The Snow Garden Read online

  Eric released him, and before Randall could catch his breath, Eric had him by both shoulders, shoving him against the back door with enough force to rattle the glass pane. “Argue with me! Show me the real you!”

  Randall was intimate with this kind of fury, this rage that a self-hating man could summon in seconds. He twisted his head away, but Eric cupped his chin in one hand, fingers pulling at his lips.

  “I think you didn’t go home because your parents already know that you’re the person I’m starting to see. A spoiled brat who learned how to be an adult from back issues of Vanity Fair! A stupid little boy with no idea of the damage he’s capable of doing. You, Randall, can only charm someone for so long before he figures out what you really are. And imagine my disappointment to learn that you’re not much better than a whore!”

  Randall seized Eric’s crotch and ground it in his fist. Eric’s mouth opened in a silent O before Randall tightened his grip and shoved. Eric’s feet stuttered over the linoleum before he keeled over backward, hitting the floor at the small of his back.

  Randall bent down over him. “I’ve been up against a lot more frightening men then you in my life. Men who’ve done a lot more than slowly kill their own wives. If you ever touch me again, I’ll show exactly what kind of damage I can do!”

  By the time he made it to Overlook Park, the cold had dried out his eyes. Randall clawed snow from one of the benches and sat down. Night darkened the sky over the powerless city below, throwing the concrete edges of buildings into relief, turning the streets into rivers of shadow. The snow had let up and the wind had all but died. The aftershock of Eric’s drunken violence had faded more quickly than the sting of his words, now amplified in Randall’s head by the dark silence.

  Before Atherton, Randall had cherished times of silence and solitude as opportunities to imagine a better self, down to enough detail that by the time something would pull him out of his daze, he would have managed to catch a brief glimpse of who he wanted to become. But in the past four months, this comforting exercise had been stolen from him by the first people he had cared for in years. His silences became crowded with their startling visions of who they thought he was. And as Randall realized how inaccurate those visions were, he was forced to question for the first time whether his own aspirations and ambitions were pathetic and unattainable dreams.

  Eric was a murderer. With his own identity called into such serious question, Randall had to cling to that truth with all he had. If discovering the truth behind Lisa’s death couldn’t exonerate him in Kathryn’s eyes, then proving Eric was a killer would help Randall deal with the burden of what had brought him to Atherton in the first place.

  He was staring down at his boots when he noticed several frail bars of light stretching across the snow toward the fence. Surprised, he lifted his head. Electricity was returning to Atherton in a low symphony of metallic whines and groans; the sign on top of the Yankee

  Savings & Trust Building winked on, a yellow halo through fog. He blinked against the amber light punching through shutters, the stark halos of street lights shining on piled snow. In his left eye, the light went blurred.

  He reached up, delicately sliding the blue disc over his brown pupil with one gloved finger.

  Voices were shouting at each other upstairs, muffled through the ceiling. Eric stopped halfway to the kitchen, still holding the platter of turkey in his hands.

  For a second, it sounded like giant fingers were tapping against the walls of the house. Then he realized that the clicks and groans were the lights coming back to life. The voices upstairs came from the television he’d left on in the bedroom: two meteorologists discussing the nor’easter’s dissolving strength as it swept inland. With power restored, harsh light fell unflatteringly across the ruined feast on the diningroom table. The house’s sudden light made the past two days seem like a smeared, drunken unreality. The throbbing in his forehead came back to life as well. He numbly set the platter back down and sat in one of the dining-room chairs, wondering what he had hoped to accomplish with the words he’d hurled at Randall.

  The mere mention of his parents dented the young man’s composure; Eric was convinced that his parents were abusive, and that the burns on Randall’s legs were the result of a deliberate act. Discovering whether or not that was true would have forced Randall to admit that he was something much worse than a thing of beauty who had bestowed upon Erie the gift of his body.

  Rage. That’s what he wanted from Randall. Some fissure down the center of the young man’s demeanor that could reveal a fault line of guilt and remorse equal to what Eric felt. He was lying to himself if he believed he had simply wanted to punish Randall for letting their secret get out. He wanted to see the boy undone. His motive had been the same when he showed Randall Lisa’s parting note.

  But had it worked? Randall had shown rage, but no guilt, at least not regarding Lisa. It was almost as if Randall was too preoccupied by a larger evil, without the time or the energy to seek repentance for his affair with Eric. He couldn’t begin to fathom what evil, but it didn’t matter because he’d lost him for good. And it wasn’t consolation to tell himself that keeping Randall at all was improbable, preposterous, and downright wrong.

  Eric crossed to the front windows. Outside, the streetlights illuminated the snow-covered street with a surgical illumination that drained the scene of any winter romance. He hadn’t sobered enough, because he was searching for Randall’s shadow somewhere between the streetlights.

  Gone. Never mind the ache, he told himself, just convince yourself that driving him away was the right thing to do. And given your history, is it any surprise that you’ve accomplished the right thing in the worst way possible?

  Not this house, but another near it. Not this new decade, and not the one before it, but nineteen years before. Not Randall, but another young man, with the same startling blue eyes, and guided by a similar brutal passion.

  If Eric didn’t spend the money his mother left him, it would continue to drive home the suddenness of her death. Its presence in his bank account would summon and resummon the phone call from a breathless grocery clerk informing him that an ambulance had just carried her away after she fell down right in front of the store. The only way to make the money less haunting was to take the money and do something with it that was all his own.

  It was August 1982, and Eric had no vision of life that extended beyond the campus of Atherton University. He had convinced himself that his transition into the Ph.D. program the following year would be simple; he had ingratiated himself with all the right professors. At night, he would lie awake debating whether he should move on, but he would fall asleep before answering. The perfect way to seal his fate was to use his mother’s money to buy a house near campus.

  The ad made it clear the place was a dump. Overgrown hedges concealed the brownstone’s first-floor windows. A brick fence crowned with spikes lined the perimeter of the bush- and weed-ridden front yard. The view from this part of the hill was of industrial and unsightly

  Atherton, with its smokestacks sending plumes of black smoke toward gray sky. Walking slowly up the front path, Eric, at twenty-two, saw the house as perfect for the contemplation, isolation, and brooding he now regarded as essential to the nourishment of his mind.

  He stepped cautiously into the foyer, even though he was fairly certain he would be the only prospective buyer to show up at the minimally advertised open house. A staircase, bowed and warped, led to the second floor. Wires dangled from the ceiling, suggesting the foyer had once been lit by a chandelier. The house was decrepit without being haunted and he had already fallen in love with it.

  But he was not alone. The man in the living room held one bent wrist against his waist, as he ran his other hand over a windowsill. The posture was oddly theatrical, but the man did not check his fingers for dust. Maybe he was just testing the quality of the wood. Only when he turned did Eric recognize him. The man’s piercing blue eyes looked Eric up and down and h
is thin slash of a mouth bent into the best crooked smile it was capable of.

  “We know each other,” the man said.

  “You’re a sculptor,” Eric answered.

  Michael Price let out a grunt and shook his head as if he had been reminded of a memory too distant to remain unpleasant. “Kinetics of Form?” he asked, moving closer.

  Eric nodded, noting that with Michael’s much-talked-about change of majors had also come a change of appearance. The one time “artiste” had traded in his paint-splotched work clothes for yuppie tweeds. His black mop of hair had been cut almost militarily short. Everything about his appearance was more streamlined, more clipped, than that of the passionate duplicator of the human form who so ardently defended himself against accusations that he would never be an artist. Had Michael Price given in to the demands of a businesslike world, or did all architecture majors dress as if they had just come from a board meeting? ,

  When he realized he had been staring at the man for more than a few seconds, Eric thrust his hand in front of him and Michael looked down at it, amused. At last he shook it without enthusiasm. “Nice place, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “I think so,” Eric answered.

  Michael moved through the room, hands clasped against the small of his back, surveying the house as if he already owned it. “It could use work, though. I wonder if the landlord’s willing to put in the time. And the dough.”

  “The house isn’t for rent. It’s for sale.”

  Michael halted his proprietary stroll. “Really? Well, I just saw the realtor sign out front.”

  Eric shrugged as if forgiving Michael for having intruded, even though the house wasn’t his yet.

  “You’re looking to buy?” Michael asked with a twinge of skepticism.

  “Yes.”

  Michael stared at him as if waiting for him to contradict himself. Eric could think of nothing more to say. He sensed the sudden weight in the air between them. The odd, fluttery sensation in his chest he felt at being fixed in Michael Price’s eyes—was it related to the fact that Eric had quietly managed to keep tabs on the guy ever since they were in class together? Only later would he realize how many decisions could be made in a deceptively brief moment.

  “I’m sure I could use a tenant, though,” Eric heard himself say.

  “You haven’t even bought it yet.” Michael was obviously amused.

  “You see anyone else here?”

  Later he would tell himself that it was his only recourse. That if he wanted to be anywhere near Michael Price, he had to put himself in a position of power over this man who had such an inexplicable power over him. In return for a low rent, Michael agreed to help with the renovations, and during the following three months they shared less talk than effort and sweat as they painted, caulked, and refinished the time-beaten interior of the house. And as they worked, it became clear to both of them that regardless of paperwork, they would share the house equally. Michael allowed Eric his silences, but with the confidence of someone who didn’t expect or need, but knew he would be gratified as soon as they were over. And through their minimal conversations during that time their attraction for each other built, until that sharp, late-fall day when they stood in the restored living room, the single piece of furniture a ratty sofa pushed to one freshly painted white wall, the only sound the click of the gas feeding the pilot flames of the newly installed gas space heaters, when Michael removed a long, slender gift box from the inside pocket of his trench coat.

  Michael extended it to him. Eric’s hands were sweaty, shaking slightly as he opened the box; Michael chuckled when he noticed, and even though Eric found the laugh unsettling, maybe a bit malicious, he went about unfolding the tissue paper inside.

  But then Michael reached in and tore the red cashmere scarf from the box, whipping it through the air like a triumphal banner, before hooking it around Eric’s neck. “Something to keep you warm until you get back home,” Michael said in a low, resonant voice.

  Eric kept his neck bowed, his fists twisted in cashmere.

  “It’s beautiful,” he whispered, before he realized Michael was still holding the scarf at both ends, tugging gently.

  “Look what we made,” Michael whispered before he pulled Eric’s mouth to his.

  Thanksgiving traffic turned 1-95 into a river of brake lights, and twenty minutes after picking Kathryn up at Logan, Mitchell was forced to slow the Tercel to a crawl before they were stopped completely. The snow she’d missed out on was piled along the side of the freeway in melting slush piles. Kathryn was tempted to ask Mitchell if she could smoke. Then she noticed him peeking at her out of the corner of his eye.

  “Stop that.”

  “What?” Mitchell asked innocently.

  “Haven’t you read Ways of Seeing by John Berger?”

  Mitchell shook his head, amused.

  “All women have a third eye. We use it to watch ourselves. So when a guy stares at us, it’s basically another set of eyes we have to deal with. And some of us can’t deal.”

  “If you weren’t so self-conscious about being self-conscious, I might believe you were actually insecure,” Mitchell said.

  “Thanks, Dr. Seuss.”

  Mitchell grinned in satisfaction. He seemed unfazed by the gridlock traffic, but it was starting to get to Kathryn. She drummed her fingers on the door handle.

  “Go ahead,” Mitchell said.

  “What?”

  “Light up. I won’t say anything.”

  Kathryn let out an exaggerated sigh of relief and promptly dug into her backpack for her cigarettes. She cracked the window and exhaled her first drag with dramatic slowness. The glare of headlights blotted out the landscape on either side of the freeway, aggravating her feeling that the last several hours had cut her tether from all that was familiar in her life.

  “You know,” Mitchell said, breaking the silence, “last time I checked, it was flying west that was getting you down.”

  Kathryn shrugged. “It was a good trip. I needed to see my parents.”

  “That act’s not going to win you an Oscar.”

  Kathryn laughed and squinted at him, trying to ascertain if his persistent interest was for real. “It’s nothing. I just. . . Randall and I had a fight before I left.”

  “What about?” Mitchell asked, his words short, sounding put off by the mention of Randall’s name.

  Kathryn clenched. Was it right, this urge to protect Randall, to keep a secret he had devoted so much time, energy, and deception to keeping from her?

  “Randall’s sleeping with one of his professors.”

  “I see.”

  “I mean, I didn’t think anyone actually did that. I thought it was just a bad joke, you know? Like, screw your professor to get an A.” She puffed at the cigarette. Up ahead, police lights marked the scene of the accident holding up traffic. The cars surrounding them began inching forward, and soon Mitchell was able to put his foot on the gas once again.

  “Actually,” Mitchell said, sounding as if he had needed the last minutes to formulate an appropriate response, “I think there are a lot more professor-student relationships out there than anyone would like to admit.” He seemed put off by this fact and stared darkly ahead. “I take it you didn’t know.”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “That’s unfortunate. I hope you’re the only one who does know. Otherwise this professor is in some serious danger.”

  “I don’t know anything about this guy. I mean, I don’t even know if Randall’s in love with ...”

  A knot tightened in her stomach. Dr. Eberman. The professor Mitchell worked under, for the love of God. She turned her face to the window. The Tercel was gathering speed and the wind through the cracked window threatened to tear the tip from the Camel. She brought the cigarette to her mouth and took a long drag that burned.

  “I doubt it’s about love.”

  “Mitchell. I really shouldn’t...”

  “The only reason I asked is because .. . Well,
let me put it this way. Newly uprooted freshman arrives at school, away from home for the first time. Freedom to spare, but without the experience or, forgive me, maturity to figure out just what to do with it. It’s logical that he seeks out some sort of faux authority figure. An authority figure he can control.”

  “Control?” she asked, intrigued but skeptical.

  “With sex,” Mitchell answered.

  “Keep going.”

  “I’m of the belief that these professor-student relationships are more about an exchange of power than they are about.. . love.” He, said the last word with evident disdain. “My working theory would be that Randall receives a kind of authority and direction from this professor. But it’s on his terms. He can withdraw when he’d like to. Withhold sex if the professor gets too parental.” '

  “What does the professor get?” she asked.

  “A sexual partner he too can manipulate, until he decides to dispose of him in the name of decency.”

  Kathryn couldn’t help a pained grunt. Thinking of Randall as a liar was a lot easier than viewing him as an easy mark for heartbreak.

  “This doesn’t bore you?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, I just feel like I keep dumping this shit on you every time we see each other. The petty intrigue of my little dorm unit.” “Well, yes. But it’s your shit, Kathryn.”

  She had to laugh.

  “I’m certainly not surprised,” Mitchell went on. “I’ve taught freshmen in discussion sections for almost a good two years now. I happen to know they’re the most self-analytical creatures on the planet.

  They’re on their own for the first time, so suddenly they’re examining every minor decision they make as if each one was an embodiment of their true identity. And half the energy they should devote to feeding their minds they spend trying to create some sort of aura of identity out of their own verbiage.”

  “I’m praying you’re not talking about me right now.”