The Blue Hour Page 3

  “You know us as well as anybody,” Nick said. “We have principled beliefs.”

  The weight of his hand on my wrist began to anger me. “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree,” I said, drawing my hand back. Before me sat an old married couple united by love – it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

  After high-school graduation, Hedy had spent a few years at Juilliard, but she suffered an injury to her shoulder, couldn’t practice long hours, and went home to recover. By then I’d left the country and, in that world before e-mail, we kept in touch with just birthday cards and holiday greetings. Almost twenty years later I returned to Oberlin for a job at the college, and we resumed our friendship as if we were the same people. That first winter my father died, dementia began to claim my mother, and she had to move in with me. Then her decline sped up, and Hedy and Nick often visited us, always including her in our talks, never showing impatience. I still felt grateful to them for that. But I was perplexed. What had hardened such caring friends, making them angry and fearful? They were good people; are good people.

  “If we were younger,” Hedy said, “I’d want Nick to run for office. He’d be great, he’s so sensitive. But the system’s rigged.” She watched her husband’s broadening smile. “Well, that’s what I think. Don’t be embarrassed, dear.”

  I was always glad they didn’t bicker in front of me the way couples sometimes do, as if it’s a rite of married love. And yet it seemed wise to change the subject – I did a lot of that – and ask Hedy about any new sculptures.

  “I have some photographs on my cell phone,” Nick said, reaching for it.

  “Don’t show him,” Hedy said, her face tightening in a grimace. I drew back as if slapped.

  “Oh, no, I want to, hon,” Nick said, fiddling with his phone and ignoring her.

  “He won’t like them,” Hedy insisted.

  “What do you mean? I’ve always liked your work.”

  “They’re not really your style.” Her face clouded with an unidentifiable emotion.

  Hyper real, her ceramic creatures stood as proof of the time she’d spent studying sculpting, glazing, firing. Perhaps Hedy was miffed that I hadn’t bought something at her exhibition last fall, but I already owned one five-hundred-dollar raccoon.

  Nick held up some images and I said they were full of life.

  “Of course he liked them,” Nick said.

  He, him, he…

  Hedy stared out the dining-room window, at branches of forsythia in yellow profusion. What kind of test had I nearly failed? Still, we made plans for a day of antiquing, yet I’d felt only saddened when they left.

  Frustrated by the memory, I crossed my study, searched its bookshelves, and found a worn paperback from my undergraduate days: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, with his thoughts about friendship. I needed some help. The words exchange and goodness came back to mind. Friendship has to have an ethical dimension – this I did remember. After the last week, I’d had my fill of friends so I unplugged the telephone. With a Scotch finally in hand, I cracked open the book.

  An hour later, the doorbell interrupted my reading. Though the house had darkened, I didn’t turn on another lamp. Even rooms known well can seem ominous in the dark. Once all the lights are on, will they be the same as you left them? When I opened the front door, Theo Eliades stood there, looking sheepish. “Your answering machine’s off and I started to worry.”

  “I didn’t mean to worry you, Theo. Sorry, I’m fine. Come on in. Want a drink?”

  “I’d like to but Neil’s waiting for me. We’re going for some Chinese chow, you could join us. He’s treating me tonight. I just wanted to make sure you were still alive.”

  We both laughed. Until then I hadn’t noticed Theo’s car parked at the curb with Neil in the driver’s seat. I couldn’t hear if the motor was running.

  “Well, I am. Alive as I can be.”

  3

  Wednesday, April 8

  Two of Hedy’s raccoons were posed to scamper across the fireplace mantel, while at the opposite end an unfamiliar creature peered at them.

  “Is that a skunk?” I asked. I didn’t think Hedy made skunks. “No, wait, it looks like a badger.”

  “That’s right,” Guy said, grinning, with the whitest teeth I’d ever seen.

  “Badgers in this part of the country?”

  “It’s from an old British book,” Guy said. “I found it for Mom at an estate sale.”

  The badger’s head appeared to be turned upwards and cocked to the left, as if a sound had startled it during a nocturnal hunt or while guarding its cubs. Amazing that a clay creature could seem frozen in time like this.

  “When I was seven she read me The Wind in the Willows, and after that I always wanted a pet badger.” He paused for a moment, perhaps lost in a memory. “Here, I’ll show you around. I’m still unpacking.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure why I’d come to see Guy. Maybe Sheila’s talk made me ashamed that I hadn’t bothered to know him better.

  In any small town, even a few blocks can make a big demographic difference. Guy’s place was located in Oberlin’s southeast corner, not far from the Groveland and Pleasant Street intersection, the center of our roughest neighborhood. That is, if you can use the word rough for something this ordinary. While marijuana is popular with students, hard drugs predominate here. There’s not much local crime, mainly breaking and entering and petty thefts, but most of it originates nearby. Sheila lived a short walk away, but on a better block.

  The 1920s bungalow sported a few arts-and-crafts features, like beveled glass windows, and an American flag the size of a large dinner napkin had been attached to the post of the porch’s wood railing. The living room where we stood was empty except for a black leather recliner, a pole lamp behind it, and a new flat-screen television on an oak stand. No newspapers or magazines in sight.

  “I’m not in a hurry to buy things,” Guy said, and I followed him into the dining room, where only a large oak bookcase stood against one wall. Three shelves held his collection of Civil War memorabilia, and history books filled the rest. I glanced quickly at a canteen, a belt buckle, a box of cartridges, what appeared to be a regimental cup, and several rows of medals and badges.

  “You’ve got quite a collection.”

  He smiled modestly. “Just the beginning.”

  Half a dozen small frames contained bleary photographs of long-dead young soldiers. Like his parents, Guy probably believed in reincarnation, and perhaps thought he’d been at Gettysburg or Antietam.

  “Here’s the kitchen,” he said, moving away from the bookcase. Over the years we’d spent very little time together, and he must have felt awkward. “I like painting. After a while it reminds me of meditation, when you get into it.”

  “You’ve done a good job.”

  “I hope so.” He looked around as if uncertain that the room belonged to him. “Sheila did the cupboards, it was real nice of her. Mom says you know her, too.”

  “She’s looked after my garden for ages.”

  “I’ll bet she’s good at that. My landlady says I can do whatever I want with the yard. She said I could even plant potatoes, she doesn’t care, as long as I mow the lawn. Sheila’s going to show me what’s growing out there.”

  A 1950s dinette set with a red Formica-topped table was pushed against one wall. Over it hung a framed movie poster from Gone With the Wind, though probably not an original.

  “I brought you something,” I said, handing him a shopping bag that contained a largish cardboard box. “For a housewarming.”

  “A present!” He grinned again, but sheepishly, and took the electric kettle from its box. “This is great, thanks. It’s a really good make.”

  “If you already have one…”

  “I don’t. This is great.” Then he laughed and said, “You can’t have it back.”

  “No, no. It’s yours forever.” I was beginning to see why Sheila liked him.

  Tall, like his fath
er, and with his mother’s fine features and raven hair, though closely cropped to a Velcro fuzz, Guy might have been twenty-four, not ten years older. Without trying, I could see the impress of a young girl named Hedy on his face, the same strong brow, high cheek bones, and aquiline nose. The same heart shape and bow lips.

  “Would you like a Coke? I’m out of tea, I haven’t been grocery shopping.”

  An alcohol-free zone, like Hedy and Nick’s?

  “Sure,” I said, and pulled a kitchen chair out from the table as he went to the refrigerator. There was nothing on the table but an empty wooden napkin holder and Guy’s cell phone.

  He wore a loose gray T-shirt and old jeans, torn at the knees – the uniform du jour – and his lanky long arms had an orangey glow, as if he’d done time in a tanning booth.

  “What made you settle here?” I asked.

  “It’s close to my new job. At the clinic.” He set the cans of soda on the table. “I don’t have any nibbles,” he apologized. “I’m trying to eat healthy, you know. Want a glass?”

  “No, thanks, this is fine. So you like your work? What does a dental technician do?” I snapped the tab on my drink.

  “Dental hygienist,” he corrected. “A little of everything. Cleaning, checking gums, polishing, fluoride treatments. Even whitening.”

  That explained his bright smile. “There’s not much left for the dentist.”

  “They do the fillings and extractions. It’s a pretty good job. I can bike to work and meet interesting people from the college, you’d be surprised. And it doesn’t take up mental space, there’s still time to think about my eBay sales, important things. Like this summer, Mom and Dad and I are driving down to Columbus, to the APIC convention.”

  “The what?”

  “American Political Items Collectors. We’ve got some great old presidential campaign buttons. Really mint Eisenhower buttons. And Goldwater, too.”

  What fed into such nostalgia?

  Guy looked at me intently. “You know, total sales for the convention could reach five million.”

  “That’s hard to believe, but the rare book market often surprises me. I’m sure your parents appreciate your help.”

  Sheila had told me Guy was eager to move out on his own, and here I was, asserting his family’s claims. Would he like living alone? Hedy or Nick might give me updates. I wondered what Guy thought of the shift in their politics, or if he ever asked for their sources and argued about them. Maybe he bought into their views, a Tea Party junior. Those Goldwater buttons made me pause.

  “I’ve started to set up an office in the basement,” he confided. “I’ll show you, if you like. Soon I can use the spare bedroom for working out and meditating.”

  His cell phone beeped, Guy looked down at it, squinted, and said, “I’ll get that later.”

  “I don’t want to keep you from unpacking.”

  “Oh, no, don’t think that. Please.”

  “We’ve never talked by ourselves, Guy, your parents were always there. Everything I know about you comes from them.”

  “That’s alright,” he said calmly.

  Perhaps I’d been wrong to mention it. “You’ll like Oberlin,” I said, to fill a gap of silence. I sounded like a retired volunteer for the Chamber of Commerce.

  “I already do. Big cities aren’t for me. Too much crime. Now I can easily check on our booth at the mall, Mom and Dad won’t have to bother so often, and I can help Sheila, too. She shouldn’t be lugging heavy things.”

  Was he always this selfless? The idea of Sheila painting anyone’s cupboards had caught my attention. Perhaps she was keen on Guy, she did prefer younger men.

  “If you need anything, you know you can call on me. It’s not easy being new in town.”

  He flashed one of his enthusiastic wide smiles. Puppyish.

  “I heard about your letters from Harriet Beecher Stowe, they’re quite a find. You’ll be famous. What made you buy the box? Something drew you to it.”

  “I never thought anything like that would happen to me. Really. It was nice wood, and I like reading old letters. It’s kind of like time travel, or an episode of History Detectives, if you know what I mean.”

  “I think so. It’s part of archival work. I’d be glad to look at them sometime.” I hoped he didn’t think I came by only because of the letters.

  “Right now they’re with a paper expert in Buffalo. At the university’s Center for Document Analysis. I drove them there myself, I didn’t want to trust FedEx.”

  Guy seemed happy to talk about the letters and I wondered why Hedy had hesitated to mention them. Since our last visit I’d read up on Stowe. At twenty-one she moved from Connecticut to Cincinnati, to teach school. Her first encounters with slavery took place there and she became a convert to the abolitionist movement. The chapters that made up Uncle Tom’s Cabin appeared as a serial in an anti-slavery newspaper, were published as a book in 1852, and soon became an international sensation.

  “If you can authenticate your letters…” I began to say.

  “Then they’ll probably go to Sotheby’s for auction. That’s what I’d like.”

  “The college archive might be interested, especially with any connection to Oberlin. I could put up a small exhibition at the library, people would be fascinated.”

  “I’ll remember, I promise. I’m gonna put up my own website for Civil War memorabilia, there’s a good market for it. You should check out the internet.”

  “How did you get so interested in the Civil War?”

  He looked surprised by my question. “I always was,” he said.

  “Maybe your time in the army had something to do with it – a sympathy for soldiers?”

  “I don’t know.” He laughed then, with an easy, self-deprecating tone. “You see, every summer, from my tenth birthday on, Mom and Dad left me with my grandparents in Knoxville for a month. We used to drive through the Appalachians and to different battle sites. I loved it and started collecting stuff. First, postcards, then old Confederate money.”

  “That must have been before I got my job here,” I said, not wanting to sound like a cross-examination.

  “Guess so. I really liked Knoxville. Do you know it?”

  I shook my head. Five summers ago I had my last fling, with a sweet, unhappily divorced colleague who, late in August, took a better position at the university there. Relieved, I’d wished him well. That fall he sent several postcards of the Smokeys, a letter about his children’s new school, and then vanished for good. Guy didn’t need to hear any of this.

  “Grandma’s dead now so I haven’t been back since, but I’d like to live there. She died when I was fourteen.”

  “Yet you chose Oberlin.”

  “Maybe someday I’ll move south,” he mused, ignoring my remark. “But I’m gonna like it here. C’mon, I’ll show you the rest of the place.”

  I was glad to see him smiling, and light-hearted. As we stood up, his cell phone rang again. “I’ll get it later,” he said, without looking at the caller’s number.

  “You’re already popular,” I teased.

  “I wouldn’t like that.”

  4

  Thursday, April 19

  When I got around to googling “Civil War memorabilia,” as Guy had suggested, it amazed me to find numerous on-line dealers with large war-time collections. You could even buy a complete Confederate lieutenant’s uniform for a hundred grand. The dealers were scattered across the country, with many in New England, though most of them specialized in Southern souvenirs, and even used that old term, the War of Northern Aggression. But what surprised me most were the pop-ups that kept appearing from site to site. “Eye on Muslim Threat” one proclaimed, “Pro-Israeli Posters” beckoned another. Several advertised “Obama Fake Birth Certificate!” Was the phrase “Civil War memorabilia” a code for paramilitary sympathies or Tea Party outrage? Apparently Guy was Nick and Hedy’s intellectual heir, a true believer, while the path to enlightenment welcomed battle cries. Ignoring
the pop-ups, I’d learned enough. I felt uneasy, disquieted, although no one could have guessed what was about to happen.

  During several days of persistent rain I tried to forget my last visit with Hedy and Nick. One gray afternoon I headed over to Claire Warren’s booth at the mall. She’d sent several e-mails about new acquisitions, so I thought I’d take a look. The aisles appeared abandoned, but two clerks, marooned behind the check-out station, chatted amiably.

  “Hey, stranger,” Claire greeted me.

  Unlike the stereotype of an antiquarian bookseller as tweedy and withdrawn, Claire had long ago decided to be bigger than life. With family money behind her she didn’t need a booth at the mall for income, just distraction. Claire had married and divorced two local professors by her recent “golden jubilee,” as she called turning fifty, and now swore off men. Generous to a fault, she was popular with a younger set of academics because of her lavish parties. Her June bashes were much anticipated – she always filled a small plastic wading pool with a martini mix and told her guests to dip their glasses into it for refills. I’d stopped going years ago but she forgave me. And yes, she had a great eye for rare books.

  “Have you seen Guy’s letters?” she asked at once. “Just watch, he’ll make the New York Times. Such luck! I hope he knows it.”

  “But you’ve been pretty lucky yourself.”

  “You can’t have too much luck,” she said. “Trust me on that. He’s a bit of a loser, no?”

  Taken aback, I said, “In the end we’re all losers.”

  “Oh, you understand me. He’s really one-upped his parents, though, they’ve never had a find like this. And think of all the junior professors hot for such a discovery while Guy just trips over it. What I’d like to know is where the letters came from. Why were they left in a box in someone’s attic? I thought I knew every attic in the county.”