I tried to keep the memories at bay. I closed my eyes. It didn't work. It was like a dam had finally burst—everything came flooding back. I heard my bedroom door creak open and the soft padding of his slippers in the darkness. I felt the weight of him on the mattress. "Milo?" he'd whisper, and I'd pretend to be asleep, but it never worked because he'd say "Let me tell you a story" and I'd open my eyes to see the ghost of his looming face tinged with what passed in him as guilt. "No, Daddy. Please. Not again."
"I'm sorry, son. I wish there was another way."
"But I see things."
"That is your gift."
I had no choice once the words took over, falling from his lips like water drops, infecting me with the fun-house horror of his imagination:
Did Keith feel guilt? He did, but only once, with one artistic piece:
The Magic of Reality. A non-nature work. Its star? His niece.
A girl of maybe fifteen years, enamored of her uncle Keith
While he, who hated children (how they're coddled, wreathed
In un-ironic splendor), invited her to do a show.
A real show! While Keith had doubts, the Master said he had to go
And do it, prove that all compunction was a lie.
Keith watched himself in disbelief, say: close your eyes!
Her blouse bloomed red from where he stabbed her.
He carried her out to the box; she hardly stirred,
Just moaned as he so gently laid her in and closed the lid.
And donned that magic cape, still feeling pity for the kid
But told himself that it was time
For her to become more, to turn sublime.
He'd encircle me with these words, bending close, watching what they did to my eyes. Here was the great secret to his success: me, a foolproof gauge to heightened terror. He'd keep coming back, retelling a scene in different ways, until my eyes darted around like little mice struggling to stay afloat and he knew he'd nailed it. Then he got greedy, asking what else I saw, what the characters looked like in the tiniest detail. My lips moved of their own volition. The character took on a life of his own. The words just flowed out of me—words that didn't create Keith anymore, but simply tried to keep pace with the creation. "The stage was dark. Red velvet curtains. Gargoyles on either side. A huge brass clock overhead. Keith was wearing his white tuxedo and gloves beneath the cape. He wheeled the box onto the middle of the stage. There were only a few people in the audience. Old men sitting by themselves. They were hunched, bored. Then they saw him. Their eyes shone in the darkness. They struggled to get a better look. They wanted something new, something different. Keith pulled out his saw. Here it was: the magic of no illusions."
I saw everything. Not in verse but in even scarier prose, which he'd then translate into his own inimitable style. Keith, Keith, Keith. The name was like a curse, whispered into my ear night after night by a man desperate for a bestseller. How had this terrible collaboration begun? Who'd first mouthed that psychopath to life? Father had spoken to me one night of a gardener who dismembers lonely women. This was at a time when female dismemberment was all the rage in fiction. I'd covered my ears, heard myself reply as if from far away: "He's an artist, he sees beauty where others see only horror." Father paused. "Say more." A flurry of pictures littered my mind: Mother's nature paintings, her artistic pretensions, the things I'd seen her do with that ceramist Roland in the Volvo as it was parked outside our garage one moonlit night—odd contortions of limbs that I had as yet no language for. Father kept nodding as I described it all as best I could. He didn't even stop to ask, or wonder, where I was getting such material. He was enthralled, adding his own words until I broke down weeping: Yes, that's it, that's what I see. But Father wasn't done. He kept coming back to this tale, fleshing it out night after night with bloodshot intensity, and I kept heightening the horror, hoping it would satisfy him. Only nothing could do that anymore. He was drunk with the power of his story. At first I was afraid—of him, of our creation, of myself. Was I just as responsible for making Keith as he was? The possibility horrified me at the time, and as we hurtled toward the novel's climax I kept groping in the dark for Father, for one shielding embrace that would tell me he still cared about me apart from this terrible partnership. But only when it was over did Father hold me in his arms, promising it would be the last time, that he'd learn to do without my help.
He never did.
In the end I had no choice. I'd suffered long enough for those awful books of his. I also began, gradually, to be less afraid, even indifferent to his menace. Of course this sent him into desperate paroxysms as he tried to draw some reaction out of me, turning his novels into pure splatterpunk schlock. That's when I realized that what he'd given me really was a gift—one that I could do so much more with if I were free of him—the gift to imagine worlds, to be immersed in their unreality and not flinch in the face of the sublime. What I am saying is that I felt myself slowly coming into my own as a writer, full of my own perfect notions. I began to see possibilities, the words coming to me with more harrowing certainty than anything before: the real true-life sequel to A Portrait—one based on actual events. I cut the brake wires, it was true, I can say that finally, because it should be clear by now that this wasn't to kill him. It was to keep him alive. To perfect what he'd begun, to make him a character who'd live forever in my book.
And the most astounding part? Father knew it. I'm sure of that. He went willingly to his doom. He must have known it was the only way. Death would immortalize him like Socrates or Jesus, while life would only have made him an object lesson for the evils of parental greed and twisted relationships—would only have ruined his own success. True, he was reluctant at first. He'd braced himself with liquid courage. Mother had to practically pull him out the door. But then, as I watched him trudge across the snow, he glanced back, and in that glance I saw how he really felt.
He was thankful. He was, dare I say, passing the baton. He must have known I'd turn his death into something awe-inspiring, a fiction more fantastic than anything he'd ever attempted. Only later did I discover he'd already been planning to drive into that ravine—that that's why he hadn't brought along anything to read. Which had actually killed them? The brake wires or his suicidal intentions? It didn't matter. The important thing, he'd always told me, was the work that emerged from suffering—the blood we draw from the stone.
Be brave, he was telling me in that last glance. For you are the Master now.
All this was going through my mind as I responded to my sister. "No," I said again, with even greater conviction. "Henri must have taken the scissors himself. I don't know why. It could have happened anytime. He did have a key."
She didn't respond at first. She was desperate to believe me. I was, as she'd once said, all that she had left. "Yes, I suppose you're right," she said. "Any of his workers could have taken it."
"Or the television people."
She nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. I could tell this was hard for her. So I sat back and changed the subject. I asked whether she wanted to watch that evening's public television program on the history of the Incas. She nodded again, more forcefully this time, and murmured that she'd always been interested in the fate of lost civilizations.
"Me, too," I said.
She never mentioned the scissors again.
It's springtime now. The birds are beginning to sing. About what? I can only imagine. Worms, nests, the tranquility of flight. Life feels softer after the long, harsh winter. Klara has begun to venture onto the patio again, sitting on her chaise, wearing her straw hat and reading Victorian novels. The white streak is finally fading. I've moved most of my models back downstairs. This way I can be closer to her while I work. I've recently begun a new project—my first civilian vessel, a luxury cruise liner with fourteen decks revealed in cut-away, plus several swimming pools, a casino, a theater, and a
full gymnasium. I've become so caught up in it that I even hinted to Klara that we might take a vacation aboard such a ship this coming summer. She laughed in that refreshingly quiet way she's had lately, and said that if I still feel the same in another month or two she'll call a travel agent for a brochure.
The garden didn't survive the winter. Klara couldn't bring herself to do the necessary work. But it's no great loss. She's no longer interested in gardening. She's never even seen our television episode. We were sent a DVD and it's still tucked away, unopened, along with a letter from Leo, in a kitchen drawer. She also hasn't said a word of protest about my efforts to find someone to move the old Roman back to his familiar perch. She occasionally talks to Mrs. Silfer on the telephone, and every once and a while invites her over for tea. But these have been subdued affairs and I get the impression that Mrs. Silfer is becoming less and less enthusiastic about them every time. I heard her snap at Klara once as she was leaving, telling her something along the lines of "buck up" and "you're too young." Too young for what, I have no idea.
Speaking of age, I ought to say that Marta has had a rough winter with her old bones, as she puts it. Now it is we who take care of her as much as it is the other way around. She still comes to the house a few times a week between lunchtime and supper. But Klara does most of the cooking and cleaning, while I sit upstairs with Marta playing cards or watching those Spanish-language talk shows with large-breasted hosts. Klara finally cleaned out Mother's and Father's room. That is where Marta takes these afternoon rests. She looks at me kindly while I sit with her, but doesn't say very much. During commercial breaks she just tells stories about her childhood in Manila. She describes the festivals and street food and vast crowded churches filled with singing and incense and those dark confessionals that wipe away all sin. I nod and smile along, pretending to concentrate on the television—on Rosie with her Bounty paper towels or Ford trucks grinding in slow-motion through waist-deep mud. But I imagine that far-off place—a teeming hive of street children and religious icons and sweaty priests who have seen and will forgive everything. I can almost hear the peal of church bells floating above the filth, like an ideal of perfect bliss that forever eludes one's grasp. She must have very beautiful memories of church bells.
Church bells make me think of the Mormon boy, who returned last week, right on schedule. I shut the door on him again—I think for the very last time. I don't mean he won't be back. I've seen several documentaries showing how persistent Mormons are. I only mean that next time I've resolved to invite him in. We can sit in the living room and Klara can feed him biscuits, or I can show him the basement with its old farming tools. Perhaps I can distract him and slip out, lock him in there for a short while and listen to his screams and scrabbling terror. What will he do? Try to pick the lock? Pry open the door with a rusty hoe? Good luck with that! Still I might falsely cheer him on: You've almost got it! Or give him advice, mouthed through the keyhole: I hear the light switch, but where's the bulb? Oh my. Have you checked those stacks of dusty boxes? Or just laugh like one of Father's villains and let him figure out that it's all a game—all fear—whether you call it religion or war or a gruesome tale of murder, a game that someone is enjoying—the one pulling the strings, the ones being entertained, even when someone else is suffering. Or perhaps because someone else is suffering? Let him contemplate that in silence, in darkness, with me, his high priest and author, just across the door. Then, when he's calmed down, we can whisper to each other through the keyhole—about what it's like to be a Mormon, or what it's like to have faith in nothing at all.
After all, I don't want Klara to think I'm utterly averse to guests.
THE END
Acknowledgments
I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to those who helped me write this book. To Michelle Latiolais, for taking me seriously when I didn't, for encouraging me to get back in the chair when I wouldn't, and for being honest about my writing when I couldn't. To Linda Goldman, for always believing and always providing sage advice. To Marlene Adelstein, for exactly the right guidance at exactly the right time. To Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, for enthusiastically and patiently pushing me to make the manuscript the best it could be. To Sarah Knight, for knowing what worked and what didn't. To Melanie Hart, for wholeheartedly embracing this book and for a keen editorial eye. And to Mark Teppo, for making it all happen.
I am also indebted to insightful early readers: Ben Ripley, Jeff Kleinman (who generously picked up the phone and talked me through various issues), Bob Rabin, and Cara Robertson. And to Andrew Donnelly for his Latin advice (any errors are my own), and Michael Hamilton for his many insights.
I am profoundly grateful to have such loving and supportive parents: Jean and Birgit Barsa.
And not a day goes by when I don't realize how fortunate I am to have the love and support of Kim Yuracko, Sacha Barsa-Yuracko, and Katja Barsa-Yuracko.
About the Author
Michael Barsa grew up in a German-speaking household in New Jersey and spoke no English until he went to school. So began an epic struggle to master the American "R" and a lifelong fascination with language. He's lived on three continents and spent many summers in southern Germany and southern Vermont.
He's worked as an award-winning grant writer, an English teacher, and an environmental lawyer. He now teaches environmental and natural resources law. His scholarly articles have appeared in several major law reviews, and his writing on environmental policy has appeared in The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times. His short fiction has appeared in Sequoia.
The Garden of Blue Roses is his first novel.
Praise for The Garden of Blue Roses
"Ominous, fantastic, and wonderfully malevolent, Michael Barsa’s The Garden of Blue Roses immediately held me in its grip. Both major characters feel unreliable in the best, most disorienting way, while the world of the novel itself vacillates in one’s mind between the real and the magical—and Barsa’s magic is the black and blue sort of damaged souls hidden among dark foliage. The disquieting effect as I read was such that outside my door, I felt the spirits of Shirley Jackson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Albert Camus’s Meursault, whispering to join the fun. Barsa’s The Garden of Blue Roses mixes just the right amount of death, poetry, and deceit, into an already glorious stew of familial dysfunction and the ultimate result is this pure and delicious fiction.
—Alice Sebold, award-winning author of The Lovely Bones
"The Garden of Blue Roses is full of literary pyrotechnics and Easter Eggs, dark twists and darker humor, and it's all held together by the wonderfully malevolent unreliable narrator Milo Crane. I was hooked from page one."
—Paul Tremblay, award-winning author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World
"In this rich neo-gothic novel, Michael Barsa has designed a real treat. His hyper-nervous, hyper-careful narrator captures us with an eerie power exactly like Henry James’ governess and the stressed-out, dreamy extremists of Poe. The Garden of Blue Roses is drenched in all of the awful and wondrous features of dark horror—all whispered in our ear by Milo, the son, the brother, the watcher, the spy, who had my sleeve fiercely in his fist the whole way."
—Ron Carlson, award-winning author of Five Skies
"A fascinating and admirable debut."
—Kristopher Dukes, author of The Sworn Virgin
"If The Garden of Blue Roses was sheer pulp horror fiction, Michael Barsa's inventiveness would be constricted within the boundaries of the genre. It is not. This is a work of true literature not pulp, thus its subtle poetry touches on the horrific but is not bound by it."
—Glenn Russell, Goodreads Top Book Reviewer
"The Garden of Blue Roses is a taut mystery about how the lives we lead are forever changed by the stories we tell and the secrets we keep. These pages are gripping and rich."
—Ramona Ausubel, award-winning author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plent
y
"Barsa's prose in The Garden of Blue Roses is so crafted, so elegant, that when it whispers its disturbing moments to you, they're as welcome as a charming dinner guest."
—Darin Bradley, author of Chimpanzee and Totem
"[P]eople are starting to compare this novel to the works of some of the great psychological horror writers, and they are right in doing so. Michael Barsa has written a brilliant novel with so many beautiful layers."
—Jeffrey Keeten, Goodreads Top Book Reviewer
"The Garden of Blue Roses is a work that brilliantly probes the authorship of horror in its many arenas: history, war, parenting, nature, love, the imagination [....] Read this fierce new novel; be in the penitentiary of Milo Crane’s thoughts."
—Michelle Latiolais, award-winning author of Widow and She.
The Garden of Blue Roses is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used in an absolutely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Michael Barsa
All rights reserved, which means that no portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the copyright holder.
This is U032, and it has an ISBN of 978-1-63023-061-6.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018931839
This book was printed in the United States of America, and it is published by Underland Press, an imprint of Resurrection House (Sumner, WA).
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
Edited by Melanie Hart
Book Design by Mark Teppo
First Underland Press edition: April 2018.
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