The Executor (15 page)

But but but but but.

As I stood there, arguing with myself, my finger poised over the keypad, the doorbell rang. I hurried to answer it before the noise woke Alma.

Eric stood on the front porch, leering at me in a way that confirmed everything I’d feared. We were connected now, whether I consented or not.

“Hey,” he said. “Is my aunt around?”

“She’s not feeling well.”

“One of her . . .”

I nodded.

“That’s too bad.”

I said nothing.

“Cause I was kind of hoping to see her.”

“She’s not up for that.”

“Hm.” He smiled, as though it was my duty to move the conversation along.

“Was there something else I could help you with?”

“I need to see her,” he said. “It’s important.”

“She’s resting.”

“No, I know. You know what, though, I think I’ll wait for her.”

“It could be hours.”

“Right.”

“And,” I said, “and she needs it quiet.”

“Okay.”

A silence.

“So you’d really be better off coming back.”

“Look, man, I’m not going to throw a party. It’s hot as hell out here.” And he brushed past me, crossing the living room toward the kitchen. I followed.

“Can I get some water?” he asked.

“Help yourself.”

He started opening all the wrong cupboards.

Annoyed, I fetched him a glass.

“Hey, thanks.”

He drank, animal lapping sounds. When he faced me next his shirtfront was wet.

“Told you it was hot.” He tossed me the empty glass. “But it’s always cold in here, right?” He laughed, then lifted the plastic cake cover, beneath which sat the remaining third of that week’s
Sachertorte.

“That looks fantastic. Lemme get some of that?”

With the thinnest composure, I handed him a plate and utensils.

“Nice,” he said, cutting a big slice. “She loves her chocolate. She used to order it from Switzerland.”

I indicated the bars on the counter.

“Really? She still does that?”

“So it would seem.”

“Damn,” he said, shaking his head. “Some things never change, huh.”

“I guess not.”

“You guess not.” He laughed again. “You guess right.”

He bent to take in a forkful, knots of spine poking up beneath his T-shirt. I realized with repulsion that it was the very same shirt he’d worn that night in the bar. Whether it had been washed since, I could not tell.

Correctly made,
Sachertorte
is too dry to eat on its own; unsweetened whipped cream makes the traditional accompaniment. We had a bowl in the fridge, but I didn’t mention it, leaning against the counter with my arms folded, advertising indifference.

The truth was otherwise. For although I hated the way he had barged in, disrupting my solitude, making me self-conscious by reminding me of our drunken escapade; hated his impertinence
(lemme get some of that);
hated what he stood for, the part of Alma to which I had no access, the knowledge that I was a visitor here—while all that was true, it would be an oversimplification to say that I hated
him,
or wanted him gone. At many points I could have denied him entry. I could have refused to let him in the house. I could have ordered him to leave once he’d finished drinking or eating. I didn’t, because another part of me still sensed in him an opportunity for information. And I admit that I am not immune to the purely chemical effects of charisma. I could no more deny it than pretend that the night in Arlington had never happened: I wanted him to like me.

He pushed the plate away, wiped his mouth on his wrist. “You’re a philosopher.”

I nodded.

“That’s cool. She must love that. Huh?”

I shrugged.

“I mean ...” He passed his hand over his head, laughed again. “You know? I never did get any of that stuff.”

“Is that right.”

“Oh, sure, yeah. I have learning disabilities. I mean, she used to get really frustrated with me.”

I thought of something Alma had said during our first conversation.
It is a terrible thing to be stupid.

“How long did you live with her?” I asked.

“Nine years.”

“Did you like it?”

He smiled. “I was a kid. What was I supposed to do?”

“Has she always been sick?”

“Ever since I’ve known her.” He paused. “She used to wake herself up. I’d hear her walking around upstairs, two, three in the morning. Sound familiar?”

I nodded.

“Must be rough,” he said. “On you, I mean.”

I shrugged.

“Sometimes she would scream in her sleep. Does she still do that?”

Horrified, I shook my head.

“For a while she did it every couple of nights.” He toyed with the crumbs on his plate. “The first time it happened, the neighbors called the cops. They thought someone was being stabbed to death.”

Silence.

“That sounds ... difficult,” I said.

“It’s messed up, is what it is.” He smiled. “What can you do, though.”

I said nothing.

“So,” he said. “You’re in the back room. That used to be my room.”

Alma hadn’t mentioned it. I stiffened. “Is that so.”

“You know the thingamajig on the window? The painting or whatever you call it? The pattern on his hat matches the fur on the deer.”

“That’s interesting,” I said.

“You ever notice that?”

I felt silly shaking my head.

“No?”

“I don’t look at it that often,” I lied.

“Yeah,” he said. “Check it out the next time. Or, you know what—”

He stood up and walked out.

I couldn’t exactly yell at him to stop. I got up and went after him.

“See?”

Having entered my room without permission, he was now standing by the leaded window, gesturing like a game-show host. “Check it out.”

I wanted to resist, but curiosity had gotten the better of me. I crossed the room. Lo and behold, the hunter’s cap and the deerskin were both rendered in the same orange houndstooth.

“I always liked that,” he said.

I nodded.

We stood as one, admiring the art.

“Man, I used to hate it back here. She’d lock me in to punish me. But, hey.” He laughed. “That’s a long time ago.”

I said nothing.

“What about the gun?” he asked. “You ever see that?”

I had always taken her crack about owning a pistol to be just that: a crack. I shook my head.

“Oh, you got to. Come on.”

He exited toward the library, never looking back to see if I would follow.

 

 

GROWING UP, my brother and I were under strict instructions not to go anywhere near the cabinet in the basement. This led us to want nothing more, and left alone one evening, the first thing Chris and I did—after eating an entire coconut cream pie—was steal the key from our father’s nightstand.

I was six, Chris not yet thirteen. Together we scrambled down the basement steps, far more frightened of what our father’s reaction would be than of the guns themselves. My brother took down a hunting rifle and pointed it all over the place, making shooting noises. He offered it to me—forced it on me, really, as I had come along as an observer, not as a participant, and took it from him only after much goading. It was heavy, the stock warm from his armpit. I aimed at the far wall, sighting above a tall cardboard box labeled X-MAS LIGHTS in my mother’s neat, antiquated hand.

“Do it,” he said.

I didn’t want to, but he made fun of me until, shaking, I pulled the trigger—to no effect. The safety was still on. Chris laughed at me, and I threw the rifle down and ran upstairs in tears.

That fall he began going out with my father for whitetail season, one of the few activities they could manage to do together peacefully. It was, perhaps, the situation’s inherent deadliness that kept their tempers in check, spilt blood and torn flesh enough to remind them of the consequences of rash action. They would disappear before dawn, coming home after dark with flaking lips and ski-cap hair. These trips transformed them; for days afterward they communicated on a frequency neither I nor my mother could pick up. To be so blatantly excluded reinforced my growing sense that I did not belong.

Watching Eric pry a wooden box out from one of the library’s top shelves, I had the same uneasy feeling as I’d had all those years ago, when I thought I was about to blow a hole in the basement wall.

“Here,” he said.

Made of a dark, burled maple, it could have held any number of things: butterflies, playing cards, a chemistry set. The latch gleamed.

“Open it.”

The interior was lined with green velvet, similar to that on the base of half-Nietzsche, but rather more fine and soft. The gun itself had a narrow barrel, protruding from the chamber like a bone from flesh. Stamped on the base of the grip was an insignia too worn to identify.

“I don’t know if it still works,” he said. “I mean, it’s pretty old.”

I ran my fingers over the velvet, and then, with a transgressive thrill, lifted the gun out of the case.

We are
homo faber
—man, maker and user of tools—and every tool we make has an innate purpose. When a particular object’s purpose is so clearly singular, one experiences an almost irresistible urge to use it toward its intended end. Just as books are for reading and cakes are for eating, guns are for shooting, and though it had been decades since I’d held one in my hand, the chill of the metal brought on a terrifying impulse to destroy something. Disquieted, I replaced the pistol and handed the case to Eric, stepping away from him and it.

“You see that?”

He was pointing to the insignia, tracing its shape.

“S,
” he said, “
S
.”

I looked at him.

“Her father was big in the Austrian army.”

“He was an instrument maker.”

“He was. He also made land mines.” He snorted. “How do you think they got so rich? Pianos?”

I said nothing.

“Sorry to spoil it for you.”

“She didn’t do anything,” I said. “She was a child.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Well, okay.”

A silence.

“Did you take something from those girls?” I asked.

He looked at me.

“The one you... the one with the . . .” I gestured to my abdomen. “She was going on about you stealing something from her.”

He continued to stare at me, then walked to the bookshelf. To get the case back into place he had to go up on his toes. “She said that, huh.”

“Yes.”

“What did she say I stole?”

“I don’t know. She was pretty upset, though.”

He laughed. “Oh yeah?”

“I’m serious. She almost broke my neck.”

“Well,” he said, turning around. “I don’t know nothin about that.”

I said nothing.

“Her room was a mess. Whatever she’s looking for, it’s probably on the floor.” He glanced at the grandfather clock. “She’s not coming down anytime soon, huh.”

I shook my head.

“Tell her I stopped by.”

I nodded.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I know my way out.”

 

 

THAT NIGHT I dreamt of a clearing in the forest. Through glassy leaves I saw movement, and I felt afraid, not knowing if I was hunter or prey.

A
lma’s reaction to the news of Eric’s visit was dismayingly subdued.

“No doubt he came for his money,” she said. “Thank you for keeping him at bay while I rested. In the future I shall leave a spare check with you. You can give it to him right away and thereby free yourself of any obligation to entertain him.”

“All I did was give him cake.”

“And now we do not have enough for afternoon tea. For shame, Mr. Geist.”

“What do you mean?”

“See for yourself.”

I lifted up the plastic cover; the rest of the
Sachertorte
was gone. “There was plenty yesterday.”

“Perhaps he took it when you weren’t looking,” she said. “That would be true to form.”

I gripped the empty plate in both hands. “I can’t believe this.”

“Patience, Mr. Geist. An old lady can survive one day without her confections. Now, you had a request.”

I barely heard her; I was still fuming.

“Mr. Geist.”

“Pardon?”

“You spoke of it a few days ago,” she said. “We never pursued the matter.”

I remembered now: my mother’s call. I told Alma about the trip, describing it as a family reunion and omitting the memorial. “I said I had to ask you first.”

“Naturally you may go. Although I feel obliged to note that you do not seem overly enthusiastic about the prospect.”

“I’m not.”

“In that case, you may use me as an excuse, if you wish to beg off.”

I hesitated. “I really should go.”

“Very well, then.”

“It’ll only be for a couple of days.”

“Please, don’t rush on my account. I can get along quite well without you.” She half-smiled. “You’ve never spoken of your family.”

I shrugged.

“May I ask why?”

“It’s nothing personal. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“You are too modest.”

“I’m not. They never met Wittgenstein. They wouldn’t even know who that is.”

“They produced you, Mr. Geist.”

“I’ve never understood how.”

She waited for me to say more. I didn’t, and she said, “Of course, your business is your own.”

She sounded different then. Perhaps she was annoyed at me for acting cagey when she had revealed so much about herself. Or maybe she meant what she said, and what I heard in her voice was concern. Either way, the moment passed, and we moved on to more mutually agreeable subjects.