My Sister, My Love (37 page)

It did not appear to be a trick. It was not a game. He knew now, it was not hide-and-seek. His daughter was gone. He knew. And yet: The Eye That “Sees” was offering hope.
We will return her to you if you repent. If return to Martial Vows. Until death part. Contact you by phone.
Now it was clear: his daughter would be returned to him. He would be given another chance. Whoever had taken her would have mercy on him. Whoever had taken her would not harm a six-year-old child. There was no logic in harming a six-year-old child. These were Christian people, obviously. The Eye That “Sees” was a Christian. Twenty miles away! Bliss was twenty miles away! But they would bring her back. There was the promise. Wasn’t this a promise? His wife’s livid body was in his arms. Pressing into his arms. Almost, there was sex-hunger here, a sudden terrible yearning. Bix was hugging Betsey, burying his heated face in her neck. Betsey was clutching at Bix, as if they were struggling together at the edge of a precipice, she alone could save him. Bix could not see Betsey’s face but he could hear Betsey’s sobs and these were a mother’s true sobs, from the womb. He could not hear what Betsey was saying, her words were unintelligible. O God I am so sorry, Jesus forgive me, I am to blame. And then: a doorbell ringing? But who? In desperate hope thinking Bliss is back, they have brought her back, but when Bix hurried to the front door, on the stoop were Reverend Higley and Mrs. Higley ashen-faced, in the next instant clutching Bix’s hands: “Betsey called us, Betsey has told us this terrible thing that has happened, the kidnappers have called for your ‘pastor’—and I am here.”
*

ERASE THE PRECEDING CHAPTER—“POLLUTER”—FROM YOUR MEMORY, READER!
If you can.

I am thinking it was a mistake. I am thinking that, if I can, I should retract it.

Though it was anguish to compose, and provoked a siege of panic-tachycardia midway (see the offensive paragraph beginning
The other one, Skyler
—), and in my cringing-minor-footnote way I am actually somewhat proud of it, yet the realization came to me just now, the following morning, with the impact of jet-screeches from Newark Airport passing about forty feet above my bed, that earlier in this document, in the chapter “Popular!”, it was rashly suggested in a footnote that my father Bix Rampike might be responsible for my sister’s death; and that this suggestion—wild, reckless, unsubstantiated, slanderous, weird—may well be true.
*

What a blunder on my part, then, to have so effectively “re-enacted” the preceding scene in which the brute Rampike
père
seems to be utterly innocent!

DADDY WOULD DISCOVER BLISS IN THE FURNACE ROOM.

Not Bliss but Bliss’s body. In the furnace room.

Bliss is gone, Skyler. Jesus has taken Bliss to Heaven. What is left behind is Bliss’s earthly remains.

Skyler would not attend the funeral. Skyler would not be told when exactly the funeral was.

Skyler would not see his sister’s body in the furnace room.

Skyler did not see his sister’s body in the furnace room.

Never would Skyler so much as glimpse, through his fingers, or through half-shut eyes, his sister’s (stiffened, lifeless) forty-three-pound body with her arms above her head and her wrists bound together by a crimson silk scarf in the shadowy corner of the furnace room where in her desperate search of the house Mummy had several times looked. As Mummy would later lead Reverend and Mrs. Higley on a search of the house and yet no one ventured far enough into the windowless dimly lighted furnace room throbbing with heat like the interior of a lung.

She’s been taken, kidnapped. She’s been taken from us. She is gone. She isn’t in this house. We have looked, we have looked, we have looked everywhere in this house and she is gone from this house, the kidnappers have taken her.

When the cry—cries—went up, Skyler was—where?—upstairs in his room.

At once Skyler had known. The adults’ cries. Downstairs.

His sister had been found: Skyler knew.

He ran to the door. Lila clutched at him: “Skyler, no! You must stay up here, with me. Your mother has said…”

No! Skyler would not! Squirming out of the housekeeper’s fingers that clutched at him as you’d clutch at a reckless child about to fall from a precipice to his death.

On the floor, the ugly
Zap
comics
*
and crude cartoon sketches Skyler had been drawing, in jerky, jagged lines, clumsy cross-hatching figures (Daddy/Mummy/Brother/Sister) which, in the confusion of that morning would never be seen again
Such filth! In that innocent child’s heart! We must protect him.

Briskly Lila had been changing sheets on Skyler’s bed as Lila had changed the (soiled, stained) sheets on Bliss’s bed and taken away the (soiled, stained) mattress cover to be soaked in bleach before being laundered as Mrs. Rampike instructed. That morning Lila would run two full loads of laundry (including Skyler’s pajamas and Mrs. Rampike’s nightgown and terry cloth bathrobe and all the towels from Mrs. Rampike’s bathroom) and the shocking fact was, which Lila would recall through her life and never cease to speak of in wonder, dread, awe, while working in the laundry room (such a familiar room to her) Lila had unknowingly been no more than twenty feet away from the furnace room (a room she’d had little occasion to enter, at any time) in which the Rampikes’ little daughter was lying lifeless, stiffened in death.

Oh if I had found her! That poor little girl.

This January weekend was to have been Lila’s weekend off. And yet the call had come early that morning from Mrs. Rampike sounding “excited”—“upset”—summoning Lila to come to the house at once, to “help out”—“take care of Skyler”—in this “terrible” time.

Always such emotion in the Rampike household! Like lightning flashing, and deafening thunder-claps to follow.

Yet: the Rampikes were good people. In Fair Hills, you were not likely to have employers superior to the Rampikes with all their problems and special demands.

Even Mrs. Rampike who was frequently excitable, and exacting, was a good-hearted woman, Lila believed. Sometimes exclaiming to Lila, tears shining in her warm brown eyes, “Lila, you are the only one I trust. God bless you!” (Which was embarrassing, but far better than being scolded, or spoken to sarcastically.) And there was tall good-looking Mr. Rampike like a tornado in the house, clothes and towels strewn in his wake, making Lila’s cheeks burn with his teasing ways, and habit of secretly pressing twenty- and fifty-dollar bills into Lila’s hand: “Hardship pay,
señora
, for putting up with Big Betsey and Big Bix. I know we’re
gringo
pains-in-theass.” Winking at Lila, sometimes pinching her plump upper arm, what a good man Mr. Rampike was in his heart! And there were the Rampike children, Lila had come to love. Not like the children of other employers for whom Lila had worked who were mean, brattish, cruel but sweet little children: the little girl who was so famous and so sad and the little boy with the “ghost eyes” whom at this terrible time Lila must protect.

Twitchy little Skyler! Lila was surprised to see that, at this early hour, Skyler was wearing one of his white cotton school shirts and over the shirt a cable-knit hunter-green vest sweater and clean corduroy trousers and the newest of his several pairs of sneakers. And Skyler’s fawn-colored hair was flyaway-clean as if it had only just been washed. And Skyler was unusually
clean
: so far as Lila could see, the smudged little tattoos that so upset and annoyed his mother had been scrubbed away. It wasn’t like Skyler to be so unresponsive to Lila, unsmiling, dazed-looking and seemingly exhausted as if he’d been up through the night. When Lila spoke to him, Skyler only just blinked slowly, and wiped at his pug nose, and twitched in two general ways: shiveringly from the feet up, or tremorously from the head down.

Skyler’s dry lips moved. Skyler was asking if there was a party downstairs.

Downstairs was the prayer vigil. Waiting for the kidnapper to call. Lila had been told just the rudiments of the situation. Whoever had taken Bliss
away would speak only to the Rampikes’ pastor who was Reverend Higley, an Episcopal priest. Mrs. Higley was there also, and several other ladies Mrs. Rampike knew from church: Mrs. Squires, Mrs. Poindexter, and Mrs. Hind. And there was Dale McKee who was Mrs. Rampike’s assistant and there was Dr. Helene Stadtskruller who was Mrs. Rampike’s therapist with whom Mrs. Rampike had “forged” an intimate bond—“close as sisters!”—and all these individuals, in addition to Mrs. Rampike, and Mr. Rampike (surprising to Lila, how dazed and distracted Mr. Rampike seemed!—not his usual smiling bossy self ), were gathered in the family room, close by a telephone.

Waiting for the kidnappers’ call. Waiting waiting!

And praying: on their knees, even the stiff-jointed elderly Mrs. Poindexter and Mrs. Hind, even Dr. Stadtskruller who’d confessed in a blurting apology to Reverend Higley and the Rampikes that she wasn’t a “believer”—“more of a rationalist-agnostic actually”—on their knees, on the Bolivian goatskin rug, and gripping hands tightly as “Archie” Higley led the earnest childlike chanting prayer
Our Father Who art in Heaven hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven bring Bliss back safely to us hear us in our appeal Heavenly Father and Jesus His Only Begotten Son have mercy!

Overhearing, Lila whispered
Amen!
and quickly crossed herself.

In secret offering a prayer to the Virgin Mary: in Whom, so far as Lila knew, Protestants did not believe.

Imagine! What folly! Not to “believe” in the Mother of God who was the true worker of miracles amid mankind if you but prayed in the simplest of ways as you are taught as a child before you learn to read
Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with Thee, blessed art Thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus.
Now repeat ten times.

Edgy and anxious staring at the clock—9:48
A.M.
—10:07
A.M.
—(there had been calls in fact, from Evita’s Beauty Emporium confirming Mrs. Rampike’s 10
A.M.
appointment on Monday, which was to be cancelled, and from Penelope Dressler who was chair of the Gala Spring Frolick [fund-raiser for Charity Hill Volunteers of which Betsey Rampike was a member], a somewhat mysterious call from a shrill-sounding female inviting “both Rampikes” to a Valentine’s Day cocktail party at “the Klaffs” of whom
neither Betsey nor Bix seemed to have heard)—and now 10:29
A.M.
and Betsey “too restless” to remain in the family room led Mattie Higley, and Frannie Squires, and Dale McKee, and Dr. Stadtskruller on yet another search through the house—a search not for Bliss (who’d been kidnapped) but for “signs”—“clues”—that Betsey might have overlooked previously: these women climbing to the second floor, and into the attic, and again downstairs to the second floor and into all of the rooms (excluding Skyler’s room, where Skyler had been sequestered with the housekeeper to spare him as much trauma as possible); and returning to the first floor, where Archie Higley yet waited for the phone to ring, and Bix was hovering nearby sweaty and ashen-faced opening and closing his fists like a man under sentence of death yet uncertain from which direction death will sweep upon him, or what face death will wear; and as the nervously chattering women made their way as in a procession of pilgrims through the first-floor rooms Betsey called to Bix almost gaily saying please would he join them?—it would be best for at least one man to accompany them; and so like a large clumsy dog roused from sleep, yet still groggy, with slow-blinking-stunned eyes, Bix joined the women, following in their wake unnaturally still, stumbling at times as if losing his balance, as Betsey eagerly led her friends through the kitchen—and such a well-kept kitchen, the women would be impressed—and, again, outside and into the garage, where there was nothing to see, though you expected to see something, as in a suspense film; and beyond the garage, into the cold, still air, to circle the Rampike house that was so sprawling and attractive, alert as watch-dogs the women made their way, and Bix stumbling behind them, on the lookout for “strange footprints” in the snow; except, unfortunately, the snow had been trampled from previous searches. This time, however, as Betsey led the little search party around the back of the house, sharp-eyed Dale McKee cried, “Oh! Oh
look.
”

A broken basement window, partly hidden by a dense evergreen shrub. How had this window been overlooked, previously?

Quickly now, the searchers returned to the house, and hurried downstairs to the basement, and into the storage room which was the room with the broken window. “The most hidden-away room in the house,” Betsey said breathlessly.

Here, someone might have entered the house. Slivers of glass lay glittering underfoot.

Excitedly the women conferred: had someone crawled through the broken window, that was partly hidden by stacked cartons? (Which would explain why the Rampikes hadn’t seen the broken window earlier.) You could see how, beneath the window, which was large enough for a “smallish man” to crawl through, there was a carton positioned like a step. (Which the intruder would have used, when he left.)

In a flurry of excitement, alarm, commingled dread and elation the women pressed near. If there were cobwebs, quickly the women brushed them away. Betsey was saying, “This is it! Oh God, this is how the kidnapper entered our house! And the security alarm wasn’t on—Bix kept promising to have it repaired, so it wouldn’t go off for no reason, and it never got repaired…And whoever this was, this kidnapper, somehow he knew where Bliss’s room was, and he overpowered her in her sleep, and took her away. And I never knew. I was sleeping, I was so trusting, Jesus have mercy on me, I never knew.” Betsey was weeping now, and trembling violently, as the women comforted her. Bix neither looked at her nor seemed to be listening to her but was examining the broken window, and the area around the window; grunting with the effort of hoisting himself up, elbows and forearms on the windowsill, panting now, gasping: “So it’s here! Here! The son of a bitch! Here’s where he came in.”

Quickly Betsey chided, “Bix, please. Don’t be profane.”

QUICK CUT TO: TWO FLOORS UP WHERE SKYLER WAS ASKING LILA WAS IT HIS
fault? what happened to Bliss, his fault? for Mummy seemed to be angry with him now. Mummy did not seem to love him now.

Lila assured him no. Mummy could not be angry with him. Mummy loved him.

“Lila,
did I do it
?”

Lila would have hugged Skyler except, needing badly to pee, Skyler pushed away from her, hurried into the bathroom and shut the door and tried to pee, tried very hard to pee, but only a pathetic little dribble emerged from his bruised little pecker. And Skyler began to cry, and Lila entered the
bathroom and led him back into his room, brushed his damp hair from his feverish forehead, Lila would have kissed the anxious child except Skyler was not her son to kiss; Skyler was another woman’s son; and Lila knew her place, by instinct Lila understood that Betsey Rampike would not want the Filipina housekeeper Lila Laong kissing and coddling her son.

Earnestly Lila assured Skyler one more time that his mother loved him. His father loved him. Everyone who knew him loved him. Soon they would find his sister, and the terrible time would be over. “Why don’t you sit here and read your comic books, Skyler? Or—would you like to draw? I promise, I will stay with you.”

In the confusion of that morning Skyler would not later recall the sequence of events. For possibly it had been earlier, that Lila had brought him breakfast on a tray, as if he was sick and staying home from school in his room: Count Chocula (chocolate-coated cereal) with sliced bananas, raisin bread toast with grape jelly, a tall glass of hyper-sweetened orange juice, a tall glass of vitamin-enriched milk. How Skyler loved Count Chocula cereal!—yet, lifting a spoonful to his mouth, he chewed but couldn’t swallow, spat out the mouthful into the cereal bowl which had to be, as anyone in Skyler’s class at Fair Hills Day would say with a sneer,
gross.

That morning seeming to know how he would never again return to the “prestigious”—“exclusive”—private school where among his classmates Skyler Rampike had acquired—at last!—a reputation for being, if not “normal,” no longer hopelessly “weird”: for the lustre of Skyler’s local-celebrity sister had cast upon him a flattering lunar glow, and it had become common for Skyler to be approached by the most popular girls, including sixth-grade girls, with eager questions about Bliss. And there was the additional lustre of the H.I.P. designation, now to be surrendered forever.