The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga #2) - James Lee Burke Page 0,78
out of The Arabian Nights, the book that probably saved her sanity as a child. But no matter how grand a place the world might be, my mother’s eyes had the hollow expression of someone staring into a crypt. My father and I took her out for Mexican food at Felix’s, and as I looked at the misery in her face, I knew that voices no one else heard were speaking to her and soon our family doctor would have her back in electroshock, a rubber gag in her mouth, her wrists strapped to a table.
At that moment in the middle of the restaurant, I made a decision to lie or do whatever else was necessary to keep her from descending into the madness that the Hollands carried in their genes and the scientific world further empowered in its own hothouse of quackery and ignorance.
“I talked to one of the detectives who investigated Mr. Krauser’s death, Mother,” I said. “The detective says Mr. Krauser may have been abducted and thrown from the roof of the building.”
She ate with small bites, her gaze fixed on nothing. I waited for her to speak. My words seemed to have had no effect. Then she looked at me, her eyes empty, focused on a spot next to my face. “Why would they do that?”
“Maybe Mr. Krauser was mixed up with people who send homeless boys to indoctrination camps,” I said.
“He did that?” she said.
“No one is sure,” I said.
My mother took another bite, chewing slowly. My father watched her as he would someone walking a wire high above a canyon. The only time my father ever drank in front of my mother was when the three of us were at a restaurant, as though a geographical armistice had been declared between the forces of his addiction and my mother’s intolerance. Tonight he had not ordered a beer with his dinner. It was the first time I had ever seen him not do so, and I suspected it had not been easy.
“Listen to Aaron,” he said. “I think he knows what he’s talking about.”
She stopped eating and placed her fork and knife in an X on her plate.
“Are you not hungry?” he said.
“I shouldn’t have eaten a sandwich this afternoon,” she said. “Do they have a dessert menu here? I can’t remember. What’s the name of that dessert made with ice cream and cinnamon and mint leaves?”
“It’s called ice cream with cinnamon and spearmint leaves,” he said.
“I’d love to have that now. Yes, something that’s cold and sweet with a taste of mint in it. When I was a little girl, we used to make hand-crank ice cream on the porch, up on the Guadalupe. It was wonderful to eat ice cream on the porch on a summer evening. We should go up there for a weekend sometime.”
“I think that’s a fine idea,” my father said. “What do you think, Aaron?”
Maybe there was some truth to my lie about Mr. Krauser’s death. Or maybe a lie can bring mercy and grace upon us when virtue cannot. I didn’t want to research the question. My mother seemed happy. It was a rare moment in what had been the declining arc in an afflicted person’s life.
Chapter
20
THE NEXT NIGHT my father drove up to the Heights to introduce himself to Mr. Epstein. Mr. Epstein had told me he was not a Communist “now.” I wasn’t sure what that meant. To me communism seemed like such a ridiculous system that no rational person could respect or fear it. By the same token, I didn’t think anyone who had bought in to such a joyless mind-set could have the ability to rid himself of it.
My father did not ask me to go with him. I hated to think about the political collision he might have with Mr. Epstein. My father returned home in under an hour and went into his small study and resumed work on his book about his family, his fountain pen moving across a fresh sheet of paper, a Lucky Strike burning in the ashtray by his forearm. I knew he was among the horde of men in tattered gray and butter-brown uniforms advancing up a slope in sweltering July heat at a place called Cemetery Hill.
I pulled up a chair behind him. He didn’t look up from his work. “Everything go okay?” I finally said.
“Hi, Aaron,” he replied. “You gave me a start. I thought you might be a Yankee sharpshooter.”