The Bones of Old Carlisle (7 page)

Dinner had arrived, and Tamani was attacking her meal with her
bare hands, alternating between clumps of green beans and wads of
mashed potatoes. Her salmon was gone, and the delicate orange pecan
butter sauce that glazed it had run down her chin, past her neck and
down to the top of her dress.

They’d brought bread and butter and she’d apparently devoured all
of that too – without benefit of knife, judging from the shine on her
knuckles. There were crumbs around her mouth and on her nose, and a
pecan piece that had somehow ascended to her left eyebrow.

Arrowroot was torn between sitting down to dinner and leaving –
going back to his truck, driving back home and settling the bill over
the phone on Sunday.

Danielle, however, better prepared for mothering perhaps than
Karl Arrowroot would ever be, stepped quickly over to Tamani, found
the girl’s napkin, still wrapped around her silverware, and began
applying it to the mess around her mouth.

Tamani looked as confused as ever, frowned and closed her eyes,
but did her best to cooperate.
The glaze had dried in places and wasn’t coming off, so Danielle
dipped the napkin into her water, dabbed for a minute and then leaned
back to regard her work.
“Oh my god,” she said, looking over at her father, as if a
thought had suddenly occurred to her. “This isn’t an act, is it?”
Tamani stared quizzically.
“You’re really like this,” Danielle continued. “Oh my god, what
did they do to you?”
“Who?” Tamani asked.
“You were at Fort Shergawa, right?” Danielle asked. “Right?”
“Yes.”
“I think something happened out there, to you,” Danielle said,
leaning forward and whispering. “They did this. It’s the kind of thing
they would do. I’ve heard all about it. Tests and experiments. Drugs.”
“Now Danielle,” Arrowroot protested.
“God, Daddy, don’t you see?” Danielle asked, turning an accusing
eye toward her father. “They did this to her. And we’re all just
letting it happen, right under our noses. They’re doing it in our
name, with our taxes. Anyone who pays taxes pays for it.
Danielle took a breath and turned to Tamani. “You poor thing,”
she said, and her voice broke slightly. “C’mon, let’s get you washed
up.”
Wearing a confused smile, Tamani stood up and let Danielle lead
her by the hand to the restroom.
Arrowroot and Guillaume took their seats and watched until the
pair was out of sight, then Arrowroot took a discreet survey of the
room, relieved to see that the other diners had lost interest in them.
A sloppy girl in a wedding dress was surely not the most amazing thing
any of them had seen in their lives.
He and Guillaume began eating, the awkward silence between them
almost physical. Finally, Arrowroot looked up.
“I don’t know what Danielle’s told you,” he began, “but that’s
not my girlfriend.”
“But of course,” Guillaume responded with what Arrowroot knew was
intentional ambiguity.
“I met her less than an hour ago. She might have information I
need, and that’s it.”
“Yes,” said Guillaume, taking a bite of an omelet. “Danielle’s
told me about that.”
After another pause, Arrowroot added, “I’ve been to Paris.”
“As a tourist?” Guillaume asked, with the merest hint of a sneer.
“That, and business too,” Arrowroot said. “Heard a rumor there
was a Manet I might be able to get for a song. But no such luck, so I
bought books instead.”
“I only went to Paris two years ago,” Guillaume admitted.
“Well, having been, I’m not sure I’d recommend it over the French
countryside,” Arrowroot said. “Smelly and dirty.”
“I always wanted to go,” Guillaume said. “I dreamed of going for
years.”
“But you didn’t?”
“No money,” Guillaume replied. “My mother was very poor.”
Danielle and Tamani returned and took their seats. The food had
been cleaned off Tamani’s face and neck and, to the extent possible,
off the top of her dress too.
Just as significantly to Arrowroot, the hardness seemed to be
gone from Danielle’s eyes. Something about finding Tamani smearing her
face with her dinner had touched his daughter, it seemed. Even the
most ruthless gold digger isn’t going to wear her dinner in the
presence of her would-be sugar daddy. If Danielle truly believed the
nonsense she was spouting about Army drug experiments, fine, as long
as it tempered her cynicism a little.
“Tamani has amnesia,” Danielle announced. “She’s forgotten
everything, practically, except how to talk.”
“Well, yes,” Arrowroot said, “that’s what I’ve been trying to
tell you.”
“You didn’t say amnesia, Daddy.”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s the exact word for it,” he retorted.
“Tamani, you know, I don’t want to speak for you, but as I recall, you
said you made yourself forget everything – everything that happened
before this morning.”
“But of course,” Tamani admitted, speaking in a slightly French
accent.
“So you know French,” Danielle observed, stifling an indulgent
smile. “I wonder if you’re from France? Or were a French teacher?”
“No,” Tamani said, “I learned it tonight. From Guillaume.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Guillaume. “French cannot be learnt that way.
Perhaps English. Never French.”
“I wonder if your memories might come back,” said Danielle, “if
you had some time to collect yourself. I wonder if there’s been – if
there’s been some trauma. Maybe someone else in Heligaux knows you,
and that would help. We could, we could have the paper do a story
about you!”
“Hmmm,” said Arrowroot. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”
Tamani looked from one face to the other, clearly not
understanding.
“Do you have any idea where you’re staying tonight?” Danielle
asked. “Do you have a room here?”
“This room?” she asked, gesturing.
“Are you,” Danielle began, pausing. “Are you homeless?”
Tamani looked up, concentrating on the word.
“It means I have no home?”
“Yes,” Danielle said. “I’m sorry to ask, I know it’s none of my
business.”
“I had a home last night,” Tamani said.
“It was at Fort Shergawa,” Arrowroot said. “Not going back there
tonight, I don’t think.”
“No,” agreed Tamani. “A man there with a firearm tried to eat me,
so I took it and learned it and rendered it inoperable.”
“Now, really,” Arrowroot protested, “that poor fellow wasn’t
trying to eat you. He was just protecting Fort Shergawa.”
“Hold on,” Danielle interrupted, “are you saying you took a
soldier’s weapon this morning?”
“Yes,” Tamani replied, nodding. “He pointed his firearm at me and
walked toward me, but he didn’t have killing in his eyes at that
moment, so I disarmed him.”
“I heard it play out on the scanner this morning,” Arrowroot
said, eager to give Tamani some backup as she spoke again of
unbelievable things.
“Wow, you’re lucky you’re not in the brig over there,” said
Danielle. “How did you manage to –“
“What did you mean,” interrupted Guillaume. “What did you mean
about the killing, about killing in his eyes?”
Tamani answered in French, Guillaume replied in kind and Tamani
went blank, staring at him without speaking, her face once again
expressionless. Guillaume stared back, his face also difficult to
read.
“Translation?” Arrowroot requested.
Danielle leaned over to her father and whispered, “I think she
said something like ‘It’s the look someone gets just before they
kill,’ so Guillaume asked her if she’d seen it in person. And. And she
said yes.”
Tamani continued to stare in Guillaum’s direction, but she seemed
to be looking through him now, and he looked away awkwardly, turned
his eyes to Danielle and laughed nervously.
Tamani finally ended her reverie and looked at Danielle as well.
“It’s strange that you have two completely different ways to say
something,” she said. “This wasn’t expected.”
“Okay,” Danielle said simply. “Tell you what. We want you to stay
with us tonight, at my father’s house, and I’ll be there with you.
Daddy, are the bedrooms still inhabitable?
“Yours is fine, haven’t touched it,” Arrowroot replied. “What
other bedroom you talking about?”
“Robert’s,” Danielle said.
“Robert’s?” Arrowroot repeated.
“Yes, Robert’s room,” Danielle said. “It’s fit for human
habitation?”
“Oh, well, you know,” Arrowroot stammered.
“Good, that’s where Tamani will stay.”
“Huh,” Arrowroot observed, chewing.
The rest of the dinner passed uneventfully, Danielle
demonstrating how to eat with a knife and fork while Tamani watched
carefully. Guillaume seemed to regain his balance, making small talk
and laughing admiringly at Danielle as she lectured on basic table
manners.
“Okay, he loves her,” Arrowroot thought to himself. “And his
momma was poor. Can’t be all bad.”
Arrowroot paid for dinner and the four of them headed out into
the cold April night air.
Danielle and Guillaume were parked beside the hotel, so they
agreed to take Tamani home while Arrowroot walked across the Promenade
to retrieve his truck.
Despite the cold, it was a beautiful evening, clear and full of
stars, and Arrowroot walked slowly, enjoying the serenity of the empty
plaza and little parks. With everyone gone, the only sound now was the
river, its timeless rush like a single word that meant everything and
nothing, depending on what you were looking for.
Arrowroot had proposed a bandstand here, with enough outdoor heat
lamps to keep the entertainers and 100 people warm. Council had shot
it down. Too expensive. The extra sales taxes and fees it would
generate would have paid for it, of course, but Arrowroot let the
matter die. Do what you can to bring your citizens happiness, but pick
your battles wisely, he had learned long ago.
Still, tonight would have been a perfect evening for it, and he
imagined the little concert taking place beside the water, bluegrass
fiddlers and acoustic guitarists bringing life to the spring evening
while the citizenry huddled around. It would have been a happiness.
But Arrowroot was not entirely at peace as the sounds of his
imaginary concert faded away and he found his truck in the dark alley
behind the police department. His daughter had just finagled an
overnight stay, in his house, for a strange woman who had a habit of
taking soldier’s guns and throwing people into rivers. This was bound
to end badly.

By the time Karl Arrowroot reached home, Danielle had already let
herself in and was giving Tamani and Guillaume a tour. They had made
it as far as the downstairs office, where the tour paused while Tamani
grabbed one book after another from the shelves, looking for pictures
and demanding explanations.

“How can this fly?” she queried. “What makes this go? Who made
these things?”
Danielle was doing her best, explaining her understanding of
aerodynamics, combustion engines, steel construction, using simple
words as one might for a child. Arrowroot walked in and cleared his
throat.
Tamani turned and carried a book to him. “Teach me these
letters,” she pleaded.
Arrowroot laughed. “Well, at the rate you’re going,” he said,
“you’re going to get everything back you forgot by bedtime. Let me
find some paper and I’ll write everything out for you.”
“No, these letters,” Tamani insisted, pointing to a page in the
middle of the book.
“Huh,” Arrowroot said. “Okay, this letter’s A, this letter’s X,
this letter’s I-“
“What sounds do they make?” Tamini interrupted.
“It varies,” Arrowroot replied, “but here’s a B, that one’s
pretty consistent, you know, b-b-b as in butter, beer, Bible. But
here’s a C, now that’s one slippery character. Makes the S sound when
she’s in the mood, makes the K sound, gangs up with the H to say chch-ch, like church. Say, Danielle?”
“Yup?”
“How ‘bout you work the letters some while I make sure Robert’s
room is ready, ready for our guest?”
“Okay,” Danielle replied doubtfully.
Arrowroot headed upstairs, starting when he heard someone speak
his name.
“Mr. Arrowroot?” It was Guillaume.
“Karl, please,” he said. “It’s what all my friends call me.”
“Thank you, Karl,” Guillaume said. “I just wanted to say, you
have an excellent library.”
“And I imagine that surprises you,” Arrowroot replied, stopping
at the top of the stairs and putting his hand on the railing.
“No,” Guillaume lied. “You have a great collection. Newton, and
Hawking, and Einstein.”
“They don’t go on the shelf until I’m done reading them,”
Arrowroot said. “Not done understanding them, necessarily, just
reading them. Oh, except for the Bibles. Did you see my collection? I
mean, I’ve read one of them all the way through, but not all of them.
That would be redundant.”
“So you studied physics at college?” Guillaume asked.
“Hmm,” Arrowroot replied, and he pursed his lips. “So Danielle
hasn’t told you anything about me now, has she?”
“Oh, but she has.”
Arrowroot laughed. “I’m sure she has. I don’t destroy the land,
but I roll out the red carpet for those who do. I’ve heard that one a
few times, including at a town council meeting. Not exactly something
you expect to hear from your oldest child, at least not in public.
Anyway, no, I didn’t study physics in school. I didn’t go to school at
all. Too poor, and I found something I could do to make money without
it.”
“Yes, of course,” Guillaume said. He seemed to want to say
something else, but he only added, “I’ll be downstairs.”
Robert’s room was in perfect order, and Arrowroot knew it would
be. He’d lost count of the times he’d opened the door to it in the
morning over the last six months – even with a pounding hangover, even
on the way to throwing up in the hall bathroom – hoping to find his
son and his son’s dog sleeping there. Arrowroot had let his own
bedroom go to hell, but he had a nightmare, more than once, where
Robert came home, found the room not to his liking and left again, so
he kept it meticulously clean.
And of course, it always, always hurt. There are shrines to hope
and power and godliness in many homes, Arrowroot knew, as there have
been since the beginning of time, but this room had become a shrine to
something else, to a deep, aching pain. Everything here – the poster
from a movie they’d seen together years ago, the little clay sculpture
of a purple cow Robert had made in high school, the guitar he
sometimes played late at night – everything was like a dull knife
between Arrowroot’s ribs.
He opened the door, found it spotless – and empty of either human
or canine – and only then admitted to himself that he had been hoping,
once again, to find that Robert had come home.
It would have been perfect, of course, too perfect, Danielle in
the house for the first time since summer, Robert back again,
Danielle’s boyfriend there too, and Tamani. Despite himself, he
imagined what might happen if Robert took a fancy to the girl, made a
move on her. If she didn’t have a river to toss him into, what would
she do then? Just break his neck and be done? What if this was the
night he came home and found a strange woman sleeping in his bed?
Arrowroot was lost in dark thoughts when another voice startled
him, emanating from just over his shoulder.
“Daddy!” Danielle exclaimed breathlessly. “she’s a savant!”
“Dang it, Danielle, you scared the hell out of me,” Arrowroot
blurted. “Now what is she?”
“She’s a savant,” Danielle repeated. “An idiot savant. One of
those people who can do things, you know, like, mental things.”
“What the hell has she done now?” Arrowroot asked.
“She’s reading,” Danielle said. “I taught her all the letters and
she’s reading. Out loud. From one of your books on astrophysics.”
“Ha, poor thing,” Arrowroot chuckled. “I hope it makes more sense
to her than it did to me.”
“I can’t tell,” Danielle said. “But she’s reading, getting better
at it too as she goes along.”
“Well,” Arrowroot responded, “I doubt this is the first time
she’s ever read. I think she’s just getting back things she’d lost.”
“Maybe,” Danielle said with a hint of disappointment. “I’d love
to see her sue those monsters at the fort.”
Father and daughter fell silent, and Danielle’s eyes wandered
around Robert’s immaculate room. It had never been this clean when he
lived in it, so she must have been able to tell he’d been tending to
it, keeping up a solitary vigil for a young man who had not yet come
home. Their eyes met, and they shared their pain wordlessly, about
Robert, and about something else, something fdeeper and darker. For
every regrettable truth families share, there are other secrets too
terrible or disturbing or humiliating to be acknowledged.
“So help me understand something,” Arrowroot began. “An hour ago,
you were telling me I was in over my head, that she was bad news and
that’s all there was to it. Now you’ve got her staying in my house,
teaching her things like she’s your best friend.”
“Uh, excuse me?” Danielle replied with exasperation. “So what do
you think we should have done, pay for dinner and leave her in the
restaurant? And I’m sure she’d be waiting for you tomorrow to answer
your questions after she spent the night on the street. And didn’t you
say she’d almost been raped once already?”
“Okay, okay, I ain’t arguing with that logic,” Arrowroot said,
holding up his hands. “Necessary evil, perhaps. But I want you to be
careful around her.” He lowered his voice and leaned down. “You and
Guillaume both. You know, don’t cross her. I saw her toss a man into
the Mittelkopp right before dinner.”
“What?” Danielle asked. “What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t want to say anything in front of her,” he replied,
whispering, “but there was some kind of confusion, she got tangled up
with that Ms. Homans character somehow, was about to become a
prostitute, but things went south with her first client, so she picks
him up –“ Arrowroot demonstrated, his arms straight out, back arched
as if he were holding up something massive. “So she picks him up, I
mean, like he was a kitten, picks him up on the veranda, you know at
the hotel, right over the water, lifts him right up over the railing,
he says something like ‘go ahead, do it’ and damned if she doesn’t,
just throws him like he was a football, right in the river.”
“She lifted a grown man off his feet?” Danielle asked, her eyes
wide.
“Indeed,” Arrowroot assured. “Bulky son of a gun, too, probably
over 200 pounds. Just lifted him right off his feet.”
“Did he live?” Danielle asked. “Did he drown?”
“Oh, he swam right out,” replied Arrowroot, “but that’s not the
point of the story. The point is, you cross her, there’s no telling
what she’ll do. But if you’re near water, you know, bring your swim
suit.”
“So you saw all this?” Danielle asked.
“Plain as day,” Arrowroot replied. “I was watching from the
Promenade, right below. No one knew I was there.”
“So let me make sure I understand,” Danielle whispered. “This man
walks up, offers to pay her for sex and she throws him in the river.”
“More or less,” Arrowroot said, “but he had been drinking. And he
was putting his hands all over her too, you know, her privates and
all, and she didn’t like that.”
“God, they really worked her over, didn’t they?” Danielle said.
“That’s got to be what it was. Military experiment. They did it in our
name. With our taxes. We owe her. We owe her. But yeah, let’s be
careful. You too.”
“Of course,” Arrowroot said. “I been telling you she’s not my
girlfriend.”
Arrowroot heard footsteps on the stairs and hushed his daughter,
but it was just Guillaume.
“So how’s our little savant doing?” Arrowroot asked.
“She’s just flipping through the pages, one after another,”
Guillaume answered.
“Is she reading them or just looking for pictures?” asked
Danielle.
“No one could read that fast,” he replied. “But there aren’t any
pictures. I don’t know, maybe she’s reading, at least some. She asked
me about Galileo.”
“Galileo?” Arrowroot asked.
“Yes yes,” Guillaume replied, “‘why did the Catholic Church
conduct an inquisition of Galileo about, uh, heliocentrism?’ So I tell
her, well, heliocentrism disagreed with what the Catholics Church
believed, their writings, and she says ‘so the Catholics eat their
rescuer every Sunday? Metaphorically?’ and I said yes, but they think
it’s real, and I try to say more about it but she only laughed a
little and kept reading.”
“Daddy,” Danielle blurted abruptly, “Guillaume is spending the
night too. I think we’ll be safer.”
“Safer?” Guillaume inquired.
“I’ll tell you later,” Danielle whispered.
“Okay, sure, whatever,” Arrowroot replied. He’d conducted his
first lesbian wedding that afternoon. He had no right to get touchy
about fornication, even if it were involving his daughter. And his
mind was moving to other things tonight, anyway. It was time, he knew,
to fight the next battle.
Arrowroot had been a drunk long enough to know that drinking will
tap you on the shoulder a few times through the day, and you say no
thanks and you think you’re done with it, and you turn away to go
about your business and all of a sudden it’s got your head its mouth.
Arrowroot had been saying no all day, and it was working, but he knew
there was going to be another round tonight, and it was just about to
begin.
Overall, it had been a good day. A great day. Perhaps the best in
half a year, at least. He had done much, enjoyed himself, maybe
assisted in a few others’ enjoyment. Of all the nights to deserve a
drink or two, this was it. He’d earned it. Right?
No.
The word came back from deep in his mind, and the word was final.
There would be no drinking tonight. It was as if his mind knew
something he didn’t. That something was going to happen tomorrow.
Something he would need to not be hungover for.
Okay, he said to himself, this was going to be easy. Tonight, he
was going to read himself to sleep. He was going at long last to crack
open a new book on the Big Bang, and read it until his eyes grew
heavy.
He went downstairs to say goodnight, found Tamani in his office,
flipping through the pages of another book. There were already 20 at
her feet. She couldn’t be reading them. No, not at that pace. He
nodded to her, she smiled back and returned to her book.
Danielle and Guillaume were sitting together on a couch in the
den, holding hands and talking.
“You two sleep well, g’night,” he said.
“Goodnight, Daddy.”
Back in his room, Arrowroot made good on his promise to Othercat
before he undressed for bed, making a first stab at getting things in
order. Dirty clothes in the hamper, a pile of fresh laundry from last
weekend folded and put away, old dishes stacked.
The feline at the foot of his bed watched with approval,
rewarding her master by rolling onto her back to offer her tummy.
He obliged her, remembering that he was no closer to solving the
mystery of cats and dogs than he’d been that morning. He noticed a
glass on the floor, picked it up and caught the faint whiff of dried
gin. He breathed in deeply, longingly. “There’s more gin downstairs,”
his brain reminded him.
“Nope, nope,” he said, almost audibly. “You ain’t ambushin’ me
that way.”
He climbed into bed, all the lights off except the one on his
nightstand, and turned to page 1. The book started with a poem: