Sourland (35 page)

Leah was offended but heard herself laugh. When she told Harris about this encounter, Harris would laugh. It was not to be believed, this young man's arrogance: “I have an extra glass here, Leah. I had a hunch that someone would come out here to join me—at large parties, that's usually the case. Like I say, I'm an ‘emissary.' I'm a ‘Uranian.' I bring news, bulletins. I'd hoped you would step out here voluntarily, Mrs. Zalk—I mean, as if ‘of your own free will.' So—let's drink, shall we? A toast to—”

Leah had no intention of drinking with Woods Gottschalk. But there was the glass held out to her—one of their very old wedding-present wineglasses—crystal, sparkling-clean—just washed that morning by Leah, by hand. Unable to sleep she'd risen early—anxious that the house wasn't clean, glasses and china and silverware weren't clean, though the Filipina cleaning woman had come just the day before.

Woods held his wineglass aloft. Leah lifted hers, reluctantly, as Woods intoned:

“‘The universe culminates in the present moment and will never be more perfect.' Emerson, I think—or Thoreau. And who was it said—‘Who has seen the past? The past is a mist, a mirage—no one can breathe in the past.'” Woods paused, drinking. “From the perspective of Uranus—though ‘Uranus' is just the word, the actual planet is unfathomable—as all planets, all moons and stars and galaxies, are unfathomable—even the present isn't exactly
here
. We behave as if it is, but that's just expediency.”

Leah laughed. What was Woods saying! All that she could remember of Uranus is that it was—
is?
—unless it had been demoted, like Pluto—one of the remote ice-planets about which no romance had been spun, unlike Mars, Jupiter, and Venus. Or was she thinking of—Neptune? She lifted the wineglass, and drank. The wine was tart, darkly delicious. It had to be the last of the Burgundy wines her husband had purchased. Woods was saying, “These people—your friends—Dr. Zalk's friends—and my parents' friends—are wonderful people. Many of them—the men, at least—I mean, at the Institute—‘extraordinary,' like Hans Gottschalk and Harris Zalk. You're very lucky to have one another. To ‘define' one another in your Institute community. And the food, Leah—this isn't the Institute catering service, is it?—but much, much better. What I've sampled is excellent.”

“The food is excellent. Yes.”

“
I
could be a caterer, I think. The hell with being an ‘emissary.' If things had gone otherwise.”

Leah was distracted by the deep back half-acre lawn that was more ragged, seedier than she remembered. Along the sagging redwood fence were lilac bushes grown leggy and spindly and clumps of sinewy-looking grasses, tall savage wildflowers with clusters of tough little bloodred berry-blossoms that had to be poisonous. And a sizable part of the enormous old oak tree in the back had fallen as if in a storm. This past winter, there had been such fierce storms! But Leah was sure that Harris had made arrangements for their annual spring cleanup…She felt a stab of hurt, as well as chagrin, that the beautiful old oak had been so badly wounded without her knowing.

“What do you do, Woods, since you're not a caterer? I mean—what does an ‘emissary' actually
do
for a living?”

“Oh, I do what I am doing—and when I'm not, I'm doing something else.”

Woods's tone was enigmatic, teasing. His eyes, on Leah's face, flitted about lightly as a bee, with a threat of stinging.

“I don't understand. What is it you
do.
”

“Strictly speaking, I'm a ‘dropout.' I've ‘dropped out' of time. Make that a capital letter
T
—‘Time.' I've ‘dropped out' of Time to monitor eternity.” Woods laughed, and drank. “The crucial fact is—
I am sober
—these past eleven months—eleven months, nine days. I am not a caterer—not an ‘emissary'—I just ‘bear witness'—it's this that propelled me here, to deliver to
you.
”

Was he drunk? Deranged? High on drugs? (Halfway Leah remembered, she'd heard that the Gottschalks' brilliant but unstable son had had a chronic drug problem—unless that was the Richters' son, who'd dropped out of Yale and disappeared somewhere in northern Maine.)

“My news is—the Apocalypse has happened—in an eye-blink, it was accomplished.” Woods spoke excitedly, yet calmly. “Still we persevere as if we were alive, that's the
get
of our species.”

“Really? And when was this ‘Apocalypse'?”

“For some, it was just yesterday. For others, tomorrow. There isn't just a single Apocalypse of course, but many—as many as there are individuals. There is no way to speak of such things adequately. There is simply not the vocabulary. But make no mistake”—Woods shook his head gravely, with a pained little smile—“you will be punished.”

Now it was
you
. Leah shivered, she'd been thinking that Woods was speaking with cavalier magnanimity of
we
.

“But why?—‘punished'?”

“‘Why'?” Woods bared big chunky damp teeth in a semblance of a grin. “Are you kidding, Mrs. Zalk?”

“I—I don't think so. I'm asking you seriously.”

A rush of feeling came over her. Guilty excitement, apprehension. For Woods was right: why should
she
escape punishment? A Caucasian woman of a privileged class, the wife of a prominent scientist—long the youngest and one of the more attractive wives in any gathering—a
loved woman
—a
cherished woman
—how vain, to imagine that this condition could persevere!

“Global warming is just one of the imminent catastrophes. The seas will rise, the rivers will flood—the seashores will be washed away. Cit
ies like New Orleans will be washed away. History itself will be washed away, into oblivion. It happened to the other planets—the ‘Ice Giants,' long ago. No one laments the passing of those life-forms—none remain, to lament or to rejoice. In our soupy-warm Earth atmosphere there will arise super-bugs for which ‘medical science' can devise no vaccines or antibiotics. There will arise genetic mutations, malformations. These are the ‘Devil's frolicks'—as it used to be said. Entire species will vanish—not just minuscule subspecies but major, mammalian species like our own. There will be as many catastrophes as there are individuals—for each is an individual ‘fate.' But you will all be punished—when the knowledge catches up with you.”

“You've said that but—why? Why ‘punished'? By whom?”

Leah spoke with an uneasy lightness. This was the way of Harris—Harris and his scientist-friends—when confronted with the quasi-profound proclamations of non-scientists.

The pain between her eyes was throbbing now and her eyes blinked away tears. A kind of scrim separating her from the world—from the
otherness
of the world—and from invasive personalities like Woods's—had seemed to be failing her, frayed and tearing. She'd been susceptible to headaches all her life but now pain came more readily, you could say intimately. Harris—who rarely had headaches—tried to be sympathetic with her stooping to brush his lips against her forehead.
Poor Leah! Is it all better now?

Yes
she told him.
Oh yes much better thank you!

Though in fact
no
. Except in fairy tales no true pain is mitigated by a kiss.

“Because you'd had the knowledge, and hadn't acted upon it. Your generation—your predecessors—and now mine. Human greed, corruption—indifference. Humankind has always known what the ‘good life' is—except it's fucking
bor-ing.
”

Woods spoke cheerily and as if by rote. There was a curious—chilling—disjunction between the accusation of his words and the
playful banter of his voice and again Leah was reminded of an actor's face—a mask-face—fitted on the young man's head like something wrapped in place. Defensively she said: “Evolution—that means change—‘evolving.' Species have always passed away into extinction, and been replaced by other species. But no species can replace
us.
”

“Wrong again, Mrs. Zalk! I hope your distinguished-scientist husband didn't tell you something so foolish.
Homo sapiens
will certainly be replaced. Nature will not miss us.”

Woods laughed baring his big chunky teeth. Leah stared at him in dislike, repugnance. This arrogant young man had so rattled her, she couldn't seem to think coherently. Badly she'd been wanting to leave him—to return to the comforting din of the party—by now Harris would have noticed her absence, and would be concerned—but she couldn't seem to move her legs. In a festive gesture Woods poured more wine into Leah's glass and into his own but quickly Leah set her glass aside, on the slightly rotted porch railing. Woods lifted his glass in a mock-salute, and drank.

“Yes—we will miss one another, Mrs. Zalk—but nature will not miss
us
. That's our tragedy!”

“How old are you, Woods?”

“Forty-three.”

“‘Forty-
three
'!”

Leah wanted to protest
But you were a boy just yesterday—last year. What has happened to you
…

Woods's face was unlined, unblemished, yet the eyes were not a young man's eyes. Through the wire-rimmed glasses you could see these eyes, with disturbing clarity.

He's mad
Leah thought.
Something has destroyed his brain—his soul.

“Well. I—I think I should be getting back to my party—people will be wondering where I am. And you should come, too, Woods—it's cold out here.”

This was so: the balmy May afternoon had darkened by degrees into
a chilly windblown dusk. Dead leaves on the broken oak limbs rattled irritably in the wind as if trying to speak. Quickly Leah retreated before Woods could clasp her hand again in his crushing grip.

She would leave her unsettling companion gazing after her, leaning against the porch railing that sagged beneath his weight. Cigarette in one hand, wineglass in the other, and the purloined bottle of Burgundy near-empty on the porch floor at his feet.

 

How warm—unpleasantly warm—the interior of the house was, after the fresh air of outdoors.

At the threshold of the crowded living room Leah paused. Her vision was blurred as if she'd just stepped inside out of a bright glaring place and her eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the darker interior. In a panic Leah looked for Harris, to appeal to him. She looked for Harris, to make things right. He would slip his arm around her, to comfort her. Gravely he would ask her what was wrong, why was she so upset, gently he would laugh at her and assure her that there was nothing to be upset about, what did it matter if a drunken young man had spoken foolishly to her—what did any of that matter when the birthday party Leah had planned for him was a great success, all their parties in this marvelous old house were great successes, and he loved her.

Harris didn't seem to be in the living room talking with his friends—they must have moved into another room. The party seemed to have become noisier. Everyone was shouting. From all directions came a harsh tearing laughter. The pianist who'd been playing Liszt so beautifully had departed, it seemed—now there was a harsher species of music—a tape perhaps—what sounded like electronic music—German industrial rock music?—primitive and percussive, deafening. Who
were
these people? Was Leah expected to know these people? A few of the faces were familiar—vaguely familiar—others were certainly strangers. Someone had dared to take down Harris's wonderful photographs from his world travels—in their place were ugly splotched canvases, crookedly hung. The dazzling-yellow sprigs of forsythia had been replaced by vases of
artificial flowers with slick red plastic stamens—birds of paradise? The rental tables were larger than Leah had wished and covered with garish red-striped tablecloths—who had ordered these? Without asking her permission the caterers' assistants had rearranged furniture, Harris's handsome old Steinway grand piano had been shoved rudely into an alcove of the living room and folding chairs had been set up in place of Leah's rattan chairs in the sunroom. The buffet service had begun, guests were crowding eagerly forward. In a panic Leah pushed blindly through the line of strangers looking for—someone—whom she was desperate to find—a person, a man, from whom she'd been separated—in the confusion and peril of the moment she could not have named who it was, but she would know him, when she saw him, or he saw her.

T
he mommy was at the University Medical Center Clinic where she worked—the mommy's work was
anesthesiology
which made your tongue twist like a corkscrew—one of those words that make you laugh and cringe—you could hear it, and recognize it, as a dog recognizes his name, but could not ever pronounce it.

Mommy puts people to sleep
the daddy said.
Mommy is paid very handsomely to put people to sleep and to wake them up again—if Mommy can
. The daddy laughed saying such things like riddles—the daddy often laughed saying things like riddles which made Tod uneasy and provoked him to say in a whining voice
Why'd you pay to sleep?—why'd anybody pay to sleep?—you can just go to bed to sleep can't you? Daddy's being silly
—because really you never knew if the daddy was being silly or serious or something in-between and not-knowing was scary.

This day was a special day. At breakfast, Tod knew.

The daddy waited until the mommy left for work then pushed aside the bright yellow Cheerios box and the daddy whistled loudly preparing French toast pouring maple syrup lavishly onto slabs of egg-soggy toast so the toast floated in the syrup and spilled out onto the Formica-top breakfast nook table. Some of the toast burnt in the frying pan and the daddy scraped it out with a sharp knife and the smell of scorch filled the kitchen, the daddy grunted opening a window and fresh air rushed in making Tod sneeze. It was one of those fierce bright mornings the daddy loved
little dude
so, hugged him so hard Tod shrieked with laughter anxious the daddy would crack his ribs or drop him onto the hardwood floor.

Love you li'l dude! One day, you'll know how much.

 

The
change in our schedules
—this was what the mommy called it speaking in a lowered voice on her cell phone when the daddy wasn't near—began so soon after Tod's birthday—which was March 11—when Tod was four years old—that sometimes it seemed maybe his birthday had something to do with it. Tod knew better but sometimes he felt that the daddy blamed
him
—for it was just a few days later that the daddy was
downsized
.

What this meant wasn't clear for if Tod asked his father what was
downsized
his father just joked waving his hands in the harassed-daddy way as if brushing away flies
Some kind of shrink-wrap it's the principle of mummization
which Tod didn't understand—for the daddy said such things, to make you realize you didn't understand—not just to Tod but to everyone including the mommy and Tod's grandparents—and once—this was in the park, the daddy was talking with a friend—
Miniaturized is what it is, each day I shrink a little till my kid and I will be twins and fit in each other's clothes.

This was scary too but Tod knew, the way the daddy laughed, and the other man laughed with him though not so loudly as the daddy laughed, it was meant to be a joke, and meant to be funny.

Now it was, in the weeks following Tod's fourth birthday in March, the daddy was home much of the time. This was so strange!—for as long as Tod could remember the daddy had always been
away at work
all day and returned in time for supper at 7
P.M
. or sometimes later after the mommy had put Tod to bed. Now the daddy was
always home
. The daddy was home in the morning after the mommy left for the medical center. The daddy was the one to make Tod's breakfast and walk Tod six blocks to nursery school and return at noon to bring Tod back home.

No longer was there any need for the nice Filipina lady to take care of Tod after school. Suddenly it happened that Magdalena was gone for
the change in our schedule
came abruptly and seemingly irrevocably and within days Tod was forgetting that there'd ever been Magdalena for now there was just the daddy in the house when the mommy wasn't there. There was just the daddy to rouse Tod from bed, bathe him and hug him hard in the bath towel and feed him. And sometimes it was the daddy who put Tod to bed if the mommy came home late. All this because the daddy had been
downsized
—which was a word the daddy pronounced like it was something sharp inside his mouth cutting it or a red-hot coal the daddy would have liked to spit out except it was making him laugh, too—or was the daddy trying not to laugh?—
y
ou had to look at the daddy closely like somebody on TV to see if he was serious or not-serious but if you looked too close at the daddy the daddy became angry suddenly because the daddy was like
Canis familiaris
he said he
did not like
to be stared at at close quarters
Got that, little dude?

There was a threat in this—a threat of a sudden backhand slap—not a slap to hurt but a slap to sting—and it was risky, if you smiled when you shouldn't smile or failed to smile when you should. But Tod was
little dude
and this was a good sign. Tod liked being
little dude
. Tod was thrilled being
little dude
for this suggested that the daddy wasn't mad at Tod just then.

Li'l dude just you and me. Love ya!

Most times when the daddy took Tod to nursery school in the morning and to the park in the afternoon, the daddy would make
sure that Tod wore his Yankees cap and a warm-enough sweater or jacket and the daddy would tie his sneakers the right way—
tight!
—so the laces wouldn't come loose and cause Tod to trip over them. If the daddy whistled tying Tod's shoelaces this was a good sign though if the daddy hadn't remembered to wash Tod's face and hands after breakfast this might be a not-good sign like if the daddy's jaws were covered in scratchy stubble and if the daddy's breath was sour-smelling from cigarettes the mommy was not supposed to know that the daddy had started smoking again. Nor was it a good sign if when they were walking together the daddy made calls on his cell phone cursing when all he could get was
fucking voice mail
.

Tod's nursery school was just a few blocks away from their house and Terwillinger Park just slightly farther so there was no need for the daddy to drive. There was no need for a second car. In the park the daddy smoked his cigarettes—
This is our secret, kid—Mommy doesn't need to know got it?
—and read the
New York Times
—or a paperback book—(the daddy had been reading a heavy book titled
The World as Will and Idea
for a long time)—or scribbled into a notebook—or stared off frowning into the distance. At such times the daddy's mouth twitched as if the daddy was talking—arguing—with someone invisible as Tod played by himself or with one or two other young children in a little playground consisting of a single set of swings and monkey-bars and a rusted slide. Sometimes the daddy fell into conversations with people he met in the park—there were young mothers and nannies who brought children to the playground—and women walked dogs in the park—or jogged—or walked alone—and often Tod saw his father talking and laughing with one of these women not knowing if she was someone his father knew or had just met; once, Tod overheard his father tell a flame-haired young woman that he was a married man which was
one kind of thing
and simultaneously he was the father of a four-year-old which was
another kind of thing
.

Whatever these words meant, the woman laughed sharply as if something had stung her.
Well that's upfront, at least. I appreciate that
.

This was a time when they'd begun going to the park every day. This was a time when the mommy's work-hours were longer at the medical center. This was a time when there was just one car for the mommy and the daddy which was the Saab, that had become the mommy's car. Before the
downsizing
there had been a Toyota station wagon which the daddy had driven but this vehicle seemed to have vanished suddenly, like Magdalena.

Turnpike. Totaled. Towed-away. End of tale!
the daddy reported with terse good humor of the kind Tod knew not to question.

 

“Let's surprise Mommy at work. D'you think ‘Dr. Falmouth' would like that?”

This day in Terwillinger Park the daddy snapped shut his cell phone in disgust—shoved it into a pocket of his rumpled khakis that drooped from his waist beltless and a size too large—and spoke in a bright-daddy voice as Tod trotted beside him trying to keep up. Tod was thinking—somber
li'l dude
as the four-year-old was—that the river was miles away, where Mommy worked at the University Medical Center was miles away and he and the daddy had never walked so far before.

But Tod was
little dude
and any idea of the daddy's was an exciting idea. Like a man on TV the daddy was rubbing his hands briskly saying here was their plan to discover whether “Dr. Falmouth” was really where she claimed she was—“We will see with our own eyes like Galileo looking through his telescope.”

Tod laughed—Tod laughed not knowing who “Galileo” was—though something in the daddy's voice sounding like gravel being shoveled made Tod uneasy—anxious—wasn't Mommy where Mommy was supposed to be?—
where was
Mommy?—and the daddy gripped Tod's skinny little shoulder reprimanding him—“Don't be so literal. Christ sake! If ‘Dr. Falmouth' is there she will give us a ride back home. If ‘Dr. Falmouth' is not there, we will take the fucking bus back home.”

The daddy spoke matter-of-factly. Tod swallowed hard trying to comprehend. It seemed to be that, if Mommy was somewhere they
couldn't find her, they would have a way to get back home as if
getting back home
was the crucial thing.

“Has your daddy ever misled you, li'l dude? Yet? Have faith!”

The daddy was tugging at Tod's hand jerking him along like a clumsy little puppy. Sometimes you saw such puppies—or older, stiff-limbed dogs—jerked along on leashes by their impatient masters. Sometimes it happened, the daddy was seized by an idea and had to walk fast. Since the lavish French toast breakfast that morning the daddy had been in an excitable mood. The daddy's eyes were glistening and red-rimmed and the sharp-looking little quills in the daddy's jaws glinted like mica. Though often on these walks the daddy wore a fur-lined cap now the daddy was bare-headed and his dust-colored hair disheveled in the wind that was cold and tasted of something wet-rotted like desiccated leaves—the daddy had crookedly buttoned both Tod's corduroy jacket and his own suede jacket—the daddy was wearing his rumpled khakis and on his feet water-stained running shoes. Tod wasn't sure if the daddy was talking to him—often in the park the daddy was talking to himself—the daddy was whistling—just pausing to shake a cigarette out of a near-depleted pack when there came hurtling at them—almost you'd think the boy was on a bicycle, he came so fast—a tall skinny spike-haired boy with a chalky-pale face, whiskers like scribbles on his chin—a purple leather jacket unzipped to the waist and on his black T-shirt a glaring-white skull-and-crossbones like a second face. What was strangest about the boy was his lacquered-looking hair in two-inch spikes lifting from his head like snakes—Todd turned to stare after him, as he passed on the woodchip path without a backward glance.

It must have been that the daddy recognized the spike-haired boy—or the spike-haired boy recognized the daddy—some kind of look passed quickly between them—and the daddy stopped dead in his tracks.

The daddy told Tod go play on the swings—there was a playground close by—the daddy had to use the restroom.

The daddy was talking to Tod but not looking at him. There'd come into the daddy's voice a faraway tone that was excited but calm, almost gentle. Tod saw how the daddy had not turned to look after the spike-haired boy who'd strode away and disappeared.

Close by the woodchip path—on a narrower path forking into a stand of scrubby pines—was a small squat ugly cinder block building with twin doors:
MEN, WOMEN
. Both doors were covered in graffiti like the squat little building itself. The daddy had taken Tod into this restroom once or twice—Tod recalled a dark dank smell that made his nose crinkle just thinking of it—but now the daddy just pushed Tod in the direction of the playground saying, “Go hang out with those kids, Tod-die—Daddy will be right back.”

Tod-die
was a good sign too. Usually.

Tod drifted off alone. It felt strange, to be alone in the park. At first it felt exciting then it felt scary. The daddy had never left him before even for a few minutes. The mommy had never left him in any public place nor did the mommy leave him alone at home, always there had been Magdalena, or another lady to watch him if the daddy was not home. Because it was not a warm day but chilly and gusty for late April there were only a few children in the playground and a few young mothers or nannies. Tod found a swing low enough to sit on with his short stubby legs but it was strange and unnerving to be alone—it was no fun without the mommy or the daddy pushing him, praising him or warning him to hang on tight. No one was aware of him—no one was watching him—no one cared how high he swung, or if he fell and hurt himself—except—maybe!—there was some other child's mother a few feet away looking at Tod—staring at Tod, frowning—a pinch-faced woman in a down parka with a hood, half her face hidden by curved tinted glasses.

Was this someone who knew him, Tod wondered. Someone who knew his mother, the way she was staring at him, but the woman didn't smile and call out his name, the woman didn't smile at all but just stared in a way that would be rude if Tod had been an adult and made him self-conscious and uneasy now and before he knew it, he'd lost his bal
ance and fell from the swing—tried to scramble up immediately, to show he wasn't hurt.