Face on the Wall Read Free Page B

Annie went back inside, closed the door, and hurried into her bedroom. She combed her hair and pulled a jacket over her shirt and jeans. Then she went around the house locking doors against the juggling stranger.
    As she got into her car she could see him down the hill, sitting on the grass, which must still be damp from the gentle spring rain of yesterday. He was facing away from the house, eating his lunch.
    He was a traveling mountebank. Who could tell what he might magic away, if he managed to get inside? The new stainless-steel sink, the beautiful new stove, the CD player?
    With a flick of his clever fingers he might even—it was idiotic, but Annie couldn’t help glancing back over her shoulder at the north side of her house—he might even destroy her precious wall.

    And so the prince was hired as the Imperial Swineherd.
    Hans Christian Andersen, “The Swineherd”

Chapter 5

    â€œKnow then, my husband,” answered she, “we will lead them away, quite early in the morning, into the thickest part of the wood, and there make a fire, and give them each a little piece of bread.…”
    The Brothers Grimm, “Hansel and Gretel”

    I t was moving day for the Gasts. Bob and Roberta scurried around their Cambridge apartment, labeling cardboard boxes, ordering Charlene and Eddy to pack up their toys. “For heaven’s sake, Charlene,” said her mother, “your poor dolls. Be more careful. They cost a fortune. Why don’t you wrap them in tissue paper?”
    Charlene tumbled another flouncy doll on top of the others in the box. “These aren’t any good anyway,” she said, looking sullenly at her mother. “I wish I had a princess doll.”
    â€œOh, Charlene,” said Roberta, “I’ve told you over and over again. Those dolls are just too expensive.”
    â€œAlice has one, and she’s really, really poor. Her mother’s a cleaning lady.”
    â€œWell, good for Alice.” Roberta plucked off the wall the antique mirror she had inherited from her mother. The surface was age-flecked and spotted. Oh, God, there were spidery wrinkles on her upper lip. She set the mirror down on the bed and snapped at Eddy, “Why don’t you throw out those old broken crayons?” But when he made protesting noises, she threw up her hands. “Well, okay, I don’t care. Keep them. What about the drawings? You don’t want to keep all those old drawings, do you, Eddy?”
    Eddy burst into tears and gathered them to his chest.
    Roberta shouted at him to shut up. Her husband looked up and said mildly, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Roberta.”

    Robert Gast was a talented and clever man. He had been a summa at Princeton, majoring in philosophy. He had written a prizewinning dissertation on the metaphysics of ethics. His mother had wanted to know what philosophy was for. “Honestly, Bobby, what can you do with it? Why don’t you study something practical from now on?”
    And then she had financed two years at business school, where Bob did indeed learn useful lessons, like how to set up in business for himself. The result was his own company, Gast Estate Management, specializing in the development of large pieces of open land. Bob’s ideals as a land developer were high, having their source in the concept of the universe as a spiritual kingdom (Leibniz) or a city of God (St. Augustine). His method was simple. You put most of the land into conservation, but at the same time you guaranteed the owners a fair return by selling off a few expensive house lots around the edges.
    So far Bob’s commercial endeavors had not produced a city of God, but someday he fully intended to follow through on his noble plan. For now, the problem was finding the right sort of real estate in the first place—finding it, and then persuading the owners to work exclusively with Gast Estate Management. Just give him time. He was