William Gaddis: A Folic Of His Own

— How long does it take to write a check, you know you're going to pay sooner or later but you just can't part with it till you have to? I mean no one's asked you to do everything yourself Oscar really, since the day I got married you've behaved as though Harry had simply come in and stolen a good housekeeper from you. We are all kind of related now after all and you could make a little more of an effort with him, couldn't you? He's awfully busy in court today but he took the time to get this copy of Father's Opinion and come all the way up here to see you, like one of the family I mean wasn't that quite thoughtful?

— But he just doesn't look like anybody in the family, even on your mother's side, and I don't think Father…

— He met Father once, last year when he had to be in Washington, it wasn't awfully successful but that was hardly Harry's fault, was it? if you remember the shape Father was in? And I went out and got you a housekeeper after all, didn't I? Two of them, after you said the first one burned your socks, and what's happened to this new one? I didn't see a trace of her.

— If you'd like to see a trace of her look at that Sung vase in the sunroom. She put cold water in it for some blossom branches Lily brought over and of course it seeped through the terra cotta and completely destroyed the glaze. A thousand years go into that exquisite iridescent glaze and one coarse stupid woman can destroy it overnight.

— I'll look around for another one, now…

— Another one? Do you think you can just walk down the street and pick up a real Sung dynast…

— A housekeeper Oscar, another housekeeper, and what Lily's doing bringing over blossom branches in the first place, aren't things in enough of a mess there without blossom branches? You complain about disorder and then open the door for chaos herself, I mean she certainly doesn't look like anyone in the family if that's what you have in mind, driving in there this morning in a new BMW as if she owned the place. She'll probably show up here any minute. I told her what happened.

— A new BMW?

— You're lying here smashed to a pulp by that second hand wreck while she's driving around in a…

— No but whose BMW?

— Well I certainly didn't ask her, I mean I certainly don't want to know, do you? Think about it Oscar, because I should think you might after all, a breezy blouse half unbuttoned, blonde hair flying and enough lipstick to paint a barn I'm putting the mail right here. I'll bring checks, I'm sure you don't have any. Who is John Knize.

— Who is who?

— There's a letter here from someone named John Knize. Shall I open it?

— Oh, no that's probably just someone who…

— Dear Professor Crease, he's got one of those awful typewriters that writes in script. Perhaps my earlier letter did not reach you. I am researching material for a book on the Holmes Court, of which I understand your grandfather, Justice Thomas Crease, was a colourful member, well known for his conflicts with his associate Justice Holmes though it was said they were warm friends through their shared youthful experience in the Civil War, both having suffered wounds, I understand, at Ball's Bluff and Antietam. Since your grandfather lived to age ninety six it occurred to me that you might well have known him as a small child and, you're not planning to see this person are you?

— I just thought it might help to…

— Well whatever you thought, just remember people don't come out of nowhere to help you, people help themselves, I mean you don't picture sitting down with this utter stranger telling him how Grandfather dandled you on his knee when you were five and rattled on about the Civil War? These papers you had me drag in here because you're afraid somebody's stealing it from you and Harry's right isn't he, the rest of it's nothing but opera. I'm the Queen of the Night and here's your mysterious messenger haunting the wards for a terminal case, wheedling a requiem for the old Count to pretend he composed himself, trying to frighten me when we were children saying you'd come back and haunt the place the way I felt out there this morning, the mist just lifting from the pond and suddenly the swans, a whole fleet of them coming by as still, as still, and across the pond those reds and russets…

— Where the sedge is withered from the…

— Well exactly! the letter she'd been crumpling gone to the floor as she stood. — Alone and palely loitering, I mean if Keats could see you now. How long do they plan to keep you here.

— They don't know yet. Could you hand me my glasses? It depends on when I can walk again if I can, if I can Christina, they don't even know that yet.

— Well I hope they don't plan to turn you loose till you can, do they expect you to ride around that house in a wheelchair without breaking your neck? She reached down to where he'd just put on his glasses with some difficulty, and took them off. — Can you see through these things at all? dipping a tissue in the water glass — let alone read through them, doesn't it ever occur to you to do this yourself? and she set the sparkling lenses back astride his nose — though this bandage hardly helps. Will there be a scar?

— Probably, they said…

— Poor Oscar. She stooped to kiss his forehead. — It may give your face a little character, like Heidelberg. I'll start digging up another housekeeper.

— Yes but, Christina? If Harry doesn't mind I mean, or if he's away or anything? I just thought maybe you could come back out there and spend a little time with me? Just until, and wait, this creamed ham they gave us last night…

— We'd still need a housekeeper, oh and I meant to tell you, Trish sends love, Trish Hemsley? She's quite fond of you you know, it's a shame you never pursued it Oscar, she could be such a help. You don't mind if I take these? folding together the crinkled paper slippers she'd just found on the night table, — I mean it's not as though you're going anywhere? sweeping back the curtain, past the lively concert of traffic backed up for seven miles at the eastbound entrance to the George Washington bridge for an overturned tractor trailer, seizing the arm of a nurse passing the door with — the far bed in there, Mister Crease? He's rather anxious about the supper menu, and whatever this medication you're giving him I wish you'd check with the doctor, he's seeing little men in black suits coming in asking him to carry messages to the other side and he's not even packed… on up the corridor and — oh my God…too late to turn elsewhere, — hello Lily.

— Oh! Is he okay?

— If he were okay would he be here? Six twelve B, do try not to tire him.

— Oh yes I, but Christina?

— What is it.

— Just, I just wish you liked me.

— So do I Lily.

612 B: past the horn concerto on tiptoe with an apologetic gasp, bursting past the curtain with — oh Oscar! Are you okay? and a lipstick smear on the bandage. — Does it hurt?

— Yes.

— Where, the bandage on your face?

— Everywhere.

— Oh Oscar. Can I get you anything? I was going to bring you flowers but then I saw I only had four dollars.

— Look in my wallet. In that drawer in the night table, Lily?

— Yes, yes can I get you anything?

— Where did you get a new BMW.

— Where did you hear that. Is fifty all right?

— Christina says you drove up to the house in a new BMW.

— It's just this person I borrowed it from Oscar. To come over and see you, I only wish she didn't dislike me so much. She just always makes me feel like a, she's so superior and smart and her clothes, she's just always so attractive for somebody her age and…

Her hand fluttered by and he caught it. — It's just that you're a little young, I think she worries about you, this divorce and your problem with your family, and the…