Asa, as I Knew Him (12 page)

“Sounds like the pastimes of a gang of hoodlums,” Jerry said.

“What do you know? You live in some suburb that tries to look just like this place, where you sit around talking books with your parents after dinner. Did you know that Jerry’s parents are Communists?” He leaned toward Asa.

“No.”

“No, you didn’t know? No, they can’t be? Explain yourself.”

“No, I didn’t know,” said Asa. Reuben’s face was very close to his own and gave off a slight smell of liquor. His eyes were elongated and somewhat Orientalized from drinking and tiredness, his mouth had become thin and venomous—altogether he looked, Asa decided, like a thin and angry version of the man-in-the-moon: inscrutable, dangerous, and
pseudohuman. “How remarkable,” Asa said, hoping this would draw Jerry out and shift the focus away from Reuben.

“How remarkable—who are you? Are you your mother? God, what a half-ass town this is,” snarled Reuben. “The place is infectious. Everybody here says things like that, ‘How remarkable.’ If the bomb went off, the whole senior class would get to its feet and say in unison. ‘How really remarkable,’ and then drop dead.”

“I’d rather talk about literature than listen to you knocking Andover,” Jerry said.

“Of course you would, but that’s too bad. I’ve listened to you talk about literature for two years.”

“You had plenty to say yourself.”

“I’ve said it. I’m not saying another word about literature.” Reuben tipped his flask to his cup again, but nothing came out. “Shit,” he said softly. “Oh, well, time to get back.”

Asa obediently rose to his feet.

“Really, why does it always have to be your timetable?” Jerry said. “I’m still drinking my coffee.”

“Nobody’s stopping you,” said Reuben. He didn’t get up either. Asa shifted his feet around and put his coat on, then got back on his stool.

“Thayer,” Jerry said, to nobody in particular. “Thayer, now why does that sound familiar?”

“Just one of those names,” Reuben said. “Just one of those crazy names.” He hummed to the appropriate tune. “Those Yankee names, you know?”

“No, it’s something more specific.”

“I probably have some cousins here,” said Asa. “Actually, I do have one, he’s in one of the lower forms, his name is Dana, I think he’s eleven—”

“I’ve got it! It’s that painting.” Jerry turned to look at Asa.
“It’s not a bad painting, by Thayer. Abbott Thayer. And you know, it looks a bit like you. Doesn’t it?” He poked Reuben’s shoulder. “Look at him.”

“I’ve seen him,” said Reuben.

“Look, he looks like it.”

“Probably a cousin,” said Reuben, with a grin.

“Don’t you have any cousins?” asked Asa, surprised at what a lucky opportunity he’d been given. Reuben didn’t bother to answer him.

“Jews don’t have cousins,” said Jerry. “All Jewish cousins are dead. But I think we ought to go see this painting.”

“Where is it?” Asa asked. He hoped it was somewhere far away so the whole thing would be forgotten in the morning.

“It’s right next to the library, in the museum.”

“Oh, well, then it’s shut,” said Asa.

“We’ll break in,” Reuben said, sitting up and opening his eyes. “We’ll be in there before you know it. There’s a skylight that can’t be locked above the stairwell. We can just drop down—all we need is rope.” He rapped his spoon on the thick handle of his coffee cup to rouse the powdery proprietor. “Got any rope for sale?” The proprietor drew a ball of string from under the counter. “No, rope, like for rock climbing.”

“You’d have to get that at McBurr’s,” he said.

“We could break in there,” Reuben said. “It’s just down the block.”

“They’ll be open at eight,” said the proprietor. “Gotta climb that rock tonight?”

“I’ll find some at the gym.” Reuben put his flask in his pocket and stood up. “Let’s go. I’m sure there’s rope at the gym.”

This time, as Asa had hoped, it was Jerry who trailed behind; Reuben actually put his arm through Asa’s. Asa could
feel Reuben’s muscles quivering. He talked the whole way up the hill about his plan for getting them in. “I’ll do the entering, then I’ll open the door for you guys. You softies won’t want to drop down on a rope, I guess. But you might have to—the door might be wired or something. We’ll see. It’ll be easy. I’ve thought of doing it many times.”

“Why?” asked Asa.

“Steal some art. Raise a ruckus. Mainly because it occurred to me that it could be done.” He detached himself from Asa and stepped into the road. “Never pass up a challenge,” he yelled. Then he returned to the sidewalk. “That’s why.”

At the gym there was enough rope to hang them all, thought Asa grimly. Now that the expedition was inevitable, he tried to show some interest in it. “What’s the name of the painting?”

“The Monadnock Angel,”
Jerry said.

Asa got a chill down his back. He didn’t want to be like an angel; it was reminiscent of being a ghost. And Monadnock was the mountain that shadowed his grandparents’ farm. “This guy’s name is Thayer? You’re sure?”

“He’s almost famous. Abbott Thayer. He lived up there. They have a number of his paintings here, I don’t know why.”

“He probably went here,” said Asa.

“Artists don’t go to Andover,” said Reuben, winding up rope.

The stars had gone out and the whole school had gone to sleep when the three emerged from the gym. It was cold, much colder than it had been during the day, and the leaves left on the trees crackled when the wind shook them. Asa turned up the collar of his coat. “Don’t talk,” whispered Reuben. “I’ll lead. When we get there, I’ll tell you what to do.” They walked single file down the path. At the museum
Reuben drew them into the shadow of a large, dead bush.

“You’ll give me a leg up, hoist me up to that window,” he pointed to the sill of an arched, leaded window about five feet above the ground, “and then throw me the rope. Up above there’s a ledge with a little roof. That’s where the skylight is. You’ll be able to see me through the window, so you’ll know when to go to the door. If I don’t open the door in five minutes after I’ve gotten inside, you’ll know it’s wired. Then come back here and I’ll pull you up by the rope.”

“It just doesn’t look possible,” Asa said. “Let’s come back tomorrow. It’s open on Sunday, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Jerry said. “How about it, Reuben? I don’t think we can lift you all the way up to that window.”

“Come
on
,” said Reuben. “Come on, guys, you don’t have to do anything except give me a leg up. Jesus, can’t you just do that? I’m sure the door isn’t wired. You’ll be able to walk right in.”

So they made a brace of their hands and arms, and Reuben hopped onto it. He was surprisingly light, Asa thought, and as he kept moving, straining his body up and urging them to raise him, he seemed to be flying away from them and to weigh less and less the higher they lifted him. In a matter of seconds he had gained the roof and was poised on the edge of it, prying open the hatchway before they’d had time to disentangle their arms. There was the sound of glass breaking. Reuben’s head peeped over the edge: “Had to,” he said. “I couldn’t undo it.” Then there was a creaking, grinding noise as the skylight opened. “Throw me the rope,” he said. They couldn’t see him.

“Where are you?” hissed Asa.

“Don’t worry. Throw it, I’ll catch it.”

Asa threw and heard it hit the slates; one piece came dislodged and landed in the bush. “Did I make it?” he called.

Reuben’s head rose over the edge of the roof again. “Shh. I’ve got it. Just watch through the window and you’ll see me hit the floor. Then go to the door.”

Jerry was pacing back and forth. “Do you do things like this all the time in Cambridge? You two seem adept at this kind of stuff.”

“Reuben wants to, but I don’t. There’s another boy, Parker—he likes this sort of thing. They go climbing together, I think. They’ve stolen things.” Asa didn’t know any of this to be true, but it felt true, so he said it. Parker and Reuben shared a daredevil streak that left him out, and if the stories he was reporting to Jerry hadn’t happened yet, they would happen someday. “We’d better pay attention,” he said.

The two of them pressed up to the bottom pane of the window. After a minute the end of the rope came snaking down. About three feet from the floor it stopped. Then it began to ascend. “What’s he doing?” asked Jerry. “Probably tying the rope up top,” Asa answered. They couldn’t see the rope at all for a while, then it was flung down again. This time it reached only to the middle of the window, about seven feet above the floor. A pebble crashed onto the parquet. Then there was silence. Suddenly the rope jerked and started to twirl counterclockwise. “He’s on it,” said Asa, and held his breath. The rope’s shadow drew a dancing, ever-incomplete circle on the floor; Asa thought his lungs would pop, and he couldn’t hear Jerry breathing either. And then Reuben’s torn sneaker appeared, and its mate, and the cuffs of his gray pants, and the two at the window exhaled, misting the glass with their long-held breath.

Very slowly, as a dream set underwater is slow and thick, the rope lost its tension and the body on it, still twelve or more feet above the floor, began to fall. First the legs lost their grip on the now-slack rope. Then the torso, passing
their wide-open eyes as it descended, swung out into space. Then the arms stretched away from the body, flailing and waving. Then the head, fallen onto the chest, eyes shut, mouth open, limp, white, frightful in its blankness, spun past them. Wriggling and whirling, the rope, loosened from above, followed Reuben down like a comet’s hairy tail.

“Oh no,” screamed Asa, not knowing he was screaming. “Please.”

Reuben hit the floor on his hands and knees, the rope fell on his neck, and as he straightened up it draped itself around him so he looked like an animal about to be led somewhere. For a few seconds he stood dumbly, staring off into space. Then he looked out the window, saw their four glazed eyes looking at him, made a V sign with his right hand, and trotted off to open the door.

Asa started laughing and could not stop. Jerry punched him in the arm to startle him out of it, but he continued. “Shut up,” said Jerry. “Someone will hear you.” Asa laughed and laughed, he doubled over and laughed into the cold earth, he banged on the ground with his hands. “Come on, let’s get over to the door,” said Jerry, grabbing him and pulling him up.

The effort of walking and laughing simultaneously calmed Asa a little; by the time they’d walked halfway around the building he was just panting softly, simmering with subsiding laughter but paying more attention to getting his breath back. “It wasn’t real,” he said between gasps, “he was kidding us, wasn’t he? He was just scaring us.” He grasped his chest with both hands because it hurt. “Oh, God,” he said, “I’m so tired.”

When they reached the door, it was open, and Reuben was standing on the threshold looking for them. “Asshole,” said Jerry. “What the hell was that for?”

“What?” Reuben made his hands into fists and scowled. “What?”

“Forget it,” said Asa. “Leave him alone. Let’s go see this angel thing.” He was still heaving and pressing on his chest with one hand. It was his heart that was hurting him; it seemed to have been pumped up with air and to be taking up more room than was allotted for it in his body.

“It’s upstairs,” said Jerry.

They tramped upstairs, all of them leaving dirt on the floor. The museum appeared originally to have been a mansion; it had homey touches, fireplaces and wainscoting, that seemed superfluous to a museum. And it smelled like any house on Brattle Street, thought Asa—mixed furniture wax, flowers, discreet amounts of dust. They mounted the stairs, walking through the site of Reuben’s fall, or prank, gingerly to avoid the slivers of glass on the floor. “Where is it?” asked Asa.

“Here,” said Jerry. They had reached the top of the staircase. On the wall ahead of them was an enormous, dark painting. “I’ll get some light.” He walked assuredly to the right, found a switch, and flipped it.

The figure was larger than life-size, although Asa wondered if anyone knew an angel’s size. Draped in Hellenic robes it rose from a forbidding landscape as familiar to Asa as his backyard, the lumpy, naked ridge of Mount Monadnock. Its wings were half obscured by clouds, its halo dimmed by the bad weather moving in behind it and darkening the earth. Each hand was held at a slight angle away from the body, palms turned outward in the position of forgiveness and acceptance used in Byzantine icons—thumb extended, third and fourth fingers folded in. It was a figure at once static and mobile, being rooted in the rocky land and rising, illuminated, to an illuminated upper atmosphere. Its face was small-mouthed and straight-browed, with an expression at odds with the
merciful arrangement of its hands; it looked arrogant and disdainful. And it looked, Asa thought, exactly like Reuben. This seemed so improbable that he looked closer, tracing the shape of its nose and cheeks carefully. This second survey yielded him some understanding of Jerry’s contention that it looked like him. The triangular face, the long nose, the broad eyebrows and sharply defined jaw—these were Asa’s own. But it had Reuben’s flavor. It had passion and it had pride, it had what Asa knew he lacked, what Reuben’s father yearned for: Grace.

“I guess it doesn’t really look like you that much,” said Jerry, startling Asa out of his intent observation. “But a bit, around the jaw. It’s certainly got the same coloring you do.”

“Well, Reuben has that coloring too,” ventured Asa. He wasn’t quite prepared to say that he thought this was, in some way, a portrait of Reuben’s character.

“Yeah,” said Reuben. “I think it looks just as much like me as it does like Asa. Which is to say, Kuhn, that I don’t think it has anything to do with either of us. And I think it’s a crummy painting. You can’t even tell whether the thing is standing on the ground or floating or what.” He turned his back on it. “But,” he went on, addressing the stairwell, “we got a good adventure out of it.”

“Don’t you think,” said Asa, “don’t you think it does look like both of us? I mean as if we’d been mixed together. Like if we’d had a child?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Reuben said. “Getting bonkers from too many years of prep school? Turning into a pansy?”