The City of Mirrors
Page 101
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“I know you’re there, Alicia. But it’s all right.”
When she looked again, the street was empty.
—
He made no mention of the night’s events, and Alicia did not press. She had glimpsed something, a clue, but its meaning eluded her. Why, after all this time, would he make such a pilgrimage?
He never left again.
What was going to happen next, Fanning must have anticipated; Alicia was obviously meant to do it. The building was a wreck on the inside. Black spatters of mold scaled the walls, and the floors were soft underfoot. In the stairwell, water dripped from a leak in the ceiling, high above. She ascended to the second floor, where a door stood open in invitation. The interior of the apartment had been largely spared the destruction. The furniture, though caked with dust, was all neatly arranged; books and magazines and various decorative objects still occupied their places, just as, Alicia supposed, they had been in the final hours of Fanning’s human life. As she moved through the fastidious rooms she became aware of what she was feeling. Fanning wanted her to know the man he’d been. A new, deeper intimacy had been offered her.
She entered the bedroom. It seemed different from the other spaces of the apartment, possessing an intangible sense of more recent occupation. The furniture was simple: a desk, a dresser, an upholstered chair by the window, a bed, neatly made. Bisecting the center of the mattress was a depression of distinctly human dimensions. A similar divot marked the pillow.
A pair of eyeglasses rested on the bedside table. Alicia knew whom they’d belonged to; they were part of the story. She gently picked them up. They were petite, with wire frames. The cratered bed, the linens, the glasses within reach. Fanning had lain here. And he had left all of this for her to see.
To see, she thought. What did he want her to see?
She lay on the bed. The mattress was formless beneath her, its internal structure long collapsed. Then she put on the glasses.
—
She could never explain it; the moment she had looked through the lenses, it was as if she had become him. The past poured through her, the pain. The truth hit her heart like voltage. Of course. Of course.
Daybreak found her at the bridge. Her fear of the churning waters, though strong, seemed trivial; she pushed it aside. The sun cast its long, golden rays behind her. Upon Soldier’s back she made her way across, following her shadow.
* * *
32
They found Bill in the retaining pool at the bottom of the spillway. The night before, he’d slipped out of the hospital, taking his clothes and shoes. After that, the trail went cold. Someone said they had seen him at the tables, although the man demurred; he could be thinking of a different night, he said. Bill was always at the tables. It would have been more remarkable if he weren’t.
It was the fall that had killed him: a hundred feet from the top of the dam, then the long slide to the pool, where his body had wedged against a drain. His legs were shattered, his chest caved in; otherwise, he looked the same. Had he jumped or was he pushed? His life was not what they had thought it to be; Sara wondered how much Kate had kept from her. But it was not a question to ask.
The matter of his debts remained. Pooling their savings with Kate’s, Sara and Hollis could assemble less than half the amount owed. Three days after the burial, Hollis took the money to the building in H-town that everyone still called Cousin’s Place, though Cousin himself had been dead for years. Hollis hoped that this token of good faith, combined with his old connections, would square the matter. He returned, shaking his head dispiritedly. The players had changed; he had no clout. “This is going to be a problem,” he said.
Kate and the girls were bedding down at Sara and Hollis’s house. Kate seemed benumbed, a woman who had accepted a fate she had long seen coming, but the girls’ grief was shattering to witness. In their young eyes, Bill was simply their father. Their love for him was uncolored by the knowledge that he had, in a sense, shunned them, choosing a path that would take him away from them forever. As they grew, the wound would morph into a different kind of injury—one not of loss but of rejection. Sara would have done anything in her power to spare them this pain. But there was nothing.
The only thing to do was hope that the situation would blow over. Two more days passed, and Sara came home to find Hollis sitting at the table in the kitchen, looking grim. Kate was on the floor playing cards with the girls, but Sara could see this was intended as a distraction; something serious had happened. Hollis showed her the note that had been slid under the door. In blocky handwriting, like a child’s, two words: “Adorable girls.”
Hollis kept a revolver in a lockbox under the bed. He loaded it and gave it to Sara.
“Anybody comes through that door,” he instructed, “shoot them.”
He didn’t tell her what he’d done, though that was the night Cousin’s Place burned to the ground. In the morning, Sara went with Kate to the post office to mail the letter that would, in all likelihood, arrive in Mystic Township many days after she did. Coming for a visit, Kate wrote to Pim. The girls can’t wait to see you.
* * *
33
Yes, I am tired. Tired of waiting, tired of thinking. I am tired of myself.
My Alicia: how good you have been to me. Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris: “It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery.” When I think of you, Alicia, and what we are to each other, I am reminded of my first trip to a barbershop as a boy. Indulge me—memory is my method in all things, and the story has more bearing than you think. In my boyhood town, there was only one. It was a kind of clubhouse. On a Saturday afternoon, escorted by my father, I entered this sacred masculine space. The details were intoxicating. The odors of tonic, leather, talc. The combs lounging in their disinfecting aquamarine bath. The hiss and crackle of AM radio, broadcasting manly contests upon green fields. My father beside me, I waited on a chair of cracked red vinyl. Men were being barbered, lathered, whisked. The owner of the shop had been a World War II bomber pilot of some renown. Upon the wall behind the cash register hung a photograph of his young warrior self. Beneath his snipping shears and buzzing razor, each small-town cranium emerged a perfect simulacrum of his own, on the day he’d donned his goggles, wrapped a scarf around his neck, and crossed the eaves of heaven to blast the samurai to smithereens.
When she looked again, the street was empty.
—
He made no mention of the night’s events, and Alicia did not press. She had glimpsed something, a clue, but its meaning eluded her. Why, after all this time, would he make such a pilgrimage?
He never left again.
What was going to happen next, Fanning must have anticipated; Alicia was obviously meant to do it. The building was a wreck on the inside. Black spatters of mold scaled the walls, and the floors were soft underfoot. In the stairwell, water dripped from a leak in the ceiling, high above. She ascended to the second floor, where a door stood open in invitation. The interior of the apartment had been largely spared the destruction. The furniture, though caked with dust, was all neatly arranged; books and magazines and various decorative objects still occupied their places, just as, Alicia supposed, they had been in the final hours of Fanning’s human life. As she moved through the fastidious rooms she became aware of what she was feeling. Fanning wanted her to know the man he’d been. A new, deeper intimacy had been offered her.
She entered the bedroom. It seemed different from the other spaces of the apartment, possessing an intangible sense of more recent occupation. The furniture was simple: a desk, a dresser, an upholstered chair by the window, a bed, neatly made. Bisecting the center of the mattress was a depression of distinctly human dimensions. A similar divot marked the pillow.
A pair of eyeglasses rested on the bedside table. Alicia knew whom they’d belonged to; they were part of the story. She gently picked them up. They were petite, with wire frames. The cratered bed, the linens, the glasses within reach. Fanning had lain here. And he had left all of this for her to see.
To see, she thought. What did he want her to see?
She lay on the bed. The mattress was formless beneath her, its internal structure long collapsed. Then she put on the glasses.
—
She could never explain it; the moment she had looked through the lenses, it was as if she had become him. The past poured through her, the pain. The truth hit her heart like voltage. Of course. Of course.
Daybreak found her at the bridge. Her fear of the churning waters, though strong, seemed trivial; she pushed it aside. The sun cast its long, golden rays behind her. Upon Soldier’s back she made her way across, following her shadow.
* * *
32
They found Bill in the retaining pool at the bottom of the spillway. The night before, he’d slipped out of the hospital, taking his clothes and shoes. After that, the trail went cold. Someone said they had seen him at the tables, although the man demurred; he could be thinking of a different night, he said. Bill was always at the tables. It would have been more remarkable if he weren’t.
It was the fall that had killed him: a hundred feet from the top of the dam, then the long slide to the pool, where his body had wedged against a drain. His legs were shattered, his chest caved in; otherwise, he looked the same. Had he jumped or was he pushed? His life was not what they had thought it to be; Sara wondered how much Kate had kept from her. But it was not a question to ask.
The matter of his debts remained. Pooling their savings with Kate’s, Sara and Hollis could assemble less than half the amount owed. Three days after the burial, Hollis took the money to the building in H-town that everyone still called Cousin’s Place, though Cousin himself had been dead for years. Hollis hoped that this token of good faith, combined with his old connections, would square the matter. He returned, shaking his head dispiritedly. The players had changed; he had no clout. “This is going to be a problem,” he said.
Kate and the girls were bedding down at Sara and Hollis’s house. Kate seemed benumbed, a woman who had accepted a fate she had long seen coming, but the girls’ grief was shattering to witness. In their young eyes, Bill was simply their father. Their love for him was uncolored by the knowledge that he had, in a sense, shunned them, choosing a path that would take him away from them forever. As they grew, the wound would morph into a different kind of injury—one not of loss but of rejection. Sara would have done anything in her power to spare them this pain. But there was nothing.
The only thing to do was hope that the situation would blow over. Two more days passed, and Sara came home to find Hollis sitting at the table in the kitchen, looking grim. Kate was on the floor playing cards with the girls, but Sara could see this was intended as a distraction; something serious had happened. Hollis showed her the note that had been slid under the door. In blocky handwriting, like a child’s, two words: “Adorable girls.”
Hollis kept a revolver in a lockbox under the bed. He loaded it and gave it to Sara.
“Anybody comes through that door,” he instructed, “shoot them.”
He didn’t tell her what he’d done, though that was the night Cousin’s Place burned to the ground. In the morning, Sara went with Kate to the post office to mail the letter that would, in all likelihood, arrive in Mystic Township many days after she did. Coming for a visit, Kate wrote to Pim. The girls can’t wait to see you.
* * *
33
Yes, I am tired. Tired of waiting, tired of thinking. I am tired of myself.
My Alicia: how good you have been to me. Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris: “It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery.” When I think of you, Alicia, and what we are to each other, I am reminded of my first trip to a barbershop as a boy. Indulge me—memory is my method in all things, and the story has more bearing than you think. In my boyhood town, there was only one. It was a kind of clubhouse. On a Saturday afternoon, escorted by my father, I entered this sacred masculine space. The details were intoxicating. The odors of tonic, leather, talc. The combs lounging in their disinfecting aquamarine bath. The hiss and crackle of AM radio, broadcasting manly contests upon green fields. My father beside me, I waited on a chair of cracked red vinyl. Men were being barbered, lathered, whisked. The owner of the shop had been a World War II bomber pilot of some renown. Upon the wall behind the cash register hung a photograph of his young warrior self. Beneath his snipping shears and buzzing razor, each small-town cranium emerged a perfect simulacrum of his own, on the day he’d donned his goggles, wrapped a scarf around his neck, and crossed the eaves of heaven to blast the samurai to smithereens.
