A Fountain Filled With Blood

“Clare? Hi, it’s Paul. I hope you can hear this okay, I’m using the pay phone in the lobby and the thing dates back to the Eisenhower administration. Great news! Emil has woken up and is responding to speech! He’s having trouble talking, but the neurologist says that’s normal at this point, that it doesn’t mean anything. He recognized me, and his kids, and he managed to squeeze our hands a little. I feel so grateful, I can’t tell you. I hope Bob and Gal are doing okay”—the dogs both barked sharply when they heard their names—“and that they’re not wearing you out. I’ll try to reach you again as soon as I know something new. Thanks again for everything, Clare.”

“You see?” she said to the Berns. “Doing good is its own reward. Let’s go make some dinner.”

Two plates of linguini later, stretched out on the sofa with a glass of Chianti, watching the Boston Pops Esplanade concert, Clare was beginning to think she ought to look into getting a dog. It was fun having someone to talk to in the kitchen, even if neither Gal nor Bob was a great conversationalist. And seeing them stretched out on the hardwood floor was deeply satisfying. It made her feel English. The Vicar of Dibley crossed with a James Herriot story. Maybe she could get herself one of those canvas coats, and a walking stick. She yawned.

Gal and Bob got up, shook themselves, and walked into the foyer.

“What is it? Do you two want to go out?”

At the word out, both dogs barked. Clare groaned. As she rolled off the sofa, they began to whine and pant, and by the time she joined them in the foyer, their nails were clicking madly on the wooden floor as they jostled each other to be first out the door.

She opened the door to the damp and cold and the dogs bounded out, ran straight to the edge of the sidewalk, turned to look at her, and began barking.

“Shhh! Shhh!” She wrestled on her sneakers and pulled a running shell with reflective stripes over her head. Where had she tossed those leashes? In the kitchen? When she finally stepped out onto the front porch, the Berns ran to her, leaping joyously and barking even louder. “Sssh! It’s nine o’clock, for heaven’s sake. This isn’t the country! I’ve got neighbors.” The dogs promptly sat, tails thumping, looking at her expectantly. “I get the feeling that, unlike me, you two didn’t get enough exercise today. Am I right? C’mon, then, we can walk down to the park. If they haven’t canceled because of the weather, we might even see some fireworks.”

Each wrought-iron lamp along Church Street had its own halo, its light a soft glow in the mist. The usually strident sodium orange looked like gaslight, shading the red-white-and-blue bunting, flickering over the slick leaves rustling in nearby trees. The dogs had fallen silent as soon as Clare had led them out on the leashes, and she could hear far-off noises amplified in the developing fog. There were few people on the sidewalks at this hour. Clare would hear footsteps clicking and someone would emerge from the mist, smile or look startled, and then vanish behind her. It might have been unnerving if she had been alone, but walking behind two large and well-behaved dogs made it a genteel adventure, like strolling through Victorian London. She added Sherlock Holmes to her list of English images.

They crossed Main Street, turned down Mill, and continued toward Riverside Park. As they got closer, she could hear distant voices in a current of many conversations. A flicker of excitement made her smile. The fireworks must still be on. She picked up her pace, hurrying past shabby shops and mill offices whose brick facades were the color of old blood in the dark.

From the abandoned textile mill on its left to the decrepit pulping mill on its right, the park was set off from the street by almost half a mile of high iron-rail fencing. The central entrance, which had marked the start of the race this afternoon, had a wide ornate gate overtopped by a wrought-iron arch, the whole fixture a monument to the prosperity that had vanished from the area after World War II. It was that gate she was shooting for, but she had scarcely passed the textile mill when the first muffled thud sounded somewhere over the river and she saw a dazzle of green light. A chorus of oohs and aahs came from inside the park.

The trees grew close along the fence and the underbrush had been left to fend for itself, so it was hard to see. She couldn’t even make out the next explosion, but in the fog-reflected light, she could see a faster way into the park: an unobtrusive door-size gate almost indistinguishable from the fence around it. A century before, it must have been the quick lunch-hour entrance for the mill workers.