Bereavements (29 page)

The question was: who was he to murder? Mrs. Evans? That tall, handsome, straight-backed young man? Or himself.

Perhaps all three.

In the meantime, needing more time to brood, to feed the spreading fire of his hate and his love, he quit his job. He was no longer good at it anyway, having become stupid and slow, neglectful and careless—under the increasingly puzzled eyes of his superiors. Another week and they would have let him go anyway, impending Christmas or no.

He ate little or nothing, slept hardly at all, his activities confined to two: at night he prowled the streets, watching the Evans’ home, and, in the daytime he read virtually ceaselessly, from dawn to dusk when his swollen eyes, webbed with hairlines of blood from the strain, would close of themselves for an hour or two’s rest before he bundled himself up for his nightly vigil.

Great Expectations. Vanity Fair. The Sea Wolf. Jane Eyre. Tom Sawyer.
Then
Wuthering Heights
—how that one moved him! darkening even more his mind, deepening the ache in his heart because the love of his life was truly as imperative but inaccessible as Cathie—and he felt his own soul wandering the desolate, fog-swept moors, calling to the unlistening wind her name.

Finally and crucially, came
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
which he had read with horror and fascination as a child, and now read again, almost straight through without pause, rediscovering some of the passion, delight and terror of his boyhood. It had been a book, the first time, that had seemed literally to
be about him,
for of necessity he’d identified with Quasimodo, living out the hunchback’s pain, degradation and thwarted love for Esmeralda with such pity, empathy and helpless rage, several pages became wet with his tears.

Now, reading again with a sigh of wonder, the very last page, he went back and reread the final few sentences, describing how, in the vast tomb of Monfaucon, years after the main events of the story, the fragile remains of the sweet heroine were found with the bones of Quasimodo, her twisted love wrapped around her. “When,” Bruno read, “those who found this skeleton attempted to disengage it from that which it held in its grasp, it crumbled to dust.”

. . .
To dust,
Bruno echoed, lifting his streaming eyes. But the curious thing was that this time, rereading the book, he hadn’t identified with Quasimodo at all, but entirely with the priest, Frollo, who loved Esmeralda also—loved her with such a depth of unholy passion, such soul-consumed agony, that his words to his condemned, pillored love who would die in the morning could be only and none other than Bruno’s to Mrs. Evans.

He read and reread them, committed them, like a burning brand against flesh, to memory, spoke them aloud, over and over until nothing, only the words, remained in his otherwise empty heart.

Then, exhausted, Bruno slept, finding strange comfort in a hand half-closed, curled around the porcelain handle of a razor.

In an odd, oblique, unexpected way, Mrs. Evans found out about Angel and his father.

She was nervous, pained, anxious to confirm her plans for the holidays and when he telephoned as he said he’d do every few days (though she was never sure) she made him promise to come by. This was a week before Christmas, and when he appeared, it was with one eye swollen blue, so painfully bruised she winced as she applied a compress of ice after putting him down full-length on the couch in the living room.

Of course, there had been a “street fight,” and she nodded sagely, knowing his father alone was responsible and that it was about time they got to the truth of it. It was a clear case of vicious child-abuse and there were legal and other means to deal with it.

But she wanted to “settle” Christmas first, and got the boy to agree to come by late in the afternoon of the 24th in whatever clothes he had that were Sunday best so they could, if he desired, go to Midnight Mass.

This was a surprise to Angel, since he knew Mrs. Evans wasn’t Catholic. Anyway (though he made quite a sour face at the prospect of Midnight Mass), it was okay with him, ‘cept it always lasted so long, an’ there was all that crazy sitting down and standing up; one never knew what to do when. “That’s why,” he explained, “they sometimes put a couple a’ nuns in the front row so’s people can do what they do; they’re the ones who know.”

Mrs. Evans nodded impatiently, promising to sit behind the nuns, if there were any, so their own behavior, hers and Angel’s, would be impeccable.

But also (he added, objections not quite over) sometimes he got so bored that he fell asleep.

Well . . .

She’d risk it. All boys his age attending Midnight Mass fell asleep. It was one of the immutable laws of the universe.

He didn’t understand this last part, but she never-minded him and went on to tell of her plans, rushing through them, praying, pretending there could be no objection, no possible impediment (and as it turned out, there were none): how Christmas Eve would be spent in New York, he’d sleep over (“so bring your pajamas and a toothbrush”), then about getting up early and the drive to Long Island, the time they’d spend there—maybe several days if they found it fun—all this a bit circumspect, hinting at rather than revealing the many surprises she’d have in store.

He had a ten-day vacation from school, so time was no concern. Would—(holding her breath)—would his father be a problem? —asked so casually it might be about the weather.

Angel frowning, haunted and hard-stared at the mention of Auri’s name, thought not. “Y’see: every year at this time, him and his gang—the construction crew—has this big bash, startin’ Christmas Eve and lastin’—God!—maybe a week, ‘til New Year’s when he drinks himself blind and maybe passes out cold, like dead, f’a couple days after.” So how would his father know where he was, or what he was doing?

He wouldn’t know, Mrs. Evans agreed. No, the man certainly wouldn’t know. Or care.

Then, after various circumlocutions and no urging at all on her part (only a spectacular puff-pastry bursting with tender apples served to him hot under its glaze of shiny vanilla frosting), the boy—obviously with long-considered determination and effort—spoke about “this here friend I have—at school; y’
know?
This guy, about my age, maybe younger, who is—well, sort of, having trouble with his father.”

“Trouble” to Mrs. Evans at this stage of the confession meant beating up. She affected a lack of interest, thinking to encourage him, and it did. He pushed the matter aggressively, accusing: “You’re not listening!”

“Oh, but I am”—returning the response matter-of-factly, fussing with the tea things. “You have this—here friend, who is having trouble, with his father.” Inquiring lightly: “what kind of trouble is your friend having?”

“Well—”

He winced, touching his cheekbone needlessly, as if requiring and enjoying a moment’s pain. “It’s peculiar . . .”

“Most troubles are.”

“Are what.”

“Peculiar. But go on. Your friend’s trouble is very peculiar?”

“Yes.” Both eyes, good and bad, blinking. A few sporadic tics of the chin. Tongue wetting lips. A visible tightening of muscles all over, then partial relaxation. She could literally see resolution gained, then renounced, determination sought, found, abandoned.

She decided to affect irritation, annoyance,

“Well, tell me about your friend and his problem. Goodness! All this preamble!”

But there appeared to be a strong, almost psychoanalytic transference between them: he the terrified patient about to reveal the rankest, darkest, most secretly sexual of secret sexual secrets of his life (which indeed to him it was) and she the cool, voiceless, most wooden-faced of impersonal speak-to-the wall analysts (but ready instantly, the moment he spoke the evil words, to wrap him up in yesterday’s newspaper, like the garbage he was, and throw him out).

“Is it,” she inquired, since the silence might go on forever, “is it that your friend’s father did something to him, or rather does something to him, maybe like, well, hurting or beating him?”

The answer was quick, certain, completely believable. “Oh no. It’s nothing like that.”

So. She’d been wrong.

But Angel had the toe of one foot in the door, enabling him to say tremulously, “He . . . he does something else. He . . . He . . . He . . . ”

There may have been as many as seven “he’s” separated by long or short pauses—until she placed a demanding hand on his shoulder because, still full length on the couch, he had turned his “he-saying” face to the pillows.

“Angel. There‘s nothing you can say, about your friend, that I haven’t heard before, or seen, or read about, many times. And there isn’t a word in the English language that you know that I don’t, or that I haven’t said myself at one time or another. So, whatever it is, about your friend, just say it—just say it right out.”

He managed quickly before he lost courage: “This here friend of mine, his father, made a pass at him—if you know what I mean.”

Pass.

She in no way expected this though it evoked no visible surprise.

“Yes,” she said. “I know what you mean. I’ve had many passes made at me during my life. Many, many men, and a few women besides, if that helps any . . . with your friend.”

“Women!?” As if it was the first time he’d ever heard of it, faking transparent surprise.

“Yes yes. Now get on with it. About your friend. What’s his name by the way?—just so we don’t have to go on calling him ‘your friend.’

“His name?”

“He does have one. Better: make one up; that way we’ll conceal and protect his identity.”

“Well—it’s Joey.”

“Fine. Very good. An excellent choice.” And, catching his eye, she knew that he knew that she knew who Joey was. “Now then. So Joey’s father once made a pass at him . . .” (she could see she was off the mark) “. . . keeps making passes at him . . .” (that was closer). “The man’s queer—right? Or is that too old-fashioned a word? But you know what I mean. He has some of that in him.”

The idea, perhaps the word, implying effeminacy, seemed to startle the boy. “No. It can’t be that. I mean—He’s—Joey’s father is big and strong, a real man; he drives a gigantic truck with a crane maybe five hundred feet high.”

The driver of a crane truck, indeed! Mrs. Evans thought of the great Alexander lying against silken pillows in his battlefield tent with his perfumed boy after the day’s killing, surrounded by miles of the slaughtered dead, who would be buried, if they were lucky, in the morning.

“Well, you must be right,” she said, after thinking about it and deciding what would be good to say. “It must be, simply, that he—Joey’s father, loves his son a great, great deal—so much, and in such a funny deep way, that he can’t quite help . . . wanting to touch him . . . make love to him once in a while.” (Pause.) “Would you say that
that’s
a fair way of putting it?”

Silence. Deep, prolonged, followed by a slight, then a violent nodding of the head.