a priest was quite a blow. We,re Catholic, of course. But that was something my mother had simply never dreamt of, and I have my theory why he did it, you know, the psychological angle, but the truth is, he,s a fine priest. He,s stationed in San Francisco. He works at St. Francis at Gubbio Church in the Tenderloin, and runs a dining room for the homeless. He works harder than my mother. And they,re the hardest-working two people I know." And Celeste would be the third-hardest-working person, wouldn,t she?
They talked on about the digs. Reuben had never been one for details, didn,t get very far examining potsherds, but he loved what he did learn. He was eager to see the clay tablets.
They talked of other things. Marchent,s "failure," as she put it, with her brothers who were never interested in the house or in Felix or in the things that Felix left behind.
"I didn,t know what to do after the accident," Marchent said. She rose and wandered towards the fireplace. She poked at the flames, and the fire flared bright again. "The boys had already been through five different boarding schools. Kicked out for drinking. Kicked out for drugs. Kicked out for selling drugs."
She came back to the table. Felice shuffled in with another fifth of the superb wine.
Marchent went on, her voice low and confiding and amazingly trusting.
"I think they,ve been in every rehab in the country," she said, "and a few overseas as well. They know just what to tell the judge to get sent to rehab, and just what to tell the therapists when they,re inside. It,s amazing the way they win the doctors, trust. And of course they load up on all the psychiatric meds they can before they,re discharged."
She looked up suddenly. "Reuben, you will not write about this ever," she said.
"Unthinkable," he replied. "But Marchent, most journalists can,t be trusted. You do know that, don,t you?"
"I suppose," she said.
"I had a good friend at Berkeley who died of an overdose. That,s how I met my girlfriend, Celeste. He was her brother. Anyway, he had everything, you know, and the drugs just got him, and he died like a dog, in a barroom toilet. Nobody could do a thing."
Sometimes he thought that it was Willie,s death that bound them together, him and Celeste, or at least it had for a while. Celeste had gone on from Berkeley to Stanford Law School, and passed the bar as soon as she finished. Willie,s death gave the affair a certain gravity, a musical accompaniment in the minor key.
"We don,t know why people go that route," Reuben said. "Willie was brilliant, but he was an addict. He was there to stay while his friends were just passing through."
"That,s it, exactly. I must have done every drug myself that my brothers ever did. But somehow these things didn,t appeal."
"I,m with you," he said.
"Of course they,re furious that everything was left to me. But they were little children when Uncle Felix went away. He would have changed his will to take care of them, had he ever come home."
"Didn,t they have money from your parents?"
"Oh, definitely. And from grandparents and great-grandparents before them. They went through it with breathtaking speed, giving parties here for hundreds of people, and financing rock bands of druggies like themselves who hadn,t a chance of success. They drive drunk, crash the cars and somehow walk away without a scratch. One of these days they,ll kill somebody, or kill themselves."
She explained that she would settle quite a lot on them as soon as the property was sold. She didn,t have to do it, but she would. The bank would dole it out so that they didn,t blow it all as they,d done their inheritance. But they didn,t like any of this. As for the house, it had no sentimental value to them whatsoever, and if they thought they could fence Felix,s collectibles, they would have stolen them all a long time ago.
"The fact is, they don,t know the value of most of the treasures hidden in this house. They break a lock now and then and abscond with some pedestrian item. But mostly, it,s extortion - you know, drunken calls in the middle of the night, threatening suicide, and I usually end up sooner or later writing a big check. They bear with the lectures, the tears, and the advice for the money. And then they,re gone again, off to the Caribbean, or Hawaii, or down