The Center of the World (5 page)

At six the dumpster was almost half full. I took a quick dip in the lake to rinse off the dust. Still dripping, I came back into the house and took the silver Tiffany martini shaker engraved with my father’s name from the kitchen cabinet. It was a memorial of those happy days when my parents drank together, a gift to him from my mother two years before she filed for divorce. I filled it with ice and poured about half a pint of gin and a tablespoon of vermouth into it. By the time I got down to the dock the shaker was beaded with moisture. I gave it a gentle shake or two, filled my glass, ripped open a bag of chips, and tried to be happy.

My father sat in that same chair at five o’clock every summer afternoon, staring at the perspiring martini shaker as we waited for my mother. “If your mother doesn’t get here in three minutes, I’m going to start without her.” When she finally appeared, he poured the drinks before she had settled into her chair. They clinked their glasses together and drank. As I sipped my martini I felt how much that first real drink of the day had come to mean to me. It was the golden moment at the beginning of cocktail hour that had allowed my parents’ marriage to last as long as it did.

I sat on the dock until the sun started to go down. The Mossbachers had put their boat away; all the sailors had gone home. The green mix of firs and deciduous trees on the far shore started to glow in the light of the setting sun. It was as if someone had turned a switch and all the colors were suddenly saturated. My mother called it the cocktail hour miracle. As I sat there, unwittingly on the cusp of a new life, I was struck by how odd it was that I could be so sad in a world that was so beautiful.

 
MANY THOUGHT THAT RHINEBECK
had aimed to compete with Camp Wonundra, the Rockefeller place down at the other end of the lake, when he built Birch Lodge. It was fine with him if they thought so. Birch Lodge sat on a small rise on the shore of Upper Saranac Lake. From his veranda Rhinebeck had a good view of the southern end of the lake, and if he turned to the left he had a sweeping view of the eastern shore and the wide expanse of water up to the Narrows, about two miles away. A few small islands dotted the view, and he sometimes thought that if God hadn’t put them there, he would have done it himself. He could see the high mountains in the distance. In the evening the cries of loons echoed across the water.

Rhinebeck had been working on the place for three years now, ever since he had acquired the Turner, and the last of the workmen had just left. Durant had done a fine job. The place was all “twigged up” in the Adirondack style, but it hadn’t
been overdone. The rustic charm of the room appealed to him. He didn’t think the ladies would mind; their comfort, too, could be attended to.

It was the middle of August. Rhinebeck sat on the veranda and lit a cigar as he waited for the coffee to be brought. He knew he was a different man than he had been. He had made himself into what the world called Cornelius Rhinebeck by keeping his eyes on the facts. Early on he had realized that every enterprise, no matter how complex, could be understood as a series of steps in a finite process. People spoke of the romance of industry, but it was all in the ledger sheets and how people moved about on the factory floor. Money was made by understanding how many steps they took and reducing the number of them. The human heart, he had believed, was also an enterprise devoted to maximizing return. It was a simple matter. If she was not willing, what could be done to make her willing? What were her scruples? How could they be removed?

But now the water seemed quick and alive as it responded to the color of the sky in a way that it had not before; the light was beautiful in a way it had not been before. Time, and perhaps his Turner, had taken the edge off the egoism and striving of youth.

He finished his coffee and left the cigar to burn itself out. Lottie and her friend would arrive in a few hours, and he needed to complete his preparations. Rhinebeck had told his wife that he’d intended Birch Lodge “for men only.” He wanted, he said, a place where he could come with his friends and associates and they could go hunting and fishing without
worrying about offending the ladies with their language and their cigars. She had been suspicious, he thought, but she knew him well enough to understand that it was not a quarrel worth having. He had appeased her, however, by suggesting that she might want to come up just once after the place was completed, to see it for herself.

The pride of Birch Lodge, and the reason he had built it, was a room on the second floor of the main building which Rhinebeck called his Snuggery. It could only be approached from a dark, narrow stairway that led off the main living room. Durant’s gift for decoration seemed to have deserted him when it came to this stairway; the paint had been cunningly applied so as to look like second-rate workmanship of many years ago. At the top of the stairs was a low door, to which only Rhinebeck had the key.

This door opened into what Durant had described as a cathedral of manly comfort. Light poured in from doors on the balcony and from the clerestory windows that were cleverly set just below the steeply sloping ceiling. It was a large room, but cozy. There were half a dozen places to sit with a book and a glass of wine; some took advantage of views of lake or forest, others faced one of the three fireplaces, in the largest of which a small man could comfortably stand. The stonework around each fireplace showed craftsmanship of the highest order, but it was in the woodwork that Durant’s genius had found its fullest expression. The walls were covered with strips of birch bark, cut and arranged so that pictures of the forest appeared on the wall. Borders and moldings were rioting bands of twisted
twigs and branches. Stuffed animals of every description hung on the walls and peeked out from every corner. There was a raccoon walking carefully along one of the beams, a porcupine climbing up a pillar, and a bobcat crouched and about to pounce on a baby rabbit that seemed to be nibbling some grass on a mantelpiece.

All the furniture had been made especially for the room. Living wood had been twisted into easy chairs and sofas. Sitting in these chairs, surrounded by these walls and decorations, Rhinebeck had the pleasant sensation of being embraced by Nature in her very womb.

Rhinebeck opened the large cabinet that Durant had made to his particular specifications. He felt the familiar shudder of pleasure. He concentrated on the ships which sailed on the perfect sea. He had a vivid sense of the baskets of spices and the amphorae of fragrant wine that filled the ships’ holds. He had never noticed them before. How odd that there, far out on the sea, the sailors and merchants went about their business, while the great warriors fought the greatest battle the world had ever known. The towers of Troy were surely a landmark that guided them on their way. What could they see? The towers and the plain before them, perhaps the smoke from the invading army’s campfires, perhaps the fleet of Greek ships pulled up upon the shore. Perhaps they had heard about the quarrel and they were staying as far away from the Trojan coast as they could. Just merchants going about their business, trying to stay out of harm’s way.

He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes had passed. He wondered how many hours had disappeared in front of his
painting. It was a wonder that he still found the time to make any money at all.

He took it out of the cabinet and laid it on the billiard table. He wrapped it carefully in a piece of canvas, tying the bundle up securely with a stout cord. It pained him, but it just wouldn’t do for his wife to see it. He went to a closet and took out an identically sized painting. It was a Renoir, one of his plump pink nudes, although a bit more risqué than most of them. The look on her face was more lustful than languorous, and there was a hint of pubic hair visible through her parted legs. The sense of moisture down there, Rhinebeck suspected, was not on account of the bath. Of course she was nothing like his Helen, but she would do for the purpose he had in mind. Closing her up in the cabinet, he thought it was almost a sacrilege to allow her into the space that had been built to contain his Turner.

He called for Mr. Kircum, the head groundskeeper at Birch Lodge. Kircum and his wife lived in a small house next to the main property. They had had a child, but she had died. He was a silent man who had seen things in the Great War that he would not speak of.

“Is everything in order?” Rhinebeck asked. Kircum nodded. “Will you go pick up the ladies at the station or will you send someone else?”

“I go in about an hour.”

“Good. Take that bundle on the billiard table and bring it down to your barn. Be very careful with it. I’ll come with you.”

Kircum picked up the painting. He carried it with ease in spite of its size and the weight of the gilt frame. They crossed the
stone bridge that connected the keeper’s house with the main property and walked up the gravel path to the barn. Opening the door, Rhinebeck went ahead. He pushed against the back wall. There was a slight click and the door to the compartment opened. Kircum put the bundle inside and Rhinebeck closed the door. He stepped back to look at the place where his treasure was concealed.

“This will do nicely. Throw some old tools and lumber up against that wall before you go.”

 
THE PART OF HER WORKDAY
that Gina liked best was the evening, after all her colleagues had gone home. First Tracey, who sat by the door and answered the phone, said good-bye at a little after six, and by seven she usually had the downstairs room at Madison Partners to herself. Often she would turn off the overhead lights and sit in the cone of light that emanated from her desk lamp. With the incessant telephones finally quiet, she felt she was in a sacred circle, alone with her catalogues and auction announcements, doing difficult work that was beautiful and good. She liked to listen to the sounds of the brownstone as it settled down for the evening: Rosaria cleaning up or preparing Mr. Bryce’s dinner, the faint notes of an opera recording from the library upstairs, or the solitary whir of the fax machine as it spat out some paper that would be dealt with tomorrow.

Sometimes Bryce would pass through on his way out for the evening and might compliment her on her outfit or ask
what was keeping her so late. Once or twice he asked if Rosaria should bring some coffee or perhaps a sandwich. He seemed pleased that she took her work so seriously, and Gina delighted in his pleasure, although she knew that his approbation probably meant more to her than it should.

For Gina, Madison Partners was an oasis of class and perfection in an ugly world. Bryce dressed beautifully and was devoted to his work. She felt fortunate to be paid so well for participating in that work and sitting in such a lovely room. She had been raised in affluence in New York, but she felt she had grown up in the circus of her parents’ screaming fits, divorces, and love affairs. College had been better and graduate school better still, but nothing had ever been as satisfying as Madison Partners.

On Fridays most of “the young people,” as Bryce called Gina and her colleagues, went home early, so Gina had been alone for longer than usual when she left at eight. She hoped that Bryce would come through and see that she was still there, but he seemed to have no evening plans. Eventually she took her bag of gym stuff from under her desk, turned out the lights, and made her way to the subway. She had stayed so long that she found herself on a bike in the last row in the corner of her spin class. She missed being able to lock eyes with the instructor as she tried to keep up, but she was so tired that she was happy enough to let herself disappear into the exercise.

There were three messages on her phone when she got home. The first was from her father. She could hear airport noises in the background. “Hi, Baby. On my way back to L.A.
I wanted you to be the first to know, but the damn rags never leave you alone and there was a screwup with Megan’s publicist. I keep telling her to fire the fucker, but she’s got her own ideas. Anyway, we’re getting married. Not sure of the date yet, not sure where. We’re thinking Napa, but maybe something a bit more fun. Tahiti, Iceland—we’re still working on it. Morocco. But listen, I’m going to need you there, so stay tuned for the details and be ready to party. Gotta go, they’re calling my flight. Love ya.”