No Book but the World: A Novel (17 page)

“Someone go get his mother,” said Dennis. Both girls fled up the hill.

Then there were still the crickets, still the fragrance of honeysuckle and mock orange woven through the July breeze, still the silken blueness of the sky. And the Gann, his pulse beating reassuringly in his neck, his breath rising and falling visibly in his chest, but the rest of him lying still and in such an awkward, incorrect manner that Dennis felt almost impolite, even prurient, watching over him. He could see a bit of ginger fluff on the Gann’s upper lip and a large red pimple behind his ear.

There was Freddy, too, sitting behind him. Dennis looked over his shoulder. Ava’s brother was still slumped in the same position, head bent low as if in shame.

“What were you trying to do?” said Dennis, as neutrally as possible.

No response.

“Did you think he was hurting your sister?”

No response.

“They were just horsing around, you know.”

Freddy made a strange, creaking sound, and his hunched shoulders quaked.

Dennis wondered if horsing around was what Freddy had intended, too: just to join in what looked like roughhousing. He didn’t know Freddy well, having caught only glimpses of him on his own school vacations, or having heard from his mother the occasional Freddy story, accompanied by soft, sorrowful clickings of her tongue, but he had known him for ages; had, in some small fashion, watched him grow up, and he could see how year by year Freddy was less a part of things, less included in the activities of the other Batter Hollow kids. How year by year Freddy was losing ground, becoming increasingly odd and unappealing—unincludable—in the eyes of the world, even this small, familiar world that knew him best, and Dennis, who had no particular interest in Freddy (no real liking for him, if he was going to be honest), felt for a moment the tragic unfairness of Freddy’s lot.

Another sound rose up from Freddy then, a kind of heave.

“Look,” said Dennis, “it’s not entirely your fault. You couldn’t have known he’d knock his head. Although, you are pretty big, you know? You’re . . . a big guy. You should try to be more careful. Okay?”

With a raggedy gasp Freddy raised his head a little, just enough to peer up at Dennis through his dark fallen bangs, and his dark eyes were not wet, not worried, but shining bright with mirth. Dennis could see his long eyeteeth shining, too, both of them bared, almost rudely white and healthy. He was laughing.

Whenever Dennis thought about it afterward—and it did turn out to be one of those memories that bobbed up again and again over the years—he couldn’t decide what to make of Freddy’s laughter. Had it been chilling, a sign of a grievously dissociated mind? Or was it something more piteous and blameless, a sign of ignorance, innocence, of how little he was able to understand personal responsibility, or to feel for someone who’d been injured? Someone he
had injured.

At the time, in confused revulsion, Dennis turned away. When he did he saw that the Gann had come to: he’d opened his eyes and was scowling.
“Fuck,”
he said, and, “Fuckin’ that
hurt
,” and he pushed himself to sitting, ignoring Dennis’s suggestion that he might want to lie there a little longer. And in that next small moment before Kitty and Ava and Ginny Gann and some of the other Gann kids came bounding down the hill toward the court, Dennis struggled against the sense that there
was
in fact something funny about the incident: the squat, muscle-bound Gann, trying to impress Ava with all the foot-smelling, ankle-grabbing finesse of a caveman, suddenly being flattened by the graceful blur of this huge, bumbling boy. Was that the joke, or was it even more rudimentary: simply the ancient infantile comedy of peekaboo? On-off. Here-gone. Permanence-impermanence. Ho-ho-ho.

In any case, as Ginny Gann knelt before her son—palpating with her clinician’s impartiality the areas at the base of his skull and around his collarbones, looking into his eyes and asking him questions that he answered grudgingly, with robust adolescent embarrassment—Dennis was appalled to discover himself overcome with the urge to laugh. He suppressed it as best he could. It wound up sounding like a cross between a burp and a retch, and garnered suspicious looks from both Ginny Gann and Kitty, but the former quickly resumed testing her son’s mental faculties, and the latter was diverted by one of the little Gann girls, who, seeing her brother alive and well, was now begging Kitty and Ava to swing her between them by the hands.

That evening after supper, most of Batter Hollow strolled down to the new seven-square court for its inaugural game. Dennis could not help but feel proud when, in addition to the kids, several of the grown-ups lined up for a position, too: Jim and Katinka, who played with rangy, cutthroat flair; Don, who compensated for the deprivations of middle age with the canny grace of a former athlete; June, who, though light on her feet, proved gaily inept at getting the ball to land within bounds; and even Marty and Pearl Salinas-Buchbinder, who so rarely left the quiet of the ivy-covered Annex, where they liked to remain ensconced among their books and papers, the chamber music they favored wafting softly out the windows. The Gann parents didn’t come, but all the kids were there, including the one Fred had knocked down earlier, seeming none the worse except for a scrape, already scabbing over, at his temple. Meg Manseau, whose hips bothered her, and Neel Robbins, who was by then in his mid-seventies and the survivor of his first mild stroke, sat on folding chairs in the grass with the low sun at their backs, the midges arcing around them like pale sparks in the light. Dennis was given the honor of inhabiting the king spot first, but he didn’t hold his position long, and as soon as he got out, Neel summoned him over.

“What gave you the idea?” He gestured toward the court with his huge lavender teacup, which still contained enough of his evening Postum to slosh precariously as he pointed. Though it was a warm evening, Neel wore a cardigan and had a light shawl draped across his knees. His hair, backlit by the setting sun, looked as gossamer as the midges.

“Well, it was partly wanting to see if there was a way to get more people playing at once.” Dennis stooped a little to converse; Neel wore hearing aids now.

“Yes?”

“Yeah, with so many kids, the little ones especially get out quickly and then they have to wait in line. Also I’d been wanting to try out this idea from a class I took, the Art of Structural Design.”

“Remind me, you’re at . . . ?”

“Columbia.” Dennis always had the urge to say sir when he spoke to Neel. A vestige, perhaps, of his prep school days; at Clembrook the boys had addressed the headmaster as sir. Neel, for all his strident refutation of such formalities, nevertheless seemed to wear a mantle of authority as plain as the plaid shawl now spread on his lap. A paradox, Dennis thought when he was feeling fond of Neel. Hypocrisy, he thought when he was not.

“Majoring in . . . ?”

“Civil engineering. In this class we talked about the ethics of design.”

“Ah,” crowed Neel. He raised his Postum in tribute, whether to the seven-square court or to the ethics of design, Dennis wasn’t sure. “Chip off the old block,” he announced, enigmatically (did he mean Dennis reminded him of Don and Meg, or could he in some addled, grandiose way be referring to himself, to the legacy of Batter Hollow, even though Dennis had never been a student there?), but Meg just laughed appreciatively and smiled up at her son. “We like him.”

Dennis allowed himself to straighten now to his full, comfortable height and, surveying all the people playing or waiting for a turn on the court he’d made, feeling the sun baking on his back and the welcome chill of evening beginning to rise up from inside the earth, could not help basking in a sense of well-being. He had to admit, it felt good being praised by Neel Robbins. Whatever his feelings about the man, he was, after all, the paterfamilias of a vast community consisting not only of the people gathered here this evening, but all the legions of Batter Hollow alum who’d gone on to make names for themselves.

Not to mention he was the pater of Ava Robbins. Ava Robbins, admittedly too young for him, but ah! Long-armed and leggy, smooth and summer-brown of face, she was so alluringly, inscrutably serious: just look at her standing there now in line, one hand clasping the other elbow behind her back, feet planted wide, attuned to the game, attuned vigilantly, it seemed, to Fred, who’d made it to the number three square and was following the ball with a kind of jangling focus. Slack-jawed, he barked out one of his peculiar laughs from time to time, but on the whole was keeping it together and doing well in the game. Ava regarded Fred with such concentration she appeared oblivious to all else, insensible to anything not-Fred. When the ball next came to his square and he overshot, so that it cannoned clear beyond the asphalt court and bounced into the tall, prickly grasses down the meadow, her face crimped in a disappointment so reflexive it was as if she were actually wired to something: her brother, the ball, the disgusted groan of the Gann who went off to retrieve it.

Had Dennis ever watched anything with such concentration as Ava watched her brother? Even as he studied her, he could not help but be conscious of other things: the sweet July breeze on his arms; the pride that attached to him through the game being played on his court; his mother and Neel in their folding chairs beside him; the possibility that he might be observed, considered, by others. Although not by Ava. She was lost to herself. As if to confirm what he was thinking, a damselfly landed then on her head. Dennis watched as it folded and respread its wings, the needle of its body jewel-bright against her brown curtain of hair, and flew off again, unmarked.

It struck him that this quality of deep, obviating focus was something the siblings had in common, a kind of ingenuousness so pure it bordered on indecent.

•   •   •

T
HANKSGIVING FELL
just days after Ava came back from Perdu. The Manseaus were hosting at their Jane Street apartment in the Village. Dennis and Ava had signed on to bring pureed peas, roasted root vegetables and apple cake. Dennis was clad in clean black jeans and a heathery green sweater Ava had picked out, Ava in a long brown A-line dress with blanket stitching and the amethyst drop earrings Dennis had given her on their seventh anniversary, purchased from the little cigar-scented antique shop in town. When they assembled in their front hall, loaded with CorningWare and a foil-covered roasting dish and the cake plate draped with a tea towel, Dennis caught sight of them both in the small mirror that hung next to the door and felt a heaviness in his chest. She had taken such care to adorn herself festively for the occasion, yet she looked so lost. He bent and kissed the top of Ava’s head. “You’re gorgeous.”

She gave him a seven-watt smile.

“Tell me about you,” he said in the car.

“I’m thinking about Fred.”

“I know that. Tell me about Ava.”

“Ava’s thinking about Fred.”

Miles passed.

“Do you feel like telling
what
you’re thinking?” He knew that Ava had been able to visit Fred twice before she left Perdu. The first time, by her account, Fred had been essentially uncommunicative. The second time he had been worse.

She began a movement now that was like washing her hands in slow motion, her trademark and oddly sensual gesture of distress. “I’m scared for him. I’m scared for him right now in prison, and I’m scared for whatever’s going to happen to him for the rest of his life. I’m scared thinking about whatever happened. And I’m angry, and that scares me, too.”

“Why?”

“I’m not supposed to be angry at him.”

“Why not?”

But she didn’t explain. After a few more miles she said, “I keep trying to picture it, all different versions of what might have happened. He didn’t tell me anything. He sat there in these clothes that weren’t his, the terrible prison-green shirt and pants—why do they do that?”

“What?”

“Make them wear those clothes. Is it to punish them psychologically? It is a kind of punishment. I never thought of it before, until seeing him. It’s a terrible thing, making them all wear the same clothes. Neel would have hated it!” She gave a rough little laugh. “Why can’t they just let them wear their own clothes? I can understand no belts and zippers and things, but why not let them wear their own T-shirts and sweatpants?”

Dennis considered. “There might be security rea—”

“And he was
bouncing
—you know that thing he does when he’s nervous, how he bounces his legs? He was bouncing everything, his legs, his back, his head—I was dizzy watching him. He didn’t tell me anything . . . and I don’t know if
he
knows. I don’t know if he even
knows
what happened. Oh, Dennis!”—a kind of horror seemed to loft this last utterance, his name, make it skitter wildly up an unstable ladder so that he felt an impulse to throw out a hand to catch it, catch her—“I don’t know how his mind works!”

Dennis thought of pulling the car over, putting his arms around her, taking her face in his hands. He glanced sideways. Ava looked like a closed-up shop. Her knees were drawn in to her body, her feet up on the seat so she could wrap her arms around her legs. It was a child’s pose. She looked straight ahead. Out the window the trees, lean and burnished, flew by.

“How can I help?” asked Dennis. “What can I do?”

“Nothing.” Her voice thin and absolute. Then, with more warmth, “You’re already doing it.”

“What am I doing?”

“Loving me.”

“That isn’t anything,” he said.

“It is,” she corrected him. “It’s everything.”

•   •   •

D
ENNIS’S PARENTS’ APARTMENT
comprised two rooms: a small one in which they slept and a very big one in which they did most everything else. The sole apartment on the top floor of a five-story walk-up, it had a skylight, hardwood floors and one long cork-covered wall on which hung dozens of paintings as well as a lush vertical herb garden. By the time Dennis and Ava got there the other guests had already arrived. Kitty and Tariq had brought fourteen-month-old Dilly, who was walking around like a broken wind-up toy, with a steadiness of purpose and immoderacy of speed that were out of kilter with her sense of balance: every few seconds she seemed about to go over, but remarkably did not fall. Don’s brother, Uncle Chris, was there, too, with his husband, Richard, and their eight-year-old daughter, Li-Hua. The other guest was Gerta Hauptmann, an octogenarian friend of the family who had worked as a photojournalist in the days when few women worked outside the house. She looked like an elegant puppet, with her hair like a skein of yarn and her little bent figure that seemed to be made of chicken wire, and she favored such long necklaces, featuring such heavy clay beads, that whenever she pivoted unexpectedly Dennis felt the urge to duck.