The Pagan House

by David Flusfeder

  ‘It’s a nice thought,’ Edgar admitted.

  ‘Do you know what you want?’

  Edgar wanted to confirm the truth of his grandmother’s death, get Warren to admit his guilt, but after that, what? He hadn’t thought past that one. He had expected courtesy from him, justifications and alibis to push through, and then finally, under the focus and weight of Edgar’s relentless questioning, he’d break down, admit it all, probably weep, Yes, yes, I intended to kill her from the beginning, I knew I was getting the house when the arrangement was consummated, the formula come into play, X would occur when Y was equal to or greater than Z, the market value of the house equalled or exceeded by the value of his care hours.

  ‘I’m surprised,’ Edgar said.

  The formula came into effect and I took the first chance I could get and I killed her. What are you going to do?

  And what would Edgar do? Tie him up and take him to the police? Forgive him? Was that why Warren was so glad Edgar was here? Had he been waiting all these years for Edgar, or someone like him, to come? Did he require confession, absolution? He had been born a Catholic, after all.

  ‘Sleep on it. You don’t have to decide anything now. I don’t want to push you.’

  He wasn’t sure. To take possession of the house would be one possibility. Banish Warren from it, and where would he go? Skulk back to Ireland, Mulhuddart, but there were those photographs, some of which Edgar had seen long ago, a succession of old women, and they were not hidden now, they were in full display, in antique silver frames, foxed glass over incongruous colour that would have dazzled George Pagan, in gallery along the mantelpiece.

  ‘You know where everything is. There’s towels and so forth in the bathroom. We’ll talk more tomorrow. I’m very glad you’re here, Eddie. Edgar.’

  5

  The Perfectionists saw the workings of Providence everywhere. The arrival of Erasmus Hamilton, just when they were looking for an architect to build the Mansion House, that was a miracle; the conquest of the Tobacco Principality, the Operations against Shame and Bashfulness, these were miracles; the success of Seth Newhouse’s animal traps was a mark of special Providence; so, too, a grander, sadder miracle, containing within it a perpetual loss, was the Association’s manufacture of tableware—but that loss too was a sign of God’s special favour.

  Edgar went into the bathroom, where he reminisced about old-lady unguents and potions. Warren has fixed the leaking tap in the time intervening. Edgar turned it slightly, for a nostalgic drip, then performed the act that he had been accustomed to perform here.

  He had expected the process to bring him back into the boy he had been and, therefore, to the possibilities of the men he might have become. Instead, it was like a school physics lesson, a demonstration of the transformation of energy: far better than anything with model trolleys on rickety ramps that balding men used to explain kinetic energy with harried frustration. Just put masturbating Edgar in front of the class. And you see here, look at the work of his arm, the dulled expression in the eyes, overall the energy put in is less than the pleasure gained. Now remember, boys and girls, energy can never be lost, only transformed. And if the masturbator puts more into the act than he gets out, where does that missing energy go? Anyone? Come on, you should all know this. Friction, yes. Good. Wind resistance? I don’t know about that. Negligible, I’d say. Any more? Build-up of lactic acid in the arm muscle, yes, I suppose so. The ejaculate. Of course. But I’m still thinking of something else. Anyone? Yes. Edgar? I’m sorry, you’re going to have to speak up, I can’t hear you.

  Afterwards, Edgar poured himself a glass of orange juice in the kitchen, then one of YooHoo. He smeared jam on bread and ate breakfast and read the note that Warren had left on the kitchen table and wondered if this was a sign of special Providence. Errands to be run. Sorry not to be around. Back either later or tomorrow for the Blackberry Festival. Help yourself to food etc. So glad you’re here. W.

  Edgar inspected the photographs in the parlour. A capable-looking woman in gardening gloves is in the first; next to her is the retired actress with the lavender shawl; there’s a trim woman in a hippieish peasant smock and jeans; a sad-faced woman with a sheepdog beside her; a woman stands by a bicycle that she looks too small and fragile to ride; and Fay is in the centre one, standing in front of the porch of the Pagan House. There’s a new one, not yet framed, at the end. This woman is dressed for summer on a chilly day. Her face is round and strong, with handsome features and a high forehead. Her head is cocked slightly to the side and she gazes, quizzical or shy, through owl-rimmed spectacles, but it’s hard to tell which because she’s slightly out of focus. The house, though, is perfectly shot, white and wooden with green-shuttered windows, roses twining by the door. Had Warren never learned to focus his camera? But Warren silently registered most things. Edgar looked at the other photographs and they were all the same, and he finally realized it was the houses, not their owners, that were the true subjects of the portraits.

  Slipping the new, unframed house portrait into his pocket, Edgar took a walk through Vail and Creek, stopping for a while to sit in the bleachers at Stone Park, where an impatient father in shorts and red T-shirt was tossing balls for his daughter to swing at with her oversized bat. Two policemen approached to ask if they could help him.

  ‘I’m Edgar Pagan, staying in the Pagan House.’

  ‘Is that right? I’m Joe Short asking you to move along.’

  His name and place of residence used to have more sway in the community than this.

  At the Onyataka Indian gift store and cultural centre, where Dino’s used to be, instead of the clatter of the Indian Fighters, two roseate women in brightly woven shawls performed slow actions of selling and display. Rocky Ashton, with far less hair, but unmistakably, muscularly, himself, was working at the new gas station. Edgar watched him rolling a tyre across the forecourt, then went back along Route 5 and into the Campanile Family Restaurant, which was as long-lasting and insubstantial as ever.

  Apart from two sleek men in blue suits, Edgar was the only customer. He waited at the Please Wait To Be Seated sign and a young dark woman, showing only a tiny smack of distaste, hid him at the smallest corner table.

  She told him the specials, but Edgar could order here without looking at the menu. ‘I’ll take a pizza, margarita, extra large, please.’

  Something happened in her eyes when she heard him speak. ‘Are you waiting for the rest of your party?’

  ‘Uh. It’s just me thanks. And a beer.’

  ‘Heineken Grolsch Bud.’

  ‘Whichever. I don’t mind. Heineken.’

  The waitress’s skin was yellow-brown, there were dark hairs criss-crossing her arms; she was pretty, in a sturdy, overworked way, but what he remembered best about Electa was her pride and this waitress didn’t seem especially proud.

  He had been expecting the arrival of his order to be an ironical jeer at history, but the sheer gooey expanse of the stuff was an unironical jeer at him.

  ‘Good luck with it. The beer’s on the house.’

  So would the food have to be. It was unmistakably her. She leaned against a column and watched him pull away the first slice of pizza. Did he have to eat it? Wasn’t the gesture of sitting here with it enough? But this was a task that could be achieved or at least grimly attempted.

  Electa came by to refresh his beer glass. ‘The years haven’t done you any favours,’ she said.

  ‘I guess not,’ Edgar said, through a mouthful of warm sludge that was even more horrible than he’d remembered. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Just terrific. Couldn’t be better. This is all I ever wanted from life. How long are you here for?’

  ‘A few days. I don’t know. Maybe longer. There’s some things I want to find out.’

  ‘That’s right, the boy detective.’

  ‘Do you want—? Maybe we could go out some time?’

  ‘The movie-house? Sure. There’s a film I want to miss there.’

 
She still bore him the grudge and that was reassuring too. He laughed, she winced.

  ‘Jeez. What happened to you?’

  She went back to her station, where she filled wicker baskets with bread rolls and watched him eat.

  Together they examined the messy disgrace of his pizza.

  ‘One day I’ll finish one,’ Edgar vowed.

  ‘More to the point is how you’re going to pay for this one. That’s eighteen dollars you owe me.’

  ‘Prices have gone up.’

  ‘They don’t usually go down.’

  ‘I could pay it off by working. How about I do the washing-up?’

  ‘Got a machine does that.’

  ‘I could work the bar?’

  ‘Excuse me but you don’t really have the look that will encourage our many customers to the bar.’

  The two sleek men had left. Edgar was the only so-called customer left.

  ‘I know where I can get some money. I’ll take you for a drive and we can go there. If you’re not too busy. Would you like to come for a drive with me?’

  ‘Not really, no,’ she said, but went with him to the station-wagon anyway.

  ‘Hey, nice wheels,’ Electa said scornfully.

  Edgar asked if he could borrow some money to pay for gasoline, because he would rather be beholden to Electa than Warren.

  ‘Sure,’ Electa said. ‘We’ll put it on the tab.’

  Heading for the new gas station, where the prices were lower, he had to make an abrupt, life-threatening, life-enhancing U-turn across lanes of traffic because Electa twisted the wheel and told him to go to the other one.

  ‘How come—’ Edgar began, and then corrected himself, she always liked him best as a courtly Englishman. ‘Why are the prices so low at the new petrol station?’

  She flickered an amusement, then remembered to look severe. ‘It’s Onyataka. They don’t have to pay taxes. It’s the same with the cigarettes and the property they own.’

  ‘Then why didn’t we go there?’

  ‘Not everyone thinks it’s right. It’s kind of a principle. Concerns like ours, we’ve got to pay property taxes every year, we support one another.’

  He half filled the tank and Electa went in to pay. He thought that was Doug Ashton working there, sitting with his feet up on the desk, gazing as if in hope at the ceiling.

  They waited at the crossroads of Prindle and Main for one of the new Indian police jeeps to make its turn in front of them. The driver waved amiably to Electa. She didn’t trouble herself to respond.

  ‘Where are we going anyway? And who’s this?’ Electa says, pointing to the photograph Scotch-taped to the glove compartment.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Edgar said.

  ‘There’s an address on the back.’

  ‘I know.’

  Electa jabbed on the radio. It was tuned to a golden-oldies station, which was playing a song that she claimed to like. It didn’t have the courage to finish. The song faded out, as Edgar knew it would.

  6

  Edgar’s father’s girlfriend used to play piano in the bar of the casino hotel. The customers were usually too sad or boisterous or drunk to listen to what Crystal was playing so she’d get drunk too, sit with a glass and a cigarette at the table of whichever drinker she could find some sympathy with. She had recently been fired for this practice.

  ‘She used to tell these great stories,’ said Edgar’s father.

  ‘You never listened when I was telling them, sweetheart.’

  ‘Now she just drinks. She doesn’t play the piano any more. She doesn’t have any great stories.’

  ‘Fuck you too, darling.’

  Edgar liked his father’s girlfriend. She had a degree of style. She managed to look good in clothes that were too young and too tight for her. She had been disappointed by life, and by Edgar’s father, but then most people were.

  Edgar’s father had shrunk in the years between. His hair and skin used to be brown. Now they were shades of grey. He still dressed the same way, in whatever an enterprising salesman might wear on his day off. Khaki chinos and a long-sleeved T-shirt, whose sleeves were a different colour from its body, did not suit him.

  ‘I’d like to hear you play,’ Electa said.

  ‘Would you? That’s sweet of you. Come over to the keyboard. Let’s leave the gentlemen to have some quality time.’

  Edgar’s father’s girlfriend carried her beer and ashtray over to the piano. She gave Edgar a wink as she hit the first note. She played softly, a slow, rolling rhythm, murmuring words on top like sleepily buttered toast.

  ‘She’s good,’ Edgar said to his father.

  ‘Yeah. Terrific. Carnegie Hall keeps calling, you wouldn’t believe how much the telephone rings.’

  ‘“I done got over … You at last.” You gentlemen having some quality time over there?’

  Electa, with a cigarette inexpertly in the centre of her mouth, turned over the sheet music for Crystal. Edgar and his father sat far away from each other on the sofa. Edgar’s father fiddled with the nearest objects to hand. His girlfriend’s apartment contained many things. She seemed to be an indiscriminate collector of anything that could be described as cute. Edgar drummed his hands on the silvery face of a cat overlaid on a red satin cushion.

  His father made the effort to wrench himself into becoming agreeable. ‘So how is everybody? Your mother good?’

  ‘Yes. She’s good,’ Edgar said.

  ‘And what’s his name? Jeff?’

  ‘It’s Martin now. Jeffrey was the one before.’

  ‘That’s right. Martin. How’s Martin?’

  ‘I don’t really see them much.’

  In truth, Edgar didn’t see them at all. He couldn’t face the prospect of his mother’s disappointment; this at least was something he shared with his father.

  ‘So. What are your plans? What’s the deal here?’

  ‘Tell me something.’

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘I don’t mind. Anything. Tell me about my grandfather.’

  ‘Mac? What do you want to know about Mac?’

  ‘I don’t know. Anything.’

  Edgar’s father did his best to look wistful. ‘Mac was elsewhere. He was the straying kind. He had these girlfriends and he was always kind of AWOL so far as the family were concerned. Did a good job at the Company, though. They thought a lot of him at the Company. Which was why I was never going to join it. I made my decisions early on. The secret of life seemed to me to get laid as much as I could and work as little as possible. I’ve kind of stuck to that.’

  ‘So you’re half a Mac.’

  The intimacy was gone. The gentlemen had stopped enjoying their quality time.

  ‘So what does that make you?’

  It was a good question. The Perfectionists had bred for holiness, sometimes between cousins, sometimes uncle and niece, in the interests of propagating saints, and he was the culmination.

  ‘When someone’s damaged, they lose a foot say, are they still the same person? I don’t think they are. What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.’

  ‘It’s like the question about the wooden ship. If you replace all the planks is it still the same ship? The thing it does, of course, is presuppose some essence of identity that is separate from the physical. I can’t go along with this, can you?’

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ his father said. ‘Stay away from magnets.’

  Edgar was annoyed to find himself touching the iron piercing above his left eyebrow. In retaliation, he asked his father to lend him some money.

  ‘He’s a deep kid,’ Edgar’s father called over to his girlfriend. ‘You want money? Things are a little tight right now but I’m sure I could rustle something up.’

  The transaction was a good one. Edgar’s father could spare him sixty dollars, which made him feel good about himself as a father, and bought him renewed credit in his girlfriend’s eyes. Electa was paid, Edgar had money in h
is pocket, and they drove, in small triumph, to Onyataka Depot where Warren’s new woman lived.

  She kept them company for the journey, smiling blurry eyes beneath owl-framed spectacles.

  ‘Is this what you came back for?’

  ‘I guess so. And to see my father.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll come to the Blackberry Festival?’

  ‘Doubt it. But I came back, also …’

  ‘Also what?’

  A better father would have given him advice about what to do in this situation; one of the alternative Edgars, a better one, would know how to woo Electa, eradicate the distance between them with a kiss.

  ‘Where does wind come from?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve always wondered that. I guess it’s kind of an atmospheric thing. Let me know when you find out. But I’ll tell you something. You know what you should do?’

  ‘What?’ he asked, in gratitude.

  ‘Keep your eyes on the road. You’re not the most confident driver I’ve ever encountered.’

  7

  How do you warn someone of their approaching, encroaching death? It had been hard enough to make the journey, that effort had required all of his energies and tact, steeling his courage to pass big eighteen-wheeler trucks, negotiating the arcana of toll-booths and turnpike exits, and Edgar had just trusted to his future self to be more adroit than any of his previous ones. He stood, still sweating from the exertions of the drive, by the rose-twined porch of a house that was larger than it appeared in the photograph, on a pleasant avenue in Ephrata. He looked to Electa for assurance, but she had taken refuge from his driving in sleep. Hair had fallen in front of her face. Her head rested in the crook of window and headrest. The sun-visor was pulled down, her feet in sneakers pointed away from each other.

  This was not quite as affluent a neighbourhood as Vail. The houses stood closer together, on their own little rises, with American flags fluttering in the breeze. Edgar has no plan of approach, he has no idea what he is going to say. He looks at the birdbath on the lawn. He knocks on the door. He trusts, uncertainly, to his ability to improvise when the conversation begins.