A Brief Lunacy Read online

  “His victims?” I ask. There is no answer from anyone.

  The gun is only a foot away from my hand. Jonah is gentle. Thinking about something far away. A beautiful mother who is dead, perhaps. I reach like the itsy-bitsy spider toward the hand holding the handle of the gun, but when I touch it he pulls away. It’s all too fast. Everything. The noise shatters the quiet and I feel the rush of air on my foot. A bullet bores into our wood floor inches away from my bare toe.

  “My God. What are you doing?” When Carl attempts to stand, the sketchbook slides from his lap to the floor by his feet. He totters and falls back into the chair.

  Jonah rips the towel from me and tosses it toward the kitchen. “Enough of this. Back to drawing. Pick up his stuff.”

  “What?”

  “Pick it up. Look, his pencils rolled under the chair. This will be all. I just want to fit in. I want you to love me. You can’t love me until I love you. And I can’t love you until I know you.”

  Oh, this is making perfect sense. I just know that he is capable of killing us. I have no doubt of that. Why? I have no idea. But in his mind this all makes perfect sense.

  When I bend to pick up the sketch pad, my breasts hang empty and flat. I can feel him watching me. My belly hangs, too. My baby belly, Carl calls it. My eyes close and I wait for a heavy belt to come down on me. Why do I think that? I was never really beaten and certainly never with a belt. I suddenly miss Harry. And my mother. My lips form the word “Mom.” Mother? Mummy? What would we have called her? She was always “your mother” or “our mother.” She loved me. Don’t mothers always love their children? Did she even get to hold us? Harry was first. Did she die before she got to see me?

  Then I remember Dad and the belt. What was that for? Something Harry did, I think. Spilled something? A bottle of molasses. That was it. All over the kitchen floor. And Dad unbuckled his belt and pulled up my skirt and spanked me until Harry fessed up, and then he did it to Harry. Dad cried later, said he was sorry, he’d never do it again. And he never did. Big welts sprang up on my bum. Gram had to put ointment on them. But Dad loved me, too. What does that mean, anyway, love?

  The pencil has rolled way underneath the chair but my fingers push it out so that I can pick it up. When I place it on Carl’s lap, I stroke the side of his reddened cheek, but I don’t feel anything. Where’s the love? Where’s my love? I don’t want to cry in front of them in this state but I’ve lost my love for him. Why? Where is it? Carl, the light of my life, the man who kisses my neck in the morning, the man who fills the kettle too full. I am alone. Naked and alone. Christ. That sounds like the Bible. Naked and alone in the wilderness.

  “Now, pose. Something interesting. I won’t shoot you, mother of Sylvie. You’re the temple from which she came. But I’ll do something bad to Mr. Man here. Mr. Carl. And I don’t think he can take much more.”

  “Pose? How?”

  “One hand on your hip. Turn toward him. Yes. Like that. One foot ahead of the other.”

  I pull my braid over my shoulder to hang down my chest. I almost laugh at the ludicrousness of the scene. Jonah moves my hand higher on my hip. His hand is hot on my skin and I think of Sylvie. Of him touching her with those fingers. And what did he do to his mother?

  Carl draws as if by rote. He looks up at me. Then down to the paper. Makes some lines. Looks up. Jonah paces around us. Glances down at Carl’s paper. Looks at my body. At my belly. I don’t move. It’s all right. I can do this. Just like the art class. I was one of the best, they all said. My poses were creative.

  Jonah rips off the top drawing. “Now that’s more like it. Do another one. Change your pose.” I put my other hand on my hip. “No,” he says. “Kneel. Yes. That’s it.”

  I kneel. I wait for a chance to kill him. Carl draws like a robot, like a man who has never loved anyone, never betrayed anyone, never failed. Just draws and draws. Looks up and down. Moves his pencil across the paper. Fills in shadows with the side of the charcoal.

  “Sit. No. Cross-legged. Lotus position. That’s it.”

  He rips off another sketch. “They’re getting better, Mr. Carl. Yes sirree. No face, though. Work on the face.”

  I pose. Jonah takes a few more of the white pills from his pocket and swallows them without water. Carl makes one drawing after another as I change position. It’s almost dinner-time. I can cook those chicken breasts. Bake them in the oven. And make a salad. I must be nuts, too. How can I think about dinner?

  “Now, spread them. I want Carl to draw where Sylvie came from.” Carl rips off another sheet and poises, pencil ready. My God. He’s ready to draw. “Spread your knees. More. Wider. Good. The temple. A holy place. Now, Carl. Last one.”

  I struggle to go to another place other than this house with these men. Mom? If I believed in a God, then I might believe that Mom was looking down on me from heaven, protecting me, helping me through this. I can’t stay in this place by myself. But if I go to another place, we’ll lose. If my mind breaks it’s over. What is over? My life? Our life together? Sylvie?

  The Bible. I think about the Bible. Jonah. What happened in that fish’s belly? It’s important. We have a Bible on the shelf above the art supplies. I move my head enough to be able to see the row of books, search for the large black leather-bound Bible with the old-fashioned silver letters that my father gave us when we married. Jonah. The Old Testament. He was the angry one. The one who defied God. I’m an unbeliever, but I know my stories. My legs are cramping. Jonah stands behind Carl for a better look.

  “I’d like to look at the Bible,” I say. “Please. It will help me understand you better.”

  “Understand me? What’s to understand? I’m the boy in the well. I’m the boy no mother could love. I’m the end of the line.”

  “You’re Ralph, aren’t you?”

  14

  JESSIE

  I KNOW I TOOK a chance. A stupid chance.

  “Ralph?” he says.

  There’s no such person. Ralph? Ralph? Jonah spits as he yells “Ralph” and shoots a hole in the couch, which splits the already fraying cover, and one in my beautiful yellow pine table. I think there are six bullets in a cylinder but I don’t mention it because perhaps Jonah has lost track. One in the floor, one in the couch, and then the table. That means there are three left. Then I remember the window. Two left. One for each of us. None left for Sylvie. I think there are more bullets on the shelf. Are there? Carl? Are there?

  “I like this shooting,” Jonah says. “I like the noise. I like the fluffy white stuffing spread all over that cover. Don’t you like the fluff, Carl?”

  Carl looks up but says nothing. He has shrunk today. Like a diminishment of stature. I take this moment, the moment when Jonah is concentrating on Carl, to shift my position, cover myself.

  “What about the Bible, Jonah?” I ask. “Do you mind if I read something in it? We could talk about you. About your mother. I’m sure she loved you. All mothers love their children.”

  “How would you know? And you don’t know my mother. She’s dead. I want to hear about Carl, here. I think he has a story to tell, don’t you, Mr. Man?”

  It’s as if Carl has vanished. His bulk sags into the chair, ankles still taped to the chair legs, but Dr. Carl, miracle mender of corroded joints, has gone. He avoids my eyes. He looks at nothing. Was it last night that we made love? I can’t imagine. It’s dead. His sack. His manhood. The part of him that slides into me while he breathes on my mouth. Gone.

  “Well, Carl? Tell us a story.”

  “No,” he says. His lips barely move when he whispers the word.

  “How about that last drawing. Hold it up for us. That’s right. What do you think, Mrs. Model? You like it?”

  I’m spread open in black and white, like Eliot’s “patient etherised upon a table.” There’s no detail, just limbs and in the center a great gaping hole. I don’t like it. My clothes are nearby and I consider trying to put them back on. I’m cold and the towel is only a small bath towel. It’s
October and the kitchen window is open. An osprey drops his fish on the beach. The gulls leave their boulder to fight over it. Am I in the same house? The house we live in? It would be easy to slip away to that place where crazy people go. I’m almost there. And there is Harry in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, howling for his long-dead mother. Why do I think of Harry?

  “So, Mr. Carl, you’re not a Jew. What were you doing in the camp? Your mama really get shot behind you? Running away?”

  Carl searches my face. I must have told Sylvie. I must have. I’m not sure Carl even remembers telling me. Such a private thing.

  “I’m sorry, Carl,” I say. And I am. Truly sorry. “You told me once. Do you remember? I guess I told Sylvie. I’m sorry.”

  “Sylvie tells me everything,” Jonah says. “For instance, I know that your dog just died. You had a miscarriage after the kids were grown up. I know that mister kisses missus every morning on the neck. You did it this morning, Carl, didn’t you?”

  Carl struggles to keep himself together. I can tell. I know everything about Carl but I’ve never seen him like this. “Yes,” Carl says. I think he’s practicing. Trying to come back to the land of the living.

  “I know that your beloved Sam fucked his girlfriend in your bed when he was fifteen. Aha! You didn’t know that, did you? And your brother, what’s his name?”

  “Harry,” I say. I’m surprised to hear myself answer but it seems a chance to keep away from the world of the crazy, just to answer a simple question.

  “He’s crippled, isn’t he? One leg shorter than the other. Fell down the stairs when he was a baby. And even the great hip doctor couldn’t fix him. I know all about that. You see? I know everything. Almost everything. Except that there’s something wrong with Carl’s story.”

  “That’s a private story,” I say. “Carl lost his family. Leave him alone.”

  “What about the violin, Carl?”

  “What about it?” I say.

  “I want Carl to answer. Cat got your tongue, Carl?”

  Carl doesn’t answer. I’ve never heard him play that violin. He says it’s from another life, that he no longer plays. I once suggested that we hang it on the wall because it’s pretty, but Carl didn’t like the idea. What about the violin?

  “I’m going to take a pee,” Jonah says. “I’ll leave the door open and I don’t want to hear anything except for that infernal car engine.”

  I’d almost forgotten about things like eating and sleeping and going to the bathroom. When I wave to Carl to get his attention, he turns away. I think about how to cut the tape from his legs, get him on his feet, be ready to tackle Jonah when he comes out, but there’s no time. He’s back, adjusting his pants.

  “Jonah,” I say, “tell us what’s going to happen tonight, before we all go together to get Sylvie in the morning. What would you like for supper? Chicken breasts? I have a good recipe with tomato and mushrooms.”

  “Supper? I’m not hungry. You’ll be my family, won’t you? When Sylvie and I get married. She loves me, you know.”

  “Yes. I know. Perhaps I should turn off the car. It’s going to run out of gas and then we won’t be able to get Sylvie.”

  “Stay right there. I don’t really trust you. You tried to hit me with a rock. We have to get to know each other. I want you to like me. You like me, don’t you?”

  “No. I don’t like you. I’m freezing and I have no clothes on. And you’re making me sit on a hard floor. How could I like you?”

  Jonah, as if he were a kind man, unfolds an old plaid blanket that we keep on top of the dry sink and holds it out to me. I stand and wrap myself in it. He gestures toward the couch. But he still has the gun and it’s pointed at Carl’s head, so I walk, barefoot, and settle myself on the far end of the shot-up couch, as far away from the exploded fluff as I can. It’s not the time. The time to escape. It’s coming. I know it is, as long as I can keep myself away from the crazy place.

  “Thank you,” Carl says from his chair.

  Jonah settles into the rocker, his feet planted square in front of him, the gun still gripped in his hand. A waiting game. Is that what this is? I can wait, too.

  “We have work to do,” Jonah says. “When I know all about you and you know all about me, then we’ll be a family.”

  “I’m not sure that’s what—”

  “That’s right,” Carl says.

  “And then we can go to get Sylvie.”

  “Did God tell you all that?” I ask.

  “God doesn’t talk to everyone,” he says. “Only a chosen few. I’m one of them.”

  “Did he say to hurt us?”

  “He said to become intimate with you. How else can I do that? He told me to know you. Because we’re going to be family.”

  “Tell us your story. About the boy in the well.”

  “No. Not time yet. We need to hear about Dad.”

  “Dad?”

  “Mr. Carl. We don’t have much time. That’s why I need the gun. Makes things go faster. Moves things along. Do you think you’d tell me everything I need to know if I didn’t have the gun? Do you think if I just said ‘please,’ you’d spill all your secrets? I think not, my man. Are you a man?”

  My feet press against my thighs, still ice cold. When my feet get cold at night, I wiggle them against Carl’s warm pajamas, but I wonder if he’ll ever wear them again. If he dies, who will warm my feet? If we die, who will live in this house? Sam and Charlie will use it summers, bring their families, tell the children, This is where your grandparents lived until that horrible day. What happened on that horrible day? What will they be telling the children? And Sylvie. Will the boys look after her?

  “Let’s hear your story, Carl. If you tell it right, I’ll untape your legs. Won’t that be nice? And then we’ll all have chicken breasts with mushrooms in tomato.”

  “That’s the story,” Carl says. “My family was all shot. We were trying to escape.”

  “Nope, Mr. Carl. I don’t think that’s the right story. Why the fish? Why the tattoo? Why aren’t you circumcised? And the violin.”

  “They were shot behind me. I kept running. I don’t know what happened.”

  “The violin, Carl. The violin. I know about it.”

  “What about the violin?” I say.

  It’s funny, Carl always has the violin nearby, but always in the closet. In our house in Connecticut. Then here during vacations. Then permanently here. But always in the closet. I’ve touched it. Held it the way you would perch a violin under your chin, just to try it out, always very carefully because it’s Carl’s. I think it’s the only thing he kept from before the war.

  “What was your mother’s name, Carl? You’re not a Jew, are you, Big Man? I know what’s written on the violin.”

  “Carl?” I say. “What’s on the violin?”

  “There’s nothing.”

  “Oh? That’s not what Sylvie says.”

  Carl’s face breaks. Something is on the violin. I remember now. Faded ink on the back, barely readable.

  “Please,” Carl says. “Please leave us alone. That violin has nothing to do with you.”

  “Oh, but it does, Carl. Tell us what it says.”

  “Why don’t you go get it?” I say. “It’s in the closet.”

  “No,” Carl says. “No. Please leave it alone.”

  “What does it say, Mr. Big Man?”

  “Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. Property of the party.”

  “The party? Cocktail party? Birthday party? What party, Carl? What party?”

  “The Germans.” Carl speaks slowly as if he hadn’t said those words for many, many years and isn’t sure how they sound anymore. “Their party. It was their violin.”

  “But it is yours, Carl. You’re a Nazi, aren’t you?”

  “No. Never.”

  “But it’s their violin. And you love it. Why didn’t you get rid of it if you hate it? But you don’t hate it, do you?”

  “They took my violin before the c
amp.”

  “Time for the truth,” Jonah says. “Sylvie told me. And you know who translated it for her? Mr. Hans. She wrote it out for him and he translated it.”

  “Why have you kept a Nazi violin?” I ask.

  “Yeah, big Carl. Why do you keep it nice and safe in your closet?”

  The fear of being shot is replaced by a more terrifying one. I am afraid of what I don’t know, of not trusting Carl, of not knowing who I am. Sylvie? Hans? Yesterday we worried only about where Sylvie had gone, and now that worry seems impossible. Now we worry about who we are, whether we are a family at all.

  “Carl,” I say, gently as I can, not because I feel tenderness but because I need to know, to calm my terror. “What is it? What is the truth?”

  “Shall we get it? Shall we read ‘Property of the Nazis’? What’s your name? Göring? Himmler? What’s your father’s name? Adolf? Your mother. What was her name?”

  “Valentina,” Carl says.

  “No,” I say. “It’s Chantal.”

  “No, Jess. It was Valentina.”

  “Valentina? What kind of a name is that? What about your father?”

  “Stefan,” he says. “My sister, Nonni. My name, Veshengo. My mother called me Veshi. It means ‘man of the forest.’”

  “What about Carl? That’s not your name?” I look at him, my husband of forty years, and I can’t find him. The man there is old and frail, his flesh doughy, his face haggard. The blue fish on his bare arm covers secrets like Veshi and Nonni. “Jensen. Was that your last name? Is it my name? Jessie Jensen? Am I not Jensen? What about the children?” I search him for the familiar. His pants. His hair. But everything seems askew. “What is my name?”

  “Reyes,” he says. “It’s the first time I’ve said that name since . . . since nineteen forty . . . I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  “Veshi Reyes,” I say. Carl releases a sound from his throat as if it had been there for many years, choking him. His chin trembles. “It’s a nice name. Why? Why, Carl?”

  “It was a time, Jess, back then, when you could create yourself. No one had papers. It was best.”