Us and Uncle Fraud Read online

  "Yeah. Me, too," I said.

  Suddenly Marcus's eyes filled with tears. "He looks dead!" he wailed.

  Mother put her arm around him. She led both of us into a small waiting room nearby. "He's just asleep," she said. "That's what a coma is, you know. I explained that to you—it's a very, very deep sleep."

  Marcus's outburst had freed my own tears, and now I cried, too. "Why do you keep talking to him? Why did you make us talk to him? That felt terrible!"

  She sat us both down, and she sat beside us on the stiff, uncomfortable couch. "The doctors told Father and me," she explained, "that although they can't be sure, they think that sometimes a person in a coma can hear. Tom can't open his eyes yet, and he can't speak, of course, but maybe he can hear us. So I talk to him all day, and Father does, too, when he's here."

  I thought about what an agonizing effort it had been for me to say a few sentences to Tom. "Don't you get tired?"

  It was a foolish question because I could see how tired she was. It showed in her eyes.

  "Yes," she said. "Of course I do. It's hard to think of things to say, all day long. But I keep talking because it may be the thing that wakes him up."

  I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. "I could try harder," I said. "I promise I will. Can I come back, if I promise to try harder?"

  Marcus nodded in agreement. "I will, too," he said.

  And so the schedule changed. Every day, after school, Marcus and I trudged to the hospital, so that Mother could go home and rest. Every day until suppertime, Marcus and I stood beside that bed and talked endlessly. We became accustomed to it, the bizarre act of talking to a motionless, sleeping figure in a bed. We told jokes, sang songs, made up stories, and recalled the plots of movies. Nurses came and went, adjusting Tom's covers, taking his pulse and his blood pressure; they smiled at us, and nodded their approval. And we talked on.

  Days passed, and spring turned into summer. Still Tom didn't wake.

  14

  One day another postcard came from Claude, who in his rootless travels had not heard about Tom's tragedy. It was addressed to Marcus and me, and postmarked Cheyenne, Wyoming.

  I hadn't thought about Claude in a long time, and now the postcard made me angry. "This is the land where fortunes are to be maid," it read, "and I am in on the ground floor of something. One of these days I will ride up in a Rolls Roice and take you two for SOME RIDE!!!"

  I showed it to Marcus, who shrugged, and then I showed it to Mother. She laughed.

  "There he goes again," she said. "Claude will still be chasing his dreams when he's ninety years old."

  I crumpled the stiff postcard in my hands and threw it into the wastebasket disdainfully. "I hate him," I said. "He lied to Marcus and me."

  She was still laughing. "Don't say that, Louise. He told you fairy tales, perhaps. But he never meant to lie. When people tell wild stories, they don't expect anyone to believe them."

  "Oh no? How about what he told Marcus and me, that he'd hidden something for us—a gift just for us two?"

  "He probably did. Probably somewhere in the house, eventually, you'll find some silly gift and realize that it came from Claude."

  "I'm not talking about some silly gift. He told us what it was. And he said it came from Russia, that he'd smuggled it out. It was fancy Easter eggs, all decorated with real jewels, even diamonds. And we believed him. Remember that crazy clue he left, those words that don't mean anything? He made it all up!"

  "My goodness, Louise, I forgot to tell you something. I remembered the instant you said Easter eggs. It's been here for days, and I completely forgot—I'm sorry." She went to the hall closet and reached up to the shelf.

  "Here," she said, handing it to me. "I was in the library, and Mr. Mueller asked me to bring this home for you. He said he was sorry it took so long, but he had to order it from the state library."

  I took the small book and looked at the picture on the cover. Then I leafed through and looked briefly at the other pictures. There they were: those fabulous, priceless eggs that Claude had described. Some of the photographs were in color, and the brilliance of the jewels gleamed on the pages.

  I tossed the book scornfully on the kitchen table. "Those are the eggs that he said he had hidden for us, the liar," I said.

  Mother picked it up and turned the pages. "They're very beautiful," she said.

  "And he lied, right?" I looked belligerently at her. "He couldn't have gotten two of those for Marcus and me, could he?"

  She was reading some of the captions. After a moment she put the book back down. "No," she told me, "I'm sure he couldn't have. But, Louise—"

  "What?" I asked sullenly.

  "He wanted to. Can't you be grateful for that, that Uncle Claude wanted to give you something exquisite and valuable?"

  "No. And I hate him, for making me believe it."

  "He has flaws, Louise, like all the rest of us."

  "Claude the Flawed," I said bitterly.

  "Louise, listen to me," Mother said firmly. "You know Claude is different. You know he has flaws. He can't seem to hold a job, he has no money, and sometimes he drinks too much. But he never hurts anyone. He tries so hard, still, to create worlds for himself, worlds where he is rich and where he can give wonderful gifts. It's all in his imagination—but imagination itself is a gift, Louise. Can't you appreciate that, at least?"

  I shook my head stubbornly. "Why don't you hate him?" I asked. "You've known him his whole life, and he probably lied to you all the time. He probably made up all sorts of stuff, and you probably believed him lots of times when you were young."

  She smiled. "Sometimes I did."

  "So there. You ought to hate him."

  "Louise, Louise," Mother said, "he's my brother. I've always loved him."

  Marcus and I stood by Tom's bed late in the afternoon. We were exhausted with the effort of talking continuously, as we always were at the end of the day. There was a moment's pause as we both searched our minds for something new to say.

  I remembered the newspaper, Tom's greatest love, his ambition for the future.

  "Father says they miss you at the paper," I said, taking a deep breath to embark on another lengthy one-way speech. "They got so used to you always hanging around and helping out, that now they really miss you.

  "On the morning after the flood, your picture was on the first page; did Mother or Father tell you that? We saved it so you can see it when you wake up.

  "And stupid Alexandra Marek's picture was on the front page of the paper the day before, remember? And all her dumb cows? So she was all prepared to be really stuck-up about it, but nobody even noticed it by the time she was back in school, because by then your picture had been there, and yours was much bigger and more interesting."

  I paused, and Marcus took over, telling Tom of something I had forgotten. "And right in the middle of all of that about the flood," Marcus said, "the police found some of the Leboffs' silverware—a dozen forks, with a special L on them for Leboff—at a pawn shop in Westover. So they think the thief was heading west and just stopped to sell them there before he went on. The guy who gave him money for them notified the police later, but he couldn't really describe the thief; he just said it was an ordinary-looking man.

  "But here's the funny thing, Tom," Marcus went on. "Everybody had forgotten the robbery by then, because of the flood, so the story about the forks was just a little thing on one of the back pages. Father said if it hadn't been for the flood, it would have made page one."

  Marcus stopped talking for a minute, and we both watched Tom. But he didn't change. He was thinner, now, and looked more like a little boy than the young man he had been. His face was very pale. The sheet over his chest moved slowly as he breathed. His breaths were the long, silent breaths of someone barely alive.

  "Tom," I said suddenly, "Marcus and I think Uncle Claude stole the Leboffs' silver. Marcus and I knew where the key was, remember? And nobody knows this, but we showed Claude. And Claude is a rat and
a rotten liar. He's a fraud, just like you said. You were right about Uncle Claude, Tom, and we haven't decided for sure yet, but maybe Marcus and I are going to tell on him someday.

  "I hate him," I added, "and Marcus hates him, too."

  But there was no response from Tom—we had learned by now not to expect one—and it was time to go home.

  Marcus leaned over and began talking into Tom's silent, expressionless face again. "Claude left this message for Louise and me, in code, and we thought it really meant something. We used to say it to each other, just in private, all the time, and sometimes we wrote it to each other and poked it through this hole we have in the wall between our rooms."

  We were telling Tom all of our secrets. It had been so important to Marcus and me, to have secrets together, and now it seemed important to tell them all to Tom.

  "Ya tebya lyublyu," I said.

  "Ya tebya lyublyu," Marcus repeated.

  We said it in unison, and I think we had both meant to laugh at it and at ourselves, so that somewhere down there in his sleep, where maybe he could hear and understand, Tom could laugh at it and at us, too.

  But we kept saying it and didn't laugh. It had meant so much to us, those meaningless and mysterious words; for a while it had been such a strong and secret bond. Now we were sharing it with our brother who seemed lost, drowned for a second time in the deepness of this horrible sleep.

  "Ya tebya lyublyu, ya tebya lyublyu," we chanted together, leaning over his bed. The evening nurse appeared, coming to take over from the afternoon shift, and she looked at us curiously. We didn't care. We ignored her, said the magic words one more time, and then went home for dinner.

  That night, after I was in bed, I heard the knock on the wall that Marcus and I had devised as a signal. Marcus was about to send a note through our message hole. I turned on my light and reached for the paper that appeared.

  DO YOU THINK HE STILL HAS DREAMS? Marcus had written to me.

  I grabbed my pencil and wrote a lengthy answer while Marcus waited on the other side of the wall.

  YES, I wrote, MOTHER SAID HE'LL STILL BE CHASING HIS DREAMS AROUND WHEN HE'S NINETY YEARS OLD, AND YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK? I THINK THAT'S STUPID. HE'S A LIAR AND A FRAUD AND A SILVERWARE THIEF AND I HOPE HE NEVER COMES BACK. AND ALSO HE CAN'T SPELL. ROLLS ROICE, HA HA.

  I shoved my response through the hole and waited, but Marcus sent no note back. I turned off my light again. But I heard a noise in Marcus's room. I listened. Marcus was crying.

  I climbed out of bed, went to the hall, and opened Marcus's door. He was in bed, his arms around his pillow, his shoulders shaking.

  "Marcus, what's wrong?" I asked him.

  "I meant Tom," he wept.

  15

  Stephie chattered endlessly at breakfast, about everything, and my two aunts bustled here and there, worrying about this and that: "Do you think this toaster needs repairs? I don't like the looks of that last piece of toast—it's much darker than it should be. And I believe I smell something odd from the toaster. Do you think it needs repairs, Florence?" "Well now, Jeanette, I just don't know. Shall we ask Hallie or Matt? I hate to disturb them with these household things, after all they're going through, but you know a defect in an electrical appliance can be dangerous. Goodness, what if Stephanie touched it and there were some defect that might cause her harm—Stephanie, dear, promise me that you will never touch this toaster; I think it may be defective."

  Even Stephie had learned to tune them out and ignore their endless laments and warnings and complaints. She continued to talk to her doll.

  Father came into the kitchen, poured himself some coffee, and drank it standing up. He couldn't bear to eat breakfast at home anymore; he said that if he had to listen to Florence and Jeanette first thing in the morning, he would go stark, raving mad.

  "Let your mother sleep late, pip-squeaks," he said. "She had trouble sleeping last night. She's upset about something."

  "About Tom?" I asked, suddenly frightened. "He was just the same when we saw him yesterday."

  "No. I was with him last night, and there's no change. I don't know what's bothering her. She'll probably be all over it when she gets up." He set his cup down and turned to leave for the office.

  "Oh, say," he said as he picked up his briefcase in the hall, "Marcus and Louise. Here's a mystery that you can clear up for me. I hate to start a day with an unsolved mystery."

  "What's that?" We went into the hall to kiss him good-by and to solve his mystery.

  "Last night, when I was at the hospital, the night nurse was there—you know, that heavyset woman with gray hair? I forget her name."

  "Yeah," I said. "She came on duty just before we left."

  "Well, she said that she was very surprised to hear you two speaking in Russian to your brother. I had to admit I was surprised, too. Where on earth did you pick up any Russian?"

  Marcus and I looked at each other in amazement.

  "It's Russian?" Marcus asked.

  "Apparently whatever you were saying to Tom was Russian," Father said, grinning. "Didn't you know?"

  We shook our heads. "What does it mean? We thought it was just words that didn't mean anything! Did she tell you what it means?" We were both talking at once.

  But he shook his head. "I didn't think to ask her that."

  "Call her! Ask her!" We tugged at him, pleading.

  He looked at his watch. "She's gone off duty by now."

  "Call her at home!" I begged.

  "I don't know her name. Do you remember her name?"

  But Marcus and I were at a loss. We paid no attention to the names of the nurses.

  "Well," he said, turning to leave, "your mother will know. You can ask her when she gets up. But let her sleep for a while. She really had a rough night."

  Marcus and I waited impatiently, prowling the house aimlessly, until Mother woke. School had ended for the year; outside, we could hear the neighborhood kids playing in the street. Nancy Brinkerhoff and Ben Staley came to the door to ask us to join a game of hide-and-seek, but we said no. We waited. Finally, at ten, we heard Mother go to the kitchen and pour herself some coffee.

  Marcus and I ran to the kitchen. "Mother!" I said eagerly. "Guess what!"

  But her face was grim. "Louise," she said in a cold voice, "come upstairs with me. I have to talk to you."

  "But, Mother! Marcus and I—"

  "Louise. Come now."

  I followed her upstairs, motioning to Marcus to wait.

  She took me into her room. The bed was still unmade; she sat down on it with her shoulders slumped as if she were very sad or in pain. I stood dutifully in front of her, waiting to be scolded or punished for some unknown offense, and she put her arms around me and held me very tight. Then she released me, and said, "Louise, you're my oldest daughter, and I love you more than I can ever tell you. Whatever happens, I want you to know that."

  "I do," I said, puzzled. "I've always known that."

  "And we must try our best to be honest with each other, always," she said.

  I thought of Claude and wondered if he had tried his best. But I nodded. "Okay," I said.

  She reached into the pocket of her bathrobe, took something out, and handed it to me. "I want you to tell me exactly where and how you got this," she said.

  I held it, looked at it, and turned it over and over in my hands. It was a small silver pitcher, with an elegant, scrolled L engraved on its side. I knew intuitively that it was a piece of the Leboffs' stolen silver. But I had never seen it before in my life.

  "It's not mine," I said in confusion. "This is the first time I've ever seen it."

  Mother sighed. "Louise," she said firmly, "last night I went out to the shed to bring in some gardening tools because I was going to try to find time to weed the tulip beds this morning. And there, lying in the corner, were your slickers—yours and Marcus's. They'd been there ever since that terrible day when Tom was hurt. And I thought that finally, after all this time, I could bring myself at least
to pick them up and throw them away in the trash can."

  She looked for a long time at the little pitcher before she went on. "This was in the pocket of your slicker," she said.

  "Mother," I told her, "I'm telling you the truth. I've never seen it before. I didn't put it there."

  Solemnly I crossed my heart. I looked at her face, sad and frustrated, and I thought of how hard it must have been for her to pick up those two torn, bloodstained slickers and to be reminded of what had happened to us and, especially, to Tom. The terror of that day surfaced in my memory, and I thought of how I had run through the rain, how I had seen Marcus's yellow slicker so bright against the terrible brown river; I thought of how I had screamed and sobbed, running there among the toppled tombstones, and—then I remembered.

  "Mother," I said urgently, "it was Mr. Stratton! He dropped it on the ground, when I screamed for him to help me, and I picked it up and ran after him. I wasn't even thinking about anything but Tom. It was all covered with mud, and I didn't know what it was. Mr. Stratton had it there with him—he was up on this little hill, sort of hunched down, and I thought he was praying. He was digging, Mother! He dug this up from the ground in the cemetery!"

  We hugged each other in relief. "I'll tell your father," she said. "He'll call the police."

  I followed her down the stairs as she went to the phone. "Mother, what's the name of Tom's night nurse? The one with the gray hair?"

  "Mira," she said distractedly. "Mira Leonov."

  I didn't even listen to her conversation with Father. I took the telephone book, and Marcus and I found Leonov listed there. The house was on Woodmont Street, only a few blocks away from ours. We ran outside and headed for the night nurse's house.

  The man who answered the door of the small frame house smiled pleasantly at us, but couldn't understand what we were saying. He spoke practically no English. He stood there patiently, listening, watching our lips as if it might help, but finally he simply began to laugh heartily.

  "Quit trying to explain everything, Marcus," I suggested. "Let me try saying something real simple."