A Sudden Light: A Novel (20 page)

There was little to see in the attic by the light of a few flickering candles. Spiderwebs, mostly, and bird nests and mouse droppings. A couple of wooden boxes. I looked inside one of the boxes and discovered several handwritten diaries. I carried the box down the stairs and out onto the porch. I removed one of the diaries and opened it. I had found the journals of Harry Lindsey.

I couldn’t wait. I flipped to a random entry and began to read.

June 23, 1901

The climb seemed to have exhausted us both, physically and emotionally; the next morning we didn’t climb again as Ben suggested we might, but we lazed about, resting our weary muscles. That afternoon we went hunting with a small-bore rifle, and we bagged several squirrels, who seemed not the brightest creatures on the planet, as they lost all inhibitions and approached us if we stood still long enough; we practically could have killed them with our hands.

In the evening, we ate well, and we drank well as Ben’s horse, Molly, had been burdened with an ample supply of wine and a jug of whiskey, too. As we enjoyed our fire in the dark forest, Ben pulled out his pipe, as was his custom. I had gotten so used to him and his habits; I knew him so well though we’d met only a dozen weeks ago.

“You’ve told me about your mother and father and how you were orphaned,” he said, working his pipe in his lips. “I suppose it’s only fair for me to tell you about mine.”

“I think that’s fair,” I agreed.

He stood up and found the whiskey bottle in a saddlebag, sloshed some into our mugs, and then he hovered over the campfire.

“When I was born, my mother refused to move west with my father. I lived with her in St. Paul until my father deemed I was old enough to learn the ways of the world. Then I was sent to schools to be educated.”

“What schools were those?” I asked.

“Phillips Exeter Academy, then Yale College. Places of great culture, with stone buildings and libraries filled with books and young men eager to learn. It was fairly good fun, but too much talking about things and not enough doing of things.”

“That’s where they taught you to read the books you’ve given me?” I asked. “Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.”

“These schools filled my head with wonderful ideas about the spirit and the soul and about nature, Harry. About our connectedness. And then they sent me home to my father so he could teach me how to destroy my spirit and my soul and nature. And not only mine. He taught me how to destroy all spirit and all souls and all of nature. And my father taught me that if I practiced it well and got very good at it, I could become incredibly rich and own everything and control all people and make laws that suited me so that I could make more money still.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good use of your education.”

“It is an irreconcilable contradiction that lives in me every day. But I live with it, don’t I? I mean, I’m still living.”

“But unhappily, it seems,” I said.

“Some days I feel like it will crush me,” Ben said with a bitter laugh. “I think it will be my end, and I’d rather not die that way. I’d much rather die falling from a tree! But you must think me mad.”

“Not at all.”

“My father is building a majestic estate,” he went on, “the manor house of which will feature giant trees standing tall, side by side. It
will look like it has grown out of the forest itself, thus paying tribute to the source of my father’s wealth. Dozens of ancient trees must be found, cut, halved lengthwise, and brought to the construction site. My father wants me to select these trees personally.”

“But have you studied architecture or engineering?” I asked, feeling apprehensive at the idea of Ben’s departure. “Can you design and build such a thing?”

“I’m not the architect,” Ben admitted. “My father has paid for nothing but the best in that regard: a certain Bernard Asher out of Chicago. Still, he knows that I understand the forest better than any of his foremen. I am to choose the timbers that will be the pillars of his new estate. Also, he intends for me to provide him with a legacy, as I am to inherit this estate.”

“A legacy?” I asked.

“Children,” he said.

“I see,” I said, feeling a pang of envy at the mention of his illusory family.

“Can you imagine cutting down the tree we climbed yesterday, Harry?” Ben asked me sharply. “Can you think to chop down that tree so a man can use its carcass as siding for his house? Can you?”

“Never.”

“That’s what he wants me to do. That’s what he’s called me to Seattle to do.”

“He’s called you to Seattle?”

Ben shook his head sadly and laughed into his cup of whiskey.

“Why do you think I came back out to camp in the middle of our hiatus?” he asked.

“You said you’d finished your business,” I said.

“Yes, well, I suppose I lied about that.”

“So why did you come?”

“I wanted to know if we were really soul mates, Harry. I wanted to climb a tree, and I wanted to climb it with you.”

The inky woods around us were peppered with flashing animal eyes. Ben scuttled the fire until it was embers breathing at us.

“Why don’t you tell him you won’t go?” I asked. “Why don’t you refuse? Is it because of your inheritance?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I hope you don’t think me so base as that.”

“Why, then?”

“So I can right the wrongs of my father and others like him,” he said. “So I can undo some of the damage he’s done. If I were to run from his wealth and power for my own preservation, it would be an incredibly selfish act, Harry, you see that, don’t you? A man has a moral responsibility to correct an injustice, not to run and hide from it and pretend it doesn’t exist. Who else could guide my father’s companies in the proper direction but me? I can change the world, Harry. Not just for me, or for you and me and people I know, but for all people. It’s my duty. My obligation. Some things simply must be done, no matter the personal sacrifice.”

I considered the difficulty of his position, how much easier it would be for him to abdicate, and yet how he had resolved to take the more difficult road.

“When will you leave?” I asked.

“I can get you on a team up north, if you’d like to come along.”

“I don’t want to go,” I said, thinking of my life in the past few days, the past many weeks. I felt like I had found something, my place. My soul mate. “And I don’t want you to go, either.”

Ben laughed.

“That’s very thoughtful of you, but I don’t know what I have to do with it.”

“You have everything to do with it,” I said.

Ben was silent for a moment as he examined the inside of his enamel mug.

“I can put my father off for a while,” he said. “It will make him very angry; people don’t say no to Elijah Riddell.”

“What would Thoreau tell you to do?” I asked, baiting him with his own ideas, for I knew what Thoreau would tell him to do, having been in the same position, the heir to a fortune made from pencils.

“You’re very clever, Harry,” Ben said with a laugh.

“But am I clever enough?” I asked, and I could feel my heart pumping. I felt excited by the nature of our conversation because it seemed to veer closer to what I had desired for months but was afraid to pursue.

“Clever enough for what?”

“For you,” I said boldly, for I felt like I was climbing a tree without gaffs and a flip line now. I was high up in a tree, and, while I knew the danger, I felt safe enough to continue. I looked up at Ben, whose face glowed orange in the flame, and I was touched in some strange way, compelled by an overpowering feeling in my chest, one that I had never known, having never before fallen in love. I was confused, because I had been told that God punished those who defiled their nature, that love like I felt for Ben was an abomination; they told me this in church when my mother used to take me and when my father and I were on the road and went to services so we could attend the picnic afterward and help ourselves to the free food. I went to Ben and pushed my face against his chest; he didn’t withdraw. I took his head in my hands and began to kiss him, but he pulled away.

“Am I an abomination in your eyes?” I asked.

“You don’t have to believe what others told you,” Ben said.

“But they said—”

“One’s nature comes from within, not from without. The abomination occurs in subverting one’s instinct in favor of a rigid code written by others. Trying to force yourself into a role that confounds your spirit will always break you.”

I took hold of his head and kissed him again, and this time he accepted the kiss and I held it, though it was rough and tasted of salt, because it felt good and I was afraid to let go; finally, I pulled away
and stepped back, ashamed, for what if he didn’t want that at all? What if I had misjudged him entirely?

“The trees don’t judge us, Harry,” he said. “Out here, we can do whatever we want.”

“What do you want?” I asked harshly, suddenly challenging him. “Make it clear.”

Ben hesitated for a moment, and then he reached out, grabbed my jacket, and pulled me to him; he kissed me hard, so that our teeth smashed together with a sharp click.

“That,” Ben said, “and more.”

“Then do it,” I goaded him. “Do it, then!”

Ben kissed me again, almost violently, and he didn’t let go until I jerked free and laughed defiantly. “Like that,” Ben said, clenching his fists. “Do it, then!” I taunted. And Ben rushed at me so quickly, hooked under my arm in a wrestling move, and threw me to the ground next to the smoldering fire. We struggled wordlessly, a dangerous fight; we pulled at each other’s clothes and looked for an advantage, twisted each other’s arms in locks and holds until the other winced in pain. A thigh slipped between legs, leverage gained, opponent flipped, pressed down, face forced hard into the forest floor, tasting dirt and laughing, panting breath in an ear, hearts flailing in effort, hands aching, muscles straining until exhaustion approached, and then, like wolves fighting for a pack, a neck offered to gleaming teeth, eyes locked with eyes, sweat and sinewy muscles entangled, the greater beast dominated and the conquered showed his supplication, and mercy was granted; the grip was released and the greater man embraced the vanquished.

Ben stoked the fire back to life, added fuel, rolled out a blanket near enough so the warmth would be a comfort, but not so near that it would be too hot. He gently coaxed me onto the bedroll. I was exhausted, and he lay down next to me and covered us both with a woolen blanket that scratched our naked skin, but not enough for us
to do anything about, because the discomfort in some way acknowledged our nakedness and our boldness and effort. And the trees, which had witnessed everything, said nothing.

“The estate my father is building is in the most beautiful place on earth, I promise you,” he said, his voice deep and hypnotic. “The forest is so thick and green, and a bluff drops two hundred feet to the water, and the west-facing view with the mountains and the sunset is so magnificent it will make you cry. Harry, it will be our place. The deal I’ve made with my father means he can ask me no questions about how I manage the estate. He thinks it will be for my future family, but it will be for us. It will be our haven.”

“It sounds beautiful, but I want to stay here a little bit longer,” I said, staring lazily into the flames, the fire hot.

“I’ll stay, too,” Ben agreed, nodding to himself. “I think I’ll stay a bit more, too. And then, maybe I can convince you to join me at The North Estate.”

I
suppose if I had been at school or with my friends or something, I would have felt more self-conscious about my gay great-granduncle and his affair with Harry. Of course, people aren’t allowed to use homosexuality as an insult anymore. Professional athletes get fined for it, politicians are forced to apologize publicly. The difference between 1990 and the present day is quite remarkable in this regard. When I was growing up, it was commonplace to toss around tags like “gay” or “fag” to put down one’s friends and enemies. Kids who weren’t good at sports were accused of being gay. Kids who studied too much were faggots. It was a universal depiction of unmanly behavior, and nothing was more insulting to an adolescent boy than having his manhood challenged. So considering the school yard culture of 1990 and my tender age of fourteen, I’m a little surprised I didn’t balk at reading a diary entry depicting gay sex. But I didn’t. For some reason—maybe because of the isolation of Riddell House?—having a gay great-granduncle
didn’t bother me at all. In fact, I felt protective of Ben and Harry. I still do.

I went to sleep that night feeling close to Ben and Harry and to the trees they climbed and the wild forest by the coast where they lived, though I had never been there myself. I felt caught up in their relationship, their love, their plight; it was as if they were still alive, grappling with their issues in a timeless state, and I was there with them.

A sound in the darkness woke me out of my sleep. I opened my eyes but didn’t stir. I could hear music. I slipped out of bed and opened my door without a creak. I trod softly down the hall until I reached the back stairs, and then I went down instead of up. When I reached the ground floor, I opened the door a crack and saw what I thought I’d see: Grandpa Samuel at the kitchen table with a glass of medicine. Isobel always came to dance when he couldn’t sleep. Or vice versa.