A Brief Lunacy Read online

  Carl sings again. Not children’s songs this time, but old songs in a minor key, no words, just “la-la” and “do-do-do,” just so you know the tune. I hear the butter bubble up and the wet shrimp sizzle as he dumps them from the colander into the frying pan just before the knock on the door. Sylvie? Or Hans again? There was no headlight or engine noise. Hans doesn’t like to walk the path in the darkness. It must be Sylvie. I drop the sock onto the table and rush past Carl, knocking the bowl of parsley to the floor.

  Even before I open the door I’m ready with my arms to embrace her. When I see the man, my arms drop to my sides, empty of their mission. He is handsome there on the stoop, slapping his arms to keep warm, a lock of blond hair falling over his eyes. He grins like a child when he sees me.

  “Rather silly, I know,” he says. “My gear. It got stolen.”

  “Stolen?”

  “My camping gear. I saw your light. I’m not one to intrude but I’m not sure where I am and it’s dark and everything is gone. All my gear.”

  He hugs himself and tilts his head, raises his brow like Charlie does when he feels sheepish. “I have two boys,” I say. I feel Carl behind me wondering why I would say such a thing.

  “What’s the problem, young man?” Carl asks.

  “As I said, sir, someone stole my stuff. Sleeping bag, tent, food, map, flashlight.”

  “How could someone steal your gear? You go off and leave it?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Carl, can’t you see he’s cold and hungry?”

  “Cold? He’s wearing a jacket. Why would he be cold?”

  “Well, hungry, then.”

  “The jacket is my dad’s. Thank God that didn’t get stolen.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jonah, sir.”

  “Have you been in the woods?” I ask. “Near the old pine tree?”

  “Been walking close to the shore, looking for house lights. Saw lots of pine trees. I’m willing to pitch in for a place to stay the night.”

  “Are you hungry?” I ask. I’m aware of Carl. He doesn’t want the man in the house. Jonah’s polite. And young. And cold. And what a nice name. “It really isn’t a good time,” I say.

  “Oh?”

  “Have you notified the police?” Carl asks.

  “It just happened,” Jonah says. “I haven’t had a chance. Perhaps I could use your phone.”

  He blows warm air into his palms, licks the corner of his mouth. He’s not dressed warmly enough, although he does wear a jacket. No scarf. No hat. And the air is cooling off.

  “The main road is just up the driveway,” Carl says. “Ten minutes’ walk if you walk fast.”

  “I can split wood,” he says. “I’m a pretty good cook.”

  “Carl?” I say, not really to Carl.

  “We have that pile of maple to split,” Carl says. “But we don’t really need it right now.”

  “I’d be glad to. I know it’s an intrusion and you don’t even know me. But. Well. I’m stuck.”

  “Why don’t you go around back to the car,” Carl says. “I’ll drive you to the highway.”

  “They’ve taken my money,” Jonah says. “Everything.”

  “It’ll be easier in the daylight,” I say.

  “My mom can pick me up tomorrow. She’s scared to drive at night and she’s a couple of hours away. Besides, she isn’t home now.”

  “You shouldn’t be camping alone,” I say.

  “Just what my mom said,” he says. “‘Find a friend,’ she said, ‘so you won’t be out there all alone.’”

  “Well, then,” I say. “Come on. We’ll figure something out.”

  “Jess,” Carl says. That’s all. Just “Jess.”

  Jonah doesn’t wait for me to ask him. He steps into the house and closes the door behind him. “Nice place,” he says.

  “Do you like shrimp?” I ask.

  “You’re so kind,” he says. “You must know how it is to worry about your children.”

  “Yes. We do.”

  “He could fill the wood box after he makes the call,” Carl says.

  “Sure. Where’s the pile?”

  “Come in and eat first,” I say.

  “What about the call?” Carl asks.

  “Oh, let’s eat first,” I say. “The dinner’s getting cold.”

  Carl pours the shrimp over a platter of rice and sprinkles chopped parsley over the top. We don’t have a salad tonight. Or bread. Just the one platter on the table looks sparse. Carl sets a plate on the long side of the table, between us, then a napkin, a water glass, a fork. He pours me another glass of wine, pours Jonah a glass of water. Is he too young to drink? He looks about twenty-five. I watch his hands grip the fork, bring a shrimp to his mouth. His fingers are slim, uncallused. I wonder if he is truly a seasoned camper or whether this is a whim, a fancy, something he’s always wanted to do. Perhaps he’s a student. Yes. That’s it.

  Carl asks first. Jonah says he’s in graduate school, studying to be an ornithologist. I ask him about the gulls and why they face the sun. He laughs and says it’s an old wives’ tale. I don’t tell him that I see it from my window every morning while I have my tea and in the evening while I wait for the sun to disappear. His teeth are very straight but his eyes are bloodshot and his stubble is several days old. Should I offer to let him shave and take a shower? Hard to keep clean when you’re camping. He keeps his jacket on. Says he’s more comfortable.

  He holds a shrimp in his mouth, tail sticking out through his closed lips, and hums. Not a tune. Just a noise. I think, for a moment, of Sylvie and the way she hums sometimes when she chews. Jonah sees me watching and stops. I stir my few remaining grains of rice around on my plate just to have something to do.

  “Isn’t it time to call the police?” Carl asks.

  He pulls the pink tail from his lips and places it on the edge of his plate. “Yes. Sure,” he says. “Tomorrow.”

  “We haven’t talked about tomorrow,” Carl says.

  6

  JESSIE

  “NO,” CARL SAYS. “Perhaps you should call now.”

  “Carl, let him finish his dinner.”

  “He’s finished,” Carl says. “You’re finished, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” he says. “I’ll call.”

  It’s impossible not to listen to a conversation when you’re within hearing distance of it. When Carl points in the direction of the telephone, the boy sidles toward it and sits right down in my knitting chair. Carl talks about nothing and I nod at the appropriate times. I pour him some more wine so he will stop talking over Jonah’s conversation. I gaze out the black window into nothing, pick up the few remaining grains of rice between the tines of my fork.

  “I just went for a five-minute walk,” Jonah says into the receiver. “When I came back, everything was gone.”

  There is a pause. Carl begins to speak again. I rest my fingers on his hand, say, “Have your wine, dear.”

  I don’t think Carl is fooled. He knows me. But he sips quietly and allows me the silence.

  “Sure. Thanks. Some nice folks have invited me to dinner. I’m sure I can spend the night here.”

  Carl raises his eyebrows at that one. But what is the boy to do? We have a guest room upstairs and the downstairs couch opens up. In Connecticut when Carl was replacing hips and knees, young residents often stayed over. They would chat well into the night over a glass of wine about new surgical techniques and favorite prosthetic models. We didn’t know much about their backgrounds, either. But what if Sylvie calls? I don’t want to have to explain anything to a complete stranger.

  Jonah is just hanging up when I hear a car pulling into the driveway and then the muffled sound of a car door closing. It’s Hans again with Marte. Marte doesn’t limp at all.

  “We went out to Dunlap’s for lobster and felt like a game of Scrabble,” Hans says. “Well, who’s this chap?”

  Before Carl has a chance to say the wrong thing, I jump in. “Jonah. His camping gear was stolen.
We gave him dinner.”

  “Well, what do you say about Scrabble, Carl?”

  Is it that Hans is stupid, or is he just impervious to Carl’s dislike of him? Perhaps he doesn’t really care. Perhaps his desire to play Scrabble is more important than his own ego. Carl’s like that, too.

  “Go ahead, folks,” Jonah says. “I’ll clean up here. That’s the least I can do.” He simply begins clearing plates, glasses, silverware, filling the sink, without instruction. Strange that he should be so comfortable in someone else’s kitchen.

  Hans pulls the other end of the kitchen table out from the window. Marte slides a fourth chair behind the table. I sit on the outside in case the telephone rings.

  “Hans said you have troubles with your dear Sylvie again, so we’ve come to keep your mind off things,” Marte says.

  “Not really troubles,” I say. “She’s off on a small trip. We just aren’t sure where. I’m sure she’s fine. She’s an adult, after all.”

  Carl pulls the Scrabble game from the shelf and opens the board on the table. He loves Scrabble. It’s the only reason he’s tolerating Hans.

  “Who is Sylvie?” asks Jonah.

  “Sylvie’s the daughter,” Hans says.

  “But that isn’t really any concern of yours,” says Carl.

  “Just asking.”

  Jonah does a good job on the dishes. From my seat I can watch him. His face behind the stubble is classic handsome and his skin is flawless, smooth and unblemished, as if he had never been in the sun. When he reaches to put the wineglasses away, his jeans expose skin where his underwear should be. I don’t think he’s wearing any at all. The jacket seems a little small for him. It’s an expensive jacket. Wool. Handwoven, perhaps. Blue and green stripes. Very subtle. Not really a camping jacket.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “Where are my manners? There’s a half a bottle of red wind left. Would anyone like some?”

  “Young man,” Carl says, “that’s our—”

  “Sure,” says Hans. “Love some. How about you, Jessie? You look like you could use some, and Marte’s leg could use some numbing, couldn’t it, dear?”

  Jonah pours the rest of the wine among four glasses and hands them out while Hans readies the board. We pick our letters. My mind struggles to keep everything separate—the telephone, the strange man, the letters that don’t go together to make up any word at all.

  “I see you’re working on another sock,” Marte says.

  “Is it for Sylvie?” Jonah asks.

  I drop my letter onto the center of the board. The word. What was my word? Marte turns my letter over. It’s an S. I reach for my glass and sip the dark red burgundy slowly while I think. Jonah doesn’t seem to notice that I don’t answer his question. He puts away the dishes.

  After he wipes the counters, he pulls up a chair beside me. When he leans to point to the T, his arm brushes my hand. Starch. That’s it. My word. I place the small wooden tiles on the board, line them up with Carl’s H, then sit back satisfied.

  “Well, is it?” asks Marte.

  “What?”

  “The sock. Is it for Sylvie?”

  “No. I don’t know.”

  “When you finish those dishes,” Carl says, “you’d better get along. It’s only a mile to the road. You’ll catch a ride there.”

  “You’re going to send him out in the dark with nothing?” asks Hans.

  “We don’t know who he is,” says Carl. “We don’t know anything about him.”

  And all this time, Jonah sits at the table with us, looking from one to the other as they speak about him as if he weren’t there. The telephone rings.

  “Shall I get that?” Jonah says.

  “No. No,” I say. “Don’t touch the telephone.” But he is younger and more agile than I. When I clutch the receiver he releases it to me, but I don’t think he wants to.

  “Hello? Hello? Is someone there?”

  They all watch me, waiting to know. Laughter. That’s what I hear. Sylvie’s laughter. I can’t speak until I walk around the corner, away from their stares.

  “Sylvie? It’s Mommy.” I try to speak softly just because this isn’t for the whole world. “Where are you?”

  “In a phone booth.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right. Do you think I’m a child?”

  “No. You’re not a child. Where are you?”

  “I’m in the fucking zoo! In the monkey cage!”

  “Hans and Marte are here playing Scrabble, but I can come and get you. Are you close by? Please, Sylvie.”

  She doesn’t answer, doesn’t tell me anything. Carl takes the phone.

  “Sylvie? Answer me. Where are you?” His voice is loud. They’re all listening. Sylvie’s screaming is loud enough to be heard throughout the room, especially when Carl holds the receiver out from his ear. I take it from him.

  “None of your business,” she says. “None of your business.”

  “Sylvie, you need your medicine. Do you have your medicine?”

  The screaming stops but I don’t think it has anything to do with the medicine. “I have a boyfriend,” she says. “He’s beautiful.”

  “Do you, dear? What’s his name?”

  “Ralph. He loves me. He really does. I’m going back because he’s there. I don’t know why I left. Mom? Are you there?”

  “I’m making you some socks for Christmas.”

  “He isn’t going to be there long. He’s leaving, too. He wants me to leave with him, get a job, an apartment. Do you think I can do it, Mom?”

  “Of course you can. I’ll give you some furniture from the old house. It’s still in storage.”

  “Do you have a bed?”

  “Your old bed needs a mattress. Daddy’s and mine does, too, I think. We went painting today. And a young man stopped in here. He was camping and his gear was stolen. He stayed for supper.”

  “What does he look like? Is he beautiful? Does he love me?” And then she hangs up. I hold the receiver to my ear until an electronic voice says, “Please hang up and try again.” They all think we’re still talking and I don’t know how to end the conversation. Jonah steps forward as if he wants to take the phone.

  “Well, lovely to talk to you, dear. We’ll see you at Thanks-giving.” What can I do? Carl knows. He knows everything. Hans and Marte pretend to study their letters, glance back and forth from the board to their letter stand. Carl moves close, offers his hand to me. And Jonah glares at me. What have I done? Who is he? Does he know something? Does he know Sylvie? He’s not just a camper who’s been robbed, is he?

  7

  CARL

  JESSIE’S RIGHT. I’ve never been able to fix Sylvie. You’d think with all my medical training I’d be able to fix anything if I tried hard enough, and God knows with my daughter I’ve tried everything. Sometimes she’s right there, but more often than not she is somewhere else where sane people can’t go, like Never-Never-Land. I read somewhere that many psychotics describe an identical crazy world and voices that use the same words. How could people who don’t even know one another come up with the same crazy place? It makes me wonder if it is a real world where only the privileged few are allowed and doctors who fix bones are not among them.

  This boy who’s barged his way into our house could probably go there, to that place. He’s most likely harmless but there’s something about him that makes me uneasy, like the way he’s looking at Jessie. Almost as if he knows us and hates us. But he doesn’t know us. He reminds me a little of myself at that age. Angry about the war. Enraged at the Germans. So enraged that I couldn’t even concentrate on my studies. But that’s behind me. We move on.

  “Come on, Jess,” I say. She’s unsteady and if it weren’t for Hans and Marte and Jonah watching, she’d be sobbing about Sylvie and angry at me for not making things better. If I embrace her she will break down. I have to help her be strong. “Let’s finish the game.”

  Is it because I’m so large that people seem
to listen to me? Jonah backs off and resumes fussing with the counters. Jessie returns to her seat, picks up five letters from the upturned pile, lines them up on her holder.

  Hans plays next. His fingers are milky white, delicate, the fingers of a man who does nothing. I remember hands like that in the camp, hands that did nothing but fill gloves and tap a riding crop on an upturned palm. He’s retired from something scientific but I’ve never talked to him about it. I think he was an oculist. His voice has just a trace of an accent, but Marte’s is still strong. He wouldn’t have been quite old enough to have worked in the camp or been in the army. He would have been a child, like me. His word is tattoo, crossing the T of Jessie’s starch.

  “Hey, isn’t that a tattoo on your arm?” Jonah asks.

  “Yes, I often wondered about that,” Hans says. “You don’t seem the type for a tattoo. Did you get that in the service?”

  “Just something I picked up in my youth.”

  “What is it?” Hans asks.

  “A fish,” I say. “Had it done one night after a bit too much beer. Just an impulsive kid thing.” I tug my sweatshirt sleeve down to my wrist.

  When Marte begs off because of a headache, Jonah takes her place at the Scrabble board. His mind is sharp. He makes words like wadmal and zeatin and we have to look them up in the dictionary to make sure they’re really words. Is that what he does, study words?

  When Jonah excuses himself to use the bathroom, Hans says there’s something very weird about the boy, but he reminds me of some of the young interns who worked with me at the hospital: clever, astute, full of facts but a bit naive.

  “I once heard eagles mate in the air. Is that true?” I ask when he returns. After all, he says he’s an ornithologist.

  “Carl,” Jessie says. “What a question.”

  “Actually,” Jonah says, “that’s a fascinating question. In fact, they are the only bird that mates in the air.”

  “Oh, really?” Jessie says. She has calmed down. She tends to overreact to some things. The uneasiness she has felt since Jonah’s glare upset her earlier is replaced with a sincerity and confidence, but I’m not sure that it’s true about the eagles. I heard it somewhere, but it seems preposterous that those huge birds mate without something to push against. I’m going to look that up in the bird book after he leaves.