The Excellent Lombards(21)

He had light curly hair and an eager smile, and straight teeth, and a smile in his eyes, too, a twinkle, you might even say. What was his name? Where did he live? And why did May Hill, who didn’t like children or people, why in her living room did she have a large framed color photo of someone in whom she should have no interest? She set the pistol down. “Do you have any gwahm cwackhuhs?” Amanda asked.

All at once May Hill and I were on the same exact side, both of us stunned by the question.

“I eat them like I’m a beavuh.” Amanda made as if to put a cracker to her lips and gnaw at it. The girl with the monstrous IQ was sometimes the stupidest little baby, and it must have been from nerves, or let’s say a wish to elevate the conversation that I blurted out a legitimate interview question—although it was not at all the question I’d wished to ask. I said, “How did your father die in the silo?”

I knew the technical answer, knew that silage produces gases that are colorless and can kill farmers quickly, or a grown man can die in his sleep hours later if he’s breathed too much of one gas or another. May Hill’s big brow wrinkled. Her mouth was slightly open, no trace of the smile. It was at that moment when William called up the back stairs. “Excuse me? Um, Aunt, Aunt May Hill? Frankie? Excuse me.”

We had been in the living room well past the scheduled hour and my brother had come to tell me it was time for our piano lessons. Additionally, he no doubt wanted to see what he could of the long hall with scuffed flooring, the walnut doors, the yellow light from the kitchen. The place I had been brave enough to enter. Without thanking her, without doing more than mumbling good-bye, Amanda and I sprang from the chairs and ran to the gate, which William was holding open for us, we tore past him, flew to the bottom of the stairs, safe at last in Dolly’s kitchen. We were out of breath, too dazed to laugh or cry or say anything at all.

“Did you girls get what you needed?” Dolly said.

The interview! No! We’d gotten nothing, not so much as a word on my pad, not even a little tiny period. We were going to Fail, something we had not ever imagined possible. But even worse, Mrs. Kraselnik would suffer disappointment. Her two star pupils, those marvels of scholarship, not living up to her expectations, not fulfilling our promise. She’d be shattered. “I think so?” I said to Dolly.

There was my piano lesson to get through, that weekly tragedy. And then dinner, in which my parents also asked me about the interview. My mother wanted to know if we’d gotten good information, and my father said that May Hill must have been pleased to show us her stash. I nodded. All I could think of was the bloodstained rug and the photograph of the nephew. I might have told them about Elizabeth Morrow Lombard and the Indian but more and more that seemed to me May Hill’s secret, something I shouldn’t repeat. There’d been the half smile on her face when she’d bestowed her treasure upon us, a piece of history we hadn’t asked for, a story we didn’t want. For some reason I said that May Hill had given us graham crackers and my mother said, “Wasn’t that nice of her!”

It wasn’t until later in our room, the door shut, the two of us finally alone, that William was able to ask me about the trip to the upstairs. I admitted it, admitted that we hadn’t been able to ask May Hill even one question from our list. He was on the top bunk reading Tintin. “What do you mean?” he said.

I was standing on the first step of the ladder, starting to cry, handing him up the sheet. “Nothing,” I whimpered.

He pulled himself to sitting and read the questions out loud:

What year were you born?

Where did you go to high school?

What is your profession?

What historical events have you lived through?

What do you consider the greatest invention of your time?

What is the most interesting thing about your town?

William said, “You didn’t ask a single question?”

“I couldn’t. She—she talked.”

“What do you mean?” he said again.

“She talked and talked. More than Dolly. More than anyone, more than Mrs. Bushberger. She kept talking. She has a sort of lisp. A sort of lisp, a lisp.”

He snapped his fingers in my face. “Wake up!”

I cried harder because maybe I had been hypnotized. I had almost thought during the interview that May Hill was something like a normal person but I had to come back, come back, back to my understanding of her true nature.

“Imp! You must have gotten some information. You must know some of the answers.” He read again, “What is your profession?”

“What is your profession?” I echoed.

“Hmmm,” he logically said. Even though May Hill was a part of our family the question was unanswerable. We felt like numskulls but justified; indignant, even, about our ignorance. Because our bafflement was all her fault. She was like a hired man but she was also like an English gentleman, owning property and working sometimes. Or you could say she was a mechanic in a garage, but then again the stock market had made her wealthy. At least that’s what my mother thought.

I didn’t tell William about the photograph of the nephew. He kept rereading the questions, both of us thinking to ourselves about the answers. “You can interview Pa,” he said to me. “Or someone else. How about Gloria?”

“Gloria?”

“Why not?”