Enter Three Witches (8 page)

“Bizarre?” Erika said. “How nice. I’ll visit you. Do you have what’s known as an intact family? That always sounds so sort of frozen. Mom and Dad grinning by the car. Boy and girl romping with dog.”

“Not exactly,” Bren said. “Except for the dog, who does romp quite a lot, but only with me. No sister, and my parents are separated. I live with my mother and grandmother and assorted tenants—all female.”

“Nobody stays married anymore,” she said. “It’s such a drag.”

“My parents might get back together,” Bren said. “They seem to want to, but they drive each other crazy. Dad comes to dinner at least once a week, and they make a lot of jokes and flirt with each other, and then he goes home.”

“Don’t complain,” Erika said. They were waiting for the light at Central Park West. Beyond the stream of traffic loomed the dark trees of the park. Bren examined the small face at his shoulder and thought for a moment that it looked immensely sad. “Mom went galloping off to fulfill herself as a woman about ten years ago,” she went on, “and hasn’t been heard from since. But it’s not so bad,” she added, seeing the look on Bren’s face. “A person gets a lot of freedom living with a father—especially a busy, rich father. You get everything you want and the time to enjoy it.”

“Including braces on your teeth?” Bren asked.

“Well, he ran out of ideas temporarily. There have been other, compensating goodies.” (Like a closet full of clothes I never wear, she thought, but the smile she turned on Bren was full of impish glee.)

They crossed into the park and followed the wide, lighted path toward the theater.

“I used to come here every day when I was a little kid,” Bren said, pointing to the playground on their left. “Eli and I would come with one of our mothers or Louise LaReine. She’s a ferocious black woman who lives in our basement apartment and does a few things for Mom instead of paying rent.”

“What a marvelous name,” Erika said. “It sounds more romantic than ferocious. What did she do, spank you when your parents were out? We had a maid who did that—only once, I must admit.”

“Nothing like that.” Bren felt suddenly comfortable with the subject of Louise, as if he could load all the peculiarities of his household onto her broad personality. “Louise is a voodoo woman. She casts spells and goes about muttering dark threats.”

“That sounds delicious, but a funny choice for a nursemaid.”

“Oh, Louise is harmless once you get used to her, and I’ve known her all my life. Besides, my mother is…” Bren found himself again at a loss for the right word.

“Broad-minded?” Erika suggested.

“That’s it. Broad-minded, and not easy to scare the way most mothers are. Eli’s mother used to have a fit when Louise took us to the park, but she couldn’t resist the temptation to get out of doing it herself. She’s a psychologist, and she thought Louise was going to give us all kinds of nightmares and complexes.”

“And did she?”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Bren said cheerfully.

They crossed the road that cut through the park below the Delacorte Theater and climbed the short hill. Now comes the hard part, Bren thought, as they settled into their seats in the rapidly filling outdoor auditorium.

It turned out that there was no need for learned comments on the art of the dance. Erika was in her element. She gazed happily at the great, semicircular sweep of the stage and the tall lighting towers. “What a beautiful theater,” she said. “You’re so lucky to have grown up close to it.”

Bren, whose visits to the Delacorte had been few, still managed to dredge up some memories from summers past. “I hope they’ll light the castle,” he said, pointing off into the dark. “The Central Park weather station is up there on the cliff across the lake in that imitation castle, so sometimes they light it up for a backdrop.”

“Fabulous. I can’t wait.” Erika wriggled contentedly in her seat, and Bren wondered if she was getting cold. The temperature was certainly dropping as they waited for the ballet to begin, and the blanket still lay rolled in his lap—like a time bomb, he thought, casting a nervous glance at the girl beside him.

Now, slowly, the bleak floodlights faded to darkness, and for a moment they could see a scatter of stars over the dim bulk of the castle. From somewhere a thin, wild melody began to grow—strange and elusive, as if from the void behind the stars.

Then a bright passageway appeared between the trees, and down this corridor of light came three young men at furious speed. They were nearly naked, their bodies sashed with streamers of red cloth. Through the trees and onto the bare stage they came, running and whirling, savage, demonic, as the music rose. Bren felt the hair rise on the back of his neck and forgot to think about what he was seeing. There was no story, or if there was, it was one his bones and blood had known before he was born—one his ancestors had known in the firelight that pushed back the dark at the mouth of the cave.

The music dropped, and he held his breath as the dancers stood arrested far upstage, their backs to the audience, their arms outstretched to the light among the trees. Now there was only the low throb of drums, a pulse of darkness almost below the threshold of hearing. Then, threading its way through the drumbeats, a melody of aching sweetness came, and with it a girl draped in the thin veils of spring. She advanced to the center of the enormous platform and captured its spaces with the movements of her body. To Bren’s mind came the thought of a spell—an intricate fabric of gesture and motion woven in the shimmering emptiness of the stage. If Erika said to herself, Perfection; every move is perfect, every tiny angle of wrist and toe, of neck and shoulder and knee, Bren thought, Magic. Enchantment.

The music changed again, and the young men turned, their ferocity transformed into longing and desire. They swept around the girl in ever-decreasing circles, but when it seemed that at last they must seize her, she broke away with a movement as simple and strong as a gust of wind and left them in a knot of upraised arms, clutching thin air as the light faded around them.

Erika produced an audible sigh in the silence that followed the last low drumbeat. Then everyone was applauding. When it was possible to speak, she said, “You realize you just saw something very special?”

Bren nodded. Even without any standard of comparison, he knew that this was true.

“The rest will be a letdown,” Erika said. “At least I think it has to be, but that gave me goose bumps.”

“Are you cold?” Bren asked, giving the blanket a halfhearted poke.

“That’s not what I meant, but yes. Now that you mention it. Hush. Here they go again.”

As the lights dimmed for the next number, Bren shook out the blanket and tossed half of it over Erika, who pulled it up to her chin and moved closer to him. Any anxiety about his next move was forgotten as he watched the fascinating activities on the stage. The second ballet could not have been more different. A man in what must have been a very flexible business suit entered holding a telephone. Hope, frustration, despair, and finally success were clear in every move as he tried to reach his girlfriend, who now appeared on the opposite side of the stage dressed in a filmy nightgown and also holding a telephone. They danced the stormy progress of their conversation, and the audience laughed delightedly.

A group of spirited folk dances followed. Erika moved closer as the temperature dropped, and Bren put his arm around her. It now seemed the logical thing to do. Before the program was over, his free hand was holding hers, and they were sending each other signals of delight in the performance and in each other’s company.

In the big kitchen on Eighty-fourth Street, Rose washed the dishes from a frugal meal, and Miranda gazed pensively into the dying fire. Shadow paced the floor and whined, his nails clicking on the tiles. Finally he came and laid his head in Miranda’s lap, something he had never done before. “Well, Shadow,” she said. “Are we lonely? Are we jealous, or what?” The dog thumped his tail. “Boys grow up, you know,” Miranda continued. “They even grow away from their dogs. Oh, yes, they do. You’d better believe it.”

“You’re a disgrace,” Rose said. “How you ever managed to send him to camp I’ll never understand.”

“That was different,” Miranda said, “but don’t worry. I’ll be good.”

“You’d better be,” her mother said. “Now go to bed, and I mean to bed. Keep out of your studio or you’ll be interfering before you know what you’re doing.”

“Never. I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll go to bed with a silly book. Come, Shadow. We’ll keep each other company.” Miranda rose and swept out of the kitchen with the disconsolate dog trailing behind her.

In the shadowy courtyard of the Apthorp, Bren and Erika stood holding hands, as they had walking through the park and down Seventy-ninth Street. The curtains were drawn across the few lighted windows, and the doorman dozed in his chair by the gate. Erika shivered in the sharp air, and Bren pulled her close. It was at this moment that he heard his mother call, strongly and unmistakably in the one clear channel of his mind that was always open to her. He stiffened and drew back, and Erika, startled, did the same.

“Oh, damn!” he said. “Damn, damn, damn damn.” At the same time he clutched his head, which was perhaps the best thing he could have done.

“What is it?” Erika begged. “You look terrible.”

“Headache,” Bren mumbled. “Really fierce. I get them sometimes. I’m sorry. It was such a perfect evening.”

“Yes, it was. Totally perfect,” Erika said, but the spell was broken now, and a good three feet separated them. “Are you going to be all right? What do you do for them?”

“I’ve got some pills at home,” Bren lied. “It goes away very fast. Don’t worry. Really. It’s disappearing now.” He took a step forward, but the mood was not to be recaptured.

“Go home,” Erika said. “It might come back. You really had me worried, Bren. Call me tomorrow and tell me how you feel.”

“Don’t mother me!” Bren cried, suddenly furious with the whole world of women. “I’ve got one mother too many now.”

“And that’s a pointless remark, if I ever heard one,” Erika said.

“Yes, it is. I know it is, and I’m sorry. What a disgusting end to a marvelous evening. I’d better go before I make it worse.” He turned and blundered out of the courtyard.

“See you…” Erika said in a small, forlorn voice that trailed away into the now-dreary splashing of the fountains.

Bren stopped at the corner of Seventy-ninth and Broadway. I won’t go home, he thought. If I do, I’ll kill her, and besides, it would mean that I came when I was called. It was eleven o’clock. The thought of a long walk either up or down the familiar length of Broadway held small appeal, and it was too late to visit Eli. I’ll go see Dad, Bren said to himself. Maybe I’ll even stay. He’s always asking me to, and that’ll teach her a lesson. He set off at a brisk pace toward Central Park.

Bren had never been in the park this late, never, in fact, after dark except when a stream of people from some event filled the now deserted walks. The way was as well lighted as ever, but the heavy trees seemed to crowd closer to the path and hang their shaggy heads over the lamps, casting deep shadows between the pools of light. It’s only about three blocks wide, he told himself (three long crosstown blocks), and plunging his hands into his pockets, he strode eastward through the park.

The worst places were the dark underpasses. At the end of the last one a huge figure loomed against the lamplight on the path. Bren’s heart thundered in his chest; he tried to whistle, but found he had lost the knack. “Peace, brother,” said a soft voice as he came out of the tunnel, and he saw a tall black man in a sweat suit waiting while an absurdly tiny, moplike dog snuffled in the dry leaves.

“Peace,” Bren said, and hurried on.

The streets of the East Side were deserted at this hour—clean, empty, devoid of life. It was possible to think of something besides being jumped on from behind a tree. Inevitably Bren thought of Erika and was surprised at the sharp stab of pain that went through him at the image of her small, bewildered face. She had been hurt by his abrupt departure. He should have stayed, letting the force of his mother’s call fade from his mind.

So I had a sudden headache, he said to himself, and it went away. So I could have said, Sorry! and gone back to hugging her. She wasn’t mad; she was worried about me. The idea of himself as a heroic sufferer from some obscure malady—perhaps a brain tumor—was appealing. But I had to blow it, he concluded angrily, and wondered if he would be given another chance. The thought of Erika’s fragile rib-cage within the circle of his arm as they sat in the theater drove him to such despair that he walked half a block past his father’s building.

In spite of having visited his father many times, Bren always had trouble finding the right buzzer for the apartment. There were at least a hundred of them, and they were in no discernible order. 4-F followed 7-C, which followed 16-G. As he searched, the doorman, privately christened “Smirky Sammy” by Bob West, came up behind him and watched his struggles.

“Your dad’s got company,” Sammy observed just as Bren finally located the buzzer.

Bren jumped and lost his place on the bell panel. “What kind of company?” he asked.

“The kind of company you don’t want to be interrupted with,” Sammy said, with one of the knowing grins that had earned him his name.

“It must be fun to know everybody’s business,” Bren said.

“That’s what I’m paid for,” said the doorman.

“I thought you were paid to keep out thieves and poor old bag ladies who might want to sleep in the lobby,” Bren said, “but who cares? I was only passing by. If my father has company, I’ll come another time.”

Bren turned and stamped out onto Third Avenue. He was very angry and, he now realized, both cold and tired. The long, cheerless walk back to the West Side seemed impossible. But now it occurred to him that it was unnecessary, and he turned toward Seventy-ninth Street and the luxury of a crosstown bus.

It was nearly midnight by the time he got home. The house was dark and unusually silent. Everyone seemed to have gone to bed, even Shadow, who usually filled the front hall with his overwhelming welcome as soon as the key touched the lock. A dim light filtered down from the landing above, and with its aid Bren climbed the stairs. He was conscious of feeling both relieved and somewhat abused by this lack of reception. I could have stayed out all night, he thought, for all they care.