Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

“They’re organic.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Whatever.” She paused. “He was seeing a psychiatrist — mine, on Bedford. Same building where Daniel Ellsberg saw his shrink. But you wouldn’t know about Ellsberg.”

“Why did he take the book?”

“He was having some … problems. You know, it wasn’t like sticking up Van Cleef and Arpels. It was a difficult time for your father, that’s all.”

“Was he using drugs?”

“For what,” she said, somewhat defensively.

He wavered. “Just … to take them.”

“No.”

“ You use them.”

“I’m not doing that anymore. And your father wasn’t a druggie, OK? He never even smoked pot.”

All the frankness made something between them relax. He saw how beautiful she was and felt his love anew. “Was I adopted?”

“Were you— no . Emphatically not.”

“Did Father finish high school?”

“Of course he finished high school. With honors. Marcus was brilliant. He went to Oxford on a grant.”

“Where’s that?”

“England! Christ, Tull, you should know that.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s appalling, Tull.” She sucked on a Spirit, taking a deep, incredulous draft. “When he came back, he was … a little at sea. A friend of his worked at the agency.”

“At William Morris?”

She nodded, punching out her cigarette. “Your father’s friend helped get him a job in the mail room and within a few years he was a full-fledged agent. He loved the business, but I think what he really wanted was to be a writer. Marcus was a very creative man — hilarious. A great mimic. He was famous for his revue sketches at the Morris retreats.” She stopped to scrutinize her son. “Why did you ask if you were adopted?”

Tull shrugged, suddenly exhausted. “I don’t know.”

“Because he was. Your father was.”

The boy enlivened. “Who were his parents?”

“His real parents? He was never able to find out.”

“Was he in an orphanage?”

“I already told you, he was adopted.”

“But you have to be in an orphanage first, don’t you?”

“I suppose. He never discussed it.”

“Then where did he live — I mean, grow up?”

“Redlands. That’s where he was raised. Lovely people.”

“Have you seen them? His foster parents? I mean since.”

“No.”

“Was he crazy?”

She consulted the Spirit, and lit up afresh. Then: “Something happened when he was at Oxford … when he was a student.”

“Like what?”

“He didn’t talk about it much. All I knew was that he put himself in the hospital — from the pressure of exams.” Pullman yawned, stretching in the doorway like a guardian-statue come alive. “And something happened in France, too, the first time we saw the tower.”

She retrieved the snapshot taken at the Désert de Retz and handed it to a goggle-eyed Tull. There, short-bearded and charismatic, with open brow and fearful eyes, stood his washed-up father in front of the ruin, which itself looked beached in the bowl of a lea. He’d never seen the man before, and stifled a surge of tears that seemed to rush up from the earth like an electrical charge.

“Keep it if you like.”

“ What happened in France?”

“When we left that place, your father insisted on walking. He wouldn’t get in the car. So I drove while he strolled — all the way to Versailles. It was awful. I followed alongside the way they do in those bike marathons. I had to make sure he didn’t hurt himself … but I was the one who almost almost got killed. He wouldn’t even talk to me. I checked into a little hotel — this was in Versailles — and after cajoling him like hell, he finally came in and lay down on the floor. We were in that room for days; I’m still shocked no one called the police. I don’t think either of us slept. Anyway, Bluey knew a doctor in Paris — Bluey knew a lot of doctors in Paris — how we got him there I’ll never remember. They finally put him under. For a whole week I kept bedside vigil at the Plaza Athénée; I just didn’t want him in the hospital, which was probably a mistake. When we got Marcus to the States, we put him in a private place in Westwood on Bundy. It’s not there anymore; I think it fell apart in the earthquake.” She stared at her lap, wondering if she had already said too much — or if that was even possible. “They gave him shock treatment and that seemed to help. The quality of life got better anyhow. It couldn’t have been much worse! He started being his old self again. Your father and I had a lot of fun together,” she said wistfully. “He and your grandpa got very close. They hardly said a word, but they loved each other — the way Louis and Pullman are when they’re together. Ha! Just like Grandpa and Pullie! After a month or so, Marcus went back to work and just flourished . Lots of important clients: Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep. Then it started all over again, the mania, sleeplessness — the walking. Walk walk walk walk walk. Oh God, I think once he walked to Montecito. It culminated in …” She sighed, looking off into space. “It went on like that — relapse and recovery, relapse and recovery — and when we got married … you know, we didn’t know anything about your grandfather’s gift — it was a very well kept secret. We saw La Colonne for the first time on the day of our wedding, like everyone else. I can’t tell you the look in your father’s eyes when we emerged from the allée and saw it perched up there on the hill, waiting — for him. He shook all over, then tried to get his bearings … like he was having shock treatment again! Then came a look of … acquiescence. Tull, it was so scary to see— the mountain had come to Mohammed . This inescapable thing that in France so unhinged him had somehow taken flight across the Atlantic and set up residence, like a dream. Bizarre! Your grandfather couldn’t have had any idea … because Marcus and I had spoken so glowingly of the place — it truly was magical, and Grandpa Lou was so taken with it, by our enthusiasm. You know how he can be. But he — your grandfather — was merely the instrument … I remember watching Marcus standing there smiling to himself as if — as if he finally understood , as if he had some final understanding that he was trapped, in a web — a spiderweb — I saw the shadow of the tower cross his face like some fairy-tale dungeon. It had come for him!”

She trembled, and Tull moved closer to take her arm. She stubbed out her cigarette, took a deep breath, and composed herself. “That must have been his thinking, anyway.”

“And he left the next day?”

She nodded. “I was still sleeping.”

“And that’s why you took the drugs?”

She looked pale and flustered. He could see her capillaries and the fine down of her cheeks; could hear the blood beating through her veins.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s why you took the drugs? Because he left you?”

She was duty-bound to answer everything now.

“I was just so … astonished. I thought we could — get through anything . We’d already been through so much in so short a time. But never to see him again? That he would just walk away? I hadn’t considered the possibility. It wasn’t an option.”

A delicate hand rose to blot the tears. Tull wrapped his arms around her, imagining his mother’s hot breath like a frightened calf’s. Then he said all he could think to say that was true: “But he loved you.”

The words hung in the air, an indisputable paradox, sad and just, with no corollary or conclusion. The Withdrawing Room fell silent save for the sound of her weeping. Pullman loped over, lowering himself at their feet — and that simple act unleashed in her a round of sobs, wails and clenches that inured Tull to manhood before he even knew what had taken place.