again the inconsolable man escaped into his garden labyrinths, into the dark shadows of a past Bloom couldnât see, and within the passages of the narrow warrens, Jacob paced. Around plantings and trimmings, he mindlessly wandered, migrated from one figure to the next. From the towerâs pavilion Bloom observed his father pace a tortuous route through the desert gales. On he paced when the fire season delivered flames to Mount Terminusâs nearby canyons. He paced until, one day, he did not.
And on that day, Bloom watched him ride down the mountain dressed in a suit, cleaned and pressed. And for some weeks after this first trip down the switchback, he frequently repeated the journey, sometimes staying away for several nights at a time. When Bloom would ask where he had gone and what he had been doing, his father said he had been tending to a business matter he could no longer avoid.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Out of pity, Bloom wondered, or perhaps because this was her preferred method of entertaining herselfâthrough mysteries and intriguesâhe began to receive from Roya unusual notes, which she left in the most peculiar places. The first he felt inside the toe of his left shoe when he was dressing one morning. As if written by a child with an unsteady hand, it read, I have a secret. The following day he discovered in the toe of his right shoe another note that read, In the library is a book on whose cover is a blue pyramid. For several hours Bloom browsed the libraryâs lower shelves and for several hours more from the rungs of a ladder he browsed the libraryâs upper shelves, and only after having glanced at nearly every book cover in their large collection did he locate on the highest shelf in the libraryâs farthest corner the cover he was looking for. There on a thin volume titled Too Loud a Solitude was a blue pyramid, at the center of which was inset a figure of a pharaoh, sitting upright in a sarcophagus. The pharaohâs eyes were open and his mouth was agape, and behind the cover when he turned it over he found a bookmark on which was written in Royaâs penmanship: The house has a secret. As it served no purpose to implore a woman who couldnât hear and didnât speak to reveal what she uncovered during her furtive movements through their corridors and rooms, Bloom trusted Roya would soon enough deliver a new clue to draw the mystery she had set in motion to a point of comprehension. Bloomâs patience was rewarded one afternoon, when, at lunch, Roya served him a sandwich and a glass of lemonade. Rolled inside the cloth napkin accompanying his meal were three sheets of parchment. On each was a miniature drawing whose lines were straight and whose corners were square and whose images were three skeletal representations of each level of their home. These illustrations, however, delineated neither the rooms with which Bloom was familiar nor the passageways leading to these rooms, but rather an elaborate system of connecting stairwells and corridors that, so far as he knew, had never been built. To Roya, who was standing across from where he sat in the dining room, Bloom silently mouthed: Did you draw these? She turned and walked around the long table at whose center he sat, and when she arrived at his side she pointed to a corner of the parchment where he could see, obscured by the tint of the paperâs border, a signature: Manuel Salazar . So she could see his lips, he looked up at her and asked, Who is Manuel Salazar? As she had done on the day she handed him his motherâs drawing of his father, she reached into the pocket of her skirt and removed a clipping from a page of a book. It read: The parallax of time helps us to the true positions of a conception. Then, from her opposite pocket, she removed another clipping on which was printed: As the parallax of space helps us to that of a star. To this, Bloom shook his head. She looked at him with the same
And on that day, Bloom watched him ride down the mountain dressed in a suit, cleaned and pressed. And for some weeks after this first trip down the switchback, he frequently repeated the journey, sometimes staying away for several nights at a time. When Bloom would ask where he had gone and what he had been doing, his father said he had been tending to a business matter he could no longer avoid.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Out of pity, Bloom wondered, or perhaps because this was her preferred method of entertaining herselfâthrough mysteries and intriguesâhe began to receive from Roya unusual notes, which she left in the most peculiar places. The first he felt inside the toe of his left shoe when he was dressing one morning. As if written by a child with an unsteady hand, it read, I have a secret. The following day he discovered in the toe of his right shoe another note that read, In the library is a book on whose cover is a blue pyramid. For several hours Bloom browsed the libraryâs lower shelves and for several hours more from the rungs of a ladder he browsed the libraryâs upper shelves, and only after having glanced at nearly every book cover in their large collection did he locate on the highest shelf in the libraryâs farthest corner the cover he was looking for. There on a thin volume titled Too Loud a Solitude was a blue pyramid, at the center of which was inset a figure of a pharaoh, sitting upright in a sarcophagus. The pharaohâs eyes were open and his mouth was agape, and behind the cover when he turned it over he found a bookmark on which was written in Royaâs penmanship: The house has a secret. As it served no purpose to implore a woman who couldnât hear and didnât speak to reveal what she uncovered during her furtive movements through their corridors and rooms, Bloom trusted Roya would soon enough deliver a new clue to draw the mystery she had set in motion to a point of comprehension. Bloomâs patience was rewarded one afternoon, when, at lunch, Roya served him a sandwich and a glass of lemonade. Rolled inside the cloth napkin accompanying his meal were three sheets of parchment. On each was a miniature drawing whose lines were straight and whose corners were square and whose images were three skeletal representations of each level of their home. These illustrations, however, delineated neither the rooms with which Bloom was familiar nor the passageways leading to these rooms, but rather an elaborate system of connecting stairwells and corridors that, so far as he knew, had never been built. To Roya, who was standing across from where he sat in the dining room, Bloom silently mouthed: Did you draw these? She turned and walked around the long table at whose center he sat, and when she arrived at his side she pointed to a corner of the parchment where he could see, obscured by the tint of the paperâs border, a signature: Manuel Salazar . So she could see his lips, he looked up at her and asked, Who is Manuel Salazar? As she had done on the day she handed him his motherâs drawing of his father, she reached into the pocket of her skirt and removed a clipping from a page of a book. It read: The parallax of time helps us to the true positions of a conception. Then, from her opposite pocket, she removed another clipping on which was printed: As the parallax of space helps us to that of a star. To this, Bloom shook his head. She looked at him with the same
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