'Shampoo.' I found the bottle and passed it to him. He began lathering his head. 'Do you believe in absolute good and evil?'
'No,' I said.
'Me neither. Know what I believe in? Seeing and not seeing. Understanding and ignorance. Imagination and absence of imagination.' The cap of shampoo looked like a bulging wig. 'There. I've just compressed at least sixty years of reflection. Did it make any sense?'
I said it did.
'Guess again. There's a lot more to it.'
Even in his ruined state, Alan Brookner was like Eliza Morgan, a person who could remind you of the magnificence of the human race. He dunked his head under the water and came up sputtering. 'Need five seconds of shower.' He leaned forward to open the drain. 'Let me get myself up.' He levered himself upright, pulled the shower curtain across the tub, and turned on the water. After testing the temperature, he diverted the water to the shower and gasped when it exploded down on him. After a few seconds, he turned it off and yanked the shower curtain open. He was pink and white and steaming. 'Towel.' He pointed at the rack. 'I have a plan.'
'So do I,' I said, handing him the towel.
'You go first.'
'You said you have some money?'
He nodded.
'In a checking account?'
'Some of it.'
'Let me call a cleaning service. I'll do some of the initial work so they won't run away screaming as soon as they step into the house, but you have to get this place cleaned up, Alan.'
'Fine, sure,' he said, winding the towel around himself.
'And if you can afford it, someone ought to come in for a couple of hours a day to cook and take care of things for you.'
'I'll think about that,' he said. 'I want you to go downstairs and call Dahlgren Florist on Berlin Avenue and order two wreaths.' He spelled Dahlgren for me. 'I don't care if they cost a hundred bucks apiece. Have one delivered to Trott Brothers, and the other one here.'
'And I'll try the cleaning services.'
He tossed the towel toward the rack and walked on stiff legs out of the bathroom, for the moment completely in command of himself. He got into the hall and turned around slowly. I thought he couldn't remember the way to his own bedroom. 'By the way,' he said. 'While you're at it, call a lawn service, too.'
I went downstairs and left messages for the cleaning and lawn services to call me at John's house and then got another garbage bag and picked up most of the debris on the living room floor. I phoned the florist on Berlin Avenue and placed Alan's orders for two wreaths, and then called the private duty nursing registry and asked if Eliza Morgan was free to begin work on Monday morning. I dumped the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, swearing to myself that this was the last time I was going to do Alan Brookner's housekeeping.
When I went back upstairs, he was sitting on his bed, trying to wrestle his way into a white dress shirt. His hair swirled around his head.
Like a child, he held out his arms, and I straightened the sleeves and pulled the two halves of the front together. I started buttoning it up. 'Get the charcoal gray suit out of the closet,' he said.
I got his legs into the trousers and took black silk socks out of a drawer. Alan slammed his feet into a pair of old black wing-tips and tied them neatly and quickly, arguing for the endurance of certain kinds of mechanical memory in the otherwise memory-impaired.
'Have you ever seen a ghost? A spirit? Whatever you call it?'
'Well,' I said, and smiled. This is not a subject on which I ever speak.
'When we were small boys, my little brother and I were raised by my grandparents. They were wonderful people, but my grandmother died in bed when I was ten. On the day of her funeral, the house was full of my grandparents' friends, and my aunts and uncles had all come—they had to decide what to do with us. I felt absolutely lost. I wandered upstairs. My grandparents' bedroom door was open, and in the mirror on the back of the door, I could see my grandmother lying in her bed. She was looking at me, and she was smiling.'
'Were you scared?'
'Nope. I knew she was telling me that she still loved me and that I would have a good home. And later, we moved in with an aunt and an uncle. But I never believed in orthodox Christianity after that. I knew there wasn't any literal heaven or hell. Sometimes, the boundary between the living and the dead is permeable. And that's how I embarked upon my wonderful career.'
He had reminded me of something Walter Dragonette had said to Paul Fontaine.
'Ever since then, I've tried to
He looked down at himself: white shirt, trousers, socks, shoes. He grunted and zipped his fly. Then he levered himself up out of the chair. 'Have to do something about these whiskers. Come back to the bathroom with me, will you?'
'What are you doing, Alan?' I stood up to follow him.
'Getting ready for my daughter's funeral.'
'Her funeral isn't until tomorrow.'
'Tomorrow, as Scarlett said, is another day.' He led me into the bathroom and picked up an electric razor from the top shelf of a marble stand. 'Will you do me a favor?'
I laughed out loud. 'After all we've been through together?'
He switched on the razor and popped up the little sideburn attachment. 'Mow down all that stuff under my chin and on my neck. In fact, run the thing over everything that looks too long to be shaved normally, and then I'll do the rest myself.'
He thrust out his chin, and I scythed away long silver wisps that drifted down like angel hair. Some of them adhered to his shirt and trousers. I made a pass over each cheek, and more silver fluff sparkled away from his face. When I was done, I stepped back.
Alan faced the mirror. 'Signs of improvement,' he said. He scrubbed the electric razor over his face. 'Passable. Very passable. Though I could use a haircut.' He found a comb on the marble stand and tugged it through the fluffy white cloud on his head. The cloud parted on the left side and fell in neat loose waves to the collar of his shirt. He nodded at himself and turned around for my inspection. 'Well?'
He looked like a mixture of Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein. 'You'll do,' I said.
He nodded. 'Necktie.'
We marched back into the bedroom. Alan wrenched open the closet door and inspected his ties. 'Would this make me look like a chauffeur?' He pulled out a black silk tie and held it up for inspection.
I shook my head.
Alan turned up his collar, wrapped the tie around his neck, and knotted it as easily as he had tied his shoes. Then he buttoned his collar and pushed the knot into place. He took the suit jacket from its hanger and held it out. 'Sometimes I have trouble with sleeves,' he said.
I held up the jacket, and he slid his arms into the sleeves. I settled the jacket on his shoulders.
'There.' He brushed some white fluff from his trousers. 'Did you call the florist?'
I nodded. 'Why did you want two wreaths?'
'You'll see.' From a bedside table he picked up a bunch of keys, a comb, and a fat black fountain pen and distributed these objects into various pockets. 'Do you suppose I'd be able to walk around outside without getting lost?'
'I'm sure of it.'
'Maybe I'll experiment after John turns up. He's basically a good fellow, you know. If I'd got stuck at Arkham the way he did, I'd be unhappy, too.'
'You were at Arkham your whole life,' I said.
'But I wasn't stuck.' I followed him out of the bedroom. 'John got to be known as my man—we collaborated on a few papers, but he never really did anything on his own. Good teacher, but I'm not sure Arkham will keep him
