fire. Wonderful, really. Far better than Vlademar would have been. Svetlana was a sensitive child, very adult, always concerned with security and order and the underlying causes of things, and the fire had been especially hard on her, the violence of it, the dislocation—and just when she’d begun to settle in and find herself. First she’d been uprooted from Fontainebleau, then from her uncle’s house in New York and from Chicago and Vlademar, and now there was this, her dresses and her books and the indispensable porcelain dolls gone forever.
Frank had come in whistling at lunch one afternoon not a week after the fire, the day gloomy and oppressive, the sky like iron, thunder rumbling, stanchions of lightning propping up the clouds all around them. And that smell, that smell on the air still. “I see you’re in a good mood,” Olgivanna said, pulling out a chair for Svetlana as the cook fussed round the table.
“Oh, sure,” he said, “sure,” lifting his eyebrows, where spikes of white hair had begun to sprout, “is there any other kind of mood worth being in? Huh, Svet? What do you say?”
“There’s lightning,” she said in a very small voice. “Again.”
“Well, it’s a fact of life. Electricity. Without it we’d have no lights at night. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
She didn’t respond, Mrs. Taggertz setting down bowls of soup and a loaf of fresh-baked bread, just the three of them at lunch, the workmen dining separately on the wall beneath the oak trees, the Neutras, Mosers and Tsuchiuras displaced now and gone. A long roll of thunder drummed at the hills.
“Now, listen, Svet,” Frank said, setting his spoon down to reach for the bread knife and saw at the loaf with both hands, “you know perfectly well it wasn’t lightning that caused the fire, but bad wiring. And bad luck, I guess.” He handed her a roughly hewn slice of bread. “But if it wasn’t for the rain, we wouldn’t be sitting here all snug and happy because the whole place would have gone up.”
“I know that. But if it wasn’t for the wind—” She made a vague gesture with her spoon.
“Sure,” he said. “Sure. I know what you’re driving at, honey, and there’s no good answer for it. You take the good with the bad. The main thing is not to let it get you down.” He paused to address the soup, but he wasn’t done yet. “You know, I’ve told your mother this, but I have to say I’m humbled by it too. It does seem sometimes as if some higher power is up there throwing the dice against us—and by that I mean God, the God of the Bible with his manna in one hand and his hellfire in the other. Take Maple, for instance.”
“Who’s Maple?”
“She was a pedigree Holstein Maplecroft worth more than a hundred ordinary cows—we bought her to breed her and start our own line. And one day, during a storm just like this, she was out in the field with two ordinary old milk cows worth not much more than their hides and bones. I was sitting on the stone terrace with a cup of tea, watching the storm come in, when there was a powerful jolt—Boom! Just like that”—he snapped his fingers—“lightning striking right there in the field.” He lifted a finger to point beyond the windows. “Sure enough, ten minutes later a worker came to me breathless to say that one of the cows had been killed—can you guess which one?”
“Maple? ”
“That’s right, honey: Maple. And I tell you, you can draw your own conclusions, but what I say is you’ve got to put your head down and work, work till you add tired to tired, and never look back. Never.” 31
It was amazing to see how quickly the ribs of Taliesin III went up, a whole crew of carpenters, stonemasons and laborers from the surrounding villagesgoing at it from dawn till dusk through the cumulative outpouring of each lengthening day, and Frank right there in the middle of it. He was inexhaustible,
Frank had come in whistling at lunch one afternoon not a week after the fire, the day gloomy and oppressive, the sky like iron, thunder rumbling, stanchions of lightning propping up the clouds all around them. And that smell, that smell on the air still. “I see you’re in a good mood,” Olgivanna said, pulling out a chair for Svetlana as the cook fussed round the table.
“Oh, sure,” he said, “sure,” lifting his eyebrows, where spikes of white hair had begun to sprout, “is there any other kind of mood worth being in? Huh, Svet? What do you say?”
“There’s lightning,” she said in a very small voice. “Again.”
“Well, it’s a fact of life. Electricity. Without it we’d have no lights at night. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
She didn’t respond, Mrs. Taggertz setting down bowls of soup and a loaf of fresh-baked bread, just the three of them at lunch, the workmen dining separately on the wall beneath the oak trees, the Neutras, Mosers and Tsuchiuras displaced now and gone. A long roll of thunder drummed at the hills.
“Now, listen, Svet,” Frank said, setting his spoon down to reach for the bread knife and saw at the loaf with both hands, “you know perfectly well it wasn’t lightning that caused the fire, but bad wiring. And bad luck, I guess.” He handed her a roughly hewn slice of bread. “But if it wasn’t for the rain, we wouldn’t be sitting here all snug and happy because the whole place would have gone up.”
“I know that. But if it wasn’t for the wind—” She made a vague gesture with her spoon.
“Sure,” he said. “Sure. I know what you’re driving at, honey, and there’s no good answer for it. You take the good with the bad. The main thing is not to let it get you down.” He paused to address the soup, but he wasn’t done yet. “You know, I’ve told your mother this, but I have to say I’m humbled by it too. It does seem sometimes as if some higher power is up there throwing the dice against us—and by that I mean God, the God of the Bible with his manna in one hand and his hellfire in the other. Take Maple, for instance.”
“Who’s Maple?”
“She was a pedigree Holstein Maplecroft worth more than a hundred ordinary cows—we bought her to breed her and start our own line. And one day, during a storm just like this, she was out in the field with two ordinary old milk cows worth not much more than their hides and bones. I was sitting on the stone terrace with a cup of tea, watching the storm come in, when there was a powerful jolt—Boom! Just like that”—he snapped his fingers—“lightning striking right there in the field.” He lifted a finger to point beyond the windows. “Sure enough, ten minutes later a worker came to me breathless to say that one of the cows had been killed—can you guess which one?”
“Maple? ”
“That’s right, honey: Maple. And I tell you, you can draw your own conclusions, but what I say is you’ve got to put your head down and work, work till you add tired to tired, and never look back. Never.” 31
It was amazing to see how quickly the ribs of Taliesin III went up, a whole crew of carpenters, stonemasons and laborers from the surrounding villagesgoing at it from dawn till dusk through the cumulative outpouring of each lengthening day, and Frank right there in the middle of it. He was inexhaustible,
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