Bereavements (7 page)

“But to go on. Since I wax too long, let me include briefly a physical description of myself and a few facts of personal history which you may deem of import . . .”

Mrs. Evans smiled, enjoying herself, and the letter, which had some of the quality of having been written a hundred or two hundred years ago. Why this was so became obvious just a little further on.

“. . . of personal history which you may deem of import. I am a young man of eighteen from the mid-west, Iowa to be exact—a small town called Benoit. I am of more than conventional good looks facially; I say this modestly because I am simply quoting others and (although I have a steady job) I do, from time to time, when I am called upon by my agency, freelance modeling. I am fair in color, with light hair and blue-green eyes, but I am, unfortunately, and I must emphasize this, very short in build. This was a source of suffering to me in the past, particularly in school where children can be cruel. In addition, I suppose all men desire to be tall, equating tallness with manliness, but I have since found out how untrue this is and that stature
per se
means little or nothing in the adult, mature world of social intercourse and commerce.

“My mother, a widow, died eight months ago, leaving me her modest savings and a small house—an ‘unworked’ farm, really— which I quickly disposed of, all of which—after my profound grief had sufficiently spent itself to allow me to think, feel, and plan rationally—afforded me the means to realize my greatest ambition: to move to New York City and become a writer.”

Ah now. Light!

“. . . I must add that this dream is now being realized; I write every night, without fail, and am well into my first novel. I don’t know how many words so far, but I have completed 151 pages in long-hand on legal-size, yellow ruled paper. I remind myself of Henry James, or Proust, in style, but this may be temporary. I do suppose all novice writers are imitative in style, following in the footsteps of those they so greatly admire.

“In addition to my writing, I have, as I mentioned, a daytime job, providing bread-and-butter living, fortunately close enough to the novelist’s world to be stimulating. I am a mail clerk.for a large publishing house—McGraw-Hill to be exact. Perhaps you have heard of it. It is one of the largest in the world, I believe, though their fiction list, I must say, is small and ultra-conservative.

“In any event, I am
there
and have endless opportunities to handle books, although, alas, most of them are of a highly technical, scientific or other esoteric nature. Still—they are books: beautiful and weighted in my hand; I may touch them, stroke them, inhale the heady aroma of printer’s ink and bindery glue! All of which must sound like a fetish, but it is not. It is genuine love—a love I have had all my life, the one love I know could never betray, mock or abandon me.

“But I must conclude!—else go on all night.

“Dear lady, through intuition or loneliness, if you find in what I have written any clue to
me
—my character, my capacity for friendship, my deep sympathy for you in your intolerable loss and bereavement, my
empathy
(since my own loss was similar if not the same) then let us, by all means, spin the mysterious wheel of fate and make our lives cross. Please write. Please. Tell me I may meet you. Do you remember Blake from your high school or college days? I recall one of his
Proverbs of Hell
in particular: “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.”

“With this wisdom providing strength, I know I shall find the final courage to go out and mail to you what is essentially my heart.

“That done, I shall be—

“Waiting . . .”

Mrs. Evans could not read the signature momentarily, her eyes too filled with tears. This boy, this “writer’s” absurd prose—pretentious, florid, some of it brilliant for an eighteen-year-old, and utterly sincere, aching with loneliness, had touched her so painfully that she wept—or, as perhaps
he
might have said it in his unlikely James-Proustian prose, “wept
copiously.”
Along with her pain, however, she was aware of the pleasure and drama of weeping as drop after drop crept slowly to her chin, gathered, trembled, and fell to the paper below.

What,
what
was his name?—and she brushed impatiently at the tears under her eyeglasses, finally making out:
Bruno David Carlson-Wade
(goodness! almost as complicated as her own) in a large, wavering, hairline script, followed by his address. No telephone. Probably his means could not provide one.

Bruno.

Bruno David Carlson-Wade.

Possibly she could have resisted the letter, everything he had written, including the “wax” that grew too long, together with the “metal maw,” but one word was devastating, as exquisite, almost, as
“fine
me.”

That word:
“Waiting . . .”

The final letter, a patch of whiteness glowing on the desk was, in its way, perhaps the strangest of all: virtually a telegram!—so brief, succinct.

It was from a “young actor” who extended his “profound sympathy,” revealing that he had in his own grief some years ago after his mother’s death made a suicide attempt. He was certain he could “ease the burden” of her “‘son’s’ loss.” The quotes around “son” suggested something quite as unpleasant as Mr. Passannante’s implication. In any event, she was informed that the young man was “with a show” out of town that was closing in a few days and that after he had returned to Manhattan he would,
chez vous
(no less) come by and see her. He named the day and time! Tuesday, October 15th at 4 P.M. And it was signed, with considerable vigor,
Martin Dzierlatka.

No return address on letter or envelope; only, astonishingly (what turned out to be) a three-by-five photograph torn roughly into eight pieces! She stared at the puzzle, then, unable to resist, carefully fitted it together like the jigsaw it was.

What she saw was a beautiful young man; no other word would do: dark-haired, brilliant-eyed, strong-jawed, masculine, half-smiling: expending—if she was any judge at all—an aura of frankness, warmth, and generosity.

But, as her mother used to say of any eccentric neighbor: “he’s one of the
mad
ones all right,” quite believing that a cabala, a secret society of functional psychotics truly existed, charter and all.

If handsome Martin—what was it now?—
Dzierlatka
(Russian? Polish?) was to
chez vous
anyone, he’d be taking tea with Box 89 at the Village station post office come October 15th at four.

She looked a final fatal look at his beautiful face, a glory of a young man if there ever was one, considerably older than Jamie, much different, and one of the maddest of the “mad ones” to be sure, before he joined Messrs. Fabrizzi and Passannante on the floor, his letter as much a jigsaw as his photograph.

Only
MEMOREX
60 remained.

She listened the following afternoon, to just a few minutes of it, before tossing it away.

It was nothing more than an elaborate expression of sympathy and a bid for reciprocity from a woman, no less, who tearfully confessed that she had lost, not a son but, a beloved father from a series of small strokes over a period of fourteen bed-confined years. For that reason (the death) she equated in sisterhood her deprivation and suffering with all those who had also sustained a loss.

The woman, shrill and breathless, was clearly a compulsive talker seeking to embrace the fullest range and expression of her neurosis via cassette tape decks addressed to the recently bereaved whom she found, no doubt, in obituary columns and sundry reports concerning fatal accidents and deaths in local newspapers.

So.

Two only.

Bruno David Carlson-Wade.

And sweet
Angel,
about whom her fantasies were particularly hopeful and bizarre.

But there would also be, to her staggered surprise,
Martin Dzierlatka;
actor, ex-suicide, two weeks hence, quite at his self-appointed day and hour
chez vous;
more accurately, since she was to find him seated comfortably in the morning room, having been already ushered in by her blushing Rose—
chez moi.

She had to dial three times and begin again before her finger found the right numbers. The voice that answered wasn’t a boy’s; it was a man’s

“Yeah?” after a rattle of mucus.

“I’m—” she murmured. “That is—”

“Who
is
this?”—the strong voice bristling with suspicion.

Who indeed? At the moment the ubiquitous “breather.” Or why not the “obscene caller?”

“Is Angel there?”

There were noises: a party, or TV in the background. It was TV: a sports event. She recognized the peculiar rhythm of the announcer’s reporting, a roar from the crowd.

“He ain’t here. Who
is
this, anyway?” Are you one of his
teachers?”

Thank God for that!

“You might say I am,” since he already had. But why leave it there? “Yes.”

“Was he in school today?” Excited, impetuous. “Then y’saw his black eye, that cut on his head!” Quick, angry now. “He blamed it on me, din’ he! Listen—Miss—what is it now?”

“Evans.” It came out instantly, thoughtlessly.

“Evans
—right. He tol’ me about you. Yeah. He mentions you a lot. But listen—that kid lies. You gotta know that by now. You his teacher. That Angel ain’t no angel.” Brief laughter, like an exclamation point; then, more slowly, his voice mellowed, slightly intimate: “What happens—he’s in a street fight. Secon’ this month . . .”