H,
The boy has reached The Bronx. You are needed there. I know I have no place requesting anything of you after all these years, after all I did. But he needs you now. Go thou to The Bronx!
-R
The Bronx, One Week later
As Theo walked up the steps to the apartment building, he had the thought that the building looked like a theater from the 1920s with its curved corners and overabundance of shades of yellow brick. He had rented this apartment without seeing it first and was relieved it turned out not to be a dump—something friends had warned him of when he announced he would be moving to the city. But he had to take the decision quickly since he got word of the Bronx University job while he was finishing researching a new cache of documents just unearthed at Takht-e Soleymān in Iran. He was used to adventure, so why shouldn’t his apartment hunt be one as well? His thoughts were interrupted by Rodger’s ever-eager voice shouting from the sidewalk.
“Research assistant reporting for duty!”
“Oh, Rodger, please never say that again,” Theo said with all the strength he could muster in not rolling his eyes.
Rodger, who seemed to Theo more eager than one should ever be to help their academic advisor move, looked up from the bottom of the steps to where Theo stood and said, “Noted! So, what do you think of the place?”
“Not bad. Actually it’s quite nice. I like the Art Deco touches, and this street is one of the widest one I have ever seen.”
When Theo began looking for an apartment, he wanted something with some sort of visible features that connected it to a past. Perhaps this came from the same part of him that obsessed over historical detail, but it might have also been the mundane vanity of wanting his abode to stand out from others’. He did not have the sort of expectations some have for a dwelling. Good light, a tangible history, and room for the stacks of books and documents he liked to keep in every corner were the only features he needed. He had read about the history of the Grand Concourse when he first found this apartment. As he stood looking out at the incredibly-wide boulevard, he thought if he squinted it sort of did look like the Champs-Élysées, the Parisian street its designer used as inspiration.
He looked down at Rodger and said, “Let’s get these last boxes up and start unpacking them.”
As they entered the third-floor apartment, the first thing that struck Theo was the lavender walls. Just pure lavender as far as the eye could see. It was as if he’d jumped into a pool of purple. He looked back at Rodger, and simply said, “Whoa.”
“Guess the super forgot to paint this. Want me to run down and get him?” Eager Rodger asked with his body already turned to the stairs.
“Oh, no. I can live with these walls. Let’s just start unpacking this stuff.”
“You know,” Rodger said, “in Byzantium, only the emperor could wear purple. If anyone else was caught wearing purple, they could be executed.” Rodger went on, “Oh and didn’t Pilate order a purple robe put on Jesus before his execution?”
“Really, Rodger? Execution is your tactic for making me like the color better? I just want to get this done.”
“Let’s start with these boxes over here.” Theo motioned to a stack of boxes in the corner next to an antique writing desk and set of shelves with lilies etched into their edges. The boxes were labeled with what could seem to an outsider like random locations: New Orleans, Isfahan, Port-au-Prince, and Salamanca.
“I knew you lived in New Orleans, Iran, and Haiti. But what is the Salamanca connection?” Rodger asked as he sliced open the tape on the box labeled “New Orleans.”
“Just some manuscripts in the university library there of late Roman origin. It ended up being a dead end. Rodger, be careful with that box!” Theo said it immediately regretting the tone but not the meaning. These were the things that kept him close to his grandmother that he took wherever he moved.
Rodger began to lift things out of the box and hand them to Theo. He watched as Rodger picked up each item as if it were a relic being lifted out of some saint’s tomb. And then came Rodger’s questions.
“What is this? Some sort of Mardi Gras cape?” Rodger unfolded a several-foot-long piece of material with an intricate pattern on it made out of sequins depicting a horned figure with two tales. There were also masks surrounding the figure and a cross coming out of its head.
“No, it has nothing to do with Mardi Gras,” Theo said sharply. “It’s a drapo vodou. In voodoo ceremonies, flags and banners are used extensively. My grandmother gave that to me as a child. She loved keeping her Haitian roots alive no matter how far away she got from Port-au-Prince.”
Theo ran his fingers across the sequined material and was taken back to the little voodoo shops in the French Quarter that Rosline would take him to and introduce him to local priestesses. They’d give him blessings and rub all manner of substances from animals’ entrails on his forehead.
He took the drapo and laid it aside. Thinking he should probably show some interest in his research assistant, he steeled himself and asked, “Let’s talk about you. Henry has not told me much. Where are you from?” Theo asked it feigning interest, but his goal was to get Rodger to stop asking so many questions. Theo was tired of talking.
“From St. Louis originally, but we moved all over. Army brat here.”
“So you must have lived in some interesting places as well, no?”
“Meh, unless you find a string of army bases in Missouri, Newfoundland, and Greenland interesting, then no.”
Rodger was cut off by a loud sound at the door, and Theo saw him jump up slightly from his position on the floor when they heard the banging. Theo thought the knock was strange. It wasn’t the sound of knuckles on wood but more like an open palm slapping at the door. Theo rose from the floor and made his way to discover the source of the sound. He looked through the peephole and did not recognize the face. It is not as if he had any reason to know the face since he knew a total of three people in the Bronx at this point, but after the experience with the woman in Cambridge he was a bit on guard.
“Buenas tardes! I’m Giovani, your building super. I just wanted to come by and say welcome to the building.”
Theo extended his hand, and Giovani grabbed it and pulled Theo forward more forcefully than he expected. He could smell Giovani’s cologne filling the apartment in a way that reminded him of how a pool emits a chlorine smell that just sticks with you for hours after.
After the usual hellos and how’s the moving in going, Giovani shouted, “You’ve got to meet mi sobrino, Moises. He’s a DJ at some weird club a few blocks over.” Clearly proud of his nephew yet confused by what exactly he did for his job, Giovani seemed eager to connect Moises with Theo, perhaps pitying this newcomer to The Bronx. Since leaving New Orleans to make his place in the world, Theo had always been a newcomer. He knew well the difficult art of trying to find and maintain a community, to make a home in a place that was not to be permanent for him. Spain, New Haven, Iran. All of these places had given him so much in terms of professional success, but he hadn’t connected to anyone there in a way he could call permanent. This was such a difference from his experience as a child in New Orleans where he felt nothing but connection even to the Vodou priestesses rubbing chicken entrails on him attempting to protect him from whatever new spirit had it out for him that week. But he had friends there and a grandmother who loved him deeply and knew how to show love. Did he know how to show it? He was somewhat concerned that he was incapable of meaningful human connection. Romance was the last of his concerns. Just a connection with another human being that could be described as one grade above superficial. He had worries, but then he also had work to do. Also, was The Bronx permanent? Had he found his eventual home?
Theo was shaken from contemplating his failure to connect with people in his past by Giovani digging into his wallet—one of those moist back-pocket wads that seems impossibly loaded with receipts, cards, cash, and other things that seem out of place in wallets that industrious types carry. Giovannit finally found Moises’s card and thrust it toward Theo’s torso. “Aquí! No, that isn’t the right card. Un momento. But you must visit him. I do not understand his music, but he is something important here in the South Bronx.” Giovani flipped through an inordinately large amount of business cards until he found the one he was looking for. “Ah, aquí está!” Giovani handed Theo the card. Again with these cards? I am racking up a collection of them, Theo thought. It was simple in its design. A deep green background with gold lettering.
DJ Moises
Club Aerowarven
757 Tremont Ave, The Bronx
Enter a World of Wonder
As Giovani closed the door, Rodger sat back down and said, “Nice guy, but oof that cologne!” Theo thought the comment was a bit bitchy even though he’d thought the same thing, but Rodger seemed the type to not be concerned with whom he offended. This bothered Theo, but it wasn’t as if Theo never shied away from offense. Perhaps he leaned into it too often.
“Maybe he is just trying to impress a woman in the building,” Theo said, trying to deflect.
Rodger returned his attention to the New Orleans box and lifted another item and inspected it with the care of a curator handling a fragile Russian icon. It was a thickish gold ring with a flat face. “Is that a ship on the front of this ring?”
“Yes, it’s a galleon. My grandmother told me a pirate gave it to her when she was younger. I loved that story as a kid. But I am sure she just picked it up at a pawn shop in the quarter.”
Rodger handed Theo the ring and said, “I am looking forward to assisting you in your research. I have been wanting to talk to you about my role for some time. Your work inspired me to go to grad school.”
Theo steeled himself, “There will be plenty of time for that Rodger, trust me. But that conversation is for Monday. Hand me that frame there.”
Rodger lifted a small, framed snapshot out of the box and handed it to Theo. Theo looked down and considered the familiar image. Four people standing on a corner of the French Quarter. He knew only one person in the photo though. On the left hand side was his grandmother. Around her was the arm of a man with an eye patch. As a child, Theo had made up stories to himself about this man and his possible pirateness. Next to the man was a young couple who were smiling and clearly in love. He had asked Rosline about this photo many times. All she would ever say was, “Oh, mon amour, that is from another life, another time.” She seemed to Theo uncomfortable talking about the people in the photo.
Rodger started again, “Oh right, of course. And I certainly want to talk about my thesis proposal. I think you are going to find the Byzantine documents I am looking at . . .”
Flustered, Theo did not let him finish. “Rodger, yes. There will be time for all of that. Listen, why don’t you take this box over to the campus and put it in my office. We can go through it there on Monday.” Theo pointed to the box labeled Isfahan. He saw a bit of disappointment in Rodger’s eyes and felt slightly guilty for being so dismissive.
“Alright,” Rodger said, regaining his enthusiasm as he walked to the door. “Monday it is.”
When Rodger was finally gone and Theo was left alone with only his stuff and the memories it invoked, he walked over to the window, looked out on the Concourse and thought about what his grandmother used to tell him. “It’s not the secrets we keep but the ones we discover that make us who we are, mon petit amour.”
He had spent his life up until now uncovering historical secrets and wondered if she’d be proud of him. Certainly she would, he thought. She’d be proud of me no matter what I decided to do. Despite that unconditional pride, Theo still wondered. As close as they were, there was still so much he didn’t know about her. She certainly kept her secrets close. There were so many mysteries that surrounded his memories of her. Who were those people in that photo? All he had left now were her stories, and despite Henry’s expectations for what it was he was supposed to be doing at the university, he intended to find some sort of truth to those stories. The Bronx, if Rosline was right, held a deep mystery. Theo could feel it all around him.
As he stared out the window he noticed a woman across the wide street. She was standing facing his direction. He started to turn back to finish unpacking when he realized how familiar she was to him. He looked down again.
“What?! Is that?”
As he focused his gaze on the woman, there was no mistaking the ruffled neck of her dress and the gloves running up to her elbows. Except this time the dress was not the black one he was so distracted by at the awards ceremony. This time it was bright scarlet. Looking at her standing there on the street in this dress was like looking at a street scene from nineteenth-century New York except in full color. He was so engrossed with her dress that he nearly forgot how concerned he should be that she was clearly stalking him. She was holding something in her hand and it seemed to him rubbing it in a ritualistic motion. He tried to focus his vision again. Then the pressure in his head started. This time it was more intense than at the awards ceremony. He tried to focus his eyes. Was she mouthing words? He leaned in but could not make out what she was saying. As he strained to concentrate on her lips, the pain in his temples intensified. He winced as the pressure grew too much to bear. He dropped first to his knees clutching his head. The pain increased. Then he keeled over on the floor and tried to scream out. As he lay there paralyzed, he stared at the lavender walls all around him and knew in that moment the woman’s dress wasn’t her biggest mystery.