Fade. Part 9

I tried desperately to find something more to say while Page Winslow stood there perfectly at ease, as if waiting for the world-or me-to entertain her.

"You're still home," I said. "Does Fairfield Academy start up later?" Start up? Start up? I felt like a fool, a Frenchtown fool, mute, inarticulate, dumb. I felt like a fool, a Frenchtown fool, mute, inarticulate, dumb.

"I'm leaving day after tomorrow. Emerson and I were away for a year-on the continent, continent," p.r.o.nouncing the last word as if quoting somebody else. "Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?" she asked wryly. "All that happened is that we fell behind in school-here I am going off to Fairfield almost fifteen-and I broke my dumb leg in Italy." She sighed and lifted her hands in resignation. "Now I'm supposed to be all fit and ready to go ..."

"Don't you want to go?"

"I suppose I do," she said. "I'm not sure. Emerson's one of the lucky ones. He knows what he wants."

"What does he want?"

"Nothing," she said.

The sun blazed through the window, dazzling my eyes. I had never encountered people like this before, people who threw words away like toys they had tired of playing with. In Frenchtown, people spoke only to say what they meant.

"What do you you want?" I asked. want?" I asked.

"That's the problem," she said. "I don't know what I want. At least Emerson knows what he doesn't want. What do you want?"

"Everything," I said. "I want to write. I want to see the world. I want ..." And dared not say it. Love. Fame. Fortune. To live in great cities and sail across oceans. To have my books in libraries.

"I envy you," she said. And again I looked for mockery in her voice. Envied me? Shy and gangling and tormented by my ignorance in this house, here in a place I did not belong, among people who were like beings from another planet, not only from the other side of town.

Emerson returned, having changed into gray slacks, sharply creased, and a crisp white s.h.i.+rt. At home, I changed into worn overalls and an old faded s.h.i.+rt after school. I knew my few moments with Page Winslow were over, done with, as she headed for the stairs. She was leaving Monument the day after tomorrow. Would I ever see her again?

"Toodle-oo," she called, pausing at the top step.

The unlikely words were perfect, the way sticking out her tongue and crossing her eyes had been perfect.

Both Emerson and I echoed, "Toodle-oo," laughing as she went on her way, sailing down the stairs, her feet barely touching the carpet.

"Did'ja ever hear of Bunny Berigan?" Emerson asked, in the emptiness of the hallway following Page's departure.

I shook my head.

"You haven't lived yet," he said.

I followed him down the hallway into his bedroom. He closed the door behind us and I was struck by the sudden sense of privacy. His own room, his own bed and bureau. A Harvard pennant, maroon with white letters, hung on the wall above his desk. ("My father's alma mater," Emerson said, shrugging.) Framed pictures on the walls, showing Emerson and Page in various stages of growing up. In bathing suits at the beach. In formal suits and dresses. At the foot of his bed, a phonograph, records stacked neatly on a shelf below. There was a record on the turntable.

A moment later, I heard for the first time the tortured beauty of Bunny Berigan's trumpet, golden notes bruised with sadness, rising and falling, and then his thin, reedy voice: I've flown around the world in a plane, I've settled revolutions in Spain ... ...

Spellbound, I listened while Emerson went to the window and looked out. I bent my head to the speaker, letting the music fill my ears and my being, closing my eyes, isolating myself. Bunny Berigan swung into his solo after the vocal, the trumpet like a cry from the depths, wild and melancholy, more powerful than words, more telling than a voice. The trumpet spilled notes on the air almost haphazardly, yet I sensed that it was moving toward a climax, as if the trumpeter were building an invisible and impossible structure in the air, rising, rising, toward a pinnacle that was both triumphant and blazing with eternal loss and sadness. The trumpet staggered ever upward, reaching, reaching, and I thought of the poem by Robert Browning: Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,/ Or what's a heaven for? Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,/ Or what's a heaven for? and then the high note was attained, an unbelievably impossible note that was like a breath held a moment before death comes. Then silence and the scratching of the needle on the record. and then the high note was attained, an unbelievably impossible note that was like a breath held a moment before death comes. Then silence and the scratching of the needle on the record.

I could not speak, held by the music and wanting to hear it again, immediately, the way I wanted to call Page Winslow back again but could not, could not.

Later, we talked about books and movies and the stage plays he saw with his family in Boston. Winterset Winterset and and Ah, Wilderness! Ah, Wilderness!" My father and mother love the theater." He exaggerated theater, theater, drawing it out to several syllables, p.r.o.nounced it drawing it out to several syllables, p.r.o.nounced it thee-ah-tah, thee-ah-tah, rolling his eyes. rolling his eyes.

"What does your father do?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said. Then, sighing, "Well, something, I suppose. Having to do with banks and stocks and bonds. He's off to Boston a lot. My mother does things with charities. What she calls busy-busy...."

He did not ask me what my father did and I didn't volunteer the information. He turned up the volume on the record and we listened in silence. Why did I feel that keeping silent about my father's work was like another sin I needed to confess?

When the record ended, I told him that I had to leave. The bedroom was shadowed, the afternoon sun feeble as it spilled into the window. Later, I had to deliver my brother Bernard's newspaper to Mr. LeFarge.

"You'll have to come again sometime," Emerson said as we walked down the stairway and across the hallway to the front door. "I'll have Riley run you home."

"No," I said, alarmed. Arrive in Frenchtown in that gleaming sports car with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel? Impossible.

He walked me down the steps to the macadam driveway.

We didn't encounter Page Winslow.

"Toodle-oo" he called, laughing, as I ran across the circular driveway and waved without looking back.

"Toodle-oo," I said, but knew he didn't hear me.

No, I won't do it.

Why not?

Because.

Because why?

Because I don't want to fade. I don't want the pause and the flash of pain and the cold.

Don V V you want to see her again? Enter her house, stand next to her, go to her bedroom, watch her sleeping, maybe see her undressing? you want to see her again? Enter her house, stand next to her, go to her bedroom, watch her sleeping, maybe see her undressing?

No, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do any of those things.

Yes, you do. Of course you do.

The voice was sly and insistent, the voice that had come with my knowledge of the fade, almost as if the fade had a voice of its own. Which was impossible, of course. But wasn't the fade impossible too?

C'mon Paul. Let's go. It's getting dark. You can be there, at her house, in a few minutes.

No ...

She's leaving tomorrow. You may never see her again. Or she might not remember you next time $e sees you. Might look at you blankly and say: Who's that?

Ah, but it wasn't only Page Winslow who beckoned me. It was that house, as alien as a distant planet, the style and essence of that house, the names of furnis.h.i.+ngs in that house I did not know, like visiting a museum and being ignorant of the artists who created such works of splendor. And the people in that house I had not yet seen, the father who spent his days in Boston with his stocks and bonds and the mother doing charity things while my father stalked the picket line and my mother scrubbed floors and cooked over a hot stove at home.

I knew that I did not belong in that house.

Yet, I wanted to be there.

In the darkness of evening, the house was like a giant s.h.i.+p tied up at a dock, s.h.i.+mmering even as it stood still, its windows blazing with lights. Evening dew sparkled like broken bits of gla.s.s on the lawn. Music drifted through the windows, not Bunny Berigan but symphonic music, majestic and cla.s.sical, swirling violins and bursts of bra.s.s.

As I drifted across the lawn, the cold of the fade raced through my body but I ignored it, feeling light and airy, as if I could leap to the highest point of the house and stand on the topmost turret.

I went up the steps and tried the door, not surprised to find it locked. Rang the doorbell and listened to the sound of chimes inside, echoing down the hallway.

Holding a stone in my hand, I flattened myself against the house, next to the door. When it swung open, a shadow fell on the landing as Riley stepped out, peering inquisitively into the night.

I tossed the small stone into the yard, heard it bounce in the gravel, saw Riley glance toward the sound and take a step or two forward. Which was all I needed to slip into the hallway, where I shrank against the wall. After a moment or two, Riley entered the house, closed the door, and slid the bolt in place. Frowning, he walked down the hallway, his heels clicking on the tile floor. I followed, matching his footsteps to mine, my sneakers noiseless in his wake. The music grew louder as we neared a doorway to the right, near the bottom of the curved stairway.

When Riley paused at the door, a cascade of violins stopped abruptly. Riley spoke into the silence of the room: "Sorry Mr. Winslow, madam. No one at the door. Perhaps something's wrong with the bell. I'll have it looked at in the a.m.

A murmur from the room and, after a moment, the sound of music swelling again as Riley clicked his way past the staircase to the back of the house.

Walking carefully, lightly, softly, I stopped at the doorway and looked in. Two men and a woman were in the room, sitting on formal parlor chairs, the woman in a simple blue dress with a strand of pearls around her throat, her blond hair s.h.i.+ning in the glow of a lamp beside her chair. There was no doubt that she was Emerson and Page's mother, a slightly older version of them, her hair the same almost-white color. I could not see the faces of the men. They were turned away, listening intently to what the woman was saying above the music, like figures in a painting.

I glided toward the stairs, slightly dizzy as I ascended on the thick carpet, still not accustomed to the absence of my arms and legs beneath me, as if I were trying to float, impossible, upward against a current.

Pausing at the top of the stairs, I saw that all the doors were closed, but there was a thin strip of light at the bottom of the door to Emerson's room down the hall. At the door, I stopped, glanced around, heard voices from inside. My heart accelerated as I heard the murmur of Page's voice, then her laughter, light and merry, and the faint strains of Bunny Berigan's trumpet. Pressed my ear against the door and heard the unmistakable bantering tone as Page spoke, but I couldn't make out the words.

Loneliness swept me. How I longed to be in that room with them, laughing and talking intimately, joking, a part of the loveliness and sweetness of their lives.

I pulled myself away and went to Page's door, and stepped quickly inside the room. Waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Drank in the scent of her perfume, light and airy, a touch of spring, lilac maybe, or some fugitive blossom from the Meadow. After a while, I could make out her bureau against the wall to my left, the bed opposite. I took a few steps, almost tripped on a soft thick rug. Saw a small form resting on pillows on the bed and felt it with my hands. A s.h.i.+rley Temple doll, which made me smile. Page Winslow, still a child, a doll on her bed.

The door opened without warning and threw a shaft of light into the room, causing me to leap with alarm, forgetting for that moment that I couldn't be seen. Page Winslow closed the door, darkness again, then she snapped on the small lamp on the bureau. Gentle, glowing light enveloped her. She was barefoot, wore a skirt and a loose-fitting sweater. A delicate gray, a whisper of color.

I stood across the room, near the closet door, hoping she would not find it necessary to go to the closet. Her loveliness ached in me. Her bedroom was all blue and white, but soft blue, gentle white. As I watched she bent down slightly to look at herself in the mirror on the bureau, raised a hand to her face, long, slender fingers, fingers that would glide beautifully over a piano keyboard. She squinted slightly into the mirror, inspected a spot of her jaw, touched it with a probing finger.

"Pimple," she said, dismay in her voice.

I could see no pimple, saw only how utterly beautiful she was.

She turned suddenly, without warning, looked directly at me. Into my eyes. I panicked-was the fade wearing off? Could she see me emerging from nothingness? Would she scream and shout my name? Accuse me of breaking into her house, spying on her in her bedroom? Was my presence in the fade doomed always to disturb people like that?

Now she turned away from me, a frown gently scrawled on her forehead. s.h.i.+vering slightly, she murmured: "Spooky." And began to study her face in the mirror once more. "Ugh," she said, squinting again.

How could she doubt her beauty?

Pulling herself erect, she drew the sweater over her head, not bothering to unb.u.t.ton it.

I watched, stunned, as she then dropped her skirt to the floor, where it created a gray puddle at her feet. She lifted her slip, white with lace around the edges, to her hips and raised it over her head, then tossed it carelessly on the bed.

She stood there in her bra.s.siere and panties, both white, her skin glowing pale pink in the lamplight. She was slender and delicate in contrast to the fullness of my aunt Rosanna, and I was awed by the fact that both were so beautiful and had such a profound and similar effect on me. I dared not move, afraid that any movement on my part would make me explode into that ecstasy I reserved for my bed at night in the dark.

Without warning, she swiveled toward me again, her eyes narrowed as she glanced in my direction. Agony seized me as the cold of the fade intensified. Turning away again but still frowning, she reached for a white robe that had been folded on the bed. She draped the robe over her shoulders and performed hidden maneuvers as she took off the bra.s.siere and slipped her panties down, tossing them both on the bed. I wanted to reach for the silken undergarments and crush them to my face. If I dared not touch her, then I could touch the things that had been closest to her.

"h.e.l.lo ..."

I heard Emerson Winslow's voice, light and playful, and saw the door swing open at the same moment.

He stepped into the room, wearing a maroon robe, slippers on his feet, the blond hair tousled as usual. He closed the door gently behind him and stood there looking at her.

She turned at his greeting, hands at her sides, her robe slightly parted and I saw a flash of her thigh.

"Oh, Emmy," she said. "I'm going to miss you ..."

He moved toward her, arms outstretched. She stepped into his waiting arms, resting her head on his shoulder. So much alike, the two of them, reflections embracing each other, blending together.

"I'll miss you too," he murmured into her hair.

She raised her face to his.

And they kissed. Hungrily, deeply, their mouths opening to each other. My own mouth dropped open in astonishment and I stepped back, encountered the wall behind me, tried to stifle my breath.

The kiss went on, small moaning sounds coming from them, and his hand slipped inside her robe. I closed my eyes against the sight. But, astonished, still saw them clutching each other, having forgotten that my eyelids, too, were in the fade, and could not prevent me from seeing.

I turned away, my gaze dropping to the floor as I heard her whisper: "Oh, Emmy, I love you ..."

I heard the click of a switch and the room suddenly plunged into darkness. But the darkness did not obliterate the sounds of their lovemaking, their gasps of pleasure, as they tumbled to the bed.

I clamped my hands against my ears, sank down to the floor, crouching, my ears filled with the distant echo of a seash.e.l.l's roar, but I was not at the seash.o.r.e, I was in the bedroom with Emerson Winslow and his sister, Page.

After a while I removed my hands from my ears. Stillness in the room. I turned toward the bed. Emerson and Page were indistinct forms beneath the covers.

The loneliest of eternities seemed to pa.s.s as I remained crouched in the corner. At last, Emerson slipped from the bed and left the room, closing the door softly behind him. I waited until I heard Page's gentle snoring before leaving, wondering if my tears were visible on the face that could not be seen.

Later, in the shade of an elm tree down the street, after the pause and the pain, shaking and trembling from the sudden chill of the night, I remembered the time I had asked my uncle Adelard: "If the fade is a gift, then why are you so sad all the time?"

"Did I ever say it was a gift?" he replied.

I thought a moment. "I guess not."

"What's the opposite of gift, Paul?"

"I don't know."

But now I knew. Or thought I knew.

Exhausted and limp, I stood gasping for breath on the lawn of a stranger's house on the north side of town where I did not belong but where the fade had taken me. I pondered my experiences with the fade. I had seen things I had not wanted to see, would never have wanted to see.

A dog growled nearby in the bushes, a menacing growl that I recognized instantly. I knew that kind of growl intimately, had been chased by a hundred dogs while delivering newspapers.

I didn't wait for another growl but began to run, blindly, furiously, running without looking back, as if something worse than a dog were chasing me all the way to French-town.

*mer LaBatt always had the ability to surprise me, popping up around corners or looming dangerously as I emerged from Dondier's Market or Lakier's Drug Store. Late one afternoon, as shadows gathered beside the three-deckers of Frenchtown, he surprised me again. Turning into Pee Alley, the shortcut on the way home, I encountered Omer LaBatt confronting a boy of nine or ten whom I recognized as the little brother of Artie LeGrande.