Let the Dark Flower Blossom (27 page)

Liz would never have believed that readers were not looking for moral instruction; that when they opened a novel, they were not in search of either guidance or escape; but that they were looking always for themselves, along every turn and twist of the stone street and sentence.

The girls ran in the snow.

Susu turned on her hip, unashamed.

Schell was thinking about Beatrice. Her white body.

Let us go early to the vineyards.

Let us see if the vine has flowered.

Salt said, “What about the key?”

Chester was building a fort in the yard when Julian, for no reason more adequate than the force of the moment, pushed his brother's face into the snow.

Louis Sarasine said, “You must know what sort of monster you are, before you know the monster that you will become. Providing, of course, that you believe in monsters.”

Dibby saw her boys from the window.

Said Schell, “What key?”

Susu was not beautiful.

Salt got up from his chair.

Olga ran out of the house without her coat and pulled Chester from Julian.

Salt said, “It's too quiet. I'd never be able to work. I love a real hullaballoo. Crash, bang, boom. Say, may I borrow your pen?”

Olga slapped Chester.

Dibby let the curtain fall back against the window.

Susu might have been the model for the statue in the hotel lobby. That is, she was chipped and flawed; yet she inspired in one the utmost faith in the hand of some unseen artist.

Schell gave Salt his pen.

Dibby was typing.

Salt said, “Don't you want to know how my story ends?”

The girls were very nearly to the house.

Said Salt, “Don't you want to know why Stone was in the kitchen with my mother? It wasn't until I saw his picture on the book. That I remembered him. I asked my mother about it. She said that they had dated in college. You went to college with him. Maybe you remember her?”

“There were a lot of girls back then,” said Schell.

Salt said, “There are a lot of girls now We will run out of everything, won't we? Air, water, land, luck, sugar, salt, gasoline? But we will never run out of girls.”

Inj was running.

Salt said, “A typewriter doesn't invent words.”

A dark bird sat perched in a cedar tree.

Schell had never quite believed that Salt was real. And now that the young man sat before him with his eyeglasses, with the very ingredient evidence of his existence—the skin, the bones; his luck, his lack; the orange marmalade on his flannel shirt—he seemed less actual than ever.

There were a hundred dark birds in the branches of the cedar trees.

Dr. Lemon had once tried to teach Schell to play random chess, that postmodern variant of the game, in which pieces retain their abilities and function, but may begin from randomly selected places on the board, rather than their standard positions. In a game of tactics; one had to rethink the concept of strategy. Schell had lost very badly. The truth of it was (that is; the way it had actually happened) he had never won at a game of chess against the doctor.

Did this suggest that he was a poor player?

The girls were home.

A door slammed shut.

Inj said, “Benny?”

A picture tilted crookedly against the flowered wallpaper.

In moments of anguish Schell had called out to a god of mercy in whom he had never believed.

Beatrice was in the kitchen.

The black cat pawed the windowpane.

He gave a mournful yowl.

“Oh, you poor terrible thing,” said Beatrice.

“Is this what you want?” she said.

And she placed a dish of milk on the floor.

When Salt came in, Inj was sitting on the bed.

Olga took Julian into the bathroom, and she washed the blood from his nose. She asked him, does it hurt? She took him into his room and told the boys that they had to make up, because they
were brothers. She told them not to come out until they had made up. After Olga left; Jules said how much he hated her. Chet agreed. Chet asked Jules if he missed the last girl. Jules remembered her. She was pretty. Olga was not pretty, but Olga made cupcakes with melted chocolate in the middle. They were good and sweet and salty. But the last girl had long hair that brushed your cheek when she tucked you into bed and that was good too. The boys were silent then for a while; they played Clue until dinner.

It was Miss Scarlett in the library with the candlestick.

Salt told Inj the story of Schell's coffin.

Salt was thinking about what it would feel like to be stabbed in the heart with a knife.

Louis Sarasine raised his glass.

And he pronounced, “To monsters.”

Inj walked down the hallway.

Black turtleneck sweater, Levi's, woolen socks.

This is what Inj wore.

It was evening, all afternoon.

Beatrice was thinking about her father. And how he taught her the difference between right and wrong.

Zigouiller touched Eloise's shoulder.

There was. There is a name for girls like Susu.

“Knock, knock—” Inj said.

Eloise wondered if she had made a terrible mistake.

He went to the balcony and stood against the shadows. He asked her if she had heard the story of the statue in the lobby? He asked her did she know that the lady appeared in the doorway one day or maybe it was night many years ago? and that the two men who had brought the statue inside had gone snow white, hair that is, within hours? A girl sick with an ancient fever had touched the lady and was healed. It was true; the girl had grown up and was married to the night clerk. “Do you believe me?” he said. Did she believe him? “I believe you,” Susu said.

Susu broke the third rule of storytelling.

Inj closed the door of the study.

Schell rose from his chair.

There was a bottle of vodka on the table.

He poured a drink from the bottle.

He gave the glass to Inj.

He poured himself a drink.

Behind the desk there was a bookshelf.

She turned her back to him.

She looked at the books.

“I bet you've read them all,” she said.

She ran her hand, palm-flat against the spines—

Inj picked up her glass.

She sat beside Schell on the sofa.

She drank.

He refilled her glass.

She said, “I bet you know everything that there is to know.”

She said, “I don't know about aqueducts, or which king killed which other king or what god did what to
whom
. I don't have every possible poem in the world memorized—”

She reached over and pulled the string on a lamp.

She turned it on, then off.

On then off.

On then off.

“I'm pretty,” she said.

“You're beautiful,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

“I'd rather be important. Or tragic. But I'm not. I'm beautiful,” she said.

She said, “Ben is important.”

“Is he?” said Schell.

“You probably think that we are very silly.”

“I don't,” Schell said.

“Of course you do,” she said. “Because in some ways we are.”

Inj held her glass in both hands.

“I have to tell you something,” she said.

He waited.

She turned toward him.

“Benny's gone dry,” she said.

“What?” he said.

“He can't write,” she said.

“You have to help him,” she said.

“Help him?” said Schell.

“Yes,” she said.

He asked her, “How would you like me to help him?”

“Don't joke,” she said. “I can tell that you're joking.”

She drank.

She pushed—in a funny girlish gesture—her hair from her face.

“Is it true?” she said. “That you've lived out here for years—but you haven't written anything? Is that right?”

He said that he supposed that it was right.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why what?” he said.

“Why don't you write?” she said.

“Does it make a difference?” he said.

“Does it matter why?” he said.

“I don't really understand,” she said.

“Look at it this way,” he said. “Between something and nothing; I choose nothing.”

“You're being abstract, aren't you?” she said.

“Do you still like it then? writing, I mean,” she said.

“That only matters to children,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

He said, “Whether one likes a thing or not.”

She paused.

She thought about it.

She seemed to be thinking about it.

She said, “I'm being such an idiot.”

She leaned back against the sofa.

She said, “I wish I were thirty-six years old, wearing black satin and pearls.”

She drank.

He reached for her glass.

He said, “Perhaps you've had enough.”

“No, no,” she said. “I've only just begun.”

Inj was beautiful in the moonlight.

Isn't Inj beautiful in the moonlight?

Have you had enough?

No, you've only just begun.

“Please tell me what I can do for Benjamin Salt,” Schell said.

Inj rested her head back against the sofa.

“It's so quiet here,” she said.

“Is it always so quiet?” she said.

“Ben can't stand the quiet. He keeps a radio on all the time,” she said.

“What about you?” said Schell.

“What?” she said.

“You,” he said.

“Oh,” she said.

“You're being deep,” she said. “I get it. Metaphysical and all that, right?”

“I am—” she said.

She closed her eyes.

“Whatever he wants me to be,” she said.

She opened her eyes.

“Didn't I say that just the right way?” she said.

“May I have a little more to drink?” she asked.

“Didn't I say that just like a girl in a movie?” she said.

He filled her glass.

“Will you help him?” she asked.

“I'll do whatever you want me to do,” he said.

She turned toward him on the sofa.

She set down her glass.

“Are you making fun of me?” she said.

He said, no; he wasn't making fun of her.

“Oh,” she said. “Then you're being kind?”