Enter Three Witches (10 page)

Bren turned reluctantly from this vision of cozy independence to check up on his dog and saw that he was no longer alone. A small figure, instantly recognizable in spite of being muffled in a huge black hooded sweatshirt, was leaning on the rail not ten feet away. He felt a suffocating surge of terror and joy and incredulity. Even a life spent with the everyday practice of magic had not prepared him for such serendipity.

“Erika!” he shouted. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

She turned, a wide, silver grin flashing out of the black hood. “I wondered when you were going to see me,” she said. “What a funny coincidence. I thought you’d be asleep, too. Everybody else seems to be. It’s weird down here, and there’s this huge black dog scouting around by himself.”

“No, he’s mine,” Bren said, laughing. “That’s Shadow. I forgot you hadn’t met.”

“Good name. He’s like something mythological flitting between the trees.”

“Yes, well, he’s like a shadow, and he follows me like a shadow, but you’ll find he’s all too real, if he takes to you.”

“Is he likely not to take to me?” Erika asked.

“If he doesn’t, it will be a first,” Bren said. “You shouldn’t be flattered by Shadow’s approval, but it’s nice to have just the same.” Bren whistled, and the Newfoundland came bounding out of the mist. He gave Erika only the briefest examination, and then he licked her chin, something he was able to do merely by stretching his neck with all four feet on the ground. Erika stood very still, looking both pleased and terrified.

“You’re not used to dogs,” Bren said, astonished that this should be true of someone he felt so close to.

“I’ve never had a pet, not even a turtle.”

“That’s awful. Doesn’t your father like animals?”

“I guess not. I used to ask for a kitten when I was little, but I never got one, so I gave up. Since he’s hardly ever home, I can’t see what difference it would make.”

“Is he home now?” Bren asked.

Erika shook her head. “He was out all night,” she said. “He’s got a girlfriend. He said we’d do something together today, but who knows, and if it’s going to be a threesome, forget it. I have half a mind to stay out all day.”

“Let’s stay out all day together,” Bren said. “My father seems to have a girlfriend, too, and my mother is full of terrible plots for revenge.”

Erika produced another of her dazzling smiles and pushed the hood away from her face. “Down with families,” she said. “Here, Shadow, let’s make friends. This is a threesome I can go for.” She held out one hand, and the dog thrust his muzzle into her palm.

Bren pointed to the houseboat. “Just before I saw you, I was thinking how great it would be to live there by myself with Shadow and…” He hesitated. “Well, maybe one other very congenial person…”

For a long moment they stared at each other. Then Bren said, “My headache went away, incidentally, so let’s turn the clock back, oh, about ten hours, I should think.”

“To another headache?” Erika asked, moving closer to him.

“No,” Bren said. “There won’t be any more of those.”

Her mouth was soft and her hardware barely noticeable, at least at first. Bren, whose experience so far had been confined to brief kisses at school parties or on the steps of brownstones after movie dates, discovered in the next few minutes many variations on the same fascinating theme. At last he simply held her close, his arms wrapped around her slim body, her face buried in his shoulder.

She lifted her head, looking a little dazed. “We have the whole day ahead of us,” she said. “Just think of that.”

“I am,” he answered. “And it’s clearing up.”

Out in the harbor the clustered masts were emerging from the mist. On one a flag stirred and opened to the rising breeze, flaring into color with the first touch of sun. Behind them the wet branches of the trees shone silver in the new light growing in the east, and on the face of the river the fog rolled and broke, the gray water suddenly flashing blue.

They turned to walk along the waterfront, their arms entwined, the big dog ranging among the trees, the world brightening around them. Ahead stretched a day of infinite possibilities unfolding before them like a multicolored fan.

October came, and Bren spent most of its brief golden days either in class or entombed in the theater. He made this sacrifice willingly, but not without regret.
Macbeth
and Erika claimed the time he would have spent squeezing the last good out of the park before winter’s early dark changed everything.

Preparations for the play quickened toward its opening on November sixth, a date that now seemed terrifyingly near. Edward Behrens spent the hours after school in the cafeteria trying to persuade his young cast that the words of Shakespeare expressed the passionate lives of people as real as themselves. It was uphill work.

Meanwhile in the basement, the technical crew struggled with tasks at least as hard. How would the witches disappear into thin air or Banquo’s ghost come and go in the crowded banquet hall? There were apparitions (four of them, all different) and a forest that got up and walked. These problems were added to others that were more conventional but hardly less daunting. A grim and solid castle was required. Some scenes would take place inside, some out, and some both out and in. And all this had to be whisked away to give place to a barren heath.

The electrical wonders created by Eli and Bren were matched on the stage itself by the carpentry work of a blond giant named Jeremy, who had an uncanny way with canvas and chicken wire, and by Erika, who had somehow become chief carpenter’s mate. Bren was not sure that he liked Jeremy, but he had little chance to find out. Dragging the heavy skeins of cable across the back of the balcony and listening to the hammering and laughter from backstage, he reflected bitterly on his original picture of himself and Erika working together day after day on the production of
Macbeth
.

But they still left school together and walked to Broadway through the autumn dusk. Sometimes they stopped off for coffee or ice cream before going home. On two successive Saturdays they worked in the theater, and on both Sundays it rained. There was no repetition of the idyllic day by the river, and Bren began to wonder if there ever would be.

Then one evening, as they stood indecisively on the corner, Erika said, “Hey, I know what, Bren. Come on home with me for a little bit. We can have a beer instead of all this legal slop, and you can see my place. Maybe you’ll even get lucky and meet my old man.”

Bren studied the last sentence for traces of irony, but was unable to decide whether Erika actually wanted him to meet her father or not. The proposal was curiously unappealing, especially since he was sure his beloved was one jump ahead of him and would soon be hinting at a reciprocal visit. Her interest in his home and family had not faded with time and evasion. Rather the contrary. Still, he was curious to know what lay beyond the Apthorp’s courtyard and reluctant, as usual, to part from her after their short walk.

The front door of the apartment opened onto a huge circular foyer, with a mosaic floor laid out like one of his grandmother’s charts of the zodiac. White walls with intricate moldings rose to a high ceiling. Living room and dining room opened off the foyer through arched doorways, the parquet floors gleaming softly in the dim glow from a single lamp. Erika went ahead, snapping switches, flooding the rooms with light. There was no sign of her father or, Bren thought, of anyone besides Erika in that luxurious space. Her boots and red umbrella, thrown down on some past rainy day, made a splash of color on the muted designs of the floor.

The kitchen was large and old-fashioned, but it lacked the warm, lived-in atmosphere of the room where Bren spent so much of his time. He wondered if anyone ever cooked or sat down to eat a meal with another person at the long glass table in the dining room. There was plenty of room but no place to eat in the kitchen.

Erika extracted two bottles of imported beer from the large and otherwise nearly empty refrigerator and opened them with a quick, irritable snap of the opener.

“Well, what do you think?” she said, with a vague gesture that seemed to include the rest of the apartment. “Neat, isn’t it?”

“Fabulous,” Bren said, “and huge.” He thought that this notably smaller place seemed much bigger than the house he lived in. Obviously the occupants made a difference—the presence of so many overwhelming personalities, human and animal.

“Yeah, it’s a lot of apartment for one and a half people,” Erika said, “and you haven’t even seen the bedrooms yet. Let’s skip the bedrooms,” she added. “They’re just bedrooms except for mine, and it’s just a mess. Come on, we’ll sit in my favorite spot and drink these lovely things.” She led Bren into the living room and over to the radiator window seat with its view of the Hudson. By an intricate and pleasantly intimate arrangement of their legs, they were both able to fit in the small space. Bren followed Erika’s gaze and saw a new aspect of his river. The sky was not quite dark in the west. The lights on the Drive were a sparkling necklace along the shore. By craning his neck he could see the riding lights of the few boats that remained in the basin.

“I wonder if the houseboat’s still there,” he said. “It must be cold walking to it in the winter—wait till you feel the wind on Riverside Drive. But it’s probably warm inside. They’ll have a little space heater or maybe a pot-bellied stove.”

“Better than this mausoleum, that’s for sure,” Erika said.

“I thought you liked it.”

“I do. I like it a lot most of the time, and I like being alone, but enough is enough, you know?”

Bren nodded but found himself at a loss for words before this new, forlorn version of his girl. Their legs nestled warmly on the window seat, but she sat like a stone, her head turned away from him, her eyes fixed on the darkening horizon. Why had she brought him here? It seemed inconceivable to Bren that one’s home could inspire such sadness. He wished suddenly that he could take her to West Eighty-fourth Street and install her in a niche by the hearth, there to be nuzzled by Shadow, snapped at by Rose, treated with queenly kindness by Miranda. After a moment, he did the only constructive thing he could think of. He reached over and took both of her hands firmly in his own. She looked at him now with an almost startled expression. “Erika,” he said. “Cheer up. Come back from wherever you’ve been. It can’t be so bad.”

She started to get up. “I’m sorry. This should have been a good idea, but I guess it wasn’t.”

Bren slid to the floor and, turning, put his arms around her, but she wriggled free and walked out of the living room into the unfriendly, bright light of the foyer. “Dad could come home any time,” she said. “Sometimes it would be nice to know when. Would you like another beer?”

“I haven’t finished the first one,” Bren said, gesturing toward the two bottles by the window.

“Do you want it?”

“No. I want to hug you and make you feel better.”

“I wish it was that easy,” Erika said.

It was clear to Bren that any notions he might have had of warm entanglements on the couch would have to be abandoned. He had been missing this sort of thing and wondered why she, apparently, had not. Still, the message was unmistakable. She was not only refusing physical consolation, she was refusing any consolation at all. He should take himself off, gracefully if possible. He gave her a small mock salute. “We strive to please,” he said, “and seldom succeed.”

“I’m sorry,” Erika said again.

“Never mind,” Bren said. “Maybe when this damn play is over, we’ll get some time to just fool around or do something like the dance program. Who knows? If we live that long.”

“Let’s hope we won’t have to wait till the play is over to have some fun,” she said with a wan smile. She was drifting toward the door, and he followed her reluctantly. “What about Saturday? No, I’ve got to paint the battlements.”

“And I have to start focusing,” Bren said. “Sunday, then.”

“We can live in hope.” Erika opened the door into the hall, where, by a bit of bad luck, the elevator had just stopped.

“Going down?” the elevator man asked, and Bren was cheated of even the hope of a parting kiss.

“See you tomorrow in the slave market,” he called as the door slid shut. Erika waved listlessly and turned back into her empty apartment.

She wandered into the living room again and stood staring at the two half-empty beer bottles standing deserted on the window seat. Depression was rapidly turning to rage, and she contemplated throwing one of them across the cold perfection of the room.

“What’s the
matter
with me?” she said out loud. “I finally meet someone I really like, and I turn into some kind of shrinking violet.” No boy she had ever known before would have put up with such behavior for two minutes, and surely even Bren’s patience and understanding could not be limitless. “He’ll think I’m hopelessly neurotic,” she mumbled. “Not neurotic-interesting but neurotic-boring, and he’ll be right.” Instead of throwing the beer, Erika decided to drink it. She consumed both half bottles, staring moodily out the window, and felt her spirits faintly but perceptibly revive. He had not, after all, said anything that wasn’t hopeful and encouraging. They would find something fun to do. They might even spend Sunday together. Erika put a favorite blues record on the stereo and lay down on the couch. It crossed her mind that if she had a dog like Shadow to come and lay his shaggy head on her chest, this solitude would be bearable. It was a short step to thinking about Bren’s house, seemingly so full of people and animals. That’s where we should have gone, she thought, even at the cost of a little privacy.

Erika was aware that Bren was not enthusiastic about taking her home. He had evaded her broadest hints, but boys were like that. They always tried to give the impression that they had been born, not of parents, but by some remarkable manufacturing process that presented them to the world fully formed, just as they were, without roots or antecedents. At least most boys did. This wasn’t really fair to Bren, who talked quite a lot about his home, but always in a mysterious way, as if he had something to hide. Erika’s curiosity began to revive, and with it came a trace of optimism. She got up and went to look out the window again, this time with eyes full of dreamy speculation. The music, sad but beautiful, crept into her bones, and she began to dance.