other man is tall, an-gular, with long, black hair grown past his shoulders and a patch over his eye;he carries a large wooden box filled with fireworks.
“I’m sorry,”the smaller man says, in a low, Spanish-accented voice,
“we knocked and there was no answer.”
“Oh, Ramon!”Susan says, springing up from her chair.“I didn’t realize you were bringing all this over today.”
“Tomorrow I go to Bogota,and then to BuenosAires.”
“There’s more outside in the truck,”the taller man says.“We betterhurry.”
Susan accepts kisses from Ramon on both cheeks, and then peers into the crate filled with Catherine wheels, Roman candles, gigantic orange sparklers.“Come on, Ferguson,”she says.“Help us unload this, please, before it’s all spoiled.Let’s get it offthe truck and into the ballroom.”
“The ballroom?”Ferguson says.“What’s it going to do in there?What is this stuffanyhow?”
“It’s for a purification ceremony two weeks from yesterday.We’ve got a van filled with monks coming up for it.”
Ferguson reluctantly rises.“I’m surprised at you, Ramon.I thought you were a good Catholic.”
“I sit at the feet ofanyone with wisdom,”Ramon says, beaming.
”Ifwe don’t do this soon, it’s not going to happen,”the tall man says.
”Please, Ferguson, let’s hurry,”Susan says.For a moment, it seems she is going to clap her hands, but she instead reaches out to him implor-ingly.“Marie can tell Mr.Emerson everything he needs to know, and what she forgets we can fill in when we get back.”
When the Richmonds and the two men leave the library—their footsteps soon disappear into the dank, porous silence ofthe house—Daniel and Marie sit silently in the flickering gloom for a few moments.Daniel glances at Marie, afraid that she might sense it ifhe simply stared at her.
She sits silently, her fragile hands folded.She has a prominent forehead, which, combined with her pale skin and dark hair, gives her the appear-ance ofsomeone temperamental, a worrier, a sufferer, someone who is capable oflashing out.She breathes in;the nostrils ofher long, stern nose practically close, and then she exhales and sits deeper in her chair, lets her head fall against the cracked leather back.
“It’s so sad when love dies,”she says.
”Yes, it is,”Daniel says.
”This used to be a very happy house,”she says.
”Ferguson’s pretty excited about this idea ofyours,”Daniel says.
”My father loved this house, and everything connected to it.”
“I met your father a couple oftimes,”Daniel says.Marie has no noticeable reaction to this;perhaps she, like the masters ofthe house, be-lieves that everyone in Leyden knows her and her family in some way.
”He saw my father a couple oftimes.He came to the house.”
“Who’s your father?”
“Dr.Emerson.He’s a chiropractor.”
“My father had terrible back problems all his life,”Marie says.The sound ofa tree breaking nearby resounds like a cannon shot, making Daniel jump in his seat but leaving Marie unmoved.“I remember him talking about Dr.Emerson.He liked him, he thought he was good.”
“I’m glad my father could help.”
“Is he still alive, your father?”
“Yes.”
“Does he ever work on you?”
“Oh no, never.I was always sort ofphysically afraid ofmyfather.The thought ofhim cracking my back, or yanking my head and cracking my neck—I could never put myselfin that sort ofposition.He’d put me on that table ofhis, I might never get up.”Daniel means this to be amusing, but Marie frowns and nods her head.
She gets up and glides to the tall windows.She places her palm against the darkening glass and then presses her cold hand onto her cheeks.Daniel sees that she is flushed;beads ofsweat have formed along her hairline.
“Everyone in this town talks about Ferguson and me, don’t they,”
Marie says, turning toward the window again.She presses her other hand against the pane, then touches her forehead, her throat.
“People like to gossip, Marie.I don’t pay much attention to what they say.”
When she turns again, Daniel sees that a solitary thread ofblood has crawled out ofher right nostril and is making its way through the pale down ofher upper lip.
“You’re bleeding, Marie,”he says.He feels in his pockets for a handkerchief, but all he comes up with is the plastic wrap from this morning’s gas station bagel, the touch ofwhich triggers a startling flash of memory: those magazines.He is beginning to understand the unbridled nature of desire when it is confined to the realm ofmake- believe, how without the reality ofan actual person in its path, it races headlong, blind and frothing.
Marie seems not to have heard him.“I don’t care what people say.
Something amazing has happened between Ferguson and me.And that’s all there is to it.Ifpeople are upset, then they’ll just have to deal with it.”
“Marie…”
“I’m telling you this because I want you to be careful with Susan.She once loved this place, but not now, not anymore, and she never loved Ferguson.And she’ll do anything to wreck what we’re trying to do, she’d rather Ferguson lose the house and everything else—which would kill him.This is his habitat.He can’t live anywhere else.It’s pretty funny, when you think about it, she’s into all these world religions, the Muslim, the Buddhist, the goddess, the meditation, the drumming, the spinning around in circles, but she’s cruel and she’s selfish, she can’t stand the idea that other people might find happiness.”At last, the trickle ofblood reaches her lip and she tastes it.She gasps and her fingers go to her lip and then her nose.“Blood,”she says.She has smeared the blood over her upper lip.
“I don’t have a handkerchiefor a Kleenex or anything.”
“Ifyou could go to the kitchen.”She has seated herselfand tilts her head back.
“Where’s the kitchen?”
“Walk out the nearest door, which will put you in the portrait gallery, go through the double doors, turn right, go to the end ofthe hall, and there it is.”
The portrait gallery is barely lit by the anemic pearl light coming in through three adjoining sets ofFrench windows.Here, paintings and drawings ofthe Richmonds and the various families related to them by marriage have been hung on the blue plaster walls with such economy of space that the frames touch, though here and there appears an18 x 24sun-bleached blank, where a portrait has been removed and sold at auction.
Daniel hurries through the double doors and into a long hallway, which is lit by a few bare bulbs.As the electric power continues to come and go, they flicker offand on, as ifa child were playing with the switch.
A small SouthAmerican man in his twenties, wearing a serape and a fe-dora, and with a crow perched on his shoulder, leans against the wall, pulling a nail out ofhis sneaker sole with a pliers.He gives no indication ofnoticing Daniel, who rushes past him to the kitchen, a dismal, cata-strophically disorganized room, where Ferguson and Susan are in the midst ofa bitter argument.
“I didn’t hear you say anything, Susan,”Ferguson is saying.
”You were deliberately ignoring me,”she answers.“You love to negate me.”
“You’re insane, Susan.”
Daniel has entered the kitchen and there is no backing out.He stands next to the old eight-burner stove, every burner ofwhich holds a cast-iron kettle or skillet.Herbs that were hung to dry from the overhead beams have long ago turned gray and powdery.The double sink is filled with two towers ofdirty dishes;a calico cat with a rawhide collar swats atthe drops ofwater that swell and then fall from the silver faucet.Fer-guson and Susan have turned to face him.
“I’m sorry,”Daniel says.“I need a paper towel or something.”
“What for?”demands Susan.
”Marie has a bloody nose.”
Susan’s laugh is surprisingly throaty and warm.“Did you hit her?”
“We don’t carry paper towels here,”says Ferguson.He pulls a not very fresh-looking handkerchieffrom his back
