“I’d as soon embrace my weak points. To what end would I change?”
Well, this one, thought Dulcy. His thoughts, these days, only enlarged for his own soul, and sometimes he claimed he wasn’t ill at all—it was all a mistake, a momentary lull. He said he was embarking on his third life, another wife, no strife. Back to the idea of Mexico; perhaps he’d seek out a fine woman he’d once known in Christopher’s town.
???
But then: He called out in the night, and after a bolt of fear that Victor was involved, she hurried to unlock the door. Walton was hysterical, wild, curled up like a little boy; he’d had a dream, and all he could say for a bit was no no no. He said he was hot, and she put a wet cloth on his head, but his skin was icy. Dulcy brought tea, and then whiskey, and an hour later Walton managed to tell his dream:
His mother had sent a light to find him underground, where he slept; he had followed a glass candle upward for miles. She wanted him to find a lost horse, and he’d started out, but he was so tired, his feet so sore, that he’d decided to fly. He’d circled over the peninsula—he remembered seeing Penzance, and he remembered swooping closer to see glittery-eyed dolphins in the water. But no horse, and the rain began to fall, and it made his plumage wet—he was really a bird by now, again, as in the dream when Dulcy had first arrived—and he began to plummet toward the waves, diving like a seabird with his mouth open, feeling himself dying as he plunged past seahorses and sharks and octopi, swallowing the world—the unwarped primal world—toward a mountain which split his breast.
“And you woke up?”
“And I died,” he said. “And that wasn’t so hard, but then I understood I wouldn’t see my mother again. It was as if it was sixty years ago.”
Tears ran down his face again, and she dabbed with a handkerchief. “Tell me what’s happening to my eye,” he said. “Tell me what you see.”
He watched her intently, and she didn’t react. “I think it could be some sort of rash, perhaps from all this seafood. Perhaps just a sty.”
“Are you sure?”
“No,” she said. “But I think that’s the likeliest thing.” Her hands were shaking: his eyelid was about to open up.
“Bring me a mirror?”
“No,” said Dulcy.
“Well,” he said. “Vanitas. Everything means something, dear.”
???
Dr. Dagglesby’s wiry assistant showed up panting with a prescription and a note the next morning, delaying an appointment—the doctor was busy saving a life, a worthy life. The nurse had sent word that she was sick. It was that kind of day.
“Worthy,” said Victor, flushing.
“No one wanted to see the man, anyway,” said Dulcy.
She wasn’t sure if Walton had slept. When he was wheeled into the dining room for breakfast—Henning had found a wheelchair for Walton that had a large tray, and he managed to balance his eggs and two notebooks (black and turquoise) without spilling—he told them it was the 212th anniversary of the destruction of Catania, sixty thousand dead so long ago; he’d been hearing old voices every time he shut his eyes. Old was the sound of the day, as in sold, mold, told, and gold, which was why Victor delayed a meeting at the newspaper. But Walton worked his way to rolled, and cajoled, and retold, and then told Henning stories about the notable card games of his life, so many of which had happened during earthquakes.
“You played always,” said Henning. “Are you trying to say earthquakes happened because of the game?”
Victor, transparently hungover, was sipping tomato juice.
“Everything happens for a reason,” said Walton, smiling.
“You lost my money for a reason?” asked Victor.
“Your money is safe.”
Victor drained his glass and stood and walked over to Walton’s wheelchair. Dulcy started to rise and Henning was halfway there when Victor bent with his face a few inches from Walton’s and screamed, “Where is the fucking money , old man ?”
Henning moved past him, twirled Walton’s wheelchair, and pushed him out of the room. “I will kill you if you touch him,” said Dulcy.
“I might welcome that,” said Victor.
She ran down the hall after Henning, and they helped Walton into the bathroom, and then into bed. Henning said he’d get Victor to the newspaper; the meeting would be long and would give him time to calm down.
“Such an unhappy human,” said Walton. “Henning, you must never forget that you are the better man.”
“Are you sure?” asked Henning, at the door. He pointed to the lock, and Dulcy nodded.
“I am.”
Walton slept, and Dulcy waited for the sound of the elevator. When it came she went to the window and watched until she saw the cousins emerge and climb into the maroon Daimler. Walton’s voice startled her.
“It’s no good. I can’t remember, but he won’t give up until it’s over.”
“We’ll just have to find it then.” She straightened his stack of notebooks, bird books, mythology. The garnet journal was on top, and she opened it to read a calm but lunatic entry about transformation and memory, germs and gems and genies and gender and gentleness. “Sooner or later, they’ll find the bank you used. Your writing is steadier.”
“So it goes,” he said. “I’d like us to be on a train next week. You must get some things for me while they’re away.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I’ll call Carrie if I need anything. You must go to the library to find books of sea mammals and fish. I would like to identify the things I saw in my dream. And I would like another bottle of morphine.”
“Didn’t someone go to the druggist yesterday?”
“Bottlebrush spilled it all. I need more. My head is full of forks. You think I’m at peace when I sleep, but I’m not.”
“Is this a new pain?” His skin was gray, and it caved in around his mouth and the bridge of his nose. She touched his hand and it was cold; she touched his icy foot and he didn’t even notice and wave her away.
“When my eyes are shut, I’m in a bad place, Dulce. I’m underground, and I need to be out in the air. Buy some train tickets, San Francisco or Santa Barbara. Get us some champagne, too. I haven’t had champagne for the longest time.”
“All right. Don’t think about the underground.”
He wanted to sit by the window; Dulcy got Carrie, grumbling, to help get him into the rolling chair. Walton was still teasing his younger daughter about learning to be motherly as Dulcy pulled on a coat and a knit cap and stuffed banknotes into her pocket. She kissed his forehead and started for the door. “Dulce.”
“What?”
“When this is over, you must leave this place, and you must never see this man again.”