Chapter 12

It could be a scene out of Breughel: In the foreground is the town, with its chimneys, spires, and people clad in shapeless winter clothing, going about their daily doings. Beyond that are the hills. The trees are bare; their branches scratch the air with unyielding stiffness. All around, the sky is a deep matte gray. There is no sunlight. There is no shadow.

Von Aldo lowers the blind, a real Venetian blind made of wood. He wants to say something friendly, like, “Gee, we made it here in time,” or, “I wonder if the storm will fizzle out,” though forecasters still predict more than two feet of snow.

Humming snatches of the 1610 Vespers, reading glasses low on his nose, Effen investigates the harpsichord.

Tom doesn’t know if he should be relieved or worried. Effen is making music, but he hasn’t said a word since they left the hospital. The run-in with the law had treated him to a concussion and bruised ribs. On Bruton’s demand, he spent three days in hospital. He’d have been there a fourth, but he wanted to get home before the storm hit. He didn’t know that home was now The House.

Tom had called it right. Effen’s condition forced the state to postpone plans to evict him along with the horselets. But when Trenton heard of the blizzard moving up the coast, it reversed itself and told Tom to remove Effen at once. The rangers shouldn’t have to worry about a tenant on condemned property in the midst of a major natural event.

Tom got the call at midnight. He mobilized Johnson and Birdsall, and together the three of them literally threw Effen’s belongings into forestry department boxes. Aside from the sleigh bed, armoire, roll-top desk and harpsichord, the furniture in the house belonged to the state. It would stay where it was.

The rangers made three trips to the flat on the top floor of The House. To their surprise, the place was already furnished. The traditionally styled chairs and tables were covered with sheets, clean and ready for use.

Tom remembered Effen saying he had left the furniture hoping it would make the flat easy to rent out. It didn’t. Nobody wanted to live in a funeral home, even if the apartment was amid the tree-tops, high above the actual business.

Tom and his crew finished moving Effen’s things into The House by eight that morning. When they returned to the farm, Johnson took Prince Myshkin to a friend for safekeeping. After a quick consultation with Bruton, Tom drove Effen’s car down to The House, then went to collect the owner in the state four-by-four that Birdsall had left behind.

He hadn’t been looking forward to the pick-up. It fell to him to tell Effen about the farm. He was afraid to think how his friend would take the news. He wasn’t in the mood for weightlifting.

The gods of unlucky messengers were with him. When he entered Effen’s room, Effen was in his coat, ready to go and reading the riot act to a hefty nurse with a wheelchair. “We don’t let anybody walk out of here,” the woman was saying.
Seeing Tom, Effen headed for the door. Seeing the offending item, Tom grabbed opportunity. He blocked Effen like a football player, picked him up and sat him in the wheelchair. “Now, don’t get upset,” he said.

The advice washed the color from Effen’s face and the strength from Effen’s voice. He whispered, “Now what?”

Tom told him everything.

Effen hasn’t spoken since. He didn’t even open his mouth to gripe about the wheelchair. Tom can’t tell if he’s in shock or if he’s too emotional to speak.

The heat is sizzling in the radiators, but Effen is still in his overcoat. Though his face is pale, hie interest isn’t so stunted that he can’t open the harpsichord and finger out the Gonzaga fanfare. The melody is askew. The instrument needs a tuning. Direly. Effen looks around the boxes pillared on the hardwood floor. At last he forms words: “Where’s my tuning stuff?”

Tom swears. They hadn’t the time to mark boxes and record contents. He nudges Effen aside and starts going through the stacks himself. It’s a lame effort. He feels Effen’s eyes on him. And Effen’s disapproval. “You’re really pissed at me, aren’t you.”

Effen’s shrug is more of a twitch. “I wondered why you were asking me all those questions that morning. I should have known your masters in Trenton were plotting something. Did anybody stop to consider what would happen to me if I had nowhere to go?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know. But I’m sure we’d have thought of something. They couldn’t put you out without some accommodation.”

“They took away my property without ‘some accommodation.’”

“Give them time. They’ll sort things out.”

“Will they give me back my horses?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will they pay me lost earnings, fair market price, and all the other things lawyers like to demand?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then how can you tell me they’ll sort things out?”

“Give them time.” Tom is almost pleading. “There’s too much going on.”

“Too much going on didn’t stop them from doing what they did to me. So help me, Tom ,if those little creatures are destroyed…” His voice breaks.

There’s noise three floors below as Gustie and Matt and Ben come in to work. Once upon a time, Matt had griped about getting licensed to do everything Effen does. The license has served him well for the past few days. Without it, The House would have been closed for business. Without the lovable financial cushion of the horselets, Effen can no longer afford to lose the smallest amount of work. “They’ll wonder why I’m staying here.”

Tom is apologetic. “I’m not stopping you from telling them what happened.”

“No. You just won’t let me go to the press or to an attorney. Sorry, Tom, no matter how you look at it, you’ve still taken away my right to speak.”

“Do you want me to send them up?”

Effen shakes his head. “Tell them yourself. Tell them … I’m tired.”

Tom considers that too much has happened to Effen too soon. He watches as his friend shuffles into the bedroom as though the floor were made of invisible ice. The room is smaller than the one at the farm, but it’s a real room, not something partitioned by pretty screens, with four walls and a door and a radiator. Hunt prints are on the white plaster walls. The armoire is in attendance. The sleigh bed cowers against the wall. Pillows, sheets and covers wait in a heap atop the mattress.

Effen lets his coat fall where he sheds it and drops onto the mattress. He’s sound asleep before his head hits the pillows, unaware that he’s pushed the linens to the floor. Tom throws the down comforter over him. It’s time to meet with the staff.

The sleigh bed has been assembled with more brawn then brain. As Tom clonks down two flights of stairs, mattress and occupant sink below the frame in a slow, gentle ride to the floor.