Three Junes

by Julia Glass

  Ever since, I’ve begged off such outings by claiming that I get rabidly seasick and thus would spoil the solemnity of the occasion. (In truth, I love to sail, so long as someone else knows how to navigate.)

  THE SHOP WAS CHRISTENED PLUME. I wasn’t happy about this coy pun Ralph cooked up to evoke both scholarship and ornithology, but it was preferable to Books of a Feather, Feathered Folio, and Bibliobirds, three other suggestions which should not have surprised me, coming as they did from a man whose bed wore a bonnet of chintz. (I wanted, simply, Books & Birds, to which Ralph snorted, “Sweetheart, you are a font of insight, but you infallibly err on the side of dull.” Which I would not dispute.)

  We opened quietly in July, postponing the christening party until September and what the French so succinctly call la rentrée to ensure the attendance of half the humanities faculty from Columbia and, by extension, their spousal and rivalrous complement from nearby NYU. Even a few Princetonians made the commute. By then, we had also attracted our neighbors’ attention and made them sufficiently comfortable to wander in for a free glass of wine. As a featured guest, we had the aging but still robust Roger Tory Peterson; by the time our soiree was in full swing (full flight?), a queue had curled toward the corner of the block, each occupant holding one of Mr. Peterson’s guidebooks.

  A major expenditure turned out to be the proper framing of my bird prints, but the investment was wise. Though even a sliver of unshelved wallspace in a bookshop might seem like folly in these parts, the view from the street was seductive. Here and there between the shelves, like portals onto a lost world, hung Audubon’s grand, effetely poised birds. In the glass that brightened their plumage was reflected the greenery on the street and in the garden, lending our low-ceilinged quarters a touch of the arboreal that made it feel, at times, akin to a treehouse.

  By the door to the garden stood a display case holding, on green velvet, fine binoculars and portable telescopes with featherweight tripods, along with compasses, camping knives, and even upscale picnicking gadgets. (To Ralph, I gave a firm veto on T-shirts bearing the logo he longed to commission.) I kept in stock the complete ornithological guidebooks from several respected publishers, along with whatever used books of interest I could find in backwoods shops on the rare occasion I left the city. The week we ran our first ad in a birdwatching journal, our foot traffic doubled, and for the first time we talked of hiring an assistant, at least for weekends and evenings.

  By the end of that summer, we’d already earned a number of regulars, some of whom bought and some of whom didn’t. I realized the value of this place as a drifter’s or procrastinator’s paradise, destination for a dreamy lunch hour, meeting place for illicit lovers, oasis for unhappy spouses who wanted to postpone the evening’s squabbles. We had a handful of lonelyhearts, none too daft or unpleasant, who wanted not the shop’s atmosphere but my free-for-the-asking company. I didn’t mind this as much as I’d have guessed, and Ralph, who dropped by every day for about an hour, was more than willing to contribute his practiced charm. Mavis and Druid would doze about his ankles, lending us their hunting lodge cachet.

  Come September, this troupe of regulars expanded to include a few more stylish, polished types, people who’d had the luxury of fleeing the city for a month or more. One was a man, about my age, who paid his first visit as if he were the bookshop equivalent of a health inspector. After a smug hello, he turned slowly about, lighthouse fashion, and regarded the shop as if alert for violations. Next he began appraising my Audubons—and I do mean appraising; I could see him searching, eyes about an inch from the glass, for watermarks or registration flaws or whatever it is that art experts search for. At first I thought he was a dealer, and I hoped he would mistakenly declare the prints of great value so I could happily tell him they were not.

  Once he had finished scrutinizing the prints, however, he gave equal attention to the vitrine of birding accessories and then wandered out to the garden. I could only imagine his busybodying examination of everything, from the fading blossoms of the Armand Memorial Geraniums I’d planted that summer to the cracks in our flagstones and rotting stockade fence.

  At last he turned to the books, stopping throughout the shop to scan shelves (I mapped his sojourn by the creaking floorboards), though I never saw him take down and handle a book. He went to the basement as well, emerging after just a few minutes. Well, I thought with begrudging approval, no Raymond Chandler or bloody Dune for that one.

  After looking out the front window with a dreamy expression, he finally focused on me. “I didn’t know Ralph had a thing for birds.”

  Refusing to be startled, I answered, “He doesn’t.”

  “Then, I take it, you do?”

  “I’m not a birdwatcher, if that’s what you mean.”

  He nodded, as if I had given the correct answer, and pointed to the Carolina Parakeets hanging behind my desk. “Parrots. Do you know parrots?”

  I couldn’t imagine where this conversation was headed, so I said, “You know Ralph?”

  “Oh everyone in the nabe knows Ralph, he’s so civic-minded. Makes sure our trees are never thirsty, the sewers never clogged. Even without those droopy old dogs . . . Spaniels look rather boneless, don’t you think? As if they’ve been fileted?”

  I wished we’d stayed on parrots.

  “People must inquire about your accent,” he said. “I’ll bet they drive you nuts by assuming you’re Irish.”

  “That does happen,” I said. “Irishness seems fashionable here.”

  “But not in Scotland.”

  “No.” The telephone rang. It was Ralph, asking me to supper, and I longed to describe the man now meandering his way among the books again. I agreed to pick up duck breasts at Ralph’s favorite butcher.

  When I rang off, the man returned to me like a magnet. “I’ll be frank: Your music section is deplorable. Deplorable and understocked. It’s not even as long as I am short!” He smiled at his self-effacement. I wouldn’t have called him short, but there was a slightness to the man which might have led people to underestimate his stature—that is, until they heard him express a few opinions.

  “Ralph and I don’t know a great deal about music.” I was about to add that we were planning on getting some outside counsel on this and other subjects when I realized that if I did, this fellow might volunteer himself.

  “Evidently,” he said, concluding yet another subject. He sat in the armchair next to my desk and returned to the subject of myself: where exactly I was from, how long I’d been here, how I knew Ralph. He knew that I lived upstairs, and as he never asked my name, I had to assume he knew that as well. My terse answers did not seem to deter him—but then he looked at his watch and said, without a trace of irony, “I see it’s teatime and I see you’re not offering any, so it’s a fair guess I’ve overstayed my welcome.” He stood and looked around. “I do love your birds.”

  “Thank you.” I fought the well-bred urge to stand as well and shake his hand. Sensing my churlish resistance, I’m sure, he took out his wallet, removed a business card, and placed it in front of me. “Leaving my card is a habit, I’m afraid. Indulge me, please, by accepting it.”

  The card read, in a surprisingly plain typeface, Malachy Burns. I admired the discreet, antiquated nicety of this object, the absurdity of the gesture notwithstanding. And then my visitor added, pointing to the card, “I’ve thought of inserting a little fill-in-the-blank below my name so you could embellish it to your liking: With Passion. His Bridges. In Hell. Of course, you’d have to know me better than you do.”

  At the door, he looked back and said, “I regret to inform you that a large rodent or a lapdog has recently defecated, not unjustifiably, in front of the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien.” This parting shot left me speechless, as I’m sure it was intended to do, but it also proved to be true (and I knew at once that the perpetrator was the latter creature he’d named, since one of my lonelyhearts had dropped by with her shih tzu). Before I went downstairs to check, I stood
by the front window and watched my visitor depart. He crossed the street and let himself into the brownstone directly facing this one. I couldn’t see his ultimate destination, but I would have bet the remainder of my inheritance that it was the apartment in which someone (I now had an excellent notion who) had so dramatically—so operatically—shattered that set of my mother’s good china.

  SIX

  I AWAKE TO THE PENETRATING STARES of my four- and five-year-old nieces, Théa and Laurie, and the shock of cold metal on my neck.

  “Sa poitrine!” Laurie whispers bossily at her little sister and then, seeing my eyes have opened, switches to English. “Onco, we’re listening to your heart.” She is busily removing what must be David’s stethoscope from around Théa’s neck.

  “Darling,” I say, “my heart’s not in my throat. Not now anyway.”

  “I know. I was telling her that.”

  I start to rise, reaching out to touch their blond heads. Their hair is the absolute texture of innocence, smooth as Venetian glass, yet also erotically stirring, like the warm skin of a lover’s inner arm.

  “No, no. Lie down,” commands Laurie. She pushes me back.

  “All right, I’m your patient.”

  “Théa, son poignet.” Complying, Théa grabs my nearest wrist in both hands. I note with pleasure that she is wearing the black silk dragon pajamas I bought for her in Chinatown (for Laurie I bought one of those stiff lacquered parasols painted with chrysanthemums, for Christine a doll with long black hair and a rice paddy hat; it was Mal who taught me to shop with a theme).

  “Pas comme ça.” Laurie rearranges her sister’s hand on mine. “Davi showed us how to get a pulse,” she explains.

  “Ah.” I give in to her prodding. I’m glad I wore pajamas to bed, but then Laurie orders me to unbutton the top so she can get the stethoscope to its target. As she finally locates my heart and listens, wide-eyed, she wears an astonishingly unlined scowl. I glance sideways at Théa, who’s let go of my wrist, and wink. I have the urge to seize both girls and pull them into my warm narrow bed, but I know Laurie wouldn’t take kindly to my interfering with her exam. Back in New York, I’ve met enough children to recognize the age of martial law. I wrap my arm around Théa’s bony shoulders and hold her against my side.

  “It’s very fast, I think,” says Laurie. “Very very fast. I think it’s too fast.”

  “Well if it isn’t Lord Layabout and his concubines.” David stands in the doorway. He’s smiling, but I’m embarrassed he’s found me in this position, however innocent.

  “Davi, his heart’s way too fast, I think.”

  “Well, lass, we may have to arrange a transplant.” David looms over us now, a hand on Laurie’s shoulder, and I pull myself to a sitting position. He taps his Jacques Cousteau watch. “Eleven, Fen. I’ve already been to the clinic, pilled a few cats, stopped on my way back to castrate a bullock and then to pick up the tables and chairs. Think you could dress your leisurely self and help me unload them into the garage?”

  “Listen, Davi, listen,” says Laurie, thrusting the stethoscope at him with un-derailable purpose.

  David takes the stethoscope and sits on the edge of my bed. Concealing my reluctance, I comply. Théa, hearing her mother’s voice downstairs, lost interest and fled, so David and Laurie now huddle in silent consternation over my body. David pushes back the left half of my pajama shirt and positions the stethoscope firmly. He holds the disk between two fingers so that his entire hand loosely cups my breast. I can feel my nipple harden, out of nervousness, under his palm. Since I rarely go to doctors (sinfully taking my health for granted, and no, I have never been tested), I’m feeling doubly peculiar, worried that as my brother listens so studiously to my heart he will accidentally diagnose some fatal arrhythmia or murmur.

  “Well, Dr. Dah-vi?” I say, trying to sound playful by echoing the pet name for my avuncular rival.

  “Well, you’re not a pig. And decidedly not a Shetland pony. Every species, you know, has a unique heartbeat, so in fact I don’t know much more about what I’m listening to than you would.”

  “Is he sick?” asks Laurie hopefully. I decide not to take this personally.

  “He’s just a bit lazy. That’s his only ailment today.”

  “Oh.” She checks her disappointment, seemingly aware how rude it is, and says to me, “Onco, I’m glad you’re well.” My nieces do have marvellous manners, which, like so many other things about them, make me feel surprisingly proud—genetic reflex, I suppose.

  As I get out of bed, David is staring at the box on the windowseat. “What’s Dad doing up here? Afraid he’d flee the reunion? Afraid I’d spirit him off and have my obstinate way?” Laughing, he leaves without waiting for an answer.

  When I make my way downstairs, I hear no voices. The dining room table is covered with an array of Mum’s best china pitchers, soup tureens, and teapots. Véronique walks into the room and says, “Your mother, she never arranged flowers? I do not find a single true vase in this house.”

  “I must say, I don’t remember,” I tell her honestly.

  Véronique regards me with an uncharacteristically neutral stare, as if she’s forgotten whether she knows me. “Have you eaten? Denis has saved you coffee, I believe.”

  “I’m a tea loyalist, but thanks.” She is still staring at me, and I can’t read a thing in her gaze. I’d have expected her to remark on my laziness or my lack of helpfulness. “You might check the scullery,” I say. “For vases.”

  “Oh, merci.” She smiles quickly and goes into the kitchen ahead of me.

  Dennis is busy at the table—exactly where I left him the night before. “Water’s hotting up; I heard your voice,” he says. Christine is sitting on the scullery floor nestling a dingy stuffed cat into a bed she’s made of linen napkins (I resolve not to be hurt that my rice paddy doll is nowhere in sight). Her mother climbs onto a stool, searching high shelves. “Brilliant, Fenno.” She turns and holds out two cobwebbed vases. “May I hand them down?”

  Once again relieved to be useful, even to Véronique, I offer to wash them. She pulls Christine onto a hip and heads outside. Too late, I try to stop Dennis from making my tea.

  “You know, I do all these things ten times faster than anyone else, so why not?” After he hands me my cup, he looks at the seven vases next to the sink. “I don’t recognize a single one of those, do you?”

  “I suppose Mum never did arrange flowers.”

  “She wasn’t keen on domestic things, was she?”

  “And yet she produced you.” To my digestive dismay, Dennis is now skinning and boning a small mountain of chickens.

  As I turn over a vase to rinse it under the tap, two objects fall into the sink: a house key, the large old-fashioned kind, and two military medals.

  Behind me, Dennis sighs. “Isn’t it strange to think that just a week ago—less—Dad was living his life on that island, making his meals, reading his books, enjoying the sun?”

  “Well, as Mal loved to say, we’re all alive the day before we die.” I rub one of the medals between a thumb and forefinger, trying to remove the oxidation that’s darkened its face. The striped ribbon is crumpled and dirty.

  “Yes, but how alive is another question. I imagine Dad was extremely alive, as alive as could be, to the end. Do you think that’s good or bad?”

  “Do you mean, would I rather go slowly, and have the leisure to contemplate my demise while in excruciating pain, or get whacked by a lorry while I’m fretting over my tax return?”

  “I just keep not believing he’s dead, because, well, it wasn’t time yet, was it? Wouldn’t you say it was premature?”

  Under any circumstances, I’d find it hard to answer this rather obtuse question without sarcasm, but now I have an excuse not to answer at all. I turn around and hold out the medal. “Recognize this?”

  He leans close to examine it but does not take it. His hands are wet with poultry juices. “Must be Dad’s, from the war.”

  “In an old v
ase on a shelf in the scullery?” I show him the key as well, though keys in odd places, hiding places, are not so unusual. But this key is not a key to our house.

  “Well, you know, maybe we were having one of our treasure hunts, Davey and me, or playing a trick on Mum,” he says. “There was a period when we used to ‘borrow’ things from her handbag or her chest of drawers and hide them. See how long it would take her to notice them missing.”

  I am about to pocket my finds as David walks in from out back. “Going a little daft already, Fen?” He’s struggling not to lose his temper. Only then do I remember the tables and chairs.

  “Oh! Show the medals to Davey,” says Dennis. “That was a fancy of his way back when.”

  David’s scowl lifts as I hold out the medals. He takes them and lays them in the palm of a hand. “I say, this is a Distinguished Service Order.”

  “Dad’s?” I say.

  “Oh Dad wasn’t that brave.” He laughs fondly. “Brave he was, I’m sure, but a D.S.O.—we’d know about that. Mum would’ve made him wear it to go to the loo.” He holds up the other medal, rubs its soiled bit of ribbon. “Nor, might I add, was he in Africa. Where did you find these?”

  “In a vase, of all places,” I say. “Africa?”

  As David hands the medals back to me, he says, “The Africa Star, that one, for service in North Africa during the last war,” but it’s clear he’s lost interest. “Must’ve been left by the occupants before us. Curious.” Then he holds the back door open. “The day, like life, is passing us by!” he announces to me with an accusatory smile.

  THAT OCTOBER, an icy rain fell with vindictive force for nearly two weeks. Each morning I would head straight for the basement to check for flooding (we were watertight, as it turned out, thanks to work that Armand had done when he put in his ovens). Outside, leaves that had barely turned yellow were ripped from the trees and papered tight against windows. Inside, it was so humid that the glue binding the cheaper books softened and filled the store with a medicinal, rubbery smell.