“It’s so sad when love dies,”she says.
”Yes, it is,”Daniel says.
”This used to be a very happy house,”she says.
”Ferguson’s pretty excited about this idea ofyours,”Daniel says.
”My father loved this house, and everything connected to it.”
“I met your father a couple oftimes,”Daniel says.Marie has no noticeable reaction to this;perhaps she, like the masters ofthe house, be-lieves that everyone in Leyden knows her and her family in some way.
”He saw my father a couple oftimes.He came to the house.”
“Who’s your father?”
“Dr.Emerson.He’s a chiropractor.”
“My father had terrible back problems all his life,”Marie says.The sound ofa tree breaking nearby resounds like a cannon shot, making Daniel jump in his seat but leaving Marie unmoved.“I remember him talking about Dr.Emerson.He liked him, he thought he was good.”
“I’m glad my father could help.”
“Is he still alive, your father?”
“Yes.”
“Does he ever work on you?”
“Oh no, never.I was always sort ofphysically afraid ofmyfather.The thought ofhim cracking my back, or yanking my head and cracking my neck—I could never put myselfin that sort ofposition.He’d put me on that table ofhis, I might never get up.”Daniel means this to be amusing, but Marie frowns and nods her head.
She gets up and glides to the tall windows.She places her palm against the darkening glass and then presses her cold hand onto her cheeks.Daniel sees that she is flushed;beads ofsweat have formed along her hairline.
“Everyone in this town talks about Ferguson and me, don’t they,”
Marie says, turning toward the window again.She presses her other hand against the pane, then touches her forehead, her throat.
“People like to gossip, Marie.I don’t pay much attention to what they say.”
When she turns again, Daniel sees that a solitary thread ofblood has crawled out ofher right nostril and is making its way through the pale down ofher upper lip.
“You’re bleeding, Marie,”he says.He feels in his pockets for a handkerchief, but all he comes up with is the plastic wrap from this morning’s gas station bagel, the touch ofwhich triggers a startling flash of memory: those magazines.He is beginning to understand the unbridled nature of desire when it is confined to the realm ofmake-believe, how without the reality ofan actual person in its path, it races headlong, blind and frothing.
Marie seems not to have heard him.“I don’t care what people say.
Something amazing has happened between Ferguson and me.And that’s all there is to it.Ifpeople are upset, then they’ll just have to deal with it.”
“Marie…”
“I’m telling you this because I want you to be careful with Susan.She once loved this place, but not now, not anymore, and she never loved Ferguson.And she’ll do anything to wreck what we’re trying to do, she’d rather Ferguson lose the house and everything else—which would kill him.This is his habitat.He can’t live anywhere else.It’s pretty funny, when you think about it, she’s into all these world religions, the Muslim, the Buddhist, the goddess, the meditation, the drumming, the spinning around in circles, but she’s cruel and she’s selfish, she can’t stand the idea that other people might find happiness.”At last, the trickle ofblood reaches her lip and she tastes it.She gasps and her fingers go to her lip and then her nose.“Blood,”she says.She has smeared the blood over her upper lip.
“I don’t have a handkerchiefor a Kleenex or anything.”
“Ifyou could go to the kitchen.”She has seated herselfand tilts her head back.
“Where’s the kitchen?”
“Walk out the nearest door, which will put you in the portrait gallery, go through the double doors, turn right, go to the end ofthe hall, and there it is.”
The portrait gallery is barely lit by the anemic pearl light coming in through three adjoining sets ofFrench windows.Here, paintings and drawings ofthe Richmonds and the various families related to them by marriage have been hung on the blue plaster walls with such economy of space that the frames touch, though here and there appears an18 x 24sun-bleached blank, where a portrait has been removed and sold at auction.
Daniel hurries through the double doors and into a long hallway, which is lit by a few bare bulbs.As the electric power continues to come and go, they flicker offand on, as ifa child were playing with the switch.
A small SouthAmerican man in his twenties, wearing a serape and a fe-dora, and with a crow perched on his shoulder, leans against the wall, pulling a nail out ofhis sneaker sole with a pliers.He gives no indication ofnoticing Daniel, who rushes past him to the kitchen, a dismal, cata-strophically disorganized room, where Ferguson and Susan are in the midst ofa bitter argument.
“I didn’t hear you say anything, Susan,”Ferguson is saying.
”You were deliberately ignoring me,”she answers.“You love to negate me.”
“You’re insane, Susan.”
Daniel has entered the kitchen and there is no backing out.He stands next to the old eight-burner stove, every burner ofwhich holds a cast-iron kettle or skillet.Herbs that were hung to dry from the overhead beams have long ago turned gray and powdery.The double sink is filled with two towers ofdirty dishes;a calico cat with a rawhide collar swats atthe drops ofwater that swell and then fall from the silver faucet.Fer-guson and Susan have turned to face him.
“I’m sorry,”Daniel says.“I need a paper towel or something.”
“What for?”demands Susan.
”Marie has a bloody nose.”
Susan’s laugh is surprisingly throaty and warm.“Did you hit her?”
“We don’t carry paper towels here,”says Ferguson.He pulls a not very fresh-looking handkerchieffrom his back pocket, and as he is hand-ing it to Daniel the lights cut offand then come back on—it seems as if someone were shaking the room—and then they go offagain and that’s it.They are not in total darkness but in a deep opaque grayness, as ifthey have been woven into the fabric ofa sweater.
“Hurry, Ferguson,”says Susan.“Run.She needs you.”
“I needher,Susan.That’s the mess we’re in, and ifyou won’t see that, you won’t see anything.”
Daniel feels like a servant in front ofwhom the lord and lady ofthe house think nothing ofundressing.Clutching Richmond’s handkerchief, he backs out ofthe kitchen, but before he is out, the door swings open and the two men who delivered theTibetan flags and fireworks come in.
“Everything’s put away,”says the older ofthe two.He uses his beret to dry his forehead.
“Before the snow gets worse,”says the younger.“I never seen anything like this.”
“Thank you, Ramon,”Susan says pleasantly.“You’re an angel.”
“I’m working on it,”Ramon says, smiling.“May I ask you?Who is the young man with the crow on his shoulder?”
“He’s our friend from Slovenia,”says Ferguson.“He lives inAlbany.
He came down fromTroy in July to work on the roofofthe piggery, and for some reason he hasn’t left yet.He found that crow near the river and he’s made something ofa pet ofit.”
“I’m going to see to this,”Daniel says, backing out ofthe kitchen.He is seized by anxiety, thinking that ifhe doesn’t leave in the next minute, then he could be facing impassable roads and a long entrapment in Eight Chimneys.As he makes his way down the hall, he notices a door to the outside is open.It is not the door he came in through, but finding this way out is irresistible to him, and rather than deliver Ferguson’s hand-kerchiefto Marie, he stuffs it in his pocket and heads out ofthe house.
He finds himself on a semicircular stone porch, a repository for busted-up furniture.He can’t tell what direction he’s facing;the world is chaos.He looks up at the sky, at the deluge ofsnow floating down.He opens his arms wide.He wants to shout out her name.Her name is her body, her scent, the shadow she casts upon the world.The violence and unexpectedness ofthis weather leads him not to the actual beliefthat the world is in a state ofemergency and that everything now is suddenly per-mitted, but to something close to it, something that suggests what that would feel like.He walks carefully down the stairs, snow seeping through his shoes.Then he walks around the house until he finds his car, which in the halfhour he has been here has accumulated a five-inch coat-ing ofwet, heavy snow.