The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume 1 (19 page)

IX.

F
EW RECOGNIZE THE MOST IMPORTANT
events of their lifetime as they occur, so occupied are we with silly complications and sillier distractions. Chart the roadmap of your life and you will find a profusion of overlong routes and hellish switchbacks, salted patches of Earth crossed repeatedly until stomped to ruin, while the pastures of pleasure are but skirted, peed onto from the side of the road without you having an inkling of their majesty or significance.

So it was that in April 1910 a piece of my past came home to me.

Visitors were uncommon at Jefferson Street but I was hardly disturbed when I heard the late-night clanging of the brass door knocker. Dixon, slow and deaf though he'd become, remembered the path to the front door and I was comforted by the usual disapproving tone of his voice and the ensuing slam.

The following morning was drizzly but nevertheless heralded the return of the stubborn visitor. Dixon, too, knew how to be stubborn. But the visitor returned again during stormy midday, and again at showery suppertime, and then once more amid the pounding rain of night. When Dixon cleared his throat outside the laboratory door, I was shirtless and supine on an unwashed table with Leather poised to tweezer a bit of white matter from my eyeball. The room stank of smoke and cold corpse blood.

Go away, old man
, thought I.
This is no place for the living.

But Leather grumbled, set aside his tool, and cracked open the door.

“Out with it.”

“Do forgive me, sir,” said Dixon. “But a young lady insists upon being seen.”

“Who is she?”

“She will not say, sir.”

“This is hardly a dignified hour.”

“She is not a dignified young lady, if I may be so bold, sir.”

“Do you require a reminder on how to do your job?”

“I have issued warning upon warning, sir. This is her fifth visit in two days. I know you frown upon bringing police to this house but I am at wit's end.”

“No doubt she is a relative of a patient who died on my table. Extend the usual sympathies but inform her that I am utterly indisposed.”

Leather began to close the door but Dixon raised an arthritic hand.

“The young lady does not ask for you, sir. She asks for Master Finch.”

I slid from the operating table and stood. Plasma, someone else's, oozed down my spine. A guest? Me? I seized the idea with unexpected enthusiasm. A reprise from hell's chimney, even for a mistaken call, was worth taking.

Leather shot me an impatient look.

“A devotee of your sideshow act?”

“Show her in,” said I.

“Do not show her in, Mr. Dixon. Whoever she is, she is after money.”

Seventeen was more than old enough to stand against any father
figure! I snapped up my shirt, buttoned it, threaded my arms through jacket tweed, and, as was instinct, patted the pocketed Excelsior.

“Put her in the parlor, Dixon,” said I. “I shall be down directly.”

I had to endure history's most violently gritted teeth, but endure them I did, and ten minutes later I was stealing down the stairs breathless (I know; it makes no sense) with the sensation of a pounding heart (again, a lack of sense). Dixon, wheezing from effort, was exiting the parlor, and I tipped an invisible hat to him before sliding into the room's bourbon light.

The girl heard me enter. She stood in a puddle of water and whipped around so fast her hair sprayed the bookcase with rain. The hair was black with damp but I could see that in its natural state it was light brown. I took a step closer. She was around my age and beautiful, though skinny, with regal cheekbones and nose, enthralling eyes, and a determined underbite. I grinned and it felt good—the old Zebulon Finch charm, thought I, emerging from hibernation.

Instead of reacting in kind, her brow tightened in bewilderment and she took a hesitant step forward as if trying to see me in a better light.

“It can't be you,” whispered she.

I extended my grin.

“Zebulon Finch, at your service. Have we met?”

She prowled lightly, as if upon clawed paws.

“Impossible,” said she. “How are you so young?”

The question set off a bell of warning. My smile faltered and she appeared to take it as an admission. She thrust a hand inside her topcoat, a shabby thing sized for a grown man and slathered along its bottommost inches in mud, and withdrew a square of paper. With damp fingers she began to unfold it. It was old, rubbed pale, splitting apart at the creases, but with walloping shock I recognized it before
she held it up for me to see. After all, I'd kept my own copy in a scrapbook twenty-four years earlier.

It was my favorite “Wanted” poster from 1895, the one that made me look like John Wesley Hardin. My first reaction was a bloom of elation as if spotting an old friend; seconds later, the feeling downturned, for the vibrant young man in the picture was but fourth or fifth cousin to the crippled dead thing I'd become. Finally I felt apprehension, for while there were numerous reasons one might track down a Black Hand rowdy, none of them were good.

I took a step toward the door.

“You are without towel,” said I. “Allow me to fetch one.”

The girl shook her head. More rain spattered my skin and burned like hot oil. She lurched closer and I stumbled against the humidor. Her eyes lit up as if sensing weakness.

“You think I wanted to come?” asked she. “Crawling like a mutt for your mercy? I would do anything to avoid it. But I'm hungry. I'm
starving
. Look at me.”

With her wrongly gendered coat, faded dress, bony shoulders, mud-crescented nails, and overall uncleanliness, the evidence was indeed damning. But in these crimes against her, what part had I played?

“Miss,” said I, “I believe there has been a misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding? No. Misfortune, yes. Of the father to whom I was born!”

She'd come so near that her sharp cheekbones and underbite threatened my neck. I might have presumed that we were about to kiss were it not for the look of her eyes. In them waged a battle between pleading and resentment over having to plead. This iron mask of stubborn pride was a strangely familiar sight.

All at once, I recognized it.

I'd seen it before in mirrors.

This girl was my daughter.

I cried out, an unbidden bleat, and elbowed past her bony arms so that I could bury myself into the fainting couch. That aquiline nose and those patrician cheeks—I admired them because they were my own! That underbite, though, owed its existence to none other than Wilma Sue. It was she who I saw in the girl's beguiling body and cunning face; she I smelled, that aroma of black tea and cheaply laundered sheets; she I tasted in the air, face powder, and fresh rain; and she I touched—only, no, this was not Wilma Sue I touched, it was our spawn, grabbing me by the shoulders, trucking me from one nightmare to the next.

“Leave me be!” demanded I. “Liar! Deceiver! Gorgon!”

“She's dead,” said the girl. “Do not pretend that you care.”

“But I do! I loved her!” Once it was out of my mouth, I believed it. Had it always been true? I tried it again: “I loved her. Yes—I did!”

“You
paid
her. That's not love.”

In the heyday of my carnality, I'd allowed the possibility of impregnating a whore or two, given drunken lapses and the primitive state of prophylactics. But cathouse cabals had methods of addressing such sticky wickets; few prostitutes would be so gauche as to pester the inseminating customer. The idea of having a child? A real, live child? It cudgeled me with confusion, hammered me with panic. I was but seventeen!

I weaseled myself to sitting position. “It wasn't like that. I gave her far more money than required. It was to help her. I was trying to—”

“Is that right? Explain to me how you
helped
her. How you
loved her
so much
. I'd enjoy hearing about that. About everything that you did right.”

“But why in heaven did she not tell me? Why—”

“That I can tell you. I've heard the story a thousand times. She planned to. The last night she saw you, she tried to tell you. But you—”

I pressed my palms over my ears.

“Stop, stop, stop!”

No repetition of denial, regardless of volume, can eclipse a memory that awakes screaming. I was back in Wilma Sue's arctic chamber, bleeding from the head, only this time when she called to me from her warm bed, it was not just for tea but to divulge to me a secret that must have been eating her alive. She was pregnant and knew that it was mine. What did this mean? That she had stopped sleeping with other men. And what did
that
mean? That she trusted me, believed in me, was risking life and livelihood on my reaction. And what had been my reaction?

To run out on her. To vanish. To prove that I was a delinquent punk more interested in cracking skulls for petty cash than forging any relationship beyond the casual. Wilma Sue left because it was the only logical path forward. She was alone and always had been.

Oh, this cloudburst of repellent truths! How long had it been since I'd felt even a twinge of guilt for those whose lives I'd ruined? In a savage minute this wicked girl had reminded me that no one, including you, Dearest Reader, should ever make the mistake of rooting for me.

“How?” begged I. “How did she . . . ?”

“Die? Was it painful? Was it from slow disease? Could it have been prevented had we had any money? Yes, yes, and yes! Would you like me to paint a more colorful picture? The weakness and the sores, the not
sleeping and the total confusion? All of that came well before death.”

“Did you not consult a doctor?”

She struck the pillow next to my head.

“Don't you dare give me advice!” Spittle clung to her lip. “There was the matter of payment, don't you know? Though the doctors were happy enough to offer scoldings while carting away her body.”

“No more. I solicit you.”

“No more—yes, I've tried saying that myself. To those who threw us out of our home. Who wouldn't help her when she was sick. Who wouldn't help me when I was picking through trash on the street. Why else would I come here? There is no one on Earth left for me to beg.”

She craned her neck to take in the ceiling fresco, the gilt metal chandeliers, the etched crystal shades. Such affluence had become banal to me, but I saw the surroundings through desperate eyes. To this girl, each accent of refinement signified money, warmth, food, and safety. The ramifications frightened me.

I could be assured, at least, that so glorious a residence contained pockets of solace where I could mourn my darling Wilma Sue out of range of this virulent woe-bringer. I attempted to stand but the girl crooked her body over mine, her muddy coat flapping like buzzard wings, her claws digging into the cushions. Her bright birdie eyes, I hated to see, were the same as mine.

The “Wanted” poster, Wilma Sue's sole heirloom, crinkled against my ear.

“You owe her, don't you think? But she's gone. I'm the one left behind. So now you owe me. And you're going to pay up. Mr. Mystery. Mr. Jefferson Street. Mr. Zebulon Finch. Or should I call you Aaron?”

X.

W
ILMA SUE HAD NAMED OUR
daughter Merle Ruby Watson. As names go it was sturdy enough, though it was the “Watson” that moved me.
Wilma Sue Watson.
Her full name, I knew it at last. Surely a more alluring one has yet to be concocted—go on, say it aloud. The pronunciation forces the lips and tongue to kiss, gasp, and kiss again.

The four shots blown through me by Pullman Larry were nothing next to the twin impacts of Wilma Sue's death and Merle Ruby's birth. Just as I tried to come to grips with one idea, the other one took me by the throat, as a dog does a rabbit, and gave a killing shake. The wounds therefore remained fresh as I bumbled through breakfast, during which the stoic Mary explained the entire situation to the doctor. I felt like a teenager caught in the act—which, I suppose, I was.

“Some girl off the street? In this house?” Leather was baffled. “Finch, have I taught you nothing? Human offspring carries no more inherent worth than does a beslimed tadpole or fresh spot of fungus. I see no reason to open our doors. Not to mention that there is not one court in the land who would believe you fathered this girl, considering your similar ages.”

Mary's longstanding control over household affairs was nevertheless a difficult token to rescind. After much berating, Leather regarded me across the table as he chewed. I squirmed. His eyes had
of late narrowed to red coals, yet I detected a scintilla of sympathy. If Zebulon was the son, Merle was the granddaughter. Leather would endure her presence for my sake and, by extension, the sake of our experiments.

“For a short time, then,” said he. “
Short.
Indicate, both of you, that you understand.”

He left for the college, whistling Gesualdo for inspiration.

I considered running out the same door.

I considered forcing the girl from the house at knifepoint.

I considered many a malicious reaction. But each confirmed Merle's meanest presumptions—that I was capable of only the most irresponsible of behaviors, and therefore belonged inside this fine home no more than she. Because there was truth in that, and plenty of it, I instead chose to honor Wilma Sue by displaying kindness toward our daughter. Within reason, of course.

Merle had been stashed in a chamber down from the master bedroom. When I dared peek across the threshold, I was greeted by a vision. In place of the scraggly diabolist had materialized a young icon of porcelain skin and cornsilk hair prettily arranged with ribbon, sporting a dress too short for her tall, hungry frame but nonetheless stunning. She was wiping a languid finger along the bureau as if mesmerized by the absence of dust when I pushed open the door.

“You enter a lady's room without invitation?” She gave me an unreadable smile. “How brash of you, Papa.”

I grimaced. What a word! Overnight she had come to accept my impossible youth. Perhaps, in the scheme of her wretched life, it was not the most inconceivable thing she'd encountered.

“Last night you had me at disadvantage,” said I. “Now we shall talk sensibly.”

Merle shrugged and ambled about the chamber, petting this and pawing that, looking for all the world like a princess deciding which items to purchase and have sent back to her castle. With her new clothing had come, it seemed, a new persona.

“Let us get down to it,” said I. “Tell me, for starters, what you want.”

With the kind of jarring movement that was becoming her trademark, she dropped her body to the silken bedsheets and struck a coquettish pose.

“It was the comet!” exclaimed she. “It was a sign.”

“The what?”

“Don't you read the papers? Halley's comet! They say it passes once every seventy-five years. I know, science—what a bore! But this comet came on Sunday night and all the poor people were climbing roofs to see it, and so I did, too, and there it was! A little rider in the sky.”

“Wonderful. May we return to our agenda?”

“It had to be a sign, don't you see? So I told myself to be brave and came to you, and here we are! Do you know what yesterday was?”

“Tuesday. Yet another Tuesday.”

“It was the day we passed through the comet's tail. So! How about that! It was meant to be.”

“Nothing is meant to be. I shall ask again: what is it you want?”

She rolled her eyes.

“You are
such
a father. Nag, nag, nag.”

Before I could raise my voice to compensate for the disquiet brought to me by the f-word, she slithered from the bed and drew herself up to the lancet-arch window, parting the curtains with drama enough for a leading lady. She gasped at the view. Or was the gasp staged? With this girl, it was difficult to tell.

“Why can't we make a life together, Papa?”

“I beg of you to stop calling me that.”

“Oh! I had the most amazing bath this morning, let me tell you all about it!”

“Please do not tell me about your bath.”

“I think this place suits me. Suits both of us.”

“Understand me: none of this is mine.”

She sashayed from the window with a mischievous pout.

“Not yet it isn't.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

To my horror, she patted my cheek with fingers slender and white, but also calloused. The sound was flat and sarcastic.

“I mean only that you are in magnificent shape for a man your age. You might outlive the doctor, his dumb wife, all of them. You never know, this whole place could end up ours.”

I knocked her hand away and she trilled with laughter, twirling away until she happened to catch a glimpse of herself in the boudoir mirror. Her eyes went wide as if seeing the approach of a momentous chocolate cake. She hopped this way and that, preening and primping.

“We could tell everyone we are sister and brother,” said she.

“What?”

“We could be the toast of the town. The papa who looks forever young and his equally sensational daughter.”

“Listen to me. I am engaged at this residence for purposes of work. Important work, if you must know. Furthermore, I cannot be a father. I would not have the first idea of how to behave. I am sorry for that. Believe me, I am. I will speak to Mrs. Leather and see if the family can offer some package of assistance, so that you might begin again in the world amid circumstances more favorable. Would that be agreeable?”

I thought it was an amicable enough speech. But it brought an end to her ballet as rudely as a bucket of cold water. Her arched posture wilted into a self-protective hunch. Her haughty airs floated away to reveal the narrowed eyes and sullen underbite of one used to fighting from a corner. She leaned into the mirror, her harder face an inch from the hard glass, tracing her fingertips across her forehead. Even I could see the finespun wrinkles of a girl who'd spent her young life squinting against driving snow in soup lines, coveting the shopping baskets of the rich while gnawing week-old bread, stealing what she needed to survive only to face down condescending men of authority.

How strange: a crumpling sensation in my chest.

Was this what the living referred to as empathy?

I opened my mouth but was a moment late. Merle drove her fist into the mirror. It exploded into silver daggers. For one second, reflections hung upon the air: raging, red eyes; spinning rose petals of blood; my own face turned to a broken puzzle, each twirl of glass alternating a frozen instant of shock. Glass, then, dropped everywhere, a thousand minuscule explosions, while she remained in her lupine hunker, her fist pumping red streams.

By some primeval instinct I found myself at her side, wrapping a silk sheet around her wounded hand. Merle's torso hitched with dry, raw sobs that I could feel in my very bones—and why? Because I had taken the girl into a full embrace. Her sopping injury was warm and damp, and it reminded me, for a soaring moment, of the painful thrill of actual life. Her blood, after all, was part mine, and in that moment we shared it, assailant and victim, beast and beauty, father and daughter.