The Book of Speculation

7 JULY 14TH

There it is. No question. Drowned, July 24th, 1937.

Celine Duvel, aquatic performer with Cirque Marveau, found drowned Saturday in the waters off Ocean City, presumed to have taken her own life. Duvel is survived by a daughter, Verona Bonn. No service to be held.

It’s a tiny notice in the Daily Sentinel-Ledger, but the ramifications are shattering, because next to it is a microfiche printout of Verona Bonn’s obituary. The Diving Queen of Littles-Lightford Circus, my grandmother, drowned in a Maryland bay. July 24th, 1962. Survived by her daughter, Paulina. Two data points could be coincidence, but four?

Something is very wrong.

What began as a passing fascination with the book has turned into something darker, fueled by the startling discovery that the women in my family have a disturbing habit of not only dying young, but drowning on July 24th. The book’s original owner was more focused on profiteering and potential routes than detailing the lineage of drowning women, and there are many names: Amos, Hermelius Peabody, a girl called Evangeline, Benno Koenig, a fortune-teller listed as Mme. Ryzhkova, and more, but relationships are not remarked upon so often as wages. Dates are noted somewhat haphazardly, and nowhere is there mention of July 24th being of particular significance. Peabody only made note of things that struck his fancy, and clearly didn’t anticipate that more than two centuries later an unemployed librarian would be using this journal as a primary source.

Alice’s research has paved the way somewhat. She’s let me use her institutional ID from Stony Brook, which she was smart enough to not let lapse. It allows me access to records that I’d typically be barred from without a research request approval. It made sense to work backward, and so I started with my mother, the newspaper story with her picture at its top, sharp-faced with her unforgivingly black hair — an aloof beauty. Despite my memories and their flashes of warmth, the picture shows that my mother was not a happy woman. Not something on which I ever dwelled. It’s brutal to realize that someone might find a life with you in it unbearable. And so I’ve filled my days with digging through public records, searching folded newspapers and magazine scraps, until now I find myself staring at the Daily Sentinel-Ledger, and an alarming pattern.

It’s past ten. Alice should be in and already through the first layer of her to-do list. Now is when she usually pauses to reorganize her desk, puts the pens on the right side, taps her papers into a stack. I call.

“It’s me,” I say.

“Can’t talk long. Circulation glitch. Nobody can find anything and stuff on the shelves is showing up as checked out. Books are missing.”

I look at the two I stole. Were I a better person I might feel guilty. “Probably something with the bar code scanner.”

“Or the catalog. Anyway, what’s up?”

“Does it seem strange to you that I know almost nothing about my family?”

“Not really. Strange is relative with you guys. I mean, look at what your parents named your sister. Who does that to a kid?”

“I know.” Once I learned about the atomic bomb I was never able to think of my parents or my sister in quite the same light. I asked Dad about it once. His response was that Mom had ideas about reclaiming painful things; that if something terrible was made out of a beautiful thing there was an obligation to restore beauty, to reinstate meaning. The attempt with my sister failed; she exists like an explosion. I never had the guts to ask about my name. “I found something weird, though, even for us. You know the women I had you look up? They died on the same date as my mom. Women in my family have a way of dying on July 24th.”

There’s a pause. She shifts the phone to her other shoulder. Papers slide. I can imagine her neatening her letter tray.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Melancholy streak? That kind of thing runs in families. Add in a little seasonal affective disorder and it might make for a good coincidence or two.”

“Could be.” But seasonal affective disorder strikes in winter when the light is low.

“Are you going stir crazy?”

“Not yet. I’ve got applications out. I’m calling people.” The truth is that unemployment has a way of softening the mind and blending the hours together until the impetus to start at dawn fades into a listlessness that has me on the couch nearing noon. Having all the time in the world makes getting things done impossible. I’ve earned a rest; I’ve worked without breaks since I was sixteen — two weeks without work won’t kill me, and yet somehow it feels like it will. I’ve peppered every library on the east end with emails and calls to let them know I’m on the market, and to remind them of any small favors I’ve done across the years. An assist with grant language, a suggestion on tools for a specific repair. Nothing yet. Silence is its own kind of tension. There’s a directorship in Commack that could work — a little beyond me, yes, but there’s hope. I sent my résumé over last week, separate from the bulk. Follow-up call scheduled for tomorrow.

“The IT guy is here,” Alice says. “I need to go. Tonight at eight, right?”

“Right. Bye.”

Hanging up from Alice leaves me feeling anxious and strangely useless. I need work. I find myself checking on the position in Georgia. Sanders-Beecher still has the job posted. I’m dialing the number almost before I realize it. A woman with a voice stiff and sweet like meringue answers. She identifies herself as Miss Anne. I give her my name and ask about the library and the curatorship.

“Oh, well, we’re very small, Mr. Watson,” she says. “We’re devoted to what we call the region’s personal sociology, but we like to think of ourselves like artists. It’s our responsibility to take the materials we’re given and make them into a painting. That’s what our curators do.”

“I can’t vouch for my painting skills, but I can sort materials with the best.”

She laughs. “Pardon me. I tend towards the flowery, and I so love Sanders-Beecher. It’s a very special place.”

“Clearly,” I say, wishing I could add something smarter.

“We’ve got a draft of the Constitution, did you know? Not the actual one, but a beautiful fake. It’s part of a wonderful collection on a local notorious forgery ring. The Georgia Historical Society has one of the real documents, but I do prefer ours.” She pauses to clear her throat. “There is drudgery, though. We do get so very many donations. Everyone wants to feel important, and there are so many old families here. It’s difficult to explain to someone that their grandmother’s Woolworth’s receipts aren’t significant.”

And suddenly I know what to say. “Unless they’re receipts from the first purchase in the state’s first store, or if you were looking to document typical household expenses during a specific period.”

I can hear Miss Anne smile through the phone. “Oh, you just might paint, Mr. Watson. Where is it you said you’re from?”

“I didn’t.”

Miss Anne is stunned but delighted that a man from New York would inquire about their little archive. Her delight breeds the urge to exaggerate my credentials. I promote myself to curator of the whaling archive. Before the call is over, Savannah becomes a reminder of places other than Napawset, other than Long Island. But other places don’t have Alice. And Enola could come back to stay.

I’m hanging up when the sound of snapping wood cracks like a gunshot. I jump, sending papers flying, and take three, four, five heartbeats to calm myself. A walk down the hall finds pictures hanging crooked from their nails, but not the sound’s source. Everything looks fine until I reach my parents’ room.

A thin split cuts up the wall by Mom’s dresser and runs all the way to the ceiling, straight as a stud. When I put my fingers to it the house groans as if in pain. I have a faded half memory of running toy trains across the floor in this room while my mother sang something in French. I don’t remember the words, only that she was braiding her hair at the dresser. I should check the other bedrooms.

Enola’s room is unchanged. Iodine-stained quilt, a hole in the wall by her bed, a desk full of pencils chewed down to the leads. My bedroom door barely opens; it’s either swollen or the frame has jammed — no, it doesn’t hang straight either. Hell. I hardly spend time in there. Might as well keep my stuff in the living room until it’s fixed.

Three armloads of clothing from the dresser, a stack of books, two pillows, and the summer sheets make the living room both bedroom and office, and me a refugee in my house. There’s nothing else for it — I have to call Frank. I’d rather not, but Alice wouldn’t have said anything about us yet. I asked her to not tell him about my losing my job either, not when it’s temporary, not when I know how protective Frank can be. Alice and I are still being careful. We still don’t know what we are.

He picks up on the fifth ring and immediately starts in. “It’s not good to let the gutters go this long, you know. All the water straight off the roof can undermine your foundation.”

I almost blurt that I’m sleeping with his daughter. Excellent. Now when I talk to him, I’m going to remember her calf wrapped around my back.

“Yeah. I messed around with them a little, but it’s not straightforward. It looks like the eave needs work too. I think the house is settling. A crack opened up in the wall in my parents’ room.”

He lets out a low whistle.

“I’ll get someone over soon, but I was hoping you might know how to patch it.”

“Something tells me this isn’t patch territory.”

“I know, I need to hire somebody.” Out the front window the Sound is rough and high with whitecaps, a blue so angry it spits.

“Simon, I hate to see the place like this. You need to keep up on stuff, you’re damned close to the water. Houses don’t take care of themselves.”

It’s the condescension that gets me, as though I can’t see my own house, as if I haven’t been hanging off the roof or fixing leaks. Houses don’t take care of themselves, but they do need money. “I’m well aware.”

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“Just tired. Maybe you can send somebody to check out the house? I don’t know where to start.” I glance down at Peabody’s book. It’s opened to a detailed half-page drawing of a tarot card. The Devil sketched in brown, dressed as a courtier, cloven hoofs sticking out of pantaloons, a curling beard. Smiling, in each hand he holds a chain — leashes around the necks of a man and woman.

The Tenets of the Oracle has the card’s meaning not as simple evil, but secrets, a lack of knowledge, or unknowing bondage. The Devil in The Tenets is dark and frightening. The one in my book looks more like a fun kind of guy, somebody you’d like to have a beer with. It’s Peabody’s interpretation of Madame Ryzhkova’s card, but it raises the question — who was the person with such an interesting view of evil? It might be helpful to look into her, into the other names that pop up. Koenig, Meixel. The more complete the picture of the world, the more easily I’ll be able to see patterns, spot their roots. I trace the end of the Devil’s tail.

Frank says, “I’ve got a guy. I’ll see if he has time this week. Listen, I’m sorry if I yelled, it’s just that your folks loved that place.”

I’d believe him, except my father never lifted a finger on it after Mom died.

“I know.” I’m thanking him when I hear tires on gravel. They belong to a familiar rusted blue Oldsmobile. This is the sound of Enola coming home.

When the car door opens I’m already in the driveway. She falls out of the driver’s seat, a jumble of loosely held together bones. I hold my arms out and she flies into me. For a second it’s good, really good, and I pick her up, squeeze her. She reeks of the road and something stronger. She kicks, clipping my shin. Still, it’s good to hug her again.

“Simon, you look like shit.” Her words slip into each other.

“You smell like a brewery.”

“Happens sometimes.” Her laugh doesn’t sound like it comes from her body. She wiggles free.

“You drove like this?”

“Apparently.” She turns slowly, surveying the house, sniffing the air. “So, can I come in, or do I have to stand out here all day?”

“Sure. It’s your house too.” As though I’ve been keeping it for her. “Did you eat?” I look her over, taking her in. Her clothing hangs from her. A long hippie skirt, a huge hoodie — probably a man’s — a T-shirt poking out from underneath, moth holes in the fabric. Under this stuff is my sister.

She shrugs, jerks the screen door open, and then slams it behind her. It’s just me and the car and whatever she’s left behind. I search for her things among heaps of fast food containers, soda bottles, and beer cans. The floor is covered with matchbooks from bars up and down the coast. Burned out lightbulbs are wedged in the backseat. No bags.

“Where’s your stuff?” I yell.

“Trunk. Don’t worry about it. Didn’t bring much,” she calls back.

“Not staying long?” I shut the car door and head inside.

“Don’t know.”

I hear her swear, followed by a tearing sound. Inside I find her standing over Peabody’s book, ripping the sketch I’d just been looking at to shreds.

“Stop it. Why would you do that?” I shout. She flinches and scraps of paper float to the floor. “Do you even know how old that is?”

“Why would you keep that open? You can’t leave things like that lying around.” Her eyes narrow.

“You can’t rip up whatever you feel like. That’s mine.”

“Where did you even get that book? Who has this shit?” Home a few minutes and we’re already at each other. No wonder she left.

“A bookseller gave it to me.” The second I say it, I realize it sounds odd. People don’t give away books like this.

“Of course. Obviously.” She flops down hard onto the gray couch and a dust cloud wafts from the pillows. “You’re going to have to explain. Are you screwing people for books now?”

“No.”

“That’s a shame,” she says.

I tell her about the package and my conversations with Churchwarry. I mention Bess Visser’s name, that Mom knew it also.

She stares at me, suddenly sober. After a long silence she says, “I don’t trust him.” She pulls her knees to her chest, arms around her shins. On her wrist is a small blue tattoo I haven’t seen before. A tiny bird.

“He’s harmless. Actually, he’s pretty entertaining.”

“You’re gullible as hell. What does he want from you?”

I look around. I’ve no money. I have nothing. “He’s just an eccentric. Maybe a little lonely.”

“Are you? Lonely?” she asks. “He got to you about Mom. You’re fixated on her and it makes you an easy mark.” She’s dug her hands into the pockets of her hoodie. They’re working, twisting the fabric and pulling at something inside. “She’s dead, you know, not hiding in a book.”

“It’s hard not to be concerned. That book pointed out something fairly significant: the women in this family have a disturbing way of dying young.”

Her lip twitches with the beginning of a grimace.

I say nothing about the 24th. There are lines I can’t cross with Enola, and I’m edging close to one. “Don’t you want to know why? If there is a why?”

“Not particularly,” she says. “I’d rather just live.”

“In a carnival. And I’m the one obsessed with Mom.”

We glare at each other. She looks away first, picking at her sleeve. It’s difficult seeing her when she’s been gone so long. She could walk away again, right now, and I couldn’t stop her.

“How’ve you been?” I ask.

“Hungry.” She stomps off to the kitchen, a flurry of disjointed movement, feet slapping against chipped linoleum. Slamming drawers. “You’ve got fuck all in here. What do you eat?”

“Left-hand cabinet. Same as before. Third shelf.”

More rummaging. “Ramen? Jesus. What did I even come back here for?”

“I did wonder.”

“And why is all your crap in the living room? Wait, why are you home? Shouldn’t you be working?”

“Budget cuts.” Two deadweight words. I haven’t had to say them yet, not to anyone that’s mattered.

“No librarians on a weekday?”

“No more me. I was let go.”

Just like that her arms are around me again, clinging, like when she was little and wanted me to carry her, like she needs me. “They’re idiots.”

“They’re broke.”

“Only you would make excuses for someone firing you.”

Maybe. “Your turn.”

“My turn, what?” She lets go and heads back to the kitchen, returning with a ramen cake.

“You know why I’m home. Why are you?”

“I wanted to see you. It’s been a while.” It has. It’s hard to look at Enola without thinking of her tossing a backpack into the same car, leaving me. “You should come with me,” she says, breaking off a chunk of dried noodles and popping it into her mouth. “You’re out of a job. The carnival I’m with, Rose’s, it’s nice. Thom Rose likes me; he’d find something for you to do.”

“I’m a librarian.”

“Ex-librarian.” That shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. “You’re a swimmer, too. You could do the dunk tank no problem.” But she’s not thinking about dunk tanks. She flops down on the couch again, crunching on the noodles.

“They’ve got a swimmer.”

“Nope. That was your thing with Mom. I read cards.”

As though I didn’t show her everything that Mom showed me. How to empty your air and stretch your ribs, when to let the water weigh you down, when to smile. I remember her being little, in a polka-dot bathing suit, black hair floating all around her just like Mom’s, smiling at me from the water while I counted. Eighty-nine Mississippi, ninety Mississippi. “I’ve got some leads. I have applications out and I’m calling a headhunter tomorrow. I’ll make it work.”

“It’d be fun if you came with me. I worry about you alone in the house.” She looks around, taking in each crack, every hole that’s developed since she left. “I miss you sometimes.”

I sit on the floor, she stays on the couch, but a little of us slips together. “You scared me when you called. Something about a bad reading?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She picks at the arm of the couch, wiggling a little finger into a hole in the worn fabric. “Why’s your stuff in the front room?”

“It’s easier. The computer’s out here. It’s good for job hunting.”

“The air smells funny. Did it always smell like this?”

“How is it supposed to smell?” It used to smell like coffee and cooking with a little bit of the ocean mixed in. She drops to the floor next to me in a smooth slump, an effortless fall. She picks up an escaped paper, absently bending the edge back and forth, scoring it with her thumbnail. Circus Ephemera, 1981. A small excerpt about high divers, one that briefly mentions my grandmother. She rolls the edge between a thumb and forefinger, like a European with a cigarette.

“Stop it. Did you come home just to mess with my stuff?”

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s been forever.” She starts to say something else but chooses not to. Instead she says, “I talked to Frank. He says the house might go over.”

“You called Frank? Why would you call Frank?”

“To let him know I was coming by. I thought it’d be good to see him. Is it true?”

“About the house? I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You should come with me.” She reaches over and tugs a book from my desk. Legends and Poems of the Baltic. Peter Bolokhovskis, the book Mom read to me. She bends the spine wide, almost breaking it.

“Leave that, okay? That book is hard to find.” And stolen.

She drops it on the couch and it falls open to a picture of a man leaning against a tree by a river. I remember the story. The man is seduced by a water spirit, Rusalka, I think. Half-souled spirits of children and virgin women who died unbaptized. Every culture has water spirits, mermaids, selkies, nixies. In America we don’t name them.

“I’m sorry I left the way I did,” she says.

“Okay.”

“I know you were trying.”

“Thanks.”

She puts her arms around me, her head on my shoulder. We stay this way, looking at the walls, looking anywhere but at each other. She nudges in the direction of a book. “Do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Read me that. I used to like it when you read to me. Nobody does it once you grow up.”

It’s from the Bolokhovskis. She wants me to read Eglė. I do. Slowly, the way Mom used to, unraveling the story of the farmer’s daughter who would become Queen of the Serpents, and her children who were turned into trembling trees. All folktales have a price. Enola listens silently, pressing her forehead to my shoulder, letting me remember her.

Later, when the sun has set, I shift to work the blood back into a pins and needles foot. She says, “It was a long drive and my head is killing me. I need sleep.”

I muss her hair with my knuckles. It mats up in soft, spiky black chunks. I want to ask why she cut it, but don’t. “Your bedroom’s the same. Haven’t touched it.”

She shuffles down the hallway. The door squeaks open. “Couldn’t you at least get a new quilt?” No good nights for us.

* * *

I’m squinting at a bad photocopy when headlights make the room suddenly bright. I look at the clock. Nine-thirty. I was supposed to be at Alice’s at eight. Yes, that’s her car, and yes, that’s her walking up the driveway. Jeans and a T-shirt, hair down. I look around. My things are everywhere, clothing, papers, books, noodle wrappers. Shit.

I head her off at the front step, leaning against the house, my back on the shingles. It would be good to ask her inside, but her apartment is clean, adult, and has a pillow-mountain bed.

“I completely forgot. I’m so sorry.”

She twirls her keys in her hand, then smacks them against her hip. “You say that a lot.”

“I mean it. Five minutes and I’ll be ready to go.”

“Whose car is that?” She nods at the Olds.

“Enola’s. She came home today. We were talking and the time got away from me.”

“She’s here?” She crosses her arms over her waist, rocking back and forth on her toes. I don’t know what Alice thinks of Enola, not really. Whatever she knows of her is from a long time ago, or from what I’ve said. Obnoxious, selfish, immature, insane, waste. I probably said that, probably to Alice. “I should say hi,” she says. A look toward the window. I tell her Enola’s asleep. She raises an eyebrow. “Do you not want me to come in?”

“No. Yes. She really is asleep. I want you to come in, but I’m embarrassed because the place is a wreck, my stuff is everywhere, and I already fucked up tonight.”

She smiles. For a second I do too.

“Okay.” Then she’s past me, barging in before I can stop her.

In the middle of the living room Alice turns a slow circle, like she’s surveying a gallery. Her flip-flops grind sand into the floor. We take it in, the papers, the clothing, the cracks and loose floorboards. I chew my fingers.

“Wow,” she says.

“I know. I’d offer you somewhere to sit, but it’ll have to be the kitchen.”

“No, no. That’s okay.” She looks down the hallway. There are three doors, one has my sister, one isn’t fit for me or a guest, and the other belongs to the dead. We would have to curl up on the couch with my books and clothing. “At work you were always so neat.”

“Escapism?”

She laughs a little. Thank God. I suggest going back to her place. “I only need five minutes.”

She says not to worry about it. “Enola’s here. You guys should spend time together.”

And then she’s on the front step and there’s a perfunctory kiss. Because she’s seen the house or because her parents are across the street? Their porch light is still on. I say I’m sorry again, and this time she takes my hand, giving my fingers a squeeze. There’s a perfect spot between her finger and thumb that’s been made smooth and tough by a fishing rod. A spark runs between us and we hold on for an extra minute.

“Just call next time, okay?”

“Okay,” I say.

I stay outside long after her car is gone.

I email a résumé for a video archive position. Out of my range, but worth a shot. Blue Point sent a message back. Position filled, of course. I listen to the water against the cliff, and let my mind run with thoughts of Alice, of the house falling in the water, of all those drowned women. I try for a while, but sleep won’t come. I give up trying and read.

Later I hear a quiet flicking sound coming from Enola’s room, the gentle slide of paper over paper. I look in. “Hey. You’re awake.”

She sits cross-legged, hunched in the center of her room. Her body sways slightly, as if in prayer. Lines of tarot cards spread across the floor, face up. She lays out six rows, each with six cards, quickly like a blackjack dealer. The cards move like a river. No sooner does she set the last card than she scoops the entire spread in one hand, shuffles, and begins to turn a new series on the floor.

“Enola?”

She doesn’t answer. She’s practicing. She doesn’t need to; her movements are ballet. The deck is heavily worn, the backs faded, dull and yellow. They might have been orange once, maybe red, but are now a suggestion with ragged sides. Old paper, the kind that shouldn’t be in this humidity. It’s difficult to see, but the faces look bold, rough, possibly hand painted. She clears the spread away again, methodical. I watch as she repeats the sequence, shuffling, turning, shuffling. It’s unseeing, compulsive.

I call her name again. She doesn’t hear. Doesn’t see me.

I pull the door closed. I’m in the living room looking at The Tenets of the Oracle when I remember. I’ve seen someone deal cards like that before — late at night on our square, metal-edged kitchen table, my father begging her to stop, to come to bed. She continued laying cards, swaying in her chair. The cards skimmed and swished. “Paulina,” he whispered. “Please.”

Something is wrong with Enola.

* * *

I take the phone outside. The night is warm and wet. He answers on the sixth ring.

“Simon? Heavens, it’s late.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“No, just one moment.” I hear him excusing himself and the gentle mumbling of a woman’s voice, presumably his wife. A few shuffled steps and a door opening and closing. “What is it?”

“I found something.”

“Something what?”

“It’s about my family. I think some of them are in the book, like you thought. But there’s more: they die. Of course they die, everybody dies, but they die young, very young. There’s multiple generations — they drown. Every single woman.” There is silence on the other end. I hear waves, cicadas, the blood in my ears. “Martin? You know about my mother. Her suicide.”

“She drowned,” he says after a pause.

“So did my grandmother, and her mother, and so on.”

“I — oh.” Little more than a dry whuff of breath.

“My sister came home today. She’s acting like my mother.”

After a short moment he says, “I’d imagine that could be disturbing, in light of your recent reading. I apologize for that.”

And because it is before dawn, because the wee hours make the improbable believable, because of the names, because of the drowned, I say, “I’m not a believer in curses. I like facts.”

A quiet swallowing sound, a thousand miles of telephone lines away. “Of course,” he says quickly. “And when presented with a certain evidence, investigation wouldn’t be unwarranted.”

“It’s seasonal affective disorder, most likely. Low serotonin levels.”

“In all likelihood,” he concurs.

“All the same, I’d like to find the start — the cause, if there is one. In case there’s anything I can do.”

“Of course, of course.”

“Provided there’s anything that needs to be done,” I say.

Churchwarry agrees. I can feel us both dancing around something, each other, waiting for the other to take the lead. “If you think I might be helpful…,” he begins.

“How long have you been in business?”

“My father opened the shop as a young man, so quite some time.”

“So you have contacts who might be amenable to finding some hard-to-find material?”

He coughs. “Simon, I tend to be the man people turn to when they need to find the impossible. Anything you need I’d be more than happy to assist you with. I’d consider it a bit of an adventure. Kismet,” he says, though there’s little joy to the word.

There are too many places to start — the book’s original owner, Hermelius Peabody, how he may have been related to Bess Visser, Ryzhkova and the tarot cards, and what a wild boy has to do with any of it. “I think I need to know something about curses,” I say.

In the background, Enola’s cards flick against her fingers, a soft snick with each turn.

It’s July 14th. I have ten days.