Michael Collins - The Death of All Things Seen

There had been an abiding patriotism and a great outlay of cash that included the savings of Pavel Mateˇjcˇek. The first monies were spent judiciously, until it was understood there would be no corridor, and funds set aside to influence the election of candidates who might vote Green in future elections were not guaranteed. Politics was like pissing against the wind, so, eventually, said monies were syphoned off for personal use.

What Einhorn believed anathema to the system was faithlessness. Faith required a willful commitment to that which might never be fully explained on a balance sheet. Or, put another way, what Daniel Einhorn needed was more time, and, during his more prone, vulnerable and sanguine moments, he imagined himself a disconsolate Moses stopped by some shortsighted Rabbis who wouldn’t give eminent domain to part the Red Sea. He had planned on using the line under oath to make those accusing him understand the monumental will that Creation demanded.

*

Einhorn was about to exit the walk-in closet when he saw on a shelf a series of small boxes tucked away and tied with a coarse, old-fashioned string. He smelled a dank musk of animal oils, a water-repellant greasiness of worn woolens, sweaters, socks and scarves still redolent with a whiff of a crystalized sea salt from the winter his youngest daughter, Rachel, had spent along the Brittany coast under grey clouds and unassailing winds.

It stopped him cold, how some of the money spent could never be fully understood or explained, how it had played in the coming-of-age of his beloved daughter Rachel, who on a semester abroad program in France had come under the sway of Philippe Rotheneuf, a rugged Breton with big weather-hewn hands and a Roman nose, a Spartacus or an Argonaut look-alike.

Einhorn searched the driveway again. He was sure he could hear a noise at the front door. He moved further toward the back of the closet.

What he rallied around was the memory of Rachel, how she had made her appeal to him, and not to Elaine, when she got into trouble in France. It was no small comfort to find his youngest, the brightest of his children, needing him, so there was an act of generosity and kindness bestowed along the way. A life had been saved. The money had mattered. It had made a difference!

He held his breath. My God! To have it end like this. He thought of calling Rachel, but it wouldn’t have been fair. She might be the only one to mourn him truly, or maybe, with his death, a great secret would be ended, and she would be left assured that only she alone would remember. It was difficult deciding which way she might see it.

At the time Rachel needed him, she was in the flush of a radiant emergence that was all from his side of the family. She had inherited the looks of his ill-fated, beautiful mother. For Einhorn, he had a feeling that here was a reclaimed beauty resurrected in the world, and that this time it could be made right. Rachel was the envy of other girls, and often had to appeal to boys for friendship. As with Einhorn, her looks had worked against her.

There had been much resistance on Elaine’s part to letting Rachel go abroad, but it was Einhorn’s gift to his daughter. He insisted. In his heart, he knew his life would end horribly, and that if he had lost his elder three children, he would make amends with Rachel. She deserved this much.

She had a boyfriend at the time, the son of a notable family who had funds tied up with Saul, so the boyfriend felt sufficiently secure in taking advantage of Rachel. It was tacitly endorsed, if not promoted, by Saul. This was the essence of big-time fraud, the swagger of familiarity, the intersection of lives and family, so proper accounting procedures were not adhered to, because Saul worked a sort of magic that needed a measure of faith, and, though everyone knew Saul was most probably a crook, he was their crook.

It turned out in the end, for all the elaborate planning and application letters and references, the boyfriend had also been accepted into the program, so a freedom gained was suddenly taken. Einhorn saw it in his daughter’s eyes, the shock and the awareness she had been caught out. She was her father’s daughter. He was deeply pained by how it was made known to his daughter just how calculating the world was, but he was insistent that she learned it early. The boyfriend sprung it like a surprise, so, in a calculated maneuver, he had a continent between Einhorn and Rachel.

Einhorn kissed Rachel and told her to live life and to call often. He saw her off at O’Hare, as you might see an immigrant off to new lands. He hugged her, his lips on the crown of her head, so she was embarrassed, but he was entitled as a father. It was ending soon. Rachel reached up and touched his nose.

There was culture over there. She should try every cheese and wine. She should know her options. He was shouting ‘Run’ without actually saying it. He believed she understood. Saul accompanied them to the airport. He didn’t like the exchange rate. That was all he said.

*

Einhorn drew further into the closet. He regretted now not having a gun. He heard noises downstairs. They were, of course, fucking, this boyfriend and Rachel. At the boyfriend’s insistence, they boorishly wore matching college sweatshirts, hoodies, and high-tops and toted knapsacks with attached water bottles to the airport.

He received photos through email. Part of the process of parenthood was coming to terms with stomaching the shit-eating grin of a guy banging your little girl.

At the time, Philippe Rotheneuf was the proprietor of a stall at the Bird Market at the Ile de la Cité. He was selling domestic parakeets and finches, but also exotic parrots and cockatiels. For Rachel, the contrast was so shockingly glaring, an out-of-body experience, the sum of her life revealed in a damp market in early November, the beautiful alternative, the vagabond intrigue of Philippe. He coaxed a finch onto the crook of his index finger and, reaching for the tips of Rachel’s fingers, the bird hopped from his finger to hers, the black drop of its eye staring at Rachel before it hopped back onto Philippe’s finger. He reached into his pocket, gave her posies, and explained as best he could the nursery rhyme ‘Ring Around the Rosie’, and its connection to the Black Death.

The boyfriend, quietly seething, had a map of sights circled like a general. They were to meet friends in the Latin Quarter. He said it petulantly, and what had passed a moment before, the intensity of a touch, suddenly ended in the conspiracy of a shower that had threatened and finally opened in the heavens.

She had acted like a whore. They were headed toward the Left Bank. The boyfriend had trouble with the map. He hated the warren of goddamn streets. He could pronounce none of them. The French were all assholes. He couldn’t wait to get back to America, the study abroad program affirming, not a tolerance and acceptance of other cultures, but rather his Americanness and American greatness; this, the undisclosed truth about pretty much all study abroad programs.

Notre Dame loomed as an afterthought in the grey slant of rain. Pigeons roosted in the crook of gargoyles and the beseeching outreach of saints looking heavenward, Parisians everywhere just then stopped under the awnings of cafés in an accommodation of the weather, the women in stockings and heels, and all smoking. By contrast, Rachel and her boyfriend were in North Face expedition jackets brought for the contingency of rain. There was the whispering whoosh of espresso machines and the boyfriend’s voice in her ear. She was fucking him, and she felt absolutely nothing for him.

The next day Rachel returned. She had a bottle of champagne. Einhorn knew this. It was credited to his Visa card. A week later, she and Philippe traveled in a medieval pageant of caged birds on a rural train line to the fortified city of Saint-Malo. Philippe had aspirations of opening a culinary school and raising any number of babies. He was a peasant through and through. It became apparent to Rachel, not what she wanted, but what she didn’t want.