by Grand, David
Five hundred thirty-five souls passed that day. The anarchists of the Mojave were hunted down and held in custody for months while the county conducted an investigation. Several of the men died mysterious deaths while awaiting the outcome of the report, which showed, in the end, no one had tampered with the dam. A geologist determined the structural integrity of the great project had failed, as it had been built on unstable ground. It didn’t matter that Simon had nothing to do with the actual construction of the reservoir. He and several members of the water authority were the faces of the project, but, as the once-heroic bust of progress and renewal, Simon took the brunt of the public’s outrage, and he had no other choice but to accept the blame. Gus told Bloom he returned to Simon’s side. He couldn’t bear to watch him suffer the consequences of this moment alone. The big man encouraged Bloom’s brother to set up a charity for the surviving family members and influenced him to make a pledge to rebuild the destroyed property. In time, Gus hoped, Simon would redeem himself in the eyes of those who had placed their trust in him.
Not long after the inquiries had concluded, not long after Gus and Meralda’s visit, Simon traveled to Santa Ynez on Eduardo’s ferry, and Bloom saw in his brother’s face the toll these events had taken on him, and he saw to what extent he had been humbled. He had been stripped of his pride and his arrogance, and perhaps for the first time, Bloom believed, his brother truly needed him, as a brother, and nothing more, his unconditional love, his time, his ear. They walked down the stairs of the bluff together and sat on the rocks and looked off to the sea’s horizon, and Simon said how sorry he was for having betrayed Bloom’s trust. He had fallen in love with Isabella. There was no other motivation. He loved her, simple as that, and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t resist what he felt for her. For what he did to Stern, and for the unintended consequences, he promised to help find Bloom’s former trustee, and if he couldn’t be found, he would contact Mr. Geller and make a financial arrangement. Bloom learned from Simon that Isabella was now living in Simon’s house, and that the estate on Mount Terminus had been shut. Gus and Meralda were now living with them, helping with the baby.
Bloom asked Simon if he and Isabella were happy together, and Simon said they were. But, he said, she still loves you. You must know that. Is it so wrong, he asked, that she loves us both in different ways?
No, said Bloom, I suppose not.
You’re happy here, said Simon.
Very. And it would make me even happier if you and Isabella would visit from time to time, so our children can grow up together. After all, we’re all that’s left, you and I, and them.
They parted company that day on good terms, and they would, indeed, see each other every now and then, and Bloom would find it in himself to forgive Simon, and he would grow accustomed to seeing him and Isabella as a couple, happy in their own way, with their daughter, Anna, who Bloom, too, would come to love. Anna and Gisele would meet on Santa Ynez and swing on Guillaume’s trapeze, and lie on their backs for hours in the aviary, thinking up pictures in their minds, and when the desert gales blew across the channel, sweeping away all the mist and dust, they and Bloom would climb to the top of the turret and look through his telescope to Mount Terminus, and Gisele would say, Please, Father, and Anna would say, Please, Uncle Joseph, tell us a fairy tale. And Bloom would tell them stories about the time he spent on Mount Terminus as a child. He hid nothing from them. He told them the sad tale of their grandfather and how he had spent the better part of his life mourning the loss of their grandmothers. And he told them how it was he and his brother were reunited and driven apart, and reunited again. He told them about how he and Eduardo discovered their mutual love of birds. He told them about how he fell in love with Anna’s mother, and how his love had been poisoned and transformed. He told Gisele about how he and her mother had come to be joined in love by a grief that in time turned to joy. And he told them stories of imagined worlds he dreamed about in the silence of his days and dreamed about in the darkness of the night.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I started work on Mount Terminus, I had every intention of completing it in three, perhaps four years. For reasons I’m not entirely sure I can adequately explain, the writing came, but it came slowly. My process, it seemed, was more in sync with geologic time than with publishing time. And while I’m sure he was none too pleased when we entered the fifth year of this endeavor, and then the seventh, and then the ninth, my longtime editor, Sean McDonald, never cast doubt into my mind that I would one day finish, that one day there would be a book we could both feel proud of. For Sean’s patience, devotion, loyalty, friendship, and sage direction, for his illuminating notes and great instincts, I am deeply grateful. Without him, I could have very easily wandered off into the wilderness and never returned.
I extend similar gratitude and thanks to Jin Auh at the Wylie Agency, who never ceases to go above and beyond. She read multiple drafts, provided valuable insights along the way, and accomplished the impossible task of rescuing my spirits when they needed rescuing. Thank you to Zoe Pagnamenta, formerly of the Wylie Agency, for selling the book to Sean when my children were just out of diapers (they’re now in high school), for being a dear friend in the intervening years, and for providing good company and a country retreat, where many of these pages were written. Thank you also to Tracy Bohan at Wylie, who has seen to it that Mount Terminus will have a life abroad.
In addition to these very fine people, thank you to Wesley Stace for his unmatched friendship and careful reading, and for sharing his encyclopedic knowledge on all the subjects I most value; to the talented writers and dear friends that comprise the Masonville Collective—Rene Steinke and Beka Chace, who read closely, edited meticulously, and fed me and sang to me; to Errollyn Wallen, for fortifying me with beautiful music; to Minna Proctor, for editorial notes, copyedits, and all-around brilliance; to Gary Shteyngart, for a place to write in Rome and Germantown, New York; to Emily Chamberlain and Ryan Elwood, my research assistants, who hunted everywhere for obscure books and added depth where depth was needed; and to Joel Stutz, for his lifelong support.
Thanks also to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for opening their archives to me.
Christine, my wife, who is the embodiment of the world’s most moving lyrical poetry, and my sons, Sasha and Nathanael, the most excellent young men I know—you are the reason I do everything I do.
This book is for my mother, Margaret Stutz, who has given all and asked for so little in return. And for her mother, Bessie Buschel, who, had she lived a few more months, would have turned one hundred upon Mount Terminus’s publication. She shared with me her great love of movies and books, and much, much more, and for that I am profoundly in her debt. For a tough old broad, my bubbie had a soft touch.
ALSO BY DAVID GRAND
Louse
The Disappearing Body
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2014 by David Grand
All rights reserved
First edition, 2014
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grand, David, 1968–
Mount Terminus: a novel / David Grand.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-374-28088-8 (hardback)
1. Motion picture industry—California—Los Angeles—Fiction. 2. Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.R247 M68 2014
813'.54—dc23
2013033025
www.fsgbooks.com
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eISBN 9780374711658
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