Mount Terminus: A Novel

by Grand, David

  I’m afraid I am.

  I would have been much more disturbed if you hadn’t fought to save yourself.

  But I’m no longer the girl you fell in love with. I’m certain you know that to be true.

  It doesn’t matter.

  A Pandora’s box has opened inside me and I don’t know how to close it.

  Bloom reminded her what resided at the bottom of that box, and Isabella said, No, you don’t understand. She took hold of Bloom’s hand and lowered it to just above her waist. Feel, she said. She pressed his hand harder against her midriff and then moved it about its circumference. Bloom could feel how its shape had changed. How hadn’t he noticed? She was swelling. Stretching. The body whose every feature he had committed to memory was transforming into an unfamiliar shape. Before he could become excited about what he was feeling in his palm, on his fingertips, Isabella said, It’s been some time now. Understand?

  Bloom felt the sensation of ice melting on the back of his neck.

  I’ve been this way for quite some time, she said. Longer than the time we’ve recently spent together.

  I see.

  Do you?

  Yes. I do. Bloom now understood. He now comprehended in all its complexities what Isabella had just confessed to him. She had known that night of the party. Had Simon known as well? Of course he did. Of course …

  Bloom instinctively started to remove himself from Isabella’s arms, but she refused to let him go. With a strength he didn’t know she had, she grabbed hold of him and held tight. She interlocked her fingers with his, and she said, Whatever you decide tomorrow, I’ll do. But tonight, please, just tonight …

  * * *

  Neither of them slept. Neither of them said another word until dawn. All night Isabella clutched hold of Bloom’s hand, and Bloom didn’t struggle to release it. He felt the warmth of her body against his, the weight of her breasts pressed against his back, but her presence was ghostly. Many times that night he recalled the first moment he saw Isabella in the mirror given to him as a gift by Dr. Straight. And he wondered which Isabella belonged to him. The image of her true self or the image of herself in reverse. He searched his mind for the smallest of alterations of her appearance. And he wondered which of her belonged to Simon. And he wondered which of her belonged to him. And he wondered what he should do. He had so many questions, but when he thought of posing these questions to Isabella, he refrained, because, even if he didn’t know the answers, he knew the outcome; he knew in what direction this sort of conversation would take them. And he refused to take that well-worn path. He refused to make his fate the fate of his mother and his aunt. He refused to repeat the all-too-obvious patterns of the past. He chose instead to honor the promise he had made to his father when he was a child. Blessed art thou, O Lord Our God, Ruler of the Universe, may I protect my love better than he protected his. He chose to let his love for Isabella prevail over all else. He wouldn’t bend to his primal nature. He wouldn’t bend to tragedy’s architecture. He would allow Isabella her flaws. He would tolerate the duality of her character. He would learn to forget her deception. He would love the child growing inside her as if it were his own. He would forgive his brother for his weakness. He would embrace him as the child’s true father. I am a student of the invertiscope, he tried to convince himself. I am its subject. I am its embodiment. He would simply be better, better than all the protagonists in all the world’s tragedies who had given themselves over to their basest passions. In all the ways his father was unable to protect his mother, he would protect Isabella, first and foremost, from himself. When the sun broke through the bedroom windows and shone its light onto Isabella’s face, she asked Bloom if she should pack her things and leave.

  To this, Bloom said, No.

  What then?

  Nothing. We’ll do nothing. I can forgive you, he said in a voice as convincing as the voice Isabella had used when she asked Bloom to ask her to marry him. And he told her he could forgive Simon. And he told her he could love the child as if it were his own. And then he asked if Simon knew.

  And she said that he did. He knew she was pregnant. But he didn’t know that there was no question about who the father was. He thought there was a chance that it was Bloom’s.

  Then he must be told, said Bloom.

  Must he?

  Bloom didn’t have the answer to this question. He only had another question. There’s only one thing I need to know, he said.

  What’s that?

  I don’t want to know why, but I must know: are you certain it’s me you want to be with and not him?

  Yes. With you. Without reservation.

  Why? he was tempted to ask, but instead said, Then that’s the way it will be.

  * * *

  That morning they returned to the studio lot down the hill and continued their work. They were exhausted and at times distracted by what had passed in the night. They had thus far introduced all their principal characters and completed the scenes set within the Spanish court of King Philip. The events preceding Fernando and Miranda’s expulsion had been completed, as had the scenes depicting Manuel’s work as an apprentice to a master builder. On this day, Bloom sat perched on a crane with Gottlieb and his new cameraman, Roland Briggs. Together they overlooked the deck of a balsa wood replica of the Estrella del Mar mounted to a fulcrum, at either end of which members of the crew took turns squatting and lifting to approximate the ship falling and rising over the ocean current. An industrial-sized fan blew the sails full of wind, and when the jib boom dipped into the sea, a fire line of men with buckets heaved water up onto the starboard and port. It was a tedious morning followed by a tedious afternoon, one during which Bloom withdrew into the scrolling backdrop of the sea. He could feel himself roiling with the slow movement of the passing waves. Unwanted images of Simon and Isabella appeared. He couldn’t help but imagine his brother’s seed taking root inside his wife, forming in the well of her a growing replica of his brother, of Bloom. The more he dwelled on these thoughts, the better he comprehended the nexus of his mother’s madness. He understood what drove her to Sam Freed’s house that day to claim Simon as her own. How, he wondered, would he manage this without losing his mind? I am a student of the invertiscope, he reminded himself. Its subject. Its embodiment. But would he be able to inhibit his basest nature before cold, rational reason took hold and made him a better man? The actions of Isabella and Simon, he could forgive, but these images he had invited would not cease. They only grew more vibrant and real. No matter how concerted his effort to act in a loving and sympathetic manner toward Isabella in the days that followed, when night fell and they turned in to bed, he saw Simon mounting her, entering her, taking from her the most intimate and animalistic part of herself, taking from Bloom what was his. He grew so disturbed and outraged by these thoughts, he needed to remove himself from their room, and on many occasions, he was tempted to get into his car, to drive down the mountain, to confront Simon, to ask him why he had undermined the love he felt for the two people he cherished most in the world. Was he still motivated, Bloom wondered, by his residual anger toward Jacob? Or did Bloom in some way unknowingly earn Simon’s scorn, as Rachel had earned Leah’s? Or was it simpler than that? Was it possible his changed wife had fallen in love with Simon, with the complexity of his fractured self, and had Simon fallen in love with Isabella for that very same reason? Was it only their concern for him that was keeping them apart?

  Night after night, Bloom walked to Mount Terminus’s peak and sat there until his temper quieted, and he then returned to his bed before daybreak so Isabella wouldn’t have cause to feel concerned. He did this for weeks, exhausted his body to such an extent he exhausted his anger. And with his anger exhausted, he was able to imagine himself as Simon. He was able to empathize with him. Unconditionally. He was able to rationalize a world in which he had given over his responsibility for his troubled wife to his brother. And he recalled what he saw in Manuel’s secret room. In what way the connection between Isab
ella and Simon was authentic. And he recalled what Simon had sacrificed the night of the party, when, in effect, he returned her to Bloom. And when he was able to perceive their family drama from this point of view, he was grateful to Simon. The images of his brother lying with his wife began to recede, their focus softened, but, night after night when Bloom rejoined Isabella in their bed, he was now awakened in the dark by the same dream he had when Simon returned to Mount Terminus after Jacob and Sam had passed away. Night after night, he dreamed of the mirrored villa filled with his distorted image, of the tower crumbling and rushing asunder, and each time he awoke with a start, an image of Isabella and Simon’s child, born and alive, and aging into a man, into a woman, appeared in Bloom’s mind. And night after night, he was struck by the same thought. Simon had willingly sacrificed the love of a woman who didn’t rightly belong to him, but what of the love of a child who did? If there was no doubt about who the baby’s father was, would he remain amicable? Or would he become the man whose omniscient gaze peered out from the heights of billboards overlooking the basin and the sea?

  * * *

  On a morning Bloom was meant to be driving out to meet his crew in the far reaches of the valley—where Gottlieb had found a location that resembled the drawings Bloom had made for the Mount Terminus massacre—he discovered his father’s old business associate Saul Geller waiting for him in the parlor. The man looked in good health, but his demeanor at the moment was sickly. He appeared as Bloom did, as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. He nevertheless possessed the same warmth Bloom remembered from the time they sat in the courtyard for the reading of Jacob’s will. Bloom told Mr. Geller what a pleasure it was to see him again, and he explained he was in a rush. He was expected within the hour, and, as it was, he was already going to be late. He wondered if Mr. Geller could wait to meet with him later in the day. Geller took hold of Bloom’s arm and apologized to him. He said it was imperative that they speak now. Please, the older man asked, when is the last time you saw our Mr. Stern?

  Bloom told him it had been some time. Stern, he explained, had, in the past few years, taken to sending couriers with written reports, which Bloom admitted to never having read.

  Geller stood up and walked to the sideboard on which Meralda had left Jacob’s crystal glasses and a decanter filled with schnapps, and he poured himself a drink, and then poured one for Bloom. When he handed Bloom the tumbler, Bloom reminded Geller he had just started his day. Trust me, Joseph, you’ll want the drink before I deliver the news I have.

  What is it? Has something bad happened to Mr. Stern?

  If only that were the case. I would consider it a blessing. Geller shook his head and drank. A few weeks ago, I received a distressing letter from Stern. I want you to understand, I have no way of verifying if what he says about certain parties mentioned is accurate. I’m only relating to you what he wrote to me … Please, Joseph … Geller pushed the bottom of Bloom’s glass to his lips. Drink.

  Bloom, now sensing the news Mr. Geller had come all this way to deliver was as bad as he claimed, and because he thought it would be impolite not to, drank.

  The short of it, said Geller, is that Stern has cleaned you out. This much of what he has written to me I can verify. The man has taken you for everything. Your entire inheritance, it’s all gone.

  Bloom felt the uncanny sensation of blood rushing out of his head. His thoughts departed from the room for a moment, and when they returned, he said, Mr. Stern? We are talking about Mr. Stern?

  Yes. There is no mistake about it. Mr. Stern, our stern Mr. Stern, has liquidated all your assets. He has raided all your accounts and emptied all your deposit boxes. He has even gone so far as to sell off all the land surrounding the estate. Every square inch of it. He’s left you with this property, your home in Woodhaven, and only because he would have required my approval, he left you the controlling interest in our company. Little, very little meat remains on the bone.

  Our Mr. Stern?

  Yes, said Geller, our Mr. Stern.

  Bloom took a seat on the sofa and looked into his now empty tumbler. To the many images of his face reflected in the crystalline diamonds that formed the glass’s smooth surface, he said, I’m shocked.

  Of course you are. We all are.

  I protected him when he needed a confidant. He looked up to Geller as he might have to a rabbi. What have I done to him that he would feel the need to do this to me?

  So far as I know? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He’s simply lost his head … over a woman.

  A woman, said Bloom. Of course, he thought, the woman. The woman Stern never believed would give him the time of day. That same woman who appeared to think nothing of him whatsoever, a caterpillar crushed on the sole of her shoe.

  He mentioned in his letter that you know of the woman.

  Yes, I know of the woman. But, as far as I knew, he was finished with her, and she was finished with him. So far as I understood it, there was nothing between them to begin with. The woman, he explained, was a prop, an actor, Simon’s leverage to blackmail Stern. Simon, he explained, needed Bloom’s money to keep his enterprise afloat, and his brother rightly perceived Stern as an impediment to getting what he needed.

  Well, on that score, said Geller, you came out well. Stern made a point of saying this. He was considerate to spare your feelings where your brother was concerned.

  It turns out he needn’t have, said Bloom.

  As Geller spoke of short-term losses and long-term gains, of rates of return, Bloom once again fixed his attention to the images of his face at the bottom of his glass. For his deceitful behavior, you can fault Simon, said Geller, and, I imagine, if you want to hold him responsible for the unintended consequences. Had it not been for the ways in which your brother inspired Stern, Simon’s manipulation would have done you no harm at all. His example, on the other hand, for that you can hold him accountable. Our Mr. Stern, it seems, had fallen in love with the conniving seductress. And he pursued her after the fact. The problem was he couldn’t afford her. So he took it where he could get it. When he saw how easy it was to manipulate your money without you having taken notice—not that I’m casting blame, mind you—he started scavenging your fortune. After Simon had paid back the money he had taken, Stern gradually moved it into one of his own accounts. In small amounts at first, then larger and larger amounts. The next thing he knew, he was liquidating the remainder of your investments and assets, buying property abroad under false names, moving your funds to accounts under the same false identities, and now he’s disappeared to God-knows-where with that woman.

  Our Mr. Stern?

  Yes, said Geller, our Mr. Stern.

  Bloom could only shake his head at the thought of it.

  I’ve informed the authorities and I’ve retained a team of investigators, but, if I’m to be honest, Joseph, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Stern is a clever man and it would seem he’s highly motivated not to be found. Geller lifted the glass out of Bloom’s hand and he returned to the schnapps for a second go. I’m so sorry, said Geller as he handed Bloom the drink. I swore to your father I would look after you, and this, this is what happens.

  Bloom was dumbfounded. He wasn’t certain what to think about the loss of the money. What did he know of money? He was hardly an extravagant spender. Whatever income was left from the company, he speculated, would suffice. And he told Geller as much. You shouldn’t blame yourself, he said to his father’s old friend.

  But I do blame myself. Who else, if not me, is there to blame?

  Mr. Stern.

  Yes, but it was I who insisted Stern handle your affairs to begin with. It was I who built this house of cards.

  There’s no way you could have known it would come to this.

  No. But I am responsible. It was my doing. And I’ve decided. I want you to have the shares in the company your father gave to me after he died. I think it’s the least I can do to compensate you for such a great loss.

  No, I won’t hear of it.

 
You must think of your future, Joseph. You have a wife now. Soon you’ll have a family of your own.

  Bloom’s eyes returned to the empty bottom of the glass, to the multitude of eyes staring back at him.

  The income from the foundry? It’s nothing to sneeze at, said Geller. But it’s not the legacy your father left you. He would have never said it out loud, but he was proud of the fact that you and the children who follow you would want for nothing. And now …

  I will still want for nothing. There is nothing more I want.

  That is the shock speaking, said Geller. When your head has cleared, we’ll revisit this conversation. For now, let’s leave it.

  * * *

  After expressing further distress and dismay, after making one too many apologies, Saul Geller departed that morning. He was off to meet the investigators to search through Stern’s office and home in hope of finding some clue as to where he’d absconded with Bloom’s inheritance and the man-eating Marianne Merriweather. And Bloom went off in search of Isabella. He felt compelled to share Geller’s news with her. For the briefest of moments he forgot all the ways in which their life together had been upended, and he wanted her to comfort him, to tell him they would see their way through. But as he ascended the stairs to the landing, Bloom grew increasingly agitated. His only thought was what would become of Mount Terminus. The parcels of land Stern had sold would be developed. It was inevitable. A fait accompli. He easily imagined the city overrunning the mountain. He saw in his mind the physical structures taking shape. He imagined the noise of people overwhelming his peace of mind. And he was reminded of his father’s last months, his last days, during which he packed his ears with cotton and sought refuge in the gallery. Bloom better understood now. He better comprehended what was lost to Jacob, what it was that had driven him so deep into the interior of his home. He wasn’t merely mourning the loss of his wife; he wasn’t merely dwelling in the darkness of regret; he was grieving the end of silence. The silence that had renewed Rachel during their happiest days on Mount Terminus. The silence he dreamed of as a boy in the orphanage. The silence that lasted days on end. And, oh, how Bloom wished he could return the silence to the open vistas, to the open land that ran to the sea and out into the valley, as far out as the dam that now held back the waters of Pacheta Lake. How he wished his brother were a simple man, a man of smaller ambitions, of smaller stature, a man of little means and little experience, a man who held Bloom in esteem, who considered his marriage sacred, who would have shrunk at the thought of touching his wife. Oh, how Bloom wished his father had never gone in search of his aunt after he and his mother had been reunited. How he wished his brother never existed. How he wished he could make him disappear, reduce him to a puff of smoke, a mere shadow in Gottlieb’s cave. When Bloom saw Isabella sitting in the gallery, in his mother’s chair, her shoulders wrapped in his mother’s paisley shawl, her eyes gazing on the outline of Rachel’s form in the window overlooking Woodhaven’s lake, Bloom couldn’t bring himself to subject her to the dybbuk taking hold of him. He would not allow any malcontent spirit to disturb the glow of her motherhood, of her future with her child. He stood and stared at her from the threshold, and then quietly backed away. As noiselessly as Roya, he withdrew, past the library in which he had spent so much time, he withdrew down the stairs to the kitchen and took in the sight of Gus and Meralda looking lovingly at each other from across the table. He would not disturb them either. He walked out the front door, turned over the engine of his car, and sat behind the wheel. As he was about to drive off, he looked up to see Roya looking down on him from the tower’s pavilion. What happened next, Bloom wouldn’t fully comprehend for as long as he lived. At the moment he was about to wave farewell to her, he noticed Roya had, cupped in her hands, Elijah, who, upon seeing Bloom, tried to break the hold she had on him. Roya gave Bloom’s clever bird a kiss on his crest to quiet him, and when she lifted her head, something came over Elijah. He began to peck at Roya’s hands. He managed to free one wing, and then the other, and with a final peck directed at Roya’s nose, he was free. Bloom’s silent companion ran to the rail and let out a silent scream as Elijah tumbled forward. He fell over once and then twice, and then Bloom witnessed Elijah’s wings spread. His crest retracted to face the offshore breeze, and for the first time since Mr. Geller delivered his aviary to the tower’s pavilion, Bloom watched the beauty of this bird take flight. Elijah circled about the gardens for a few moments, turned back, swooped over Bloom’s head, and then flapped on toward Mount Terminus’s open gates, and out and up along the mountain road that led to the summit. Bloom threw the roadster into gear, and, with little else on his mind other than the thought of retrieving his beloved friend, sped after him. Elijah flew up and around and kept pace with the car, doubled back every now and again, as if he were intentionally leading Bloom up and over the peak to the valley. Bloom waved his free hand and screamed out Elijah’s name over the engine’s whine and grind. Elijah, he called. Elijah, I need you here with me. Elijah, who appeared to look down at Bloom from time to time, arced over the mountain and down the canyon switchback, leading Bloom on his descent into the valley. Elijah, Bloom called. Please. Please, come back to me! He lost sight of him as the cockatiel dipped down into the canyon, and he would then suddenly reappear in a long sweep up over the road, and dive down again. Please, Bloom called out, this world isn’t for you! And on Elijah flew, paying Bloom no mind at all. For a while the bird flew so high, he blended in with the wisps of haze brushing the washed-out blue of the desert sky. But Bloom felt him up there, felt his presence, and he trusted Elijah would return to him, so he drove. He drove the turns, back and forth, skirting the dry bed of the rusted canyon, passing the folded mantle of chaparral that met the morning sun. He drove to the head of the steep grade of the straightaway that led to the long, long valley road, at which point Elijah sailed down out of the haze, swept over Bloom’s roadster, and landed on the remains of a fir tree long ago burned in an autumn blaze. He perched himself right at the end of a blackened limb that hung out over the road. Bloom pulled over onto the road’s shoulder and turned off the motor. He held out his arm and called out to his bird, his old friend. Please, he said, I need you here with me. But Elijah wouldn’t come. He stared down at him with the same patient gaze as the buzzards of Pacheta Lake who covered his father in the shadow of their heraldic poses and guarded his juniper trees. And Bloom sat looking over the valley with Elijah, and waited and watched, as he did on those days he spent with his father during the Days of Awe, on Yom Kippur. And he was reminded of the mountain’s melt cascading down volcanic craters, pressing its way through canyon and gorge, feeding the river that flowed into the graben of the rift valley, and he recalled how the waters had been diverted into the irrigation canals at the desert’s edge, and the ways in which his brother had diverted the water through the aqueduct to the immense face of the dam, and he saw his brother’s shadow over the world he had delivered to Mount Terminus, with its myriad intended and unintended consequences, and was convinced now, more than ever before, the choice he and Isabella had made together, to remain united as one, was an illusion. For Simon was no simple man. He was no humble man. He had grown so enormous in size he could hardly be considered a man at all. His image had come to hold as many meanings as there were people beholding it; he had become an idol of old, a golden calf worshipped and adored, the producer of dreams at the desolate end of the world, the shaper of implausible destinies, the man who moved living waters to make paradise on Earth, the emperor, the pharaoh, the deity, Simon Reuben. And Bloom had come to know what lived behind his brother’s many masks. He knew what formed the core of his humanity, he knew what motivated him, and he knew Simon would never allow Bloom to raise his child. This shaper of the impossible would sooner sacrifice Bloom as a brother before he turned into Jacob Rosenbloom, the abandoner, the missing part, the mysterious ghost. He would not be subject to twists of dramatic irony. He would fight for the child. And, no matter how much he claimed
to love Bloom, he would fight for Isabella. Here, thought Bloom, were the unintended consequences of this thread of the tale. Here was the truth of the matter. Here was why stories such as these were told. Here was why men fought bloody battles. Here was why Troy fell. Here was why students of the invertiscope were little more than innocent boys hanging precariously from limbs of trees, filling baskets with acorns in an Eden that had long ago closed up shop.