The Widower's Tale (46 page)

"Near my apartment," he said. "Lothian."

"Lothian's quaint now, I hear. I hear it's almost fashionable. Cambridge is the stodgy place to live. Practically Republican."

"I don't know," he said--though why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't he act as if his choices (where he lived, what he did for a living) were deliberate?

"Celestino ..." Her hesitation sounded dark.

"Yes, Isabelle?" He spoke firmly.

"Are you hoping ...? We didn't really get to the heart of the matter. Yesterday, I mean."

Celestino looked beyond the phone to the desolate, weedy park, one of Lothian's many places you'd hardly call "quaint"--in better weather, a place for teenagers searching out trouble. "Hearts," he said, "
are
the matter."

"Oh, Celestino," she said, and this time he did hear her heart in his name.

"See me tomorrow, for dinner. We can meet in that cafe again."

"I think it's too soon. I wish you could know what I've been feeling."

"I wish that, too. That is why we should meet."

"Or why we shouldn't," she said. Another long silence. All he could do was wait; he couldn't insist.

"Celestino, are you ... all right here? I mean, are you here, in this country, aboveboard?" She waited for a moment. "Legally?"

He tried not to betray his anger, that she should ask him this, now. "We can talk about it tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's not good for me," she said. "But one thing I need to say, and I know I'm being intrusive, is that I worry about you. I know a good lawyer here. I wanted to offer you--"

"Isabelle! I am fine where I am! I am working!"

"I know!" she shouted back. "Don't be angry! I do want to help you."

Help him? This was what she wanted? "It's not your help I look for," he said. Or was she so practical--this woman concerned with helping children who had little to hope for--that her first thought was to protect him, so she could be sure not to lose him again?

"All right. Thursday night," she said. "And yes, let's meet at Fido's. That makes it easy. I can be there at eight."

"Eight," he said. "Thursday."

They agreed on that much--that was enough, it would have to be enough--and they hung up.

Wednesday morning, Tom Loud assigned Gil, Pedro, Felipe, and Celestino to reconstruct a stretch of old stone wall toppled by a driver going too fast for Matlock's twisting roads.

Whenever a job required muscle, the man in charge was Gil. He decided they would take apart the damaged wall, down to the ground, sorting the stones into four piles according to their shape--the thin flat ones, the thick angled ones, the smaller and larger rounded ones. The stones that had been exposed were laced with lichen, which tore at the surface of Celestino's gloves, and his shoulders felt as if the joints were giving way. Yet that day he was relieved to do nothing but follow orders. He also found himself taking unusual interest in the stories the other men traded as they worked. Gil was Brazilian, Felipe and Pedro a pair of
chapines
from Huehuetenango. They spoke together in English, broken at times, mixed up with Spanish at others.

Gil's parents and siblings lived in Manaus, where one of his brothers had just found a job with a company that took travelers for "canoe adventures" on the Amazon River. The brother would maintain the boats and supply fish for the cook. Pedro had a sister who would be getting married that summer, to a schoolteacher who owned a small house already. Felipe, the youngest, had married the year before; his wife, Rosalba, was in Texas, in line for a green card, thanks to a rich employer whose elderly parents she cared for. The employer was paying for her to take nursing courses.

Another Dr. Lartigue. Everywhere Celestino turned in his mind this week, he returned not just to Isabelle but to her father: his generosity, his passion for the past, and what were surely the very high expectations he'd had for a future to be lived by his son and daughter. Now that he was dead, how much greater those expectations must weigh on Etienne and Isabelle. Dr. Lartigue's grandchildren would not have a father who "cared for trees and houses."

The three other men did not speak to Celestino unless he spoke to them. And the heavy lifting left them ultimately short of breath, shorter on words. Once they had sorted the stones, the challenge of fitting them together, making them balance and stand as a wall, took all their focus.

Celestino might have told them that it looked as if one of his sisters, too, would marry. He had spoken with his mother two weeks before, and though she had complained, as always, about her various ills, she had informed him that she was--despite the arthritis now plaguing her hands--beginning a panel of embroidery for a wedding dress.

A wedding dress? Whose wedding?

Oh, his mother had told him casually, at the hotel there was a young fellow, nice young fellow who drove the tourists to and from the airport. He made good money from tips. Marta liked him.

Marta? This young man, he intended to marry Marta?

Oh, they spent time together when they were off work. He had taken Marta for a drive, on his day off, to a zoo....

Celestino's mother loved to throw bad news at Celestino without restraint; the good news he had to chisel from her, bit by bit. This was her way of punishing him for his distance, and he no longer allowed himself to lose his temper. If he did, she would answer with a litany of all that he missed by making the choices he had. And then he would remind her about the money he sent. And she would tell him that his sisters took care of her well enough. If he were to return, they would find him a good job, too.

They'd had this argument too many times.

When Loud came by, at four, they were not quite finished. He idled by the side of the road without leaving his truck. "Lookin' fine. Light should last till six." He nodded at Celestino. "Let me drop you by Mrs. C.'s place."

Walking down Mrs. Connaughton's driveway, he could see that the first timer had clicked on already, lighting the front hall. He could also see, on Mr. Darling's side lawn, Robert and Arturo. They stood at the foot of the beech tree.

Arturo had spotted him, too. "Hey, hey.
Mucho gusto!"
he called out. "Get over here, amigo."

The two friends were making plans to decorate the tree house for a big party to celebrate the school.

"The theme is Woodstock," Arturo told Celestino. "Now, I mean, give me a break. The parents at this school were in diapers when that took place."

"So?" said Robert. "They could've chosen the court of Marie Antoinette, or the Jazz Age, or the Italian Renaissance. It's just an excuse to get dressed up, act silly, spend too much money. Costumes lower inhibitions. Open checkbooks."

Arturo nodded. "Word."

Celestino nodded as well, pretending to care. He had helped them build this fantasy for the children, but it remained a part of the world he considered Tom Loud's more than his. He remembered the satisfaction of fitting and bracing the wood among the branches--not unlike fitting the stones in that wall--but for all the sense of building something solid, meant to last, this tree house might have been made of smoke.

"So what do we think, Celestino? Should we project a big image of Hendrix onto the tree, set up a sound system blaring out his greatest hits?"

"No audio," said Robert. "Clashes with the band."

Arturo leaned against the tree. "What band?"

"They're called, get ready, Never Smoked Never Surfed. NS Squared. They're like four dudes in their early fifties who made truckloads of money doing stuff with other people's money but always wanted to be onstage. Now they are. In Matlock, if that counts."

"Money talks. I guess it plays the drums, too."

Robert shrugged. "Yeah, but Clo says they're surprisingly good. And free, because one of them has a kid in Ira's class. They'll play all those covers our parents like to dance to. Beatles. Temptations. You know. Blood Sweat and Tears. Earth, Wind and Fire. Elvis One and Elvis Two."

Arturo groaned.

"Speak for yourself, Mr. Girl from Ipanema."

Celestino envied these boys their friendship, but it also seemed like a play to him, a script they followed to secure themselves in a place they knew.

Arturo startled him by reaching out and shoving his shoulder. "What're
you
thinking, Silent One?"

"That I am behind on my work."

"I see no lawns to mow or gardens to tend."

"I am caring for Mrs. Connaughton's house."

"Gone to someplace swanky like Boca Raton," said Robert. "Hey, Turo, doesn't that mean Rat's Mouth? Could be a new nickname for Mistress Lorelei, who's back on Granddad's shit list. He is wicked sorry he agreed to that house tour." He turned to Celestino. "Cool place, though, huh? Her house is the rich big brother to ours."

Celestino nodded. He noticed that Robert claimed ownership of his grandfather's house. Inheritance: another thing to set him apart.

"Go have a look," Robert said to Arturo. "It's like stepping back in time."

"Yeah?" When he saw the look on Celestino's face, Arturo poked his arm again. "You are too paranoid, amigo!"

Celestino had no choice but to follow Arturo toward the house.

Inside, once Celestino turned off the alarm, they removed their boots and set them in the copper tray. In the living room, Arturo whistled. "Razzle-dazzle, Paul Revere." He examined the paintings on the wall, the antique fire tools, the china figurines. The many pieces of silver had been removed from the mantel and shelves; Celestino had spotted them, wrapped in plastic, packed in a crate, hidden away in the cavelike cellar.

"Don't touch the lamps," he told Arturo. "Some are on timers."

"Won't touch a thing. Won't leave a fingerprint! Promise."

The cat leaped out from the kitchen and hissed. Arturo jumped back and laughed. "Puss, you're a fierce one."

Celestino went about his jobs, ignoring the cat. It followed him from room to room. As he pinched spent blossoms off the geranium, he could hear Arturo's footsteps above him.

He returned to the kitchen to refill the watering cans and take them to the second floor. Arturo stood in Mrs. Connaughton's bedroom, looking out the front windows at Mr. Darling's house, the barn, and the pond. It was a wide and beautiful view, the kind you might see on a postcard.

"The things some people take for granted," said Arturo. Abruptly, he turned around. "But hey. Now that I have you alone. Have you tracked her down yet? Did you follow my advice?"

Of course he would ask. Perhaps this--his curiosity about Isabelle, both helpful and meddlesome--explained his following Celestino through Mrs. Connaughton's house.

"I saw her, yes. Sunday." Celestino watered the African violets and cyclamen on the dresser.

"Saw her?"

Celestino finished watering. He could have turned around, but he didn't. "We ate lunch together."

"I'm so glad. I'm optimistic for you, dude. I am."

It was clear that Arturo expected something. Gratitude? Friendship? What did this rich, intellectual boy need from him?

Celestino returned to the kitchen and took the flashlight into the cellar. It hadn't rained or snowed in the past two days, but he would let nothing sabotage the trust he'd won from Loud. When he came up into the kitchen, he found Arturo seated in a kitchen chair, the cat purring on his lap.

When she walked into the cafe, ten minutes late, he rose from the bench inside the door, determined to embrace her. She allowed him to hold her, but her face was turned to the side.

As soon as they sat down--or as soon as she had ordered a glass of wine, Celestino a beer--she began talking.

"I've thought about you all week." Her face was a mask of worry, not joy. "And here's what I need to tell you--"

"No," said Celestino. "I need to tell you first. I need you to know that I understand we are more different than we were before. I know you are going away this summer, but before then I want us to know each other again. It will be different. I know this." He wished he could say they would be
enfants
together, once more, but of course they wouldn't.

She sighed. "Celestino, you were my first. I wanted you to think I was worldly, that I was ... a precocious seductress or something. I was in awe of how still you were, how nothing in this whole new world made you panic. How you listened, really listened, to everything and everyone around you. How much you were willing to sacrifice--your home, your family, your language--give that up so you could learn, have a richer life. Not money rich ... you know what I mean. I fell for all of that."

He wanted to reach across the table and take one of her hands, but she kept them in her lap.

"I thought you were so ... profound. Graceful, even. And also--"

The waitress came with their drinks. She asked if they knew what they wanted. Isabelle said, "Give us a minute," and picked up her menu.

Celestino knew what he wanted, and it wasn't on the damn menu. "I should have come to find you sooner," he said. "I did not realize how much I hurt you when I ran away. It was stupid on top of cowardly. You must have thought I didn't care."

"Well, you could have called." She buttered a roll. "But Celestino, in the long run it wouldn't have made any difference. What I came to see was that in a way--without realizing it--I used you. I wanted to subvert my father's pure intentions for you, I know that now. It sounds like therapy talking, and partly I guess it is, but I was headed straight toward hurting
you
. If you hadn't gone."

"We were in love with each other," said Celestino.

"It felt that way, it really did. Oh God, it really did." Isabelle blushed.

Her hair was tied back this time, so that when she leaned down, staring at the table to avoid his eyes, he could still see her face. Her eyes were closed, her mouth set. "Oh Celestino, I don't see how we can go back. This notion that we could be friends ... I can feel that's not what you really want. And I hate what I see of myself when I look back at who I was with you. Especially now, now that I know how much damage I did. Apologies seem so shallow. But I'm sorry. I am."