The Almanac Branch by Bradford Morrow Page A

distanced himself from us younger children; the transition in him that Faw had been looking to midwife seemed to have been accomplished. While the dinner at which Berg was invited by Faw to sit with the guests, while Desmond and I were told to play as quietly as possible in my room, may have signaled that this reconstruction of the hierarchy—as I viewed it—was to be permanent, later events would show that it would not turn out as my father might have hoped.
    Things were changing, nevertheless, in the family. Balances were being reweighed and reweighted. Faw and Berg were over there, Desmond and I over here, Mother elsewhere on her own. And what was I to think, before the guests arrived, when I overheard Faw telling Desmond, “Your brother is a scrapper, a fighter, and that’s going to stand him in good stead, you understand?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œYou could use a little more of that yourself, you know.”
    â€œI’ll try,” said Desmond, and though I couldn’t see him, given I was eavesdropping per my dearest habit at the time, it was easy to envision him standing directly before Faw with his hands in his pockets and eyes averted downward.
    â€œDon’t try, do.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œThat’s my guy.”
    Stuart Hollander, the Pannett and Neden of Pannett & Neden who were producers, Beth and Howard Silliman, the del Russes who were the Geiger accountants—as best Djuna, with my help, could make out from Faw’s hand written notes about the dinner, which he scribbled out at her behest—all were showing up within the hour, and here were two dozen woodcocks skewered on their own beaks, heads skinned, trussed like intricate kites with baking string, standing in almost military order on the butcher block counter in the kitchen and turning before Djuna’s and my eyes from the sallow gray and pink a healthy woodcock ought to show, to the green tinge of the fungus that grew up the stone wall at the easternmost corner of the yard opposite the orchard. Djuna looked out the window at the wall. Her face was blank; the game was tainted. How was it possible? They’d been shot that very week (it was Saturday) in the Yucatan or in Guadalajara or maybe it was just Louisiana—wherever Faw and Berg had been on their way back up from the Gulf Stream trip, what did it matter now, now that they were removed from the container? It was nice, Djuna noted, that the guide had taken it upon himself to pluck the birds before he packed them in ice for the flight home. She had seen the pictures of him, a handsome, flat-nosed cowboy of sorts standing next to my father who had his arm draped on Berg’s nearest shoulder, each not smiling but rather looking straight into the camera even as they cast their shadows across the fan of game birds laid out on a palm-frond bed at their feet—were there palm trees in Louisiana?
    Well, but we were trailing off and away, as sometimes we did, Djuna and I, and especially in moments such as these, where two elements were coming together, forming a trap really—our island world, and the outside world of the people who were coming, whose names were written out on that piece of stationery, a beautiful heavy paper Faw favored for the letterheads of his companies, people all so important to him, we knew, important enough that they could not be sacrificed to putrid woodcocks. Djuna went to Mrs. Beeton’s book, her touchstone in running the house. In Mrs. Beeton the woodcock was shown in French as Bécasse, which naturally put me in mind of the question, “But why?”… but instead of saying anything about Bécasse, I said, “Where is Mom? She’d know what to do,” not meaning to slight Djuna, more meaning to redress my shaky image of Mother.
    I don’t remember what Djuna said, because the time was passing, frittering along with no concern for her or Mother or me or tainted woodcock or the