Invitation to a Bonfire (21 page)

“And then there's the cold one,” Siobhan said. “It's only once I've even seen her, and she was like an ice statuette, the kind you make with a pick.”

“Oh, the writer's wife.” John guffawed, then pinched his lips real thin and tried to look hawkish. “Hello. Nice to meet you. No, I don't think I've said my name.” Except he fleshed out all his
h
s and
e
s: Hhhallo. Nice to myeet.

After clearing the dishes he sat beside me on the couch and asked what was wrong. I wasn't a naturally contented person, so something serious must've shown. Siobhan gave a tight nod at my miserable face.

“She has a fellow. Finally.”

“You two been talking?” John asked, but his wife shook her head.

“Can just see it. Aren't I right, Zo?”

“Had, maybe,” I said. “Not anymore.”

“Oh, no. Either he'll come to his senses, or he wasn't worth the trouble.”

“I guess.”

“No, really. He should be so lucky. To go out with you? You're to die for, honey.”

A few minutes later I took my leave into the dark evening so I could go cry and feel sorry for myself. I didn't want to play their guessing game about who the fellow might have been (“I'll knock some good taste into him,” John offered, looking offended. “Just give me a name.”) and I certainly didn't think I deserved their pity. But moreover, there was the obvious sense that we were inhabiting two different planes of existence. Two different worlds. In one, nice girls had their feelings trampled on while looking for a marriageable man. And in the other—which is to say, mine—the missions were darker, more complex, and infinitely more real.

 

An Oral History of Vera Orlov, née Volkov, cont'd

Recorded by the Maple Hill Police Department

THE REVEREND FATHER ALBERT PETERFFY

“I was introduced to Mrs. Orlov in early July at the Grande Chez Hotel in Twisted Branch, New Jersey—I think our first interaction was a private joke she made to me at the front desk, about the name of the hotel. ‘Even when they try to appreciate the old world, they do it improperly,' she said, and I agreed. The concierge looked flustered, as well he must've been—you see, she was speaking in French, and I don't think he understood. Not sure how she knew I would. Spent time in Compi
è
gne during the war, providing relief to our boys, and perhaps I just have that look about me now.

“But yes, we spoke again. Principally because she had me booted from my room! They put me on the top floor, and I guess she tossed up a bit of a fuss about her view, and when they asked I didn't really mind moving. She hadn't realized I was the one she was kicking out (or anyway, that's what she told me), and offered to buy me a conciliatory cocktail, which—you don't say no to a drink with such an interesting lady when you get to my age.

“In the dining room, when I sat down, she already had a glass of wine for herself and a scotch for me, and she was twisting a golden chain
between her fingers. Beautiful manicure, but a distant expression. Thought I must've done something to upset her, but she said no, no. Thought she was tired, but she said no, no. I wanted to put her at ease, so I asked her to tell me about herself, and she gave me this
look
—well, my parish is quite wealthy, so I see a lot of
looks
, but this was about the chilliest expression I've ever encountered. Like a thimble of ice water right into the blood.

“Then—well. Mrs. Orlov began absolutely
interrogating
me about God. About God! Not what I expected from a casual drink, I must say. I'd have guessed she was more the type to think “priest” is a political role, like “town selectman.” But she jumped right in: transmigration, transubstantiation, the Holy Trinity. Some of her opinions were quite distinctive. Can't remember specifics offhand, but she wanted me to reassure her that the soul cannot be tampered with, that loss and change and external perception are not stronger than the force of the spirit. I thought I knew what she was getting at—her accent, you know. She spoke like a refugee. So I asked once again, if there was any story she could share about her youth, her childhood. Something she was fond of telling. But she just smiled. Said she met her husband at a party, that he tweaked the host's nose and she thought—maybe. She told me he was playful, if not exactly a man of great conviction. I'm not sure I really put her mind at ease.

“When we finished our drink I invited her to accompany me on a tour of the boardwalk the next day, but she declined. Didn't see her much after that. Just nodded hello if we came across one another in the halls, or raised a glass in the dining room from separate tables. Then one day she was gone. Checked out, I suppose. Though they certainly didn't offer to move me back to the penthouse. [
he snorts
] Grande Chez Hotel. [
Notes indicate that the Reverend Father was asked to clarify the dates of his encounter with Mrs. Orlov.
] Oh, I'm fairly sure about the dates. I always keep my receipts, from travel and the like. So yes, I'd estimate she was in Twisted Branch for that entire space of time. Couldn't possibly have made a trip back to—where was it? Maple Hill? No. At least, I can't imagine how.”

 

Zoya

63.

A couple of weeks later I woke up from a terrible dream without remembering almost any of it. Something about sitting on a platform that raised and lowered in the air. Or—a flying carpet? I could only keep it aloft by counting up and down from ten. It was the counting that woke me.
Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneight
… The sun was up, but not by much, and my blankets were heavy with sweat.

I'd slept on the greenhouse floor, using a skinny mattress John had procured for me a year or so earlier so I could camp out during the cold snaps. It rolled up easily, and most of the time we stored it in the shed outside; it was musty and uncomfortable. I hadn't used the thing since winter, as there wasn't much point in the nicer months. But I couldn't seem to sleep alone in my house anymore. My thoughts banged off the walls, smashed into me in bed. Shadows crawled around. In the greenhouse at least I had the company of the plants, and the comfort of their warm and even exhalations. I tied the mattress up tight and set it in the corner, not wanting to be caught out by John, and positioned myself in front of a fan to cool off. I smelled of chicken bones boiling into stock. Sleep reek.

The fan didn't work. Too much heat, or maybe not enough air. I'd had trouble pulling deep breaths lately, too. I picked a hose with a gentle spray nozzle and turned it on myself, the water cold. A mist in my face, on my arms, on my nightshirt. The light cotton clung to my chest, and I sprayed
the back of my neck, letting water stream down my spine and into my underwear. Down to my feet. I stood on a grate in the concrete floor, and watched the nightmare wash off me. It looked like nothing, but I knew.

I thought about Lev. His hands all over me, arranging me like putty. His mouth on my neck. I gave a little moan. Then something banged against the door.
Not again
, I thought. I turned off the hose and ran outside, ready to confront some naughty child. But of course there was none. It wasn't even seven in the morning, and instead I found myself face to face with George Round.

“Oh,” he said. “Zoe, isn't it?”

“Hello, sir.” I crossed my arms over my chest and pressed my knees together. “Good morning.”

“Yes, a very pleasant one. I was just taking a stroll before heading into the office. Early meetings you know, they'll be the death of me. And, may I ask—?” He stopped, seeming to reconsider his question. “Is there some problem with the greenhouse?”

“No. Well. Yes, but, no. I mean, sometimes I sleep here during extreme weather. To make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“Extreme weather.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Awfully nice day for it.”

“Actually it was rather hot inside.”

George Round looked at me, then politely averted his gaze. I didn't feel him searching in me for what men usually found, but this had the odd effect of making me feel more seen. “I don't think I need to tell you this is rather strange.”

“No, sir.”

“When I heard a sound inside, I thought there was a vandal. Or—you know, teenagers. That's why I came to check.”

I wasn't sure he'd be able to see me flush, given the water, the light. How loud had I been? Lev's hands, on every part of me.

“Listen,” he said. “Just don't let me find you here again like this. I would hate for anything to complicate your position at the school.”

“Of course.” I couldn't meet his eye. “Thank you.”

The problem, I realized once he'd left, wasn't the shame. My time at the Donne School was winding down in any case, so what did it matter if someone thought I was a little crazy? Unwholesome? I was going to kill a man. In the cottage, though, Vera had laughed and said no one would think to question me when Lev was gone, because I was just the flower girl. Invisible on campus, illegible within his life. Any investigation would pass right over me: true enough until the moment I called attention to myself, streaking half-naked out onto the lawn. There wasn't an enormous chance that George Round would put the two events together. But there was, now, a chance.

I dressed hastily in the previous day's clothes and started home to make tea; I'd gone off coffee since my night of reading at the cottage table. On the way I decided to take a quick detour into the nicer neighborhoods around campus, telling myself it was just for the pleasure of walking under the tall leafy trees, the dappled shade. Everyone was sleeping and so life seemed suspended. Birds trapped in a mailbox: I'd had that idea, once. There was a single abandoned roller skate on the sidewalk that I nudged into a flowerbed with my toe-tip, sliding it back and forth over the rough concrete before letting it go. Orange rubber, invisible in the nasturtiums. Then I was at Lev's door.

The surprise wasn't my presence. It was his. A part of me had been certain he wouldn't ever show up, would just have melted away. But. I floated up the front steps expecting the same dark rooms and empty sense that the house had exuded since my return to Maple Hill. And instead found—blazing light. Every room in the house was at peak brightness, and through the window I saw a halfway unrecognizable man standing up in front of a desk and writing something (what?) that filled him with horror. Lev. His cheekbones hollow and nose rather beaky. The lips I'd so missed red and white with chap, to such a degree they seemed to be covered with pith from an orange. His clothes were askew, his beard growing in, and when I knocked on the window his eyes searched for the sound without seeming able to find my face. It spooked me, I'll admit. There was a long
moment of terror for us both, until I realized that the lamps were casting a reflection, making it impossible for him to see through the glass.

I went to the door and knocked with both hands, more a beating than an entreaty—I had to stop myself from scratching the paint.
Now, it's now
, I thought. Hating the thinking. When Lev opened the door I threw myself into his arms and kissed him once, twice, again, until we tumbled into the middle of the house to the space behind the stairs and pressed our bodies together with the desperation of two people with irreconcilable ideas about what could heal our wounds.

64.

Afterwards, Lev seemed nervous. He lit a cigarette and smoked it halfway before thinking to light another for me. I hadn't had a single one since leaving Vera, so the first several inhalations went to my head, leaving me woozy. Lev pressed the back of his wrist to his brow and then shook it away when the cigarette embers came too close to his skin.

“Did you?” he asked me. “Did it go off?”

I had decided several days before what to say.

“Not exactly. She never showed up at the train.”

“Oh, thank god. You know, she wrote to say the trip was on but I …” He trailed off. I followed him into the kitchen for water, then up to his bedroom where he unrolled a gun from a silk scarf and laid it on the bed. “I shot someone,” he said. “In Leningrad. She was a woman and I …” He shook his hand again and sparks scattered onto the carpet. I discreetly stubbed them out with my shoe, then left my own cigarette in an ashtray.

“Lev, what happened? Did you get the book?”

“You know,” he went to the window and leaned against the sill. “I was excited when she told me about your plans, but then I got to thinking, I don't know, I don't know.”

“She? Who? In Leningrad?”

“Oh,
her
.” He laughed shrilly. “You want to know about her? Well, yes, I did it, you see. Almost. I got all the way to the station—I mean the station where it was buried, and it was nighttime, and it was dark out, and I thought, this is the best chance I'm going to have. But damn them, they'd paved over the spot, or”—his voice was hoarse—“or else I forgot where it was.”

I sat down on the bed. Thinking of how he would've approached that place with perfect confidence. Did he even want to find it? Did he really care about the book, the way he said? Or did he just want to prove to himself that he could do something Vera didn't want done?
Give him an inch of leash
, she'd told me. “We were happy, weren't we?” I asked. “We could've just carried on. It didn't need to be everything, all at once.” But I don't think he heard me.

“I had this idiotic shovel, I mean a
hand spade
,” Lev muttered. “I mean, even if it weren't for the paving how deep could I have gotten? After how many years? Vera knew. Vera always knows. And I thought—” He turned to me, desperate. “You didn't, did you? Tell me she's alive.”

“As far as I know, Lev. She wasn't there.”

“Of course, of course.” He looked down at his hands, wringing them. The way a raccoon washes and washes a piece of food in its fist, or some little gem it's picked up off the road. “Of course I couldn't leave it like that, so I picked a spot—I mean, I think it was the right spot—and I started trying to chip away at the cement. But it was so loud. There were actual sparks coming up where I hit.” He went silent for a moment.

“And the woman?”

“Vlad, he was my guide you know, and he kept hushing me.
Tishe, tishe
. And I kept stabbing at the ground, right above where I thought it was, right towards where the book should be. And then someone came along and”—his eyes were moons, so big they scared me—“she was, I don't know,
militsia
? Secret police? But so young.”

I picked up the pistol from beside me and tested the weight of it in my hand. Lev didn't seem to notice. In that moment I had no plan. He was the love of my life, you see. Fumbling towards some truth too terrible to
be spoken out loud.
I kissed Daphne behind the library. You and Vera, you're exactly the same.

“She shouted at me to put down my weapon, and I don't know—I guess she thought the sparks were something else, but she pulled out her gun and I threw down the spade, and when the sound distracted her, I—”

The shot was more than I expected. It pushed me back onto the bed and hurt my arm, leaving my ears ringing. Lev didn't shout, and for a second I thought I'd missed. But you can't miss at that range. He was four feet away at most, and it went through right under his left shoulder, and the bleeding was profuse. Tears streamed down my face, and I waited for him to say something, but he just coughed. A few drops of blood spraying out and then trickling down from his mouth as he looked at me with bemusement. Or maybe it was dreadful pain.

I dropped the gun and thought,
You have to go, you have to go right now
. But I sat there and watched him slide down to the floor and stare his questions and confusion at me, wordless. Then I went to crouch by him, at what I judged to be the last, and brought his fingers to my lips and kissed them. I could've said “It was her idea,” and given him some final measure of satisfaction, but I wanted it to be us, just us again, in that room. Still, perhaps he guessed.

I didn't say good-bye. There wasn't any point. I wandered out into the street and found no one poking their head out to see what was wrong. Such a distinctive sound, a gunshot, but I suppose the neighbors all thought what they wanted to think: that a car had backfired, and they ought to get a few more minutes of sleep.

Was this the logical conclusion of hoping Lev's books would live forever? To launch him into time immemorial, where he would with tenderness caress the lives of so many women and men, whatever their troubles? The man they needed, who would bring to them books, stories. Of a girl with wings, to soar above the clean blue of the world. A girl named Felice whose little claws would grip at twig and twine and whose body would twist and dance in the air—vainglorious in her triumph, weightless in her happiness—the way they dreamed they someday might.

At home I put a few things in my bag, which had been sitting out since I got back from the seashore. I washed my hands, scrubbing off the rime of oil from the pistol so I wouldn't have to smell it. Then I walked to the train station and sat in the sun and waited for the ten-thirty express, watching with some remorse the types of bouquets men bought at the kiosk for their wives or mistresses. Unimaginative. Hardly half-inspired. I could've given them something so much better, if only things were different for us all.