The Queen and I (4 page)

Chapter Five: If This House Is Rocking …

He had bought this house as part of a greater dream, a dream to become a world famous author who mesmerized the world with his stories of love and betrayal, hope and loss, and the never-ending promise that comes from God.

Inspirational words had moved him, and it was his gift that he wished to share with the entire world. Richard Kearney had always known that he was meant for great things, and his love of God was his medium in which to spread that gift.

His plan was quite simple, like Jesus Christ before him, he would shun all worldly possessions other than what he needed to survive and sustain him. He would seek the salt of the earth to surround himself with and become one with his neighbors and the surrounding country that he ensconced his life in.

It was as if everything was written out for him in a larger, greater plan that he need only follow and not fight in any way. Even when he bought the house, it was at such a below market price that it could only mean that divine intervention had played a large part in his coming into possession of it. And the house was perfect in every way that an aspiring writer could possibly want if he needed to get away from it all and have nothing but peace and quiet so that he or she could concentrate on their epic work.

The community was charming, if not a little eccentric, and everyone seemed to know everyone. He felt welcomed as soon as he arrived. It was as if they were going out of their way to make him feel at home, and they succeeded at every turn.

The house itself was nestled in a stand of fir trees and pines, and there were no distractions other than the morning sounds of scampering chipmunks and rabbits, the clicking sounds of woodpeckers, and the charming song of the male cardinal trying to impress his potential mate. It looked over a glass-calm lake that stretched over two miles wide and five miles long. The lake was said to be over seven hundred feet deep at its greatest depth, and it was spectacular to look at in the morning when the fog rested on its shores until it succumbed to the sun by midday. It really was a perfect house.

There was just one little problem—the singing.

At first, Richard had thought that perhaps a neighbor up the road had been throwing a late-night party and had brought the speakers outside, but the choice of music made no sense at all. Why would anyone be throwing a party that played ballads from Broadway shows like
Fiddler on the Roof
and
The King and I?
It was only when the music seemed to be playing inside the house itself, when he tried sleeping at night, and only continued to get louder the more he searched for the source of the mysterious music that he became mildly concerned.

Finding nothing odd, he actually started to pass it off as nothing more than a little case of cabin fever due to self-imposed isolation, so he made a concerted effort to get out more and mingle with his new community. It seemed to work for a time. The singing stopped, and there were no longer any late-night solos to disturb his sleep.

When he noticed that his shower was running all night, he became only slightly more concerned, but chucked that up to his working very odd hours and being just a bit forgetful. What was wrong with leaving the shower running at night, other than having a larger water bill at the end of the month?

It was when he discovered the notes on his manuscript when he seriously became disturbed and convinced that he was either the butt of a cruel practical joke or something far more menacing.

He tried everything in order to find the source of these clandestine notes by staying up all night in the cover of the kitchen alcove that looked out into the living area where he wrote. For two weeks, he stayed up and saw no one, yet he still found notes written on his work, and the critic was not kind about what he was doing.

Richard finally called in the local sheriff, who kindly dismissed the problem as being nothing more than his imagination getting the better of him and suggested that he go and see a doctor since he was probably walking in his sleep.

The doctors discovered nothing wrong with Richard or any evidence that he was having problems sleeping. Meanwhile, the sightings of odd and disturbing events only continued, and the singing had now moved from the basic choruses of Broadway hits to that of 1920s ragtime music and Jewish folk songs.

He wasn’t sure what had happened to his peaceful utopia that he had created in this little corner of the world, but as the new song that he had learned in the middle of the night suggested,
Those were the days, my friend.

Richard was running out of ways to calm his thoughts and actions. He was becoming increasingly paranoid and even joined a local gym so that he could use their shower, convinced that he was being watched, even ogled, and that made him too uncomfortable to enjoy bathing in his own home anymore.

He tried to reach out to his neighbors, but they, like most of the town, now looked at him only as the strange city boy who was hearing bumps in the night and was probably only looking to exploit their town for his own personal gain. He was without friends and confidants. Even his relationships in New York no longer wanted anything to do with him since he had burnt many bridges en route to his new lifestyle.

Richard went to the local priest who suggested that he give himself to God and that he throw his burdens on his Lord and Savior by approaching him in prayer. This actually seemed to work for a very brief time, since Richard spent a large amount of his time at home praying to the Lord to help him through this trial in his life and the singing, notes, and finding the shower running had stopped. He was convinced that whatever demon had been haunting his existence had left him alone for good, until one night when he prayed before eating, when he finished his prayer, he heard a very low and scratchy voice say, “
Amen.
”

After that, Richard spent the next month living in the local motel, but was forced to leave when the phone kept ringing at all hours of the evening and morning in his room and at the front desk until the motel proprietor asked that he check out immediately and never come back. So, Richard returned to his cabin and did nothing else but drink coffee, smoke more cigarettes than he ever had in his life, and even turned to alcohol to soothe his nerves to the point where he would just pass out. It was better than no sleep at all.

He was a man alone in his little corner of the world; even the animals and birds who visited every morning and afternoon seemed to be avoiding Richard and his home as some kind of dark and terrible place that nothing could possibly survive of this world. He felt his life slowly slipping away, and he had no way to fight what was happening to him.

All of the torment paled in comparison to what eventually happened that caused him to lose what was left of his will to stay in the house and pursue his dream of one day becoming an author.

He was alone in the cabin, after just finishing his dinner and cleaning the dishes, when he poured himself a drink and went to the porch that looked out over the lake. His hopes were that the soothing effects of the sunset on his soul would somehow magically help him to cleanse whatever evil had been tormenting him for these past months, and maybe, just maybe, he could have a calm and peaceful evening.

His hopes of peace and quiet quickly vanished when he walked to one of the chaise chairs on his porch. When he sat down, he distinctly heard that same deep, scratchy voice say, “
Oy, try a salad!
”

That was the proverbial straw for Richard, and he wasted no time at all gathering his things and moving back to the city. He contacted the real estate agent who sold him the house and demanded that she put it back on the market. He cared nothing as to whether or not he made any money back on his investment, he just wanted to be done with the entire enterprise and return to his former life.

His dream of becoming a motivational author who used the teachings of God to inspire others was gone, his clean lifestyle was replaced by that of heavy drinking and personal debauchery, and he swore that he would
never
return to upstate New York again.

The house quickly became the stuff of local legend. Some of the town’s residents even started looking into the prospects of selling t-shirts and maybe even buying the first certified haunted house in the area, hoping to attract tourists.

They were too late. Two days before the town council passed a resolution to purchase the property, another New York author purchased the house for far below market value and had already had his personal effects delivered.

The town welcomed him as they did everyone else, but secretly they were taking bets on how long this one would last.

Chapter Six: Betrayal

The time away was exactly what Jeffrey needed. It had been years since he had gotten away from the city, and he and Rachel had never been on a vacation together in the five years that they had been a couple; one of the problems of two workaholics seeing each other.

They could have gone anywhere they wished, but decided on a place where he would not likely be recognized and somewhere where Rachel’s beauty would not draw too much attention, so they decided on the tiny island of Curaçao.

It was ideal due to the fact that it was not as popular a destination as its sister island, Aruba, and also because it was a Dutch colony, so it was not likely that the cold disposition of the Dutch citizens on vacation would bother anyone other than the servants, whom they treated much in the same way that the apartheid government had operated in South Africa, and with all of the topless sunbathers, Rachel could go unnoticed.

Jeffrey rented a house for an entire month, and Rachel convinced him that she would have to do some light work while they were on the island so as not to lose out on any scoops regarding what was happening in the Broadway scene. They swam in the azure water, walked along the beach, tasted the local cuisine, and made passionate love almost every night. This was an emotional joining together for the two of them, and it was only confirmed that Jeffrey was hopelessly in love with Rachel, but he was still unsure about her true feelings for him.

Her heart always was into the lovemaking, and she gave her undivided attention to him when he spoke, but there was something missing when they were alone that left him feeling empty, and he wasn’t quite sure how to label that emotion.

Jeffrey had never thought that he would want to marry anyone at all, but when he was with Rachel, he felt like he was safe and at home. It was a sensation unlike any other that he had ever experienced with another human being, and he both loved and feared it at the same time. He thought about bringing up the possibility of the two of them marrying while here on the island, but knew that he would be going forward with a very large risk.

He knew that she loved him and that he was her only romantic interest, but Rachel had a way of flirting with business associates and industry power brokers that sometimes made him uncomfortable. He tried to hide his feelings about this for fear that she would see him as being self-conscious and weak, but he also knew that if he were going to try to move forward with their relationship, he was going to have to lay all of his concerns on the table.

As he looked across the table at her perfect features and those dazzling sea-green eyes, he could only hope that she would respond the way he hoped before he asked her what he had wanted to since they arrived on the island.

* * *

Jacob and Mendel got to work almost immediately on rewriting
Ghetto Mishegas
into Henry’s dream play of
Kristallnacht and Noel
. Jacob felt no remorse at all for what he was doing, and that surprised him a bit. He and Jeffrey had been through much together, and he considered Jeffrey a friend, but friends do not hold other friends back and stifle their creative dreams the way that Jeffrey had done to Jacob.

While it was true that Jacob had never actually come to Jeffrey with an idea for a play of his own, it was very true that Jeffrey was self-absorbed with his own work and had Jacob conduct the menial labor that he had been hired for. Not once did Jeffrey ask him if he had any dreams or ideas, not once did he ask him to proofread a passage of a play that he was writing, and never did Jeffrey ever tell Jacob that he was doing a good job.

What Jacob was doing was payback for his mistreatment over the years, and his former employer would soon realize the dire mistake he had made.

With Mendel at his side, Jacob was a writing machine, and the rewrite was going as well as any venture Jacob had ever undertaken. The words came to him rapidly, the scenes painting pictures in his mind’s eye, and he felt as if the great playwrights of all time were guiding his pen.

Mendel was a motivator by compliment, but he sometimes threw a little fear into the mix. Jacob was not entirely comfortable around the odd little man, but he was making the best of it. When Jeffrey finally found out what was going on, he would certainly want to speak to Jacob face-to-face, and it would be good to have a man like Mendel Fujikawa in his corner.

The two of them had worked out a perfect operating system according to Mendel. Jacob was the mind that would rewrite the play, and Mendel would take care of the unconditional love and downright brutality necessary to inspire the aspiring playwright to get his work done in a timely manner.

One moment, Mendel could be as complimentary as any man could be to another, and the next he was threatening to tie Jacob to the bed and introduce him to his rare collection of Ben Wa balls. Where at any given point in the evening, Mendel could sneak up behind Jacob and gently rub the other’s neck, making him feel uncomfortable, the next he shouted at him over what he deemed to be a mistake in the script and threatened to put out his cigarette on Jacob’s earlobe.

Occasionally, Mendel regaled Jacob with tales of how he tortured playwrights who disappointed him and what pleasure he took in such activities; other times he told him the difference between a black man and a Jewish man in the bedroom. What was odd was that both scenarios seemed to excite Mendel in the same exact way. His eyes sparkled with an evil happiness when he spoke about fellatio as much as when he talked about where the optimal place was to stick a chimney bellows in the human anatomy. This, coupled with the pet names Mendel assigned to Jacob on a daily basis, made for an increasingly uncomfortable working environment that only motivated the aspiring author to finish as quickly as possible.

Two weeks into the rewrite and Jacob was convinced he had completed the play that Heinrich Schultz had dreamt of and that Mendel Fujikawa was hired to see finished.

“I think we got it, Mendel,” Jacob said happily.

“Ah, ah, ahh!” Mendel said, shaking his head no. “What do we say pupchick?”

Jacob shook his head and lowered it before answering, “I think we’re done Marquis Fuji-san.”

“Ah, much better, let me see, my little dim sum.”

Jacob handed the manuscript to Mendel, who dramatically began thumbing through the pages much the same way he did when they had first met, and he chuckled to himself as he came across a particularly funny passage.

“O-M-G! Chanukah Bush! I love that. Did you make that up?”

“It’s something that Jews joke about; I thought it would be funny.”

“Not as funny as this Holocaust stuff. Did you make that up too?”

“No, that actually happened.”

“Really? How did I ever miss that?” Mendel threw his hands in the air and said, “
C’est la vie
.”

Mendel walked toward the window looking over the East River and immediately called Henry to inform him that the play was done.

“By all means, my dear Heinrich, make the announcement that your dream play is coming to the stage and make sure that you name the playwright when you do it. It will hurt our mutual friend that much more while he’s away on his vacation.”

* * *

The sky was an explosion of color, and the spectrum of light shimmering on the calm ocean outside of Jeffrey’s window left him in awe and convinced him that there had to be a grand Creator who loved us very much. As he looked over at Rachel, he was reminded of how much he had grown to love her over the years, and this time away from his work and the city had just proved to reinforce those feelings in his heart. He was sure that this was the time to bring up the inevitable question that would determine their futures together.

“You know I love you Rachel, right?”

“You’re sweet,” she answered and took a sip of her powder-blue rum cocktail.

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do, I’m just not the say-so type.”

“It’s nice to hear every now and then, though.”

Rachel looked at Jeffrey with a slightly put upon expression and asked, “What is this?”

Jeffrey shook his head innocently and answered, “I’m just trying to share my feelings. I don’t think we do that enough. I mean, don’t you ever think about our future?”

“All the time, why do you think I’m here?”

“Well, I figured that …”

Rachel’s phone rang, and she quickly raised one finger and mouthed,
I have to take this.

Jeffrey acknowledged her with the wave of his hand and sat back to admire what was left of the sunset. Maybe he was mistaken about his feelings for this woman whom he thought he loved, maybe it was a relationship of convenience and not intimacy, and perhaps he needed to reevaluate his life a bit more before making any decisions as important as this one.

“What?! What!?” Rachel screamed into the phone. “When is this happening? Who is the backer? No! Do nothing; I’m on my way right now. We’ll be back tomorrow.”

Jeffrey was slightly concerned at Rachel’s explosion into the phone and curious about what could have possibly rattled her in such a way.

“Vacation’s over, Jeffrey. We have major problems.”