Free Mount Terminus by David Grand Page A

softening of his father’s manner, from the warmth he heard in the tone of his voice, from the concern he expressed for Bloom’s well-being, his forbearance would not persist.
    Bloom, now approaching the age of manhood, had become familiar enough with his father’s character to know that whatever the nature of the transaction he had witnessed on the beach, it was most certainly one marking a significant change in his association with this man. Something of consequence had transpired. Something momentous enough, his father was compelled to break from the comfort of his routines to ready Bloom for what was to come. Jacob ceased spending the entirety of his days tending to the grounds and communing with the animist spirits of his topiary; instead, he approached the courtyard each morning from a vanishing point at the end of a path dividing the dark grove of avocado trees from the bright lattices of the rose garden. His arrivals coincided with Roya’s departures: as she entered the shadows of the loggia and disappeared behind the villa’s walls, he walked between the twin cottages forming the yard’s border, bowed his head through a pergola wearing a toupee of bougainvillea, and announced his presence with a grim smile.
    In the same manner Bloom sat with his mute companion, he sat with his father, who drew their attention to the crescent-shaped building terraced onto the shelf of the short, crescent-shaped mesa. One afternoon while looking at this structure, Jacob described a place on the sluggish Belus River where in the middle of the first century a ship belonging to soda traders spread out along the Phoenician shore to prepare a meal of fish stew. He told his son they had no stones to support their cooking pots, so they placed lumps of soda from the ship under them, and when these became hot and fused with the sand on the beach, streams of an unknown, translucent liquid flowed. This, he said, was the origin of glass. This, he said, has given our eyes their greatest purpose. His father patted the air with his long fingers, indicating to Bloom that he should remain still, and off he went up the stone steps with a skeleton key dangling from a string tied to his wrist. When he reached the landing, Bloom watched him follow the curve of the building until he rounded its side. A gust of desert wind rustled the grove, through which he could hear the unmistakable cry of a long-unopened door. The sharp noise of the stiff hinges scattered the lizards on the building’s surface; they scurried and refixed themselves into a new configuration, until a few moments later, with as little ease as it had opened, the door shut, and a new pattern was formed. Around the corner his father walked, pressing to the chest of his coveralls a wooden case nearly as tall and wide as he. When he had descended the stairs and reached Bloom, he said, Today we will give your eyes greater purpose. Climb the tower after lunch and this will be waiting for you. He turned to go, and then turned back. Looking at his dusty boots, he said, You must prepare yourself, my dear.
    What for?
    Jacob tapped the case with his knuckle. With this, you will see.
    *   *   *
    Assembled inside the tower’s pavilion was a reflecting telescope whose optical tube was crafted from ash and trimmed with cast iron. It was mounted to a decorative globe resting atop a pedestal whose thin base was held secure by metal supports. All was affixed to a dais that snugly fit onto the shoulders of a tripod. The lacquer applied to preserve the wood had darkened and in places was altogether stripped bare; aquamarine streaks of oxidation had begun to accrete over the iron’s surface; and whatever words had been etched into the brass plaque set onto the dais’s foundation had long since been rubbed away into a flat sheen. Old as the telescope might have been, when Bloom set the orbit of his eye against the viewing piece, the mirrors magnified into