I'll Let You Go (35 page)

“I believe it is a
French national monument
,” she said, eyes beadily narrowing. “Louis Trotter has a lot of money, but not enough to buy a national monument!”

“I was sure of it.”

“William Randolph Hearst he is not. You're thinking of San Simeon.”

“Well that's what Hearst did, isn't it? Moved castles and churches from over there?”

Ruth hadn't the energy to continue sparring; she grabbed another album from a stack and passed it to her husband instead. He wobbily handed the tome to Lucy, who perched on the La-Z-Boy to share with her brother.

“The
time
it took to build! So painstaking. It was not the house
I
would have chosen, but … done with such taste, such love. Your grandfather always put your mother first, that I will say for the man. On their wedding day, he had horses and carriages and footmen—at night there was Renaissance music and torches and beautiful dancing. Was it Tony Bennett who came and sang, Harry?”

“Yes. Marvelous singer. To this day. Very active.”

“It was stunning.”

“A marvelous painter, too. Did you know? Tony Curtis also paints. The two painting Tonys. And Tony Quinn! He was a
marvelous
painter. Sinatra too—they all want to be painters. Isn't that funny?”

“And the
people
there—Meryl
Streep
, Goldie
Hawn
, Tom
Hanks
—”

“And this before anyone knew who he was. Tom Hanks was still struggling. But our Marcus helped him, believed in him.”

“Well I don't know about that; I don't think any of those people ‘struggled.' But everyone was there and everyone was
happy
—all the people your father had helped so much, all of the people who loved him. My God, I was just bowled over. To see the
impression
your father had made on these famous, famous people, who would have done
anything
for him—” She stifled a tear, putting handkerchief to mouth. “And when the … when the terrible thing happened—the ‘disappearance'—I call it the ‘disappearance'—”

“She still calls it that. To this day.”

“—because what else
can
you say? Well, everyone was stunned, to put it mildly. No one even
knew
about it for the longest time. They all thought it was a long honeymoon! Louis hardly told
us
, the news was
very
late in coming. We were certain—Harry and I—that someone had hurt our boy. How else to explain? Because if he'd had second thoughts—”

“—which was not the case—”

“—but if he
had
, Marcus was certainly not the type to run away!
That wasn't his style. He had troubles in his life, but was so very
happy
—with Katrina. And in his work. In his
life
.”

Tull cleared his throat. “My mother said something happened to him in England. When he was in college.”

Edward and Lucy glowered at their cousin sideways; he'd been holding out on them.

“He was studying so hard,” said Ruth. “So brilliant! History and literature.”

“He liked to walk. A very powerful man. Powerful legs. Always liked to walk. Cleared his head.”

“He didn't like to walk
that
much.”

“Yes he did. Yes he did, Ruth, don't deny it. He went for a walk to Avebury.”

“Harry,
please—
”

“Do you know Avebury?” he asked of the children.

“The monoliths,” came the veiled voice from the La-Z-Boy.

“That's right. He walked there and
all
around. That's where the druids were—don't know how he got his fascination. Walked and walked, said it was because he couldn't sleep.”

“It
was
because he couldn't sleep!” said Ruth defensively. “He was
worn-out
, that's all, from the studying. He was a scholar!”

“They put him in the hospital. Didn't tell us about it, not for a long time.”

“It wasn't such a big thing, you always make it into a big thing!
Lots
of students study too hard and—”

“It
was
something, Ruth. It was
more
than ‘worn-out.' There were other things, when he was younger.” She winced, knowing he couldn't be stopped. “He put aluminum foil in the windows to prevent voices from coming in. That's what he said—‘voices' were coming in. Sometimes they were friendly, sometimes not so friendly. Foil, all around the bedroom.” He scratched his nose with trembling deliberation. “He
was
a brilliant boy. Always did wonderfully in school.”

“He had an
imagination
, Harry, that's all. Why do you make such a thing?” She turned to Edward. “
You're
a brilliant boy,” she implored. “You
know
how hard that can be …”

“Yes,” said the cousin, at a loss.

“We adopted him,” said Harry. “But I'm sure you already know that.
And I got damn mad—later on. Because that first time he went a little ‘off' I made some … inquiries. Because he'd struck his mother, and that was not like him.”

“Harry! He did not
strike
me—”

“Whatever he did left a bruise, and I didn't like it. Not one bit. So I talked to the adoption people, and well, you know, they sang a different song. Because it's a business, and I understand that. I'm a businessman. But these are people's lives, and it isn't right.”

“They told us his mother was a student,” said Ruth, resigned. “A high-strung woman having problems during the time of her college examinations. Just like our Marcus! They said they didn't know who the father was; they never do. Anyway, that's what we were told.”

“Well, that was a lie,” said her husband. “Because by the time I asked, see, the law had changed. They had to tell me things, they were
legally bound
. Had to turn over files. And the files told a different story. Said that his mother was a ‘working girl'—”

“Harry, we don't know that's true!”

“No, but that is what is suspected, Ruth! Now, these children came a long way to hear our story and they might as well get it!” He scratched his nose and proceeded. “There's all kinds of lawsuits against that place now; Ruth and I didn't want to join the bandwagon. That's not for us. But it's a tragedy what happened in this country. Not that any of it would have made a damn difference to Ruth and me. Because we believe you do things out of
love
—you take a babe into your life not as an investment but because you have love in your heart. And you nurture that child and hope your love will carry you through. Carry the day. That is all you can hope for, any way you slice it. Now, what they said—what this gentleman finally told us—was that Marcus's mother was a ‘working girl' with many troubles. Tried to do herself in a
number
of times. Gave birth to Marcus in a public toilet. Oh yes—had a few screws loose, this woman. Left him there in the trash, but the police caught up with her.” Ruth began to weep, and Lucy went to her side. “Well, that's the story. Draw your own conclusions. But we loved the boy—and we'd have him again. Not sure we'd do much different, but we'd have him again. A
wonderful
boy … and we miss him. We've missed him so—”

It was Harry's turn to shed a tear. His sleepy side had awakened under the onslaught, and he dabbed it with a wad of Kleenex pulled from a lacquered box they'd bought in Jerusalem.

“What happened then?” asked Tull. “After he … disappeared? After the wedding?”

“Oh, they hired a man to find him,” said Ruth. “But they never had any luck. I think that he—your grandfather—somehow blamed
us
. And it only got worse … because,” she said with delicacy, “your mother had such misfortune. But we felt awful enough already! The embarrassment and the pain! And not knowing what happened to our boy, if he was alive or dead! Your grandfather didn't seem to take that into consideration.”

“Oh I think he did, Ruth,” said Harry charitably. “I think he did. It was hard for everyone.”

“Well,
I
never heard it from him. Never heard it from
Berenice
. They didn't even tell us Katrina was pregnant!”

“That, I agree, was not handled well.”

“It was
kept
from us. After six months it became clear that Louis wanted all ties—
anything
connected to the past—to that wedding and the heartache it brought your mother—severed. Cut right off, the way you'd cut an arm. What could we do? Such powerful people. We did our best to put the past behind us. The only time we heard about your grandfather—or your uncle Dodd—was when Harry clipped something out of the
Times
.”

“Or
Forbes
.
The Wall Street Journal
.”

“Harry subscribed to them all.”

Then, said Ruth, came the terrible, wonderful thing: a friend from Chicago mailed them a page torn from
W—
standing in a garden of her own design was Katrina Trotter and her son, Toulouse. Her
son
. It cannot be! said Ruth, but the photo haunted—he looked so much like his dad—and she had it enlarged, trying to plumb its depths. Harry finally told her to call the house on Saint-Cloud, for her own peace of mind. She did, and it was like throwing sand against a stone wall. A week later they received a letter warning there would be consequences should either of them attempt to contact the boy—their grandson! So cold! They sat in their car a few blocks from the Bel-Air house as recently as a year ago, watching Tull with his dog. They dared not approach … how humiliating it was! She was so ashamed at the poverty of it—the inhumanity. Like ghostly sightseers, tucked away while Toulouse and Pullman romped down the hill and stole onto the wedding grounds … In her paranoia, Ruth imagined Marcus had long since returned and the
reunited couple taken up residence in that freakish tower with the boy; that the Trotters had somehow managed to turn her own son against her, and her grandson too. Harry hated to see her do that to herself, but Ruth assured she had no more tears—until now.

Tull put his hand on hers, and the simple gesture meant all the world. “Did you ever hear from him?” he asked.

“No.” Her husband stood up, excusing himself. He used the walker this time.

“But we
did
hear from Mr. Dowling—the detective who was looking for our son. In the early days he used to call at
least
once a week. Sometimes we even saw men sitting down the block in their cars. Just sitting. Waiting. I half expected to see Jack Webb! We were worried for Marcus if he
did
show up, what they'd do—Harry almost called the police on
them
. But they were decent men. I went out there and gave them pastries. Sometimes Mr. Dowling sent over tickets for a game; Mr. Weiner used to like to go to the Forum. Little gifts, too—nothing too costly. I wasn't sure if they came from your grandfather … I hoped they hadn't. Harry and I felt like criminals, but we didn't do anything wrong! I wouldn't have told Mr. Dowling even if I
had
heard from my son. There was not much goodwill left.” Tears caught in her throat, and she apologized. “Such powerful people. Up until a few years ago, Mr. Dowling
still
called—usually right around the holidays. But no more gifts. I think he felt sorry for us.”

Harry returned with a box. Handing it to Tull, he said it had come in the mail a long while back, without a note. Ruth uncomfortably pooh-poohed it, asking Harry why he'd even bothered. Lucy (and Edward, much as he could) craned their necks while Tull took the lid off to reveal the copy of a book—the very same stolen from Tabori & Co. some fourteen years ago.

Tull lay down on the bed—the bed that was his father's as a boy—and stared at the ceiling much as he did in his room at Saint-Cloud, realizing Marcus would have done just that at his age: stared at
this
ceiling,
these
walls.

He heard the voices of the others, like wavelets lapping—Lucy helping Ruth in the kitchen, Edward and Mr. Weiner having a tête-à-tête.
News From Nowhere
's ex libris proclaimed its sheaves to be P
ROPERTY OF
M
ARCUS
W
EINER
. Tull delicately fingered the book's gilt edges and felt its
“prenatal calfskin” heft; he sensed the imprint of his father's hands on the blue-black vellum. He flipped through it—this place called Nowhere seemed to contain an awful lot of news. One of the photo albums piled next to him was cracked open to a portrait of the psycho-prodigal bridegroom in top hat, tails and brocaded vest, his bride in tulle and classic veil, wildly throwing rice at a Bugatti. That's what his parents had storiedly done, with playful surrealism: thrown rice at departing guests. If that were so, it meant someone would have tossed his parents a bouquet—his father would have caught it, no doubt.