Chapter 1
By the middle of the afternoon, Andreas was driving the Lombardi through the gates of Summerfield Estates, then cruising beneath the lanes of shading sycamores. After a mandatory nod of greeting to their neighbors walking their Lhasa Apso and Shih Tzu—although Olga and Una would never acknowledge these peasants, he curled the car to smooth stop along the walk that encircled the clubhouse. He and Geoffrey stepped out and after brushing off the figurative dust of the road (and Andreas never allowing one particle of actual grit to enter the cab of his Auto), they took up Olga and Una and made for the clubhouse to confer briefly with Marco and Michael, who lately were making P&P Estate Sales such a vibrant force.
Stepping inside, they sighted Marco and Michael riding the high tide of customers who were demanding goods from the estate of Mrs. Paula Paglia.An arrangement of tables directed the crowd in an orderly flow from holiday trinkets to neatly folded floral-print button-ups to trays of travel-size shampoos to a shelf of Time Life books (moving with as much zippiness as Horizon.)All in all, while glad that their protégés were raking in the green, Geoffrey and Andreas with a shared knowing glance concurred that their own cast-offs had given P&P’s maiden sale a special and memorable cachet—This stuff you could find at the Goodwill—and for twice the price.But Paula Paglia was an old dear and a survivor at that (until she met Marjorie) and it was unkind to speak ill of the dead, so like jungle explorers among the lotuses, the old fellows waded through the furrow-browed bargain-hunters on up to the front table, where Marco and Michael were playing their respective roles of maître d’ and money-changer.
Wearing a blousy button-down that had to have been the contender for the flagship design in this year’s Tutti-Frutti Men’s Festive Fashionfest, Marco was bargaining with an old backwoods elder with an inability to button his shirt at either top or bottom, a projecting belly, a gloss of sweat on the face and forearms, and plumes of uncombed hair, who was waggling a pair of mid-century garden snips in his face and demanding a break on then since they had some dirt on them.
While Geoffrey and Andreas occupied themselves assessing the costume jewelry arrayed like archaeological finds in the glass case, Michael, his mouth once more happily soldered shut, was trying his hand at using an abacus for calculations.Marco wound up his bargaining with the survivalist burgermeister and turned to his very first clients with a weary if gratified smile.
Geoffrey congratulated him.“Behold, the darlings of Summerfield.The little old ladies just love you, if I can believe the gossip one hears through the honeysuckle hedge.”
Marco said, “I didn’t know that success could be so exhausting.”
Andreas intoned, “It is called work for a reason.”
Geoffrey in his turn advised, “I encourage you to keep it up.You have little choice.”
With these wishes, Marco thanked the old fellows with a nod before he had to slip back into the sea of his customers.The first re-sale barracuda to attack was a lady with well-thumbed copies of Callas & Cannas: A Romance, Dahlias For All, and that bedtime stand-by, Blossoms of Death (memorable for that catchy bit of Mother-Goosery, “Fee, Fie, Foe Foxglove.”)
And so, Geoffrey and Andreas broke off from their young fellows, knowing that they had done all they could by them, at least until the next time.
Andreas muttered to Geoffrey that he did want to see whether there were to be had any half-priced cans of disinfectant or rosewater cold cream or glass-bottled pine cleaner (wandering the bombed-out backroads of Thuringia and eating a mule on your birthday does tend to foster a sense of economy) and he stepped away, taking the dogs with him.Geoffrey, for his part, whiled away the minutes flipping through a box of old OSS snapshots.(Paula Paglia was quite the looker in her time, especially in that hibiscus-red floor-length cheongsam with the plum-blossom embroidery up the slit.)But this jaunt through bygone days was cut short when he heard at his side, “Oh, Geoff, you’re all right.”
Thinking that this was an agent fresh from the training camps outside of Pyongyang, made ready to defend himself with bowl of plastic fruit (“Make offer,” it read), but saw instead their neighbor Connie, no longer in her funereal tennis dress(never good at mid-day on a hot court), but in a knock-off of whatever Maria Sharapova had been wearing at Brisbane that year.He said, “Shouldn’t I be?”
“Well, Marjorie had said—Wait, I’m sorry, you know Marjorie Mayfield?”
“I think I’ve met her.But, no, everything’s fine with me.”
“Well, that’s wonderful,” said Connie.“We all care about you so much here.Oh, but speaking of Marjorie, do you know what happened?Come take a look at this.”
And escorting him through the shoppers to the clubhouse bulletin board, she pointed to a letter pinned to the corkboard. Geoffrey scanned it with feigned ignorance. It read:
To my Summerfield Family,
It is one of those times that comes in everyone’s life, that special time for a change. But while I am sad that I need to leave, I am so thankful that I have had all of these years in this wonderful place. I am just glad that there is someone I can pass the torch to. From now on, I know that all of your resale needs will be in the capable hands of Marco and Michael at P&P Estate Sales. When I saw them handle the sale for Geoff Durant, I knew that everything would be all right. But now I have to go, I have to go. With only love in my heart,
Marjorie Mayfield
(Geoffrey admitted that the signature was a bit of a desperate scrawl, but the main strokes were clear enough, and it is hard to guide the hand of a serial killer armed with an ice cream spoon, even when she is in the throes of a diabetic fit.)
“Well, what do you know?” said Geoffrey and called out over the heads of a few hard-eyed collectors and a few mumbling kleptomaniacs, “Andi, come look at this,”.
In the interval before Andreas arrived, Connie asked, “But you’re all right?”
“Never better,” said Geoffrey.“As long as I can still tell the difference between Dennis Morgan and Gordon McCrae.”
“That reminds me.Effie is having another one of her film festivals, but she is going to show all the films dubbed in Japanese, for fun.”
“I think I still have my phrasebook. Do you remember Major Kirschblümen’s introductory course?”
“Do I ever.” Connie sighed, reflecting on those halcyon days of kitchen-sink neutron bombs and ballpoint pen assassination tutorials. “Whatever happened to him?”
“Oh, the Mossad took him out in ’83. Well,” he said. “tell Effie that we shall be sure to be there.Sounds like our she’s living rough.”
“She is a tough old gal.”
“You need to be,” said Geoffrey, “to live at Summerfield.”
With their business at the clubhouse concluded, Geoffrey and Andreas drove back to Chez Cockaigne under skies as blue as Isfahan tiles and each of them quietly considered what the rest of the day held: for Andreas, to head for Iron Age, his much beloved gymnasium, a grungy grind pit full of grunting grim-faced human-growth hormone addicts, to pass a grueling evening with the kettle balls, followed by an hour enduring the highest legally-allowed temperature in the steam room, while for Geoffrey, to fix a final finial on this business with the daughter of his old friend.
Having watched Andreas with his trusty thermos of raw eggs and wheat germ drive away in the Lombardi for an hour or two re-enacting that interlude with the Stasi in 1956, Geoffrey Durant-Dupont sauntered with a blithe and triumphant smile back into their cottage, the Madagascar jasmine blossoming above him like archangelic trumpets sculpted from marzipan.
Back in the house, Geoffrey set to humming away at a 9th-century Kyrie (he reminded himself to have that manuscript appraised before the moths had their way with it) and having mixed his weekly ration of joy (a sidecar, but with a drop of Rosolio to enhance the Cointreau, with apologies to the purists), he ensured that Elsa the Black Dog, coaxed off of the couch, had lapped up her dish of egg whites and brown bread, that Olga and Una had each sampled her quarter-can of that foul brown paste that the vet recommended, that the Axel-Rose-of-Sharon received a bucket of compost slurry, that the French Open was replaying muted on the widescreen, and that the strains of Dido and Aeneas were twining like Baroque nasturtium vines from the stereo.
He then walked down the hallway, drink in hand, under the gaze of that cloud of witnesses in their tarnished frames, figures august, officious, pious, grim, clear-eyed, and bejeweled, and made a sharp left turn into his boudoir-slash-office.Seating himself at his empty desk, he took from one of the drawers a tissuey envelope marked Par Avion, laid it to one side, and then hefted from under the desk a heavy black case with silvery fixtures.Setting this on to the work surface before him, he opened the lid, exposing a petite Royal typewriter.After limbering up with a few finger exercises, he introduced a light sheet of paper into the roller and commenced to hunt and peck.
Dear Ursula,
How are things at the mission?(Yes, I will wire a sizable offering.)I hope that that nasty cholera has abated for now.Please inform the Reverend Mother—Is it still Mother Albertina Our-Lady-of-Kibeho Johnston or did she go to her reward after that sad run-in with the hippos?Or was that Sister Immaculata Water-of-Lourdes Whitechapel?I always forget.(I always thought that you would do well in the office yourself, Baby Bear, but for that bothersome mesothelioma—We all have our crosses to bear, tho’.)
But getting back to business: If you could tell the current lady incumbent behind the big desk that a sizable crate will be coming her way marked “Caution: Live Animals” and punched liberally with air holes.To borrow a bit of terminology from our biology lessons: “Socially impressive, but grotesque otherwise.Lacks moral functioning.Medium height for female of species.Marked adiposity.”She goes by Sandra or Marjorie.Do not let her try to confuse you.
If the good Sisters could take this lady mercifully under their peaceful wings and give her some useful activity far, far away from any road, telephone, or wheeled transport, this old man will smile at a good deed done.
Geoffrey paused here, both to rest his fingers and to sip from his glass, and in this hiatus, a thought of some kind, like a well-dressed but dubious stranger at a happy party, came to mind.He found himself taking to the keys again.
I just thought: If the school for the children of the Mbedelele tribe needs someone to teach them their letters, this lady en route will do.But the last that I had heard, the children had not yet been weaned of their silly ancestral cannibalism. I do hope that they have settled down somewhat since their last teacher went missing.
Yr. affectionate big brother,
Goofy
Chuckling to himself that he had plopped the cherry on to this ancient burden, Geoffrey took the letter from the machine, folded it, and slid it into the envelope. Standing, he turned about towards the door of his room and readied his tongue to meet the adhesive underside of the top flag of the envelope. But at mid-step and before the moment of tongue-meeting-desiccated-glue, he stopped. He saw on the wall above the light switch that historic image, of three figures trapped together, standing on this place, the photo of himself, Sam Summerfield, and that little girl on the first day of breaking ground. The tree faces met his (one admittedly was his own) and he lingered on those of the other man and his little child, no longer little, but still tragically like a child. For a moment he forced himself to meet the eyes of the third figure, himself, and he lowered the letter.
“All right, Sam,” he said and returning to the typewriter rolled the delicate last page back into the machine.
He added:
P.S.Just had a thought: Maybe those little man-eaters will be too much of a chore for your new charge.I understand the Greater Cane Rat is still a problem in the cassava fields?I think that this lady should see to them—just give her a stick to keep the hyenas and wild dogs at bay while she is laying traps.I understand she has had some jungle experience and should handle herself all right.
P.P.S.Oh, before I forget, I accidentally sold the head of Chief Kampakuyu in a recent sell-off.Hope this will somehow at last lift the curse of the Lower Tomasillo people against the Mambelle, no matter what that old heathen Mahmadu says.Is he still selling the gallbladders of aardvarks in the marketplace?The things that people will buy.Bad juju, I think.If the curse does not lift, please drop Bro. Willifryth-Lambert a line to recommend a good Exorcist, just in case.
With these paragraphs appended and the letter thus amended, Geoffrey Durant-Dupont slid it into its envelope and gave it a Cointreau-laced lick. But rather than place it into their celadon bowl to delegate to Andreas the job of dropping it into the mailboxes at the clubhouse, Geoffrey slipped the communiqué into his own breast pocket, and harnessing up little Una and Olga, went himself for a stroll down the peaceful lanes of Summerfield to do the job himself.
The seasons were just making their change. The day was losing its heat as moist clouds began to pillow along the edge of the sky, while in yard after yard the Japanese maples and oakleaf hydrangea were arraying themselves in postcard loveliness. Beulla and Nancy were hanging their new hopper-style feeder (to attract those spry and elusive grackles and titmice), while on Steve Lawrence Court big-bellied boys with tattooed knuckles and thick arms were unloading crates from a moving van, and out of Effie’s half-open windows a pianola sing-along from Gordon McCrae and Doris Day was happily taking flight. Ah, Summerfield, thought Geoffrey as his little dogs pulled him along. What a pleasing, pleasant place it was.
The End
Glossary and Explications,
so that Intelligent Discussion and a General Sense of being In-The-Know Might Ensue
(arranged by first name and phrasing in the tale just told)
Constantine of Greece:Since 1974 has been a wandering soul, when those pesky generals bumped him off of his throne.But a very good sailor (dragon class, for the cognoscenti.)
Edith Piaf:Oh, look, another French singer.Not exactly a Gallic Vera Lynn, but another plant entirely, as befits French soil.
Genius loci:The author is not sure when they stopped force-feeding Latin to our young people, but this neat expression is rendered in English “the spirit of the place” (or “of a place,” since Latin does not have articles.)
The Gold Coast:The colonial name of the latter-day Ghana.We assume the name was meant to suggest that there was gold in them-thar steaming sub-Saharan hills, just as the name “Greenland” was also a branding scheme, though falling farther from the truth than the mineral deposits in the neighborhood of Togo and Burkina-Faso.
The Greater Cane Rat:While we are skipping along the Gold Coast... Thryonomys swinderianus.If you are trying to grow anything agricultural in sub-Saharan Africa, this not-so-little fellow can be a pest.Tops out at about two feet long.This is the “vermin suggestive of a prehistoric gerbil” in the photo in Geoffrey’s bedroom cum office.
Hermine Reuss of Greiz:She never made empress, but let us not spoil Andreas’ vision of the old lady, who was married to the Kaiser and did fall afoul of the Nazis and the Soviets.
Hildegard Knef: Disturbingly guttural.Some people seem to have liked her.(Forgive the split pluperfect passive infinitive.)
Jacques Brel: Another Gallic heartthrob.
Medronho:A Portuguese liqueur made from, of all things, the fruit of the strawberry tree, which tastes nothing like strawberries (or anything else.)
Merryweather (the town): Of course, not an actual locale, but maybe someday it will be.
Michel Sardou:French crooner, still belting them out after all these years.
Nana Mouskouri: Very big with the international cover-songs.Along with Maria Callas, a Greek contribution to song.
Patxaran: A Basque contribution to the world of fermented beverage, made from the not-very-elusive sloe berry.
Paulinenhof:An internment camp in Brandenburg north of Berlin.It was a handy place to contain pesky phantoms of the old regime, like Hermine Reuss of Greiz.
Porpoise en croût:An historic sumptuary dish among the French during Lent.
Rose-of-Sharon: A popular name for the shrubby Hibiscus syriacus.About as common as convenience stores.
Rosolio: A liqueur derived from rose petals, although in ancient times from the sundew plant.Who knew?
Sycamines: A much more beguiling name for the mulberry.
Tödesgottin:With enough consonant shifts and an understanding of the genitive case, the astute reader will identify this properly as “the goddess of death.”
Violet Trefusis: Maybe she was the daughter of Edward VII.
Zeuthener See:A smallish lake south-east of Berlin.When Dean Reed entered it in 1986, he did not come out.But who might have been standing on the shore in the evening light with pair of Pekingese (Pasha and Paula at this time)?
