"We don,t know why people go that route," Reuben said. "Willie was brilliant, but he was an addict. He was there to stay while his friends were just passing through."
"That,s it, exactly. I must have done every drug myself that my brothers ever did. But somehow these things didn,t appeal."
"I,m with you," he said.
"Of course they,re furious that everything was left to me. But they were little children when Uncle Felix went away. He would have changed his will to take care of them, had he ever come home."
"Didn,t they have money from your parents?"
"Oh, definitely. And from grandparents and great-grandparents before them. They went through it with breathtaking speed, giving parties here for hundreds of people, and financing rock bands of druggies like themselves who hadn,t a chance of success. They drive drunk, crash the cars and somehow walk away without a scratch. One of these days they,ll kill somebody, or kill themselves."
She explained that she would settle quite a lot on them as soon as the property was sold. She didn,t have to do it, but she would. The bank would dole it out so that they didn,t blow it all as they,d done their inheritance. But they didn,t like any of this. As for the house, it had no sentimental value to them whatsoever, and if they thought they could fence Felix,s collectibles, they would have stolen them all a long time ago.
"The fact is, they don,t know the value of most of the treasures hidden in this house. They break a lock now and then and abscond with some pedestrian item. But mostly, it,s extortion - you know, drunken calls in the middle of the night, threatening suicide, and I usually end up sooner or later writing a big check. They bear with the lectures, the tears, and the advice for the money. And then they,re gone again, off to the Caribbean, or Hawaii, or down to Los Angeles on another bender. I think their latest scheme is to break into the p**n ography business. They,ve found a starlet that they,re cultivating. If she,s underage they may end up in prison, and perhaps that,s inevitable. Our lawyers certainly think so. But we all behave as if there,s hope."
Her eyes moved over the room. He could not imagine how it looked to her. He knew how it looked to him, and that he would never forget her as she looked now in the light of the candles, her face slightly flushed from the wine, her lips very red, it seemed, and smoke-colored eyes flashing in the light of the fire.
"What gets me is they were never curious about things, never interested in Felix, never interested in anything, really - not music, not art, not history."
"I can,t imagine it," he said.
"But that,s what,s so refreshing about you, Reuben. You don,t have the hard-boiled cynicism of the young." She was still looking around, eyes a little restless as they moved over the dark sideboard, the dark marble mantel, and once again over the round iron chandelier that had not been lighted, its stubby wax candles covered in dust.
"We had such times in this room," she said. "Uncle Felix promised to take me so many places. We had such plans. I had to finish college first, he was adamant. And then we were going to travel the world."
"Are you going to feel a crashing grief when you sell this place?" Reuben ventured. "Okay, I,m a little drunk, not much. But really, will you regret this? How can you not?"
"It,s finished here, dear boy," she said. "I wish you could see my house is Buenos Aires. No. This is a pilgrimage, this trip. There,s nothing here for me now but loose ends."
He wanted suddenly to say, Look, I,m buying this place. And Marchent, you can come here, anytime, stay as long as you like. Pompous nonsense. How his mother would laugh.
"Come," she said. "It,s nine o,clock, can you believe it? We,ll see what we can upstairs, and leave the rest for the light of day."
They visited a chain of interesting wallpapered bedrooms, and old-fashioned tiled bathrooms with pedestal sinks and claw-foot tubs. There were American antiques galore, and some European pieces, as well. The rooms were spacious, comfortable, inviting no matter how dusty or faded or cold.
And finally, she opened the door to "one of Felix,s libraries," more a huge study, really, with blackboards and bulletin boards and walls and walls of books.
"Nothing,s been changed in twenty years," she said. She pointed to all the photographs, newspaper clippings, and faded notes tacked up on the boards, and the writing still visible on the blackboards after all this time.
"Why, this is incredible."
"Yes, because, you see, Felice thinks he,s coming home, and there were times when I certainly thought so too. I didn,t dare touch anything. When I found out the boys had been here and stolen things, I went wild."
"I saw the double locks."
"Yes, well. It came down to that. And the alarm system, though I don,t think Felice really sets it when I,m not here."
"These books, these books are in Arabic, aren,t they?" he said as he moved along the shelves. "And what,s this, I don,t even know what this is."
"I don,t either," she said. "He wanted me to learn all the languages he knew but I didn,t share the knack. He could learn any language. He could almost read people,s minds."
"Well, this is Italian, of course, and this is Portuguese."
He paused at the desk. "This is his diary, isn,t it?"
"Well, some sort of diary or workbook. I would imagine he took his latest diary with him when he left."
The blue-lined page was covered with curious writing. Only the date was clear and in English: "August 1, 1991."
"Right where he left it," Marchent said. "Now what do you think that language can be? The people who,ve studied it have several different opinions. It,s a Middle Eastern tongue almost certainly, but not derived from Arabic, at least not directly. And there are symbols all through the writing that no one can recognize at all."
"Impenetrable," he murmured.
The inkwell was dried up. A fountain pen lay there, with a name inscribed on it in gold. FELIX NIDECK. And there was a framed picture standing there, of the remarkable gentlemen all together in a more informal gathering, under garlands of flowers, with wineglasses in their hands. Beaming faces - Felix with his arm around the tall blond-haired Sergei with the pale eyes. And Margon the Godless regarding the camera with a placid smile.
"I gave him the pen," she said. "He loved fountain pens. He liked the sound they made when they scratched the paper. I got it at Gump,s in San Francisco for him. Go ahead, you may touch it, if you like. As long as we put it back where it was."