Let the Dark Flower Blossom (19 page)

O
N A HOT SUMMER AFTERNOON
in Chicago—not two years ago. Ro came up beside me in the basement gallery of the Art Institute, in one of those reliably lonely rooms containing colonial furniture. Funny how it happened. We just ran into each other. He was in town giving a speech. I was there—on a rare trip away from my island—at the insistence of my niece—for a wedding. Ro and Shelly, we picked up where time had left us. As though we had just seen each other that morning in the dining hall or crossing the courtyard.

Stone & Schell—a little worse for wear—we ambled through the folk art rooms. We passed before a hand-carved coffin; a wooden doll; a miniature winterscape. We paused at a painting of Eve and her grinning serpent. Ro laughed. “Let's get out of here,” he said. He wanted to get a drink. He knew a place. And so we left the museum. We found a taxi, and he directed the driver to a Clark Street bistro just about to get too trendy for its own good. On that August afternoon the place was empty. Roman and I walked in and sat down. The lone busboy setting tables for dinner came over and said they weren't serving for a while. Roman said that we just wanted some booze. Could we get some booze?

The busboy brought us gin and ice.

Roman drank. He wiped his brow.

“Sheldon Schell,” he said. “The shipwrecked life must agree with you. You haven't changed. You still look like a fucking lunatic.”

He told me that he was having an affair with his sons' au pair.

His sons were named Julian and Chester. He called them Jules and Chet. One was a natural athlete. The other wore very thick
eyeglasses. He didn't say the au pair's name. Only that she had inspired him to write his latest book.

He always knew how to get to me.

He told me about the girl.

Roman, in an elegant two-button summer suit, drew me into his latest drama. I had no taste for gin, but I drank. The busboy refilled our glasses. I heard a radio playing in the kitchen. Roman's white shirt was rumpled. He wore a necktie, slightly loosened, of light green silk.The line of his oyster-colored jacket suited his broad bulk. His fair hair was clipped short and the recession of his hairline gave his brow a high, sort of holy glow. His affair had inspired him to write a torrid faux tell-all about a suburban scandal.

He knew what his readers wanted. They were
his
, after all. They had moved out of cities; they were denizens of the cul-de-sac, and they didn't want to feel ashamed of it. They didn't want to apologize for their minivans or playdates, for their dashed dreams or catalog shopping. Forty was the new twenty. His readers were responsible fathers and caring mothers. They carted kids to soccer practice; to Sunday school; to animated movies at the Cineplex. They were concerned about rising crime; gangs, drugs; about toxins, terrorism, junk food, and
TV
shows with content unsuitable for children; about internet predators, obesity, and kiddy porn. They were moral moms and high-minded dads, sure; but once, not too long ago, they had been kids themselves: young and wild and high, fucking strangers in the unisex bathrooms of downtown dance clubs. He knew. Roman knew! He was one of them. He had been one of them. He had seen it for himself. Don't you remember?

Didn't I remember?

He leaned forward. The table shook.

Roman was a frantic drunk. His cheeks burned.

He picked up and drank—that is, he tried to drink—from his empty glass.

“Fuck it,” he said.

He looked around. He saw that we were no longer alone.

Waiters moved from table to table. The place was just opening for dinner.

A girl came by and lighted the candles on our table. Ro touched her arm and said something funny. A piano player took on a summertime song.

You're the tops
.

You're the Colosseum
.

A waiter came by.

We ordered.

Ro wanted wine.

The gin glasses were whisked away.

Roman talked about places that he had been and things he had done.

The waiter brought our food on large white plates. Roman's wife, Dibby, had him off red meat. He was supposed to be watching his cholesterol. He was on a low-sodium macrobiotic diet. He belonged to an athletic club. He worked out. He did yoga and Pilates. In his home, he lamented, his favorite things—cigars, whiskey, cream—were verboten. Roman cut into his rare oeuf au cheval. He salted his pomme frites. That night he really enjoyed himself. He ate. He drank. We sat for a long time. He said that his wife wanted to fire the au pair. Oh well, they would find another girl; wouldn't they? He would find another girl. He buttered his pain de campagne. He talked about Pru. He sighed. It was still a helluva thing, even after all these years, about Pru. He told me that he had once made a pass at her. Did I forgive him?

The platter-like plates; the knives and forks and spoons; the big round-bellied wineglasses: everything set upon the table seemed
suddenly—ridiculously—an oversized prop, a sight gag for our out-of-date comedy routine.

Roman confessed.

He was not happy.

Or was he just telling me what I wanted to hear?

Just when I most needed to hear it?

“I have one last story in me,” he said.

He drank.

“It's the story of a brother and a sister,” he said.

“An old story,” I said.

“Ancient,” he said.

“People want the old stories. Don't they?” I said.

“Who gives a fuck what people want?” he said.

The wine bottle sat between us on the table.

The girl came by and refilled our glasses.

The place was busy now.

And the girl turned away from us.

She moved on to the next table.

He watched her go.

It saddened him, to watch her go.

He lifted his glass.

“
All things are a flowing
,

Sage Heracleitus says;

But a tawdry cheapness

Shall outlast our days
.”

He broke off.

He looked down at his plate.

He looked at me.

He set his glass on the white tablecloth.

He picked up, one in each hand, his fork and knife.

And just like that: Ro, the nihilist, was gone.

Gone also, his phantom unhappiness.

He grinned.

And he began to essay forth on the merits of corn-fed Kobe beef.

He and his wife were just back from Japan. He talked about the cartoon crazy fashions of teenagers in Tokyo.

He ordered for dessert gâteau au chocolat.

It grew late and the restaurant filled up.

Soon we left.

Outside as we stood awaiting a taxi, a couple of girls in summer dresses walked by. As they passed us, Roman threw his hands up toward the sky and said with stentorian inflection, “
What a piece of work is man!
” Then, off-balance, he stumbled; he bent over and vomited on the sidewalk. A taxi arrived, and we went back to his hotel. He wanted me to come up for one last drink. “Amontillado?” I said. He laughed. “Have I done you so many injuries, poor Fortunato?” he asked. In his room we drank. And we spoke of the ruined past and great fallen Babylon. Oh that sweet mysterious harlot! He sputtered to a halt in midsentence. He was sitting on the bed. He fell back across the bed. He passed out—in his two-button oyster suit and white shirt, now untucked; with his chocolatestained necktie of watered silk; his wristwatch indefatigably counting his hours and collecting seconds; his two-tone cap-toe oxfords unlaced; one shoe fell from his foot to the floor—he sprawled on his back like a king in the days of a declining empire.

Somewhere his assassination was being planned.

He gave his speech the next night.

The wedding for which I had come to town was canceled. And I went home, back to my island.

One morning soon after—when I turned on the television—there was stone-sober Roman on a talk show promoting his new book, a based-on-a-true-story account of a suburban scandal. It was
picked up by a popular national nonfiction book club. And later developed into a ratings-grabbing miniseries. Roman opened up about his marriage; he talked about how fatherhood had changed his priorities. At the end of the segment, the interviewer, a dowager in a leather skirt, put her hand on Roman's knee. She asked with a skull-tightened smile, “Is there anything better than a true story?”

She said that she couldn't wait to read the book.

I almost felt sorry for him.

I almost forgot—

Roman was my friend and rival and enemy and conspirator.

Roman Stone was a devoted husband and father. He was bright and occasionally brilliant: a best-selling author; an authority; an expert; a household name; a standard-bearer; attention-getter and roundtable-discussion-opinion-giver. He was respected and beloved.

He was murdered.

And he deserved it.

I will say something that is neither deep nor grave. It needs nonetheless to be said. Pru convinced me of the truth that sometimes beauty comes from hate. Pru was big on Pound and Eliot. She forgave them their sins. Because of what they had given to her. For verse and rhymes like candy. She forgave them even their hatred of her. She couldn't stop herself from forgiving them.

I must go back to that summer afternoon in the museum when I ran into Ro.

When we walked by Eve and the snake.

When we ambled artlessly through the gallery.

He was in town to give a speech.

I was there for the wedding of my niece.

Eloise's only child. A spectacular girl called Susu.

Susu was tall and long-limbed. Her eyes were green, her hair black. Just out of college. She had studied
the classics
. She had had no contact with her father, but Susu, to her mother's chagrin, had kept his name. El had married again, to Louis Sarasine, the celebrity defense attorney, whose philosophical, legal, and perhaps immoral specialty was the questioning of the nature of the crime by discrediting the memory of the victim. He called himself a memory expert. Can one be such a thing? Well, memory is a poppy-rich field; for the Sarasines lived the good life.

Eloise and Sarasine planned a black-tie white-cake wedding only to have Susu see, or perhaps imagine, a shadow on her dress. And this the girl took as grave symbolism foretelling (her word) that the marriage was ill-fated. Her fiancé was the son of a prominent family. I never met him. I heard that he was heartbroken.

The evening after Ro and I sat in the restaurant—

Eloise was having the groom's family over for a détente of sorts. There was a commotion about—gifts and guests and caterers. I didn't have a moment alone with El. This was the reason that I had left the solitude of my island: to see her. So between the ringing phone and Sarasine's concerns over whether the iced Absolut would hold out—I made my escape. I was on the street, when Susu—running barefoot—carrying her shoes—caught up with me.