The Man in the Tree (24 page)

"What would you have done if it was somebody else?" she asked.
He stepped into the light and showed her the gleam of metal in his
hand. "Boom, boom," he said, grinning around his cigar. "Like to see
my place?"
"All right?'
Pongo's living room was smaller than the other: it was crowded with
furniture and bric-a-brac. The paintings on the walls were of cowboys
and Indians. Beside the sofa was a black leather armchair, obviously
too big for anyone but Gene. In a brass cage nearby, something small
and brown leaped at the bars and stared at her with bright eyes.
"What's that?"
"Marmoset," said Pongo. "His name's Gwendolyn."
"He's cute," she said dubiously. "Does he bite?"
"Like a tiger," said Pongo. "Sit down, have a beer." He poured from a
chilled bottle into a Pilsener glass. The beer was dark; even the foam
was coffee-colored. "Kulmbacher," he said. "You ever have this?"
"No. It's good."
Pongo took a long draught, set his glass down. "You moving out here?"
"I don't think so. Irma told me I could use one of the apartments
upstairs, or else a cottage, but they're too big for one person. I
wouldn't know what to do with a four-bedroom house."
"Might have guests later. You could move in with me."
"Right, and I could do your cooking and cleaning."
"Feed the marmoset," he said. He passed her a bowl of macadamia nuts.
"Pongo, I'm going to get fat as a pig. Can't you serve something lighter
for lunch, or else something not so good?"
He looked pleased. "Maybe. You're not fat yet."
"What does your name mean, Pongo?"
He grimaced. "Monkey."
"Oh."
"He gave it to me. It's all right around here, but if we go to Tampa,
call me Bill, okay?"
"Okay."
She moved into the apartment next to Irma's; her rent was paid for the
rest of the month, but it didn't seem to matter. Irma said, "If you
don't like the furniture, the drapes, anything, go pick out something
you do like -- Gene will pay for it."
"I haven't got time, Irma. Anyway, this is lovely the way it is."
"Working your tail off, aren't you?"
"Well -- if I didn't, I'd feel I was taking the money under false
pretenses."
"I know, but are you getting any sleep?"
"Not much, lately."
"Want some pills?"
"No, I can't use them. It'll be all right."
* * *
Pongo did not cook on weekends; there was a cold buffet for anyone who
wanted it. Sometimes they all drove to Tampa in Gene's enormous motor
home and had dinner at the Columbia, a Spanish restaurant with many
high-ceilinged rooms. They ate behind a potted palm that gave Gene some
protection from curious stares; the management brought out a special chair
for him and !aid a place with his own china and silverware. The chef,
a brown, smiling man named Ruiz, always came to the table afterward for
low-voiced consultations with Pongo and compliments from all the rest.
Margaret did her necessary shopping over the weekend, or drove down to
the public beach and swam, or went to a movie. Often, if she had been
having a bout of insomnia, she simply stayed home, slept late, and lazed
around the house in the afternoon.
One day Anderson came into the living room and found her reading a
paperback novel. He sat down beside her; when she put the book down
on the end table, he picked it up and examined it curiously. The cover
depicted a young woman with pinkish hair and a scoop-necked violet gown
who was being embraced by a young man in a business suit. Their upper
portions were painted with a sort of pasty realism; below the shoulders,
however, they dissolved into a scribble of black and brown over which the
artist had laid a few strokes of moldy green with his palette knife. From
the positions of the two faces it was apparent that the young man was
thrusting his nose into the young lady's left eye-socket. She appeared
to be enjoying this penetration.
"Rebecca West, 'Harriet Hume,'" Anderson read aloud. "This is an old
paperback, isn't it? Where did you get it?"
"At Haslam's, downtown."
"Is it any good?"
"The first twenty pages are really awful, until you start to see what
she's up to."
Anderson laid the book down. "Why did you read the first twenty pages?"
"I'd read 'The Birds Fall Down' by the same author, and it was so good
that I couldn't believe she was being this awful by accident. And she
isn't. It's a work of art."
"If you're awful on purpose, that makes it art?"
"Sometimes. What about Picasso?"
"Good point." He nudged the book with his forefinger and stood up. "Maybe
I ought to read it. Will you put it on my list?"
She did not quite smile; she had done so on Friday.
At the door he turned to look at her. "Don't be too clever, Maggie,"
he said, and was gone.
One day after lunch when Margaret and Irma were lingering over
coffee in the kitchen, the gate signal rang. Irma leaned back to the
intercom. "Yes? Oh, Piet!" In the little screen, Margaret could see
a gray-haired man looking out of a car window. "Come on up, sweetie,
I'll tell Gene you're here." She pressed the gate button. "That's Piet
Linck," she said to Margaret. "He's an old friend." She pressed another
button. "Gene?"
"Yes, Irma."
"Pier is here."
The stocky man who entered a few minutes later was gray all over -- his
tropical suit, his close-cut hair, his eyes. He gave Margaret a measuring
glance when Irma introduced them. His voice was faintly English, but with
a suggestion of an accent she could not identify. He was carrying an
odd-shaped bundle wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine; he put it
down to hug Irma.
Gene came in and the two men shook hands. "Piet, it's good to see you. Sit
down. Irma, can't we give this man some coffee? Where's Pongo?"
"Out in back, Don't get in an uproar," She brought a cup, poured coffee.
"How was your trip?" Gene asked.
"Very good. I had some business to do in Minas Gerais, that was rather
boring, but on the way here I spent four days in Colombia."
"Medellín? Did you see Rodrigo?"
"I did, and he sends his fraternal embraces. By the way; I have a present
for you." He reached down for the bundle on the floor; Irma made room
for it on the table.
Linck opened a pearl-handled pocket knife and began to cut the
cords. Under the brown paper the object was wrapped in newspapers;
Margaret could see Spanish headlines between the strips of tape. Linck
cut the tape, pulled the papers away. Inside was a carving of pale
brown wood, unstained and unvarnished.
"I got this in Cali," said Linck, turning the sculpture for their
inspection. "They make them out of the roots of trees, and whatever
form the roots take, that's what the artist uses. Here, this long loop
becomes the snake biting the man's head, you see. Very ingenious."
"I like it," said Gene, bending close. "My goodness, he got everything in,
didn't he? Here's the magic eye. Here's the book of wisdom. Sort of an
allegory of human evolution, except that it goes from top to bottom --
this guy up here has a tail. Did you get it from the artist?"
"Yes. He is an indio, his name is de La Cruz Saavedra. He wanted six
hundred pesos for it; I pretended to misunderstand him and gave him
double. Then he was happy and I was happy."
"What's it like in Bogota now?"
"Awful." Linck shook his head. "Worse every year. Something very bad
is going to happen there. I stayed there overnight only because I was
invited to a reception at the ambassador's residence."
"The Dutch ambassador?"
"No, the American one. Have you been in that place, Gene? No? It's
amazing. The entrance hall is bigger than your living room, with a rotunda
for a ceiling, and all around this rotunda there are little blue light
bulbs. The reception was for the novelist Eleanor Theil, a very nice
woman, we had an interesting chat. Well, at this reception I also met a
psychiatrist who is interested in occultism. He was flying back to Cali
the next day and he offered me a ride and lunch in his club. The lunch
was rather dull because the doctor wanted to talk about von Daniken,
but afterward I wandered around town, and that's how I found this
carving. Incidentally, I also brought you two small Boteros -- I'll show
them to you later. If you don't want them I have another buyer in mind."
Pongo turned up and helped Linck carry his bags upstairs; it appeared
that he was a frequent house-guest. Now that she had had an opportunity
to study him, Margaret decided that the main impression he gave was one
of sturdy roundness, like an animal's. His hair was brushed close to
his round head; his hands were not plump but rounded, with thick, blunt
fingers. He rarely gestured; his whole aspect was of watchful calm. He
had a way of looking down when he spoke, and then darting a glance at
your face to see how you had reacted. His speech sometimes seemed more
American than British, and at dinner he gave a startling imitation of
a Texan. He did not seem to fit into any model of a foreigner, and that
made her a little uneasy.
After dinner Gene carried him off to his tower room. Several hours later
Linck came into the living room where Margaret was reading. He stood
with his hands in his back pockets, looking around. When she glanced up,
he remarked, "This is an amazing place. It was not finished last time
I was here. Do you find it a little overwhelming?"
"It was at first."
Linck sat down beside her, taking a flat tin box out of his pocket. "Do
you mind if I smoke this?" he asked, showing her the box. In it were
slender brown cigars, hardly bigger than cigarettes.
"No, please go ahead."
"May I offer you one? They are very mild."
She smiled. "No, thank you."
Linck lighted his cigar and sat back, puffing blue smoke. "I believe
I am getting a touch of agoraphobia," he said, with a glance at the
ceiling. Anyhow, it's good that Gene finally has a house built to his
own scale,"
"Have you known him long, Mr. Linck?"
"I met him in Amsterdam, in nineteen sixty-seven. He had some business
with the family firm, and one of the employees told me about him. Then we
did some business, and then we became friends. We have seen each other
I suppose ten or a dozen times in the last twenty years. By the way,
please call me Piet. It is spelled differently, but it sounds the same."
"Piet."
"Piet actually is my middle name; my first name is Coenraad, or Coen
for short, but it is spelled C-o-e-n and pronounced 'coon,' and that
confuses Americans."
"It's too bad people won't take the trouble to get it right.".
He shrugged. "Not many people can manage Dutch noises. I have a friend
named Schildt, he has lived in this country for many years now. He
pronounces it 'Skildt' now, because he says" -- his voice dropped and
became guttural -- " 'Doesn'd id zound like schidt?' "
She laughed, and he smiled for the first time. "Maggie, I hope we will
be friends," he said.
"I hope so too."
Chapter Twenty
-- Con su permiso. The porter wheels up
His cart, dumps litter beside the trash can.
Smiling taxi drivers ask, -- żAmigo? -- Si, amigo.
The telephones demand special coins. The seats
Have been stolen. Children are asleep
Under corrugated cardboard. They wake,
Stand in a circle like football players.
-- żDonde vamos a robar hoy? The particles
Are too small to be seen, a miasma of the mind.
Over the tilted city, in bright sun, the sky is gray.
--Gene Anderson
Next day Gene announced that they were all going to the beach for a
party. After a light lunch Pongo packed a huge picnic hamper; they set out
a little after two in Gene's motor home, drove across the causeway and up
the line of islands, past the funereal row of hotels and condominiums,
to a public easement on Redington Beach, where the sea-front was still
lined with private houses on ample lots. They walked through yucca and
sea-grape and found themselves on a deserted beach. To the south they
could see a few tiny black figures, small as ants; to the north, no one at
all. Almost on the horizon, a white pleasure boat was trudging northward.
Anderson walked through the gentle surf until he was thigh-deep, then
dived and disappeared; they saw him after a few moments stroking out
toward the breakers. A bottle-green wave curved over him; he dived again
and reappeared, a dark moving dot on the white glare.
Margaret and Irma swam nearer shore; Linck and Pongo were still busy
putting up a shelter on four poles near the seawall. The water was only
a little cooler than the air; Margaret felt it as a caressing softness
on her body. When she came out, the sand was hot underfoot and the sun
warm on her head; she was deliciously cool in between. Walking along the
shore with Irma, she saw Anderson coming in with powerful slow strokes. He
rose dripping like Triton, waded ashore, and walked up to the shelter.
Margaret trudged up through the loose sand. Pongo and Linck were in the
water now, Pongo with a mask and flippers snorkeling in the shallows,
and Linck performing a decorous side-stroke farther out. Anderson was
sitting cross-legged in the luminous blue umbra of the shelter. Margaret
sat down on the blanket beside him. "This is so beautiful," she said.
"Yes."
"I still can't get used to the colors, and how clean everything is. It's
like a child's drawing, almost."
"Some people would call it gaudy."
"It seemed that way to me at first, but now when I remember Albany,
I realize how drab it was. All those muddy colors, gray and brown,
and the grit and grime over everything."
Linck came trudging up toward them, his broad gray-haired chest glistening
with moisture. "That was very pleasant," he said, dropping beside them. He
reached over and opened the cooler. "What do we have? Heineken's, all
right." He brought up a bottle with a rustle of ice, offered it. "Maggie?"
"No, thanks. Do we have any Coke?"
"Almost certainly." He handed the bottle to Gene, rummaged in the cooler,
found a Pepsi for Margaret and another beer for himself. "You have chosen
a good place," he said. "It is very beautiful here."
"So Maggie was just telling me."
"How easy it is to know beauty when you see it, and how hard to define."
"Aquinas said that the three requirements for beauty are wholeness,
harmony, and radiance."
"That is in Joyce's 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,' isn't
it?" Linck asked. "Yes. But the Latin is claritas, which is better
translated 'clarity.' "