Mount Terminus (31 page)

Stern nodded at this sentiment. I do. Of course I do.

Then all is well so far as I'm concerned. As long as I'm able to continue living here, as long as I can sustain the estate and its staff, continue to work on my pictures, I'm very content.

In which case, you have nothing to worry about.

Then I'm not worried.

Very well, then, said Stern, who appeared relatively calmed. That puts me at ease.

I'm happy for that.

Thank you. You've been very kind, Joseph. Too kind. And with that said, off Stern went with his fat attaché weighing down one side of his skinny frame.

*   *   *

Isabella entered the parlor just after Stern departed. Who was that sorry-looking man?

That was Stern.

He looks unwell.

I know. He's deeply troubled.

He doesn't look fit to be on his feet.

I said to him as much. But I couldn't persuade him to lie down.

What's happened to him?

He's had a shock. A personal matter.

Isabella pressed her fingers to her lips as if she were trying to hold something in, and then out of her mouth erupted a small burst of laughter. I'm sorry, she said through her laugh.

What is it?

She apologized again and said, He honked his nose at me when he greeted me hello.

Who did?

Your Mr. Stern.

Did he? Maybe you excited him?

You mean to say I excited him with a simple hello?

I've read of such things. About men whose septums work at cross-purposes with their breathing when aroused.

I've never heard of such a thing.

No, said Bloom with a smile. Neither have I.

Isabella tapped Bloom's arm with her fist, then took hold of it. Together, they walked to the dining room and had made their way through half their lunch when Bloom—who could no longer restrain his excitement—said, I can't wait any longer. I can't pretend today is like any other day. Come with me. Now.

What's gotten into you?

Come. Please.

But I haven't finished my lunch.

You won't need to finish when you see what I have to show you. Bloom took Isabella by the hand and dragged her away from the table. He walked her through the kitchen to the cellar door, where he handed her a flashlight.

What is this for?

Don't ask questions. Just follow me.

Bloom led Isabella down the stairs. He walked her through the butterfly buttresses that formed the underground vaults, and when they reached the entrance to the chamber, Bloom stood before Isabella and said, You must promise me something before you go in.

Isabella shone her flashlight about the darkness, and said, Go in where, Joseph?

Ignoring her, Bloom persisted. You'll want more than
anything
to tell Dr. Straight about what I'm about to show you, but you must promise me you won't. I've never shown anyone this place, not Father, not Simon, not Gottlieb. You'll be the only one, so, please, you must promise me this will remain ours, and ours alone.

Isabella once again shone the flashlight around the darkened vault, and when she stopped, she shone the light onto Bloom's face and examined it.

Trust me, Bloom said into the gleam of the light, and make me your promise.

All right, said Isabella, I give you my promise. Whatever it is you make appear in the darkness will belong to us.

And with that, Bloom took Isabella's hand and walked her to the column of bricks. He set her palm against it and said, Push. Isabella pushed, and in the door swung to reveal the chamber and its ladder. In the darkness, Bloom could see her eyes widen. Do you trust me? Bloom asked.

Yes, said Isabella.

Then start climbing. Climb all the way to the top and come meet me in the gallery when you have seen what's there.

Isabella took hold of a rung and paused, then, taking Bloom by surprise, she turned around and embraced him. She held him for some time, the shapeliness of her form snug against him, and when she eased herself away, she returned and pressed her lips to his mouth, hard at first, but then softer, with affection; and when she removed her lips from his, she continued to hold Bloom for a moment longer, and then, without looking him in the eye, she quickly turned back to the ladder and started up. And as she did so, Bloom ran through the vaults, through the kitchen, up the stairs to his mother's gallery, and there he sat on the chaise staring into the pinholes of Aphrodite's eyes, through the wall, to Isabella.

*   *   *

Bloom reclined on the chaise and waited, and knowing he was present with Isabella in Manuel Salazar's room, he found himself relaxed, and he drifted off to sleep. He slept for some time, and was awakened when Isabella snuggled up against him. It's a camera obscura, she whispered in his ear. It must be hundreds of years old. She sounded giddy.

Yes, I know.

But how? she said, looking to the surface of the wall.

Aphrodite's eyes. See the pinholes?

How incredible.

And Bloom noticed now Isabella was holding Salazar's journal in her hand. From those pages, he explained as he touched the book, I learned how to draw.

Have you never read what's written here?

No. I don't read Spanish.

Isabella opened the journal and said she had read it through to the end while Bloom napped.

Please, tell me, who's the woman he pines for in all the drawings?

Miranda. The wife of Don Fernando Miguel Estrella.

And what did he write about them?

A great deal. Mostly about how they came to live on Mount Terminus and how they established themselves when they arrived. At the beginning, he recounts the time just after Fernando and Miranda were married. While they attended a ball in honor of King Philip of Spain, Fernando had a dispute with a member of the royal court over an insult directed at Miranda. The insult led to a challenge, the challenge led to a duel, the duel resulted in Fernando's favor. Unknown to Fernando, however, the king considered the slain man an ally and a dear friend. And for not having acted with the king's consent, Fernando found himself in his disfavor. As a punishment, he was pressed into service. Philip appointed him viceroy of this territory, a position many would have found desirable, but to Fernando, who was content with his life in Spain, the king's order was tantamount to a prison sentence. He considered this place the end of the world. The end of his world. Which is why he named the estate Mount Terminus.

I see, said Bloom.

Manuel, Isabella said, was Fernando's cousin. Poor. Without family. But a trained architect and builder. When Fernando was sent away, his father, also a Don Fernando, commissioned Manuel to build a proper villa for his son. In return for his work, he would receive the Estrellas' patronage. Fernando and Manuel scouted for the land, and when they saw the mountain with the spring, Fernando sent for the priests at the mission.

The priests, they arrived with every intention of reasoning with the people who lived on the land, but Fernando ordered them and his garrison of soldiers to gain control of the mountain and its spring by force, and clear the land of its people. When the natives had been subdued, Don Fernando ordered all men over the age of twelve massacred. A sight, Manuel wrote, that should have blinded him. An event for which he would never forgive his cousin or God. He thought of returning to Spain in the aftermath of the atrocity, but on their long journey to Mount Terminus, he had grown so enraptured by Miranda's beauty and her way of being, he felt compelled to remain near her. He was convinced the love Fernando felt for his wife couldn't compare with his. And although Miranda hardly recognized Manuel's existence—she considered him little more than a servant—he was intent to prove the extent to which he loved her. He was determined to build, over the graveyard of Fernando's savagery, a cathedral worthy of Miranda's beauty.

Isabella became silent for a moment. She turned to Aphrodite's eyes and said, He must have constructed the camera obscura to be near her, to see her, here, in secret. She now turned back to Joseph and touched the curls of hair that hung over his forehead. The shape of her lips suggested to Bloom she was about to say something more, but she instead drew her mouth to his and kissed him again.

*   *   *

The morning after he and Isabella had visited Manuel Salazar's chamber together, Bloom awoke to find on his nightstand a small skeleton key and a note that read,
The key fits the lock at the base of the clock in your father's room.
The clock Roya referenced Bloom knew to be the one built into the wall, the one that hadn't kept time for as long as he had lived on the estate. With the key in hand, he walked down the landing and entered the room in which his father rarely slept; there he stood at the foot of the bed, searching the exterior of the clock's base for a lock into which he could insert the key, but he found none. He next searched under the pendulum, and here, too, he couldn't see where it belonged. He was about to give up looking when he noticed overlying the wood behind the face a tarnished metal disk held in place by a pin. He bent down and pushed it around its axis, and there, underneath, he discovered the lock. Into it he slipped the key and gave it a turn, and when he had rotated it all the way around, a plank of wood that formed the clock's bottom dislodged, and when it did, Bloom lifted it up to find resting on the floorboards a metal box, which he removed and opened, and there inside saw a notebook identical to the one in the chamber.

Before he turned open the cover, Bloom returned to his room and dressed, and with the notebook in hand walked down and out into the courtyard to Isabella's cottage. He gently tapped on the door, and when he heard her voice ask who was there, he answered her. Come in, she said, and he let himself in to find her reading in bed, wearing little more than a slip. When he saw what state she was in, he turned to face the window.

Joseph?

Yes?

Don't be childish. Come, she insisted, sit by me. When Bloom turned, she said, It's all right. I'm not ashamed.

No?

No. Not with you.

In an attempt to control himself, Bloom shut his eyes and took a deep breath, then took another. I wanted to share this, he said, offering her the book.

What is it?

I think it's the second volume of Manuel's journals. Bloom removed his shoes and reclined his back against the headboard of the bed and stretched out his legs. Isabella turned to him and pressed the back of her head into his lap. She then lifted her knees so the material of the slip fell into the open space between her thighs. I was hoping, Bloom said with a small catch in his throat, you'd read this one as well?

Isabella had already opened the cover to the first page, from which she read the title,
The Bathing Habits of Doña Miranda Celeste Estrella
. She then glanced up at Bloom. There's no author cited, but it's in Manuel's hand. Together they looked for the first time at what was depicted in the journal's pages, and here was revealed the most intimate details of any woman's life. All variations of the same image: Miranda lounging in the bath, her attendant participating in one fashion or another in the cleansing of her body.

It's a little naughty, Isabella said to Bloom.

Do you mind?

She hesitated a moment as she read ahead. No, she said, once again glancing up to Bloom. But, in fact, it's
very
naughty.

But if we're to know?

Then, I suppose, it's necessary. Isabella now returned to the opening and concentrated on the pages. The writing isn't like the last. It's more … authorial. Here, you see, she said as she ran her finger over a phrase, he describes
the tropical length of her arms
. Her appendages were so long and flexible, it seems, she said with a laugh, she was able to remove her corset without the aid of her chambermaid, Adora. The household servants, men and women alike, Isabella translated, paraded in steaming buckets of water past Miranda, who stood naked before the tall mirrors inside her boudoir. The servants poured the hot water into a tub Manuel had especially cast for the uncommon length of her body. And there she is before the mirrors, Isabella said as she turned the page, and there are the servants, the men and women alike, carrying their scuttles. And as we see here on the page that follows, Miranda did not stand idly by as they passed, but rather, stretched one of her arms high over her head while she used the other to stroke her forearm and underarm, down and up, up and down, alternating limbs until the tub was filled. Isabella paused for a moment and pressed her head back against Bloom's lap, and said, rather playfully, Would you like me to continue?

Would you like to continue?

She smiled at him and flipped several pages ahead. Ah, she said, here he lists the perfumes and oils and tonics, the flora and fauna Adora added to the steaming water, and then goes on at great length …

Yes?

Isabella took in a breath and let it out through her nose. He goes on at great length about a scrub brush whose handle was made of a finely polished glass. An instrument, he writes, she submerged through the rose petals floating over the water's surface, and with it, she formed small eddies that whirled about between the archways of her knees.

Hmm, said Bloom.

Yes, said Isabella. When she emerged from the tub, he continues, the flowers held to her body
leechfully.
And for some paragraphs here, she said, pointing to those paragraphs, he describes the patterns shaped by the cascades of water running down her back, around her shoulder blades, through the valley of her breasts, all converging, he writes, on the triangle of a sparkling pubis. Here, she said, he describes Adora in her maid's uniform, her hair covered in lace. She would hold hand mirrors up to the naked Miranda for the purpose of
self-examination
. He wrote of the care with which this same attendant applied talc to Miranda's chest, in what manner she cupped the weight of each breast with one hand and with the other padded the underside of its heft with a fine brush made from the tail of a horse. He wrote of how Adora parted Miranda's long legs and dabbed at her inner thighs with this same brush, then turned her over so that she presented her ass, into whose crease she sprinkled the powder, and then ran her fingers into its seam.