They lived the next five days as though prisoners in a city under siege. Arnold actually knew a considerable amount about sieges—or he’d thought he had. He’d always taken an interest in the botanical ignorance of the besieged, the malnourishment that arises from prejudices against edible shrubbery. In Vicksburg, for example, the Confederates exhausted their energies brewing coffee from cardboard when they might have grilled up steaks from their honeysuckle and verbena. When Henry IV lay siege to Paris, the locals stewed their own furniture to stay alive while embankments along the Seine sprouted enough purslane to feed the entire city. Even the mass starvation at Leningrad could have been eased, if not prevented, had the Soviets fished for edible marsh plants beneath Lake Ladoga. At one point, Arnold had considered writing a book, The Epicurean’s Guide for Famines and Embargos, but he’d intended this as a serious project, a self-help volume of the life-saving variety, while every editor he’d consulted had hoped to market it as a novelty item. Now Arnold realized how poorly he’d understood the experience of the besieged. He’d always thought of sieges solely in terms of captivity and deprivation—but neither of these conditions applied to him and Judith. He continued to go to work every morning. Judith could have taught her classes at St. Gregory’s, if she’d wanted to. They endured no shortages of food or electricity, no periodic barrage of artillery shells. Yet their days were living hell. No matter where he went, Arnold couldn’t escape the feeling that he was surrounded. His deed followed him through the workday like a personal rain cloud. It was the psychological battery of the siege, rather than any physical blockade, that tormented him.
Not that the demonstrations didn’t continue. Every morning, at precisely eight o’clock, the singing protesters paraded around the corner and manned their picket lines. The news media estimated their number at nearly five thousand—far larger, it was frequently pointed out, than the group who’d marched against a Ku Klux Klan rally on the steps of City Hall the previous year. Of course, at the time, the media had initially reported the anti-Klan protesters to number 30,000. The pro-Arnold forces didn’t grow nearly as rapidly as did his opponents. Occasionally, on his walk to work, a stranger offered Arnold moral support. The greying transvestites at the costume shop promised they were praying for him. But none of these sympathizers had the time, or possibly the nerve, to join his ragtag band of defenders, which on Tuesday afternoon temporarily dwindled down to two pot-bellied motorcyclists handing out Mardis Gras beads on his behalf. By Thursday, his “followers” had been infiltrated by the radical Spartacist League and had turned against him. While Spitford’s thousands condemned Arnold’s lack of patriotism, dozens of anti-government leftists denounced him for his “petit-bourgeois” business dealings and his apparent unwillingness to renounce his citizenship. Spitford’s “Abolitionists” recruited three bagpipe players to accompany their fife and drum team. In response, the Spartacists banged tambourines and kitchen pans. The only sound more unnerving than the chorus of God Bless America that disrupted Arnold’s weeding each morning was the lacklustre rendition of the Internationale that followed. On the second day of the protests, Arnold incorporated a pair of earplugs into his gardening outfit. This tactic succeeded in filtering out the protesters, but also blocked out the songbirds, the crickets, even the flutter of the breeze through the hemlocks. It more or less defeated the purpose of living.
While the protests grew larger and more aggressive, Arnold’s relationship with Judith deteriorated. Initially, he’d hoped her attitude might mellow. He had made meaningful sacrifices for her in the past Like placing his mother in that hyper-sterile nursing home when he’d have preferred that Mama come to live with them. Yet now she couldn’t accept that his apologizing didn’t matter as much to her as his not-apologizing mattered to him. Judith wouldn’t even give him the opportunity to argue his case. After he’d disowned Gilbert’s statement, she refused to speak to him at all. When Arnold entered a room, she left it quickly. If he tried to touch her, she swatted his hand away. One afternoon, she took Ray to the aquarium. Arnold suggested they leave by ladder. Instead, Judith walked straight through the front door and down the block, past the hooting demonstrators, without turning her head. Otherwise, she didn’t leave the house. She phoned in sick at St. Gregory’s. Her painting materials collected dust on the dining room table. Arnold’s wife spent her evenings ensconced in front of the television, watching their private lives being dissected for public outrage and amusement. A conservative cable network was running “24-hour Tongue Traitor” coverage that included interviews with a disgruntled former student whom Arnold had failed for cheating, although the news broadcast didn’t mention the cheating episode, as well as with the father of the nine children from the baseball game. “My daughter was scared,” the man said. “She’s had nightmares.” The media also burrowed deeper into Arnold’s past: his draft deferment during the Vietnam War, his summons for being in a public park after hours as a teenager. (Nobody explained that he’d been in the park hunting for moonflowers, which blossom only at night.) A digital counter at the corner of the television screen calculated exactly how much time Arnold had gone without apologizing. The counter was shaped like an alarm clock, but with horns and a forked orange tail. Judith called out the number of hours periodically. “I thought we were on the same side,” Arnold pleaded with her. “Can’t you try to see things my way?” In response, she shut off the television and locked herself in the upstairs bathroom. At night, she slept in her studio. She could have kept this silent treatment going for weeks or months. Judith was capable of just such intransigence. But even a siege does not relieve a household of its minor crises, such as the daily crush of domestic challenges. It was one such episode, on the third morning of the protests, that finally forced them to speak.
Arnold had just come inside from the garden, where he’d been slicing a fallen sycamore with a chainsaw. He’d earlier put off this task for several months. Truthfully, the saw blades always scared him. But that morning he’d been in the mood to hew something—or someone—limb from limb. Chopping up the tree trunk presented fewer negative consequences than dismembering the Reverend Spitford. Besides which, the whir of the implement had helped drown out the chanting from the street. Arnold had thrown himself into the sawing with full force, working up a sweat, and when the task was done, he actually found himself disappointed that there was nothing else left to cut. On the way to the tool shed, he snipped at a few stray wisteria vines, gumming up the blades. Back in the townhouse, he ran the tap in the ground-floor bathroom and splashed his face in the sink. Then he took a swig of cool water from a paper cup. What he really wanted was a tall glass of orange juice, but Judith was preparing the kid’s breakfast in the kitchen, and Arnold didn’t want to drive her out of the room. Even though she was being unreasonable, “forcing” her to relocate made him feel guilty. So he sprawled out on the living room sofa to kill time.
Arnold had been resting only a few minutes, his eyes closed, when he was startled by pounding at the door. Like a watchman’s nightstick or the back of a flashlight. At first, Arnold feared the protesters had overrun the police sentries—that his house was about to be stormed by the mob—but the hammering was too methodical for a stampede. The masses would have broken the door down or set the entire building aflame. Instead: Thump. Thump. Thump. Then an authoritative voice shouted: “City Marshal. Open up.” Arnold’s stomach tightened. Were they actually going to arrest him? Was this the beginning of the end? All that could be hoped for from the authorities was that they might keep him separated from other prisoners for his own protection, as they did with Charles Manson and child molesters. Better to run. Arnold retreated toward the kitchen with the intent of fleeing over the back fence, but Judith inadvertently blocked his escape route. She stepped past him and opened the front door, sending Spitford’s army into a frenzy.
The city marshal held the screen door open with one hand. He was a squat, red-faced officer whose long, craggy head was capped with a conspicuous toupee. “I have a special delivery for Arnold Brinkman,” he said.
“I’m his wife.”
“More than I need to know,” said the city marshal. He handed Judith a small beige envelope. “A pleasure doing business with you,” he said.
Judith shut the door and held out the envelope toward Arnold. He motioned for her to open it.
“You’re not going to believe this,” said Judith. Whatever the contents of the envelope, they were enough to override her silence.
“I’ve been drafted?”
“You’ve been subpoenaed.”
Arnold’s muscles relaxed. “It’s better than being arrested.”
“This is just too perfect,” continued Judith. “You’re being subpoenaed for creating a public nuisance. Apparently, darling, it’s your fault that those John Birch hooligans are out there shouting all day.”
“Not just the John Birch Society,” said Arnold. “Also the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Knights of Columbus, even the goddam Young Americans for Freedom. I didn’t know there were any more Young Americans for Freedom.”
“Maybe they’re having a reunion,” answered Judith. She was still reading the contents of the envelope.
“Doesn’t that make them the Old Americans for Freedom?”
Judith didn’t smile. “Would you like to know who’s suing you?”
“Let me guess. That woman whose dog kept tearing up the dahlias.”
Several years earlier, Arnold had complained to the neighbourhood association about a rottweiler with a penchant for tubers; the owner, a mousy English nurse, still crossed the street whenever she spotted him approaching.
“Much better,” said Judith. “You’re being sued by our dear neighbour Ira Taylor.”
“You’re serious?”
“Better than being drafted,” said Judith. “I think.”
“That’s outrageous! He’s the one creating the nuisance. He’s been out there holding court every morning.”
“Are you going to tell that to a jury?” asked Judith. “Who has more credibility? A retired banker whose ancestors probably bankrolled the Mayflower? Or the Fifth Column of Sixth Street?” She slapped the court papers against his chest. “Chickens coming home to roost, my dear. I warned you to press charges over the soda cans.”
“What good would that have done?”
“At least there’d be a written record,” said Judith.
“It wouldn’t matter,” answered Arnold. “Those are facts. This has gone far beyond facts.” He crumpled the subpoena and tossed it onto the marble tiles. “Can we talk for a couple of minutes? Please?”
Judith didn’t answer directly. Instead, she crossed into the living room and sat down beside the bay windows. She peeled back the drapes, just enough to peek into the street. A thin sliver of light danced across the opposite bookshelves. The protesters must have noticed the movement behind the glass, because their chanting suddenly rose in intensity. Judith let the curtain fall shut. “I’m very unhappy,” she said.
Arnold had prepared a speech to win his wife over to his side. He’d rehearsed it hour after hour at the nursery. But now, faced with the overwhelming simplicity of Judith’s declaration of unhappiness, he found himself at a loss for words. All he could muster was: “I’m sorry that you’re unhappy.” In case this wasn’t enough, he added, “I’m unhappy too.”
“My sister called again this morning. While you were playing Paul Bunyan,” continued Judith. “It seems the Tongue Traitor is even newsworthy in Greece.”
“You mean she knows?”
“She went through the roof, my dear. I’ve never heard her like that before. Some of it may have been for the effect—you know how Celeste is, and I think Mr. Republican tight-ass was in the room with her—but the bottom line is that they’re cutting short their trip. She’s booking the first flight out of Athens.”
“But that’s totally unnecessary.”
“She’ll be here tomorrow afternoon,” said Judith, “to pick up Ray.”
“But she can’t—”
“Of course, she can,” Judith cut him off. “Ray’s her son.”
It surprised Arnold that he cared so much about losing the boy. He hadn’t particularly enjoyed having his nephew around. If anything, Ray’s presence had impinged upon his social life with Judith, kept them from enjoying the theatre and the ballet. Besides, if not for the damned kid, he’d never have ended up at Yankee Stadium. But Arnold took his sister-in-law’s intentions as a personal affront—like being dis-invited from a party that one didn’t wish to attend. He also understood that Judith was being unfairly punished for his own actions. This made him feel even worse.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
Judith shook her head. She stood up and circled around the room—past the new cherrywood end-tables and the newly upholstered armchairs and the newly hung prints of the Sandpiper Key lighthouse at sunset. For her fiftieth birthday, Judith had redecorated the townhouse. That had been her present to herself. It had left her personal imprint on each room, much as Arnold had left his on the yard. Arnold hadn’t cared. Interiors weren’t his thing. Besides, he didn’t spend very much time inside—except when he was writing or socializing. But now that they were fighting, he suddenly felt as though he was conducting his struggle in alien territory. “It’s hard to believe I spent so much time redoing this place,” Judith said. “As though anybody cares what colour wallpaper we have. As though anybody gives a damn about us at all.”
Arnold followed her across the room. “Can I hold you?” he asked.
She let him hug her—but only for an instant. Then she pushed him away.
“I want to have a baby.”
The words hit Arnold without warning, but they came more as a confirmation than a surprise. “Now?” he asked.
“I know it’s not rational. It’s completely irrational. But it’s what I want.” Judith spoke rapidly, as though afraid she might lose her mettle. “If you don’t want to apologize, don’t. Let’s just sell this place and move far away and raise a child.”
Arnold had considered leaving New York until the situation blew over, maybe renting a bungalow in the Catskills for a few weeks. Or going on a cruise—turning the getaway into a second honeymoon. Nobody ever criticized dissidents for fleeing China or Iran. Or Einstein for leaving Nazi Germany. But the more Arnold thought about it, running away seemed as bad as apologizing. In either case, it was giving in. Moreover, he’d envisioned a temporary escape. It had never crossed his mind that they might relocate permanently—that they would end up refugees like his ex-brother-in-law in Fiji. Arnold could imagine only one fate worse than permanent banishment from New York: Being permanently banished from New York and having to raise a child in exile.
“I don’t want to leave New York,” said Arnold. “And you don’t want to leave New York either. You’re not thinking straight.”
“Why not?”
“Please, Judith. In the first place, you’re fifty-one years old. You’d be seventy when the kid graduates from high school.”
“I’ve been reading a lot about older parenting. On the internet,” insisted Judith. “It’s far more common than you think. Look at Tony Randall. Or Saul Bellow. Or Anthony Quinn.”
Arnold recognized this as one of Judith’s traps, that she wanted him to say was: But they’re all men—so she could dismiss his objections as sexist. What he’d actually thought was: But they’re all dead. He knew enough not to say this either.
“And how exactly do you propose to have this baby?” he demanded.
Judith paused in front of a long walnut sideboard covered in knickknacks and photographs, picking up a hand-carved wooden stork that they’d purchased on a trip to the Canary Islands. “There are ways,” she said. “I don’t care about having the baby. Or even that it’s a baby. We can adopt a ten year old from Africa or a little girl with Down’s syndrome….But I want a child.”
“I thought we were on the same page about this,” pleaded Arnold. “I thought we’d decided….”
“I’ve changed pages,” snapped Judith. “I’m glad you wouldn’t apologize. If you’d apologized, everything would have stayed the same. I’d have gone on listening to Bonnie Card and her bullshit about the indecency of motherhood until I really was too old to raise a family. It all seems so horrifically obvious to me now: I’d have ended up one of those pathetic old widows who pesters strangers with photographs of her nieces and nephews.” She slammed the wooden stork against the sideboard, snapping off its bill. “Well I’m not going to let that happen! Bonnie Card can go fuck herself.”
“Okay, okay,” said Arnold. “We’ll figure something out. But can’t we deal with one problem at a time? I don’t think this is really a conversation to have while the Black Nazis are camped outside our door.”
“This is precisely the time to have this conversation, my dear,” answered Judith. “I want to know what I can expect from the rest of my life.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m going to have a child, Arnold. One way or another.” Judith’s voice was suddenly calm. “I love you and I’d like you to be part of that experience. But whether you want a child or not, I’m going to have one. All you have to do is decide whether you want to share that with me.”
“But I love you…” said Arnold.
“I’m not bluffing.”
“I know you’re not,” he answered. “Let me think about it.”
That was the wrong answer. Arnold realized his mistake as soon as the words left his mouth—that a “maybe” was as good as a “no.” Both suggested that he’d consider leaving her, or letting her leave him, that the status quo wasn’t an inevitability.
Judith stared at him blankly. Then she knelt down on the carpet and gathered together the pieces of the shattered stork.
Later that afternoon, at the nursery, a second incident reinforced the sudden fragility of Arnold’s marriage. He’d ordered Guillermo to make sure that he wasn’t disturbed, and then he’d sat in his office, the door bolted, munching on cornflowers and pitying himself. Dozens of pink phone messages lay on his desk blotter—mostly from various news outlets, but also from at least two progressive law firms who’d volunteered to take “his case” pro bono. His aunt had also phoned from her summer cabin outside Santa Fe in order to let him know that she’d seen him on television. “Just wanted you to know; no need to call back.” At least his parents were dead. And Judith’s too. That was some solace. If Arnold had had to listen to his father describe the bombing of Rotterdam, or the three years he’d spent concealed under the floorboards of the baboon cage at the Utrecht Zoo, stinking perpetually of primate shit and surviving on monkey rations smuggled to him by a devout Catholic keeper, he’d have lost his resolve. Pieter Brinkman was the sort of man who loved the Statue of Liberty as much as his own wife and who experienced a chill down his spine when he saw the American flag draped at half-mast. He’d volunteered to fight in the Korean War, but his age and severe asthma had rendered him unfit for service. Eleanor Brinkman had also been a fierce patriot in her own way—a social worker who spoke of “my” President, as though he belonged to her personally, and who’d insisted upon mounting a portrait of FDR on her wall in the nursing home. How odd that none of this had rubbed off on Arnold. He balled up the pink slips one at a time and lobbed them at the wastepaper basket. Three of them were from Cassandra Broward at the Daily Vanguard.
Arnold considered returning Cassandra’s calls—but to what end? No matter how many times he assured himself that his intentions were purely professional, that he’d have done the same for any reporter who shared his politics, the fact remained that he hadn’t phoned back the other periodicals whose messages now lay crumpled around the trash can. And several of these, like The Nation and The Village Voice, had run editorials in his defence. If he phoned Cassandra, no good would come of it: Some itches weren’t meant to be scratched. Instead, he flipped on the television set that he’d commandeered from his manager’s office—nominally, because the staff had been sneaking into Guillermo’s quarters on breaks to watch the news updates, but really because he was growing addicted to the coverage of himself. He was constantly a bit on edge about what else they might reveal of his past, but also curious that they might uncover something even he didn’t know. They’d already tracked down Judith’s estranged brother, to whom nobody in the family had spoken in twenty years. (The man ran a pawn shop in Bethel, Alaska, with his Yupik wife, and kept referring to Arnold as “Alfred.”) But that afternoon—the third since the baseball game—the cable networks were merely rehashing the week’s events. On the right-wing station, the camera panned across the demonstrators, many of whom had brought along umbrellas and trench coats to ward off the drizzle, so that the mob now looked slightly more civilized, like FBI agents attending a funeral. Four men held a green-and-black canopy above Spotty Spitford to keep him dry. The minister looked so pleased with himself, like a cat who dined on canary at every meal. Then the camera pulled back and surveyed the opposite side of the street: the bored cops chewing the fat under the sassafras tree, the octogenarian who lived on the other side of Ira Taylor, and her centenarian mother, relaxing in lawn chairs on their stoop. That’s when Arnold caught sight of Gilbert Card. The immigration lawyer was wearing a trench coat with the collar turned up and walking rapidly. Not unusual behaviour, considering the weather, but it gave Arnold pause nonetheless. He watched helplessly as Gilbert waited on his porch—his back turned to the jeering throng—until Arnold’s wife opened the door. In the brief interval when the door stood open, Arnold caught sight of Judith in the entryway. It looked to him as though she’d been smiling.
Up until that moment, it had never crossed Arnold’s mind that Judith might have a secret love interest of her own. They’d always been far too happy with each other, their lives far too intertwined, for infidelity to gain a foothold. Judith was constantly saying that if he were to die first, she’d never remarry. Not because she objected to a second husband in principle—that was probably the psychologically healthy choice—but because she just didn’t have it in her to start over again. (He’d admitted that he probably would remarry eventually, that anything was better than growing old alone.) It was hard to reconcile the Judith who criticized unfaithful wives in movies, the sharp-tongued creature who had no compunction about telling a dinner party that “Emma Bovary got what was coming to her,” with the Judith who was bonking his best friend on the sly. But, in hindsight, maybe the woman had protested too much. If he could have a crush on Cassandra Broward, Judith might as easily have a thing for Gil. After all, the lawyer was good-looking, personable, easy-going—and it didn’t take too much reflection for Arnold to realize that Bonnie Card wasn’t giving Gilbert what he needed in bed. She couldn’t be. Which meant that all of those references to national borders might have been a secret code that referred to other, more personal barriers. Maybe Judith’s baby was just a symptom, not the underlying problem.
Once the ugly idea took root in Arnold’s thoughts, it wasn’t too difficult to rethink his entire past. All of those dinner parties with the Cards now acquired a sinister meaning: Gilbert was always wandering off with Judith to look at her paintings or to offer her wisdom on interior decorating. Arnold had always just been pleased that they’d gotten along so well. How many evenings had he listened to Bonnie criticizing Western Civilization’s irrational censure of bestiality, or our culture’s peculiar reverence for corpses, or insisting that chimpanzees be given the right to vote? He imagined listening to her declaim on the moral equivalence of golf and genocide, as he had done only last month, while her husband was going down on his wife in the linen closet. For all he could tell, Bonnie might have been in on the arrangement. Arnold could imagine her saying: There’s nothing natural or preferable about monogamy. It’s just an arbitrary choice, like monotheism.
He could easily return to the house and confront the pair, disrupt their lovemaking and drive Gilbert naked from his bedroom. But what if he were wrong? And worse, what if he was right—but the affair was taking its natural course and would soon be water under the bridge. The last thing Arnold wanted to do was to force his wife’s hand, to transform an unfortunate transgression into a marriage-breaking calamity. Under the circumstances, maybe not knowing was best.
He picked up the phone, intending to call Gilbert’s cell. All he wanted was to hear the lawyer’s voice—to see if the man admitted where he was. But Arnold’s entire hand shook as he lifted the receiver. What would he do if Gilbert lied to him? What could he do? Instead, he dialled Bonnie’s number at home. The machine picked up:
You’ve reached Gilbert and Bonnie. Please leave a message. Beep.
“It’s Arnold and I’m leaving a message,” said Arnold. “I just wanted to say hello and to tell you two how much we enjoyed dinner the other night and—”
“—Arnold. Hey, it’s Bonnie.”
“You’re there.”
“Can’t be too careful. You wouldn’t believe the sorts of phone calls I get,” answered Bonnie. “On second thought, I suspect you’re getting your fair share.”
“Judith pulled the phone out of the wall.”
“Been there, done that,” said Bonnie. “So how is notoriety treating you?”
“You’ve been through this, Bonnie. When will it end?”
“I’m surprised it’s lasted this long. I was sure you’d have given in by now.”
Arnold was suddenly struck by the realization that he didn’t like Bonnie Card—that he’d never liked Bonnie Card.
“I’m not giving in.”
“Why not?” asked Bonnie. “Why do you care what a bunch of total strangers think about you? And particularly if they’re right-wing lunatics?”
“I’m not giving in,” Arnold repeated. “You didn’t give in,” he objected. “Why did you care what all those cystic fibrosis people thought of you?”
“I’m not a good role model, Arnold. In the first place, I’m an ethicist. I have to worry about my professional credibility. Nobody expects the guy who sells them vermiculite to stand up for civil liberties.” Bonnie paused—probably to let the vermiculite jab sink in. “But what you’re missing, Arnold, is that I enjoyed being under attack. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it was a picnic. Let me tell you: There are few experiences less pleasant than finding a dead foetus nailed to your front door. But, on the whole, I relish the good scrap. A battle-royal. It keeps my blood flowing. Gilbert’s the same way. So what if we have to call out the bomb squad every once in a while to open our mail? When strangers send us white powder, we sweeten our tea with it. You and Judith, on the other hand, you’re not fighters. Quite frankly, you’re made of softer stuff. What do you hope to achieve by resisting? Will it really be worth it….?”
Arnold had reached his saturation point with Bonnie Card. Only five days earlier, Bonnie Card had been urging resistance to the last—and now she wanted him to roll over. It was all a game to her, just an endless series of questions that led to more questions. If he took one stance, she’d choose the opposite—merely to demonstrate that the opposing side also had merit, that our social universe was entirely constructed and no philosophical principle was truly sound. For a professor of ethics, Bonnie Card was utterly amoral. But no sane person could lead his life like that, and Arnold wasn’t going to let the woman twist his thoughts in circles. Not this time.
“Thanks for the wisdom,” answered Arnold.
“Any time.”
He drew a deep breath.
“How are you and Gil?”
“Busy, the usual chaos. He’s been working long hours.” Arnold detected a hint of derision in the woman’s voice—but he wasn’t sure whether she was merely complaining about Gil’s schedule, or hinting at something more. “He’s really sorry about the other day,” added Bonnie. “He thought you wanted to apologize.”
“No big deal,” Arnold answered. “Just a misunderstanding.”
His entire existence felt like an enormous misunderstanding, a colossal failure to make himself understood. He was fifty-five. Far past the halfway mark. Far too late to hope for a breakthrough.
He said goodbye quickly and hung up the phone.
That evening, Arnold stayed late at the nursery. He ambled around the greenhouses, pinching chrysanthemum shoots and peeling dead leaves off dieffenbachia stems. The botanist was no stranger to the Plant Centre at night: At the height of his experiments with flower recipes, he’d often crashed on a cot in his office. But in those years, he’d felt so alive among his blossoms, sheltered in his little botanical oasis and yet simultaneously a part of the city. Iron gratings kept out vandals without dampening the sounds of Village nightlife. In contrast, the plate glass windows, now boarded over with plywood, kept the outside world entirely at bay. Arnold felt as though he’d been sealed in a tomb. He assured himself that he was staying late to think matters through—that he wanted to avoid making any rash decisions—but he knew what he was actually doing was giving Gilbert time to leave his house. He didn’t want to stumble upon the two of them in some obscene state of undress, to listen to the lawyer quote George Bernard Shaw on adultery. Better to hide among his rose bushes until he was certain the coast was clear. It was nearly ten o’clock when he finally arrived home.
The protesters had packed up for the night, so there was no need to climb over the fence on the ladders. It was a pleasure to walk up his own street and climb his own front steps without being compared to Saddam Hussein. He said good evening to the police guards, but they remained as stock-still as cigar-store Indians. No matter. As Bonnie Card said: Why did he care what a bunch of total strangers thought about him? It was his home and his garden—his private space inside that stockade fence—and no amount of public scorn could take that away from him.
Arnold’s key was only halfway in the lock when Judith pulled open the door. His wife wore a threadbare bathrobe and a pair of pink socks. Her face was pallid as a bed sheet. Her eyes were bloodshot. For the first time ever, she didn’t look stunning to Arnold—merely worn out. “Something happened,” she said.
So it was true. Even though he’d expected it, it didn’t seem possible.
“I don’t want to know,” said Arnold. “Let’s just put it behind us.”
Judith didn’t seem to register his words. “I don’t know how to say this,” she continued. “I sent Ray out with Gil Card for the afternoon—to get him away from all this madness—and I was taking a nap…and then I came outside…there were the ladders…and…and…” She raked her fingers through her hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“What are you talking about?”
Arnold’s heart quickened. He could hear his pulse in his temple, could sense the perspiration seeping through his palms. Judith’s expression told him that no amount of anxiety would prove sufficient for what came next.
His wife didn’t answer him. Instead, she stepped aside—and instinctively, Arnold crossed through the kitchen into the yard. “What have they done?” Arnold appealed to the cool night air. “Good God! What have they done?”
The garden hadn’t been vandalized. It had been razed.
The perpetrators had lopped the heads off every tea rose and gladiolus, torn the lilacs from the arbour, sheared apart the rhododendrons with the chainsaw. They’d done even more damage with the annuals, scooping pansies and phlox from the soil as though they were weeds. An uprooted forget-me-not hung from the Japanese maple like an epiphyte. They’d also raided Judith’s studio, arming themselves with enamels and varnishes that they’d sprinkled liberally across the grass. Whole swaths of lawn had been stained the colour of mahogany. The air that yesterday smelled of fragrant pollen now stank pungently of oil paint and turpentine. Not even the lily pads in the birdbath had been spared—the innocent leaves had been plucked from the water and ground up under the tires of the wheelbarrow. What it had taken Arnold three decades to build had required only several minutes for a stranger to destroy. To Arnold, it was a holocaust—the scorching of the very earth beneath his feet. The Romans sowing salt in the fields of Carthage had done no worse.
Judith came up behind him. She placed her hand on his elbow to comfort him, but he could feel her fingers trembling. “I know there’s nothing I can say,” she said.
“I’ve had enough,” said Arnold. “It’s over.”
“Please don’t do anything rash, darling.” Judith tightened her grip on his arm. “Let’s call the police. They’ll take care of it.”
“Like hell they’ll take care of it.” Arnold wrested free of his wife’s grasp. “I’m going to take care of it.”
Arnold charged up the steps into the kitchen. “Where the fuck do we keep the phone books?”
“Please, Arnold. I’m begging you….”
He searched the magazine rack, then inside the utility cabinet behind the toaster. Rolls of duct tape and industrial-strength twine toppled onto the counter. A light bulb fell to the linoleum and shattered. “Goddammit,” cursed Arnold. He finally found the white pages on the floor of the pantry.
“What are you going to do, Arnold? Talk to me.”
He sat on the un-swept spruce floorboards of the storeroom, the musty air lit only by a low-watt hanging bulb, and turned over the brittle pages. Spitelli, Spitfire, Spitfish, SPITFORD! “Spitford,” Arnold said aloud. “Spottsylvania Otis.”
“You don’t know it was Spitford.”
“I know it was Spitford.”
“Take a few seconds to think about what you’re going to do,” pleaded Judith. “It’s a lot easier to do things than to undo things.”
“I’m done thinking. I’ve been thinking too much already.”
“You’re not going to do something violent, are you? You wouldn’t hurt anyone?”
“Of course not. Nothing violent,” said Arnold. “But I think it’s about time to beat Mr. Spitford at his own goddam game.” The botanist tore the page out of the phone book and stuffed it into his pocket. “He’s going to protest outside my house, is he? We’ll I’m not the only one with a house.”