The Hundred-Year House (33 page)

Marceline walked with him, arm in arm, trailing Zilla and Samantha and Armand back to the director’s house and up the stairs. Marlon followed at a distance, apparently even less sure than Marceline of what was happening. Alfie circled their feet. They found Eddie alone at the little kitchen table, his finger to his lips. The girl, he said, was in bed.

Samantha got a hammer from under the sink and, turning it to the prong end, began prying the nails loose from the ugly square board behind her. Marceline kept Devohr talking and laughing while Armand took a turn, and then Eddie. The board broke loose from the wall, and then there was a great clatter as Eddie and Armand reached in and pulled out an improbable number of liquor bottles.

Marceline guessed from the proximity of the hammer, from the loose way the board was nailed, that this unveiling had been part of the plan all along. If Devohr thought they were letting their guard down—if he thought they’d given up entirely and were revealing their true selves—he’d maybe let his guard down, too.

Armand said, “The terrace! I’ll bring cigars!”

Eddie stayed behind to make sure the child was asleep. Marceline pulled Devohr by the hand—down the stairs, down the
walk that circled behind the big house. The sun was still bright and high. When she was sure he’d been propelled in the right direction, she let go and fell back with Zilla and Armand, five bottles between them, the dog at their heels.

“How does the plan go now?”

“That
was
the plan. That’s as far as it goes.”

ALL OF THEM

More acorns covered the ground than should have been possible. The oaks all grew in front of the house—the smaller ones off to the left, the majestic one between the director’s house and the big house—but even so their helmeted seeds carpeted the lawn and terrace and paths out back like hail. Green still, and dangerous: Josephine went rolling forward, and Fannie caught her under the arms. “They’re good luck!” Marlon said.

“Well, we need plenty of that.”

Hazy and hot, the air still and heavy.

Viktor said, “Shall we build a fire? Back on the pile?”

“Oh, yes, yes!” Fannie said.

Everyone made it to the terrace. Even Ludo, with nothing more to lose, came down from the attic to slap Gamby on the back and say he’d teach him to drink like an Italian.

Armand took over one of the long, high tables and started mixing drinks. Someone broke into the kitchen and brought out lemons, and soon Armand was squeezing them into a glass and picking out seeds with his fingers so he could mix the juice with the gin and the precious Cointreau to make White Ladies. (“How ghostly!” Josephine cried, and Fannie rubbed her hands together. “Ooh, shall we bring out the Ouija? It’s still in the library!”)

Gamby said, “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you? Tell me this. Why’d they all die violently? Where’s the ghost of the nice old lady who died in bed from a tumor?”

“Resting in peace! It’s
energy
that makes a ghost, unfulfilled energy. Anger, or fear, or—or—”

“Love,” Josephine said. “Unrequited love.”

Armand said, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Mr. Devohr, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Marlon and Viktor decided they were in charge of the bonfire. Marlon slipped his smoking jacket back on and ran around gathering extra sticks, while Alfie the dog scampered after in joyful brotherhood. Viktor became convinced the quality of the fire would depend on the number of matches used to light it, and took donations from the men’s pockets.

Marceline and Zilla reclined on the terrace wall, legs stretched along it toward each other. Sylphic bookends. Samantha put a chair for Gamby right in front of them, at eye level with the legs. And she sat too, and she asked Ludo to open the solarium windows and turn on the Victrola. Soon there was music, “A Shady Tree” and “Was It a Dream,” and soon Ludo was back and handing out Armand’s cigars, and Armand was passing drinks. Marceline said, “I vent to such a lofely garden party last month, at the house of Mary Pickford. Mister Devohr, do you know her films?”

“Heavens, yes!”

She lowered her voice. “And I vill tell you the real reason she cut her hair.”

Behind them, Josephine leaned against the ivy, and Fannie leaned against her, on her soft shoulder. She said, “What would we do without this place? What sort of world would this be, without refuges?”

In the distance, the fire pile began to glow. Small spots around the lower edges first, then a few thin arms of fire. Now the whole thing, a consummation. Marlon ran back to the terrace, to view his creation from a distance. “A fine fire,” he said. “The best work I’ve done here.” And it was true, he saw that now. He shouldn’t
have let himself sober up. He could suddenly see his whole book, the shape of it, the bulk of it. It was a monstrosity, a tangle, a snake swallowing its own tail. He took a White Lady from Armand, and with the drink he walked slowly back down the path, back to where Viktor stood staring at the blaze.

Up on the terrace, Armand filled Gamby’s glass before it could get half empty.

Gamby didn’t seem to doubt that the high spirits were genuine. That these women would naturally want to surround him and regale him with stories. That these artists were simply dying to share their liquor.

Somone did find the Ouija board, and Marceline climbed down from the wall, pulled a chair close to Gamby’s, convinced him to press his knees into hers with the board between them. Here was some hope: If Marceline was as gifted an improviser as they all supposed, she might manage to nudge the planchette toward some helpful message. Something about ghosts of artists past, or the ghost of his mother. Saying she loved the art created here and wanted the colony to stay. But all Marceline knew of his mother was that horrible attic story, nothing personal that would shock him into compliance. She couldn’t even recall her name.

From behind Gamby’s head, Fannie mouthed it: “Violet! Violet!”

Josephine whispered, “Watch, she’ll spell it with a W.”

Gamby’s short, stout, pale fingers on the planchette, Marceline’s long ones. She said, “I haf done the Ouija von time before. At a Hollyvood party, vith my dear friend Lon Chaney. I vill tell you, he used the board to proposition me!”

Back by the fire, Marlon and Viktor. Marlon said to him, “I might burn the novel. The whole thing.”

“Don’t.”

“It’s a doorstop. I’ve sat here six weeks and made a doorstop.”

“Then burn it.” Viktor regarded him with something like spite, a look Marlon hadn’t anticipated. “Did you know, you can’t burn a dance? There are quite a few things you can’t burn, unless you burn yourself, unless you jump into the fire
yourself
.”

“Let’s step away from the fire.”

“Look at her up there, offering herself like—”

“Who? Sobriety doesn’t suit you. Good God.” Marlon handed over his own drink. “It’s delicious,” he said.

Viktor looked down at it. “I don’t drink.”

“You don’t?” Marlon thought through the past weeks, and took back his glass. “You mixed the vat last night. And you’re always dropping things. You’re the drunkest man I know.”

“I’ve never touched the stuff. I couldn’t dance.”

“But when you were younger?”

“I started training when I was eight.” Viktor poked the fire with a long branch and said, “Tell me something. Tell me why I could walk down a street in the city and see two faces in the crowd. And one of them—a stranger—it might be a beautiful woman—for one of them I feel nothing, I remain intact. And the other, no more beautiful, no more spectacular: When I see her, I fall through the universe. And only because of our past, only because of some promise my idiot heart made itself years before.”

“Why don’t you try a drink.”

“The truth is, there’s no such thing as love. There’s only
history
.”

Zilla was pouring her drinks off the far side of the wall. She needed to stay clear.

Alfie ran yapping between the terrace and the fire, the terrace and the fire.

“The Ouija dates to Pythagoras,” Ludo said.

Zilla said, “Ludo’s our encyclopedia.”

Gamby laughed. “That’s funny, it says here
William Fuld Talking Board Set
. Was Mr. Fuld a follower of Mr. Pythagoras?” Marceline smiled up as if the two of them alone were in on the joke. Gamby addressed the board. “What horse shall I pick at Saratoga next summer?”

“No, no,” Marceline said, and she attempted to make even that one word flirtatious. “Let us ask the spirit’s name.”

She aimed for the
V
. She was halfway there when Gamby jerked the planchette down to the bottom, to the number 2.

“Hell of a name!” Gamby said. Pleased with his own joke. “You should get your money back from Mr. Pythagoras.”

Marceline said, “It must mean there are two spirits!”

Samantha closed her eyes.

Gamby said, “Are you men or women?”

Before Marceline had time to think, the planchette slid to the sun face on the top left, with the word
YES
beneath.

“Well played, Miss Horn.” Devohr waggled his eyebrows. “One of each, male and female! Are we ourselves the spirits, by chance?”

“I am not mofing the pointer, Mr. Devohr. Are you?”

Fannie and Josephine swayed to the music. Ludo changed the record, and, returning to the terrace, did a shuffling little solo dance to “I’m Saving Saturday Night for You.”

Samantha, next to Gamby but silent, relied on Marceline’s and Zilla’s social graces. She wrapped her hands around the iron arms of the chair, let the metal cool her fingertips. Or rather, her fingers transferred their warmth, electron by electron, into the chair. An important distinction. And when she was gone, when there was no visible trace of her at Laurelfield, when the lawn was filled with matrons drinking tea, her electrons would remain in the chair. That was something, and she pressed harder. That was something.

Alfie slept, at last, under her.

Zilla watched Marlon lead Viktor back to the terrace. She said, “There ought to be marshmallows.”

Viktor said nothing. He swayed a bit. Marlon had never seen a man sway from sobriety. He led him to Armand. He said, “We need to fix this fellow up.”

Marceline had asked again for spirit’s name. They all watched.

G

G

G

The planchette circled the letter like a bee on a flower.

“I think you are writing your own name, Mr. Devohr.” She wanted to push back harder on the planchette, but then the whole idea was for him to believe it had moved on its own.

“No, too many G’s!” he said. “Gagog. It sounds like a caveman. Gagog the Horrible. Gilgamesh!”

Fannie said, “Ask how she—ask how it perished. The spirit.” And they did.

S

C

R

F

C

“Scarface!” Marlon called, unhelpfully. Josephine aimed a plump elbow into his ribs, but he didn’t understand. “Maybe they’re two of the fellows Capone got! Ask if they died on February the fourteenth! Ask if the last thing they saw was a warehouse!”

Marceline tried to think quickly. “Perhaps it means
sacrifice
. Perhaps—it is von who sacrificed a great deal for, for the colony.”

But she was going off course, wasn’t she? Violet hadn’t had a thing to do with the colony. She felt the looks around her, a net of disappointment. She said, “Vhen did you lif?”—not certain where she’d aim the thing even if she could wrest control.

NO

Gamby said, “Well that’s terribly uncooperative! Tell us, brave spirits, when did you walk the earth?”

NO

NO

NO

GOOD BYE

The planchette stopped and stayed on that “good bye” at the bottom as if its motor had run out. Gamby lifted his fingers.

“But
NO
was on the moon picture!” Fannie said. “I think it meant ‘Many moons ago!’ Don’t you?”

Josephine said, “It’s useless.”

Marceline said, “Let’s gif it von more go.”

Gamby sighed and looked down. “Well,” he said. “I suppose there is one person I want to reach. It’s just that she’s been gone a long time. And she—BOO!” He slapped the board, and it flew across the terrace with the planchette, and Gamby erupted into boisterous laughter at the same moment that Fannie and Josephine screamed and Viktor fell back into the ivy. Alfie awoke and barked disapprovingly.

Ludo scrambled after the Ouija set. Marlon poured his own drink straight into Gamby’s glass while he was distracted, then fetched himself a refill.

By the time Eddie joined the party, the little girl at last asleep, or at least pretending, there was no appeal to joining the drinkers. He’d never catch up, and they made it look so tiresome. Flushed faces and stupid, shouted conversation. He ought to pack, but his room would be hot. He’d wait till the air had cooled. He leaned against the ivy, next to the White Rabbits, and together they watched Gamby.

Fannie said, “Look at him there, surrounded by beauty. What did he do to deserve any of this?”

Josephine said, “What if we murdered him? What if we threw him on the fire?”

“
Josephine
!”

“We could forge letters back to Canada. He’d say how he was joining the artists, how he’d always wanted to be a painter.”

“There’s that little girl!”

“Well, I’m only
joking
. Eddie, I’m afraid Fannie takes me
awfully
seriously. And I don’t deserve to be listened to for a single word.”

“She’s all nonsense, it’s true.”

Meanwhile Gamby had grown loud and shrill. “That’s
ace
!” he shouted.

“He’s going to lick her shoulder,” Armand whispered. “Marceline’s.”

“Do you suppose he’s corked?”

“He’s fried to the hat.”

Eddie watched Zilla, still perched on the wall, watched the way she never fully looked away from Viktor. He’d understood half of it before, but now he realized there was something he’d absolutely missed, something about the way her eyes sunk into themselves: She was bereft, or broken, or grief stricken. She stared at Viktor the way a woman on a boat stares at a man drowning in the ocean.