The Collector

Every corner of the dead woman’s house smelled of her perfume, the kind a woman wears when she’s seventy-two, well-traveled, and extravagant. Everything had gone badly for her, we knew—she wasn’t like our grandmas or great aunts before them, who spent life carefully, thriftily, never overdoing it, rationing out a coin for each day well-earned. That was the way they’d raised our mothers and how our mothers, in turn, raised us.

No, she was like no woman we’d ever met. She was a woman from books and movies, a figure conjured up out of our imaginations. The exotic smell of her: neroli, bergamot, and sandalwood, lay thick like a veil cast over everything. We glimpsed the half-full crystal bottle on her vanity: Eau de Correau. We knew it was French. We understood that meant luxury.

When no one was watching I dabbed a bit on my wrists and under my ears, the way my tante taught me from working the perfume counter at Macy’s.

“What do you think?” I asked, wafting proudly towards Jasmine. “Don’t I smell expensive?” She merely shot me a look of pity.

The estate sale was slated for the final week of August. Jasmine found the ad on Craigslist—CLEARANCE, RARE ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES AT A STEAL—and declared we should go. I readily agreed. This was undoubtedly the most exciting event of our long, hot, dull summer. If we did not make things happen for ourselves, nothing would ever happen at all. 

That week we disciplined ourselves, waking at seven on the dot, getting ready hastily and walking a mile to the M45. If the 8:15 made one of its frequent failures to appear, we would sit and scroll at the stop, waiting patiently for the 9. Once we caught the bus and rode it six stops to the train station, we took Pleasanton to Northridge and transferred at Alameda, all the way to the end of the line. Finally, we took a quarter-mile hike up the road (no sidewalks; we held our breath in the slipstream of air, our eyes stinging in the wake of the exhaust of the cars that whooshed past) until we reached a security booth demarcating the entrance to the dead woman’s gated community.

Every day the guard pretended not to know us, and every day we acquiesced to his searching as his eyes flicked between our plastic school IDs and ourselves, as if he were determined to call us out for some undisclosed fraudulence. We would never admit it, but we enjoyed his long gaze because it hinted at admiration. We craved ogling. We were not yet weary like our mothers. Any hint of affection we accepted with gratitude, even from an ugly old man with no neck, the dome of his head like a par-boiled egg. Eventually, he let us through.  

Jasmine and I exchanged tales of the woman, mixing fact and fiction. We were less concerned with the truth than what felt true, what we inferred from her objects, her grand house, her unsurpassed taste. Thirty years ago, we said, she had been a renowned diplomat. At the peak of her career, she flew across the world, taking up months and years of residency in foreign lands, wining and dining all manner of dignitaries.

Paintings of her from the old glory days lay in gilded picture frames. There she sat, regal behind the placid plummy smile she extended toward presidents, eminent kings, and autocrats. It seemed she was accustomed to dealing with powerful men; it seemed she’d been well-acquainted with power herself. But more than wealth and import she possessed what her forefathers did not: a captivating beauty and a certain magnetism from which she drew her strength.

We overheard from the neighbors, who stopped by out of curiosity, that she’d had no shortage of lovers. Half the objects in the house were a result of her dalliances: a pomegranate tree, wrought of silver with gilded leaves, gifted by the prime minister of Tunisia; Balinese carved doors from an Indonesian billionaire; emeralds from the deposed prince of Iran. She wasn’t shy about her conquests. She considered passion a necessary expenditure of good negotiation.

Yet over time that famous currency from which she’d derived so much accomplishment diminished. Years passed and fewer turned their heads when she entered the room. The phone seldom rang. The invites, they claimed, were lost in the mail. In the words of former lovers she inferred malicious subtexts; every friend became an enemy in time. A proud woman, never the type to grovel, she withdrew into her extravagance. Eventually the bitterness disfigured her from the inside out—her face contorted into ugly shapes, her hair fell out in great clumps, yellowed hands gnarled in frustration.

Still, she was determined to possess beauty in some shape. Though her world had grown smaller and meaner, she found solace in the pedigree of her possessions. Soon it became her obsession to own the rarest and most distinctive treasures. In service of this enterprise, she revisited her old haunts, consorting with all kinds of dealers. In her sunset years, what little company she kept were those who would sell her beautiful objects without qualm. When at last her body betrayed her, she exiled herself, retiring to her bleak little corner, surrounded by her vast collection and her bottomless desire.

Throughout the week of the estate sale, we wandered the house together, circling the halls and admiring our long reflections in the woman’s gilded mirrors. After three days of deliberation, Jasmine emptied out her red envelopes to buy a pearl ring and a big, clanking chain of interlocked gold roses. She justified the purchases by saying they were birthday gifts for her mother. Though I knew the date was way off in November and that her mother hated anything excessive, I didn’t argue. Between us we hoped we might one day have an occasion to wear such elegant things.

I, on the other hand, chose more discreet treasures: a handful of small, glass animals. I picked out a blue elephant, a long-necked giraffe, and a monkey with bright crystal eyes. Finally, I pocketed a tortoise because, although it was misshapen, I was attracted to it. But I did not permit myself to buy the trinket, having already learned the difference between a purchase and a bargain. Something so ugly was not worth the money. But stealing was another matter.

When Jasmine and I returned home we took our treasures to the backyard, at the base of the fence which cleaved the duplex that was both her home and mine. We considered our objects precious and did what one does with precious things. We buried them.

We savored the rumor of an undiscovered trove deep in the bowels of the house. This, the neighbors claimed, was filled with the most prized collectibles the dead woman had culled in her latter, obsessive years. Several buyers had already searched the place high and low, but none were successful. The auctioneer had already given up—weary of the woman’s mythology, he focused on his bottom line.

Long ago, our mothers had ingrained in Jasmine and I the lesson that such greedy motivations led a person nowhere. We knew that in order to find anything of real value one had to nurture desire. Still, her treasure eluded us. What secrets lay hidden inside, we wondered. Through whispers, we heard a dozen conflicting speculations. The most obvious suggestion was that her trove contained more of the same. Rarer jewels and singular artifacts, procured by even more dubious means. But Jasmine and I were dissatisfied with such rumors, we felt they diminished her exceptional taste. These baubles she already possessed in great abundance. They lay out in the open, ready for the taking.

Jasmine continued to assert, in her usual cryptic way, that that desire lay at the heart of the question. She insisted that if we learned who the woman was and what she truly wanted, the path forward would appear clear as day. We returned with the intention of finding her.

On the sixth day, we were wandering the foyer when I noticed an oil painting hanging above a doorway. There, floating several feet above us, sat a group of half-naked, brown-skinned women crouched in a circle, shelling nuts, shaded by a single palm tree. I regarded the painting for a while, though was neither special nor interesting. I was certain I had seen it before. Still, this endless repetition of imagery stirred something inside me.

I elbowed Jasmine. “Look, that’s you,” I whispered, pointing randomly at one of the women wearing the same, simple expression.

Jasmine’s eyes flashed. She pursed her lips and went silent. I watched her work her jaw; for a moment I was terrified I’d made her cry. But when she answered, it was with a steady voice. “Well,” she said evenly, “At least I’m not alone.”

Then she let out a crazy laugh, so loud other buyers turned to stare. Though they whispered among themselves, she didn’t seem to mind. She howled even louder as I burned red. I stood frozen in the foyer, listening to her cackle. All the while she had a livid, familiar look in her eyes, like she wanted to slap me. I wish she had, to remind me who I was. Where I belonged.

The last day of the sale arrived. That morning the M45 broke down altogether, so it took us three hours to travel to the estate. It seemed to me that that particular journey was endless, longer than any trip I’ve taken since. I remember the sun on the dashboard, the shadowy hunch of the bus driver up front, silhouetted by the burning road. At the security booth, the guard did not subject us to his usual searching but let us through with a look of resigned contempt.

Jasmine still seemed mad about the day before. The whole way up we didn’t speak once, not until we reached the top of the hill and the house came into view. Then she transformed. Her eyes shone bright. She looped her arm around mine and my body coursed with happy relief. Hand in hand, and for the last time, we entered the darkened house.

Upon stepping inside we saw the rooms, transformed. All the disorder had been emptied out, the piles of dust and debris obscuring the windows cleared, floors and ceilings swept clean of cobwebs. They had managed to sell nearly everything: the woman’s collection of tropical butterflies, splayed and pinned behind glass, wings glittering darkly; the giant, hand-woven Moroccan rugs lining the walls of the dining room; her jade statues, Peruvian dolls, and sprawling batik prints. All the piles of loot from the woman’s travels to a thousand elsewheres, places we could only imagine. But we could faintly taste them when we held her things, caressed them, brought them close to our faces, shut our eyes. We had hoped that by mere adjacency we might be catapulted out of our dreary lives and into another.

We felt bitter, staring at all the emptiness. We’d understood the woman better than anyone. We were sad to see her objects go; they were like old friends. We even wished, blasphemously, that she had been our own mother, that we might have inherited objects and fantasies instead of endless anxiety and the wringing of hands.

In the foyer, the painting of the naked women had vanished without a trace.

We walked the halls. No one—not the auctioneer nor the men roving around, clipboards in hands—seemed to notice us as we entered room after disemboweled room. These men spoke quickly in urgent tones. They did not even turn their heads. But for once, we did not mind our perennial invisibility.

Only the large portraits of the woman remained, the last unwanted remnants of the sale. They lay, stacked in clumsy piles, all over the dining room. We regarded the woman in her many iterations. There she was in her youth: glowing, splendid, and enigmatic with all her men beside her. Yet each successive version revealed traces of decay. Over time her features had dulled, receded, then turned strange. The last few were horrors to behold. Too much hair, I thought, too much skin. Jowls heavy, a strange vacancy in the eyes. I could hardly stand to look at her. The sight of her barren expression sent fear straight to my stomach.

At last, we’d explored every room thrice over. When we reached the third floor landing I stopped and peered down the great hall where four men teetering on a ladder were unscrewing the great chandelier. All those years, I thought. All that finery. Only to be hacked to pieces and sold for parts. I felt like crying; I swallowed back my tears. But when I glanced over, Jasmine was regarding me with disdain.

“Let’s go,” she urged.

“Where?” I asked, despairingly, “It’s all over, now.”

She shook her head. She had a wicked look in her eyes. “You’ll see,” she said, continuing down the landing. Another one of her tricks, I thought. Still, I followed—I always followed. Jasmine’s too-large dress flounced around behind her. I would have teased, but this time I held my tongue. At last, we reached the end of the low hall and she stopped and pointed up. I squinted into the ceiling slats.

“Look harder,” Jasmine said, jabbing me in the low of my back.

I got up on my tiptoes. There, in the wood, I made out a faint seam—a secret trapdoor with a ladder carved inside. The edges were disguised by the textured grain; one would only notice if one hoped to see something. Jasmine licked her lips and motioned for me to boost her. Obediently, I got down on one knee, pushing her up by the soles of her sneakers. She placed her palms on the ceiling, scrabbling with her fingers. By some mysterious, incantatory mechanism, the ladder descended, and the door hinged open like a jaw.

Jasmine climbed the ladder first, her shoes squeaking on the slats. I waited at the bottom, watching the last of her disappear inside before I clambered up myself. Upon entry I was immediately confronted with a wall of unidentifiable objects and a thick, musty smell. In the dark, shadows arced, flexed, and jumped. From the corners came soft rustlings.

“Come on,” Jasmine beckoned, dragging me further inside. She crawled to the back of the room, over to a space in the floor just large enough for her body. The only light came from a circular window filtering in a singular, dusty beam. Warily, I sat down across from her, wedged up against boxes and other darkened shapes.

“Where are we?” I asked, brushing my finger against the edge of a box. The trace of my thumb left a clean line in the dust.

Jasmine’s grimace curled into a smile, baring little rows of white teeth. “You’re slow. You mean you don’t know yet? This is where she kept her favorite things.”

Finally it dawned on me that she’d found the woman’s hidden treasure. Moreover, she’d kept it secret. For how long, I wondered. I swallowed the hot taste of betrayal.

“Want to see?” she asked.

I stared at her and her gaze shifted. We had waited so long, but now that we’d finally arrived I felt peculiar and uneasy. My stomach pressed urgently on my bladder—I thought to turn back. I had never considered defiance until now.

As though sensing my hesitation, Jasmine jumped to her feet. In one violent motion she turned and tipped a box over into my lap. A great rush sounded, a percussive rattling, and a thousand small, white shards cascaded onto the floor. I yelled and scrambled backwards, falling into a tower of collapsed boxes. I watched her upend one after another from my vantage point on the ground. Out poured little stones shaped like arrowheads: larger, ridged shapes; long candlesticks; thin, translucent caps. All a whitish, creamy yellow.

Ecstatically she cried out and threw a handful into the air. “You see! Now you see!” she screeched. They rained down on me and pricked my skin: finally I recognized the treasures for what they were. Molars, canines. Femurs, skulls, teeth, and bones.

I could hardly move, I hardly dared to breathe. My blood slid thick in my veins. Jasmine stomped carelessly around the room, tipping boxes over with a feverish mania. Out tumbled leathery sheets of skin, out spilled knots of coarse hair and shriveled organs clustered like grapes. This exhumation released sweetish, lingering smells of things left to rot long ago.

In the dim light of the attic the parts were almost indiscernible from the finery we had seen downstairs. One might mistake the enamel for pearl, the skin for supple suede, the hair for skeins of silk. I swallowed bile, rising from my stomach. I watched in silence as Jasmine rummaged through the room with frightening intensity, fondling the length of a ribcage, running her hands through knots of hair, her fingers caressing ripples of skin. She circled me, kicking up teeth, while I lay on the floor, immobile.

Only after she had opened every box and stood, panting, with all the treasures laid out at her feet, did she come to a stop. For a long while I looked up at Jasmine and she stared down at me. Slowly, I sat up and crawled over, reached out and grabbed her hand. Something shuttered and she fell wordlessly into my arms.

We left the house and did not look back. We trudged the long way down the hill, took the bus and the train. All the while Jasmine stared into her hands face up on her lap, her palms marked with dust and debris. We waited at the station for half an hour before her mother finally picked us up. We bowed our heads and climbed into the car. Upon sight of our dumbstruck faces in the rearview mirror, Jasmine’s mom burst into laughter and pinched us on our arms and cheeks. She handed us ham sandwiches, chastising us for how dirty and disheveled we looked, berating Jasmine in particular for ruining the dress she’d borrowed from her older sister.

All the long drive home we sat in silence while she regaled us with familiar stories. Of how, when she was younger, they never celebrated birthdays, let alone Christmas. On New Year’s, she ate plain porridge and fought with her siblings over a single egg. How lucky we were for chicken nuggets and Costco, for knowing nothing but abundance. Though she considered the teachers too soft on us, she was grateful we were starting school again next week. Enough of this summer nonsense, it was time to be done with endless gossip and play. Girls, she cackled, should not be allowed such freedom. She was happy that once again we would be put in our place.