The Judas Glass (37 page)

“You have done so much to help us,” said Rebecca.

“The mirror doesn't matter,” said Dr. Opal. “Your brother, all your ancestors—they are shadows, now. What happened to you, Richard, has something to do with you. With your own soul.”

Part Five

Who would have thought my shrivel'd heart

Could have recover'd greennesse?

George Herbert
, “The Flower”

56

Sometimes a recording preserves more than the concerto. When the first violin peels back a page of sheet music and the paper does not turn easily, that rustling sound, that absence of background silence, is recorded, too.

Sometimes the sound of the pianist's breathing is made permanent along with the nocturne. If one listens closely to the product of a fine recording studio, there is often the sound of inhalation, exhalation, and even more—the fabric of a sleeve, the tick of a fingernail, the etude interwoven with the quiet presence of the body.

It was easy to find our way across the water. Flight can be like inhaling the distant shore, breathing in until the destination is deep within the lungs.

We paused in the garden of my former dwelling, and as I surveyed the house from the darkness I was aware of Rebecca's breath. The sky was clear, and the wind was shifting; a warm, dry breeze came from inland. I had never loved the sky as I did now. The Big Dipper balanced on its handle in the Northeast.

Every light in the house was on. A tiny galleon, a snail made way across a stepping-stone. The handle of a trowel thrust upward from between the branches of the daphne. “This is where you lived?” Rebecca asked.

“We always had trouble with the back lawn. The poplar tree had these immense roots—see, that's where the power mower barked the roots every time I mowed the grass.”

Rebecca touched the white navel of a holly bush where a branch had been snipped. “Connie was always a firm believer in the pruning shear,” I said.

“You said she was living with Steve.”

“Connie's full of surprises.”

“Don't be afraid, Richard.”

I wanted to tell her that I was not afraid of anything.
I'll find the mirror, and bring it
—

Bring it where? We had not lied to each other any more than we had to. Without admitting it to myself, I knew what was about to happen. This was why I didn't want to leave her, in the place where, if there had been a sun, the shadow of the poplar would fall.

“I used to stroll from room to room at night,” I said, “making sure windows were locked, enjoying the place. But I was anxious without being aware of it. I knew there were thieves, earthquakes.”

She said, “I'll go see my parents.”

I didn't say,
I'll meet you here, under this tree. I'll meet you at the cemetery. I'll find you wherever you are
.

Isn't this everyone's favorite time of night, early evening, rooms lit, curtains, the corner of a chair, the edge of a painting on the wall all anyone can see from the dark?

Rebecca had perfected the act of vanishing. She took a breath, and then I was alone. We both knew, and yet we both deliberately silenced our farewell, saying nothing.

How full of promise life seems when you stand like this, looking in.

Connie was always leaving her gardening sneakers by the back door, a jacket on the back of a kitchen chair, her purse on the breakfast table, right next to the basket of Balinese wooden apples.

I held her wallet in my hand, loving its familiarity. A folded piece of paper was thrust into the coin compartment, a receipt from a Shell station.

I enjoyed the sounds of the house I had lived in, the thrum of the refrigerator. It was one of the latest, energy-efficient models. After a week we wouldn't even notice the whirring, gurgling noises it makes, the salesclerk had assured us with a smile. If anything, the fridge had developed a new whine over the months, as though its interior was manufacturing food, not keeping it cold.

At first I couldn't see her. She was sitting in her wooden armchair, watching television with the sound off, an ad for
The Greatest Music of All Time
, ten compact disks.

I said her name, very softly.

She stood, putting out a hand to keep the chair from tumbling. A large bandage covered her right eye. “Jesus!”

She wavered, and I expected her to faint.

But she didn't. She turned her head slightly, side to side, trying to get a better look at me. She didn't speak for a very long moment, leaves pattering against the front window, a gust of wind.

“They told me you wouldn't come here,” she said. “They swore it was out of the question.”

“What happened to your eye?”

She touched the white adhesive, the pad of white gauze. “They told me they had you right where they wanted you. I used to wonder why women fainted. I thought it was a way of attracting attention to yourself. Jesus, I might throw up. I have to sit down.”

“I wasn't even sure you'd be home.” This was not the complete truth. I had sensed her presence as I entered the house, and even now I could feel the heat of her body, the new brand of perfume she had dabbed below each ear.

Connie did not sit down. She found the remote lying on a catalog of Turkish carpets, using it to keep the pages flat. She turned off the television after a few tries. The catalog stayed open, brilliant sheets of color. “Joe Timm swore this was the last place you'd show up.”

“What happened to all your—” I tried to find the right word. “Wonderful artifacts?”

“My stuff.” She shrugged. “Long story. I had too much money in wood and fiber. Nobody wanted it. People looked at a big balsawood head and they'd think—superstition. They'd think—bad magic Metals are popular suddenly. Gold, and rocks. Gems.”

“And glass,” I said.

“Frankly, I'm not even dealing in stone statuettes right now. I'm keeping more money in cash. Staying liquid. You know what I'd like to do? I feel like calling Joe Timm on the phone and saying, here, there's somebody I want you to talk to.”

“We both own this house,” I said. “It's only right for me to drop by. What happened to Larkin?”

She didn't want to say. “The pet shop python ate him. I didn't stand around to watch.”

I was troubled by this news.

“I have to do all the thinking myself. I have to decide to get out of Ivory Coast dyed cottons and into Navajo turquoise and nobody can advise me. I have to be smart all the time. Joe Timm should retire.”

“You haven't sold the house or anything, have you?”

“Joe Timm said they'd—” She buttoned her dressing gown. “He said they'd catch you and—I think his phrase was ‘render them both helpless.' He was so sure of himself.”

“Are you in pain?”

“Richard, my life is in such ruins that it's a joke.”

There was a whisper upstairs, someone crossing the floor. “You and Steve aren't getting along?” I asked.

“Steve?” As if he was someone she could barely remember. “Poor Steve.”

“He isn't working out so well?”

“Steve is terrified.”

“He's always been a little nervous,” I offered, just to keep her talking. Steve might be listening to us, pacing the floor upstairs, although there was something about the tread that crossed and recrossed the floor that seemed careless, even happy, someone busy packing or taking an inventory. I tried to reach into the recesses of the house with my mind, but there was something impenetrable about the person upstairs.

“Maybe you could say he was a little nervous,” Connie agreed. “Like a hamster in a snake's cage. He doesn't want to be associated with me because of you.”

“But you're going to have a baby—”

“I have to look at my plans. I might have the baby, I might not. Don't look at me like that.
You
never wanted children.”

I was wrong
. “What happened to your eye?”

“I scratched it gardening,” she said with a whimsical sulkiness I used to find appealing. “A daphne twig. Damaged my cornea. It'll heal in a week or so. Why are you here?”

This was my chance. I could be frank. I could tell the truth. “I want the mirror.”

I could see her sort through the possible responses. She could play dumb,
what mirror?
She could keep her mouth shut.

“Language is always a little bit of a lie, Connie. When I say
man
you picture one thing—Steve, say—and I picture George Washington, Abraham Lincoln. Well, someone else. It's very imprecise, language. If you take a hard look at it you realize it doesn't mean very much at all.”

“My other eye weeps sympathetically. I can't see very well.”

“Even if you tell me it's up in the attic, where you always hide things you really want to keep, I might not quite understand what you mean. I might not remember that what you call an attic is just a crawl space with insulation stapled to the studs.”

“It's Belgian,” she said. “From Ghent.”

“Really.”

“It's the frame that makes it so valuable, that and the fact that it represents the best work of a firm that perfected the silvering technique. Actually,
silvering
is a misleading word. It was the cause of death for many of the craftsmen. They developed mercury poisoning and turned blue and had permanent nerve damage. They inhaled the paint they applied to the glass.”

“How unpleasant.”

“There isn't another mirror like it in North America. But if you think there's anything ghastly about the mirror, forget it. I had it examined at the lab that restored the Toulouse-Lautrec etchings, the one that bleached out all the mildew. I thought there might be a mummified face or some ancient blood behind the mirror, or mixed in with the amalgam. I was terrified of it, if you want to know the truth. And there's nothing. It's just a framed mirror and I wanted to keep it.”

“You weren't afraid of cutting yourself?”

“Of course I was. But when I
did
and nothing happened I realized I could continue to own the mirror with impunity. Besides, Richard, maybe I gave the mirror to Rebecca Pennant's family. Maybe her brother has it in Crescent City, after all. I was always able to lie to you pretty well. What makes you think you can see through me now?”

“You cut your finger?”

“Yes, look.”

There was a fine nick in one knuckle, a tiny smiling mouth. “I almost had a heart attack. I'm on tranquilizers, Richard. Stella Cameron told me about them. Better than Prozac, the new—”

“What makes the frame so valuable?”

“It's made of Mediterranean briar, the same root they make tobacco pipes out of. It's a very hard wood, fine grained, a very rare root.”

“A root.”

“Yes, like root beer. Please sit down.”

“You're lying to me, Connie.”

“I want to do the right thing,” she said, pleadingly. “I can't stand here and be frank with you, Richard. My heart is pounding. I feel sick.”

“I'm going upstairs to get it.”

“All right, take it. That's what you want, you'll take it no matter what I do. I'm helpless. We're all helpless. What's it like, Richard, being right all the time, and unstoppable?” She said it sarcastically, as though it was not true.

I said, “I didn't want to upset you.”

“Do you think people want to buy a Taiwanese tiki from somebody who used to be married to you?”

“We're
still
married, aren't we?”

“Jesus,” she said, “it's a wonder I don't black out.”

“Who's upstairs?”

“I used to do okay with Bedouin silver, but I wouldn't touch the obvious stuff, Richard. Everybody sells gold watches that haven't ticked in eighty years. Everybody sells those little coral cameos, Greek goddesses to keep your collar from hanging open. Anyone can make money selling Confederate battle flags. I was something different. I was
special
. I was a dealer in
exotica
, Richard, and you've ruined me.”

“Is Steve upstairs?”

“There's no one upstairs.”

“You didn't have a lab examine the mirror,” I said. “You knew it was precious, worth more than all the other imports you ever owned put together. You never asked where it came from or tried to trace it. You stowed it in the roof and prayed nobody would ever ask for it.”

“They did ask.”

“And you lied. You told them you didn't know what happened to it. Why weren't you afraid?”

She held one hand over her bandaged eye. “I
deserved
it. It was rare and it came to my house and it was mine. You know it's true, Richard. If a package is delivered to a residence it belongs to the receiver, even if it's all a mistake.”

“The
recipient
. It wasn't a mistake. Someone sent it to me.”

“How was it labeled?”

It was addressed to me
. But I couldn't say it. Because I was not certain.

She said, “Maybe I ordered the mirror from Paris.”

“It wasn't like an international package. No foam rubber, no padding. It was just—”

“It's mine.”

“You didn't cut yourself on the mirror,” I said. “It's not from Ghent. You don't know anything about it.”

“It belongs to me. Go ahead and steal it. Why not? You get everything else you want.”

“It's dangerous.” I wanted to say
evil
. “Why do you want such a thing?”

“You know why.”

“No, Connie, forgive me, but I stand here completely mystified.”

“Because I come from Turlock, California, something you used to remind me of every chance you could. When I was a girl I used to think the best part of the week was when we washed all our cars. We'd soap them up and hose them off, and I was in charge of wiping them down, getting all the drops of water off before they dried to little white zits. That's how I grew up. Looking forward to Sunday afternoon pickup truck washing, when we'd all join in, the whole family. I was a simple person, and I wanted to be special. And I was.”