In the forecourt at the end of the drive, the ornamental fountain was still there, but someone had forgotten to drain it last autumn, and the marble was cracked and filled with dirty ice. And beyond the forecourt, where Alhambra had once stood, was a great heap of rubble: red roofing tile, white stucco, rafters, and beams. Indeed, they had bulldozed the entire mansion as Bellarosa had said they would. But I had no way of knowing if it was a spiteful act or if the developer simply wanted to be rid of the white elephant.
As it was Sunday, the earth-moving equipment was silent, and no one seemed to be around. It was very quiet, that sort of deep winter quiet where you can hear the ground crackle underfoot, and the trees creaking in the cold wind. I could tell you I heard ghostly hoofbeats on the solid earth, too, but I didn’t, though I thought about Susan and me on one of our winter rides.
I thought, too, of last January, and of the black Cadillac that was here, or wasn’t here, and the man whom I saw or didn’t see. And it occurred to me that if he hadn’t been lost that day and hadn’t seen this place, then things would have been different today, most probably better since I couldn’t imagine how they could be much worse.
Regarding Bellarosa’s death, I still had mixed feelings about that. Initially, I had been relieved, nearly glad, to be honest. I mean, the man had caused me much unhappiness and had seduced my wife (or was it the other way around?), and his death solved a good many problems for me. Even seeing him lying there on the floor, half naked and covered with gore, had not affected me. But now, after some time, I realized that I actually missed him, and that he’s gone forever, and that I lost a friend. Well, but as I say, I still have mixed emotions.
Anyway, I noticed four long crates lying near the rubble and moved closer to them and saw that they held the four Carthaginian columns, all ready for shipping, though I didn’t know where they were headed this time. Not back to Carthage, that was for certain, but maybe to a museum or to another rich man’s house, or maybe the government had declared them a salable asset and they’d sit forgotten in a warehouse forever.
I continued my walk, veering around the heap of rubble toward the rear of the property. All around me were stacks of building materials and earth-moving equipment. I noticed engineer stakes stuck in the ground, connected by string with white strips of cloth hanging from the string, and there were surveyors’ stakes as well, and masonry stakes and all sorts of other things stuck in the ground like dissecting pins on the carved-up earth.
As I walked, I could see that most of the fifty or so foundations had been dug and poured, and though many of the trees had been spared, the land was irrevocably altered, suffused with water and gas pipes and cesspools, and crisscrossed with power lines and paved with blacktop and concrete. Another few hundred acres had gone from rural to suburban, from pristine to scarred, and hundreds of people from someplace or another were on their way here, though they didn’t know it yet, bringing with them their worries and their future divorces, and their propane barbecue grills and their mailboxes with numbers on them, and their hopes for a new life in a nicer place than the last. The American dream, you know, constantly needs new landscapes.
Stanhope Hall’s acreage is gone, too, of course, and a few of the houses there are nearly complete, wood and Thermopane contemporaries with lots of skylights and oversize garages and central air-conditioning; not too bad, I admit, but not too good either.
The big house, the former Stanhope Hall, has indeed been sold intact to a Japanese firm of some sort, but I see no sign of twitchy Nipponese businessmen strolling around the paths or doing calisthenics on the great lawn. In fact, the place looks as deserted as it has been for nearly twenty years. Local rumor at McGlade’s Pub, where I spend too much time, has it that the little people are going to dismantle the mansion stone by stone and send it to Japan, though nobody at McGlade’s seems to know why.
The love temple, too, has survived, and the developer of the Stanhope acreage has used a picture of it in his ads, promising the splendor and the glory of Gold Coast living to the first hundred people who can come up with the down payments and mortgages on the half-million-dollar tractor sheds he’s building.
The sacred grove is gone, however, as no one is interested in ten acres of dying plum trees in their backyards. But the gazebo and hedge maze are part of the great house, so they might survive, though I don’t recommend the maze for strung-out Oriental businessmen.
So the Stanhope and Alhambra estates are divided like spoils in an ancient war, their walls and gates no longer useful for keeping people out, and their great structures destroyed or used for sport or for building material elsewhere. But that’s not my problem anymore.
I kept walking over the hard ground until I came to where Alhambra’s reflecting pool and fountain had been, or where I thought they had been, but there was an open foundation there, and an unpaved road passed through where the classical garden and imitation Roman ruins had once stood. Neptune and Mary were gone, probably having left in disgust.
I turned around and headed back toward the rubble heap, walking along the path on which Anna had walked when she spotted me that Easter morning, and a smile came to my lips. I continued on and reached the back patio, which was still intact, though the post lights and pizza oven were gone.
I walked across the patio and looked at the demolished house. Half the rubble had been carted away, but I could still identify most of the rooms, especially the central palm court, and I could actually see where Frank Bellarosa had lain dead.
To my right was the kitchen and the breakfast room where the Bellarosas had entertained us in more ways than one, and to the left was the ballroom, sometimes known as the living room, where I had done a little soft-shoe for Susan. Behind this room was the conservatory, crushed now, a pile of broken glass, plant tables, and clay pots.
I turned away from the house and picked my way around the construction debris in the failing light until I was back in front of the mansion, in the forecourt, near the broken fountain, where Susan’s Jaguar had once sat and where she and I once stood, in a picture-perfect setting, like an ad for something good and expensive, and I fancied I saw Susan and me standing there waiting for someone to answer the door on that spring evening.
I walked back down the long drive hunched against the wind. Beyond the gates and across Grace Lane I saw the DePauw house, lights shining from its big colonial windows, a cheery sight unless you weren’t in the mood for cheery sights.
As I walked, I thought of Susan the last time I’d seen her. It was in November, in Manhattan. A hearing had been convened at Federal Court in Foley Square, at which I was present, though not as Susan’s attorney or husband, but as a witness to the events surrounding the death of a federal witness, Mr. Frank Bellarosa. As it turned out, I was not even asked to give testimony, and the commission took only a few hours to recommend that the case not be presented to a grand jury, finding that Susan Sutter, while not justified in her actions, was not responsible for them. This seemed a little vague to me, but there was some talk of diminished capacity and a promise from the Stanhopes to seek professional help for their daughter. I hope William and Charlotte don’t think that means art lessons or pistol practice. Anyway, the government took a dive on the case, of course, and Lady Justice didn’t miscarry; she had an abortion. But I don’t blame the government for aborting this tricky and sensitive case, and I’m happy they did, because my wife doesn’t belong in jail.
I had made a point of running into Susan on the steps of the courthouse. She was surrounded by her parents, three of her parents’ lawyers, and two family-retained psychiatrists. William didn’t seem awfully thrilled to see me for some reason, and Charlotte stuck her nose in the air, I mean literally, like you see in old movies. You’ve got to be careful when you do that walking down steps.
Anyway, Susan broke away from the Stanhope guard and came over to me on the steps. She smiled. “Hello, John.”
“Hello, Susan.’’ I had congratulated her on a successful court appearance, and she had been cheery and buoyant, which was to be expected after walking free on a murder that was witnessed by about six federal agents, who fortunately couldn’t seem to recall the incident clearly.
We’d spoken briefly, mostly about our children and not about our divorce. I asked her at one point, “Are you really crazy?”
She smiled. “Just enough to get me out of that courthouse. Don’t tell.”
I smiled in return. We agreed that we both felt bad for Anna, but that maybe she was better off, though that wasn’t true, and Susan asked me if I had gone to Frank’s funeral, which I had. Susan said, “I should have gone, too, of course, but it might have been awkward.”
“It possibly could have been.’’ Since you killed him. I mean, really, Susan. But maybe she had already disassociated herself from that unpleasant incident.
She was looking very good, by the way, dressed in a tailored gray silk skirt and jacket, appropriate for courtroom appearances, and wearing high heels, which she probably couldn’t wait to kick off.
I didn’t know when or if I’d see her again, so I said to her, “I still love you, you know.”
“You’d better. Forever.”
“Yes, forever.”
“Me, too.”
Well, we parted there on the steps, she to go back to Hilton Head, and me to Long Island. I was sharing the Stanhope gatehouse with Ethel Allard, who had insisted on taking me in when Susan sold the guesthouse. Ethel and I are getting along a little better than we had in the past. I drive her to the stores and to church on Sunday, though I don’t go to stores or churches much myself anymore. The arrangement seems to be working out, and I’m glad for the opportunity to help someone who needs help, and Ethel is glad she finally got a chance to take in a homeless person. Father Hunnings approves, too.
The guesthouse, incidentally, where Susan and I had spent our twenty-two years of married life, and where we had raised our two children, has been bought by an intense young couple who are here on a corporate transfer from Dubuque or Duluth or someplace out there, working their way up the corporate game of chutes and ladders. They both leave for Manhattan before dawn and return after dark. They’re not quite sure where they are geographically or socially, but they seem anxious that the Stanhope subdivision be completed so they can have friends and start a bowling team or something.
Jenny Alvarez and I still see each other from time to time, but she’s involved with a baseball star now, a Mets infielder of all things, but I don’t rub that in when I see her.
I had actually gone to Bellarosa’s funeral as I told Susan. The Mass was at Santa Lucia, of course, and Monsignor Chiaro gave a beautiful service and spoke well of the deceased, so I guess the check cleared.
The burial itself was at an old cemetery in Brooklyn, and it was a real mafioso affair with a hundred black limousines and so many flowers at graveside that they covered a dozen other graves in all directions. Sally Da-da was there, of course, and we nodded to each other, and Jack Weinstein was there, and we made indefinite plans to have lunch. Anthony was there, too, out on bail for some charge or other, and Fat Paulie was there, and a guy whose face was half eaten away who I guess was my godfather, Aniello, and there were whole faces, too, that I recognized from the Plaza soiree, and from Giulio’s. Anna did not look particularly good in black, or particularly good at all for that matter. She had been surrounded by so many wailing women that she never saw me, which was just as well.
Also with Anna, of course, were her three sons, Frankie, Tommy, and Tony. I recognized Frankie as the oldest, a sort of big lummox who looked more benign than dangerous. Tommy, the Cornell student, looked like an all-American kid, the sort who might wind up working for a Fortune 500 company. Tony, whom I had met, was in his La Salle uniform, looking very ramrod straight and clean-cut, but if you looked past the uniform and the short hair, you saw Frank Bellarosa. You saw eyes that appraised everyone and everything. In fact, he looked at me for a while as though he were sizing me up, and the resemblance to his father was so uncanny that I actually had to blink to make certain I wasn’t seeing a ghost. At one point in the graveside service, I saw Tony staring at his uncle Sal, aka Sally Da-da, and if I were Uncle Sal, I’d keep an eye on that kid.
Anyway, Mr. Mancuso was present, but tactfully stood some distance away with four photographers recording the event for posterity or other reasons.
I recalled what old Monsignor Chiaro had said at graveside, quoting from Timothy:
We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
Which was the best news I’d heard since “We pass this way but once.”
And so, I thought, as I walked between Alhambra’s stately poplars that had so impressed Frank Bellarosa, there is an ebb and flow in all human events, there is a building up and a tearing down, there are brief enchanted moments in history and in the short lives of men and women, there is wonder and there is cynicism, there are dreams that can come true, and dreams that can’t.
And there was a time, you know, not so long ago, as recently as my own childhood in fact, when everyone believed in the future and eagerly awaited it or rushed to meet it. But now nearly everyone I know or used to know is trying to slow the speed of the world as the future starts to look more and more like someplace you don’t want to be. But maybe that is not a cultural or national phenomenon, only my own middle age, my present state of mind combined with this dark winter season.