The War of the Roses

24

She had always hated the armoire in the library. Big, bulky, and overpowering, it was, as she saw it, typical of some compensating masculine desire for bigness. Sawing the front legs where they joined the cabinet and cementing the front doors had been practically a labor of love.

But she had expected, and hoped for, a larger crash. Perhaps she hadn’t quite thought it through and applied the energy and zeal that he had expended to booby-trap her kitchen or ruin her food. What she had done to his Ferrari she dismissed as ‘compulsive inspiration.’ Of course, he was more adept mechanically than she. It was time, she decided, to get tough, really tough. She was prepared to devote herself totally to the task. Like everything else, this chore, too, she would have to take on herself. Thurmont, she decided, was only out to line his pockets.

With her children safely tucked away at camp, the house empty, she was free to maneuver. She’d drive him out of the house or die trying, she vowed.

The armoire tactic, although disappointing, could be considered a warning of things to come. From her window she had seen him hobble off to a waiting taxi with what seemed like a comparatively minor injury. Then she had heard him return and limp up the stairs.

The night was unbearably hot and she had opened the windows. The sounds of the city were unfamiliar and that and the heat and listening for Oliver inhibited her sleep. As daylight emerged she got up, showered, and, surprisingly, felt refreshed.

As she quietly closed her door she saw the note he had written. Removing it, she scrawled a line in lipstick and reattached it to his door.

‘Hell is coming,’ the note read.

Holding her shoes in her hand, she moved downstairs stealthily to the kitchen. She removed the containers of still-frozen pate and chicken galantine from the freezer and loaded them into her car. She had decided that rather than let them spoil, she would give them as gifts to her various customers, those that she could still count on. She had written off her recent dinner guests. Her mortification lingered. She hoped she would never have to face any of them again. As for the others, she hoped they would remember her generosity. Adversity, she had found, spawned resourcefulness.

The next few weeks would be slow, businesswise, anyway. Most people fled Washington in the summer, at least from mid-July to the end of August. She had more immediate and pressing problems on her mind.

Although she wasn’t used to anticipating events, she moved some cartons of canned goods and perishables from the refrigerator up to her room. Just in case, she told herself, proud of her newfound wiliness. In case of what? she wondered. But that thought did not diminish her new feelings of pride and self-reliance.

‘I’ll be away for a while,’ she told the proprietor of the French Market, who accepted her pate with a flourish and a kiss on both cheeks. It took her three hours to make her rounds.

Returning, she let herself in through the back door. Cautiously, she ascended the back stairs as if she were walking through a minefield. She must learn to be alert, she told herself, wondering if he was still in his room.

A note was Scotch-taped to her door, scribbled on a piece of jagged cardboard ripped from a piece used as backing for laundered shirts. He had torn away the note she had pasted on his door.

‘It has come your way.’ The words were written in his sloppy, doctor-like scrawl. Her bedroom door was open a crack and an odd odor emanated from within. It confirmed what she had intuitively known. He had made another key to her room, which explained how he had tampered with her Valium.

Inside the room, she discovered that he had out-done even her most exaggerated expectations, despite her determination not to be surprised at anything he did.

He had methodically opened all the canned goods she had brought to her room and emptied their contents in the sink, the bathtub, and the toilet. The food had already begun to give off a foul, rotting odor and the sight was equally offensive. She was annoyed that she hadn’t been able to predict such an action. But she fought down anger. Anger was one emotion that she would resist. Stay calm, she cautioned herself, noting that the windows were now closed. She moved to open them but couldn’t get the casement knobs to move. Inspecting them, she realized that he had cemented them closed.

Without giving the act another thought, she picked out one of her high-heeled shoes and, using it as a hammer, knocked out all sixteen lights of each window, carefully removing the glass with a handkerchief and dropping the slivers into the bushes below. He had, by some strange quirk of fastidiousness, placed the empty cans in their cartons, as if he were determined to limit the damage to their rugs and furnishings. She smiled at that, since it told her that the damage she had inflicted on the armoire had meant more to him than this incredibly ridiculous act of revenge.

She felt almost exhilarated as she went into the bathroom determined to clean up the mess as quickly as possible. Again she had not anticipated his actions. He apparently had shut off the water. Very clever, she told herself. She knew, of course, where the main water valve was located and, moving downstairs, discovered that it was not shut off, which meant that he had blocked the water pipes to her bathroom.

The kitchen taps worked fine. She filled as many stock pots as she could find and laboriously carried the water upstairs, dumping it into the bathtub. Again he had foiled her. He had, of course, blocked up the drain.

Her sense of calm purpose was ruffled. Despite the air coming into the room, the odor was still offensive, and it was obvious she could not stay there for long. The effort of bringing up the pots of water had left her with sweat-soaked clothes. She changed into jeans and a T-shirt. No underwear. No shoes. Her battle dress. She saluted herself in the mirror.

Throwing a canvas shopping bag over one shoulder, she went downstairs and proceeded to fill it up with what she considered useful items, a flashlight, candles, matches, bread, cheese, cookies. Then she chose the sharpest, heaviest cleaver she could find among her cutting tools. Thus armed, she went into his workroom, surprised to find it unlocked. She put a hammer and screwdriver into her canvas bag, then slowly, methodically, emptied all the containers on his neatly lined shelves in the workroom, all the screws, bolts, nails, nuts, every small item that he had carefully catalogued and put in its proper place.

In her heart, she knew she had always wanted to make this place a jumble. Its perfect organization had always offended her. His oasis, he had called it. The thought merely intensified her passion for destruction. She cut all the wires off the power tools and drowned most of the other tools in a tub of lubricating oil.

There was a certain logical progression to everything she did, she assured herself, like the relentless course of true justice. She was even able to maintain a superior moral position about what she was doing, remembering Oliver’s often quoting a line attributed to Hemingway: ‘Moral is anything that makes you feel good.’ And she felt good, deliciously buoyant.

It was growing dark and she made her way by flashlight up the stairs, sprinkling bottles of remaining screws and bolts on the steps. Any obstacle was a weapon, she told herself, feeling shrewd.

Passing his room on the way to the third floor, she noted, through her flashlight beam, that the cardboard was no longer on the door. So he had ventured outside his domain.

Silently, she padded up to Ann’s old room. The sleigh bed moved easily against the door and she lay down on its bare mattress, alert to any sound. Her hand tightened around the cleaver handle, its blade cool against her cheek. She hoped he would try to attack her. She was ready.