The Executor Part 12

"What about the gun?" he asked. "You ever see that?"

I had always taken her crack about owning a pistol to be just that: a crack. I shook my head.

"Oh, you got to. Come on."

He exited toward the library, never looking back to see if I would follow.

GROWING UP, my brother and I were under strict instructions not to go anywhere near the cabinet in the bas.e.m.e.nt. This led us to want nothing more, and left alone one evening, the first thing Chris and I did-after eating an entire coconut cream pie-was steal the key from our father's nightstand.

I was six, Chris not yet thirteen. Together we scrambled down the bas.e.m.e.nt steps, far more frightened of what our father's reaction would be than of the guns themselves. My brother took down a hunting rifle and pointed it all over the place, making shooting noises. He offered it to me-forced it on me, really, as I had come along as an observer, not as a partic.i.p.ant, and took it from him only after much goading. It was heavy, the stock warm from his armpit. I aimed at the far wall, sighting above a tall cardboard box labeled X-MAS LIGHTS in my mother's neat, antiquated hand.

"Do it," he said.

I didn't want to, but he made fun of me until, shaking, I pulled the trigger-to no effect. The safety was still on. Chris laughed at me, and I threw the rifle down and ran upstairs in tears.

That fall he began going out with my father for whitetail season, one of the few activities they could manage to do together peacefully. It was, perhaps, the situation's inherent deadliness that kept their tempers in check, spilt blood and torn flesh enough to remind them of the consequences of rash action. They would disappear before dawn, coming home after dark with flaking lips and ski-cap hair. These trips transformed them; for days afterward they communicated on a frequency neither I nor my mother could pick up. To be so blatantly excluded reinforced my growing sense that I did not belong.

Watching Eric pry a wooden box out from one of the library's top shelves, I had the same uneasy feeling as I'd had all those years ago, when I thought I was about to blow a hole in the bas.e.m.e.nt wall.

"Here," he said.

Made of a dark, burled maple, it could have held any number of things: b.u.t.terflies, playing cards, a chemistry set. The latch gleamed.

"Open it."

The interior was lined with green velvet, similar to that on the base of half-Nietzsche, but rather more fine and soft. The gun itself had a narrow barrel, protruding from the chamber like a bone from flesh. Stamped on the base of the grip was an insignia too worn to identify.

"I don't know if it still works," he said. "I mean, it's pretty old."

I ran my fingers over the velvet, and then, with a transgressive thrill, lifted the gun out of the case.

We are h.o.m.o faber h.o.m.o faber-man, maker and user of tools-and every tool we make has an innate purpose. When a particular object's purpose is so clearly singular, one experiences an almost irresistible urge to use it toward its intended end. Just as books are for reading and cakes are for eating, guns are for shooting, and though it had been decades since I'd held one in my hand, the chill of the metal brought on a terrifying impulse to destroy something. Disquieted, I replaced the pistol and handed the case to Eric, stepping away from him and it.

"You see that?"

He was pointing to the insignia, tracing its shape.

"S," he said, "S."

I looked at him.

"Her father was big in the Austrian army."

"He was an instrument maker."

"He was. He also made land mines." He snorted. "How do you think they got so rich? Pianos?"

I said nothing.

"Sorry to spoil it for you."

"She didn't do anything," I said. "She was a child."

"Yeah," he said. "Well, okay."

A silence.

"Did you take something from those girls?" I asked.

He looked at me.

"The one you... the one with the . . ." I gestured to my abdomen. "She was going on about you stealing something from her."

He continued to stare at me, then walked to the bookshelf. To get the case back into place he had to go up on his toes. "She said that, huh."

"Yes."

"What did she say I stole?"

"I don't know. She was pretty upset, though."

He laughed. "Oh yeah?"

"I'm serious. She almost broke my neck."

"Well," he said, turning around. "I don't know nothin about that."

I said nothing.

"Her room was a mess. Whatever she's looking for, it's probably on the floor." He glanced at the grandfather clock. "She's not coming down anytime soon, huh."

I shook my head.

"Tell her I stopped by."

I nodded.

"Don't worry about me," he said. "I know my way out."

THAT NIGHT I dreamt of a clearing in the forest. Through gla.s.sy leaves I saw movement, and I felt afraid, not knowing if I was hunter or prey.

14.

Alma's reaction to the news of Eric's visit was dismayingly subdued.

"No doubt he came for his money," she said. "Thank you for keeping him at bay while I rested. In the future I shall leave a spare check with you. You can give it to him right away and thereby free yourself of any obligation to entertain him."

"All I did was give him cake."

"And now we do not have enough for afternoon tea. For shame, Mr. Geist."

"What do you mean?"

"See for yourself."

I lifted up the plastic cover; the rest of the Sachertorte Sachertorte was gone. "There was plenty yesterday." was gone. "There was plenty yesterday."

"Perhaps he took it when you weren't looking," she said. "That would be true to form."

I gripped the empty plate in both hands. "I can't believe this."

"Patience, Mr. Geist. An old lady can survive one day without her confections. Now, you had a request."

I barely heard her; I was still fuming.

"Mr. Geist."

"Pardon?"

"You spoke of it a few days ago," she said. "We never pursued the matter."

I remembered now: my mother's call. I told Alma about the trip, describing it as a family reunion and omitting the memorial. "I said I had to ask you first."

"Naturally you may go. Although I feel obliged to note that you do not seem overly enthusiastic about the prospect."

"I'm not."

"In that case, you may use me as an excuse, if you wish to beg off."

I hesitated. "I really should go."

"Very well, then."

"It'll only be for a couple of days."

"Please, don't rush on my account. I can get along quite well without you." She half-smiled. "You've never spoken of your family."

I shrugged.

"May I ask why?"

"It's nothing personal. There's nothing to talk about."

"You are too modest."

"I'm not. They never met Wittgenstein. They wouldn't even know who that is."

"They produced you, Mr. Geist."

"I've never understood how."

She waited for me to say more. I didn't, and she said, "Of course, your business is your own."

She sounded different then. Perhaps she was annoyed at me for acting cagey when she had revealed so much about herself. Or maybe she meant what she said, and what I heard in her voice was concern. Either way, the moment pa.s.sed, and we moved on to more mutually agreeable subjects.

ERIC BEGAN TURNING UP regularly for money. Alma's equanimity with this arrangement made me p.r.i.c.kle, enough so that I began ducking out the back whenever I heard him climbing the front steps. If I didn't get out in time, I would be invited to sit with the two of them, the worst kind of torture. I would say nothing, counting the minutes, finally coming up with an excuse to go to my room, where I would clamp my pillow over my ears, stoking my own frustration by attempting to estimate how much she had given him over the years. Say, on average, a hundred dollars, once a week for ... pick a number, say fifteen years ... that came out to about eighty thousand dollars-an outrageous amount, considering he did nothing except stick out his hand. At least the maid and I earned our keep. What could he possibly need that much for, except to feed an addiction? This had to be stopped; it was not right; it was not good, not for him or her or anybody else. Then I berated myself: who was I to tell her how to spend her money, what nerve, what impudence. But then as someone who cared for her, I could not abide this rampant abuse of her generosity. If I didn't speak up at some point, would anyone?

And back and forth I went.

What really got to me was how Alma came alive in his presence, becoming, for a short while at least, positively coquettish. His flattery was so transparently phony that I couldn't understand how a woman of her intelligence and sophistication would fall for it. I found the process painful to behold. As weeks went on and I spent more time observing them, I began to understand why I couldn't draw a bead on Eric's personality: he had none. He responded only to immediate stimuli, and then only in pursuit of his own desires. He wanted money from Alma, and in order to get it, he rearranged himself as necessary. If she was feeling flirtatious, he flirted with her. If she appeared withdrawn, he was gentle and inquisitive. That he could so rapidly adjust his own mood to suit hers proved to me that he had no substance whatsoever. I couldn't possibly do the same. I was a real person, with an independent mind; I lacked his chameleon's gifts. But then how did he manage to fool her? Or, rather, why did she allow herself to be fooled? I tortured myself with this question. Endlessly I compared myself to him. I was the book; he was the movie. The more I turned the metaphor over in my mind, the more apt it felt. He was all surface, I had depth. He provided pa.s.sive diversion, I required rigor and concentration. I was subtle where he was obvious, refined where he was cra.s.s, etc., etc., all manner of self-congratulatory sniping that did not improve my mood one whit. Because I could not deny the way Alma looked at him. I could not wish him away, and reluctantly I came to the conclusion that I had once again overestimated my own importance, and underestimated people's capacity for self-deception. Sometimes, it seemed, a lady just wanted to go to the movies.

Far more troubling, however, was the correlation between his appearances and her attacks. Within a few hours of his departure, she would be struck down, retiring to her room for the remainder of the day. In the evenings I would creep upstairs to leave her a tray of food, which always went untouched but which I stubbornly went on preparing. I could see the harm he did her, and that was enough to make me want to bar him from coming inside. It was not my place, though, and so I stood by, grimacing, whenever he rang the bell, interrupting our conversation; when he joined us, uninvited, for dinner. They would laugh and nudge each other with private jokes, and I would stew silently until, unable to bear it any longer, I shuffled out of the room, inventing appointments. I walked for hours, muttering to myself, kicking divots in the turf along the banks of the Charles. Or else I would stalk to the Science Center, sit down at a computer and check repeatedly for e-mails that never came. I scoured the Web for information on both Alma and Eric, believing that the more I knew about them, the more I could control them. A patently childish idea, and anyway neither of them had any presence in cybers.p.a.ce. Alma, understandably. And Eric presumably because he had long ceased to partic.i.p.ate in normal society. That I could not find his name anywhere told me that he hadn't finished school (if he had even started it). As far as I knew he didn't have a job, other than sponging off Alma and ruining my life.

Or I would stand outside Yasmina's building, my former home, picturing her inside, draining pasta as she chatted on the phone to her fiance, letting my hatred of him overlap with that of Eric, twin jealousies intermingling, each boosting the other exponentially, my sense of aggrievement mounting, working myself into such a frenzy that by the time I got home I was in no state to do anything other than lie in my bed in the dark, snorting and staring at the ceiling.

"Patience, Mr. Geist."

Patience for what? What was I supposed to be waiting for? It was impossible for me not to hate Eric, especially as summer descended like a cloak and Alma's attacks grew in both frequency and severity. She needed less less of him, not more. Yet he kept on coming, and she kept on seeing him in, only to be undone with pain after his departure, check in hand. of him, not more. Yet he kept on coming, and she kept on seeing him in, only to be undone with pain after his departure, check in hand.

I basically ceased to call Dr. Cargill, whose instructions were always the same: let Alma be, don't panic, it would pa.s.s. I began to doubt the wisdom of this approach. True, it might have been thus dozens of times before. But what if this was the one time the symptoms proved fatal? What if something else had happened, something unexpected, a stroke or a slip in the bath? Anything could happen.

June became July; July, August. Alma grew haggard, spending more time in her room than out of it, and leaving me free most of the day. I could have done whatever I wanted. I could have gone to day games at Fenway. I could have jogged around Fresh Pond. I could have watched the campus laze along, ogled the summer-school students. I could have acted my age, a regular young man in the prime of his life. But I denied myself. All day long I hung around the house, waiting for Alma to come out and ask me once again for conversation, longing to reclaim the rhythm I had so loved and which I felt fading, fading. I let all the blooming days pa.s.s me by unnoticed, and at night, when I was insomniac and I heard her above me, walking in circles, I wished that she could dial down her pride at least enough to let me come sit with her. In her position, I would not have wanted to be alone. Maybe that was my problem: I could imagine only what I would've wanted. For her, it was more important never to be seen in a degraded state than to have company. I did my best to accept this truth. She did not want me to pity her, and I tried not to. I don't know how good a job I did, but I tried.

Eventually I couldn't help myself. I steamed open the envelope she had left with me, and was shocked to discover that Eric's check was not for a hundred dollars but five times that. Shocked-and furious. Because it added up to a fortune over the years, because he never failed to give the impression that he was on the brink of penury, because it was so much more than she paid me, as much as my birthday gift. It took tremendous restraint not to tear the check into bits on the spot. I didn't, because as good as it would have felt, to do so would have been a short-term response to a chronic problem. No, what we needed here was real action, lasting action. There would come a day-I fantasized about it often-when I would stand up to him. Sometimes these fantasies involved me giving him a righteous telling-off. Sometimes they grew violent: I cuffed him, grabbed him by the collar, and tossed him down the front steps, his rump imprinted with the tread of my shoe, like in a cartoon. Always they ended with Alma breaking down, acknowledging that I was right, she had to cut him off, once and for all, I was her protector, her guardian angel, she couldn't have done it without me, thank you, Mr. Geist, thank you, thank you.

"GOOD TIMING," said Eric.