The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [21]
She looked at him questioningly. “What is it?”
“A sound generator,” Barry said. “Back when Dad was in school, you needed vacuum tubes to make these things. Now you can use transistors, so they’re a lot smaller and they don’t break so easily.”
“How did you make it?” she said over the buzzing.
“It was hard,” Barry told her with relish. “I had to order the parts from this store in New Jersey, Edmund Scientific. Then I just figured it out, you know? Studied Dad’s sketches.”
He was flushed, dark eyes fastened to the small machine. He turned a knob and the buzzing sound became a loud ringing. “Think about it,” Barry hollered over the racket. “You know? I mean, think about it, Pheeb.”
Phoebe was overwhelmed—by the whispery trace of their father, which seemed caught against its will in this shrill contraption; by her own fragile closeness to Barry, which seemed in constant jeopardy.
“I’m going to make them all,” he said rather grimly. “Every single one.”
Phoebe nodded, smiling at her brother. Her head ached. Much as she longed to share in Barry’s awe, she wished he would turn the thing off. She tried to imagine their father here—his reaction to the leftover drawings, even Barry’s machine. And she knew that he wouldn’t give a damn.
“So, what do you think?” Barry said, leaning close.
“It’s great,” Phoebe said. She felt a panicky urge to get away from him.
“Really?” With his neck thrust forward and thin, smudged hands, Barry looked so meager, so peeled away. Phoebe felt an ache of pity, for herself and Barry both. “Really, Pheeb?” he said. “You’re not just saying that?”
“It’s the best,” Phoebe lied. She felt ready to cry. “Daddy would be so happy, I know he’d be so happy.”
“You think?” He was grinning now.
Phoebe nodded miserably. The tortured machine whined on. A faint smell of melted plastic tinged the air. When Mrs. McCauley tapped on the door to announce Phoebe’s bedtime, Barry unplugged his treasure and spirited it away.
The dullness of Phoebe’s bedroom met her like a blow: polar bear wallpaper, rows of faded stuffed animals, a wicker chair that crackled when you sat in it. Mrs. McCauley tucked the sheets tightly around her, as if fastening Phoebe in for a violent ride. “It’s nice, you and your brother keeping company,” she said. “He needs it.” Phoebe turned on her side, eager for sleep. Mrs. McCauley lingered a few moments in the wicker chair, humming faintly, then departed in her slow, stiff gait.
Phoebe woke in darkness to noises downstairs. Her bedroom was over the kitchen, and for some minutes she lay still, fearful that thieves had broken in through the back door and were heading upstairs to murder her. Then she heard music. Curious, Phoebe rose from bed and crept barefoot down the back stairs in her nightgown, hugging the banister. She heard unfamiliar voices; then, to her astonishment, she heard her sister’s laughter.
Phoebe stopped in the kitchen doorway, amazed. The room looked like a church, pitch dark except for dozens of white Christmas candles spilling their syrupy light across its walls. Organ-like music snaked from the radio. Faith and Wolf leaned at the stove, their backs to the door, surrounded by unfamiliar people who appeared to be in costume: a slim, dark-haired girl like the Queen of Spades in her floor-length purple dress of crushed velvet; another girl with ropes of white-gold hair and a sparkling white pants suit. The man nearest the door wore a top hat, his cut-off jeans exposing an abundance of deeply sunburned flesh. It was he who first noticed Phoebe.
“Greetings,” he said, tipping his hat. “Your hair wants cutting.”
Phoebe stared at him, jarred by the familiar phrase. Then she remembered: the Mad Hatter’s first words to Alice in Wonderland, a scene she’d read only that morning.
“It’s rude to make personal remarks,” Phoebe said, reaching for Alice’s response. “Don’t you know that?”
The man’s face went still with surprise. Then he threw back his head and laughed, mouth open, his round tongue the same pink as his sunburned legs. Everyone turned.