Thales's Folly Read online

  She gave him a knowing look. "Be a good thing for you if you had a few of her genes. She used to quote some Greek man who said everybody needed a dose of wildness to set them free. "

  Set them free . . , he didn't feel free. He thought gloomily, "And all I've accomplished at twenty-six is a nervous breakdown."

  He wasn't aware that he'd spoken his thought aloud until Gussie turned and said to him in a matter-of-fact voice, "Oh, she had one of those, too. They shut her up when they got her back, her parents. Not that she was mad, but in those days a girl like Harriet Thale was bred to be a debutante and marry well, and of course she was a terrible embarrassment."

  Just what his father had said of her, he remembered, and suddenly laughed. "Well, well!" he said, and wondered if his father had ever experienced a single moment of wildness.

  And if I ever could, he thought somberly, and considering this he realized how bloodless the characters in his two mystery novels seemed to him just now.

  Seeing the look on his face, Gussie said sternly, "You can never tell about people. They wear masks, you know, they're like icebergs showing only what they please, and they die full of secrets. You'll be blessed, Andrew, if you come to know— really know—just a handful of people in a lifetime."

  Startled, he said, "Do you feel you came to really know my great-aunt?"

  She nodded. "I had that honor, yes." She smiled. "Except I never did learn—or ask, either—what she would never tell her parents."

  "And what was that?"

  Gussie chuckled. "Whether she was still a virgin when the police found her." She stopped, her head tilted, listening. "I hear a car. Artemus is early, that's his mail jeep."

  Leo carne hurrying down the stairs. "Mail delivery!" he shouted, and shot out of the door like a bolt of lightning.

  "Well now," Gussie said, wiping her hands on her apron and looking pleased. She, too, walked out to welcome Artemus, and Andrew, still in a state of amazement, followed her.

  "Just the person I want to see," Artemus told Andrew. "Leo, here's your government check right on time, you don't need to plot the overthrow of the government this month." Giving Andrew a sober look, "I've got a message for you from Manuel. He tells me there's a man been keeping his eye on your car in the garage, and as sheriff here I've got to ask what the hell's going on. Manuel says he drove up the highway last evening after dinner to visit his mother, and he was followed all the way to Pittsville. Seems the man thought Manuel would lead him to you. Same man, a black Chevy. Manuel says you better not show yourself at the garage this morning. Care to explain?"

  Baffled, Andrew shook his head. "I can't. It's hard to believe this myself, there has to be a mistake somewhere."

  Artemus's eyes narrowed. "Manuel's very definite about it being the owner of the Mercedes this man is looking for."

  Andrew brightened. "Well, there's the mistake, you see, I'm not the owner. It's a company car, Meredith Machines, Incorporated."

  Artemus said dryly, "You may have to explain that to the man yourself." With a glance at his watch he started up the engine of his jeep. "Already half-past eight. Left my wife in charge of the post office, got to get back now but Manuel was afraid you might walk in to see him this morning. Said to tell you the tire's to be delivered late afternoon today or first thing tomorrow, he'll send his son Manuel Junior to tell you when."

  He turned the jeep smartly around in the driveway and began weaving his way past potholes until he disappeared around the curve in the road.

  Returning to the house, Andrew collected notebook and camera and mounted the stairs to dutifully record and count bedrooms for his father. He hoped he wasn't about to add a new torment to his lost writing career, that of his great-aunt Harriet, whose genes he had apparently not inherited, since he would no doubt compliantly drive the restored car back to Manhattan, as instructed, and probably continue the only writing of which he was capable now: Margo Johnson in Receiving is recently returned from a two-week vacation in ¡re-land, where she paid a visit to our nuts-and-bolts factory outside of Dublin . . . Jim Morton in Design is the happy father of a new son, Jason . . . Our merger is proceeding with great success, and it promises. . . "Promises four thousand workers fired," he said aloud, angrily.

  Beginning his research he opened the door to a closet and then to a bathroom, where he stood amazed at a bathtub so huge and antique that it was set in a magnificent base of mahogany, its interior lined with tin. This was a surprise, and he made a note of it.

  Of bedrooms he counted six, and with each door left open, he was allowed to view them without guilt, identifying the occupant of each by its furnishings. Leo's room startled him: it was so filled with books it was difficult to locate his bed; books on long shelves reaching to the ceiling, in piles on the floor and stacked high on the table next to his narrow bed.

  Tarragon's room he found intriguing and rather touching: on her walls she had taped exotic pictures cut from National Geographies: a sunset over the Indian Ocean; a man—Burmese or Chinese—tilling the soil; a smiling young woman in a sarong; a view of lateens with richly colored sails against a purple sea—black faces, brown faces, white faces, sunsets and sunrises, and he wondered if this was her dream.

  At the far end of the hall, removed from the others, he knew at once whose room it was because of the table under the window, on which stood an arrangement similar to what he'd seen in the woods: two candles, an incense burner, and a plate heaped with wildflowers. Altar or shrine, this belonged to the resident witch, of course. Remembering that Tarragon had described incantations as prayers he wondered, if this was true, what prayers had been said, and to whom, in this austere and sunny room. Not many could have been answered, he thought, considering their situation here, and if she had prayed they might remain in this house, his arrival had put an end to that.

  Staring at the simple offerings on the table he realized all the consequences of his visit.

  And yet—if he'd not come?

  He could protest, argue and plead, but his father had never been accessible to pleas. His father moved in a straight and undeviating line.

  Turning away he walked back down the hall to the fifth bedroom, which was the room he occupied, made a note of it, and turned to the open door across the hall. Stepping inside he found Miss L’Hommedieu seated by the window, her back to him. Apparently she had not heard him, and he glanced around him with curiosity. The room was quite bare except for a large mirror over a bureau on which stood a glass jar holding an eruption of peacock feathers; a small trunk under the window, a neatly made bed with a trail of chiffon tossed across it. And Miss L’Hommedieu.

  She turned her head. "Good morning, Andrew," she said courteously. "You are counting the rooms, I see."

  "How did you know?"

  "I am not deaf. I was just listening to a wood thrush in the tree outside, it sings a beautiful song." She looked him over with her penetrating, ironic gaze and said, "Well, Andrew?"

  Startled, he said, "Well what?"

  "Gussie's magic brought you here, what do you plan to do about it?"

  He looked at her with exasperation. "What do you mean, Gussie's magic brought me here?"

  "We needed help."

  "I can't help anybody, not even myself," he told her. "As for magic, forget it. My father sent me here and I can assure you that nobody waved a wand over him."

  "You're a very narrow-minded young man. Promising, yes, but narrow. Magic," she said simply, "is actually God's grace."

  "Well, He didn't send me either. Isn't anyone acquainted with reality here?"

  "We're speaking of reality, are we?" she inquired with the lift of an eyebrow.

  "Yes. Reality is twenty-five acres and a house that was never deeded to—"

  She held up a hand. "Enough!"

  "Enough what?"

  "Of reality. Once—long ago—I met with Reality," she said, "and found it so pitiless and chilling that I have taken great care to avoid it ever since. You may go now, Andrew, I prefer my woo
d thrush."

  Feeling dismissed, and aware that he'd been cross and even rude, he went downstairs, thoroughly chastised. Gussie was in the kitchen peeling potatoes, the door and windows open to the warm and hazy morning and to the shrilling of locusts in the woods. He said, "Where's Tarragon?"

  "Thinning the kale in the garden."

  He watched Gussie for a moment and then said, "There must be something I can do. To help."

  She gave him an appraising glance. "Pick blueberries?"

  "Right. Where do I find them?"

  She opened a cupboard door and brought out two bowls. "There's a field over near Bald Hill, not far," she told him. "You cross where Wally Blore was digging and take the path to the right."

  With a glance through the window Andrew said, "He's not there."

  "Paid and gone," said Gussie cryptically, and he thought her glance at him held mockery.

  With a nod he carried away the bowls, shouted a hello to Tarragon, seated in the long row of kale, and set out in the direction of Bald Hill.

  Ten minutes later he emerged from the woods into a meadow where trees had given way to tangles of grass, thistles, burdock, and scrub. Wild blueberries, not packaged in plastic, he reminded himself, and obviously hidden by overgrowth and needing a keen eye to find. He stepped carefully through the tall grass, peering down and into it for a glimpse of blue concealed among the shadows. There was dew still on the grass and a faint movement of air, not yet a breeze; the grass resisted his passage, and he began stamping it down to create a path. At least I'm creating something, if only a path, he thought, why must there always be this hunger to create with words? Leaning over to inspect what lay in the shadows of a tall bush he found a site rich with blue and sat down, heedless of damp grass. Stretching out a hand he began to cull the berries from their stems, dropping them into a bowl.

  The sun was warm, and the unbroken silence was no longer menacing to him now but soothing. Seated here on the ground, half concealed among the tall grasses, he felt a very real pleasure in this connection with the earth, and crammed a handful of berries into his mouth. They tasted of fresh air, cool and moist and delicious.

  A bush nearby gently stirred; a bird had arrived on a branch to watch him, a bright yellow bird with black wings, and Andrew bid him good morning. At the sound of his voice the branch swayed wildly but the yellow bird refused flight and gave a small chirp of acknowledgment.

  It marked Andrew, this moment.

  He found himself thinking, What a wonderful place this would be for writing—if only i could write.

  But he had nothing to write of, nothing that interested or excited him, and he carefully put that thought aside and returned to picking blueberries.

  When he retraced his steps, after an hour in the sun, he found that he had left paths of flattened grass all through the field behind him, and his two bowls were heaped with berries, still with a faint sheen from the morning dew.

  Gussie was no longer in the kitchen. He left the two bowls on the table and walked out onto the porch just as Manuel's pickup truck pulled into the drive and came to a noisy stop. He expected to see Manuel, but when the door opened it was his father who stepped out, looking totally out of place in his impeccable linen jacket, well-cut slacks and polished loafers.

  "Good God," Andrew said incredulously. "You?"

  It was a shock, this collision of two worlds.

  His father glared at him, both hands on his hips. He said furiously, "My car is being towed out of a ditch near the post office, and that insufferable man at the garage refused to drive me here himself in this—this truck—with the excuse that he might be followed here and put you in danger. I cannot conceive of what is going on here, or—" He stopped, his gaze widening to include the house. "Selkirk said this wreck is occupied?"

  "'Not a wreck," said Andrew defiantly. "Still a very comfortable old-fashioned farmhouse—lacking a few amenities, it's true—but four people manage to live here very well."

  "You've known this since Saturday, Andrew? You found squatters here and didn't call the police?"

  His father had called them squatters, just as he'd expected. "You'll have to call the police yourself, Father."

  "Then lead me to the phone."

  "There isn't one. And the people living here were all friends of your aunt Harriet Thale, Father. Surely you can't turn them out!"

  "My dear Andrew, Harriet Thale has been dead for five years, of course I can turn them out. I've come here, not only to take you back-to New York, but to tell you flatly that you're no longer needed here because—"

  Andrew heard himself say—much to his surprise—"But I am needed, I've just been told this morning that I'm needed."

  "—because yesterday," continued his father, "I contacted by phone a realtor in this neighborhood and found him extremely interested in bidding on these twenty-five acres. He mentioned a very substantial sum, I might add. We had a long talk on the phone. He said he could envision twenty or twenty-five Swiss chalets for summer people, a swimming pool, and a fitness room, all very salable."

  "Swiss chalets?" said Andrew incredulously. "Twenty-five of them, and a fitness room? You'd turn them out for that? You'd be that cruel?"

  "In business," said his father, "the word is detached. Such an offer would be one I could scarcely refuse—"

  "—as if you haven't enough money," Andrew said hotly.

  His father smiled. "It's money that sent you to private schools, Andrew, and gave you every advantage. Your anger is entirely inappropriate, you've allowed sentiment to overtake you, and in business there is no place at all for sentiment."

  "Like firing four thousand people at Meredith Machines?"

  His father sighed. "You can scarcely equate removing four squatters, illegally occupying my property, with the streamlining of a corporation."

  "It shows the same indifference—or detachment," he flung at him.

  "That's your viewpoint, Andrew. Now get your clothes, or whatever you brought with you, and let's return to New York where you belong. You've already missed two days of work, and it has embarrassed me no end, covering for you."

  "The Mercedes isn't repaired yet."

  "It will be sent for later."

  "I'm not going, Father."

  He said warningly, "I can't hold your job for you indefinitely, Andrew. You can't possibly be serious."

  "Completely serious, Father. Besides," Andrew said firmly, "after Mr. Branowski, we can expect the gypsies."

  His father stared at him blankly. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Andrew."

  "I know that... Have a good trip back, Father." He turned on his heel and was horrified to see that Gussie had been standing on the porch, where she must have overheard every word of their angry exchange. She looked stricken, and disappeared quickly into the house while his father, furious, climbed back into the pickup truck, fumbled with the gears and reversed the truck at an insane speed, then turned and drove down the road and out of sight.

  "And may you end up in a pothole for shouting about Swiss chalets," Andrew said bitterly, but nevertheless felt a little sick from the confrontation.

  He also felt depressed, an effect his father had on him these days whenever they met.

  Footsteps on the gravel overtook him, and a hand was slipped into his: it was Tarragon.

  "Has Gussie told them?" he asked.

  "Only me."

  "Will Gussie cry?"

  "Gussie never cries. She'll finish making potato soup for our lunch and then, unless it rains," she added with a glance at the graying sky, "she'll take her robe and incense burner into the woods to her shrine. Maybe even if it rains."

  "And do what?" he asked cynically.

  "Why, she'll call on the powers of the Mother Goddess and Father God—and on the Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, Sun, Moon, and Stars .., it sounds lovely, doesn't it?" she said. "We live so close to them all, they must surely hear her."

  He had to admit the poetic cadence of the powers to whom Gu
ssie would appeal, but he remained skeptical. "You've seen her do this?"

  "Oh no—never," Tarragon said. "That's private and sacred, but when Mr. Branowski was so very sick she did light blue candles in the room—blue for healing—and I'd hear her speaking words over him, and she went often into the woods.

  And he recovered." She added gravely, "Gussie said you were very brave with your father, I saw him from the window. He looked—" She hesitated.

  "Looked what?" he asked.

  "Like a man who grinds his teeth all the time."

  Andrew smiled. "I'm sure of that." His smile quickly faded as he thought of the disaster his father's teeth-grinding could wreak upon Gussie, Miss L’Hommedieu, and Leo. He said soberly, "We should find something to cheer her up, or at least distract her, until the shock passes. Leo got his pension check this morning, where does he cash it?"

  "Artemus cashes it for him, and then Leo and I catch the bus out on the highway into Pittsville and buy the groceries we can carry. The kerosene and powdered milk—heavy things— we buy from Artemus. And sometimes, when there's leftover money, we go to the thrift shop."

  He frowned. "Let me go with you tomorrow. . . There should be something—let me think about it." But he didn't know what could possibly distract them from the prospect of losing their home.

  He did not have long to think. They had just finished lunch when the sound of a car was heard in the driveway.

  "Never had so much traffic before," grumbled Leo. "Beats all. Third car today!" He rose to peer out the window.

  Andrew was even more curious as to who had managed to escape the potholes; he rose, too. One glance and he said, "Good God!"

  "What is it?" asked Gussie.

  "It's the Mercedes, the car that Manuel's been repairing, but why on earth—returning it here is what he said he'd never do."

  They hurried out onto the porch as a small boy climbed out of the car, looking no more than ten years old, his freckled face shaded by a Boston Red Sox baseball cap.

  "You drove that?" Andrew gasped in dismay. "At your age, and without a driver's license?"

  "Gam," the child said, "only drove a mile down the highway, nobody d see me. And I know all the holes in Thaïes Road." To Andrew he said, "I'm Manuel Junior, my dad was too busy to come himself. He said to wish you a safe trip back to New York now the car's fixed, and here's the bill. And since you're leaving now there's no need to worry 'bout that stranger who's been hanging around."