The Box (21 page)

Then he ate.

The next morning Quinn was surprised to find that the sun was shining, as if sunshine did not belong here and it was a mistake. There was finally business talk with Motta, and that went very well. When Motta talked business he talked only business, he did not insist, the way Cipolla did, that he, the speaker, was the big thing in the talk. The smuggling setup, Quinn found out, was extremely well organized, and the reason Motta had allowed Remal his own slipshod methods was because there was no point, at the Africa end, to be any more careful. However, should Quinn take over there, they could make much more money. Quinn worked on plans as if studying for an examination.

The captain had not been located.

On the second day Quinn slept until late in the morning. There was no point in getting up early, but there was a point in staying asleep. The subject of the captain and what his reporting might do to Quinn had become a bothersome worry.

On that day the sun turned watery by noon and Quinn sat in the cafe and missed Bea. This surprised him, and by late afternoon Quinn was drunk.

At ten that evening, at the end of Motta’s meal, Cipolla came into the restaurant and reported that the captain was tied up in Alexandria.

On the third day Quinn woke up very early because the captain was now an insistent preoccupation.

Motta was reassuring. They discussed where Quinn should work. Quinn wanted Okar. Motta thought Sicily better. He said he liked Quinn and his hustling ways.

That evening, in bed, Quinn thought of the box for the first time with any feeling. He lay sleepless for a very long time, with the window open and the light turned on.

I had not thought about the box, it came to him, because for a while that matter was really finished. I am thinking of the box now because for the first time it’s clear now, clear and true, the way Bea explained it, that I’m not out of it.

But that no longer matters. In this business, I know my way. I’m not bucking anyone and I know my way. He said this like counting sheep and fell asleep. He fell asleep the way a body falls off a cliff.

On the fourth day Quinn saw in the mirror how his collar was loose around his neck. The sleeplessness, he said to his face. The goddamn sleeplessness of lying in bed with thoughts and without any feelings. This eats me up.

At noon that day Cipolla had a talk with Motta in the cafe, and when Quinn walked in Motta waved to indicate Quinn should wait just a moment. Then Cipolla left and Motta waved again, Quinn should come over.

“Good news,” he said. “I got a friend talking to the captain in Alexandria, you know, friend talk with a bottle, and the captain says he hasn’t reported the stowaway thing and he’s got no intention of reporting it, that it’s too much trouble.” Motta grinned and folded his little hands on his belly. “What do you think of that?”

Quinn felt weak. “Am I relieved!”

Motta laughed and slapped Quinn on the back, causing a pain like a cramp on one side.

“You’re free!” said Motta. “Just think of it!” Motta’s laugh went stab, stab, stab inside Quinn’s car.

Then Motta bought Quinn a cognac and left.

Quinn did not get drunk that afternoon but had only one more cognac which he charged to Motta. He charged it to Motta because he had no more money. And because he, Quinn, felt that Motta would not mind. He is a Santa Claus after all and if I drink more I shall cry—

At four in the afternoon the sun came out, surprising Quinn. He sat where he had been sitting because Motta had sent word he was busy.

The threat of the captain reporting the box, that was gone. But Quinn felt on edge, as ever.

I must decide about here or Okar. Makes no difference to Motta. Fine. Does it make any difference to me? Now that Remal is out anyway, the way Motta described it—

On the fifth day Quinn woke up, having decided. He would run the Okar end of the business. It was underdeveloped, and there was more sun.

By four in the afternoon, Quinn had still not been able to discuss things with Motta. Santa Claus was out of town.

Nerves, thought Quinn. I’m beginning to imagine a plot. He had decided on Okar, but—it struck him—he felt as jumpy as before.

Half an hour before the boat was to leave, Quinn stood on the pier. The fog was there as expected. Nobody else was.

Then a car rushed down. Motta, with hat and cane, leaped out and hurried onto the pier.

“Quinn boy, I’m sorry. This other thing couldn’t wait. Now look, we went through all the details, all about this end and the other end, and if you wanna stay here…”

“I want the Okar end. You don’t need me here.”

“Now boy, I wouldn’t say that.”

“We talked about how I can build it up.”

“Right. And about your friend the mayor?”

“I’ll not only take my chances, but I’ll take your advice.”

“What was that, boy?”

“I like people, you said. I’m going to tell Remal I like him, or else. He’s going to like me or I move the operation to the town of Tagen.”

“The one we talked about, yes.”

“Okay?”

“Quinn, I like how you work. Best to you over there.” Cipolla came running up but Motta waved him off.

“I’m talking,” he said. And then, “Quinn, lemme ask you something personal. You mind?”

“No, I don’t mind.” Quinn felt nervous about getting away.

“Lemme ask you, may I, Quinn?”

“Yes, sure, sure, go ahead.”

“Have you got a woman over there? I haven’t seen you looking at any women over here and the way you been acting like a young un and rubbing your nose and not talking much, I mean not very much after all the business detail talk we been through…”

“No,” said Quinn. “No, its not that.”

And I’m a liar, he thought, for leaving out Bea, this one woman over there who knew what I went for. The one who knows how it feels to build a box and that the worst things that happen are the things you do to yourself. And if you have to—she knows this—and if you have to go and take it like a sentence, then I have respect for you, that’s what she might have said. Respect for you because you know how you’re under a sentence, your own, which is the worst. And I respect you for knowing what you do, and I won’t interfere because, she might have said, I don’t know right or wrong any better than you do. Bea never said all of this but she did all of this. And I’ll be here, she might have said, if you come out of it.

“Time to go,” said Cipolla.

Motta held out his hand and smiled. “I like to see a man with a serious interest, and that’s you, Quinn. Hate to lose you. Goodbye,” and Motta walked off to his car.

Now that was a queer thing to say, thought Quinn, but then there had also been the smile and the shrug and the nice pat on the arm, touch of tolerance, good old Santa papa, and to hell with you, too.

Why so irritable, having decided everything?

“Let’s go,” he said to Cipolla, and the two men went to the end of the pier and the boat.

Chapter 21

On this trip he did not sleep.

There was part of the fake cargo on deck: several rows of large drums with cheap wine inside, destination a legitimate port which was one day’s run from Okar. The Okar stop, on the books, would be for engine repairs.

At first the drums were wet because of the fog off the Sicilian coast, then they were dry because of the fast blow during the night, then they were moist again, making the black metal look a great deal like velvet. Just south of Malta they met the sirocco. Dry again, all day under the sun, and then toward evening Quinn did not watch any more. He knew how many drums there were, having paced back and forth where the rows were strapped down, back and forth, back and forth, like counting his canisters in the dark, and for the same reason, to know all there was to know, just as long as it was simple.

But by the next night he had quit the pacing. He felt cold and clear and he thought, anyway, it’s good that it’s clear. Shame though that it also has to be cold.

There was a perceptible change in the temperature as they got close to Okar, but Quinn paid little attention to that. Thinking about cold had nothing to do with the temperature.

The boat slowed before Quinn knew why but then he saw the lights of Okar, far away, just a few lights, which slid out from behind the land tongue which made the bay. There was also a beautiful moon. Quinn did not notice. Another half hour of deceptive distance and then Quinn could make out the pier.

The first one Quinn recognized was Bea. There were other people on the pier but Quinn saw Bea first.

Some people, he thought, look stupid waiting, or they look somehow silly, or like cattle standing around.

I’ve always thought she looks beautiful. She looks exciting now, and she must be excited the way she stands there in the light, she doesn’t see me on the dark boat, but she looks for me.

The boat docked and the first one down the plank was Cipolla. He headed across the pier towards Whitfield who stood by the warehouse with the clipboard under his arm.

At first Quinn went fast, going down the plank, then slowly. He wanted to see everything, he wanted to see everything there was to see in the way she stood, walked toward him, waited.

At first they stood close by each other, not touching, then she put her hands on his arm the way she always did, and then he bent to put his face into her hair. He put his hands on her waist, feeling her, and then straightened up again.

“You’re back,” she said.

Maybe she had said it as a question? He said, “Yes.”

But as soon as they had started to talk, the words had taken over for him and he found everything difficult. She is too beautiful and perhaps that’s why, he thought. Why do I have to think this and not say it to her.

“Warm here,” he said and felt the sweat creep out on him, from the sheer awkwardness and stupidity of his remark.

“Quinn,” she said, “are you done?”

“Hell, yes, I’m done over there.”

“What?”

“Done working for Santa Claus. You should see him.” She did not understand him and waited. “I’m staying here, Bea.”

“Here?”

“It’s the best I can figure. It’ll be all right with Remal. I think I can handle him now and I got a good relationship at the other end.”

He thought she was going to cough, the way her breath went, or perhaps she could not get any breath for one reason or another. How can anyone catch a cold in this place, it went through his mind. But she was not coughing or gagging at all. It had been a deep painful breath, all dry, no tears, a dry shaking inside her, so that she sounded hoarse when she talked, and he almost had to guess what she was saying.

“My God, Quinn,” she said, “I thought—maybe you’d be done and, and it’s over, but you’re only starting all over.”

“Bea.”

She stepped away and then she walked away.

“Just a minute now,” he said and caught up with her. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going away, Quinn.”

“Why?”

She did not answer. There were several people on the pier and the boat made low sounds against the pilings but Quinn knew only the pier in the spotty light, big stretch of pier, and black, quiet night. Then he saw the box. Bea was gone and there was the box.

The first thing he had seen had been Bea and now the first thing he saw was the box. It was as if having a choice of one first thing after another.

The box was upright and the crack had been repaired. There was a new lid, all white wood, set to one side and the box was still open.

Everything that happened next happened, in a manner of speaking, without any succession. Everything that happened next was all life and death. Something that is always immediate, that does away with all past and future. There is only now, and so there is no succession.

All the things that came next happened with Quinn and there was a death in it every time.

To lay all of it out, there was a dead man who floated by the pier in the water. There was a dead man lying face up on the rocks where the desert started. And then there was a dead man who lay curled up in a box which was shipped to New York.

The way fever makes the vision shimmer and draws all the color and sharpness out of seeing, that was how Quinn saw the pier in a moment. Everything was holding still and there was no meaning anywhere, until Whitfield happened to drop his clipboard. This made Quinn jump. He did not jump visibly but on the inside in some way.

“You dropped your clipboard,” said Quinn.

“Oh.”

Quinn smelled the gin. He watched Whitfield pick up the clipboard. It was now all very quiet again and Quinn felt no haste. And now, he thought, now for the finish. And I care very much how it turns out.

“Whitfield,” he said. “You know where anyone is?”

“If you mean just anyone, then the question…”

“Whit, don’t just talk. Not this time.”

Whitfield looked at Quinn and immediately took him very seriously. It felt a lot like respect.

“Only the box is here,” said Whitfield.

They both looked at the box which stood by the edge of the light. White, new wood on top, the rest stained as before. The contrast was obscene.

“What do you know about it, Whitfield?”

Whitfield took a breath, feeling the air was too thick.

“Quinn,” he said. “I know they fixed it, I saw them. That’s all. Quinn, I even want to know less than I do know.”

“Yes. You’re always like that.”

Whitfield wiped his face. “I never sweat. I think I’m afraid. What do you do when you’re afraid, Quinn?”

Out of nowhere Quinn felt a very clear affection for the other man, so clear that he was sure it must show and therefore he need say nothing. Perhaps Whitfield caught this. He wanted to say something, but the habit of keeping things dullish and pleasant made him think of some platitude. He did not want to say it and kept still.

Then Quinn turned, walked to the box. He moves like a cat, thought Whitfield. When Quinn reached for the crowbar which leaned by the box Whitfield held his breath with sudden excitement.

Quinn hauled out the iron bar very steadily for a long, wrecking smash into the side of the box, but then he never hit. He suddenly spun around and stared at Whitfield.