Galveston (41 page)

“I'm sorry to hear that. Tell him I hope he's better soon.”

After she left I went straight up to Mother, and as her room was stuffy I walked over to raise the window a few inches higher. Then an odd thing happened. I wasn't even looking outside the window, just down at the latch, when I became aware of the feeling someone was watching me. I looked across at James's bedroom window in Claire's house. There was no one there, and the window was closed. Yet the curtains fluttered slightly as though someone had only just touched them and moved on.

Chapter 9

Dad was becoming more and more aloof. At first I'd thought it my fault, because I did take care to avoid him at times. It's hard for me to hide my feelings from him, and I knew the fewer our conversations, the safer I would be.

Yet he, too, no longer sought my company as he used to. Often he had dinner out, and when he came in, would likely go straight up to his bedroom, stopping only to open Mother's door a few inches and look in.

That evening I heard him come in downstairs as I was feeding Mother, and when she finished her tray I took it to the kitchen and found him sitting at the table with his glass of whisky. He didn't hear my entrance, and as I watched him sitting there, looking toward the open back door, I thought perhaps he, too, had some immediate problem which I'd been too wrapped up in myself to notice.

I sat down across from him. “Dad, is anything the matter?”

“Oh, Nan, I didn't hear you come in. No, should there be?”

“No, but you don't talk much lately and stay out a lot. Something wrong down at the church?”

He gazed at me steadily for a moment, then said, “The church? There is little that can happen there at this point. It's all been done, long ago.”

I didn't know exactly what he meant by that, except I'd been told once that the mayoral election Charles ran in more than ten years ago had had something to do with it.

“You mustn't give up, Dad. There are lots of other churches in Galveston now, and maybe St. Christopher's doesn't have the best location among them. Maybe you ought to consider moving, closer to Broadway or—”

“Move? No, there's no need for that now,” he said, then brightened. “Besides, we're not doing so badly. We still have the loveliest garden in the city, and many loyal parishioners.”

“Dad, tell me about what happened when Charles ran for mayor. I know what happened at the church was connected to it somehow, but I've never been sure how.”

“Charles can't be blamed for any of it,” he said. “There were two things that went wrong. First, I mistakenly tried to be active in his campaign. The bishop learned of it and disapproved of my behavior. But that wouldn't have been an insurmountable problem; indeed, no one in the church would have needed to know.

“The turning point was the fact so many of the communicants were either employed by or somehow connected with the Wharf Company. You see, they were a mighty force. The Wharf Company was naturally against Charles, because he came out strongly against their policies. At that time, politics entered everything—well, I guess that's still true. Anyway, the congregation began dividing into factions, and people began to leave. Imagine, factions in the church! It was all ridiculous for a bunch of Christians, of course, and should never have happened.

“Yet you can't control the feelings of people. Even if I curtailed my own activities in the campaign after the bishop gave me a scolding, everyone knew how close Charles and I were as neighbors and friends. Then of course there was Lucien Carter.”

“Who?”

“You wouldn't remember him—you were too young. Lucien owned a shipping company based here, and he wholeheartedly supported Charles during the election. He was also a member at St. Christopher's.”

“I see.”

“Yes. He left Galveston shortly after Charles dropped out of the race, but there was a lot of bitterness toward me because I was Lucien's friend, too.”

“Why did he leave?”

“Oh … for the same reason any enterprising businessman leaves one town for another. He felt he had a better future elsewhere. He rather gave up on Galveston, I think, after Charles withdrew.”

“The church seems to have suffered worst of all.”

“That's true. One of life's injustices, I guess.”

“But this could all have been avoided if Charles hadn't given up. Why did he get into it so deeply, then give up?”

“It's a long story, dear, one which I can't tell you in full. Someday, perhaps you will know all of it, but not now. It's enough to say he was sickened by politics by the time election day neared. He was a gentle man, Charles, not the sort to become entangled with roughshod bullies throwing their weight around.”

“Did the Wharf Company threaten him in some way?”

He didn't answer for a moment, but instead took another sip of whisky. Then: “They—let us say, his opposition—used its influence against him as best it could.”

What Dad told me that day as we sat at the kitchen table didn't bother me. What nagged at me were the parts he insisted on leaving out. I kept wondering about Charles's reasons for backing out, all through the rest of the evening as Nick and I played two hands of casino, and later, still, as I sat with Mother a few minutes before she went to sleep.

How I wished that night she could talk to me. I had a feeling so much was locked up inside her that would never come out. As I rubbed her arms and elbows with cream, trying to soften the skin that rarely touched anything except rough cotton bedclothes, bits and pieces of a conversation overheard long ago, before her accident, began to come back to me.

She and Dad had come from the Beckers' one night, and talked in their bedroom for a long time. I was supposed to be asleep, but had lain awake, wondering as I did nightly when the new baby—due at any time—would come.

Dad seemed to be put out with Mother because she'd behaved so strangely in front of Claire … in fact, it was probably his unusual tone of voice that first made me listen. “I know how uncomfortable you feel, but you must make a better effort not to show it,” he said.

“But when she gets to talking about that summer, I just want to go through the floor. I feel so deceitful.”

“Hush, darling,” Dad told her. “What happened wasn't our fault, although heaven knows we've profited all these years. What we did was a favor to Charles, and can't be looked at any other way.”

Then Mother said, “Why not, Rubin, because then we couldn't live with ourselves?”

I must have been staring hard at Mother, rubbing her arms in a frenzy, as the memory took hold, for she began to look at me fearfully and press back against the pillows. “Oh, I'm sorry,” I told her. “I was thinking of something and got carried away, I guess.” I kissed her cheek and began brushing her hair, trying not to think of the conversation any more until I could be alone and sort it out.

Later, in my bedroom, I pulled out her poems. I remembered them as soon as I thought of Mother saying she felt “deceitful.” The clue must be in the poems somewhere.

The more I read of them, though, the more puzzled I became. They were such vague things. Perhaps all poetry is vague; perhaps only the poetry of a mad person …

Had Dad's words about profiting handsomely meant they'd stolen money from Claire? Certainly not, it would seem, for she had no money except what Charles gave her. Besides, why steal money in the first place? It simply didn't ring true, and the thought of Charles Becker doing anything not strictly aboveboard was impossible to entertain. He was one of the most honorable men I've ever known and from all appearances, was totally devoted to Claire.

Besides, Dad would never take money that wasn't rightfully his. Yet he had said, “profited.”

None of it made sense, and there was no one left now to explain it except Dad. I was sure he would continue to evade my pointed inquiries as he had earlier, at the kitchen table. Dad is quite apt at getting around things when he wants to be.

… Unless Helga Reinschmidt knew something and that was why Charles would never let her come here while he was alive. Over the years Claire has often mentioned Charles disliked Helga, but never, as I recall, has she said why. Yet even Helga's involvement wouldn't fit because her only contact with the Beckers was through Claire, and Claire was the unknowing victim, not one of the conspirators. Still, everyone knows of Helga's almost unnatural attachment to Claire. Perhaps Charles was afraid she might guess what had happened, and tell. Yes. She would almost certainly tell Claire anything she knew …

My mind spun through the labyrinth of unanswered questions, of open-ended clues leading nowhere, until I finally gave up pursuing it and fell asleep. No matter how many times I've told myself since then that the whole situation probably amounts to nothing—maybe even just a dream on my part, rather than something actually overheard—I've never stopped wondering.

James was doing nicely on his own these days, and didn't go to the beach with me over once or twice a week. He and Tommy Driscoll had made quite a success of selling crabs, and often he didn't return in the mornings from the catch and the sales trip following in time to go with me.

He worried about this at first, but I told him there was no need. As long as he obviously had something else he wanted to do during the time I went to the beach, there was no reason for anyone to wonder why he wasn't with me. Besides, most of the time I still took Porky, who sat obediently at the back steps of the Pavilion stage door until I returned from the tower to walk him home.

One day James met me at the gate, his eyes full of excitement. “I'm going to do something I'll bet you've never done,” he told me.

“What?”

“Going to a séance.”

“Séance?” I repeated. I'd heard stories of such goings-on, but had never known much about them. “Where is it to be held?”

“You know the house where the Madisons used to live, down the street?”

“Yes. They haven't been here since May—I don't understand.”

“We're going to have it under their house. I've just been down to make sure there's an entrance through the latticework.”

“Who else is going to be there?”

“Delta and Joe Baker, and the rest of them. Delta has an aunt that used to be a clairvoyant and taught her just what to do.”

“But I thought séances were for calling forth dead people—spirits. Whom are you all going to call on?”

“My parents,” he said, and I knew then I should have realized. It was clear the Baker ring was up to no good, and it wasn't the first time. They'd been pulling pranks on people since I could remember, and were disliked all over the neighborhood.

“James, I wouldn't want to ruin your plans, but don't you think you'd better give this some thought? You know, most of these things are just tricks, theatrical jokes. You read now and then in the papers about people who paid for them and got cheated.”

“Yes, but I didn't give Delta a dime, you can be sure of that, only a picture of my mother and father. That way, she'll be sure to know what they look like so she can find them among the spirits.”

“You gave her a picture of them?”

“Loaned it, till after the thing is over.”

“When is it going to take place?”

“A few nights from now. They're going to let me know as soon as they find out what night they can get away without their parents finding out. I told them I could get out any old time.”

“Oh you did, huh? Well, just supposing you can, young man. I wonder what you think you're going to prove by all this?”

“Prove? Why, that Mother and Dad are really gone, I guess.”

“But James, James, you already know that.”

“I told you, they wouldn't let me see them. I never saw them after they left on their ride that morning. Just talking to them again would make me feel a lot better, see?”

“Oh, all right. But let me warn you not to expect anything. I wouldn't trust Delta or Joe either, as far as from here to the end of the block, and I just hope nothing happens to that picture.”

“Do you really think she'd do harm to it?”

“Probably not, but be sure you get it back as soon as possible. There's no way of replacing it, you know.”

“Yes … but then there's no way of replacing them, either.”

It was the following day I became involved in my own bizarre scheme, as innocently as James in his, by making a half-serious suggestion to Roman which he then dared me to follow through. It all started with a silly, romantic notion I had one morning as we lay next to each other in the tower room.

“This is all wrong, you know,” I said.

“What? Your coming here?”

“No. I mean, don't lovers usually meet in the dark, at night? Do you realize I've never even seen you at night, except the evening I watched you play, then the one at Claire Becker's dinner party? Wouldn't it be fun, just once, to meet at night?”

“Name the night,” he said. “No one's around here after eleven. I'll meet you whenever you like, if you're sure you can sneak out without being caught.”

“Oh … I hadn't thought. Oh well, we might as well forget it.”

He turned over on his elbow and looked down at me sternly. “You mean you haven't the nerve, fair maid, after what we've pulled off in broad daylight the past month or so? You slay me!” He heaved an exaggerated sigh, and lay back on the pillow.

“Well … I probably could. If we did it late enough, that is. Just think, we could go walking on the beach in the moonlight. I've always dreamed of doing that with the man I love …”

“We could do other things too, my dear,” he said, and began to kiss my neck.

“Oh, Roman, your mind always—”

“Um?”

“Nothing, nothing …”