The Scarred Man (4 page)

    "Will you?"

    "Sure we will. Well, I hope you're feeling better soon. And if you remember anything more be sure to let me know."

    "Yes."

    "Regards to the wife," he said from the doorway.

    It was a foolish thing to say, and I could see from the expression on his face that he knew it.

    He was a nice fellow and probably in the wrong business.

    

    

    They released me from the hospital after two weeks, and I went back to the boat to wait for Stacey.

    Every day I went to visit her. Sometimes she would see me and sometimes she wouldn't. She was getting a little better though; she no longer turned her face away when I entered the room. We were able to talk about unimportant things. Never once did we discuss what had happened.

    At the end of the third week I brought her back to the boat. She was very quiet. She was still on Librium, and it made her drowsy. She slept a lot, and when she wasn't sleeping she would pretend to read. She would hold the, book, but it was obvious that her mind was elsewhere.

    I tried to busy myself with the work around the boat. Most of all I wanted to avoid giving her the feeling that she was being observed. I was hoping that eventually she would take up where she had left off with the painting and varnishing. It would be good therapy. I hated that word. It was too pat for what had happened to her. Whenever Newberry, her psychiatrist at the hospital, had used it, he turned me off.

    In my conversations with him I proposed shoving off right then and there on our trip. The sea air, I thought, would be good for her. And the excitement of cruising. Newberry disagreed. He was still seeing her three times a week, and he thought she ought to keep on with the visits. I couldn't argue with him. But if I had felt more confidence in my own judgment I would have insisted. Certainly it could not have been any worse for her.

    She was sleeping on one of the vee berths in the forward cabin. She pointedly closed the door behind her every night when she went to bed. It was unnecessary. Desire seemed a thing of the past. The memory of what had happened was still too fresh in both our minds.

    She had always been very clean about her person, but now she was fantastically so. Her skin had a taut, shiny look from being scrubbed too hard. You didn't have to be deep into psychoanalysis to figure out why.

    Music seemed to help; it didn't require the concentration of reading. She would sit by the hour up in that forward compartment listening to tapes. That bothered me because it was such a solitary pleasure. I couldn't seem to get to her. When I would suggest dinner ashore or a movie, she would answer with a listless shrug.

    Perhaps if she could have wept, it would have been better. I asked Newberry about that, and he agreed that it would be a good sign, the emotional logjam would be breaking up. But she remained dry-eyed. Or if she did weep it was secretly.

    Newberry tried probing my psyche too. He wanted to know how I felt about the fact that my wife had been raped. I didn't need a shrink to tell me that it had been an assault on myself as well. Stacey had been damaged to the very core of her being, and a worm had entered my soul. We, who had been as one, were now strangers. We were living together in a tiny space but going our own ways.

    "You will have to be very very careful with her for a long time," Newberry said.

    "I know."

    "And with yourself."

    "How so?"

    He looked at me over the tops of his bifocals, his balding skull wrinkled. "You strike me as a rather somber man."

    "Somber?"

    "Mrs. Shaw tells me you were a combat marine officer in Korea."

    "Yes."

    "Did you kill?"

    "Of course."

    "How did you feel about it?"

    "Great."

    "Would you like to try to understand your hostility toward me, Mr. Shaw?"

    "No."

    "I wonder why not."

    "Because I'm not coming to you for help, Doctor."

    "But you are trying to help your wife, aren't you?"

    "Yes."

    "Then surely you must understand that your own reaction to this whole thing is extremely important."

    "I don't much believe in psychiatry, Doctor."

    "What do you believe in, Mr. Shaw?"

    "In finding your own way."

    "But that's exactly what psychiatry is all about, Mr. Shaw."

    There was no point in going into it. We did not, as the kids say, have the right vibrations. I didn't want him chewing away at my psyche like a mouse nibbling cheese. Enough fragmentation had taken place already. It was up to me to try to put the pieces back together the best way I could.

    

    

    We were suffering from cabin fever on the boat-too much togetherness and not enough communication. A change of scene might do us both some good. We packed a bag and drove across the Venetian Causeway to the Beach, and checked into the largest and most impressive hotel we could find.

    They put us on the eighteenth floor, looking out over the sea. The Gulf Stream was a shiny purple mirror. Tankers crawled along its edge like toys. Below us the pool was a kidney-shaped aquamarine gem. Hundreds of bodies-appearing from above like fields of some curious pink plants-spread out in regular rows from the sides of the pool and across the gigantic terraces. The sounds of calypso music barely reached our balcony. White-coated waiters darted like watchful nurses among the naked, thirsty, embryonic forms broiling in the sun. From eighteen floors up, it was all rather foolish, but fun.

    That night we dressed carefully (on the boat we never wore anything but jeans and sweaters) and went down to dinner. We ate and drank too much, and both of us were trying hard to make it festive. It broke my heart to see the effort Stacey made. She would bubble on brightly for a minute or two, and then a pall of silence would grip us both. When she thought I wasn't looking, her eyes would become shiny with tears. All around us were people having a high old time. We danced but we were like wood in each other's arms. It was ghastly.

    We went to bed early in our twin beds. Stacey bathed and came out wearing her robe. She switched off the light before taking off her robe and getting into bed. We lay there in the dark in the smooth hum of the air conditioning, alone with our thoughts. Suspended in that glass and concrete bubble eighteen stories above the earth, I felt isolated from the world. Spaceman circling the spinning globe in the star-packed night. Alone in my softly humming craft.

    But of course I was not alone.

    "Stacey," I whispered.

    No answer.

    Yet I knew she was not asleep.

    

    

    Sometime during the night she came into my bed. Timorously, like some small soft creature looking for shelter. The first time since the rape. She slid in beside me and lay there an inch or two away not quite touching me. She was making what I know now must have been a supreme effort. She was waiting for me to take her in my arms. Then might have come the flood of tears we had been waiting for. Perhaps my own tears as well. And finally we would have been able to make love.

    But I was too locked into myself. I could still hear the screaming. My brain still ached beneath the scar. I lay there, eyes open, breathing deeply to let her think I was asleep. After a while she slipped away and crept back to her own bed.

    

    

    She must have taken another pill at some point during the night because she was still asleep when I went down to breakfast. I felt better, more optimistic. Last night I had undergone some sort of crisis, slipped the shackles of the horror that had enveloped me. Now, breakfasting on the terrace in the cool breeze from the sea, it all seemed far behind me. We would swim and play in the sun. Tonight would be better.

    I ordered coffee and a Danish for Stacey and carried it up with me. When I opened the door, her bed was empty. The bathroom door was closed and I waited for her to come out. When I heard no sound I knocked on the door. There was no answer. I opened the door. She was not there. The door to the balcony was open but the balcony too was empty. An icy hand squeezed my heart. I ran out onto the balcony and looked over. For a moment the glare dazzled me. Then I saw the striped awning, torn and dangling.

    

    

    What kept me from jumping too? Perhaps the knowledge even then of why I still had to live and what I had to do.

    Everyone was very kind. Bannister, our senior partner, called from New York. (How did he know about it? How do people always know about such things?)

    His voice was strained, "William?"

    "Yes," I said.

    "Are you all right?"

    "Yes."

    In a funny sort of way I was. It was almost as though I had been prepared for her death, as though she had begun to die that night in the swamp two months before. She had been murdered then. The broken form on the hotel terrace was dead long before it hit the ground. They had done that to her, the three of them. And I had added the finishing touch last night. Each man kills the thing he loves.

    "William, I don't know what to say."

    "There is nothing to say."

    "Look here. I can be down there tonight. I'll catch the six-thirty flight."

    "It's not necessary."

    "Then you come up here. You can't stay there alone on that boat."

    "Yes, I can."

    "But why subject yourself to such an ordeal? The details…"

    "Everything has been taken care of. The body was cremated this afternoon."

    "William…"

    "Yes?"

    "You sound so… icy."

    I didn't say anything.

    "Are you certain you don't want me with you?"

    "Yes."

    "And you won't reconsider about coming here?"

    "No."

    "William, did she give any indication, a reason?…"

    "No."

    "I see. Well, then I'll call you again tomorrow."

    "That won't be necessary. And Sy…"

    "What?"

    "You had better start looking around for someone to replace me. I'm resigning from the firm."

    "But, William…"

    I hung up.

    The rest of the calls were handled the same way. The worst of it was when Stacey's parents flew down from Ohio. Her father-fragile, white-haired, face grooved with suffering-sat with me on a bench in Coconut Grove. It was a beautiful day-Biscayne Bay shimmering in the sun-long-haired kids playing guitars, tossing frisbies. Everybody having a whale of a time. The old gentleman was keeping himself under control, but I could see the blue veins standing out in his knotted fists. Stacey had been an only child, and she had come to them late in life.

    At last I told him. I knew it would hurt him even more but I owed him an explanation. His face drained white as I spoke, and I was afraid he might keel over. He didn't say a word about what I had told him. When he did speak at last, it was only to say, "Mother and I will leave tonight. There is nothing more we can do here."

    I nodded.

    "I won't tell Mother what you have told me. If I can, I would like to spare her that."

    "Of course."

    "I'm glad you told me, Bill. I don't think I could ever have rested without some explanation. I know it wasn't easy for you."

    He was holding himself very straight, thin shoulder blades pressed to the back of the bench.

    "Won't you come back with us for a while, Bill? Just until you get back on your feet. I don't think it's good for you to be alone. Mother and I… at least we have each other."

    "Thank you," I said. "I wish I could but I have to wait here."

    He gave me a puzzled look through his glasses. His eyes were a faded blue but dry. He was a fine old man.

    "Wait here for what, Bill?"

    "I'm not sure."

    But I think I was sure, even then.

    

    

    How can I describe the weeks that followed? I ate and slept and shaved and did small jobs around the boat. I told them at the marina office that I would not accept any phone calls. Every morning I bought the paper. Once every two or three days I went to the market and bought a little food, although I was not eating much. When I looked at my face in the shaving mirror, the reflection was that of a stranger, a scarred man with hollow cheeks and eyes as expressionless as marbles. At night I listened to the news.

    That was how I heard it-sandwiched in between the underarm deodorant and laxative commercials. A motorcycle gang tearing through the little fishing village of Islamorada down in the Keys had nearly killed a small boy. A high speed chase had followed as the gang fled south. Since there was only one road north and south in the Florida Keys escape was impossible. Road blocks had been immediately established by the sheriff's department, and the gang had been cornered and arrested a few miles from Marathon. Deputies from neighboring Collier County had been rushed to the scene to protect the prisoners from the outraged citizens. Lynch parties were prowling the streets of Islamorada. The sheriff had warned all motorcyclists to stay clear of the area since he could not be responsible for their safety.

    I slept very little that night. Next morning the
Miami Herald
had the story splashed across its front page. There were pictures of the gang, hands in the air, surrendering to the sheriff's posse. They were pretty much what you expected them to be-hulking men wearing blue jeans, boots, and leather vests. Their arms were heavily tattooed from shoulder to wrist. They wore an assortment of peculiar necklaces, swastikas, and iron crosses. None of them had blond hair. As for a gouged face, most of them had beards and moustaches and so much long hair you could barely make out their features. They did not look alarmed by what was happening to them. If anything they looked faintly bored, as though they had been through all this many times before. There was an air of sulky uniformity about them which made it hard to distinguish one from the other. A pack of wolves.