William Vollmann - The Royal Family

When do you think they’ll ease your workload? Celia was saying.

When Singer has a stroke, said John impatiently. Can we talk about something else?

The gong struck for the first, then the second time. It became dark. Celia gazed down into the orchestra pit’s lights and shining horns. At least she always knew where she stood with John. She gripped John’s hand, her head on his shoulder.

Between them there lay many a conversation from Irene’s epoch, a time in which Celia had simultaneously suffered greater misery (or allowed herself a greater consciousness of the same old misery) and also been able to command more respect from John, because he and she both knew that as a married man he was wronging two women, and therefore had better restrain his curtness. That long ago night when Tyler after taking Irene out for dinner at Kabuki Cho had chanced upon his brother holding Celia’s hand, John had been saying: Are you tired?

No, Celia sighed. Just depressed. I feel so awful.

Do you want to sleep? John said, bringing his face aggressively close to hers, as if she might run away.

I want to sleep with you, Celia said dully. And you want to sleep with me. Or maybe you don’t want to sleep with me.

I want to sleep with you, John said wearily. But we can’t tonight.

We can’t ever. Never ever.

That’s not true, he said, his mouth tightening.

It feels like never ever.

I understand, John said, wondering: Is this worth it? How much of this crap will I have to put up with?

I don’t think you do know how I feel, said Celia. I do believe you think you know.

Well, that’s a start, said John.

Would it make any difference if I threw a tantrum? she rasped, revelling in her pain and his anger. And would Irene—

Let’s leave Irene out of this, John exploded.

Celia lowered her face, and her long hair occluded it, clinging to her tear-sodden cheeks. John took her hand.

It was at that moment that Tyler had driven by.

Now that Irene had removed herself from a position which had necessarily obstructed Celia’s aspirations, Celia found herself proportionally closer to John, but only in the sense that she had fallen into his orbit, becoming Irene’s successor planetoid. Casting his harsh radiance upon her, he remained on his own cosmic trajectory while she whirled helplessly round him. (As for Tyler, he was a lonely comet who scorched himself as he rushed far away from John and Celia’s solar system. Emerging from the Chinatown evening with the gold pores of skyscrapers oozing moist light on the edge of the financial district, he drove past Tokai Bank on Sacramento Street, crossing the decorative grillwork in the dull orange door-light of another house of Mammon, and plumbed the tired old bricks and clean desolation of commercial night until he’d reached Bush Street. No John. No Brady. The bright and open demarcation of Market Street lay ahead. He crossed it, and returned to the Mission district where he felt more like himself.) Meanwhile, Celia’s question hung in space, written in letters of stardust: What was the right thing? The only way to know was for her to envision John’s behavior should she draw still closer to him, or should she leave him. And because she did not have a great deal of faith in herself, both of these hypothetical images buzzed and wavered blurrily before her.

And even now she’s costing me, John had said to her that morning. There’s a greens fee, just like at the golf course. They have to keep mowing the grass over her bones, I guess, and there’s no friggin’ deductible for dead people on my insurance…

Did you love her so very much? said Celia. Please tell me what you’re feeling for once.

Oh, I don’t know, he sighed. Sometimes I get so angry. Irene had her points…

Celia, who would have trusted John much less had he always sung the dead woman’s praises, nevertheless felt a truth-seeking impulse powerful enough to overcome her fear of becoming dislikeable. She said: Who do you love more right now — Irene or me?

You, he said without any hesitation.

Well, that’s the right answer, anyway. What made you marry her?

She was a very good wife in so many ways, he said. She was loving, or tried to be; she did things my way; she was pretty…

During the overture John’s attention drifted, as it always did. For no particular reason he found himself remembering a hot outdoor Vietnamese wedding in San Jose, the vows stuttered and inaudible. Two Vietnamese violinists in gangster sunglasses uncertainly played, while the soloist wiped sweat from her wide brown forehead and sang “Ave Maria” so sweetly that it brought a lump to his throat. The bride, faintly reading a poem about love, wept. Yellowjackets settled on people’s sweating shoulders, and hot dry grass stood all around. Whose wedding had that been? For a long time he couldn’t recall. Had Irene been there? Yes, and she was out of sorts. Why, that had been Irene’s best friend’s wedding! He remembered it now… Irene had been a bridesmaid. She’d looked so beautiful that John had been very proud of her.

Celia squeezed his hand. And then suddenly, with a nauseating feeling of dread, he found himself thinking of Domino.

At the intermission, those spectators who didn’t need to relieve themselves sat stretching or reading their programs or gazing at each other through their spectacles.

Well, what did you think? said Celia, stretching her ankles (her mirror-black shoes melting light like butter).

It’s fine, said John. At least they gave us decent seats. I hate being too close to the aisle. Once when I brought Mom here they tried to pull that one on me. I made quite a scene, I’ll tell you.

Do you think it’s good? Celia said hesitantly.

What do you mean, do I think it’s good? It’s Puccini, that’s all.

John.

What?

John, she said, taking a deep breath, um, John, you would never lie to me about anything important, would you?

And John turned red, shamed almost to the point of vomiting, seeing before his eyes his crooked, grungy brother Hank, who lied through his teeth and who at this very moment was probably lurching down some Tenderloin alleyway muttering: Irene, irridium, lady, palladium, ladium…

Oh, you’re mad, whispered Celia, entirely misconstruing his complexion. John, I made you mad. Oh, John, I’m so, so sorry.

John, unable for the moment to speak, scarcely able to breathe, longed to get the thing done, but what thing it was he couldn’t have said — make a confession to Celia, break off with her, break off with Domino… He was afraid of both women as he had never been afraid of Irene.

John, Celia was saying. Please forget what I said, John.

The lights dimmed until the red carpet and the dark suits of the orchestra members were lost. The conductor came striding out, as the audience applauded and Celia gazed apprehensively at the side of John’s rigid face. And John, almost panic-stricken, longed to rush down to the Wonderbar to see Domino. He knew that it would be absurd to see her without a reason. He must want to break it off, he must … Surely that was what his heart-thud meant.

Now all the well-dressed people had gone inside, and only newspapers twitched on the long steps. A gentle old man in a suit stood at the summit of the red carpet, while a partridge-plump photographer, also in a suit, took his portrait. The opera had long since begun, and at first Tyler thought that he could faintly hear it — a soprano, no overture — but then he saw a shopping bag man, a fat man, a sad dirty man, a homeless man who was sitting there with his suitcase opened, and within the suitcase an old gramaphone was playing for his sadness. Was it battery powered? Now Tyler could hear the sob-like scratches in the woman’s song. She died, and then the homeless one began to play another record. This time a man’s voice was singing: Beautiful woman, my desire.