In the Night Room. Peter Straub

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       6

      Guilderland Road, at the upper end of which lay Mitchell Faber’s expansive, densely wooded property, traversed an area on the southwestern slopes (so to speak) of Alpine, New Jersey, where not long after the Civil War the nearly invisible village of Hendersonia had been surgically detached from the more public borough of Creskill. In all aspects of life save the naming of places, the Hendersons of Hendersonia had presumably cherished obscurity as thoroughly as Mitchell Faber, for they had passed through history leaving behind no more than a scattering of barely legible headstones in the postage-stamp graveyard at the lower end of the road. Farther down the hill, the cement-block bank, an abandoned Presbyterian church, a private house turned into an insurance agency, a video and DVD rental shop, and a bar and grill called Redtop’s made up the center of town. The previous summer, a Foodtown grocery store had taken over an old bowling alley in a paved lot one block south, and Willy promised herself that from now on she would do her shopping there.

      She was still finding her way around, still trying to get into a routine. It had been only two weeks since Mitchell had succeeded in persuading her to abandon her cozy one-bedroom apartment on East Seventy-seventh Street for the ‘estate.’ They were to be married in two months, why not start living together now? They were adults of thirty-eight and fifty-two (a young fifty-two), alone in the world. Let’s face it, Mitchell said one night, you need me. She needed him, and he wanted her as extravagantly as someone like Mitchell Faber could ever want anything—dark, frowning Mitchell summoning her into his embrace, promising to make sure the bad things never got close to her again. The ‘estate’ would be perfect for her, he said, a protective realm, as Mitchell himself was a kind of protective realm. And large enough to provide separate offices for both of them, because he wanted to spend more time at home and she needed what all women, especially women who wrote books, needed: A Room of Her Own.

      When Willy had met Mitchell Faber, he amazed her by knowing not only that her third YA novel, In the Night Room, had just won the Newbery Medal, but also that its setting, Mill Basin, was based on the city where she had been born, Millhaven, Illinois.

      The prize had been announced four days earlier, but the party at Molly Harper’s apartment was not in her honor, and Willy’s triumph was so fresh, as yet still half unreal, that she felt as though it might be revoked. Willy herself, having yet to emerge from mad grieving darkness, would have run from anything as public as a celebration. She felt only barely capable of handling a dinner party. Some of the people present were aware that Willy had just been honored by the Newbery Committee, and some of those came up to congratulate her. Molly’s friends tended to be too rich to be demonstrative; like Molly herself, many of the women were decades younger than their husbands, thereby generally obliged to exercise a kind of behavioral modification akin to the pushing of a ‘Mute’ button. Added to their characteristic restraint was their response to Willy’s appearance, that of a gorgeous lost child. Some women disliked her on sight. Others felt threatened when their husbands wandered, flirtatiously or not, into Willy’s orbit.

      Toward the end of the evening, or shortly after ten o’clock, for these silver-haired men and their gleaming wives never stayed up later than eleven, Lankford Harper, Molly’s whispery husband, left the chair to Willy’s left and within seconds was replaced by a sleek, smooth male animal remarkable for being older than most of the women and younger than all of the men. Energy hummed through his thick, shiny black hair and luxuriant black mustache. Black eyes and brilliant white teeth shone at Willy, and a wide, warm dark hand covered hers. That she did not find this intimacy discomfiting amazed her. Whatever was about to happen, would; instead of feeling offended, Willy relaxed.

      —I want to congratulate you on your magnificent honor, Mrs Patrick, the man said, leaning in. You must feel as though you’ve won the lottery.

      —Hardly that, she said. Do you keep up with children’s books then, Mr…?

      —I’m Mitchell Faber. No, I can’t say I’m an expert on children’s books, but the Newbery’s a great accolade, and I have heard wonderful things about your book. Your third, isn’t it?

      She opened her mouth.—Yes.

      —Good title, In the Night Room, especially for a children’s book.

      —It’s probably too close to Maurice Sendak, but he was writing for a younger audience. Why am I explaining myself to this guy? she wondered.

      His hand tightened on hers.—Please excuse me for what I’m about to say, Mrs Patrick. I knew your husband. At times, our work brought us into contact. He was a fine, fine man.

      For a moment, Willy’s vision went grainy, and her heart hovered between beats. Ordinary conversation hummed on around her. She blinked and raised her napkin to her mouth, buying time.

      —I’m sorry, the man said. I did that very badly.

      —Not at all. I was just a bit startled. Do you work for the Baltic Group?

      —From time to time, they call me in to make murky issues even murkier.

      —I’m sure you bring clarity wherever you go, she said, and, in СКАЧАТЬ