Truth and Consequences (12 page)

When Jane remarked that it was very unlikely that a Bosnian economist would be acquainted with this code, Delia had contradicted her. The Language of Flowers was still known all over Europe, she claimed. Anyhow, she had added, segueing into a vatic Jungian mode, these ancient symbolic meanings were innate. Even if Charlie hadn't known what the flowers meant, they expressed what he subconsciously wanted to convey. It was meant as a joke, probably, but for the rest of the afternoon Susie had remained in a dreamy, inefficient daze. “Nobody ever sent me so many roses before,” she kept saying.

“It's weird, you know,” Henry remarked, as if to himself. “When she's having a migraine it's as if Delia's a different person. Sometimes I almost don't recognize her.”

“Yes, it's—” Jane said involuntarily, then checked herself, hoping she had given nothing away. “Does Delia have migraines often?” she asked, aware that she had allowed a silence to fall.

“Fairly often.” Henry took a slow drink of cider. “They come on when she's under stress, or when she doesn't get what she wants. That's my theory, anyhow.” He smiled briefly and without mirth.

“Really. And what does she want?”

“Oh, the usual things that people want. Fame, love, money.”

“Really,” Jane repeated. “But doesn't she already have those things?”

“Not completely. Reviews often make her ill, for instance. Last night it was a piece in the
Times Literary Supplement
. It was favorable, mostly, but it called her the American Angela Carter. Delia said the implication was that she was a weak transatlantic copy. And it wasn't fair either, because Angela's tales all came out of European folklore, while most of hers are inspired by Southern popular traditions and ghost stories and American Indian legends. ‘The English are so sneaky and devious,' she kept saying. ‘They destroy you with a thousand little needle-pricks. I can feel them now in my head.' ”

“And she got a migraine just from that?” Jane asked incredulously. “But she's had so many, many good reviews, and articles and letters—I know, I've seen her folder.”

“Yeah, but you see, Delia doesn't feel safe unless the applause is complete. She needs for everyone in the world to love her. And usually they do.”

“Yes; I've noticed,” Jane said. Bill Laird's prediction had come true, she thought. Both Mrs. Unger and Susie admired Delia immensely now, and all the Fellows except Alan seemed to have a crush on her, including Selma Schmidt.

“But it's never enough, you see,” Henry said. “There's always a few people here and there who don't love Delia, however hard she tries. However brilliant and charming she is, they just won't.” He paused to take another swallow of cider. “People like you, for instance.”

“Oh, I never said—I didn't mean—” Jane protested.

“Of course not. But I can always tell. And so can she, usually. ‘Jane Mackenzie doesn't like me,' she said, just the other day. ‘How can I get her to like me?' ”

No way, Jane thought, but said nothing. She looked at Henry and noticed that he was smiling, almost laughing. It amuses him that I don't like Delia, she realized. Maybe it even pleases him.

“It's not always fun being famous,” Henry said. “But somehow people want it.”

“I don't see why,” Jane said with distaste. “All those people looking at you and talking about you all the time and printing your name in the papers.”

“You might like it,” Henry said. “You never know till you try.”

“No, I wouldn't. I was sort of famous here in Corinth once, for a week or so, and it was just hateful.”

“Ah? How did that happen?” He smiled and leaned toward her.

“Well, it was kind of a mistake. My picture was in the local paper because I was buying a big stack of books at the library book sale. I didn't even know they'd taken it, but it was on the front page. Everybody in town saw it, and they all said different intrusive things, even people I hardly know. They said how I must read so much I would hardly have time for anything else, or that my hair was untidy. The pharmacist in the drugstore told me I needed a haircut, and this woman in Benefits in Knight Hall said I looked very worried and unhappy; but I wasn't unhappy at all. I only looked that way because the books were heavy and slipping.” She flushed, embarrassed. Why am I running off at the mouth like this? she thought. I hardly know this person.

“I think I know what you mean,” Henry said, and waited for her to go on, and for some reason, maybe because he was listening so carefully, she did.

“You see, if I hadn't been in the paper nobody would have dared to tell me I looked unhappy or needed a haircut, they would have known it was none of their business. Nobody asked them to have an opinion, but they somehow thought it was their right, because I was in the paper. I don't know how famous people can stand it. I mean, it's no wonder Delia gets headaches.”

“No, perhaps not.” Henry was silent for a moment, looking out over the long, shimmering lake, and then back at Jane. “I wanted to be famous once, you know,” he said. “Before I saw it up close.” He shrugged and turned, glancing around at the group of musicians on the dock who were playing a ragged but cheerful bluegrass number. “This is a great place,” he said finally. “I think I'm going to come here every Saturday.”

“Why not?” Jane frowned. Before Alan hurt his back, they used to visit the market together. He would carry the basket, and often they would run into friends and acquaintances. Today Jane hadn't seen anyone she knew well enough to speak to at length, but she had been uncomfortably aware that one of the technicians in her dentist's office, and an elderly couple who often came to chamber music concerts in Bailey Hall, must have noticed that a strange man was accompanying her.

“You know, it kind of reminds me of home,” Henry added.

“Oh? Where is home?”

“Well. It's in Ontario. Or was.”

“In Canada.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You're a Canadian.”

Henry sighed. “God. The way you say that.”

“What?”

He laughed. “Oh, it's not just you. Everyone down here says it that way. With a kind of bored, dying fall.”

“I didn't,” Jane protested.

“Yes, you did. To an American, a Canadian is something like—like this cabbage.” He lifted it from his basket. “Organic, healthy, solid, reliable, boring.”

In spite of herself, Jane laughed.

“Why are you laughing? It's no joke to be Canadian.”

“I didn't say all that, you did. Anyhow I don't think of Canadians as cabbages.”

“Ah. So what do you think of them as?”

“I don't think of them as anything,” Jane said, half amused and half uncomfortable.

“Exactly. You don't think of us at all. That's our tragedy.” Henry grinned and took a final gulp of cider. “You don't know how it is for us up there. We're always looking south. Aware that beyond the boundary there's another world: brighter, richer, full of abundance and adventure. It's like being poor relations or hired help. We're stuck up in the cold attic, and you're all down below where it's warm and there's always a party going on.”

“Is that why you came to America?” Jane asked. The idea of a whole nation—or at least of Henry Hull—longing for her life, and envying it, seemed both childish and cheering.

“Well.” Henry paused and looked up the lake, where a little breeze was now stirring the water. “I suppose so. At least partly.”

“And you found what you wanted?”

“Hell, no.” He laughed. “I should have known. See, back home I was just a guy like other guys, but the minute I got here I was a Canadian. As soon as anyone heard where I came from, the organic cabbage was all they saw.”

“But you didn't go back,” Jane said.

“No. I just stopped telling people where I was from.”

Jane looked at him, meeting his smile. “You told me,” she said.

“Yeah, I did. I don't know,” Henry said. “I guess I feel safe with you.” He put his large square hand on hers in a friendly manner.

But I don't feel safe with you, Jane thought. She tried to move her hand, but found it impossible.

“You're not like most Americans,” Henry said meditatively. “With most Americans I never feel safe. You're kind of like a Canadian,” he added, smiling now.

“Really.” She found the strength to pull her hand away. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“What do you think?” Henry continued to smile.

“I think it's a bit of both,” Jane said as evenly as she could manage. “I must get back now,” she added, standing up. “Alan—”

“Yeah. How is Alan?”

“Not too well today, actually.”

“It's rough, back trouble,” Henry said. “Or so I hear.”

“Yes.” Jane picked up her own basket. “It's not easy for him.”

“Or for you either,” Henry suggested. He looked up at her, not smiling now. “It's no joke, being a caregiver, right?”

“Well, no, not always,” Jane admitted, a little surprised. “But of course it's much worse for him. I mean, he's in terrible pain a lot of the time. I don't have any right to complain.”

“Sure you do. And so do I.” Henry stood up. He was not as tall as Alan, but darker and broader, and unmistakably strong and in good health. “It's what you do that counts, not what you say. Or what you feel.”

“Well. Maybe.” In spite of herself, Jane smiled; but she also took a step away.

“I think we should meet often and complain to each other.” Henry put his warm broad hand on her bare arm, pulling her back toward him for a disturbing moment. “What about lunch someday next week?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Jane said, shifting from one foot to another.

“I'll call you. We caregivers have got to stick together.”

EIGHT

At the Unger Center for the Humanities, Alan lay on a dusty green plush sofa in a position that decreased but did not eliminate the gnawing pain in his back. For a few hours this morning he had been able to work through the pain, but then it had become too exhausting.

Still, he had accomplished something. He had written three pages on the semiotics of American religious architecture, with representative examples. Catholic churches in this country, he had proposed, tended to have sturdy, even stocky brick or stone bell towers, or at least towers capable of containing bells. It was usually possible, though not always easy, to climb them. The standard Episcopal or Presbyterian church tower was narrower and often taller, and more difficult of ascent. And in the newer and more radical denominations, the steeple tended to become thinner and thinner, so that eventually it was sometimes reduced to a mere symbolic white wood or shiny aluminum spike, a kind of exaggerated lightning rod. Was this development, perhaps, related to a conception of the Holy Spirit as no longer a benevolent dove that might roost on or nest in a tower, but instead more like a bolt of electricity that could and sometimes did strike worshippers down, so that they fell to the ground and babbled in tongues?

For the last week or so things had been looking up a little. Alan's back was not well, nothing even approaching well; but at last it was no worse than before his operation. Possibly this had something to do with his new office, with its sofa and the drafting table; possibly he was just managing the drugs better, so that he got some relief without headache, constipation, confusion, and all the other nasty side effects. Or, possibly, his recent attempts to resume an exercise regime were paying off. Encouraged by his friend Bernie, Alan had begun going for walks, and even (with the help of a charity transportation service called Gadabout) visited the YMCA pool, where he swam for twenty minutes and did uncomfortable water exercises.

The lizard, though slightly less active, was still there in his back; but the lecture on church architecture had gone well, and the questions and comments from the audience had suggested several new lines of inquiry. Delia had been there as she had promised, though her congratulations afterward were irritatingly cut short by the arrival of Selma Schmidt. Selma, who like all the other Fellows seemed to have a kind of adolescent crush on Delia, had come up to pant and gush not over his talk, but over Delia's latest story, actually pushing him aside in her haste.

Ultimately, though, the interruption hadn't mattered, because the following day Delia had come to Alan's office to repeat her praise both for his lecture and for the artificial follies on his property. Moved by her enthusiasm, Alan had shown her, first, his watercolor rendering of the ruined chapel as it would look when completed, and then his drawings for several other possible projects. Delia's reaction—impressed, amused—had been gratifying.

“Yes—this is the real thing,” she had declared finally. “Have you shown it anywhere yet?” Alan had shaken his head. “You must have sent slides to your gallery, at least.”

“No,” he had admitted. “I don't have slides, and I don't have a gallery. I did these drawings for myself. For the fun of it.”

“But you should have a show.” Delia opened her great gray eyes even wider. “Everyone should see this work. You mustn't be selfish.”

“I don't know.” He smiled. “It might be dangerous, you know. All these destroyed buildings, especially now. If they went on view somebody might report me to Homeland Security.”

Delia laughed. “I suppose anything is possible,” she said.

“But seriously, you know, some people might be angry.” He was quoting Jane now. When she had helped him move his drawings to the Center she had suggested that this wasn't a good time to leave them lying about. “There's some things you can't make fun of,” she had warned.