He connected the extension cord to the last lamp tripod, and as he pulled the long cord toward the steps leading up to the patio, careful not to whack the newly bloomed mophead hydrangeas, he felt excited. What would his garden look like illuminated in the darkest hours of night? He could work out there all night if it came to it, picking the caterpillars off the leaves of the surrounding trees. The trees were everything. If he couldn’t save them, he was worth nothing. It had been the trees, in Prospect Park and Central Park and the Bronx Botanical Gardens that had first helped him believe that art began in nature.
He sucked in a deep, steadying breath, his swollen finger on the switch connecting the lamps. The garden was awash in light. As if illuminated from above by a massive beam. He had to squint to see. It wasn’t what he’d expected. In the artificial blaze, the leaves of the lilac trees and dogwood looked sickly. Unnatural. Alien. The caterpillars stood out like tiny black wounds. Hundreds of punctures. The enormity of the trauma socked him hard. His poor trees.
He pulled the plug and was about to make his way back to the cottage, already singing the code softly—Left, right, right, left—when the deafening sound came from above. He bent his knees, shielded his head with his arms, thinking it must be an airplane falling from the sky, the end of the world, an asteroid racing toward earth, and then he knew it was the bell in the tower. In his tower. BONG. BONG. BONG. The ground shook under his feet and he feared it was enough to make his damaged trees give up their last bit of life.
*
He took the stone steps two at a time. BONG. BONG. His teeth rattled.
Halfway up, the bell, mercifully, stopped.
Coming out of the stairwell and into the star-pocked sky, he had a moment of vertigo. It was his first time in the tower at night and the sea and sky seemed like one vast canvas, as if he had floated up into the Milky Way.
He saw him. A hunched figure standing at the lip of the wall, leaning over the edge.
“Stop!” Jules shouted. He leapt forward, grabbed the thing’s jacket, and yanked it to the ground.
It was an old man. Wearing a ridiculous jacket … no, a robe. In a gaudy Hawaiian print—orange hibiscus blooming on turquoise. He almost laughed aloud when he recognized the old man from the dessert party. The Colonel. Veronica’s Colonel, and Dom’s.
“We’re in the belly of the whale,” the old man whispered, clutching at the collar of Jules’s dirt-streaked tee. “It’s swallowed us whole.”
“You’re okay,” Jules said, catching his breath, trying to slow his heart—not sure if he was reassuring the old man or himself.
“Where is the admiral?”
“Um, I don’t know any admirals,” Jules said. “Can I help you down the stairs? Take you back home?”
Jules hooked his hands under the old man’s flabby arms.
“Let’s stand up now, sir. It’s cold up here. We’ll go downstairs,” Jules spoke as if it were little Eva sitting there, her arms crossed midtantrum. “I’ll make us some coffee.”
“I’m not here for a goddamn tea party, son. Admiral Marshall! Wake him immediately.”
Jesus, the man was out of his mind, and here Jules was, once again, alone. He considered shouting over the wall for Leslie, but she was asleep in the cottage and there was no way she’d hear him, and the last thing he wanted to do was lean over the edge. Who knew—this crazy old goat might try to push him.
“The admiral…” Jules began, ready to state the obvious, that Leslie’s father was dead, had been dead for more than ten years, but he decided to play along, guessing that would be a more efficient way to calm this guy down, get him back downstairs, so he could figure out how to get him home. “I’ll see if I can wake the admiral, okay? But first, we need to get you down the stairs.”
“I can’t!” the old man cried. “Please,” he held his hands out, palms up. “Don’t make me leave the watch. The Germans will be here any minute. I promised him I’d keep watch.”
“Promised who?” Jules said.
He heard the slow shuffling of steps coming up the stairs and almost groaned with relief. Leslie was coming to his rescue, at last.
“The admiral, you fool!”
The man had shifted from whimpering, cowering child into bullheaded raging adult.
“Who the hell are you anyway?” he bellowed. “Are you his man?”
“Man?” Jules took a step toward the dimly lit stairway. What was taking Leslie so goddamned long?
“His man. His servant.” The old man shook his head.
“Now, you listen to me,” Jules said, straightening to his full height, his hands fisted at his sides. “I’m trying to be civil. But you are trespassing on my property.”
“Bob?” A soft, creaking voice came from the stairwell.
It was Veronica. She wore what looked like a pink bathrobe, dotted here and there with crawling caterpillars. Her pink-slippered feet were stained black.
“Nicky!” the old man cried, reaching for her. “Wake Admiral Marshall. Tell him to call Bobby Kennedy and Admiral McCain. And”—he was wheezing and Jules feared he was having a heart attack—“Frank. We need Frank over at Plant 2. Tell the admiral to call Jack and say—you listening, Nicky? Say the watch is over. He’ll know what I mean. Tell him the Krauts are here. But wait…” He paused, his fingers picking at his bottom lip. Like a scared child, Jules thought. The old man’s voice dropped to a whisper: “We don’t know who could be listening in. Tell him, Pastorius. Operation Pastorius. You want me to spell it for you? P-A-…”
The old woman sat down next to her husband. Jules wondered if he should run to get Leslie now, bring up some blankets. The stone floor under his feet was chilled. The sea wind fierce. They could catch pneumonia. Veronica was trying to calm the man down, shushing him the way Leslie did Eva after the little girl had cried so hard and long she could only hiccup and gasp for breath.
“Nicky!” the man cried. “Why aren’t you writing this down? P-A-S-”
“Yes, sweetheart,” she said tenderly, nodding slowly as she spelled out the rest, “T-O-R-I-U-S. I know. But that was a long time ago. It’s 1992, Bob … 1992.”
Jules knew only that the word was Latin. But not the Latin he’d studied his whole adult life. That was a peaceful Latin. The genus and species and kingdoms of plants.
“Ma’am?”
“Veronica,” she said, and smiled at him. He could see how beautiful she must have been once. “I’m so very sorry for this. He hasn’t been himself.”
“What can I do to help?”
The old man wept. His head cradled in the bony nook between the woman’s collarbone and chin. He shuddered as she stroked his back over his thin pajama shirt. “Shhh,” the woman cooed, “shhh,” and with her hands naked of all those jeweled rings, her thin white hair mussed, her face makeup-free, Jules was transported into a fairy tale. Where on earth was he? At the top of a castle tower by the shining silver sea with a fallen king and queen. As if he’d been dropped into one of the tragedies penned by old Willy, from whom Jules’s mother had borrowed his name.
“I’d be so grateful,” the old woman said, “if you could help us down the stairs, Julius.”