Katherine Dunn - Nightmare Carnival

Rollo’s reply takes a beat too long.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. Leo’s a hard act to follow. He’s done everything from selling candy to performing. That’s why he’s so respected. Show people will listen to him. He and your mother were legends.”

“The double-bullet catch.” Christos sighs.

“No other family has performed it. And Leo is still the youngest ever at fourteen.” Rollo sounds wistful. “Lilia was fearless, even with her own son. No one will see the likes of it again.”

Christos is silent, swallowing every word.

Henry turns off the recording of Rollo. Something nags at him.

He opens his book. The group photo’s lodged between the pages where he left it. This time he looks at the cropped version reprinted within.

It smacks of glamour. Rebecca Saunders looks like a film star. She has a strong, pointed chin. Her hair’s scraped back despite the fashion for piled-up curls. Her mouth’s mid-laugh and her eyes downcast. Her peach skin’s lost on monochrome film. Her dark gown’s shot with silver that glitters.

Christos looks straight into the lens. Henry wants to dislike him: his narrow nose, long hair touching his collar, an arm around Rebecca. It’s at odds with Rollo’s portrait of a usurper and thief. Christos looks starstruck by love and, God help him, like an innocent.

I shouldn’t begrudge him their time together, knowing how it ended .

The dog looks straight into the camera too. Christos holds his collar with his free hand. The dog. Something about the dog.

Henry picks up the phone.

“The Gramercy.”

“I’d like to speak with Roland Henrikson. Room 136.”

He waits, the phone ringing in Rollo’s room. Henry’s kept track of him, all these years.

“What?” Rollo’s voice is thick with sleep. He’s currently on a downturn, a sad state because at seventy-eight life should be easier.

“I’ve woken you, sorry.”

“What’s the time?” He can hear Rollo fumbling with a clock. “Henry, it’s eleven in the morning. What do you want?”

“The dog.”

“What?”

“Rebecca’s dog.”

“You got me up to ask about a dog?”

“What happened to it after they died?”

“I think it got sent to her cousin, along with her remains.”

“This is the dog you said you bought them.”

“That’s right.” Rollo sounds wary.

“You didn’t want to keep it.”

“Why would I?” Rollo pauses. “I’m sorry, Henry. I’ve got a bad head.”

Henry takes bad head to mean bad hangover .

“What was it called?”

“What?”

“The dog’s name. You said she always gave the dog the same name as the one she had as a child.”

“Oh God, it was a long time ago. Bobby. I’m pretty sure it was Bobby.”

Henry closes his eyes. The back of the photo listed the group’s names, including the dog, Sam. Rollo should know that.

“Have you got a lead?” There’s the sound of Rollo gulping from a bottle.

“I’m not sure.”

“Call me if you find anything new. They were my best friends, you know.”

“Sure.”

“Hey, Henry, I don’t suppose you could do me a favor?” Henry knows what’s coming. “I’m a bit short this month. I don’t suppose you could wire me some money?”

“Do the double-bullet catch with me or I’ll find someone else who will.” Christos is adamant.

“Like hell you will.” So is Leo.

“You can’t stop me.”

“I can. You can’t perform here without my permission.”

“I’ll find somewhere else.”

Leo gives Rebecca an imploring look. “Talk some sense into him.”

“Leave her out of this.”

“She’s your wife .”

“Don’t do it.” Rebecca’s ashen.

Christos clutches her hands in his.

“Nobody will take me seriously unless I do something like this.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They look at you with awe,” he says to Rebecca. Then he turns to Leo, “I’m just your little brother and always will be until I prove I’m as good as you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’ll ask Rollo.”

“And Rollo will say no. I’ll make sure of that.”

“I’ll go to Jim Shaw. He knows guns.”

Leo wonders how Christos is so well informed and ignorant, all at once.

“Jim Shaw shot the fingers off a man last year.”

“He’ll have to do, if you won’t help me.” Christos walks out of Leo’s office.

“Is it true about this Shaw man?” Rebecca asks.

“Yes.”

“Do it with him.”

“What?”

Rebecca stands so close that Leo struggles to keep his breathing even.

“You’re the only person I trust to keep him safe.”

Betty Marlin, Rebecca’s cousin, basks in the sun. Her head’s thrown back and her hands folded across her middle. Henry puts her in her mid-sixties, or thereabouts.

“I hope you don’t mind sitting out here. I like the heat. Help yourself to lemonade. It’s homemade.”

Henry wishes she’d remove her sunglasses and do him the courtesy of taking him into the shade. He can’t tell if there’s a family resemblance. She’s wrinkled from sun worship, with thinning hair cut into a bob. She wears long shorts and a vest.

The plastic chair creaks as Henry sits down.

“Don’t you hate being old?”

Henry wonders what he hoped to gain in coming here, all the way to Lauders.

“I can’t stand it,” she continues. “It feels like penance.”

Her chatter’s girlish, as if age is a mask that can be stripped away.

“It’s not vanity. It’s feeling out of step with the world that bothers me.” Betty talks without pause. “I don’t understand young people. They’re so ambitious but they don’t seem to enjoy life. Do you have children?”

“Pardon?” Her sudden question wrong foots him.

“Children?”

“A daughter. She’s thirty.”

“Does that help you to understand them?”

“No,” he laughs, then realizes how he’s been sidetracked. “Thanks for finally agreeing to see me.”

“I don’t like journalists.” She takes off her sunglasses. She doesn’t even look at his birthmark. There was a time when that would’ve thrilled him.

“I’m not a journalist. I’m a historian.”

“Historian?” She slips the glasses back on.

“I was a lecturer. I retired last year. I sent you the book I wrote, The Firebrand .”

“Oh, that. I didn’t read it. And I told you years ago, on the phone, what I know about Rebecca.”

Betty’s dog has been sniffing at him. It’s a broad-chested boxer with an air of stubborn loyalty. Satisfied, it sits at Betty’s feet. Henry can see his own reflection in her dark lenses.

“The official version of events is wrong.”

“It was an accident.” The girlishness has gone.

“Rebecca took revenge for Christos’s murder.”

He leaves her with that incendiary while he takes a sip of lemonade. It’s too sharp for his taste.

“Good luck with that idea.” She leans over and pats his hand in a way that offends him. “See yourself out.”

She gets up and goes in.

The dog escorts Henry to the gate. On a sudden impulse Henry says, “Sam.”

The dog’s tail thumps the concrete slabs and then it gets up and trots on the spot, excited at this sudden familiarity.

Rebecca named it after a dog she had as a kid. She said every dog she’d had since was named after it.

Henry goes back up to the house and stands on the porch, blinded for a moment by stepping from light to dark. Sam goes ahead through the open door, claws clipping on the wooden floor.

Henry listens. There’s the whirl of a fan and a radio. He goes inside.