Let the Dark Flower Blossom (17 page)

O
N
C
HRISTMAS
E
VE
, after a dinner (at that Vietnamese place, just down the street, where it's usually impossible to get a table; let alone the nice one in the corner by the aquarium) of salted eel with ginger root (for him) and tamarind pearls (for her) and a shared plate of Buddhist tiger lilies, with smoky tea (
Lapsang Souchong
, she said; though he insisted upon calling it
Russian Caravan
) in japanned cups, Louis and Eloise walked home in silence in the falling snow.

I used to so look forward to my evenings with Dr. Lemon. After the formalities of the meal, with our coffee, we would retire to the library. The doctor and I would sit at the chessboard. He would ask questions. And I would answer. First, I did this out of kindness, because he seemed to enjoy our play at cat and mouse as much, or more, than our game of chess. Later, I began to depend upon my own confession. And I told him everything.

That night Eloise baked a cake.

“Louie, I've done something terrible,” she said.

“What is it this time?” he said.

“Don't joke,” she said.

“It isn't funny,” she said.

Louis poured them out each a glass of a brandy.

“Drink this,” he said. “You'll feel better.”

The cake sat cooling on the table.

She said that it was a Swedish chocolate cake, with cardamom, elderberry, espresso, and pepper, and that one ate it with oranges.

He asked if she was sure that it was a Swedish cake.

Was she sure?

Because he had had Norwegian cake.

And that was good too.

One ate it with strawberries.

She said that she was so very tired.

“Let's have a fire,” she said.

He built a fire in the fireplace.

“Oh,” she said. “Turn out the lights—will you?”

They sat in the firelight.

He asked his wife, “Eloise, what have you done?”

We spoke for hours.

The doctor and I.

I told him about Mother.

I talked to him about Father.

There was an apple tree.

The world was accurate.

Or perhaps it was only my memory of the world—

That was accurate.

I told him about Pru.

“These tragedies,” sighed the doctor.

“They are like small thefts,” he said.

“Fallen coins,” he said.

I refilled our glasses.

“These small thefts,” he said.

They add up.

We drank.

At a rap upon the door—

Beatrice would open the door.

And bring her father his medicine.

Beatrice would close the door.

The doctor said, “Where were we?”

And I would begin again.

Eloise told her husband everything.

Dr. Lemon listened. I told him—those nights, those years—my story. I told him my story past the time when he could comprehend its meaning. When his illness began to overcome him, he wanted the story to go on. I know this. He wanted me to keep telling him the story.

Louis did not believe Eloise.

The seed of illness took root in the old doctor. The root grew to vine and, oh, it flowered. I began to suspect; to fear; to wonder: were my words an infection? Was the story itself a disease?

Mr. and Mrs. Sarasine spent a quiet Christmas Eve at home.

Among their ovoid Etruscan vases and miniature Eiffel towers.

And a life of mementos and memories.

In their beautiful home.

In their warm well-appointed living room before the fire.

He sat upright in his leather chair.

And she reclined upon the sofa.

She drank.

She finished her brandy.

And he rose and he poured her another.

And she drank.

She held her glass in both hands.

“You don't believe me,” she said.

Though the clocks on the mantel refused to tick or tock or chime—

One could not doubt that such a thing as the very concept of time continued to exist.

I told the doctor about my typewriter.

It was Eloise who had the strength to force the moment to its crisis.

My typewriter was a 1960 apple-green Baby Hermes manual. It was once called:
the world's finest portable typewriter
. It was good—fine, even—for the writing of stories.

It was an object and therefore, objective, about the story itself.

I don't suppose that it cared whether Father killed Mother.

Or if it was the other way around.

Louis Sarasine asked his wife if she really wanted to get into this tonight?

He said it was too late, past two.

“Time can't mean anything to us,” she said.

He poured another drink.

“You tell stories,” he said.

The chocolate cake—the brandy—

The warmth—the fire—

She laughed.

“I tell
stories?
” she said.

He said, “You told me—”

“What did I tell you?” she said.

“You told me how you—”

“Don't,” she said.

He said, “The point is—”

She interrupted him, “So now there's a point?”

He continued, “You tell, you've told the story again and again. And every time that you tell me what happened that night—”

“Don't,” she said. “Please.”

“About your mother,” he said.

“Stop it,” she said.

“And your father,” he said.

“Louie—”

“You change it,” he said.

“What?” she said.

He got up.

He took an iron from the stand.

He stood with his back to her.

He shifted the logs in the fire with the iron.

He turned.

It was hard for her to make out his face in darkness.

He said, “The story. You never tell it the same way twice. You remember something new. Or you deny something old. It's always a different version. You dig up bricks and bones, and I begin to build a wall of them—then—without warning—you change the story; and the whole thing, the wall comes crashing down.”

“And we have to start again?” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Even now,” she said. “We're starting again.”

“Yes,” he said.

“From the beginning?” she said.

“If you want,” he said.

“If I want—?” she said.

“Do you think that I
want
any of this?” she said.

He said that he didn't know what she wanted.

Eloise said, “I'm telling you.”

She said, “I did something terrible and now someone is dead.”

“Do you want me to call the police?” he said.

She sighed, and fell back against the sofa.

He prodded the wood, waiting for the flames.

“You've taken your bricks and you've built a maze, a labyrinth,” he said. “And we are winding through it.”

She rested her head back against the velvet pillows of the sofa.

She covered her eyes with her palms.

“A maze,” she said.

“It's only a metaphor,” he said.

“No,” she said. “It's not. It's
metaphoric
.”

With one hand covering her eyes—

She reached over to the table for her glass.

She drank.

Until her glass was empty.

“Eloise,” he said.

“Isn't there a monster in the labyrinth?” she asked.

“We'll get to him too,” said her husband.

“Yes,” said Eloise setting, with some difficulty, her glass upon the table. “He's there. He's waiting, isn't he? It's there waiting for us.”

“Our monster,” said Eloise.

Eloise closed her eyes.

Louis covered Eloise with a blanket.

Then he poured himself a drink.

And he sat in the darkness before the fire.

Ice scars the windowpanes.

The snowbent boughs of the trees are dark with birds.

Each night I told the doctor my story.

Year after year, as his illness overtook him.

I thought of the story as medicine and disease.

A purge; a punishment; a palliative.

The doctor is confined to his bed. In the evenings I make my way through the woods and I go to his house to see him. I sit at his side. When he wakes.

He whispers:
Tell me
.

He says,
Tell me
.

I do. I do. I tell. I will. I must. I cannot stop telling. As long as the story continues; he lives. He will live. For he wants to know what will happen next.

I have only my story in the whole of the world.

And I cannot not stop telling it.

I remember this: one day—or maybe it was night—

Pru bit into a peach.

Then said that she was dying.

And I laughed.

Louis Sarasine watched Eloise in the firelight.

“In the spring we'll go away for a while,” he said.

“Would you like that?” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“I want you to do something for me first,” he said.

“What?” she said.

“Write it down,” he said.

“The story,” he said.

She said, “Everything?”

“Why?” she said.

“Tell what happened,” he said.

She said, “Like on television?”

She said, “A confession? Like on a police show?”

“So that you'll remember it,” he said.

“I don't want to remember it,” she said.

“Eloise,” he said. “Tell the story.”

“Yes,” she said. “You said that. I remember that part.”

After forty years in the desert Moses must have hated his god.

After forty laps in the heated Olympic pool, Eloise met Rachel for lunch at that adorable little place where absolutely everything is organic. Rachel pronounced that one could even eat the hemp
tablecloths, and when Eloise did not laugh, Rachel said, “Why so glum, chum?”

Eloise said, “That boy; that one whom Louie defended. They found—”

“I know, I know; isn't it awful?” said Rachel. “I saw it on the news this morning.”

Said Eloise, “Another girl in the woods.”

She rested her face in her hands.

“Louie said that it was bound to happen,” she said.

Said Rachel, “I guess he's the expert. God,” she said looking at the menu. “I want everything.”

The waiter came by.

Rachel asked him about the organic wine.

He recommended a rustic blackberry red.

With a hint of licorice.

Rachel said didn't that sound wonderful?

Eloise did not answer.

The waiter disappeared.

“You're too quiet,” said Rachel.

Said Eloise, “I just, I keep thinking about that poor girl.”

Rachel said, “Really, El. What can anyone do?”

She reached across the table and took Eloise's hands in her own.

“Is this new?” Rachel asked, admiring Eloise's bracelet.

Eloise turned the bracelet round her slim wrist.

“Did I tell you? He showed me the pictures,” said Eloise.

“Those girls,” said Eloise.

“Don't think about it,” said Rachel.

“I'm worried about Susu,” said Eloise.

“She's a good girl,” said Rachel.

“People always say that,” said Eloise.

“Because it's true,” said Rachel.