On the Wing (21 page)

“Do you want to say anything more about the candies, honey?” asked a woman beside the girl, a woman who had to be her mother.

“Um,” said the girl. She thought for a moment, then turned to her mother and asked, “What?”

“About Poppy's pockets?”

“Oh. Yeah. Poppy would say, ‘Better look in Poppy's pockets. You never know what Poppy might be hiding.'”

We all sniffled.

“I think we all remember Poppy's pockets,” said the girl's mother, dabbing at her eyes, “any of us who were invited to go hunting for candy in Poppy's pockets.”

“Or money,” said a man seated across from the girl's mother.

Everyone glared at him. Me, too.

“Well, I was never actually
invited
to hunt for money in Poppy's pockets,” the man explained, “but I did
find
money there one time, when I was hunting for candy.”

There was some snorting and a bit of harumphing.

“Well, I did,” the man insisted. “Wads of it. Crumpled balls of cash. I can remember it to this day. I thought it was for me. But it wasn't. Poppy stuffed it back in his pocket and bought my silence with a candy mint.”

There was an awkward silence. It lengthened.

“What I'm always going to remember about Dad is his optimism,” said a man near me. All the rest of us, including the man who had found the wads of cash in Poppy's pockets, sighed with relief, glad to have the awkward silence broken.

“He was an incurable optimist, that's for sure,” said the little girl's mother.

“A cockeyed optimist,” said the thunderer at the far end of the porch.

“We all know about Dad's wonderful sermons,” the man who had broken the silence continued, “and to me they were his way of trying to turn his optimism into a new era of humility, liberality, friendship, kindness, temperance, and diligence.”

“Yes, sir,” said one of the elders.

“A noble, if futile, effort,” said the thunderer.

“Yes, a noble effort,” said the younger man, “and I suppose you're right about its being futile, and I suppose that there is really no reason for me to talk about it any further, since all of us know all about it—but—”

He looked at me. Everyone looked at me.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “It's not true that all of us know about it—there is one among us who knows nothing about it—our guest.” He extended his arm toward me. “And so I'm going to tell him.” Speaking directly to me now, he said, “Our family has been a part of the warp and weft of this town for generations. My grandfather was mayor for many years. My brother is assessor and collector of taxes. Even I, in my modest way, serve the town. I run the local paper,
The Oracle.
My father—may he rest in peace—was pastor of the Little Church on the Hill—and he was widely—universally—admired for his sermons.”

There was murmurous approval for this way of putting it, and I nodded my head and made a bit of a murmuring sound myself to show that although I was not one of them I was as one with them.

“His sermons were not about sinning, and they were not about sins. Nor were they imprecations to his parishioners to mend their ways. They were never admonitions to behave. There were no threats in them. There was no cajoling in them. They were, instead, predictions. They didn't ever ask people to shun error and do right, instead they showed people what their lives would be like if they actually
did
live as they
ought
to live. I wish I could convey to you how exhilarating it was to hear these evocations of the truly good life, not the shallow so-called good life of tawdry pleasure, but the real thing, the rich life that goodness would bring. It's—it's beyond my power—I—”

In a soft, almost distracted voice, his mother, Poppy's widow, said, “Why don't you read one of your father's sermons to the boy?”

There was a stunned silence.

“You mean—go into his library and—go into his files—and get one of his sermons?” asked the son.

“That's what I mean,” said his mother.

“But—I—I've never been in there.” He looked around the porch. “No one here has ever been in there. It was Dad's sanctum sanctorum. It would feel like a violation.”

“It's time the door was opened,” she said. “The place needs a good airing. Besides, you'd like the boy to hear one of your father's sermons, wouldn't you?”

The thunderer said, “I'd be pleased to hear you read one of them myself.”

One by one, the others voiced their agreement with him.

“Mom—” said the son.

She reached into her bosom and drew out a key.

“Okay,” the son said. He took the key. “I'll be back in a minute.”

He left, and he left behind him the silence of anticipation.

The widow broke that silence, saying, “Why doesn't everybody get something to eat while we're waiting? Everything's laid out in the dining room.”

We trooped into the dining room, took plates, circled the table, heaped our plates high, and returned to the porch, where we fell to. The food was hearty and delicious, and the conversation was warm and lighthearted. I could see that everyone missed Poppy, that he had been well loved, and that the mourners' loss was great, but I could also see that their affection for one another was a powerful palliative. I wondered, and for a moment even thought of asking, whether one of Poppy's predictive sermons might have taught them, in the exemplary manner that his son had described, how to endure this day.

Only when we had finished eating did the group begin to wonder what was keeping Poppy's son.

“Better send out the dogs,” said the old man whom Poppy had taught to fish.

“I'll go,” said the widow.

“No, no, you stay there and rest yourself,” said the thunderer. “I'll go.”

When he didn't return after a few minutes, the widow said, “I'm going,” and this time no one objected when she rose and left.

Time passed. None of the three returned.

“I'll go,” said the mother of the little girl in velvet.

“Hell, let's all go,” said the old man. “At my age, I can't afford to wait much longer.”

Laughing, we all headed for Poppy's library.

When we got there, the laughter stopped. I think the notion that we were violating Poppy's privacy overwhelmed and hushed us. We crowded silently around the open doorway, peering in, the ones in the back standing on their tiptoes to try to get a look.

Inside the room, Poppy's son and widow and thunderous friend were hard at work. They were tearing the place apart. The files had been pulled open. Desk drawers lay on the floor. Papers were everywhere. The thunderer had tipped an armchair upside down and was reaching into its underside. The widow was groping inside the open case of a grandfather clock. The son was emptying a cigar box onto the floor.

In the middle of the massive desk was a heap of cash. Most of the bills were rumpled and crumpled, squeezed into wads and balls. All of us recalled the reminiscence about finding money in Poppy's pockets when rummaging for candy, and the man who had made the claim recalled it, too. “See?” he cried. “I told you! I told you there were wads of cash!”

The three in the room turned from their work, startled. They looked at us. They looked at one another. They looked at the wads of cash. They looked at us again. Their faces fell.

“Poppy—” said the son.

“It seems that Richard—” said the thunderer.

“My dear husband—” said the widow.

“Money—” said the son.

“In the files—and the desk—” said the thunderer.

“It's everywhere!” said the widow.

“Poppy had his hand in the till!” sang the man who had found the wads in Poppy's pocket. “He was skimming the collection cash!” He erupted in a cackling laughter that I can hear in memory as I write these words. “He was lining his pockets!”

Everyone but the cackling man was embarrassed into silence. People hung their heads. They drifted away from the library. They distanced themselves from one another. They licked their wounded illusions.

The boy took me aside. “I think you should go now,” he whispered. “Go away. You can sleep in the barn if you want, but no one is going to want to see you in the morning. Seeing you would remind them of their shame. Please—go on out to the barn now—and go away in the morning—before first light.”

*   *   *

SPIRIT
AND I retired to the barn. Sleep did not come quickly, so I got out my copy of
Faustroll
and my
Handy Dictionary,
and I resumed my interrogation of the Bonhommes, as Panmuphle. Their daughter had just informed me that King Saleh, who had worn a mustache like Dr. Faustroll's, was the ruler of one of the kingdoms of the sea in the Arabian Nights entertainments:

“Thank you, my dear,” I said, tousling the little darling's hair. “That reminds me: what of his hair?”

I had hoped that the girl would respond, but her mother stepped forward, interposed herself between the girl and me, and declared in a businesslike manner, “His hair is ash blond and very black.”

“Forgive me, madame,” I said, “but I do not see how it can be both blond and black.”

“It alternates hair by hair,” she explained, as if to an imbecile, “in an auburnian ambiguity that changes with the hour of the sun.”

I regarded her a moment with incredulity. “You have the soul of a poet, madame,” I said at last, when I had recovered myself. “Perhaps you will continue.”

“His eyes are as two capsules of simple writing ink,” she said without hesitation, “prepared like the eau-de-vie of Danzig, with golden spermatozoa within.”

This, I must confess, did not make any sense to me, though the mention of spermatozoa made me flush crimson, which in turn made the Bonhommes' fetching daughter giggle in a way that made me redden even more.

“He is beardless,” said Mr. Bonhomme, apparently eager to have his contribution weigh as much as his wife's, “except for his mustache.”

“Does he shave himself, or does he visit a barber?” I asked, thinking that a barber might be an additional source of useful information, since barbers are famous for interrogating their clients while they are under their ministrations.

“Neither, monsieur,” said the little man.

“You said that he was beardless,” I reminded him.

“Through the use of microbes of baldness, of course,” he said.

“Hmmm,” I said, while surreptitiously making a note to inquire of the neighbors whether the Bonhommes might be insane.

“They saturate his skin from groin to eyelid,” he explained, with the same air of addressing an imbecile that I had found so annoying in his wife, “and they nibble and gnaw at the—the little bulbs.”

“The follicles,” his daughter corrected him shyly.

“Yes!” he said, with a papa's pride. “The follicles.”

“I must ask you, sir,” I said, “how you know these things, which, it seems to me, are of a rather intimate nature.”

He shrugged in the way that everyone does to indicate that the answer must be obvious. I raised an eyebrow to indicate that I would like more of an answer than that shrug.

“Sir,” lisped the comely daughter, “we have all done some services for Doctor Faustroll from time to time. My father has performed the duties of a valet, my mother has cooked for him, and I—”

“Mademoiselle,” I said compassionately, “you do not have to—”

“My daughter has performed the duties of a maid, sir,” said Mrs. Bonhomme.

“I see,” I said. “As a result of this work, then, you have all had an opportunity to observe the mysterious doctor.”

“That is correct.”

“Pray, go on,” I said. “Tell me more.”

“In contrast to his smoothness from groin to eyelid, from groin to feet he is sheathed in satyric black fur,” said the wife.

“My goodness,” I said. Involuntarily, I glanced at the Bonhommes' toothsome young daughter before noting the word
satyric
on my pad.

“That morning—” said Mrs. Bonhomme.

“The morning of his disappearance?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. That morning he took his daily sponge bath, using paper painted in two tones by Maurice Denis, depicting trains—”

“I must interrupt again,” I said. “Do you mean that he substitutes paper for sponge in his sponge bath?”

“No, sir,” said the daughter. “He substitutes paper for water.”

*   *   *

VERY EARLY in the morning, the boy came and shook me awake. I was asleep on my notebook, with my books in the hay beside me.

“Time to go,” he said.

“Mm-hm. Okay. I'm awake. I'm going.”

I got up and started to mount
Spirit
in the dark.

“If you don't mind,” he said, “could you push it out to the road before you start it?”

“Huh?” I said sleepily.

“The noise,” he explained.

“Oh. Yeah.”

I began pushing her. He walked along beside me.

“Do you have any advice for me?” I asked when we neared the road.

“Advice?”

“Yeah. It seems that just about everybody I meet has some advice for me. I thought you might.”

“No. I don't have any advice for you.”

“Okay. In that case—” I mounted
Spirit.

“I guess I have a request, though,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know. Don't worry. I won't tell anybody.”

“Thanks.”

“You don't have to thank me—but—I have a question for you—is this wheat?”

“Wheat?”

“All this golden stuff growing all around.”

“Nah, that's not wheat. Just weeds.”

Chapter 18

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