The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World (14 page)

“Mother,” Peter said, “I think you're being very theatrical.”

“Am I, dear?”

“Yes, you are,” Peter answered. “You know that being theatrical is my job.”

“Well, dear, I'm sorry if I intruded.”

Peter got up from his chair and threw his arms out. “Come here,” he said. “Peter needs a hug.” When Mrs.
Vanderwaal loosened herself from Peter's hug, he held her at arm's length and said, “You know, Mother, I do worry about you. I worry if you'll be safe, driving yourself all around the country in a Winnebago.”

“Oh, Peter, dear. How nice of you to worry, but I have insurance—”

“That's good.”

“—and I got one of those car phones. I'll give you the number. But we must keep all our calls brief. It's very expensive.”

“Good.”

“And I have a can of Mace.”

“Mother! Mother, what good will that do you? Are you planning on baking cookies?”

“Mace, dear, is not always a spice. It's also pepper spray. For protection. I wouldn't leave home without it.” Mrs. Vanderwaal smiled. “Have I upstaged you again, dear?” she asked.

“Like nobody ever has before,” he said. “Any more surprises, Mother? When are you leaving?”

“Tonight.”

“And that isn't a surprise?”

“I suppose it is, dear.”

“Where is your car?”

“My Winnebago is parked down the street. I didn't
think the people in this apartment house would enjoy having an RV in their parking lot.”

“The Winnebago is here? In Sheboygan?”

“Yes, dear. I drove it from Epiphany.”

“Mother,” he said, “do you know what Buckminster Fuller said about the caterpillar?”

“Is he another Shakespeare, dear?”

“There is only one Shakespeare, Mother.”

“So will you tell me what Mr. Fuller said?”

“Buckminster Fuller said, ‘There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.'”

“That's lovely, dear, but I've always known I had wings. Isn't there a stage between caterpillar and butterfly?”

Peter hugged her again. “Yes, Mother. It's called a chrysalis. The wings are there, invisible and under a hard protective cover.”

Mrs. Vanderwaal leaned into her son's embrace before breaking away. She thumped the top of the metal box. “A hard protective cover. Yes, dear.”

“Is there a butterfly in there?”

“A hero.”

“With wings?”

“A hero, dear. Not an angel. You'll see.”

T
HE LIBRARY IN
M
RS.
Z
ENDER'S
house was an enormous room with what appeared to be a walk-in fireplace. Two walls had shelves from floor to ceiling. Every shelf was stacked with books and pictures in silver frames, small bronze figures, and glass objects (all of which needed cleaning). Mrs. Zender sat at the library table and pored over small items; Mrs. Wilcox had asked her to sort those she wanted to keep from those she wanted to sell.

Since William had given Amedeo his own china marking pencil, they shared chores, and when the day was over, they could not reliably tell who had done what.

They were polishing one of the several pairs of andirons that Mrs. Zender would not be taking with her—there would be no fireplaces in the Waldorf—when Mrs. Zender said, “Mr. Zender loved having a fire in the fireplace. When Daddy built this house, the only fireplace was in the living room. When Mr. Zender
added the library and the master bedroom wing, he included a fireplace in each room and enlarged the dining room so that he could add a fireplace there as well. Mr. Zender had the architect draw up plans for a fireplace in the master bath, but for some engineering or scientific reason, it couldn't be done. Something to do with chimneys and exhaust fans. Who knows?

“We certainly had a plentiful supply of kindling and fire logs from Daddy's mill, but I can tell you Mr. Zender never could start a fire.” She looked mischievously at Mrs. Wilcox, who blushed. “But he was no Boy Scout, either.”Mrs. Wilcox blushed again.

“Oh, well,” Mrs. Zender continued, “Mother always said that Mr. Zender had other talents. He was good-looking, and I think Mother put looking good right up there with the harpsichord, an instrument that has limited performance time and requires a great deal of maintenance.” Then before putting her eyeglasses back on, Mrs. Zender stole a glance at Amedeo and William to make sure they were in on her joke. “Of course, Mr. Zender couldn't play the harpsichord, either.”

There was so much stuff in the room that some things were on the steps of the ladder that rolled along the top of the shelves. Those had to be removed before Amedeo and William could begin to empty the shelves. Mrs.
Wilcox stood by, holding a yellow lined tablet and a pen, listing each item as it was taken down. From one of the ladder's steps, William took a framed menu from a French restaurant that had a squiggle of a drawing and a signature.

When he handed it to her, Mrs. Zender said, “Sandy Calder. That is,
Alexander Calder,
the artist who does those mobile things. He had dinner with Mr. Zender and me in Paris. He was a jolly man. He signed this menu instead of the check. I didn't mind, but Mr. Zender did.” She laid the menu on the desk. “Don't bother to list this, Mrs. Wilcox. I'll take it with me.”

On the highest shelf to the left of the giant fireplace was a row of books with foreign titles. William blew the dust off their tops and sent up a cloud that made him sneeze. Amedeo stood at the bottom of the ladder to take the books from him. “Don't drop those,” Mrs. Zender said. “They are signed first editions.”

“Oh?” Mrs. Wilcox said. “Used books are a specialty, Mrs. Zender.”

“These books are not
used,
Mrs. Wilcox. I've never read them.”

Amedeo read off the titles.
“L'Étranger, L'Être et Le Néant, Le Deuxième Sexe . . .”

Mrs. Zender smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Gifts from fans. All of them. They all wanted to sleep with me.” Her smile broadened as she watched Mrs. Wilcox turn a shade of merlot, then she complimented Amedeo on his French. “Your accent is quite good. Where did you study?”

“New York,” he answered. “I know that's not an excuse.”

Mrs. Zender paused a minute before her laugh rumbled up. “Touché!” she said.

Mrs. Wilcox was returning to her natural color when Amedeo said, “
Le Deuxième sexe, The Second Sex,
was written by a woman. Simone de Beauvoir.”

Mrs. Zender smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Simone.”

“And?”

“
And
read the inscription.”

He opened the book to the title page and translated as he read, “‘Dearest Aida, your Cherubino was superb! Simone.'”

“You see, bitch
or
boy, I was superb.”

Amedeo examined the spine of the next book that William handed him. “
From Here to Eternity
by James Jones,” he read. “This one is by an American.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Zender said. “James Jones.
Mon cher
Jimmy. He was living in a beautiful
maison
on the Ile St. Louis, in
the heart of Paris, when he gave that to me. Jimmy's place was party central. He was the most generous man I've ever met. Of course, Hemingway hated him.”

Amedeo asked, “Why did Hemingway hate him?”

“For the same reason Mailer did. They hated his success. He was not
literary
enough for them. I say, they shouldn't have come to his parties.”

Mrs. Zender put on her thick black-rimmed glasses and started leafing through the book. “Of course, I've never read it, but I did see the movie. There was scene on the beach that caused quite a scandal at the time. I enjoyed that very much.”

Mrs. Wilcox suggested, “These here books ought to be looked at by a proper expert, Mrs. Zender. I can call in a dealer I know.”

Mrs. Zender looked up at Mrs. Wilcox, removed her glasses, and rested her elbow on the library table. She twisted her eyeglasses in slow circles with only the smallest movement of her wrist. Then, almost dreamily, she said, “I'll take these autographed first editions with me.” She shook her head as if to bring herself back into focus, put her glasses back on, and sighed dramatically. “Putting my past on a shelf.”

Mrs. Wilcox said cheerfully, “There's always a market for
matched sets of these here leather bounds, Mrs. Zender. Sometimes decorators, they buy leather-bound books by the lineal foot to fill up the shelves in them mansions they're building over on the west side.”

“I live in a mansion, Mrs. Wilcox. Those places are not mansions. They are constructions that come in a kit with enhancements from a Chinese menu of features. They feature features.”

Mrs. Wilcox smiled. “Yes, ma'am. But that's prob'ly where they'd be goin' unless I got ahold of a book dealer. You might could get more money for them from a regular used-book dealer.”

“Most of them are in German.” Mrs. Zender held one of the books at arm's length, turned it so that she could examine the spine. “German,” she said, “was Mr. Zender's native tongue. He was Austrian, you know. Viennese, actually. A very proud people, the Viennese. They think they are above the other Austrians, and only God knows where the Austrians themselves think they are. I'm sure they can't find anyone important enough to discuss it with. A very masculine language, German.” She laid
From Here to Eternity
on the table and said, “I haven't read a book in years. Every now and then I read a review in a magazine at the beauty parlor, and sometimes I think I
would enjoy reading an entire book, but I allow the thought to pass.” She surveyed the room. “They certainly do look handsome up there, don't they? We'll let the decorators have them, Mrs. Wilcox. Many are the McMansions that need shelves of red Moroccan-leather-bound books. There is no better way to ensure that they will remain unread.”

William came down from the ladder and wheeled it to the next section of shelves. Amedeo was to take a turn up on the ladder and hand things down to William. He had climbed only to the middle rung when he saw a picture in the far back corner of a shelf.

The shelf was empty except for one book and the picture. The book was
To Kill a Mockingbird.
Amedeo had just read it in paperback as an assignment in Social Studies. Mrs. Zender's copy was hardback and still had its original dust jacket. Amedeo pulled it from the shelf and held it in his hand for a minute. There is something telling about a book that has been read, and even before he opened it, he knew that this copy had been. Amedeo couldn't resist looking at the title page. It was not inscribed, but it was autographed. He was impressed.

He said nothing as he handed it to William, who passed it on to Mrs. Zender. She glanced at it perfunctorily, and
with a nod of her head, indicated that Mrs. Wilcox was to list it for sale. Mrs. Wilcox put a small numbered Post-it on it and made a note of its number on her preliminary list.

Amedeo turned back to the cubby to retrieve the only other object that was in this section of shelves. It was a framed drawing wedged in the corner. The frame was a little tall for the height of the space, and could not stand fully upright and so was both angled and catercornered in the back. Amedeo had to wrestle it loose. He did not want to scratch the shelf or shatter the glass by warping the frame, so he held his breath as he worked.

When it came free, he saw that unlike the elaborately framed paintings elsewhere in her house, this painting—a drawing, really—was held in a simple, well-made wooden frame of the sort that Jake approved. In the center there was a spot of cleared glass, a window like the one that had appeared on the top of the vintage waffle iron after he had wiped it with a wet paper towel. Amedeo picked off a shred of paper towel that was caught between the bevel of the frame and the glass. Through the porthole in the grime, he saw that he was holding a drawing of a nude. Probably pencil. Possibly pen. There was a bit of color. Red. The drawing
itself was slightly larger than a sheet of paper from a school tablet.

Amedeo carried it down the ladder himself.

Mrs. Zender looked up. “What have you there?” she asked, reaching for it.

Amedeo did not hand it to her, and she did not insist. “I'll be careful,” he said as he walked with it to the kitchen. William followed.

“What are you doing?”William asked.

“I think I found something,” Amedeo answered.

“What?”

“I won't know until I clean it off.”

“You better be careful.”

“I said I would be.”

“Don't run water on it.”

“I know that. I just want to clean it enough to see.”

“I think someone already tried.”

“Yeah, I think so too.”

Amedeo applied a little Windex to a paper towel and gingerly cleaned the glass. It was a drawing of a woman. Her face was in profile, and she was looking over her shoulder as if she were mooning the viewer. There was a wash of red paint that followed the curve of her hip. Amedeo examined it coolly.