Or would Etna’s guilt go even further back than that, to the day when she stood in an unpainted room in Exeter, New Hampshire, and allowed pity to sway her judgment? Or would my wife, as I had done from time to time, think upon the mysterious conjunction between circumstance and fate? What if she had not accepted the offer of assistance on the night of the fire? What if she and her aunt had stayed home that night and not chosen to dine in the hotel? One could unravel a life in this manner back to the beginning of conscious thought.
Sullen afternoon gave way to stifling evening. The gusts of grief subsided, and Nicky uncovered his ears. Clara came out of her room to find a meal. I discovered my children eating pie at the white enameled table in the kitchen. Clara rose without a word, her mouth stuffed with peaches and crust, and left the room before I had a chance to speak, which, in any event, I had no intention of doing. Abigail, whom I summoned, picked Nicky up and carried the sleepy boy to bed. I lingered in the kitchen, looking for brandy, and when I could find none, I walked out onto the back lawn.
I shed my jacket and stood in shirtsleeves and braces looking up at the sky, too muddy that night to show the stars. All around me was a symphony of insects, whining and scratching, tuning up their nightly instruments. My shirt stuck to my skin, and the evening air offered no relief. We were in the midst of a heat wave of extraordinary dimensions; I could not remember the last time the thermometer had registered a temperature below 89 degrees Fahrenheit. I walked to the edge of the yard and looked back at the building that held the bruised Van Tassel family. I watched as Nicky’s light went out and then Clara’s. Within moments, I saw a lamp on the third floor go on. (One didn’t want to think about the heat in the servants’ rooms.) That light went out shortly as well, until the only lamps that remained were the one in my study, which I had inadvertently left burning, and the one in the guest room.
I looked for some sign of Etna, a shadow passing behind the lace curtain, but I could see nothing. I stood on a stone wall for a better view but could make out only the white bureau with its mirror. Perhaps my wife was writing to Phillip Asher, I thought. The notion rankled, and I put it aside. Perhaps Etna had fallen asleep with the light on, I thought instead, in which case I might steal into the room and put it out for her — a husbandly thing to do. I would not wake her, I reasoned; I would merely watch her sleeping for a moment. Possibly I might sit down at that guest room desk and write to her myself — a novel idea! — and seek to explain the events of the past several months. I would convince her of my love. I would ask for her forgiveness.
The more my thoughts went on in this absurd manner (or, rather, the more the alcohol soaked into my organs), I began to conceive the idea — an urgent one — that I should go to Etna at once. I must convince her that with time our little family would heal. I must persuade her that the incident could be forgotten. I would go to her and fold her into my arms and let her cry and tell her, as one would a child, that everything would be all right. In the morning we would wake Clara and help our daughter out of the emotional and moral muddle into which I had put her. We would leave the house and go to the cool of the mountains and exorcize the unhappy memories we had attached to that landscape. And when we returned, it would be autumn, and we could all go on as we had before last winter. We had been ill, I would tell my wife, and now we would all recover our health and our wits and once again attend to the routine and the mundane.
Oh, foolish man. Oh, foolish, foolish man.
Sometimes I think that the incident I am about to relate did not happen at all, that in fact I found Etna’s door locked and she would not open it to me. That, in fact, this was merely a dream the feverish night produced.
In this dream, I walk without stealth up the stairs, announcing my intentions with a firm step. I make my way down the hallway to the guest room and stand outside. I consider knocking but then decide that such an action might put upon Etna the burden of decision: to open the door or not, to admit me or not. After a few seconds’ deliberation, I turn the knob myself.
My wife is sitting on the edge of the bed. Her head snaps up when I reveal myself. Her face is streaked, her overblouse partially unbuttoned. I glance at the desk and see upon it, as I feared, a letter. Lavender ink on a lavender envelope. A name but no address. Address unknown. In the trenches, perhaps. Listening to a different symphony entirely.
Etna’s face is cold and hard. Her hair is an ugly knotted rope down her back. I see again the unbuttoned blouse, the letter on the desk, the curtains unmoving in the night air.
“You are a monster,” Etna says evenly as I approach the bed.