Agnes Among the Gargoyles (43 page)

   "That's nice," says Agnes. "Tell me his good things."

   Bea sets down her fork. "The best thing about him, when I knew him, was that he drank a lot."

   Agnes nods somberly. "The man was a saint."

   "Now let me finish. The reason he drank was that he saw things clearly. He understood the world better than anyone in our crowd. He knew how everything conspires to keep you down. Now that many not seem like a big deal to you. Today, everybody knows they're being kept down. Everyone knows when their rights are violated. Little first graders know it. But back then we thought everything was hunky dory. But Johnny didn't, and it drove him to drink."

   The waiter brings Bea a slice of banana cream pie.

   "That doesn't seem so good to me," Agnes complains. "Why couldn't you have told me a lovely story about his giving his coat to a beggar?"

   "Okay, how about this? He was loyal. He never stopped writing me, never stopped sending me pictures of you. When the notes and postcards didn't come anymore, I knew he was dead."

   "That's all right, I guess," says Agnes. "Is that the best you can do?"

   "I don't know what else to tell you," says Bea. "When I knew your father he was very young. He opened my eyes to a lot of things. He may not have been a good husband, but he taught me what a good husband was, and when I went to get another one I knew enough to make sure he had money, as well."

   She shows Agnes a picture of her family, a picture taken at an extended gathering of Pettigrews, all of whom are tall and reserved except for Bea and her gnomish husband, who hangs on her arm. She points to one of her tall sons and giggles.

   "That came outta me?" she remarks.

   On the street, Bea and Agnes stop at a newsstand. Bea buys the
Enquirer
and the
Graphic.
She laughs at the
Enquirer
's headline. "Look at this. The predictions for next year. Tragedy strikes Jackie O. and Madelaine Wegeman. Those are pretty good bets, aren't they? You get old, you have tragedy."

   Bea hails a cab. She is meeting her daughter at Saks.

   "Don't get excited about anything I've told you," she says. "The last time I laid eyes on your father I was twenty years old. Imagine that! The one you should be talking to is your mother. But I know how that is too. Sometimes it's hard.

What with arguing with Social Security clerks halfway across the country and penetrating the State Department and puzzling out strategies with Robin DuPrey, Agnes hasn't had much time lately for
Infertility.
Margaret Eden hasn't said a word of complaint. She has signed all of Agnes's time-off slips with a smile and sometimes an encouraging squeeze on the arm.

 Margaret's failure to protest Agnes's absenteeism makes sense in one odd way: since Agnes is fulfilling no function at
Infertility,
then it hardly matters if she's not there. As harried as Margaret gets around deadline time, she never seeks to lighten the burden of her work by giving Agnes anything more taxing to do than ordering spare parts for her bicycle or telephoning for dinner reservations.

   When Agnes sees the latest issue of
Infertility
and recognizes none of the stories, when she looks at the masthead and sees her name listed as managing editor above the names of several full-time reporters whom she has never met, she decides that, delightful though her current vaporous working life may be, she really must ask Margaret Eden what in the world is going on.

   "I don't know what you're talking about," is Margaret's reply.

   "How come I'm not working?"

   "Don't be absurd. You are working."

   Agnes falls into one of Margaret's chairs. She rubs her eyes with fatigue.

   "You're out of it, kid," says Margaret. "Take a long lunch and knock off early."

   Agnes does as she is told. She eats a sandwich and a frozen yogurt on the library steps. She walks up Central Park West. She wanders into the Museum of Natural History. She sits down and rests in the Bats of the World exhibit. A crowd of noisy day-campers careens into the room. They press their dirty noses to the cases of stuffed bats.

   Agnes takes little notice of the three women supervising the children until she notices that the tallest of them is Madelaine Wegeman.

   How different she looks without any make-up! An unimagined saddle of freckles sits on the bridge of her nose. There is a fair sized gap in her front teeth. She wears a T-shirt and jeans; her hair is in a thick ponytail. She has stopped seeing her colorist.

      You wouldn't look twice at her on the street.

   "I almost didn't recognize you," says Agnes. Madelaine kisses her.

   "You're not used to seeing me do anything useful, that's why," says Madelaine. Because she is not wearing her false tooth, her
s
's whistle.

   "I didn't mean it like that," says Agnes.

   "Of course you did," says Madelaine, peeling off a tissue for a runny-nosed child. "Sarah always told me that she didn't consider it work to plan charity luncheons. Well, she was right. This is work. I'm finally getting my hands dirty."

   One of the other women, getting the kids into some kind of order, passes next to Madelaine, and overhears this last sentence. "And you can't get any dirtier than this," she says with cheerful exasperation.

   "I'm happy, Agnes," says Madelaine.

   Poor Madelaine, thinks Agnes. Always putting out feelers for intimacy.

"I'm glad," says Agnes. "How is Ron?"

   "He's all right." Madelaine's tone is carefully measured, not at all enthusiastic. "He's still in the wheelchair, you know, even though the doctors can't find anything wrong physiologically. He just doesn't want to walk."

   "What a shame."

   "He seems like the same Ron, you know," she says, toying with the little frog pin on her shirt. It looks like something from a gumball machine, and Agnes is sure that it's worth a fortune. "He fires people and hires them back in the same breath, but there's something missing. Did you know that he's closed the hotel for renovations? The casino is the only thing operating. He hasn't a clue what to do next."

   "I hope everything works out for you," says Agnes. "You've been very nice to me. Really, when I think about it, you've been nothing but nice."

   "That shouldn't surprise you," says Madelaine. "Let's talk about something happier. I want you to come to our Fall Cotillion. Sarah and I were just talking about it. I've put the whole thing in her hands. How much do you know about the situation in South Africa?"

   "Not very much, I'm afraid," says Agnes solemnly.

   "The cotillion's theme this year is No Diamonds Please. We're not just raising money—we're trying to raise people's consciousnesses about DeBeers and Botha and everything else. Mandela's been in prison twenty years now, and it's only been a year since the Uitenhage massacre, which the Bureau of Information says never even happened."

   Agnes listens with amazement as the names of townships and activists and the acronyms of African organizations go whizzing by.

   "We hope to have Gil Xaba as a speaker. He's Winnie's brother-in-law...."

   The children cry out for Madelaine.

 "Please say you'll come, you and your policeman."

   "We'll come."

   The museum guide is ready to begin speaking to the children.

   "Maddie! Maddie!" they cry. "Come here about the bats!"

   Madelaine squats down with her charges and makes the same noises of disgust they do when the bat lore gets gross.

   The guide winds up his bat spiel them says, "Is anyone here interested in snakes?"

   The children cry out with enthusiasm. The guide leads them into the next room. Madelaine hangs back. She sits down beside Agnes. She looks tortured.

   "What's happening to me, Agnes?"

   "Nothing but good, as far as I can see. Those kids love you."

   "I had an affair," says Madelaine.

   A teenage couple strolls hand-in-hand into the bat room. Madelaine sobs. Agnes says nothing until they leave.

   "It happens. It's not the end of the world."

   Madelaine sniffles. "And now he's in prison."

   Agnes manages a stagy gasp. "No!"

   "He stands accused of murder."

   Agnes can only hang her head and keen.

   "I think he would have killed me next!" says Madelaine, wailing in a whisper so as not to upset the children.

   In a few minutes, Madelaine calms down.

   "How did it happen?" says Agnes, but she knows exactly how it happened. She too was taken in.

   "Weege hasn't been the same since the shooting," Madelaine confides. "We haven't had relations."

   "What do the doctors say?"

   "That it's in his head. He's functional, Agnes. I know he is. He had his own affair."

   "Not one of those Courtesy Girls."

   "Worse. The monkey."

   Agnes's mouth hangs open, like several of the specimens in the cases. "I don't believe it."

   "I caught them red-handed. The monkey was fellating him. You can get them to do anything with those laser lights. Agnes, I'm starting to think that he was right. I'm starting to think that you shouldn't have saved him. There's a lot more dignity in being a widow than in being, you know...whatever it is I am."

  The children pour back into the room. Madelaine smiles her brilliant smile.

   "Not a word to Sarah," she tells Agnes. "She has no idea. She still thinks we're the perfect couple, the poor baby."

"Did my mother mention that she's going to Alaska?" says Sarah.

      "No," says Agnes. "Is she?"

   "She really is. She's been thorough a lot of changes. I've been really hard on her. No mercy at all. No she's working at the day camp, and we're doing No Diamonds Please the right way. It's great. But she told me she needs some time alone to sort things out. She's going up to do some hiking and rock climbing. Have you ever been to there?"

 "To Alaska?" says Agnes, suppressing a moment's irritation. "Of course I haven't."

   "Nothing gives you a better look at your own insignificance than staring at a glacier for a while."

   Several days later, Agnes receives a midnight telephone call from Madelaine. She doesn't sound herself. Her voice is devoid of emotion. Agnes can hardly hear her.

   "Are you okay?" says Agnes.

   "Fine," Madelaine replies a beat too quickly. "We must have a poor connection."

   "There's a lot of noise in the background."

   "I'm in a railroad station," says Madelaine. "I don't even know where."

   "Sarah isn't here."

   "I spoke to Sarah this morning. I'm calling to speak to you. I'm headed for the North, you know."

   "I heard. Alaska."

 "It's just the two of us—myself and Blair Stanhope. She hates the cold, which I never knew about her. She's not psyched."

   "I hope you can sort everything out."

   "Oh, it probably won't work, but one feels one has to try," says Madelaine. "It's nice to be able to get away."

   "It's nice to have money," says Agnes.

   "Dear naive girl. I just called to say good-bye. I'll be back in eight weeks for No Diamonds Please." She sounds exhausted, forlorn, despondent. "Then again, I may never come back."

   This alarms Agnes. "You won't do anything foolish, will you?"

   "What else is there? I just mean that if the Yukon agrees with me, well, you never know. I'll see you again, Agnes. I know I will."

   Madelaine speaks to the person standing with her, but she doesn't cover the mouthpiece, so Agnes can hear what she says:

   "Tell the conductor I'm ready."

   Agnes listens to the echoes of that far-off railway station until Madelaine hangs up. Money Madelaine may have, but Agnes wouldn't trade places with her. She thinks of Madelaine skulking through that tunnel beneath St. Basil's. V.D. Garg and Madelaine Wegeman and Agnes Travertine know that passage only too well. Agnes thinks of Father Clarence leaving the Plaza after having consecrated Madelaine's narrow, aging body, the soles of his shoes encrusted with Louisiana Bayou Clay.

Bezel sits on a bench in City Hall Park. He pages through a newspaper. He skips over the special Minotaur of the Labyrinth retrospective section. What, he wonders, is the fascination with killing women? It's not such a big deal. Bezel has killed plenty of them, now. Only his first was a thrill-killing. It happened when he was still in his teens. He was drinking in Camden Town, pissed out of his brain, and somehow wound up prowling for a whore with a fellow named Nestor, a student at the Royal College of Physicians. The only whore they could find was old and black and toothless. She had a walleye, and strange blue-black growths ringing her toes like rubber washers.

   "This one's too grotty to fuck," said Nestor.

   Bezel agreed. "What should we do with her?"

   Nestor looked ill. "Must we do anything?"

   There were a few things Bezel wanted to try, things he had been thinking about for a long time. He did them, and realized that there were no great thrills to be had. The acts had been more fun in his imagination. Unfortunately, the old whore wasn't very strong, and one of Bezel's unspeakable deeds killed her.

   Bezel saw Nestor about a month later. Nestor was upset. Bezel bought him a whiskey.