Patricide (9 page)

Except if he were the one doling out the
surprise
, then it was fine. Then, it might be
classified as “humor.”

I knew this, for I knew him—thoroughly. Others have
imagined they've known my father, unauthorized biographers have sniffed and
snooped in his wake and much garbage has been written of him—but no one has
plumbed Roland Marks's
essence
.

I wondered what Cameron Slatsky would write about
him, sometime in the future. When my father wasn't alive to read it, and to
recoil in horror and disgust.

I had to protect him against her, I thought. Or
better—(since another “Cameron” would appear, probably within a few months)—I
had to protect Roland Marks against himself.

D
AD HAD
always been admiring, in his way.

Grudging, yet admiring.

For he'd had a habit of saying, even when I was
much too old for such personal remarks, “You're my big husky gal. You don't need
any man to protect you. Nothing weak or puling about
you
.”

The emphasis—
you
.
Meaning that I was to be distinguished from the weak, puling, manipulative
females who surrounded my father and other luckless men.

“In the female, sex is a weapon. Initially a lure,
then—a weapon. But there are those who, like my exemplary daughter, refuse to
play the dirty little game. They
transcend
, and they
excel.
”

He'd actually said such things in company, in my
presence. As if I were an overgrown child and not a fully mature young
woman.

Sometimes, he'd been drinking. He'd become
sentimental and maudlin lamenting the “estrangement” of his other children, and
the “bizarre, self-destructive” behavior of their mothers.

It was painful to me, yet I suppose flattering—how
my father boasted of his “exemplary” daughter. Often, I felt that he didn't know
me at all; he was creating a caricature, or a cartoon, adorned with my name.
Even when he was looking straight at me his eyes seemed unfocused.

“Lou-Lou's my most astonishing child. There's
nothing mysterious or subtle about Lou-Lou—she is
all
heart
. She isn't obscure, and she isn't devious.
She's an athlete.” (Though I hadn't been an athlete for years. Most girls give
up team sports forever after high school.) “Did I ever tell you about how
Lou-Lou played field hockey—really down-dirty, competitive field hockey—at the
Rye Academy? Up there in Connecticut? I'd drive up to watch her play—stay
overnight in the little town—at one of the championship games she was hit in the
mouth with a puck—no, a hockey stick—and just kept charging on—running down the
field bleeding from the mouth—and made a score for her team. And afterward she
came limping over to me where I was standing in front of the bleachers anxious
to see what had happened to her and Lou-Lou says, ‘Hi Dad'—or ‘Hey Dad,
look'—and in the palm of her hand, a little broken white thing. And I said,
‘What's that, Lou-Lou?' and she said, ‘What's it look like, Dad?' and I looked
more closely and saw it was a tooth, and I said, ‘Oh, sweetie—it looks like
about five thousand bucks. But you're worth it.' ”

This was a wonderful story. One of Roland Marks's
wonderful family stories. In his fiction most of his family stories were comical
catastrophes but when he was talking to friends, or to a friendly audience, his
family stories were wonderful.

Even his detractors warmed to Roland Marks at such
times. Even those who knew he was confabulating, in his zeal to tell the ideal,
the perfect, the
family
story.

In my father's absence, I cherished such
memories.

In my father's absence that was a betrayal, and a
warning of betrayals to come, I visited my father's house on Cliff Street, Upper
Nyack, with a pretense of “checking” the house; wandering through the drafty
rooms, standing outside on the terrace and gazing at the broad misty river
below, shivering in the cold I told myself
There
have
been
precious
memories
even
if
they
are
laced
with
lies.

*

“Lou-Lou? What's this I hear? Another—?
Again—?”

People began to call me. In the wake of the Key
West Literary Seminar at which the celebrated Roland Marks and a “very young,
very blond” Ph.D. student from Columbia were clearly a
couple.

Dad's longtime agent called. Max Keller had known
Roland Marks for more than forty years, why was he so surprised? I wasn't in a
mood to share his incredulous indignation commingled with pity and, yes, envy:
“At least, tell me her age. People are saying—twenty-four? And Roland is
seventy-four
?”

Through clenched teeth I told Max that I didn't
know the young woman's age.

“Her name?”

“I don't know her name. I've forgotten.”

“And is she good-looking?”

“I have no idea. I've barely glimpsed her.”

“And is she
smart
?
People are saying so . . .”

“Max, I have no idea. I'm going to hang up
now.”

“And Roland is in love? This is serious?
Maybe?”

“Look. He's elderly. He needs an assistant—his
papers, manuscripts, letters are a mess. And he needs a full-time attendant to
take care of him—he has let his house go, he's like a baby when it comes to
living
. It can't be me to take care of him—I
have my own life. She came to interview him, and essentially, she stayed. She is
young, and she is blond. What else? In the past, Dad just took up with
‘women'—good-looking, glamorous women—the assistants and interns were a separate
category. But now, this might be the first time he combines the two so maybe
that will be an improvement.”

I'd spoken breezily, to hide my anger. I'd meant to
be amusing but Max didn't seem to think that I was very funny.

“She'll get Roland to sign a pre-nup. She'll insist
on money up front, if she's smart. (She sounds smart.) And she'll wind up the
executrix of his estate, Lou-Lou—not you. So don't be so amused, my dear.” And
he hung up.

Executrix
of
his
estate.
But I was Roland Marks's executrix!

After the last divorce, he'd made me his executrix.
Before this, he hadn't had a will: he'd assumed, as he said, that he would be
around for a “long, long time—like one of those giant tortoises that live
forever.” But in his late sixties, after batterings in court, he'd begun to feel
mortal. He'd told me frankly that he would be leaving money to all of his
children, even those who'd disappointed him pretty badly, and from whom he was
estranged—“I don't want to single you out, Lou-Lou. They would just hate you.”
But what Dad would do for me, beyond leaving me money—(which, in fact, I really
didn't need, as a professional woman with a good job)—was to name me executrix
of his estate, which would include his literary estate, for which service I
would be paid a minimum of fifty thousand dollars a year.

I'd been deeply moved. I may even have cried.

I'd said, “Dad, I can't think of this now. I can't
think of you—not here. But I will be the very best ‘literary executrix' who ever
was—you deserve nothing less. I promise.”

“I know, Lou-Lou. You're my good girl.”

A
FTER
K
EY
West, they returned to Nyack
briefly. No time to see Lou-Lou—though at least Dad spoke to me on the
phone.

They were on their way to Paris, where Roland Marks
was to be feted on the occasion of the publication of a newly translated novel;
and from Paris, to Rome, where another newly translated novel was being
launched; and from Rome to Barcelona and Madrid . . .

By now, they were lovers. Of course.

I wondered
how
.

(At seventy-four, my father was still a virile
man—it would seem.)

(Yet, at twenty-four, his new lover might be
repelled by him—wasn't that reasonable to suppose?)

(No. This is not a reasonable situation.)

(Yes. It is utterly reasonable—it is
pragmatic.
She will marry him for his money and his
reputation and not his “virility.”)

Lying in my bed in Skaatskill, I was helpless in
the grinding maw of such obsessive thoughts.

“He won't betray me. Even if he marries
her . . .”

(Ridiculous! He'd betrayed virtually everyone in
his life, every
female
. Why not reliable old Lou-Lou
with her pearly false tooth?)

Dad had asked me to continue to “check” the house,
so of course I did. Bitterly resenting being treated as a servant and
yet—grateful. More than I needed, I visited the house; I brought in Dad's mail,
which was considerable; sorted it, left it in carefully designated stacks on his
desk—the work of an assistant; but the assistant wasn't on the premises,
I
was
.

At Riverdale, I now left my office promptly at 5:00
P.M.
most days, where once I'd remained
until much later. And now on Friday afternoons, I sometimes left as early as
3:00
P.M.
(“Family matters”—“my father, medical
appointment.”) Or took the entire afternoon off.

There were academic events I had to attend,
national conventions—these I cut short, to return to Nyack and drive past the
house on Cliff Street which was looking shut-up, unattended. With my key I let
myself in and prowled the rooms like a clumsy ghost. I knew the house so well,
yet stumbled. I collided with things. Seeing my reflection in mirrors—“Oh,
Lou-Lou? What has happened? You were just a girl . . .”

I was doing my father's bidding and yet: I was an
intruder.

Easily, I might become a vandal.

For there was some secret in this place, that might
be revealed to me if I prevailed. Though Dad would have been furious, I looked
through his desk drawers, and his filing cabinets; there were literally
thousands of papers, documents, manuscripts in his keeping, in his study and in
an adjoining room; his older manuscripts, galleys, page proofs and drafts were
stored temporarily at the New York Public Library, which was negotiating to
purchase the entire Marks archive. It was not true that my father's papers were
a mess as I'd told Max Keller—but they did require a more systematic
organization, which only I could provide, I believed.

Only
I!
The
exemplary
beloved
daughter.

I lay on the bamboo settee in the sunroom staring
out at the sky and the river below. Soon, my father and Cameron would return—she
was now his “fiancée.”

The Hudson Valley: such beauty! But it was not
always an evident, obvious beauty—the beauty of a river depends upon weather,
gradations of light. The ceaseless shifting of sunshine, shadow. Cloud
formations, patches of clear sky. An eye-piercing blue. Dull gunmetal-gray. The
river reflecting the sky, and the sky seeming to reflect the river.

I was thinking of the English explorer Henry Hudson
who'd sailed up the river for the Dutch, in the early seventeenth century,
until, about 150 miles north, the river became too shallow for him to navigate.
How bizarre it seems to us, Hudson had been looking for a route to the Pacific
Ocean, as his predecessor Christopher Columbus had been looking for a route to
the East Indies . . . I thought
The
routes
we
think
we
are
taking
are
not
the
routes
we
will
take
.
The
routes
that
take
us.

I must have fallen asleep for I was rudely awakened
by a loud rapping at the front door.

It was the carpenter I'd tried to engage to repair
the steps. I had not heard from the man in weeks and now, as if on a whim, or
more likely he'd happened to be driving by the house, he'd stopped to speak with
me.

We went out onto the terrace, to look at the steps.
He'd given me his estimate for the repair but I had no way of knowing how
reasonable it was, for I hadn't called anyone else. He said, “I could begin next
week, Mrs. Marks. I've got the lumber, and I've cleared away the time.”

“Next week—really?”

Then for a long moment I stood silent. Almost, I'd
forgotten the man, the stranger, standing close beside me, the two of us looking
down at the steps; then I said, “I'm truly sorry, but my father has changed his
mind. He says he wants something more ambitious. He's been talking to an
architect.”

“An architect? For just some steps?”

I laughed, awkwardly. “Well, he wants something
more ambitious for the terrace, and the steps, and down below on the riverbank,
something like a gazebo. You might know my father Roland Marks—he never does
anything simply.”

Of course, the carpenter didn't know Roland Marks.
He had no idea who Roland Marks might be, and judging by the disgruntled noises
he was making, he didn't care.

T
HEY RETURNED.
The
fiancée
was now living at 47 Cliff
Street, Upper Nyack.

Not often, not every week, but occasionally they
invited me to have dinner with them. And when they were away, to check on the
house and bring in my father's mail.