The Wikkeling (8 page)

“Say
hello
, Henrietta,” said her father, a little sharply.

“Would you like a handshake or a hug, Henrietta?” said her grandmother, a short, elderly woman with a pronounced stoop. Henrietta looked up at her and suddenly noted the family resemblance between her grandmother, her mother, and herself, all three of them women with ruddy skin, blockish features, and sturdy frames. This was not, at the moment, a pleasant realization—Henrietta felt strangely trapped by it.

“A handshake,” said Henrietta determinedly, though she could feel her mother's withering gaze. She held out her hand, and briefly grasped her grandmother's cool, papery fingers.

They sat with Henrie on a soft, cream-colored couch in the living room. Henrietta thought her grandmother looked tired. In fact, there was something of a forced gaiety to everyone at the party.

The morning melted into a series of loosely connected vignettes of dodging
around long legs and overhearing snippets of conversations until the barbecue was ready, and everyone ate. Henrietta was starved because she'd missed breakfast, and she gulped her food ravenously. It tasted excellent, especially the charred bits.

“Don't eat the charred bits,” said her mother.

As they all finished their meal, Al turned to Henrietta. “So, Henrietta,” he said, “I've heard you're interested in reading.”

“Yes, I like reading,” she said, though she wondered where Al would have heard about it.

“I've got a few old books in the basement you might enjoy,” he said. “You do know what a book is, don't you?” He smiled.

Henrietta held up her textbook silently as an example, a little defensive over being poked fun at.

“Be careful on the stairs,” said her father.

“If the books are moldy, hold your breath,” said her mother.

“Walk
this
way!” said Al. As he limped forward, again mocking Henrietta's gait in her uncomfortable shoes, he shot a significant glance at Henrie that terminated in an inscrutable wink.

This time Henrietta imitated his walk, and doing so helped her avoid the pinchiest parts of her shoes. The two of them clowned through a crowded hallway to a narrow white vinyl door where several people lingered in conversation.

“Excuse us,” said Al, “we're walking
this way
.” He limped through the crowd, opened the door, and headed down a dark, carpeted staircase. Henrietta followed.

A few steps in, Al flipped a light switch, illuminating a series of overhead fluorescent panels. Henrietta had imagined the basement would be like the attic in her house—old, shadowy, and full of cobwebs. But this house was built recently, and its basement was a regular room, full of the stinging scent of new carpet.

Henrietta closed the door behind, but didn't let the latch click shut, remembering Ms. Span's lectures about getting trapped in basements, car trunks, and refrigerators, all of which would result first in suffocation, followed quickly by dehydration, hypothermia, and finally starvation (in that order).

Al descended the stairs slowly, leaning a little on the tan handrail. At the bottom, several plastic folding chairs surrounded a small, vinyl-topped card table. The basement was about the size of the living room upstairs, but instead of being full of people, it was full of books, stacked on shelves and in cases.

“Everything down here is plastic, except the books,” said Al as he and Henrietta sat at the table. “These shelves are actually part of the house. It's one molded piece.” He gestured to where the tan shelves merged seamlessly with the wall.

On the table before them lay two books, which Al had obviously placed with the intent of showing to Henrietta. “All of the books down here are Henrie's and my collection, which we combined when we moved in together. These two are interesting—one was mine, and one was Henrie's. Can you tell which is older?” he asked.

Both books looked old, and the writing on their covers was a highly ornamented cursive that was difficult to read.

“They have the same title,” Henrietta observed.

“They're different editions of the same thing. Look at this one from the side. See how thick it is? Compare.” One was considerably thicker than the other. “What do you think?”

“One has more pages.”

“If you wrote a book about something, and then wrote it again a few years later, would the new one be shorter?”

“Longer,” said Henrietta. “I'd know more.”

“Just so,” Al said. He opened each book to a random page. “Now look inside, and tell me the difference.”

“One is typed, and one is . . . handwriting?” said Henrietta.

“The older one is handwriting. It's so old, they hadn't invented typing yet. The thicker book, the newer one, is typed.” Al closed both books, and Henrietta studied the title on their covers, trying to untangle the cursive. “It's fascinating, isn't it, to see how people figure out things? How they learn, and fill more books.”

“So, is mine the best of all?” said Henrietta, holding up her textbook.

“What do
you
think?” said Al. Henrietta looked at the shiny, plastic cover. “I like yours,” she said.

“Why?”

“They're just . . . interesting. The handwritten one most of all.”

“That's nice to hear,” said Al. He smiled. “It's good for an old person like me to know that young people like old things. Look at the title a little more. Have you ever seen cursive?”

“A little,” said Henrietta. “B-e-s . . . the word is . . . Bestiary?” She pronounced it BEST-ee-airy.

“That's right,” said Al. “But it's pronounced BEAST-ee-airy. Do you know it?”

“No,” said Henrietta.

“Say ‘not yet,' when someone asks you that,” said Al. He winked.

“You winked at Grandma Henrie when we left the living room.”

“I'm a winker,” said Al.

Henrietta tried to wink in response, but she blinked instead. “Were you sharing a secret?”

“You're an observant girl,” said Al. “Henrie and I have a few secrets, some that we've kept a long time. Most haven't been worth it. Do you think that's true?”

“I don't know,” said Henrietta. “Some secrets might be important.” She thought about the secret hiding in her attic back home.

“Perhaps,” said Al. He paused. “Your grandmother asked me to take you down here so she could talk to your parents. She's going to tell them something they won't want you to hear.” Henrietta didn't respond. She could tell Al was going to say more. “Henrietta, your grandmother has cancer. She's going to die.”

Henrietta suddenly felt very uncomfortable, and she found her eyes drawn to the two old books, covers facing up, resting before Al on the table. The ornate calligraphy was metallic gold.

“This party isn't just a birthday party,” Al continued. “It's a farewell party.”

“I thought it seemed sad,” said Henrietta.

“Your grandmother is eighty today,” said Al. “You might not be able to imagine how old that is, but I'll tell you—it's the blink of an eye. That's as old as anyone ever gets.”

“I don't know what to say,” said Henrietta.

“Say anything or nothing,” said Al. “The important thing is that you know. You don't need to be protected from it.” A drop of water appeared suddenly right in the middle of the older book's cover. It was a perfect circle, and it came from nowhere. Henrietta thought of the drop of blood she'd seen the night before, and she looked up at the ceiling. She'd once watched a TV news story about a family who drowned when their basement flooded. She looked at Al to see if he'd noticed it.

He was crying. He wiped his eyes with one old hand.

“I don't know grandma very well,” said Henrietta. This was difficult for her to admit for some reason, and it felt bad to say.

“Your parents don't come over much,” said Al. “It isn't your fault, Henrietta. In fact, if it's anyone's, it's mine.”

“Yours?” Henrietta looked curiously into Al's tear-reddened eyes.

He smiled. “It's a strange world,” he said.

“I know.” Henrietta nodded. In fact, she felt she'd only learned of the world's strangeness recently.

“I assume you're aware that your mother was against Henrie's and my marriage.”

Henrietta had never been expressly told, but she'd certainly heard her parents talking about it plenty of times. “Yes,” she said.

“Do you know much about your grandfather?” Al asked.

“Mom said he got sick from his work, and died.”

“His name was Roy,” said Al. “He and I were friends. In fact, I was his best man when he married your grandmother. Did you know that?”

Henrietta shook her head. With regard to this subject, she knew pretty much nothing, but she had long been curious.

“Roy was an agrichemical scientist, and he did grow ill from it. He was bedridden for the better part of two years before he died, and I tried to help him and your grandmother. I was at their house almost every day, tending to your grandfather's needs and helping keep the house in order. Your mother was about your age, then. And, we didn't plan it, Henrietta, but . . . well, your grandmother and I fell in love during that time.” Al paused, and picked up the older
Bestiary
and turned it restlessly in his hands.

“Your mother sensed what was happening, I believe. When Roy died, I think she blamed your grandmother and me. And maybe she was right. Henrie and I tried to end our relationship. We stopped seeing each other. We hoped we'd fall out of love. But we didn't—we couldn't. Even as the years passed. So, once Aline was out on her own and had started her own family, we faced our feelings. I asked Henrie to marry me. You know the rest—we moved out here together, and you and your parents moved into her old house.”

“We didn't go to the wedding,” said Henrietta.

Al shook his head, studying the book in his hands. “I wish things had been otherwise,” he said. Then he suddenly looked up and met Henrietta's gaze and held it. “You know what?” he said. “Maybe they still can be otherwise, Henrietta. After all, we aren't dead yet!” He put the book decisively down on the table with a thump. “Henrietta, by gosh, let me ask you something. I'd like to be your grandfather. What do you think? Do you want a grandfather? Some silly old man?”

Henrietta hesitated. Al was, after all, more or less a stranger to her. She knew
her mother disliked him, which made her feel uncomfortable. But at the same time, she saw him clearly—sitting there, his hands clasped nervously on the tabletop, worried she'd reject him. When you yourself are rejected almost every day, it becomes easy to spot in the faces of other people. And perhaps that's one good thing about rejection—it allows you to help others, if you choose to.

“You're not a silly old man,” Henrietta said. She looked him up and down, joking a little as if she were studying a product for sale in a store. “I think you'll make a good grandfather,” she said.

Al smiled, and released the breath he'd been holding. “Hey,” he said, “I haven't given you the tour down here yet.” He stood and gestured to Henrietta to follow him, and they walked back among the plastic bookcases. Al pointed out a few volumes as they passed. “There's an old journal—probably my oldest book. And that one's called
How To
—it has all kinds of instructions in it, like how to build a bird house.”

“I saw a bird once,” said Henrietta. As she looked at the hundreds, maybe thousands, of titles she thought about how computers had made books obsolete. Even her own textbook, which was practically brand new, was outdated.

On the far wall of the room, past the last set of tall shelves, stood a narrow sliding door. Al pulled it open. “This is the only other room down here. I keep my tools in it. It's pretty jammed full.”

The little room was lit with fluorescent lights just like the main room, and the walls were lined with more plastic shelves, which were crowded with old tools instead of old books. Henrietta recognized some of them: a skill saw, a few hammers with different heads, drills, wrenches.