To my brothers and sisters,
Maurice, Edward and Alyce,
and in loving memory of my parents.
'Now when [Jesus] stepped ashore, there met him a certain man who for a long time was
possessed by a devil.... Many times it had laid hold of him and he was bound with chains....
but he would break the bonds asunder.... And Jesus asked him, saying, "What is thy name?"
And he said Legion....'
Luke 8:27-30
James Torello: Jackson was hung up on that meat hook. He was so heavy he bent it. He was
on that thing three days before he croaked.
Frank Buccieri (giggling): Jackie, you shoulda seen the guy. Like an elephant, he was, and
when Jimmy hit him with that electric prod...
Torello (excitedly): He was floppin' around on that hook, Jackie. We tossed water on him to
give the prod a better charge, and he's screamin'....
Excerpt from FBI wiretap of Cosa Nostra telephone conversation relating to murder of
William Jackson
...There's no other explanation for some of the things the Communists did. Like the priest
who had eight nails driven into his skull.... And there were seven little boys and their teacher.
They were praying the Our Father when soldiers came upon them. One soldier whipped out
his bayonet and sliced off the teacher's tongue. The other took chopsticks and drove them into
the ears of the seven little boys. How do you treat cases like that?
Dr. Tom Dooley
Dachau
Auschwitz
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I Have taken a few liberties with the current geography of Georgetown University, notably
with respect to the present location of the Institute of Languages and Linguistics. Moreover,
the house on Prospects Street does not exist, nor does the reception room of the Jesuit
residence halls as I have described it.
The fragment of prose attributed to Lankester Merrin is not my creation, but is taken from a
sermon of John Henry Newman entitled 'The Second Spring'.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My special thanks to Herbert Tanney, M.D.; Mr. Joseph E. Jeffs, Librarian, Georgetown
University; Mr. William Bloom; and Mrs. Ann Harris, my editor at Harper & Row, for their
invaluable assistance and generosity in the preparation of this work. I would also like to thank
the Rev. Thomas V. Bermingham, S.J., Vice-Provincial for Formation of the New York
Province of the Society of Jesus, for suggesting the subject matter of this novel; and Mr.
Marc Jaffe of Bantam Books for his singular (and lonely) faith in its eventual worth. To these
mentions I would like to add Dr. Bernard M. Wagner of Georgetown University, for teaching
me to write, and the Jesuits, for teaching me to think.
Buchenwald
PROLOGUE
Northern Iraq
The blaze of sun wrung pops of sweat from the old man's brow, yet he cupped his hands
around the glass of hot sweet tea as if to warm them. He could not shake the premonition. It
clang to his back like chill wet leaves.
The dig was over. The tell had been sifted, stratum by stratum, its entrails examined, tagged
and shipped: the beds and pendants; glyptics; phalli; ground-stone mortars stained with ocher;
burnished pots. Nothing exceptional. An Assyrian ivory toilet box. And man. The bones of
man. The brittle remnants of cosmic torment that once made him wonder if matter was
Lucifer upward-groping back to his God. And yet now he knew better. The fragrance of
licorice plant and tamarisk tugged his gaze to poppied hills; to reeded plains; to the ragged,
rock-strewn bolt of road that flung itself headlong into dread. Northwest was Mosul; east,
Erbil; south was Baghdad and Kirkuk and the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar. He shifted
his legs underneath the table in front of the lonely roadside chaykhana and stared at the grass
stains on his boots and khaki pants. He sipped at his tea. The dig was over. What was
beginning? He dusted the thought like a clay-fresh find but he could not tag it.
Someone wheezed from within the chaykhana: the withered proprietor shuffling toward him,
kicking up dust in Russian-made shoes that he wore like slippers, groaning backs pressed
under his heels. The dark of his shadow slipped over the table.
"Kaman chay, chawaga?"
The man, in khaki shook his head, staring down at the laceless, crusted shoes caked thick
with debris of the pain of living. The stuff of the cosmos, he softly reflected: matter; yet
somehow finally spirit. Spirit and the shoes were to him but aspects of a stuff more
fundamental, a stuff that was primal and totally other
.The shadow shifted. The Kurd stood waiting like an ancient debt. The old man in khaki
looked up into eyes that were damply bleached as if the membrane of an eggshell had been
pasted over the irises. Glaucoma. Once he could not have loved this man.
He slipped out his wallet and probed for a coin among its tattered, crumpled tenants: a few
dinars; an Iraqi driver's license; a faded plastic calendar card that was twelve years out of
date. It bore an inscription on the reverse: WHAT WE GIVE TO THE POOR IS WHAT WE
TAKE WITH US WHEN WE DIE. The card had been printed by the Jesuit Missions. He
paid for his tea and left a tip of fifty fils on a splintered table the color of sadness.
He walked to his jeep. The gentle, rippling click of key sliding into ignition was crisp in the
silence. For a moment he waited, feeling at the stillness. Clustered on the summit of a
towering mound, the fractured rooftops of Erbil hovered far in the distance, poised in the
clouds like a rubbled, mud-stained benediction. The leaves clutched tighter at the flesh of his
back.
Something was waiting.
"Allah ma'ak, chawaga."
Rotted teeth. The Kurd was grinning, waving farewell. The man in khaki groped for a warmth
in his pit of his being and came up with a wave and a mustered smile. It dimmed as he looked
away. He started the engine, turned in a narrow, eccentric U and headed toward Mosul. The
Kurd stood watching, puzzled by a heart-dropping sense of loss as the jeep gathered speed.
What was it that was gone? What was it he had felt in the stranger's presence? Something like
safety, he remembered; a sense of protection and deep well-being. Now it dwindled in the
distance with the fast-moving jeep. He felt strangely alone.
**********
The painstaking inventory was finishecd by ten after six. The Mosul curator of antiquities, an
Arab with sagging cheeks, was carefully penning a final entry into the ledger on his desk. For
a moment he paused, looking up at his friend, as he dipped his penpoint into an inkpot. The
man in khaki seemed lost in thought. He was standing by a table, hand in his pockets, staring
down at some dry, tagged whisper of the past. The curator observed him, curious, unmoving;
then returned to the entry, writing in a firm, very small neat script. Then at last he sighed,
setting down the pen as he noted the time. The train to Baghdad left at eight. He blotted the
page and offered tea.
The man in khaki shook his head, his eyes still fixed upon something on the table. The Arab
watched him, vaguely troubled. What was in the air? There was something in the air. He
stood up and moved closer; then felt a vague prickling at the base of his neck as his friend at
last moved, reaching down for an amulet and cradling it pensively in his hand. It was a green
stone head of the demon Pazuzu, personification of the southwest wind. Its dominion was
sickness and disease. The head was pierced. The amulet's owner had worn it as a shield.
"Evil against evil," breathed the curator, languidly fanning himself with a French scientific
periodical, an olive-oil thumbprint smudged on the cover.
His friend did not move; he did not comment.
"Is something wrong?"
No answer.
"Father?"
The man in khaki still appeared not to hear, absorbed in the amulet, the last of his finds. After
a moment he set it down, then lifted a questioning look to the Arab. Had he said something?
"Nothing."
They murmured farewells.
At the door, the curator took the old man's hand with an extra firmness. "My heart has a wish,
Father: that you would not go."
His friend answered softly in terms of tea; of times; of something to be done.
"No, no, no, I meant home."
The man in khaki fixed his gaze on a speck of boiled chick-pea nestled in a corner of the
Arab's mouth; yet his eyes were distant. "Home," he repeated. The word had the sound of an
ending:
"The States," the Arab curator added, instantly wondering why he had.
The man in khaki looked into the dark of the other's concern. He had never found it difficult
to love this man.
"Good-bye;" he whispered; then quickly turned and stepped into the gathering gloom of the
streets and a journey home whose length seemed somehow undetermined.
"I will see you in a year!" the curator called after him from the doorway. But the man in
khaki never looked back. The Arab watched his dwindling form as he crossed a narrow street
at an angle, almost colliding with a swiftly moving droshky. Its cab bore a corpulent old Arab
woman, her face a shadow behind the black lace veil draped loosely over her like a shroud.
He guessed she was rushing to some appointment. He soon lost sight of his hurrying friend.
The man in khaki walked, compelled.. Shrugging loose of the city, he breached the outskirts,
crossing the Tigris. Nearing the ruins, he slowed his pace, for with every step the inchoate
presentiment took firmer, more horrible form. Yet he had to know. He would have to prepare.
A wooden plank that bridged the Khosr, a muddy stream, creaked under his weight. And then
he was there; he stood on the mound where once gleamed fifteen-gated Nineveh, feared nest
of Assyrian hordes. Now the city lay sprawled in the bloody dust of its predestination. And
yet he was here, the air was still thick with him, that Other who ravaged his dreams.
Kurdish watchman, rounding a corner, unslung his rifle and began to run toward him, then
abruptly stopped and grinned with a wave of recognition and proceeded on his rounds.
The man in khaki prowled the ruins. The Temple of Nabu. The Temple of Ishtar. He sifted
vibrations. At the palace of Ashurbanipal he paused; then shifted a sidelong glance to a
limestone statue hulking in situ: ragged wings; taloned feet; bulbous, jutting, stubby penis
and a mouth stretched taut in a feral grin. The demon Pazuzu.
Abruptly he sagged.
He knew.
It was coming.
He stared at the dust. Quickening shadows.. He heard dim yappings of savage dog packs
prowling the fringes of the city. The orb of the sun was beginning to fall below the rim of the
world. He rolled his shirt sleeves down and buttoned them as a shivering breeze sprang up. Its
source was southwest.
He hastened toward Mosul and his train, his heart encased in the icy conviction that soon he
would face an ancient enemy.
(End of prologue * Scanned and fully proofed by nihua)
I: The Beginning
CHAPTER ONE
Like the brief doomed flare of exploding suns that registers dimly on blind men's eyes, the
beginning of the horror passed almost unnoticed; in the shriek of what followed, in fact, was
forgotten and perhaps not connected to the horror at all. It was difficult to judge.
The house was a rental. Brooding. Tight. A bride colonial gripped by ivy in the Georgetown
section of Washington, D.C. Across the street was a fringe of campus belonging to
Georgetown University; to the rear, a sheer embankment plummeting steep to busy M Street
and, beyond, the muddy Potomac. Early on the morning of April 1, the house was quiet.
Chris MacNeil was propped in bed, going over her lines for the neat day's filming; Regan, her
daughter, was sleeping down the hall; and asleep downstairs in a room off the pantry were the
middle-aged housekeepers, Willie and Karl. At approximately 12:25 A.M., Chris glanced
from her script with a frown of puzzlement. She heard rapping sounds. They were odd.
Muffed. Profound. Rhythmically clustered. Alien code tapped out by a dead man.
Funny.
She listened for a moment; then dismissed it; but as the rappings persisted she could not
concentrate. She slapped down the script on the bed.
Jesus, that bugs me!
She got up to investigate.
She went out to the hallway and looked around. It seemed to be coming from Regan's
bedroom.
What is she doing?
She padded down the hall and the rappings grew suddenly louder, much faster, and as she
pushed on the door and stepped into the room, they abruptly ceased.
What the heck's going on?
Her pretty eleven-year-old was asleep, cuddled tight to a large stuffed round-eyed panda.
Pookey. Faded from years of smothering; years of smacking, warm, wet kisses.
Chris moved softly to her bedside and leaned over for a whisper. "Rags? You awake?"
Regular breathing. Heavy. Deep.
Chris shifted her glance around the room. Dim light from the hall fell pale and splintered on
Regan's paintings; on Regan's sculptures; on more stuffed animals.
Okay, Rags. Old mother's ass is draggin'. Say it. "April Fool!"
And yet Chris knew it wasn't like her. The child had a shy and very diffident nature. Then
who was the trickster? A somnolent mind imposing order on the rattlings of heating pipes or
plumbing? Once, in the mountains of Bhutan, she had stared for hours at a Buddhist monk
who was squatting on the ground in meditation. Finally, she thought she had seen him
levitate. Perhaps. Recounting the story to someone, she invariably added "perhaps." And
perhaps her mind, that untiring raconteur of illusion, had embellished the rappings.
Bullshit! I heard it!
Abruptly, she flicked a quick glance to the ceiling. There! Faint Rats in the attic, for pete's sake! Rats!
She sighed. That's it. Big tails. Thump, thump. She felt oddly relieved. And then noticed the
cold. The room. It was icy.
She padded to the window. Checked it. Closed. She touched the radiator. Hot.
Oh, really?
Puzzled, she moved to the bedside and, touched her hand to Regan's cheek. It was smooth as
thought and lightly perspiring.
I must be sick!
She looked at her daughter, at the turned-up nose and freckled face, and on a quick, warm
impulse leaned over the bed and kissed her cheek. "I sure do love you," she whispered, then
returned to her room and her bed and her script.
For a while, Chris studied. The film was a musical comedy remake of Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington. .A subplot had been added dealing with campus insurrections. Chris was
starring. She played a psychology teacher who sided with the rebels. And she hated it. It's
dumb! This scene is absolutely dumb! Her mind, though untutored, never mistook slogans for
truth, and like a curious bluejay she would peck relentlessly through verbiage to find the
glistening, hidden fact. And so the rebel cause, to her, was "dumb." It didn't make sense. How
come? she now wondered. Generation gap? That's a crock; I'm thirty-two. It's just plain
dumb, that's all, it's...!
Cool it. One more week.
They'd completed the interiors in Hollywood. All that remained were a few exterior scenes on
the campus of Georgetown University, starting tomorrow. It was Easter vacation and the
students were away..
She was getting drowsy. Heavy lids. She turned to a page that was curiously ragged.
Bemused, she smiled. Her English director. When especially tense, he would tear, with
quivering, fluttering hands, a narrow strip from the edge of the handiest page and then chew
it, inch by inch, until it was all in a ball in his mouth.
Dear Burke.
She yawned, then glanced fondly at the side of her script. The pages looked gnawed. She
remembered the rats. The little bastards sure got rhythm. She made a mental note to have
Karl set traps for them in the morning.
Fingers relaxing. Script slipping loose. She let it drop. Dumb. It's dumb. A fumbling hand
groping out to the light switch. There. She sighed. For a time she was motionless, almost
asleep; and then kicked off her covers with a lazy leg. Too freaking hot.
A mist of dew clung soft and gentle to the windowpanes.
Chris slept. And dreamed about death in the staggering particular, death as if death were still
never yet heard of while something was ringing, she gasping, dissolving, slipping off into
void, thinking over and over, I am not going to be, I will die, I won't be, and forever and ever,
oh, Papa, don't let them, oh, don't let them do it, don't let me be nothing forever and melting,
unraveling, ringing, the ringing---
The phone!
She leaped up with her heart pounding, hand to the phone and no weight in her stomach; a
core with no weight and her telephone ringing.
She answered. The assistant director.
"In makeup at six, honey."
"Right."
"How ya feelin'?"
"If I go to the bathroom and it doesn't burn, then I figure I'm ahead."
He chuckled. "I'll see yon.'
"Right. And thanks."
She hung up. And for moments sat motionless, thinking of the dream. A dream? More like
thought in the half life of waking. That terrible clarity. Gleam of the skull. Non-being.
Irreversible. She could not imagine it. God, it can't be!
She considered. And at last bowed her head. But it is.
She went to the bathroom, put on a robe, and padded quickly down to the kitchen, down to
life in sputtering bacon.
"Ah, good morning, Mrs. MacNeil."
Gray, drooping Willie, squeezing oranges, blue sacs beneath her eyes. A trace of accent.
Swiss, like karl's. She wiped her hands on a paper towel and started moving toward the stove.
"I'll get it, Willie." Chris, ever sensitive, had seen her weary look, and as Willie now grunted
and turned back to the sink, the actress poured coffee, then moved to the breakfast nook. Sat down. And warmly smiled as she looked at her plate. A blush-red rose. Regan. That angel.
Many a morning, when Chris was working, Regan would quietly slip out of bed, come down
to the kitchen and place a flower, then grope her way crusty-eyed back to her sleep. Chris
shook her head; rueful; recalling: she had almost named her Goneril. Sure. Right on. Get
ready for the worst. Chris chuckled at the memory. Sipped at her coffee. As her gaze caught
the rose again, her expression turned briefly sad, large green eyes grieving in a waiflike face.
She'd recalled another flower. A son. Jamie. He had died long ago at the age of three, when
Chris was very young and an unknown chorus girl on Broadway. She had sworn she would
not give herself ever again as she had to Jamie; as she had to his father, Howard MacNeil.
She glanced quickly from the rose, and as her dream of death misted upward from the coffee,
she quickly lit a cigarette. Willie brought juice and Chris remembered the rats.. "Where's
Karl?" she asked the servant.
"I am here, madam!"
Catting in lithe through a door off the pantry. Commanding. Deferential. Dynamic.
Crouching. A fragment of Kleenex pressed tight to his chin where he'd nicked himself
shaving. "Yes?" Thickly muscled, he breathed by the table. Glittering eyes. Hawk nose. Bald
head.
"Hey, Karl, we've got rats in the attic. Better get us some traps."
"Where are rats?"
"I just said that."
"But the attic is clean."
"Well, okay, we've got tidy rats!"
"No rats."
"Karl, I heard them last night," Chris said patiently, controlling.
"Maybe plumbing," Karl probed; "maybe boards."
"Maybe rats! Will you buy the damn traps and quit arguing?"
"Yes, madam!" Bustling away. "I go now!"
"No not now, Karl! The stores are all closed!"
'They are closed!" chided Willie.
"I will see."
He was gone.
Chris and Willie traded glances, and then Willie shook her head, turning back to the bacon.
Chris sipped at her coffee. Strange. Strange man. Like Willie, hard-working; very loyal;
discreet. And yet something about him made her vaguely uneasy. What was it? His subtle air
of arrogance? Defiance? No. Something else. Something hard to pin down. The couple had
been with her for almost six years, and yet Karl was a mask--- a talking, breathing,
untranslated hieroglyph running her errands on stilted legs. Behind the mask, though,
something moved; she could hear his mechanism ticking like a conscience. She stubbed out
her cigarette; heard the front door creaking open, then shut.
"They are closed," muttered Willie.
Chris nibbled at bacon, then returned to her room, where she dressed in her costume sweater
and skirt. She glanced in a mirror and solemnly stared at her short red hair, which looked
perpetually tousled; at the burst of freckles on the small, scrubbed face; then crossed her eyes and grinned idiotically. Hi, little wonderful girl next door! Can I speak to your husband?
Your lover? Your pimp? Oh, your pimp's in the poorhouse? Avon calling! She stuck out her
tongue at herself. Then sagged. Ah, Christ, what a life! She picked up her wig box, slouched
downstairs, and walked out to the piquant tree-lined street.
For a moment she paused outside the house and gulped at the morning. She looked to the
right. Beside the house, a precipitous plunge of old stone steps fell away to M Street far
below. A little beyond was the upper entry to the Car Barn, formerly used for the housing of
streetcars: Mediterranean, tiled roof; rococo turrets; antique brick. She regarded it wistfully.
Fun. Fun street. Dammit, why don't I stay? But the house? Start to live? From somewhere a
bell began to toll. She glanced toward the sound. The tower clock on the Georgetown
campus. The melancholy resonance echoed on the river; shivered; seeped through her tired
heart. She walked toward her work; toward ghastly charade; toward the straw-stuffed, antic
imitation of dust.
She entered the main front gates of the campus and her depression diminished; then grew
even less as she looked at the row of trailer dressing rooms aligned along the driveway close
to the southern perimeter wall; and by 8 A.M. and the day's first shot, she was almost herself:
She started an argument over the script.
"Hey, Burke? Take a look at this damned thing, will ya?"
"Oh, you do have a script, I see! How nice!" Director Burke Dennings, taut and, elfin, left eye
twitching yet gleaming with mischief, surgically shaved a narrow strip from a page of her
script with quivering fingers "I believe I'll munch," he cackled.
They were standing on the esplanade that fronted the administration building and were
knotted in the center of actors; lights; technicians; extras; grips. Here and there a few
spectators dotted the lawn, mostly Jesuit faculty. Numbers of children. The cameraman,
bored, picked up Daily Variety as Dennings put the paper in his mouth and giggled, his
breath reeking faintly of the morning's first gin.
"Yes, I'm terribly glad you've been given a script."
A sly, frail man in his fifties, he spoke with a charmingly broad British accent so clipped and
precise that it lofted even crudest obscenities to elegance, and when he drank, he seemed
always on the verge of guffaw; seemed constantly struggling to retain his composure.
"Now then, tell me, my baby. What is it? What's wrong?"
The scene in question called for the dean of the mythical college in the script to address a
gathering of students in an effort to squelch a threatened "sit-in." Chris would then run up the
steps to the esplanade, tear the bullhorn away from the dean and then point to the main
administration building and shout, "Let's tear it down!"
"It just doesn't make sense," said Chris.
"Well, it's perfectly plain," lied Dennings.
"Why the heck should they tear down the building, Burke? What for?"
"Are you sending me up?"
"No, I'm asking 'what for?' "
"Because it's there, loves!"
"In the script?"
"No, on the grounds!"
"Well, it doesn't make sense, Burke. She just wouldn't do that."
"She would."
"No, she wouldn't."
"Shall we summon the writer? I believe he's in Paris!"
"Hiding?"
"Fucking!"
He'd clipped it off with impeccable diction, fox eyes glinting in a face like dough as the word
rose crisp to Gothic spires. Chris fell weak to his shoulders, laughing. "Oh, Burke, you're
impossible, dammit!"
"Yes." He said it like Caesar modestly confirming reports of his triple rejection of the crown.
"Now then, shall we get on with it?"
Chris didn't hear. She'd darted a furtive, embarrassed glance to a nearby Jesuit, checking to
see if he'd heard the obscenity. Dark, rugged face. Like a boxer's. Chipped. In his forties.
Something sad about the eyes; something pained; and yet warm and reassuring as they
fastened on hers. He'd heard. He was smiling. He glanced at his watch and moved away.
"I say, shall we get on with it!"
She turned, disconnected. "Yeah, sure, Burke, let's do it."
"Thank heaven."
"No, wait!"
"Oh, good Christ!"
She complained about the tag of the scene.. She felt that the high point was reached with her
line as opposed to her running through the door of the building immediately afterward.
"It adds nothing," said Chris. "It's dumb."
"Yes, it is, love, it is," agreed Burke sincerely. "However, the cutter insists that we do it," he
continued, "so there we are. You see?"
"No, I don't."
"No, of course not. It's stupid. You see, since the following scene"--- he giggled--- "begins
with Jed coming at us through a door, the cutter feels certain of a nomination if the scene
preceding ends with you moving off through a door."
"That's dumb."
"Well, of course it is! It's vomit! It's simply cunting puking mad! Now then, why don't we
shoot it and trust me to snip it from the final cut. It should make a rather tasty munch."
Chris laughed. And agreed. Burke glanced toward the cutter, who was known to be a
temperamental egotist given to time-wasting argumentation. He was busy with the
cameraman. The director breathed a sigh of relief.
Waiting on the lawn at the base of the steps while the lights were warming, Chris looked
toward Dennings as he flung an obscenity at a hapless grip and then visibly glowed. He
seemed to revel in his eccentricity. Yet at a certain point in his drinking, Chris knew, he
would suddenly explode into temper, and if it happened at three or four in the morning, he
was likely to telephone people in power, and viciously abuse them over trifling provocations.
Chris remembered a studio chief whose offense had consisted in remarking mildly at a
screening that the cuffs of Dennings' shirt looked slightly frayed, prompting Dennings to
awaken him at approximately 3 A.M. to describe him as a "cunting boor" whose father was
"more that likely mad!" And on the following day, he would pretend to amnesia and subtly
radiate with pleasure when those he'd offended described in detail what he had done.
Although, if it suited him, he would remember. Chris thought with a smile of the night he'd
destroyed his studio suite of offices in a gin-stoked, mindless rage, and how later, when
confronted with an itemized bill and Polaroid photos detailing the damage, he'd archly
dismissed them as "Obvious fakes, the damage was far, far worse than that!" Chris did not
believe that Dennings was either an alcoholic or a hopeless problem drinker, but rather that
he drank because it was expected of him: he was living up to his legend.
Ah, well, she thought; I guess it's a kind of immortality.
She turned, looking over her shoulder for the Jesuit who had smiled. He was walking in the
distance, despondent, head lowered, a lone black cloud in search of the rain.
She had never liked priests. So assured. So secure. And yet this one...
"All ready, Chris?" Dennings.
"Yeah, ready."
"All right, absolute quiet!" The assistant director
"Roll the film," ordered Burke.
"Speed."
"Now action!"
Chris ran up the steps while extras cheered and Dennings watched her, wondering what was
on her mind. She'd given up the arguments far too quickly. He turned a significant look to the
dialogue coach, who padded up to him dutifully and proffered his open script like an aging
altar boy the missal to his priest at solemn Mass.
**********
They worked with intermittent sun. By four, the overcast of roiling clouds was thick in the
sky, and the assistant director dismissed the company for the day.
Chris walked homeward. She was tired. At the corner of Thirty-sixth and O she signed an
autograph for an aging Italian grocery clerk who had hailed her from the doorway of his
shop. She wrote her name and "Warm Best Wishes" on a brown paper bag. Waiting to cross,
she glanced diagonally across the street to a Catholic church. Holy Something-or-other.
Staffed by Jesuits. John F. Kennedy had married Jackie there, she had heard; had worshiped
there. She tried to imagine it: John F. Kennedy among the votive lights and the pious,
wrinkled women; John F. Kennedy bowed in prayer; I believe... a detente with the Russians; I
believe, I believe... Apollo IV among the rattlings of the beads; I believe... the resurrection
and the life ever---
That. That's it. That's the grabber.
She watched as a beer truck lumbered by with a clink of quivering warm, wet promises.
She crossed. As she walked down O and passed the grade-school auditorium, a priest rushed
by from behind her, hands in the pockets of a nylon windbreaker. Young. Very tense. In need
of a shave. Up ahead, he took a right, turning into an easement that opened to a courtyard
behind the church.
Chris paused by the easement, watching him, curious. He seemed to be heading for a white
frame cottage. An old screen door creaked open and still another priest emerged. He looked
glum; very nervous. He nodded curtly toward the young man, and with lowered, eyes, he
moved quickly toward a door that led into the Church. Once again the cottage door was
pushed open from within. Another priest. It looked--- Hey, it is! The one who was smiling
when Burke said "fuck"! Only now he looked grave as he silently greeted the new arrival, his
arm around his shoulder in a gesture that was gentle and somehow parental. He led him
inside and the screen door closed with a slow, faint squeak.
Chris stared at her shoes. She was puzzled. What's the drill? She wondered if Jesuits went to
confession.
Faint rumble of thunder. She looked up at the sky. Would it rain?... the resurrection of the...
Yeah. Yeah, sure. Next Tuesday. Flashes of lightning crackled in the distance. Don't call us,
kid, we'll call you.
She tugged up her coat collar and slowly moved on. She hoped it would pour.
**********
In a minute she was home. She made a dash for the bathroom. After that, she walked into the
kitchen.
"Hi, Chris, how'd it go?"
Pretty blonde in her twenties sitting at the table. Sharon Spencer. Fresh. From Oregon. For
the last three years, she'd been tutor to Regan and social secretary to Chris.
"Oh, the usual crock." Chris sauntered to the table and began to sift message. "Anything
exciting?"
"Do you want to have dinner next week at the White House?"
"Oh, I dunno, Marty; whadda you feel like doin'?"
"Eating candy and getting sick."
Chris chuckled. "Where's Rags, by the way?"
"Downstairs in the playroom."
"'What doin'?"
"Sculpting. She's making a bird, I think. It's for you."
"Yeah, I need one," Chris murmured. She moved to the stove and poured a cup of hot coffee.
"Were you kidding me about that dinner?" she asked.
"No, of course not," answered Sharon. "It's Thursday."
"Big party?"
"No, I gather it's just five or six people."
"No kidding!"
She was pleased but not really surprised. They courted her company: cab drivers; poets;
professors; kings. What was it they liked about her? Life? Chris sat at the table. "How'd the
lesson go?"
Sharon lit a cigarette, frowning. "Had a bad time with math again."
"Oh? Gee, that's funny."
"I know; it's her favorite subject," said Sharon.
"Oh, well, this 'new math,' Christ, I couldn't make change for the bus if---"
"Hi, Mom!"
She was bounding through the door, slim arms outstretched. Red ponytail. Soft, shining face
full of freckles.
"Hi ya, stinkpot!" Beaming, Chris caught her in a bearhug, squeezing, then kissed the girl's
cheek with smacking ardor. She could not repress the full flood of her love. "Mmum-mmum-
mmum!" More kisses. Then she held Regan out and probed her face with eager eyes.
"What'djya do today? Anything exciting?"
"Oh stuff."
"So what kinda stuff?"
"Oh, lemme see." She had her knees against her mother's, swaying gently back and forth.
"Uh-huh."
"An' I painted."
"Wha'djya paint?"
"Oh, well, flowers, ya know. Daisies? Only pink. An' then--- Oh, yeah! This horse!" She
grew suddenly excited, eyes widening. "This man had a horse, ya know, down by the river?
We were walking, see, Mom, and then along came this horse, he was beautiful! Oh, Mom, ya
should've seen him, and the man let me sit on him! Really! I mean, practically a minute!"
Chris twinkled at Sharon with secret amusement. "Himself?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow.
On moving to Washington for the shooting of the film, the blonde secretary, who was now
virtually one of the family, had lived in the house, occupying an extra bedroom upstairs. Until
she'd met the "horseman" at a nearby stable. Sharon needed a place to be alone, Chris then
decided, and had moved her to a suite in an expensive hotel and insisted on paying the bill.
"Himself." Sharon smiled in response to Chris.
"It was a gray horse!" added Regan. "Mother, can't we get a horse? I mean, could we?"
"We'll see, baby."
"When could I have one?"
"We'll see. Where's the bird you made?"
Regan looked blank for a moment; then turned around to Sharon and grinned, her mouth full
of braces and shy rebuke. "You told." Then, "It was a surprise," she snickered to her mother.
"You mean...?"
"With the long funny nose, like you wanted!"
"Oh, Rags, that's sweet. Can I see it?"
"No, I still have to paint it. When's dinner, Mom?"
"Hungry?"
"I'm starving."
"Gee, it s not even five. When was lunch?" Chris asked Sharon.
"Oh, twelvish," Sharon answered.
"When are Willie and Karl coming back?"
She had given their the afternoon off.
"I think seven," said Sharon.
"Mom, can't we go to the Hot Shoppe?" Regan pleaded. "Could we?"
Chris lifted her daughter's hand; smiled fondly; kissed it. "Run upstairs and get dressed and
we'll go."
"Oh, I love you!"
Regan ran from the room.
"Honey, wear the new dress!" Chris called out after her.
"How would you like to be eleven?" mused Shalom.
"That an offer?"
Chris reached for her mail, began listlessly sorting through scrawled adulation,
"Would you take it?" asked Sharon.
"With the brain I've got now?" All the memories?"
"Sure."
"No deal."
"Think it over."
"I'm thinking." Chris picked up a script with a covering letter clipped neatly to the front of it.
Jarris. Her agent. "Thought I told them no scripts for a while."
"You should read it," said Sharon.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yes, I read it this morning."
"Pretty good?"
"It's great."
"And I get to play a nun who discovers she's a lesbian, right?"
"No, you get to play nothing."
"Shit, movies are better than ever. What the hell are you talking about, Sharon? What's the
grin for?"
"They want you to direct," Sharon exhaled coyly with the smoke from her cigarette.
"What!"
"Read the Letter."
"My God, Shar, you're kidding!"
Chris pounced on the letter with eager eyes snapping up the words in hungry chunks: "...new
script... a triptych... studio wants Sir Stephen Moore... accepting role provided---"
"I direct his segment!"
Chris flung up her arms, letting loose a hoarse, shrill cry of joy. Then with both her hands she
cuddled the letter to her chest. "Oh, Steve, you angel, you remembered!" Filming in Africa.
Drunk. In camp chairs. Watching the blood-hush end of day. "Ah, the business is bunk! For
the actor it's crap, Steve!" "Oh, I like it." "It's crap! Don't you know where it's at in this
business? Directing!" "Ah, yes." "Then you've done something, something that's yours; I
mean, something that lives!" "Well, then do it." "I've tried; they won't buy it." "Why not?"
"Oh, come on, you know why: they don't think I can cut it." Warm remembrance. Warm
smile. Dear Steve...
"Mom, I can't find the dress!" Regan called from the landing.
"In the closet!" Chris answered.
"I looked!"
"I'll be up in a second!" Chris called. For a moment she examined the script. Then gradually
wilted. "So its probably crap."
"Oh, come on, now. I really think it's good."
"Oh, you thought Psycho needed a laugh track."
Sharon laughed.
"Mommy?"
"I'm coming!"
Chris got up slowly. "Got a date, Shar?"
"Yes."
Chris motioned at the mail. "You go on, then. We can catch all this stuff in the morning."
Sharon got up.
"Oh, no, wait," Chris amended, remembering something. "There's a letter that's got to go out
tonight."
"Oh, okay." The secretary reached for her dictation pad.
"Moth-therrr!" A whine of impatience.
"Wait'll I comes down," Chris told Sharon. She started to leave the kitchen, but stepped as
Sharon eyed her watch.
"Gee; it's time for me to meditate, Chris," she said.
Chris looked at her narrowly with mute exasperation. In the last six mouths, she had watched
her secretary suddenly turn "seeker after serenity." It had started in Los Angeles with self hypnosis, which then yielded to Buddhistic chanting. During the last few weeks that Sharon
was quartered in the room upstairs, the house had reeked of incense, and lifeless dronings of
"Nam myoho renge kyo" ("See, you just keep on chanting that, Chris, just that, and you get
your wish, you got everything you want...") were heard at unlikely and untimely hours,
usually when Chris was studying her lines. "You can turn on TV," Sharon had generously
told her employer on one of these occasions, "It's fine. I can chant when there's all kinds of
noise. It won't bother me a bit." Now it was transcendental meditation.
"You really think that kind of stuff is going to do you any good, Shar?" Chris asked
tonelessly.
"It gives me peace of mind," responded Sharon.
"Right," Chris said dryly. She turned away and said good-night. She said nothing about the
letter, and as she left the kitchen, she murmured, "Nam myoho renge kyo."
"Keep it up about fifteen or twenty minutes," said Sharon. "Maybe for you it would work."
Chris halted and considered a measured response. Then gave it up. She went upstairs to
Regan's bedroom, moving immediately to the closet. Regan was standing in the middle of the
room staring up at the ceiling.
"What's doin'?" Chris asked her, hunting for the dress. It was a pale-blue cotton. She'd bought
it the week before, and remembered hanging it in the closet.
"Funny noises," said Regan.
"I know. We've got friends."
Regan looked at her. "Huh?"
"Squirrels, honey; squirrels in the attic." her daughter was squeamish and terrified of rats.
Even mice upset her.
The hunt for the dress proved fruitless.
"See, Mom, it's got there."
"Yes, I see. Maybe Willie picked it up with the cleaning."
"It's gone."
"Yeah, well, put on the navy. It's pretty."
**********
They went to the Hot Shoppe. Chris ate a salad while Regan had soup, four rolls, fried
chicken, a chocolate shake, and a helping and a half of blueberry pie with coffee ice cream.
Where does she put it, Chris wondered fondly, in her wrists? The child was slender as a
fleeting hope.
Chris lit a cigarette over her coffee and looked through the window on her right. The river
was dark and currentless, waiting.
"I enjoyed my dinner, Mom."
Chris turned to her, and as often happened, caught her breath and felt again that ache on
seeing Howard's image in Regan's face. It was the angle of the light. She dropped her glance
to Regan's plate.
"Going to leave that pie?" Chris asked her.
Regan lowered her eyes. "I ate some candy."
Chris stubbed out ber cigarette and chuckled. "Let's go."
They were back before seven. Willie and Karl had already returned. Regan made a dash for
the basement playroom, eager to finish the sculpture for her mother. Chris headed for the
kitchen to pick up the script. She found Willie brewing coffee; coarse; open pot. She looked
irritable and sullen.
"Hi, Willie, how'd it go? Have a real nice time?"
"Do not ask." She added an eggshell and a pinch of salt to the bubbling contents of the pot.
They had gone to a movie, Willie explained. She had wanted to see the Beatles, but Karl had
insisted on an art-house film about Mozart. "Terrible," she simmered as she lowered the
flame. "That dumbhead!"
"Sorry 'bout that." Chris tucked the script underneath her arm. "Oh, Willie, have you seen that
dress that I got for Rags last week? The blue cotton?"
"Yes, I see it in her closet. This morning."
"Where'd you put it?"
"It is there."
"You didn't maybe pick it up by mistake with the cleaning?"
"It is there."
"With the cleaning?"
"In the closet."
"No, it isn't. I looked."
About to speak, Willie tightened her lips and scowled at the coffee. Karl, had walked in.
"Good evening, madam." He went to the sink for a glass of water.
"Did you set those traps?" asked Chris.
"No rats."
"Did you set them?"
"I set them, of course; but the attic is clean."
"Tell me, how was the movie, Karl?"
"Exciting." His back, like his face, was a resolute blank.
Chris started from the kitchen, humming a song made famous by the Beatles. But the she
turned. Just one more shot!
"Did you have any trouble getting the traps, Karl?"
"No; no trouble."
"At six in the morning?"
"All-night market."
Jesus!
**********
Chris took a long and luxurious bath, and why she went to the closet in her bedroom for her
robe, she discovered Regan's missing dress. It lay crumpled in a heap on the floor of the
closet.
Chris picked it up. What's it doing in here?
The tags were still on it. For a moment, Clues thought back. Then remembered that the day
that she'd purchased the dress, she had also bought two or three items for herself. Must've put
'em all together.
Chris carried the dress into Regan's bedroom, put it on a hanger and slipped it on the rack.
She glanced at Regan's wardrobe. Nice. Nice clothes. Yeah, Rags, look here, not there at the
daddy who never writes.
You've got that funny look." She had seen it before when they'd worked on a picture
together in Lausanne. On their first night there, at a staid hotel overlooking Lake Geneva,
Chris had difficulty sleeping. At 5 A.M., she flounced out of bed and decided to dress and go
down to the lobby in search of either coffee or some company. Waiting far an elevator out in
the hall, she glanced through a window and saw the director walking stiffly along the
lakeside, hands deep in the pockets of his coat against the glacial winter cold. By the time she
reached the lobby, he was entering the hotel. "Not a hooker in sight!" he snapped bitterly,
passing her with eyes cast down; and then entered the elevator and went up to bed. When
she'd laughingly mentioned the incident later, the director had, grown furious and accused her
of promulgating "gross hallucinations" that people were "likely to believe just because you're
a star!" He had also referred to her as "simply canting mad," but then pointed out soothingly,
in an effort to assuage her feelings, that "perhaps" she had seen someone after all, and had
simply mistaken him for Dennings. "After all," he'd pointed out at the time, "my great-great-
grandmother happens to have been Swiss."
Chris moved behind the bar now and reminded him of the incident.
"Oh, now, don't be so silly!" snapped Dennings. "It so happens that I've spent the entire
evening at a bloody tea, a faculty tea!"
Chris leaned on the bar. "You were just at a tea?"
"Oh, yes, go ahead; smirk!"
"You got smashed at a tea," she said dryly, "with some Jesuits."
"No, the Jesuits were sober."
"They don't drink?"
"Are you out of your cunting mind?'" he shouted. "They swilled! Never seen such capacities
in all my life!"
"Hey, come on, hold it down, Burke! Regan!"
"Yes, Regan," Dennings whispered "Where the hell is my drink?"
"Will you tell me what you were doing at a faculty tea?"
"Bloody public relations; something you should be doing."
Chris handed him a gin on the rocks.
"God, the way we've been mucking their grounds," the director muttered; pious; the glass to
his lips. "Oh, yes, go ahead, laugh! That's all that you're good for, laughing and showing a bit
of bum."
"I'm just smiling."
"Well, someone had to make a good show."
"And how many times did you say 'fuck,' Burke?"
"Darling, that's crude," he rebuked her gently. "Now tell me, how are you?"
She answered with a despondent shrug.
"Are you glum? Come on, tell me."
"I dunno."
"Tell your uncle."
"Shit, I think I'll have a drink," she said, reaching for a glass.
"Yes, it's good for the stomach. Now, then, what?"
She was slowly pouring vodka. "Ever think A dying?"
"I beg your---"
"Dying," she interrupted. "Ever think about it, Burke? What it means? I mean, really what it
means?"
Faintly edgy, he answered, "I don't know. No, I don't. I don't think about it at all. I just do it.
What the hell'd you bring it up for?"
She shrugged. "I don't know," she answered softly. She plopped ice into her glass; eyed it
thoughtfully. "Yeah... yeah, I do," she amended. "I sort of... well, I thought about it this
morning... like a dream... waking up. I don't know. I mean, it just sort of hit me... what it
means. I mean, the end--- the end!--- like I'd never even heard of it before." She shook her
head. "Oh, Jesus, did that spook me! I felt like I was falling off the goddam planet at a
hundred million miles an hour."
"Oh, rubbish. Death's a comfort," Dennings sniffed.
"Not for me it isn't, Charlie."
'Well, you live through your children."
"Oh, come off it! My children aren't me."
"Yes, thank heaven. One's entirely enough."
"I mean, think about it, Burke! Not existing--- forever! It's---"
"Oh, for heaven sakes! Show your bum at the faculty tea next week and perhaps those priests
can give you comfort!"
He banged down his glass. "Let's another."
"You know, I didn't know they drank?"
"Well, you're stupid."
His eyes had grown mean. Was he reaching the point of no return? Chris wondered. She had
the feeling she had touched a nerve. Had she?
"Do they go to confession?" she asked him.
"How would I know!" he suddenly bellowed.
"Well, weren't you studying to be a---"
"Where's the bloody drink!"
"Want some coffee?"
"Don't be fatuous. I want another drink."
"Have some coffee."
"Come along, now. One for the road."
"The Lincoln Highway?"
"That's ugly, and I loathe an ugly drunk. Come along, dammit, fill it!"
He shoved his glass across the bar and she poured more gin.
"I guess maybe I should ask a couple of them over," Chris murmured.
"Ask who?"
"Well, whoever." She shrugged. 'The big wheels; you know, priests."
"They'll never leave; there fucking plunderers," he rasped, and gulped his gin.
Yeah, he's starting to blow, thought Chris and quickly changed the subject: she explained
about the script and her chance to direct.
"Oh, good," Dennings muttered.
"It scares me."
"Oh, twaddle. My baby, the difficult thing about directing is making it seem as if the damned
thing were difficult. I hadn't a clue my first time out, but here I am, you see. It's child's play."
"Burke, to be honest with you, now that they've offered me my chance, I'm really not sure I
could direct my grandmother across the street. I mean, all of that technical stuff."
"Come along; leave all that to the editor, the cameraman and the script girl, darling. Get good
ones and theyll see you through. What's important is handling the cast, and, you'd be
marvelous, just marvelous at that. You could not only tell them how to move and read a line,
my baby, you could show them. Just remember Paul Newman and Rachel, Rachel and don't
be so hysterical."
She still looked doubtful. "Well, about this technical stuff," she worried. Drunk or sober,
Dennings was the best director in the business. She wanted his advice.
"For instance," he asked her.
For almost an hour she probed to the barricades of minutiae. The data were easily found in
tests, but reading tended to fray her patience. Instead; she read people. Naturally inquisitive,
she juiced them; wrung them out. But books were unwringable. Books were glib. They said
"therefore" and "clearly" when it wasn't clear at all, and their circumlocutions could never be
challenged. They could never be stopped for a shrewdly disarming, "Hold it, I'm dumb.
Could I have that again?" They could never be pinned; made to wriggle; dissected. Books
were like Karl.
"Darling, all you really need is a brilliant cutter," the director cackled, rounding it off. "I
mean someone who really knows his doors."
He'd grown charming and bubbly, and seemed to have passed the threatened danger pointy.
"Beg pardon, madam. You wish something?"
Karl stood attentively at the door to the study.
"Oh, hullo, Thorndike," Dennings giggled. "Or is it Heinrich? I can't keep it straight."
"It is Karl."
"Yes, of course it is. Damn. I'd forgotten. Tell me, Karl, was it public relations you told me
you did for the Gestapo, or was it community relations? I believe there's a difference."
Karl spoke politely. "Neither one, sir. I am Swiss."
"Oh, yes, of course." The director guffawed. "And you never went bowling with Goebbels, I
suppose."
Karl, impervious, turned to Chris.
"And never went flying with Rudolph Hess!"
"Madam wishes?"
"Oh, l don't know. Burke, you want coffee?"
"Fuck it!"
The director stood up abruptly and strode belligerently from the room and the house.
Chris shook her head, and then turned to Karl. "Unplug the phones," she ordered
expressionlessly.
"Yes, madam. Anything else?"
"Oh, maybe some Sanka. Where's Rags?"
"Down in playroom. I call her?"
"Yeah, it's bedtime. Oh, no, wait a second, Karl. Never mind. I'd better go see the bird. Just
get me the Sanka, please."
"Yes, madam."
"And for the umpty-eighth time, I apologize for Burke."
"I pay no attention."
"I know. That's what bugs him."
Chris walked to the entry hall of the house, pulled open the door to the basement staircase
and started downstairs.
"Hi ya, stinky, whatchya doin' down there? Got the bird?"
"Oh, yes, come see! Come on down, it's all finished!"
The playroom was paneled and brightly decorated. Easels. Paintings. Phonograph. Tables for
games and a table for sculpting. Red and white bunting left over from a party for the previous
tenant's teenaged son.
"Hey, that's great!" exclaimed Chris as her daughter handed her the figure. It was not quite
dry and looked something like a "worry bird," painted orange, except for the beak, which was
laterally striped in green and white. A tuft of feathers was glued to the head.
"Do you like it?" asked Regan.
"Oh, honey, I do, I really .do. Got a name for it?"
"Uh-uh."
"What's a good one?"
"I dunno," Regan shrugged.
"Let me see, let me see." Chris tapped fingertips to teeth. "I don't know. Whaddya think?
Wqiaddya think about 'Dumbbird'? Huh? just 'Dumbbird.' "
Regan was snickering, hand to her mouth to conceal the braces. Nodding.
" 'Dumbbird' by a landslide! I'll leave it here to dry and then I'll put him in my room."
Chris was setting flown the bird when she noticed the Ouija board. Close. On the table. She'd
forgotten she had it. Almost as curious about herself as she was about others, she'd originally
bought it as a possible means of exposing clues to her subconscious. It hadn't worked. She'd
used it a time or two with Sharon, and once with Dennings, who had skillfully steered the
plastic planchette ("Are you the one who's moving it, ducky?") so that all of the "messages"
were obscene, and then afterward blamed it on the "fucking spirits!"
"You playin' with the Ouija board?"
"Yep."
"You know how?"
"Oh, well, sure. Here, I'll show you." She was moving to sit by the board.
"Well, I think you need two people, honey."
"No ya don't, Mom; I do it all the time."
Chris was pulling up a chair. "Well, let's both play, okay"
Hesitation. "Well, okay." She had her fingertips positioned on the white planchette and as
Chris reached out to position hers, the pianchette made a swift, sudden move to the position
on the board marked No.
Chris smiled at her slyly. "Mother, I'd rather do it myself? Is that it? You don't want me to
play?"
"No, I do! Captain Howdy said 'no.' "
"Captain who?"
"Captain Howdy."
"Honey, who's Captain Howdy?"
"Oh, ya know. I make questions and he does the answers."
"Oh?"
"Oh, he's nice."
Chris tried not to frown as she felt a dim and sudden concern. The child had loved her father
deeply, yet never had reacted visibly to her parents' divorce. And Chris didn't like it. Maybe
she cried in her room; she didn't know. But Chris was fearful she was repressing and that her
emotions might one day erupt in some harmful form. A fantasy playmate. It didn't sound
healthy. Why "Howdy"? For Howard? Her father? Pretty close.
"So how come you couldn't even come up with a name for a dum-dum bird, and then you hit
me with something like 'Captain Howdy'? Why do you call him 'Captain Howdy'?"
" 'Cause that's his name, of course," Regan snickered.
"Says who?"
"Well, him."
"Of course."
"Of course."
"And what else does he say to you?"
"Stuff."
"What stuff?"
Regan shrugged. "Just stuff."
"For instance."
"I'll show you. I'll ask him some questions."
"You do that"
Her fingertips on the planchette, Regan stared at the board with eyes drawn tight in
concentration. "Captain Howdy, don't you think my mom is pretty?"
A second... five... ten... twenty...
"Captain Howdy?"
More seconds. Chris was surprised. She'd expected her daughter to slide the planchette to the
section marked Yes. Oh, for pete's sake, what now? An unconscious hostility? Oh, that's
crazy.
"Captain Howdy, that's really not very polite," chided Regan.
"Honey, maybe he's sleeping."
"Do you think?"
"I think you should be sleeping."
"Already?"
"C'mon, babe! Up to bed!" Chris stood up.
"He's a poop," muttered Regan, then followed her mother up the stairs.
Chris tucked her into bed and then sat on the bedside. "Honey, Sunday's no work. You want
to do somethin'?"
"What?"
When they'd first come to Washington, Chris had made an effort to find playmates for Regan.
She'd uncovered only one, a twelve-year-old girl named Judy. But Judy's family was away
for Easter, and Chris was concerned now that Regan might be lonely.
"Oh, well, I don't know," Chris replied. "Somethin'. You want to go see the sights? Hey, the
cherry blossoms, maybe! That's right, they're out early! You want to go see 'em?"
"Oh, yeah, Mom!"
"And tomorrow night a movie! How's that?"
"Oh, I love you!"
Regan gave her a hug and Chris hugged her back with an extra fervor, whispering, "Oh,
Rags, honey, I love you."
"You can bring Mr. Dennings if you like."
Chris pulled back for an appraisal. "Mr. Dennings?"
"Well, I mean, it's okay."
Chris chuckled. "No, it isn't okay. Honey, why would I want to bring Mr. Dennings?"
"Well, you like him."
"Oh, well, sure I like him, honey; don't you?"
She made no answer.
"Baby, what's going on?" Chris prodded her daughter.
"You're going to many him, Mommy, aren't you." It wasn't a question, but a sullen statement.
Chris exploded into a laugh. "Oh, my baby, of course not! What on earth are you talking
about? Mr. Dennings? Where'd you get that idea?"
"But you like him."
"I like pizzas, but I wouldn't ever marry one! Honey, he's a friend, just a crazy old friend!"
"You don't like him like Daddy?"
"I love your daddy, honey; I'll always love your daddy. Mr. Dennings comes by here a lot
'cause he's lonely, that's all; he's a friend."
"Well, I heard..."
"You heard what? Heard from who?"
Whirling slivers of doubt in the eyes; hesitation; then a shrug of dismissal "I don't know. I
just thought."
"Well, it's silly, so forget it."
"Okay."
"Now go to sleep."
"Can I read? I'm not sleepy."
"Sure. Read your new book, hon, until you get tired."
"Thanks, Mommy."
"Good night, hon."
"Good night."
Chris blew her a kiss from the door and them closed it. She walked down the stairs. Kids!
Where do they get their ideas! She wondered if Regan connected Dennings to her filing for
divorce. Oh, come on, that's dumb. Regan knew only that Chris had filed. Yet Howard had
wanted it. Long separations. Erosion of ego as the husband of a star. He'd found someone
else. Regan didn't know that. Oh, quit all this amateur psychoanalyzing and try to spend a
little more time with her!
Back to the study. The script. Chris read. Halfway through, she saw Regan coming toward
her.
"Hi, honey. What's wrong?"
"There's these real funny noises, Mom."
"In your room?"
"It's like knocking. I can't go to sleep."
Where the hell are those traps!
"Honey, sleep in my bedroom and I'll see what it is."
Chris led her to the bedroom and tucked her in.
"Can I watch TV for a while till I sleep?"
"Where's your book?"
"l can't find it. Can I watch?"
"Sure; okay." Chris tuned in a channel on the bedroom portable. "Loud enough?"
"Yes, Mom."
"Try to sleep."
Chris turned out the light and went down the hall. She climbed the narrow, carpeted stairs
that led to the attic. She opened the door and felt for the light switch; found it; flicked it,
stooping as she entered.
She glanced around. Cartons of clippings and correspondence on the pinewood floor. Nothing
else, except the traps. Six of them. Baited. The room was spotless. Even the air smelled clean
and cool. The attic was unheated. No pipe. No radiator. No little holes in the roof.
"There is nothing."
Chris jumped from her skin. "0h, good Jesus!" she gasped, turning quickly with her hand to a
fluttering heart. "Jesus Christ, Karl, don't do that!"
He was standing on the steps.
"Very sorry. But you see? It is clean."
"Yeah, it's clean. Thanks a lot."
"Maybe cat better."
"What?"
"To catch rats."
Without Waiting for an answer, he nodded and left.
For a moment, Chris stared at the doorway. Either Karl hadn't any sense of humor whatever,
or he had one so sly it escaped her detection. She couldn't decide which one it was. She considered the rappings again, then glanced at the angled roof. The street was shaded by
various trees, most of them gnarled and interwined with vines; and the branches of a
mushrooming, massive basswood umbrellaed the entire front third of the house. Was it
squirrels after all? It must be. Or branches. Right. Could be branches. The nights had been
windy."
"Maybe cat better."
Chris glanced at the doorway again. Pretty smartass? Abruptly she smiled, looking pertly
mischievous.
She went downstairs to Regan's bedroom, picked something up, brought it back to the attic,
and then after a minute went back to her bedroon. Regan was sleeping. She returned her to
her room, tucked her Into her bed, then went back to her own bedroom, turned off the
television set and went to sleep.
The house was quiet until morning.
Eating her breakfast, Chris told Karl in an offhand way that she thought she'd heard a trap
springing shut during the night.
"Like to go and take a look?" Chris suggested, sipping coffee and pretending to be engrossed
in the morning paper. Without any comment, he went up to investigate.
Chris passed him in the hall on the second floor as he was returning, staring expressionlessly
at the large stuffed mouse he was holding. He'd found it with its snout clamped tight in a trap.
As she walked toward her bedroom, Chris lifted an eyebrow at the mouse.
"Someone is funny," Karl muttered as he passed her. He returned the stuffed animal to
Regan's bedroom.
Sure a lot of things goin' on," Chris murmured, shaking her head as she entered her
bedroom. She slipped off her robe and prepared to go to work. Yeah, maybe cat better, old
buddy. Much better. Whenever she grinned, her entire face appeared to crinkle.
**********
The filming went smoothly that day. Later in the morning, Sharon came by the set and during
breaks between scenes, in her portable dressing room, she and Chris handled items of
business: a letter to her agent (she would think about the script); "okay" to the White House;
a wire to Howard reminding him to telephone on Regan's birthday; a call to her business
manager asking if she could afford to take off for a year; plans for a dinner party April
twenty-third.
Early in the evening, Chris took Regan out to a movie, and the following day they drove
around to points of interest in Chris's Jaguar XKE. The Lincoln Memorial. The Capitol. The
cherry blossom lagoon. A bite to eat. Then across the river to Arlington Cemetery and the
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Regan turned solemn, and later, at the grave of John F.
Kennedy, seemed to grow distant and a little sad. She stared at the "eternal flame" for a time;
them mutely reached for Chris's hand. "Mom, why do people have to die?"
The question pierced her mother's soul. Oh, Rags, you too? You too? Oh, no! And yet what
could she tell her? Lies? Slue couldn't. She looked at her daughter's upturned face, eyes
misting with tears. Had she sensed her own thoughts? She had done it so often... so often
before. "Honey, people get tired," she answered Regan tenderly.
"Why does God let them?"
For a moment, Chris stared. She was puzzled. Disturbed. An atheist, she had never taught
Regan religion. She thought it dishonest "Who's been telling you about God?" she asked.
"Sharon."
"Oh." She would have to speak to her.
"Mom, why does God let us get tired?"
Looking down at those sensitive eyes and that pain, Chris surrendered; couldn't tell her what
she believed. "Well, after a while God gets lonesome for us, Rags. He wants us back."
Regan folded herself into silence. She stayed quiet during the drive home, and her mood
persisted all the rest of the day and through Monday.
On Tuesday, Regan's birthday, it seemed to break. Chris took her along to the filming and
when the shooting day was over, the cast and crew sang "Happy Birthday" and brought out a
cake. Always a kind and gentle man when sober, Dennings had the lights rewarmed and
filmed her as she cut it. He called it a "screen test," and afterwards promised to make her a
star. She seemed quite gay.
But after dinner and the opening of presents, the mood seemed to fade. No word from
Howard. Chris placed a call to him in Rome, and was told by a clerk at his hotel that he
hadn't been there for several days and couldn't be reached. He was somewhere on a yacht.
Chris made excuses.
Regan nodded, subdued, and shook her head to her mother's suggestion that they go to the
Hot Shoppe for a shake. Without a word, she went downstairs to the basement playroom,
where she remained until time for bed.
The following morning when Chris opened her eyes, she found Regan in bed with her, half
awake.
"Well, what in the.... What are you doing here?" Chris chuckled.
"My bed was shaking."
"You nut." Chris kissed her and pulled up her covers. "Go to sleep. It's still early."
What looked like morning was the beginning of endless night.