The Game of Love and Death (6 page)

W
EEKS
passed. Late-night jazz music, looks given through candle- and stage light, schemes whispered into the ears of tax inspectors. Why had Death consented to this Game again?

Ravenous, she stood in a small Spanish market town wearing a simple black dress. She could have been any young woman sent by her family to pick up food for the evening meal: a loaf of bread, a bit of meat, something leafy and green, a bottle of red wine. She was as far as she could be from the modern city by the Sound, and deliberately so. When the hunger was this great, the players were in danger. Her control over the Game was in danger.

As she walked through the market, stopping to inhale the perfume of flowers, Death felt a fingertip on her forearm. A light touch, as swift as the closing of an eye.

“For you, beautiful one.” A young man stood before her, offering her a red tulip.

“I did not ask for this,” she said.

“But you are so lovely, I cannot help myself.” The man, who was no more than eighteen, looked down, his face turning red.

Death understood what he meant. She accepted the flower and noted the dirt pressed into the ridges of his fingertips. These were the hands of a person who spent his days working the earth, coaxing life from the soil. He’d seen a million flowers. Even so, each new bloom could make him smile, and unlike all the other humans who’d passed her, he noticed her. He saw her.

He is the one who is lovely.

The tulip was fragrant and beautiful. But, she noted, it was also dead. She would not be able to help herself. She moved on, and after a moment’s thought, turned and looked at him over her shoulder.

“When you hear the engines in the sky,” she said, “run.”

She brought the tulip with her when she took to the air in a Stuka bomber. This time, she wore the guise of a young Nazi Luftwaffe pilot who’d left his plane momentarily because he was literally sick with nerves. He would return, pale-faced and sweaty, to discover that the dozen Stukas and half-dozen Heinkel 51 fighters had already risen like a cloud of insects, casting their awful shadows in the late-afternoon sun. Much as he did not want to be part of a German experiment to determine how much firepower was required to bomb a city into oblivion, he also did not want to be executed for dereliction of duty. And yet, why was his plane not still on the ground? The man wondered this the rest of his days.

Now his plane was above Spain, lighting the sky with reflections of the firestorm below. Death marveled at the noise, at the sudden lightness of the aircraft as it dropped a bomb from its belly. Every so often the roaring of the swooping Stuka was overtaken by the tatter of machine guns strafing the fleeing townspeople below. The noise, the heat, the color, the smell, the buzz of her hands on the yoke. It was almost like music, and she bombed herself senseless, unaware of anything save the plummeting thunder and fire.

Eventually, all of the town, except a church, a tree, and a small unused munitions factory, had been pounded to bits. The smoke of charred bodies rose, setting the stage for a bloodred sunset. By the time she landed the plane, the sky was smoke clogged and dark, lit only by the reflection of fires that would burn for three days. For each of those days, she returned to the village in the guise of the Spanish girl, walking quietly through the smoking ruins. The soil had been stunned to silence. All around lay the harvest, so many lives. Too many to reap at once.

She twisted time like a kaleidoscope, suspending the crucial shards until she could visit them one by one, lifting souls from their scorched and shattered cases. The sensation of so many lives rushing into her was deliriously good, so much so that she was insensible to anything beyond it. The enormity of what she’d done hadn’t yet hit her, although she knew it would, ribboning her essence as though it had been run through the blades of an airplane propeller. White-eyed and insatiable, she consumed these souls as one might pick up scattered cards in another sort of game, scraping them into order, fanning them out in front of her, feeling their perfectly balanced weight in her hands before flinging them into the beyond.

At last, she found the one she had been looking for. He lay beneath a stone from a building that had once held hand-blown drinking glasses. Shards of their remains, some as small as stardust, surrounded him.

There was life left in him, but not much.

She knelt beside him, her hand on a stone too heavy for him to remove, for any human to lift alone. His face was sweaty, caked with dust and the dried blood from a cut on his forehead. He shivered.

“I told you to run,” Death said as she put her hand on his brow. His skin was hot, his eyes delirious.

“I —”

If she removed the stone, it was likely he would die. If she didn’t remove the stone, his death was a certainty.

“I —”

His eyes focused on her face and she remembered the flower tucked into a pocket of her now filthy dress. Its crumpled petals were still as soft as an infant’s skin. Soft, scarred, ruined.

“I was looking,” he said. “Looking … for you.”

“Here I am.” She pinched the stem in her cold fingers.

His lashes fluttered. Death saw something in his eyes: recognition. And something else: desire.

“What do you have to live for?” She weighed his soul in her hands, wondering why humans wanted to live so when in the end, everything would be lost.

She could feel him trying to wrap his mind around her words, trying to shape an answer with his dry lips. Water. She wished she had some. Footsteps echoed off of broken buildings, and rescuers called out for survivors to hear. There wasn’t much time.

She moved the stone and touched his cheek, and as she did, the images in the man’s mind splashed over her. A field of blooming flowers. The shape of a woman, a woman whose face he could not yet see, but one whom the man wished to marry when he found her at last. Then the man himself silhouetted against the setting sun on a pleasant spring evening to come, the man and his someday child walking hand in hand through the field.

“This,” he said at last. “This.”

Death laid the broken flower where her hand had been. The man gasped.

“Hay uno por allí,”
a rescuer called out.
There’s one over there.

There was a scuffle of running feet, the gust of an anxious breeze heaving the smoke aside. Death disappeared behind the broken stone skeleton of a church before they found the man and put their quick hands all over him, probing him for injuries, brushing away gravel and bits of glass, putting a tin cup of water to his lips, lifting him into the long shadows of early evening.

She walked the cobbled streets one last time and reimagined herself a dress, a new style, cut close to her frame, unadorned, and also free of blood and dust and smoke, as if none of it had ever happened. The light of the setting sun turned its black edges red. She stood until the pain quieted itself within her and the color of her clothes was at last the same black as a starless sky. Then she brought herself to New York, where she had someone to observe.

M
R
. Thorne sat behind his desk, sucking his pipe and reading a stack of newspapers from cities across the continent. He looked up when Ethan and Henry walked into the room in their shirtsleeves and trousers, their hair still wet from washing, their chins glowing pink from the razor. Henry suppressed a yawn as he watched Ethan’s gaze travel over Mr. Thorne’s collection of untouchable tin windup toys from his childhood: cars, clapping monkeys, a painted minstrel, and even a small automaton.

“Fine job on the Staggerwing story, Ethan,” Mr. Thorne said. “You look like hell, Henry. You get any sleep?”

“Plenty, sir.” He hoped his lie wasn’t obvious. His was an exhaustion built of late nights listening to jazz music and dreaming of Flora. He’d been every night for weeks. He still hadn’t worked up the nerve to speak to her again. Even so, sitting at his usual table near the stage, he’d watched her, memorizing every inch of her. And he’d felt her stealing glances at him, always looking away whenever he’d try to catch her gaze. It had almost begun to feel like a game.

“Eat some meat, why don’t you. You look low on iron.” Mr. Thorne set his pipe in a stand and snapped open a newspaper from Washington, DC. He cleared his throat and pointed to a grainy photograph on page A2. “See this?”

Henry and Ethan leaned in, but it was obvious neither knew what Mr. Thorne’s point was.

“Hooverville. Below the 59th Street Bridge in New York City,” he said. “It’s nothing compared to ours. We have eight encampments. Our largest is ten times the size, easily. But because it’s out west, these newspapers think it doesn’t exist.” He slapped the paper closed.

Mr. Thorne clamped his pipe between his molars. “You’re going to write a story about Seattle’s Hooverville, Ethan. The big one by the water. It’s a human-interest story, at least. Especially on this new fellow” — he consulted a typewritten sheet of paper on his desk — “a Mr. James Booth, age twenty, who arrived out of nowhere a few weeks back and claims to be their de facto mayor. But here’s the thing. I hear tell they’re brewing liquor in those shacks of theirs. No doubt this Booth character is behind it, trying to build himself a quick fortune. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has connections to the mob. If that’s the case, and if the buyers aren’t paying liquor taxes, then it’s more than a human-interest story. It’s a scandal. And it’s something to show those East Coast clowns that news doesn’t drown when it hits the Mississippi.”

“Thank you for the assignment, Father,” Ethan said. “It’s all right if Henry accompanies me, isn’t it?”

Henry braced himself.

“I suppose, if he can tear himself away from that music. Start by sussing out this Booth character. Where there’s power, there’s most likely corruption.”

Behind them came the tap of high-heeled shoes on parquet floors, followed by the slapping soles of Annabel’s patent leather Mary Janes. Lydia Thorne entered the room holding a small, yellow rectangle of paper. Annabel followed her, carrying a porcelain doll.

“I have news,” Mrs. Thorne said, lifting a pair of reading glasses on a bejeweled chain and putting them on her nose. “Two pieces, in fact.”

“We have news!” Annabel said. “Two newses.”

“Quiet, dear.” Mrs. Thorne patted her blond daughter on the head. Even with the reading glasses, Mrs. Thorne was still a beauty. It was from her that Ethan and Annabel had inherited their fair hair and clear eyes.

“We’re to have a visitor,” she said, relishing her moment as the important person in the room. Mr. Thorne wound his right hand in a circle, as if to tell her to get on with it.

“A visitor!” Annabel said.

“Quiet, Annabel,” she said. She pressed her lips against each other, as if to hide a smile. “It’s Helen.”

“But her debutante ball. I thought —” Mr. Thorne set down his pipe and leaned forward on his elbows.

“Apparently she made the wrong sort of debut.” Mrs. Thorne’s nostrils flared.

Mr. Thorne grunted and settled back in his captain’s chair, with one hand behind his head. He picked up his pipe with the other, most likely so that he could better exude thoughtfulness.

“Helen. Helen is a hellion,” Annabel said.

“Annabel! Where did you hear that word?” Her mother shot her a scolding look.

“May we be excused?” Ethan rolled his eyes for Henry’s benefit. “If we’re to —”

“I learned it from Ethan,” Annabel said.

“That couldn’t possibly be true.” Ethan pretended to look shocked. “I’d never!” He walked to the bookshelf, picked up the clapping monkey, and twisted the key in its back. The clicking revved Henry’s already taut nerves. Ethan pinched the key, no doubt waiting for the perfect moment to release it.

“When does she arrive?” Ethan asked.

“We’re to pick her up at the King Street Station” — Mrs. Thorne adjusted her glasses and studied the telegram once more — “next Tuesday at two forty-five.”

Mr. Thorne whistled low. “They didn’t waste much time, although I’m surprised your sister didn’t have her on the first train west.”

Mrs. Thorne nodded and removed her reading glasses. “They’ve probably had all sorts of fires to extinguish … and there’s the issue of managing the gossip. And apparently they are departing for Europe to —”

“Ride out the storm?” He sucked his pipe and exhaled a plume of purple smoke. “Europe’s lousy these days. Spain especially.”

“Well, now,” Mrs. Thorne said, “let’s not overdramatize things. And Spain is lovely, despite what happened to that one little town.”

“Spain is lovely if you like fascists.”

Ethan caught Henry’s gaze and shook his head, smiling slightly. Ethan sometimes called his father a fascist for his domineering ways. Henry drew his finger across his neck so Ethan would cut it out.

“She’s traveling unescorted?” Mr. Thorne said. “Or will we play the hosts to a companion, as well?”

“She’s traveling alone.” Mrs. Thorne fanned her face with the telegram.
“It’s come to that.”

Ethan set the monkey down and it clapped wildly. Annabel handed Ethan her doll, took one of her father’s newspapers, and fanned herself as well. Henry, mortified by the monkey, gestured for Annabel to come over and scooped her up. Mrs. Thorne lifted a photograph of a black-haired girl in a navy sailor’s dress from a gathering on a shelf.

“She’s a handsome girl, Henry, wouldn’t you say?”

Henry, his arms full of five-year-old, cleared his throat and looked away from Ethan, who stuck a finger in his open mouth and pretended to vomit.

“Yes.” He blinked, starting to grasp Mrs. Thorne’s point.

“Henry likes her,” Annabel said. “He’s turning red.”

“She’s older now,” Mrs. Thorne said. “This was taken while my sister’s family vacationed in Switzerland three years ago. She and Ethan — and you, of course — are of an age. We haven’t seen her since they were children, but she and Ethan had a marvelous time playing together on the island.”

“She kicked my shins,” Ethan said.

“Ethan, put the doll down,” Mr. Thorne said. “You look ridiculous. Like some sort of nancy boy.”

Ethan set the doll on the shelf and Annabel wiggled down so she could retrieve her baby. Then he started juggling a group of fossilized trilobites. “Helen wears really hard shoes.”

“Ethan,” Mrs. Thorne said. “Those aren’t toys.”

“Well, we’re not even supposed to handle the ones that are,” he said. “Besides, I never drop things.”

“You have to be able to withstand a bit more than hard shoes in the pursuit of procreation,” Mr. Thorne said. “Your mother said to put down the fossils.”

“I was five when she kicked me,” Ethan said, catching the fossils one at a time with a flourish. He set them back on the shelf. “And Helen” — he shot Henry a warning look — “Helen is not particularly lovable.”

“Kicking isn’t nice,” Annabel said. “I do not kick.”

“Run along to the kitchen, Annabel,” Mrs. Thorne said.

Holding her doll by one leg, Annabel galloped out of the room.

After a moment, Mrs. Thorne tucked her hair behind her ear. “Helen isn’t a match for Ethan, of course, but we’ll see what Henry says about the matter. She might … he might enjoy her company.” She set down the photograph and wiped imaginary dust from the edge of the frame.

“He’s in the room, Mother,” Ethan said. “And he’s not like one of Annabel’s dolls for you to play with. He’s a person.”

Henry wanted to say something on his own behalf. But what? This was what he was supposed to want. A way to become an official part of the Thorne clan. He’d complete his schooling and become engaged to a girl damaged enough to say yes to a penniless orphan but still a good enough match to give him connections that would lead to a respectable job. It was a life that promised him everything that was supposed to matter.

“The second bit of news involves Henry,” Mrs. Thorne said. She held up an envelope, addressed to him, which had been opened. “The scholarship to the university came through. Isn’t that wonderful?”

It was good news. Truly. Pieces of his life were falling into place all around him.

“Excellent, excellent,” Mr. Thorne said. He turned his attention back to the newspaper in front of him.

“Now, boys, both of you may be excused,” Mrs. Thorne said. “We’re going to have to get the house ready. There’s so much to do.” She clasped her hands together. “So much to do.”

“She probably won’t kick you in the shins,” Ethan said as they hustled out of the library. “But if I were you, I’d be careful.”

“What?” Henry said. He was thinking of one thing only: getting to the carriage house so he could play music and think. So many things were happening, and so fast.

“I was joking,” he said. “But I do imagine she’s outgrown kicking boys. She might even be nice now. And for certain, she’s not bad-looking. I wouldn’t blame you if …” He let the thought trail off.

Henry looked at Ethan in disbelief.

“I’m on your side, of course,” Ethan said quickly. “You don’t need a marriage to be part of this family. You’re important.” His face turned a bit pink. “You’re like my brother. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.”

Henry was glad to hear it even if he and Ethan weren’t the sort for soppy stuff. He felt the same way, despite the fact he was feeling the limits of their brotherhood for the first time. He wouldn’t talk about Flora with Ethan, not after that first night, although he’d been to the Domino many times since. He’d waited until after Ethan had gone to bed, then he’d sneaked out, borrowing Ethan’s car on the sly.

Now that he knew this Helen person was on her way, it felt as though someone had planted a bomb in his life and lit a fuse. As soon as Helen arrived and Mrs. Thorne put her plot into motion, this life he’d begun to hope for — one with late nights in jazz clubs and the dizzying presence of Flora — would be annihilated. Ethan’s words confirmed it.

“But think of it, Henry,” he said. “If you married her someday, not now or anything — and I’m not saying you have to, I mean, you ought to get to know her and see if she’s your kettle of fish. And maybe neither of us will ever marry. But if you did, and you chose her, you’d really be part of the family. My father might even write you into the will or give you a share of the paper. I’d always have you with me. It would solve so many problems —”

“Look, I know,” Henry said, louder than he’d intended. “There’s something I have to do, so if you’ll excuse me.”

He ignored the hurt look on Ethan’s face. This one time, he couldn’t bear being responsible for disappointing him.

“Hooverville tomorrow, though, right?” Ethan called behind him. “We’ll crack that story wide open.”

“Yes.” Henry didn’t bother to turn around. When had he ever let Ethan down?

Henry spent the rest of the afternoon in the carriage house. He started off playing the Enigma Variations but lost interest before he made it through the second movement. Without thinking, he began to play his versions of Flora’s music, eventually setting down his bow so he could focus on jazz-style plucking, varying the lengths of his notes to create a rhythm that felt entirely new. He imagined her voice replying to the voice of his bass, and he wished she were there so they could talk to each other without the peril of words.

This wasn’t like classical music, where every note was written, every movement with the bow prescribed, every dynamic meant to be the same every time. It was more like real life: unpredictable, unrepeatable, sometimes lousy, but something you loved all the same.

Working with a melody he’d heard in his head since he was a child, Henry played until the quarter moon rose and his fingertips ached. He burnished the tune until it felt right, and then pondered lyrics that matched, words about the yearning the sea has for the moon. The song that took shape felt like something that had existed for a long time. He played it over and over, setting his bass down only when Mrs. Thorne came out to make sure he’d finished his homework.

“Nearly,” he said. It wasn’t true, but he did not care.

“Wonderful,” she said. “You’ve always been such a fine boy. So diligent and reliable.”

Henry swallowed. Then he followed her through the cool night air into the warm, well-lit mansion.