Ethan Canin - A Doubter's Almanac

I could hear her calm breathing.

“And the Royal Sovereign, Paulie. They’re both still here. I’d bet they’d still float.”

Another silence.

“They’re still here, Paulie. Don’t you remember? In the bushes by the well pump. They looked like a couple of arks. You remember all that, don’t you? Freeboard? The potato cannons? The Battle of Trafalgar?”

“No.”

“Come on, Paulie. You’re kidding. You have to remember.”

“I mean no, I’m not coming out. Yes, I remember. Of course I remember. I remember a lot of other things, too.”

“Are you serious? You really won’t?”

“Hans,” she said. “You still don’t understand. This is the same old quicksand.”

—

“YOU AND PAULIE, Dad,” I said. “You’re still not getting along, are you?”

“Your sister takes everything to heart.” He lit another cigarette. “Just like your mother.”

“Look, Dad—”

“Don’t bother.” He brushed his hand at me. He was leaning against the windowsill, and now he turned to the view. “I’ve heard it all already, Hans. In fact, I paid your mother’s assassin for the privilege of hearing it.”

“Mom’s had to look out for herself.”

“She had a job, Hans.”

“Well, you could have one, too.”

He laughed, miserably. “Look at me. Do I look like someone you’d hire?” He slapped his belly, which was entirely different from what it had been when I’d arrived but still echoed under his hand. “I wouldn’t hire me to drop a rock down a hole.” He lowered himself into the chair. Outside the window, a pickup had crossed the bridge and was making its way along the water. It turned in at a lot. “They found gas up here,” he said. “That’s what all the excitement’s about.”

“It’s certainly different.”

“Well, you have the speculators to thank for that. If you leave a door unlocked, they’ll drill a well in your kitchen. Built a service center up the road, too. That’s what all the houses are. This place might actually be worth something.”

“Dad,” I said. “Have you and Paulie spoken?”

“No, not in years. Look at that. You can see all the way to the bridge now. Look at all the garages. They built ten last year.” He rose, straining to push himself from the chair. Once on his feet, though, he was steady again. He crossed to the window. Where the pickup had parked, a man on a roof was tilting up a pulley. We watched his partner unload a pallet of shingles from the truck, hooking them into a basket. The basket rose on cables, and presently the ktchka-ktchka-ktchka of a nail gun came ricocheting across the cove.

“Dad,” I said, “I haven’t really done anything with the mathematics you taught me.”

He looked back at me. “I liked those dinners in New York well enough.”

“Still, the mathematics — most of it was wasted.”

He laughed. “Well,” he said. “If that’s the case, then that makes two of us.”

—

ON MY PHONE, I went to RECENTS. She answered on the first ring. “Oh, Hans,” she said. “I’m glad it’s you. I’ve been worried about your father.”

“He’s okay, Mrs. Biettermann. He seems a lot better now.”

“Good.” There was a pause. Then, out of nowhere, she laughed. “Say my name again.”

“What?”

“My full name.”

“Cle Biettermann.”

“Cle Wells .” After a moment, she said, “My, my.”

“I wanted to thank you for letting me know about him. I came up to the cabin and found him in pretty dire shape — you were right. I’m still in Michigan.”

“But he’s doing better now?”

“The doctor drained some fluid yesterday, and it seemed to help quite a bit.”

“That little Indian fellow in the beat-up Mercedes?”

“Dr. Gandapur, yes.”

There was another pause.

“Mrs. Wells?”

“Yes?”

“Well, nothing.”

—

ON THE LAST day of my visit, I was awakened by the sound of scraping. The sun was just coming up, and when I looked out through the screens, it took me a moment to realize what was happening. Dr. Gandapur stood in the clearing. With the sole of his wing tip, he was working a shovel into the earth.

He was digging Dad’s grave.

“Ah,” he said when I arrived beside him. “I hope I haven’t awakened you.”

“Oh, no. I was just surprised to see you here this early. I was awake anyway.”

I looked down: he was planting something.

“Ah, of course.” I fingered the tomato stems next to the hole he was making. “I’d been wondering how he kept up a garden.”

The shovel went in again. He set aside a measure of soil, then reached into his pocket and brought out a handful of bulbs. “Man does not live by bread alone,” he said. “I would like to get in a few saffron crocus, to surprise him in the fall.”

“And the rest of it? You’ve done this whole thing?”

“No, no — not all of it. Your father does a part of it himself. It lures him out of the house. You’re seeing him at a difficult interval, as I think you know. These episodes come and go. He is a bull, though. He looks much better than when you arrived, don’t you think so?”

“And the groceries in the kitchen — that’s you, too, isn’t it?”

“They are quite minimal.”

“They’re not, actually. Thank you.”

He set a bulb into one of the holes.

“And the house?” I said. “Are you the one who’s keeping everything in order?”

“He won’t let me touch the upstairs.”

“I can see that.”

I considered taking out my wallet.

Somehow, he knew, and he raised his hand. “Ah, but you see,” he said, “my own children are grown. My son is in Washington and my daughter is in Palo Alto. They are good children, but they have their own lives now.” He dropped his eyes. “And my wife is no longer with us. So it is really for myself that I do it. We Jesuits — we have always embraced the concept.”

“Which concept would that be, Doctor?”

“That serving others is in fact service to oneself.” He turned and from his other pocket offered me a trowel. “Here,” he said. “I would not refuse your help, though. I was hoping to get two rows parallel.”

I took the tool from his hand. Tendrils of false grape were winding in from the periphery, and around them the soil was loose; but the roots still knotted together in every direction. It seemed something of a miracle that the beans and tomatoes had grown at all. “Does he mind,” I said, “that you’re doing all of this for him?”

“He doesn’t seem to mind at all, actually.”

“Even though he says he wants to be alone?”

“I doubt the veracity of that claim. I don’t believe that anybody truly wants to be alone. Especially not someone of our age.”

We went back to digging.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Please don’t be.”

For a time, then, we worked in silence. He walked ahead, watering the rows from a bucket. Presently, he said, “We discuss maths, you know. I’m somewhat rusty, of course, but I still comprehend a reasonable part of it. I’m not too humble to say so. It is very exciting for me. I think he might in a small way even appreciate my company. He has told me about his new work.”

“I’m sure he does appreciate your company, very much.” I pushed the trowel along to make a trough for the bulbs. “So what did he tell you about his new work?”

“I cannot say.” He looked sideways at me. “He believes there are those who would steal it, as you know.”

“Yes, I do know.”

“Well, what can you do?” He glanced up at the windows. “I can tell you that it’s geometry. Low dimension. About any more than that, I have been sworn to secrecy.”