A Brief Lunacy Read online

  “What?”

  “If I tell you, it isn’t personal anymore. I don’t know you, Carl. I don’t know what you think about.”

  The scene through the kitchen window is far enough away to resemble a framed sketch. When I finish drawing, my fingers will be loosened up, ready to hit him. I clasp the sketch pad from his outstretched hand and lay it on my lap. He plucks the sharpened pencil from his shirt pocket and waves it under my nose until I take it. Our fingers touch. If I could be sure of my strength, I would turn his wrist until the bones snapped, but I’m afraid. Instead I draw a horizon line across the paper.

  Jonah steps back just a little so that he’s beyond my reach. Jessie is thinking. She glances around for weapons, for ways to escape, for a break in his concentration. I begin to draw the boulder bulging from the rocky shore, round and prominent, replacing some of the horizon line. Wisps of sea grass, small round stones smoothed by centuries of water, strokes of the sharpened pencil. Blurry marks made with the side of the charcoal. I’m a decent artist. Bushes and clumps of seaweed emerge from the paper. Waves, whitecaps on the water. The point of land projects from the right. The edge of our picnic table pokes into the lower corner. He peeks over the paper, my gun gripped in his hand, pointing toward my wife. My hands seem feeble. The pencil falls onto the charcoal boulder.

  “That’s it?” he asks. “Finished?”

  I need more time. I pick up the pencil and search the scene. The gulls have gone but I draw twelve thin, paired lines from the boulder toward the sky, twelve reedy legs, six gulls in silhouette because it’s too complicated to draw them facing us. Is it almost suppertime? I draw the gulls in groups. Two and four.

  “I don’t see any gulls,” Jonah says. “That’s good, Carl. You love birds, don’t you, Carl?”

  I almost expect Jessie to ask why the gulls face the sun, but there is silence in the house except for the barely discernible car engine outside and the scuff of my pencil across the smooth paper. I fill in details. Seams of dark granite across the boulder. The birch stump that looks like a dragon, a day sailer with the jib billowing, mounds of rock-weed heaped by the tide onto the pebble shore. All I see now is the drawing framed by the window, a tranquil scene, the world of wild things in harmony with one another.

  “That’s enough,” he says.

  “I’m almost finished.”

  “You’re finished with that one,” he says. “Draw something else.” He rips the seashore scene from the notebook and passes it to Jessie.

  “What else?”

  “Carl, why don’t you draw Sylvie’s tree?” Jessie’s voice is strong. She has an idea.

  “Yes. I’ll draw Sylvie’s tree,” I say. What, I ask myself, is she thinking? But there’s no time to speculate. Jonah slaps his hand across my notebook, leaving his palm on the place where I want to draw the tree.

  “No tree. Draw something else.” He removes his hand and steps back.

  I begin to draw the kitchen table, the candles, the teacups, two of the ladder-back chairs pulled up to the edge of the pine tabletop.

  “No,” he says. When he rips the sheet from the pad, the edge of the paper cuts the back of my hand and a drop of blood seeps through. I wait for it to drip down onto the paper, flow onto the smooth white surface, but it beads at the wound and settles back down into itself.

  “Draw her,” he says.

  “Jessie?”

  “That’s personal, isn’t it, Carl?”

  “I don’t want to. I don’t want to draw her.”

  “You don’t seem to understand. Sylvie wants me to know you.”

  “Put the gun down, Jonah,” Jessie says. “We’ll tell you all about ourselves, won’t we, Carl?”

  “Yes. We will.”

  “Art,” he says. “It’s through art. That’s how the truth comes.”

  “I was born near Paris in nineteen thirty—”

  “Shut up, Carl. I don’t mean that kind of garbage. I mean, who are you, Carl? Draw. Draw your wife.”

  He jabs her in the ribs with his index finger. It hurts. I can tell. She slumps to the side, holds herself. I pick up the blasted pencil again. He wants me to draw my wife? I’ll draw my wife. I make a soft line down the middle of the paper, her center. I’ll draw her upright, happy, strong. Jonah steps back to give us room and sits in the chair by the art chest.

  Jessie stands up straight, sets her shoulders square. Her braid flips over her shoulder and she strokes the loose end while I draw her arms. We try to talk with our eyes. Her mouth twists toward the back door, her glance following. Jonah can’t see her face. I work quickly so he won’t interrupt. I draw the paint-spattered blue jeans that hug her bottom, her sneakers, the knobby fingers that fondle her hair. It’s the best I’ve done of Jessie. Her wrinkled eyelids surround perfect young eyes, and her chin sags only a little. Her mouth is so Jessie, but so Sylvie, too. They look alike, n’est-ce pas?

  “Hold it up so I can see,” Jonah says.

  I obey. He glances from the drawing to the model, back and forth, following with the gun, the blasted gun. How could I have been so stupid as to buy a gun? Jonah’s expression is obscure. How could he not like it? It’s Jessie.

  “Take them off,” he says. He’s looking at Jessie. She turns toward him, flings her braid to the back. “Take them off. Everything.”

  “What?” she asks. I can barely hear her hushed voice. “What did you say?”

  “Your clothes. Off.”

  “My clothes? All my clothes?”

  “You heard me,” he says. “Glasses, too. Just drop—” The telephone saves everything.

  “Hello?” Jonah says. He sounds like a normal man answering a normal telephone call. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. They’ve gone out again. But they said to take a message. I’m a close family friend. Have you heard anything from the poor woman?” Jonah walks with the telephone, back and forth. Should I call out? Should I scream? But the bullets. I’m afraid of the bullets. “Sylvie’s such a dear. Isn’t it too bad.” Jonah clicks with his tongue. I think they’re talking to him. He holds the telephone out and I hear a voice but I can’t make out the words. Jonah smiles and says, “Goodbye,” before he replaces the telephone in its cradle. It’s too late to shout.

  “Come on then, Sylvie’s mother. Glasses first. Just begin. Pull that sweater over your head. Don’t you know how to undress?”

  Jessie doesn’t move. She’s so like Sylvie. She stands with her hands straight at her sides, mouth and jaw set like granite. Jonah stands and kicks my leg with his boot. I hear myself groan. Shut up, shut up, old man, I say inside, coward that I am. I don’t say anything aloud. She’s careful with her glasses. She places them next to my tooth on the side table. She tugs at the bottom of the beautiful Irish cabled sweater that she made for me when I wasn’t quite so fleshy. Does she have anything on underneath? I don’t know. Why don’t I remember? She pulls it slowly up to cover her face and I see she has on a purple T-shirt with no writing. When she’s removed the sweater, she drops it to the floor. It falls into a heap around her feet.

  She stands again, still as a dead tree. Her arms cross her chest, and her jaw sets hard. When Jessie sets her jaw, she isn’t kidding around. She said once that she isn’t stubborn. She just makes up her mind and doesn’t change it.

  “Is that all? You think you’re naked, do you? You had a chance.” Jonah saunters over toward me as if he were on a Sunday stroll in the park, stops directly in front of my knees, kicks them open, and aims. “One shot is all. No need for any more. It wouldn’t kill him right off, of course. Might not kill him at all.”

  He stands back and takes the pistol in both hands and points it. I close my knees, try to protect myself. I can’t help it. Maybe he should get it over with.

  “Oh, go ahead, you fucker,” I say. “Shoot my goddamn balls off.”

  “Stop,” she says. “Stop it. It isn’t important. Here. I’m doing it.”

  She pulls out the bottom of the purple T-shirt until it frees itself from the
waistband of her jeans. I turn away, but from the corner of my vision I see it flutter down to join her sweater. I know she has nothing on under that shirt. Nothing at all. I hear her kick off her sneakers, and catch her bending to pull off her socks. I begin to make some marks on the paper, just light strokes, nothing definable, anything to keep from looking. But then the jeans fall, drop to her bare ankles, and I watch as best I can as she pushes down her underwear to her knees, pushes the rest of the way with one bare foot.

  “Now,” Jonah says, “draw your lovely wife. Stop your sniveling and draw.”

  13

  JESSIE

  JONAH SITS, WATCHES, waits for me to pull off my sweater, but I’m not going to. Fuck him, as the kids would say. Two can play this game. He’s getting up. He’s confused. He’s scared. But he doesn’t move toward me. I’m ready to do something. What? I don’t know. Perhaps he is weaker than we are. Perhaps if I refuse to take anything off, he’ll be frightened and give up.

  He kicks Carl hard on his taped leg. And again. Carl groans like a child. I’ve never heard Carl groan. He doesn’t speak. His eyes fill up and he’s going to cry. My Carl. Crying because a madman kicks his leg. My Carl. His hands clutch the pencil. He’s scared, too. Three scared people. How crazy is that?

  It’s easy to pull off my sweater and I’m grateful for the time it covers my face. Carl’s smell still permeates the wool, even though it’s been a year since he’s worn it. My braid catches and tugs at my neck. Jonah’s ready to kick again. I know he is.

  Well, I’m not going to budge. He can kick me if he wants. What else can he do? He can damn well rip the clothes off himself. I’m not stripping.

  What’s he doing? What? He kicks at Carl, smiles at me, grabs the gun with both hands. He’s going to shoot Carl’s genitals off. Jesus. He’s going to.

  “Stop,” I say. “Stop it. It isn’t important. Here. I’m doing it.”

  My God. He was going to. I swear this time he’s really going to shoot. And what does it matter if I have no clothes on? I undress slowly but steadily. Just like college art class, I say to myself. I’ve done this before. In front of a whole class. And for money. I can do it here for love. Carl doesn’t even open his mouth. He’s just going to sit there and draw his naked wife, as if he were a student and I were the paid model. He doesn’t look at me. He resembles a dying man, a soft, amorphous mess taped to a chair.

  This Jonah is nuts. But he’s smart. That’s why he’s hard to trick. And this isn’t really like art class. I don’t have a robe to put on between poses. I don’t have the choice of walking out. If I stand still, he’ll back off. That’s it. He’ll get confused and then I’ll grab the gun. I stand like a step dancer waiting for the music to begin.

  What’s wrong with me? Am I weak? Stupid? And how can he keep going with those pills in him and no sleep and all this fear? I’m exhausted and I haven’t taken any pills.

  I’ve never been modest. My friends in college wondered how I could strip for money, albeit art-school money and not money from some sleazy joint downtown where girls sucked up coins into themselves. I’ve heard about those places. No, I’m not modest. But I’m old now. My breasts hang like two deflated sacks and I’m not proud of them.

  But I don’t even try to cover myself. Why? Jonah stands beside Carl.

  “Now,” Jonah says, “draw your lovely wife. Stop your sniveling and draw.”

  Jonah backs away as if to get a better perspective. I close my eyes and pretend I hear students scribbling, voices saying, I can’t seem to get the arm right. How can I fix it? The angle of the hip is too severe. I hear the sound of the charcoal against the paper. He’s drawing. I stand still as a guard at Buckingham Palace. I can’t bring myself to pose, to change my position, and no one asks me to.

  He sniffs. When I open my eyes, I see he is crying over the sketch pad. Oh, Carl. I’m sorry. He draws over the dampness until the paper tears; then he moves to a dry spot. Jonah doesn’t even look at the drawing. All I can detect are some dark lines.

  “Move,” Jonah says. “Look like you’re enjoying it. Relax.”

  “Relax?” I ask. “Put that fucking gun down and I’ll relax.”

  Carl’s head jerks up from his work. I think he wonders if his lovely wife would say such a thing. “Jessie?” he says. Nothing else. Just my name uttered in astonishment.

  Jonah moves toward Carl as if to kick him again but he stops short when the telephone rings.

  “You answer this time,” he says. “Say anything even a bit suspicious, I shoot his damn testicles off. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I say, amazed at my own brazenness in my unclad state. It will be Douglas House again. I’ll let them know something is wrong. I’ve seen that done in movies. They ask a question and I answer something entirely different. When I reach for a towel hanging on the back of a chair, Jonah shakes his head and points the gun at Carl’s crotch. The phone rings again.

  “Hello?” I say into the receiver.

  “Mom? Is this Mommy? Hello? Are you there?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Is he there? Did Ralph get there? Isn’t he cute? Hello?”

  “Yes,” I say again.

  “I’m in Belfast. I’ve got my dress. It’s lace and off-white and down to my ankles. I charged it to your account at Britts. Mom? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Jonah watches me with the gun pointed at Carl. The corners of his mouth twitch and his tongue licks at the white spit collected there. Ralph. I knew it. Did I know it?

  “Well, thank you for calling.”

  “I’m going to hitch,” Sylvie says. “I’ll be home by dark. Wait till you see me in the dress. Mom? You sound weird.”

  “Yes. I am.”

  Good or bad to have Sylvie here? What if she walks into this scene? I try to speak softly so Jonah won’t hear. Why doesn’t Carl make some noise? I don’t even know what to say. I’m freezing.

  “Maybe you should stay the night in Belfast. Just charge the motel to us. I’ll pick you up in the morning, dear. Sylvie?”

  “Pick me up now. You never loved me. You never thought I could find a man who loved me. Pick me up now. I’ll wait at the doughnut shop. That’s where I am now. Eating a lemon-filled doughnut.”

  “It’s Sylvie, isn’t it?” Jonah grabs the receiver from me. “Hello, my darling.” His face softens. The fingers of his left hand release their tight curl around the gun and I will it to drop to the floor. “Their car. It’s at the garage. Won’t be ready until tomorrow. We’ll all come and get you together. We don’t want you hitching a ride, do we, Jessie?” He arches his brows at me and expects me to answer. I shake my head. His gaze drops to my nakedness and I try to curl my body, try to conceal myself. “Yes. We’re all here together. We’re on a first-name basis . . . Yes. We’re getting on great. By morning we’ll be old friends.”

  Carl’s doubled over, his head leaning on his lap, his face away from us. The pencil rolls across the floor. For a moment I think he’s dead, but he adjusts his head, and the toe of one shoe taps on the other. He’s given up. Has he given up? What if we both give up? Is that what Jonah wants? For us to give up?

  Now Jonah turns away and speaks softly into the phone. “Sylvie, darling. My luscious dolly. Yes, I love you. You know that. Do you love me? Do you?” He slumps into the chair by the telephone. “Oh, God. Thank you. Thank you for loving me. Thank you.”

  When I reach for the towel again, he lowers the receiver and stands. If Sylvie knew about the gun, would she love him? I remember when I stopped loving Harry, my twin, my best friend in the whole world. After it was all over I loved him again, but it was different. Funny how you can turn love off and on. I was only a kid. Seven or eight. We had our own language that no one else understood. We were inseparable. Our father paid little attention to us and that was fine because we had each other. We were roughhousing at the top of the stairs when I saw him go off balance. I knew he was going. I grabbed for his shirt but it slid right thr
ough my fingers. I remember the feel of the cotton slipping past my thumb. What a strange thing to remember. Did I make it up? Did I try hard enough? Could I have held on to that shirt?

  I can hear the thudding in my mind any time I choose to conjure it up. Thud, thud, thud. Thirteen steps. And Harry howling at the bottom, blood spurting out of his thigh. Father thought I’d be devastated, but I hated him. I hated him for being hurt. I had no one to talk to. No one to play with. Months in the hospital with the broken thighbone and the infection that developed in his hip. Bone grafts. Body casts. And me, left with dotty old Gram while my father hovered around Harry’s hospital bed. I never told them how I felt. I never told anyone. I wasn’t allowed into the hospital and it was months before I saw him. Would I have tried harder to save him if I’d known how much attention he would receive? Of course I tried as hard as I could, but I was a child. I no longer think as a child.

  I love him now. But what is love, anyway? I think about it sometimes. And what is Sylvie’s love for this boy?

  “She loves me,” Jonah says. “Your daughter loves me.”

  “Would she love you if she knew how you were treating her parents?”

  “I have to do this. I said I’d prepare the way. God told me to know you. Know you.”

  I tuck the towel around myself and he doesn’t speak of it. I’m afraid to put on my clothes, but the towel doesn’t seem to rattle him.

  “I love to touch her,” he says. “Her skin. It’s like marble, smooth, firm. She has a scar on her leg, her thigh. Did you know that? I kiss it sometimes. Poor, hurt Sylvie. My mother’s dead.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “I killed her. That’s why this has to be done right. I loved her and I killed her.”

  “Why did you kill her?” I ask. Carl raises his head to listen.

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “In the papers. The boy in the well. That was me.”

  “In the well?”

  “Yes. I have the article. In my wallet. I always carry it. To show people. But you don’t show your trophies, do you, Carl? You don’t show your victims.”