The Genie of Sutton Place (2 page)

“I see,” said Mr. Watkins. “Then Lulu might be said to be bait for the spirits.”

“That's exactly right!” She didn't get it that Mr. Watkins was making fun of her. Madame Sosostris is a serious medium. She may read a palm now and then, but she doesn't do dopey things like feeling the bumps on a person's head to tell his future, or—worst of all, like some fakes—reading the soles of a person's feet.

“I'll go on with the reading of the will of the late Lorenzo Farr. He died, as we all know—and rather needlessly, I'm afraid—”

Daddy died when the tomb he was excavating collapsed on him. He was looking for some very important inscriptions. And it was
not
needless! Archaeology is important.

“—in an unfortunate accident in Mesopotamia. I now read his will. ‘I, Lorenzo Farr, being of sound mind and body—'” His nose did its thing.

Now I have to interrupt the reading myself. And tell you about Lorenzo. A lot of people did think he was
not
of sound mind. Although everyone would have to agree that his body, though small, was strong, and his face was happy and handsome, too. The reason people like Mr. Watkins sniff when they talk about Lorenzo is that after working five years with Grampa Lorenzo, getting ready to inherit the business, Lorenzo just quit and began to study the Occult Sciences. That's what he'd been interested in all along. Of course nowadays everybody “drops out.” It's the thing to do. But I remember one day when Lorenzo and Madame Sosostris and I were making pancakes, and Lorenzo said, “I'm the original dropout.” And Madame Sosostris—it was the Occult Sciences, a mutual interest, that brought them together—said, “Lorenzo, you didn't drop out, you dropped
in!
Right into just what you wanted to do. I hope it sets a trend.” It may have, too.

Mr. Watkins went on with the reading. “‘—do hereby declare that this is my last will and testament. In recognition of our many years of friendship and her continuous help and kindness in rearing my young son, Timothy, I leave to my colleague Madame Sosostris my Ummayad astrolabe—'” That's something for figuring out the stars. The Ummayads were a dynasty of Arab kings. Lorenzo was very interested in everything Arabian. Thank goodness! “‘—and my Tang dynasty divining rod—'” That came from China—“‘knowing how much she has always admired these instruments and hoping that they may assist her in every possible way.'”

Right there Madame Sosostris began to cry, but quietly. I'm glad she did, too. The reading of a will is a sad time, and I didn't want to start crying, too.

Mr. Watkins went on: “‘To my son, Timothy, I leave all the rest of my worldly goods, which consist chiefly of my books, the priceless records of many years devoted to the pursuit of the Occult Sciences. They contain many wonders and may provide unexpected assistance for him.'”

I almost stopped feeling sad when I heard that. Lorenzo's books were
mine!
Oh, those books! They were up on shelves all around the séance room. Hundreds! And they ranged all the way from fictional ghost stories to very serious scientific stuff—way over my head—like the studies in extrasensory perception that they're doing down at Duke University. In between there were medieval treatises on alchemy, and German studies of poltergeists, and French books about possession, and most valuable of all—Lorenzo's diary of the years he spent traveling in Europe after he dropped out of Grampa Lorenzo's business. Even if I didn't get a lot of what was in those books, they've always been magical for me. It made my heart jiggle to browse through them.

More reading: “‘I wish that I had a larger legacy to bequeath to my son, since among all the discoveries I have made, the most marvelous, most magical, and the best beloved has been Timothy himself.'”

At this point I was bawling along with Madame Sosostris. Aunt Lucy was sitting next to me, and she reached out and took my hand. It was awkward, the way she did it—she didn't know how to squeeze hands yet—but she meant well, anyway.

“‘To my sister, Lucy, whom—to my sorrow—I've seen so little in recent years, I leave my love, undiminished since our childhood—'” I think Lorenzo put that in because he wanted Aunt Lucy to know that he didn't stop loving her just because Grampa Lorenzo disinherited him when he left the business and left all the money and the Sutton Place apartment and the car and Maurice to her when he died—“‘and I also leave the heartfelt wish that, should anything befall me, she may watch over my boy and stand in the place of a parent to him.'”

I was assuming that meant she would keep me in food and clothes, but it brought another squeeze from Aunt Lucy.

“‘Finally,'” Mr. Watkins concluded, “‘to Timmy I also leave the custody of our dear friend Sam—'” Under the table, when he heard his own name, Sam began to wag his tail on my foot. I looked down, and Sam was smiling. Some dogs
can
smile, you know—grin, sort of—and Sam's smile, in its own animal way, was just as beautiful as Dooley's—“‘a soul so dear to my young son, and so loving, that I am inclined to the view that in some previous incarnation he was much more than a dog to him.' Well, really!” Mr. Watkins took off his spectacles, readjusted his nose, and began to put his papers back into his briefcase. That “well, really” was pure Watkins and
not
from my father's will.

Aunt Lucy bumbled into the silence that followed. “Uh—is that all?”

“I should think that was quite enough!” said Mr. Watkins. But then he got hooked on the humanity in him, too. He saw the bad shape that I still was in, his eyes kind of winced, and he said, “You're a very lucky young lady, Lucy, to gain the custody of such a handsome chap. Considering the bizarre upbringing he's had.”

Now, about my “bizarre upbringing”—before I tell you how that word “custody” dried my eyes like fire and made me begin to panic …

My years up to then were things like these. On a day last January it was snowing outside. Suddenly Lorenzo threw down his copy of
The New York Times
and shouted, “Okay! Everybody into heavy clothes! We're going bicycle riding!” Madame Sosostris and I groaned, “No!” but we knew it wouldn't do any good. When Lorenzo got enthused like that, there wasn't any stopping him. So out we went and wheeled around the Battery and all lower Manhattan. While the snow wheeled around the three of us. Then—Lorenzo must have guessed it was ending—while everyone else was getting up the energy to shovel their sidewalks, the sun came out in the last part of the afternoon, and we had the whole white world to ourselves.

And another time, two summers ago: one hot August morning we were all getting ready to go to the beach when Lorenzo decided, “Nope! The National Museum!” I was really mad that time, because I
do
like to swim. But by the end of the afternoon, by the time Lorenzo had talked the guard into letting us stay an extra ten minutes in the Near Eastern wing, I'd forgotten all about the beach … To think, we were right next to the room of rooms—the Al-Hazred room … If I'd known that then …

One more thing only—and not magic or kooky bicycle riding either. It's how I learned to cook. One night Lorenzo said, “I'd like some pancakes.” Naturally I said, “So would I.” “Then go make them,” said Lorenzo. “There's a cook book over the kitchen sink.” So, to my nervousness, I did. And, believe me, they were
awful!
Much too thick and starchy. For the first batch Lorenzo and Madame Sosostris had to pretend like mad. Then he took over, and none of us had to pretend at all.

So if that's a “bizarre upbringing,” I just wish everybody could enjoy their own as much.

But all the time those good memories of Lorenzo were going through my mind, warming it up, that word “custody” was in there, too, freezing it! Custody is something orphans and criminals get taken into. I don't know how a criminal feels when he hears he's in custody, but
I
knew the worst. Nobody said anything, but all of a sudden the séance room was full of the fact that I was going to have to leave Madame Sosostris and go live with Aunt Lucy.

At first I was just plain scared, and I tried to think how I could stop it all from happening. No way. I was going to say something dopey, like that Daddy had said I should take care of Madame Sosostris while he was away excavating, and that she should take care of me—but no way. I gave up on all that and started to be rational and cook up a reason to come down and see Madame Sosostris. Every day, if I could.

While I was plotting what I thought was a pretty good idea, the others were talking. I half-heard Aunt Lucy say something about how fortunate it was that the school year had just ended, so that I'd have the summer before beginning a new school in the fall.

Madame Sosostris shot me a glance—half worry and half fun—and said, “Oh, Tim's very bright. He won't have any trouble.” She knew I hadn't been to school for ages. It was so dull, and the things I was learning there were so stupid that I just sort of phased out about two years ago. That's when my education began. “He can even read Latin,” said Madame Sosostris.

“Why, that's wonderful!” exclaimed Aunt Lucy.

One day Lorenzo was translating a juicy section from a treatise on alchemy by Paracelsus. Abruptly he stopped and said, “There's no reason why I should be doing this.” That minute he started to teach me Latin.

“Darn good at arithmetic, too!” said Madame Sosostris.

She and Lorenzo had had to go to an auction, and as they were going out the door, she casually called back, “Mind the store, Tim.” By the time they got back, I could make change like anything. And that involves addition, subtraction, and all that stuff. I was lucky, though, that afternoon. We had very nice customers and nobody tried to gyp me.

“Has he been exposed to the new math?” said Mr. Watkins.

I was going to say that as a matter of fact I hadn't been exposed to the new math, but I'd had on-the-job training in finance and economics, but I decided he'd just think that I was some smarty-pants kid, so I shut up.

The talk hemmed and hawed for a while longer, and then there came a dead moment when everyone knew it was time for me and Aunt Lucy and Mr. Watkins to leave.

“Well, Timmy, I think perhaps you'd better get your things,” Aunt Lucy said quietly.

“All right,” I answered, very cool. Because by then I had my plan. I went up to my bedroom and packed.

It's very hard to describe my bedroom down there, because it never stayed the same. The only things that didn't change were the bed and the bookcase. All the rest of the furniture was things that Madame Sosostris didn't have room for yet in the shop downstairs. And when she did—a new table, a new chair, a new everything! I liked it. The changes made life interesting.

I stuffed my clothes in my suitcase and put my two favorite kids' books on top of them:
The Hobbit
and
The Wizard of Oz.
I was sure I could take at least them without interfering with the plan. Then I went downstairs.

Oh—very important—I also brought the Good-Luck Devil from Borneo—a little statuette with a fierce but intelligent face. He certainly didn't live up to his reputation for bringing good luck, but I loved him and I wanted him with me.

Everybody was in that dithery state when you're getting ready to say goodbye. A good time to spring my idea, I decided. “Madame Sosostris,” I said, “would you mind if I left Lorenzo's books down here for a while? There's really an awful lot of them, and I don't know whether they'd fit in Aunt Lucy's apartment.”

“Why, I've plenty of room—” Aunt Lucy began.

But Madame Sosostris, who caught on right away, interrupted. “Sure, Tim. As a matter of fact, I'd like to look them over myself. And if you ever want one,” she added nonchalantly, “you can come down and pick it up any time. That would be okay with you, Miss Farr, wouldn't it?—not to have these dusty old books around?”

With many nods and smiles—especially between me and Madame S.—it all was agreed upon. So at least the plan worked.

Then the march through the shop to the car began.

Except that Sam, being his bumbly self in those days, had to interrupt it. At the door to the séance room he stepped on another button. The Fiendish Laughter rang out—pretty squawkily, I thought. Madame Sosostris apologized, and received a sniff and an understanding smile from Mr. Watkins and Aunt Lucy.

Sam's setting off the Fiendish Laughter made Mr. Watkins edgy. He said to Aunt Lucy, in the voice that grownups use when they don't want to be overheard by children, even when the child is standing right there beside them, “You are really going to take that mutt up to your apartment, Lucy?”

And Aunt Lucy, in the same fake voice, said, “Well, of course, Henry. It's his
dog!
”

The things that grownups don't know. Kids listen. And they
think.

We arrived at the car. Maurice opened the door officiously.

We pretended we were cool and easy, but all of us knew we were all uptight …

The best thing was to get it over with quickly.

I said, “Madame Sosostris, you better get some new Fiendish Laughter. The old laughter's wearing out.”

At that point so was mine.

3

Worse Yet

The drive uptown to Sutton Place took nearly an hour. Traffic. I love New York, but I hate the cars. But what is New York without the cars?… It's a problem for everybody, I guess.

The three of us were sitting in the back seat—Sam, Aunt Lucy, and me. I sat in the middle and let Sam have the window, because I knew he was going to enjoy the ride a lot more than I was. Mr. Watkins was up front with Maurice. He said he was going to “jump off” at his office on Third Avenue and Forty-first Street. Their two heads looked sort of alike up there.