The Magic Circle. Cet article n’est pas disponible.The Magic Circle

Book by Neville Katherine

Snake River, Idaho

Early Spring, 1989

It was snowing. It had been snowing for days. It seemed the snow would never end.

I had been driving through the thick of it since well before dawn. I stopped at midnight in Jackpot, Nevada, the only pink neon glow in the sky through hundreds of miles of rocky wasteland, in my long ascent from California back to Idaho, back to my job at the nuclear site. There at Jackpot, against the jangle of slot machines, I sat at a counter and ate a grilled, blood-rare steak with fries, chugged a glass of Scotch whiskey and washed it down with a mug of hot black coffee--the multi-ingredient cure-all my uncle Earnest had always recommended to remedy this kind of stress and heartache. Then I went back out into the cold black night and hit the road again.

If I hadn't stopped back in the Sierras when the first fresh snow came down for the half day of skiing I'd suddenly felt I needed to soothe my aching soul, I wouldn't have been in this predicament now, sailing along on black ice in the middle of nowhere. At least this was a nowhere that I knew well--every wrinkle of road along this trek from the Rockies to the coast. I'd crossed it often enough on business, for my job as a nuclear security expert. Ariel Behn, girl nuke. But the reason for this last jaunt was a business I'd just as soon have missed.

I could feel my body, against my will, slipping into autopilot on that long, monotonous stretch of snowy highway, as the dark waters of my mind started pulling me back to a place I knew I didn't want to go. As the miles clicked away, the snow swirled around me. I heard the crunch of my studded tires as the black ice flowed beneath me.

But I could not erase from my mind the dappled color of the grassy slope back there in California--the smoothly geometric pattern of those tombstones moving across it, those thin, thin layers of stone and grass. All that separated life from death--all that separated me from Sam--forever.
The grass was electric green--that shimmering, wonderful green that only exists in San Francisco and only at this time of year. Against the brilliant lawn, the chalk-white gravestones marched in undulating rows across the hill. Dark eucalyptus trees towered over the cemetery between the rows of markers, their silver leaves dripping with water. I looked through the tinted windows of the limousine as we pulled from the main road and doubled back into the Presidio.

I had driven this road so many times when in the Bay Area. It was the only route from the Golden Gate Bridge to the San Francisco Marina, and it passed directly by the military cemetery we were entering. Today, observing it up close and in slow motion, it was all so beautiful, so ravishing to the eye.

"Sam would have loved being here," I said aloud, speaking for the first time during the ride.

Jersey, sitting beside me in the limo, said curtly: "Well, after all, he is here, isn't he? Or what's all the hoopla about?"

At these close quarters, I caught a whiff of her breath.

"Mother, how much have you had to drink?" I said. "You smell like a brewery."

"Cutty Sark," she said with a smile. "In honor of the Navy."

"For God's sake, this is a funeral," I said irritably.

"I'm Irish," she pointed out. "We call it a wake: drink the buggers on their merry way. In my opinion, a far more civilized tradition..."

She was already having trouble with the three-syllable words. Inwardly, I was cringing, hoping she wouldn't try to give part of the eulogy that was to be delivered by the military at graveside. I wouldn't put anything past her--especially in this state of incipient inebriation. And Augustus and Grace--my well-starched father and stepmother, who disapproved of everything--were in the car just behind.

The limousines pulled through the iron gates of the Presidio cemetery and slid on past the funeral parlor. There would be no indoor service, and the coffin was already sealed for reasons pertaining, we'd been told, to national security. Besides, as we had also been told--more discreetly--it might be hard to recognize Sam. Families of bombing victims usually preferred not to be afforded that opportunity.

The line of cars moved along Lincoln Avenue and pulled up the drive, sheltered by brooding eucalyptus, at the far end of the cemetery. Several cars were already parked there--all with the recognizable white license plates of the U.S. government. Atop the small knoll was a freshly dug open grave with a cluster of men standing around it. One was an army pastor, and one with a long, thick braid of hair looked like the shaman I'd asked for. Sam would have liked that.

Our three limos pulled up in front of the government cars: Jersey and I in the family car, Augustus and Grace behind us, and Sam in the car up front in a lead-lined coffin. We all got out and started up the hill as they unloaded Sam from the hearse. Augustus and Grace stood quietly aside, not mingling--which I frankly appreciated, so Jersey's breath wouldn't be a problem. Unless someone lit a match near her.

A man with dark glasses and a trench coat separated from the gaggle of government types and moved over to speak a few words to the other two family members. Then he approached Jersey and me.

I suddenly realized we weren't dressed for a funeral. I was wearing the only black dress I owned, one with purple and yellow hibiscus all over it. Jersey was in a chic French suit, that particular shade of ice blue which was her trademark when she was on the stage, because it matched her eyes. I hoped no one would notice our lapse in protocol.

"Mrs. Behn," the man addressed Jersey, "I hope you don't mind waiting a few more minutes? The president would like to be here for the ceremony."

He didn't mean the president, of course, but a former president: the one Jersey called the Peanut Farmer, whom she'd performed for when he was in the White House.

"Hell no," said Jersey. "I don't mind waiting if Sam doesn't!"

Then she laughed, and I got another waft. Though I couldn't see the man's eyes behind those glasses, I noticed that his mouth tightened into a thin line. I stared at him in stony silence.

The helicopter was coming down across the road, settling on the Crissy Field landing strip beside the bay. Two dark-paned cars had driven out to meet it, and to collect our distinguished guest.

"Mrs. Behn," the shaded one went on, sotto voce, as if in a spy movie, "I'm instructed to tell you that the president, acting on behalf of our current administration, has arranged this morning's agenda. Although your son, as a civilian adviser, was not technically a member of the military, his death took place while he was performing a service for...I should say rather, operating in an advisory capacity to the military. Our government therefore plans to honor him appropriately. There will be a small ceremony; a military band will play; then the deceased will be given the seventeen-gun salute in farewell. After that, the president plans to present to you the Distinguished Service Medal."

"What for?" said Jersey. "I ain't the one who died, Sugar."
The ceremony had not gone exactly as planned.

After it was over, Augustus and Grace had retired to their suite atop the Mark Hopkins on Nob Hill, sending a message that they were "expecting me" to join them for dinner. Since it was just lunch time, I took Jersey to the Buena Vista to drink her lunch. We found a wooden table at the front windows, overlooking the wharves and the bay.

"Ariel, honey, I'm really sorry about what happened," said Jersey, tossing down her first glass of scotch as if it were milk.

"Sorry doesn't help," I said, repeating a line of hers from my childhood, when I'd done something wrong. "I'm having dinner with Augustus and Grace tonight. What the hell am I supposed to say to them?"

"Fuck them," said Jersey, looking at me with those famous icy blue eyes, which seemed surprisingly clear, given her recent dietary habits. "Tell them that I was startled by the guns. It's true. I was startled by those damned guns going off in my ear."

"You knew they were going to give a seventeen-gun salute," I pointed out. "I was there when the security agent told you. You were as drunk as a skunk. That's why you fell into the grave--good God--in front of all those people!"

Jersey looked up at me in injured pride, and I glared back.

But all at once I felt it coming over me, and I just couldn't help myself. I started laughing. First Jersey's expression changed to surprise; then she started laughing, too. We laughed until tears were streaming down our faces. We laughed until we could no longer catch our breath. We were choking with laughter and holding our sides, at the thought of my mother sprawled, ass up, six feet down in a hole in the ground, before they even had a chance to lower the coffin.

"Right in front of the Peanut Farmer and everything," Jersey practically screamed, and this set us off on another peal.

"Right in front of Augustus and Grace," I gasped between hysterical sobs.

It took a long time to run down, but at last we subsided into moans and chuckles. I wiped my tears with my napkin and leaned back with a sigh, holding my stomach, which was raw from laughter.

"I wish Sam could have seen what you did," I told Jersey, squeezing her arm. "It was so bizarre--just what tickled his funny bone. He would have died laughing."

"He died anyway," said Jersey. And she ordered another drink.
At seven o'clock I arrived at the Mark in the limo Augustus sent for me. He hired a car whenever he visited any city so he'd never have to degrade himself flagging down a cab. My father was into appearances. I told the driver to collect me at ten p.m. and take me back to the little Victorian inn where I was staying across the bridge. Three hours of Augustus and Grace, as I knew from experience, would be more than adequate.

Their penthouse hotel suite was large and filled with the lavish flower arrangements Grace required in any surroundings. Augustus opened the door when I knocked and regarded me sternly. My father was always elegant, with his silvery hair and tan complexion. Now, in a black cashmere blazer and gray trousers, he looked every bit the part of the feudal lord he'd been rehearsing for all his life.

"You're late," he said, glancing at his gold wristwatch. "You were to arrive at six-thirty so we could speak privately before dinner."

"This morning was enough of a family reunion for me," I told him.

I instantly regretted having alluded to the earlier events of the day.

"And that's something else I want to speak with you about: your mother," said Augustus. "First, what can I fix you to drink?"

"I had lunch with Jersey," I said. "I'm not sure I need anything much stronger than water."

Wherever Augustus went, he had a well-stocked bar set up, though he drank little himself. Maybe that's what went wrong when he and my mother were married.

"I'll fix you a spritzer; that's light," he said, and squirted the soda from a mesh-encased bottle, handing the wineglass to me.

"Where's Grace?" I asked, taking a sip as he mixed himself a light Scotch.

"She's lying down. She was quite upset by that little debacle your mother pulled this morning--and who can blame her? It was unforgivable." Augustus always referred to Jersey as your mother--as though I were responsible for her very existence, rather than the other way around.

"Actually," I told him, "I felt her display provided a well-needed touch of brightness to the entire morbid affair. I mean, I can't really imagine playing brass bands, shooting off guns, and giving someone a medal--all because, in the service of the U.S. government, he got himself blown to pieces like a dismembered patchwork quilt!"

"Don't change the subject on me, young lady," my father reprimanded me in his most authoritarian tone of voice. "Your mother's behavior was absolutely shocking. Deplorable. We were fortunate that reporters were not permitted."

Augustus would never use words like "disgusting" or "humiliating"; they were too subjective, involving personal emotion. He was only interested in the objective, the remote--things like appearance and reputation. Not feelings, which were ambiguous and beyond quantification.

In that regard, I was a good deal more like him than I cared to admit. But I still couldn't bear the fact that he was more interested in my mother's comportment at a social event than in Sam's brutal death.

"I wonder if people scream, when they die like that?" I asked aloud.

Augustus turned on his heel so I couldn't see his face. He went across to the bedroom door.

"I'll wake up Grace," he informed me over his shoulder, "so she'll be ready in time for dinner."
"I don't see how we can speak," said Grace, blotting her eyes, which were swollen with tears, and brushing a wisp of stark blonde hair from her forehead with the back of her wrist. "I don't see how we can eat. It's truly incredible to imagine how we can all be sitting here in a restaurant, trying to behave like human beings." Until that moment, it had never occurred to me that someone like Grace had ever visualized the concept of attempting to behave like a human being. Things were starting to look up.

I glanced around at the walls of the restaurant, which were done up with lattices covered in painted vines. They were scattered with a few tiny red lizards, which seemed to be basking in invisible sunlight. The table groupings were separated by large plantings of fresh chrysanthemums--flowers which are offered in tribute to the dead in all Italian cemeteries.

I'd begun and ended the day in a cemetery. Only that afternoon, I'd looked up the word in a bookstore. From Greek: koimeterion, a sleeping chamber; koiman, to put to sleep; cunae, a cradle. It was nice to think of Sam, wherever he was, as cradled in sleep.

"He was so young," Grace was saying between little sobs as she took another bite of steak tartare. She adjusted her diamond bracelet, adding the telltale words, "Wasn't he?"

The truth of the matter was, Grace had never met Sam in her life. My mother's divorce from Augustus had been nearly twenty-five years ago, and he and Grace had been married for little more than fifteen. In between was lots of proverbial water beneath the bridge, including how Sam got to be my brother without actually being the son of my mother or father. My family relations are rather complex.

But I had no time to think of that, for Grace had moved on to her favorite topic: money. As she switched to it, her tears miraculously dried and her eyes took on a luminous glow.

"We phoned the lawyers this afternoon from the suite," she told me, suddenly filled with buoyant enthusiasm. "The reading of the will, as you know, is tomorrow, and I think I should tell you that we got some good news. Though they won't give out the details, of course, it does appear that you are the principal heir!"

"Oh, goody," I said. "Sam hasn't been dead a week, and already I've
profited. Did you dig out exactly how rich I'll be? Can I retire from my
labors right now? Or are the tax folks likely to take most of it?"

"That's not what Grace meant, and you know it,"said Augustus, who was designing forms in his crème de volaille as I jabbed at the capers on my Scottish salmon. They rolled around the plate and evaded my fork. "Grace and I are only concerned for your own interest," he went on. "I didn't know Sam--at least not well--but I'm sure he cared a great deal for you. After all, you practically grew up as brother and sister, didn't you? And, as ...