The Game of Love and Death (17 page)

“What was it?”

“It’s silly,” Flora said.

“You don’t have to say.” Henry put the plates back in the cupboard and set to polishing a glass.

“Oh, it’s nothing I can’t say,” Flora said. “It’s just … well, she used to tell me that she loved me in the quilts. She always sews — sewed — a tiny heart in it somewhere.”

“I like that. A secret message,” Henry said. He didn’t think it was at all silly. He loved it, actually. Secret messages had been used to win hearts and wars for centuries. A Spartan general named Lysander used to send them in his belt. It was the only part of Henry’s study of the Peloponnesian War that had interested him. “Let’s find it.”

“She wasn’t finished with this one.”

“Let’s look,” Henry said. “It couldn’t hurt.”

Flora held the fabric in her fingertips, examining it closely. “My word.”

“Did you find it?”

“No,” Flora said. “She finished it. She’s been working on this one forever, and she finally finished.”

There was a light knock on the door. Henry stepped into the backyard as she went to greet the coroner. A break in the clouds revealed a splinter of moon along with a scattering of stars. He tried to read them as if they were notes, to see what sort of song the heavens held, but there were so many possibilities he gave up. He inhaled the night, which smelled clean and hopeful. Despite everything, Henry felt calm, as though he’d done what he was meant to do for Flora.

After the coroner finished, she invited Henry inside again. They sat in the kitchen; the parlor felt too strange. The couch even bore the shape of the old woman’s body, and Henry couldn’t imagine disturbing it. Flora kept apologizing for her tears and Henry wanted to tell her it was all right, that he understood, but he was too unsure of what he was supposed to be doing.

“Are you tired?” he asked.

“Exhausted,” she said. “But I’ll never be able to sleep.”

“Should I go? I —”

“Stay,” she said. “Stay until it’s not dark out anymore.”

She put her hand on his. He wanted nothing more than to lean toward her, touch her face, and press his lips to hers. As he thought this, she blushed and looked down, her eyelashes making that fringe that affected him so. The sky flashed white and thunder boomed, and the rain fell once more, like letters tipped out of a liquid book.

He did not kiss her. He wanted to. But resisting was the gift he gave her.

They were too tired to talk, and instead moved their chairs side by side and leaned against each other, quietly sinking into a dreamless sleep.

When he awoke, the rain had stopped. The first pearly light of day was visible through the window. Flora was up already, percolating coffee. A stack of toast sat on a plate in the middle of the table, but he couldn’t stay. He needed to be home before his absence was discovered — and certainly before any neighbors saw and Flora’s reputation was ruined.

“Do you have someone to help you with your car?” he asked, remembering her flat tires.

Flora shrugged and pressed her fingertips against her eyelids. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll have to track down my uncle this morning. And I was scheduled to work at the airstrip this afternoon. That isn’t going to happen.”

“Please call on me if you need anything.” He allowed himself one light touch on her arm. “I’m so sorry about your grandmother.” He wrote his telephone number on a scrap of paper. Then he gulped scorching coffee, not minding the pain.

A few minutes later, as he stood in the doorway, Flora touched his arm the way he’d touched hers. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” He braced himself.

“Do you still want to play in the band? We could … we could use you.”

He weighed his answer. She’d hurt his pride, terribly. What’s more, it would be almost impossible to explain to the Thornes, and he didn’t know how he would combine it with his schoolwork. To say yes was to say no to everything else, everything that gave him any sense of security in the world.

But he said it anyway.
Yes
. Knowing his life would never be the same.

A
S
Love suspected, Ethan had not been sad to see Henry walk off after Flora.

“He’s like that,” Ethan said. He held a hand over his head, trying to keep the rain from landing. “Always doing the right thing. Does it make us heels, driving off?” He opened his door and looked at Love sheepishly.

“Not at all,” Love said. “Mind if I move to the front?”

Ethan cleared his throat. “Be my guest.”

Ethan’s voice quavered, not enough that a human would have noticed. But Love, who was considerably more sensitive to such things, felt Ethan’s entire body spark. He wanted to lean across the seat, to be close to this spectacular young man, to help him understand that the love he wanted was nothing to fear or dread. If he was not allowed to fill Flora’s heart with courage, perhaps he could do it for Ethan. And if Ethan felt all right about loving another man, he’d surely understand Henry’s love for Flora. Maybe then they might stand together as brothers in this, even if the world around them was hostile.

But he did not reach for Ethan. Not just then. Instead, he turned on the radio, which was playing an advertisement for Bright Spark Batteries. Humans and their fear of the dark.

Welcome to another meeting of the Bright Young Men’s Philosophy Club, sponsored by Bright Spark Batteries! It’s time for our pledge of allegiance to decency and to philosophy!

“By golly, I’d love to have one of these at Hooverville,” he said, tapping the dashboard. “Of course we have no electricity to run such a wireless. Still. So much better than listening to the men singing and playing the washbasin.”

As all you bright philosophers know, every club has its rules for membership, along with secret business meant only for the ears of those who belong. Now take the Bright Young Men’s Philosophy Club, for instance.

“Except for the stupid advertisements. Bright philosophers. Keeping secrets.” He clicked off the radio. The awkwardness between them was palpable, and Love regretted their inevitable parting. It would break Ethan’s heart. But such was the cost of the Game. It was sometimes more than a human could bear.

Love removed his book and Venetian pen. “I was thinking about that article you’re working on,” he said, making full use of James Booth’s charisma. “And I recalled this bit of Greek philosophy.”

He pretended to read the philosopher’s words to Ethan. Had the boy been more observant, he would have realized there was not enough light in the car to read. But, as Love was well aware, Ethan’s blood was screaming.

“ ‘Homosexuality’ ” — he paused to let the word sink in — “ ‘is regarded as shameful by barbarians and tyrants. These same barbarians, these same despots, also consider philosophy itself to be shameful.’ ” The boy was still, his eyes glued to the road. “ ‘These rulers are afraid of ideas, they fear friendship, and they fear passion — three virtues homosexuality often generates. Because these virtues are not in the interests of the corrupt, they condemn their result.’ ”

Ethan gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.” He pulled over. “What we’ve been doing, it’s not … it’s not that. I’m not that.”

Love touched Ethan’s hand to fill him with calm. But he couldn’t take away the sadness.

“Don’t you see,” Love said, “the same system that is wasting the gifts of all the men of Hooverville, who wish for nothing more than honest work, is the system that prefers obedience over thought and ideas. The powerful are happy to send men to the front lines of war and have their limbs shot off or worse. But should that man ask a question, he’s a traitor. This same system could condemn injustice, but instead it chooses to condemn something as simple and as fundamental as the search for the second half. We are all born wanting this. Why does it matter what shape this second half takes, provided it is the thing both sides seek?”

Love turned Ethan’s face toward his and wiped the boy’s tears. “Why choose fear over love? In what world does that make sense?”

Ethan bent over the steering wheel and sobbed. “I would rather be dead than this.”

“Don’t say that.” Ethan’s death would devastate Henry. It could cost him the Game, which would mean that Flora would die too. Love couldn’t bear these thoughts, never mind his fondness for Ethan. He put a hand on Ethan’s back. He could feel his heartbeat, and he set his own to match, to be that second half as he always knew he would, consequences be damned.

“Breathe,” he said. “Breathe.” A lifetime of shame and sorrow leaked out of Ethan. Love absorbed it with one hand and cast it away as though it were as slight as a spider’s web.

“Who are you?” Ethan lifted his head. He’d stopped crying and looked curious. “Who are you, really?”

“The one you’ve been looking for,” Love said. “One who is here. One who sees you. One who is able to love you just as you are.”

Ethan leaned in and kissed Love. Rain pummeled the car, but neither one felt anything but the thrill of the other.

Afterward, Love watched Ethan sleep. He’d dressed himself in James Booth’s shabby everyday suit and returned the Book of Love and Death to his pocket, where, for the first time, it felt like an encumbrance. Even though he had ways of making it appear small, it was in fact a huge collection of heartbreaking tales of love. He’d been writing in it for ages, a small act of defiance against Death, the great unraveler of stories. To record the details of how the players met, what they noticed about each other, what captured their imaginations: All of this was how Love showed his affection for humans and their strangely beautiful, optimistic hearts.

To be written into story. That was how even the lost lived on.

Love’s need to write, his book, had never felt heavy to him before now. He wished to be relieved of the burden, but there was no one else to carry it.

T
HE
sun was not yet up, but already, the air smelled of wisteria and lavender. This day would be warmer than the previous one, but not by much. Gentle weather was one of the things Henry most loved about his city. The drizzle was no friend to baseball — the rain washed out a good quarter of the season — but Henry had always played more for the rhythm and connection than the competition of it, and so it hadn’t mattered.

Sunday morning. He had a French exam to take tomorrow. It seemed ridiculous that a day as nondescript as this, filled with such mundane things as French grammar, could follow a night like the one he’d had.

If the world made any sense, a new day of the week would be born, one that didn’t require him to think about school, one in which he could lie on his back in the grass and look at the sky and imagine what it would be like to run away with her and do nothing but play music and eat fruit and walk down the street together for as long as they lived without feeling like the whole world would be staring and judging, or worse.

A small part of him wished he’d never met her. Wished he’d never heard her sing. Wished he’d never eaten eggs in her kitchen. If these things hadn’t happened, his life would be school, music, and baseball. Scholarship. Graduation. College. Orderly, predictable, respectable, safe. Perhaps even marriage to Helen followed by a lifetime of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Routine, sustaining, nourishing things that wouldn’t fill his chest with pain and dread. Life in 4/4 time.

But it was only a small part. The greater portion wouldn’t trade the hope for anything. It was as though he’d started seeing for the first time. He couldn’t go back to darkness no matter how much it stung to look at the light.

A car engine growled behind him. Henry glanced over his shoulder. He recognized Ethan’s Cadillac coming not from home, but from the opposite direction. Downtown. Or — a notion struck him — Hooverville. He raised his hand in greeting and Ethan pulled over. His tie peeped out of the pocket of his jacket, and his shirt was partially unbuttoned. The strangest part, though, was how happy and relaxed he looked.

“You didn’t make it home either, apparently,” Ethan said.

Henry slid into the front seat, suddenly aware of his exhaustion. “Nope.”

“Scoundrel,” Ethan said. “But don’t worry, I won’t tell my parents.”

“What? No,” Henry countered. “It was nothing like that. Her grandmother — she passed away.”

“No fooling?” Ethan grimaced. “That must have been a terrible thing to come home to. What happened?”

“Old age, it looked like. She was just lying on the couch.”

There was silence between them for a moment. Then Ethan spoke, his voice thoughtful. “Life is a temporary condition, Henry. And it’s uncertain. That’s why you have to seize chances when you find them. Pursue what you want. Take risks. Live, love … all of it. Every last one of us is going to die, but if we don’t live as we truly want, if we’re not with the one we want to be with, we’re dead already.”

Henry turned in his seat to see if someone had secretly replaced his best friend with an identical impostor. “Since when has that been your philosophy?”

Ethan turned onto their street. He filled his cheeks with air and exhaled forcefully, as a trumpet player might. “I couldn’t even begin to say,” he said, looking over at Henry. “But something’s happened to me. Just … It’s something I can’t talk about.” He ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing his disheveled curls. “But I think it’s probably something you can understand.”

He looked at Henry again with earnestness, and Henry swallowed hard. How much did he want to say? And what, exactly, was Ethan telling him? They drove down the long, treelined avenue in silence.

Ethan turned into the driveway and shut off the engine. “So it’s a good thing, then?” Henry asked.

“Honestly?” Ethan’s eyes had a pained look. He exhaled deeply before he finished his thought. “It’s all I’ve ever really wanted. But I don’t know that I’d ever call it good.”

He covered his face with his hands. Henry wondered if he should say something. Then Ethan opened the door, stepped out of the car, and slouched toward the house, his jacket over his shoulder. Henry followed him to the front door, which swung open when they were a few steps away.

Ethan’s father filled the doorframe. “Out all night, boys?” His face was stern — the expression he wore before he lowered the boom.

“Yes, Father,” Ethan said, crossing his arms over his chest. “All night. I watched the sunrise, in fact. Did you ever do that when you were young?”

Mr. Thorne paused and stroked his chin.

“Actually,” he said, “I did. Which is why I am telling you to go in the back door and use the servants’ stairs. Your mother is up, and if she hears you coming in at this hour, we’ll all have headaches to last a week. Make this the last time this sort of thing happens, though. There are raids on the horizon, and it would complicate things if you’re swept up in any of them. The consequences for both of you would be severe. We’re a prominent family, Ethan. No embarrassments.”

Ethan threw an arm over Henry’s shoulder, and the two boys walked around the ivy-covered north side of the house and into the servants’ entrance. It led into the butler’s pantry and to a narrow staircase that opened onto the third floor, where Ethan and Henry had their bedrooms. They kicked off their shoes and hastened up the stairs in their socks. Ethan grinned at Henry. Henry couldn’t return the look. Police raids could spell disaster for Flora.