The Shape of a Miracle : Part 3

Benjamin's Gift
by Michael Golding

(Page 3 of 5)

Jean Pierre Michel placed his hands on the ledge that surrounded the tub and raised himself to a standing position. "You can press me out now, Cassandra," he said. "If you like."

Cassandra Nutt placed the clothes she was carrying on the crystal stand that stood beside the sink and reached for one of the large salmon-colored towels that hung behind it. "That thing o' yours don't need pressin', Monsieur C. It needs cold storage."

Jean Pierre Michel took the towel and began to dry himself, beginning with his head and then working his way down his thin, loose-skinned body. When he was done he handed the towel back to Cassandra Nutt, who placed it in a wide-mouthed basket that sat in the corner.

"Is the Hispano-Suiza ready?" he said. "Yes," said Cassandra Nutt.

"Then help me dress."

Cassandra Nutt reached for the garments she'd lain on the crystal stand and began to layer them over Jean Pierre Michel's naked body; they were the crisp robes of an Arabian sheikh, complete with turban and veil.

"Seems mighty early in the day to be goin' to a dress-up party," she said. "We're not going to a party," said Jean Pierre Michel. "No one can afford to give a party besides me. And if I gave one, no one could afford to come." He raised his arms as Cassandra Nutt placed the paneled sash about his waist. "We're going to have our own party," he said. "Just the two of us." He lowered his arms. "One does the best one can, Cassandra. No matter the circumstance."

There were several interesting things about October 31, 1929. The first was that it was Halloween, a day that had special significance for Jean Pierre Michel. For though he relished beautiful things, and reveled in the splendid clothing with which he graced Cassandra Nutt, he himself always wore a black waistcoat, a pair of gray trousers, a white, wing-collared shirt, and a black-and-silver cravat. He had dozens of each, never wearing one out, never tiring of what, to someone else, might seem a prison of sartorial monotony. Only once a year, on Halloween, did he allow himself to deviate, to indulge in fancy dress, to become himself one of the elegant objects that he preferred only to look at the rest of the year. This year, however, Halloween fell precisely one week after the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange - the second interesting thing about October 31, 1929.

As most of Jean Pierre Michel's friends either had leapt from one of the city's recently constructed skyscrapers or remained frozen, over their week-old coffee, in various positions of shock, a party seemed improbable, if not totally lacking in taste. So Jean Pierre Michel decided to dress for himself and to drive, like a visiting potentate, through the ruined city. Jean Pierre Michel had not lost a penny in the stock market crash, partly because he did not believe in the stock market and partly because he did not believe in pennies. He kept his money in the country where he made it, convinced that billions of ducatos were even nicer than millions of dollars. He had what he needed wired to him regularly, and if things continued in the direction they were going, with prices plummeting and the bulk of the nation's fortunes disappearing overnight, the stock market crash would most likely end up tripling or even quadrupling his worth.

He would have to stop at Cartier and buy Cassandra Nutt a new pair of earrings. There was one thing Jean Pierre Michel desired that could not be purchased in a shop - the third interesting thing about October 31, 1929. It was not entirely triggered by the pumice moon, yet the pumice moon had helped him to articulate it: yes, Jean Pierre Michel wanted the moon, but, more than the moon, he wanted a son. The thought had not occurred to him before, nor, more surprisingly, had it been thought of by any of the countless women he had been with. Now, however, at the age of seventy-one, that old, inevitable instinct had kicked in - and the rest was simply a matter of ducatos.

Cassandra Nutt adjusted the two veils that floated out from either side of the white turban. "Valentino lives."

Jean Pierre Michel looked into the mirror. The outfit was arresting, but even the flowing veils could not camouflage the thick folds above the eyes, the deep creases about the mouth, the tough, lived-in quality of the skin. "Go start the motor," he said. "Before I expose myself again."

Cassandra Nutt adjusted the pearls about her neck and moved toward the bathroom door. "Nothing like an incentive," she said - and like a great, gold lam? gust of wind, she was gone.

The Hard Wood chair

Benjamin knew that he was expected to remain in the hard wood chair until Mr. Petersen returned for him, regardless of the fact that the bumps in the seat cushion pressed into his bottom and his feet could not touch the ground. He'd wanted to sit on the ledge that footed the window and look down at the street; he'd never been up so high in a building before, and when he'd passed by the window and had looked down, the people had looked like the tiny figures from his train set and the cars had looked like the ones that he kept in the shoebox under his bed. Mr. Petersen, however, had told him to sit in the chair, and as he did not know Mr. Petersen very well and as he was wearing his very best trousers (the gray ones, with the flaps on the pockets), he did as he was told - even if the bumps in the seat cushion pressed into his bottom and his feet could not touch the ground.

Copyright © 1999 by Michael Golding

About the Author

Born and raised in Philadelphia and Miami, educated at Duke and Oxford, Michael Golding moved to New York in the eighties to pursue a career in the theatre. After several years of work Off-Broadway (including a season with the Lion Theatre Company on Theatre Row and playing Romeo in the Joseph Papp/Riverside Shakespeare Company production of Romeo and Juliet), he decided to move to Paris to begin writing. After a year in Paris, he travelled on to Venice, where both his son Joshua and his first novel, Simple Prayers, were born.