Patricide (8 page)

What a blunder I'd made, asking the girl about her
personal life! I'd taken for granted that it would be a conventional, proper,
dull suburban life which would provoke my father's scorn; but quite the opposite
had developed.

And it seemed to have been already arranged, to my
surprise, yes and dismay, that Cameron would be staying the night in
Nyack—“Since we have work tomorrow morning, it makes sense for Cameron not to
commute all the way back to New York City.”

All
the
way
back!
It was no farther than my “commute” to
Skaatskill.

Calmly my father regarded me with bemused eyes.
Asking if I would please check to see if the guest room was “in decent shape”
for a guest?

I would, of course. I did. Like a house servant—or
a slightly superannuated wife—I brought in a supply of fresh towels for the
adjoining bathroom. The guest room was drafty from ill-fitting windows but that
wasn't my concern.

Cameron had the graciousness to express
embarrassment. She saw me to the door, since Dad wasn't inclined to rise to his
feet after the intense two-hour dinner.

I would have slipped away with a muttered farewell,
but Cameron insisted upon shaking my hand, and thanking me—for what, I couldn't
imagine.

“I'm so happy to have met you, Lou-Lou!—as well as
your amazing father.
So
happy
, you can't imagine.”

Yes. I could imagine.

I left them, trembling with indignation. Driving to
the George Washington Bridge where once again wet rain was whipping into sleet,
and the pavement was slick and dangerous.

“Accident. ‘Accident-prone.' Who?”

N
EXT DAY
when I telephoned my father, it was Cameron's bright voice that greeted
me.

“Oh Lou-Lou—guess what! Your father has asked me to
be his assistant, and I've said ‘yes.' I think that I can add my experience in
some way to the dissertation material—like, a journal as an appendix?”

A
memoir,
most
likely.
Which
you
will
write
after
the
man's
death.

D
REAMS OF
my father's death.

“It was an accident. He didn't
l-listen . . .”

Quickly before the will is changed. Before the
executrix
is changed.

Distracted by resentment and anxiety I made an
effort to be all the more friendly, helpful, and alert in my dean's position. I
was sympathetic with everyone who complained to me, I even shook hands with
particular warmth. I stayed up until 2:00
A.M.
answering e-mails including even e-mails from “concerned” parents. It was
reasonable—(well, it was wholly unreasonable)—to think that, if I was a
good
person
, I would be rewarded and not punished by
Fate.

*

Once, I'd saved Roland Marks's life.

I'd been twenty years old. I was to be a junior at
Harvard, within a month.

My father was staying with wealthy friends on
Martha's Vineyard in late August. With his third wife, gorgeous/unstable Avril
Gatti. I was in a smaller guest house, that overlooked the water, when a girl in
a bikini drove into the driveway in a little red Ferrari convertible.

She was sharp-beaked, like a hungry bird. Crimped
dyed-red hair as if she'd stuck her finger in an electric socket.

“Is Roland Marks here? I have to see him.”

“He isn't here. Is he expecting you?”

“Where is he? He's here.”

“I'm sorry. This is not Roland Marks's house, and
he
is
not
here
.”

“I know whose house this is. And I know
he
is
here
.”

Since the publication of
Jealousy
, and Roland Marks's figure, in tennis whites, on the cover
of the
New
York
Times
Magazine,
many people had tried to contact him. The
usual sorts of people, but now others as well. A more
American-suburban
spread, not primarily Jewish-background as before.
Dad laughed at the commotion but was beginning to become concerned.

“Philip is absolutely correct”—(Dad was referring
to his friend Philip Roth)—“people naively think they want to become
‘famous'—but it's nothing like what you expect. Instead of having the luxury of
failure, which is being left alone, you're fair game for every idiot.”

Rudely the bikini-girl was staring at me, in my
shapeless Save-the-Whales T-shirt and drawstring sweat pants. Even my bare feet
looked pudgy and graceless.

“Are you one of his daughters? Karin?”

“No.”

“The other, then—‘Lou-Lou.' ”

“Louise.”

“ ‘Lou-Lou.' ”

“Well, my father isn't here. He's in London.”

In fact, Dad was sailing with our hosts. He'd be
back within a few hours.

“No. He's on the island. I asked in town. There are
no secrets here.”

The bikini-girl was edging toward me in a way that
made me nervous. Her body was fleshy and full yet her face looked drawn and
there were distinct shadows beneath her eyes. She was glancing about,
suspiciously. “He's—where? Down by the water? Upstairs in the house? And his
wife—‘Avril.' Where's she?”

I thought
She
has
something
in
that
bag
.

It was a large Bloomingdale's sort of bag made of
elegantly woven straw. The handles were tortoiseshell. The way the girl was
gripping it, I understood that she had a weapon inside.

Calmly I said, with a forced smile, “I can leave a
message with my father. He can call you.”

She laughed. “Call me! Are you joking? He will
never
call
me
, he has said so.”

“Then . . .”

“There was a time when that hypocritical son of a
bitch called me, but now, I can't even call him; he never calls back. Your
father is a terrible man. You know this, I'm sure. You don't look stupid—only
just moon-faced and fat. I don't think that your father should be allowed to
live.”

Barefoot, with garishly painted toenails, the
bikini-girl was edging toward the veranda of the main house, which was shingle
board purposely stained to appear weatherworn, with a steep-pitched roof. Inside
the house there were voices—I didn't know whose. I'd begun to sweat. My fatty
upper arms stuck to my armpits. I was calculating that I would have to wrench
the bag away from the bikini-girl with no hesitation, within seconds; if she
stepped back from me, she could take out her weapon . . .

With my strained mouth I continued to smile. I saw
that the girl had tiny rosebud or pursed-lips tattoos on her back. I saw that
her bikini was striped iridescent-purple and that her flushed-looking hips and
breasts were tightly constrained; she was breathing audibly.

“Wait, please.”

“I'm just going to knock at the screen door.”

“No, please—wait.”

“I'll just call ‘hello' inside. I won't go fucking
in
.”

As the girl edged past me I stumbled to my feet and
threw myself at her, and wrenched away the bag—it was heavy, as I'd
suspected.

She began screaming. Cursing me. She clawed at me
but I didn't surrender the bag. Our hosts' adult daughter came out of the house,
astonished. A Portuguese water spaniel, that had been sleeping on the veranda
nearby, began barking hysterically. The girl ran stumbling to the little
Ferrari, where she'd left the key in the ignition; haphazardly she backed out of
the driveway, all the while cursing us.

In the elegantly woven bag was a snub-nosed
revolver. In fact it was a Smith & Wesson .25-caliber “snubbie”—a
semi-automatic with a mother-of-pearl handle that carried six rounds. It would
turn out to be a stolen gun, sold to the bikini-girl in New York City; a
femal
e sort of gun, though close up it could be
fatal.

Our hosts' daughter called the Vineyard police and
the girl was arrested within a half hour as she tried to buy a ticket for the
ferry.

It would be said that she was
one
of
Roland
Marks's
girls.
One
who
hadn't
worked
out.

My father refused to discuss her. My father
professed not to know her—never to have heard of her. His wife Avril did not
believe him. The bikini girl was older than she'd seemed: thirty-two. She'd been
arrested for carrying an unlicensed and concealed gun. She lived in TriBeCa and
described herself as an actress associated with La Mama. Later, we would learn
that, the previous summer, she'd stalked Philip Roth in Cornwall Bridge,
Connecticut, though, like my father, Philip had declined to press charges
against her.

Dad had not wanted to talk about the bikini-girl.
No one could make Dad talk about the bikini-girl. Not even Avril Gatti. To me he
said, with his utterly charming abashed-Dad smile: “Thanks, kid. You did
good.”

*

Another time when I called my father, it
was Cameron who answered the telephone.

“Hi! Lou-Lou? We have news here—we're flying to
Miami tomorrow.”

And so there was no Thursday evening dinner that
week. Nor the next week. Rudely, I wasn't notified until I made a call, and
Cameron called back to explain apologetically that she and my father were flying
to Key West from Miami—“You know, the Key West Literary Seminar? Roland is
giving the keynote speech.”

I had known that the revered Key West seminar was
imminent. But I'd been led to believe that I was to accompany my father.

At last I managed to speak with him. My voice must
have been quavering with hurt for Dad chided me kindly.

“Lou-Lou, things have changed. Cameron's coming
with me—of course.”

“You told me—‘mark on my calendar. Key West.' You
told me ‘don't make other plans.' ”

In red ink several days in early January had been
marked on my calendar. There was no mistaking this.

In fact, I'd been invited to a party, or—to
something. . . . I hadn't accepted of course since I'd planned to
be in Key West with Roland Marks.

I came close to blurting out
Take
me
with
you,
please!
I
will
pay
for
my
own
way.

I didn't, though. A dean is dignity.

Shamelessly and unapologetically they went
together, and without me. And my father had the temerity to ask me to “check in”
on the house in his absence.

T
HE FURNACE
was repaired, finally. Faulty smoke detectors were repaired. I called a
carpenter to inspect the shaky wooden steps leading to the riverbank that needed
to be strengthened and the man promised to call me back with an estimate. He
couldn't begin work, he said, until at least late March when the weather was
warmer and ice had melted from the steps.

Daringly—cautiously—I climbed down a half-dozen of
the steps, to see how rickety they actually were. The January air was cold, and
windy, rising from the steel-colored river. Obviously each winter had weakened
the steps; the structure had to be at least twenty years old. (The house itself
was 106 years old—an Upper Nyack landmark. I wanted to think that one day there
would be a brass plaque on the front:
Residence
of
Roland
R.
Marks,
Nobel
Prize
in
Literature
.)

Tightly I clutched the railings imagining the
rickety structure suddenly buckling beneath my weight, collapsing, and my body
falling heavily to the rocky ground below . . . My father would
find me when he returned, a broken body, frozen . . .

Why
didn't
I
invite
Lou-Lou
to
come
with
us!
How
could
I
have
been
so
selfish!

And Cameron would say
Don't
blame
yourself,
Roland!
You
could
not
have
foreseen.

In my melancholy mood, almost I wouldn't have
minded falling—or so the thought came to me.

I didn't fall. The steps held. Though some of the
steps were shaky, the structure held.

Y
ET IT
could
happen
to
him.
An
accident.
Accidental
death.

A
N ACCIDENTAL
death is always a
surprise. At least, to the one who dies by accident.

In the days, twelve in all, that my father and
Cameron were in Florida, I spent more time than I could really afford in the
house in Upper Nyack.

I was thinking how Roland Marks disliked
surprise
. The element of
surprise
was vulgar to him, like the antics of circus clowns.