He swam lazily for a while. He got out, dried himself with a fresh towel from the pyramid the maid kept stocked atop the smoothie bar, and redonned his dressing gown. It was designer, a gift from Carlotta so he wouldn’t have to keep borrowing Bill’s too-big one.
Upstairs, he examined the paintings, the sculpture, the furniture. He made a sandwich, took two bites, and discarded it. A nameless agitation had taken hold of him. He went outside to the terrace and crossed the lawn to the office path.
37.
He had not been in the barn since the night of his theft. By the look of it, neither had anyone else. The place had become a shrine by default, everything just as he had left it except now wearing a loose gray pelt. He erupted in sneezes and rubbed his watery eyes. There was the easy chair, the desk chair, the desk. The bookcase, the books, his book. The photographs. The jar of pens. What appeared to be a manuscript but was in fact a pile of blank paper with a title page.
A running fantasy had him discovering a cache of Bill’s unpublished novels. He would have settled for much less than a full text. An outline would have helped. But of course no such thing existed, and if it did, he doubted his ability to realize anything from it. He had never suffered from a shortage of ideas, only a shortage of follow-through.
He fetched out the copy of his first novel, the one Bill had so lovingly pored over. He reread his snide inscription. Now that he was no longer poor, the idea of reducing a friendship as profound as theirs to a race felt beyond childish.
Someone tapped on the door.
There was nothing inherently wrong with him being here, but the memory of his sin draped over the present, and he felt a spasm of guilty panic. The maid and butler had gone for the day. That left Carlotta. Why wasn’t she in bed? He waited for her to leave. There was another tap. He opened the door. The dog trotted past and plopped down beneath the desk.
Still clutching the copy of his novel, Pfefferkorn sat in the office chair, rubbing Botkin’s back with his foot. He listened to the wind gusting through the unused portion of the barn. He inhaled deeply in search of goats. He closed his eyes. He opened his eyes and the photos above the desk had changed. No longer was it Bill in his sailor’s getup, smiling jauntily. It was Pfefferkorn. He had Bill’s beard and moustache. Carlotta’s portrait had changed as well. Now the photo showed Pfefferkorn’s ex-wife. Pfefferkorn stared in horror. He tried to get up but he was pinned to the chair. He opened his mouth to scream and he woke up. Outside, morning was breaking. The dog was gone. The door to the office was ajar. His novel was on the floor, fallen from his limp hand. Pfefferkorn picked it up, tucked it inside his dressing gown, and hurried back toward the main house before Carlotta awoke and found him missing.
38.
He left four days later, taking with him the annotated copy of Shade of the Colossus. He did not mention to Carlotta that he was borrowing it, and had he been pressed for an explanation, he could not have supplied one. Perhaps something about the barn compelled him to steal books.
His flight landed in time for him to catch a late dinner. He directed the taxi to his neighborhood sushi bar. He ordered without consulting the menu, laid the novel flat on the table, and started to read. A twenty-five-year-old work of failure seemed like an odd place to look for inspiration, but who knew? Obviously Bill had seen value in it.
Much of the book was flawed. Pfefferkorn could accept that now. He spared a thought for his first editor, a motherly woman who had since passed away. She had tried to get him to inject more humor. He had resisted, and eventually he had worn her down. He remembered her telling him, in a heated moment, that he was the most stubborn person she’d ever met. The word she used was “mulish.” He smiled. I’ve changed, Madelaine, he thought. I’ve grown old.
For all its youthful excesses, though, Pfefferkorn thought it a worthy piece of art. There were passages of authentic beauty. He had chosen to mask the story’s autobiographical roots by making the protagonist a painter rather than a writer. The final third described the protagonist’s return home following his first successful exhibition. His father, the old tyrant, has fallen into a coma, and it is the son who makes the decision to withdraw life support. It remains ambiguous whether this is an act of mercy or one of vengeance. What is evident is that the power to carry it out has been made possible by his art. The closing paragraphs suggest that his next step is to attain the moral strength to focus that power.
Pfefferkorn poked at his red-bean ice cream, wondering if there was some way to convert the book into a blockbuster. He could make the father a gangster, and the son the policeman assigned to take him down. Father versus son, blood ties leading to spilled blood. It sounded promising. Certainly he needed to get something on paper, and fast. His agent had been leaving him voicemails in a tone of barely contained hysteria. Pfefferkorn had not called him back. Nor had he acknowledged the half-dozen e-mails from his editor. His current editor was young, scarcely older than Pfefferkorn’s daughter, and while he tended to be deferential, it was clear that his patience was all but gone. He had hitched himself to Pfefferkorn’s star and now he stood in danger of being brought crashing to earth. Again, Pfefferkorn sympathized. Lots of people depended on him. His daughter did. Paul did. He depended on him, if he hoped to continue flying across the country every few weeks. The future looked bleak. His ice cream had turned to a gloppy mauve puddle. Pfefferkorn asked for the check. The tip he left was smaller than usual.
39.
“Well? What do you think?”
“I think it’s very nice.”
“Oh, Daddy. That’s the best you can do?”
They were standing in the dining room of the gigantic house Pfefferkorn’s daughter wanted to buy. The real estate agent had stepped outside to take a call.
“What did she mean by that,” Pfefferkorn asked, “‘Great bones’?”
“It means it has a lot of potential,” Pfefferkorn’s daughter said.
“What’s wrong with it the way it is?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it, but it’s somebody else’s taste. That’s the way it always is. There’s always going to be some work.”
Pfefferkorn, a lifelong renter, wondered where his daughter had learned these things. “If you say so.”
“I’m thinking we could knock out this wall. You know, like an open kitchen. Don’t you think it would be fantastic for parties? Of course, we’ll need to change the countertops.”
“Of course.”
“So you like it.”
“I like that it makes you happy,” he said.
“It does. It really does. Can’t you see us raising a family here?”
It was the first time she had ever spoken of children. He had always made a point of saying nothing. The choice was hers. Hearing her raise the subject on her own filled him with an indescribable mix of emotions.
“I think it’s a lovely house,” he said.