by Warren Adler
Stretching out on the floor again, he tried to collect his senses. The heat, he knew, would drop very slowly. He had deliberately made the sauna tight. The redwood from which it was constructed was the best available and he had carefully fitted the joints. Lying on his back, he tried to shout.
‘Please help me,’ he cried, but his strength was ebbing and he felt a numbing weakness. It was futile to cry out, he realized, even in his panic. They were two floors above him. He remembered the thump he had heard earlier – one stroke. He had thought it was her fist, a brief act of rage. Now he was certain that she had wedged something into the door crack. He no longer had the strength to move and his chest hurt. Looking upward, he saw that the temperature had begun to drop, slowly. It already registered below the red mark and was heading toward 200 degrees.
Closing his eyes, he waited. Physical danger had never been a part of his reality. Aside from the time of his false heart attack, he had never felt on the edge of impending death. He couldn’t get himself to believe that he could escape twice, nor could his mind grasp the idea that Barbara was capable of such an act. Something had, indeed, changed inside her. Snapped. If he survived this, he decided, he would move out. Run as far away from her as possible. The temperature continued to drop and his panic slowly subsided. His strength was still spent. He rose to his knees, then fell back again, but the evaporation process had begun to cool him. Then his mind went blank and a profound drowsiness came over him.
When he awoke, he was cool and strong enough to stand. He tapped the door with the heel of his hand. The sounding showed him where she had placed the wedge. He saw his earlier mistake. He had put the pressure of his body on the center of the door. Bracing himself, his hands gripped the two-by-fours that held the bench overhang, and he smashed with his heels just below the point where she had obviously placed the wedge. He felt the door give with a squeak. A few repeated blows pushed open the door and he heard the chisel drop to the floor. Still shaky, he staggered to the shower and turned on the cold water.
By the time he had toweled himself off he felt somewhat better physically, although his lungs still hurt. His first reaction was to bound up the stairs, break down her door, and pummel her with his fists. Worse – he wanted to kill her. He craved her destruction with a force so compelling that he feared to go upstairs.
His mind was not functioning clearly. Naked, he moved up the stairs, holding the chisel as a dagger. He proceeded stealthily, like a stalking killer. He was sure he needed something to kill, if not her, something of hers. Hers alone. Passing the sun-room, now bathed in the light of a full moon, he breathed in the aroma of the plants — her African violets, her Boston ferns – and the memory of his murdered orchids crystallized his sense of mission.
With the cutting edge of the chisel, he slit the stems, pulling them out of the pots and then putting them in a neat pile on a nearby throw rug. Still, he did not feel his urge placated. He carried them in his arms, as if they were dead bodies, into the kitchen and lay them beside the sink. He took the largest stock pot he could find and stuffed them into it, then filled it with water and put it on the stove over a low flame. Death by stabbing; death by drowning; death by boiling. The act was, he knew, poindess. Mad. But he felt better for it. He went upstairs to bed and fell asleep instantly.
‘She tried to kill me, Goldstein. Pure and simple.’ He was still weak and when he breathed too deeply his lungs hurt. He had not the strength to take his usual walk to the office and had flagged down a cab on Connecticut Avenue.
‘It sounds like an Agatha Christie method. How did she get so clever?’ Goldstein had turned pale at the revelation puffing up thick clouds of cigar smoke.
‘I’ll admit that she’s clever – and pretty handy too. I taught her an awful lot about mechanical things. She had put the wedge in just right.’ Despite himself, he felt an odd sense of admiration. He had created a monster.
‘But you did get out. She must have known that you wouldn’t have let yourself fry.’ He brushed away the smoke with his stubby hands, as if the gesture also cleared his mind. Tm not condoning it. But to ascribe to her a deliberate intention to murder you sounds bizarre.’
‘It was bizarre, Goldstein.’ Oliver clenched both fists and banged on Goldstein’s desk. ‘This whole thing is bizarre.’ The violence of his act starded Goldstein, who resumed his usual all-knowing pose.
‘You mustn’t give in to it, Rose. You want me to press an attempted murder charge. You need some proof that isn’t circumstantial. You bring the police in on domestic matters, they laugh.’
‘It’s not funny.’
‘To you it’s not funny. To me it’s not funny. To the police it becomes funny. And funny becomes ludicrous. And ludicrous becomes ridiculous. Besides, I’m not a criminal lawyer.’
Oliver stood up and paced about the office, then, feeling the pressure in his lungs again, he sat down.
‘I know she wanted to murder me. Nothing you say, Goldstein, will convince me otherwise. She has simply reached a new threshold of hatred.’
‘And you?’ Goldstein said shrewdly.
‘If only you weren’t so… so rabbinical, so superior, like you know all the secrets of the human heart.’
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ Goldstein said, as if he were debating with God.
‘Yes. I also wanted to murder her. It was a clear option and I very nearly took it. Fortunately I was waylaid by her plants and I murdered the plants instead. In retrospect it may sound odd, but she will get the message. On my part, I would say that the plants saved her life.’ He had spoken the words slowly, deliberately. Goldstein seemed to be chilled by this assertion and clasped his hands as if in supplication.
‘What you felt is perfectly natural…’ Goldstein began.
‘So you’re also a psychiatrist, Goldstein?’
‘If I were a psychiatrist, I would add another fee to the bill. I’m giving you only wisdom. No charge. Everybody has a killer in him. The feeling passes. If it doesn’t, we have troubles.’
‘That’s wisdom?’
‘There’s more. If I were you, I would stay clear of her. Just live like you’re in a vacuum.’
‘It’s not easy.’
‘Who said it was easy?’
‘Sometimes, Goldstein,’ Oliver said, ‘I want to chuck it all. Get out of this city. Start all over again. If only I weren’t a boiler-plate lawyer, locked into the FTC. It’s too cushy. Too lucrative.’ He felt a huge wave of despair crash over him. ‘How easily we get corrupted by material things.’ It galled him to hear himself mouthing the cliche.
‘They got a new word. Life-style. She doesn’t want to give up her life-style. And let’s face it – you don’t want to give up yours. After all, what does a house represent? Shelter? Shelter shmelter. It’s a symbol of prestige. A house, Rose, is not just a home.’
‘You and your fucking wisdom.’
Goldstein sighed, looked at him again, and shook his head.
‘A few more months. Then the judge will decide. They’re all putzes, so either we or they are going to appeal.’
‘I won’t let her have it all. I won’t. Twice I escaped death for this. At least figuratively. I’ve stuck it out seven months, I’ll stick it out the other five.’
‘Ignore her. What’s so hard?’
‘I’ll try.’ He looked at Goldstein. ‘Mr. Wise Man, if you ignore the Angel of Death, does it go away?’
‘I don’t need the creeps so early in the day.’
19
Ann sat beside him as the car moved slowly over the mountain road above the Shenandoah. The windows were open and she could smell the aroma of the awakening earth. The buds on the trees were newly opened and the leaves were still the light green color of early spring.
Quietly sitting beside him, she hadn’t said much on the ride down from Washington. They had stopped on the way for a bucket of fried chicken and some Jarlsberg cheese, and he had taken two bottles of Chateau Latour ’66 from the wine vault.
It was, of course, a violation of her pledge to him. But the seriousness of Eve’s request had, she told herself, made it mandatory. She liked the word, almost as if she had invented it, and she had repeated it to him when she had called him at the office.
‘It’s really mandatory, Oliver. It’s not about you or Barbara or me. It’s all about Eve.’
‘That’s a movie,’ he had responded, but it had helped lighten his reaction and he had consented.
They had seen little of each other in recent weeks. He left earlier for the office and came home later, long after they had all gone to sleep. On weekends, too, he had made himself scarce, spending Saturdays at the office and nights at the movies. On Sundays he made half-hearted attempts at being with the children, but they always had other things to do. Dutifully, he had gone to all of Josh’s basketball games.
Eve had come into her room one night. She had been secretive and inert of late, which seemed to be the operative mood of the Roses’ household. Whatever the strategies for pretense, the hostility between Barbara and Oliver permeated everything.
‘I’m not going to camp, Ann,’ Eve began in a tone of belligerence that reminded Ann of their first meeting. But the announcement left no room for rebuttal. ‘I won’t be happy there. And I know they’re sending us away to get us out of this atmosphere.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘You think I don’t know what’s going on here?’
‘You’d have to be deaf and blind for that.’
‘The fact is, Ann, I’m afraid to leave them alone. That’s the reason, although I can only tell that to you and you’ve got to promise to keep that secret.’
‘Of course.’ Like Barbara and Oliver, Eve had composed her own little lie, a facade for the others. She was giving Ann, for the first time, a real glimpse behind it.
‘You’ll be gone, Ann. And with Josh and me away, there’s no telling what might happen. I’m afraid, Ann. Really afraid. I wish…’ She hesitated and Ann noted that she had already expended enough tears on the subject. ‘I wish they would either make up or that Dad would move out. Or that Mom and us would move.’ She opened up a new pack of Virginia Slims and lit one. ‘I don’t understand any of it. I try to. Really, Ann. But you can’t talk to. either of them anymore. It’s like our family didn’t really exist, except that we all live in one house. I wish they would sell it, get it over with. What’s the point?’
‘I wonder if they remember the point,’ Ann had said. She watched as Eve slowly let the smoke meander out of her nostrils.
‘I want you to talk to Dad, Ann,’ Eve had pleaded. ‘Please. I don’t care what you tell him. Only please don’t let him send us to camp.’
‘How can I tell him that? What can I say?’
‘Anything. Tell him things that make fathers worry about daughters. That I’m in with a bad crowd, smoking dope, that I need strong parental supervision. You know what to say. Don’t tell him I’m afraid for them.’ She paused and looked out the dormer window, her eyes glazed and frightened. ‘I really believe that if it wasn’t for Josh and me, they would tear each other apart.’ She shook her head. ‘Ann, how can love turn to hate?’
‘I’m not an expert in these things.’
‘But Dad will listen to you.’ The young girl had looked at her shrewdly. ‘There are some things I sense, Ann.’ Ann was thankful that Eve did not elaborate.
‘I forgot such beautiful things existed,’ he said suddenly. He had stopped the car at an overlook and they could see the spectacular view of the valley below. ‘Makes you feel clean and fresh.’ She looked up at him. In the bright sunlight his eyes were cobalt blue, like the paint on his collection of Staffordshire figures. The thought agitated her and she turned away.
‘Last spring I would never have dreamed that my life would change so drastically. Last spring I felt so safe. Imagine that. My principal summation, of eighteen years of marriage is safety.’
‘Does that mean that you don’t feel safe anymore?’ she said, wondering why he hadn’t said ‘secure.’
‘No. As a matter of fact, no.’ His voice rose. ‘I don’t feel safe, either mentally or physically. And sometimes I don’t feel anything at all.’ She reached out and patted his hand, her sisterly feeling disappearing abruptly. ‘The worst thing of all is that I don’t like myself much anymore. Do you like yourself, Ann?’
This was not what she wanted to talk about, although she felt compelled to answer in the negative.
‘Being with you is like a form of masochism,’ she whispered, removing her hand. Confronting her frustrations was not pleasant, she decided, dismissing her rising self-pity. ‘I came to talk about Eve. She doesn’t want to go to camp.’ Ann hesitated, forgetting the scenario she had constructed in her mind. ‘She probably would be better off staying home.’
‘Home,’ Oliver said. ‘She’s better off getting away from us.’
‘Oliver, she really doesn’t want to go.’
He got out of the car and lingered against the protective rail of the overlook, peering into the valley. Although the sun shone, the air had a slight chill. He looked upward, shielding his eyes.
‘There’s a trail,’ he said, observing a sign. The food and wine were in a canvas shopping bag, which he swung over his shoulder as they moved up the trail. Halfway up the slope, they reached a stone promontory, where they sat down and she began to unwrap the chicken.
‘I don’t really want to send them away, Ann,’ Oliver said. Obviously he had turned the matter over in his mind. ‘But the atmosphere stinks. No sense their having to live through it.’
‘I think you’re making a mistake,’ Ann said.
Oliver picked up a small, flat rock and sent it sailing into the valley below.
‘I’m really not in the mood to be manipulated by women anymore,’ he began, picking up a handful of pebbles and flinging them into space.
‘Now you’re becoming a misogynist.’
‘Can you blame me?’
She was silent for a while.
‘Well, then, don’t think of her as a woman. She’s your daughter and I know you love her.’
‘Of course I love her,’ he snapped. ‘And I’m doing what I think is best for both my children, getting them the fuck away from us. Like you’re going to do.’
It would go badly, she decided, knowing he was adamant, beyond advice. She handed him a piece of chicken and he bit into it without relish.
‘Eve says you’re not the same person you were a few months ago. You and Barbara.’
‘She’s probably right.’ He became thoughtful. ‘Then why does she want to stay home when she can get away?’
‘Because she loves you both.’ That was as far as she was able to go. She uncorked the wine. The cork came out with surprising ease. Then she poured the wine into plastic glasses, which she stood on the flat rock.
‘You’re all so wise and understanding, you women. Always thinking of yourselves. Your fulfillments and your pain and your anguish. Always thinking that we guys have done you in. Always conspiring, manipulating us with your goddamned pussy.’
‘I didn’t come here for dirty melodrama, Oliver. Please don’t include me. And don’t talk of manipulation. Which is the reason I’m still living in that house – ’
‘I’m sorry, Ann. I apologize for past and future wrongs.’
‘You haven’t wronged me, Oliver. I only went where my feelings took me.’
‘Then you are a masochist.’
She had come to talk about Eve, but had been waylaid. A bubbling sob began to rise in her chest and she turned away.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Let’s have some wine.’ He lifted his glass and she followed. He was the first to spit the wine out on the ground.
‘That lousy little bitch. Somehow she managed to get into the wine vault.’ He threw the glass over the cliff and smelled the mouth of the bottle. ‘She’s gone and poured vinegar in it. Vinegar in Chateau Latour ’66. a ’66’. Can you believe it?’ He took the oth
er botde, uncorked it, and sniffed. ’Oh, what a bitch,’ he cried, flinging the bottle into space. It crashed below. ‘She’s probably scuttled all of it. Every good bottle. The Margaux, the Chassagne Montrachet ’73, the Chateau Beycheville ’64 and ’66. If she touched the Rothschild, I’ll murder her.’
He looked at Ann, who was frightened now. She struggled up and moved away from the edge.
"It’s only wine,’ she said lamely.
‘Only wine,’ he shouted. He kicked the remaining botde over the cliff, sending the food after it. ‘Lafite-Rothschild isn’t only wine. Not a ’59.’ His face flushed a deep red. ‘I don’t understand you, Ann. If you loved me, you’d understand.’
She started running down the path, confused, hoping his anger would abate by the time he returned to the car. She sat there a long time, waiting, wondering what all this had to do with love.
20
‘You should have left the wine alone, Barbara,’ Thurmont lectured. ‘The wine, we all agreed, was his. Not in dispute. What you did only complicates things.’
‘It was only a half case of the Latour. That’s all I touched. I could have really been a rat and pulled the plug. That stuff has to be between fifty-four and fifty-seven degrees. I could have pulled the plug and ruined all hundred and ten bottles. That’s if I was really a rat.’ She was determined to remain calm.
‘Goldstein is threatening to take us to court for violating the separation agreement.’
‘Well, invasion of privacy was a violation and where did that get us?’
‘He was restrained. That helps the case when we get down to the real arena.’
‘I think he’s done it again.’ She was smug now, proud that she had learned to be unflappable. They were not going to grind her down. She was more determined than ever.
Thurmont had looked up at her over his half glasses. / She smiled sarcastically, enjoying the situation. They all think women are dumb, she huffed to herself.
