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"The complete fire is death. From partial fires
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills."
William Empson, "Missing Dates"
When Blair opened the door he was overwhelmed by the sweltering heat inside the cramped little guest room. It was so hot he could hardly breathe for a moment, thoughts his bones were going to turn into butter. Rings of sweat darkened the back of his shirt. Audrey stood in front of the fireplace, in a wrinkled pink robe, crumpling sheets of paper into the blazing fire.
"What are you doing?" he asked, incredulously, as he stepped past the fire. "It's going to be ninety today."
She tossed in another sheet of paper, watched it twist into a blue flame. "I'm pretending it's November rather than July."
"Seriously, Audrey, you're not cold are you?"
"Hardly," she said, stoking the fire. "I just found some things I thought I'd get rid of, is all, it's so cluttered in here."
"It feels like the Sahara in this room."
"Open the window if you like."
"It feels like the Sahara out there, too."
Shrugging, she loosened her robe, turned, and stepped into the bathroom. Shortly the shower water began to drum against the plastic curtain, with her voice, singing "Tangled Up in Blue," rising faintly above the sound of the drumming water.
Breathing heavily, Blair plopped down on the tattered easy chair, his long arms hanging to the floor, his head inclined, appearing as if he had wilted in the heat. He listened to the paper crackling in the fireplace. Anxiously he wondered what she was burning this morning, remembering an evening almost a year ago when he came by her apartment and found her burning an album of family pictures. When he expressed some surprise why she did not want to keep the old photographs, she confessed that every so often she built fires whenever she became concerned she was becoming too attached to something. She regarded possessions with apprehension, convinced they could become as binding as ropes if kept for too long. She admitted to him that evening that, in addition to the photographs, she had burned over the years numerous articles of clothing, necklaces and rings, three large watercolors, dozens of letters, even her college diploma. He suspected one of these days she would begin burning some of the possessions she had received from him. They had been seeing one another for nearly fourteen months, which was probably longer than she had intended, certainly longer than he had, so he would not be surprised to find her building a fire to separate herself from him one of these nights, reducing her memory of him to a clump of ashes.
He stared at the fire a long moment, wondering if it had been built for him this morning.
From the end of the hallway rose the sound of voices, luggage dropping to the floor, a door slamming. He was a little surprised that a tumbledown old guest house like the Dorchester could attract any business despite its very reasonable rates. It was a relic, an eyesore, badly in need of numerous repairs. Certainly, if it were not for Audrey, he knew he would not have spent a minute here. But she was an old friend of the proprietor, Gabe Tyndall, whose grandparents had built the house more than a hundred years ago. After he inherited it from his father, he opened it to the public in order to defray some of the costs of maintaining such an enormous house. He always kept a few rooms available at reduced rates for students who needed somewhere to reside for a while before they found something more permanent. Through the years the house had gradually deteriorated, largely as a result of Gabe's indifference to its condition as he struggled to preserve his troubled second marriage. And now that he was single again he was more interested in its value as a gathering place for his friends and acquaintances than as a profitable business enterprise. Audrey, as one of his old friends, returned a couple of times a year to be by herself and relax for a weekend as she used to do when she was a student. This was the first time Blair had accompanied her to the house, although she had invited him numerous times during the year. He had only agreed to come along with her now because she had told him that Gabe had written her that he was considering a very attractive offer to sell the place so this might be his last opportunity to visit it she said. They had arrived late last night, having driving a hundred and one miles up the old coast highway to spend the weekend here, so he had not really had a chance to explore the house as of yet but from what little he had seen he suspected a fierce wind could blow it away it was so fragile.
"Well, now, what's on the agenda for this morning?" Audrey asked, emerging from the bathroom, her head wrapped in a light blue scarf.
"Whatever you wish. I'm in your hands."
"Shall we have a look around this old antique then?"
"Sure, if you like."
She nodded. "I suppose that's why we're here, really. To have one last look."
The hallway was long and narrow and congested, with some broken lawn furniture stacked along one of the walls. At the end of the hallway a young man with a Walkman clamped over his ears ponderously mopped the floor. They walked past him and rode the tiny, caged elevator to the roof, where they found two more young men lying on this straw mats in the sun. They surveyed the other side of the river for a moment, watched a sailboat slide through the thick shadows of the buildings. Rags of clouds drifted across the sun. Blair wished they would remain there for the rest of the day so that it would not become any warmer.
"Don't you feel different up here looking down on everything, a little larger than you are somehow?"
"No, should I?"
She blushed he thought. "Sometimes, when I'm alone up here, I breathe in until my cheeks are bulging like balloons then I blow as hard as I can, as though I were struggling to blow out all the candles on a birthday cake, pretending to myself that I can make everything disappear."
"Why would you want to do that for Godsake?" he asked, puzzled.
"I don't know. Sometimes things would seem easier then."
"What sorts of things?"
"I don't know," she said, with an edge in her voice. "Things."
They rode the elevator down to the first floor, which was teeming with youngsters waiting for their transportation to the train depot. Pieces of baggage were strewn everywhere, transforming the front room into something of an obstacle course. Audrey took Blair's hand and led him through the congestion to the table where Gabe was bent over the morning newspaper, doing the Times crossword puzzle. A nub of a cigar burned in the corner of his mouth.
"Seems like the dark ages again to see all these young people in here," Audrey said to Gabe.
"Oh, good morning, kids," he said, glancing up from the puzzle, smiling at her then at Blair.
"Morning," Blair said.
"Yeah, I guess it does remind you a little of the old days except that these kids all paid their keep."
Grinning, she explained to Blair that back in the days when young people were taking to the streets many would arrive in the city without enough money for a place to sleep so Gabe would let them stay overnight in the front room. She chuckled a moment, remembering how she would have to struggle in the morning across a blanket of people to walk from the staircase to the front door.
Gabe smiled. "Sometimes I felt as if I were running an orphanage."
Then, almost ruefully, she turned toward him and said, "Back then people really went out of their way to help one another. I wonder if those ages will ever return."
Gabe looped a thumb around one of his suspender straps, shrugging his narrow shoulders. "Political convictions are like little girls. They last as long as they last."
"Which is never very long."
"Depends on the little girl."
*
After coffee and croissants, Audrey and Blair resumed their exploration of the old house, wandering through the kitchen and library, through some musty storerooms in the basement, then going outside to the garden. The lawn was the color of toast, the split-rail fence surrounding it collapsing in the middle. A stone pony grazed beside the artificial pond, its slender neck draped with a stained red shirt. Carefully Audrey sprinkled some birdseed on the lawn, moving in a slow circle around the pony. Blair swung on the wooden porch swing, his eyes closed, trying to ignore the heat. A scratchy Bartok fragment floated through an open upstairs window.
Gabe reminded Blair of a layman he had become acquainted with the year he was in the seminary, a refugee from Czechoslovakia by the name of Mandlikova. Ever since he met Gabe last night he had been trying to figure out whom he reminded him of, meticulously sifting his memory for the identity of the person. Now, at last, he made the connection, Manny's name suddenly surfacing in his head. Gabe did not bear any resemblance to Manny, being shorter and heavier with a swollen pink face, but like Manny he possessed a lavish smile that made strangers feel as if they were his friend. He seemed as much a refuge for his friends as his house, someone they could go to for protection and support. Blair understood why Audrey returned here so often, recalling the times he had sought out Manny when he began to have serious doubts about his decision to enter the seminary, the comfort he discovered in his conversations with the wise young man. He felt as if he had known him all of his life in the seven months they were together at the seminary. Gabe was such a friend to Audrey, he suspected, someone she could lean on in difficult times.
"Wake up, sleepyhead," he heard Audrey saying to him as she poked his knee.
"I'm awake."
"Let's go for a ride."
He opened his eyes and saw her straddling an old chipped yellow bicycle with rusted handlebars. "You've got to be kidding."
"Come on, sleepyhead. There's a bicycle for you behind the tool shed." Gaily, she rang the bell attached to the base of her handlebars. "I always go for a ride around the neighborhood when I visit here."
"I'll fall off," he protested. "I haven't ridden a bicycle since I was a boy. I probably don't even remember how to anymore."
"You'll remember. That, and tying your shoes, are two things a person doesn't forget. Come on."
They rode in tandem down the quiet residential street, through a lane of Japanese cherry trees, to a small alley that led past a heart-shaped swimming pool that sparkled in the sunlight. Audrey informed him that the house with the pool used to belong to a very prominent dentist who was currently serving six months in prison for tax evasion. She said Gabe often referred to him as the local Gatsby because of the extravagant parties he used to give at his house during the summer. Grinning, she recalled accompanying Gabe and some others to one of the parties and falling into the pool in her green dress.
"Were you pushed?" he asked.
"No, I jumped. Everyone did," she said, smiling. "You just sort of found yourself there as if you had fallen from the sky."
"That doesn't sound like you, Audrey," he said.
Snickering, she edged ahead of him slowly, making him have to press to stay even with her as they swung out of the alley. She began to recall the residents of some of the other houses they passed as they wound through the neighborhood, remembering other pleasant evenings, other unusual personalities. He listened attentively, interested less in her recollections than in how pleased they made her appear. It was almost as if she were recalling her own neighborhood, the place where she had grown up, he thought, suspecting that in a sense she had adopted this neighborhood as her own. Here, more than anywhere, she was herself, relaxed, content, at peace; here, he thought, she would seldom need to build any fires.
She led him into a modest little park where they caught their breath a moment then circled an emerald pond, scattering ducks with the whirring of their wheels. Streaks of sunlight filtered through the trees. Racing down a steep incline, she spread out her arms, daring him to emulate her but held on tightly.
"Chicken," she taunted him.
He clucked his tongue loudly, excitedly, scattering more ducks.
They followed the narrow path to a small red footbridge that stretched across the boulevard at the north end of the park. A crude wooden circle was fixed to the railing of the footbridge. Audrey, complaining about her leg, slowed down and leaned her bicycle against the side of a tree and massaged her right calf. Blair, also a little sore, sat down on the grass beside her, nibbling the raisins she had offered him from a small carton.
"I think I could lie here for the rest of the day," he moaned.
"Are you still tired, sleepyhead?"
"No. But it's so soothing here I hate the thought of having to leave."
Sighing, she pressed a hand against the tree where she had set her bicycle and leaned forward, stretching her sore leg. "Personally I associate this place with a lot of plain hard work," she told him.
"What sort of work?"
She glanced over at the footbridge. "I helped Gabe and some other folks in the neighborhood build that bridge."
"Really," he said, pondering the narrow red bridge. "It looks sturdy enough to support a herd of African elephants. But I thought the city was suppose to be in the business of building bridges."
"Probably so," she said, stretching her other leg. "But apparently some people didn't want to wait before the city got around to doing it, if they ever did."
He started to ask her about the significance of the wooden circle on the bridge when he noticed her looking beyond him toward the bicycle path. He turned around, shading his eyes with his arm. An elderly man was riding toward them on a bicycle that appeared as weathered as he did, moving very slowly, with one hand clamped over the wire basket that was attached to the handlebars. The spade and shears that were inside the basket rattled against one another.
"You know him?" Blair asked.
Tensed, Audrey turned away as the elderly man coasted down the graded path, trying to avoid his cold, fixed stare. His eyes shone with anger. As he passed Blair he did not even glance at him but continued to stare at Audrey, saying nothing, until he also passed her and crossed the bridge. He got off his bicycle on the other side, took the spade and shears out of the basket, and began to pull out dandelions that bordered the approach to the footbridge.
"Let's go," Audrey said, hurriedly mounting her bicycle.
"Do you know him?" Blair asked again.
"No."
"He sure seemed to know you."
She glared at Blair. "He doesn't know me at all."
Blair was startled by her display of temper, wondering why the old man upset her so much, but he knew it was not the time now to make anymore inquiries and got on his bicycle.
"Come on, let's go," she said adamantly.
"All right, all right," he stammered. "But where's the fire?"
"I'll race you back to the house," she said, the tone in her voice softening slightly.
"What do I win if I win?"
"Me, silly."
Pedalling after her, Blair bent over the handlebars and pumped his legs as hard as he could, forgetting for the moment all about the elderly man on the other side of the bridge who turned to watch them, shading his fierce eyes against the sun.
*
As Blair emerged from the shower he heard a burst of firecrackers and leaned out the window, drying the back of his neck with a large blue towel. A streak of light rippled across the velvet sky. "It's only the first of July," he said, staring at the dissolving light. "They start celebrating early around here."
Audrey, still lying in bed, rubbing her big toe along the margin of the sheet, grinned. "One of Gabe's little pleasures is setting off fireworks."
"He a staunch patriot or something ... some scoundrel seeking refuge?"
"Not quite," she laughed. "He just seems to revert to a child again at this time of the year, stocking up on all sorts of elaborate fireworks he has bought on forays across the state line. He can scarcely contain himself until the Fourth. He wants so badly to light the sky."
"I wish we could stay longer."
"So do I."
He slipped on a baggy pair of tennis shorts and sat down beside her, caressing her bare shoulders. "But I can't, Audrey. I've got to be back at the office."
She licked his knuckles, his thumb, tasting the scented shower soap that clinged to his skin. Another string of firecrackers sputtered beneath their window. Voices, laughing and shouting, glasses rattling, also echoed from the garden.
"It sounds like a party is going on."
"Saturday night is always a party at Gabe's."
"Then what are we waiting here for?"
She gazed at him. "Nothing I guess."
The living room was crowded with people, mostly young people though there were a few the age of Audrey and Blair, even some as old as Gabe. Audrey explained, as she led Blair through the crowd, that even when she was at college students and other young people would come over to the house to have a beer and talk with Gabe and his friends. Almost everyone regarded him as someone special, in part because he did not ridicule their hopes to make a difference in the world but actually encouraged them, although very few ever returned to the house once they graduated.
"I'm the exception," she admitted.
Blair squeezed her arm. "Exceptions are always more interesting than the rules."
"You think so, do you?"
"Tonight, I do."
Out in the garden they found several more people gathered together in a ring around a tall young man with very long hair tied in a ponytail. He was blowing bubbles, swollen, pale, intricate bubbles shaped like lions and unicorns and mountains and carousels. Everyone there was fascinated by his performance, applauding him after each creation.
"Happy First, kids," Gabe said, stepping beside them with two glasses of white wine.
"I've never seen this fellow before," Audrey said, looking back at the blower. "Where did he come from?"
Shrugging, Gabe turned around as a quivering bubble shaped like a steeple suddenly vanished. "Your guess is as good as mine, kiddo. You know how folks just sort of turn up here."
"Like lost sheep."
"Something like that I suppose."
They sat down together at a lopsided picnic table at the edge of the crowd. Blair continued to watch the bubble-blower, while Gabe and Audrey reminisced about some of the other unusual performers they had watched over the years at the house on Saturday night. He wished he had been there with them those other evenings. But then he wondered if they would have wanted him there, speculating to himself if they had been more than just old friends in those years. He would not have been surprised if they had been lovers, considering how attractive Gabe must have appeared then to a young, impressionable girl like Audrey. There was so much about Audrey he did not know, more than he had ever realized until he came to this house. When she excused herself for a moment, Blair thought of probing Gabe a little, hoping to find out more about her, about who she was really. Instead, though, he merely mentioned that he and Audrey had bicycled as far as the park when Gabe asked him what he had done this afternoon.
"Did you see the bridge?" Gabe asked.
"You mean the little footbridge at the end of the park?"
He nodded, scratching his small belly.
"Yes, Audrey's knee was sore so we stopped there and rested for a few minutes. She said that you and she built it."
"Along with some other folks, yeah," he said, glancing across the garden. "It's a very relaxing place there."
Blair agreed. "I thought we were going to spend the rest of the afternoon there but then some guy came along with garden shears and began weeding and clipping around the bridge so Audrey decided to leave."
"Was he an old guy with a thin mustache?"
"Yeah. Do you know him?"
"Mr. Beene. It's on account of him the footbridge was built."
Then, clasping his long hands behind his neck, Gabe explained that several summers ago Mr. Beene's eldest daughter, Myra, had been struck and killed by a car as she was trying to cross the boulevard on her bicycle. He said that it had always been very hazardous there because of all the traffic. After the accident, various people in the neighborhood got together and collected enough money to be able to purchase the materials to build the footbridge so that what had happened to Mr. Beene's daughter would not happen to anyone else.
"He is very fortunate to have such generous neighbors."
"Who is that, dear?" Audrey asked, on returning to the table with a napkin of ice cubes pressed against her neck because of the sweltering heat.
"I was telling Blair about Mr. Beene."
The smile quickly faded from her face. "Oh, him."
Gabe looked at Blair. "At first, he was very appreciative to everyone in the neighborhood for what they had done for him. But in time he began to have other ideas and to come to regard the footbridge less as a memorial to his daughter than as a rebuke to us."
"Whatever for? What did you do?"
"We didn't die."
Blair glanced at Audrey who remained silent, still holding the ice cubes against her neck. She seemed not to have heard what was just said, she was so quiet and detached. Sighing, Gabe stood and announced it was time to light the sky and walked back into the house.
Then, before Blair had a chance to say anything to Audrey, she said, "I'd rather not talk about anything connected with the footbridge. All right?"
"I wasn't going to say anything."
She smiled weakly, touching him on the wrist. "Yes, you were."
In another moments, a Roman candle burst above them in a shower of red, white, and blue sparks. Then another candle hissed overhead and stung the darkness. Abruptly, fiercely, other fireworks were ignited, torching the sky. Startled, Audrey tightly gripped Blair's wrist as she stared up at the spectacle, her green eyes glowing as brightly as the sky. He looked away from her, strangely afraid of what he might discover in her eyes.
*
Blair was packing the car when Gabe appeared behind him and threw a firecracker at his feet. The explosion startled him, and he flinched and banged his head against the lid of the trunk. Grinning, Gabe stepped over toward him, holding a mug of orange juice in his hands. He was clad in a short silk robe and sandals. His hair was mussed as if he had just got out of bed, his eyes still soft with sleep.
"Sorry," he said. "I found it on the counter and I couldn't resist."
"Jesus, Gabe, you could cause someone to have a heart attack playing tricks like that."
"I said I was sorry."
Blair resumed packing, scarcely paying any attention to him as he began to tell him about the spectacular fireworks he had in store for the Fourth. He spoke of a white night, promising to turn night into day on the Fourth. He wished Blair could stay over until then, invited him to be his guest next year.
Audrey came out a minute later, carrying an overnight bag on her shoulder, and Gabe took the bag from her and carried it around to the trunk. Then they embraced, telling one another how much they had enjoyed the weekend, how much they were looking forward to their next weekend together.
Waiting, Blair started the engine and opened the door for her then backed the car out of the driveway. Gabe walked alongside of them, insisting that they return soon, then stood in front of his house slowly waving at them as they turned the corner.
"Thanks," Blair said to Audrey after a block.
"For what?"
"For asking me here. I enjoyed this weekend very much."
"So did I."
"I'm only sorry we couldn't stay to see Gabe's white night."
She sighed, resting her head against the window. "Let's stop by the park a moment before we leave," she said, after a moment.
"Why?"
"Just for a minute. All right?"
Silent, wondering to himself what was going on in her thoughts, he swung onto a side street and drove to the park, wound along a narrow, twisting road to the footbridge where he supposed she wanted to go, and parked. The wooden circle was disturbed, turned at a frightful angle. He looked around for Mr. Beene, as if expecting him to be there to attend to the slightest disturbance of this memorial to his daughter. But they were alone at the footbridge.
Audrey got out and adjusted the circle. Then, stepping onto the bridge, she leaned over the railing and peered down at the empty boulevard. Blair followed her onto the bridge. She was silent but he could hear her breathing, slowly and deliberately, as she had after they had bicycled here yesterday.
"It happened over there," she said, pointing her hand toward the willow tree on the other side of the boulevard. "We were crossing over to the park. We were racing, each trying to be the first one there. Myra darted into the street without really looking, and before I knew it this long silver car was coming toward her."
"I didn't know you were with her," Blair said in surprise.
"Yes. I was there all right."
"You can't blame yourself for what happened, Audrey."
She frowned. "Myra was careless, she didn't pause to look. That was so typical of her really. It's not my fault she had the accident. She was careless in everything she did. Yet you can't tell her father that. He blames me for what happened."
A motorbike sputtered beneath the footbridge and disappeared around the curve.
"I went along with Gabe and the others in building this bridge," she continued, still staring down at the boulevard, "in the hopes Mr. Beene would stop holding me responsible for what happened to Myra. But it only seems to have made things worse by providing him with a visible reminder of the accident. I understand he comes here almost every day looking after it like some caretaker. Damn him."
"You just have to put him out of your thoughts," Blair said lamely.
"I wish to God now we'd never built the damn thing," she said, struggling to light a cigarette. "I wish I could burn this bridge." And, suddenly, furiously, she struck one match after another, hurling them onto the bridge as if trying to make her wish come true.
Gently Blair embraced her, taking the book of matches out of her hand. He then tried to console her by recalling an experience from his own past that still simmered in his memory. A family in the neighborhood where he had grown up as a youngster had a boy near his age who served in the war, and because Blair was in the seminary at that time they came to resent him, figuring it was not fair that their son should have to be over there and not him. They erected a huge flagpole in their front yard and every day their son was overseas they flew the flag. Blair believed, besides honoring their son, they were also expressing their resentment of him, so that whenever he passed the flagpole he wanted to burn it to the ground.
"Then why didn't you?"
"What good would that do?" he asked. "In my heart I'd still know what their feelings were toward me."
"One forgets, Blair. Eventually one forgets everything."
As they returned to the car, in silence, Blair wished he could believe as Audrey did that what does not exist you cannot remember. If he did, he would help her set the footbridge on fire this very instant, but he believed no such thing. He knew if he burned every flag he saw flown on the Fourth he still could not forget the resentment that family felt toward him. It was as settled as a scar in his mind. Audrey was fortunate, he thought, being able to remove the past with the strike of a match. He suspected she could erase him from her thoughts as easily as she had the memories of others she had known by burning his letters and gifts and photographs in her fireplace, while he could build a dozen fires and still not forget her anymore than he could forget that family with the flag.
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