rather why Henri had done it (as it could only have been him) other than to frighten me into realizing that he'd followed me into the woods and could enter the house and my room at will. Yes, I sensed already that there was another motive at work, another element in his designs. Yet it wasn't until the police arrived shortly before breakfast that I realized their full and threatening intricacy.

  I'd just thrown open the window for some fresh air. A few streaky clouds marred the sky. I could just see the distant road to Rutland. I was wondering what easy morning rituals its residents might be enjoying—wolfing down greasy plates of bacon or combing The Rutland Herald for shopping mall coupons—when I spotted a metallic glint through the trees. It was coming up our driveway. Henri? Marta? No, it was a vast American sedan, and when it finally emerged I knew right away what it was. Why are unmarked cars so obvious? The police ought to use beaten-up little Fiats. It rumbled to a stop in front of the garage. For a minute or so no one emerged. Then the door opened. Out he climbed. Heavy-set, with a tight-fitting sports jacket that bulged where a shoulder-holster hung. Another cliché. He hitched up his pants by the waist and lunged straight for the house.

  And, I knew, for me.

  I opened my door and heard a knocking downstairs. I pictured the huge clown-head knocker that Father had installed years ago. I told myself I should run and stash Father in one of the guest rooms. Still I couldn't move. I was succumbing already to the lure of giving up, how easy it would be. I remained rooted there, imagining the officer's surprise on seeing Father beneath my bed and my half-hearted attempt to make light of the situation: Oh that? It's nothing, a scarecrow, I've been sewing it in my spare time. Boo! I even opened my door a little wider to make it easier for him, to show him I had nothing to hide.

  I waited. More knocking. This is a lot of knocking! I could almost hear the officer's gruff voice as he asked for me, and Klara's innocent-seeming reply: "Is there a problem?"

  "I need to ask him some questions, ma'am. We've gotten new information about the accident. Is he home?"

  He'd trudge into my room and see Father right away. Then would come the questions. The almost wolfish disbelief when I told the truth. Followed by a pat on the shoulder, a not-so-gentle request to come to the station for a little talk about your parents. It would be the opposite of all those parent-teacher meetings where the teachers wanted to ask them about me. And I'd go. What choice would I have? I'd take one last glance over my shoulder at Father lying there and hear the officer's reassurance that it'll be there when you return, even though I knew I'd never return and that a forensics team was already on its way. Would Klara finally get what she wanted, then? To have the estate all to herself? To be alone with Henri?

  Where was she? I gazed at her room. Her door was open wide. "Klara?" I called out, still not daring to leave my room.

  The knocking stopped.

  I braced myself. I hadn't heard the front door open. Yet I couldn't be sure. Any moment now I might hear footsteps. Up the stairs, some heavy, some light, and Klara's shaken whisper before they turned the corner: "He's right up here, in his room. Be careful, he's not well." But no. The house remained quiet as a grave.

  I drifted back to the window. Was I surprised to see them at the garage? They—Klara and the officer both? The officer was inspecting the garage door's lock, running his thick fingers across the plate. He talked out of the side of his mouth. Klara nodded. She must have been behind the house, must have heard the knocking and come around. Now she stood beside him, arms folded against the morning chill. Finally he lifted the door. He did it with a quick motion, as if it were nothing for him, then pulled a flashlight from his belt. Into the darkness he plunged, the flashlight's beam dancing while Klara remained outside, a stone-faced statue in the breeze. She didn't even flinch when a rabbit darted across the driveway not three feet from her. They always look so guilty, rabbits, as if they've just devoured your vegetable garden. This one seemed worried for its life.

  After a short while the officer came back out holding a clear plastic bag. A shriveled lump of blue lay at the bottom. A pair of latex gloves.

  My gloves.

  I've already mentioned this, I know: how I often wore surgical gloves when working on my models, how I'd been wearing them on the day Henri first arrived. He must have noticed this—as he noticed everything—must have catalogued it in his evil brain. I pressed my hands against the window as the officer held up the bag for Klara's inspection. She recoiled a little. Eventually she nodded: Yes, those are Milo's. I scrabbled against the glass. I was being buried alive, my character assassinated before my very eyes.

  She came to me several minutes later, knocking gently on my door. By then I was back in bed, curled beneath the covers, staring at Father's protruding sleeve and the sewn-up stump where his hand ought to have been.

  "Milo? Can I talk to you?"

  At first I did
n't respond. But she persisted. What could I do? I didn't dare let her in. It would have been the final nail in my coffin—the one she herself was fitting for me.

  "I have a headache, Klara."

  "You're not feeling well."

  It was a statement, not a question, and I let it go unanswered, because that was what she obviously needed to believe. Yes, everything we knew was just a matter of belief, I saw that now, not just about fictional characters but real people too. And for a moment I was tempted to believe her: that I was sick and not right in the mind. So how did Father get beneath my bed? I wanted to scream. Am I dreaming him there? No—I couldn't ask this. I could only listen as she whispered "I'm sorry" as if it were all her fault. Which in a way it was, though I didn't know yet how—didn't know the full extent of her own terrible guilt.

  I had no idea how long I remained in bed. It felt like days. Every time I heard a car I imagined it was the police. I almost longed for them to come, just to relieve the suspense. But they were only gardening trucks. They arrived in the morning and remained like slumbering dinosaurs until the sky was evening-purple. What happened in between was vague. I couldn't sleep. I leafed through military manuals and historical texts. I read about the invention of the phalanx by the little-known Epiminodas of Thebes. At one point I thought I saw the Mormon boy hiking up our driveway, but when I looked there was no one—just Henri's workers pulling assault-like implements from the trucks and carrying them on slings around the house. I felt their din from my room—a slight but unmistakable tremor whenever I pressed my head against the wall.

  Still I began, despite everything, to plan. Not consciously—more in the way a small animal might plan when trapped in a hole, eyes shifting frantically to calculate the angle of its one last chance to escape. Again I thought about smuggling Father into one of the guest rooms. Only I knew Marta would find him during her very next deep cleaning. Even at her age she was remarkably thorough, sticking that feather duster everywhere. There was one place I could stash Father where she wouldn't find him—yet this was the one place in the house I was reluctant to go.