We Never Talk About My Brother Page 16

  Children as well as grown men began to run up to him on the street, begging, “Monsieur Moscowitz, regardez-moi, je suis vraiment français!” He would look at them once, speak or say nothing, and stride on. The rejected quite often wept as they looked after him.

  There were some Frenchmen, of both high and low estate, who became furious with Mr. Moscowitz—who was he, a first-generation American, French only by extremely dubious mutation, to claim that they, whose ancestors had either laid the foundations of European culture, or died, ignorant, in its defense, were not French? But in the main, a deep sadness shadowed the country. An inquisitor had come among them, an apostle, and they had been found wanting. France mourned herself, and began wondering if she had ever existed at all; for Mr. Moscowitz hunted hungrily through all recorded French history, searching for his lost kindred, and cried at last that from the days of the first paintings in the Dordogne caves, there was no evidence that a single true Frenchman had ever fought a battle, or written a poem, or built a city, or comprehended a law of the universe. “Dear France,” he said with a kind of cold sorrow, “for all the Frenchmen who have ever turned your soil, you might have remained virgin and empty all these centuries. As far back in time as I can see, there has never been one, until now.”

  The President of France, a great man, his own monument in his own time, a man who had never wavered in the certainty that he himself was France, wrote Mr. Moscowitz a letter in which he stated: “We have always been French. We have been Gauls and Goths, Celts and Franks, but we have always been French. We, and no one else, have made France live. What else should we be but French?”

  Mr. Moscowitz wrote him a letter in answer, saying, “You have inhabited France, you have occupied it, you have held it in trust if you like, and you have served it varyingly well—but that has not made you French, nor will it, any more than generations of monkeys breeding in a lion’s empty cage will become lions. As for what else you may truly be, that you will have to find out for yourselves, as I had to find out.”

  The President, who was a religious man, thought of Belshazzar’s Feast. He called on Mr. Moscowitz at his home in Passy, to the awe of Mrs. Moscowitz, who knew that ambassadors had lived out their terms in Paris without ever meeting the President face-to-face. The President said, “M. Moscowitz, you are denying us the right to believe in ourselves as a continuity, as part of the process of history. No nation can exist without that belief.”

  “Monsieur le Président, je suis désolée,” answered Mr. Moscowitz. He had grown blue-gray and thin, bones hinting more and more under the once-genial flesh.

  “We have done you honor,” mused the President, “though I admit before you say it that we believed we were honoring ourselves. But you turn us into ghosts, Monsieur Moscowitz, homeless figments, and our grip on the earth is too precarious at the best of times for me to allow you to do this. You must be silent, or I will make you so. I do not want to, but I will.”

  Mr. Moscowitz smiled, almost wistfully, and the President grew afraid. He had a sudden vision of Mr. Moscowitz banishing him and every other soul in France with a single word, a single gesture; and in that moment’s vision it seemed to him that they all went away like clouds, leaving Mr. Moscowitz to dance by himself in cobwebbed Paris on Bastille Day. The President shivered and cried out, “What is it that you want of us? What should we be? What is it, to be French, what does the stupid word mean?”

  Mr. Moscowitz answered him. “I do not know, any more than you do. But I do not need to ask.” His eyes were full of tears and his nose was running. “The French are inside me,” he said, “singing and stamping to be let out, all of them, the wonderful children that I will never see. I am like Moses, who led his people to the Promised Land, but never set his own foot down there. All fathers are a little like Moses.”

  The next day, Mr. Moscowitz put on his good clothes and asked his wife to pack him a lunch. “With an apple, please,” he said, “and the good Camembert, and a whole onion. Two apples.” His new hat, cocked at a youthful angle, scraped coldly beside her eye when he kissed her. She did not hold him a moment longer than she ever had when he kissed her goodbye. Then Mr. Moscowitz walked away from her, and into legend.

  No one ever saw him again. There were stories about him, as there still are; rumors out of Concarneau, and Sète, and Lille, from misty cities and yellow villages. Most of the tales concerned strange, magic infants, as marvelous in the families that bore them as merchildren in herring nets. The President sent out his messengers, but quite often there were no such children at all, and when there were they were the usual cases of cross-eyes and extra fingers, webbed feet and cauls. The President was relieved, and said so frankly to Mrs. Moscowitz. “With all respectful sympathy, Madame,” he told her, “the happiest place for your husband now is a fairy story. It is warm inside a myth, and safe, quite safe, and the company is of the best. I envy him, for I will never know such companions. I will get politicians and generals.”

  “And I will get his pension and his belongings,” Mrs. Moscowitz said to herself. “And I will know solitude.”

  The President went on, “He was mad, of course, your husband, but what a mission he set himself! It was worthy of one of Charlemagne’s paladins, or of your—” he fumbled through his limited stock of nonpartisan American heroes—“your Johnny Appleseed. Yes.”

  The President died in the country, an old man, and Mrs. Moscowitz in time died alone in Passy. She never returned to America, even to visit, partly out of loyalty to Mr. Moscowitz’s dream, and partly because if there is one thing besides cheese that the French do better than any other people, it is the careful and assiduous tending of a great man’s widow. She wanted for nothing to the end of her days, except her husband—and, in a very real sense, France was all she had left of him.

  That was a long time ago, but the legends go on quietly, not only of the seafoam children who will create France, but of Mr. Moscowitz as well. In Paris and the provinces, anyone who listens long enough can hear stories of the American who became French. He wanders through the warm nights and the cold, under stars and streetlamps, walking with the bright purpose of a child who has slipped out of his parents’ sight and is now free to do as he pleases. In the country, they say that he is on his way to see how his children are growing up, and perhaps there are mothers who lull their own children with that story, or warn them with it when they behave badly. But Parisians like to dress things up, and as they tell it, Mr. Moscowitz is never alone. Cyrano is with him, and St. Joan, Roland, D’Artagnan, and Villon—and there are others. The light of them brightens the road for Mr. Moscowitz to see his way.

  But even in Paris there are people, especially women, who say that Mr. Moscowitz’s only companion on his journey is Mrs. Moscowitz herself, holding his arm or running to catch up. And she deserves to be there, they will tell you, for she would have been glad of any child at all; and if he was the one who dreamed and loved France so much, still and all, she suffered.

  SPOOK

  To describe this story in any detail would, I think, spoil the fun. I’ll just say that it’s one of my Joe Farrell adventures ( Julie Tanikawa definitely figures in it, if only in absentia), that it takes place in Avicenna, the shadow-Berkeley that lives in the California of my imagination, and that it was inspired—as were both “King Pelles the Sure” and “Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel”—by a long spell of staring at the paintings and sculptures of the splendid artist Lisa Snellings. I had a very nice time writing it, and can’t wait to record the audiobook version. I think you’ll be able to tell that.

  When they came out of the consultation with the santero, Farrell said, “Seventy-five bucks. For seventy-five bucks I can get an Eskimo and make my own ice.” It was his favorite Marx Brothers line, employed often.

  Ben said, “Come on, we learned something. At least we know it’s bound to the house, can’t even go round the block. You and Julie can find another place easy, it’s a buyers’ market right now. I’m sure
you could get the deposit back.”

  “Julie loves that dump,” Farrell said sourly. “Says she’s finally got the north light exactly the way she wants it, and she’ll never move again, ever. And she means it, I know her.” He kicked a bottle into the gutter, and then felt guilty and went back and picked it up. “Buddies, lovers, partners—whatever the hell it is we are after twenty-five years—listen, if the Spook isn’t gone when she gets back, I’ll be sleeping at the restaurant with my clothes in a plastic bag. Live with an artist, you take your chances.”

  Ben grunted, not seeing much difference between the huge old loft and any of the studios Julie had always chosen since she settled for good in Avicenna. Cashing in a handful of sick-leave days from his job in Los Angeles, he had come up to help the two of them move in, finishing only a week before. There had been odd small occurrences from the first day—flickers of almost-movement in the rafters, and noises that were finally pronounced to be squirrel fights on the roof and in the vines outside the windows—but the thing he and Farrell were calling the Spook hadn’t fully presented itself until the evening after Julie left to visit relatives in Seattle.

  Farrell said, “Julie’s grandmother. Grandma would know how to handle this.”

  “Her grandmother’s dead,” Ben said. After a moment he added, “Isn’t she?” because one never quite knew with the Tanikawa family.

  “Oh, yeah, long gone. But that doesn’t mean a whole lot to those two.” Farrell sighed. “No help for it. Not a thing to do but look up Andy Mac.”

  “Andy Mac.” Ben stopped walking. Farrell turned, and they stood on the sidewalk, looking at each other. Ben said, “Couldn’t we just have our tonsils out or something? Or go in for prostate surgery? I’ll bet there’s a two-for-one sale at Sisters of Mercy.”

  “Come on, it won’t be that bad. Okay, Andy Mac’s incredibly aggravating, and he smells sort of—”

  “Dead.”

  “Dead, yes, granted. But he’s the only man for the job, and we both know it. And one thing about him—he keeps his word.”

  “This is true. Which reminds me that he hates your guts. He despises me, but it’s not nearly the same thing. Why on earth would he even consider helping you?”

  “On the chance of getting even. Andy Mac likes getting even.”

  “Even for what? Now would be a really fine time to tell me.”

  “Long story. Long and unbelievably unedifying.”

  Ben said, “Then you find him. I don’t care if you’re being haunted by Hannibal Lecter, Truman Capote and the Bride of Frankenstein. You want him, you go find him.”

  So Farrell tracked down Andy Mac by himself, eventually finding him in a dubious Herrera Street bathhouse, and got him to agree to come over that evening. Andy Mac, as always, flatly refused any suggestion of payment for his services; but it was just as flatly understood—again, as always—that there would be much care and feeding involved, so as to avoid any mysterious power outage in the spirit world. Farrell had worked with Andy Mac before.

  “You just have to know how to handle him. It’s not an art—it’s more like reading the simple instructions that came with the package. Insert Tab A into Slot B... fold flap over... insert two C batteries, this way up.... Amazing how many people never read the instructions.”

  “The print’s too small. And Andy Mac doesn’t come from Office Depot. You’re worrying me, Farrell. Again.”

  The new loft was in North Avicenna, right across from a community theatre given to staging poetry slams on Fridays. The location could hardly have been improved upon: apart from Julie’s perfect north light, it lay within walking distance of the area hospital and her job as a part-time medical illustrator, and a short bicycle ride to the Gourmet Ghetto restaurant where Farrell worked as a sous-chef. Ben stayed with them whenever he came to town, in spite of the inevitable long flights of stairs—two, this time—and things occasionally falling down or off the walls. Like most houses in that part of Avicenna, it was very old. Farrell simply picked the things up, fixed them, and Krazy Glued them more or less back where they belonged.

  “No way Andy Mac makes it up those stairs,” Ben said with absolute certainty. “Twelve to seven against.”

  “I laid in a ton of smoked salmon. You know he’ll trample babies and puppies for smoked salmon.”

  “Even so. Five to two.”

  Andy Mac made it, though he could be heard wheezing for a good five minutes before he knocked on the door. Farrell met him with a glass and a plate, and he grabbed both and sank into Julie’s favorite overstuffed chair with a sound like a whalespout. For the next five minutes all he could say was “Jesus, Farrell... Jesus....”

  Andy Mac was fifty-something: the size and general texture of the chair, only damper and stickier. His orange-freckled face always looked to Ben like a huge prizewinning Half-Moon Bay pumpkin just beginning to collapse of its own weight. His arms were disproportionally short, he sweated a good deal, and he had breath like a Chicago stockyard and little, flicky eyes the color of baby shit. He made his official living as a translator from the Finno-Ugric languages—there are more Hungarians and Estonians in Avicenna than one might think—and rumor credited him with a small sideline in blackmail, smuggling, and gentlemanly extortion. But he was also as learned a man as Farrell had ever known, who had more than once called him “the only medium worth a damn in the entire Bay Area—the only one who can really deliver, every time, on contact with that Other Place, whatever it actually is. In a pinch, that’s worth a lot of lox and armpits.”

  “Sorry, Andy,” Farrell said meekly. “I’m getting a little old for those stairs myself.”

  “Always been a liar,” Andy Mac mumbled through a whiskey-soaked mouthful of salmon. “You said there’d be teacakes.”

  Farrell said, “Teacakes, bloody hell,” and looked at Ben with what could only have been described as mute appeal. Ben said, “Olga’s might still be open. I’ll go see.”

  By the time he got back with the pastries (the local Russian bakery, two blocks away, really was called Olga From The Volga), Ben could hear the Spook through the door. It was zooming around the apartment like a mad parakeet, dive-bombing Farrell and howling in that thin, tinny voice, which was scarier for being so distant. The Spook looked like a cross between an airport windsock and a very weary broom. It was scarlet, and it had floppy, empty scarlet sleeves, and no face. Ben it only strafed now and then; Andy Mac it left strictly alone. But it went viciously, purposefully after Farrell, not simply swooping and stooping at him, but chittering wildly—and it was words, not just noise, Ben could tell that much. The thing was after Farrell, no question about it.

  Farrell himself was in the closet, literally, scrunched back among the winter coats, yelling to Andy Mac, “What is it? What the hell is it?” From time to time he cautiously opened the closet door to peer out, and the Spook would immediately go for him like a cat after a chipmunk. Ben fully expected it either to slam into the door and knock itself out, or to pass right through it, but it merely veered away and waited around for another shot at Farrell. Andy Mac sat where he was, looking as bored as though he were watching TV or a kids’ Thanksgiving Day pageant, even yawning once or twice. But his small eyes were stretched wider than Ben had ever seen them, and even his orange freckles looked pale.

  “Well,” he finally said. “There’s a new one on me.”

  Ben asked, “Is it a ghost?” Andy Mac nodded slightly, and Farrell stuck his head out of the coat closet and said, “A ghost of what? A lampshade?”

  “A man,” Andy Mac said. “Ghosts don’t always come back looking the way they did in life. Sometimes they just don’t remember, they’ll grab onto any shape that looks halfway familiar.” On Andy Mac quiet and serious looked deeply impressive, in a sinister way. He said, “This one doesn’t remember his own name, never mind what he looked like. But he knows how he died.”

  Dramatic pause. Andy Mac’s voice dropped an octave. “He was murdered. Ambushed and strangled in his own house, i
n his own room. This room.”

  The Spook was obviously listening, bobbing up and down near the ceiling like a child’s birthday balloon. Andy Mac went on, “A hundred and seventy years ago. Give or take.”

  Farrell called from the coat closet, “Not possible. This dump isn’t that old—it just feels like it.”

  “Go argue with a ghost,” Andy Mac said. “There was some house on this spot a hundred and seventy years ago, and he definitely died here, or he wouldn’t be hanging around. Ghosts don’t freelance.”

  “He’s never bothered Julie.” Farrell was edging halfway out of the closet for a second time. “Never showed up until she’d left for Seattle.”

  “Yes,” Andy Mac purred. “That’s because he doesn’t think she murdered him.”

  The total silence that followed after Farrell’s “What?” was broken at last by the Spook’s yowl of vindication. Farrell yowled right back to match it. “For Christ’s sake, I wasn’t born a hundred-seventy years ago! Whoever murdered the thing—the guy, okay—it wasn’t me. Tell it—him—tell him it wasn’t me!”

  Andy Mac took a huge bite of smoked salmon and washed it down with a slug of Johnnie Walker Black. “Go argue with a ghost, I said. All they’ve got—all they are—are their memories, and they get them screwed up all the time. But once they lock into a thing the way they want to remember it—” he shrugged immensely—“that’s it, game over. Not a lot to do about it.”

  “Nothing to do about it?” Spook or no Spook, Farrell was all the way out of the closet by then, practically shouting in Andy Mac’s big face. “What are you talking about? There’s got to be something we can do!”