Let the Dark Flower Blossom (36 page)

Whose skin is like snow and blackberries.

When first I came to her island—

Beatrice was a girl.

I saw her by the water's edge.

She was a child.

She called out to me from the beach.

Your name is Schell, isn't it?

She opened her hands.

And held a clamshell, halved.

How will I learn?

How to get to the end of things?

Beatrice turns the spoon round in the bowl.

She knows things that I cannot know.

She knows her way through these rooms.

Each door with its own possibility.

What one dreams is always possible.

I am winding through the maze.

I am bound by my own infinity.

If I keep telling my story—

The doctor will live.

Awaiting always the ending.

The ending that never arrives.

I begin.

I've begun.

I began.

I saw Roman and the girl.

I looked at Ro.

I looked at the girl.

Ro said, “Jesus.”

The girl's hair, tangled and matted with blood.

That was one day in South Dakota.

When I was young.

And could justify anything.

Even why I thought—

She looked beautiful.

A girl in the snow.

I'll start again.

The farmhouse.

The snow.

The winter.

January 1980.

The girl buried in the woods.

And that night the four of us sat around the fire.

Wren said, “Tell the story already, Ro.”

Ro said that a terrible fate might befall the teller of such a tale.

We sat waiting.

We drank champagne.

And felt a certain terror.

Even with the crackle of wood in the fire.

At each sudden spark or flame.

Ro began.

To tell his story.

“This is the story of a brother and a sister.”

It was Ro's ghost story.

And as he spoke—

Wren sat rapt.

Eloise kept drinking champagne.

Ro told the story.

Ro set the scene.

The autumn evening.

A tire swing creaking in the wind.

The rustle of dry leaves.

The apples ripening on the trees.

The girl ate an apple.

The boy left his bicycle by the gate.

He went to the house.

There was a light in an upper window.

The door opened.

He called out.

No one answered.

He took the steps—

Slowly.

He was on the second floor.

Slowly.

He was walking the dark hallway—

He had his hand on the doorknob.

He opened the door to the bedroom.

The girl was under the tree. Waiting for him.

She felt a chill all along her skin.

As she ate the apple.

She heard nothing.

Only the leaves.

And the wind in the branches.

She dropped her apple to the ground.

And she ran to the house.

She ran.

She ran up the steps.

She took the steps two at a time.

She stumbled in the darkness.

She came to the bedroom.

The door was open.

She went in.

She went into the bedroom.

And there she saw—

The moon.

The bed.

Father.

Mother.

And the boy standing over them—

With a bloody knife in his hand—

Ro stopped.

Just like that.

Wren was wide-eyed.

Wren said, “Go on.”

Go on.

Wren was leaning against me.

There was salt and warmth to her skin.

“Tell me how it ends. Please,” said Wren.

Eloise looked up.

Eloise looked at me.

She looked just like me.

And I looked at her.

I looked just like her.

Eloise turned away.

Wren was so close.

Her breath was warm.

“Don't stop,” she said.

She wanted to know what the boy had done.

She wanted to know about the knife and the moonlight.

Wren was waiting for the story to end.

It was nothing without the ending.

And there was nothing like an ending.

Wren's lips parted.

Her mouth opened.

Wren said, “Oh.”

“Ro,” she said.

“Oh,” she said.

And here I saw.

I could feel.

And see.

What a story could do.

Ro stopped.

Ro wouldn't take her to the end.

Of the story.

Wren fell back. Against the sofa.

In a soft cry.

He turned toward the fire.

Ro wouldn't end the story.

For a moment I thought that he was being kind.

Then I remembered the girl in the woods.

Wren had her hand on my arm.

I could feel the flutter of her heart.

I knew that the world was his.

To do with as he wanted.

And my story—

Was no longer mine.

It was his.

And he could change it.

As he willed.

And as he wanted.

It was his.

Wren said, “Shel your hands are so cold.”

She put my hands between her thighs.

We sat before the fire.

And Ro told my story.

He went where he wanted.

And no one could stop him.

From going where he wanted.

Even if there was nowhere to go.

In Roman's version of the story:

I was the one who killed my father.

And my mother.

I'll start again.

That summer night in Chicago—

After dinner; Ro and I saw two girls on the street. And we caught a taxi. Ro wiped his brow. He grinned. He looked out the window as the city went by in lighted darkness.

“I never thanked you. Did I?” he asked.

“For what?” I said.

“The typewriter,” he said.

We got to his hotel.

And walked a hallway carpeted with roses.

He unlocked his room.

He sat upon the bed.

In his oyster jacket.

And his white shirt untucked.

There was a bottle of scotch on the table.

He opened it.

He poured us each a glass.

I took my glass.

I stood at the window.

The curtains were open.

I looked out.

I drank.

I asked him the question.

I asked him.

“Do you remember that girl in the woods?”

He drank.

He loosened his tie.

“What girl?” he said.

“What woods?” he said.

We drank.

The room was cool.

The coolness of the room made the hot night more miserable.

“Hey,” he said. “Do you know what my mother said about you?”

I waited.

“
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look
,” he said.

He laughed.

He leaned back against the pillows.

“I always stay here when I'm in town,” he said.

He said, “Once—this was years ago—I was in the bar. It was snowing. I thought that I saw your sister in the lobby with,” he said. He drank. “The girl, the little girl.”

“Susu,” I said.

“Is that what they call her?” he said.

He raised his glass.

“To Susu,” he said.

“She's going to be married,” I said.

“I'm here for her wedding,” I said.

“Let's drink to the bride,” he said.

He drank.

“I'm getting sentimental,” he said.

“You were always sentimental,” I said.

“Was I?” he said.

“I loved her,” he said.

“Who?” I said.

He set his glass against his forehead.

“Do you want ice?” he said.

“I could have them send some up,” he said.

I didn't want ice.

“My sister—” I began.

“Your sister?” he said.

“We don't have to do this now,” he said. “Do we?”

“This isn't about her,” he said.

“It's about the story,” he said.

“What story?” I said.

“If you want to do this now,” he said, against the pillows of the bed, “I'll order up some chocolate cake.”

He reached for the phone.

Spilled his drink.

Distracted, set the phone down.

Held the glass in both hands.

His face was damp and pale.

He laughed.

“I saw her,” he said. “Your sister. With the girl. In this hotel. This very hotel. I come back here. Because maybe I will see her again.”

“Sheldon Schell,” he said.

“Where's my cake?” he said.

“There is no cake,” I said.

He said, “You were always so literal.”

“Your sister,” he said.

“Her hair smelled like smoke,” he said.

“Her fingers tasted like chocolate,” he said.

He laughed.

He fumbled for his cigarettes.

The pack was empty.

He looked inside the empty pack.

“Where the hell is that cake?” he said.

He crumpled the cigarette pack.

And threw it to the floor.

He said, “Shelly, you know—if it weren't for you. If it weren't for you and your sister and your typewriter, I never would have become a writer.”

“So thank you,” he said.

“—For being a liar,” he said.

I did not speak.

He looked at me.

“Jesus,” he said. “Don't be so downhearted.”

“At least you have a sister,” he said.

He filled his glass.

He drank.

“All the poetry in the world won't save us,” he said.

“From what?” I said.

“Jesus,” he said.

“From what we did,” he said.

“What did we do?” I said.

“You really are something,” he said.

“I always said that you were something,” he said.

He said, “Put it in your book. I'll be the first to read it.”

I looked out the window.

I said, “There is no book.”

“What?” he said.

“There is no book,” I said.

“Jesus,” he said.

“All these years,” he said.

“The story,” he said.

“It wasn't a story,” I said.

“It was about a girl,” he said.

“What was it?” he said.

“You tell me what it was,” he said. “If it weren't—wasn't a story.”

There was a book on the table.

Left open—spine-side up—pages spread.

The face of a serious young man with eyeglasses stared at me from the jacket.