The White Road

But there was something wrong with her skin, something flawed and ugly. Her veins appeared to be above rather than beneath the epidermis, creating a tracery of raised pathways across her body like the levees over a flooded rice field. The result was that the woman under the veil seemed almost to be plated, her skin armored like that of an alligator. Unconsciously, instead of drawing closer I took a single step back from the wall and felt Adele Foster’s hand come to rest gently on my arm.

“Her,” she said. “He was afraid of her.”

We sat over coffee, some of the drawings spread on the coffee table before us.

“Did you show these to the police?”

She shook her head. “Elliot told me not to.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“No. He just said that it would be best not to show them the drawings.”

I rearranged the papers, setting the depictions of the woman aside and revealing a set of five landscapes. Each depicted the same scene: a huge pit in the ground, surrounded by skeletal trees. In one of the drawings a pillar of fire emerged from the pit, but it was still possible to pick out, even there, the shape of the hooded woman now clothed in flame.

“Is this a real place?”

She took the picture from me and studied it, then handed it back to me with a shrug.

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask Elliot. He might know.”

“I can’t do that until I find him.”

“I think something has happened to him, maybe the same thing that happened to Landron Mobley.”

This time, I heard the disgust in her voice when she said Mobley’s name.

“You didn’t like him?”

She scowled. “He was a pig. I don’t know why they let him stay with them. No-” she corrected herself-“I do know why. He could get things for them: drugs, booze when they were younger, maybe even women. He knew the places to go. He wasn’t like Elliot and the others. He didn’t have money, or looks, or a college education, but he was prepared to go places that they were afraid to go, at least at first.”

And Elliot Norton had still seen fit, after all those years, to represent Mobley in the impending case against him, despite the fact that it could bring no credit to Elliot. This was the same Elliot Norton who had grown up with Earl Larousse Jr. and was now representing the young man accused of killing his sister. None of this made me feel good.

“You said that they did something, when they were younger, something that had come back to haunt them. Do you have any idea what that might be?”

“No. James would never talk about it. We weren’t close before his death. His behavior had altered. He wasn’t the man I married. He began to hang out with Mobley again. They went hunting together up at Congaree. Then James started going to strip clubs. I think he might have been seeing prostitutes.”

I laid the drawings down carefully on the table.

“You know where he might have gone?”

“I followed him, two or three times. He always went to the same place, because it was where Mobley liked to go when he was in town. It’s called LapLand.”

And while I sat talking to Adele Foster, surrounded by images of spectral women, a disheveled man wearing a bright red shirt, blue jeans, and battered sneakers strolled up Norfolk Street on the Lower East Side of New York and stood in the shadow of the Orensanz Center, the oldest surviving synagogue in New York. It was a warm evening and he had taken a cab down here, electing not to endure the heat and discomfort of the subway. A daisy chain of children floated by, suspended between two women wearing T-shirts identifying them as members of a Jewish community group. One of the children, a little girl with dark curls, smiled up at him as she passed and he smiled back at her, watching her as she was carried around the corner and out of his sight.

He walked up the steps, opened the door, and moved into the neo-Gothic main hall. He heard footsteps approach from behind and turned to see an old man with a sweeping brush in his hand.

“Can I help you?” said the cleaner.

The visitor spoke.

“I’m looking for Ben Epstein,” he said.

“He is not here,” came the reply.

“But he does come here?”

“Sometimes,” the old man conceded.

“You expecting him this evening?”

“Maybe. He comes, he goes.”

The visitor found a chair in the shadows, turned it so that its back was facing the door, and sat down carefully upon it, wincing slightly as he lowered himself down. He rested his chin on his forearms and regarded the old man.

“I’ll wait. I’m very patient.”

The old man shrugged, and began sweeping.

Five minutes went by.

“Hey,” said the visitor. “I said I was patient, not made of fucking stone. Go call Epstein.”

The old man flinched but kept sweeping.

“I can’t help you.”

“I think you can,” said the visitor, and his tone made the old man freeze. The visitor had not moved, but the geniality and passivity that had made the little girl smile at him was now entirely gone. “You tell him it’s about Faulkner. He’ll come.”

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again there was only spiraling dust where the old man had stood.

Angel closed his eyes again, and waited.

It was almost seven when Epstein arrived, accompanied by two men whose loose shirts did not quite manage to hide the weapons they carried. When he saw the man seated on the chair, Epstein relaxed and indicated to his companions that they could leave him be. Then he pulled up a chair and sat opposite Angel.

“You know who I am?” asked Angel.

“I know,” said Epstein. “You are called Angel. A strange name, I think, for I see nothing angelic about you.”

“There’s nothing angelic to see. Why the guns?”

“We are under threat. We believe we have already lost a young man to our enemies. Now we may have found the man responsible for his death. Did Parker send you?”

“No, I came here alone. Why would you think Parker sent me?”

Epstein looked surprised. “We spoke with him, not long before we learned of your presence here. We assumed that the two occurrences were related.”

“Great minds thinking alike, I guess.”

Epstein sighed. “He quoted Torah to me once. I was impressed. You, I think, even with your great mind, will not be quoting Torah. Or Kaballah.”

“No,” admitted Angel.

“I was reading, before I came to you: the Sefer ha-Bahir, the Book of Brightness. I have long been considering its significance, more often now since the death of my own son. I had hoped to find meaning in his sufferings, but I am not wise enough to understand what is written.”

“You think suffering has to have meaning?”

“Everything has meaning. All things are the work of the Divine.”

“In that case, I got some harsh words to say to the Divine when I see Him.”

Epstein spread his hands. “Say them. He is always listening, always watching.”

“I don’t think so. You think He was listening and watching when your son died? Or worse: maybe He was and just decided not to do anything about it.”

The old man winced involuntarily at the hurt that Angel’s words caused him, but the younger man did not appear to notice. Epstein took in the rage and grief on his face. “Are you talking about my son, or yourself?” he asked gently.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“He is the Creator: all things come from Him. I do not pretend to know the ways of the Divine. That is why I read Kaballah. I do not yet understand all that it says, but I am begi

“And what does it say to explain the torture and death of your son?”

This time, even Angel recognized the pain that he had caused.

“I’m sorry,” he said, reddening. “Sometimes, I get angry.”

Epstein nodded-“I too get angry.”-then resumed.

“I think it speaks of harmony between the upper and lower worlds, between the visible and the unseen, between good and evil. World above, world below, with angels moving in between. Real angels, not nominal ones.”