Patricide (12 page)

Recalling how many times I'd heard Roland Marks
speak in this way, within my hearing or not-quite, to one or another of his
wives—my mother, Phyllis, Avril, Sylvia. Inevitably, Roland Marks would
find
fault
with a woman, or rather, the woman's
imperfection would be revealed. In this case, so far as I could gather—(for
truly I didn't want to eavesdrop, and especially I didn't want to be caught
eavesdropping)—the zealous and well-intentioned assistant had filed away some of
my father's papers on her own accord, without his having instructed her; or
possibly, something was “lost” in my father's office, that had been the
assistant's responsibility. And so Dad spoke harshly to Cameron, who didn't seem
to be defending herself; only perhaps murmuring
Yes
yes
I'm
sorry
in the way that, if a whipped dog could speak,
a whipped dog would speak in such a circumstance.

Not all of Roland Marks's women had been so meekly
apologetic, so subservient. Even my mother had tried to defend herself,
sometimes. And others had quarreled with him, quite fiercely, even hatefully, at
a time in their relationship when it was clear that Roland no longer much loved
or respected them. But Cameron Slatsky—so young, inexperienced—so in awe of
the
great
man
—seemed to have been struck dumb.

The scolding went on and on, and on. I felt sorry
for the blundering assistant and at the same time gratified for it was the first
time I'd heard my father address Cameron in such a way; and I understood it
would not be the last.

Later, Cameron was upstairs in “her” room. She'd
hidden herself away in tears, or shame. She'd been embarrassed to have been
scolded when I was in the house, perhaps; but I wouldn't let on, when we
prepared dinner, that I'd heard anything at all. I would talk of other things,
perhaps as if casually I would bring up the exhibit at the gallery in town,
Hilma Matthews's paintings; or, I would ask how her dissertation was developing
on
site
.

At dinner, I would entertain Dad and Cameron with a
humorous recounting of the luncheon with the president of my college—“I told
her, as graciously as I could, ‘Of course I'm honored but I couldn't possibly
take your place. I have more than enough to do taking care of my famous father.'
” And we would laugh together.

Dad was wonderfully
tease-able,
if the teasing was in reference to his reputation, his
popularity, his “women.”

So happy: the happiest I could remember myself
being, in many years.

Maybe when Dad had looked at me with eyes of
unabashed and helpless father-love, as I'd stood with the silly little tooth in
the palm of my hand. That long ago?

Except, stiff and sulky, Dad came downstairs from
his study, and seeing me said, “You're still here?” and I said, “Dad, you and
Cameron invited me to stay for dinner, don't you remember?” and Dad said, with a
shrug, “Fine. You can go check on her, see how she is, you know how emotions
upset me,” and I said, “You mean, other people's emotions, Dad—your own are
sacrosanct.” And he said, on his way outside, “Wise guy.”

The last words my father said to me, which he
hadn't said to me in probably thirty years—
Wise
guy.

He'd had his camera. He must have intended to take
photographs. I watched him outside on the terrace and at the same time I was
thinking about Cameron upstairs and how he'd told me to check on her, and what
this meant to me, how much it meant to me; and so, when Dad headed for the
steps, I wasn't observing very clearly, or lucidly—just stood there in the
sunroom smiling to myself, a big husky not-young overgrown girl in her father's
house.

It did not strike me—
He
is
in
danger.
Those
damned
steps!

It did not strike me—
If
I'd
wanted
someone
to
fall,
I
might
have
sabotaged
the
steps.
I
might
have
loosened
nails,
supports.

Though I was drawn to run upstairs to Cameron, yet
I found myself following my father outside. A chilly wind from the river, and
sun splotches in the heaving water.

The Hudson River is a living thing, so close by.
The massive breadth of water wind-rippled and agitated, never at rest,
mesmerizing to watch as liquid flames, and this afternoon a curious
slate-blue-gray color, the hue of molten rock.

“Dad? Be careful . . .”

He didn't hear. He wouldn't have heard. Too many
times I'd warned him, he had no awareness of any real danger. And there was a
swagger to his walk, a stiff sort of bravado, as if he believed that someone—it
would have to be Cameron, she was the only “woman” in residence—was watching
him, and admiring him; he took care not to lessen the weight of his right leg,
his arthritic knee.

High overhead several hawks flew. I felt a
premonition—but then, I often felt such premonitions here on the terrace above
the river. My father laughed at “premonitions”—though he took his own seriously,
for he was a superstitious man. I was smiling still, foolishly. I tasted
something metallic, cold. I did not want my father to fall and injure himself on
the rocks below, all that was the most ridiculous fantasy. I squinted upward at
the sky—
They
are
vultures.
They
sense
an
imminent
death.

Then, as in a dream, or a nightmare, I heard the
cracking wood-plank steps, an abrupt and angry-sounding noise, like a rebuttal.
It was a sound somehow familiar to me as if I'd heard it—rehearsed it—many times
already.

Before I saw, I heard: a portion of the steps was
collapsing, beneath my father's weight.

Dad had gained weight, this past winter: though he
would not have acknowledged it, in his masculine vanity, he must have gained at
least twelve pounds. He'd blamed the bathroom scales for giving erratic and
unreliable readings of his weight. But no longer was Roland Marks what one would
call
slender,
very
fit-looking.

Before I saw my father's desperate hand on the
railing, that collapsed with the steps in what seemed at first like cruel
slow-motion, I heard: my father's terrified voice calling for—
me.

I think this is so. I think he was calling for
me.

Or maybe—he'd only been screaming for help.

Or maybe—only just screaming.

What happened was in slow-motion yet also
quickly.

More quickly than I could comprehend in my haze of
foolish-daughter happiness.

And so on the terrace above the collapsing steps I
stood very still, and watched in silence.

If I were to be tried for the death of my father
Roland Marks, if I were to be judged, it is this silence that would find me
guilty.

Yet, I could not draw breath to scream.

Even now, I can't draw breath to scream.

No no no no no!

Cameron was crying hysterically. Cameron was
shocking to me—her young face contorted, shining with tears. Her young body
broken-seeming, defeated and without strength, so that I had to hold her.

In the crisis and confusion, my dean-self
prevailed: I made the call to 911, an ambulance came, but too late: my father
had died.

His skull had been badly fractured, it would be
discovered. He had hemorrhaged into his brain.

It would be a long time before I could grasp the
irremediable fact—Roland Marks was
dead.

Which is to say,
my
father
was
dead.

Is
dead.

(For death is a state that is perpetual: all who'd
ever lived and who had died
are
dead
.)

My memory of the collapsing steps, the scream, the
fall—my memory of rushing to the edge of the terrace, to stare at my father
fallen and twisted in the broken lumber below—is very vague.

Like the windshield of my car, grimy and scummy.
Sunspots further obscure vision.

She'd been upstairs, in hiding. She'd heard the
sound of the collapsing steps, and my father's scream.

No
no
no
no
no.

It was foolish of us, it was risky, dangerous, yet
we never thought of not doing it—climbing down, slip-sliding and falling,
whimpering in fear, making our way down the near-vertical slope to where my
father lay fallen amid rocks. And once there, seeing that he was
unconscious—(but still breathing?)—we understood that we must call an ambulance;
one of us would have to climb up to the terrace, or to the side of the
house.

Precious time was lost.
Minutes . . .

It would have made no difference, we were told. My
father's skull had been so severely fractured.

The camera, fallen a few feet away, broken on
rocks.

And the river, only a few yards away, rushing past,
noisy, jubilant, with a smell of early-spring, elevated muddy
water—indifferent.

It was Dean Marks who climbed up, who made the
sobbing/panting call.

It was the young blond assistant who was too
stunned, too stricken, to move from my father's body.

His body had never looked so
slight
. So
inconsequential
. His head,
turned at a painful angle.

His handsome face streaked with blood.

“
M
Y FATHER
died, two years ago. And my mother—she'd
died five years ago. My father hadn't ever recovered from losing her, I think. I
tried and
tried
with him. To make him think of
something else—to make him happy. To keep him company. All the family did. But
it made no difference, I guess—he just stopped wanting to live, and he
died
.”

Cameron wept in my arms. A tall gawky young girl
trembling in my arms.

It was stunning to me, that my father was
gone
.

Yet also stunning to me, that this stranger seemed
to have loved him so much.

For Cameron Slatsky was devastated, clearly. We
were sisters in grief, despite the disparity in our ages. Certainly I could not
resent her. I could not wish, as in my lurid fantasies I might have wished, that
my father's assistant had fallen in those crashing steps and died with him.

F
OR SOME
weeks then I was sick.

Sick with grief, and also remorse. And shame.

Cameron too was sick, with the shock of loss. But
Cameron was younger and stronger than I was, and would be more resilient. She
came to me where I was lying on the settee as the strength had drained from my
body. I was thinking
But
now
I
am
his
executrix.
That
is
what
I
wanted.

“Lou-Lou! My God.
Where
is
he?
”

It did not seem possible that my father was gone.
That, if we searched the house, he wouldn't have been here—somewhere.

Laughing at us, maybe. But touched by our grief
too.

He'd have known that we loved him. He would not
have felt that our love was smothering, or a burden; boring-dull, like so much
female
love
.

Roland Marks's obituary was prominent on the front
page of the
New
York
Times
, on the left side of the page below the
fold.

The photograph showed Roland Marks lean-cheeked,
dreamy-hooded-eyed, handsome and smiling. He would have liked it, I think.

Cameron Slatsky and I commiserated together. There
was a luxury of pain, a rush of pain neither of us could have borne alone.

I took the remainder of the semester off from
Riverdale College. In any case, I was finished there.

In his will, he'd left her nothing. He hadn't had
time to update his will and so in Roland Marks's will, Cameron Slatsky did not
exist.

This was proper, he'd left the house to
me
. I felt sick with guilt, yet gratitude, to have
been treated with justice for once.

Very few of the mourners who came to Roland Marks's
memorial service had heard of Cameron Slatsky, let alone knew her. I introduced
the silent ravaged-looking girl as my father's
fiancée
, and added that she'd been, initially, my father's
assistant
. No one quite knew how to speak to her,
especially Dad's older friends, for whom she would have appeared to be the age
of their grandchildren. Tall, slump-shouldered, very pale and very blond Cameron
wore black clothing, a black jersey dress that fell to her ankles. The diamond
ring she'd unobtrusively turned inward, toward her palm, so that the sparkling
stone wasn't visible. Apart from my introducing her to a few people, at the
memorial service she stood just slightly apart, ignored as if invisible.

I felt the injustice, and the irony, of her
situation. Her elderly fiancé had died too soon, before she was
firmly—legally—attached to his name.

Dad had loved her so much! How good that the last
months of his life had been happy, entering upon his
final
folly.