He closed his eyes and floated. Pierrot drifted away. He knew that he ought to take a peek at his whereabouts in the universe so that he could find his way back. His eyelids were great, heavy velvet curtains, very difficult to draw. Perhaps he had floated out a window, into the Milky Way.
As the effects of the heroin wore off, the wings folded up and retracted into his shoulder blades. He was surprised the wings were able to fit back in once they had been outside of him. But they were gone.
20
IN WHICH MRS. MCMAHON HAS AN IDEA
What were you talking to the governess about?” McMahon asked his wife later.
“Oh, Marie. Or actually, Rose. That’s what she likes to be called, you know.”
“Is that what the children call her?”
“Of course. They’ll do anything she says.”
“Then why doesn’t she get them to behave? Why does everyone else have ordinary children but we somehow brought wild animals into this world?”
“Maybe she just doesn’t care. Or maybe she doesn’t know they’re misbehaving.”
“You give her too much freedom. She can’t handle it. She’s like a little dog let out of a cage.”
“She’s a romantic. Can you believe it? Her mother gave birth to her and then kicked her out the door, and she still believes in love.”
“Who is she in love with? Did she tell you his name?”
“She doesn’t use his real name when she talks about him. He has some stupid nickname. But his real name is Joseph. She says she’s going to find him. When she does, she doesn’t want to marry him, she just wants to be his lover. She says he can do handstands and twirl a ball on his feet. She has a dream that she’s going to find him and go on the road with him.”
“Why do you listen to that?”
“Because it’s like a fairy tale.”
“Does she have any contact with him? Does she have any idea where he is?”
“I’m going to the orphanage tomorrow. It’s so simple. I’ll ask where the little idiot was sent to live, and then we’ll go visit him. If he even remembers who Rose is, I’ll give her a dollar.”
“I’d love to see this fabled creature too.”
“I’ll tell you all about it. I’ll be taking the car, by the way.”
? ? ?
MCMAHON INTERCEPTED ROSE on her way home. She was carrying a basket of bread and fish that she’d purchased down at the market.
“Don’t come close to me. Don’t touch me,” Rose said as soon as she saw him.
“Don’t go in the house.”
“Why not?”
“My wife found out about us.”
Rose fell down on her knees. She began tearing at the grass. She pulled huge clumps of it, as though it weren’t listening to her and she needed a reaction.
“I’ve made a mess of everything! What in the world will I do now? What will come of me? I’ve ruined your family. I was finally getting along with your wife. Oh why, oh why, oh why am I such a pervert? It’s the ruin of me, of course. I have such demented thoughts in my head, you have no idea.”
She rolled over onto her back and flopped both arms out to the side, martyring herself.
“And the children,” Rose said. “They are crazy already. Please don’t tell me that they knew anything about this. They’ll go completely out of their minds. They’ll end up killing small animals. They’ll end up murderers. I’ll probably be like this my whole life. It’s my great character flaw. I’ll probably have hundreds of strange degenerates for lovers. Someone will write a terrible novel about me.”
McMahon looked down at Rose in her supine position. She was so lovely, he thought. She was so absurd. How could he not adore that absurdity? Until then his feelings for Rose had consisted mostly of perverted desire and the subsequent reactions of fear and revulsion: the typical emotions that played themselves out when he had an affair with any woman. None of them had surprised him in the least. Those emotions couldn’t tame or threaten a man like him. But he was surprised by the emotion that he was having right then, looking at Rose. Actually, it would be safe to say that he was shocked by it. He was feeling that very rare thing: love.
He could have dropped her off at the door of any of his brothels. There were so many girls with similar backgrounds to Rose’s. They all used bad judgment. We all make mistakes. And isn’t that what money is for, so you don’t have to pay for them?
“Sister Elo?se was right about me.” Rose spoke to the sky. “I thought that it was nothing at all to go around waltzing and cavorting with a make-believe bear every night. But she knew what I should have known, which is that there is no such thing as make-believe. I probably was invoking the devil. It wasn’t a bear I was dancing with but the devil. I’m cursed.”
But she was so lovely! She was plagued with remorse. And racked with guilt. She believed she was a sinner. He remembered the wonderful days when he was able to feel all those things. Rose would make him feel them again. He would be a brute for her. He would never let another man have her, especially not an orphan. He reached his hand out and gently took hers. She got up off the ground.
She trudged along beside McMahon. The ribbon in her hair was beating around wildly in the wind, like a black stallion not wanting to be broken.
21
SKETCH OF MAN WITH MONKEY