The shaking comes with the sound. All over Fair Mantle, chimneys fall and windows break. Bruton hears the bricks from his own chimney plummet off the dormer and dives for the doorway, where the house is said to be most structurally sound. Elizabeth squeezes beside him, her legs out on the landing. The curtains, yet to be opened for the day, billow as they fill with shattered glass driven inside by the wind.
The Brutons don’t think about Farrell. They’re not even aware that Bruton keeps saying “Holy hell, holy God in hell.”
When the shaking stops, they step into their boots, throw coats over their nightwear and run outside. It seems all the neighbors are outside in their sleepwear, too. Nobody’s taken the time to change. Not everyone has had the presence of mind to throw a coat over their jammies. If it were summer, more than half of them would probably not be wearing a stitch, and that, to Bruton, would have given the occurrence a most entertaining turn.
Sirens wail in the distance. Nearby, the horn atop the firehouse summons members of the volunteer fire department.
Though it’s past dawn, the sky is an even shade of sunless gray. The lack of shadow gives the scene the feeling of a cartoon.
Every homeowner that Bruton sees is either circling heaps of glass and brick on snowy lawns or kicking aside snow in search of cracked foundations. Some bring out video cameras to record what they find. A rumor rolls through: a popular restaurant at the south end of town has collapsed. There’s an odor of gas at the site. Homes and apartments are being evacuated.
Bruton’s phone is ringing. He asks Elizabeth to answer it. He’s afraid the house will collapse with him inside.
Elizabeth runs out with the cordless phone. The caller is a ranger from Fair Mantle Village. The chapel’s steeple has finally toppled. So has the chimney for the old blast iron furnace. Bricks are all over the place. The wooden cupola at the top of the chimney is stuck in the mire at the bank of the lake.
To Bruton, the finances needed to restore the historic structures will equal the budget of a small developing nation.
“Bastards,” he seethes to Elizabeth. “The state will blame the mess on that goddammed volcano and leave us to replace everything ourselves. You watch. You’ll see.”
He asks her to get his car keys and wallet from the dresser. Unshowered, unshaved and clad in his sleepwear, he drives off toward Fair Mantle Village, leaving Elizabeth to take pictures of their damage and to notify the insurance company.
Ten blocks away, Farrell and Effen were dressed and having breakfast when they heard the noise and The House began to tremble. Farrell at first thought it was a big truck rolling by on its way to a construction site. But when The House didn’t settle down, and the doors and windows kept rattling, she and Effen looked at each other, uncertain of what was happening and too stunned to think what to do. Once the commotion stopped, they ran outside to find the street adorned with scattered chimneys and shattered gargoyles from some of the Victorian houses. The hindquarters of a gargoyle from atop one of The House’s own turrets stuck out of the snow near the porch.
A quick inspection inside and out reveals The House is sound; the damage, decorative, not structural. It might be difficult, but the gargoyle can be replaced.
All the while he’s been looking around The House, Effen’s been trying to call Gustie on a cordless phone. When she doesn’t answer, Farrell proposes not wasting any more time, but going to the cottage themselves. They have no way of knowing if Tom is around. The last anyone knew, he was in Trenton, caught up in the politics of fighting the state about Mount Can’t.
The window in the back door reveals Gustie on her knees in the kitchen, using a ratty brush to coax plaster dust and glass into a paper lunch bag. Effen knocks on the door. “Gust? Are you all right?”
Her manner, as she places aside the bag and brush and opens the door, strikes Farrell as falsely serene.
Effen goes through the premises, looking for damage. “Is everything working? Are any windows out?”
“We’re fine,” Gustie insists as she follows him. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Where are the girls?”
“Touring the neighborhood, looking at other people’s damage.”
“Have you heard from Tom?”
“No. Why? Should I?”
“I thought he’d be in touch, considering what’s happened.”
“If he’s in Trenton, he won’t know, and he won’t care. Not unless something major’s happened up at the village or Mount Can’t. Have you come from the village?” The last is aimed at Farrell, who wonders if Gustie wonders why she’s with Effen, who intervenes. “Don’t you know where Tom is?”
“I can’t know if he doesn’t tell me.”
“He doesn’t tell you where he is?”
“He doesn’t have to tell me anything.” The statement has the brusque nonchalance of a schoolgirl hurt because she’s been rejected by the most popular people’s clique. Farrell senses that Gustie is in a mood to argue with anybody for any reason.
Can she blame her? Her husband’s just walked into the house with a woman he has no reason to be with.
“Íf Tom doesn’t come back, call me,” Effen says.
Gustie goes, “Mmm-hmmm,” and gets back on her knees to finish cleaning the kitchen floor.
Pain flickers across Effen’s face. He kneels beside her and tries to take the brush.
She grips the brush to her bosom. “Just go.”
“Call me."
Gustie continues to kneel, gripping the brush, long after Effen softly closes the door behind him.
At Fair Mantle State Park, the rangers think they’ve seen everything while dealing with the public. Then along comes Bruton in striped pajamas and a parka, tramping around the grounds like a misplaced Santa elf.
The damage is worse than Brut imagined. According to Trenton, repairs might not be funded and begun until well into the next century, which is five years away.
“What is wrong with your people?” he growls at Tom, who reminds him that the people Bruton designates as his no longer have authority over him.
“Geez, Brut, you’re really looking to pick a fight with someone, aren’t you.”
“Consider I have a passion for alleviating stupidity. Look at this.” He kicks a path through the bricks. “They’ll have to close the village if they can’t repair it. We can’t carry on through ruins. Our job is to interpret the village as it was during the Revolutionary War. It wasn’t in ruins back then. Besides, all this crap lying around isn’t safe.”
“Well, I’m certain the state won’t be in a rush to keep the place open. They’ll transfer the funds to the park. Maybe they’ll hire more rangers. Maybe they’ll give raises to top executives.”
“No matter what they do with the money, they run the park at the expense of the village.”
“Yes.”
“My sense of justice doesn’t appreciate that.”
“The powers that be are not acquainted with your sense of justice.”
“Then God have mercy on their ignorance.”
Tom laughs, but Bruton, dour, points toward the lake. “Do you see that?”
The only remaining part of the blast furnace chimney, the hulk of a cupola, sits half-sunk in the frozen silt.
“I’m reminded of that Shelley poem about the ruins in the desert, and the pedestal with the inscription that says: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ If I remember correctly, the poem continues with these lines: ‘Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.’”
“Meaning?”
“The mighty always fall, Tom. How fast depends on how far you’re willing to go to bring them down.”
“I don’t know what you’ve got in mind, but I’m satisfied with the effort so far.”
“You haven’t heard my proposal.”
“Brut, you’re a man in pajamas in the snow. Wake up and smell the landfill. Then go home to Elizabeth, sit by the fire and enjoy the small things in life for a change. Fighting for a cause is a bitch.”
“Then you think the same about living, Tom, because we fight for causes from the moment we enter this world. When we’re small, we fight to make Mommy feed us. When we’re in school, we fight to get the best grades and make the best friends and get into the best schools. Then we fight to land and keep the best jobs. Fighting for a cause is a natural bodily function. The real bitch is dying for a cause.”
“I wouldn’t want to find out.”
“You might not have a choice.”
“Jesus, Brut, for the life of me, I can’t figure out which you like more, the sound of your voice or of your mind. What the hell are you trying to tell me? I hope you’re not threatening me, because that bit about choice was as innocuous as a squid sucking the guts out of something.”
“Easy, Tom. You’ve always acted within reason, within the limits of the law, to put things right. Your compromise with the state proves your strategy works. But now there’s too much damage and destruction for compromise. Your strategy is stagnant. The people need action, not niceties. And the authorities need to get the message.”
“What else can I do, short of compromising the compromise?”
Bruton blew on his hands and stamped his feet. “It’s too cold to stand out here and plot the fate of the neighborhood. Meet me at the house around noon.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer to meet at your practice? No offense, but Elizabeth’s a talker.”
“I’m not talking about my home. I’m talking about The House, Francis Hume’s place.”
“Why? Do you need to use his phone?”
“Just meet me at The House around noon.”
Tom leaves Bruton at the lake, alone with the remnants of his colossal wreck.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Chapter 28
At three in the morning, Farrell is still staring at the molded tin ceiling and listening to the radiator whistle another round of tuneless steam.
She hasn’t stopped thinking about Effen since he walked her home nearly four hours ago, polite but silent except for gentle small talk. Thankfully, Elizabeth believed her when she said she’d had a lovely, quiet time and would have stayed later if Effen didn’t have an early morning funeral.
There is no funeral, really. She lied to explain why she was home so soon. She didn’t want Elizabeth to know her visit wasn’t what anyone could have expected.
When Farrell told Effen she wasn’t used to “this kind of attention,” she was referring to more than the embrace. She wasn’t used to being in that kind of position with another woman’s husband.
She had thought he and Gustie had divorced around the time her mother died. Elizabeth disabused her of the notion moments before she left for her non-date at The House. “Don’t be surprised if Gustie stops by. She’s been using the fax machine to discuss terms with her lawyer.”
“Terms for what?”
Elizabeth’s lipsticked mouth constricted into an “o,” and she pulled the reading glasses to the tip of her nose. “My dear! You didn’t know?” The strength and timbre of the last word carried the oral equivalent of bold italics.
“Know what?”
“About Francis and Augusta. They’re still attached. I’d be wary if I were you. She might have a private detective watching him. If you’re caught coming and going from The House, she might claim adultery as grounds for divorce.”
Though the news about Effen and Gustie left Farrell shaking, she thought the possibility of being The Other Woman in a divorce was as laughable as it was implausible. “Really, Elizabeth, nobody would believe her. I don’t attract single men, let alone the married ones. My personal history is notorious.”
“It’ll become legend if you’re caught with Francis.”
“Will it? How do you explain Gustie’s living arrangements with Tom Von Aldo? If anyone, Effen, not Gustie, has the greater claim of adultery.”
Elizabeth made a noise of doubt. “Well, it’s a messy situation that’s sure to get grisly because of the children. I wouldn’t get involved, if I were you. Call Francis and tell him you’ve got a headache or something.”
“I can’t do that!”
“Why?”
Farrell couldn’t tell Elizabeth that she didn’t believe her or that only Effen could tell her the truth. She said, instead, “Only kids back out of dates at the last minute. I think the adult thing would be to speak to him about his intentions. Besides, he’s gone to the trouble of making dinner for me. I can at least eat it and help him clean up. It’s the polite thing to do when somebody goes out of their way to cook for you.”
Her talk was brave, but when Effen met her at the door, Farrell knew at once that his heart wasn’t in her visit. She didn’t understand why he would teach her to waltz or, later, to take her in his arms.
She remembers sensing that nothing would come of the latter gesture. Their stance was no different than the way the only two horses in a field come together and stand with their chins on each other’s back, glad for the company of their kind?
Was Effen glad that she didn’t ask him about his relationship with Gustie? She should have confronted him about it. She had the chance. But no. She had to rail about how people had treated her when she most needed friendship and support. He should have defended himself. Did he say nothing because he felt sorry for her, or because he knew he was at fault?
Or did he realize that you can’t argue with a woman who was still very much a selfish child, unable to stand on her own and still relying on others, like the Brutons, to provide for her?
Disgust for herself, a desire to make amends, and the lack of patience to wait until a saner time and place drives Farrell out of bed and into several layers of clothing topped by her blazer. She can’t wear her parka, which is in the closet in the hallway, because she can't retrieve it. The closet door squeaks. With her luck, one of the Brutons will hear and ask her what she’s doing.
The House is only ten blocks away, a short stoll in fine weather, twice as long when sidewalks are still blocked by snow and ice. Farrell hugs herself against the chill that spears her through, despite the woolen sweater and blazer.
Light fills the windows in the flat atop The House, a sure sign that Effen’s still awake. Whose image bedevils him most, hers or Gusties?
Farrell has reached the point where she’s so tired she thinks she’s thinking clearly but she’s not. She doesn’t want to ring the doorbell because the sound at this hour could give Effen a fright. She remembers reading a James Joyce story in which a character gets his love’s attention by tossing gravel at her window. A lovely idea. She packs some icy snow into a ball that falls apart before it reaches the window of the study on the second floor. A second specimen made more of ice than snow hits a shutter with the crack of a baseball bat. Not good. The neighbors will probably see her, suspect she’s up to no good, and call the police.
So Farrell rings the doorbell. She waits for what she thinks is a reasonable time for Effen to come downstairs, then rings it again. She can’t tell if her eyes and nose are running from the cold or from tears.
She rings the bell a third time. Still no Effen. He must have spied her and decided he shouldn’t be bothered with her. She doesn’t blame him. She herself wouldn’t want to be bothered with her.
She can’t take the cold much longer. She’s ready to give up and go home when an overcoat is set on her shoulders and a gloved hand reaches past her with a key. The door is unlocked and she’s half- pushed, half-led into the vestibule, which is brightly lighted and warm. Effen says nothing, but brings her to the kitchen in the back of The House, has her sit on the radiator and puts the kettle on for tea. Or what Farrell thinks is tea. Instead of pouring the bubbling water into the teapot, Effen pours it in a mug, which Farrell takes between her hands. It’s not tea, but it’s hot and throat-searing and as effective as tea.
Effen’s leaning against the counter, watching her. She thinks he looks confused and curious and angry and amused all at the same time.
She admits to wanting to talk to him. “I was afraid you were angry at me. I don’t want you to be angry at me.”
“Where I come from, we have telephones.”
“I thought I should see if you were still up before I called or …”
“--started lobbing debris at my house?”
“I thought the doorbell would frighten you.”
“No, it’s the people who try to get in without using the doorbell that frighten me.”
She holds out the coat she’s slipped from her shoulders. “I’m silly. I’m sorry.”
“If you’re silly, then so am I. I couldn’t sleep, either.”
She doesn’t remember mentioning she couldn’t sleep. “How did you know?”
“I saw your light. The only thing that kept me from going to your door is the fact that it’s not your door. It’s Bruton’s. I couldn’t make you fodder for his wife’s gossip.”
“Fodder for his wife’s gossip…”
Farrell’s not aware she’s giggling, but Effen asks her not to make fun of him. “I can’t begin to explain what I felt when I saw you at my own door.”
“Does that mean you’re not angry at me?”
“Oh, Farr …”
She senses contrition, sorrow, a profound inability to express himself in words as he kisses her hands, which he’s folded between his. She kisses his head, surprised at the softness of his hair.
A few years ago, Farrell was crossing the street when a blast of wind knocked the hat off her head and tumbled it through the traffic. It was her only hat; she couldn’t afford a new one. She was so determined to retrieve the thing that she didn’t notice if the light was red or green, or if cars and trucks were aiming at her. She had no idea how it happened, but suddenly the hat was back on her head.
She’s not obsessing over details now, either, and suddenly she and Effen are upstairs on the sleigh bed, and their clothes are off, and he’s around her and in her, and she can’t tell the points where her body ends and his begins. She doesn’t want to stare at him, but she’s seen enough to know he’s as she imagined him--a nicely formed regular guy, not a sculpted god.
She knows, too, that Gustie might be a stupid woman for wanting to be rid of him, but whatever happened between him and Gustie could also happen between him and any other woman, even if that woman’s name is Farrell Schmidt …
She hasn’t stopped thinking about Effen since he walked her home nearly four hours ago, polite but silent except for gentle small talk. Thankfully, Elizabeth believed her when she said she’d had a lovely, quiet time and would have stayed later if Effen didn’t have an early morning funeral.
There is no funeral, really. She lied to explain why she was home so soon. She didn’t want Elizabeth to know her visit wasn’t what anyone could have expected.
When Farrell told Effen she wasn’t used to “this kind of attention,” she was referring to more than the embrace. She wasn’t used to being in that kind of position with another woman’s husband.
She had thought he and Gustie had divorced around the time her mother died. Elizabeth disabused her of the notion moments before she left for her non-date at The House. “Don’t be surprised if Gustie stops by. She’s been using the fax machine to discuss terms with her lawyer.”
“Terms for what?”
Elizabeth’s lipsticked mouth constricted into an “o,” and she pulled the reading glasses to the tip of her nose. “My dear! You didn’t know?” The strength and timbre of the last word carried the oral equivalent of bold italics.
“Know what?”
“About Francis and Augusta. They’re still attached. I’d be wary if I were you. She might have a private detective watching him. If you’re caught coming and going from The House, she might claim adultery as grounds for divorce.”
Though the news about Effen and Gustie left Farrell shaking, she thought the possibility of being The Other Woman in a divorce was as laughable as it was implausible. “Really, Elizabeth, nobody would believe her. I don’t attract single men, let alone the married ones. My personal history is notorious.”
“It’ll become legend if you’re caught with Francis.”
“Will it? How do you explain Gustie’s living arrangements with Tom Von Aldo? If anyone, Effen, not Gustie, has the greater claim of adultery.”
Elizabeth made a noise of doubt. “Well, it’s a messy situation that’s sure to get grisly because of the children. I wouldn’t get involved, if I were you. Call Francis and tell him you’ve got a headache or something.”
“I can’t do that!”
“Why?”
Farrell couldn’t tell Elizabeth that she didn’t believe her or that only Effen could tell her the truth. She said, instead, “Only kids back out of dates at the last minute. I think the adult thing would be to speak to him about his intentions. Besides, he’s gone to the trouble of making dinner for me. I can at least eat it and help him clean up. It’s the polite thing to do when somebody goes out of their way to cook for you.”
Her talk was brave, but when Effen met her at the door, Farrell knew at once that his heart wasn’t in her visit. She didn’t understand why he would teach her to waltz or, later, to take her in his arms.
She remembers sensing that nothing would come of the latter gesture. Their stance was no different than the way the only two horses in a field come together and stand with their chins on each other’s back, glad for the company of their kind?
Was Effen glad that she didn’t ask him about his relationship with Gustie? She should have confronted him about it. She had the chance. But no. She had to rail about how people had treated her when she most needed friendship and support. He should have defended himself. Did he say nothing because he felt sorry for her, or because he knew he was at fault?
Or did he realize that you can’t argue with a woman who was still very much a selfish child, unable to stand on her own and still relying on others, like the Brutons, to provide for her?
Disgust for herself, a desire to make amends, and the lack of patience to wait until a saner time and place drives Farrell out of bed and into several layers of clothing topped by her blazer. She can’t wear her parka, which is in the closet in the hallway, because she can't retrieve it. The closet door squeaks. With her luck, one of the Brutons will hear and ask her what she’s doing.
The House is only ten blocks away, a short stoll in fine weather, twice as long when sidewalks are still blocked by snow and ice. Farrell hugs herself against the chill that spears her through, despite the woolen sweater and blazer.
Light fills the windows in the flat atop The House, a sure sign that Effen’s still awake. Whose image bedevils him most, hers or Gusties?
Farrell has reached the point where she’s so tired she thinks she’s thinking clearly but she’s not. She doesn’t want to ring the doorbell because the sound at this hour could give Effen a fright. She remembers reading a James Joyce story in which a character gets his love’s attention by tossing gravel at her window. A lovely idea. She packs some icy snow into a ball that falls apart before it reaches the window of the study on the second floor. A second specimen made more of ice than snow hits a shutter with the crack of a baseball bat. Not good. The neighbors will probably see her, suspect she’s up to no good, and call the police.
So Farrell rings the doorbell. She waits for what she thinks is a reasonable time for Effen to come downstairs, then rings it again. She can’t tell if her eyes and nose are running from the cold or from tears.
She rings the bell a third time. Still no Effen. He must have spied her and decided he shouldn’t be bothered with her. She doesn’t blame him. She herself wouldn’t want to be bothered with her.
She can’t take the cold much longer. She’s ready to give up and go home when an overcoat is set on her shoulders and a gloved hand reaches past her with a key. The door is unlocked and she’s half- pushed, half-led into the vestibule, which is brightly lighted and warm. Effen says nothing, but brings her to the kitchen in the back of The House, has her sit on the radiator and puts the kettle on for tea. Or what Farrell thinks is tea. Instead of pouring the bubbling water into the teapot, Effen pours it in a mug, which Farrell takes between her hands. It’s not tea, but it’s hot and throat-searing and as effective as tea.
Effen’s leaning against the counter, watching her. She thinks he looks confused and curious and angry and amused all at the same time.
She admits to wanting to talk to him. “I was afraid you were angry at me. I don’t want you to be angry at me.”
“Where I come from, we have telephones.”
“I thought I should see if you were still up before I called or …”
“--started lobbing debris at my house?”
“I thought the doorbell would frighten you.”
“No, it’s the people who try to get in without using the doorbell that frighten me.”
She holds out the coat she’s slipped from her shoulders. “I’m silly. I’m sorry.”
“If you’re silly, then so am I. I couldn’t sleep, either.”
She doesn’t remember mentioning she couldn’t sleep. “How did you know?”
“I saw your light. The only thing that kept me from going to your door is the fact that it’s not your door. It’s Bruton’s. I couldn’t make you fodder for his wife’s gossip.”
“Fodder for his wife’s gossip…”
Farrell’s not aware she’s giggling, but Effen asks her not to make fun of him. “I can’t begin to explain what I felt when I saw you at my own door.”
“Does that mean you’re not angry at me?”
“Oh, Farr …”
She senses contrition, sorrow, a profound inability to express himself in words as he kisses her hands, which he’s folded between his. She kisses his head, surprised at the softness of his hair.
A few years ago, Farrell was crossing the street when a blast of wind knocked the hat off her head and tumbled it through the traffic. It was her only hat; she couldn’t afford a new one. She was so determined to retrieve the thing that she didn’t notice if the light was red or green, or if cars and trucks were aiming at her. She had no idea how it happened, but suddenly the hat was back on her head.
She’s not obsessing over details now, either, and suddenly she and Effen are upstairs on the sleigh bed, and their clothes are off, and he’s around her and in her, and she can’t tell the points where her body ends and his begins. She doesn’t want to stare at him, but she’s seen enough to know he’s as she imagined him--a nicely formed regular guy, not a sculpted god.
She knows, too, that Gustie might be a stupid woman for wanting to be rid of him, but whatever happened between him and Gustie could also happen between him and any other woman, even if that woman’s name is Farrell Schmidt …
Monday, February 21, 2011
Chapter 27
A promiscuous pair, cooking and contemplation: prone to come together at the slightest provocation.
Effen breaks the bread and seasons the bread and stuffs the squabs and dresses the squabs to the grief-laden words of church music from the Thirty Years War. His eyes are on what he’s doing, and he’s aware of what he’s doing and how much time he has to do it, but not one motion passes as an end in itself. Everything Effen does is accompanied by thoughts he can’t control and memories he can’t suppress.
He’s asked Farrell over for that long-delayed dinner, but already the evening is scarred. Gustie spent the day at work saying nothing except what was necessary for her job, and Ben heard her crying in the bathroom. When she emerged, Effen asked her into his office for tea. He mixed the tea as she liked it, with lots of cream and sugar, and gave her a little plate of fresh cookies from the bakery. But neither the bergamot in the tea nor the rose-like, almond scent of the cookies could dispel either her silence or her gloom. She sat on the edge of the sofa, the plate in one hand, the cup and saucer in the other, though the coffee table was in front of her. When Effen tried to take the items from her, meaning to place them on the table himself, she tightened her grip, clearly not of a mind to let him take anything. He arranged a lacey napkin on her lap. She wasn’t wearing the most expensive skirt, but it was one of too few skirts in her closet. It pained him to think she could ruin it.
As he leaned over her, she seemed not to hold her breath, but to take a deep breath and not exhale. He was close enough to see her tweed jacket rise and become still. To catch the diluted fragrance of the perfume she’d applied earlier that morning. To note the sheen on her cheeks, where she had wept off her makeup.
To see accusation, despair, and something akin to longing dammed behind her lack of willingness to speak to him. He doubted he could express a similar conflict within himself. He stepped back. She rose and placed the tea and cookies on the desk, then left as silently as she had spent those few moments alone in his company.
He had done nothing then. He’d let her go. But now, within moments of Farrell’s arrival, he knows he should have gone after Gustie, and stopped her at the door, and shut the door, and closed the drapes, and drawn her into the wordless understanding reached by two bodies joined as one. But perhaps that would have been just as damnable as the nothing that he did.
At least Farrell is coming for dinner and a little musical offering. He can handle that. She’ll expect nothing more.
Why, then, did he ask her to dinner if he doesn’t want to give the more she might expect?
The sight of the black velvet flute bag reminds him that Farrell’s also there because he’d like to accompany her on the harpsichord.
He takes her coat and she at once assembles the Grenser and begins to warm it in her hands. Would she like something to drink? A little burgundy? Soda? Water? She pleasantly refuses anything at the moment, thank you, and he decides against some burgundy for himself. For a while, they’re like two kids in the college practice rooms, joking over false starts and how Farrell’s got to tune the flute to the harpsichord. She’s got Marcello and Vivaldi oboe concertos, which can also be played on flute, and a book of 18th century arias. They settle on the arias, which are shorter than the concertos. Effen can sight-read without losing his concentration and run off to check on the squabs, which are ready, alas, too soon.
Effen’s got fresh flowers and candles on the table, but he keeps the room’s modest antique brass chandelier lighted. He hopes Farrell doesn’t note the redundancy. Again, he’s wary of the prospect of “more” spoiling what should be a nice, uncomplicated few hours between people whose history suggests they’re more than acquaintances yet less than friends.
They chat about Bruton’s publicity strategy for Fair Mantle Village. The innocuous topic leads to Mount Can’t. Farrell mentions hearing how Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming is really a massive active volcano that could wipe out a hundred square miles of the United States if it erupts. “I sometimes wonder if that’s what we’re dealing with here.” She says this as she buries her nose in the wineglass for a sip of burgundy. “Can’t you imagine living with something that can blow up under your feet at any moment?”
“Oh, I don’t think something like that will happen here.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I believe New Jersey’s not a volcanic breeding ground.” Good heavens, did he have to say “breeding?” “Are you afraid to be here?” Where is “here,” in Fair Mantle or The House?
“I can’t help thinking about the possibilities, including being obliterated without prior notice. Makes me think of all the things I wanted to do with my life and didn’t.”
“Such as?” Marry? Start a family? Have lots of kids? Effen imagines Farrell doing all he’s mentioning, and none of it in a wedding gown – or any other apparel. Is she leading him on?
She pushes the nearly blackened skin off the squab’s little leg with the tip of her knife. “Small things, really. I always wanted to ride a horse again. And, now this may sound trite and silly, but I’ve always wanted to waltz. I grew up with my grandmother playing recordings of Strauss waltzes in the background, and I thought it would be fun. It’s a lovely dance, with a lovely structure.”
Effen envisions his collection of CDs. At the same time, he tells himself, “Don’t.” But how can he not do it? It would be like fulfilling the wish of a dying child.
“I can’t help you with the horse, but I know I can do something about the waltz.”
He has no recordings of waltzes. The closest he has are movements and arias that have the three-quarter beat of a waltz. The slow tempo of “Lascia ch’io pianga,” “Let me cry over my cruel fate,” from Handel’s opera Rinaldo, is perfect for a beginner. If Farrell catches on, maybe they’ll move up to the faster pace of a Schubert laendler. He sets the CD player on repeat, then, with one hand on her waist, guides her through the basic box step of the waltz. There’s enough room between them that she can look down and watch their feet. She giggles.
“Look at me, not at the carpet,” Effen says, and she obliges, giggling less and less.
The aria’s one-two-three beat isn’t steady, as in a real waltz There are dramatic holds and slowing downs. Effen can feel Farrell stop trying to follow a consistent beat. She anticipates the holds and slowing downs. They’re Effen’s as well as the aria’s. Would she be no less responsive to a lover, or would she lie there, dense as a receptacle, waiting to be acted upon?
By the dozenth turn around the dining room, they’re no longer in the starchy, arm’s-length stance of teacher and pupil. Farrell is so close that she won’t be able to look at Effen without pulling away. He doesn’t remember drawing her near. It must have happened in the contentment that settles upon two people who have nothing to fear from each other.
Effen finds something assuring in Farrell’s participation. He remembers carrying Mary through the snow to The House. It seems to him that Farrell is in the grip of the same trust the little girl had shown during her rescue. But while Mary trusted he would bring her to a safe, warm place, what does Farrell trust him to do? Is she waiting for him to propose the “more” he thought she might want?
Farrell steps back, brushing Effen’s face, but not his eyes, with her glance. Her cheeks are sunset-red, a color that Effen supposes has nothing to do with the alcohol in the burgundy or the exertion of the waltz. “Where did you learn to do that?” Another woman might have framed the question in adoration. Farrell oozes annoyance.
“My father. He and my mother liked to dance, especially on New Year’s Eve, when they’d party until dawn. He taught me only the steps, Farr. It’s the person you’re with who turns the steps into a dance.”
She waves aside the inference. “No. Not me.”
The statement strikes Effen not as a coy attempt at false modesty, but as an order not to think of her as someone to be desired. He wants to crush her by the shoulders, bend her backwards and convince her otherwise with a kiss that would make the channel between her legs weep for his touch.
How can he say what she should know without sounding as though he’s accusing her of something, or without sounding as though he wants revenge? He watches her face for the smallest hint of an unpleasant reaction. “I wish you had come to me when your mother died. It hurt that you didn’t.”
Farrell’s face offers no expression. “I didn’t think you would want to be bothered with me.”
“Why?”
“Why not? Nobody wanted to be bothered with me. Not my family. Not my friends. They all proved it. I was out of work and with Mom twenty-four hours a day for the better part of a year, and all the while, nobody called or visited or did so much as offer to help us.”
“Did you ask for help?”
“Why should anybody in my position have to ask? But that’s how it is in this world. If you have trouble, forget it; you’re a burden. People want to be bothered with you only if you can give them something in return.”
“Bruton is helping you.”
“No. Bruton is using me.”
“Hosting someone in your home for an indefinite period of time is hardly using that person, don’t you think?”
He waits for an answer, but she doesn’t reveal what burdens her breathing and drags her stare to the floor. “I don’t understand,” he nudged. “Why are you so willing to see the worst in people?”
“I see them as they are.”
“You see what you choose to see.”
“I see what people choose to show me.”
Is this the same woman who kissed him for rescuing Anne from the police? The woman who waltzed with him, coming close to him, anticipating every held beat in the aria? Was he wrong to read affection in those actions?
He wants to soothe her as he’d soothe a frightened child—by hugging her, and smoothing her hair, and assuring her nothing will harm her so long as he’s there. It’s more important for him to protect her than to make love to her. He doesn’t want to see her suffer any more, and he doesn’t want to be the cause of her suffering.
It seems she enters his embrace as though teetering into bed after a long, tough day at work: eager for the promise of sleep but tense with the fear of bad dreams. She doesn’t color her hair. The faint, crisp scent must be a touch of spray.
The moments pass with “Lascia ch'io pianga” repeating itself. There's no other sound from The House or the street. There’s no need to play another recording. No need to do anything, really, except find refuge in each other’s presence.
Then Farrell issues a warning. “I’m not used to this kind of attention, France.”
“Get used to it” almost skims out on his breath.
He considers she’ll expect him to help her get used to it.
He can’t.
Effen breaks the bread and seasons the bread and stuffs the squabs and dresses the squabs to the grief-laden words of church music from the Thirty Years War. His eyes are on what he’s doing, and he’s aware of what he’s doing and how much time he has to do it, but not one motion passes as an end in itself. Everything Effen does is accompanied by thoughts he can’t control and memories he can’t suppress.
He’s asked Farrell over for that long-delayed dinner, but already the evening is scarred. Gustie spent the day at work saying nothing except what was necessary for her job, and Ben heard her crying in the bathroom. When she emerged, Effen asked her into his office for tea. He mixed the tea as she liked it, with lots of cream and sugar, and gave her a little plate of fresh cookies from the bakery. But neither the bergamot in the tea nor the rose-like, almond scent of the cookies could dispel either her silence or her gloom. She sat on the edge of the sofa, the plate in one hand, the cup and saucer in the other, though the coffee table was in front of her. When Effen tried to take the items from her, meaning to place them on the table himself, she tightened her grip, clearly not of a mind to let him take anything. He arranged a lacey napkin on her lap. She wasn’t wearing the most expensive skirt, but it was one of too few skirts in her closet. It pained him to think she could ruin it.
As he leaned over her, she seemed not to hold her breath, but to take a deep breath and not exhale. He was close enough to see her tweed jacket rise and become still. To catch the diluted fragrance of the perfume she’d applied earlier that morning. To note the sheen on her cheeks, where she had wept off her makeup.
To see accusation, despair, and something akin to longing dammed behind her lack of willingness to speak to him. He doubted he could express a similar conflict within himself. He stepped back. She rose and placed the tea and cookies on the desk, then left as silently as she had spent those few moments alone in his company.
He had done nothing then. He’d let her go. But now, within moments of Farrell’s arrival, he knows he should have gone after Gustie, and stopped her at the door, and shut the door, and closed the drapes, and drawn her into the wordless understanding reached by two bodies joined as one. But perhaps that would have been just as damnable as the nothing that he did.
At least Farrell is coming for dinner and a little musical offering. He can handle that. She’ll expect nothing more.
Why, then, did he ask her to dinner if he doesn’t want to give the more she might expect?
The sight of the black velvet flute bag reminds him that Farrell’s also there because he’d like to accompany her on the harpsichord.
He takes her coat and she at once assembles the Grenser and begins to warm it in her hands. Would she like something to drink? A little burgundy? Soda? Water? She pleasantly refuses anything at the moment, thank you, and he decides against some burgundy for himself. For a while, they’re like two kids in the college practice rooms, joking over false starts and how Farrell’s got to tune the flute to the harpsichord. She’s got Marcello and Vivaldi oboe concertos, which can also be played on flute, and a book of 18th century arias. They settle on the arias, which are shorter than the concertos. Effen can sight-read without losing his concentration and run off to check on the squabs, which are ready, alas, too soon.
Effen’s got fresh flowers and candles on the table, but he keeps the room’s modest antique brass chandelier lighted. He hopes Farrell doesn’t note the redundancy. Again, he’s wary of the prospect of “more” spoiling what should be a nice, uncomplicated few hours between people whose history suggests they’re more than acquaintances yet less than friends.
They chat about Bruton’s publicity strategy for Fair Mantle Village. The innocuous topic leads to Mount Can’t. Farrell mentions hearing how Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming is really a massive active volcano that could wipe out a hundred square miles of the United States if it erupts. “I sometimes wonder if that’s what we’re dealing with here.” She says this as she buries her nose in the wineglass for a sip of burgundy. “Can’t you imagine living with something that can blow up under your feet at any moment?”
“Oh, I don’t think something like that will happen here.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I believe New Jersey’s not a volcanic breeding ground.” Good heavens, did he have to say “breeding?” “Are you afraid to be here?” Where is “here,” in Fair Mantle or The House?
“I can’t help thinking about the possibilities, including being obliterated without prior notice. Makes me think of all the things I wanted to do with my life and didn’t.”
“Such as?” Marry? Start a family? Have lots of kids? Effen imagines Farrell doing all he’s mentioning, and none of it in a wedding gown – or any other apparel. Is she leading him on?
She pushes the nearly blackened skin off the squab’s little leg with the tip of her knife. “Small things, really. I always wanted to ride a horse again. And, now this may sound trite and silly, but I’ve always wanted to waltz. I grew up with my grandmother playing recordings of Strauss waltzes in the background, and I thought it would be fun. It’s a lovely dance, with a lovely structure.”
Effen envisions his collection of CDs. At the same time, he tells himself, “Don’t.” But how can he not do it? It would be like fulfilling the wish of a dying child.
“I can’t help you with the horse, but I know I can do something about the waltz.”
He has no recordings of waltzes. The closest he has are movements and arias that have the three-quarter beat of a waltz. The slow tempo of “Lascia ch’io pianga,” “Let me cry over my cruel fate,” from Handel’s opera Rinaldo, is perfect for a beginner. If Farrell catches on, maybe they’ll move up to the faster pace of a Schubert laendler. He sets the CD player on repeat, then, with one hand on her waist, guides her through the basic box step of the waltz. There’s enough room between them that she can look down and watch their feet. She giggles.
“Look at me, not at the carpet,” Effen says, and she obliges, giggling less and less.
The aria’s one-two-three beat isn’t steady, as in a real waltz There are dramatic holds and slowing downs. Effen can feel Farrell stop trying to follow a consistent beat. She anticipates the holds and slowing downs. They’re Effen’s as well as the aria’s. Would she be no less responsive to a lover, or would she lie there, dense as a receptacle, waiting to be acted upon?
By the dozenth turn around the dining room, they’re no longer in the starchy, arm’s-length stance of teacher and pupil. Farrell is so close that she won’t be able to look at Effen without pulling away. He doesn’t remember drawing her near. It must have happened in the contentment that settles upon two people who have nothing to fear from each other.
Effen finds something assuring in Farrell’s participation. He remembers carrying Mary through the snow to The House. It seems to him that Farrell is in the grip of the same trust the little girl had shown during her rescue. But while Mary trusted he would bring her to a safe, warm place, what does Farrell trust him to do? Is she waiting for him to propose the “more” he thought she might want?
Farrell steps back, brushing Effen’s face, but not his eyes, with her glance. Her cheeks are sunset-red, a color that Effen supposes has nothing to do with the alcohol in the burgundy or the exertion of the waltz. “Where did you learn to do that?” Another woman might have framed the question in adoration. Farrell oozes annoyance.
“My father. He and my mother liked to dance, especially on New Year’s Eve, when they’d party until dawn. He taught me only the steps, Farr. It’s the person you’re with who turns the steps into a dance.”
She waves aside the inference. “No. Not me.”
The statement strikes Effen not as a coy attempt at false modesty, but as an order not to think of her as someone to be desired. He wants to crush her by the shoulders, bend her backwards and convince her otherwise with a kiss that would make the channel between her legs weep for his touch.
How can he say what she should know without sounding as though he’s accusing her of something, or without sounding as though he wants revenge? He watches her face for the smallest hint of an unpleasant reaction. “I wish you had come to me when your mother died. It hurt that you didn’t.”
Farrell’s face offers no expression. “I didn’t think you would want to be bothered with me.”
“Why?”
“Why not? Nobody wanted to be bothered with me. Not my family. Not my friends. They all proved it. I was out of work and with Mom twenty-four hours a day for the better part of a year, and all the while, nobody called or visited or did so much as offer to help us.”
“Did you ask for help?”
“Why should anybody in my position have to ask? But that’s how it is in this world. If you have trouble, forget it; you’re a burden. People want to be bothered with you only if you can give them something in return.”
“Bruton is helping you.”
“No. Bruton is using me.”
“Hosting someone in your home for an indefinite period of time is hardly using that person, don’t you think?”
He waits for an answer, but she doesn’t reveal what burdens her breathing and drags her stare to the floor. “I don’t understand,” he nudged. “Why are you so willing to see the worst in people?”
“I see them as they are.”
“You see what you choose to see.”
“I see what people choose to show me.”
Is this the same woman who kissed him for rescuing Anne from the police? The woman who waltzed with him, coming close to him, anticipating every held beat in the aria? Was he wrong to read affection in those actions?
He wants to soothe her as he’d soothe a frightened child—by hugging her, and smoothing her hair, and assuring her nothing will harm her so long as he’s there. It’s more important for him to protect her than to make love to her. He doesn’t want to see her suffer any more, and he doesn’t want to be the cause of her suffering.
It seems she enters his embrace as though teetering into bed after a long, tough day at work: eager for the promise of sleep but tense with the fear of bad dreams. She doesn’t color her hair. The faint, crisp scent must be a touch of spray.
The moments pass with “Lascia ch'io pianga” repeating itself. There's no other sound from The House or the street. There’s no need to play another recording. No need to do anything, really, except find refuge in each other’s presence.
Then Farrell issues a warning. “I’m not used to this kind of attention, France.”
“Get used to it” almost skims out on his breath.
He considers she’ll expect him to help her get used to it.
He can’t.
Chapter 26
Bruton was ordered to move the Fair Mantle Village collections in the early morning hours preceding the siege of Mount Can’t. The objects were crated with the help of National Guardsmen and moved onto National Guard transports.
Seeing and hearing the endless stream of cars, the Villagers and their helpers surmised something momentous was taking place. When they learned things were under control, they assumed the Guard had won. Launching his best profanity, Bruton grabbed his overcoat and told a Guardsman to drive him up to the site so he could triage the casualties. The situation was clarified when the Guardsman radioed in for a body count.
The Villagers were relieved, but the Guardsmen were faced with a real military moral dilemma: What should they do? Taking back the site was out of the question. They couldn’t take arms against unarmed civilians. Should they radio their superiors? Should they arrest the Guardsmen who had relinquished the site? Should they say “Up yours” and go home to their families? Or should they simply carry on and help save what Bruton rightly reminded them was part of the nation’s heritage?
After speaking among themselves, and with more than a little input from the Villagers, they decided to carry on. That way, they did their duty and they didn’t have to answer for anything that happened on Mount Can’t.
Suddenly the assignment was amended: Bruton told them to unload the trucks. “We’re staying put,” he gloated. “Mount Can’t is a fairy tale. Let’s not waste taxpayers’ money. Put everything back.”
Everything was put back where it belonged. Now, however, Bruton thinks it would be nice to give the buildings a fresh look by rearranging the furniture. The buildings should be open for the people who will come to visit Mount Can’t. Fair Mantle Village is an ideal place to escape the cold, and it’s a good time to lobby those visitors for donations to keep the village running.
Farrell goes from one building to the next, lending a willing hand, making volunteers and Guardsmen laugh with witty observations and blade-edge comebacks. It’s a beautiful day. For the first time in months, it doesn’t matter that her mother died, or that she was put out of her home, or that she still could end up losing what little she’s been able to hold on to. It must be the brilliant sunshine and the Christmas-card image of Fair Mantle Village in the snow.
She’s bringing curtains to the gardener’s cottage when Gustie asks her to keep an eye on “the ladies” while Birdsall brings her to visit Tom. “Of course,” she says, as though Gustie couldn’t possibly think she’d refuse.
Mary skips ahead, kicking up the snow. Anne is quiet. She’s embarrassed about what happened with the police? “What did you think of that mob at the hearing?” Farrell asks her. She shrugs. “It was all right.”
My, wasn’t that productive! “A good thing Mr. Hume was there.”
“Yeah.”
How old is she? Thirteen? Shudder. Junior-high age. Kids are weird in junior high. And to her, I’m probably a stupid old lady. Well, this stupid old lady had better wise up and not make small talk, else this kid will think I’m worse than I think.
Farrell smiles. “Almost there. Want to open the door?”
Anne takes the key from Farrell and dashes ahead.
The gardener’s cottage is attached to the carriage house. Furnishings are spare: plain wooden table and kitchen chairs; rope bed; Franklin stove. The hardwood floor is the original; it’s got more waves than Lake Hopatcong in a regatta. The lack of decoration and the bare floors give the cottage splendid acoustics. Little wonder, then that this is one of the buildings where Farrell played her flutes during special events. It’s good to be back. She can almost hear “Johnnie Cope” crisply crashing into the walls.
Mary asks if she can play in the snow. Farrell tells her to be careful, then, with Anne’s help, slips plain, ivory-colored curtains onto cedar rods made by village carpenters. The girl is more at ease. Farrell asks if she’ll be an historic interpreter at the village in the spring. Anne brightens, chats about how she can’t wait to roll hoops again. “It’s so much fun when you do it over all those tree roots.”
“I never saw you dress up when you worked here,” she says in a beatless change of subject.
“I did, a few times. But I’m not the eighteenth century type. Not the thing you want visitors to see.”
Anne’s giggle is shy. “They tried to get Francis to join because he plays harpsichord. He said he wouldn’t be caught dead in knee breeches.”
Farrell tries not to imagine Effen in Colonial garb. “When you think about it, Mr. Hume does have to watch out for his professional image. Would you want to deal with him at somebody’s funeral after seeing him decked out in a powdered wig and silk stockings? All you’d think of is what he looks like in—“
“—a powdered wig and silk stockings,” Farrell and Anne say together.
Anne’s giggle is more open. “Yeah, I guess it would be kind of silly.” She watches Farrell commit a Fair Mantle Village no-no: standing on an original Colonial chair to place the curtains over the windows. “Why do you call him Mr. Hume? Everybody else calls him everything else.”
Farrell makes a face. “Bad habit from the paper, I suppose. We always used courtesy titles when we spoke to people.” She has set one end of the curtain rod and is stretching across the glass to the other side when Anne asks, “Do you like him?”
The end of the rod allegedly slips out of the support. Farrell must step off the chair or tumble against the window. She musters her composure; picks up and shakes imaginary floor dust from the curtain. “Everybody likes F.N.”
Anne seems vaguely dissatisfied. “I thought, maybe, you two were seeing each other or something.”
“Because I was with him at the hearing?” Little gossip monger! She’s either reading too many young adult romances or watching too many soap operas.
When Farrell was Anne’s age, she couldn’t care less about boys. Boys her age couldn’t care about her. She was the adolescent’s nightmare come true: skinny; fine, lifeless hair; acne; glasses; braces; parents who wouldn’t let her follow the clothes crowd.
She looks upon Anne with envy. The kid has everything going for her: good, thick hair; large, dark eyes that probably won’t need glasses until she’s fifty; the figure of a Dresden doll. She’s intelligent and respectful, too, if more than a little nosy about who’s dating whom – or Hume, as the case may be.
“No, we’re not seeing each other.”
“Oh.” The word is a sigh of relief as well as disappointment, but Anne doesn’t press the issue. She returns to the village office with Farrell, having a snowball fight with Mary all along the way.
It’s Francis Hume’s fault that Farrell doesn’t join in the fun.
For Farrell,the business with Mount Can’t is a matter of going so far away from where she started, she’s ended up where she started from. When Bruton drove her to the village that night, the village was going to close. She was going to return to living on ten dollars’ worth of groceries a week. And she was going to return to knowing she’s the wrong age or the wrong color or the wrong sex to suit prospective employers.
She didn’t mind. She knew all along that, come what may, she would be able to endure the put downs and the being made to feel inferior and unwanted.
Something has happened to her within the past three weeks. The restlessness, the intense emotions and the destructive self-doubt have disappeared.
Her voice and manner are softer. She’s not so willing to mentally thrash herself. She’s patient. Polite. Attentive. She laughs more often. She takes the time to listen to other people’s troubles. She talks to strangers drifting down from Mount Can’t. Her actions have nothing to do with cultivating public relations. She enjoys being nice to others. They react to her in kind.
Sometimes, while playing her flutes, tiny Jack singing at her feet, she looks out the window and wonders why she ever left Fair Mantle.
Her musings encompass the town, the newspaper, old neighbors, eateries, the community theater, the art shows, Fair Mantle Village and its villagers. But those same musings always settle upon the name and image of a particular person. It bothers her. As much as she enjoys being here, and as much as she’s enjoyed reacquainting herself with everyone, she can’t understand her friendship with Francis Hume.
He’s the most decent, compassionate person she’s ever known. Yes aside from a love of classical music, literature and foreign languages, she and he have little in common. She was a mere musicology major who, until she arrived at the newspaper, drifted from one office job to another, borne on the whims of ignorant employers who thought all she did in college was play instruments all day.
On the other hand, Effen (why do people call him that???) has been at his profession nearly as long as she’s been drifting and is now a successful businessman; well-schooled, well-known, well-liked. He’s not handsome, but he’s certainly pleasing to the eye. She often thought he had a face that belonged in an early nineteenth-century miniature portrait. (Her own face, she quickly considered, belonged in a fairy tale: the Ugly Duckling. Except in her edition, the Ugly Duckling grew up to become the Ugly Duckling, not a gorgeous swan.)
Effen also has other qualities that Farrell can never claim for herself: the quiet courage to confront the ravages of death day after day; the confidence, control and resignation that come from a deeply seated sense of purpose that may or may not be founded in his religious upbringing.
It’s no secret he’s Roman Catholic. His work is exclusively with Catholic churches. But aside from that, you wouldn’t know what he was. He doesn’t spout dogma, he doesn’t argue theology, and he certainly doesn’t talk Bible unless he’s referring to a piece of classical music. The only clue might be the volumes of Loyola and Aquinas camouflaged amid the professional books and ledgers in his office, volumes that are the survivors of philosophy courses required of all undergrads at the Jesuit university he attended.
But you don’t need religion to be good or courageous or to treat others with the kindness and concern Effen regularly bestows. You just need … what, if not a belief in something higher and better than the reality of the physical world?
If thoughts of Francis Hume pervade Farrell’s musings about her return to Fair Mantle, it’s the “what” of Francis Hume that ends them. It’s too simple to attribute his nature to general benevolence or the love of humanity; too convenient to invoke the Vatican or Jesus Christ.
The only way she can reconcile the puzzle is to view her friend as both a miracle and a mystery: a miracle for his goodness; a mystery for depths she can’t hope to fathom. She has no choice but to accept him the way she accepts the loveliness and horror of the world: knowing there is no explanation. Therein lay the miracle and the mystery.
If Bruton no longer needs her at Fair Mantle Village, she will return to South Windsor if she must. What she feels for Francis Hume will follow her all her life. It’s not the stuff of infatuation, or even the stuff of romantic love. What Farrell feels for Francis Hume is like a monastic rule that chastises, sanctifies and sobers all at the same time: so hard to accept, harder still to cast off, and impossible not to embrace as the penance that will be with her until the life of the world to come.
Seeing and hearing the endless stream of cars, the Villagers and their helpers surmised something momentous was taking place. When they learned things were under control, they assumed the Guard had won. Launching his best profanity, Bruton grabbed his overcoat and told a Guardsman to drive him up to the site so he could triage the casualties. The situation was clarified when the Guardsman radioed in for a body count.
The Villagers were relieved, but the Guardsmen were faced with a real military moral dilemma: What should they do? Taking back the site was out of the question. They couldn’t take arms against unarmed civilians. Should they radio their superiors? Should they arrest the Guardsmen who had relinquished the site? Should they say “Up yours” and go home to their families? Or should they simply carry on and help save what Bruton rightly reminded them was part of the nation’s heritage?
After speaking among themselves, and with more than a little input from the Villagers, they decided to carry on. That way, they did their duty and they didn’t have to answer for anything that happened on Mount Can’t.
Suddenly the assignment was amended: Bruton told them to unload the trucks. “We’re staying put,” he gloated. “Mount Can’t is a fairy tale. Let’s not waste taxpayers’ money. Put everything back.”
Everything was put back where it belonged. Now, however, Bruton thinks it would be nice to give the buildings a fresh look by rearranging the furniture. The buildings should be open for the people who will come to visit Mount Can’t. Fair Mantle Village is an ideal place to escape the cold, and it’s a good time to lobby those visitors for donations to keep the village running.
Farrell goes from one building to the next, lending a willing hand, making volunteers and Guardsmen laugh with witty observations and blade-edge comebacks. It’s a beautiful day. For the first time in months, it doesn’t matter that her mother died, or that she was put out of her home, or that she still could end up losing what little she’s been able to hold on to. It must be the brilliant sunshine and the Christmas-card image of Fair Mantle Village in the snow.
She’s bringing curtains to the gardener’s cottage when Gustie asks her to keep an eye on “the ladies” while Birdsall brings her to visit Tom. “Of course,” she says, as though Gustie couldn’t possibly think she’d refuse.
Mary skips ahead, kicking up the snow. Anne is quiet. She’s embarrassed about what happened with the police? “What did you think of that mob at the hearing?” Farrell asks her. She shrugs. “It was all right.”
My, wasn’t that productive! “A good thing Mr. Hume was there.”
“Yeah.”
How old is she? Thirteen? Shudder. Junior-high age. Kids are weird in junior high. And to her, I’m probably a stupid old lady. Well, this stupid old lady had better wise up and not make small talk, else this kid will think I’m worse than I think.
Farrell smiles. “Almost there. Want to open the door?”
Anne takes the key from Farrell and dashes ahead.
The gardener’s cottage is attached to the carriage house. Furnishings are spare: plain wooden table and kitchen chairs; rope bed; Franklin stove. The hardwood floor is the original; it’s got more waves than Lake Hopatcong in a regatta. The lack of decoration and the bare floors give the cottage splendid acoustics. Little wonder, then that this is one of the buildings where Farrell played her flutes during special events. It’s good to be back. She can almost hear “Johnnie Cope” crisply crashing into the walls.
Mary asks if she can play in the snow. Farrell tells her to be careful, then, with Anne’s help, slips plain, ivory-colored curtains onto cedar rods made by village carpenters. The girl is more at ease. Farrell asks if she’ll be an historic interpreter at the village in the spring. Anne brightens, chats about how she can’t wait to roll hoops again. “It’s so much fun when you do it over all those tree roots.”
“I never saw you dress up when you worked here,” she says in a beatless change of subject.
“I did, a few times. But I’m not the eighteenth century type. Not the thing you want visitors to see.”
Anne’s giggle is shy. “They tried to get Francis to join because he plays harpsichord. He said he wouldn’t be caught dead in knee breeches.”
Farrell tries not to imagine Effen in Colonial garb. “When you think about it, Mr. Hume does have to watch out for his professional image. Would you want to deal with him at somebody’s funeral after seeing him decked out in a powdered wig and silk stockings? All you’d think of is what he looks like in—“
“—a powdered wig and silk stockings,” Farrell and Anne say together.
Anne’s giggle is more open. “Yeah, I guess it would be kind of silly.” She watches Farrell commit a Fair Mantle Village no-no: standing on an original Colonial chair to place the curtains over the windows. “Why do you call him Mr. Hume? Everybody else calls him everything else.”
Farrell makes a face. “Bad habit from the paper, I suppose. We always used courtesy titles when we spoke to people.” She has set one end of the curtain rod and is stretching across the glass to the other side when Anne asks, “Do you like him?”
The end of the rod allegedly slips out of the support. Farrell must step off the chair or tumble against the window. She musters her composure; picks up and shakes imaginary floor dust from the curtain. “Everybody likes F.N.”
Anne seems vaguely dissatisfied. “I thought, maybe, you two were seeing each other or something.”
“Because I was with him at the hearing?” Little gossip monger! She’s either reading too many young adult romances or watching too many soap operas.
When Farrell was Anne’s age, she couldn’t care less about boys. Boys her age couldn’t care about her. She was the adolescent’s nightmare come true: skinny; fine, lifeless hair; acne; glasses; braces; parents who wouldn’t let her follow the clothes crowd.
She looks upon Anne with envy. The kid has everything going for her: good, thick hair; large, dark eyes that probably won’t need glasses until she’s fifty; the figure of a Dresden doll. She’s intelligent and respectful, too, if more than a little nosy about who’s dating whom – or Hume, as the case may be.
“No, we’re not seeing each other.”
“Oh.” The word is a sigh of relief as well as disappointment, but Anne doesn’t press the issue. She returns to the village office with Farrell, having a snowball fight with Mary all along the way.
It’s Francis Hume’s fault that Farrell doesn’t join in the fun.
For Farrell,the business with Mount Can’t is a matter of going so far away from where she started, she’s ended up where she started from. When Bruton drove her to the village that night, the village was going to close. She was going to return to living on ten dollars’ worth of groceries a week. And she was going to return to knowing she’s the wrong age or the wrong color or the wrong sex to suit prospective employers.
She didn’t mind. She knew all along that, come what may, she would be able to endure the put downs and the being made to feel inferior and unwanted.
Something has happened to her within the past three weeks. The restlessness, the intense emotions and the destructive self-doubt have disappeared.
Her voice and manner are softer. She’s not so willing to mentally thrash herself. She’s patient. Polite. Attentive. She laughs more often. She takes the time to listen to other people’s troubles. She talks to strangers drifting down from Mount Can’t. Her actions have nothing to do with cultivating public relations. She enjoys being nice to others. They react to her in kind.
Sometimes, while playing her flutes, tiny Jack singing at her feet, she looks out the window and wonders why she ever left Fair Mantle.
Her musings encompass the town, the newspaper, old neighbors, eateries, the community theater, the art shows, Fair Mantle Village and its villagers. But those same musings always settle upon the name and image of a particular person. It bothers her. As much as she enjoys being here, and as much as she’s enjoyed reacquainting herself with everyone, she can’t understand her friendship with Francis Hume.
He’s the most decent, compassionate person she’s ever known. Yes aside from a love of classical music, literature and foreign languages, she and he have little in common. She was a mere musicology major who, until she arrived at the newspaper, drifted from one office job to another, borne on the whims of ignorant employers who thought all she did in college was play instruments all day.
On the other hand, Effen (why do people call him that???) has been at his profession nearly as long as she’s been drifting and is now a successful businessman; well-schooled, well-known, well-liked. He’s not handsome, but he’s certainly pleasing to the eye. She often thought he had a face that belonged in an early nineteenth-century miniature portrait. (Her own face, she quickly considered, belonged in a fairy tale: the Ugly Duckling. Except in her edition, the Ugly Duckling grew up to become the Ugly Duckling, not a gorgeous swan.)
Effen also has other qualities that Farrell can never claim for herself: the quiet courage to confront the ravages of death day after day; the confidence, control and resignation that come from a deeply seated sense of purpose that may or may not be founded in his religious upbringing.
It’s no secret he’s Roman Catholic. His work is exclusively with Catholic churches. But aside from that, you wouldn’t know what he was. He doesn’t spout dogma, he doesn’t argue theology, and he certainly doesn’t talk Bible unless he’s referring to a piece of classical music. The only clue might be the volumes of Loyola and Aquinas camouflaged amid the professional books and ledgers in his office, volumes that are the survivors of philosophy courses required of all undergrads at the Jesuit university he attended.
But you don’t need religion to be good or courageous or to treat others with the kindness and concern Effen regularly bestows. You just need … what, if not a belief in something higher and better than the reality of the physical world?
If thoughts of Francis Hume pervade Farrell’s musings about her return to Fair Mantle, it’s the “what” of Francis Hume that ends them. It’s too simple to attribute his nature to general benevolence or the love of humanity; too convenient to invoke the Vatican or Jesus Christ.
The only way she can reconcile the puzzle is to view her friend as both a miracle and a mystery: a miracle for his goodness; a mystery for depths she can’t hope to fathom. She has no choice but to accept him the way she accepts the loveliness and horror of the world: knowing there is no explanation. Therein lay the miracle and the mystery.
If Bruton no longer needs her at Fair Mantle Village, she will return to South Windsor if she must. What she feels for Francis Hume will follow her all her life. It’s not the stuff of infatuation, or even the stuff of romantic love. What Farrell feels for Francis Hume is like a monastic rule that chastises, sanctifies and sobers all at the same time: so hard to accept, harder still to cast off, and impossible not to embrace as the penance that will be with her until the life of the world to come.
Chapter 25
As Mount Can’t becomes home to a variety of tents and temporary shelters, the governor, various state officials and National Guard brass treat with Tom and a select group of his followers at the park office.
The authorities agree to let scientists of Tom’s choice assess the site, and Tom agrees to let the state’s experts continue their own study. The Guard will stay at Mount Can’t so long as its presence is for public safety, not offensive, and so long as the park is open to the public. Tom and the governor shake hands on the compromise. The press captures the moment on various audio-visual equipment. One of the “rebels” fixes a sign to the restroom where Tom had been arrested: Mount Can’t Observatory. The sign enjoys its own share of fame.
Signs in windows along Main Street declare Fair Mantle the home of Mount Can’t. Businesses take advantage of the town’s notoriety by developing Mount Can’t gimmicks: Mount Can’t sweatshirts. Mount Can’t T-shirts. Mount Can’t ice cream dishes. Mount Can’t coffee (which features an elaborate mound of whipped cream). Bertie’s restaurant takes the mashed potato and gravy volcano beloved of countless homes across America and formalizes it into a main course simply called “Mount Can’t.”
Effen nearly has to perform the Heimlich maneuver on Matt and Ben when he predicts over lunch that some enterprising soul will probably patent a Mount Can’t condom. He can’t stomach the Mount Can’t nonsense. He grouses about how a real volcano might have been terrifying, but in the end, would have sobered a lot of people and compelled them to examine their lives. “All this hype about what appears to be an imaginary volcano is a crime: a vulgar, reasonless crime. It makes fools out of everybody, not just those who would have been forced to reconcile themselves to all their selfish iniquities.”
Matt and Ben beg to differ with “Pope Francesco.” They think it’s time the town had some fun. All the Mount Can’t stuff is making the state, not the town, look bad.
Matt points his fork for emphasis. “If the state can’t prove there really is a volcano, and if the state doesn’t want to let somebody else prove there isn’t, then the state deserves all the abuse it can take.”
“Hell, France,” Ben adds, “the state made a fool out of you. Look what it did to your horselets. You of all people should want retribution.”
Effen doesn’t want to mention that he was warned his license could disappear if he sought a case against the state. All he says is, “Well, what I want and what I can do is really beyond your control, so don’t waste your time thinking about it.”
Matt’s derisive whistle blows crumbs around the plates. “My, aren’t we cranky! I hope I’m not like that when I get to be as old as you.”
Effen catapults a stuffed olive off his fork and into Matt’s person. “Respect your elders.”
Ben sticks his own foot in his mouth. “Yeah, France, how old did you say you are?”
“Prematurely Methuselah, thanks to you two reprobates. Oh, do you want one, too?”
Ben ducks. The olive splats on the floor. Ben sends it back to its point of departure. Soon tiny round, green bodies are arcing over the table, pimentos flapping like tongues.
Gustie retreats to the second-floor study.
What’s going on is no different from the fruits of giddiness seen in many places of business. But to Gustie. It’s foreboding, not relaxing. She hasn’t seen Effen so light of heart in a long time. She’s afraid it’s the product of the confidence and unconscious joy that takes hold of us when we find the person we’ve unknowingly been looking for all our life.
Gustie once knew that joy. She thought it left her a long time ago. She knows now that she was wrong. And now could be too late.
Her throat aches. Her eyes swim. She can’t cry here, but the harder she tries not to cry, the stronger the urge to cry. She hides in the corner next to the window and presses her hands flat against her face, hoping the wall and her anatomy absorb some of the sound.
Effen is calling her. From downstairs. While going up the stairs. In the hallway. He should be looking into the room any second now.
She turns to the window, pretends to look outside. Maybe he won’t see her face.
“Gus? Do you want dessert? Gus?” He walks across the room. “What’s wrong?”
So. He sees her after all.
Damn. What to say? The tears spill. She lies. “This stuff about Tom. I don’t know how you guys can make such fun of it. It scares me. It scares me to death.”
“Why didn’t you say something? We’re down there acting like unmentionables figuring you could use a laugh or two.”
The profession of generosity makes Gustie cry outright. She blabs about going to see Tom. She’d feel better being at Mount Can’t. “Maybe then I’ll be able to laugh. Who knows? It might be something to laugh at. I’d like that.”
She doesn’t know that Effen would like to speak to her. She dashes downstairs, laughing about how much she wants to see Mount Can’t.
She’s not thinking of her work or making up time at work or having her pay docked. Nor does she consider she might be taking advantage of The Owner, who doesn’t like to penalize his staff for suffering the vagaries of life. She needs to go to Mount Can’t, if only to put considerable, if temporary, distance between herself and Francis Hume.
The authorities agree to let scientists of Tom’s choice assess the site, and Tom agrees to let the state’s experts continue their own study. The Guard will stay at Mount Can’t so long as its presence is for public safety, not offensive, and so long as the park is open to the public. Tom and the governor shake hands on the compromise. The press captures the moment on various audio-visual equipment. One of the “rebels” fixes a sign to the restroom where Tom had been arrested: Mount Can’t Observatory. The sign enjoys its own share of fame.
Signs in windows along Main Street declare Fair Mantle the home of Mount Can’t. Businesses take advantage of the town’s notoriety by developing Mount Can’t gimmicks: Mount Can’t sweatshirts. Mount Can’t T-shirts. Mount Can’t ice cream dishes. Mount Can’t coffee (which features an elaborate mound of whipped cream). Bertie’s restaurant takes the mashed potato and gravy volcano beloved of countless homes across America and formalizes it into a main course simply called “Mount Can’t.”
Effen nearly has to perform the Heimlich maneuver on Matt and Ben when he predicts over lunch that some enterprising soul will probably patent a Mount Can’t condom. He can’t stomach the Mount Can’t nonsense. He grouses about how a real volcano might have been terrifying, but in the end, would have sobered a lot of people and compelled them to examine their lives. “All this hype about what appears to be an imaginary volcano is a crime: a vulgar, reasonless crime. It makes fools out of everybody, not just those who would have been forced to reconcile themselves to all their selfish iniquities.”
Matt and Ben beg to differ with “Pope Francesco.” They think it’s time the town had some fun. All the Mount Can’t stuff is making the state, not the town, look bad.
Matt points his fork for emphasis. “If the state can’t prove there really is a volcano, and if the state doesn’t want to let somebody else prove there isn’t, then the state deserves all the abuse it can take.”
“Hell, France,” Ben adds, “the state made a fool out of you. Look what it did to your horselets. You of all people should want retribution.”
Effen doesn’t want to mention that he was warned his license could disappear if he sought a case against the state. All he says is, “Well, what I want and what I can do is really beyond your control, so don’t waste your time thinking about it.”
Matt’s derisive whistle blows crumbs around the plates. “My, aren’t we cranky! I hope I’m not like that when I get to be as old as you.”
Effen catapults a stuffed olive off his fork and into Matt’s person. “Respect your elders.”
Ben sticks his own foot in his mouth. “Yeah, France, how old did you say you are?”
“Prematurely Methuselah, thanks to you two reprobates. Oh, do you want one, too?”
Ben ducks. The olive splats on the floor. Ben sends it back to its point of departure. Soon tiny round, green bodies are arcing over the table, pimentos flapping like tongues.
Gustie retreats to the second-floor study.
What’s going on is no different from the fruits of giddiness seen in many places of business. But to Gustie. It’s foreboding, not relaxing. She hasn’t seen Effen so light of heart in a long time. She’s afraid it’s the product of the confidence and unconscious joy that takes hold of us when we find the person we’ve unknowingly been looking for all our life.
Gustie once knew that joy. She thought it left her a long time ago. She knows now that she was wrong. And now could be too late.
Her throat aches. Her eyes swim. She can’t cry here, but the harder she tries not to cry, the stronger the urge to cry. She hides in the corner next to the window and presses her hands flat against her face, hoping the wall and her anatomy absorb some of the sound.
Effen is calling her. From downstairs. While going up the stairs. In the hallway. He should be looking into the room any second now.
She turns to the window, pretends to look outside. Maybe he won’t see her face.
“Gus? Do you want dessert? Gus?” He walks across the room. “What’s wrong?”
So. He sees her after all.
Damn. What to say? The tears spill. She lies. “This stuff about Tom. I don’t know how you guys can make such fun of it. It scares me. It scares me to death.”
“Why didn’t you say something? We’re down there acting like unmentionables figuring you could use a laugh or two.”
The profession of generosity makes Gustie cry outright. She blabs about going to see Tom. She’d feel better being at Mount Can’t. “Maybe then I’ll be able to laugh. Who knows? It might be something to laugh at. I’d like that.”
She doesn’t know that Effen would like to speak to her. She dashes downstairs, laughing about how much she wants to see Mount Can’t.
She’s not thinking of her work or making up time at work or having her pay docked. Nor does she consider she might be taking advantage of The Owner, who doesn’t like to penalize his staff for suffering the vagaries of life. She needs to go to Mount Can’t, if only to put considerable, if temporary, distance between herself and Francis Hume.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Chapter 24
Once out of sight, the Cab whips around the corner of a sidestreet.
Effen means to reach the road to Fair Mantle Village well ahead of the cortege. He's not a speeder; he's never seen the need for a radar detector. This morning, however, he pushes the Cabriolet as quickly as safety allows on roads slicked with snow. Without a radar detector, he must trust that the police will be too involved with the exodus from town to notice him.
So far, so good. He reaches the end of Harrison. The county road leading to the state park is in front of him. There are no cars; nor is there any indication of oncoming headlights. Effen rams the pedal; the Cab zips toward the park.
The road is empty. No cars. No deer. No police.
There’s the sign warning that the park entrance is 1500 feet away. Effen slows and trips the directional.
He has no trouble turning into the entrance. Five hundred feet in, two National Guardsmen wait with rifles at the ready. One approaches the driver's window. “Sorry, sir, you'll have to turn back.”
Effen identifies himself and asks the Guardsman to radio Bruton at the park office.
The Guardsman says he doesn’t know if he can do that.
Quietly desperate, Effen clutches the steering wheel so hard it hurts. He lies. “Look, word is there’s going to be a demonstration up here. My wife is at the Fair Mantle Village office, and I would really like to get her home.”
The citizen soldier fumbles for the two-way radio on his backpack. He’s still trying to explain things to a higher-up when a snowmobile whizzes through the trees on the left. Another snowmobile whizzes through the trees on the right. The Guardsmen shout as they catch the breezy wake of a third. White light floods the Cab and the surrounding woods.
The Guardsman drops his radio and bangs on the Cab’s hood, yelling, “Go! Go! Go!”
The fellow's action is so extreme, Effen throws the Cab in gear. As he steps on the gas, he hears a gurgly roar. The Cab jolts, struck in the rear. Effen believes he's being catapulted up the road, but after several hundred feet he realizes he’s not flying through the air, he’s being pushed by a Gargantuan piece of machinery -- and the pace is picking up.
The park roads haven't been plowed. Large vehicles have cut ruts in the snow with big, thickly treaded tires. Move out of the ruts, and the little car will get hung up on the icy berm in between. Effen is trapped. All he can do is hang on and steer.
As he nears the Fair Mantle Village parking lot, he sees various cars and four-by-fours turn onto the trails leading behind and beyond the village. The ruts he's been riding in shallow out. He has a fleeting vision of making a break for the parking lot, where the snow has been plowed, but the image is bullied away by an even more fleeting image of being creamed by a pickup truck pulling up from the rear. The vehicle that’s been pushing him, which he now suspects is a utility truck, shoves him onto a trail bearing right from the village. The trail is in the same condition as the roadway. Going uphill isn’t so bad. The descents and the curves make his hair stand on end. Strings of vernacular knot in his mouth.
Effen hadn’t been entirely truthful when he told Anne that he’d done regular kid things when he was her age. The one regular kid thing he religiously avoided was the amusement park. He hated the rides. He’d found out he hated them when Uncle Ed took him and his cousins on a huge whirling thing that heaved them up and down and made them toss their cookies while they were still on the ride. In those days, he figured it was the most embarrassing moment of his life. He swore he'd never upchuck for as long as he lived. His determination served him well. Until now.
He’s bouncing around so vigorously he feels like a food processor. Any second now, the lid will fly off and the puree’s going to slop all over the place. With great difficulty, fearing to let go of the steering wheel, he turns on the air conditioner, opens a window and blasts the radio. He'll do what he can to keep his mind off chucking up.
The Cab flies along, wailing “What a day, what a day, for an auto-da-fe,” from Bernstein's ‘Candide.’” "It's a lovely day for drinking and for watching people fry."
The trail leads to a picnic area that slopes into a glen. Effen steels himself for yet another descent. All at once the light and the roar behind him are gone. The truck is way behind him, at a standstill.
Jaysus, the glen!
Effen stands on the brakes. The Cab skids, then spirals down the slope. There’s a brain-jarring jolt as the rear tires come to rest against the trunk of a fallen sycamore. Effen flops out the door and scrambles up the slope through snow that rooster-tails around his knees.
Dawn is breaking. The snowy woodland has a bluish tint. It’s bright enough to see the dozen Guardsmen ringing the picnic area, rifles to shoulders, eyes to sights.
All around, headlights twinkle through the breeze-stirred forest like lights on a Christmas tree.
Tom Von Aldo and several park rangers are standing next to a state park four-by-four that has a crinkled bumper. No words are exchanged. There is no sign of emotion. They stand loose, staring down the Guardsmen.
A news team jogs up. Automatic rifle fire cracks the silence. Puffs of snow spring up around the cameraman's feet. The entire news team flattens. So does everybody else, including Effen, who didn’t know he could move so fast.
Nobody says or does anything as Tom walks to the scene of the outburst and ascertains the targets are unscathed.
“Yeah, I guess it feels a little like Fort Sumter, early in the morning of April 12, 1861: citizen against citizen,” he amiably calls to the Guardsmen. His face brightens with recognition. He just his chin at a lieutenant colonel. “Hey, Davidoff! You’re a Civil War reenactor, Confederate, the Army of Northern Virginia, right? Tell me, what cause are you fighting for this morning, states’ rights or peoples’ rights?”
The Guardsmen hold position as Tom saunters up to the rifle barrels.
Tom maintains a friendly tone. “That’s what this is all about, buddies: people’s rights. This land is held protected for the people. It belongs to the people. The people are the state, not the bureaucracy.
“Now, we’re not armed. You see that. Shoot us, and you’ll be known as slaughterers for as long as you live. Just like your colleagues at Kent State, the ones who shot those student protesters to death in Ohio during the Vietnam conflict more than twenty years ago. If you want to follow in their footsteps, go right ahead. We’re ready for it.
“The question is: Are you ready to answer for it?”
Eyes directed through sights roll into timid peeks at neighbors. Crooked elbows relax. Rifles are lowered. Davidoff looks annoyed. “Damn you, Von Aldo, you always did have a way with words. Come on, guys. This is stupid.”
The woods erupt in cheers. Guardsmen shake hands with challengers. Davidoff radios everything is under control.
The sense of relief is dizzying. Effen kneels in the snow, waiting for the spinning to stop. Maybe he’s going to be sick, after all. He’s not a creature of action and adventure. He learned that in the scuffle with the trooper.
His attention is diverted by the feel of a heavy hand roughing his hair. “Holy Mother of God, I thought that was you, but I didn’t want to believe it! What did you think you were doing? Where are Gustie and the girls?” Tom doesn’t ask Effen if he wants a hand; he just hauls him up from the ground.
Embarrassed, Effen brushes snow from his coat, mumbling. “The ladies are at The House. At least, that’s where I left them.
“Then what the hell are you doing here?”
“Oh, uh, I wanted to make sure a few people were okay."
"Who?”
“Forget it. It’s over.”
Effen returns to the Cab. There’s no damage aside from a rumpled backside and a broken taillight. Still, it refuses to take the slope.
Tom asks Birdsall to tow Effen down to Bruton. Effen really is out of place here. He’ll probably be out of place at the village, too. But that’s Brut’s problem.
The chairman of the board is directing the removal of large conservation crates from green National Guard transports. Shortly before midnight, he gave orders to evacuate the village. He reversed the orders when Davidoff radioed news of the taking of Mount Can’t.
He sees Birdsall separating the Cab from the that’s tethered it to the state four-by-four. The Owner waits close by, looking for all the world as if he’d been roused from sleep and rushed from home.
Brut can’t believe the implications. “Christ Almighty, Francis, don’t tell me you were part of that rabble.”
Effen doesn’t know which is more controversial, being a part of “that rabble” or the truth of his role in the alleged siege. “Oh …” He stuffs his hands deep in his coat pockets, casually looks around the village. Farrell. Where’s Farrell? Where’s that teal green parka?
Brut is waiting. “Well?”
“Oh, I was just wondering … if anybody is ready for breakfast.”
Ah. There she is. Up there. At the general store, holding open the door for a Guardsman carrying a box. She’s laughing. She looks rested. Fresh. Alive.
Should he speak to her? Should he tell her what happened? To what end?
Now that everything is over, he feels silly. He doesn’t know what his panic was all about. He doesn’t believe he can explain himself rationally.
Birdsall asks him to make sure the Cab is drivable. He does; it is. With a little wave, no words, Effen drives away.
Bruton doesn’t understand. Francis Hume was never a private man. Discreet, definitely, but never guarded, and never, ever as socially disheveled as he's seen him this morning.
Bruton turns to Birdsall for answers.
The ranger spews a hacking cough. “I’ll tell ya, but ya might not believe me …”
Effen means to reach the road to Fair Mantle Village well ahead of the cortege. He's not a speeder; he's never seen the need for a radar detector. This morning, however, he pushes the Cabriolet as quickly as safety allows on roads slicked with snow. Without a radar detector, he must trust that the police will be too involved with the exodus from town to notice him.
So far, so good. He reaches the end of Harrison. The county road leading to the state park is in front of him. There are no cars; nor is there any indication of oncoming headlights. Effen rams the pedal; the Cab zips toward the park.
The road is empty. No cars. No deer. No police.
There’s the sign warning that the park entrance is 1500 feet away. Effen slows and trips the directional.
He has no trouble turning into the entrance. Five hundred feet in, two National Guardsmen wait with rifles at the ready. One approaches the driver's window. “Sorry, sir, you'll have to turn back.”
Effen identifies himself and asks the Guardsman to radio Bruton at the park office.
The Guardsman says he doesn’t know if he can do that.
Quietly desperate, Effen clutches the steering wheel so hard it hurts. He lies. “Look, word is there’s going to be a demonstration up here. My wife is at the Fair Mantle Village office, and I would really like to get her home.”
The citizen soldier fumbles for the two-way radio on his backpack. He’s still trying to explain things to a higher-up when a snowmobile whizzes through the trees on the left. Another snowmobile whizzes through the trees on the right. The Guardsmen shout as they catch the breezy wake of a third. White light floods the Cab and the surrounding woods.
The Guardsman drops his radio and bangs on the Cab’s hood, yelling, “Go! Go! Go!”
The fellow's action is so extreme, Effen throws the Cab in gear. As he steps on the gas, he hears a gurgly roar. The Cab jolts, struck in the rear. Effen believes he's being catapulted up the road, but after several hundred feet he realizes he’s not flying through the air, he’s being pushed by a Gargantuan piece of machinery -- and the pace is picking up.
The park roads haven't been plowed. Large vehicles have cut ruts in the snow with big, thickly treaded tires. Move out of the ruts, and the little car will get hung up on the icy berm in between. Effen is trapped. All he can do is hang on and steer.
As he nears the Fair Mantle Village parking lot, he sees various cars and four-by-fours turn onto the trails leading behind and beyond the village. The ruts he's been riding in shallow out. He has a fleeting vision of making a break for the parking lot, where the snow has been plowed, but the image is bullied away by an even more fleeting image of being creamed by a pickup truck pulling up from the rear. The vehicle that’s been pushing him, which he now suspects is a utility truck, shoves him onto a trail bearing right from the village. The trail is in the same condition as the roadway. Going uphill isn’t so bad. The descents and the curves make his hair stand on end. Strings of vernacular knot in his mouth.
Effen hadn’t been entirely truthful when he told Anne that he’d done regular kid things when he was her age. The one regular kid thing he religiously avoided was the amusement park. He hated the rides. He’d found out he hated them when Uncle Ed took him and his cousins on a huge whirling thing that heaved them up and down and made them toss their cookies while they were still on the ride. In those days, he figured it was the most embarrassing moment of his life. He swore he'd never upchuck for as long as he lived. His determination served him well. Until now.
He’s bouncing around so vigorously he feels like a food processor. Any second now, the lid will fly off and the puree’s going to slop all over the place. With great difficulty, fearing to let go of the steering wheel, he turns on the air conditioner, opens a window and blasts the radio. He'll do what he can to keep his mind off chucking up.
The Cab flies along, wailing “What a day, what a day, for an auto-da-fe,” from Bernstein's ‘Candide.’” "It's a lovely day for drinking and for watching people fry."
The trail leads to a picnic area that slopes into a glen. Effen steels himself for yet another descent. All at once the light and the roar behind him are gone. The truck is way behind him, at a standstill.
Jaysus, the glen!
Effen stands on the brakes. The Cab skids, then spirals down the slope. There’s a brain-jarring jolt as the rear tires come to rest against the trunk of a fallen sycamore. Effen flops out the door and scrambles up the slope through snow that rooster-tails around his knees.
Dawn is breaking. The snowy woodland has a bluish tint. It’s bright enough to see the dozen Guardsmen ringing the picnic area, rifles to shoulders, eyes to sights.
All around, headlights twinkle through the breeze-stirred forest like lights on a Christmas tree.
Tom Von Aldo and several park rangers are standing next to a state park four-by-four that has a crinkled bumper. No words are exchanged. There is no sign of emotion. They stand loose, staring down the Guardsmen.
A news team jogs up. Automatic rifle fire cracks the silence. Puffs of snow spring up around the cameraman's feet. The entire news team flattens. So does everybody else, including Effen, who didn’t know he could move so fast.
Nobody says or does anything as Tom walks to the scene of the outburst and ascertains the targets are unscathed.
“Yeah, I guess it feels a little like Fort Sumter, early in the morning of April 12, 1861: citizen against citizen,” he amiably calls to the Guardsmen. His face brightens with recognition. He just his chin at a lieutenant colonel. “Hey, Davidoff! You’re a Civil War reenactor, Confederate, the Army of Northern Virginia, right? Tell me, what cause are you fighting for this morning, states’ rights or peoples’ rights?”
The Guardsmen hold position as Tom saunters up to the rifle barrels.
Tom maintains a friendly tone. “That’s what this is all about, buddies: people’s rights. This land is held protected for the people. It belongs to the people. The people are the state, not the bureaucracy.
“Now, we’re not armed. You see that. Shoot us, and you’ll be known as slaughterers for as long as you live. Just like your colleagues at Kent State, the ones who shot those student protesters to death in Ohio during the Vietnam conflict more than twenty years ago. If you want to follow in their footsteps, go right ahead. We’re ready for it.
“The question is: Are you ready to answer for it?”
Eyes directed through sights roll into timid peeks at neighbors. Crooked elbows relax. Rifles are lowered. Davidoff looks annoyed. “Damn you, Von Aldo, you always did have a way with words. Come on, guys. This is stupid.”
The woods erupt in cheers. Guardsmen shake hands with challengers. Davidoff radios everything is under control.
The sense of relief is dizzying. Effen kneels in the snow, waiting for the spinning to stop. Maybe he’s going to be sick, after all. He’s not a creature of action and adventure. He learned that in the scuffle with the trooper.
His attention is diverted by the feel of a heavy hand roughing his hair. “Holy Mother of God, I thought that was you, but I didn’t want to believe it! What did you think you were doing? Where are Gustie and the girls?” Tom doesn’t ask Effen if he wants a hand; he just hauls him up from the ground.
Embarrassed, Effen brushes snow from his coat, mumbling. “The ladies are at The House. At least, that’s where I left them.
“Then what the hell are you doing here?”
“Oh, uh, I wanted to make sure a few people were okay."
"Who?”
“Forget it. It’s over.”
Effen returns to the Cab. There’s no damage aside from a rumpled backside and a broken taillight. Still, it refuses to take the slope.
Tom asks Birdsall to tow Effen down to Bruton. Effen really is out of place here. He’ll probably be out of place at the village, too. But that’s Brut’s problem.
The chairman of the board is directing the removal of large conservation crates from green National Guard transports. Shortly before midnight, he gave orders to evacuate the village. He reversed the orders when Davidoff radioed news of the taking of Mount Can’t.
He sees Birdsall separating the Cab from the that’s tethered it to the state four-by-four. The Owner waits close by, looking for all the world as if he’d been roused from sleep and rushed from home.
Brut can’t believe the implications. “Christ Almighty, Francis, don’t tell me you were part of that rabble.”
Effen doesn’t know which is more controversial, being a part of “that rabble” or the truth of his role in the alleged siege. “Oh …” He stuffs his hands deep in his coat pockets, casually looks around the village. Farrell. Where’s Farrell? Where’s that teal green parka?
Brut is waiting. “Well?”
“Oh, I was just wondering … if anybody is ready for breakfast.”
Ah. There she is. Up there. At the general store, holding open the door for a Guardsman carrying a box. She’s laughing. She looks rested. Fresh. Alive.
Should he speak to her? Should he tell her what happened? To what end?
Now that everything is over, he feels silly. He doesn’t know what his panic was all about. He doesn’t believe he can explain himself rationally.
Birdsall asks him to make sure the Cab is drivable. He does; it is. With a little wave, no words, Effen drives away.
Bruton doesn’t understand. Francis Hume was never a private man. Discreet, definitely, but never guarded, and never, ever as socially disheveled as he's seen him this morning.
Bruton turns to Birdsall for answers.
The ranger spews a hacking cough. “I’ll tell ya, but ya might not believe me …”
Chapter 23
As promised, Gustie makes sure the girls are nice and quiet. But they’re not mutes. They have to make noise to communicate with each other. Effen listens to the hushed breakfast activity a few feet away. It’s almost like having a real family beneath his roof. The girls chat about schools and friends at school. Gustie tells them to make sure they do their homework. The homey feeling is underscored by what Effen thinks is the sound of Sunday morning traffic. St. Mark’s, St. Gabriel’s and First Presbyterian are all omn Main Street.
Gustie walks in before Effen answers her knock on the door.
He grumbles. “It’s a good thing I don’t sleep as nature intended …” His voice fades as Gustie opens the Venetian blind. “Outside …”
Effen may not sleep in the altogether, but he’s far from boarded up below the Fordham sweatshirt. The look on Gustie’s face compels him to forget about his attire (hell, they’re boxers, anyway) and go to the window.
It’s still night. A line of headlights is moving north out of town. The slow pace and short, even spacing between vehicles convince Effen this is no spontaneous parade but a formal cortege. The line extends as far as he can see from the window.
Where did they all come from? Where are they going?
A familiar compact car pulls into the driveway, bumping on patches of roughly packed snow that refuse to melt. Anticipating a visit, Effen hops into jeans and boots.
Matt’s taking the main staircase two steps at a time. The emotional high gear is unmistakable. “Hey, F.N., we saw your light and wondered if you’d want to come along.”
“What’s going on?”
“A show of strength. The people are about to fuck the state and take matters into their own hands! Come on! It’s going to be something for the history books.”
“You’re going to the park?”
“Correction: We’re going to Mount Can’t. We’re going to bust the pickets. Ther’s no amny of us, the Guard won’t dare lift a finger against us.”
Is he serious?
Effen looks toward the door, which Matt has left open. The procession continues, one care or light truck after the other, in an unending purr of engines, “How many of you are there?”
“Too many to count, but more than enough. We’ve even got the press with us! Soon as they saw us, they got into their vans and their satellites and got right in line. It’s beyond adjective, isn’t it? I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
You’re not the only one, Effent thinks. He calls Bruton from his office. No answer. Not even the answering service. Bizarre. When Bruton isn’t home, Elizabeth answers. When Elizabeth and Bruton aren’t home, Farrell answers. This morning? Nobody answers. He tries Fair Mantle Village. The answering machine is on. Should he leave a message? For whom? Tormented by uncertainty, he sinks into the chair and leans on the desk, clasped hands to mouth.
Matt is waiting. “F.N.?”
“You haven’t thought about this, have you, Matt.”
“What’s there to think? We don’t have time to think. You saw what happened the other night! We need to take back our lives.”
“Will you think, Matt.” The tone is stern. Uncharacteristically. “It doesn’t matter how many of you there are. One howitzer and a few cleverly placed marksman can blast your brains to Kingdom Come.”
“They wouldn’t dare. There are too many of us. We’ve got the press, from here and abroad. Move against us, and the whole world will know.”
“What good can the whole world do for you if you happen to be the one within range?”
Matt has no time to answer. Ben is trotting into view, eager to know what’s keeping everybody.
Effen waves them off. Propelled by a sleepy, nervous stretch, he sinks low in the chair and yawns. “Go on. Good luck. Remember: if you end up in a box, your families will have to find somebody else to do the gift wrapping, because I sure as hell won’t do it. God forgive me, but I’m not big on suicides.”
Matt and Ben nod and go their way. They’re speechless. Francis Hume never speaks like that. It’s scary.
Effen is scared, too. Scared to think Farrell is at Fair Mantle Village. Scared to think what’s going to happen there within the next hour or so. Scared to think he can’t leave Gustie and the girls to go looking for her. Scared to think he’s never before been responsible for so many live people at one time. Scared to think he can’t live up to expectation. Scared to believe he would refuse to try to find Farrell before trouble starts.
The hand on his shoulder is Gustie’s. “Tom didn’t think it was going to be bad. As Matt said, the Guard doesn’t dare harm the people.”
Why take in hand the people fond, vain things to bring about?
Of course.
Effen takes up the phone. Gustie’s mouth drops when she hears him speaking to Father Alph. For a moment the two discuss the events of the morning. Effen asks the priest to be aware that Gustie and the Girls are at The House. He, Effen, has business down county, which means he’s got to leave them alone. He’d appreciate it if Father Alph would take them in if trouble starts. The priest says he will.
Mortified Gustie hounds Effen all the way upstairs. “You’re foisting us off on a priest?”
Effen drags clean clothes from the armoire and flees to the bathroom, loudly locking the door. The sound of the shower doesn’t drown out the pounding on the door.
“Francis! You can’t leave us alone! I won’t allow it!”
He emerges, hair dripping, shirt unbuttoned, jeans unzipped. Gustie is waiting, arms folded across her chest. “Where are you going? Don’t tell me you’re going to pick somebody up because that’s not how you dress when you make a call.”
He mushes his hair with the towel. “I thought you liked Father Alph. He’s a decent sort. Does he let you take Communion, knowing you’re going through a divorce?”
“Separation. It’s a separation!”
“He lets me, when I care to show myself. Like on Christmas, Easter …”
Gustie rolls her eyes. “I cannot believe you’d foist us off on a priest.”
“It’s your pastor, for Christ’s sake! Who knows what’s going to happen out there? Who else can you turn to if you can’t turn to Tom?”
“You’re going to Fair Mantle Village, aren’t you?”
He throws her the towel. His hair is too long to bother with total dryness. “Look, Gust, there’s more than meets the eye here. If I’m lucky, I should be able to talk some sense into some people before this thing gets out of hand.”
“Talk to Tom, you mean.”
Effen growls.
Gustie can’t hide her disgust. “Admit it. You think he’s a jerk. You always have. You’d do anything to humiliate him in public, and now you’ve got the chance. What do you want him to do, admit he’s wrong and call off the assault? Make hundreds of people look like idiots for jumping at his back and call?”
“That’s not what I had in mind, but it’s not a bad idea.”
“Then why are you going?”
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
Effen consults the thermometer on the window. Thirty-four? What do you wear when it’s going to rain ordnance? He throws on a dark wool sweater, a blazer on top of that; the overcoat on top of that. Better the overcoat than the jacket. More coverage in the cold, especially if he’s got to stand around arguing.
“Francis. Why. Are. You Going."
He settles for telling her the near-truth: “To save some people from themselves.” Heading for tne stairs, he reminds her to call Father Alph if there’s an emergency.
Gustie and the girls watch in dismay as the little Cab puffs out of the driveway, turns south and chugs along the lane opposite the cortege.
Gustie walks in before Effen answers her knock on the door.
He grumbles. “It’s a good thing I don’t sleep as nature intended …” His voice fades as Gustie opens the Venetian blind. “Outside …”
Effen may not sleep in the altogether, but he’s far from boarded up below the Fordham sweatshirt. The look on Gustie’s face compels him to forget about his attire (hell, they’re boxers, anyway) and go to the window.
It’s still night. A line of headlights is moving north out of town. The slow pace and short, even spacing between vehicles convince Effen this is no spontaneous parade but a formal cortege. The line extends as far as he can see from the window.
Where did they all come from? Where are they going?
A familiar compact car pulls into the driveway, bumping on patches of roughly packed snow that refuse to melt. Anticipating a visit, Effen hops into jeans and boots.
Matt’s taking the main staircase two steps at a time. The emotional high gear is unmistakable. “Hey, F.N., we saw your light and wondered if you’d want to come along.”
“What’s going on?”
“A show of strength. The people are about to fuck the state and take matters into their own hands! Come on! It’s going to be something for the history books.”
“You’re going to the park?”
“Correction: We’re going to Mount Can’t. We’re going to bust the pickets. Ther’s no amny of us, the Guard won’t dare lift a finger against us.”
Is he serious?
Effen looks toward the door, which Matt has left open. The procession continues, one care or light truck after the other, in an unending purr of engines, “How many of you are there?”
“Too many to count, but more than enough. We’ve even got the press with us! Soon as they saw us, they got into their vans and their satellites and got right in line. It’s beyond adjective, isn’t it? I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
You’re not the only one, Effent thinks. He calls Bruton from his office. No answer. Not even the answering service. Bizarre. When Bruton isn’t home, Elizabeth answers. When Elizabeth and Bruton aren’t home, Farrell answers. This morning? Nobody answers. He tries Fair Mantle Village. The answering machine is on. Should he leave a message? For whom? Tormented by uncertainty, he sinks into the chair and leans on the desk, clasped hands to mouth.
Matt is waiting. “F.N.?”
“You haven’t thought about this, have you, Matt.”
“What’s there to think? We don’t have time to think. You saw what happened the other night! We need to take back our lives.”
“Will you think, Matt.” The tone is stern. Uncharacteristically. “It doesn’t matter how many of you there are. One howitzer and a few cleverly placed marksman can blast your brains to Kingdom Come.”
“They wouldn’t dare. There are too many of us. We’ve got the press, from here and abroad. Move against us, and the whole world will know.”
“What good can the whole world do for you if you happen to be the one within range?”
Matt has no time to answer. Ben is trotting into view, eager to know what’s keeping everybody.
Effen waves them off. Propelled by a sleepy, nervous stretch, he sinks low in the chair and yawns. “Go on. Good luck. Remember: if you end up in a box, your families will have to find somebody else to do the gift wrapping, because I sure as hell won’t do it. God forgive me, but I’m not big on suicides.”
Matt and Ben nod and go their way. They’re speechless. Francis Hume never speaks like that. It’s scary.
Effen is scared, too. Scared to think Farrell is at Fair Mantle Village. Scared to think what’s going to happen there within the next hour or so. Scared to think he can’t leave Gustie and the girls to go looking for her. Scared to think he’s never before been responsible for so many live people at one time. Scared to think he can’t live up to expectation. Scared to believe he would refuse to try to find Farrell before trouble starts.
The hand on his shoulder is Gustie’s. “Tom didn’t think it was going to be bad. As Matt said, the Guard doesn’t dare harm the people.”
Why take in hand the people fond, vain things to bring about?
Of course.
Effen takes up the phone. Gustie’s mouth drops when she hears him speaking to Father Alph. For a moment the two discuss the events of the morning. Effen asks the priest to be aware that Gustie and the Girls are at The House. He, Effen, has business down county, which means he’s got to leave them alone. He’d appreciate it if Father Alph would take them in if trouble starts. The priest says he will.
Mortified Gustie hounds Effen all the way upstairs. “You’re foisting us off on a priest?”
Effen drags clean clothes from the armoire and flees to the bathroom, loudly locking the door. The sound of the shower doesn’t drown out the pounding on the door.
“Francis! You can’t leave us alone! I won’t allow it!”
He emerges, hair dripping, shirt unbuttoned, jeans unzipped. Gustie is waiting, arms folded across her chest. “Where are you going? Don’t tell me you’re going to pick somebody up because that’s not how you dress when you make a call.”
He mushes his hair with the towel. “I thought you liked Father Alph. He’s a decent sort. Does he let you take Communion, knowing you’re going through a divorce?”
“Separation. It’s a separation!”
“He lets me, when I care to show myself. Like on Christmas, Easter …”
Gustie rolls her eyes. “I cannot believe you’d foist us off on a priest.”
“It’s your pastor, for Christ’s sake! Who knows what’s going to happen out there? Who else can you turn to if you can’t turn to Tom?”
“You’re going to Fair Mantle Village, aren’t you?”
He throws her the towel. His hair is too long to bother with total dryness. “Look, Gust, there’s more than meets the eye here. If I’m lucky, I should be able to talk some sense into some people before this thing gets out of hand.”
“Talk to Tom, you mean.”
Effen growls.
Gustie can’t hide her disgust. “Admit it. You think he’s a jerk. You always have. You’d do anything to humiliate him in public, and now you’ve got the chance. What do you want him to do, admit he’s wrong and call off the assault? Make hundreds of people look like idiots for jumping at his back and call?”
“That’s not what I had in mind, but it’s not a bad idea.”
“Then why are you going?”
“You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
Effen consults the thermometer on the window. Thirty-four? What do you wear when it’s going to rain ordnance? He throws on a dark wool sweater, a blazer on top of that; the overcoat on top of that. Better the overcoat than the jacket. More coverage in the cold, especially if he’s got to stand around arguing.
“Francis. Why. Are. You Going."
He settles for telling her the near-truth: “To save some people from themselves.” Heading for tne stairs, he reminds her to call Father Alph if there’s an emergency.
Gustie and the girls watch in dismay as the little Cab puffs out of the driveway, turns south and chugs along the lane opposite the cortege.
Chapter 22
More than four hundred people were arrested and charged with disorderly persons offenses. By midnight, word of the disturbance and the closing of the town reached major media in New York. Come dawn, Fair Mantle must contend with more than an unwelcome neighbor to the north. Print and broadcast journalists are camped around Borough Hall. Satellite trucks are everywhere as competitors jockey for interesting spots. Broadcast journalists interview officials, merchants, residents, children.
Meanwhile, the local papers tout screamers about the hearing, the riotous aftermath, and, of course, the volcano, which has no official name until an appellation circulates: Mount Can’t. Nobody knows where the name comes from, not even the journalists. But everyone agrees it was founded on an expert’s statement that a volcano can’t form where it’s forming.
Eventually the satellite trucks move out to Fair Mantle State Park. Any hope of catching Mount Can’t on film is quashed by the presence of the National Guard. So the news teams shoot the Guard (so to speak) and take closeups of the damage at Fair Mantle Village. Bruton, who didn’t get the chance to speak at the public meeting, grants on-site interviews with the coarse-throated, stuff-chest aplomb of a vindicated mob boss.
By mid-week, word of Mount Can’t has spread overseas. Volcanologists from Europe and Japan fly in to inspect the site bur are turned away by the Guard. Petitioning the state through their consulates in New York has no effect. The state has the right to keep people out of the area for safety reasons. An appeal to the federal government brings a similar response. The scientists will have to do what other mere mortals must do: sit and wait. The state’s experts will gladly share any information gleaned from the site.
It’s not long before a cable news network tries to fly over the park in a light plane. The plane is chased and forced down; the pilot and news crew, arrested for violating the no-fly zone. Fearing copy-cats, the governor reinforces trooper-piloted choppers with Air National Guard fighter jets.
Despite the publicity, despite offers of help from scientists around the world, Trenton insists on literally keeping the lid on Mount Can’t. Locked under that lid, the residents, like the contents of any tightly lidded, boiling pot, begin to bubble and brew in their own juices. The boil starts slowly, with slim strands of beads rising to the top. There are those who believe in the volcano and there are those who do not. Those who do, look to the sky and wait for the earth to shake. Feeling and seeing nothing, they assume a volcano in their yard can’t be such an awful thing after all. They take the mayor’s advice; decide against leaving town. They’ll wait and see what happens.
Those who don’t believe in the volcano try to get on with their lives.
Both sides, believer and non-believer, share common ground: Mount Can’t. Either they want to see it to believe it, or they want not to see it to believe it doesn’t exist. Either way, the only way they’ll be satisfied is by going into the park and seeing the site for themselves.
One person alone can rally the believers and non-believers into a viable force: Tom Von Aldo.
Tom’s creed is “Safety in numbers.” The more people involved in a cause, the greater the chance for success. He’s been marshaling the sides into an impregnable unit ever since his performance at the meeting. As soon as he escaped to Effen’s house, he was on the phone calling sympathetic ranges and friends. The next day he located protesters who had been arrested at Borough Hall. Word of his search got around. Before he knew it, people were calling himat the home he shares with Gustie, or just appearing at the door.
Now, a week after the meeting, there are so many strangers coming and going that Gustie is afraid to leave the house. Tom urges her not to hang around. If the powers that be find out what he’s doing, they’ll raid the premises. Gustie will be arrested as an accomplice.
Gustie goes to work, but her mind stays home. While writing up the obituaries, she turns sons into daughters and survivors into the deceased. Effent doesn’t want to embarrass her. He tactfully corrects her by making light of the errors, and he discreetly intercepts her notices before they’re faxed to the papers.
Well before dawn on Sunday, Effen wakes to the whispered sound of his Christian name. The room is dark. Having absolutely no reason in the world to suspect he’s not alone, he considers the sound was the product of the half-dream state that precedes full consciousness. He bunches the pillows and nestles his head in the soft flannel.
This time his name has a question mark after it. Something solid nudges his shoulder.
The voice belongs to a woman. Any sense of recognition is dwarfed in the knowledge that someone has sneaked into his home. Heart racing, he lets out a cry and throws himself on the lamp. In the dark, he miscalculates the distance. The lamp topples. The person beside him catches it and turns it on.
“I was trying not to scare you,” says Gustie, standing the lamp on the table.
Effen peers at his watch, Four o’clock. Lovely. He can hardly think. “What’s the matter?”
Tom appears beside Gustie. “Sorry, France, I couldn’t take the chance of calling. I was wondering if you’d look after everyone this morning At least this morning,” he adds quickly. “The girls shouldn’t be at the house.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you. Not that I don’t trust you. I don’t want to place you in a position where you’ll have to perjure yourself down the road.”
Tom goes, but not before instructing the girls to “be good.”
Effen asks Gustie how she got in. She holds up the key she gave him for the business. “We were going to wait downstairs, but I wondered if a little knock on the parlor door would wake you up. I tried the latch. It wasn’t locked. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Effen doesn’t know what to say. He’s not thrilled with the prep-dawn invasion, but he shouldn’t be mad at Gustie. Clearly, Tom’s got something up his sleeve. It’s decent of him not to implicate Gustie and the girls, but did he have to wait until the dead of night to give birth to the project?
Effen asks Gustie to give him a few minutes to make himself human.
“No, that’s all right. The girls had a rude awakening, too. I’ll make sure they’re nice and quiet.” She turns out the light.
Effen re-snuggles the pillows. “Have breakfast?” he asks through the flannel.
“We brought doughnuts. Tom stopped at one of those all-nighters near the police station.”
“Well, help yourself to whatever’s in the refrigerator.”
“Thanks. We brought milk and coffee, too.”
There’s silence, but Effen hasn't heard Gustie leave. “Something else I should know?”
He hears the swallow. “It’s just that every time something’s wrong …” he imagines her gesturing to the darkness, frustrated by her inability to express herself. “I guess what I want to say is, thanks for helping, France. You’re a real prince.”
He almost says, “So was Lucifer,” but it seems awfully negative. He wants to pretend he didn’t hear. That won’t do, either. She’ll think he doesn’t want to talk to her. “F’rget it, Gust. See you later.”
“Yeah,” she whispers, and closes the door on the way out.
Meanwhile, the local papers tout screamers about the hearing, the riotous aftermath, and, of course, the volcano, which has no official name until an appellation circulates: Mount Can’t. Nobody knows where the name comes from, not even the journalists. But everyone agrees it was founded on an expert’s statement that a volcano can’t form where it’s forming.
Eventually the satellite trucks move out to Fair Mantle State Park. Any hope of catching Mount Can’t on film is quashed by the presence of the National Guard. So the news teams shoot the Guard (so to speak) and take closeups of the damage at Fair Mantle Village. Bruton, who didn’t get the chance to speak at the public meeting, grants on-site interviews with the coarse-throated, stuff-chest aplomb of a vindicated mob boss.
By mid-week, word of Mount Can’t has spread overseas. Volcanologists from Europe and Japan fly in to inspect the site bur are turned away by the Guard. Petitioning the state through their consulates in New York has no effect. The state has the right to keep people out of the area for safety reasons. An appeal to the federal government brings a similar response. The scientists will have to do what other mere mortals must do: sit and wait. The state’s experts will gladly share any information gleaned from the site.
It’s not long before a cable news network tries to fly over the park in a light plane. The plane is chased and forced down; the pilot and news crew, arrested for violating the no-fly zone. Fearing copy-cats, the governor reinforces trooper-piloted choppers with Air National Guard fighter jets.
Despite the publicity, despite offers of help from scientists around the world, Trenton insists on literally keeping the lid on Mount Can’t. Locked under that lid, the residents, like the contents of any tightly lidded, boiling pot, begin to bubble and brew in their own juices. The boil starts slowly, with slim strands of beads rising to the top. There are those who believe in the volcano and there are those who do not. Those who do, look to the sky and wait for the earth to shake. Feeling and seeing nothing, they assume a volcano in their yard can’t be such an awful thing after all. They take the mayor’s advice; decide against leaving town. They’ll wait and see what happens.
Those who don’t believe in the volcano try to get on with their lives.
Both sides, believer and non-believer, share common ground: Mount Can’t. Either they want to see it to believe it, or they want not to see it to believe it doesn’t exist. Either way, the only way they’ll be satisfied is by going into the park and seeing the site for themselves.
One person alone can rally the believers and non-believers into a viable force: Tom Von Aldo.
Tom’s creed is “Safety in numbers.” The more people involved in a cause, the greater the chance for success. He’s been marshaling the sides into an impregnable unit ever since his performance at the meeting. As soon as he escaped to Effen’s house, he was on the phone calling sympathetic ranges and friends. The next day he located protesters who had been arrested at Borough Hall. Word of his search got around. Before he knew it, people were calling himat the home he shares with Gustie, or just appearing at the door.
Now, a week after the meeting, there are so many strangers coming and going that Gustie is afraid to leave the house. Tom urges her not to hang around. If the powers that be find out what he’s doing, they’ll raid the premises. Gustie will be arrested as an accomplice.
Gustie goes to work, but her mind stays home. While writing up the obituaries, she turns sons into daughters and survivors into the deceased. Effent doesn’t want to embarrass her. He tactfully corrects her by making light of the errors, and he discreetly intercepts her notices before they’re faxed to the papers.
Well before dawn on Sunday, Effen wakes to the whispered sound of his Christian name. The room is dark. Having absolutely no reason in the world to suspect he’s not alone, he considers the sound was the product of the half-dream state that precedes full consciousness. He bunches the pillows and nestles his head in the soft flannel.
This time his name has a question mark after it. Something solid nudges his shoulder.
The voice belongs to a woman. Any sense of recognition is dwarfed in the knowledge that someone has sneaked into his home. Heart racing, he lets out a cry and throws himself on the lamp. In the dark, he miscalculates the distance. The lamp topples. The person beside him catches it and turns it on.
“I was trying not to scare you,” says Gustie, standing the lamp on the table.
Effen peers at his watch, Four o’clock. Lovely. He can hardly think. “What’s the matter?”
Tom appears beside Gustie. “Sorry, France, I couldn’t take the chance of calling. I was wondering if you’d look after everyone this morning At least this morning,” he adds quickly. “The girls shouldn’t be at the house.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you. Not that I don’t trust you. I don’t want to place you in a position where you’ll have to perjure yourself down the road.”
Tom goes, but not before instructing the girls to “be good.”
Effen asks Gustie how she got in. She holds up the key she gave him for the business. “We were going to wait downstairs, but I wondered if a little knock on the parlor door would wake you up. I tried the latch. It wasn’t locked. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Effen doesn’t know what to say. He’s not thrilled with the prep-dawn invasion, but he shouldn’t be mad at Gustie. Clearly, Tom’s got something up his sleeve. It’s decent of him not to implicate Gustie and the girls, but did he have to wait until the dead of night to give birth to the project?
Effen asks Gustie to give him a few minutes to make himself human.
“No, that’s all right. The girls had a rude awakening, too. I’ll make sure they’re nice and quiet.” She turns out the light.
Effen re-snuggles the pillows. “Have breakfast?” he asks through the flannel.
“We brought doughnuts. Tom stopped at one of those all-nighters near the police station.”
“Well, help yourself to whatever’s in the refrigerator.”
“Thanks. We brought milk and coffee, too.”
There’s silence, but Effen hasn't heard Gustie leave. “Something else I should know?”
He hears the swallow. “It’s just that every time something’s wrong …” he imagines her gesturing to the darkness, frustrated by her inability to express herself. “I guess what I want to say is, thanks for helping, France. You’re a real prince.”
He almost says, “So was Lucifer,” but it seems awfully negative. He wants to pretend he didn’t hear. That won’t do, either. She’ll think he doesn’t want to talk to her. “F’rget it, Gust. See you later.”
“Yeah,” she whispers, and closes the door on the way out.
Chapter 21
Tom is on his own. None of the experts Farrell contacted are there. Either they couldn’t fit the meeting into their schedule, or they were dissuaded by reports of the poorly plowed roads.
“As I was saying, you bet your backsides there are people here who don’t buy your story about a volcano growing in the woods. I’ll tell you something: That’s just what it is, a story. A tall tale. A lie. You know how I know? I was up there. I didn’t see a goddamm thing, except some little holes in the ground and a lot of National Guardsmen put there to keep people out of the area.”
One of the state officials leans across the table, slides the microphone out of the mayor’s hands before the mayor can speak. “Mr. Von Aldo—“ He’s too close to the mic. Consonants explode with breathy booms. An ear-piercing whine fills the hall. “Too close!” somebody yells from the bleachers.
The official lowers the mic. “Mr. Von Aldo, that unit is there to prevent curiosity seekers from falling into harm. That’s what this hearing is all about. We need to instruct the public for their own safety.”
“All you’re doing is scaring them. Needlessly. It’s no different than mentally and emotionally abusing them.”
“And why would we want to do that?”
Tom turns to the audience. “How many here are homeowners? Raise your hand.”
Nearly every arm in the room shoots up.
“How many of you have had damage from the Concordes flying over?”
Now more than arms are raised. People are on their feet, shouting about structural damage and insurance estimates.
Tom lets them settle down. “I’ll tell you something. Most of you know me. I’ve been the superintendent of Fair Mantle State Park for the past five years. Out at Fair Mantle Village, we’ve had damage estimated close to three million dollars. And you know what? These folks sitting on the stage tonight – the same people who want you to believe they care about you – haven’t done a thing to repair those buildings. Nor have they offered to pay or help pay for repairs. You know why? Anybody want to guess?”
Answers fly. Most prominent: “There’s no money in the budget.”
“Nope! The money’s there. I’ve seen it. The chairman of the board has seen it. The parks director has seen it. The money is there because the state can’t park with it. There’s no reason to part with it. The Concordes aren’t causing the trouble. The volcano is.
“Now, in the midst of all that scientific junk they were feeding you earlier, did you take a moment to stop and really understand what they’re talking about: a volcano growing in New Jersey? New Jersey, the industrial wasteland of the East Coast?”
Tom pauses. Heads turn as neighbor consults neighbor. The drone of low voices is punctuated by an occasional louder voice.
“Yeah, sounds bizarre, doesn’t it?” Tom continued. “Does it scare you? Does it make you want to pack up everything and run off right this minute?”
“Hell, yes!” a woman yells.
“And I’ll tell you something.” Tom looks first to the people nearest him on the left, sweeps past the center to the people on the right, then finally looks to the center. “I’ll tell you something. That is exactly what the men sitting up on that stage want you to believe. They want you to be scared. They want you to forget all about the business with the Concordes.
“You know why? They’re not going to admit the state gave the Concordes permission to fly over. They’re not going to admit the state is liable for damages. Say it’s liable, and the state will be hauled into court in God knows how big a class action suit.
“But say there’s a volcano growing in your yard, it’s the volcano doing the damage? The state doesn’t have to worry about damages. Because, you see, in the long run, the volcano will be a natural disaster. And where does most of the money for natural disasters come from? The federal government. Am I right?”
Tom doesn’t need to ask. The audience explodes, stomping on the floor, stomping on the bleachers, beating their fists in the air and shouting accusations at the officials, who flee the stage behind a line of police and state troopers. Some of the more inflamed members of the audience grapple with police in an attempt to go after the officials. Women scream. Young people charge out of the hall and run in all directions.
Farrell swears she hears glass breaking. What’s being thrown, rocks? Bottles? Cans of soda easily purchased from vending machines in the firehouse?
On the street, police summoned from neighboring towns file out of vans, geared with helmets, clubs and riot control shields. A phalanx six abreast and three deep advances toward Borough Hall, visors lowered, shields raised, chanting in unison: “Get off the street, there’s nothing to see.”
“Freedom of assembly is a constitutional right!” somebody hollers. An officer twirls him by the arm to the officer directly behind. The citizen is thrown against the side of the van, searched, braceleted with plastic handcuffs and put in the van
“Go home, there’s nothing to see,” a single, local officer tells witnesses.
People are being dragged out of Borough Hall by any part of the body the police can grip. Nearly all are passed to other officers who search them, ‘cuff them and put them in the van. More vans have pulled up. Distant sirens grow louder. Word is that that police won’t let anyone in or out of town.
Farrell and Effen skirt the emergency vehicles on Maon Street and watch the fray from the recessed doorway of a closed drugstore.
“’Why fum’th in fight,” Farrell mutters.
Effen begs her pardon.
“The anthem Thomas Tallis wrote for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter. The tune Ralph Vaughn Williams picked up for that wonderful Fantasia: ‘Why fum’th in fight the Gentiles spite, in fury raging stout? Why tak’th in hand the people fond, vain things to bring about?’ What vain things are being brought here, F.N.?”
A local officer emerges with a sapling of a girl in tow. Clearly, the girl is sobbing and terrified. Clearly, she is being brought toward a van.
Clearly, she is … Anne.
Effen races off the curb. A watchful patrolman nabs him by the collar. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Effen points, “They can’t arrest a child!”
“Says who?”
“I do.”
“Who are you?”
Farrell can see Effen’s mind spin. “Her father.”
“Really. What’s her name.”
“Anne MacKenzie. Hume.”
Gasp. His luck if the cop asks for proof.
“How old is she?”
“Only thirteen.”
“You have I.D.?”
Effen hands over his wallet. “Please, officer. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She didn’t have permission to be out.”
“Yeah, well, these days, you’d be surprised at what juveniles do. They think they can get away with anything ‘cause they can’t be tried and sentenced like adults.”
The patrolman relates the matter to a curious lieutenant, who in turn has a sergeant cull Anne from the detainees and release her to her parent. She throws her arms around Effen, sobbing with body-shaking, throat-wracking gulps that make Farrell fear she's going to hurt herself.
The lieutenant instructs them to go home and stay inside.
Along the way, Anne admits she sneaked out of the house while her mom was in the shower. She didn’t see anything wrong about going to the hearing. “Tom knew I wanted to go. He thought I’d be all right. All I had to do was stay close to him. I didn’t know people wer going to go crazy or anything.”
“Do you know where Tom went?” Effen asks.
Anne shakes her head.
Farrell says they’ll probably find out on the late news. Details will be thrashed out in tomorrow’s newspapers.
When they reach Anne’s home, Mary is bawling on the couch. Though tears stain Gustie’s face, distress doesn’t stop her from angrily promising Anne she’ll be grounded until the middle of the next century. “What were you trying to do to me? I’m on the phone with the police right now, trying to get them to help me find you.”
“But I told you I wanted to go with Tom,” Anne whines through her tears.
“And what did I tell you? I told you no, didn’t I?”
Anne runs to her room and slams the door. Wild Gustie pursues. “Young lady, I told you never to slam the door in this house!”
Effen takes the phone, which has been left to hang down the kitchen wall, and assures the officer on the other end that Anne is home and safe.
Farrell can hear the girl's sobs through the door. She remembers all the times she and her own mom tussled. A funny thing: she could never remember what the fights were about. The lump in her throat’s too hard to swallow. She rubs tears from her eyes, hoping Effen doesn’t see.
He’s trying to take the sting out of the situation by tickling Mary, but she’s not in the mood for laughing. He appears hurt. “Hey, I should be the luckiest man alive. Here I am, surrounded by women, but they’re all crying. What gives?”
“Sorry for all the turmoil.” Gustie’s voice sags. She doesn’t ask about the hearing. Nor do Farrell and Effen volunteer information. She’ll hear everything from Tom, whenever he returns.
Walking to Bruton’s house isn’t easy. Police in riot gear patrol the sidestreets, ordering everyone they see to go indoors. Effen and Farrell are repeatedly stopped, asked for identification, and warned to go home and stay home.
Along Main Street, police close restaurants on startled patrons and workers. The mayor has declared a state of emergency. The town is closing down. There’s a curfew until six the following morning.
Is the action understandable? There’s no sign of disturbance. Storefronts are undamaged. There are no rioters in the streets.
Farrell suggests Effen return to The House. She should have no trouble walking the rest of the way alone. “Besides, you’ve done your good deed for the night.”
Effen is puzzled.
“Rescuing Anne,” Farrell explains. “You know, F.N., I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous of her.”
“I’d have done the same for you.”
“You’d have told the police you’re my father? Yeah, sure. G’night, Dad.” He's too surprised as Farrell bestows what strikes him as a quick but embarrassed kiss on the cheek and hurries away. He's sorry she has no idea how deeply he'd prefer a more substantial parting.
Back at The House, he finds Tom Von Aldo in the kitchen, scribbling notes on a legal pad, a bottle of Coke at his elbow. “Man, I can’t thank you enough for giving me sanctuary, France.”
Effen scowls. “You left Anne.”
“No, I didn’t. She left the hearing.”
Effen tells otherwise.
Tom whistles low. “Geez, it’s a good thing you were there.”
Effen places his hand on the page to stop Tom from writing. His eyes burn with intent. “So help me God, Tom, if you ever again put that girl in danger, you’ll have to answer to me. And then God help you, because I can’t promise you’ll walk away in one piece.”
Tom has the tentative grin of a person who isn’t certain if someone is joking or serious.
Effen propagates the serious by advising him to go home to Gustie and the girls. Now. “Go back now, and you’ll have less explaining to do than if you wait until morning.”
Tom rips off the paper, folds it sloppily and rams it down his back pocket. “I didn’t know about Anne. I honestly didn’t know.”
Effen says nothing. Tom leaves.
For a long time Effen sits at the table, dwelling on the hearing, the disturbance, Annie being led to the detention van. He remembers Farrell invoking Tallis. “’Why tak’th in hand the people fond, vain things to bring about?’”
He couldn’t tell her while they were in the middle of things, but now he thinks he knows.
It is nothing more than the need of a small group of people to impose their will on others. It doesn’t matter why. It doesn’t matter if the reason is right or wrong. Call it vanity, call it ambition, call it an exercise in politics. “It” is being done, and the doers don’t care what havoc and harm they wreak on everybody else.
“As I was saying, you bet your backsides there are people here who don’t buy your story about a volcano growing in the woods. I’ll tell you something: That’s just what it is, a story. A tall tale. A lie. You know how I know? I was up there. I didn’t see a goddamm thing, except some little holes in the ground and a lot of National Guardsmen put there to keep people out of the area.”
One of the state officials leans across the table, slides the microphone out of the mayor’s hands before the mayor can speak. “Mr. Von Aldo—“ He’s too close to the mic. Consonants explode with breathy booms. An ear-piercing whine fills the hall. “Too close!” somebody yells from the bleachers.
The official lowers the mic. “Mr. Von Aldo, that unit is there to prevent curiosity seekers from falling into harm. That’s what this hearing is all about. We need to instruct the public for their own safety.”
“All you’re doing is scaring them. Needlessly. It’s no different than mentally and emotionally abusing them.”
“And why would we want to do that?”
Tom turns to the audience. “How many here are homeowners? Raise your hand.”
Nearly every arm in the room shoots up.
“How many of you have had damage from the Concordes flying over?”
Now more than arms are raised. People are on their feet, shouting about structural damage and insurance estimates.
Tom lets them settle down. “I’ll tell you something. Most of you know me. I’ve been the superintendent of Fair Mantle State Park for the past five years. Out at Fair Mantle Village, we’ve had damage estimated close to three million dollars. And you know what? These folks sitting on the stage tonight – the same people who want you to believe they care about you – haven’t done a thing to repair those buildings. Nor have they offered to pay or help pay for repairs. You know why? Anybody want to guess?”
Answers fly. Most prominent: “There’s no money in the budget.”
“Nope! The money’s there. I’ve seen it. The chairman of the board has seen it. The parks director has seen it. The money is there because the state can’t park with it. There’s no reason to part with it. The Concordes aren’t causing the trouble. The volcano is.
“Now, in the midst of all that scientific junk they were feeding you earlier, did you take a moment to stop and really understand what they’re talking about: a volcano growing in New Jersey? New Jersey, the industrial wasteland of the East Coast?”
Tom pauses. Heads turn as neighbor consults neighbor. The drone of low voices is punctuated by an occasional louder voice.
“Yeah, sounds bizarre, doesn’t it?” Tom continued. “Does it scare you? Does it make you want to pack up everything and run off right this minute?”
“Hell, yes!” a woman yells.
“And I’ll tell you something.” Tom looks first to the people nearest him on the left, sweeps past the center to the people on the right, then finally looks to the center. “I’ll tell you something. That is exactly what the men sitting up on that stage want you to believe. They want you to be scared. They want you to forget all about the business with the Concordes.
“You know why? They’re not going to admit the state gave the Concordes permission to fly over. They’re not going to admit the state is liable for damages. Say it’s liable, and the state will be hauled into court in God knows how big a class action suit.
“But say there’s a volcano growing in your yard, it’s the volcano doing the damage? The state doesn’t have to worry about damages. Because, you see, in the long run, the volcano will be a natural disaster. And where does most of the money for natural disasters come from? The federal government. Am I right?”
Tom doesn’t need to ask. The audience explodes, stomping on the floor, stomping on the bleachers, beating their fists in the air and shouting accusations at the officials, who flee the stage behind a line of police and state troopers. Some of the more inflamed members of the audience grapple with police in an attempt to go after the officials. Women scream. Young people charge out of the hall and run in all directions.
Farrell swears she hears glass breaking. What’s being thrown, rocks? Bottles? Cans of soda easily purchased from vending machines in the firehouse?
On the street, police summoned from neighboring towns file out of vans, geared with helmets, clubs and riot control shields. A phalanx six abreast and three deep advances toward Borough Hall, visors lowered, shields raised, chanting in unison: “Get off the street, there’s nothing to see.”
“Freedom of assembly is a constitutional right!” somebody hollers. An officer twirls him by the arm to the officer directly behind. The citizen is thrown against the side of the van, searched, braceleted with plastic handcuffs and put in the van
“Go home, there’s nothing to see,” a single, local officer tells witnesses.
People are being dragged out of Borough Hall by any part of the body the police can grip. Nearly all are passed to other officers who search them, ‘cuff them and put them in the van. More vans have pulled up. Distant sirens grow louder. Word is that that police won’t let anyone in or out of town.
Farrell and Effen skirt the emergency vehicles on Maon Street and watch the fray from the recessed doorway of a closed drugstore.
“’Why fum’th in fight,” Farrell mutters.
Effen begs her pardon.
“The anthem Thomas Tallis wrote for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter. The tune Ralph Vaughn Williams picked up for that wonderful Fantasia: ‘Why fum’th in fight the Gentiles spite, in fury raging stout? Why tak’th in hand the people fond, vain things to bring about?’ What vain things are being brought here, F.N.?”
A local officer emerges with a sapling of a girl in tow. Clearly, the girl is sobbing and terrified. Clearly, she is being brought toward a van.
Clearly, she is … Anne.
Effen races off the curb. A watchful patrolman nabs him by the collar. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Effen points, “They can’t arrest a child!”
“Says who?”
“I do.”
“Who are you?”
Farrell can see Effen’s mind spin. “Her father.”
“Really. What’s her name.”
“Anne MacKenzie. Hume.”
Gasp. His luck if the cop asks for proof.
“How old is she?”
“Only thirteen.”
“You have I.D.?”
Effen hands over his wallet. “Please, officer. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She didn’t have permission to be out.”
“Yeah, well, these days, you’d be surprised at what juveniles do. They think they can get away with anything ‘cause they can’t be tried and sentenced like adults.”
The patrolman relates the matter to a curious lieutenant, who in turn has a sergeant cull Anne from the detainees and release her to her parent. She throws her arms around Effen, sobbing with body-shaking, throat-wracking gulps that make Farrell fear she's going to hurt herself.
The lieutenant instructs them to go home and stay inside.
Along the way, Anne admits she sneaked out of the house while her mom was in the shower. She didn’t see anything wrong about going to the hearing. “Tom knew I wanted to go. He thought I’d be all right. All I had to do was stay close to him. I didn’t know people wer going to go crazy or anything.”
“Do you know where Tom went?” Effen asks.
Anne shakes her head.
Farrell says they’ll probably find out on the late news. Details will be thrashed out in tomorrow’s newspapers.
When they reach Anne’s home, Mary is bawling on the couch. Though tears stain Gustie’s face, distress doesn’t stop her from angrily promising Anne she’ll be grounded until the middle of the next century. “What were you trying to do to me? I’m on the phone with the police right now, trying to get them to help me find you.”
“But I told you I wanted to go with Tom,” Anne whines through her tears.
“And what did I tell you? I told you no, didn’t I?”
Anne runs to her room and slams the door. Wild Gustie pursues. “Young lady, I told you never to slam the door in this house!”
Effen takes the phone, which has been left to hang down the kitchen wall, and assures the officer on the other end that Anne is home and safe.
Farrell can hear the girl's sobs through the door. She remembers all the times she and her own mom tussled. A funny thing: she could never remember what the fights were about. The lump in her throat’s too hard to swallow. She rubs tears from her eyes, hoping Effen doesn’t see.
He’s trying to take the sting out of the situation by tickling Mary, but she’s not in the mood for laughing. He appears hurt. “Hey, I should be the luckiest man alive. Here I am, surrounded by women, but they’re all crying. What gives?”
“Sorry for all the turmoil.” Gustie’s voice sags. She doesn’t ask about the hearing. Nor do Farrell and Effen volunteer information. She’ll hear everything from Tom, whenever he returns.
Walking to Bruton’s house isn’t easy. Police in riot gear patrol the sidestreets, ordering everyone they see to go indoors. Effen and Farrell are repeatedly stopped, asked for identification, and warned to go home and stay home.
Along Main Street, police close restaurants on startled patrons and workers. The mayor has declared a state of emergency. The town is closing down. There’s a curfew until six the following morning.
Is the action understandable? There’s no sign of disturbance. Storefronts are undamaged. There are no rioters in the streets.
Farrell suggests Effen return to The House. She should have no trouble walking the rest of the way alone. “Besides, you’ve done your good deed for the night.”
Effen is puzzled.
“Rescuing Anne,” Farrell explains. “You know, F.N., I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous of her.”
“I’d have done the same for you.”
“You’d have told the police you’re my father? Yeah, sure. G’night, Dad.” He's too surprised as Farrell bestows what strikes him as a quick but embarrassed kiss on the cheek and hurries away. He's sorry she has no idea how deeply he'd prefer a more substantial parting.
Back at The House, he finds Tom Von Aldo in the kitchen, scribbling notes on a legal pad, a bottle of Coke at his elbow. “Man, I can’t thank you enough for giving me sanctuary, France.”
Effen scowls. “You left Anne.”
“No, I didn’t. She left the hearing.”
Effen tells otherwise.
Tom whistles low. “Geez, it’s a good thing you were there.”
Effen places his hand on the page to stop Tom from writing. His eyes burn with intent. “So help me God, Tom, if you ever again put that girl in danger, you’ll have to answer to me. And then God help you, because I can’t promise you’ll walk away in one piece.”
Tom has the tentative grin of a person who isn’t certain if someone is joking or serious.
Effen propagates the serious by advising him to go home to Gustie and the girls. Now. “Go back now, and you’ll have less explaining to do than if you wait until morning.”
Tom rips off the paper, folds it sloppily and rams it down his back pocket. “I didn’t know about Anne. I honestly didn’t know.”
Effen says nothing. Tom leaves.
For a long time Effen sits at the table, dwelling on the hearing, the disturbance, Annie being led to the detention van. He remembers Farrell invoking Tallis. “’Why tak’th in hand the people fond, vain things to bring about?’”
He couldn’t tell her while they were in the middle of things, but now he thinks he knows.
It is nothing more than the need of a small group of people to impose their will on others. It doesn’t matter why. It doesn’t matter if the reason is right or wrong. Call it vanity, call it ambition, call it an exercise in politics. “It” is being done, and the doers don’t care what havoc and harm they wreak on everybody else.
Chapter 20
As stated in the local newspapers, the hearing is going to focus on “seismic activity” recorded in Fair Mantle State Park.
Gustie, the first to see the story, holds the paper open. “Seismic activity? Did anybody tell these people this is New Jersey, not New Guinea?”
Effen, Matt and Ben drop what they’re doing and read over her shoulder.
Ben presumes a new fault has been discovered. “The state has plenty of faults. The closest I know of is the Ramapo fault, not far from the border with New York state.” Matt and Effen mutter agreement.”
“How can you guys be so calm about this?” Gustie mews. Everyone knows she’s so afraid of earthquakes, she won’t visit her cousin in California.
Effen doesn’t understand her fear, but he doesn’t want to make her feel ridiculous. “The earth is full of faults. It’s not solid rock; it’s made of layers of different kinds of rock over a molten core. The layers are in sections called plates. The plates aren’t stationery; they move over the core and the semi-molten layer that’s over the core. They move into each other, putting pressure on each other. When the pressure becomes too great, one layer gives, usually slipping beneath the other. Depending on the solidity of the rock and soil sitting on top of the layer, the earth will shake, roll or jolt. It’s no different than what happens when a person comes under pressure. Something’s got to give.”
Gustie rams the paper into Effen’s front. “Take it! I don’t like it. I for one am staying away from that meeting.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t feel better if you learned what’s out there?”
“I don’t want any part of it.”
“That’s all right, we’ll tell you everything,” Ben teases.
“I don’t want to know!”
Ben dodges the pen. Effen calls a halt to the hostilities. He himself wants to go to the hearing, but Bruton has told him to stay away. His eviction from the farm was going to be invoked. Someone was sure to recognize him. He would be besieged by the press.
But that’s the problem, Effen argued. The press would seek him out where they knew they could find him, at the business. He didn’t want The House overrun by journalists. He couldn’t allow his staff or his clients to be subjected to publicity. Better to go and face whatever he had coming to him.
Fair Mantle Borough Hall is a small brick building with room enough for administrative offices and the police department. It has no formal meeting room. Court is held in the gym. Borough Council meets in the gym.
The gym is now the site of the public hearing. As they’ll say in the papers, an overflow crowd turned out to hear what Tom’s superiors from Trenton had to say.
The wooden bleachers on the inner wall groan beneath the weight of those who came too late for a seat on one of the folding metal chairs on the basketball court. Those who don’t sit or stand, sit in the aisles. The police are powerless to clear the aisles. The chief lets everybody stay where they are. With the fire code so soundly violated, the volunteer fire company is put on notice. Some of the volunteers leave the meeting for the firehouse, which is next door. Some stay.
Eight men, most in casual winter wear, occupy folding metal chairs around the rickety folding table on the small stage. One is the mayor; three are the members of the borough’s council. The rest are from Trenton.
The mayor, a balding, retired schoolteacher with a distinctive lisp, whacks the gavel on the table. The crowd settles into silence. The special meeting of Borough Council opens as the regular meetings open, with a reading of the state’s Open Public Meetings Act and the Pledge of Allegiance. The mayor thanks everyone for venturing out on streets still packed with snow. He mentions the purpose of the meeting and introduces the officials at the table. He adds: Before we begin, I want you to remember that not everybody agrees with these findings. We’re going to schedule another hearing for several experts who couldn’t make it tonight.” He uses the measured tone of public officials who know what they’re about to say can create mass panic.
Farrell is at the door, which has been left open to let fresh air circulate through the stuffy gym. She doesn’t like crowds any more, not since she lived in New York. She was at the Metropolitan Opera House when religious activists protested a Russian dance troupe by popping a tear gas canister down the center aisle. She was in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine when a bomb scare interrupted a poetry reading by one of the old Soviet Union’s foremost writers. Both experiences taught her it takes a long, long time for a crowd to move through doorways.
All borough police have been called in for duty. State troopers are there, too. Not all are in uniform. Farrell recognizes the two who took the horselets from the farm. She assumes the National Guard has been alerted. The state wouldn’t take chances. Nobody wants to guess how Fair Mantle’s people will take the news.
So far, so good. The state people show graphs and drawings and aerial photographs, all the while spouting scientific data. The citizens lean forward in their chairs or on the bleachers, fists to chin or stretching to see through heads and shoulders.
It’s the weirdest audience Farrell’s ever seen at a public meeting. It’s too quiet. The faces are expressionless. People don’t whisper or sniggle to each other, or mutter under their breath.
Farrell walks back and forth along the snowy walk, bunching her gloved hands to keep them warm. She doesn’t want to go back in; she doesn’t want to stay out. So she walks and beats one fist against the other, or stamps her feet. Others join her. Most are men intent on smoking. They don’t speak. They have a distant look in their eyes. Are they trying to listen to what’s being said inside, or are they dazed?
The crowd blocking the door agitates as Effen hatches through. His color is higher than usual. He’s reaching into his overcoat. Together, he and Farrell stroll out of earshot of the others. “Do you believe it?” he asks, trying to pluck a cigarette out of the pack with leather-gloved fingers.
“The question is this: Would they go through all this if something weren’t there?”
“Would they put me off the land if there weren’t?”
They look to the sky. It’s a clear night. Stars are in abundance. The moon is nearly full. The moving, rotating light belongs to a light plane going or coming from the county airport.
Farrell catches the nose-cutting scent of charred paper: Effen is lighting the cigarette. His hands shake. From what? The cold? The content of the hearing? The smoke drifts toward her. She steps away. He lowers his hand. “Sorry.” She wants to tell him he really shouldn’t smoke, but the goings-on inside the gym have made his habit seem small and insignificant.
She listens. The news is taking hold inside. Twitters swell into mutters that leap into gasps that erupt into hundreds of voices shouting questions all at once.
For nearly fifteen minutes, the mayor gavels for order. Everybody at the table on the stage is standing, exhorting the crowd for calm and quiet. The police chief stands on the floor in front of the stage. He holds one hand in the air; the other is wrapped around the two-way radio at his mouth. Officers join him, lining up on either side of him, facing the noisy crowd. Farrell can’t tell if they’re there to protect the people on the stage or to protect audience members from each other.
It takes some doing, but order is restored. Everybody sits, on stage and off.
Frowning deeply, the mayor runs his thumb over the ridges in his car keys. “As I said, there are people out there who don’t agree with what the state has presented here tonight. We’re not saying you have to go along with it. I think, if you’re a reasonable person, you’re going to want to look at it, think about it, and either accept it or not. I urge caution. Don’t throw the kids and Aunt Lucy in the car and take off. Wait to see what happens in the next few days. You have nothing to gain in panic. But you do have everything to lose.”
The last sentence ignites another uproar. The mayor and council members push back their chairs. “Let’s go,” they mouth, and gesture to the state scientists.
Their would-be escape is thwarted by sudden silence. The piercing electronic whine suggests somebody’s grabbed the microphone that’s been set on the floor for the public voice part of the meeting. The speaker removes the mic from the stand: the better, Farrell guesses, to challenge the officials on the stage and to appeal to the ordinary people in the gym.
“You bet your backsides there are people here who don’t agree with what you fed us tonight,” he says.
Farrell doesn’t have to wait for the borough clerk to ask the man to reveal his name for the public record. She knows it’s Tom Von Aldo.
Gustie, the first to see the story, holds the paper open. “Seismic activity? Did anybody tell these people this is New Jersey, not New Guinea?”
Effen, Matt and Ben drop what they’re doing and read over her shoulder.
Ben presumes a new fault has been discovered. “The state has plenty of faults. The closest I know of is the Ramapo fault, not far from the border with New York state.” Matt and Effen mutter agreement.”
“How can you guys be so calm about this?” Gustie mews. Everyone knows she’s so afraid of earthquakes, she won’t visit her cousin in California.
Effen doesn’t understand her fear, but he doesn’t want to make her feel ridiculous. “The earth is full of faults. It’s not solid rock; it’s made of layers of different kinds of rock over a molten core. The layers are in sections called plates. The plates aren’t stationery; they move over the core and the semi-molten layer that’s over the core. They move into each other, putting pressure on each other. When the pressure becomes too great, one layer gives, usually slipping beneath the other. Depending on the solidity of the rock and soil sitting on top of the layer, the earth will shake, roll or jolt. It’s no different than what happens when a person comes under pressure. Something’s got to give.”
Gustie rams the paper into Effen’s front. “Take it! I don’t like it. I for one am staying away from that meeting.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t feel better if you learned what’s out there?”
“I don’t want any part of it.”
“That’s all right, we’ll tell you everything,” Ben teases.
“I don’t want to know!”
Ben dodges the pen. Effen calls a halt to the hostilities. He himself wants to go to the hearing, but Bruton has told him to stay away. His eviction from the farm was going to be invoked. Someone was sure to recognize him. He would be besieged by the press.
But that’s the problem, Effen argued. The press would seek him out where they knew they could find him, at the business. He didn’t want The House overrun by journalists. He couldn’t allow his staff or his clients to be subjected to publicity. Better to go and face whatever he had coming to him.
Fair Mantle Borough Hall is a small brick building with room enough for administrative offices and the police department. It has no formal meeting room. Court is held in the gym. Borough Council meets in the gym.
The gym is now the site of the public hearing. As they’ll say in the papers, an overflow crowd turned out to hear what Tom’s superiors from Trenton had to say.
The wooden bleachers on the inner wall groan beneath the weight of those who came too late for a seat on one of the folding metal chairs on the basketball court. Those who don’t sit or stand, sit in the aisles. The police are powerless to clear the aisles. The chief lets everybody stay where they are. With the fire code so soundly violated, the volunteer fire company is put on notice. Some of the volunteers leave the meeting for the firehouse, which is next door. Some stay.
Eight men, most in casual winter wear, occupy folding metal chairs around the rickety folding table on the small stage. One is the mayor; three are the members of the borough’s council. The rest are from Trenton.
The mayor, a balding, retired schoolteacher with a distinctive lisp, whacks the gavel on the table. The crowd settles into silence. The special meeting of Borough Council opens as the regular meetings open, with a reading of the state’s Open Public Meetings Act and the Pledge of Allegiance. The mayor thanks everyone for venturing out on streets still packed with snow. He mentions the purpose of the meeting and introduces the officials at the table. He adds: Before we begin, I want you to remember that not everybody agrees with these findings. We’re going to schedule another hearing for several experts who couldn’t make it tonight.” He uses the measured tone of public officials who know what they’re about to say can create mass panic.
Farrell is at the door, which has been left open to let fresh air circulate through the stuffy gym. She doesn’t like crowds any more, not since she lived in New York. She was at the Metropolitan Opera House when religious activists protested a Russian dance troupe by popping a tear gas canister down the center aisle. She was in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine when a bomb scare interrupted a poetry reading by one of the old Soviet Union’s foremost writers. Both experiences taught her it takes a long, long time for a crowd to move through doorways.
All borough police have been called in for duty. State troopers are there, too. Not all are in uniform. Farrell recognizes the two who took the horselets from the farm. She assumes the National Guard has been alerted. The state wouldn’t take chances. Nobody wants to guess how Fair Mantle’s people will take the news.
So far, so good. The state people show graphs and drawings and aerial photographs, all the while spouting scientific data. The citizens lean forward in their chairs or on the bleachers, fists to chin or stretching to see through heads and shoulders.
It’s the weirdest audience Farrell’s ever seen at a public meeting. It’s too quiet. The faces are expressionless. People don’t whisper or sniggle to each other, or mutter under their breath.
Farrell walks back and forth along the snowy walk, bunching her gloved hands to keep them warm. She doesn’t want to go back in; she doesn’t want to stay out. So she walks and beats one fist against the other, or stamps her feet. Others join her. Most are men intent on smoking. They don’t speak. They have a distant look in their eyes. Are they trying to listen to what’s being said inside, or are they dazed?
The crowd blocking the door agitates as Effen hatches through. His color is higher than usual. He’s reaching into his overcoat. Together, he and Farrell stroll out of earshot of the others. “Do you believe it?” he asks, trying to pluck a cigarette out of the pack with leather-gloved fingers.
“The question is this: Would they go through all this if something weren’t there?”
“Would they put me off the land if there weren’t?”
They look to the sky. It’s a clear night. Stars are in abundance. The moon is nearly full. The moving, rotating light belongs to a light plane going or coming from the county airport.
Farrell catches the nose-cutting scent of charred paper: Effen is lighting the cigarette. His hands shake. From what? The cold? The content of the hearing? The smoke drifts toward her. She steps away. He lowers his hand. “Sorry.” She wants to tell him he really shouldn’t smoke, but the goings-on inside the gym have made his habit seem small and insignificant.
She listens. The news is taking hold inside. Twitters swell into mutters that leap into gasps that erupt into hundreds of voices shouting questions all at once.
For nearly fifteen minutes, the mayor gavels for order. Everybody at the table on the stage is standing, exhorting the crowd for calm and quiet. The police chief stands on the floor in front of the stage. He holds one hand in the air; the other is wrapped around the two-way radio at his mouth. Officers join him, lining up on either side of him, facing the noisy crowd. Farrell can’t tell if they’re there to protect the people on the stage or to protect audience members from each other.
It takes some doing, but order is restored. Everybody sits, on stage and off.
Frowning deeply, the mayor runs his thumb over the ridges in his car keys. “As I said, there are people out there who don’t agree with what the state has presented here tonight. We’re not saying you have to go along with it. I think, if you’re a reasonable person, you’re going to want to look at it, think about it, and either accept it or not. I urge caution. Don’t throw the kids and Aunt Lucy in the car and take off. Wait to see what happens in the next few days. You have nothing to gain in panic. But you do have everything to lose.”
The last sentence ignites another uproar. The mayor and council members push back their chairs. “Let’s go,” they mouth, and gesture to the state scientists.
Their would-be escape is thwarted by sudden silence. The piercing electronic whine suggests somebody’s grabbed the microphone that’s been set on the floor for the public voice part of the meeting. The speaker removes the mic from the stand: the better, Farrell guesses, to challenge the officials on the stage and to appeal to the ordinary people in the gym.
“You bet your backsides there are people here who don’t agree with what you fed us tonight,” he says.
Farrell doesn’t have to wait for the borough clerk to ask the man to reveal his name for the public record. She knows it’s Tom Von Aldo.
Chapter 19
Farrell approaches The House with a sense of the askew. Bruton doesn’t want anyone to know about the volcano, yet he sees nothing wrong in using Francis Hume’s funeral parlor as a place from where she could gather information without fear that Tom’s superiors are tapping the wires. “Francis has a phone, and he has a fax, but greater than all these, he has respect. He won’t look, and he won’t hang over your shoulder to see what you’re doing. Tell him it’s for Fair Mantle Village publicity. I’ll pay him for use of the machine. In advance.”
Farrell can’t call Effen to ask if she can use the equipment. She’s got to go to him.
She tells him that Bruton’s fax at home is on the blink, and she can’t use the one at his practice because it’s too busy with matters more important than publicity.
She doesn’t like lying to Effen. Not because he might sense she’s not truthful. Because he doesn’t deserve to be deceived.
The Owner appears to not notice the forced crispness of her tone, the stiffness of her smile. He’s delighted to help her but expresses regret that she’ll have to wait for the fax machine. Gustie’s sending notices to the papers. He lets Farrell wait in the second floor study, in the company of tea and cookies and the CD player. Taxidermed birds and a taxidermed raccoon on a small log look down from walls covered in William Morris wallpaper.
From the study, Farrell has a nice view of the street. The snowplows have done their duty. All around, people are shoveling out in teams, piling snow into shoulder-high walls. Some people walk in the road, which is a carpet of packed snow. A man Farrell doesn’t recognize pushes a snowblower into The House’s driveway, which Matt and Ben had given up shoveling. As the snowblower goes into action, she notices action of a different sort: Matt and Ben are building a snowman. On the mortuary’s lawn.
She finds Effen in his office. “Do you know where Matt and Ben are?”
“Matt and Ben?” The question strike Farrell as being propelled by another, unspoken question: What does she want with Matt and Ben? The speaker, however, seems to have grasped her desire to share a joke. “They’re out to lunch. Why?”
“They’re out to lunch, all right.” She leads him to the front door.
Effen’s reaction to the act of artistry reminds Farrell of a scared cat leaping up on all fours, back arched, fur standing on end. He recovers, appeals to Farrell. “You’re in boots. Will you please tell them to dismantle it? I don’t want to yell and call attention to what they’re doing. OhdearGod, here comes Harvey …”
The postman stomps up the steps without holding on to the railing, pendulous bag swaying on his back. He gives Effen a few envelopes and junk mail. “Hey, France, who’s your customer?”
Effen is all innocence. “My customer?”
“Yeah, the guy over there.” Harvey flaps his elbow toward the snowman. “Ha ha, I heard you keep people on ice, but this beats everything.”
The middle-age Gorman sisters from down the street shuffle by, clinging to each other and clutching white wax bags that suggest they’ve been to the bakery. They look up long enough to see what Harvey is bellowing about, and smile as if seeing Our Lord.
Farrell follows Harvey down the steps and relays Effen’s message to the sculptors.
Matt and Ben can’t merely knock the thing over. They remove the sticks that are the arms and the stones that comprise the eyes, nose and mouth and reverently deposit each piece beneath the rhododendrons.
Effen and Farrell watch the dissection from the window in the main parlor. Farrell’s seen EMTs make less fuss over human body parts. “Are they taking the thing down or interring it? Get a priest, why don’t you, so they can give it a proper burial.”
Effen is serene. “I’ve trained them well, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think it’s healthy! Here, this is how they should do it.”
While Matt and Ben continue to fawn over the facial features, Farrell knocks off the head and the midsection, and stomps both into much. The destruction is swift. “This is how I break bones,” she explains in biblical tones.
Matt whistles low. Ben claws out clumps of the remaining section, the base, like a backhoe picking away the ground at a construction site.
Back inside, Farrell lets out an “Oof!” of breathlessness and blows on her hands to warm them. Her chest heaves. Her face it hot pink.
Effen gives her a steaming cup of tea. “Here you go, Giant Killer.”
“Don’t sell me short, F.N.,” she says. “That really is how you bust bones. I wasn’t using only my foot or even my leg. I was putting everything I’ve got into it, beginning from here.” She taps her forehead. “I know how to fight the right way.”
“I didn’t know there was a wrong way.”
“Slugging it out is the wrong way. There’s no strategy. You open yourself to getting the stuffing beat out of you.”
“What is the right way?”
“You go for the sensitive spots. Non, not that one,” Farrell adds as Effen winces. “Eyes, ears, throat, nose . You can do more damage yanking on someone’s ears than punching them in the gut. You get a hold of the ear at the base and pull forward.” She reaches through Effen’s hair. The demonstration is nothing compared to the real thing. Still, it brings tears to Effen’s eyes. He gasps, grabs the offended part.
“Then there’s the use of objects. I can take something as harmless as a saucer and turn it into a lethal weapon just by doing this…” She gently pushes the rim of the saucer into his throat above the collar. “Or a spoon on the bridge of the nose …”
Effen holds up his hand before the domestic utensil reaches its destination. “I get the picture.”
“It’s edges. Edges will save you. And it’s good, too, if you can hit two spots at one time. Edges at one end, a stomp on a foot or a blow to the wincer at the other.”
“A blow to what?”
“The wincer. You know, The needless-to-describe.”
“Ah. Of course.”
Effen pours more tea for her. He doesn’t seem offended, but he’s silent. Farrell has no idea why she let such high spirits run away with her. He must think she’s emotionally defective, if not immature. She clears her throat, sits calmly at the desk.
She’s about to ask Effen about the stuffed animals on the wall, when he says, without any sign of disapproval, “Where in the world did you learn to do that? Did you take a self-defense course?”
“I learned it on the job. A local drug alliance sponsored a self-defense course for women only. I covered the opening session for the paper. By the end of the evening I was breaking inch-thick boards.”
“With your head?”
“With my fist! You don’t believe me.”
“I do believe you! I just can’t get over the terminology. ‘The wincer?’”
“Forget the wincer! Do you have a board I can borrow? How about one of the slats from the sleigh bed?”
“You want to see me sleeping on the floor again? All right, I take your word that you can break things. What’s the secret?”
“Conviction. It sets you up for the follow-through. The bone isn’t the end-all. Just as the ears or the eyes or the other parts aren’t the end-all. You’re always moving through the thing right in front of you.”
“What are you moving through to?”
“Freedom. You don’t necessarily want to kill the attacker. You want to incapacitate him so you can get away. Then you run like hell, preferably making all the noise you can.”
“That’s dignified.”
“It works, Eff. Or so they say.”
“Well, here’s hoping you never have to find out.” Effen raises the cup in a toast.
Matt and Ben shuffle by, heads hanging in mock contrition.
Effen shakes his own head. “Look at them. Their mothers didn’t want them once they were touched by human hands. What’s the matter, gents, sitting on your brains too long?”
“Yeah, we’ve got brain damage bad,” Matt slurs through cold lips.
Effen suggests they put their brains in order; it’s time to get back to work.
So in the end, Brut was right. Effen let Farrell work without hanging over her shoulder to see what she was doing. But not out of respect. Out of fear. For himself.
He really didn’t have to marshal everybody back to work. He had to discipline himself. He was enjoying Farrell’s visit too much. He didn’t know she could be so physical, in space as well as language. And he didn’t know he could be so open to suggestion. When he proposed seeing if Gustie had left enough paper in the fax machine, he all but pulled the cup and saucer from Farrell’s hand, then briskly headed for the office, plate still in fist. The fax was indeed ready for more abuse.
While Farrell busies herself in the office, Effen does the dishes and tidies up the kitchen.
Suddenly Farrell is calling out thanks and good-bye. She’s leaving quickly, showing herself to the door. He catches up with her on the porch. “That was fast.”
“The answers came in right away.”
Effen takes her arm, tells her to be careful on the ice.
She wraps her hand around the railing. Effen still has her arm. “Your flutes,” he’s saying, as if he won’t have another chance for the rest of his life. “The harpsichord is tuned.”
“Sure,” Farrell says.
“Tonight?”
Farrell hesitates. “Brut and I are thrashing out tactics with Tom.”
“Tomorrow?”
“There’s a fund-raising meeting at the village.”
“Friday?”
Farrell nods.
“Six?”
Farrell stares.
“I make a mean roaster.”
“Oh. Okay.”
That’s all there is to it. Farrell goes her way; Effen goes inside. He feels as if a weight’s been lifted from him, though he doesn’t know why he would have it or where it came from. He irritates Matt and Ben by whistling along with Das Lied von der Erde, which Matt usually plays whenever he’s in a particularly sober mood.
Farrell, meanwhile, hardly feels the cold as she walks back to Bruton’s. She wonders what kind of an accompanist Effen is. She wonders, too, what it will be like, the two of them alone together for the first time. Why would he want to get her alone? She remembers the look on his face and the feel of his hand as he kept her on the stairs.
She stops herself from imagining more. She’s happy with the notion of dinner and practice. Dinner and practice are more than she ever hoped for.
But why would she hope for anything from Francis Hume to begin with?
She doesn’t know how she’ll tell Bruton she won’t be home for dinner on Friday. Bruton will want to know everything. Then Bruton will surmise the wrong thing and read too much into the date, especially after what he said about the Dracula fax. No, she mustn’t tell Bruton anything. Not yet. She’ll wait until the last minute.
On returning home, Farrell learns she won’t have to tell Bruton anything, after all. She won’t be having dinner with Effen.
The public hearing is Friday at seven.
Farrell can’t call Effen to ask if she can use the equipment. She’s got to go to him.
She tells him that Bruton’s fax at home is on the blink, and she can’t use the one at his practice because it’s too busy with matters more important than publicity.
She doesn’t like lying to Effen. Not because he might sense she’s not truthful. Because he doesn’t deserve to be deceived.
The Owner appears to not notice the forced crispness of her tone, the stiffness of her smile. He’s delighted to help her but expresses regret that she’ll have to wait for the fax machine. Gustie’s sending notices to the papers. He lets Farrell wait in the second floor study, in the company of tea and cookies and the CD player. Taxidermed birds and a taxidermed raccoon on a small log look down from walls covered in William Morris wallpaper.
From the study, Farrell has a nice view of the street. The snowplows have done their duty. All around, people are shoveling out in teams, piling snow into shoulder-high walls. Some people walk in the road, which is a carpet of packed snow. A man Farrell doesn’t recognize pushes a snowblower into The House’s driveway, which Matt and Ben had given up shoveling. As the snowblower goes into action, she notices action of a different sort: Matt and Ben are building a snowman. On the mortuary’s lawn.
She finds Effen in his office. “Do you know where Matt and Ben are?”
“Matt and Ben?” The question strike Farrell as being propelled by another, unspoken question: What does she want with Matt and Ben? The speaker, however, seems to have grasped her desire to share a joke. “They’re out to lunch. Why?”
“They’re out to lunch, all right.” She leads him to the front door.
Effen’s reaction to the act of artistry reminds Farrell of a scared cat leaping up on all fours, back arched, fur standing on end. He recovers, appeals to Farrell. “You’re in boots. Will you please tell them to dismantle it? I don’t want to yell and call attention to what they’re doing. OhdearGod, here comes Harvey …”
The postman stomps up the steps without holding on to the railing, pendulous bag swaying on his back. He gives Effen a few envelopes and junk mail. “Hey, France, who’s your customer?”
Effen is all innocence. “My customer?”
“Yeah, the guy over there.” Harvey flaps his elbow toward the snowman. “Ha ha, I heard you keep people on ice, but this beats everything.”
The middle-age Gorman sisters from down the street shuffle by, clinging to each other and clutching white wax bags that suggest they’ve been to the bakery. They look up long enough to see what Harvey is bellowing about, and smile as if seeing Our Lord.
Farrell follows Harvey down the steps and relays Effen’s message to the sculptors.
Matt and Ben can’t merely knock the thing over. They remove the sticks that are the arms and the stones that comprise the eyes, nose and mouth and reverently deposit each piece beneath the rhododendrons.
Effen and Farrell watch the dissection from the window in the main parlor. Farrell’s seen EMTs make less fuss over human body parts. “Are they taking the thing down or interring it? Get a priest, why don’t you, so they can give it a proper burial.”
Effen is serene. “I’ve trained them well, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think it’s healthy! Here, this is how they should do it.”
While Matt and Ben continue to fawn over the facial features, Farrell knocks off the head and the midsection, and stomps both into much. The destruction is swift. “This is how I break bones,” she explains in biblical tones.
Matt whistles low. Ben claws out clumps of the remaining section, the base, like a backhoe picking away the ground at a construction site.
Back inside, Farrell lets out an “Oof!” of breathlessness and blows on her hands to warm them. Her chest heaves. Her face it hot pink.
Effen gives her a steaming cup of tea. “Here you go, Giant Killer.”
“Don’t sell me short, F.N.,” she says. “That really is how you bust bones. I wasn’t using only my foot or even my leg. I was putting everything I’ve got into it, beginning from here.” She taps her forehead. “I know how to fight the right way.”
“I didn’t know there was a wrong way.”
“Slugging it out is the wrong way. There’s no strategy. You open yourself to getting the stuffing beat out of you.”
“What is the right way?”
“You go for the sensitive spots. Non, not that one,” Farrell adds as Effen winces. “Eyes, ears, throat, nose . You can do more damage yanking on someone’s ears than punching them in the gut. You get a hold of the ear at the base and pull forward.” She reaches through Effen’s hair. The demonstration is nothing compared to the real thing. Still, it brings tears to Effen’s eyes. He gasps, grabs the offended part.
“Then there’s the use of objects. I can take something as harmless as a saucer and turn it into a lethal weapon just by doing this…” She gently pushes the rim of the saucer into his throat above the collar. “Or a spoon on the bridge of the nose …”
Effen holds up his hand before the domestic utensil reaches its destination. “I get the picture.”
“It’s edges. Edges will save you. And it’s good, too, if you can hit two spots at one time. Edges at one end, a stomp on a foot or a blow to the wincer at the other.”
“A blow to what?”
“The wincer. You know, The needless-to-describe.”
“Ah. Of course.”
Effen pours more tea for her. He doesn’t seem offended, but he’s silent. Farrell has no idea why she let such high spirits run away with her. He must think she’s emotionally defective, if not immature. She clears her throat, sits calmly at the desk.
She’s about to ask Effen about the stuffed animals on the wall, when he says, without any sign of disapproval, “Where in the world did you learn to do that? Did you take a self-defense course?”
“I learned it on the job. A local drug alliance sponsored a self-defense course for women only. I covered the opening session for the paper. By the end of the evening I was breaking inch-thick boards.”
“With your head?”
“With my fist! You don’t believe me.”
“I do believe you! I just can’t get over the terminology. ‘The wincer?’”
“Forget the wincer! Do you have a board I can borrow? How about one of the slats from the sleigh bed?”
“You want to see me sleeping on the floor again? All right, I take your word that you can break things. What’s the secret?”
“Conviction. It sets you up for the follow-through. The bone isn’t the end-all. Just as the ears or the eyes or the other parts aren’t the end-all. You’re always moving through the thing right in front of you.”
“What are you moving through to?”
“Freedom. You don’t necessarily want to kill the attacker. You want to incapacitate him so you can get away. Then you run like hell, preferably making all the noise you can.”
“That’s dignified.”
“It works, Eff. Or so they say.”
“Well, here’s hoping you never have to find out.” Effen raises the cup in a toast.
Matt and Ben shuffle by, heads hanging in mock contrition.
Effen shakes his own head. “Look at them. Their mothers didn’t want them once they were touched by human hands. What’s the matter, gents, sitting on your brains too long?”
“Yeah, we’ve got brain damage bad,” Matt slurs through cold lips.
Effen suggests they put their brains in order; it’s time to get back to work.
So in the end, Brut was right. Effen let Farrell work without hanging over her shoulder to see what she was doing. But not out of respect. Out of fear. For himself.
He really didn’t have to marshal everybody back to work. He had to discipline himself. He was enjoying Farrell’s visit too much. He didn’t know she could be so physical, in space as well as language. And he didn’t know he could be so open to suggestion. When he proposed seeing if Gustie had left enough paper in the fax machine, he all but pulled the cup and saucer from Farrell’s hand, then briskly headed for the office, plate still in fist. The fax was indeed ready for more abuse.
While Farrell busies herself in the office, Effen does the dishes and tidies up the kitchen.
Suddenly Farrell is calling out thanks and good-bye. She’s leaving quickly, showing herself to the door. He catches up with her on the porch. “That was fast.”
“The answers came in right away.”
Effen takes her arm, tells her to be careful on the ice.
She wraps her hand around the railing. Effen still has her arm. “Your flutes,” he’s saying, as if he won’t have another chance for the rest of his life. “The harpsichord is tuned.”
“Sure,” Farrell says.
“Tonight?”
Farrell hesitates. “Brut and I are thrashing out tactics with Tom.”
“Tomorrow?”
“There’s a fund-raising meeting at the village.”
“Friday?”
Farrell nods.
“Six?”
Farrell stares.
“I make a mean roaster.”
“Oh. Okay.”
That’s all there is to it. Farrell goes her way; Effen goes inside. He feels as if a weight’s been lifted from him, though he doesn’t know why he would have it or where it came from. He irritates Matt and Ben by whistling along with Das Lied von der Erde, which Matt usually plays whenever he’s in a particularly sober mood.
Farrell, meanwhile, hardly feels the cold as she walks back to Bruton’s. She wonders what kind of an accompanist Effen is. She wonders, too, what it will be like, the two of them alone together for the first time. Why would he want to get her alone? She remembers the look on his face and the feel of his hand as he kept her on the stairs.
She stops herself from imagining more. She’s happy with the notion of dinner and practice. Dinner and practice are more than she ever hoped for.
But why would she hope for anything from Francis Hume to begin with?
She doesn’t know how she’ll tell Bruton she won’t be home for dinner on Friday. Bruton will want to know everything. Then Bruton will surmise the wrong thing and read too much into the date, especially after what he said about the Dracula fax. No, she mustn’t tell Bruton anything. Not yet. She’ll wait until the last minute.
On returning home, Farrell learns she won’t have to tell Bruton anything, after all. She won’t be having dinner with Effen.
The public hearing is Friday at seven.
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