Sourland (2 page)

Thinking now that possibly she didn't have to invite her awkward visitor into the house, a second time; maybe Anton wouldn't notice her rudeness—wouldn't know enough to interpret it as rudeness. He'd set the mums and the box with the produce onto a white wrought-iron bench near Hadley's front walk and was now leading Hardley around the side of the large sprawling stone-and-timber house as he'd done previously, as if he'd been summoned for this purpose. He'd boasted to Hadley of being “Mister Fix-It”—he was the “Mister Fix-It” of his lab at the Institute—his quick, critical eye took in the broken flagstones in the terrace behind Hadley's house which he'd “repair”—“replace”—for her, on another visit; with the scrutiny of a professional mason he stooped to examine corroding mortar at the base of the back wall of the house; he examined the warped and lopsided garden gate which he managed to fix with a deft motion of his hands—“Now! It is good as ‘new'—eh?”—laughing as if he'd said something unexpectedly witty. Hadley was grateful that Anton had made no mention of the alarming profusion of weeds amid a lush tangle of black-eyed Susans, Russian sage and morning glory vines in her husband's garden that had not been cultivated this year but allowed to grow wild.

“Thank you, Anton! Truly you are—‘Mister Fix-It.'”

Hadley spoke with more warmth than she'd intended. It was her social manner—bright, a little blurred, insincere and animated.

There was something admirable—unless there was something daunting, aggressive—about her visitor's energy—that brimmed and thrummed like rising yeast. Hadley would have supposed that after a day presumably spent at the molecular biology lab—work-weeks in such labs could run beyond one hundred hours during crucial experiments—and several hours at the co-op Anton would have been
dazed with exhaustion; yet there he was, tireless in his inspection of the exterior of Hadley's house—inspecting windows, locks, dragging aside broken limbs and storm debris. You'd think that Anton Kruppe was an old friend of the family for whom the discovery that one of the floodlights on Hadley's garage had burnt out was something of a
coup
, arousing him to immediate action—“You have a bulb to replace—yes? And a ladder with ‘steps'—‘step-ladder'—? I will put in—now—before it is too dark.”

So adamant, Hadley had no choice but to give in.

 

And no choice except to invite Anton Kruppe inside, for just a while.

Politely and with regret explaining that she had a dinner engagement, later that evening. But would he come inside, for a drink?

“Hedley yes thank you! I would like—yes so much.”

Stammering with gratitude Anton scraped his hiking boots against the welcome mat. The soles were muddy and stuck with leaves. Though Hadley insisted it wasn't necessary Anton removed the boots with a grunt and left them on the front step carefully placed side by side. What large boots they were, like a horse's hooves! The sodden shoelaces trailed out—left, right—in perfect symmetry.

Inside, most of the downstairs rooms were dark. Now it was late October night came quickly. Pleasantly excited, a little nervous, Hadley went about switching on lights. There was a curious intimacy between her and Anton Kruppe, in this matter of switching on lights. Hadley heard her voice warmly uplifted—no idea what she was saying—as her tall lanky guest in his stocking feet—soiled-looking gray wool socks—came to stand at the threshold of the living room—stared into the interior of the long beautifully furnished living room with a shoulder-high stone fireplace at its farther end, book-filled shelves, Chinese carpets on a gleaming hardwood floor. Above the fireplace was a six-by-eight impressionist New England landscape of gorgeous pastel colors that drew the eye to it, as in a vortex.

Excitedly Anton Kruppe asked—was the painting by Cezanne?

“‘Cezanne'! Hardly.”

Hadley laughed, the question was so naïve. Except for surreal pastel colors and a high degree of abstraction in the rendering of massed tree trunks and foliage, there was little in the Wolf Kahn canvas to suggest the earlier, great artist.

Outside, while Anton changed the floodlight, Hadley had been thinking
I will offer him coffee. That's enough for tonight.
But now that they were out of the October chill and inside the warm house it was a drink—wine—she offered him: a glass of dark red Catena wine, from a bottle originally purchased by her husband. Anton thanked her profusely calling her “Hedley”—a flush of pleasure rose into his odd, angular face. In his wiry hair that was the color of ditch water a small pumpkin seed shone.

Hadley poured herself a half-glass of wine. Her hand shook just slightly. She thought
If I don't offer him a second glass. If I don't ask him to stay.

Since there was an opened jar of Brazilian nuts on the sideboard, Hadley offered these to Anton, too. A cascade of nuts into a blue-ceramic bowl.

Gratefully Anton drank, and Anton ate. Thirstily, hungrily. Drifting about Hadley's living room peering at her bookshelves, in his gray wool socks. Excitedly he talked—he had so much to say!—reminding Hadley of a chattering bird—a large endearingly gawky bird like an ostrich—long-legged, long-necked, with a beaky face, quick-darting inquisitive eyes. So sharply his hair receded from his forehead, it resembled some sort of garden implement—a hand trowel?—and his upper body, now he'd removed his nylon parka, was bony, concave. Hadley thought
He would be waxy-pale, beneath. A hairless chest. A little potbelly, and spindly legs.

Hadley laughed. Already she'd drunk half her glass of wine. A warm sensation suffused her throat and in the region of her heart.

Politely Hadley tried to listen—to concentrate—as her eccentric
guest chattered rapidly and nervously and with an air of schoolboy enthusiasm. How annoying Anton was! Like many shy people once he began talking he seemed not to know how to stop; he lacked the social sleight of hand of changing the subject; he had no idea how to engage another in conversation. Like a runaway vehicle down a hill he plunged on, head-on, heedless. And yet, there was undeniably something attractive about him.

More incensed now, impassioned—though he seemed to be joking, too—speaking of American politics, American pop culture, “American fundamentist ignorance” about stem-cell research. And how ignorant, more than ninety percent of Americans believed in God—and in the devil.

Hadley frowned at this. Ninety percent? Was this so? It didn't seem plausible that as many people would believe in the devil, as believed in God.

“Yes, yes! To believe in the Christian God is to believe in His enemy—the devil. That is known.”

With his newfound vehemence Anton drained his glass of the dark red Catena wine and bluntly asked of his hostess if he might have more?—helping himself at the sideboard to a second, full glass and scooping up another handful of the Brazilian nuts. Hadley wondered if he meant to be rude—or simply didn't know better. “I can't really think,” she persisted, “that as many Americans believe in the devil, as believe in God. I'm sure that isn't so. Americans are—we are—a tolerant nation…”

How smug this sounded. Hadley paused not knowing what she meant to say. The feral-dark wine had gone quickly to her head.

With a snort of derision Anton said, “‘A tolerant nation'—is it? Such ‘tolerance' as swallows up and what it cannot, it makes of an enemy.”

“‘Enemy'? What do you mean?”

“It makes of
war.
First is declared the
enemy
, then the
war.
”

Anton laughed harshly, baring his teeth. Chunky yellow teeth they were, and the gums pale-pink. Seeing how Hadley stared at him he said, in a voice heavy with sarcasm, “First there is the ‘tolerance'—then, the ‘pre-empt strike.'”

Hadley's face flushed with the heat of indignation. This was insulting—it had to be deliberate—Anton Kruppe who'd lived in the United States for much of his life knew very well the history of the Iraq War, how Americans were misled, deceived by the Republican leadership. Of course he knew. She opened her mouth to protest bitterly then thought better of it.

Surreptitiously she glanced at her wristwatch. Only 6:48
P.M.
! Her guest had been inside the house less than a half hour but the strain of his visit was such, it seemed much longer.

Still Anton was prowling about, staring. Artifacts from trips Hadley and her husband had taken, over the years—Indonesian pottery, African masks, urns, wall hangings, Chinese wall scrolls and watercolors, beautifully carved wooden figures from Bali. A wall of brightly colored “primitive” paintings from Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala. Yet more, the books on Hadley's shelves seemed to intrigue Anton, as if these hundreds of titles acquired years ago, if not decades ago, mostly by Hadley's husband who'd earned both a Ph.D. in European history and a law degree from Columbia University, possessed an immediate, singular significance and were not rather relics of a lost and irretrievable private past.

“You have read all these, Hedley—yes?”

Hadley laughed, embarrassed. No, she had not.

“Then—someone else? All these?”

Hadley laughed again, uncertain. Was Anton Kruppe mocking her? She felt a slight repugnance for the man, who peered at her, as at her art-objects and bookshelves, with an almost hostile intensity; yet she could not help it, so
American
was her nature, so female, she was anxious that he should like her, and admire her—if that could be settled, she would send him away, in triumph.

Remembering the foreign-born children at her schools. In middle school they had seemed pitiful, objects of sympathy, charity, and condescension, if not derision; in high school, overnight it seemed they'd become A-students, star athletes. A
drivenness
to them, the complacent Americans had mistaken initially as weakness.

In soiled wool socks Anton continued to prowl about. Hadley had not invited him to explore her house—had she? His manner was more childlike than aggressive. Hadley supposed that Anton's own living quarters in university-owned housing were minimal, cramped. A row of subsidized faculty housing along the river…“Ah! This is—‘solar-room'?” They were in a glass-walled room at the rear of the stone house, that had been added to the house by Hadley and her husband; the “solarium,” intended to be sun-warmed, was furnished with white wicker furniture, chintz pillows and a white wrought-iron table and chairs as in an outdoor setting. But now the room was darkened and shadowed and the bright festive chintz colors were undistinguishable. Only through the vertical glass panels shone a faint crescent moon, entangled in the tops of tall pines. Anton was admiring yet faintly sneering, taunting:

“Such a beautiful house—it is old, is it?—so big, for one person. You are so very lucky, Hedley. You know this, yes?”

Lucky! Hadley smiled, confused. She tried to see this.

“Yes, I think so. I mean—yes.”

“So many houses in this ‘village' as it is called—they are so big. For so few people. On each acre of land, it may be one person—the demographics would show. Yes?”

Hadley wasn't sure what Anton Kruppe was saying. A brash sort of merriment shone in his eyes, widened behind the smudged lenses of his wire-rimmed schoolboy glasses.

He asked Hadley how long she'd lived in the house and when she told him since 1988, when she and her husband had moved here, he'd continued smiling, a pained fixed smile, but did not ask about her husband.
He must know, then. Someone at the co-op has told him.

Bluntly Anton said, “Yes, it is ‘luck'—America is the land of ‘opportunity'—all that is deserved, is not always granted.”

“But it wasn't ‘luck'—my husband worked. What we have, he'd earned.”

“And you, Hedley? You have ‘earned'—also?”

“I—I—I don't take anything for granted. Not any longer.”

What sort of reply this was, a stammered resentful rush of words, Hadley had no clear idea. She was uneasy, Anton peered at her closely. It was as if the molecular biologist was trying to determine the meaning of her words by staring at her. A kind of perverse echolocation—was that the word?—the radar-way of bats tossing high-pitched beeps of sound at one another. Except Anton was staring, his desire for the rich American woman came to him through the eyes…Hadley saw that the pumpkin seed—unless it was a second seed, or a bit of pumpkin-gristle—glistened in his wiry hair, that looked as if it needed shampooing and would be coarse to the touch. Except she could not risk the intimacy, she felt a reckless impulse to pluck it out.

He would misunderstand. He is such a fool, he would misinterpret.

But if I wanted a lover. A lover for whom I felt no love.

As if Anton had heard these words, his mood changed suddenly. His smile became startled, pained—he was a man for whom pained smiles would have to do. Asking Hadley if there were more repairs for “Mister Fix-It” in her house and Hadley said quickly, “No. No more.”

“Your basement—furnace—that, I could check. I am trained—you smile, Hedley, but it is so. To support myself in school—”

Hadley was sure she wasn't smiling. More firmly she thanked Anton and told him she had to leave soon—“I'm meeting friends for dinner in town.”

Clearly this was a lie. Hadley could lie only flatly, brazenly. Her voice quavered, she felt his eyes fixed upon her.

Anton took a step closer. “I would come back another day, if needed. I would be happy to do this, Hedley. You know this—I am your friend Anton—yes?”

“No. I mean—yes. Some other time, maybe.”

Hadley meant to lead her awkward guest back out into the living room, into the lighted gallery and foyer near the front door. He followed in her wake muttering to himself—unless he was talking to Hadley, and meant her to hear—to laugh—for it seemed that Anton was laughing, under his breath. His mood was mercurial—as if he'd been hurt, in the midst of having been roused to indignation. He'd drained his second glass of wine and his movements had become jerky, uncoordinated like those of a partially come-to-life scarecrow.