Galilee (69 page)

“All's well,” I told her.

“So I gathered,” she said.

“I'm sorry. I should have come to tell you earlier.”

“I'm used to being ignored,” she replied, and made her departure, pausing only to maneuver the last remaining pieces of pie crust into her mouth.

A
s I headed back downstairs I found myself in a mingled state of exhaustion and agitation. What I needed was a little entertainment. A conversation with Marietta would have been the perfect thing, but she was off making wedding plans with her beloved Alice, so I decided to smoke a little hashish and let my mind wander over the contents of my conversation with Zelim—the talk of his love for the widow Passak, his hopes for oblivion, his reflections on the loneliness of Cesaria's life, and what her patience really meant—and wondered, in that nonchalant, noncommittal way you wonder when you're smoking good hashish, if I shouldn't have spent less time with the Gearys in my book, and more time here at home. Had I trivialized what might have been a mightier work by following the story of Rachel Pallenberg so closely; been seduced by that most populist of idioms, the rags-to-riches story, when the real meat of what I should have told lay in the troubled body of the Barbarossa clan?

Back in my study I picked up the manuscript and flicked through it, deliberately letting my eye go where it would, to see how the thing sounded when sampled arbitrarily. There were plenty of stylistic infelicities which I promised myself I'd fix later; but the matter seemed to walk the line I'd intended it walk, between this world and that other, out there beyond the perimeters of L'Enfant. Perhaps I could have been less gossipy in my accounts of the daily business of this house, but there's honesty in that gossip. Whatever the mythic roots of this family may be, we've dwindled into pettiness and domesticity. We're not the first gods to have done so, of course. The occupants of Olympus bickered and bed-hopped; we're no better nor worse. But they were inventions, we're not (I suspect, by the way, that in the creation of divinities we see the most revealing work of the human imagination. And of course in the life of that imagination, the most compelling evidence of
the divine in man. Each is the other's most illuminating labor.)

Where does that leave me? I, who sit in the middle of a house of divinities talking about invented gods. It leaves me in confusion, as always; set against myself, as though my heart were divided, and each half beat to a different drummer.

The hashish put an appetite on me, and after a couple of hours of skipping through my text I went to the kitchen and made myself a sandwich of rare roast beef on black bread, which I ate sitting on the back door step, feeding the crumbs to the peacocks.

Then I slept for a while, thinking I would get up in the middle of the evening and continue to tinker with the text. Those few blissful hours of sleep were, I suspect, the last easy slumbers I will enjoy; for when I woke (or rather, was woken) it was not only with visions of the Geary house in New York filling my head, and my right hand twitching as if it were warming up for the challenge of setting down all I was about to see, but also with the uncanny sense that any last vestige of calm had gone from the places I was witnessing.

The final sequence of cataclysms was about to begin. I drew breath and ink; waited, watched, and then began to write.

When Rachel got to the mansion she was told by one of the staff, a pleasant woman called Jocelyn, that she couldn't see Loretta tonight. The old man had been very sick since noon, and Loretta had sent the nurse away, saying she wanted to look after Cadmus herself, which she was doing. Her instructions were that they were not to be disturbed.

Rachel was insistent: this wasn't business that could be put off until tomorrow. If Jocelyn wouldn't go up and get Loretta, Rachel said, then she'd be obliged to do so herself. Reluctantly, Jocelyn went up; and after ten minutes or so Loretta came downstairs. It was the first time Rachel had ever seen her look less than perfect. She looked like a painting that had been slightly smeared; her hair, which was usually immaculate, a little out of place, one of her drawn brows a little smudged.

She instructed Jocelyn to make some tea, and took Rachel into the dining room.

“This is a bad time, Rachel,” she said.

“Yes, I know.”

“Cadmus is very weak, and I may need to go up to him, so please, say whatever you have to say.”

“We had a conversation in this room, just after Margie's death.”

“I remember it, of course.”

“Well, you were right. Mitch was at my apartment a little while ago, and I don't think he's entirely sane.”

“What did he do?”

“You want the short version and I'm not sure there is one,” Rachel explained. “Margie had a book—I don't know the full story, but it was a kind of journal—and it came into my hands. It doesn't matter how. The point is, it did; and contains information about the Barbarossas.”

Loretta showed no sign of response to any of this, until she spoke. When she did, her voice betrayed her. It trembled.

“You have Holt's journal?” she said.

“No. Mitchell does.”

“Oh Jesus,” she said quietly. “Why didn't you come to me with it?”

“I didn't know it was so important.”

“Why do you think I've been sitting upstairs with Cadmus, listening to him ramble for hours on end?”

“You
wanted the journal?”

“Of course. I knew he had it because he'd told me, years ago. Never let me see it—”

“Why not?”

“I guess he didn't want me to know anything more about Galilee than I already knew.”

“It's not very flattering. What Holt says about him.”

“So you've read it?”

“Not all of it. But a lot. And the way Holt describes him . . . oh Lord, how's it even possible?”

“How's
what
possible?”

“How could Galilee have been alive in 1865?”

“You're asking the wrong person,” Loretta said. “Because I'm just as much in the dark as you about how and why. And I gave up asking a long time ago.”

“If you gave up asking, why do you want the journal so badly?”

“Don't come here looking for my help and then start needling me, girl,” Loretta replied. She looked away from Rachel for a moment, expelling a long, soft sigh. “Would you fetch me a cigarette?” she said finally. “They're on the sideboard over there.”

Rachel got up and brought the silver cigarette case, along with the lighter, back to the table. While Loretta was lighting up Jocelyn came in with the tea. “Just set it down,” Loretta said. “We'll serve ourselves. Oh, and Jocelyn? Would you go upstairs and check on Mr. Geary?”

“I just did,” Jocelyn said. “He's sleeping.”

“Keep looking in on him will you?”

“Of course.”

“She's been a godsend,” Loretta observed when Jocelyn had gone. “Never a complaint. What were we talking about?”

“Galilee.”

“Forget about Galilee.”

“You once told me that he was at the heart of everything.”

“Did I now?” Loretta said. She drew deeply on her cigarette. “Well I was probably feeling sorry for myself.” She exhaled the blue-gray smoke. Then she said: “You're not the only one who's been in love with him, you know. If you really want to understand what's happening to us you have to stop thinking from a selfish point of view. Everybody's had their disappointments, Rachel. Everybody's had their lost loves and their broken hearts. Even the old man.”

“Louise Brooks.”

“Yes. The exquisite Louise. That was in Kitty's time, of course. I didn't have to endure his mooning over the woman. Though she
was
lovely. I will say that. She was lovely.” She poured herself a cup of tea as she spoke. “Do you want some tea?”

“No. Thank you.”

“He's going to die in the next twenty-four hours,” Loretta went on, matter-of-factly. “And when he's gone, I intend to take charge of this family and its assets. That's what's in his will.”

“You've seen the will?”

“No. But he's promised me. If the will says what he swears it says then I'll be in a position to make some kind of deal with Garrison and Mitchell.”

“And if it doesn't?”

“If it doesn't?” Loretta sipped her tea before replying. “Then maybe we'll need Galilee after all,” she said quietly. “Both of us.”

I
n his bedroom on the floor above, Cadmus woke. He was cold, and there was an emptiness at the pit of his stomach which was not hunger. He turned his face toward the dimmed lamp on the bedside table, hoping its light would drive from his head the shadowy forms that had accompanied him from sleep. He didn't want them with him in the real world. They'd have him soon enough.

The door opened. He raised his head from the pillow.

“Loretta?”

“No, sir. It's Jocelyn.”

“Where's Loretta? She said she was going to stay with me.”

“She's just downstairs, sir. Mitchell's wife came by to see her. Do you want something to eat, sir? Maybe some soup?”

“Send Rachel up.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. Send Rachel up. And have her bring me a snifter of brandy. Go on, woman.”

Jocelyn went on her way, and Cadmus let his head sink back into the pillow. Lord, he was so, so cold! But the thought that Rachel was downstairs, and that he'd be laying eyes on her in a few moments, made him a little happier with his lot. She was a sweet girl; he'd always liked her. No doubt some of her innocence had been sullied by Mitchell; she'd lost some of her faith in the goodness of things. But she was a strong creature; she'd survive. He reached out, opened the drawer of the bedside cabinet, and reached around for a roll of peppermints. He could no longer chew gum—his jaws didn't have the power—and his mouth was so filled with cankers that brushing his teeth was an ordeal, but he wanted to be sure his breath was reasonably sweet when Rachel came to sit with him. With palsied fingers he fumbled a peppermint onto his dry tongue, and began, as best he could, to suck.

Somebody was shouting in the street outside, and he longed to be there; out from this cold bed, where he could see the sky. Just once more; was that too much to ask?

In finer times he'd liked to walk. He didn't care if it was fair weather or foul; he'd just get out of his limo wherever and whenever the urge struck him and walk. Arctic winter mornings, he remembered, and blistering August afternoons; days in spring when he'd felt like a happy truant, meandering his way home; evenings in midsummer, with half a dozen martinis in him, high as a king, singing as he went.

Never again. Never the street, never the sky, never a song. Only silence soon; and judgment. Much as he'd tried to ready himself, he was prepared for neither.

The window rattled. There was quite a wind getting up. The rattling came again, and this time the heavy drapes shook. No wonder he was cold! That silly bitch of a nurse had left one of the windows open. Another gust, and the drapes filled like sails. This time he felt the wind across the room; it was strong enough to shake the lampshade.

He felt a fluttering in his empty belly, and pushed himself up against the headboard to get a better look at the billowing drapes. What the hell was going on?

He needed his spectacles; but as he reached to pluck them up from amid the bottles of pills he heard somebody say his name.

A woman. There was a woman in the room with him.

“Loretta?”

The woman's voice plunged into a deeper register, and this time there were no words, just a sound, like a kind of roar, that shook the bed.

He fumbled to get his spectacles on, but before he could do so the lamp was thrown off the cabinet, and smashed, leaving him and the trespasser together in the darknes.

“What in God's name was that?” Loretta said. She got up from the table, yelling for Jocelyn, but Rachel was ahead of her, out into the hallway.

There was a shout now: a shrill shout. Ignoring Loretta's instructions to
wait, girl, wait!
Rachel headed for the stairs. She had a momentary flash of
déjà vu:
ascending the flight two or three steps at a time, hearing the din of panic above, and the howling of wind. This was a scene she'd played out before, and for some reason she had kept the memory in her soul.

At the landing, she glanced back down the flight. Loretta was coming after her, clinging to the banister for support, Jocelyn at the bottom of the stairs, asking to know what the noise was.

“It's Cadmus, you damn fool!” Loretta yelled back at her. “I thought I told you to look in on him!”

“I did!” Jocelyn said. “He asked for brandy. And for Rachel.” Loretta didn't respond to this. It was Rachel she called after. “Stay away from that door!”

“Why?” Rachel demanded.

“It's not your business! Just go back downstairs.”

The door was rattling, violently, and there was no small part of Rachel that wanted to do exactly as Loretta had instructed. Perhaps after all this wasn't her business—it was Geary lunacy, Geary grief. But how could she ignore the sobs of panic that were coming from the bedroom? Somebody was terrorizing the old man, and it had to be stopped, right now. She turned the handle of the door—which rattled in her palm—and pushed. There was a force pressing on the door from the other side; she had to lay her whole body against the door to get it to open. When it did, it flew wide, and she pitched forward, so that appropriately enough she didn't step but stumbled into the midst of the tragedy waiting for her on the other side.

C
admus's room was chaos. The enormous bed was empty, the covers thrown off, the pillows scattered around. All but one of the lights had gone out, the exception being his bedside lamp, which lay on the floor, flickering nervously. The cabinet it had stood upon had been overturned, as had the chairs and the small dressing table. All the appurtenances of the sickroom—the pill bottles and their contents, the medicines and the measuring spoons, the IV stand, the vomit bowl and the oxygen machine—were littered about, smashed, pounded, rendered useless.