Mount Terminus: A Novel

by Grand, David

  My God is Yahweh, squawked Elijah. My God is Yahweh.

  To which Bloom said, Amen.

  * * *

  When he regained his composure, the young Rosenbloom descended the staircase of the tower and made his way to the stand of eucalyptus. He thought he should go down and greet Simon, but, after having witnessed what his brother had done on the road, he was reluctant to do so. There was something about Simon’s doggedness he found unsettling and he grew wary of being in his company. He instead watched as the trucks lined up on the plateau road to meet Gus at the warehouse loading dock. Gus stood there with a clipboard and pen in hand. In his calm, quiet manner, with his pronounced nose, he pointed the laborers in various directions as they hauled cargo past him. When a truck was emptied, the vehicle moved ahead to the cul-de-sac where it turned around and motored off onto the mountain road. Moving past Gus was lumber and hardware, spools of cable, steel rails, dollies, a crane, a multitudinous variety of furniture and lintels, windowpanes, mirrors, signs, lamps and lanterns, ceramics and statuary, all forms of lighting equipment, framed artwork, pianos small and large, orchestral instruments, music stands, garment racks and more garment racks, sewing machines, bolts of fabric, rolls upon rolls of rugs, pyramids of cases, trunks, and crates, and a great many items to which Bloom couldn’t give names. He observed for several hours what equipment and materials entered the warehouse, and as he looked at the procession of trucks, the unloading, the storing, he grew increasingly eager to find out the fate of the man who had been so brutally beaten on the roadside. For the better part of the afternoon, however, the man was nowhere to be seen. Nor, for that matter, was Simon. It wasn’t until near the wane of day, when the lead truck of the convoy had returned with its second load, that Simon emerged from the turreted house at the center of the cul-de-sac. He walked to Gus’s side, looked over what progress had been made, nodded his approval, then pulled Gus away. They strolled to the house Simon had just exited. Gus now entered and after only a moment hobbled out with the broken man cradled in his arms. Gus, who didn’t appear overly taxed by the weight of the beaten man, trudged up the incline to the edge of the estate. When he finished his journey uphill, and he and the man were standing before Bloom on a patch of dappled earth, the young Rosenbloom could clearly see the entire left side of the man’s face had been beaten purple. His right eye had ballooned shut, the lid so pregnant with blood Bloom could see capillaries worm over its surface. Near the corner of his mouth swelled a similar, but lesser contusion. Here his lip had been gashed, and the blood spilled from it had dried in streaks down the curly hairs of his beard. On the less injured side of his face, he appeared to be a man of mismatched features. He possessed a prominent nose and a recessed chin, an eye too small for its orbit and a full cheek that would one day soon fall over the line of his jaw. Atop his head was an unkempt mane that flared up about his ears and on either side of a widow’s peak.

  This is Mr. Dershowitz, said Gus. He keeps our books.

  Bloom said with sincere concern, How do you do, Mr. Dershowitz?

  As you can see, said Dershowitz out of the less injured side of his mouth, not very well. Not well at all. His good eye moved between Gus and Bloom then turned in the direction of the villa.

  He needs a bed, said Gus. The truck with the mattresses hasn’t arrived yet.

  Bloom said, Why don’t you take him to one of the cottages and I’ll fetch some ice.

  As Gus continued to carry Mr. Dershowitz’s weight along the path leading to the courtyard, Bloom ran to the kitchen, where he chipped away shards of ice from the block in the icebox, bundled them into a wet cloth, and carried them outside. In the cottage nearest the studio, he found Gus had removed Mr. Dershowitz’s jacket and vest, his shoes and socks, and was now propping up his head on a pillow.

  Dershowitz thanked Bloom for the compress and pressed it first to his lip, then arranged it so it rested on his eye. Much better, he said. Much, much better. He now started laughing. I’m accustomed to men finding me a little unpleasant, but never have they exercised their displeasure with me quite like this. I warned your brother something of this nature would happen, you know. Only I never expected I would be the victim of his folly. Again he laughed, this time taking hold of his ribs. Oy! he groaned. Then: Just my luck I should arrive at the precise moment.

  I’m very sorry, said Bloom.

  Mr. Dershowitz dismissed Bloom’s concern with a feh and a wave of the hand. Had it not been me, someone else would have been made to suffer. To ask, Why me? It’s not worth the breath in my lungs. They were here to menace. To send a message. Here I am: the message. Mr. Levy there, he knows the way of the world. He’ll tell you the same: the unexpected is always unexpected. And generally unwelcome.

  Gus shrugged in agreement.

  Dershowitz, whose open eye was beginning to behave strangely, repeated: I warned your brother. In a voice now somewhat adrift, he added, There’s little profit in animosity, I told him. It didn’t take a genius to imagine in what ways the animus would grow. You remember that, he said, jutting a finger at Bloom. The motion was abrupt and caused him to groan. This time with a breathy ach rather than an oy.

  We should send for a doctor, Bloom said to Gus.

  Simon already phoned for one. He should be here presently.

  Bloom then turned to Mr. Dershowitz, who said with a return of his senses, It’ll take more than a mob of faygala farm boys to kill off this old Jew. I’ll be all right, young Rosenbloom. You wait and see.

  I’m going to ask my cook to sit with you until the doctor arrives. She’ll have a better idea as to what to do for you.

  You’re a fine young man.

  I’ll send her in with some hot water. Should you want her to clean your wounds.

  If she isn’t too troubled by my appearance, who am I to say no to the soft touch of a shayner maidel.

  Bloom patted Mr. Dershowitz’s hand and went in search of Meralda.

  * * *

  By the time he and Meralda had prepared the hot water and had chipped away a bucketful of ice, the doctor had arrived. He was a portly, red-eyed man wearing a checkered vest and a trilby too small for his wide face. Bloom escorted him and Meralda to the cottage, where Gus continued to sit at Mr. Dershowitz’s side. Bloom set the basin of hot water on the bedside table, and to make room in the cramped cottage, he stepped outside. He watched from the window as the doctor and his cook began the work of cleaning the blood from Mr. Dershowitz’s wounds. This, however, he decided he needn’t see. This whole ordeal had shaken Bloom more than he realized. He took a seat at the edge of the reflecting pool to calm himself. He watched on the surface of its water the sky turn from crimson to violet to black. In it he saw the moon crest over the peak of the villa’s roof, and with the moon’s arrival the still water of the pool phosphoresced. A silver sheen brightened the air, hung there, as would a vapor. It reflected from the spines of cacti planted on the terraced hill rising to the studio; it mixed with the mist of electric light emanating from the plateau.

  He felt at this time Roya’s eyes on him. Somewhere. Nearby. He could sense her presence silently maneuvering through the ghostly light. But when he turned to search the courtyard for her, he saw instead Gus’s familiar figure, aglow, in motion, moving toward him. When the big man arrived at his side, he rested a heavy hand on Bloom’s shoulder and said, He won’t be very pretty to look at for a while, but he should be all right. The doctor, Gus told him, recommended he not be moved. Mr. Dershowitz’s head had been concussed and he had a broken rib, maybe two, maybe three. Gus and Meralda would sit with him through the night should delirium or a fever take him, in which case they would need to drive Mr. Dershowitz to the hospital in town. Gus asked Bloom if he would please go down onto the lot and tell his brother what he had just told him, and Bloom said he would do it right away. He followed Gus as far as the cottage and continued on through the pergola to the stand of eucalyptus, and there he discovered, on the very boulder where his father had sat the first ti
me he gazed upon Simon as a grown man, his brother. Simon was looking down on what remained of the returned convoy. More props were being hauled into the warehouse, and at the end of the cul-de-sac he could see men carrying furniture and trunks into the strange assortment of dwellings. When Simon saw Bloom standing beside him, the young Rosenbloom delivered Gus’s message about Mr. Dershowitz, and Simon, upon hearing it, appeared relieved. That is welcome news, he said. He patted the rock with his hand and Bloom took a seat beside him. He asked if Bloom had been in the tower this afternoon, and Bloom told him he had done as Simon said he should do the last time they were together.

  So, said his brother, you saw it all, then.

  Yes, said Bloom.

  They continued to watch and listen to the activity on the plateau for some time. Breaking the silence, Simon turned to Bloom and said, Gus, I understand, explained the points of contention.

  To this, Bloom nodded.

  Then you know why those men were here.

  Bloom nodded again.

  Good, said Simon, nodding along with Bloom. Good. Again he fell quiet for a moment. Had I thought anyone would arrive ahead of us … I only learned early this morning there would be trouble, you see, and Hal wasn’t meant to be here until later in the week.

  If it helps, said Bloom, when we spoke, Mr. Dershowitz sounded accepting, perhaps even a little fatalistic, about what’s happened to him.

  That’s merely the way Hal is disposed. Hal Dershowitz, Simon explained, had been something of an uncle to him; the unwelcome uncle who on festive occasions spoke of nothing but death and disease and suffering. He had looked after Sam’s books since before Simon could remember, and now he was looking after his, and, as he had meddled in Sam’s affairs—largely to Sam’s benefit—he now meddled in Simon’s, and almost always landed on the right side of an argument. He warned me of the challenges we would face in the north, said Simon, and he cautioned me against the venture. I would be better served, he advised me, to leave well enough alone. Why, he asked as he extended an arm to the plateau, can’t I be satisfied with this? When I made the deal with the water authority, he called it my great folly, my grand misadventure. Perhaps he’s right? Simon looked to Bloom for his response, but at that moment a strong gust of wind blew at Bloom’s and Simon’s backs, rushed through the spindling limbs overhead. Bloom looked away from his brother and turned to the villa to face the onrush. He saw the moon had lifted up in its entirety over the line of the roof, its light bright enough now to cast shadows. On the periphery of his vision, he saw something move within the tower’s pavilion, and when he focused on the archway, he saw at its center Roya’s silhouette. As if to embrace the oncoming wind, she spread out both her arms, and when she stretched them to their full length, two small birds darted out of her fists into the argent haze. They arced about the moon’s circumference and met at its center, where they crossed paths and fluttered out of sight. When Bloom turned back, he found Simon had eased himself off the boulder and was walking downhill in the direction of an approaching truck, his white suit turning black in the night.

  PART III

  AFFINITY

  Hal Dershowitz convalesced for the better part of three weeks in a netherworld. Meralda roused him from bed every morning and helped him to a chaise in the courtyard, where she propped his injured head on a pillow and served him a fulvous concoction of iced lemonade and tincture of laudanum. Thereafter, he slipped in and out of consciousness throughout the day, possessing in his delirium little more than the ability to whisper short phrases and mumble gibberish under his breath. Although he wouldn’t be able to follow the narrative, Bloom, thinking Mr. Dershowitz might take comfort in hearing a friendly voice, read to him from the back pages of Little Dorrit. As a man who had dedicated his life to the manipulation of money, he thought, perhaps he would take some pleasure in hearing under the haze of his laudanum twilight the ways in which hidden and corrupt capital twisted the lives of the Clennams, the Dorrits, the entire city of London. In a few instances while Bloom read of Mr. Merdle’s unscrupulous schemes, Mr. Dershowitz briefly emerged from his haze and mistook Jacob Rosenbloom’s younger son for the elder. With an arm struggling to lift itself, speaking in a voice that sounded from a nightmare, he said Simon’s name, and repeated it over and over until Bloom drew near. The old man crept his fingers up the sleeve of Bloom’s shirt to his collar, and using the weight of his arm, dragged the whorl of his ear to his lips, and in a barely audible rasp, he said, Your appetites will devour us. On another occasion when Bloom read aloud a section concerning this same character, he said in the same haunting wisp, Into the abyss you’ll plunge us all. On the final occasion, at the moment of the story when Mr. Merdle was found a suicide in the city baths, he said, God will punish you. After each of these episodes, Dershowitz quickly slipped back into the dark mists, and remained there. Before sunsets, Meralda escorted him to his bed and fed him some broth, a few morsels of bread and cheese, followed by an evening libation significantly stronger than the one he drank in the morning. In his docile state, the doctor posited, the wounds inflicted upon the bookkeeper healed more rapidly than they would have otherwise—the injuries to his face and his ribs, once plump and plum, deflated, and were reconstituted to the bruised complexion of an overripe peach. Meralda, on the doctor’s orders, stopped administering Mr. Dershowitz’s morning and evening cocktails, and, after several days of sobriety, he was soon able to walk from the cottage to the chaise on his own steam. His posture gradually straightened, and no longer did he hunch and clutch at his side. The pain that had been masked by the morphine he now expressed in the form of lighthearted jeremiads about dull aches and stiffness, in the same manner a browbeaten man might grumble about his dissatisfied wife; and when his head had cleared and he faced Bloom, he was able to recall who he was, and for his kindness and compassion, he expressed his gratitude. When Bloom asked him if he had any recollection of what had transpired over the course of the last several weeks, Mr. Dershowitz remembered nothing other than the soft touch of the shayner maidel who fed him his meals and led him to and from the chaise in the courtyard. But he did say he had many strange and disturbing dreams about the numerous ways Simon had brought about the end of days.

  * * *

  What Hal Dershowitz had seen of Simon’s character in his delirium, Bloom, at times, sensed as well, but in those instances when doubts about his brother’s character surfaced to consciousness, he turned away from them until they vaporized into afterthoughts. Even when on the rare occasion he saw fissures crack the veneer of Simon’s façade, when he recognized the presence of the dybbuk residing within him, Bloom felt intensely devoted to Simon, and Simon, in turn, appeared to be equally devoted to Bloom. He considered himself to be Bloom’s guardian, accountable for his well-being, and he did everything in his power to make certain he was properly looked after. Although he didn’t have the time in his schedule to play this role himself, he did assign Bloom his proxies, most notably, Gus, who moved onto the estate, into one of the cottages off the courtyard, to tend to the grounds and the gardens, to wire the villa for electricity and telephone service, to keep Bloom company during his meals, to rouse him out of bed in the mornings, to deliver him to work. On the studio lot, Simon surrounded Bloom with his most reliable people and made it clear to them they were being charged with the responsibility of educating his younger brother. He expected them to attend to their innocent protégé with the same compassion and steadfastness a parent would his or her own child, to shield him from petty squabbles and jealousies, gossip and rumors, and fix Bloom’s focus on his craft. Of course, this was hardly a necessary precaution, as Bloom had been set apart from the concerns of society for so long his seclusion had immunized him from the influence of trivial discord. He wasn’t any less human than the others—he certainly wasn’t above curiosity and intrigue—he was simply unaccustomed to small talk, whether it was composed of gibes or taunts, flattery or fawning. You just go better yourself, Gus told him, without self-pity o
r complaint. Don’t show off how clever you are. Do your work, keep to yourself, and you’ll earn their respect. This was all Bloom wanted. To prove his efforts were equivalent to that of his brother’s goodwill and his mentors’ attentions, to do his job well enough so that he might attract the admiration of Elias Gottlieb.

  * * *

  Not long after Hal Dershowitz departed the estate, Gus awakened Bloom early one morning and escorted him to the plateau. They passed a short convoy of trucks motoring out to the mountain pass. One was filled with a selection of perfectly ironed cowboys and a gloomy band of snaggle-haired banditos, the next harnessed a Jackass Mail stagecoach, a third had, lashed to its bed, cameras and lighting equipment. Simon had purchased a ranch in the valley to film their Westerns, Gus told him. The trucks were bound for a ghost town they had built on the property. When the roar and grind of the engines drifted off, they were met by a ragtime two-step sounding from the horn of a Victrola set atop a table on Simon’s porch. Beside the iron bellflower, Bloom’s brother stood conducting the morning orchestration of bodies about the lot. In an open field beyond the dwellings, a circus big top was being erected. There Bloom noticed at the field’s edge a chained baby elephant sitting on its haunches. Beside it, several cages on wheels, one containing a screeching chimpanzee dressed in a bridal gown, in another an ostrich garbed in a tuxedo and tiny top hat. Carpenters and set dressers were at work transforming the respective outdoor stages into a saloon, a Victorian parlor, a hospital room, a lady’s boudoir, an Arabian tent, the deck of a ship, an igloo, a hall of mirrors, a gypsy’s lair. A makeshift sign reading CASTING OFFICE had been posted outside one of the cottages, and there stood a long line comprised of sweating swabbies; overalled men with straw hats; men dressed in black suits and stovepipe hats; musclemen; clowns; grand dames in low-cut gowns; nurses; doctors; nuns; ballerinas; jugglers; acrobats; midget sword swallowers; sheiks; Eskimos; women draped in colorful tapestry. Bloom wanted a closer look at the costumed animals, but as he started wandering to the field, Gus grabbed hold of him by the collar and pulled him away in the opposite direction. Bloom asked Gus, as he was redirected toward the warehouse entrance nearest the estate, if he would take him to watch Gottlieb at work sometime.