Henry of Atlantic City (22 page)

Dr. Alt kept talking. “What I am describing here is nothing less than a psychic
catastrophe
.” He paused for a few seconds and looked around and still nobody interrupted him. “When the ego is assimilated by the self with no
boundaries
fixed to it—in other words, when the normal frontier between the conscious and unconscious is
erased
and the figures of the unconscious migrate into the conscious and remain there—the result could be described as a sort of permanent hallucination of the inner life, a somatic dream state.” He made a balloon in the air with his hands again. “The time-space continuum in which the conscious mind functions is invaded by the
archaic
elements of the unconscious.” He spread his hands wide as though the balloon he was holding was being inflated. “The absolute time and space which the conscious psyche inhabits is
annihilated
.” Then he clapped his hands together loudly—
POP POP!
Everyone in the courtroom jumped.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the judge said. “Your testimony is extremely interesting. A little technical, but very interesting. In your opinion, is the boy’s condition severe enough to require institutionalization?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Are there any reasons why he should
not
be able to live in a normal family situation?”

“There aren’t,” Dr. Alt said. “But the
peculiarity
of his condition might make it difficult for him.”

“May I ask what your recommendation would be? As a doctor, I mean.”

Dr. Alt glanced at the other priests. “Saint Jude’s seems to suit Henry well, from what I have observed. He seems happy there. And, of course, the place is well equipped to meet his special needs.”

“Thank you, Father,” the judge said and left the room while he made his decision.

They stood on the steps of the courthouse. Theodora’s lawyer put his briefcase down and loosened his tie. Then a blue Mercedes 500 SEL pulled up. “Here we are,” Theodora said and they went down the steps. Theodora and Henry sat in the back seat together. The lawyer sat up front with the driver. Suddenly the three priests appeared and the driver opened the windows automatically. Father Rogan put his hand in and patted Henry’s cheek. Father Crowley made the sign of the cross over him and said he would remember Henry in his prayers. Dr. Alt leaned on his cane and looked sad and said nothing.

“Let’s get going,” Theodora said to the driver.

The three priests waved as they drove away.

Henry looked out the window for a while as they drove along the highway. Philadelphia was a dirty place when you looked at it from the highway overpasses.
Buildings fell down and weeds grew out of them. The ships and storage tanks in the harbor were all rusty and old. It wasn’t like Byzantium at all. Procopius said Byzantium sparkled and so did everyone who lived there. He said when monuments and buildings got old and dirty or if they fell down, the emperor sent people to clean them up. If something burned down or was knocked down by an earthquake, the emperor rebuilt it even better than it was before. If his warships got old or were damaged in battles on the sea, the emperor destroyed them and built new ones. The emperor took care of his city like it was his only child.

Theodora and the lawyer talked but Henry didn’t listen to what they were saying. He thought about how she smiled when the judge read his decision. It wasn’t happy or mean but something in between, like the smile of someone confident in victory and content with beauty of a lower order. She looked over to where Henry and the priests were sitting. Henry looked back at her but the priests didn’t. He remembered how beautifully she swam in the Olympic pool and how whenever he saw her at the Palace—walking here and there in a hurry to get things done—he wished secretly to be noticed by her and have her love him, and how, when he learned that his father hated her, he began to feel afraid whenever he saw her—not because he hated her but because his father did—and how he then started to hate her too and hid whenever he saw her coming because he was afraid.

Henry rolled down the window and put his sunglasses on. Theodora reached across the seat and took his hand. He started to pull it back but she held it tightly, so he let her have it and poked his head out of the speeding car. He watched the mile markers flit past on the side of the highway. He listened to the rush of the wind in his ears and the roar of cars and trucks. His angel said everything that is bound together eventually comes unbound, and even a mother and her child are not much different than cars passing each other on a busy highway.

When they arrived at the Palace Theodora took Henry up to the penthouse and into the kitchen and introduced him to Antonia. Antonia was an old woman. Sy used to call her the oldest whore in Christendom because she sometimes appeared downstairs dressed up with big feathers and gloves that ran all the way up her arms. Sometimes she played blackjack at Sy’s table. He liked to say that the only thing older than Christendom itself was the sight of an old whore playing the tables.

The kitchen was big and had a balcony with trees in pots and a table and chairs. Antonia was watering.

“This is Henry, Antonia.”

Antonia held out a knobby hand. “Pleased to meet you, young man.”

“Antonia is in charge of everything up here,” Theodora said. “If you ever need anything, just ask her.” Then she told Antonia she was going to show Henry his room and asked her to pour some lemonade for them.

They went to his room and Theodora opened all the closets and drawers to show him where all his new clothes were. She made him sit down at the desk in the corner. “For doing homework,” she said. She showed him his bathroom. “It’s your responsibility to keep your room clean, Henry. Antonia is too old to be cleaning up after little boys.”

Henry said he wanted his books.

“I’ll make sure all your things are sent.” She smiled and looked around the room as if it were the fulfillment of a secret wish. “I hope you’ll like living here,” she said.

Henry said thank you. The Samaritan gave nothing but wine and oil to the wounded man.

Theodora looked at Henry for a moment. “There’s lemonade for us in the kitchen,” she said. He followed her out of the room and down the hall that led to the kitchen. “I don’t want you thanking me for anything, Henry,” she said. “Ever.” She didn’t turn around or stop walking when she said it but just kept straight on into the kitchen, where her heels made a sharp clicking noise when she walked.

From Theodora’s kitchen you could see to the ends of the city and far out to sea. Antonia put two glasses of lemonade on the table and asked Theodora if they wanted anything to eat.

Theodora shook her head. “Do you still remember your way around?” she asked Henry.

Henry said some things were different than before.

“That’s very true,” Theodora said. “There’s a lot of construction going on. Why don’t you tell me about Saint Jude’s? It sounds to me like a pretty rough place.”

Henry said nothing.

“I know about the problems you’ve had. I understand if you don’t want to talk about them.” She took a sip of lemonade and stared at Henry over the rim of the glass. Then she put the glass down. “I want you to feel comfortable and at home here, Henry. I also want you to feel that you can talk to me about anything.”

Henry took a sip of lemonade and the angel in his ear said if you love it, it will paralyze you. Henry didn’t spit out the lemonade because he knew the angel wasn’t talking about the drink but about Theodora. He looked at her and tried to see himself in her the way he thought he might see himself in his mother. He wondered why she had brought him to live with her.

Henry thought about his father. Only the father of a saint would know enough to abandon him. When you made something you had to leave it alone when it was finished. That’s what Sy said about God and horse racing and now that’s what Henry remembered whenever he thought about his father. He asked his angel where his father was. The angel said his father had forsaken him but that Henry would be reunited with him the way truth was reunited with ignorance and the soul with the body at the end of the world.

Theodora looked past Henry out the window. She sat slumped with one elbow on the back of her chair, her other arm on the table and all the secrets of her nature carefully sealed within. Sy told Henry once that keeping secrets made you strong and telling secrets made you weak. He used to say if you want to keep a friend, keep a secret. He said it all the time, which meant Sy probably didn’t have any friends or any secrets. Henry’s father didn’t have any friends either, but he did have many secrets—and now that was all he had. Henry wondered why his father hated Theodora. She had let them stay in the Palace and that’s just what Henry’s father wanted. Was that why he hated her? Because she had let him have just what he wanted? Henry looked at Theodora to see what it was that his father had hated. All he saw was a dark-haired woman with a square jaw and a blue suit and a string of pearls and a gold watch and lines around her mouth and eyes that meant she got angry a lot and probably couldn’t sleep. He wanted to ask her why she had brought him to live with her—but he couldn’t, so he looked out the big glass sliding door and across the blue ocean, where right now whales were swimming beneath the surface. Being high up in the penthouse meant seeing far into the distance. Being high up in the penthouse was like having all of Byzantium laid at your feet.

“I’m having a special guest for dinner tonight,” Theodora said. “You’re going to eat with us.” She stood up and finished her glass of lemonade. “Would you help me set the table?”

Henry followed her into the dining room, which had a wall of windows overlooking the ocean. The penthouse was shaped like a giant star on the top of the Palace and every room opened onto a patio. The dining room and the living room had glass walls and a garden between them with lots of plants and walkways and even a pond with goldfish in it. At the far edge of the garden you could see the other tall buildings thrown up along the coastline.

Theodora opened a drawer and picked out some knives and forks and spoons and handed them to Henry. She opened another drawer and took out some linen and told Henry where to put everything. Then she put glasses at each place and explained that one was for water and the other for wine and even though Henry was too young for wine, that was how you set a table properly. She went into the next room and came back with a big vase full of flowers and put it on the table between two tall candles and she stood back and crossed her arms and said it looked nice.

A man came in wheeling a silver cart.

“Put it over there, Larry,” Theodora told him and pointed to a place along the wall of the dining room. “And say hello to Henry.”

“Hello, Henry,” Larry said.

“Say hello to Larry, Henry,” Theodora said. “You’re going to be seeing a lot of him. He’s the butler.”

Henry said hello.

Larry was dressed up in a monkey suit. That’s what Sy used to call them. Larry smoothed out the tablecloth and
rearranged a few things. He had big muscles and a nice voice. Henry didn’t remember him from before. He must have just come to the Palace. “Should I bring up some wine?” he asked.

“Some chardonnay for me,” Theodora said. “I don’t think anyone else will care for wine.” Then she told Henry to go get dressed and get ready to meet their guest.

From the window of his room Henry could see in the direction of the Golden Horn. He could see the buildings the emperor had built, including the Hagia Sophia and the Senate and other new buildings that had risen out of the destruction caused by the riots. They were bigger and more magnificent and also more severe than the old buildings that had once made the city a more comfortable place to live. Instead of wood they were built with stone and glass. Their names were Bailey’s and Trump and Tropicana and Taj and helicopters could land on their roofs and people came and went through large doors that swallowed them and spat them out again.

Henry buttoned up his shirt and listened to his angel. The angel said the world came about through a mistake, which meant everything in the world was also a mistake—including the way Henry buttoned his shirt. It was warm outside, and light. The other hotels were all closed up behind glass windows and lighted signs that never went off. The signs stayed on so people from other parts of the empire and foreign visitors could know where they were.
There were people from everywhere, not just Greeks and Romans but Cappadocians and Phrygians and Goths and Celts and Armenians and Copts and Syrians and Jews and Franks and Huns and Gepids and Avars and Sarmatians and Bulimics.

Theodora knocked on the door and came in. She saw Henry standing in front of the mirror in the clothes she had given him. “My, you look handsome!” She stood next to him and combed his hair to one side with her fingers. They stood there together for a minute just looking at their reflections in the mirror. Theodora rested her hand on Henry’s shoulder. She was wearing a ring with a huge diamond that sparkled cruelly, as if her hand were something that could do or undo anything she wanted. Henry watched the diamond sparkle while Theodora judged their appearance in the mirror. “Our dinner guest is here. Come in and say hello.” She took Henry by the hand and led him to the living room.

The emperor was sitting on the sofa. He looked exactly like before except the bright lights made him look pale and white and the big sofa made him look small. He had big brown freckles on his head and was wearing a white shirt that had a little design on it.

“Say hello, Henry,” Theodora said.

Henry said hello.

“Hello, Henry,” the emperor said and motioned for Henry to come sit by him. Henry went and sat on the
sofa—not next to the emperor but at the other end. “Come closer, son.” He patted the cushion. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Henry moved closer but still didn’t sit next to the emperor. Theodora went over to the big window and adjusted the curtains.

“How do you like your new home?” the emperor asked.

Henry said it was all right. Then his angel said the veil at first concealed how God ordered the creation, but when the veil is rent and the things within become visible this house will be left deserted and will be destroyed.