Burning Down the House (21 page)

POPPY WALKS TO
school in a state of psychedelic dissociation. What has happened to her has split her off from herself. She feels as if she has no memories, but the truth is that she is so consumed by the feelings attached to her memories that she is living inside a memory, a hallucinatory trance. This is even without the drugs. Emotions wash over her and she can't place them or name them or connect them with their original source, but if she could she would feel her mother's voice, dark candied-violet burnt sugar, slide down her own throat, would feel Ian's touch, light green new leaves waving gently like babies' hands, lifting and then dropping her hair in the breeze, would feel Felix's wise happy presence, his pink salty smile guileless and rakish at the same time, forcing her own mouth to curve in a smile.

This inner chaos is entirely invisible from the outside. From the outside she is a tall languid self-possessed New York City high-school girl, poised and confident, not chasing, instinctively elegant, tender and wild, walking to school, taking her time, owning the world.

At a corner she stops for a red light. Her gaze is caught in the glowing red orb. She sees the layers of other colors in the electrified red, blues and yellows, hints of purple and green. It is a Rothko red. As she stares it glows more brightly, orange-red, and seems to lift right off of the traffic light, out of it, floating toward her, suspended in air. It emits a high note like a cosmic dial tone. It voices a frequency she has never heard before. It is singing. Singing to her, to infinity. For a moment, she knows she is loved. By whom? By her mother? By Ian, by Felix, by Neva, by Steve? She loves them; whatever doubts she has had about her love for them disappear and she loves them. She loves Alix, Miranda, Roman, yes, even Jonathan! She loves the kids at school, the people on this block, the man in the taxi turning the corner, the city! She loves everyone in this city, forgives everyone, except someone whom she cannot remember.

Whoever that is will not disturb her now. The city itself is her only home and she loves it, belongs to it, is entirely grateful to it, will love it forever. The red orb hangs in the air. It emits a celestial sound. She loves this madness, knows it is madness, doesn't care.

Human feeling is like the mighty rivers that bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty—it flows with resistless force and brings beauty with it.

—
GEORGE ELIOT
,
Adam Bede

A
LL DAY AND NIGHT
he fell, an endless fall. That is the way Vulcan, the god of fire, fell when he was flung off Mount Olympus. For Angel it was swift. At least it appeared swift to others. For him time may have slowed, perhaps he saw into each unfinished floor of the building as he descended, looking into the future inhabitants of the apartments, getting a glimpse of ghostly lives as his form and thoughts cascaded, his limbs outstretched, body twisted. The way down could be fast or slow.

Against the blue sky he looked like a hand falling, limbs and head splayed in different directions, four fingers and a thumb.

It was sunny and there was a spring wind. Angel moved his machinery, and the crane collapsed. One action had nothing to do with other. As it was later discovered, there had been a switch in equipment, inspection bribes, sketchy mechanics hired over the Internet, a bad weld in the crane's turntable (a critical component that lets the upper part of the rig swivel). The top of the crane including the cab split off and fell more than twenty stories. Angel was the only one in the cab at that moment. The crane had been jumped a few days before and “inspected.” Two construction workers were seriously injured, one rushed to the hospital and died of cardiac arrest. The penthouse of the building was demolished. On the ground it looked like the aftermath of a carnival and a battle: smoke, carnage, random dots of bright primary colors among the gray. Water spewed from the building in plumes. The crane had broken into three pieces and fallen in the middle of the street and was on fire. The flames blossomed red and orange and pale blue and then rippled invisible in the sunlight. As if the very heat and meaning of the wreckage were so profoundly terrible as to be rendered beyond the human eye.

The lawsuits spread like a fire too, a conflagration at the center of which stood Steve, because while it wasn't technically his crane company, the building was his development and there were close connections between the crane company and his empire. Not the least of these was the fact that a higher-quality crane had been rerouted to Turkey for a project in Istanbul only days before construction had started on this New York project, the lower-quality machinery having been transferred here on Jonathan's orders, with Steve's implicit approval, Steve having handed over these details, and the entire Istanbul job, to Jonathan. Steve's face grew gaunt in the days and weeks after the collapse, after Angel's funeral and the questioning, the press and the public outcry. There were accusations against him, against the workers themselves, and of course against the crane company, with the head of it accusing the workers of pulling the crane up too high, as a way of fighting back against charges later proved accurate but for which the owner was never held accountable: the bribery, the cheap mechanics, the faulty welding. But before all of that was determined there were the victims and their families and there was Steve with his lawyers, Steve with his torment, Steve up late in his office with Neva, and the subject was death.

Purple-gray shadows speeding across the mountains. Clouds accumulating, gathering, for a calamity. A house could fall from a crack registered miles away. A flame could travel from the dry leaves in the forest and snake like an electrical wire sending unpredictable sparks in the air. A mechanical failure could be caused by nature, human error, bad luck, bad decisions. Most often: a bad feeling that everyone refused to acknowledge the existence of, could not see or understand because they were not aware. A fire could begin long before anyone noticed.

Construction is a dangerous business, he said. There will be fatalities.

But Angel, said Neva. Angel.

The air in the room was sweet and sour and blew in through an open window, the odor of the city and the perfume of the park. Steve grew silent and speculative. He never worried anymore about Patrizia finding them in his office. Whatever she might suspect she would be wrong. He only cared now about saving everything. And his belief was that Neva could help him.

Angel, she said again.

I know, he said.

I know you know, she said.

She feels Angel's fall, sudden, a swift blow. And at the same time she experiences it in slow motion, a succession of descents, orbiting, the way she remembers her slow journey ribboning down the mountain, through the countryside, to the city, across the ocean. She sees his fall as she sees her fall. The dropping from a great height. The gulf between high and low. The lack of balance, only teetering, a plunge. By the time she imagines Angel's fall she has developed a different relationship to her past and she can no longer clearly remember the skinny dog, the fire pit. What she remembers is distance, angles, the lurch in her stomach with each new degree of falling, each depth of understanding how far she has come, how far it is possible to fall, the draining of strength from her shoulders, her chest, her legs, as she realizes that she is never going back, that she had been sent on this journey on purpose, never to return. Somehow she has regained strength. But she is still prey to the terror, the intoxicating, engulfing fear of descent, the awareness of the pinnacle and its relation to the pit. When she thinks of Angel or her younger self she thinks she can see a pair of clawing hands stretch up to the highest peak and pull Angel down, pull her down, like the hands of a lover.

It wasn't long before Warren and Wolf paid a visit. Neva happened to be there, ushered them into the study, and observed. They had documents linking Steve directly to the collapse: to the orders to switch cranes, to the unlicensed mechanics hired over the Internet, and therefore the faulty welding. It would be very difficult to untangle this mess. Steve sighed deeply, heaved almost, and paced the room. Warren and Wolf watched him. Neva stood off to the side, pressing her back against a bookshelf, feeling the sturdy security of the books and their bindings.

Steve looked up from the documents.

What is it that you want from me?

Warren spoke first: We were unhappy about the hotel situation. The way you handled it. Our boss was upset.

Well, we can't have that, Steve said.

Warren smiled. Wolf did not.

I'm glad you agree, said Warren.

I mean he'll have to get over it, Steve said. He should try meditation.

Now neither of them smiled.

Let's not be glib, Mr. Zane.

I'm deeply serious.

So are we.

He should try channeling his anger into something else because I will not be his victim and his punching bag.

There was a tense silence.

We want you to let us back. In hotels, in malls, in the places we want to be. It will be contained and controlled, but we want access to your property without retribution. You can have a piece.

Don't be disgusting, Steve said.

He looked away. His face in heavy folds, drapery on a statue, his jacket hanging. His stature undiminished but his power lessened, softened, stone beaten back by water, by wind.

Wolf spoke for the first time in this encounter. This is what greases the wheels of industry today, he said. This is the way of the world.

That's not the truth, Steve rumbled, shuffling papers on his desk.

You can believe in whatever truth you want to believe in, said Warren, but he's right. This is the only way.

No, it isn't, Steve said.

Don't fool yourself, Wolf said.

I am not a fool! Steve bellowed.

There was a long silence.

It's just an expression, Warren said, startled.

Wolf was unruffled. We have the power now, he explained. Don't make yourself crazy.

Steve glanced across the room at Neva, her back to the wall. A tear slid down her face. So this is what is behind everything, her eyes said. She was like a crying statue, looking on at the suffering of the world and seeing all of it, through it, behind the workings and machinery to the very skeleton and cells into the horror of the slavery and sacrifice she had endured, and so many others were enduring. There was beauty, she vaguely remembered it, but right now all she saw was the horror. She was surprised by her own surprise. It made her realize that she had hoped there was a place free from suffering, a world built on hard work and honesty and life. She might believe that again but she did not right now. All she could see now was that even Steve's world was founded on this awful truth. Is there no end to this? she thought. And in her chest she felt a hollow heaviness, a contradiction, a pain, and also gratitude that she could still feel pain. I am a river, she reminded herself. I can carry this, she said in her mind. I am looking at the truth and I can hold it. I am Neva. I am a river. I am strong. I carry children. I am Neva and I am witnessing the truth.

They sat for a long time without speaking. Wolf and Warren had left and Neva walked slightly toward Steve. He stumbled forward. They sat down, both facing the window.

There will never be another chance like that again, he said. But it wasn't a real chance.

Neva put her hand to his face and made him turn to her.

And what now? she said.

Steve didn't answer.

They'll be after you whatever you do.

Let them come.

We could say yes and then trap them somehow, turn them in again.

They can destroy me with those documents.

Nothing can destroy you.

They'll do it now or later. I should prepare. Save the family, and you.

Please don't give up. We can fight this.

He held her hand.

The best we can do is wait for another chance, he said.

I thought you said that another chance like this would never come.

I meant for me. Maybe there will be a chance for you.

It was only then that it occurred to him: How had they gotten those documents? Who could possibly have given them access?

Someone knocked. Neva stood up, wiped her face, straightened her skirt, and opened the door. It was Jonathan. He was holding some papers for his father to sign.

Not now, said Neva.

Jonathan recalled the first time he had seen her. The airstrip, lush trees, the British countryside.

These are important.

He isn't feeling well, she said.

Well, then I should see him.

He says he can't see anyone.

What about you?

She wasn't sure what to say. She stood in the doorway. He studied her.

And from the other side of the door:

She isn't anyone, Steve yelled.