A Midnight Conversation

            by Arielle Usher

 

The merciless sun was high in the sky on an afternoon in July. Unforgiving rays of light beat down on the house below and found their way through the large windows, illuminating particles of dust that floated through the heavy air that filled the vast and empty rooms.  The second story bedroom in the back was the only place in the house that the light did not permeate, because Sabine had pinned unused goose-down comforters and satin blankets over the gaping windows. But the unstoppable heat could not be kept out, and the room was stifling and sticky, the air like hot soup. The door to the room was closed as well, and so not even a breath of air stirred in the static room. Sabine, lying spread-eagle on the floor in underwear and a tee shirt, stared through the ceiling as she sweated, and let her self sink into a heat-induced stupor.

There would seem to be no limit to the fun a ten-year-old girl could get up to if left to her own devices in a huge old house like the in question. And in fact, for the first week of summer Sabine had engaged herself in a number of enjoyable activities, taking advantage of the emptiness of the house to run and scream through the long halls, slide down the banisters, and rifle through her father’s endless collection of priceless antique statuettes. She had dropped one, a stern-faced soldier in grey, onto the marble floor of the bathroom, where the thing had lain in shatters. Sabine had buried the pieces in the backyard and had not touched his things again, but of course it did not matter because her father was in Milan on business for the summer, and would not even have noticed if he had been there. And so Sabine found herself completely alone for the first time in her life and at a loss for things to do. And furthermore the heat, the oppressive and mind-shattering heat, had turned her into an insomniac at night and a zombie during the day.         

            As Sabine lay, pointedly not thinking, inside the house, a young man was standing just off the edge of the vast front lawn outside. He hitched his large pack up his sweating back and shaded his eyes to take in the whole house, whistling softly. Four stories high, it was as impressive and uninviting a piece of architecture as the man had ever seen, with ivy dripping down dark grey stonework from the cruelly pointed roof.  Sabine’s father could have told him that it had been here for over one hundred years, the original features still perfectly intact. He could also have bragged about the amount cash he had laid out to secure this house as well as the 20 acres that surrounded it for himself. But the young man was unshaven and shod in dirty canvas shoes with splitting seams, and so Sabine’s father would not have been likely to tell him anything.

The young man scratched his head, looking away from the house to the path he had just made through a thick patch of trees. He had been looking for a nice shady clearing in which to set up his tent for the night before bursting out of the trees like a fish from water, suddenly without cover. He had not expected in the least to come across a piece of human life this far out of town, and through the brilliant sunspots in his eyes the house had appeared, gleaming and unnatural.

            “The height of culture in the middle of nowhere,” he murmured. “Bizarre.” And, hitching his pack up once again, he made his way around the back of the house and into the trees on the other side.

            Some hours later the sun was setting, and it threw long shadows of poplar trees onto the house silhouetted against the flaming sky. Somewhere just short of sleep, Sabine saw the black, sharp armed shadows against her covered windows and sat up with a gasp. She held her breath as the sun sank below the horizon, taking with it the last of its fiery glow. Sabine peered carefully into the corners of the room in the faded half-light that was left over. The gloom that had lain there patiently all through the day unfurled and expanded quickly, covering everything within reach in a dark violet dusk. Sabine jumped and ran to the light switch – these ten seconds after the sun set and before the first star appeared where her least favorite part of the day. Without the unforgiving safety of the sun, and before the cool security of night, anything seemed possible. Mr. Bear on her bed grew soft tentacles of shadow that reached out to her, moving closer, closer, before dissolving instantly with the click of the light switch.

            “Marla?” she called out. Hearing no reply she stuck her head through the doorway and tried again. “Marla?” Again, there was no answer. Sabine looked up and down the darkening hallway before dashing across it to flick on the switch and light the heavy chandeliers above. She tiptoed softly to the staircase, one hand on the wall, took a deep breath and yelled loudly, “MARLA!” Heavy silence swallowed the sound.

            And silence would be Sabine’s only answer that night, because Marla was driving her sea-foam green 1960 BMW to a club she liked in the next town over. She had been distracted by her legs, long and smooth and high-heeled on fuchsia shoes. These legs, and with them the prospect of meeting the elusive tall, dark and handsome had cleared her mind completely of her boss’s only daughter, alone on his summer property. It was to be Marla’s job to watch over the girl from dusk until dawn, with permission to use the terrace hot tub and home theatre system as she saw fit once Sabine was asleep. He was in a bind, was Mr. Safford, what with his business in Milan unable to wait. He would be forever in her debt, he promised, and he had offered triple salary for the extra work. Marla couldn’t very well have said no to Mr. Safford, and besides she liked little Sabine. But tonight her mind, and herself, were other places.

            As Sabine was waking with a start, the young man was standing among the poplar trees behind the house looked toward the setting sun. The light streamed past him and painted his image, along with those of the poplars, on the second story window. He sighed as the orb finally slid past the horizon, and waited for the first star to appear in the indigo sky before striking a match and holding it to some old papers and timber he had constructed into a pyramid. These ten seconds of dusk were his favorite part of the day, when everything melted into the same purple haze and anything was possible. His fire lit, he sat back against his pack and blinked lazily at the sparks. He was tired to the bones, and had good reason to be.

Yesterday afternoon, after a leisurely lunch with his old friend Paul in a small town 15 miles way, he had set out once again, determined not to stop until he found the perfect place to camp. Loosely he was headed north, to where he knew an even older friend was living, but as to what path he took he had no set plan. And since he was young and strong and keeping to the countryside, he had the leisure to set his own pace, which was why, when yesterday evening tapped him on the shoulder and the perfect place had yet to reveal itself, he kept going. He wasn’t worried – he had traveled at night before.

By the time the first rosy fingers of dawn had crept up from the east, though, he was beginning to falter. He turned left at the next sign he saw, following a short road straight into the center of an isolated town. He smiled. Here was a perfect place if there ever was one; a tiled fountain bubbled in the middle of a paved square and morning doves cooed as they searched marble benches for scraps of bread. The young man could easily imagine geezers, probably named Arthur and Ernest and David, sitting on these benches in their best brown suits at noon, tossing birdseed and breadcrumbs. The young man thought he would love to see that, and decided to spend the day on the soft grassy hill nearby, napping and daydreaming. But something caught his eye, a small lane that lead not forwards and onwards but into the trees that cupped the small town. The forest itself would have made him pause; it was thickly wooded and lush green, sage and chartreuse. The early morning sun sparkling off dew in the moss-covered ground dazzled and addled his mind. It was a sight to see – but the lane, big enough for only one car, was what called to him. What could the lane lead to in a forest such as this? And so he had stepped boldly in, loosing the lane as the morning progressed into afternoon but nevertheless finding what he had set out to find. Never before had he walked so long. 24 hours straight had he walked, just to be where he was. Right exactly here, he thought, was perfect, beneath the trees and the sky. And as for the house 50 feet away, with its impressive carriage, it only added to his delight at his camping spot. A summer home, he thought it was. Probably empty this season, but owned by perfectly delightful people…

His heavy eyelids closed and opened more slowly, and then slower still, until he was asleep.

And meanwhile Sabine sat heavily down on a purple brocade couch with a sigh of resignation, and Marla, far away, thought she heard an echo of something, a soft cooing sound, and hazily remembered her charge.

Sabine was thinking about her mother with her knees pulled up tight to her chest. She was thinking specifically about her mother’s brown eyes, liquid pools of seemingly unfathomable depth that so closely matched Sabine’s own. She was thinking about how a person could fall into these eyes, hypnotized, and wondered what other people, her father or Marla, thought when they looked into her own eyes. Did they feel like they were drowning in there, the same way Sabine felt when she looked at her mother? Into those endless brown eyes Sabine had peered, and at the very bottom of the bottomless pits her reflection peered back, distorted and surprised. Sabine’s fair skin and flyaway brown hair, beached now by the summer sun, as well as her mild disposition, came entirely from her father. Her eyes were all that she had from her mother, and she was glad about that, glad that she was tall for her age and quiet, glad she already had size 7 feet at ten years old, even though all the girls at school only had size 5 or smaller, because the last thing she wanted to be was like her mother. Well, really she would have loved to look like Renata Safford, small and olive-skinned and lovely, with endless brown eyes. But what if with those characteristics came her mother’s nerves as well? Sabine didn’t want to be “unstable,” or “fragile,” or whatever word her father used, not one of which could soften the fact that her mother was crazy. Crazy, and frightening and mean, too, for leaving Sabine all alone on this empty night, in this cavernous house, in the middle of the cloying, sickening heat that melted through the trees. And on this night Sabine sat on the purple couch, which her mother had found by the side of the road four years ago and which her father refused to get rid of, and worried that for all she hated her mother, she, Sabine, was probably just the same because her eyes, her eyes gave her away. So she closed them, and hugged her knees up into her chest, and hoped that she wasn’t crazy. Because she didn’t feel crazy, but than neither had Renata Safford.

Sabine didn’t often think about her mother, or at least she didn’t often think about Renata Safford. She often thought of other mothers, with names like Sarah or Jane, who she imagined were away working with sick children in Africa, or fantastically employed as captains of pirate ships, or dead because even no mother would be better than a crazy one. No, Sabine didn’t think often about her mother. But it was hard on these long, empty summer days, and now this long hot summer night. Marla always brought over a funny movie and Chinese food, or read to Sabine from her romance novels, but tonight Marla was not here and so Sabine was left with an endless supply of nothing to distract herself with. Sabine was really a very capable child and able to take care of herself; it was only the gloom in the corners of the old house that worried her most of the time, and in fact she had told Marla again and again that she, Sabine, was not a baby and that she, Marla, didn’t have to come over all the time. Yet Marla had come over, every night of the long, sweltering summer, except for this one. And of course tonight Sabine really wanted to be a baby, wanted to be held and stroked and comforted. But Marla wasn’t there, and so Sabine sat on the couch with her eyes closed, and eventually began working her pudgy fingers through the contrived, sloppy curls in her thin brown hair.

And meanwhile Marla was barreling west down some little used highway when she caught, out of the corner of her left eye, sight of a tiny sliver of the moon. It was a Cheshire cat moon, a glowing, mocking sliver of a smile. She suddenly dragged the wheel to the right and pulled sharply to a stop on the shoulder, and then flung the car door open and staggered out, unsteady on fuchsia patent leather, and stared dizzily past the horizon up to the silver cresant. That moon was uncomfortably like some smile she had seen recently, whose elusive memory Marla thought she should find. If only she could remember what it was… and then it hit her, all at once. She had seen the moon smile yesterday at the Indigo Rest Center in town, flashing on and off of Renata Safford’s face like a neon sign of a by-the-highway diner, only this sign offered no rest from the weary road. That smile had disturbed her, glowing white and so perfectly curved – it was a completely inhuman smile, and Marla had had to look away, had had to walk away and wait for Sabine outside by her vintage car. The little girl had taken in all in stride very bravely, and Marla had been impressed; Sabine was usually so afraid of everything, spider webs on the staircases, the wind blowing through the trees, and the dark.

“SHIT!” Her voice cracked as she ran back to her car and turned the keys. The engine rumbled and squealed.

“Shit.” Marla turned the keys again and skidded back onto the highway, twisting the steering wheel 180 degrees and pulling her BMW into a u-turn, crossing her fingers that no other car was coming her way. Sabine was afraid of the dark – how could she have forgotten?

Yesterday Marla had taken Sabine into town. That morning in the house, she had dressed the little girl in an outfit bought specially for the occasion, one with starched ruffles and itchy lace and complete with size seven ruby slippers. Marla had been nervous and slightly apprehensive about the outing in her own fancy clothes, a tight black knit dress and her habitual fuchsia high heels, and had yanked Sabine’s hair as she pulled out the pin curlers from the night before. Sabine had looked into the bathroom mirror at her suddenly lovely hair, and had watched Marla’s reflection behind her as the woman ran her fingers through the curls. Marla’s face had a look of intense concentration as she applied mousse and tied in a purple ribbon. All of her attention was on Sabine, at least for that moment, and Sabine basked in the feel of fingers in her hair. But soon Marla’s closeness, and the smell of her grapefruit perfume had made Sabine nervous, and she shook her head sharply, making Marla cry out. The moment was gone.

 Later, about the time that the man currently asleep behind the house was saying goodbye to his friend Paul, Marla was driving her sea-foam green car. Nestled in the back seat with a basket of expensive bread, cheese, and chocolate, Sabine had let her mind wander as her eyes skimmed over the scenery out the window. The air conditioner, turned on high to combat the 100-degree whether, was chilling her bare shins beneath her dress, so she had tucked her legs up under the itchy skirt. Then she had looked at the back of Marla’s head, which was bobbing back and forth as Marla sang to herself, an old song that Sabine didn’t know:

If I had some strong wings like an aero plane,

Had some broad wing like and aero plane,

I would fly away forever, never to come again.

The tune was soft and lilting, and Marla’s voice was rich. Sabine watched as Marla’s long hair swung silkily down her back, and thought that she would like to be an airplane, too.

 It had been three years since Renata Safford had broken down and checked herself into the Indigo Center. It seemed sometimes that she had never been there at all for the ease in which she had disappeared, one day eating lunch with Sabine in the summer house and the next simply absent, flitted away at midnight with all of her belongings. Sabine didn’t really remember much from the years she had lived with her mother and father together, but she did know, because Marla had told her, that her father had sold the family house in town. The summer residence ten miles away he had kept, so that his daughter might have a place to call home when she was on break from the prestigious boarding school in New York that, starting the August after Renata Safford’s collapse, Sabine was sent to each year. But as it turned out, Mr. Safford’s business had called him away to lovely exotic locations around the world on all the major holidays, and so Sabine hadn’t even seen the house since she was seven years old. For three years it had been Christmas in Paris, Easter in the Caribbean, or summer in Barcelona, and Sabine always under the watchful eye of one of her father’s secretaries. Her father had many secretaries, had many of everything he wanted; that was the privilege of the very very rich. And he always seemed happy, or at least not lonely like Sabine was. After all, he had his job, he had his daughter, and he had his secretaries to help him with all his needs; Lauren, Mimi, Susie-chi, and now Marla. Although he didn’t have Marla as much as he wanted, Sabine knew. She knew a lot of things, about sex or otherwise, that her sheltered acquaintances at school didn’t. Marla said she was worldly and cultured, and a very lucky girl. But Sabine didn’t feel lucky, especially now, because her father had not wanted her this summer, had flown away to Milan with Mimi, Lauren and Susie-Chi, and left her in that unfamiliar house surrounded by poplar trees. 

Sabine’s mother hadn’t looked like she belonged in the visiting room in her pink bathrobe with all the other crazy people, who yelled or cried or drooled as their natures demanded. Renata Safford had smiled when Sabine was pushed forward by Marla, and waved a small hand hello. This was only Sabine’s third visit in as many years, and she was never sure whether her mother knew who she, Sabine, was, or even who she herself was. Sabine didn’t know because her mother never told her, and she was after all only ten and not able to read minds.

“Hello,” her mother had said in a small voice. Sabine said hello back. Her mother continued to smile, a smile that made Sabine feel bitter and left out. What was she thinking? “Is this your friend?” Renata Safford’s eyes had moved beyond Sabine to Marla, her smile still in place. Marla blanched visibly, and stumbled back over her fuschia shoes.

“Oh, Sabine we left the chocolate in the car…” she had mumbled, and then had turned and walked quickly out through the hallway into the parking lot. Sabine watched her through the window pressing her hands against the vintage BMW.

“Will she bring it?” asked Sabine’s mother. “I love chocolate.” She turned her head toward Sabine again and then tilted it to the side, narrowing her brown eyes in concentration. “Do I know you?” she had inquired. She kept on looking and Sabine looked right back, falling into bruised depths, loosing herself. Sabine’s mother’s mouth was slack and a tiny droplet of drool was making its way from the corner of her lips down her cheek. Then she cried out and clapped in joy, her eyes shining with a manic light.

“Oh yes I do, I do know you!” she yelled, almost screaming. “I have to tell you, you know, how does it go?” she paused. “Oh yes. Don’t miss the forest for the trees!” Sabine’s mother giggled helplessly and fell back into her deep armchair, eyes rolling up into her head. Sabine had let out a small laugh as well. She didn’t know what was so funny. But her mother had kept at it for a long time, with no signs of ever stopping, and eventually Sabine had turned and walked out to the car, where Marla was waiting, eating a melted chocolate bar.

“Are you finished?” she asked; Sabine nodded, and then looked backwards to where her mother was rolling on the ground, still caught in the throes of hilarity. Forest for the trees? Sabine had wondered. She didn’t understand.

In China the sun was progressing upwards in the sky, and a cool breeze whipped by a crowd of people gathered to have a picnic by Pearl River. On the other side of the world, the moon grinned lazily through a large window at a ten year old girl dozing on a purple brocade couch. She was dreaming about bunches of leaves falling from the poplar trees behind the house. But that wasn’t right – she had never seen those trees in autumn. It must be that someone was sitting up there and throwing the leaves down on her, covering her completely. She was in a sea of ghostly fluttering leaves. They whispered past her nose and mouth and she reached out a hand to grab one. But she felt nothing, and when she opened her eyes she saw nothing; but no, that was just an illusion of the moon, momentarily blinding her. Sabine sat up in the beam of light and rubbed her eyes. She wondered if there really was someone, a man, she imagined, shaking down leaves behind the house. She stood up and padded softly through the kitchen and out the backdoor to find out.

The man in her backyard wasn’t shaking the trees, but he was awake and humming Beethoven’s ninth symphony as he reclined on his sleeping bag. His concert was interrupted suddenly by a soft intake of breath behind him. He jumped up and turned around to see a small girl with messy hair and eyes as dark and deep as the ocean. She was watching him, and she didn’t seen scared; the man wondered for a moment if she was a spirit, an oracle, some mystical being of these woods. He contemplated throwing himself on the ground and offering penitence for having disturbed her rest, but then dismissed the notion. Silly, he thought. Just a midnight imagining.

It was Sabine who spoke first. “Hello,” she said. “Who are you?”

“Forest,” the man answered. The little girl’s eyes widened in recognition.

“I’m not supposed to miss you,” she stated.

“Oh?”

“My mother said. But she’s crazy.”
            The man looked at the little girl quizzically. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Nothing.”
            “No, I mean do you live here? That is your big old house?” The man gestured up.

“My father’s house.” She answered, “Yes, I live there. My name is Sabine, I am ten.”

“Well…” The word was drawn out, as if the speaker was at a loss of things to say, which Forest was. “Well then Sabine, is it okay if I stay in your backyard?”

“I dreamed you were shaking leaves on my head,” said Sabine. She looked up at the trees; in this light they were indistinguishable from each other. She felt very sleepy. “Do you shake leaves?”
            The man laughed. “Sometimes,” he answered. “I do lots of things; I am a world traveler.”

“I have already seen the world,” Sabine informed him.

“And you only ten? Wow. You must be a…”

“A very lucky girl,” Sabine finished for him, frowning.

“No?” the man said softly. “You don’t feel lucky?” Sabine shook her head; Forest inclined his to the side. “Well,” he said, as he made to kneel at Sabine’s height. “I think you may not have seen as much as you think you have, then. Have you seen a man with a beard of bees?” Sabine gasped and shook her head again. “Ah, or have you seen a meteor shower? No? A herd of Caribou in the moonlight?” Sabine stared at him in wonder.

“You have seen all that?” she demanded.

“Yes.”

“You are a very lucky man, I suppose.” Sabine smiled. She giggled. What an odd conversation to be having in the middle of the night.

The man smiled in return. “No more lucky than anyone else.”

Sabine looked at him and knew it was true. She thought about walking into the poplar trees and keeping on until she got somewhere else, she thought about meeting people where she went, a man with a beard of bees, a family of dancing bears, an olive-skinned woman with neatly contained eyes and a crooked smile. But just then a crunching on the gravel drive out front announced the arrival of Marla in her sea-foam green BMW and her high heel shoes. Sabine could do all that, she could walk blindly and fearlessly, and maybe she would one day. But for now, she wanted Marla’s arms around her, and Marla’s voice in her ear. And besides, her father was going to call tomorrow. She didn’t want to miss that.