Mount Terminus (42 page)

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The gardeners arrived shortly after daybreak. They set about grooming the grounds under Gus's purview as they had done for some years now. Not long after they appeared and began meandering through the labyrinths to clip away the overgrowth of the hedgerows, the kitchen staff and wait staff Isabella had hired to assist Meralda arrived, and soon they began unloading from trucks enough crates of food and wine, ice and spirits, to fortify the entire city. They unloaded dozens of tables and chairs, sets of crystal and silver, bales of linen. From Mount Terminus Productions arrived the makings for a stage and a dance floor, and they brought along as well many bundles of kerosene torches, some of which went to the courtyard and the grove, but most of which were immediately untied by the gardeners, who then spiked them into the ground one by one along the urn-shaped figure formed by the convergence of the gardens; and down the edges of the straight drive they continued hammering on to the front gate. When the last of the trucks had delivered their freight, and the rhythmic pounding of the stage construction had ceased, several of the men from the wait staff, along with the gardeners, took to raking the gravel before the house's entry, down to the street, where, when they had finished smoothing over the tire tracks and had landscaped the white stones into a uniform surface, they swung the wrought-iron gates closed and opened the pedestrian entry beside it. The front grounds emptied now, and Bloom, who had been watching at various times of the day the comings and goings from his tower's pavilion, waited in anticipation for the encroaching city he had witnessed grow up before his eyes to make its entry into his home.

Knowing he would understand the nature of this question without lengthy explanation, Bloom asked Gottlieb when his small, bearded friend climbed up to greet him, Why, Gottlieb, must I see shadows where there are none?

Gottlieb rested his elbows on the pavilion's ledge and placed his fingers in his beard. Simply put. You are blessed. Touched by God. And those touched by God are always a little mad. You, Rosenbloom, are quite normal in that respect.

I am normal in my madness.

Yes, said Gottlieb. You are.

They all seemed to arrive at once, shortly after the last streaks of twilight evaporated from the horizon. They parked their cars on the road, and as couples and small packs they walked as shadows into the orange glow of the torchlit drive. They strolled along the gardens' borders, many pointing and commenting on the sizable grounds.

It's time, Isabella said as she climbed into the pavilion with Bloom. She looked magnificent, and Bloom told her so. She was wearing a long dress made of crushed silk and around her neck a pearl choker. In her hand she carried a leather-bound tablet, which she handed to him.

What's this?

A gift from me, said Gottlieb. To calm the nerves.

If you find yourself feeling uncomfortable, said Isabella, search out a seat somewhere and draw.

The more cruel you are to your guests, said Gottlieb, the more they'll admire you.

You needn't be cruel, said Isabella, kissing his cheek. They'll admire you as you are. When you're ready to come down, I'll be waiting.

She's nervous for you, said Gottlieb as Isabella descended the staircase.

As she should be. Bloom watched Isabella's dress sweep the stairs as she made her exit, and then he and Gottlieb continued to watch them come. They came and they came, and soon enough Bloom could hear the orchestra strike up, and over the din of the instruments tuning he heard Simon's voice cry up to him. Joseph!

Remember, said Gottlieb. You're meant to be affable.

Bloom leaned over the rail and shrugged his shoulders at his brother.

Don't come down, I'll come up! Simon broke from his entourage and Bloom saw him move in the direction of the service entrance, and a few moments later he came charging up to greet them. He looked out onto the sparkle of lights scattered across the basin, and said, It's been some time since I was last up here. I forgot how far and wide you can see from your perch.

You're always welcome to share it with me.

I was told in advance that if I saw you up here when I arrived, I was to escort you down and keep an eye on you. But before I drag you down there, I was hoping you and I could talk for a minute. Simon turned to Gottlieb.

You needn't say it, said the little man. I know you well enough.

I was thinking, said Simon when Gottlieb had left them. I was hoping you'd consider something …

What's that?

A suggestion.

With regard to what?

Isabella.

What about her?

She's lost, Joseph. She's in need of a purpose.

I've tried. But this, said Bloom with a hand out toward the oncoming throng, is what she wants.

Which is why you must show her she's greater than all this nonsense.

Isn't this your sort of nonsense?

I didn't say it wasn't right for me. But I can tell you, it most certainly isn't right for her. She is lost, said Simon. I can promise you that. And if she is lost, you are lost, and if you are lost, I …

What?

I have failed you. And myself.

How's that?

I've invested a considerable amount of money into your latest effort and I have no intention of seeing the promise of the return dashed because you're blind to the needs of the living.

Simon delivered this line as if it was intended to be funny, but Bloom couldn't find the humor in it.

Just ask her to assist you on
The Death of Paradise
. She's talked about nothing else since you locked yourself away.

Has she?

She's enthralled with the story.

She and I, we discovered it together.

I know.

Before she left. Before she became …

My point exactly.

But she's only expressed her concern about me. She's said nothing to me one way or the other about the picture itself.

That's because she hasn't wanted to get in your way. She has it in her mind that you need to be left on your own to do whatever it is you do when you lose yourself to your work. Simon waved his arm around the aviary. She treats you as if you're some fragile creature who must have his plumage fluffed just so, for fear of risking an Icarus-like plummet.

Bloom thought this over for a moment. Perhaps I do.

You and every other prima donna worth my trouble. But you're missing my point. Your wife, the ever-so-lovely Mrs. Rosenbloom, has lost her way. And you, my oblivious brother, need to show her she has a place by your side.

But of course she does, said Bloom. She
must
know that.

I don't think she does.

Here I was all this time thinking she needed the freedom to explore this other side of herself, and you're telling me I've in actuality been neglecting her?

No, said Simon. Not at all. I'm simply saying you should invite her in to our little world of magic-making and let's see what happens.

She won't think I'm pressuring her to give up her new life? Her new friends?

I have a feeling, a very good feeling, she will be receptive.

Yes?

Yes! Even if she doesn't say as much, she needs you to show her the way. She needs a nudge in the right direction.

What can I say?… I'll nudge her.

Good.

And Simon?

Yes, Joseph?

Thank you.

Don't thank me. Just come along, or I won't hear the end of it.

*   *   *

A clamor of voices, a voracious sound Bloom had never before heard, filled the tower stairwell as they descended. He followed Simon to the bottom and entered the villa through the front entrance, where he found illuminated by bright incandescent light the hundreds of shadows he had watched walk the drive. They stood about in small groups throughout the entirety of the house. Never before—not even in all his years on the overcrowded lot—had Bloom seen so many people crushed into one place or felt the physical warmth or smelled the commingling of scents generated by bodies standing in such close proximity. The biting scents of perfumes and colognes, the briny wafts of damp body odor, the savory whiffs of cured meats and smoked fish, he took it in all at once as they brushed past people acting out private performances in the corridors. The scents and the cacophony of conversation, the monologues, the piano music from the parlor contaminated by the music from the courtyard, all went to Bloom's head. He was relieved to hear one of the bartenders say, when Simon asked if he happened to know where she was, that he had just seen Isabella step outside. Why don't you go ahead, said Simon. I'll bring out the drinks. All Bloom could manage was a nod, and then he slipped away down the long corridor running to the courtyard doors. He made his way outside, where he discovered Isabella standing at the nearest corner of the reflecting pool surrounded by several young men and a young woman who was swinging the head of a dead fox. He knew it would be proper for him to join them and announce himself, but they all appeared so familiar with one another, he wasn't certain how to interject himself without disturbing the festive mood. He instead headed for one of the café tables set around the edge of the dance floor, and there took a seat, and so not to make it appear as if he were in need of anyone's attention, he opened the tablet Gottlieb had given Isabella to give to him, and he took Gottlieb's suggestion: he started sketching, and as Gottlieb had predicted, the movement of his hands calmed him. Perhaps because of the power of suggestion, or because he had manifested in his mood the great discomfort he had felt throughout the day, he found himself making a grotesque mockery out of the woman swinging the dead animal. He extended her sharp nose into an oversized beak. Her slim figure, he made skeletal. He exaggerated the bones of her shoulders and chest, extended the length of her fingers, elongated her jaw, pointed her chin, hollowed her eyes, diminished her cheeks, yet he left unchanged the elegant gown she wore and posed her body with the same glamorous poise with which she carried herself, and he hung over the joint of her bony elbow the fox, to which he added an overly long tongue that lifelessly lolled from the corner of its dark lip. To the men, Bloom did the same as he did to the woman. He turned them into Punchinellos dressed for Saturnalia, well prepared to feast on Isabella, who he drew as full and round, with a softness. However, he couldn't help but notice, as he fixed the lines forming her image on the page, how, as she talked with these creatures—who, with their enormous gestures, appeared to be acting for an invisible camera—Isabella appeared to be mirroring them, and comfortably so, as if for a long time now she had been studying how oversized and artificial emotion was expressed in the features of the face and the physicality of the body. At the sight of this, Bloom felt a queasiness grow inside him. Had he not been so compliant, he wondered, would she have turned to this? Or had he tried to cage her as Fernando caged Miranda, would she have turned into one of these creatures anyway? He began to see all around him grotesqueries from the hand of Hieronymus Bosch. Feral, thought Bloom, and predatory. Sharp in teeth and claw, in the darting movements of the eyes. He could see clearly for the first time since their day in the naked rose garden how Isabella's hunger, her enormous appetite, had in this company manifested itself into a character with whom Bloom felt at odds. For this role, for these absurd people, she no longer pursued her scientific interests? For these mindless conformists, she was no longer satisfied with the quiet subtleties of Mount Terminus? For her place among these ridiculous men and women, she had abandoned him for Simon's companionship?

From Bloom's position in the courtyard, he saw Simon detained at the door by a small throng of mannequins. He parted their closed shoulders with a small movement of his chin and made his way outside. As Simon walked toward him, Bloom noticed Isabella's confidante point the fox's snout in his brother's direction. She then said something that caused Isabella to lift her hand to her cheek. Her eyes now trailed Simon's movement around the edge of the dance floor, and when they reached Bloom, she must have seen with what disappointment, with what revulsion, he had been watching her, because she removed the mask she had been wearing an instant earlier, or, perhaps, Bloom considered, she put one on for him. Some woman wearing a bird of paradise in her hair now touched Isabella's shoulder, and there it was again, an arched brow, a smile wide and open enough for a snake to slither through, her face in its entirety a figure of cartoon surprise. Isabella soon excused herself from her company and walked over.

How long have you been sitting here? she asked Bloom as she greeted Simon with a brush of her cheek to his.

Just long enough, Bloom heard himself saying. He didn't intend his words to sound accusatory, but they did, and he didn't make an effort to correct his tone. When Isabella heard this, her eyes looked to the table on which sat Bloom's open tablet, and seeing what image was there, she now knew better than to ask how he was getting along. She nodded her head in recognition of his mood, and then, after a brief pause, Simon, who had undoubtedly heard the intolerance in his brother's voice, interrupted the awkwardness by saying to Bloom, I don't think I ever told you, Joseph, there was a brief period of time when I was a student that I worked in a department store to make up for the poor wage Sam paid me in the theater. This store, they made the softest, most supple, most elegant gloves you have ever seen. Leather gloves worn by the most fashionable women. To secure my position, I visited Sam's tailor and conned the poor man to put on Sam's bill two of the tailor's finest shirts and two of his finest suits made from the finest material he had available. I went on to Sam's shoemaker and did the same. Once I was in costume, I took on the role of salesclerk, and the manager, seeing how well I had studied my part, put me on the floor. One of my responsibilities—the very reason I was keen to take the job—was to interview the young women who modeled our merchandise. We would advertise for women with delicate hands. Long fingers. Long and thin and elegant to observe in motion. And from this advertisement, in came dozens of beautiful girls, any one of which you'd think were worthy of the position. Simon, now addressing Isabella, said, But you'd be surprised what it takes to show a fine pair of gloves. It takes a very special pair of hands to make a woman of a certain position, a very elegant sort of woman, fall in love with her handwear. Here, he said, motioning to Isabella. She looked to Bloom, then politely offered Simon her arm, at which point Bloom's brother ran a knuckle over the generous length of Isabella's forefinger and up over the curve of her wrist. Here, you see? You see this uninterrupted line? This almost imperceptible line extending from the very tip of the finger to the height of the forearm? This perfect line, right here, on you, my dear, this incredibly rare line that exists only on the rarest of women, this is the continuous line I spent many weeks searching out on God knows how many women, and because of how rare it is, rarely, very rarely, would I ever find it. You wouldn't think it, he said to Bloom, but a fine pair of hands, Joseph, a really fine pair, is as rare as the rarest of precious gems. Simon now paused and leaned his forehead toward Isabella. Had you walked onto my floor, on you, I could have shown our entire line. With you, I could have made a bundle. He now gave her hand a gentle pat, set it down at her side, and pulled himself away.