Let the Dark Flower Blossom (31 page)

It fell to the floor.

And shattered.

The black-and-white dog sleeping by the warmth of the fire awoke.

Olga carried Chester on her hip, and she led Julian by the hand, from the television to the bedroom.

Dibby, in the study where no one did, heard Olga putting the boys to bed.

Susu, waiting in line to have her passport stamped, looked at her wristwatch.

Eloise was thinking about what she had done to Roman.

Elizabeth Weiss was watching a crime drama on television.

A hand—though deft, though quick—could not have stopped the fall of the china swan to the floor, where it shattered; its long neck snapped.

Oh well, it was an ugly thing anyway.

Salt let go.

Beatrice cried out.

One can neither win nor lose on the topic of aesthetics. Whether the swan was ugly or not had little to do with the fact that it was broken, in glass pieces on the floor. One could have collected the pieces and perhaps with patience and glue reassembled the cygnet to its former majesty. One could have done and still might do so many things.

One likes a thing or does not like a thing. Even if
like
itself is the province and provenance of children, one still
likes
a thing or does not
like
a thing.

The swan was white, with an orange beak, with claws, and it stood on its legs rising upward, its wide white wings unfolded. It was a regal stance, this posture; a threatening position, but it betrayed the flaw of the maker's design. For when an errant hand in pursuit of the chain on the lamp brushed against the statue that had stood upon the edge of the table for years and years as though waiting for that hand; when that elbow knocked the swan from the table to the wooden
floor, first the legs broke, then the neck snapped; the beak chipped, the wings fractured; the dark eyes stared up into the darkness.

One shouldn't confuse one's own ugliness with the ugliness of the world.

In Sheldon Schell's study, the dim light of a desk lamp cast a shadow against the flowered wallpaper, upon a painting done in green and brown and white of a girl being raped in the woods.

Bruno Salt awoke in his bed.

Dibby typed from one year into the next.

And then suddenly it happened.

What?

The customs agent looked at the pages of the girl's passport. He looked at the girl. He asked her to remove her sunglasses. She did. He asked what she had done on her travels. She said she had seen the world. She asked with a small amount of irritation, if there was a problem? He said, no. He said there was no problem. Susu said, good, because she was going home.

A hand fumbled, an errant elbow knocked; the fingers of a fist uncurled.

Dibby came to the end of the manuscript.

There is a theory. It says: The closest definition of art that one can come to is beauty plus pity. One is sad when beauty dies. And beauty always dies. The manner dies with the matter. And the world of subjectivity dies with the individual.

The book was unfinished.

The typewriter was green. It was not heavy. It was light. It was portable. The Baby Hermes was a modern miracle of Swiss ingenuity. It had still after all these years its original clamshell metal case. It was bought new in 1960 by a very pregnant Mrs. Eloise Schell. As she had always wanted to write a novel.

If Julian or Chet Stone had awoken and crept along the hallway toward the door, ajar; he might have seen Mother in the room they called Father's; seen Mother knotting and unknotting a green ribbon; Mother opening a desk drawer; Mother holding a tin box in her small hands.

There was something else in the bottom of Eris's bag.

She had taken from his house a memento more meaningful than Salt's pen.

Olga was in the kitchen baking cinnamon bread. Won't it be nice to have warm with butter in the morning?

Louis Sarasine, thoroughly convinced of the validity of his own position, was trying to persuade his fellow members of the Mnemosyne Society that memory was a game.

They were inclined to believe that she was a goddess.

The ruined fountain in the doctor's garden was constructed of stone and had been fed by a now-barren cistern. Once it held a water so cold that the original settlers had claimed that it healed their woes. That it was a poison to dark spirits. That men who bathed in it spoke the truth. That birds who drank from it would never die, and flowers that grew around it were a honey for bees and a balm for heartbroken girls; it was said that the perfume of the garden led one into a sleep whose dreams foretold the future.

Eloise watched the snow falling.

It was snowing. And it was going to snow.

Eloise Sarasine in a black nightdress sat at the executioner's table among relics, indulgences, and treasures: winter apples, a silver knife, a cedar box, a fountain pen. She rested her face in her hand. In the other hand she held a red ball.

Eris had stolen Bruno's little plastic dinosaur.

The cistern had gone dry.

This is only a metaphor.

Or at least it is metaphoric.

Inj wanted to finish the brandy.

She took the bottle into the bedroom.

Schell followed her.

She sat on the bed.

She drank.

The room was warm.

With the woodstove in the corner.

A heap of kindling, a bundle of newspapers.

The door to the stove was open.

The fire was the only light.

Schell added wood to the fire.

She was so close to him.

Her hand on his arm.

There was a burning sweetness to her skin.

She said, “Roman told me that you lie.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I don't mind liars,” she said.

She said, “He told me that you married a girl with a lot of money. And when she died it came to you.”

“It's true,” he said.

“Troo troo troo,” she said.

She laughed.

She stopped laughing.

“He said that you killed her,” she said.

“Who?” he said.

“Your wife,” she said.

“Why would I do that?” he said.

“Because you couldn't stop yourself,” she said.

“Because you are tragic,” she said.

“Your life is a Greek tragedy,” she said.

“You are Sisyphus,” she said.

“Pushing a rock up a hill,” she said. “As punishment.”

“Is that what you do?” she said.

“That's not so bad,” she said.

“Hey,” she said, “at least you have a rock. And a hill to push it up.”

“That's something, right?” she said.

“Some people don't even have that,” she said.

“Nothing terrible will ever happen to me, will it?” she said.

“No one will ever murder me,” she said.

She seemed disappointed.

A log shifted in the stove.

“Did Ro tell you,” said Schell.

He drank from the bottle.

“—How he stole my story?”

She laughed.

“No one can really steal a story,” she said.

“No?” he said.

“Because every story is—” she said.

“Like a snowflake?” he said.

“You're making fun again,” she said.

She closed her eyes.

“Oh well,” she said.

“Tell me,” she said.

“Have you kept the key all these years?” she said.

“What key?” he said.

“To the box,” she said.

She turned toward the stove.

“What a nice fire,” she said.

“What a nice fiery fire,” she said.

“Is this the story?” she said.

“Are you telling your story right now?” she said.

“Is it happening now?” she said.

“Am I in it?” she said.

“Am I prettier in the story than in real life?” she said.

“Is it an old story?” she said.

He was thinking about the black cat.

He was thinking about birds.

“People like them,” she said. “The old stories.”

“Don't they?” she said.

“I do,” she said.

“This is what I would do in the story,” she said.

She kissed him.

She was beautiful.

Or maybe she wasn't.

It was only that so many other things were ugly.

The fire burned in the stove.

The room was warm.

The fire was fiery.

She overfilled the glasses.

She was naked on the bed.

She said, “Do you think that the novel is dead?”

And she laughed.

By the light of candles.

Eloise rolled the ball across the floor.

Zola chased after it.

Eloise followed Zola.

Or Zola followed Eloise.

Each time that Eloise rolled the ball.

Zola brought it back to her.

Eloise went from room to room, rolling the ball.

Round and round, past her clocks—

Her vases—

The weave and weft of tapestry—

The floral, the plum, the shadow, the umber.

Her tables and chairs and lamps—

Her paintings and photographs.

Her cedar box.

Her desk, an escritoire.

The statuettes, the gods and goddesses.

The unsmashed idols.

The unread books—

The ball rolled.

Her pearl-handled letter knife.

She picked it up from the desk.

It was a gift from her daughter.

Sent from far away.

Eloise held the knife in her hand.

There was a reassuring solidity to it.

It was small and feminine and fit nicely in her hand.

What a terrible thing for that boy to stab those girls in the woods. One girl had lived. She had crawled along the road—

Louie had disproved the girl's testimony at the trial.

He had made her doubt herself.

Made her doubt more than her memory.

Made her doubt her own broken bones.

Her own blood.

How could Louie do such a thing?

That boy had been found
not guilty
.

There was another word for it.

The ball bounced.

The girl was not a reliable witness.

Guilt was not tangible.

Innocence was not relevant.

Girls were not reliable.

They showed those girls over and over on television.

From home movies. From videotape—

In school plays, ballet recitals, in pageants and prom dresses.

Bloody faces and broken bones.

One face after the next.

One girl after the next.

Eloise took the knife.

She took the stairs, one by one.

Zola chased the ball.

Eloise held the banister.

And went up the staircase.

One step after the next.

She stood in the doorway of her bedroom.

Zigouiller lay sleeping.

He wasn't real.

Or maybe he was.

Then the shadows shifted.