The Witch of the Wood (9 page)

He laughed, shook his head. This is why he hated the movie
Inception.
Once the dream went down two tiers, even the screenwriters had no clue what was going on. Maybe reading minds, even for a superior being like Wolfie, wasn’t so easy . . . because of the gradations, the rationalizations, the way we not only lied to ourselves but, at the core, often didn’t really know what the hell we were doing until we went out and did it. Maybe it was a rabbit hole Wolfie only lowered himself into just past the rim, retiring carefully to that little room just beneath the lip that unlocked visions of the past, the biographies written in the language he so rapidly learned. And maybe just below this room, churning and bubbling, was the endless pit of “present thought,” a chasm of madness only good for an occasional sticky intrusion (at close range no less) that was no more than simple communication:
Come home, I’m bored. Don’t forget the iodine.

The smile faded from Rudy’s lips. He did love the boy, and in many ways he despised the world this child was planning to destroy and reanimate, most probably for the better, at least when you thought about it intellectually. But could he really sit back and watch all the men on earth rise up against each other?

Right. Wolfie was to be faithful to the ones who created him, and therefore Rudy was part of the equation, a check or balance, kept happy (or distracted) by the parade of newly available women, possibly not knowing his role himself until some critical moment. But again, the boy had already figured all this out . . . the pendulum . . . the roller coaster. The question was, Rudy supposed, whether or not this cynical professor, beaten down by the world a bit, quietly bitter, could bring himself to “do the right thing” when he was at one of those temporary moral highs. Clearly, Wolfie was banking on the endgame, where the coaster settled. Fatherly love and a borrower’s obligation before allegiance to some lofty ideal.

Rudy got out his cell phone and punched in the number for information despite himself. As hard as it was to admit, there was a definite roundabout going on here—a profound part of him that wanted to see this dark magic unfold just for the wonder of it all. And Wolfie’s insisting that Rudy couldn’t understand the big picture without context . . . that his mind had been simplistic terrain to navigate . . . that his books were one-dimensional, all had set a sort of fire inside him, jet black and scorching. He wanted more close inspection of the individual pieces of this massive puzzle, almost to prove to himself that he was capable of predicting the more global ramifications without a condescending tutor more than forty years his junior. There was pride involved now, and he supposed Wolfie had already accounted for this, working it into the overall equation after one of his initial picture walks through Rudy’s “Biography Room.”

“I know that you know, that I know that you know,” Rudy muttered, almost like a taunting. Yeah, Wolfie boy, come down into the chasm and play.

When Directory Assistance asked for city and state, Rudy gave it, and when the recording said, “Listing,” Rudy asked for the University of Pennsylvania library. It was easy to get past the bored graduate student, and even easier to convince the first snotty, then ultimately warm and articulate head librarian that his Widener kids needed a “real library experience,” no tour necessary. He’d bring Wolfie along with the pack wearing a hat and sunglasses, loose clothes, anything that would hide that striking beauty, a paper leaf bag if necessary. Once the kid was in, they could leave him there discreetly. Kids slept over in libraries all the time, and security rarely bothered them once they’d made it past the entrance where they slid their I.D. cards.

As soon as he closed his phone, it rang in his hand, and Wolfie provided Rudy with a list of clothes he wanted from a store called American Eagle. There was nothing in his son’s voice that indicated suspicion, and Rudy figured right then and there that they were out of range of each other or the mind-reading was, after all, only skin-deep. And either result confirmed the check and balance. Wolfie had a limitation after all.

Rudy pulled into the road and headed through lot B toward the exit. If there was one limitation, there would be others, and Rudy wasn’t finally sure whether he wanted to track and exploit them or protect Wolfie from others who would do so. And of course, all the while he was sitting here measuring his ethics, he was also helping Wolfie infiltrate the library. He was on his way to buy clothes for him, and he was getting ready to register him in high school, almost as if these actions were merely chores, errands, humdrum and commonplace, harmless in themselves when compared to the horror they would eventually add up to. Oh, the devastation was utterly disconnected, beyond the horizon, a dream, a distant, dusty history book that would filter and erase the bloodshed the moment it ceased, whitewashing it with sayings that assured the survivors that their freedom had been threatened, that the sacrifices had been made in the good name of their traditions, and that we only “sanitized” this great land to avoid tyranny, suppression, and subversion. Maybe this was the way that the Hitlers of the world went about their business.

One banal responsibility at a time.

Rudy did the shopping and was numb about it, and the fact that he’d identified the heinous role of desensitization in the overall malignancy did not lessen the all too human lure of falling into it. By the time he got home, entering the foyer armed with bundles and packages, he was exhausted. And Wolfie had indeed become a teenager, dressed now in Rudy’s “Wednesday”: dark slacks, olive dress shirt, silk tie, black sweater. The boy was simply stunning, blond and angelic, thin almost to a fault yet sculpted under those dress clothes as indicated by his posture.

He was sitting across from a guest.

She turned, and mascara was running down her face like some old-school Broadway cliché. It was Patricia, Rudy’s ex-wife, and the professor suddenly had a lot of explaining to do.

Rudy braced himself for the onslaught of questions and accusations that would turn his living room into a Jerry Springer episode.
Who was she? . . . Is she still in the picture? . . .
and the worst of the bunch, voice all choked up and tender . . .
Did you love her and do you still?
as if Pat had come even close to filling that void for the past twenty-two years or so. Suddenly, Rudy missed April Orr desperately and was simultaneously infuriated by the idea that he was obligated to defend himself for thinking he was worth her passion. It was also a pain in the ass to sort out the history he was going to have to invent here on the spot, making it seem that this “ancient relationship” was something he just fell into and couldn’t get out of. Wolfie was around eighteen now, so Rudy had had this “affair” in what . . . 1994? What was going on back then, culturally, historically? He’d have to have met Wolfie’s mother under
specific circumstances
that Pat needed to let fester, grind her teeth over, and finally accept grudgingly. Then she could block the idea that she was a boring lover, and worse, a shallow and uninteresting conversationalist who preferred to condescend from a platform of ignorance.

So how did he meet this “other woman”? Was there a snowstorm, a missed flight, some day after school that he went and had a drink somewhere? To make it real, he had to add a detail or two, like what was playing on the radio, or what movie was making everyone’s head spin, something for context. Grunge, right?
Forest Gump
and
Pulp Fiction,
no? Or was that ’95? Had Andrew Dice Clay done his blast and fizzle yet? Was Daddy Bush still President? Had Rich Kotite singlehandedly tried to destroy the Philadelphia Eagles franchise by then?

But Pat didn’t demand an explanation. She stood shakily, took a tissue from her pocket (
God!
how it annoyed Rudy when he used to find the pieces of one of those things shredded through a wash), and wiped her face, smearing everything.

“I’m a mess,” she managed. She put her hand on her hip and leaned on the corner of the chair dramatically. “And he’s gorgeous.”

“Oh, Mom,” Wolfie said.

“Don’t call her that!” Rudy snapped a bit too hard.

“I want to be involved,” she said.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not involved with me. Not anymore.”

“I was when you went and had him.”

Rudy’s face went scarlet.

“Old history, sweetheart. My history. A history you really had nothing to do with except at the fringe.”

“And whose fault was that?”

“Yours.”

“Guys,” Wolfie tried.

“Quiet!” They’d both said it simultaneously, though her command was filled with motherly caution and his was laced with a misdirected venom he immediately felt bad about. She folded her arms and held her head high.

“It was not my fault, Rudy. You shut me out.”

“You never listened.”

“You repeated the same things over and over again.”

“Yes, to dead ears.”

They were both smiling brightly now, and her fists were at her sides.

“O.K., Rudy. You’ve got me. I admit that I don’t care one hoot about semiotics, syntax, and the wonder of the formulation of rhetoric.”

“Clearly.”

“So sue me.”

“I did better. I divorced you.”

She stepped back.

“Why do you hate me so much?”

Rudy looked off into nowhere.

“I don’t hate you. We just got old, that’s all.”

“People get old, Rudy.”

He looked at her directly.

“I meant the relationship. The attraction.” He touched the seam on the back of the chair she’d been sitting on and ran his finger across it. “I just got tired of lying.”

She gazed down listlessly. She was wearing tan pants and a sweater she’d knitted herself. It was lime green with black buttons. She had designer cat’s-eye glasses, a short haircut with streaks in it, and earrings with golden spangles, but it was all poor window dressing. She’d developed dour age lines around her mouth and had to wear a custom-designed sweater to hide the double fanny in front and the wide ass in the rear. She looked like a fat boy who had raided his “hip” grandmother’s wardrobe for a lark, and while there must have been pity somewhere inside him, Rudy felt nothing now but a deep-seated resentment for that “untended neighboring residence” he’d had to look at across the bed for so many years while he’d done a fair job maintaining his own metaphorical keep.

She stumbled over to Wolfie’s footrest, and when she sat, the cushion wheezed. It almost made Rudy laugh outright, God help him. Wolfie slid down to join her and put his arm around her shoulder, causing her to lean into him, her hands sliding between her knees. She peeked back up at Rudy through her short bangs.

“You never understood me,” she said.

“I tried.”

“You didn’t, not really.”

Wolfie rubbed her shoulder.

“There, there, mum. Everyone here knows you always did your best.”

Rudy was about to explode over the “mum” reference, but there was something in Wolfie’s eyes that made him swallow it. Wolfie turned and kissed her forehead, bringing the other arm around for a big, warm hug. Then their foreheads were together. “Breathe,” he said softly, and she took a deep one. He did it with her, then turned to Rudy, taking a second to shake the corn silk hair off his forehead.

“Try to understand,” he said.

Rudy nodded. “I understand that we were young once.”

Pat broke softly from the embrace, and her face brightened.

“We were, weren’t we?” A cloud then came across her brow. “But you’re right, Rudy. We grew apart. You had your hobbies and I had mine: you with your . . . writing and me, my knitting. You, your lectures, and me, my watercolors.” She folded her hands and pursed her lips as if she were conceding something. “We’re both just talented in different ways. Two ships in the sea.”

Rudy almost went through the roof. Both? Talented? As if there were an equivalency to be drawn between his scholarly articles . . . his hours upon hours of meticulous research and drafting . . . his ability to publish regularly in seven major academic journals without a Ph.D. . . . and knitting? His lectures on navigating the more difficult rhetorical structures, differentiated for up to four separate ability levels simultaneously, and specifically designed to reach perfect climax every class period like fucking symphonies . . . equal to watercolors? The most intricate design she’d ever completed was a rather cluttered-looking paint by the numbers!

“You’re kidding,” he said quietly.

She looked at Wolfie as if his father were a bad little boy.

“Knitting,” she said, “painting, cooking, stained glass, ceramics. He never cared.” She stared over at Rudy ruefully. “They were important to me! They defined me!”

Wolfie nodded.

“She’s right, Dad. ‘Hobby’ is such a silly little word. Our activities are what make each of us special.” He took Patricia’s hands in his and looked into her eyes meaningfully.

“Now mum, Daddy and I have to talk about things. I have a lifetime to catch up on, and I promise that you will be included. ‘Stepmother’ is as bad a word as ‘hobby’ for different reasons, and we are going to change its connotation this very minute. You matter, and this will—not—change.”

She stood and waddled past Rudy to the door, wounded but a survivor. Wolfie was quick in tow to open the door for her.

“Bye, mum,” he said. “I’ll see you soon. And look on the bright side. We just analyzed the words ‘hobby’ and ‘stepmother’ in true phonetic, semiotic fashion, or whatever Daddy would call it. And we both made it through to live another day!”

They had a big laugh at that one, and even Rudy had to forfeit a genuine grin. Oh, Wolfie was good, there was no question about it. Pat paused in the doorway and said to Wolfie sort of through the side of her face,