Gods of Aberdeen Page 13

  But Wiktor’s Orchard was the complete opposite—rolling, slanted land, tilting at angles like a ship pitched around on roiling waves, sometimes uphill, then, without warning, falling away in a loose scrabble of leaves, pebbles, and roots. Fading sun sliced through the leaves in dusty motes, gnats swirled and swooped from shaft to shaft, the piquant scent of apples hung heady in the warm, late-autumn air. I picked apples for a little while, stuffed the sack quarter-full, and then wandered away from Dan, following the footpath up and over a heavily forested hillock, walking tightrope-style over a mossy log that had fallen across a stream. The orchard dropped away behind me, obscured by a tangle of wild, gorgon-haired bushes and the massive outcropping of a towering boulder. I paused and listened. The drone of insects. The bubbling trickle of water. The muted whine of a plane somewhere far overhead.

  “What do you think?”

  Dan appeared at my side and bent over to pick up a stone. He set down his half-filled sack and threw the stone into the stream.

  “I keep expecting Caliban to pop out from behind a rotting log,” I said.

  “It does have that feel.” Dan kicked at a clod of leaves bundled with dirt. “There are probably Indian arrowheads around here.” He turned around and faced the boulder looming over us. Pockets of old leaves sat in its crevices, stripped branches lay in mid-tumble down its side. A beetle crawled sluggishly into the shrinking spot of sun lit upon the boulder’s crest. Dan pointed to the base of the giant rock.

  “See those? Bear marks, I think. They sharpened their claws there.”

  There was a series of long, scraggly lines, scratched into the stone.

  “Are you sure?” I said, uneasily.

  “Oh, yeah. There are bears all over this place. Last year Art and I found a cave about a mile that way.” He pointed across the stream and toward a thicker part of the woods. “He dared me to go in.”

  “Did you?”

  “Me? No way. Art did, though.”

  Of course, I thought.

  “He said there were some old bones and clumps of fur. And that it smelled like a zoo.”

  I peered into the woods. “You want to check it out?” I said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Why not. I’ve never seen a bear before.”

  Dan was staring at me, hunting cap tipped rakishly on his head, hand in his pockets and a loose web of brown vines wrapped around one shoe. Something buzzed by my ear.

  “What,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Nothing.” He was almost smiling.

  We both stopped, my excitement about the bear momentarily pushed aside. A bird twittered and skipped along a branch over my head.

  “Is something funny?” I said.

  “I just had an idea, that’s all.” He bent down and picked up the sack of apples.

  “About what?”

  “It’s silly,” Dan said.

  “What is it?”

  He did smile, then. Daring and excited. Then he laughed. I laughed too, more out of confusion than anything else.

  Something cracked in the distance, like a snapping branch. We both jumped, startled, and looked in the direction of the noise. A deer was standing about fifty yards away, staring back at us with its large, black eyes, and then it darted away, white tail zigzagging into the thicket.

  Dan leaned toward me and kissed me on the cheek. I pulled back and stared at him.

  “What the hell was that?”

  Dan shrugged. “We should be heading back,” he said. “I don’t know these country roads that well, especially in the dark.” He turned and started to walk back to the orchard, sack slung over his shoulder.

  Dan, I said, but he didn’t hear me, or else he pretended he didn’t, and with that, the matter was dropped. We never spoke of that day again.

  A hot spell rolled in from the coast the first week of November, spurring a nostalgic revival on campus of summer days—students got out their plastic lawn chairs and coolers, sunned themselves on the steps of Thorren between classes, played shirtless games of football in the Quad. I decided against an afternoon spent reading in the library, and instead came home. I wanted to take Nilus out into the pond, maybe wade in with him and feel the silky mud squish between my toes.

  It was an unusually bright afternoon, a searing white light coming down as if from two suns, and even the sky’s color seemed faded from the intensity, dulling into a muted blue. I walked to the back of the house, toward the pond. The damaged canoe still rested on the grass, and had piles of leaves bunched up around its sides. Dr. Cade was at the edge of the ornamental garden, on his knees, digging in the dirt with a handheld spade. His back was to me, a splotch of dark sweat in the middle of his tattered chambray button-down. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows and strands of his silver hair waved gently in the cool breeze. I could see the hair on his forearms dotted with dark soil, and hear him breathing heavily with exertion.

  Dr. Cade was working on a short row of unfamiliar plants—small hedges, low to the ground, the tips of their branches heavy with what looked like yellow plums. Even from a distance their fruit smelled sickeningly sweet, almost rotten. He stuck the shovel in the ground and grasped a trunk with both hands. I stepped on a branch and it snapped and Dr. Cade turned and saw me.

  “Do you recognize this plant?” He grunted and strained, shoulders tensed, and then yanked the plant from the earth, clods of dirt flying into the air. A forked, rugged brown root hung from his hands, the thickness and length of his forearm. “Mandrake,” he said.

  I saw Nilus bound along the edge of the pond. He was chasing a small, plump bird, hopelessly, as the bird took flight and swooped across the water.

  Dr. Cade tossed the plant into a wicker basket. “Arthur has been impressed with your research, and he tells me you have a penchant for all things Byzantine. Do I assume that extends to all areas of your life?” He smiled at his joke. “I read your most recent work, the brief section on Benedictine monasticism. I expected something a bit longer—”

  “I know—” I said, but Dr. Cade cleared his throat and continued.

  “What you did submit showed promise, and my only criticisms are due to your inexperience more than anything else. Don’t be afraid to write more, is what I’m trying to say. For example, you ignored St. Macarius of Alexandria and St. Daniel the Stylite, both of whom provide an excellent contrast to what St. Benedict deemed ‘the ordinary people.’ Can you imagine what St. Daniel endured, sitting atop that pillar for more than thirty years? One has to admire them, if not for their beliefs, then at least for their conviction.” He clapped his hands free of dirt and shifted on his knees. “You know, five hundred years ago we would have used Nilus to harvest this mandrake. It was believed mandrake housed homunculi that would shriek if disturbed, killing whoever pulled out the root.”

  “Are you transplanting them?” I said.

  “No…quite the opposite. I’m harvesting for Professor Tindley. He makes some sort of mandrake tea, claims it keeps him healthy through the winter, though I suspect he enjoys its mild narcotic effects.” He braced himself and pulled another plant, jerking it once, twice. The root ripped free from the ground and a high-pitched yowl echoed across the yard.

  I jumped back, half-expecting Professor Cade to topple over, motionless, eyes open, tongue lolling out. Another pitiful wail sounded.

  Nilus was swimming toward shore, whimpering and crying. I ran to the pond, my shoes squelching into the mud and haircap moss, and Nilus limped from the water and rushed up to me, pushing his wet head against my thigh. Dark blood dripped from his left rear leg. I saw raw flesh beneath the matted fur, like someone had swung an axe at his leg and landed a glancing blow. Nilus whined and tried to set his foot down, but this set off another round of yelping.

  Dr. Cade walked over, bent down at Nilus’s rear, and lifted the injured leg tenderly. The wound was a small arc, bubbling blood. “Looks like a snapping turtle may have gotten him,” he said, and he straightened up and wiped his hands
on his stained pants.

  “Get some gauze and medical tape from the bathroom.” He stroked Nilus’s head. “He’ll need to be anesthetized for sutures, but I don’t have anything here. If you wouldn’t mind bringing him to the vet, I’ll call Dr. Magavaro. His office is only fifteen miles down the road. I don’t mean to delegate, it’s just that I have so much work to do.” Dr. Cade held Nilus by the collar as the dog stood silent and let the blood from his wound drip and soak into the earth. I started for the house, jogging past the mandrake root, when something scurried from the wicker basket and scampered into the leaf-covered field.

  I stopped suddenly and looked behind me. A breeze ruffled the fallen leaves, blowing them over where I could see their veined underbellies. The fetid stink of mandrake fruit hung heavy in the afternoon heat. Nilus whined briefly and then stopped.

  “Is something the matter?”

  I looked at Dr. Cade, who had gotten Nilus to lie down on his side. Behind them, the pond’s surface rippled, its dark water wrinkling under a light wind.

  “No,” I said, kicking the basket. I was confused and a bit light-headed, whether from the heat or seeing Nilus’s leg I didn’t know. The mandrake root shifted; drying chunks of dirt broke off. Swollen fruit rolled lazily, fat with juice and flesh, baking in the sun.

  “I just thought I saw a homunculus,” I said, half-joking.

  Dr. Cade wiped his forehead again. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

  An old lady was sitting in the lobby of Dr. Magavaro’s veterinary office, cradling a small cage on her lap and humming to herself. There was a cat staring at me from behind the thin wire mesh, its eyes wide and nervous, white whiskers poking out. I shortened Nilus’s leash and sat across from the woman, watching as the cat flattened its ears and opened its mouth in a silent hiss. But Nilus was too exhausted to take notice, and he rested his head on his bandaged leg and watched the movements of the secretary behind the front desk.

  A tall, older man with white hair walked in from the back, and when he saw me he smiled broadly and extended his hand. He wore a white lab coat, spotted with stains of various colors.

  “You must be Eric. I’m Dr. Magavaro.” He had a strong, gravelly Maine accent. “William said he thought it was a snapping turtle bite, and from the looks of it”—he knelt by Nilus’s side and carefully lifted the leg—“I’d say William is right. Would you like to come back and wait with him, while I prep the anesthetic?”

  “He’s going under?”

  Dr. Magavaro nodded slowly. “Yep. Nothing to worry about. Standard procedure. The general anesthetic keeps him still while we operate. We’re just going to shave the area, suture and staple, and he’ll be right as rain in no time. Are you the dog’s owner?”

  “No, sir,” I said, “he’s Howie’s.”

  “Ah, yes. The redhead. Oh, another thing.” The thin woman from behind the counter walked over, and Dr. Magavaro handed the leash to her automatically, his attention still focused on me. “Some of William’s cats are about due for their shots. You might want to let him know there’s a nasty strain of distemper floating around the county. Four cases this month, mostly strays, but still, an ounce of prevention…”

  “I didn’t know he had cats,” I said.

  Dr. Magavaro looked surprised. “Oh, sure.” It came out Oh, shaw. “He’s a cat lover, all right. What’s that term…”

  “An ailurophile,” I said.

  “Yes, that’s exactly it. Very impressive.” He smiled. “Do you go to Fairwich Central?”

  “I’m at Aberdeen.”

  “Oh,” he smiled again. “I’m not too good when it comes to guessing people’s age. Bring me a gerbil and it’s a different story,” he laughed. “I’ll have Lily call the house when Nilus is ready. Should be no later than five, five-thirty. And remember to tell William about the distemper. I know he’d be heartbroken if anything happened to his cats.”

  When I got back to the house, Art’s car was in the driveway with all of its doors open, and the radio was playing some news program. Piles of books and papers sat on the driveway, stacked on a cardboard box top. Dr. Cade was evidently finished in the garden, since the basket wasn’t there and the three remaining mandrakes were missing from the ground.

  Art walked out the front door of the house, a glass in his hand. He was barefoot and wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. A layer of stubble spread from his chin down to his neck. “I heard about Nilus,” he said. “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah. They’re giving him general anesthesia before stitching him up.” I leaned on the car. “What are you doing?”

  “Fall cleaning. It’s supposed to drop like twenty-five degrees tonight, so I figured this is going to be our last nice day for a while. I cannot believe how much crap I found in here.” He set his glass on the car hood, then walked to the driver side. “I found an apple core that must have been under my seat for months.”

  “Does Professor Cade have any cats?”

  Art sat behind the steering wheel and opened the glove compartment. He gave me a funny look, one of those pained, confused smiles. “Not that I know of. Why?”

  “Dr. Magavaro said he did.”

  Art looked down for a moment. “Dr. Cade? I don’t think so.” He continued to rummage through the glovebox. Empty tobacco pouches, books of matches, a double-A battery. “Cats are filthy creatures. Do you know their mouths teem with Pasteurella?” Art pulled a pipe out of the compartment and held it up. It was a fine piece, carved from wood, resembling a gargoyle, its tail the mouthpiece, the top of its leering head hollowed out for the bowl. The tip of its wagging tongue had broken off. “I wondered where this was. I bought this in Prague, three years ago, from an Armenian vendor in Mala Strana Square.”

  “Well, Dr. Magavaro told me to tell Dr. Cade that his cats are due for their shots,” I said.

  Art polished the pipe with his shirttail. “Are you sure he’s got the right professor? There are a bunch who live around here.”

  “He knew Dr. Cade well. He called him ‘William.’ He also knew who Howie was.”

  Art shrugged and held the pipe up for inspection. “He’s got his patients mixed up. Hey, what are you doing tonight?”

  The weekly Thursday night outing. Art and Howie went out practically every Thursday night and came back drunk and shushing each other, stomping upstairs, talking in loud whispers about the various women they’d seen that night.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I crossed my arms as a gust of cold wind hit me. “I have some reading to do. And I have to finish a paper.” I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hang out with Art and Howie, ever since Dan told me about Ellen. I felt like the Ellen situation was a fault line that could go at any minute, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near it when it did.

  “That reminds me: Where are you with Dr. Cade’s work?” Art slipped the pipe into his pocket. There was a crow somewhere close by, cawing loudly. A thick line of clouds amassed far off on the horizon.

  “The Franks,” I said. “Merovingians and Carolingians.”

  “Sounds good. Better pay attention because your next assignment is on Charlemagne. So, you interested in tonight or not?”

  “I told you I don’t know,” I said.

  Art smiled and got out of the car. “I hope you realize what an honor this is. We’ve never even taken Dan along on our Thursday night adventures.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  Art stopped. “Why not?”’

  “It just doesn’t seem to be his style, that’s all.”

  Art nodded. “The gay style, right?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Well I did. He ever make a pass at you? Dan tends to get crushes on his friends.”

  “Everything’s cool with Dan and me,” I said.

  “You sure?” Art smiled mischievously. “I don’t believe you,” he said.

  “You don’t believe anyone,” I said.

  Art laughed. “The only person who doesn’t know Dan’s gay is Dan. He sh
ould just fess up and it would make things a lot easier around here.” He swept a pile of junk off his front seat, and into a box.

  I hunched my shoulders up against the cold wind, and watched as the clouds rolled in. They were dark, the color of basalt, thick-bellied and vast.

  My memories of Minnesota winters are filled with nothing more than cold, cold wind and unrelenting ice. The last winter before my mother died I remember getting up early on a Saturday and staring out at the barren cornfields and it was like a frozen sea—water that settled in the tractor tracks had turned to shining ice overnight. There weren’t any trees, anywhere, only the broken stalks of corn plants rising from the fields like splintered bones, and our tractors covered in green tarpaulin that flapped and fluttered like a trapped giant bird every time the wind blew.

  By contrast, winters in New Jersey had been dirty and miserable. The snow quickly turned black, cars cut slushy trenches in the salt-laden streets. Cities become even more claustrophobic in the winter; you can feel them closing in around you.

  My first snow at Aberdeen came that night—a storm that enveloped Connecticut from Short Beach to North Hollow. We took Howie’s Jag into town, the black sky spitting fat white flakes that swooped and swirled all around us. Howie drove surprisingly slowly and carefully, like an old man.

  Our destination was a small bar on the edge of town called Pete’s Pub, famous for its ten-cent chicken wings (a local cuisine imported from Buffalo), and its five-dollar pitchers of Canadian beer (the owner, Pete, was an expatriate from Toronto). We sat at a corner booth, in a cramped, darkened nook with a thick, heavily scarred oaken table that reminded me of the Middle Ages—I could see us as travel-weary crusaders pausing for a drink at some roadside tavern tucked into the wooded mountains of Bulgaria. Howie ordered a “Tom and Jerry” served in a mug, steam rising from dark broth that smelled of spiced rum. Art got a pitcher of dark beer that I drank despite hating it. The pub was dimly lit by orange glass-covered wall sconces with those small, flickering bulbs that are supposed to resemble flames. Medieval kitsch, as Art called it. The patrons looked roughly hewn as well, shadows cut into their rugged features, faces carved from stone into cheekbone buttes and forehead escarpments. They talked in low tones, a steady rumble of conversation broken by the clink of glasses and the occasional outburst of laughter.