A Paper Son Read online

  “Because we’re guardians of the language,” Eliza said.

  “Right,” I said.

  A light but rapid knock sounded on the door. “Take out your homework from last night,” I told the class, striding toward the door.

  “We didn’t have homework last night,” someone said.

  Annabel was damp but she still managed to look elegant. “Do you have space for some refugees?” she asked. A silver bird on a chain at her throat fluttered with her words. Lined up in the hallway behind her, in two quiet rows, were the members of her class. Each of them had wide eyes and a tiny blue plastic chair. “Our room is flooded,” she said.

  My students, thrilled by the double excitement of the flood and their little buddies’ unexpected arrival, arose to receive our visitors. The room grew loud as twenty-five different accounts of the displacement commenced. Annabel explained to me that they shouldn’t need to stay long. The custodians were setting up makeshift accommodations in the cafeteria for all three kindergarten classes.

  “Stay as long as you need to,” I said. “Maybe they should share desks with their big buddies?”

  “Thanks,” she said. “First, though, could we treat you to a little performance? It will only take a minute.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  She turned and clapped twice, and her students dropped their conversations and lined up along the front of the room, still holding their chairs. Annabel issued a command I didn’t quite catch and in unison, each of her kids set his chair on the floor in front of him, and then climbed upon it.

  “Un, deux, trois,” she said, and twenty-five little mouths opened and began singing in French. It was lovely.

  Later, at lunch, Annabel explained. “It’s foreign-language Friday,” she said. We were sitting in the teacher’s lounge, munching on salads and droopy pizza from the school’s kitchen. Her class hadn’t had to stay long. My kids were in the midst of applauding the song when Albert, one of the school’s custodians, opened my door. He waited for the clapping to die down, and then ushered Annabel’s class to the cafeteria.

  “Foreign-language Friday?” I said. “How often do you have that?”

  “Once a week,” she said, “usually just after Thursday.” She smiled and crunched down on a crouton.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Is it always French?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “Then it would be called French Friday. I mix it up.”

  “So how many languages do you know?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “How can you not know?” She shrugged and took a bite of pizza. I watched her, waiting for her to smile. She didn’t. “You’re fucking with me,” I said.

  She shook her head emphatically. “Nein,” she said. “Nyet.”

  “Okay,” I said, “what was last week?”

  “German.”

  “How do you know German?”

  “My dad was stationed there for a time.”

  “Next week?”

  “Spanish.”

  “Everybody speaks Spanish. What else?”

  “Norwegian.”

  “How the hell do you know Norwegian?”

  “An au pair.”

  “Okay. Italian?”

  “Once you know Spanish and French, you basically know Italian. And Portuguese.”

  “Japanese?”

  “Next time we’ll sing Atama kata hiza ashi.”

  “Chinese?”

  “Cantonese, yes. A tiny bit of Mandarin.”

  “How . . . ?”

  “Peace Corps.”

  My food sat in front of me, forgotten. Annabel picked up her slice of pizza and bit off the point. She wore the faintest trace of a smile. A trickle of grease dripped from the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.

  “Would you want to have dinner with me tonight?” I said. It was an unplanned question. Suddenly it had just seemed like the thing to say, and I’d said it before I could change my mind.

  She finished chewing and swallowed. “That’s sweet of you,” she said, glancing at the window as if checking on the storm, “but I can’t. I have a very busy night ahead of me.” She carved off a corner of her iceberg wedge. “Don’t let that deter you too much, though.”

  ***

  I left school and found myself half-soaked within two blocks, so I turned and headed for the pool at the local Y to complete the drenching. Few considered this swimming weather, but for some of us it was our preferred mode of exercise, year-round. The other winter swimmers at the Y tended to school in masters’ classes, gathering before dawn and in the evenings, paddling easily and all the while communicating underwater with clicks and whistles and songs, vocabularies they’d somehow remembered. I was not one of these aquatic creatures, not an obvious descendant of the oceans. I was a landlubber. I just swam because I couldn’t do much of anything else.

  Determined not to end up like my dad—overweight, perpetually out of breath, plagued always with the faint sour smell of inaction—I had searched extensively for a workout regimen I wouldn’t hate. Lifting weights made me feel like a high-school football player and I was always aware that the guy next to me was lifting twice as much. I tried cycling, but after two perplexing bike burglaries from my fifth-floor balcony I gave up on that. I didn’t mind running sometimes, but this city was brutal on the knees. I tried swimming and found no reason to leave it behind. It was private, less subject to theft, and there were no hills involved. I had even come to embrace the benefits of my dismally inefficient technique. I could burn a marathon of calories trying to stay afloat for forty-five minutes, and then I’d have the rest of my afternoon to do other things.

  Beyond the exercise the water also helped me wash the clutter from my mind. Once I’m done with my laps I like to fill my lungs with as much air as I can stuff into them and then push myself with closed eyes off the wall into the deep end. I let myself turn and drift and sink until I lose my bearings, until I sense that equalization of pressure, when my organs and fluids stop straining against the inside of my skin, looking for a way out, and instead, enfolded by the density of the water, quiet down and rest.

  Today as I walked home I figured the pool would be empty. The masters’ societies wouldn’t congregate until later, and any afternoon swim classes would have been cancelled. A swim also delayed my return home. I’d produced no explanations about Eva’s appearance during my school day, and as such I was not in a hurry to go back and confront the mysteries there. Swimming might give the situation another hour or so to resolve itself.

  I knew the woman working at the counter of the Y. Her name was Doris. I didn’t know much about her, but she had Eastern European origins, circa wartime. She had worked that counter the entire ten years I’d been a member, and probably well before that, too.

  “Looks like you’ve already been swimming,” she said. She pointed to the door that led into the locker rooms. “No other crazy men right now, just you.”

  I changed into my swimsuit (which I kept in my bag for these unplanned trips to the Y) and pushed through the double doors. A blue canvas awning was all that held the storm away from me now—the sound of the rain beating into it was like static, an old television turned up too loud. The pool was empty as promised, its surface chaotic with motion, the lights below barely visible. I set my bag and my towel down beneath the awning, pulled my goggles over my head, and when I ran out into the rain the weight of the water fell upon me like a blanket. I leapt and fell through the roiling surface into the silence beneath.

  I kept my eyes clamped shut until I ran out of speed, and when I opened them I saw utter emptiness, endless water in all directions. I twisted, searching, and found that the pool’s walls and floor had vanished, and beneath me yawned a blue-green chasm. Vertigo flashed through me like a panic. I think I may have gasped—water choked me and I clawed toward what I hoped was the surface. I emerged spluttering and gasping. The Y had returned, but its lines were wavering, out of focus. I fought my way to the sid
e of the pool and scrambled onto the deck. On my hands and knees I coughed and gasped, trying to clear my airways. Eventually the air came back and my heart began to settle. Above me, on the wall, was a large white sign, with large red letters: No Lifeguard on Duty. I pushed myself to a sitting position, tore my goggles off, and stared into the churning surface.

  It took me several minutes to gather the courage to ease myself back into the water. I walked on shaky legs to the stairway and stepped one foot in, and then the other, my knuckles white on the railing. I descended slowly, one step at a time, until I was up to my waist. I took a deep breath, clutched the metal bar with both hands, and lowered my face through the surface.

  The floor fell out from beneath me; the pole turned to vapor in my hands. I pulled my head up so quickly I pulled a muscle in my neck. The stairway reappeared. I jumped back out as if the water was boiling, changed without showering, and headed for home.

  “Bye-bye, crazy man,” Doris called out cheerfully as I walked past her.

  ***

  I was so overtaken by the advent of this new mystery that I forgot about the old one, and when I came through my door and saw Eva’s pallid figure sitting on my couch with the lights off I jumped and swore. I headed for the kitchen and the bottle of Scotch, feeling her watch me as I walked past.

  “You stayed up late last night,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Writing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you kill Bing off?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I read it?”

  “Yes.”

  I half-filled the glass, not bothering with ice. Back in the living room I sat down at my desk. My mind was buzzing; Eva was saying something but I couldn’t hear what. “Did you say something?” I said.

  “You’re no historian,” she said. “I had plenty of time to look around today, and you’re no historian.”

  “I could have told you that,” I said.

  “You did tell me that,” she said. “I just wasn’t sure if I should believe you or not.”

  “You should,” I said, taking a sip. The whiskey crackled through my head and throat like electricity.

  “I found a spare key, by the way,” she said. “So you don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I wasn’t,” I said.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Eva asked.

  “I had kind of a long day,” I said.

  “But you’re a teacher,” she said.

  “So?”

  “So you get off work in the middle of the afternoon,” she said. “How could you have had a long day?”

  She was leaning back in the couch, her hands folded in her lap, her feet flat on the floor, watching me. I couldn’t tell if she was serious.

  “Can we review a couple of things?” I asked, feeling my half-formed thoughts about the Y’s bottomless pool disintegrating. Its contemplation would have to wait.

  “Let’s,” she said.

  “You didn’t come from New York?”

  “What does New York have to do with anything?”

  “And you don’t know my sister Lucy?”

  “How would I?”

  “Long story. Where did you come from, exactly?”

  “Hayes Valley.”

  “Hayes Valley, as in, right here in San Francisco?”

  “Is there another one?” she said.

  “And why is it that you need to stay here?”

  “My place got flooded. I told you that last night.”

  “I don’t think you did.”

  “I did. You must not have been listening.”

  “So how long do you need to be here?” I said.

  “As long as it takes,” she said.

  “As long as what takes?”

  “You’re not much of a listener,” she said.

  “Remind me,” I said.

  She sat forward. “My uncle Henry.”

  I looked around my apartment. “And why do you think that information’s here?”

  The copy of The Barbary Quarterly was still on the coffee table in front of her. She reached out and tapped it with her finger. “Because here is where this came from,” she said. Together we regarded the journal, the sidewalk, the girl and her gaze.

  “So we’re back to that again?” I said.

  “That’s all there is,” she said. She leaned back into the couch and yawned. “That, and maybe twenty bucks.”

  “And how exactly did you find me?” I sent another crackle of liquid electricity down my throat. Back-to-back afternoons with Scotch weren’t my norm, but neither were teacup visions or bottomless swimming pools. If this kept up I’d have to find another coping mechanism.

  “You’re in the phone book,” Eva said. “My place got flooded, and you owe me.” She spread out her arms. “So here I am.”

  Those were the easy questions. When I asked the next one my voice sounded thin and feeble, a faint breeze through my skull. “How did you know Bing was going to die?” I said.

  “Because that’s what happened,” she said. “The question is: how did you know he died? And, again, and more to the point: what else do you know?”

  I shook my head. “That’s where things stop making sense.”

  “Well,” she said, brightly, “it would appear we’re now on the same page, anyway. Oh, by the way, your mom called.” She pointed to the corner of my desk, where my answering machine sat. My mom was the only reason I even had a landline—she refused to call me on my cell phone. She was concerned they caused brain tumors, and she refused to be a contributor to mine. I hit the button. “I need you to come pick something up,” she said. “Call me.” Suddenly, getting out of the city and seeing my mom seemed like a great idea. I checked the window. The rain was still falling, but it had lightened a bit. It wasn’t rush hour quite yet. I had decent wipers. I’d drive slowly. I stood up and grabbed my keys.

  “You’re going now?” Eva asked.

  “I am.”

  “I’d like to come.”

  “My mom doesn’t really like unannounced visitors.”

  “So announce me.”

  “She doesn’t really like any kind of visitors.”

  “I don’t like finding my family’s history printed up beneath someone else’s name,” she said, “but nonetheless, it happened.”

  My mom lived by herself in a little nook in the Santa Cruz Mountains, outside the town of La Honda. On those rare days when there was no traffic and the road was dry, it took about an hour to get there. I crept out of the city amid the red splatter of taillights and rain. Eva fell quiet, and all the confusion of the last couple of days descended on me again. My faith in the stability of the materials and liquids that made up my surroundings had been shaken; at any moment the road could turn to ash, the steering wheel to salt. I drove on anyway, hoping things would hold themselves together somehow. I had found a way out of the pool, after all, and I had chased the family out of my teacup. If Eva was a delusion, if she was the embodiment of a voice in my head, well, she wasn’t asking for much: corroboration on some plot predictions, some tea, a half-hearted request for a twenty. If her demands got more elaborate I’d re-evaluate.

  I called my mom to let her know I was on my way. “I’m bringing someone with me,” I said.

  “What the hell, Peregrine?” she said. “That’s unacceptable.”

  “Sorry, but I didn’t have much of a choice.”

  “He has a gun to your head?”

  “She.”

  “She? A girlfriend?”

  “No, a woman. She’s staying with me for a few days.”

  “A girlfriend?”

  “No.” I could not say: an old Chinese lady who appeared at my door and accused me of stealing her family’s history, and then correctly predicted my next major plot development. “She’s helping me with some research,” I said instead.

  “Well, you’re not coming in, then,” she said. “I’ll bring your things out.”

  “It’s pouring down
rain, Mom. We’re going to need the pit stop. Besides, I’m positive she will be totally uninterested. She’s probably your age. She’s Chinese.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Eva asked.

  “Does she smoke pot?” my mom said.

  “No,” I said.

  “You asked her?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Ask her.”

  “I’m not asking her that. Her interests lie elsewhere, I guarantee it.”

  “I don’t like it, Peregrine.” She hung up.

  My mom grew marijuana and sold it to medical cannabis clubs. She made a decent living, but she worked hard. The entire house but for her bedroom, one bathroom, and part of the living room had been given over to her operation. The other bedrooms housed hydroponic planting beds and tables where she crossbred and cloned plants. Clotheslines ran the length of the hallways, where whole plants hung upside-down at harvest time, drying. In the kitchen she made box after box of cellophane-wrapped cookies, brownies, scones, cinnamon rolls, loaves of banana nut bread, and apple turnovers, all of them tinged a slight shade of green. Constant maintenance chores presented themselves: fans ran too slowly, light bulbs burned out, the filters in the air conditioning and exhaust system needed replacing, temperatures and pH levels fluctuated. The house hummed and pulsated constantly with the automatic comings and goings of servo motors and thermostats, which pulled lights on tracks across the ceilings, regulated temperatures, and flushed and refilled the water in the hydroponic beds. During the harvest season she would develop problems with her fingers, her neck, and her eyes. The air was hot and close and reeked, all the time.

  I worried about her. The state of California left her alone, but the Feds were a threat, as was theft. Her outdoor beds, which were scattered throughout the hills, relied on concealment and poison oak barriers to carry them to maturity. And even though her house was tucked into a notch in the hills, a warm day with a breeze could carry the smell hundreds of yards, and anybody with a nose for it who happened to be wandering within a half-mile of her property might catch a whiff and decide to do some snooping. She had motion detectors and automatic lights, but they were primitive, and half the time they didn’t function at all. And it was lonely work. She rarely went into town. The only things that kept her from becoming a complete hermit were some aging Santa Cruz hippies in the same business who appeared from time to time to help her out with things, and her delivery routes. These were not without their stresses, either. She had clients from Santa Rosa to Santa Cruz and the circuit took her hours. I was sure that someday her car was going to go out on her, and leave her stranded by the roadside with thousands of dollars of produce in her trunk. At least she kept a low profile—nobody paid much attention to a graying middle-aged Chinese woman in the slow lane in an outdated Prius.