Erika turned to me. "That is our property up there, isn't it, Jack?"
"I think it is," I answered. "I'll check the map."
"Yes," she said. "Do that."
I
t is true, of course, that our memories sustain us. They give the present a backdrop, scenery, substance; they tell us who we are and what we're becoming. They sing to us and caress us. And sometimes they make us sit for hours, quietly, unmoving, and unchanging. As if that will put time off, and the moments will not happen. I used to do that even then, at the house.
I used to look at her and tell her how very beautiful she was. She liked that. She'd blush and say thank you, but that she wasn't, really, that it was all just an illusion. "You don't take compliments well," I'd tell her.
"Just telling you what's real," she'd say.
And I'd chuckle because I thought she was trying to be philosophical, cryptic, and humble. But I was wrong.
I
went into Cohocton for some art supplies later that day to a shop called Ulla's Arts and Handicrafts. It was run by a pleasant, middle-aged Swedish woman and her husband, who was usually somewhere else when I visited. I'd been to the shop before, and when I walked in, Ulla looked up from behind the counter, said hello to me in Swedish, caught herself, said hello in English, thought a moment, and added, "Hello, Mr. Harris."
"Jack," I said.
"Hello, Jack." Her mouth had a constant, flat smile on it, not a vacuous kind of smile, but the kind that asked without words how she could help me. But it was also oddly defensive, as if she were trying to get the jump on bad news. "Are you settling in up there?"
"We're trying," I said.
"And have those people been to see you?"
"What people, Ulla?"
"The people who live across the road, Jack." Her smile flickered. "I don't know their names."
"No," I said. "No one's been to see us."
"They're crazy people, Jack." She put her forefinger to her temple. "They'll come and bother you. They bother everyone."
I said nothing for a long moment. This wasn't the first I'd heard of the crazy people who lived across the road, of course, and I wasn't sure that Ulla, like the others who'd talked with me about them, wasn't having fun with me. It had become clear that the locals took an almost perverse pleasure in trying to scare newcomers, especially if they were city people and therefore unfamiliar with country life.
"Are you joking with me?" I gave her a half smile that was designed to tell her that I wasn't totally without a sense of humor, that if she was joking it was okay.
"Joking?" She shook her head. "No. I'm not joking. There are people living on the mountain across the road from you, and they are crazy."
"How are they crazy, Ulla?"
She lowered her head in thought. After a moment she looked up and said, "I don't know. I've heard about them. My customers tell me about them. They tell me they're like the people in that movie
Deliverance
. But I don't know how, exactly. I can't tell you." She turned her head slightly to one side. "Now, what can I do for you, today?"
T
he following morning I answered a soft knock at the front door—I wouldn't have heard it if I'd been anywhere but in the living room or the library—to find a man in his early twenties, dressed in a sport coat, white shirt, gray pants. He gave me a big, open grin, as if
he
were welcoming
me
to the house.
"Hi," he began, and stuck his hand out. I took it. He pumped my hand a few times, not too long, let it go. "My name's Allan
Sibbe
. I represent Dominion Properties, of Colorado." He reached into his sport coat pocket, withdrew a business card, handed it to me. "My card," he went on. The card read: "Allan
Sibbe
: Sales Representative: Dominion Properties/ Colorado," and gave a phone number.
"I'm not interested in buying property," I told the young man. "Sorry."
"I'm not selling property," he said. "Keep the card, please." I stuffed it into my pants pocket. "I'm not empowered to sell property, Mr. Harris."
"How'd you know my name?"
"Your mailbox." He turned his head to the left and nodded backward to indicate it. "What I'm doing, Mr. Harris, is
showing
properties. I'm not going to deny that these properties are for sale. One does not show properties that
aren't
for sale, does one?"
"No," I conceded.
"Of course not. My point being that real estate—
land
, Mr. Harris—is your very best investment. But of course that investment must be made at the right moment. Otherwise it's not an investment, is it? No. It's a risk. And the business of Dominion Properties is to eliminate risk, where possible—and it is often possible, Mr. Harris, as you'll see—and where it is not possible to refine it, to delineate it, to
limit
it to its very
lowest
limits." Another grin. He was clearly enjoying himself. "
Land
is your best investment. It stays. It lasts. It
is
! It produces. It nurtures. It becomes what you want it to become." A brief pause. "Do you understand that, Mr. Harris?"
"Sure," I said, though it wasn't entirely true.
"Of course you do. Everyone does." Then he added in a whisper, as if it were a secret, "They just won't admit it, will they?" Then he went on, voice at a normal level, "No sir, you can't make a better investment than land. This is the good earth here; we're talking about the soil, the thing that feeds us and keeps us alive." He was starting to sound a bit fanatical, and I wanted to bring the encounter to a close.
"Thank you," I said. "Thank you very much—"
"Perhaps, if I could come inside . . ."
"No, I don't think so. You'll have to excuse me, I have things to do."
"I'm sorry, too."
"Good-bye," I said politely but firmly, and I closed the door. I heard him shuffle across the porch, pull the screen door open, close it behind him, and leave.
M
y mother has never taken to Erika. She makes no bones about it, although she's usually a very tactful woman.
"It's as if I need to know more about her," she said once, shortly after Erika and I were married.
I said, "What more do you need to know?" I was ready to give her a list of all that she did know about Erika—her age, her education, her tastes in food and art, her political and religious views, et cetera.
She cut in, "That's not enough, Jack."
"It would be with anyone else, Mom."
"Maybe. Maybe not. But with her, with Erika, it's as if those things are merely . . . accoutrements." I chuckled.
"I mean it, Jack." My mother can sound pretty severe when she wants to. I stopped chuckling.
"I don't know what that means—'accoutrements.'"
"It means things added on, Jack. It means—"
"I know what the word means. I just don't know how it applies to Erika."
She thought a moment. "I mean it's all surface; it's like it's been tacked on."
"You're saying she's a phony? Is that what you're saying, Mom? Because I don't see her that way. I don't see her that way at all."
She shook her head, held her hand up. "No, Jack. No. Not in the least. She's not a phony; I think she's very genuine. I just think that I would like to know more, as I said before, but—I don't think I ever will. I don't think I ever
can
."
I should have gotten upset with her. After all, she wasn't giving Erika a fair chance. But I said nothing. And that's where the conversation ended.
M
y mother visited shortly after we moved into the house. She brought us a bottle of Dom
Perignon
, which all of us shared—including my brother Will, who had come up with my mother. I proposed a toast: "To us," I said, "to the house," and my mother and Will joined in. My mother was trying very hard to be friendly to Erika that day. They went for a short walk together, down Goat's Head Road, and Erika pointed out the cabin there. They discussed Erika's plans to start a garden, and together they scouted out the best area for it. Things looked pretty damned promising between them, and I thought that at last my mother had grown to like Erika. Later, however, when she and I were alone—Erika and Will had gone into Cohocton to shop for dinner—she said, "I'm sorry, Jack; I'm sorry, but I still don't like her." She stopped abruptly, then hurried on, "No, that's not true. No. I like her. I like
the
. . . person she is. I just have a mother's distrust of her." She grinned at the phrase. "That sounds awfully old-fashioned, doesn't it? And judgmental."
"Yes," I said, which surprised her.
She grinned again. "It's not judgmental, Jack. At least I don't intend it to be judgmental." A pause. After several moments she continued, "Your brother is quite fond of her. I'm sure you've noticed."
I took a deep breath to show that the fact that Will liked Erika meant very little to me. "Yes, Mom. I've noticed."
"Of course you have. And why shouldn't he be fond of her? My God, Jack—Erika's a knockout."
I shook my head. "She's not a knockout, Mom. She's good-looking, sure—"
"I'm not talking about her appearance, Jack. I'm talking about her
aura
."
Now it was my turn to grin. "Her aura, Mom?"
"Yes." She had a look of deadly seriousness about her. "The way she appears to men."
"How would you know about that, Mom?" Another grin. It was a frivolous question, and I wanted her to know that I realized it.
"Women know things about other women. And I know this about Erika: Men find her very, very appealing."
"And that's why you don't like her?" I didn't like the way the conversation was tending. "This is all getting kind of Freudian, Mom."
"Don't flatter yourself, Jack. When I say I have a mother's distrust of her, I'm not talking about being jealous. I'm talking about what she'll do to you without even knowing it."
"That's high melodrama, Mom."
"Life is high melodrama, Jack."
Which is when Will and Erika appeared in the kitchen doorway, grocery bags in hand. Will is ten years older than I, a good six inches taller, but twenty pounds lighter. He was about as "dressed down" as I'd seen him in years—black tailored slacks, a Harris tweed sports coat, a light blue button-down shirt. "
Wonderoast
Chicken," he announced.
"Whatever that is," said Erika, just behind him in the doorway, holding up another grocery bag. "And macaroni salad, beans, fruit salad, and . . . and . . ." She peeked into the bag, looked up squeamishly, fetchingly. "Something else. I have no idea what it is."
"We'll find out, I'm sure," I said.
W
ill said, over dinner, "Is there a migrant labor camp in the area, Jack?"
I nodded, took a small bite of
Wonderoast
Chicken, which was lean and tasty, said, "A few. But there aren't many migrant laborers. Especially this time of year."
Will shrugged. "I saw some people on the road—"
My mother cut in, "This is good chicken, Jack."
I nodded at Erika. "Erika and Will bought it, Mom."
Will said, "Maybe they were backpackers or something. You probably get a lot of that type up here, right, Jack?"
"That type, Will?"
"Sure. The backpacking type. Back-to-the-
landers
." He smiled smugly.
"Will," I said, "that's kind of what Erika and I are."
His smug smile broadened. "Sure you are, Jack. Sure you are. I'd say you're about as established as a ten-dollar bill."
To end the conversation there, I said, "Maybe you're right, Will," then asked my mother, "How are the Twigs, Mom?" The Twigs are a woman's group she's involved in.
"They're okay. A little stodgy," she added, and that's when the singing started. An aria from
Carmen
. It was coming from outside, to the south.
"Good God," Will said.