A Lost King: A Novel (2 page)

Once a long time ago my father told my mother that he thanked God for the gift of each day. Now it was different. Now in the mornings of that summer he complained about everything under the sun.

Our rooms and beds were separated by one wall and I would put my ear against it and listen to him with strange delight. Time and again he cried out that he was a prisoner of his ruined body, left with a son who was a prisoner of every fancy. He went on to curse his hot cell of a bedroom and the little dusty house that creaked and crumbled in the night like an old ship being tossed by the sea. He swept on like fire over the neighborhood and the city and the world. In the end he blamed me and God for everything.

I looked forward to hearing him first thing in the morning. I listened awhile and then got up to slice the oranges and put the coffeepot on the Grand stove. By then his deep rich voice was rising and falling. It was like a song to me.

“It's here and there and everywhere,” he would be saying, from the bedroom. “I go to sleep with pain in my head and wake with pain in my back. The only excitement in my life is where it will get me tomorrow. And look how that smoke hangs in this room. It's like veils. I'll be smoked like a ham before it's done.”

“You made a mistake when you bought this house,” I said. “You should've tested the wind first. You'd have known right away it was better to live on the other side of the steel mills.”

“Who the hell is that?” he said, in his bitter mocking way.

“It's your first mate, sir. I regret to report the crew's deserted. The men were going to mutiny, but they didn't want the ship. At the moment there's smoke fore and aft. And over and under. Let me know if you locate the bridge. And our course.”

“Don't worry. Pretty soon we'll have a house under the smoke.”

Sometimes it was hard for him to get out of bed. He would be lying there stiff and straight as though caught between frozen bedsheets. His angry brown eyes were fixed on some crack or wrinkle in the ceiling wallpaper. Pain was driven in deep like a knife between his shoulder blades and he couldn't even raise his arms. Curious things happened inside him during the night. Now and again he woke with an ache in his head from ear to ear.

“It's like a hot nail through my brain,” he said. “It must be some kind of migraine.”

“You need mineral oil,” I said, teasing him.

“It's not in my stomach. It's in my head.”

“Well, I was talking to Sam Ross. He thinks all this trouble comes from your stomach. And the way you feel about things is like more poison in your system.”

“I'll need oil by the gallon. I'll be taking it from a pump.”

Sometimes the pain closed around his knees.

“The bulldogs got me,” he would say. “There's no end to this. A man climbs and climbs and then the rocks fall.”

“You know what they say, Pa? There's no rose without thorns.”

“Wait till you get old,” he said. “You'll find out it's thorns and a dream about a rose.”

For a time I was rubbing him at night with warm olive oil. When I rubbed his back he woke with pain in his legs. I rubbed his legs and the pain climbed into his back. There was one pain dancing around inside him or else he was loaded with them. One wintry night I rubbed him everywhere and he woke up with no pain at all. It was a miracle.

“How do I know I'm alive?” he said.

He was trying his legs and arms as though they were new. He risked a smile. The return of strength proved too much for him. There was nothing to do with it. He went out for a haircut and started an argument with the barber Regas. He left the shop in the middle of the haircut. He almost came to blows in a political discussion with the loungers in Lincoln Park. He gambled and lost and tore up a deck of cards in the Greek coffee house. He came lunging home to complain about my cooking and the dirt and disorder in the bedrooms. He gave me two weeks to find a decent job and quit for good the one I had on the watermelon wagon. It was so hard to be with him that I went out thinking it was pain that kept him human. Next morning he woke with that knife in his back again.

The first thing at those times was to turn him over and work the stiffness out of his arms and back. He was sharp and bony wherever I touched him. Often and on purpose I touched him before rubbing my hands together to warm them.

“Get away from me,” he said. “You're like ice.”

“I must have poor circulation of the blood,” I said. “Maybe that's why it's so hard for me to work with my hands. And my feet are always cold, too. Walking tires me.”

“Your head must be coldest of all.”

“That's why I talk so much. Thinking hurts.”

“It's your talk that hurts most.”

It took so much time to help him into his dungarees that I made a suggestion. Seldom could I resist teasing him.

“Listen then,” I said. “Why don't I fold up the bedsheet and pin it on you like a big diaper? You'll be all set for the day.”

He drove his elbow into my side and knocked the breath out of me. Gasping and laughing, I sat down beside him on the bed. He got up and shuffled into the kitchen. He sat at the table.

He was working his arms when I came in to pour the coffee. I put four slices of white bread under the fire in the oven and when they were brown I turned them over. My father had taken two careful sips of coffee. Suddenly he was holding his breath as though he heard bugles in the morning. He went into the bathroom. After a while he came out with a challenging look to make clear that the function was pure delight for him and had nothing to do with need. He sat down and started to grind away on a slice of dry toast. For a moment we were gazing at each other in the pale early light.

“Your face is familiar,” I said. “Very familiar. And there's something in your expression. The last time I saw an expression like that it was on the face of a man who bit deep into a rotten apple.”

He stopped chewing.

“Haven't we met before?” I said, pinching him in the ribs.

“Goddam it,” he said. “Don't do that.”

“And I know that voice, too,” I said. “I'm sure we've met somewhere. Let me think a minute. Wasn't it a bullfight in the south of Spain? Wasn't it you dancing there in the sunlight when that bull came down in a rush? What control you had! And then that bull caught you by the seat of your golden pants. Up you went. Up, up, up. You were spinning against the blue sky. And then you sailed past me and our eyes met. Both your hands went up, and I knew it was meant as a special kind of salute for me. And then you landed. You didn't move a muscle. What control you had!”

My father shook his head in bewilderment.

“Wasn't that you?” I said. “Wait then. Didn't I meet you on that coffee plantation in the jungles of Brazil? Now I remember you. You had a shining pistol and a white hat like a balloon. You had a whip forty feet long, and you were whipping forty natives at the same time. How could I forget a man who made a whip sing like that? Tell me something. It's between the two of us. How did you get out alive?”

“Where the hell did you come from?” he said.

“Let me introduce myself. Paul Christopher is the name. Here by special invitation. Look out the window, Pa. What a day it is! Look past the smoke. Look at that sun and sky. Something good is happening. I feel it in the air. Do you realize a baby's being born every five seconds or so? Right now in fact. While I'm saying this. But he's here! I hope he takes hold and never lets go!”

“He'll let go.”

“Think of it, Pa. He's bringing something into the world that was never here before. Maybe it's a new hope or a new idea about things. Isn't it exciting? Wait, wait. His name is coming to me. It's Daniel. It's Daniel Carter! Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to inform you that Daniel Carter has arrived with a grand idea. Hello, Daniel, hello! Now what's the idea?”

My father turned away.

After breakfast I made the beds and swept the bedrooms. I drew the torn window shades against the afternoon sun and then I went back to wash the breakfast cups and rinse out the gray enamel coffeepot that was shaped like a bell. My mother used to keep that pot warm and full for the friends who came to visit her all through the day. I broke up some bread and stepped out the back door to scatter it downhill for the brownish-gray little sparrows. In the spring the robins came, and once for a week there was a cardinal whistling sweetly to us.

We lived along the crest of a hill overlooking the industrial valley of Cleveland. Below was a sprawl of steel mills and oil refineries and chemical plants. Mill buildings were covered with reddish ore dust. The old brown Cuyahoga River twisted past them under the birdlike cranes that unloaded ore boats coming down from ports on Lake Superior. Railroad bridges were like opened black accordions over the river. Brown and yellow and orange boxcars curved away past fields of rusting scrap iron. Smoke was everywhere. I used to sit and watch it billow out of high strutting stacks. White flowers of it bloomed in the midst of orange veils. There were yellow plumes and then it blew dark and wild as storm clouds.

I went back into the house. My father was watching me. Those strong hands roped with veins were folded in his lap. He wanted me to shave him and yet he would say nothing about it.

I pinned the red and white dishcloth around his neck. I pinned it so tight that the muscles bulged below his ears.

“You out of your mind?” he said, ripping it off.

“Sorry, sorry.”

I pinned the cloth again and gave him the brown razor strap to hold. I stropped his fine straight razor and then I lathered him. I filled his ears with soap. He started swallowing and swallowing and cursing under his breath. His ears were slanted and so big it seemed he would hear if someone were drawing his wine in the cellar—which was the truth, if it came to that. I can vouch for it. His skin was red and leathery down to his bulging collarbone. Below it he was white and helpless somehow like a baby.

For a while I moved around humming and turning that straight razor in the palm of my hand. His face beneath a climbing tangle of sugary white hair was all bone and hollows and dissatisfaction. Those burning brown eyes watched me across the pirate nose.

“Are you finished dancing?” he said.

“I'm nervous this morning. Isn't it a little damp in here? My fingers are tightening. Really, Pa, I can't do my best work under these conditions. Do you want me to go ahead with this?”

“One more word and it's over. I'm warning you.”

I started to shave him. It was good to touch him. It seemed I touched him only during a shave or massage.

“I'll be very careful,” I said. “This must be perfect. I want you to look just right today.”

“For what? For what?”

“A visitor is coming. What a thrill. My heart's pounding already. She was asking about you again. And again. And then again.”

It was necessary to coax him into conversation. Talk made him feel better and so he set himself against it.

“Who was asking?” he said.

I leaned over to whisper in his ear.

“Sophie,” I said, breathing hotly.

“Who?”

“Sophie Nowak. I can't get over the way she puts things. She goes right to the heart of it. ‘How's your father?' she said. ‘Is he still sleeping on the bed of nails?'”

“Tell her not to worry about my bed.”

“Ten years ago yesterday she lost her husband.”

“Lost him? My guess is she finished him off. She's got a face like a cauliflower.”

“She wants to do things for us. She was telling me how she'd fix up this house. She'd plaster the cracks in the walls and then scrub everything down with a wire brush and pine soap. Including you and me. And then she'd put up lacy white curtains against the ugliness of the South Side. And then she'd toss garlands of Polish sausage here and there. She'll make
pierogi
for you. In the mornings you'll dance the polka together and in the evenings she'll knit winter woolies while you talk of world affairs. It'll be very gay and very satisfying for both of you. She gave me her word.”

“Very pretty. We'll put on a show for the neighbors. It may be the last romance in the smoke here.”

“Sophie said you're both in the same boat.”

“And she wants to hold hands while we sink. Is that it?”

“She wants to know your favorite dish.”

“Tell her it's privacy.”

“I told her you like hot peppers and highly seasoned food. She winked when she heard it. And she pinched me when she said your name. She always does. Everything's all right until she says your name. And then she pinches me. I don't know what it means, Pa, but I walk a block out of my way for it. And there's something else. She offered to wash our clothes.”

“She wants something in return.”

“Well, she does want something.”

“Who didn't know it?”

“She wants to brush and comb your hair in the evenings.”

“If I lay my hands on her!” he cried.

“She said the same thing about you.”

Right then I worked soap into his eyes with my forefinger.

“Get away!” he said. “That's enough of this!”

After shaving myself I went up to the corner delicatessen for him and bought the Cleveland
Plain Dealer
and a package of Model pipe tobacco. He was sitting in the Boston rocker on the porch when I came back.

“I'm not going out on the watermelon wagon,” I said. “I'll go downtown and look for another job.”

He was waiting to read the newspaper and smoke his pipe.

“Let's see if I have everything,” I said. “A clean handkerchief and a comb. The key to the house. A map to find my way home if I get lost. Hope in my heart and iron in my bones.”

“Didn't you forget something?”

“Name it.”