The Soul Thief_ A Novel - Charles Baxter [68]
The clotted and crowded emptiness was so thick that it was almost impossible for me to breathe. The clutter seemed to be using up all the oxygen, as if it were inhaling itself. Coolberg placed a small spice bottle of powdered garlic, and another of arrowroot, on the stained kitchen counter with a slightly theatricalized pathos. Then he looked at me. His expression seemed to be one of ecstatically sorrowful triumph. He reached for something on the counter, couldn’t grasp what he wanted—a box of some sort—so he took a step into the kitchen, scooped up what he had tried to pick up, and brought it back.
“Here,” he said shyly.
I lifted the lid. It was a typed book manuscript. It was entitled The Soul Thief.
“I wrote your story for you,” he said. It began, “He was insufferable, one of those boy geniuses, all nerve and brain.”
Reader, what you hold in your hands is the book he wrote.
45
YOU WILL SAY, this is a trick. You will say, “This is the last twist of the knife that eviscerates the patient.” But a disagreement is offered: this narrative turn contained no trick; it comprised the story itself. And didn’t the details leave you every possible clue? On every page the narrative intentions were plain, even obvious, starting with the reference to Psycho and going on from there. He played by the rules. He played fair.
But the point cannot be that one person can take on another’s life, and in identifying with the other, give life to himself. Such a modest observation! We all know that. The point must lie elsewhere.
The point is that although love may die, what is said on its behalf cannot be consumed by the passage of time, and forgiveness is everything.
PART FOUR
46
NATHANIEL MASON ENTERS the silent house. I can easily imagine it. He drops his suitcase softly on the foyer floor. “Hello?” he calls out. No one returns his greeting, except for the floorboards beneath his feet, creaking happily, pleased to be weighted down. He can see through the door to the kitchen, and, through the kitchen, to the backyard beyond. A dour, cloudy day. Behind him is a shadow. From now on, the shadow will always go with him. The mantel clock, knowing its one set of facts, smugly chimes on the quarter hour for him. Midafternoon: his son Jeremy will be starting his swim practice any minute now, and his son Michael is…well, who knows where Michael is? Michael investigates, in his own way, the multifarious mysteries of the world. And Laura? She is not here, either, it seems, but he calls out to her anyway. “Laura? Honey? I’m home.” The silence of an empty house returns to him. The furnace ignites with a subterranean whoosh and chuckle. Laura has followed the daily schedule and is, even now, watching out for the boys, or she stands in a room, checking with her expert eye the textures of a quilt.
He will tell Michael that, on his advice, he did not accept the bacteria-infested ice cubes on the airplane’s refreshment cart. He will tell Jeremy that Snow White and Darth Vader still ply their trade on Hollywood Boulevard. He will tell his wife that he discussed being on American Evenings but then thought better of it. He will kiss her as she enters the house.
He will not quite say that he has given up everything for this settled domestic life, the one that he cherishes and loves. He will not quite say that his public life is, in its way, a secret inside a secret. That he, in his way, is also a soul thief, and that the soul he has stolen belongs to a lesbian ex-sculptor who lives somewhere far away, and, in all probability, alone. And that he now lives, and will go to his grave, accompanied by another.
Nathaniel has the house to himself. It is his, in temporary solitude, except for his shadow. He ascends the stairway. He pushes aside the door to Jeremy’s room.
Nathaniel Mason approaches the desk cluttered with Jeremy’s litter. Right there, on the left-hand side of the desk, is the draft of an essay for a college admissions form, printed out from Jeremy’s computer. Nathaniel bends down to read it.