Into That Darkness (13 page)

She gets sad sometimes. She thinks we do not know it but we do. I
hear her sighing in the kitchen after we are supposed to be in bed. I think
it is because she misses him. Kat says it is because she wanted another
daughter and instead got me. Maybe she is sad because you're an idiot,
I tell her. Kat says it does not matter we should not ask Mom about it.

But I would not do that. You do not ask about some things.

He slept a long time and he did not dream.

When he awoke his head was throbbing. A pale light was pouring in through the broken latticework in the high windowpane and the spiral patterns of dust on the glass cast strange grey shapes across the rug. Because his neck was stiff from the leather armrest and the headache had begun in earnest he turned and grimaced and did not get up. He lay there listening to the quiet house. He could feel where the seams in the leather had left deep marks in his cheek.

He was still wearing his sneakers though they had come untied and in the daylight when at last he got up the room looked sad and grey. He could see through the glass door of the study the blurred shape of the gardener and he crossed the room then paused. Stared down at his hand. The dark skin at his wrist looking crinkled in the light. Then he opened the door.

The gardener was crouched at the window with his rifle across his knees and he did not look up. Arthur went out, he said in his soft voice. He was asking for you.

He went out?

The gardener shrugged. He did not want to wake you. He said you should eat something.

Mason glanced across. A bowl of cold oatmeal, a can of warm juice on the desk. Sunlight coalescing in a spoon.

I don't believe it, Mason said. He wouldn't go without me.

I am sure you are right.

Did he really go?

Do I look like his keeper?

Mason went to the window where the gardener crouched and peered out at the street. A big wind was up and he watched a pail clatter and bang down the street and then nothing but the wisps of dust curling up in gusts. The rubble in sloping moraines, the early shadows long between the dark buildings there. He did not see Lear.

How long ago did he leave?

You slept a long time.

How long?

The gardener shrugged again. I have not been watching the clock.

In the early daylight Mason saw the gardener now with great clarity. He crouched now in a stained yellow undershirt and his chest and arms looked very thin and very strong. When he raised his hand to his face Mason saw the bones in his knuckles hard and sharp as stones. There was a dark mole with hairs growing from it just above his upper lip.
There is something in him too
, he thought.
It is something bad though it is unhappy as much as it is mean. But the
meanness is still there in him. It is still there in him and I can see it.

Do you want to see something interesting? the gardener said. Come here.

The gardener's thick black hair was flattened on one side where he had slept on it and when he turned his face in profile he looked crested like a lizard.

Look down there. What do you see?

They were three men in sweatpants and torn shirts and Mason watched them from the upper floor of that house as they turned into the street and began wending their way through the rubble, over the abandoned cars. The wind was pushing hard at their backs. Two of them carried a big television between them, the third swung a steel pipe and cleared their way.

You see it is already beginning, the gardener said.

What are they doing? Mason asked.

They watched the men disappear into the blue house on the corner. When they came out they were carrying empty backpacks and their faces looked serious. They kept to the shadows on the far side of the street their sleeves and pant legs crackling flat and they passed Lear's house by and they did not look up.

They have been doing it all morning, the gardener said. This is the kind of taking I do not understand. I understand it. But it does not make any sense. Food, water, yes. But this?

He stepped away from the gardener. The man smelled strange, of ashes and ink and of something sharply metallic. Did Arthur really leave? he asked.

The gardener studied him. You are angry with him.

Why would you think that?

He believes that you are.

He told you that?

He believes that you blame him. That he should have done more for your mother.

Mason frowned and looked away. It's not his fault.

That is what I told him. What.

Nothing.

The gardener studied him with his grey eyes. There is something.

Mason shrugged reluctantly. He left her, he said. He left her in there.

You are angry.

I'm not angry with him.

You left her too. You came here with him.

He was silent and then he got to his feet. Did he really go?

No.

Mason looked at the door and then back at the gardener. He didn't go?

Do not be angry. I meant it kindly.

Mason didn't understand. His head felt thick, blurred.

It matters, the gardener said, even if you think it does not. I feel terrible for you. It will be worse for you than it is for me or for Arthur. Has he talked to you about it? You should expect the worst. You should be prepared for the worst.

His head was throbbing. He blinked angrily.

I am sorry if it sounds ugly. I am only trying to help.

Just then there was a clatter in the hallway and the creak of a door opening and closing and then Lear came to the study and looked in. I'd about given up on you, he said.

Mason turned away, wiped at his eyeglasses.

What is it, son?

He believed you had left without him, the gardener said.

I wouldn't do that, Lear said. Are you ready?

Mason said nothing.

Mason?

He could feel a prickling sensation crawl up the back of his arms. He shivered.

I'm ready, he said.

Then his headache bloomed. It climbed up inside his skull like a flower and bent heavily back and opened wide its petals of light and pain. He watched the greasy hairs hanging down over the collar of the old man's charcoal coat and he squinched his eyes shut and stumbled and went on. A big wind was blowing. They leaned into it through the streets in that strong light and there were people lurking in doorways or crouched over mattresses they must have dragged into the streets the night before. Mason felt uneasy but did not ask. His mother combing her fingers through his hair, the rough creak of her dry voice. That. Oh but he did not think he would find her.
That is just Arthur talking
, he told himself angrily.
I know she is alive whether it is today or not does not matter.
I will find her. I know it truly.
His headache had split its roots along the back of his skull and he could feel it now drilling down his spine. He stopped, shuddered, the old man trudging on ahead oblivious and he swallowed and shivered and with one hand held to his neck he hurried on. Thinking of his mother lifting a tray of shining mugs in the café morning, sunlight scumbling in the huge blue windows. Thinking of her sharp eyeteeth when she said his name. The sky over the city was very white. Then the wind overturned a plastic chair outside a ruined office and Mason watched papers skitter over the asphalt and slap flat against a building and then shake free and be blown on. His ears felt thick with water. The wind was pulling on him and the morning was passing and then he stood in the street where his mother had worked and the café was not there and there were men digging in the rubble and the old man took his hand.

How much do you remember? the old man asked. Do you want to wait for me here?

He shook his head no.

And so they went in. They went in and his mother was holding him and the wind was pushing hard on her chest. They went in and the old man turned his shoulder into the billowing dust and shouted to the men he met asking if any had seen her. They crouched behind a truck to eat but Mason could not eat and the old man made him drink deeply. His mother was clutching a fold of her skirt down against her legs with one fist and peering across at him in the wind and then the wind was in Mason's head banging about and he did not see the old man. He saw the old man. Then the wind was talking to a girl with long laddered stitches across her nose and the old man was pulling on Mason's sleeve as if to drag him into the street. The light did not scour his skin. The day was not ending.

And then it was done. The wind was down. It was down and the pain in his head was there, but less, and then it was not there at all. In the sudden quiet Lear was murmuring to him, She's not here, son, she's not here.

He stared hard at Lear's hands with their torn and bloodied nails and knuckles cross-hatched in scabs and at the black grease begriming his shirtsleeves and it all seemed very sad and very pure in that pale and burning hour.

When they returned the house was thick with a webbed silence. The drapes in the kitchen glowed golden and translucent in the late afternoon light and light poured in through the gaps in the bricks of the fireplace and the walls felt very cold and very still. Mason set the bag with a clatter on the counter and looked at the old man coming back down the stairs.

Novica's gone, he was saying. He didn't take his truck.

No.

Or his flashlight.

They were standing in the kitchen and Mason looked back at the front door as if the gardener might return even then. Lear had taped a black plastic bag over the glass and it had come down during the day and hung now like a shred of skin there.

Don't worry about your mother, son. We'll find her tomorrow. I know.

It's a good thing that we didn't find her today. It's a good sign.

I know.

Lear looked at him carefully and then nodded. How's your head?

It doesn't hurt.

It doesn't hurt really?

He shrugged. His breathing felt ragged but clear.

Are you hungry? Lear banged through the cupboards, pushing aside what he could not use. Sandwiches? Crackers? I don't know what else. These cupboards aren't much use even when they're organized.

I don't care.

You might not, Lear said, but there's two of us here. He picked up a tray and led Mason through into the sitting room. A rabbit-eared television stood in a corner and there were potted plants still on wires. The walls were lined with canvases propped facing away and there were jars with paintbrushes and plates of glass and folds of cloth. But the furniture had been righted and the dust and broken things swept against the walls in tidy piles and Mason thought the gardener must have done this before he went out.

They ate dry biscuits and honey and tins of cold ham in water and slices of bread slathered in blackberry jam. And they ate off the old man's good china plates and Mason was surprised at how hungry he was. He drank warm grape juice out of a big glass bottle and the old man drank a half-cold beer and they did not speak while they ate.

When he reached for the last tin of ham Lear shook his head.

Not that one, he said. We'll save that one for Novica.

Mason could feel his head clearing. Do you really think he'll be back?

I don't see why he wouldn't.

I heard you last night. Talking.

I know you did.

I heard what he said about that girl. What they did to her.

I don't think any of that happened.

Mason was pushing the last crust of bread around his plate.

I know what he said, Lear added. I just don't think it happened.

You think he made it up?

I think he's been sick.

That was not it or that was not all there was to it, Mason knew. He thought about it for a time and then he could not think about it any longer. You're a painter, he said.

I was.

You don't paint anymore?

The old man said nothing, his face pale in the gloom.

You don't look like a painter.

The old man smiled wearily. Well.

Did you always live here alone?

Not when I was a boy. My grandfather looked after me. I think I told you that.

What about your wife?

Callie.

Yes.

Lear turned his head and looked at a picture hanging on a picture rail near his head and then he pulled it down and rubbed his sleeve across the glass to clean it. She was the tallest woman I ever saw, he said.

He passed the photograph in its cracked frame across to Mason who took it silently.

She was even taller than me, he said. She was six and half feet in heels. We used to laugh that she was the only person I could look up to. And she had tremendous hands. You can't see them there. They were long and as white as milk and when she held a teacup it looked like a thimble. I thought she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

The photograph was of a young woman's face in profile, the thick hair piled high and pushed back from her face in antiquated fashion. A very long, very pale throat twisted to the left. Her sharp angular eye glaring out of the frame impatiently, her dark mouth unsmiling. Mason thought her beautiful and cold.

You can't tell her height from that of course, Lear said. But you can see how beautiful she was. She had classical features. Look at her strong nose. She hated it, of course. He smiled a tired smile. She wanted to look like Veronica Lake. You won't know who that is. Lear turned his head to the ceiling. Did you hear that? he asked.

What.

Novica? he called.

They waited but the gardener did not come down and there was no sound more and after a while the old man frowned and said, I guess it's my turn to be hearing things.

I wasn't hearing things.

No. I didn't mean you were.

He took the photograph back from Mason and looked at it. He said, Most of the time it's okay but then it comes up in you. His smile was tight, pained. She died on the hottest afternoon of the year. It was July. I wasn't with her. All that was a long time ago.