CHAPTER 21
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I am the only person who truly knows what happened in the forest. Jimmys story explained for me the mystery of the drowned Oscar Love and his miraculous reappearance several days later. Of course, it was the gelings, and all the evidence firmed my suspi of a failed attempt to steal the child. The dead body was that of a geling, an old friend of mine. I could picture the face of the in li had erased their names. My life there had bee imagining the day when I would begin my life in the upper world. As the decades passed, the cast of characters had shifted as, one by one, each became a geling, found a child, and took its place. In time, I had e to resent every one of them and to disregard eaew member of our tribe. I deliberately tried tet them all. Did I say a friend of mine had died? I had no friends.While gladdened by the prospect of one less devil in the woods, I was oddly disturbed by Jimmys at of little Oscar Love, and I dreamt that night of a lonely boy like him in an old-fashioned parlor. A pair of finches dart about an ironwork cage. A samlistens. On the mantelpiece sits a row of leather-bound books gilded with Gothic letters spelling out fn tides. The parlor walls papered crimson, heavy dark curtains shutting out the sun, a curious sofa covered with a lattieedlework throw. The boy is alone in the room on a humid afternoo despite the heat, he wears woolen knickers and buttoned boots, a starched blue shirt, and a huge tie that looks like a Christmas bow. His long hair cascades in waves and curls, and he hunches over the piaranced by the keyboard, doggedly practig aude. From behind him es another child, the same hair and build, but naked and creeping on the balls of his feet. The piano player plays on, oblivious to the meher goblins steal out from behind the curtains, from uhe settee; out of the woodwork and aper, they advance like smoke. The finches scream and crash into the iron bars. The boy stops on a urns his head. I have seen him before. They attack as one, w together, this one c the boys nose and throat, aaking out the legs, a third pinning the boys arms behind his back. From beyond the closed door, a mans voice: "Was ist los?" A thumping knock, and the door swings open. The threshold frames a large man with eous whiskers. "Gustav?" The father cries out as several hobgoblins rush to restrain him while the others take his son. "Ich erkenne dich! Du willst nur meinen Sohn!"
I could still feel the anger in their eyes, the passion of their attack. Where is my father? A voice pierces the dream, calling "Henry, Henry," and I awaken to a damp pillowcase and twisted sheets. Stifling a yawn, I yelled downstairs that I was tired and that this had better be good. My mother shouted back through the door that there was a telephone call and that she was not my secretary. I threw on my bathrobe and headed downstairs.
"This is Henry Day," I grunted into the receiver.
She laughed. "Hi, Henry. This is Tess Wodehouse. I saw you out in the woods."
She could not imagihe reasons for my awkward silence.
"When we found the boy. The first one. I was with the ambulance."
&quht, the ess, Tess, how are you?"
"Jimmy Cummings said to give you a call. Would you like to meet somewhere later?"
We arrao meet after her shift, and she had me write down dires to her house. At the bottom of the page, I doodled the name: Gustav.
She answered the door and stepped straight out to the porch, the afternoon sunlight stippling across her fad yellow sundress. Out of the shadows, she dazzled. All at o seems irospect, she revealed what I grew to adore: the asymmetrical mottling of the colors in her irises, a blue vein snaking up her right temple that flashed like a semaphore for passion, the sudden exuberance of her crooked smile. Tess said my name and made it sbbr>.９9ｌib.</abbr>eem real.
We drove away, and the wind through the open window caught her hair and blew it across her face. When she laughed, she threw back her head, to the sky, and I loo kiss her lovely neck. I drove as if we had a destination, but in our town there was no particular place to go. Tess turned down the radio, aalked away the afternoon. She told me all about her life in public school, then on to college, where she had studied nursing. I told her all about parochial school and my aborted studies in music. A few miles outside of town, a new fried-chi joint had opened retly, so we bought ourselves a bucketful. We stopped by Oscars to steal a bottle of apple wine. We piicked on a school playground, abandoned for the summer except for a pair of cardinals on the monkey bars, serenading us with their eight-note song.
"I used to think you were the stra bird, Henry Day. When we were iary school together, you might have said two words to me. Or anyone. You were so distracted, as if you heard a song in your head that no one else could hear."
"Im still that way," I told her. "Sometimes when Im walking dowreet or am quiet by myself, I play a tune, imagine my fingers on the keys, and hear the notes as clear as day."
"You seem somewhere else, miles away."
"Not always. Not now."
Her face brightened and ged. "Strange, isnt it? About Oscar Love, that boy. Or should I say two little boys, alike as two pins."
I tried to ge the subject. "My sisters are twins."
"How do you explain it?"
"Its been a long time since high school biology, but when an egg divides—"
She licked her fingers. "Not twins. The drowned boy and the lost boy."
"I had nothing to do with either one."
Tess swallo of wine and wiped her hands with a napkin. "You are an odd one, but thats what I liked about you, even when we were children. Sihe first day I saw you in kindergarten."
I sincerely wished I had beehat day.
"And when I was a girl, I wao hear your song, the ohats playing in your head right now." She leaned across the bla and kissed me.
I took her home at su, kissed her o the door, and drove home in a mild euphoria. The house echoed like the inside of ay shell. The twins were not home and my mother sat alone in the living room, watg the movie of the week oelevision. Slippers crossed ooman, her housecoat buttoo the collar, she saluted me with a drink in her right hand. I sat down on the couext to the easy chair and looked at her closely for the first time in years. We were getting older, no doubt, but she had aged well. She was much stouter than when we first met, but lovely still.
"How was your date, Henry?" She kept her eyes oube.
"Great, Mom, fine."
"See her again?"
"Tess? I hope so."
A ercial broke the story, and she turo smile at me between sips.
"Mom, do you ever ..."
"Whats that, Henry?"
"I dont know. Do you ever get lonely? Like you might go out on a date yourself?"
She laughed and seemed years younger. "What man would want to go out with an old thing like me?"
"Youre not so old. And you look ten years youhan you are."
"Save your pliments for your nurse."
The program returned. "I thought—"
"Henry, Ive given this thing an hour already. Let me see it to the end."
Tess ged my life, ged everything. After our impromptu piic, we saw each other every day of that wonderful summer. I remember sitting side by side on a park bench, lunches on our laps, talking in the brilliant sunshine. She would turn to me, her face bathed in brightness, so that I would have to shade my eyes to look at her, and she told me stories that fed my desire for more stories, so that I might know her and not fet a single line. I loved each actal touch, the heat of her, the way she made me feel alive and fully human.
On the Fourth of July, Oscar closed the bar and invited nearly half the town to a piic along the river<bdo>.</bdo>bank. He had arrahe celebration in gratitude to all of the people who had helped in the seard rescue of his nephew, for the poli and firemen, doctors and nurses, all of Little Oscars sates and teachers, the volunteers—such as myself, Jimmy, and Gee—the Loves and all their assorted relatives, a priest or two in mufti, and the iable hangers-on. A great feast was ordered. Pig in a pit. Chi, hamburgers, hot dogs. and watermelon trucked in from down south. Kegs of beer, bottles of the hard stuff, tubs of id sodas for the youngsters, a cake specially made iy for the occasion—as big as a piic table, iced in red, white, and blue with a gold THANK YOU in glittering script. The party began at four iernoon and lasted all night. When it became dark enough, a crew of firemen shot off a fireworks display, fading sparklers and dles popping and fizzing when they hit the river. Our town, like many places in America at the time, was divided by the war, but we put Vietnam and the marches behind us in defereo the celebration.
In the languorous heat. Tess looked delicious that evening, a ile, and bright lights in her eyes. I met all of her coworkers, the well-heeled doctors, a bevy of nurses, and far too many firemen and poli, baked tan and swaggering. After the fireworks, she noticed her old sweetheart in the pany of a new girl and insisted that we say hello. I could not shake the sensation that I had known him from my former life.
"Henry, you remember Brian Ungerland." We shook hands, aroduced his new girlfriend to us both. The women slipped away to pare notes.
"So, Ungerland, thats an unusual name."
"German." He sipped his beer, stared at the women, who were laughing in an overly personal way.
"Your family from Germany?"
"Off the boat long time ago. My familys been in town for a hundred years."
A stray string of firecrackers went off in a rat-a-tat of pops.
"Came from a place called Eger, I think, but like I said, man, that was another life. Where are your people from, Henry?"
I told him the lie and studied him as he listehe eyes clued me in, the set of the jaw, the aquiline nose. Put a walrus mustache on him, age Ungerland a few decades, and he would be a dead ringer for the man in my dreams. The father. Gustavs father. I shook off the notion as merely the odd flation of my stressful nightmares and the ay of seeing Tesss old beau.
Jimmy Cummings crept from behind and nearly scared the life out of me. He laughed at my surprise and poio the ribbon hanging around his neck. "Hero for a day," he shouted, and I couldnt help but break into a broad grin. Little Oscar, as usual, appeared a bit dumbfounded by all the attention, but he smiled at strangers who tousled his hair and matrons who bent to kiss him on the cheek. Filled with good cheer, the warm evening passed in slow motion, the kind of day one recalls when feeling blue. Boys and girls chased fireflies in crazy circles. Sullen long-haired teens tossed a ball around with red-faced crew-cut poli. In the middle of the night, when many had already headed for home, Lewis Love buttonholed me for the loime. I missed half of what he said because I was watg Tess, who was engaged in animated versation with her old boyfrieh a dark elm tree.
"I have a theory," Lewis told me. "He was scared, right, out all night, and he heard something. I dont know, like a ra or a fht? So he hides out in a hole, only its real hot in there as a fever."
She reached out and touched Ungerland on the arm, and they were laughing, only her hand stayed there.
"So he has this real weird dream—"
They were staring at each other, and old Oscar, oblivious to the end, marched up and joiheir versation. He was drunk and happy, but Tess and Brian were staring into each others eyes, their expressions real serious, as if trying to unicate something without saying a word.
"I personally think it was just some hippies old camping ground."
I wao tell him to shut up. Now Ungerlands hand was on her biceps, and they were all laughing. She touched her hair, nodded her head at whatever he was saying.
"... other kid was a runaway, but still you have to feel sorry ..."
She looked back my way, smiled and waved, as if nothing had been happening. I held her gaze a beat and tuned in to Lewis.
"... but nobody believes in fairy tales, right?"
"Youre right, Lewis. I think your theory is dead-on. Only explanation possible."
Before he had the ce to thank me or say another word, I was five strides away, walking toward her. Oscar and Brian noticed my approad wiped off the grins from their faces. They stared at the stars, finding nothier to look at. I ighem and whispered into her ear, and she coiled her arm around my bad under my shirt, trag circles on my skin with her nails.
"What were you guys talking about? Something funny?"
"We were talking about you," Brian said. Oscar looked down the barrel of his bottle and grunted.
I walked Tess away from them, and she put her head on my shoulder without glang back. She led me into the woods, to a spot away from the crowd, and lay down iall grass and ferns. Voices carried in the soft, heavy air, but their proximity only made the moment more exg. She slipped out of her shorts and unbuckled my belt. I could hear a group of men laughing down by the river. She kissed me oomach, roughly pulled off my shorts. Someone was sing<u>9９lｉｂ?</u>ing to her sweetheart somewhere far away, the melody on the breeze. I felt slightly drunk and very warm all of a sudden, and thought for an instant I heard someone approag through the trees. Tess climbed on top of me, guiding us together, her long hair hanging down to frame her face, and she stared into my eyes as she rocked bad forth. The laughter and voices trailed away, car earted, and people said good-bye, good night. I reached beh her shirt. She did not avert her gaze.
"Do you know where you are, Henry Day?"
I closed my eyes.
"Do you know who you are, Henry Day?"
Her hair swept ay face. Someone blew a car horn and raced away. She tilted her pelvis and drove me deep inside.
"Tess."
And I said her name again. Someohrew a bottle in the river and broke the surface. She lowered herself, resting her arms, and we lay together, hot to the touch. I kissed the nape of her neck. Jimmy Cummings shouted, "So long, Henry" from the piic area. Tess giggled, rolled off me, and slipped bato her clothes. I watched her dress and did not notice that, for the first time in ages, I was not afraid of the forest.
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