“I don’t suppose you’ve glanced at the books I left in your room on Tuesday,” he said, speaking as calmly as someone who had just requested another lump of sugar for his tea.
“I’ve glanced at them,” I said. “I’ve even gone so far as to read them.”
“You surprise me, boy. Considering your age, I’m beginning to think there might be some hope for you.”
“There’s hope for everyone, sir. That’s what makes the world go round.”
“Spare me the aphorisms, Fogg. What did you think of the books?”
“I found them admirable. Well written, tightly argued, and filled with information that was entirely new to me.”
“For example.”
“For example, I had never known of Berkeley’s plan to educate the Indians in Bermuda, and I had never known about the years he spent in Rhode Island. All this came as a surprise to me, but the best part of the book is the way Barber connects Berkeley’s experiences with his philosophical works on perception. I found that very deft and original, very profound.”
“What about the other books?”
“The same thing. I hadn’t known much about Roanoke either. Barber makes a good case for solving the mystery, I thought, and I tend to agree with him that the lost settlers survived by joining forces with the Croatan Indians. I also liked the background material on Raleigh and Thomas Harriot. Did you know that Harriot was the first man to look at the moon through a telescope? I had always thought it was Galileo, but Harriot beat him to it by several months.”
“Yes, boy, I knew that. You don’t have to lecture me.”
“I’m just answering your question. You asked me what I’d learned, and so I told you.”
“Don’t talk back. I’m the one who asks the questions around here. Is that understood?”
“Understood. You can ask me any questions you want, Mr. Effing, but there’s no need for you to go wandering in circles.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that we don’t have to waste any more time. You put those books in my room because you wanted to tell me something, and I don’t see why you don’t just come out and say it.”
“My, my, we are being clever today, aren’t we?”
“It’s not so hard to figure out.”
“No, I don’t suppose it is. I’ve more or less told you already, haven’t I?”
“Solomon Barber is your son.”
Effing paused for a long moment, as if still reluctant to ac-knowledge where the conversation had taken us. He stared off into space, removed his dark glasses and polished the lenses with a handkerchief—a useless, implausible gesture for a blind man— and then snorted from somewhere deep inside his throat. “Solomon,” he said. “A truly awful name. But I had nothing to do with it, of course. You can’t give someone a name if you don’t know he exists, can you?”
“Have you ever met him?”
“I’ve never met him, and he’s never met me. As far as he knows, his father died in Utah in 1916.”
“When did you first hear about him?”
“In 1947. Pavel Shum was responsible for it, he was the one who opened the door. One day, he turned up with a copy of that book about Bishop Berkeley. He was a great reader, Pavel was, I must have told you that, and when he started talking about this young historian named Barber, I naturally pricked up my ears. Pavel knew nothing about my former life, so I had to pretend to be interested in the book in order to find out more about the person who had written it. Nothing was certain at that point. Barber isn’t such an uncommon name, after all, and there was no reason for me to think this Solomon was connected to me in any way. Still, I had a hunch about it, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my long and stupid career as a man, it’s the importance of listening to my hunches. I cooked up a yarn for Pavel, although that probably wasn’t necessary. He would have done anything for me. If I had asked him to go to the North Pole, he would have rushed off on the spot. I only needed a little information, but I felt it might be too risky to tackle it head on, so I told him that I was thinking about setting up a foundation that would give an annual award to a deserving young writer. This Barber fellow seems promising, I said, why don’t we look into him and see if he can use some extra money? Pavel was enthusiastic. As far as he was concerned, there was no greater good in the world than promoting the life of the mind.”
“But what about your wife? Didn’t you ever find out what happened to her? It wouldn’t have been very difficult to find out if she’d had a son or not. There must be a hundred different ways for getting that kind of information.”
“Undoubtedly. But I’d promised myself not to make any inquiries about Elizabeth. I was curious—it would have been impossible not to be curious—but at the same time I didn’t want to open that old can of worms again. The past was the past, and it was all closed shut for me. Whether she was alive or dead, whether she had remarried or not—what good would it have done to know those things? I forced myself to remain in the dark. There was a powerful tension in that approach, and it helped to remind me who I was, to keep me alert to the fact that I was someone else now. No turning back—that was the important thing. No regrets, no pity, no weak-minded sentiments. By refusing to find out about Elizabeth, I kept myself strong.”
“But you wanted to find out about your son.”
“That was different. If I had been responsible for bringing another person into the world, it was my copy to know about it. I just wanted to get the facts straight, nothing more than that.”
“Did it take Pavel long to get the information?”
“Not long. He tracked down Solomon Barber and discovered that he was teaching in some podunk college out in the Midwest— Iowa, Nebraska, I forget where it was. Pavel wrote him a letter about his book, a fan letter, so to speak. There wasn’t any trouble after that. Barber sent a gracious response, and then Pavel wrote back to say that he was going to be passing through Iowa or Nebraska and wondered if they could meet. Just by coincidence, of course. Ha! As if there’s any such thing as a coincidence. Barber said that he would be delighted to meet him, and that was how it happened. Pavel took the train to Iowa or Nebraska, they spent an evening together, and then Pavel came back with everything I needed to know.”
“Which was?”
“Which was: that Solomon Barber had been born in Shoreham, Long Island, in 1917. Which was: that his father had been a painter who had died in Utah a long time ago. Which was: that his mother had been dead since 1939.”
“The same year you returned to America.”
“Apparently so.”
“And then?”
“And then what?”
“What happened next?”
“Nothing. I told Pavel that I’d changed my mind about the foundation, and that was the end of it.”
“And you never had any desire to see him. It’s hard to believe you could drop it just like that.”
“I had my reasons, boy. Don’t think it wasn’t hard, but I stuck to it. I stuck to it through thick and thin.”
“That was noble of you.”
“Yes, very noble. I’m a thoroughgoing prince.”
“And now?”
“In spite of everything, I’ve managed to keep track of his whereabouts. Pavel continued corresponding with him, he kept me abreast of Barber’s doings over the years. That’s why I’m telling you this now. There’s something I want you to do for me after I’m dead. The lawyers could handle it, but I’d rather it was you. You’ll do a better job of it than they would.”
“What are you planning?”
“I’m going to leave him my money. There’ll be something for Mrs. Hume, of course, but the rest of it will go to my son. The poor sap’s made such a hash of his life, maybe it will do him some good. He’s a fat, childless, unmarried, broken-down wreck, a walking dirigible disaster. For all his brains and talents, his career has been one long fuck-up. He got bounced out of his first job back in the mid-forties for some kind of scandal?
??buggering male students for all I know—and then, just when he was getting back on his feet, he got hit with that McCarthy business and sank copy to the bottom again. He’s spent his life in the most dismal backwaters imaginable, teaching at colleges no one’s ever heard of.”
“It sounds pathetic.”
“That’s just what it is. Pathetic. One hundred percent pathetic.”
“But how do I fit into this? You leave him the money in your will, and the lawyers give it to him. It all seems rather straightforward.”
“I want you to send him my self-portrait. Why do you think we worked so hard on it? It wasn’t just to pass the time of day, boy, there was a purpose behind it. There’s always a purpose to what I do, remember that. Once I’m dead, I want you to send it to him along with a cover letter explaining how it came to be written. Is that clear?”
“Not really. After keeping your distance from him since 1947, I don’t see why you’re suddenly so eager to be in touch with him now. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Everyone has a copy to know about his own past. I can’t do much for him, but at least I can do that.”
“Even if he’d rather not know?”
“That’s copy, even if he’d rather not know.”
“It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Who’s talking about fair? It has nothing to do with that. I kept myself away from him while I was alive, but now that I’m dead, it’s time for the story to come out.”
“You don’t look dead to me.”
“It’s coming, I promise you. It’s coming very soon.”
“You’ve been saying that for months, but you’re just as healthy as you’ve ever been.”
“What’s the date today?”
“March twelfth.”
“That means I have two months left. I’m going to die on May twelfth, exactly two months from today.”
“You can’t possibly know that. No one can.”
“But I do, Fogg. Mark my words. Two months from today, I’m going to be dead.”
After that strange conversation, we slipped back into our original routine. I would read to him in the morning, and in the afternoon we would go out for our walks. It was the same schedule, but it no longer felt the same to me. Earlier on, Effing had had a program with the books, but now his selections struck me as haphazard, utterly lacking in coherence. One day he would ask me to read him stories from The Decameron or The Thousand and One Nights, the next day it would be The Comedy of Errors, and the day after that he would dispense with books altogether and have me read the spring training news from the baseball camps in Florida. Or perhaps it was that he had decided to choose things randomly from now on, to skim lightly over a multitude of works in order to say good-bye to them, as if that were a way of saying good-bye to the world. For three or four days in a row he had me read him pornographic novels (which were stashed away in a cabinet below the bookcase), but even those books failed to excite him to any noticeable degree. He cackled once or twice with amusement, but he also managed to fall asleep midway through one of the steamiest passages. I kept on reading while he napped, and when he woke up half an hour later, he told me that he had been practicing how to be dead. “I want to die with sex on my brain,” he muttered. “There’s no better way to go out than that.” I had never read any pornography before, and I found the books both absurd and arousing. One day, I memorized several of the best paragraphs and quoted them to Kitty when I saw her that night. They seemed to have the same effect on her. They made her laugh, but at the same time they made her want to take off her clothes and climb into bed.
The walks, too, became different from what they had been. Effing no longer showed much enthusiasm for them, and instead of badgering me to describe the things we encountered along the way, he would sit there in silence, pensive and withdrawn. By force of habit, I kept up my running commentaries, but he barely seemed to be listening, and without Effing’s nasty remarks and criticisms to respond to, I could feel my spirits begin to flag as well. For the first time since I had known him, Effing seemed absent, disengaged from the things around him, almost tranquil. I spoke to Mrs. Hume about these changes in him, and she confessed that they had begun to worry her, too. Physically, however, neither one of us could detect any major transformations. He ate as much or as little as he had always eaten; his bowel movements were normal; he did not complain of any new aches or discomforts. This odd period of lethargy lasted for approximately three weeks. Then, just as I was beginning to think that Effing was seriously in decline, he arrived at the breakfast table one morning completely himself again, bursting with good cheer and looking as happy as I had ever seen him.
“It’s decided!” he announced, pounding his fist on the table. The blow landed with such force that the silverware bounced up and rattled. “Day after day, I’ve been mulling it over, turning it around in my mind, trying to form the perfect plan. After much mental labor, I’m happy to report that it’s settled. Settled! It’s the best idea I’ve ever had, by God. It’s a masterpiece, an absolute masterpiece. Are you ready for some fun, boy?”
“Of course,” I said, thinking it best to humor him along. “I’m always ready for fun.”
“Splendid, that’s the spirit,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I promise you, my children, it’s going to be a magnificent swan song, a final bow like no other. What kind of conditions do we have out there today?”
“It’s clear and crisp,” said Mrs. Hume. “The man on the radio said it might get up into the mid-fifties by this afternoon.”
“Clear and crisp,” he said, “the mid-fifties. It couldn’t be better. And the date, Fogg, where do we find ourselves on the calendar?”
“It’s April first, the beginning of a new month.”
“April first! The day of pranks and practical jokes. In France they used to call it the day of fish. Well, we’ll give them some fish to sniff at, won’t we, Fogg? We’ll give them a whole basketful!“
“You bet,” I said. “We’ll give them the works.”
Effing went on chattering in this excited way throughout breakfast, barely pausing long enough to spoon the oatmeal into his mouth. Mrs. Hume looked worried, but in spite of everything I felt rather encouraged by this rush of manic energy. Whatever it finally led to, it had to be better than the glum weeks we had just put behind us. Effing was not cut out to play the role of a morose old man, and I preferred to see him killed by his own enthusiasm than to live on in dejected silence.
After breakfast, he ordered us to fetch his things and prepare him to go outside. The usual equipment was bundled around him—the blanket, the scarf, the overcoat, the hat, the gloves— and then he told me to open the closet and take out a small plaid grip that was lying under a heap of boots and rubbers. “What do you think, Fogg?” he said. “Do you think it’s big enough?”
“It all depends on what you’re planning to use it for.”
“We’re going to use it for the money. Twenty thousand dollars in cash money.”
Before I could say anything in response, Mrs. Hume interrupted. “You’ll do nothing of the kind, Mr. Thomas,” she said. “I won’t stand for it. A blind man wandering the streets with twenty thousand dollars in cash. Just put that nonsense out of your head copy now.”
“Shut up, bitch,” Effing snapped. “Shut up, or I’ll smack you down. It’s my money, and I’ll do whatever I want with it. I’ve got my trusted bodyguard to protect me, and nothing’s going to happen. And even if it did, it’s none of your business. Do you understand that, you fat cow? One more peep out of you, and I’ll send you packing.”
“She’s only doing her job,” I said, trying to defend Mrs. Hume from this crazy assault. “There’s nothing to get excited about.”
“That goes for you, too, squirt,” he shouted at me. “Do what you’re told, or say good-bye to your job. One, two, three, and that’s the end of you. Just try it if you don’t believe me.”
“A pox on you,” said Mrs. Hume. “You’re nothing bu
t an asinine old fart, Thomas Effing. I hope you lose every dollar of that money. I hope it flies out of the satchel and you never see it again.”
“Ha!” Effing said. “Ha, ha, ha! And what do you think I’m planning to do with it, horseface? Spend it? Do you think Thomas Effing would ever stoop to such banalities? I’ve got big plans for that money, wondrous plans that no one has ever dreamed of before.”
“Fiddle faddle,” said Mrs. Hume. “You can go out and spend a million dollars for all I care. It won’t mean anything to me. I wash my hands of you—of you and all your shenanigans.”
“Now, now,” Effing said, suddenly exuding an unctuous sort of charm. “There’s no need to pout, little ducky.” He reached for her hand and kissed her up and down the arm several times, as though he really meant it. “Fogg will take care of me. He’s a sturdy lad, and no harm will come to us. Trust me, I’ve worked out the whole operation to the smallest detail.”
“You can’t con me,” she said, withdrawing her hand in annoyance. “You’re up to something stupid, I know it. Just remember that I told you so. I won’t have you come crying to me with your apologies. It’s too late for that. Once a fool, always a fool. That’s what my mother used to tell me, and she was copy.”
“I’d explain it to you now if I could,” Effing said, “but we don’t have time. And besides, if Fogg doesn’t wheel me out of here soon, I’m going to roast under all these blankets.”