Charles Baxter - Gryphon - New and Selected Stories

“No idea,” she said. “Quite a few, but we never counted them up. Would you like a drink? Something to eat?” From invisible speakers came the sound of music: Bach, or Handel. Baroque something, performed on the original instruments: court music, yes, The Water Music , that was it. “You must be starving.”

“No, thank you.” On the wall, a flat-panel video screen showed a man’s face contorting in agony, relaxing, smiling, then contorting in agony again. Hung next to it was another screen showing a woman who appeared to be shouting soundlessly for help. “What’s that?”

“Oh, that diptych? That’s an installation by Herb Cello, the video artist. He’s a wonderful guy, do you know him? He’s become such a good friend. It’s called Agony #6 . It’s a poor title. I begged Herb to change it, but I do love his work, and after all Herb’s a thoughtful guy even with his irony, and he has the right to name his pieces, because he’s the artist. But, you know, there never was an Agony #5 . Isn’t that odd? Maybe it was the wrong kind of agony.” The face on the video screen began to smile and then froze into that genial expression, as if shocked suddenly by open displays of sodomy. The effect was terrifying. “You see? It’s not agony at all. You have to think about it. You’re sure you wouldn’t like something to drink? The sun’s almost past the yardarm.”

“No, really. I should start my interview with Mr. Mallard.”

“Well, I could be mistaken, but I think Jimmy’s in the tub. Earlier today he was outside making furniture, and I think he probably worked up quite a sweat. He was expecting you, you know, and after waiting for a while for you, and you didn’t come, he went outside, and now he’s back. He didn’t expect you to be late.”

“Yes,” Krumholtz said. “I’m very sorry about that.” Had she really just touched him on the cheek with the tips of her fingers? Why would she do such a thing?

“Why don’t I show you around the house first?”

“All right. But if you don’t mind my asking, what did you do before you met Mr. Mallard?”

“Me? Oh, that.” She laughed humorlessly. “The past life. That’s over, that life. I was a model. And I did some acting. Some TV movies and whatnot.” The interior walls consisted of poured concrete, and now, when she touched part of the wall, it gave way under her hand — it was actually a door, invisibly hinged — and they stepped into another entryway, and then into a classroom, where two rather beautiful children were sitting at a long table, writing under the eye of a young Asian woman with straight black hair and reading glasses. Beyond them, the window, from floor to ceiling, gave a view of the woods. The young woman, the teacher, was also a great beauty. “That’s our hired tutor, Ping,” she said under her breath. “The children are homeschooled. Bonjour, Ping!”

“Bonjour, madame.”

“Ping is from Beijing by way of Paris,” Ellie Mallard said to Krumholtz. The children, Angus and Gretel, glanced up quickly at Krumholtz and, finding nothing in particular that interested them, turned back to their writing. They were dressed in identical shirts, trousers, and shoes. “All their classes are taught in French and Mandarin.”

“Except science,” Angus said sourly without looking up. “We do science in English. We just learned that when scientists split the atom, God got killed.”

“Do you have children, Mr. Krumholtz?” Ellie Mallard asked, gazing directly into his eyes. He forced himself not to look away. What a weapon beauty could be, and only the rich could own it.

“Yes,” he said. “I have two daughters.”

“Jimmy and I, we believe in public schooling,” Ellie Mallard said, waving her hand at the schoolroom and the overhead projector and maps of the world, “but the local school is much too far away, and the school bus doesn’t even come out here, as you can imagine. So there’s no way to get there. We’re just lucky to get the mail ! Besides, I think children should learn foreign languages, don’t you? Given the world that they will be entering?”

“Maybe so,” Krumholtz said. “But French? I understand the need for Chinese, but French …”

“Mandarin for work, French for play !” Ellie Mallard said brightly. “Well, we mustn’t take up any more of the children’s time.” She closed the concrete door behind her. Krumholtz heard Gretel saying good-bye as the door silently shut.

“I’d be teaching them Spanish, myself,” he said.

“Oh, Spanish is so easy, they can just pick it up along the way. And, what, they’re going to live in Mexico ?” She threw her head back and laughed. “It’s just a hobby language, don’t you think? Or of servitude?” Krumholtz’s older daughter was learning Spanish and finding it difficult going. “Now here,” she said, returning to the main hallway, “is one of our Bento Schwartz photographs. Do you like it?” She gazed at it thoughtfully. “I think it’s quite marvelous.”

The photograph was large, three feet by about five feet. It appeared to be a photograph of a trash heap. “What is it?” Krumholtz asked.

“Well, it’s part of a series called Disposed, ” she said. “This one, by coincidence, since we were just talking about Mexico, this one is of the Mexico City landfill. It’s a digital photograph, but Bento has personally colorized some of the objects in it, such as that bucket in the foreground. Isn’t it a beautiful blue? I think it’s ravishing. He paints over certain objects to give them, I don’t know, a feeling . I always find something new in the photograph to study every time I look at it. It has quite an aura. Because of the colors. And the detail. And the dynamic negative space. Do you know Bento’s photographs?”

“No,” Krumholtz said. “Bento Schwartz?”

“He’s very well known,” she said doubtfully. Krumholtz had taken out his small notebook and was writing down the names of the artists he had heard her mention, and he was making an effort to get the details about the photograph. Squatters’ shacks rested on the landfill, and Krumholtz could see the squatters, miserable wretches, inside them. Krumholtz felt an old familiar hatred of the rich welling up inside him. They were all obtuse in an almost comical way. He looked down and saw that Mrs. Mallard was barefoot. “Why did you ask me about angels?”

“Excuse me?”

“When I was in the car, at the gate, before you buzzed me in, you asked me whether I believe in angels.”

“I did? No, I don’t think so. Why would I do that? I didn’t buzz you in. It might have been Lorraine. Lorraine is the other woman. Incidentally, I should have asked you whether you’d like to freshen up.” She turned and gazed at him again. “The bathroom’s right here.” She pointed at the opposite wall.

“Oh, okay,” he said. “Where is it? I don’t see it.”

She touched the wall, and the concrete gave way again, and Krumholtz, who now felt like an angry resentful ambassador-without-portfolio from a Third World country, walked in. The lights flickered on automatically, as did the exhaust fan. He was surprised to find an ordinary toilet, humiliated by its functionality, in front of him, but on the wall above the toilet was a small signed pencil drawing by Paul Klee, and near the washstand and toilet was a waist-high table on which were piled several books. At the top was a signed first edition of Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night . Beneath it were other signed editions of James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain , Adrienne Rich’s Selected Poems , and T. S. Eliot’s Ash Wednesday , just the book to have around when you were scrubbing your hands. So far, he hadn’t seen books anywhere else in the house. Krumholtz washed up, splashing soapy water on his face before soiling the hand towels, and when he returned to the hallway, Ellie Mallard was standing in exactly the same spot where she had been before, smiling pensively, her right foot half raised and planted with the arch on her left leg, a dancer’s position. “ Do you believe in angels?” she asked.