Lowboy Part 15

"Alex and I didn't give it much thought when Will was small, of course, but by the time he'd turned eleven or twelve we'd started to worry. I've always known that I kept Will too close, that I was too greedy, and I've been told that does things to a boy." She gave a sharp laugh. "Richard said so, for one. 'You're turning that boy into a f.a.ggot, Yda.' He loved to say that. So when Will brought Emily home-an actual girl, and pretty in a tomboyish sort of way-all I felt was relief."

"It must have surprised you a little," said Lateef. "That the girl took an interest, I mean."

"It didn't surprise me at all. Girls have always liked Will." She stopped herself then, knowing how she must sound, and waited for her defensiveness to ebb. "It was his indifference," she said finally. "Girls never made him nervous, because there was nothing that he wanted from them yet. They mistook that for confidence." She shrugged. "Maybe it was, of a kind. Will always did exactly what he wanted."

"What sort of things did he do?"

You wanted to tell it, thought Violet. So tell it. But she found herself talking in euphemisms and half-truths, filtering and dissembling, if for no other reason than from force of habit.

"I went through a bad time after Alex died, and Will had to stay somewhere else for a few months. Richard's was the obvious place, but the two of them had just had one of their fights: Richard could be difficult, as I've said. I asked Will if he'd be okay at Richard's house, if they'd get along, and he nodded in a bored sort of way and told me they'd get along fine. He was going to pretend he was a cat."

Lateef frowned at her. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"I asked him the same thing. He just rolled his eyes at me and said 'Meow.'" She shrugged. "A few months later, the next time I saw Richard, he told me Will had kept it up for three whole weeks."

Lateef took in a breath but didn't speak. For a brief moment she thought he might start laughing. "Is that what you wanted to tell me?"

You know it isn't, Violet thought. But his disingenuousness no longer bothered her. It was a marker for her, a sure sign of his interest, and as long as she held his interest she was safe.

"A few months before Will brought Emily home, I'd had quite a shock: for the first and only time, I found a girlie magazine-one of the more harmless ones, I think it might have been a Playboy Playboy-lying open on the floor next to his bed. I laughed out loud when I saw it. This ought to shut Richard's mouth, I thought. I picked it up-a little guiltily, I remember-and flipped it open more or less at random. That's when I had my second shock. Parts of the girls had been cut out, very carefully and neatly. Not the parts you'd expect: it was the arms and legs mostly, sometimes the head. I found out later that Will was gluing them onto the comics he was making, onto the superheroes' bodies, because as he got sicker he was losing his ability to draw."

She glanced at Lateef, trying to read his expression, but he was staring fixedly out at the street. It doesn't matter what he's thinking, she said to herself. It's too late for me not to tell the rest.

"When Will came home I asked about the pictures. We were sitting on his bed, I remember, and the magazine was lying open between us. He didn't seem the slightest bit embarra.s.sed. He started to tell me about his day at school-what he'd eaten for lunch, the train ride home, that sort of thing-and turning the pages of the magazine while he talked, as though it was one of my National Geographics National Geographics. I just sat there on the bed and listened to him. I'd felt more and more helpless since that night in Richard's living room: sometimes Will would be fine, the same as he'd always been, and the rest of the time he'd be impossible. It never seemed to matter what I did. Will's illness had made me obsolete." Lateef was shaking his head at her but she ignored him. "I found myself wis.h.i.+ng that Alex was there, something I never wished for anymore. Alex would know what to ask him, I said to myself. I sat there looking at the side of Will's face, still so delicate and babyish, trying to make sense of it somehow-to interpret it, I suppose." She rolled down the window and let the wind hit her. "But really there was nothing to interpret. Just my thirteen-year-old son, chattering on about his day, flipping casually through a cut-up Playboy Playboy. I'd already made up my mind that it had no special meaning for him-that it was a magazine like any other-when he turned to a page that was different from the rest. He'd ripped it out and done things to it and slid it back into place very precisely. He stopped talking about his day and stared down at it with a-" She thought for a moment. "With a sly sort of smile on his face, the way any teenager would look at a dirty photograph. 'What's that a picture of, Will?' I asked, feeling ridiculous as I said it. Then he laughed and held it up for me to see."

When she kept quiet for a time Lateef s.h.i.+fted in his seat and fiddled discreetly with the rearview mirror. How patient he's gotten, she found herself thinking. Just like I was with Will. He must not know how to act around me either.

"The picture took up a full page-it was the centerfold, I guess, or something like it-but the things Will had done made it hard to decipher. A woman was coming out of the water, I think. She might have been at the beach. Will had taken a Magic Marker and blackened the water, if that's what it was, and filled in the sky with what looked like hundreds of tiny rings or bubbles, though I found out later that they were degrees."

"Degrees?" said Lateef.

"The symbol for a degree. The temperature symbol."

He pursed his lips but said nothing.

"It was the only photograph in the magazine that Will hadn't taken things from-hadn't used for his comics, I mean-but he'd cut into it everywhere. He must have gotten hold of a razor, though I was careful not to have one in the house: I even kept the breadknife locked away. The face was just a ball of cuts-deep, heavy gouges- spreading out from the middle like an asterisk." She closed her eyes. "He'd made it into a kind of opening. At least that's how it looked to me. There wasn't any face left."

Again Lateef made as if to ask a question but kept quiet.

"He gave the picture to me so that I could see it better. Wavy lines were coming out of the opening like spokes, or like the light behind a saint's head in a painting. It reminded me of portraits of the pope I'd seen when I was a girl." She paused again, trying to remember exactly. "Her chest and her stomach were covered in a kind of black mesh."

Lateef coughed into his hand. "What about the girl's genitals, Miss h.e.l.ler? Had he cut those away?"

"He hadn't cut anything away. He'd taken a cutout from some other page-a hand with bright blue fingernails-and pasted it over that part of her. That was the most horrible thing about the picture, at least to me. The hand wasn't covering her s.e.x so much as growing out of it. When I asked him what it was his face went blank. 'That's the problem, Violet,' he said. I asked what he meant but he just shook his head. I began to feel dizzy. I was frantic to say something else, I remember, something to keep him from seeing my disgust. 'What's that, then?' I said, pointing at the cut-apart face. That made him laugh. He rocked back and forth on the bed and hummed and nodded to himself, the way he'd done on that first terrible night at Richard's. 'Oh, that that, Violet,' he said, and laughed again. 'I can tell you that. That's the solution.'"

When she stopped for a moment to compose herself she could see that he thought she was finished. There was more to tell of course but it could wait.

"Why didn't you mention this to me before, Miss h.e.l.ler?"

"I'm mentioning it now," she said. "Because of Emily."

While she'd been telling the story they'd arrived at her building and now they sat idling in front of it. The sight of its blandly lit foyer depressed her beyond words. When Lateef finally spoke she received it like a stay of execution.

"There's something I don't understand," he said after a long spell of quiet. "Why would Emily have run away with your son a second time? What could she possibly want from him?"

She considered the question, still staring into the foyer, and decided that she didn't want to answer it. "She's in love with him, Detective. Isn't that enough?"

His smile was so regretful that it shamed her. "You know it's not, Miss h.e.l.ler."

She nodded at that and closed her eyes and s.h.i.+vered. She dreaded being asked to leave the car. The thought of climbing the stairs to her lightless apartment and waiting there meekly for news brought a sob out of her that she had no way of suppressing. It rang out in the cramped car like a gunshot. Lateef sat up at once and took her arm.

"What is it, Miss h.e.l.ler? Should we get you upstairs?"

"I have something else to tell you," she managed to answer. "Something else about Will."

He sat back wordlessly and waited. Give him what he wants, she told herself. Don't test his patience.

"A week or so before what happened at Union Square, I came home from work and sat down at the kitchen table, trying to get interested in making dinner. I heard Will and Emily in the other room, but that didn't surprise me: she was eating most of her dinners at our house by then. It got quiet for a while-quiet enough that I noticed- and then Emily came out alone. 'I'd like to ask you a question, Yda,' she said. There was something different about her, something formal. I smiled at her and asked her to sit down. I already knew it would be about Will-what else did we have to talk about?-but I couldn't have predicted what came next. I was about to say something else, maybe ask what she wanted for dinner, when she made a sort of face and said, 'Why won't he touch me?' She said it louder than she'd meant to, I think, because afterwards she pressed her lips together. When I didn't answer she said it again, more quietly this time, still standing in the middle of the kitchen. I had no idea what to say to her, as usual: I must have mumbled some cliche or other. 'He thinks I'm beautiful,' she said. She said it as though she was daring me to doubt it. 'He told told me that.'" me that.'"

Lateef tapped his fingers restlessly against the wheel. "Go on," he said, not looking at her. He thinks he knows what's coming, Violet thought.

"I looked at Emily for a while, trying to see her the way Will saw her, and for once it actually seemed as if I could. I felt sympathy for her then, genuine sympathy and fondness, for the first time since the day Will brought her home. 'Emily,' I said. 'You understand that Will is special, don't you?' I actually used that word-that stupid, hateful, patronizing word. 'I know he's in pain,' she said quietly. 'That's what I mean,' I told her. 'That's what I mean exactly.' We sat there looking at each other for I don't know how long, neither of us saying a word. What a remarkable girl, I thought. So articulate and thoughtful. She could easily pa.s.s for someone twice her age."

She stopped very briefly, watching as a taxi rattled past. But she began again before Lateef could prompt her.

"I was wrong about that, of course. Emily was a teenager in spite of everything, a fifteen-year-old girl, as self-obsessed as anyone at that age. 'I know how hard it is for him,' she said. 'How hard it is to even talk.' I nodded at her, still happy just to look at her and listen. But the next thing she told me undid everything."

"What was it?"

"She said that Will had told her that he loved her. She said that it had to be true because of who he was. 'I read a book about schizophrenia,' she said, as if letting me in on a secret. 'Schizophrenics never lie, you know, Yda. They can't can't.'"

She turned her head to gauge Lateef's reaction. She was afraid that he'd have no response at all, that he'd fail to understand, that her solitude would become absolute. She wondered what would happen if it did.

"That's not been my experience," he said finally. "Everybody lies."

She nearly laughed with relief. "I hope you're not including me, Detective."

"Let's get you upstairs," he murmured, opening his door. His face looked small and blank.

She stayed where she was. "Emily said one more thing that day but I ignored it. I was too upset by then to think it through."

"What was it?" said Lateef. His left foot was already on the curb.

She took in a breath. There was nothing else now. "Will called her his favorite problem."

When he'd told Emily everything she looked at him and laughed. "Why are you looking at me like that?" she said. "Was I supposed to recognize the tune?"

"Tune?" he said, forcing the word out of his mouth. His voice sounded wet.

She nodded and laughed again and squeezed his hand. He'd told her everything and she hadn't heard a word. He took a breath and tried to start from the beginning but he didn't know where the beginning was. He couldn't think of it. Violet was at the beginning but Violet didn't matter to him now. Neither did Dr. Fleisig. Neither did the school. He tried his best to have a single thought. He closed his mouth and pushed his teeth together. The beginning had actually happened just that morning. Nothing else had any consequence or weight. On November 11 he had run to catch a train.

He was just starting to think as they stepped out of the tunnel, starting to get his thoughts together, but he stopped thinking right away and so did she. They had no choice but to stop. They stood side by side on the platform like pet.i.tioners, both their mouths hanging open, staring up at the glittering vaultwork. No earthly sound impinged on them. The air in their throats was the air of a forgotten age. They were deep beneath the city, almost too deep to breathe, yet by chance or fate a bloodless light still reached them. Her right shoulder dug into his left.

"Have you been here before, h.e.l.ler?"

"Not ever."

She swore under her breath. "How come they closed it off? Do you know why?"

"Too beautiful." His voice was steady again. "Too secret." He watched the words curl up into the dark.

She took a few steps forward and stretched her arm out toward the terracotta. "I can't touch anything," she said. "I don't belong here."

"You belong here, Emily. I brought you here."

The fact of it didn't seem to rea.s.sure her. She shrugged and took another few steps along the wall, not quite touching it with her fingers, keeping as far from the tracks as the platform allowed. Lowboy stayed where he was. He would move toward her soon but not yet. He had to know if they had an understanding. It was important that she understood the reason for what was going to happen next.

"I was talking to you in the tunnel, Emily. I was trying to tell you something."

"What was it?" she said. She was running her left hand along the tiles.

"Slow down a minute. Are you listening? I was-"

"I don't want to talk anymore. Look around you, h.e.l.ler! Look at this place!"

She leaned as far back as she could without falling and laughed up at the ceiling and shook her head in unabashed delight. She was different now, less beholden to him, less sincere. He barely knew her. Something had gotten misplaced in the tunnel. Some small necessary thing had been removed.

"We should stay down here forever, h.e.l.ler. We should build ourselves a house." She caught her breath. "I feel like I'm seven years old."

"You're seventeen, Emily." He studied her closely. "You're half a year older than me."

"I know that," she said, rolling her eyes. "But with you I can be seven if I want."

"Why is that?"

She spun back to him and kissed him on the cheek. "Because you're William h.e.l.ler," she said. "Because you know why."

"Why?" he said. But he already knew. "Because I'm sick?"

She squeezed his hand and spun away again. A small doubt flared up briefly and expired. No doubt could have endured in that sepulchral air. In place of his doubts was one solitary truth, no more and no less. But lesser truths than that had saved men's lives.

"We could make a fire out of these old benches, couldn't we? We'd just always keep it going." She giggled. "What did you say subway rats are called?"

"Track rabbits."

She chewed on her thumb. "I wonder if they taste like pork or chicken."

A song came to him as he watched her, a ballad his father had sung on half-remembered evenings. His beautiful pitiful ghost of a father. He began to hum it quietly and the melody beat back at him from the tooled and lacquered tilework as though his father himself were singing it in a bedroom on the far side of the world. I asked my love to take a walk. Just a little ways with me.

"I recognize that one," said Emily. "What's it called?"

Seven arches led to a Moorish staircase, seven led away. The glazed florets as pale as palmprints. The platform as symmetrical as the moon. Three times three skylights set with amethyst gla.s.s. Tiles green as tidewater, yellow as teeth. The number of steps and arches reckoned solemnly by mystics. Seven for Christ Jesus, three for the Trinity. Sixteen for the newest child martyr. Lowboy opened his eyes wide and stretched his arms up to the ceiling in hosanna. The platform had been expecting him since October of 1904.

"What are you laughing about?" said Emily. "What are you thinking?"

"You'll find out," said Lowboy.

She shut her mouth then. She stopped what she was doing and sucked in a breath.

"It's funny to be here, that's all." He lowered his arms and sighed. "It's been a very long time."

"You said you'd never been here before." She was at the staircase now, fidgeting with her collar, looking down at him as if from a great height. "Were you lying?" The look on her face was one he'd seen before.

"Come over here Emily. Don't go away."

"You're scaring me, h.e.l.ler. Stop smiling like that."

"I can't stop." His smiled widened. "Come on down here and give me a kiss."

A sound came out of her then as she clutched at the railing. It reminded him of the mewling of a cat. "I don't like this," she said.

"That doesn't matter," said Lowboy. He was moving again. "It's not for me Emily. It's for everyone else."

"h.e.l.ler-" she said, then covered her eyes with her hand. She was watching him through the cracks between her fingers. "Stay where you are for one second. Could you do that, please, h.e.l.ler? I don't think I can-"

"Emily," he said. He was at the steps now. "It's getting hotter Emily. You can't deny that." His left hand closed playfully around the railing. "If you tried to deny it something bad would happen."

The mewling came again but nothing else. He said her name softly to see if she answered but she gave no sign at all. Had it happened again had his voice been disabled. What about her, he thought. What about Emily. Could she have done it.

He looked up and showed her his Will h.e.l.ler face.

"I'm sorry to do this," somebody was saying. He was saying it himself. "I don't want to upset you. I'm upsetting you Emily. I can see it. I'm sorry to do this." He took a deep breath. "The truth is that I feel a little sick."

Nothing happened then. The Musaquontas whispered underneath them. Finally she nodded and coughed into her hand. "I know that, h.e.l.ler. I got freaked out, that's all. Just please try not to-"

"I want to tell you something Emily. A human interest story. I read it or I saw it on the news."

She was on the third step by the time he'd finished. The third step already. He blinked his eyes and she was on the fourth. "Stop staring at me like that, h.e.l.ler. You look like somebody else. You look like you want to-"

"Do you know the Great Lakes Emily? In the Great Lakes there's a problem with the fish." He looked at her. "The fish are extincting, all right? No more babies."

"h.e.l.ler," she whined. "If you don't stop right now-"

"Shut your mouth Emily. Scientists came and found one kind of fish it might have been a perch. Do you know what a perch is?" He blinked at her. "A small fish and greenish. Not pretty."

She nodded at him from the fifth step. How many steps in all was it eleven. Was she trembling now. Was she crying. Black hair flat across her face like tinted gla.s.s.