Agyar

FIFTEEN

After setting down what had happened between Jill and me, I took myself up to the attic and pawed through the leftover books. It struck me, as it hadn’t before, to wonder why they had been left behind. I can believe someone like Carpenter might, leaving in a hurry, have abandoned an old typewriting machine, and a few pieces of thirdrate furniture, but these books are probably valuable; I can only assume he didn’t know they were up here.

It made me wonder what else was in the attic, so I spent some time looking around. The attic is quite spacious, and mostly empty, but I found an old coffee maker; a set of silver that was probably worth something; a set of knives, stuck carelessly into a cardboard box, that included a very nice chefs knife with part of the handle stripped away; a box full of canceled checks; and a peculiar sign, which consisted of a red “R” with a circle and an arrow growing from it, and the words “Pickup Wednesdays” inscribed in red letters.

Attached to it was a pointed stick, presumably for putting it into the ground. I held it for a moment, and I thought of Laura Kellem. But come, let’s be serious; wood like that would splinter and, in any case, the wood is strictly symbolic; if her heart is destroyed, that will be that. I set the sign down again.

On the other hand, it forced me to think seriously about killing her, which brought to mind the ritual I will be attempting at the dark of the moon, in two days’ time. Do I really think I can kill her? Will I if I get the chance?

Laura Kellem is a vindictive soul; it may be that she feels she has not punished me enough. And if she does, indeed, feel that way, than not only am I in danger, but so is Susan.

I tested the edge of the chefs knife, found a butcher’s steel in the box and honed the knife. It had been a long, long time since I’d done that, but I managed not to cut myself.

I brought the knife down from the attic with me, and it is sitting beside me now, looking out of place on top of the pile of paper that records my visit to Lakota. When I have finished typing this, I shall take the knife with me as I go to rest, and I will place it with the rest of the items I have assembled for the ritual.

Two days.

Two days out of a lifetime of, well, of many thousands of days, and yet it seems impossibly far off.

Little to talk about tonight, but I must feed my addiction to this machine. I sneaked out of the house, past the watching policemen, and came to Susan’s, where I found an envelope with my name on it taped to her door. The note inside said, “Jonathan, sorry, forgot I have a dance ensemble tonight. See you tomorrow? Take me to your house? Maybe we can spend the night. Love, Susan.” Her name was signed with a big scrawl coming from the n and underlining her name. I mentally shrugged.

I walked around the campus area for a while, then spent an hour or so in Little Philly, not doing anything, just watching the people go by. There are so many of them: Decrepit old bums to well-to-do young white couples, the pimps, the whores, the crack dealers, and gangs of black kids filled with the delicious pleasure of knowing that you are intimidating anyone who walks past, just by existing.

I walked all the way back to the Tunnel, which took a couple of hours, and I visited some of the places that Susan and I had been to. With any luck, I’ll be leaving this city in two days, so this was a sort of farewell. Some snow had melted, although the wind still had its bite. Winter doesn’t want to give up, but it is a losing battle.

The contrast between the Tunnel and Little Philly, which are really the only areas of Lakota I’ve come to know at all, is so sharp that it is hard to believe that they are part of the same city; but I like them both, and the presence of each makes the other that much richer. It’s funny, but I’ve never been downtown, or to the Longfellow Park district, or by the Lakeshore; entire areas, like cities within the city, and I don’t know what they are like. For that matter, there are parts of London I know nothing about, and I spent many years there. Maybe it is time to go back and do some serious exploring.

Another odd thing is that now I think I understand Laura better than I did when we had that talk, so many months ago. I think she was telling the truth when we first spoke: This would be a nice place to live, to settle down.

There is little that I have ever done that I actually regret, but, do you know, I’m sorry about that dog, Pepper. And I’m glad I didn’t give in to my instincts when I wanted to kill Bill’s wife. I hope all of this doesn’t sour them on the neighborhood; it will be a good place again, once I have broken free of Kellem and left.

The night grows old, the day approaches, and, as always, I run.

It has been an entire day since I have seen Susan.

My lover is sleeping on the bloodstained gray chair downstairs.

The house was cold and dry as I made my way up to the bathroom earlier this evening, from which I concluded that the dogs of winter still held the weather and would shake it with at least a few more days of cold before dropping it and retreating once more to await November.

When I came back down, feeling strangely at peace after a dreamless sleep, Jim was still standing by the window. “Still there,” he said.

It took me a moment to realize that he meant the police, then I said, “It doesn’t matter.”

For maybe the second or third time since I’ve known him he looked right at me. “What happened?” he said.

I shrugged. “A bit of a surprise, is all. People sometimes turn out to be, I don’t know, not what I’d thought they’d be.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Good, but also upsetting. I begin to think I make too many hasty judgments.”

He nodded and went back to looking out the window while I got my coat on. He said nothing else as I left the house. I went carefully, making certain I wasn’t spotted. Outside, the last traces of purple-red sunset were absorbed by the soft glow of the lights of Mark Twain College, a couple of miles to the west. The wind was light but steady; I kept my hands in the pocket of my parka. There were a few slippery spots where snow had melted and then frozen again, but they weren’t too bad.

I knocked at the door and Susan answered. I was glad it wasn’t Jill because I really didn’t know what I’d find to say to her, what with one thing and another. I hung up my coat, took off my Wellingtons, kissed Susan, and said, “So, what do you want to do?”

She grinned, spun once, then gyrated her pelvis lewdly.

“I meant after that,” I said.

“After that? Hmmm. Perhaps you could take me to Baghdad. I’ve always wanted to see Baghdad.”

“During a war?”

“The war’s over. But you’re right. Maybe somewhere else.”

“We’ll talk about it,” I said, and held out my arm. She curtsied, dimpled, laid her hand on top of mine, and we ascended into heaven, as it were.

I was very careful with her, and gentle, trying to give as much as I could while taking as little as possible. I must have been successful, because she seemed quite pleased, and did not fall asleep.

We spoke of school, and her hopes for the future, and her love of dancing, and the exhilaration of being before an audience; a pleasure I’ve never felt, but can almost understand. She asked about me and I avoided answering. I asked about her and she told me some things. She talked about grabbing what she could from life; I talked about waiting while life delivered whatever I wanted.

“I don’t have the patience for that,” she said.

“You want it now.”

“Instant gratification,” she agreed. “I hate waiting.”

“I will remember that.”

“I told you about the bus.”

“That’s true; I’d forgotten. When that happens, it’s time to get a car.”

“I hate cars,” she said.

“If truth be known, so do I. But I hate buses, too.”

“What do you like?” she said.

“Walking.”

“How do you feel about flying.”

“Flying is okay; depends on how one does it.”

“Ships?”

“Only when necessary,” I said.

She shook her head. “I like to travel.”

“I like to be other places; I don’t like getting there.”

“We can work it out,” she said.

“I would imagine we can.”

Then she said, “So, would you like to show me your house?”

“Now?”

“Why not? Is it cold?”

“Not horribly.”

“Well then?”

“All right; let’s go.”

She put on a dark blue skirt and a Twain sweatshirt, brushed her hair, stuck a blue band in it, kissed me, and pronounced herself ready.

As I type this, the problem with bringing her to my home is staring at me so hard that I can’t believe I didn’t notice it at the time; I guess my head was so filled with Susan that there was no room for anything else. We walked through the Tunnel, arm in arm, talking about alternate energy sources, oil wars, and yellow journalism, and as we turned onto Twenty-eighth it suddenly hit me, and I stopped dead; I believe I felt perspiration on my forehead in spite of the cold, but my imagination may have supplied that later.

“What is it?” she said.

I stood there, unable to answer. It is one thing to know that I can circumvent the police, quite another to expect Susan to do so; particularly when she didn’t even know they were there.

So, what to do?

I stood there for what seemed like forever, trying to think of a way out of this, while Susan said, “Jonathan? What is it? Are you all right?” I could change my mind about showing her the house. I played that conversation over in my mind and decided against it. I could tell her we had to sneak in, and then explain that… no.

I shook my head and said, “It’s nothing, love. A thought just came to me, but it doesn’t matter.”

When there are no easy ways, you take the hard way, right? Right.

I pulled up the hood of my parka and approached the rust brown ’89 Plymouth from behind, and after telling Susan I had to ask these gentlemen something, I put my head next to the passenger door and rapped on the glass. Two men were in it, both seemed to be in their early thirties. Maybe taxi drivers turn into policemen in their middle years. They looked at me. One was dark and had a fleshy face with a high nose, the other had short, light-colored hair, blue eyes, a fair complexion, and a pointed chin.

He rolled down the window, started to ask what I wanted, then turned his head quickly to glance at the sketch on the clipboard on the seat between them.

That was as far as he got before he fell asleep. His partner actually reached into his coat before slumping forward against the steering wheel, and my knees were shaking.

When I turned around, Susan was standing right behind me, staring at them. “What happened? Should we call an ambulance?”

I looked her in the eye. “Nothing happened.”

“But-”

“Nothing happened. We just walked by this car, not even stopping, and we never looked through the window. Nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened,” she repeated dully.

We took two steps toward the house and I said, “Snap out of it, Susan.”

“Huh, what?”

“You were daydreaming.”

“Oh. Hmmm. Maybe I’m short on sleep.”

“Could be. You can sleep at the house, if you want to.”

“How much farther is it?”

“We’re here.”

“This place?”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, it’s beautiful. When was it built?”

“I don’t know. Late nineteenth century, I think.”

She looked at it, studying as well as she could in the relative dark; the nearest streetlight is half a block away. She said, “I’d like to see it in the daylight. How far around does the porch go?”

“About halfway.”

“Is that window stained-hey, you haven’t shoveled the walk.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I mean, why aren’t there any tracks?”

“I usually leave by the back door, but I wanted you to see the front.”

“Oh. Why is there orange tape across the door?”

“Don’t ask. Go under it.”

I tried the knob and said, “That’s right. It’s locked. Wait here and I’ll let you in. Shan’t be a minute.”

“‘Crime Site’?” she read from the tape.

“Don’t ask,” I repeated.

“All right.”

I slipped inside, turned on the one working light in the living room, and let her in. She stepped into the entryway and said, “Jonathan, this is splendid.”

“Thanks. Rent-free, too.”

“It is?” She stared.

“Well, officially no one lives here.”

“You mean you-”

“Right.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “Easier this way.”

“Who owns it?”

“A professor at Twain. Carpenter.”

“French Lit?”

“Right.”

“Does he know you’re living here?”

“I keep forgetting to look him up and tell him.”

She shook her head, puzzled, I guess, and looked at the woodwork that was there, the woodwork that had been removed, the stained glass, the floors, the high ceilings. She looked back at me to say something, then frowned. “Jonathan, are you all right?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know; you look ill.”

“I’m feeling a little shaky, but it’s all right.”

“Are you certain?”

I nodded. About then, Jim came down the stairs, noticed the light, and said, “Won’t the police notice if you leave that on in here?”

I shook my head.

Susan said, “That’s funny.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I thought for a minute… Jonathan, is this place haunted?”

“Not unpleasantly so. I didn’t know you believed in ghosts.”

“I’m not sure that I do,” she said. “But…” Her voice trailed off into silence.

“Come on, let’s look at the rest of the house.”

“Yes, let’s.”

I showed her the rest of the house. She made several comments to the effect that it didn’t look lived in, and several more about the fixtures (she seemed especially delighted that the old gas lamps were still in place, even though there was no gas coming through the pipes), but most of her discussion was about how she would fix it up. She spoke of Victorian-style furnishings without the Victorian love of clutter; of the painting that would go above the fireplace, of William Morris wallpaper.

She was enchanted with the kitchen, and spoke of cooking some crepes. I smiled noncommittally and mumbled something. She said, “You don’t have a refrigerator.”

“No, but isn’t the stove clean?”

“You don’t cook much, do you?”

“I must admit I’ve never really learned how.”

“I’ll teach you,” she said. “But you’ll have to get a refrigerator.”

She tsked at the shape the basement was in, and spoke of finishing it, while I went over in my mind some of the practical considerations of the two of us traveling together. Funny I hadn’t thought of any of this before. What’s in the trunk, dear? Oh, nothing important. And, Where are you going, darling? Oh, I’ll be gone again until this evening. Looked at that way, the whole thing was absurd.

The answer was simple enough. All I had to do was tell her-let her know. Hand her a silvered mirror and say, “What’s wrong with this picture?”

I wasn’t certain I could do it.

I discovered that I was trembling slightly, and decided that my mood and my thoughts were probably the aftereffects of my condition; dealing with the cops had, as Susan noticed, left me pretty shaken. But there was no good way to solve that just then. I knew I was going to have to before tomorrow midnight, when I intended to perform the ritual to break myself from Kellem, but I had time.

When I showed her the upstairs, she lit on the typewriting machine at once, saying, “Good heavens. Does it work?”

“Yes, I’ve been using it.”

“For what?”

“For writing love poems to you.”

She smiled, her eyes very wide. “Not really.”

I shrugged with my eyebrows and smiled back with my lips.

She said, “May I see them?”

“Maybe. Let me work up the courage, first.”

I showed her the rest of the upstairs. She loved the L-shaped master bedroom and library combination, with its own fireplace, and asked why I didn’t have my bed in there. I said, “I can’t sleep far off the ground.”

She said, “Where do you sleep?”

“In the basement.”

“Really? Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

“Not terribly. I’ll show you later.”

“All right. What’s this?”

“Linen closet.”

“Oh. Why is it empty?”

“Why keep things up here when I sleep in the basement?”

“That makes sense. You must kiss me now.”

“All right, there.”

“You must always kiss me when we pass the linen closet; it’s an old Roman custom I just invented.”

“And a good one.”

“Why is that wall shaped so funny?”

“The chimney is behind it.”

“But the fireplace is on the other side.”

“The master-bedroom fireplace is, this is the chimney from downstairs.”

“Two chimneys?”

“Well, either they didn’t know how to connect two fireplaces to one chimney, or they just felt like having fireplaces on different sides of the house.”

“Conspicuous consumption.”

“Yes.”

“It’s grand.”

“Here’s the bathroom. It works, and there’s even toilet paper.”

“Good. Excuse me for a moment.”

Left to myself, I discovered that I had worked up the courage. I found my stack of manuscript and pulled out ten or eleven of the poems I’d written. I left two in the stack; one that I didn’t like much and another that I didn’t want her to see because, well, I don’t know. I had the pile of papers hidden again before she came out.

I handed the pages to her, and she said, “All of this? You wrote these for me?” She seemed inordinately pleased; it was almost embarrassing. “Can I read them now?”

“All right. The only comfortable chair is in the living room. I’m afraid it’s stained, but it shouldn’t come off.”

“All right.”

She went tripping down the stairs, my poems in her hand. I stayed in the typing room and took several deep breaths. While I was doing so, Jim came into the room.

I said, “Do you mind the company?”

“Not at all,” he said. “But I’m worried about the police.”

“Don’t. The two down the block are sleeping.”

He looked uncomfortable. “Are you sure there aren’t any more?”

“Well, no. I hope not.”

“Me, too. And what will happen when someone comes to investigate why they haven’t called in?”

“I’ll go turn the light off.”

“Yes,” he said.

I went down, and found that Susan was sitting in the chair, my poems in her lap, and there were tears on her cheeks. I stood over her and kissed her forehead.

She looked at me, her eyes so bright and shimmering with tears, and held up the pages as if she wanted to say something, then set them down, shaking her head slowly. If this is all the critical acclaim I ever get, it is enough. “Sleep now, my love,” I said.

She nodded. I turned off the light, then came back to the typewriting machine. Jim wasn’t in the room, so I have taken the opportunity to set it all down. I’m not certain what to do now. I cannot risk taking Susan out of here, so perhaps it would be best if she slept with me, which, after all, she did ask about once. I will keep her sleeping, because I feel no need to shock her in that way, but it will be pleasant to rest with her in my arms, though she knows it not. Perhaps she will dream of it, and we will share the joy that way.