Brian Herbert, page 23
"Daddy spit on my food!" Coley said. "I can't eat it now!''
"Hush, Coley," Michelle said. "Come on, let's go play in your room."
When Michelle, Stu, and Coley left the table, Henry and Rachel were engaged in a ferocious stare-down. Halfway up the stairs, Michelle heard a kitchen chair topple over. Then something bigger fell, shaking the house. Her father's heavy, clumping footsteps ensued, and the front door slammed hard.
"Be quiet for a minute," Michelle said to her companions.
She heard her mother shuffling across the kitchen, hum-ming melodically. To her knowledge, Michelle's father had never struck her mother, but in blind rages accidents were always possible.
Coley pattered ahead to the next level, continued on up another flight to her room.
"I think your mother was referring to me," Stu said. "I was the bastard at the table. I'm illegitimate."
"She wasn't talking about you at all," Michelle said, "not the way she was burning Daddy with her eyes."
"I'm your nalt-Drotner, Micneue, am wmsperea. lour father and mine are the same. I promised him I wouldn't tell, but it just seemed like, well... I thought you oughta know."
"An affair?"
Stu nodded. "During Moon War V, at Stratobase Uriah."
Stu related everything he knew, and at the end asked her not to tell anyone.
"Another secret's all I need," Michelle said. She sighed. "Okay, I won't tell."
She moved slowly up the stairs. Coley was waiting.
THIRTEEN
Efficient management is a process requiring minimal opposition. Identify known and potential enemies, and either undermine them or keep them at bay. To the extent possible, reduce the odds of them getting dangerously close to you by finding your own key subordi-nates, as opposed to letting them seek you out. Seekers often have ulterior motives.
—From a cassette recording of Granmere Liliane's thoughts
I
michelle felt the television drawing her into its screen, to , worlds within. These were worlds dominated by the problems and fantasies of other people, and for the moment they com- j prised the only universe in her consciousness, all other expe-riences having been anesthetized by the device. .
Something bumped her leg, imparting a sharp but brief pain.
"Move over, Renney," she snapped, not turning from the j screen, which became unfocused. She envisioned her little brother as he lay like her on his belly before the set, chin , propped on upturned palms.
,
She heard him sliding on the carpet.
"Where's Stu?" Renney asked. "I haven't seen him since Thy la stormed out of here."
Reality encroached. Saturday now, Thursday then. On to Arionn!
"He wasn't at school yesterday either," Michelle said. "Truant officers'11 be on his tail, he keeps this up."
Rachel, on the couch behind them, didn't enter the conver-sation. She, Stu, and Renney faded from Michelle's con-sciousness, replaced by a statuesque redhead who was demonstrating a Foodalizer. The size of a conventional micro-wave oven, the appliance enlarged and cooked concentrated food pellets that were placed into it.
"Wish we had one o' those," Renney said. "I'd put leaves, rocks, all kindsa stuff in it to see what happens. It moisturizes and stretches cells, you know."
"Rocks?" Rachel said. "Don't be silly, child. What would you do with a moisturized rock, anyway?"
"Maybe I'd use it in the desert, sucking water out of it."
Michelle felt herself drawn into the fanciful discussion, and heard her mother say, "Too heavy to be practical. Besides, I don't think a rock could be foodalized."
The telephone rang, and the children watched their mother, in a threadbare indigo terrycloth robe, shuffle up the mini-staircase to the kitchen entranceway.
"Ye-ess?" Rachel said, telephone receiver in hand. Then, shouting: "Oh, On-ree! It's Maman!"
Henry stomped across the kitchen, from his bedroom. "Gimme da phone, bitch!"
With only four concise words, Michelle realized, Rachel had devastated Henry's masculinity. Photographs from Gran-mere's house flashed in Michelle's mind, of Henry in short pants and glistening black button-up boots, his hair cut page-boy fashion.
Henry had the receiver, and after a pause, said, "Oh God! When did 'e go?"
Granpere! Michelle thought. In a daze she was up and away from the narcoma of the television, holding onto her father's free hand.
But the hand pulled away, unaware of Michelle s presence.
Recollecting Granpere's words, spoken through her mouth in the green-lit closet, she reminded herself he hadn't really died.
' 7 need a little vacation from Granmere . . . I will contact you in due course . . . Do not despair ..."
His face ashen, Henry replaced the receiver on the hook and addressed Rachel, who was back on the living room couch. "My fodder jusht died, ya bitch. Duzzat make ya feel good?"
Without looking at her mother or listening for her response, Michelle fled upstairs, to the hiding place where she kept her puzzle box.
"Thyla doesn't want to speak to you," the voice on the other end of the drugstore picturephone said. Joseph didn't look at the screen, and stood just beyond range of the transmitting camera so that Thyla's mother couldn't see that he had been crying.
"Please tell her it's important, Mrs. Dunlap," Joseph said, in a valiant attempt to keep his voice firm. But it cracked toward the end of his sentence. He was in the shopping mall three blocks from his house, since his father had the house line tied up talking with relatives about Granpere.
"She left explicit instructions with me," Mrs. Dunlap said.
"My grandfather just died. I need to talk with her."
"Just a moment."
Joseph blew his nose.
As he finished, Thyla came on the line. "Joseph, is that true? Granpere Gilbert is gone?"
"It's true."
"How awful. I'm so sorry."
"Look, I hate the way Dad acted with you, but you can't keep blaming me for it. I'll never be like he is, I promise."
"I know your father's a loving man in his own way, and he works hard for his family. I hope you are like him in some ways."
"In darned few, I hope."
"Step in front of the camera so I can see you. Have you been crying?"
Joseph moved in front of the lens, looked down to conceal the redness of his eyes.
"I care for you, Joseph, and I have to tell you that it's not just your father that has me upset. Yesterday I learned about your wild, drunken episode. Kenny March told Nancy Wil-son, and she told me."
Joseph stomped his foot angrily at his friend's careless conversation.
"How could you take chances like that, Joseph? Hanging on the front of a car? You must have an absolutely crazy streak that I don't understand."
"Like mother, like son, you mean?"
"Your mother has severe problems, and from what I un-derstand, the alcohol aggravates it. You need to abstain from alcohol. Totally. Or stay away from me. I care for you a great deal, too much to watch you go down the drain."
"I'll never take another drink."
The words flew out impulsively, and as they discussed other matters Joseph found himself going back to this pledge in his mind. Consequently he stumbled over words, connect-ing them only partially with his thoughts.
They talked about Granpere's funeral, which would take place the following Tuesday at the Catholic cemetery where one of Granpere's brothers was buried: Thyla had her own "family matters" to take care of in the interim, she said. But she would attend the funeral.
After concluding the call, Joseph remained motionless, considering the implications of Thyla's words, intonations, and facial expressions. That comment about her own family matters sounded like a lie, an excuse not to see him. How much of it had to do with the antics of his father, and how much with his own misbehavior? It was inevitable that she would find out about Joseph's drinking bout (the only time he had ever really gotten soused), and he knew it wasn't the sort of behavior approved in the circles she wanted to travel. But the ultimatum made him angry, and he remembered the old saw about lips that touch wine. She was domineering, impor-tunate, and stubborn.
She was also right, he admitted to himself. He considered briefly the possibility of a genetic legacy from mother to son in this regard, then denied vehemently being anything like her. One incident didn't prove a thing. He told himself that he could stop drinking at any time and Rachel couldn't. With her it was compulsion; with him it was choice.
But now Thyla wasn't giving him any choice, and he wasn't certain he wanted to quit drinking just yet, at his young age. The change seemed drastic, somehow.
"Are you finished with the phone?" a voice asked. "May I use it now?"
Joseph slid by the man without looking at him, received the vague image of someone elderly and weak. He moved by other faces that didn't register, found himself on the sidewalk outside in a shower of cold rain. He zipped his coat and headed into the downpour, staring at the suddenly wet pave-ment and the markings of the parking lot.
Someone honked at him as he crossed a parking lot arterial, but Joseph kept going and didn't look. A vehicle squealed to an angry stop, a hulking, unfocused peripheral form. It spoke with another bleat, then accelerated after Joseph passed.
Michelle sat in the musty, stygian blackness of her closet, holding the open puzzle box and book. Her fingers found the envelope bearing Granpere's check, and she left it in place, between pages in the back of the book. This time no translu-cent green light illuminated or warmed her little enclosure, and she shivered violently.
Desperately, she struggled to bring forth her grandfather's voice on her own lips, the way it had happened last time, in this place. No words came other than her own grunts and pleadings, so she tried to speak in phrases that he might have selected. But she couldn't recall his precise tone and diction. Even the features of his face, once so familiar, seemed horri-bly fuzzy, and she begged him to restore her memories.
"Where are you, Granpere?" she called out, plaintively. "Please talk to me. Please help me understand."
But she heard no voice other than her own.
She wondered if she had imagined all of it before—the green mist with French words and phrases floating upon it, Granpere's pronunciations and definitions, tne way ne spoKe to her through her own body. Had the last of Granpere's spirit been in those moments, gone forever now with his passing?
But he hadn't passed. It was as he said it was, a journey from which he would return, for her. She needed to be patient, and he would contact her "in due course." That could be quite a while. He must be traveling now, getting to the place where he would hide from Granmere.
Rachel had her own hiding places from that bete noire, and Michelle felt the limitations of her knowledge about them.
It was like that with her grandfather's place of concealment as well. It existed, but that was all she knew. She despised every thought of Granmere, that terrible old woman who had driven her grandfather away and her mother into internal, secret realms.
Secrets. Those of her own creation and those of others, entrusted to her. She wanted all of them out in the open, so they would no longer be a burden. Get them all out, the pleasant and the unpleasant alike. It occurred to her that a law should be enacted forbidding secrets, so that people could never again be harmed by them.
Following her line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, she knew she should share the puzzle box, book, and check with her family. But she didn't want to do that just yet, despite an awareness of the harm generated by Granpere's supposedly benign secrets. Secrecy was of itself an attack upon an outsider.
Why am I thinking this way? Michelle thought, staring at the unbroken darkness before her. Am I angry with Granpere for leaving, trying to spoil what he left for me? Don't do it, Michelle! Keep what he left you for yourself!
In frustration and confusion, Michelle replaced the book in the puzzle box. She had a chapter full of French words in her mind, with definitions and conjugations, and this would be a good basis for her to proceed through the ensuing chapters. She had the words and phrases culled from Granmere's Sun-day dinner proddings as well, and if the green mist and Granpere's words didn't come back she would learn French in its entirety the hard way, on her own.
Tears for her grandfather moved to Michelle's eyes, but
she wouldn't let them fall. After ll she had nothing to cry about yet, nothing requiring, in its finality, tears. Whatever came, whatever was meant to be, she would be strong. Granpere was of her childhood. He took her to fantasy places, guided her through days of ducks, of ice cream sodas, of gifts for little girls.
FOURTEEN
If unabated, Mayor Wilde's around-the-clock hiccuping (singultus) condition will damage her heart. Medical personnel are treating the matter with all seriousness. A number of remedies have been attempted, including carbon dioxide inhalations, the administration of Coramme, morphine, and sodium Luminal—all to no avail. The mayor has been checked for gastritis, stomach tumors, strangulated hernia, coronary thrombosis, appendicitis, pancreatitis, peritonitis, syphilitic meningomyelitis, and a host of other conditions that might contribute to the convulsions. She suffers from none of these, so we've called in a team of psychologists to work on her during waking and sleeping hours.
—Summary of Mayor Wilde's medical file, stolen by a reporter
ready for her grandfather's funeral early, Michelle stood in the front yard awaiting the others. A cool morning breeze rustled her lavender and lace Sunday dress and whipped her hair across her face, stinging one cheek. She brushed the hair aside and moved into the wind shelter of the hedge, adjacent to the family car and Rachel's "putt-putt" car.
A movement on the sidewalk at the other side of the hedge caught her eye. Presently Stu came into full view and saun-tered up the broken concrete driveway, looking as if he had slept in his clothes.
"Where have you been?" Michelle demanded, moving into the wind to confront him. "My grandfather died!"
He looked startled, said! "I been around."
"Where?"
"If you really need to know, I got wind of a party Friday night and flopped there. I bummed around all weekend, getting to know the streets. When Monday rolled around I didn't feel like going to school."
"The truant officers are gonna be after you." The lace that Michelle had paper-clipped to one sleeve of her dress came loose, and she tended to it, bending the clip so that it was tighter.
"So what? I can outfox any 'trew' what was ever born. I want my freedom more than they want me. They're not on commission like bounty hunters, kid. If they were, it would be harder."
"Go inside and get cleaned up for the funeral."
"I never met the man. Not that I wouldn't mind going, if that would please you. Are you sure it's okay?"
"Positive, and Dad won't dare say anything. Granpere was your grandfather, too. You're part of this family, Stu Kroemer, and it's about time you started acting like it."
Granpere Gilbert's funeral didn't resemble the images Mi-chelle had formed. There were no black banners or morose, black-suited men in top hats. It wasn't held in the midst of urns and caskets in a musty, windowless room rife with the odor of embalming chemicals. There were no weepers hurling themselves prostrate before the coffin. All her preconceived notions were shattered when she stepped into the church, behind Renney, their father (who carried Coley), and Joseph. Stu trailed the others wearing one of Joseph's old suits, and Rachel didn't attend.
On the ride over, Michelle had considered her mother's absence. While Rachel and Granpere never quarreled openly, it was common knowledge that he did not approve of her because of her neglect of the children.
This Catholic church, which Michelle had attended on holidays with her grandparents, hadn't been where she thought the funeral would take place, and it occurred to her now that she must have confused the goings-on of a funeral parlor with those of a church. It was airy and bright here, smelling of sweet flowers. Sunny bouquets had been placed alongside every pew and abundantly around the coffin at the altar. A boy in a white surplice guided them to the front row near the coffin, and they slid uneasily into their seats.
"Is Granpere in the same place as Beauregard?" Coley queried, looking up at her father.
"No. Now hush."
Joseph left for a time to speak with Thyla, who was sitting with her mother in the back of the church. Presently he returned to his seat, just before the ceremony began.
The realities of the ceremony passed through Michelle's senses with numbing indistinctness. She recalled kissing her grandfather's forehead and placing beside him a tiny fishing pole that she had made. His skin had been frightfully cold against her lips, and as she withdrew from him she winked at the thought of their Big Secret. There was no response.
In a daze, Michelle kissed her grandmother, and the old woman's skin was as cold as Granpere's. Granmere stood stiffly, star-ing through Michelle without apparent emotion or recognition.
What game was Granpere Gilbert playing? Why hadn't he winked back at Michelle discreetly or found some other man-ner of reassuring her that he wasn't actually dead?
Patience, she reminded herself. / must have patience.
In the limousine with her siblings, father, and grandmother on the way to the cemetery, Michelle sought refuge in fan-tasy. She imagined Granpere's coffin covered in glass so that the body could be viewed. But this was a box of his own invention, covered in magnifying glass to conceal the fact that the body had been dehydrated and shrunken to a length of less than two centimeters. Something to do with limited burial space on the habitat. A green mist escaped the box, nearly blew Granmere over, and disappeared through an open door-way, where it was lifted to freedom on a sweet-smelling breeze.
No one seemed to notice the green mist, with the exception
of Michelle. But she wasn't the only one who knew the secret of Granpere's dehydration.
Bursting into the church while the priest was reading the eulogy, Rachel shrieked, "What would happen if someone here just up and swallowed old Gilbert? Like a vitamin pill?"
