It made me feel sick, too. Momma was only a widow of eight months then. But, sometimes eight months can feel more like eight years, and, after all, of what value was the past when the present was so thrilling, and pleasing . . . for, you bet, I could guess a lot went on that Chris wasn't ever going to tell me.
"Now, Cathy, I don't know what you're thinking, but Momma did command him to stop, and if he didn't, she wouldn't show him her bedroom."
"Oh boy, I bet he was doing something gross!"
"Kisses," said Chris, staring over at the Christmas tree, "only kisses, and a few caresses, but they did make her eyes glow, and then that Bart, he was asking her if the swan bed had once belonged to a French courtesan."
"For heaven's sake, what is a French courtesan?"
Chris cleared his throat. "It's a noun I looked up in the dictionary, and it means a woman who saves her favors for men of the aristocracy, or royalty."
"Favors--what kind of favors?"
"The kind rich men pay for," he said quickly, and went on, putting his hand over my mouth to shut me up. "And, of course, Momma denied such a bed would be in this house. She said a bed with a sinful reputation, no matter how beautiful, would be burned at night, while prayers were said for its redemption, and the swan bed was her grandmother's bed, and when she was a girl, she wanted her grandmother's bedroom suite more than she wanted anything else. But her parents wouldn't let her have those rooms, fearful she'd be contaminated by the ghost of her grandmother who wasn't exactly a saint, and not exactly a courtesan either. And then Momma laughed, kind of hard and bitterly, and told Bait her parents believed she was now so corrupted that nothing could, or would make her worse than she al
ready was. And you know; that made me feel so bad. Momma isn't corrupted-- Daddy loved her . . . they were married . . . and what married people do in private is no one else's business."
My breath caught and held. Chris always knew everything-- absolutely everything!
"Well, Momma said, 'One quick look, Bart, and then back to the party.' They disappeared down a wing softly lit and inviting, and of course that gave me the general directions of her room. I cautiously peered in all directions first, before I came from out of hiding, and dashed away from the suit of armor, and into the first closed door that I saw. I rushed in, thinking that since it was dark, and the door was closed, it would be unoccupied. I closed the door behind me very softly, and then stood perfectly still, just to absorb the scent and feel of the place, the way you say you do. I had my flashlight, and I could have beamed that around right away, but I wanted to learn how you can be so intuitive, and so wary and suspicious, when
everything seems perfectly normal to me. And darned if you aren't right. If the lights had been on, and I'd used the flashlight, maybe I wouldn't have noticed the strangest unnatural odor that filled the room. An odor that made me feel uneasy and kind of scared. Then, by golly, I nearly dropped my skin!"
"What--what?" I said, pushing his hand that tried to hush me. "What did you see--a monster?"
"Monster? Oh, you bet I saw monsters! Dozens of monsters! At least I saw their heads mounted and hung on the walls. All about me eyes were
glistening--amber, green, topaz, and lemon eyes. Boy, was it scary! The light coming through the windows was colored bluish because of the snow, and it caught on the shiny teeth, and on the fangs of the lion which had its mouth wide open and was silently roaring. It had a tawny ruff of mane that made its head seem huge--it had a mute expression of anguish, or anger. And for some reason, I felt sorry for it, decapitated, mounted, stuffed--made just a thing to decorate when it should have lived out its life stalking free on the veld."
Oh, yes, I knew what he meant. My anguish was always like a mountain of rage.
"It was a trophy room, Cathy, a huge room with many animal heads. There was a tiger, and an elephant with its trunk uplifted. All the animals from Asia and Africa were displayed on one side of the huge room, and the big game from America was on the opposite wall: a grizzly bear, a brown-and-black bear, an ante- lope, a mountain lion, and so on. Not a fish or bird was represented, as if they didn't present enough of a challenge to the hunter who had killed to decorate that room. It was a creepy room, and yet I wanted so much for you to see it. You've just got to see it!"
Oh, heck--what did I care about the trophy room? I wanted to know about people--their secrets--that's what I wanted.
"There was a stone fireplace at least twenty feet long on the wall with the windows on either side, and above it hung a life- size oil portrait of a young man who was so much like our father it made me want to cry out. But it wasn't Daddy's portrait. As I neared, I saw a man much like our father, except in the eyes. He wore a khaki hunting outfit, with a blue shirt. The hunter rested on his rifle and he had one leg up on a log that lay on the ground. I know a little about art, enough to know that painting is a masterpiece. The artist really captured the soul of the hunter. You never saw such hard, cold, cruel and pitiless blue eyes. That alone told me it couldn't be our father even before I read the small metal plate fastened to the bottom of the goldleaf frame. It was a painting of Malcolm Neal Foxworth, our grandfather. The date showed Daddy had been five years old when that portrait was painted. And as you know, when Daddy was three, he and his mother, Alicia, had been driven away from Foxworth Hall, and he and his mother were living in Richmond then."
"Go on."
"Well, I was very fortunate nobody saw me stealing around, for I really did poke into every room. And finally I found Momma's suite of rooms. It has double doors over two steps up, and, boy, when I took a look inside, I thought I was looking into a palace! The other rooms made me anticipate something splendid, but her rooms are just beyond belief! And they had to be our mother's rooms, for Daddy's photograph was on her nightstand, and the rooms smelled of her perfume. In the center of the room, on a dais, was the fabulous swan bed! Oh! What a bed! You've never seen anything like it! It has a sleek ivory head, turned in profile, and appears ready to plunge its head under the ruffled underside of a lifted wing. It has one sleepy red eye. The wings curve gently to cup the head of an almost oval bed--I don't know how they fit sheets on it, unless they are custom-made. The designers arranged for the wingtip feathers to act as fingers, and they hold back the delicate, transparent draperies that are in all shades of pink and rose, and violet, and purple. It is really some bed . . . and those bed curtains ... why, she must feel like a princess sleeping there. The pale mauve carpet is so thick you sink up to your ankles, and there's a large rug of white fur near the bed. There are lamps four feet high of cutcrystal, decorated with gold and silver, and two of them have black shades. There's an ivory chaise lounge upholstered in rose-colored velvet-- something like you'd see in a Roman orgy. And at the foot of that big swan bed--and hold your breath, for you're not going to believe this--there was an infant swan bed! Imagine that! Placed at the foot, and crossways. I just had to stand and wonder why anyone would need a big wide bed, and then a little narrow bed across the bottom. There must be a good reason, beside that of taking a nap and not mussing the larger bed. Cathy, you've just got to see that bed to believe it!"
I knew he'd seen a whole lot more that he didn't mention. More that I was to see later for myself. So much I did see that I knew why he came back and made so much of the bed without telling me everything
"Is this house prettier than our house in
Gladstone?" I asked, for, to me, our ranch house-- eight rooms and two and a half baths--had been the best possible.
He hesitated. It took him some time to find the right words to say, for he was not one to speak hastily. He weighed his words carefully that night, and that alone told much. "This is not a pretty house. It's grand, it's big, it's beautiful, but I wouldn't call it pretty."
I thought I knew what he meant. Prettiness was more akin to coziness than grand, rich, and beautiful, plus huge.
And now there was nothing left to say but good night--and don't let the bedbugs bite. I put a kiss on his cheek and pushed him off the bed. This time he didn't complain that kisses were only for babies and sissies--and girls. Soon he was snuggled down beside Cory, only three feet away.
In the dark, the little live Christmas tree, two feet tall, sparkled with tiny colored lights, like the tears I saw glistening in my brother's eyes.
The Long Winter, and Spring, and Summer
. Never had our mother spoken truer words when she said now we had a real window to look into the lives of others. That winter, the TV set took over our lives. Like others--invalids, sick people, old people-- we ate, bathed, and dressed, so we could sit down to watch other people living fake lives.