The War of the Roses

31

On his hands and knees, Oliver groped in the forest of empty bottles. His candles had burned out. His matches were gone. Occasionally he would find a bottle with a few dregs of wine still in it, but never enough for a gulpful.

His frustration gave way to rage and sometimes he would pick up a bottle and smash it against a wall. Occasionally a shard of broken glass would open a cut in his flesh. By now even physical pain was irrelevant. Finally he found a full bottle, uncorked it, and drank. It was tasteless. But that hardly mattered anymore.

What mattered was that his mind continued to focus narrowly on the vision of his mission. He must drive her from his house. Everything else was extraneous and unimportant. As if the image were a distant memory, he recalled seeing a young woman on the street below. An image of warmth, of a soft, yielding, loving body, had flickered briefly in his mind, had forced his recognition of a vague longing, some forgotten need. But his mind was already programmed to reject such thoughts. The only thing to be resolved was Barbara’s whereabouts.

In his mind – was it reality or imagination… or both? – he had heard her moving almost soundlessly in his manmade jungle. At first he thought the soft, padding step was that of Mercedes. It was the same catlike tread. The memory of her crushed and lifeless body floated into his consciousness. Mercedes was gone. Benny was gone. The thought of Benny stimulated a sour, chalky taste in his mouth and he gulped.

He listened. Every tiny movement displayed itself on the kaleidoscopic screen in his mind. So far she had cleverly avoided the matrix he had created. Sooner or later, she would falter and start a chain reaction of destruction. It was only a matter of time.

Taking a deep pull on the bottle, he knew he was trying to drown out reason. Reason was his enemy. Like love. Like devotion. Reason weakened the will. He opened the drapes and looked down into the street again. It was dark now, but he vaguely recalled the woman’s cries. Something about the children, he recalled. The children? This was not their affair. What was happening had nothing to do with them. It was not fair to invoke the children. Hadn’t Goldstein told him that? ‘Go away,’ he shouted to the empty street. He screamed again. ‘Go away.’ But that was meant for Barbara.

Out of the vapor of his thoughts, a girl child emerged in memory. A wave of old anxieties washed over him. Her baby cries tormented him with their helplessness. He had not the courage to let her cry. He, the father. He had explained that to Barbara once. They owed this child their protection, their shelter, their warmth. She had protested his spoiling Eve but had moved in their bed to make room for the baby. They held her between them, loving, warm. Now she is safe, he told her.

Then Josh had come. A boy in his image. In their image. Now we have a complete family, he had said, or surely must have said. Barbara had agreed or seemed to agree. They were pictures in his mind, the four of them against the world. Husband. Wife. Son. Daughter. Family.

He had created a fort to protect them. This house.

‘You just don’t matter anymore,’ she had told him, as if she were throwing the first handful of dirt on his coffin. ‘Not to me.’

‘You could have told me that years ago, before you let me build this life.’ Perhaps he had responded that way. He was no longer sure. A jumbled conversation surfaced in his mind.

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Didn’t know?’

‘I was blinded by love.’

‘Blinded? Does love blind?’

‘Yes.’

Well, then, it blinded me as well, he shouted within himself. How dare she take away my life? My whole life. My family. But the house was his. His. She would never get that. Never, never, never, never.

It was a pustule. He could not keep his fingers from it. It itched. He scratched. He wanted to tear it open and let the pus run out and free himself at last.

Sounds intruded – the squeal of tires, the throb of a car’s motor. He looked through the drapes and saw the outlines of the cab in the muted light of the street lamp. Familiar, shadowy figures emerged. A girl and a boy. They stood looking at the house as the taxi pulled away. His mouth opened, but he could not find words. Instead he stepped away from the window. The closed drapes plunged the room into darkness again. He moved backward, losing his balance as his feet hit the bottles. Reaching out, a wall supported his weight. He cowered in a corner, hoping that they would go away. On his knees he prayed, looking upward. To whom was he praying? he wondered.

‘God help me,’ lie whispered, trying to get up. His body wanted to hang back, stay in that safe corner. He heard the beating of the knocker, rhythmical, persistent. The chimes had died. Still he hung back. Perhaps they would go away. Rising now, he listened.

The knocking sound disappeared. Silence. Then a new chorus began, a persistent clarion in a stormy night.

‘Mom. Dad. It’s us.’

Who are they? he thought.

The knocking began again, drowning out their voices.

He heard faint whispers, then a metallic sound and the thing that he had vaguely dreaded became a reality. The door was opening.

He sprang out of the room, but his footing was unsure, made more so by the broken figures in his path. He lost his balance and fell. Through the brass slats in the banister, he saw the door open and heard the children’s screams as they fell on the slick surface, struggled upward, then fell again, groping toward the stairs.

‘Go back.’ The words formed, then burst through the din. They stumbled forward.

‘Go back. Please.’

It was not his voice. Barbara’s. He saw her on the landing above him, looking down, her face frightened, terror-stricken.

‘Mom.’

Their voices rose in tandem. Seeing her, they stumbled forward, their hands tearing at the stair carpet for balance. They untacked carpet gave way and the cast-iron pots began their avalanche with a clanging roar as they rolled forward. The clock chimes, too, began suddenly, booming out in an abrasive rhythm, vibrating in the air. Pictures fell off the walls. Eve and Josh pressed themselves against each other, just managing to escape the falling pots.

‘Go back,’ Barbara screamed, her voice shrill, panicked. She lowered her eyes to his, imploring.

‘Save them, Oliver. Our children.’

Her sobs stirred him and, for the first time since the nightmare began, he saw the old softness, the other Barbara.

‘Our children,’ he repeated, swallowing deeply, desperately trying to clear his mind. Time compressed itself. They looked at each other for what seemed like an endless moment. He sensed what had passed between them at Chatham years before. Perhaps it was still there, after all. Were her eyes begging for what he yearned for -another chance?

Eve and Josh started to move. The clock continued its interminable clanging. More objects fell. Then Barbara’s scream echoed and re-echoed through the house, above all other sounds. She had inadvertently moved too close to the banister, which had fallen into the chandelier well to the floor below. Barbara had lost her balance and now was hanging precariously over the unprotected ledge, dangling two stories above the floor.

‘Hold on,’ Oliver shouted. ‘I’m coming.’

He called to the children, ‘Get out. Please. I’ll save her. Just get out of the house.’ The scrambled forward, slipping amid the litter, and made their way out the open door. They stood outside, peering in, their frightened faces taut with fear.

‘Hang on, Barbara. Just for a moment. Hang on, baby.’

His heart pounded. He moved to the balcony’s edge, calculated die distance to the chandelier, flexed his knees, and jumped. Reaching out, he grasped the heavy chain, and with his feet on the metal rungs of the chandelier, he shimmied up to a point parallel to where Barbara hung. Forcing the chandelier to swing like a pendulum, he made a wide arc. Then, after a number of too-short passes, he finally reached the ledge and gripped it.

‘Steady, baby,’ he cried, reaching out with his free hand to brace her faltering grip. ‘I can’t…’ she mumbled.

‘Yes, you can,’ he said firmly. He heard a creaking sound above him. The chandelier seemed to bounce. ‘Hold out one hand and grab my forearm.’ She shook her head.

‘No, Oliver.’ She was sobbing, hysterical.

‘You must listen to me,’ he pleaded.

Again she shook her head, but it was obvious her strength was giving out, and he had to pry loose her grip. In a reflex action, she reached out with the other hand and held him in a tight embrace as her weight was transferred to the chandelier. The creaking sound above them increased and the chandelier bounced again.

He had barely time to look up. Then he felt the chandelier slip beneath him. He was falling, Barbara with him, and above, in slower motion, he saw the ceiling open up like an earthquake fissure in reverse. There was no time to scream. He gripped Barbara tighter. Everything was coming down at once. As he fell, looking upward, he wondered if he would soon see the sky.