• • •
One thing is not abstract. One thing is not in the future. It is all too present, all too real: the expression on my mother’s face—a mysterious, secretive something that plays fleetingly about her lips and her eyes as she slips Thomas Argument’s kaleidoscope safely back into her pocket. It is ephemeral, yes, and quickly disguised; it is unclear whether she is even aware of it herself; my father will not, perhaps, ever see it again; but it is certainly not an abstraction.
In the end, perhaps it is this look, more than anything, that prompts him up Church Street, almost against his will, for a glimpse of the glittering window of Argument’s Glasswares, and of the other, more circumspect, opposing window of William Cloverdale. He hesitates, crosses back and forth many times between the brilliant shop front, refulgent with commercial triumph, of Argument, and the humbler, perhaps already defeated window of Cloverdale. What does he see? Tumblers, decanters, doorknobs, sherry glasses, saltcellars, fairy globes, desk lamps with green shades: the essence of domesticity, of Gentilessa’s sideboard, Emilio’s desk. Leopold is not interested in glass. Not yet, at least. That will come. For now he is interested only in Clotilde, and it is this that will prompt him, finally, to offer himself as glassmaker’s apprentice to Thomas Argument, despite the fact that he feels more drawn to the unassuming window of William Cloverdale, if to any window at all. But it will take some time before it happens, this offering, this self-immolation; it will be a matter of weeks before he can bring himself to do it, and until then, my father will hang between the two windows, Argument’s and Cloverdale’s, moving first toward one, then toward the other; will inhabit his own studio like a ghost, drawing nothing, seeing only, in his mind’s eye, the look that was on my mother’s face when she slipped Argument’s gift into her pocket. Is it less dangerous, that look, for being unconscious?
In retrospect, of course, it seems perverse for my father to offer himself as apprentice, therefore as underling, as servant, to the man of whom, already, without quite even knowing it, he is jealous. But it is not perverse that he should want my mother to gaze with similar desire upon some object that he has made—to gaze that way upon himself. Because she does not, he knows, gaze on him, now, in that way. Does he think he can change it by aligning himself with Thomas Argument? It seems unlikely that he would place himself in such a position, so much in the man’s power, were he fully aware of already having, as it were, an argument with Argument. Is it less dangerous, my father’s jealousy, for being unconscious?
On the surface, at least, the decision is purely practical. He applies to Argument out of need, and because Argument’s prosperity—however gaudy, repellent, even downright offensive, in its display—seems the crystallized embodiment of much that my father desires—success, security, wealth, the admiration of women (or of just one woman), even, perhaps, were he to think in such terms, which he does not, of the future. Yes, in its own way Thomas Argument’s window with its sparkling glass and brilliant jets of gaslight is the future, and my father is drawn inexorably toward its promise, ignoring, as he moves toward it, its inherent fragility. It is bright, it is bold, and what is more—my mother likes it, and my father, despite all, still likes my mother very, very much. Loves her, in fact, to distraction. Enough to sacrifice himself—to the furnace!
• • •
At least, that is how he thinks of it at the time. He goes begrudgingly . . . with relief, because of the money; but also begrudgingly. My father goes to Thomas Argument thinking to make, of himself, a burnt offering, for my mother’s sake. I imagine him now, reluctantly stalking up Church Street in the rain, a small, severe figure in a black suit and waistcoat. I suppose he looks very much as his own father must have done, on a similar occasion, ten years earlier, although I have got, in this case, no photograph to prove it. This is how I imagine Leopold. Hunched against the rain. Slightly angry. This is clear from his frown, but also it is in his bearing, the tightness in his shoulders, the way he holds his arms, slightly raised, bent at the elbows, tensed against his waistcoat, fists unconsciously clenched. He is wearing the suit that Gentilessa bought him for his travels. Still the only suit he owns, it is rusty from exposure to sun and salt water; patched, but proper, or at least, the best that he can muster, given the circumstances. I picture my father’s unwilling hand on Thomas Argument’s doorknob. It costs him much to turn that knob; but he does turn it, and the door swings open. A bell tinkles above his head. He enters that heartless, glittering world. I make of myself a sacrifice. For her.