Burning Down the House (26 page)

She doesn't know precisely when the image of despair became burned in her brain but it was at some point on the stairs. It's the image of her mother, rising, tubes dangling from every orifice, fighting off the wild robots in the dark room. Death against death. A battle to the end. As she runs up the stairs Poppy is running toward that image. She isn't afraid. She is running, reaching toward that image. Then it vanishes. Even death disintegrates before her eyes. The vanishing of that image is the image of despair.

For her it was when she reached the parking lot, that ugly expanse, cars randomly assembled, the slow reverse of a vehicle backing up and gently turning and driving away, that she had cried. She'd wept without caring if anyone saw her because she was crying tears of release. Not happiness. Not joy. Not yet. Simply tears of release.

Around her, the scene of the strip mall, the signs, the letters on the signs, their significant fonts each representing a type of promise, and the cars, one by one pulling away as if by a tide, or standing still, left on the beach, all around her the scene melted into a vision of nature. And as she stood there she turned around and with her mind she let a great gray arcing shield of water rise up, crest, foaming white horses running away, and crash down on the stores, the cars, the parking lot.

She would have to do this many times over the course of her life, many thousands of times, before the scene was wiped away.

When Poppy stops turning she sees that the wave in her mind is, outside of her mind, a fire. A real fire. Neva shoves her in the car and drives away.

The fire burned for thirty hours. No one seemed to know who started it. By the time the firefighters arrived almost everyone had left the scene. It had begun in the basement. They thought they had it under control but then the floor collapsed. The local papers contradicted one another on the exact timing of the fire, but they all agreed that no one was hurt.

H
E HAD OWED
them a lot of money and so he had offered her to them, not directly, not in a way that she could prove, but that's what he'd done. And they had taken her. Why wouldn't they? They had dropped her off at the hotel in case she had been needed. When she hadn't been—needed—they had driven her in the van to the spa and had been waiting for the drugs to take full effect. She had not yet been used. Not in the way they had intended. She had been able to identify them in pictures but they were never found. At least the other girls had gotten away.

It's always the middle of the night. Buried underground and then clawing her way out. Dirt in her mouth, the distinct grit, the taste of wet soil. In the nightmare she is trying to speak but the earth blocks her words. Dry fragments, insects, crawling to the back of her throat. She coughs up a spray of particulate world. She vomits mud.

She gets up in her sleep and walks to the window. She pushes away the drapes and puts her palms on the glass. She is standing in a T-shirt and loose pants, facing the city, hands splayed against the night. Felix is watching from the doorway, the low light from the hall outlining his boy frame. What is it? he says. Why are you screaming?

She turns around. She can feel the mud sliding down her chin, her neck, sticking to her nightgown.

Why are you opening the window?

She widens her mouth but cannot speak.

It was a long time before she could speak to anybody. Especially to Ian. In dreams he stroked her hair, and then disintegrated into night. She cried for Steve. She cried for everyone.

Once in those nights of underground dreams she had left the apartment, walked along the quiet streets, and gone to the park. She lay on the grass like a beggar or a dog and listened to the end-of-summer birds as the sun was rising. They argued and debated like philosophers who had no better place to be. She had no place else to be. She felt the cold ground. She scratched through the vivid-green grass and dug up a black clump. She put it in her mouth. It tasted like the dirt in her dreams, but slightly sweet. She felt the sharp blades of grass pressing against her T-shirt. She kicked off her sneakers and pushed her bare feet against the dewy hill. She rolled back and forth, back and forth, over the wet grass, attempting to press herself back into the earth.

When she finally agreed to see Ian he explained. He had decided the night when he had told Alix everything, the night before Steve died, that he would tell her. Tell her all of it, in spite of Steve, in spite of what he'd made Ian sign. Papers did not matter. Only she mattered, he explained. She was his child.

She had already had to comprehend so much that this new knowledge was simply another blow that she had to absorb. She took it in. She held it. She was horrified, amazed, unbelieving. He explained that it was the reason he had ended it between them, and had he known what would happen to her as a result he would never have done it that way. He would have told her that first night he had known. He would go back and change everything if he could. He would spend the rest of his life making it up to her.

The rest of his life. Was that a long time? Or not that long? Time had taken on a new meaning. Time was eternity, perceived in little bits. The rest of their lives was a long time and it was nothing.

You're a survivor, he said to her across the table.

A survivor? She said she didn't feel that she'd survived.

You have.

Barely.

You will.

Please.

I will do anything.

There isn't anything for you to do.

There must be something I can do.

Like what? Give me back my youth? My sanity? My self?

The steam from her tea had stopped rising. Her hands wrapped around the cold cup. She tried to look at him for moments at a time but her eyes would drift, or dart, to the side, looking at the spot where the wall met the window, or focusing on the back of someone's nodding head. She felt a burden, a pressure to explain herself to him. At the same time, she felt it was impossible to explain herself. This only added to her feeling of desperation, of futility.

You say you would do anything for me, will do anything, but there is nothing you can do to protect me. It's too late. Everything is gone.

Please don't say that, he said.

Why not?

It isn't true.

Yes, it is.

You have your whole life ahead of you.

Is that a joke or just a cliché? She looked into the cold tea and then up at him.

It's neither. I mean it.

You used to be funnier.

They sat in a nearly empty café. She hadn't wanted to go to his apartment, or have him over.

Maybe I will be again someday. Funny, he said.

You act like things change.

Things do change. People can change. I've changed.

So have I, I guess. But I don't think I can change back, she said.

You can change into something else.

She blew into her teacup, pointlessly. She felt another wave of pressure, a demand to ease his pain. But it was time to discard that kind of unnecessary responsibility. She experimented with telling the truth.

I can't help you feel better about all of this, she said.

I know.

Her hair had grown longer. She wore a long loose sweater that covered her wrists, almost reached to her fingertips. Her bony fingers curled around the cup. She looked into the orange liquid.

I'm not sure that I can ever see you again.

I hope that isn't true. But I understand.

The edges of her mouth wrinkled and drew a smile and frown simultaneously. It was a line of pure feeling, not happy or sad but living in the full emotion of the moment. It was form, not style, a form of strength.

She stood up. The scrape of her chair.

Where are you going?

I'm leaving now.

Please don't, he said. Please don't leave yet.

I'm leaving. I'm leaving you.

As she walked out the door her eyes squinted, darted, clenched. She caught sight of shadows on glass, the reflection of her coat, letters running backward, a sparkling wave of rhythmic chaos. The mumbled sounds of the restaurant rose in her consciousness and then quieted. Out on the street the reassuring traffic and random pedestrians calmed her nerves.

Ian watched her walk away as if she were a hidden piece of his heart that had taken shape outside of him and been hurled back with a violent force. Which of course she was.

She was gone and in her place was his love for her. The love of a parent. He let her go.

N
EVA SAID GOODBYE
to the family and traveled for a few months. Felix missed her terribly. He wrote to her, long, richly detailed letters. He insisted on writing by hand, not e-mails, and he spent forever choosing the stationery, addressing the envelopes, picking stamps. It was a healthy distraction from the collapse that was taking place around him. His world broke apart in chunks, a glacier cleaving. Zane Enterprises, with which he had never much concerned himself, became a headline, an accident from which to look away. Whatever pride he had taken in his father's business had altered into not shame but bewilderment, confusion, and concern. On the hall table there were always stacks of large envelopes from law firms. His mother threw away whole tablefuls of documents in disgust or rage or irresponsibility, he could not tell. Maybe they were not important documents. It was impossible to determine which ones mattered and which did not. He was aware that his father had died leaving a trail, a highway of litigation. He was aware that the company had to let people go, had to move offices. He was aware that things had not ended well. As always, he took a philosophical approach. He knew that in the scheme of things even the collapse of a company, a dynasty, an empire, would be washed away by time. But that did not change the feeling in his chest of a door opening and closing, swinging, unhinged, banging as the wind picked up, and creaking in the night. A mournful movement that was the beating of his heart.

No one knew exactly when Neva was returning so it was a surprise when Poppy saw her in an art supply store on Second Avenue, downtown. Neva had the same angular aspect, the same hair like ink, the same green eyes. Poppy had started taking drawing classes. She was purchasing paper, charcoal. Neva was looking at a display of colored markers. She explained that she was buying some for a little girl she knew. Actually, they were for Angel's daughter.

Neva and Poppy kept talking and they walked west together, for a long time.

What am I going to do? asked Poppy. What are we going to do?

What are we? said Neva.

They walked onto a pier. It stuck out into the river like a branch into the air. They stood on the end of the branch, dangling above the water.

Can't you tell me anything? Anything that will help?

I don't know that I can, said Neva.

Can't you try? Can't you tell me that you will always be here for me or that I will be okay or that you will never forget me?

Neva said nothing. Then she said: I can't promise any of that. Anyway, you're too old now for my promises. You make your own.

They both looked out over the water.

Why are you being so cruel now, of all times?

I'm not being cruel; I'm just being honest with you. I've always been honest with you.

Is that all?

It's enough. And it's what we have.

Poppy licked the tears on her lips.

What about hope?

What about it?

Can't we have that too?

I didn't say you couldn't.

But you said all we have is honesty.

Hope is not dishonest. Hope is nothing but honest. It's very strong. Yes, I think you should have hope.

Well, what can you say that will help me have it? Because I don't anymore. I've lost it. I can't find it.

You'll find it when you no longer expect it to give you exactly what you want, or even close to what you want. You'll have it when you see that hope is patience, waiting, time.

That doesn't really sound like hope.

Are you sure you aren't asking for false hope?

Maybe, she said, squinting, searching. I think maybe I'm just asking for love.

Neva turned to her.

That you have. You have all my love. You have it for as long as I exist, and you can remember it for as long as you do.

Poppy couldn't tell the difference between the water in her eyes and the water behind Neva's head.

So if I have love I have hope?

If you have love you have hope.

What about love conquering all. Poppy smiled. Is that true?

No, that's not true.

So what conquers all?

Nature, said Neva. Her hair blew out behind her like the black feathers of a bird.

Nature conquers all? said Poppy.

Yes, said Neva. Nature conquers all.

They stood hugging on the pier. You could see them standing and they looked like one person, their hair blowing around together in the wind.

I
N THE CITY'S PARKS
the trees stood holding the late-summer light, glowing with it, giant natural lanterns. Scattered blankets spread out over the lawns, covered with people, the afternoon flowing out from them in a soft current. Children walked by bodies of water and stuck their hands in the wet rushing. A kite jerked in the wind, spermatozoically. In the air was the contentment of people inside a mystery that they did not need to understand. The kite rose frantically higher, then softly fell.

The House of Steve fell not softly but with theatrics, like the final scenes of a complicated saga. Investments were unwound, properties sold off, debt restructured. A certain slide in social standing was endured as part of the loss of financial power. Some friends disappeared. Some advisers shrugged and stopped returning phone calls. Others flew in to assess the rot, pick the bones, and save some meat. Not everything was lost. Through the secular miracle of world markets, bonds, banks, rehypothecation, mortgages wrapped in credit wrapped in words, funds were salvaged, some real estate retained. Damage was done and yet the individuals survived. Even the worst of them, Jonathan, never went to jail. This was, like one of the conundrums Felix puzzled over, unbelievable. And yet it was true.

As it turned out, Patrizia had discovered in the examination room that she was pregnant with Steve's child. She never had a chance to tell him. But it was what she had longed for and in spite of the shock of Steve's death she carried the baby to term. She named him Stefano. Roman ignored the infant but Felix enjoyed him, its wobbly head, its alien eyes. Felix grew up quickly as a result of the birth of this sibling, and came into his own, found music and a sense of purpose. He learned how to make guitars. He painstakingly bent and molded the wood. He began composing electronic symphonies. He chose a new name for himself: Phoenix. He wrote a wildly ambitious orchestral piece and dedicated it to his late father.

One of the movements of his symphony is inspired by Han-shan's Red Pine Poem 253:

Children, I implore you,

Get out of the burning house now.

Three carts await outside

To save you from a homeless life.

Relax in the village square

Before the sky, everything's empty.

No direction is better or worse,

East just as good as West.

Those who know the meaning of this

Are free to go where they want.

Poppy often finds herself hearing this music, these words, in her head.

Alix fell in love, truly, for the first time. She had run into Genevieve a few days after the benefit for Ian's show, and eventually Genevieve left her husband. She moved out of the townhouse with the room of baseball caps—her children were grown and had left home—and into Alix's apartment. Alix finished the monograph on medieval art she had been thinking about her entire adult life. It was published. She saw much less of Ian. But she was a devoted aunt to her niece, Miranda and Jonathan's daughter, the precocious and surprisingly unspoiled Greta. Alix took Greta to the Metropolitan, the way she had taken Poppy, and the two of them sat on the steps licking ice cream, Greta's buckled shoes planted firmly on the worn stair.

Alix doesn't remember, sitting on the steps with Greta, the time she had met Poppy on the same steps, the chilly air messing Poppy's hair around, Poppy's forehead furrowing into a series of unspeakably pretty commas. What Alix knows is a kind of comfort with Greta—who looks much like Poppy did as a child, although whenever this is mentioned Alix says she doesn't see it—and with this child she feels an ease far removed from competition or tension, a second chance, a playful love.

Perhaps Greta was fortunate that Jonathan had lost nearly everything after Steve died. Short-selling, poor investments, the real estate slump in certain emerging markets. But Steve had saved him from total ruin, had put certain trusts and executors in place, ensuring that the benefits of various loopholes and tax advantages would soften any blow. Nevertheless, Jonathan's circumstances were reduced. And the company was destroyed, he would have said. Creative destruction, others might have countered. His losses tempered him and forced him to become slightly less selfish, less vicious. It wasn't so much the money as the social recalibration. At one point he had to ask Patrizia for financial assistance, which pleased her and irritated her in equal measure. He sought her attention at a family gathering, cornering her in a quiet room, while Stefano and Greta were on their way to Mars, packing lipstick, trucks, candy, and socks in a shopping bag. They were off. It was raining on Mars. They didn't have an umbrella.

Ian's show stole the season. The critics rhapsodized, audiences spread infectious word of mouth, a cult following developed, and even Angus, usually so spiteful and patronizing, praised it in a lengthy piece. It captured the moment. It made sense of the times. And it moved people. Night after night they experienced emotions coursing through their bodies. Hot reds and cold blues, cool greens and warming yellows, traveled down their arms, through their torsos, burst out the tops of their heads. It wasn't just sensation, it was feeling, and it was thought. The consolations of art could be found in a simple candle on a stage, a voice rising up, the communal catharsis of the gathering. Ian watched from the back of the theater as the players gave themselves over to the music, to the story, to the human beings watching them. Together the actors and the audience rose up, ripped outside of time, elevated themselves like beams of light, and, like flames, set the house on fire.

He talks to Poppy at night when he is alone. For now, that has to be all right. He doesn't expect her to care. He keeps talking. He whispers, he cries, he won't forget.

She does care, she does wonder, although she wishes she did not. She begins to care about herself again, to wonder about her self. She begins to put herself back together, saying her own name over and over.

The love they have is an attempt to express the inexpressible. There is no word for it.

Eventually, Poppy was able to forgive Ian and have a relationship with him. It was not exactly a father-daughter relationship. He had not raised her and she had known another father, Steve, whom she would always think of as her father. But Ian knew her and their connection grew and deepened when she finally allowed it. He helped her when she decided to apply to college. He listened to her weigh her options, complain about deadlines, talk through her essay, and resolve her plans. He did not pressure her. He did not advise her. He only listened. He listened and reflected, and communication moved between them like satellite intelligence reaching back and forth across oceans. They were relieved to discover who they were supposed to be to each other, and in time they moved forward. They moved on.

You have to keep going, he told her without saying it. He told her by showing her, by continuing to try. He let her know she would always have him, that he would always be there for her to talk to. You'll see, his actions said, I am here for you.

Poppy and Ian and Phoenix walk together in a park, near Poppy's apartment. They make an odd kind of family but it is an arrangement that works. Poppy and Phoenix loop their arms around each other's backs, Phoenix has grown, Ian ambles a few feet to the side. The distance between them is like the distance between letters, between words in a sentence. Irregular but with a logic. Relaxed and elegant in its simplicity. It makes sense, this empty space. It makes meaning.

Their shadows stretch out in the late-afternoon light as if for miles, like a wake running behind them.

When she leans on the railing and looks down into the Hudson River, Neva sees an emptiness which contains everything: the mountains she came from, this city she has made home, and the other rivers she visits when she travels. She goes back to visit Russia. She stares into the River Neva and sees the Hudson.

The river is always moving on, always emptying itself out. In this emptiness is the washing away of meaning to find the deeper meanings, the stillness, the unburning fires at the bottom of the river. She looks for them, catches glimpses, colors, glints of red and orange rushing past, turning blue, then black, into eddies, swirls, clear and cold.

And like a river Neva moves on, flows forward, continues. She carries children. She carries Angel's daughter in her arms. She helps their family. She moves on from Patrizia and Stefano because Patrizia decides to do it differently this time, to spend more time with the baby. But Neva will never lack for children to carry. She finds a girl, back in Russia, on T. Street, and she saves her. She saves others, from Russia and from other countries. She works with people around the world, hoping to build a highway of freedom. She gives her life to the movement. She is a movement.

Neva walks along the Hudson River. She sees a vibrant violent calamity of light rain down on the water, smashing into it, sending electric radiance into the air. She keeps walking. She goes on. She feels her heart move outward like an army of roses, marching, ablaze, on fire. She runs with the strength of feeling. She rushes with the meaning of emptiness. She flows with resistless force. And she carries beauty with her.