“Can I help decorate?” begged Marz.
So then he had to go up to the attic, rooting around in one of the odd-shaped closets under the eaves until he found the boxes there, each carton big enough to hide several children and stuffed to overflowing with Christmas: garlands, plastic holly, tangled strands of dangerous-looking lights, old cards that turned to dust when he touched them, waterfalls of tinsel, ancient embossed Santas with cotton-batting beards that had frightened Jack when he was small, the wrought-iron stand (hooray!), wax balls from Germany with flowers on them, pine cones, ceramic and papier-mâché and cardboard Santas, elves, reindeer, trees, bells, chapels, snowmen, angels, and wreaths, as well as four statues of crippled boys and reformed cranks.
Last of all he pulled out an enormous carton that contained box upon box of Sparkle-Glo ornaments: rubies and emeralds and diamonds of blown glass, purple grapes, grinning clowns and leering dogs, churches and fish and a sailing ship with tissue-paper mast and rigging of gold filigree.
“Oh, look, look!” cried Marzana, sitting on the attic floor with legs akimbo, her belly awash in wrappings and ribbons and pine needles. She held up an icicle of blown glass, striated silver and cobalt. “They used to sell these in Rybnik!”
Jack smiled. “Is that where you grew up?”
The girl watched the little dagger turn slowly in the air before her. After a moment she said, “I don’t remember,” her voice distant.
Jack waited, but she said no more. “Okay.” He picked up one of the cartons. “I don’t think you better carry any of these.”
“But they’re not heavy!”
“I know, but they’re big. Here, you can carry this down, okay, that’s the star for the top, just don’t drop it—”
He made five trips, pausing on each landing to catch his breath then plunge back upward. There was only a single naked electric bulb in the old nursery attic, which cast shadows over more of the room than it lit. Outside, night was chasing the sky in harlequin colors, crimson and cadmium yellow, giving everything an expectant, febrile glow. The sensation that something was going to happen filled Jack, as well; a subcutaneous anticipation of Christmas, even a Christmas as threadbare as this one promised to be. There had been no more visits from the postman, and no word from GFI as to when he might expect the money from the sale of The Gaudy Book. So Christmas would pretty much consist of what he and Mrs. Iverson could cobble together, or from the largesse of Mrs. Delmonico. He had put aside any notion of attending GFI’s party—what could he have been thinking, with Marz ready to blow like the Hindenburg and no one but Jack and two ancients to attend her?
He walked to the far side of the room, and stared out the row of attic windows, down the black slope to the river. There was a sequined scatter of lights upon the Palisades, where for so long there had been darkness, and farther south the luminous arch of the George Washington Bridge, red and green curves like slices of neon watermelon, nibbled black where lights had burned out on the spans. The sight should have comforted him. Instead it made him uneasy. It was like seeing Marzana in his aunt Mary Anne’s bed that first night she appeared at Lazyland—he felt certain that something was very wrong, somewhere, despite this brave false show. Any moment now he would find out what it was.
He shivered and turned from the window. What a way to think at Christmas. Then he hefted the last carton of ornaments, switched off the attic light, and hurried downstairs to attend to the tree.
But of course the power was down again when Jule arrived unexpectedly at Lazyland, a week and a half later. It had failed the same night that Jack and Marzana and Mrs. Iverson decorated the tree in the formal dining room, with Keeley officiating from a chair. It was not exactly resplendent. Even with the lights turned off it retained its sadly etiolated quality, and drooped in the shadow of the robust Chippendale cabinet because there was no true darkness against which the glory of glass and gold and painted tin could shine. The strings of old lights (dangerously frayed and much repaired with electrical tape) glowed bravely, but they were overshadowed by the vulgar show outside.
Still, they all stood and admired it. Jack made some adjustments (Marz lacked a light touch with tinsel). Keeley suggested that the crenellated spike that topped the tree could perhaps go a little more to the left, and Jack was just clambering back onto the kitchen stool when—
Eeeeep…
Dying wail of the CO detector, chorus of clicks from answering machine; and the gallant tree went dark.
“Nooo!” cried Marzana.
Jack shook his head. “It was these damn lights.”
He began the search for lanterns and candles, berating himself for not making a point of retrieving them while the power was on. You couldn’t find candles anymore, anywhere or batteries, or oil lanterns. Occasionally Jack might glimpse a flashlight behind the counter at Delmonico’s, bartered for food; but it would never find its way onto a shelf. The Delmonicos had family all across the city who needed light just like everyone else.
In the linen closet he found an unopened box of white tapers. He tore the cellophane wrapping and removed four, thought for a moment, and replaced one. He could find his way in the dark; someone had better start finding their way in the dark. Wind clawed its way through the narrow back stairwell, brought with it shrieking laughter. He turned and pressed his face against the small oriel window that faced north, to where other mansions had once stood in line with Lazyland gazing down upon the Hudson.
In the last few weeks he had made a deliberate effort not to look out upon them. If he saw Marz there in her customary trance, he would continue quickly up to his own room. So he never knew whether or not electric lights ever brightened the broken windows, and he tried not to think about what kind of people were inside the ruins, starving or fighting or fucking on the floor.
Now he could not turn away.
In the shattered buildings fires leapt, the broken windows gleamed as though they opened onto the inferno. He heard music, cymbals, and drums; someone singing. There was light within, light and music and many moving shadows. He imagined they were dancing amidst the rubble.
It struck him, as though he had been knocked on the head: people were living out there in the ruins. They weren’t holed up like himself or the other scared customers who could barely muster the courage to raid Delmonico’s for food. They weren’t killing themselves with drink and grief like Jule, or pretending nothing had changed, like Emma. Certainly they weren’t bashing their heads against the wall because there were no candles left. If they were bashing their heads it was because they were dancing. They didn’t wear masks or helmets to protect themselves from the world; they scarcely wore clothes. He recalled Marzana’s words, her first night at Lazyland—
They were my family. We were living down by the river and the fucking cops blew us out…
Family. The realization that something like that could be out there, just yards away, made Jack dizzy. He yanked the window open and heard singing, a complicated contrapuntal chant, women and men and children, too.
Even if he didn’t recognize it, it was music, and had been all along. It wasn’t squatters out there in the carnival darkness, crude creatures leering at him from their gutted mansions. It was civilization.
They’re adapting, he thought.