by Warren Adler
‘They’ll be fine.’
The words were uttered without conviction.
When she didn’t hear from Oliver for a couple of weeks, Ann called Oliver’s office, only to be told that he had left for vacation. She wondered vaguely why the children hadn’t mentioned that in their letters, which were becoming increasingly anxious.
After much debate with herself she called the house. A recording informed her that the phone had been disconnected. Armed with innocuous questions, she called Goldstein and Thurmont. They, too, were on vacation.
Nevertheless, her curiosity was aroused. Why hadn’t they told the children? The mystery irritated her, giving rise to all sorts of black prognostications. Unable to remain passive, she walked up Connecticut Avenue one afternoon to Kalorama Circle. From the outside, the house seemed its old gleaming, imperious self. She went around the back to the garden and looked through the glass panel of the garage door. The Ferrari was a battered hulk, a fact that both startled and confused her, but Barbara’s station wagon and Eve’s Honda were in their accustomed places. They offered no clues. Perhaps the couple had somehow reconciled and were now vacationing. And how had Oliver’s prized Ferrari been wrecked? She allowed her mind to dismiss everything but the central question: Where were they? And why hadn’t they contacted the children?
Walking around to the front again, she met the Washington Star paper boy, whom she knew casually.
‘They canceled,’ he said with a shrug.
‘You mean stopped delivery for some stated period?’ she inquired.
‘No. Canceled,’ the boy answered, throwing a paper on a neighbor’s stoop.
Despite his assertion, she went up the steps and clapped the knocker, which automatically set off a carol of pleasant chimes. Waiting for a response, she stepped back and looked at the upper windows. The draperies were drawn. They were drawn at the lower windows as well. She clapped the knocker again, waited awhile, then went away. Later, she debated calling the police, then rejected the idea. It was too soon to declare them missing.
In the morning she called Miss Harlow. ‘I’m sorry. He’s on vacation,’ the woman reiterated. ‘The kids are worried,’ Ann responded. ‘So am I.’
‘They called here as well,’ Miss Harlow confessed. ‘And I’m worried, too.’
‘And Barbara?’
‘I called the French Market. They think she’s on vacation as well.’ There was a long pause. ‘Do you suppose they’ve reconciled and just gone off together?’
‘Maybe,’ Ann responded without conviction, acutely troubled now. She wondered if she should mention the Ferrari. It’s not my business, she decided, and said goodbye.
Early the next morning, after a sleepless night, she went back to the house. She noted the The Washington Post was not being delivered either, certain evidence that no one was at home. Few Washingtonians ever started the day without the Post.
As she prepared to leave, something rooted her to the spot. She inspected the facade and noted, for the first time, that the panes in the master-bedroom windows were not reflecting the morning sunlight. After a closer inspection she realized they were gone.
Perhaps the panes had been broken by accident, she reasoned. It was not uncommon for empty homes to be vandalized in this manner. But all sixteen panes of each of the two windows?
She could not concentrate on anything that day and went back to the house in the late afternoon. For a long time she stood in the shade of a tree across the street, watching the house until dark. The street lights went on. But no lights appeared inside the house. Still not convinced, she knocked again, waited, then went back to the YWCA.
A few days later, she called Eve.
‘I haven’t heard from them for two weeks,’ Eve said. There was more than a passing note of anxiety in her tone. ‘No letters. Or phone calls. We can’t understand it.’
‘Things are fine,’ Ann lied. ‘I saw them only yesterday. They both looked great.’
"Then why don’t they write? Or call?’
‘You dad’s been traveling. And your mom is extremely busy with her catering business.’
‘It’s not at all like them. Don’t they care?’ Eve began to cry. ‘Parents’ Day is next week. I’m frightened, Ann.’
‘They’re under a great deal of strain,’ Ann said, hating having lied. ‘Be patient,’ she cautioned Eve, who hung up still crying.
It was not like them to neglect their children. But anything was possible in their present state.
Still, she wasn’t satisfied and returned once again to the house. She felt exceedingly foolish as she banged on the clapper. As before, no one answered. She put her ear to the thick wooden double door but could hear only the ticking of the big clock. It was impossible to contain her anxiety now. She dreaded having to tell Eve the truth. Either her parents were being deliberately neglectful or they were missing. Missing. Ann shuddered at the thought.
The question didn’t occur to her until late that night.
She awoke with a stifled scream on her lips. Who was winding the clock? For a long time she lay shivering in bed, groping for logic. Perhaps a maid was coming in. Or they had a house-sitter or someone who made periodic visits. But why wind the clock? She was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery.
Early the next morning, she went back to the house. Spreading some papers under a tree across the street, she sat down and did not budge from the spot all day long. Nothing changed. Cars passed. Their occupants looked at her with curiosity. But she remained, undaunted, determined. But this role of sentry made her uncomfortable. She had no idea what she was waiting for. Godot, she told herself, ridiculing her foolishness. She was, she supposed, acting out her own theater of the absurd. Inexplicably, the role, despite her passivity, was exhausting and she closed her eyes as she slipped into drowsiness. But when she opened her eyes again, she knew instandy that something had changed. Suddenly shocked into alertness, she surveyed the facade. The upstairs shutters of the master bedroom were closed. Her heart lurched. She stood up and stared at the closed black shutters. Then she ran across the street and banged the knocker again. The chimes began to reverberate through the house. Soon they faded.
‘Oliver, Barbara,’ she cried. ‘Please. It’s Ann.’
Listening with her ear against the door, she heard only the relentless clicking of the big clock. A neighbor came out and stared at her.
‘I think they’ve gone on vacation,’ she told Ann politely but with an air of rebuke. ‘Not that it’s my business.’ She went back into her own house.
Paranoia about privacy was endemic to the neighborhood. Everyone lived his own life. But she knew she was not mistaken. Someone had closed the shutters. Someone, she was certain now, was in the house. She had to get in somehow. But she didn’t want to be seen and, perhaps, be taken for a burglar. She patiently waited until it was nearly dark.
Iron bars made it impossible to break in through the ground-floor windows. She went around to the rear of the house and tried the door that led to the basement and Oliver’s workshop. It was shut tight, locked from the inside.
Remembering that Oliver kept a ladder under the eaves of the garage, she opened the garage door and moved the ladder to the rear of the house. Leaning it against an outer wall, she climbed up and peered into the sun-room. A three-quarter moon gave her some light and her eyes quickly grew accustomed to the semi-darkness. The familiar room seemed perfectly normal. Empty flowerpots lined the inner wall just below her. With her shoe she broke the window and carefully picked away the shards of glass. As she crossed, a piece of glass scraped her knee. In her effort to avoid it further, she inadvertently kicked the ladder, which fell to the ground.
The cut stung but wasn’t deep. Disregarding it, she moved cautiously into the kitchen. It was too dark to make out anything but shapes and she had to rely on memory to get around. She moved with extreme caution.
Something, she sensed immediately, was radically wrong with the configurations of the kitchen.
Nothing seemed in its rightful place except the work island. She groped around with her hands, taking short, cautious steps. Suddenly something loomed in front of her, a rope. She tugged at it and a rain of pots came down, making an explosive, ear-splitting, clanging noise. She screamed, tried to run, then fell. Nothing was placed as she remembered it. She rose and moved into the corridor that led to the foyer, but as soon as she reached the marbled surface there was no friction. Her feet gave way and she hit the floor, sliding along the surface. She could not rise. Every surface she touched was too slippery to hold.
Under other circumstances, she might have been reminded of a fun house in an amusement park. But this was no fun. It was frightening. Beyond her understanding. The law of gravity seemed suspended, but with a superhuman effort she groped her way backward to the kitchen. Her shoulder touched something and she felt the pressure of a heavy object bearing down on her. It was the refrigerator. Panicked, she managed to jump aside just before it hit the floor. She screamed again, wondering if she was losing her mind.
Feeling for the knob to the basement door, she pushed it open and, reaching for the banister, took a step forward. There were no steps and she felt her legs swinging free. But she did not fall. By some miracle she had locked her arms around the wooden banister. Instinctively, to save herself, she kicked upward and, with her legs against the walls, wedged herself in the narrow space of the stairwell. By careful maneuvering, she managed to lower herself, finally letting go as she touched the basement floor. Just in time. Her back and leg muscles had just about given out.
Bruised and hysterical, she crawled along the cement floor until she found the door. But it was wedged shut. Her groping fingers found the wedge, but it wouldn’t budge.
She was, she was sure, experiencing some bizarre dysfunction of reality. The house and everything in it were conspiring to terrorize her. It was an idea that made no sense; perhaps she had wandered into a madhouse or into someone else’s bad dream. She lay panting on the floor, weakened by fear.
She heard sounds above her. Footsteps. Her impulse for survival forced her now to ascertain the landscape of her surroundings. Some of the dark shapes around her took on meaning. She was in what remained of his workshop. It was a shambles, but she groped around for some tool that might remove the wedge. In a nearby corner she found a sledgehammer. Standing up, she tried to lift it. Fear goaded her strength. Help me, she screamed to herself, miraculously finding the energy to wind the hammer over her head. Swinging it, she crashed it into the door. The blow unloosened the wedge and the door flew open. She ran into the garden. But as she swung open the gate she could not, even in her terror, resist the impulse to turn back.
She saw him through the shattered window of the sun-room. He was gaunt, bearded, his eyes staring out through shadowed sockets. For a moment she hesitated in mid-flight, unable to choose between compassion or fear. Was it the Oliver of her fantasies, of her other life? The Oliver to whom she had given her love?
She did not stay long enough to find out.
27
Barbara had filled all ten sockets of the silver rococo candelabrum with candles. She had never done that before and the glow cast on the dining-room table was beautiful. Flames danced and flickered like fireflies over the polished mahogany surface of the table. She had also put out her silver goblets and plates at either end of the table. On his silver plate she put a large slice of her freshly made pate and a little pile of melba toast.
It was, she had decided, poetically just for her to arrange this meeting in the dining room, her domain. She had cleaned herself up as best she could, and now waited for him, seated at the head of the table. She reached out to the shopping bag beside her right foot, feeling the cool blade of the cleaver. It reassured her about her resolve, her bravery. We are down to basics, she told herself.
At first she had been concerned that he would not come. Perhaps her invitation had sounded too much like a summons. But she had prepared just the same, listening for signs of movement now that the big clock had chimed nine.
She heard him almost at the same moment that she saw him. He was wearing the print robe she had bought him for their fifteenth anniversary. Or was it their sixteenth? It pleased her that she was unsure. Her history with him was becoming vague. The past was disappearing. He was carrying an armful of wine bottles, as well as a crowbar. Lining the bottles up in front of him, he opened two and slid one of the opened bottles in her
direction. They poured each bottle simultaneously, filling the silver goblets. He lifted his.
cTo your health, my darling,’ he said with a Noel Coward-like inflection. She obliged by sipping cautiously while he emptied his goblet and refilled it quickly. She did not take her hand off the handle of the cleaver.
‘The last of the ’59’s,’ he said. ‘Quickly approaching imperfection.’
‘Still very good, Oliver. Good body, neither sweet nor dry.’
Putting down his goblet, he bent over and smelled the pate. Daintily, he spread some on a cracker and ate it slowly.
‘Marvelous, Barbara. Nobody can make a pate quite like yours.’
‘You’ve always had an appreciative palate.’ She smiled, pleased that he liked the dish.
He lifted his goblet again, drank, and ate more of the pate’. She watched his bearded face in the flickering light. It had an eerie cast, waxy, like the candles. The shadows stripped him of his age and she saw him as he had looked in his younger days, an image she detested, especially now.
‘I hope you’re now convinced, Oliver, that I do not intend to retreat. Not one inch.’
As he lifted the goblet again his hand shook.
‘You invited me here to tell me that?’ he said, frowning. This was not what he had expected.
‘I can take anything you can dish out. All your creative punishments.’
‘Is that why we’re having this little tete-a-tete?’
‘No,’ she said emphatically. ‘I have a proposition.’
‘I’m listening.’ He poured another gobletful and drank.
‘I’ll let you have your pick of half the things in the house. Except in this room. Or the kitchen. And the furniture in the kids’ rooms. Take the books, the paintings, the Staffordshires.’
‘You’re very generous,’ he said sarcastically.
‘You can take it now. Only get out with it.’ She had thought about her offer long and hard. ‘It’s a damned good deal.’
He seemed to ponder the idea, rubbing his chin in contemplation.
‘It’s as far as I go,’ she said. ‘I keep the house.’
He looked around the room, waving his hand. ‘And this as well.’
‘And this as well,’ she repeated. ‘I think I’m being exceptionally reasonable. No lawyers needed. Just you and me, kid.’
‘Yeah, just you and me,’ he said bitterly. She watched him coolly. She was pleased that her words were crisp and forceful, her courage unfaltering.
‘I am not afraid,’ she said. ‘I’m capable of resisting forever if necessary.’
She watched him wash down the pate with more wine and then looked at the ceiling. Perspiration shone on his cheeks. The candles had raised the temperature unbearably. He stood up, took off his robe, and, bare-chested, sat down again.
‘And I’m capable of resisting your resistance,’ he said. ‘Forever if necessary. This is my house. I paid for it. No matter what. Even if the courts decide otherwise. I’ll find a way to get it.’
‘Over my dead body.’
‘Hopefully. If I can get away with that.’
She reached down and touched the cool blade of her cleaver.
‘You’re not going to intimidate me,’ she said calmly. She finished her goblet of wine and poured herself another.
‘We’ve passed that stage a long time ago, Barbara.’
‘What I can’t understand…’ She hesitated, sipping her wine. ‘What I can’t understand is why you are having so much difficulty understanding my position. Other people
get divorced. You didn’t have to stay here. You could have avoided all this… this unpleasantness.’
‘It’s not unpleasant.’ He giggled. ‘Rather interesting, I’d say.’
She looked at him and shook her head. ‘You are a bastard.’
‘I’m just not going to reward you for being a bitch, for destroying our family. People shouldn’t be rewarded for destruction.’
‘Always the family. The family. Why should I have to live in an institution I hate, that has tried to do me in?’ She banged the table with the flat of her hand. The plates jumped and the candelabrum bounced. ‘I want out and I want to be compensated for my sacrifices.’
His face glistened with sweat. He smiled but transmitted no warmth.
‘You were a dumb little shit when I married you. My brains put you in this house. My money bought all these things. My support and indulgence pushed you to become a gourmet cook. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be living in some clapboard house in New England, boiling potatoes for some half-assed clerk.’
‘My undying gratitude.’ She had spat out the words.
‘I’m not getting out,’ he cried, his speech thickening. She tightened her grip on the handle of the cleaver. ‘Nothing gets split up. Only us.’
‘Well, then, my conscience is clear.’
‘You haven’t got a conscience.’
She watched him, suddenly feeling a great well of pity bubble up inside her. He was as much a victim as she. Some vague, unexplainable concept that the world called love- had cheated them both.
‘You don’t matter to me anymore, Oliver,’ she said sadly. ‘You just don’t matter. I loathe you.’
‘A good loathe is hard to find. I’m still working on hate.’
‘I’m beyond hate, Oliver. Far beyond it. I’ve lived with it for too long. It’s not really your fault, either. You were just there at the wrong time and the wrong place.’
‘Please, Barbara. Don’t declare me innocent. I need my hatred just as much as you do. How else can I sustain the battle?’ She caught the sarcasm but couldn’t find the humor.
