But Libbie's mother, she was something else. Faye Grandon was the real thing, flesh and blood, living and breathing, a woman as real and as beautiful as one of her own flowers, even on a Sunday morning when the roses were still just tight green buds and she'd changed out of her church dress and was outside working in the yard just like anybody else. Dirt was smudged on her cheek and she wore big gloves, faded yellow pedal pushers, heavy wool socks that sagged over the tops of her torn canvas Keds, and an old pink sweater that had begun to pill across the front and along the backsides of the sleeves. Her head was covered by the cloud of a chiffon scarf and her black hair had been bobby-pinned into a row of tight flat spit curls across her forehead.
Libbie was sitting on the back step eating an orange. She'd dropped the shreds of rind in the dirt near her feet, and they littered the ground around her. She licked the juice off her fingers. She pushed back the thin strands of hair that cobwebbed her eyes, then looked up to where your face was framed by the window, watching. Libbie smiled, and when you didn't respond she raised one hand and waved. You were not expecting to be noticed, and the gesture startled you. You jerked back and heard your heartbeat pounding in her ears. Then you crept forward again and you waved back.
Josef closed the store on Sundays in those days. He never took vacations otherwise. Sunday was his one day of the week to stay home and take it easy, he said, and he did not like to be bothered on his afternoon of rest. He didn't go to church. He slept late, then took his coffee into his study to read the newspaper there, smoke his pipe, and listen to an opera on the hi-fi. In time he'd have to extend his hours, when the Hawkeye Supermarket moved in and began to cut into his business, but back then he still had the luxury of that one day to call his own.
And so when the doorbell rang that morning, he didn't answer it. He might not have heard it; the music in his study was that loud. Or he might have been asleep. It rang again, but he still didn't respond. The third time, you went down and opened the door yourself.
There was Mrs. Grandon on the stoop, smiling expectantly. She'd wiped the dirt from her cheek and dabbed her lips with fresh color, the same pale pink of the roses that would bloom for her that summer. She leaned down so her face, framed by the gauze of her scarf, was close enough to yours that you could see the soft powder that shimmered on the surface of her skin.
"Hi there," Mrs. Grandon said. "Is your father at home?"
Her breath smelled like cloves, and later you would learn that she chewed clove gum because she believed it made her teeth white. Before you could answer that yes he was home, but no he didn't want to be disturbed, you felt a movement at your back and you turned to see your father, looming in the doorway behind you. He held a folded section of the newspaper, and he slapped it against his leg. Mrs. Grandon pulled off a glove and put her hand out to him. He looked at it, not knowing, it seemed, what it was that she expected him to do.
"I'm Faye Grandon?" she said, as if she wasn't really sure whether that was in fact true.
Josef, silent, slapped the paper against his leg again and waited for her to go on.
"From next door?" Mrs. Grandon added, still asking him, it seemed.
He cleared his throat. "If it's about your bill. . .," he began, prepared to inform her that this was his only day off, he worked six days a week and deserved a little peace on Sunday, didn't he? But before he could go on, her laugh, abrupt as a hiccup, stopped him.
"Oh gosh, no," she said, "it's nothing like that. It's just that, well, my daughter. . ." She turned and waved a glove at Libbie, who was standing at the bottom of the steps. Libbie ducked her head, then looked up, grinning.
"Hi there, Mr. Krejci," she said, pronouncing the name just right. He squinted at her, frowning.
Mrs. Grandon went on, still asking him: "They're in the same class at school? Your daughter and mine?"
You felt his big hand on your head, as if he were claiming you, or holding you in place. He asked a question of his own. "Just what exactly is it that you want?"
Mrs. Grandon's smile widened; his frown deepened. "Well," she said, "they're friends?" As if that were a question that, for the asking, should explain everything. She waited, the smile frozen on her face, and that moment of silent impasse seemed to stretch out forever, until finally Libbie stepped up and broke it.
"Mr. Krejci," she said. "Please, can Meena come out and play?"
An aria howled from the hi-fi in the study. Josef didn't seem to know what to say. You didn't dare look at him. You held your breath and waited, and then Mrs. Grandon added the magic words that you would remember later as having changed your life: "I'll look after her," she said.
Four words, a promise, a connection, and that was it: you had been released. No more going to the store after school with Matka, no more standing at the upstairs window alone, watching the world go by as if you were a single passenger on a passing ship. After that you went home with Libbie and you spent most of your days together—at Libbie's house, in Libbie's room or in the den watching television or in the basement at John's train table or in the yard or in the driveway or on the sidewalk or even, sometimes, in the woods.
July 2006
"Sometimes it will be just when you think you are lost that you have in fact been found." This was more smoke that Matka blew into the ear of her granddaughter during the times when the child was in her care. And then she might bend her huge head in the direction of her own son Josef Krejci who walked and walked, who roamed the streets of Linwood and wore down the heels of his shoes while he tried to lose himself there but couldn't do it. Linwood wasn't a big enough place for a man of his great size to get lost in, was it?
"Your father, he is a real Pilgrim of Prague, "Matka said and nodded knowingly.
What might at first seem to be time off, away from the comings and goings of the everyday, turns out to be time on, a logical progression from then to now, from here to there. This wasn't how Matka put it. What she said was, "Keep your eye on the bread crumbs, dcera. "
Already it's almost noon and Meena still hasn't figured out what she's going to do about what's happened. Instead of making any phone calls, she's spent the morning going about her business as usual, doing her chores as if nothing's changed. The silence from upstairs looms over her, but she has managed, so far, to ignore it. She did pick up the telephone once, with what intention she couldn't say. Held the receiver to her ear, listened to the dial tone for a moment, and then, her heart pounding, she hung up.
She fixes herself a sandwich for lunch—tuna fish on rye with a slice of tomato from the garden—and sits at the kitchen table eating it, gazing out through the picture window at the woods, trying not to think much beyond the sound of her own chewing in her ears.
She goes on from there to finish sorting laundry and taking out trash, dusting bookshelves, vacuuming carpets, scouring sinks and toilets, mopping linoleum and scrubbing tile. By mid-afternoon, though, it's clear that Meena is going to have to do more than this, and soon.
She thinks she should at least go to the Hawkeye Market first, before the house starts to fill up with mourners and well-wishers. They'll be hungry and thirsty, and this being Saturday, the day that she would do her grocery shopping under normal circumstances, there isn't much left in the cupboards or in the refrigerator either. Meena has become the kind of woman who plans her menus ahead and then goes out and shops for the ingredients she'll need for them. Hamburger meat and pork chops, lasagna noodles, fresh mushrooms, mozzarella, parmesan, dill pickles and baking potatoes and bread. None of this will be necessary now, of course she knows that, but still she thinks she should go to the grocery store anyway, to at least stock up on coffee, brandy, and beer. She's begun to make a list of what it seems she'll need, as if she might be planning for a party. Paper plates. Plastic cups. Napkins.
On the straw mat outside the back door there lies the bloodied body of a dead sparrow, an offering from the neighbor's cat, all feather and gristle and bone. The woods feel especially deep to Meena just
now: thick with humidity, wild growth, insects, shadows, heat. Poised on a pole in the back yard is the marten house that Josef spent the winter building, although no martens ever came, and for some time now it has been inhabited by bats. Meena thinks of Leo Spivak: a boy in a striped T-shirt, baggy shorts, sagging socks, black high-tops. Crewcut. Freckles. How he stood out there in the middle of Otis Road where everyone could see him aiming his pellet gun upward. Squinted, fired, and whooped in triumph when a bat fell from the sky to land at his feet with a moist thump. It wasn't until many years later that Meena found out the truth: it's no great feat to bring down a bat. Blind, they fly right into the shot, thinking it's a swarm of winged bugs, some providential meal.
She wraps the bird in tissue, throws it in the trash.
Her father's car, a black Jetta, is still parked where she left it last night, close by the back door. The Hawkeye Market is down on 19th Street, but Meena takes take a left and heads uphill to go the long way around, through Ellis Park. This is the route she always takes, but by now it's no longer the disappointment that it was when Meena still harbored the secret hope that by some miracle it would revert back to the park that it once was, when she was a little girl tripping up the paths with Libbie Grandon. But of course that never happened, and it never would, and she has accepted this fact, so she has no expectations anymore. Just an old habit of turning left at the bottom of the driveway instead of right.
For one thing, the candy pavilion isn't there anymore. And for another, there is a wide grassy meadow dotted with picnic tables and barbecue grills where the zoo used to be. In its last days, it wasn't much of an attraction anyway—the bobcat had died some time ago, there was only one bear left, the wolf cage was empty, and the alligator pond had dried up. But the monkeys had endured and the birds were still plentiful—including the peacocks and the peahens, an old horned owl, a chicken hawk, and a splashy flock of finches.
Now it's gone altogether, and this is at least partly thanks to a series of incidents that started innocently enough, with some high school senior pranksters breaking into the cages to let the monkeys out, free to roam the surrounding neighborhoods, screaming in the trees. Before the animals could be rounded up, one had attacked a child and another was torn to pieces by a dog. Not long after that someone tossed a pipe bomb into the bear compound, and when it exploded in the curious animal's face, she was so maimed that the responding police officers had no choice but to put her out of her howling misery by shooting her in the head. The last straw was a fire in a trash can that spread to the aviary and suffocated the trapped birds that hadn't already been burned alive in the flames.
After that the little wrought iron park zoo was altogether razed, what animals remained were sold off to other cities elsewhere, and Linwood was left zoo-less. Now no longer are there any peacock cries to tear a wakeful hole into the still fabric of the night.
Meena drives through the park and on around onto Beaver Avenue, then turns right to head west toward downtown. There have been changes here, too. What used to be the prim edges of Wellington Heights is now corrupted by the messier sprawl of Nowhere. It's crept across Vernon Blvd, and like a fungus, mold, mushrooms, moss, the squalor has spread and grown.
Grass grows wild and unmown in the lawns. Chain link fences rust along the sidewalks, caging in dogs with bristled backs and bared teeth. These big old houses have been broken up into apartments now, and they're bursting at the seams with people whose bodies and belongings spill out onto the porches, the yards, the sidewalks and the streets. And everywhere, there's sound. Music and voices from kitchen radios, bedroom stereos, boom boxes, television sets, cars.
One thing hasn't changed, though, and that's the stench from the cereal factories: a burnt baked scent of roasted wheat and oats and corn, with an unpleasant syrupy under-smell that coats the throat and makes Meena want a cigarette.
In front of her, an elderly woman in a battered Cadillac creeps along. Poor old thing, scared out of her wits to find herself driving alone through this part of town, even if it is the middle of the day. She expects the people here to attack her. Leap down into the street from their porches, guns in hand, and force her from her car, drag her into an alley, beat her and rape her and rob her and leave her there for dead.
Wellington Heights has become a part of Nowhere, which is just what Joe Krejci has all along so adamantly resisted, dreaded, fought against, and feared. Where once house after house was an implacable façade set back a safe distance from the street across a stretch of perfectly manicured lawn and not a citizen in sight, now there are folks sitting outside on their porches and lounging in their yards. They drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, gaze upward at the sky. Kids on bikes wheel down the long driveways, skid around the corners, huddle at an intersection. Up to no good, Joe would say, smirking. A woman is hanging sheets out on a line. A man hoses the bugs off the grille of his car. It's just another day in just another neighborhood in just one more small Midwestern city, and the air is warm and the sky is blue, life is fine and the world is safe and there are no enemies, everyone is a friend. Everyone is alive and well, it seems.
Meena takes a left on 19th Street, and there on the alley is the Hawkeye Market which used to be the big new supermarket but now seems small and local compared to the huge sprawl of the Food King out on Edgewood Road—and that's why she shops here. She parks in a handicapped space and only feels the slightest pang of guilt, but in this heat she's grateful for that blue plate on her father's car. She gathers up her purse, gets out, gives a hard look around that's meant to dare anybody to challenge her right to be here, but no one does, no one notices, no one cares.
Just before the door swings open for her, there it is again, that face on a flyer: MISSING! The color photo is a blurred close-up of a man who has been posed against the background of what looks to be his own front door. He winces, seems to be flinching back from the flashbulb, and the smile on his face looks more like a grimace and a gritting of his teeth—forbearance in the face of scrutiny.
"$25,000 Reward For Any Information That Directly Leads To The Return Of Ralph Wendell. 54 yrs of age, white male, 5'10", 180 lbs, blue eyes, gray/brown hair. Last seen Friday August 3 at Coral Lake with plans to return to his SE Linwood home that evening. Wearing a blue T-shirt, beige shorts, and tennis shoes. He was driving a 1967 blue 4-door Ford Galaxie Sunliner convertible with Cedar County plates #934CRX. Call 1-800-LWCRIME or Linwood Police 420-397-6502."
There's even a snapshot of the car, parked at the curb. Who takes a picture of their car?
Meena figures that the reward money has been raised by the man's family and friends. They must want very much to find him, she thinks, and to have him back safe and sound among them again. He is obviously a valued person: grandfather, father, husband, tennis partner, business colleague, friend.
She pauses here for a moment, with the door half open before her, to take in again Ralph Wendell's look of... what is it? Desperation? And then, she makes her way into the cool interior of the store, grateful for the cool clean light, the soothing music that's piped in through speakers overhead, and the industrious aproned workers, busy shelving or pricing cans and boxes and jars of every kind of food that anybody could ever want or need to eat. Meena Krejci has been known to spend whole afternoons here, rolling her cart up and down the aisles, selecting this and that, consulting her list, reading labels, then remembering something else that she needs from someplace over on the far other side of the store and taking the time to go back and get it. She stops now to help an older man find the can of soup that he wants—Campbell's bean with bacon, on sale, half price, with a double coupon.
But other than just that, Meena will not allow herself to linger this afternoon. She knows what she needs and she knows where to find it, and so it doesn't take her more than fifteen minutes to fill her cart and wheel it into the checkout line at the front.
As she is placing her things on the conveyer belt, she hears that the woman in front of her is in a conversatio
n with the cashier about the missing man, Ralph Wendell, whose flyer has also been taped to the backside of the register.
"If you ask me," the cashier says, "I'll bet he's dead."
"Trapped!" That's what Josef Krejci said when he saw that same photo on the front page of the newspaper. Looked like a man gnawing at his own paw, didn't he? Josef scoffed at the idea that Mr. Wendell might have been the victim of some kind of foul play—a bungled burglary, kidnapping, murder even, and said it was clear to anybody who had the eyes to see it that this man had made for himself an escape, from his harpy wife, probably, and their bunch of nattering kids. Probably had planned it for a long time, got himself another name and another Social Security number, bank account and credit cards, and disappeared. Why else would it be that the authorities had been unable to find the car? Even after they searched the woods and the creeks and even the ditches alongside the highway on horseback. Family and friends, Scouts and cops and volunteers have all combed the countryside for two weekends in a row, but so far, they've found nothing at all. Not a trace.
"That's because he's not himself anymore!" Josef exclaimed, standing in the doorway, slapping the newspaper against his leg. He grinned: "Abracadabra!" Then, he blew out through his lips: "Whoosh! That man's long gone!"
Watching him do this Meena wondered: what made her father think he knew anything about it? Was there something in his own heart, had there been times in his own life when all he wanted was to get away, become someone other than himself? Was that why he was always walking? Such a thought came as a revelation to her, his only daughter, and remembering it now, at this moment, is a shock all over again. Here she is, Meena Krejci, who has all these years been pining for an escape of her own, without either the mind or the means to plan for it with any seriousness, realizing now that she has never once in her lifetime thought to consider that her father, too, might have had dreams and expectations that he sacrificed first to necessity and, after that, to time.
The Minor Apocalypse of Meena Krejci Page 4
