Mount Terminus (17 page)

For the moment, Bishop was blinded—the screen faded to black, over the lens a shudder blinked to simulate Bishop's frenetic lid—and when the camera lens moved from soft to sharp focus, he saw the glowing hair of the bespectacled woman, there she was, examining the eye that had caused him his troubles. With the corner of a kerchief, she wiped from his cheek a bloody tear left by the mosquito, then extended him a hand, lifted him to his feet, and off Bishop walked down the street with her until the camera's iris closed around them.

*   *   *

Bloom thought it marvelous, and before his brother could solicit his opinion, he said so.

As Simon stood before the projector and wound back the reel, he told Bloom that when he was ready, when Bloom had acquired the skills to be useful to Gottlieb, when he had matured a little more, Simon would do everything in his power to arrange for him to work as his assistant.

For this Bloom thanked his brother.

Simon removed Gottlieb's reel and replaced it with another. When he had fed the leader into the machine and switched on the projector, he walked to Bloom's side, took a seat on the sofa beside him, and together the brothers watched the picture Bloom had filmed on their aeronautical adventure over Mount Terminus. There, said Simon, the first of many pictures you'll be responsible for. Bloom watched with the thrill of seeing his memory of that day re-created and projected onto the wall. He watched as the scope turned and constructed the panorama of the valley and the range, the basin and the sea. This print is for you, said Simon when the film had run through and all that remained on the wall was a square of light shining forth from the burning filament of the unobstructed bulb. Bloom watched his brother rewind the short reel and close up the metal canister in which it was housed. You must keep it safe, in a warm, dry place.

I will.

Be sure that you do, he said when he stepped forward and placed the container in Bloom's hands, which felt warm to the touch. Before letting go, Simon added with a serious note, I mean it. It will be a memorial soon enough.

How so?

What I told you a few weeks ago, about the changes that are to come?

Yes.

I wasn't only speaking about the immediate changes on the studio lot. Simon waved his hand through the light. It cast a wave of a shadow across the wall. The fact of the matter is it won't be long before the land all around us is changed forever. All of what you see today from the peak of Mount Terminus, you won't recognize in the years to come.

I don't understand.

Simon stood up and began walking about the room. Before I explain how and why, understand this: I won't be deterred from my plans. They're already set in motion. But, he said as he pulled back the curtains to let in the light, I thought, perhaps if I prepared you for what's to come, the impact wouldn't be as unsettling as it might have been otherwise. He walked to the case in which he carried his daily allotment of film canisters, reached into it, and pulled out a map. He returned to his seat beside Bloom, unpacked the map's sections, and, with his eyes focused on the terrain, pointed to symbols and lines drawn over the topography of the region. Here, he said with his finger resting in the middle of Pacheta Lake's outline, at the center of the source of his mother and father's brief happiness together. I know you're familiar with this place.

Yes, said Bloom.

Yes, said Simon. He pulled his chin to the knot of his tie, and said, Here. You see the line marked here? Simon ran his finger over a line of red ink running southwest from the lake to the northern edge of the valley to a red triangle near the canyon pass. I've made a deal with the county's water authority to divert the lake water. Here, where the pass is, we're going to build a dam for a reservoir. Simon's finger now followed a tangential line west from the red triangle at the far reaches of the valley up along the ridge of the mountains leading to the basin on the opposite side of Mount Terminus. That water, it will flow through an outlet into the valley here, and through another outlet here, into the basin. Here, where for some years now, I've been buying up the property not owned by our father. Simon traced the red line until it stopped in the middle of the vast stretch of land leading to the sea. What I didn't inherit from Jacob, what Jacob didn't own, what I haven't yet been able to acquire, I'm now in the process of purchasing.

What for?

To make the land habitable. To build on it. To expand the city center outward by road and rail. All the way to the sea.

Simon handed the map to Bloom so that he might study it more thoroughly, to take in the full extent of his brother's vision, but Bloom couldn't begin to imagine the outcome, nor could he fathom how in the world Simon would achieve it. The engineering. The machinery. The laborers. It seemed to him an endeavor on the order of a Chinese emperor, an Egyptian pharaoh, a Mayan god. He tried to recall the city center's congested landscape, its architecture and industry, its tramways and public squares, and he tried to imagine it all superimposed onto the surface of the map, crowding the lens of his telescope, but the best he could do was to see a phantom image, a mirage on the edge of the desert shimmering in the heat and the wind.

When Bloom didn't respond, Simon said, The moment I looked out over the vistas of Mount Terminus, I saw what the land to the west should be. I saw how to make it habitable. How to populate an entire region of the Earth no one until now had ever thought to populate before. And I knew I was the one meant to shape it. I've spent enough time in the company of true artists to know, in my heart, Joseph, I'm not one of you. I'm a producer. That is the truth of it. As a businessman, understand? I, like you, have the potential to leave behind something great, something monumental. And what you see here? he said with his hand returning to the outline of Pacheta Lake, I know in my gut, will be the most important thing I ever do. The running of the studio, it's been my trade, a vocation like any other, for which I'll be admired for a while, and then forgotten, but
this
,
this
, Joseph, will leave a permanent mark on the land that will live long after you and I have both turned to dust. Surely, you can understand?

Bloom nodded, if only to indicate he followed his brother's reasoning, and recognized his conviction. He was able to comprehend Simon's plans, but he wasn't certain he understood the ambition that motivated him. Bloom had put little thought into what he would leave behind. He wasn't certain he cared what he left behind. Nor was he certain that he appreciated his brother's vision, as it stood in opposition to what he valued and cherished. He didn't wish to set himself apart from his brother, so he didn't express these thoughts out loud, but Simon was perceptive enough to see what weighed on Bloom's mind.

Simon lifted his hand and playfully tapped Bloom's forehead with the tip of his finger. We obviously have a great deal more to learn about each other, he said. I have come to see one thing quite clearly, however.

What's that?

How deeply attached you are to this place. I'm not blind. Simon repacked the map and placed it in his case. And when he had closed the clasps, he stood and said, No need to worry. We'll ease you into it. Before you find yourself in the thick of it, the least I can do is prepare you to become better acquainted with the terrain of what's to come.

Before Bloom could ask how exactly Simon proposed to do this, Simon asked the question himself. Yes, he said, but how, exactly? Simon stared off through the window whose view crossed the canyon. He stood quietly, intently twisting one of the curls on his head, occasionally glancing back at Bloom with what appeared to be a solution, and each time he appeared to have plotted a course of action, he made a theatrical turn, puckered his lips, and shook his head dismissively. After two and then three comic dismissals, he made his final turn and said, with a gleam in his eye, And there you have it!

There you have what?

The very thing, of course! My man Gus, he'll call on you tomorrow. He'll explain everything then.

Uncertain what arrangement he was agreeing to now, but trusting his brother well enough, and unable to help but feel appreciation for Simon's effort to lighten the blow of this news, Bloom said, All right. Yes, why not.

That's the spirit!

Bloom followed Simon out to his roadster, where his brother removed from the passenger's seat the case that held the fine-looking camera they had used on their aeronautical journey. Simon handed Bloom the container, and said, You'll be needing this. He then observed Bloom standing there with it in his arms, and, with brotherly affection, added, It suits you.

Does it?

It does. Simon nodded. He placed a hand on Bloom's shoulder. In all seriousness, he said. Do exactly as Gus says and we'll put you to work when I return.

Simon cranked the engine at the front of the automobile, and when its interior sounded its combustion, he took to the seat behind the wheel and said over the ruckus, Remember: three weeks! Twenty-one days from today! Watch for us on the port road! Three weeks! he called from the driver's seat. Until then! Simon turned the roadster around now and sped off down the drive onto the winding road. When the noise from his brother was no longer audible, Bloom set the case his brother had handed him in the foyer and climbed to the top of the tower, where he set his eye onto the viewfinder of his telescope and surveyed the land all around him, watched the ocean breezes waft dust up from the fields and the roads and settle over the canopy of the groves, and he tried once again to see into the future, but, for the life of him, he couldn't fathom it.

*   *   *

From behind his veil of sleep the following morning, Bloom heard a voice rich in timbre repeating his name. Joseph, it called. Joseph … It's time to wake up, kid. When Bloom opened his eyes, he saw first the inlay of his bedroom's coffered ceiling, and when he turned his head he was given a start, as standing beside him in silhouette was a man in a black mackintosh and bowler hat. Don't be startled. It's only me, Gus.

Gus? said Bloom, recalling the name of Simon's man.

Yes. Gus.

Why are you dressed like that?

Gus looked himself over and looked back to Bloom with his heavy brows pinching the bridge of his prodigious nose, and asked as a child might, How else would I be dressed?

The enormous figure bent down and folded over the blanket covering Bloom's body. He lifted it off, and he walked around the bed, and when he set it in the lap of the armchair Roya had slept in during his period of convalescence after his father's death, Bloom couldn't help but notice the great pack of shoulder muscles shifting under the material of the coat. The young lady is waiting, said Gus.

What young lady?

Your character study. Simon told me to tell you: You're to study the life within.

I'm to do what?

He wants to see what you can do with a living, breathing human being. She's waiting for you in your studio.

Bloom sat up and searched for Gus's eyes under the brim of his hat.

He said if you were to look at me the way you're looking at me now, I was to say this … He pulled from his jacket pocket a piece of notepaper, and after he wiped his extravagant nostrils with the back of his hand, he read: You're to become acquainted with her form and draw out what lives within. And then Simon said, if you still looked disorientated, like you look right now, I was to say, Let's go. On your feet. But only more like this: Let's go! On your feet! Only I don't think I'm going to have to do that now, am I?

No, Gus. That won't be necessary.

I'm glad for that. In spite of my appearance, I'm not the sort who enjoys making emphatic exclamations.

No, said Bloom for the sake of agreement, of course not.

Gus reached out to Bloom with his big paw and mussed his hair. You're a smart kid, he said, then told him he'd be waiting for him out on the landing.

After Bloom had washed and dressed, Gus escorted him into the courtyard and up to the dwelling atop the mesa. When they reached the door at the side of the building, Gus said, Remember. The inner life, not the outer beauty, is your concern. Simon says if you don't capture the inner life, he'll know. Like that, he said with a snap of his meaty fingers. He now opened the door and gave Bloom a little pat on the behind, which pushed him through the threshold. He then shut him in.

Sitting on a stool in the light shafting through the studio skylights, Bloom found a naked woman with a long braid of auburn hair hung on her shoulder. She sat nicely postured with her back to him, her skin appearing as if it had been treated with a golden-pink gouache. Bloom was reminded of the occasions he had seen this mix of soft color and texture from the tower's pavilion moments before the sun set, when a marine haze, whose moisture appeared more flowery than airy, hung on the horizon, and he further recalled how on such rare evenings when the sun slowly ebbed below the distant line of the sea to form in a few instants celestial bouquets of violet blue and saffron orange, all his worldly concerns ebbed into the arresting vision ahead, and vanished.

Hello, Bloom thought to say.

He said I shouldn't speak, said the woman. The sound of her voice was soothing and mild and Bloom tried to imagine from its tenor what her face might look like.

He told her she didn't need to speak to him if that was what she wanted.

She said it was, and then she said nothing more.

Forming a wide girth around his subject, Bloom gingerly placed the soles of his shoes on the planks of the floor, all the time observing along the way the cellolike curves of her back, the elongated tendons of her neck, the delicate bow of her left arm. When he reached the point in the studio where he could see her face and her chest in profile, he found she looked more like a girl than a woman. Although her cheeks were smooth, he could see pushing up through the taught skin a few white blemishes. Her jawline had yet to fully fill out, and to add to her youthful appearance, she had a petite nose and a full mouth, out of which poked at her lower lip a crooked bicuspid.