The Man in the Tree (10 page)

She entered the house, climbed the stairs, knocked at the door
again. "Stephen, it is I, Madame Porgorny."
He opened the door, looking startled. He had a shopping bag in his
hand. "What's the matter?"
"Let me come in. Close the door. Stephen, he is here -- that man. He is
waiting downstairs in a car. My poor boy, it is my fault. He must have
followed me. I led him to you. My God, let us think. Is there a back
way from the house?"
"Yes, but -- it comes out the side. Would he see me there?"
She thought a moment. "Yes. He is sitting where he can see down both
streets. I must lead him away, but how is it possible?"
"I don't know."' Something new had come into the boy's expression;
his mouth was firmer, his eyes narrowed. It was a look she did not like
to see.
"Wait, Stephen," she said, "there must be a way. My brain is dead. Think,
think!" She rubbed her eyes. "Tell me, is there a place where you could
hide, not here, but in this house?"
"There's a closet under the stairs."
"Good. Now listen to me. You must hide there, and when you hear us
going up the stairs, you must go out quietly and then run as fast as
you can. Do you understand?"
"Yes." His expression had softened; he took both her hands. "Madame
Porgorny -- "
"I know, my poor boy, I know." She let him hold her hands, even though
it hurt her swollen fingers. After a moment they did not hurt quite so
much. "Thank you for doing this for me," he said.
"It is nothing. And now it is really good-bye. Remember all I have
told you."
"Good-bye, Madame Porgorny. I'll remember."
In her mind she rehearsed her part as she went down the stairs. Something
terrible has happened, she told herself, I am bouleversée, hysterical, but
I must not overplay it, he must be convinced.
She opened the front door and stepped out, looking wildly around. "Help!"
she cried. She looked again, saw the man in the car as if for the first
time, and ran toward him. He was opening the door.
"You!" she said. "Why are you here? What do you want? Never mind, you
must help me. The boy is ill -- he fell down, he is not breathing."
"Did he faint or what?" the red-faced man asked, following her.
"I do not know. It was like a seizure -- suddenly he fell down, and his
face so white!" She was toiling up the stairs.
"Which door is it?"
"There. That one."
The red-faced man tried the knob, then knocked and listened. "He may be
dying!" cried Madame Porgorny.
"Who locked the door, for Christ sake?"
"I must have done it, when I ran out. My God, what a horrible thing!"
"Hell," said the red-faced man. He stepped back, raised his foot, kicked
the door below the lock. A panel splintered. He kicked it again and again
until a jagged piece fell into the room. He reached inside, grunting,
and opened the door.
She watched him as he went through the cluttered rooms. "He's not here,"
he said, coming back to her. His face had turned a darker red, and his
lips were moist. For a moment she thought he might strike her.
"Stephen, where are you.'?" she cried, running out into the hall. "Ah,
my heart!" She clutched herself, stumbled, and managed to fall at the
head of the stairs, sprawled across the way.
"Hell!" said the red-faced man, stepping over her gingerly. She made
it as difficult for him as she could; he almost fell, but recovered
himself and went running down the stairs. When she got to the street,
she heard the tires of his big car squealing as it turned the corner.
Madame Porgorny hailed a cab on the avenue and went back to the
school. The plumber was there, making his usual mess, and the janitor
was not to be found; the clay for the ceramics class had not come;
there was a bill from the electrician that she had already paid. She
had enough to keep her busy all day, and it was not until evening, when
she was sitting down to dinner, that she realized the swelling in her
fingers was entirely gone and that there was no pain.
Chapter Eight
Later Gene Anderson remembered two things about his trip across the
country: the Grand Canyon, and a carnival in Columbus, Ohio. The carnival
was a sort of traveling amusement park, set up in a vacant lot near
the railroad station. He rode the Ferris wheel and the loop-the-loop,
ate hot dogs, corn on the cob, and pink cotton candy. Then the cries of
a sideshow barker drew him, and he went in.
First they saw the Lizard Man. He was about thirty, partly bald, with
expressionless eyes. When he took off his red robe, they saw that his
body was covered with shiny scales that looked like a snake's molted
skin. "His mother was frightened by a boa constrictor before he was born,
ladies and gentlemen. Scientists said it couldn't happen, but here he
is, before your very eyes, ladies and gentlemen, one of the Eight Wonders
of the World, the Lizard Man, condemned to go through life with the skin
of a reptile."
Next was the Fat Lady, and after her the Human Pincushion, who put long
needles through his cheeks and tongue, then lay down on a bed of nails
with a fifty-pound weight on his chest.
After him was the Bearded Lady, who was bearded all over her face (not
just on one half, as in the painting outside). Then came the giant. He sat
in a thronelike chair on a little platform, a pale man in a business suit,
with wispy dark hair and spectacles. His shoes were like anybody else's,
black leather, a little scuffed around the toes, but they were twice as
big as any shoes Gene had ever seen before. He took off the gold ring on
his finger and the barker showed them that two of his own fingers would
fit into it. As he was buying a brass copy of this ring for fifty cents,
Gene saw the giant looking at him with a curious expression: he smiled
faintly, then closed his eyes and turned his head away.
Out in the midway, Gene was stopped by a man who wore tan denims, with
riding boots and a baseball cap. "Hey, kid, how old are you?"
"Twelve," said Gene before he thought.
"Yeah?" The man looked him over. "Well, if you grow another two feet,
come and see me." He handed Gene a card and walked away.
Then he was in New York, and it was like coming home to a paradise he
had only dreamed of. There were miles of shops, bookstores, galleries;
even San Francisco was nothing to this. He rented an apartment in
Chelsea. For weeks he saw a different movie every day. He bought books,
art supplies, a record player, a television set; he bought Oriental rugs
of incredible shimmering colors.
At first it did not bother him that he had no friends or even acquaintances
in New York; he liked the feeling of anonymity, invisibility. As long as
the golden summer lasted, the city was cheerful; in the autumn it turned
melancholy. The first snowfall exhilarated him, but its brilliant whiteness
turned overnight to brown freezing slush.
He bought galoshes, a hat, gloves, an overcoat, and a muffler. The
overcoat was an absurd garment that could not be closed at the neck,
and the muffler did not keep out the bitter wind. Darkness flowed down
the streets, and the raw-nosed people walked bending against it, holding
their lapels together at the neck. Indoors, in restaurants and theaters,
the yellow light made people look feverish. This was not winter as he
had known it; it was a nordic underworld.
In a bookstore he found a copy of Sigmund Freud's "Totem and Taboo,"
and his world was turned around. He discovered that religion was the
delusion of people afraid to face the fact that they must die. The
universe became a vast indifference, not a screen with God's baleful
eye peering through it. When he saw people coming out of a church,
he looked at them with amused contempt.
In December he saw an ad for a private detective agency in a
newspaper: "Confidential, reasonable rates." He wrote to
them, paid the deposit they required, and six weeks later
received a letter on their stationery.
Dear Sir:
Our operative went to Dog River, Oregon on January
13, 1958 as per your request and consulted the current
telephone directory for the names Cooley, Tom or
Thomas, Anderson, Donald R. and Anderson, Mildred.
No listings were found for these names; however, listings
were found for Cooley, Ernest, Anderson, B. Walter,
Anderson, Billy, Anderson, D.W., Andersen, Sylvia,
and Andersen, Olaf.
Consulting previous telephone directories at the public
library, no listings were found for Cooley, Tom or
Thomas, or Anderson, Donald R. later than the year
1955.
The operative then proceeded to the Dog River Post
Office and inquired as to Donald R. Anderson. The
postmaster informed him that said Donald R. Anderson
and wife Mildred moved to Chehalis, Washington in
1955. The operative also inquired as to the present
whereabouts of Thomas Cooley,,and was informed that
said Cooley left the state in 1957 and his whereabouts
were unknown.
The operative then contacted the pastor of the Riverside
Church, Rev. Floyd Metcalfe Williams, who stated that
Mr. and Mrs. Donald R. Anderson were members of his
congregation from 1940-1955, when they moved to
Chehalis, Washington, and further stated that he believed
said Mr. and Mrs. Anderson lost their lives in a fire in
1956. The operative then proceeded to Chehalis, Washington
and confirmed...
Gene put the letter down. There were two more paragraphs: " . . . house
fire of undetermined origin . . . bill for services enclosed . . . your
esteemed favor . . . "
He remembered, as if it were something he had read in a book, the house in
Dog River and the yard around it, the smells of crushed grass and earth,
the cracked sidewalk, his father's tired face, his mother setting the
table. He remembered himself in that house, the wrong size, the wrong
age, and yet it was not himself, it was a boy who did not exist anymore,
who had died and been reborn outside the tree house in the woods. All
those bright pictures belonged to another life; they were gone now;
it didn't matter.
That night he dreamed about his parents, but it was not a true dream like
the one he had had in the tree house; his mother and father were in some
dark piaee and they were trying to talk to him, to tell him something,
but when their lips moved there was no sound.
He had other dreams in which Paul Cooley was alive, although he was dead
at the same time, in the way that opposites often existed together in
dreams; Paul was confronting him with his bulging eyes and slobbery lip,
saying, "You pushed me out the window!" And Gene was trying to explain
that he really hadn't, or hadn't meant to, and all the time he knew he was
lying. Then sometimes he woke up, and sometimes he drifted down from the
window and touched Paul's body with his hands; and then Paul was alive,
and he rose and walked away. And for some reason, these were the most
terrible dreams of all.
One day, in a gallery on Fifth Avenue, he saw an astonishing thing -- a
quasi-human figure made up of blocky forms that seemed to be melting from
crystals of metal into metal flesh. The face was a mask, the limbs bulged
like an insect's. It was dark bronze, about fourteen inches high. It
stood in a dancer's posture, speaking of power under intense control.
The card on the pedestal said, "Hierophant, Manuel Avila."
"How much is that?" he asked.
The attendant, a bony young man whose suit and tie were gray, gave him
an appraising glance. "That," he said, "is three thousand dollars."
"Three
thousand
?" Gene looked at the figure again. After a moment he
said, "I'll take it."
The young man's eyebrows went up. "Very well, sir, will you step this
way?"
At the little desk in the back he produced a sales slip and began to
fill it in. "Do you have some identification, Mr. Davis?"
"Not with me, no, but I'd like to leave you a deposit now and I'll bring
you a certified check later."
"That will be perfectly fine."
"I'd like to meet Mr. Avila sometime. Does he live here in town?"
"Yes, sir. He's in the phone book, actually, but let me write it down
for you."
Chapter Nine
"Hello." A deep, impatient voice.
"Can I speak to Mr. Avila, please?"
"This is Avila."
"Mr. Avila, my name is John Davis. I bought your Hierophant at the Otis
Gallery yesterday."
"Oh, yeah. I heard about that."
"I was wondering, could I come and see your studio? Maybe look at some
of your other work?"
"Sure, why not. You know where it is? Come down about five o'clock.
Listen, the bell doesn't work. Walk up the stairs, fourth floor. What's
your name again?"
"John Davis."
"Okay. See you then."
The address was in a row of dingy, seemingly abandoned commercial
buildings on the Lower East Side. The plate-glass window beside the
entrance was lettered, "BELLER RESTAURANT SUPPLY," but the interior was
dark and empty, and there were cobwebs on the windows.
Gene climbed three flights of uncarpeted echoing stairs and found himself
on a landing with a single door painted dark green. A card on the door
was neatly lettered, "AVILA." He rang the bell.
"Come in!" called a distant voice.
Gene opened the door and found himself looking down the length of an
enormous room, in the middle of which three people sat near an oil heater
with a stovepipe that rose, supported by guy wires, through the ceiling
high above. Dust motes swam in the gray light from the window wall. "Mr.
Davis?" called the voice. The men's faces were in shadow; he could not
see which one had spoken.
"Yes."
One of the men stood up and beckoned. "Come in, sit down." Gene walked
toward them, trying not to trip over the electrical wires that lay
haphazardly on the bare floor. The man who had spoken was stocky,
powerfully built, with a seamed brown face. "I'm Avila," he said,
putting out his hand. "Sit here. Put your coat on the floor, wherever you
want. This is Darío Hernandez" -- a young man who put down his guitar
to rise and shake Gene's hand; he was as brown as Avila, handsome and
bright-eyed. "And this is Gus Vilsmas -- Vilis -- how the hell you
say it?"
"Vlismas," said the third man. He was paler than the others, middle-aged
and plump, with a gold tooth that flashed when he smiled. "Glad to
know you."
Gene sat in a wooden rocker that creaked under his weight. The others
were staring at him. "You're tall, but you're only a kid," said Avila
abruptly. "You want some wine? Maybe you're not old enough to drink it."