The Trap Page 7

  It was weird to think that Mr. and Mrs. Brody had probably been married for twice as long as I’d been alive. I couldn’t imagine what that would be like. Helen, of course, always had something to contribute. “When our grandpa died last year,” she said, “Grandma died three months later.” I winced inwardly.

  “I’m not quite ready for that,” said Mrs. Brody, a note of amusement in her voice.

  “Tell us more about Abe Møller,” said Helen, forging ahead. “What do you know about him?”

  “He was the reason my husband wished to destroy the books,” said Mrs. Brody. “I should add that Joseph hated almost no one in this world. He was a very loving person. But he hated Abraham Møller.” She turned to Alan. “And so I think your brother, if he is meeting with this man, is surely in danger.” She took up the book again and flipped through a few pages. Something seemed to catch her eye. “Well, what do you know,” she said. “Fibonacci.”

  “What’s that?” said Helen.

  “Have you recited these numbers—1, 1, 2, 3, 5, and the rest?”

  “Yes, it’s an important part,” I said.

  “But you don’t know what they are?” said Mrs. Brody.

  None of us did.

  “This is the Fibonacci sequence. Joseph was always interested in it. See here.” She picked up a pencil and a bit of scratch paper from the table. In a shaky hand, she wrote out the numbers, ending with 21 and 34, and then added 55, 89, and 144.

  “How are you doing that?” said Nicki.

  “A good puzzle,” said Mrs. Brody. “I should leave you with it.”

  “Tell us!” Helen shouted, spilling a little of her lemonade. Mrs. Brody laughed.

  “The final two integers are the addends for the next,” she explained. She wrote 89 + 144 = 233, then 144 + 233 = 377.

  “But . . . why do we have to say them?” I said. “I mean, what do they do?”

  “It’s part of the world,” said Mrs. Brody. “You see it in nature—the way petals are arranged on a rose, or branchlets on a tree.” She paused. “It’s not surprising to me that such a pattern could lead the mind onward, like a plant growing.”

  “But brains aren’t plants,” I said.

  “Aren’t they?” said Mrs. Brody. “My husband once told me that this sequence was first discovered in India, and was used as a technique in poetry. So you see, not so far removed—the growth of a bud into a bloom, and the growth of a mind into a poem. Two kinds of opening up. And that is precisely the art you are studying, is it not? To open the mind?”

  “Wow,” said Nicki. “We could definitely use your help, Mrs. Brody.”

  I think we all confronted, at that moment, that we were just a bunch of kids and that Mrs. Brody might know all kinds of important things. Even so, we were a little taken aback at what she said next.

  “Would you lend me this book?” she asked. “If I could join you in this . . . this subtle world, I might be more useful.”

  We exchanged quick glances among ourselves. My glance said, We need to think about this.

  “Um, could we talk that over really fast, Mrs. Brody? With just us?” said Helen.

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Brody. Slowly, she picked up the empty lemonade pitcher and made her way out to the kitchen.

  Once again, we put our heads together.

  “What do you guys think?” said Helen.

  “She seems nice,” I said. “And smart.”

  “She knew those numbers,” said Alan. “I think she could help us.”

  “But what if we get her into trouble?” said Nicki. “What if this ends up being dangerous? She’s pretty old.”

  “That’s a good point,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to drag her in if it’s risky.”

  “She’s an adult,” said Helen. “She can get into trouble if she wants.”

  That seemed to decide it. Helen stood and headed toward the kitchen. The rest of us followed, bringing our empty glasses.

  The kitchen was much larger than any I’d seen, with a huge bank of windows along one side looking into Longbelly Gulch and the forest. It was beautiful, with light streaming in everywhere.

  Mrs. Brody was just putting the empty pitcher into the sink as Helen announced, “You can borrow the book.”

  “But on one condition,” I added.

  “Condition?” said Helen, turning toward me.

  “What is your condition, Henry?” said Mrs. Brody.

  “That we stay the night here,” I said, “to make sure you’re safe. And that you call our mom to tell her we’re helping you with . . . with some housework.”

  “Henry! That is genius!” Helen exclaimed. I had to admit, it was pretty good. Mom had just been saying she felt sad about Mrs. Brody. Now we were helping her. Surely our parents couldn’t get angry about that, even if we’d disobeyed our grounding.

  “Well, I’m very touched,” said Mrs. Brody. “Of course you can stay. That is, if you aren’t afraid . . .”

  “Afraid?” said Helen. Fear for her was like a TV show she was looking forward to.

  Mrs. Brody pointed to the near wall, at a framed picture there. “A photo of myself and my husband, taken many years ago,” she said. “You’ll find quite a few through the house. Have a look at it.”

  The picture was black and white. It showed Mr. and Mrs. Brody standing with their arms around each other, gazing into each other’s eyes. They looked about the age of our parents. Even so, you could recognize Mrs. Brody’s little chin. Mr. Brody was a tall man with narrow shoulders. His hair was black. He had twinkling eyes, and one of those mustaches where the ends tip upward like a smile.

  “You see how much we loved each other,” said Mrs. Brody.

  “What’s he holding there?” said Nicki. “Is it a violin case?”

  Violin! The word jumped out at me, taking me right back to my bedroom and the mysterious man who had questioned me. I looked closely at the picture. Was Mr. Brody the violinist I’d been warned about? If so, then the mysterious man was looking for someone he’d never find. Still it sent a chill up my spine.

  “He was a wonderful performer, from a family of musicians,” said Mrs. Brody. “He wooed me with that violin, and we buried him with it today. I thought, if he has it, maybe he’ll play for me when I cross over one day.”

  “How did your husband die?” said Helen.

  “He’d been unwell for some time,” said Mrs. Brody. “Heart troubles. He passed away upstairs, in our bedroom, just before the ambulance arrived.” She paused. “Now this house is too big, too empty. Which brings me back to the thing that might scare you.”

  “Yes, what is it?” said Helen.

  “Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve thought a few times in the past days that Joseph’s ghost is here somewhere.”

  “The ghost of your husband?” I said, and just then, out of nowhere, a big orange house cat jumped up onto the kitchen counter right in front of me. I let out an embarrassing yelp.

  “Hello, Oscar,” said Mrs. Brody. She nudged the cat’s wide head with one hand, and he nudged her back, then looked away, out into the living room. “I think he sees the ghost,” she said.

  MOM THOUGHT IT WAS a great idea for us to stay overnight to help Mrs. Brody around her house. She wanted to be mad, but you can’t be mad when your kids are coming to the aid of an old, widowed woman. “Genius,” said Helen again as I worked this out on the phone.

  Nicki got permission from her parents, too. I wasn’t sure which way it would go, since it was a school night—but she explained that she usually got what she wanted because she so rarely asked for anything. (“Interesting strategy,” Helen mused.)

  Alan’s permission took about two seconds—he just told his dad where he was. I heard a baseball game in the background. I was a little surprised that Mr. Dunn wasn’t more worried, given the situation with Carl. But I dimly heard his voice slurring on the phone, and thought maybe he didn’t exactly know what he was agreeing to.

  So, the four of us returned to our houses to get ou
r overnight things, and then met up to bike again along the south edge of the gulch as afternoon turned into evening.

  “I just remembered something, you guys,” I said as we traversed the bumpy way. “That night, when I saw Carl—he was talking about a ghost. Just like Mrs. Brody was.”

  “Do you think he meant someone’s subtle form?” said Nicki.

  “We were already in our subtle forms,” I said. “I think he really meant a ghost.”

  We coasted onto the cement slab outside the three-car garage, parked our bikes, and knocked on the front door. Now I understood why we had to wait so long—Mrs. Brody, using her cane, walking slowly through the huge place. This time it was almost five minutes before the lock turned.

  “Hello again,” said Mrs. Brody, smiling.

  After we dropped off our overnight bags in the living room, Mrs. Brody went to a side door, made of sliding glass. “I’m hoping you’ll help me cross the gulch, my friends, before we have dinner. I’d like to visit Joseph’s grave again before nightfall.”

  This struck me as a good thing to do. I wanted to pay my respects. Still, knowing that Mr. Brody’s ghost might be floating around nearby was a little unsettling.

  Mrs. Brody gathered a few cut flowers from a vase, and we exited the house onto a narrow dirt path that zigzagged down the gulch to Longbelly Creek. If I were to have run the distance, I’d have been at the bottom in two minutes. With Mrs. Brody, it took almost fifteen.

  A flat bridge, somewhat dilapidated, spanned the narrow creek, ending where the trail resumed up the north slope.

  “Joseph and I built it when we moved here,” said Mrs. Brody.

  We crossed, and followed the trail up the switchbacks to North Half, then walked to a turnoff, where we saw an old wooden sign that said “Graveyard,” before an iron fence. I opened the gate, which creaked as graveyard gates do. Then I heard another sound. I put a hand to my ear, listening.

  “What is it, Henry?” said Alan.

  “Those branches,” I said. “Remember the branches we heard at the campsite? I bet it’s the same ones. That’s how close we are.”

  “Wow, weird,” said Helen. “It seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere, but we were barely behind this place.”

  “What are you all discussing?” asked Mrs. Brody.

  “My brother,” said Alan. “He had a campsite in the woods just behind here.”

  The graveyard was not particularly kept up. The grass was brown and long. The plots near the road were spaced closely, but dispersed the farther we went, and there was no clear end to the place. It just petered out into the forest.

  We found an area where the long grass was all trampled, and then reached the new grave, with raw dirt around the edges, and piled on top of it a mound of flowers. I’d never seen so many, and all kinds—carnations, and roses . . . I don’t know many flower names. At the top of the grave stood a dark gray headstone of polished marble, set perfectly straight, like the headboard of a bed. It immediately reminded me of how people say death is like sleep.

  The gravestone was inscribed: “Joseph A. Brody, 1890–1963, Beloved Husband & Author.” Mrs. Brody, using her cane, knelt and placed the flowers she’d brought, right where the pillow would go if the grave really was a bed.

  “Did your husband write other books besides Subtle Travel?” I asked.

  “He and I wrote many books together,” said Mrs. Brody. “A series. I’ll show you back at the house.”

  She put one old hand on the curved top of the gravestone, and spoke to her husband. “Joseph,” she said, “do you see these nice young people? They helped me cross the creek. I may not be able to come every day, Joseph, because of my knees, but I’ll come as often as I can.”

  “I wish we could have met him,” said Helen.

  “You’d have liked him,” said Mrs. Brody. She smiled sadly. “Maybe you’ll meet his ghost.”

  WHEN THE NOODLES CAME OUT of the boiling water, Mrs. Brody sent Helen and me into the dining room with the silverware while Nicki and Alan helped plate the food. Oscar the cat was sitting on the table, and I shooed him off. Helen and I set five places.

  Mrs. Brody sat at the head, and before we dug in she held up her hands, as high as her stooped shoulders, and recited a blessing. It was not in English, and it also did not sound much like Russian. When she finished I asked, “What language was that, Mrs. Brody?”

  “Call me Maria,” she said. “That prayer is in Hebrew, the language of the Jews, of whom I am one.”

  I hadn’t known Mrs. Brody was Jewish. In fact, she was the first Jewish person I had ever met, I think. “Did you write books in Hebrew?” I asked.

  “Oh, I promised I would show you,” said Mrs. Brody. She stood, went to a bookshelf on a near wall, and pulled down a volume, which she brought to the table and placed between me and Helen. On the cover was a picture of a snow-capped mountain. The title was International Understanding Travel Guides—China. “Joseph and I started writing these after the war,” said Mrs. Brody.

  I opened the book and saw that it was not written in Hebrew, but English.

  “I came to the U.S. in 1939,” Mrs. Brody continued as she returned to her seat. “I escaped the worst of Europe, and watched the war from here.”

  “World War . . . Two?” I said, a little embarrassed at how poor my history was.

  “I’m from Poland,” said Mrs. Brody. “My family—my parents and my brother and his family—we fled the Nazis to Lithuania. We left in the middle of the night, at the moment of the September Campaign.” Mrs. Brody paused. “Travel books were a long ways off, then. We were refugees. From Lithuania to Sweden, and finally to here. Iowa. Isn’t it odd? In Iowa I found love. Joseph and I married after armistice. We shared a belief, he and I, that there should be no more war. People must strive to understand one another, especially in this atomic age. That’s why we chose the title for our books: International Understanding. And the message was popular. The books were successful.”

  I passed the book to Helen. She flipped through, looking at the black-and-white pictures of various locations and sites in China. “I’ve never been anywhere,” she said, “but I want to go everywhere.”

  “And the rest of you?” said Mrs. Brody. “Will you travel?”

  “I haven’t thought about it,” said Alan. “My dad went places when he was in the majors, but he says he only saw airports and ball fields.”

  “I’d like to go to China,” said Nicki, taking the book from Helen. “See where my great-grandparents came from.”

  “And you, Henry?” said Mrs. Brody.

  “Our dad traveled a little,” I said. “He went to Korea for a year.”

  “As a soldier,” Mrs. Brody guessed. “But tell me if you want to travel, Henry—and where you’d go.”

  “To outer space,” said Helen, elbowing me. “Henry wants to be an astronaut.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “She’s right.”

  “Into the emptiness,” said Mrs. Brody.

  “But not empty,” I said. “There could be aliens out there.”

  “So, you are a reader of science fiction stories, then?” said Mrs. Brody.

  “Yes . . .” I said, and, remembering, I went to my bookbag in the living room, and brought back my copy of Airman Crusader. I handed it to Mrs. Brody.

  She recognized the author’s name. “I’ve heard of these,” she said. “Joseph mentioned them. He said Abe Møller earned an easy living by them.” She flipped to the first page, and then the next, and then the next. She was a fast reader. “Such books as this,” she said, “are not really about outer space, Henry. Have you learned that?”

  “Um . . . er . . .” I said, because I was pretty sure that they were about outer space.

  “They are about us. About people. They are about me, Henry—the alien.”

  I stared back, not sure how to understand what she’d just said. Alien?

  “This is always the question I have about science fiction stories,” Mrs. Brody continued. �
��How do they treat the alien? You see, Henry, the United States calls me a ‘resident alien.’ I’m an alien being from another country. Books such as this one have heroes that dislike my kind. They go to my home, they exterminate me. This reveals something about our friend Abe Møller, this attitude. He prefers extermination to understanding. Contempt to sympathy.”

  “That happened to my people, too,” said Alan, suddenly. “I mean, I don’t really know if they’re my people, I guess, but I’m part Nez Perce. My dad’s three-quarters. And when you say that, it just reminds me. In school we learn about how Christopher Columbus discovered America and stuff . . . but my dad says Columbus was an invader who came here to kill Indians.”

  I’d never heard Mr. Dunn, or anyone, say anything like that. It was a mighty strange way to think about the Pilgrims. But it kind of made sense. “The centipedes in the book were like people,” I said. “They lived in cities.” I shook my head. I hadn’t ever thought about science fiction this way.

  “These are complex ideas,” Mrs. Brody replied. “I can only tell you my belief that sympathy will never do harm. But contempt—contempt is the trap. It holds the mind like iron, and leads men to brutality. When someone is considered less than human, when they are a . . . a centipede,” Mrs. Brody said, pointing to the cover of the book, “you don’t have to treat them kindly. You can misuse them in the service of getting what you want.”

  “Airman Crusader wanted to live forever,” I said. “In this book, he’s trying to find a potion for immortality. He thought the centipede creatures had it.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live,” said Mrs. Brody, “except when you make others suffer for it.”

  “Something doesn’t make sense about what you said before, Mrs. Brody,” said Helen. “About being sympathetic. You said your husband hated Abe Møller. That wasn’t very sympathetic of him.”

  Mrs. Brody nodded. “Joseph told me he did try, for a time, to understand Abraham, but he failed. He told me it was like with certain men during the war. You see, men who had been made cruel were the common type, then. Twisted from their better natures by circumstance. But for a few, cruelty seemed natural. They are one in ten thousand, such people, and you are correct, Helen, that it is a very serious accusation to make against someone. You can never be absolutely sure. We cannot see souls with our earthly eyes.”