Blind Lake

by Robert Charles Wilson

  “These guys are pretty regularly diurnal, too,” Marguerite said. “Another anomaly. As for where he’s going—hey, look.”

  Subject reached an open archway and stepped out into the starry alien night.

  “He’s never been here before.”

  “Here where?”

  “A balcony platform, way up on top of his home tower. My God, the view!”

  Subject walked to the low barricade at the edge of the balcony. The virtual viewpoint drifted behind him, and Chris could see the Lobster city spread out beyond the Subject’s grainy torso. The elongated pyramidal towers were illuminated at their portals and balconies by lights in the public walkways. Anthills and cowrie shells, Chris thought, threaded with gold. When Chris was little his parents used to cruise up along Mul-holland Drive one or two evenings a year to see the lights of Los Angeles spread out below. It had looked kind of like this. Almost this vast. Almost this lonely.

  The planet’s small, quick moon was full, and he could make out something of the dry lands beyond the limits of the city, the low mountains far to the west and a reef of high cloud rolling on a quick wind. Spirals of electrostatically charged dust rolled across the irrigated fields, quickly formed and quickly dissipated, like immense ghosts.

  He saw Marguerite give a little shiver, watching.

  Subject approached the balcony’s eroded barricade. He stood as if hesitating. Chris said, “Is he suicidal?”

  “I hope not.” She was tense. “We’ve never seen self-destructive behavior, but we’re new here. God, I hope not!”

  But the Subject stood motionless, as if intent.

  “He’s looking at the view,” Chris said.

  “Could be.”

  “What else?”

  “We don’t know. That’s why we don’t attribute motivation. If I were there, I’d be looking at the view; but maybe he’s enjoying the air pressure, or maybe he was hoping to meet somebody, or maybe he’s lost or confused. These are complex sentient creatures with life histories and biological imperatives no one even pretends to understand. We don’t even know for sure how good their vision is—he may not see what we’re seeing.”

  “Still,” Chris said. “If I had to lay a bet, I’d say he’s admiring the view.”

  That won him a brief smile. “We may think such things,” Marguerite admitted. “But we must not say them.”

  “Mom!” From the bathroom.

  “I’ll be there in a second. Dry yourself off!” She stood. “Time to put Tess to bed, I’m afraid.”

  “You mind if I watch this a little longer?”

  “I guess not. Call me if it gets exciting. All this is being recorded, of course, but there’s nothing like a live feed. But he may not do anything at all. When they stand still they often stay that way for hours at a time.”

  “Not a great party planet,” Chris said.

  “It would be nice if we could take advantage of his static time and look around the city. But training the Eye to follow a single individual was a minor miracle in itself. If we looked away we might lose him. Just don’t expect much.”

  She was right about the Subject: he stood absolutely motionless before the long vista of the night. Chris watched distant dust-devils, immense and immaterial, ride the moonlit plains. He wondered if they made a sound in the relatively thin atmosphere of that world. He wondered if the air was warm or cool, whether the Subject was sensitive to the temperature. All this anomalous behavior and no way to divine the thoughts circulating in that perfectly imaged but perfectly inscrutable head. What did loneliness mean to creatures who were never alone except at night?

  He heard the pleasant sound of Marguerite and Tessa talking in low voices, Marguerite tucking her daughter into bed. A flurry of laughter. Eventually Marguerite appeared in the doorway once more.

  “Has he moved?”

  The moon had moved. The stars had moved. Not the Subject. “No.”

  “I’m making tea, if you feel like a cup.”

  “Thanks,” Chris said. “I’d like that. I—”

  But then there was the unmistakable sound of breaking glass, followed by Tessa’s high, shrill scream.

  Chris came into the girl’s bedroom behind Marguerite.

  Tess was still shrieking, a high, sustained sob. She sat at the edge of her bed, her right hand pressed into the waist of her flannel nightgown. There were spatters of blood on the bedspread.

  The bottom pane of the bedroom window was broken. Shards of glass stood jagged in the frame and bitterly cold air gusted inside. Marguerite knelt on the bed, lifting Tessa away from the litter of glass. “Show me your hand,” she said.

  “No!”

  “Yes. It’ll be all right. Show me.”

  Tess turned her head away, squeezed her eyes shut and extended her clenched fist. Blood seeped between her fingers and ran down her knuckles. Her nightgown was stained with fresh red blood. Marguerite’s eyes went wide, but she resolutely peeled back Tessa’s fingers from the wound. “Tess, what happened?”

  Tess sucked in enough breath to answer. “I leaned on the window.”

  “You leaned on it?”

  “Yes!”

  Chris understood that this was a lie and that Marguerite acquiesced to it, as if they both understood what had really happened. Which was more than he understood. He balled up a blanket and stuffed it into the gap in the window.

  More blood welled from the exposed palm of Tessa’s right hand—a small lake of it. This time Marguerite couldn’t conceal a gasp.

  Chris said, “Is there glass in the wound?”

  “I can’t tell…no, I don’t think so.”

  “We need to put pressure on it. She’ll need to be stitched, too.” Tess wailed in fresh alarm. “It’s okay,” Chris told her. “This happened to my little sister once. She fell down with a glass in her hand and cut herself up—worse than you did. She bragged about it later. Said she was the only one who wasn’t scared. The doctor fixed it up for her.”

  “How old was she?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “I’m eleven,” Tess said, gauging her courage against this new standard.

  “There’s gauze in the bathroom cupboard,” Marguerite said. “Will you get it, Chris?”

  He fetched the gauze and a brown elastic bandage. Marguerite’s hands were shaking, so Chris pressed the gauze into Tessa’s palm and told her to clench her fist over it. The gauze immediately turned bright red. “We have to drive her to the clinic,” he said. “Why don’t you give me your keys; I’ll start the car while you bundle her up.”

  “All right. Keys are in my purse, in the kitchen. Tess, can you walk with me? Watch out for the glass on the floor.”

  She left blood spots on the carpet all the way down the stairs.

  The Blind Lake Medical Center, a suite of offices just east of Hubble Plaza, kept its walk-in clinic open at all hours. The nurse on desk duty looked briefly at Tess, then hustled her and Marguerite off to a treatment room. Chris sat in reception, leafing through six-month-old print editions of travel magazines while gentle pop songs whispered from the ceiling.

  From what he had seen, Tessa’s injury was minor and the clinic was equipped to handle it. Better not to think what might have happened if she had been more seriously hurt. The clinic was well-equipped, but it wasn’t a hospital.

  She had “leaned on” the window. But you don’t break a window like that by leaning on it. Tess had lied, and Marguerite had recognized the lie for what it was. Something she hadn’t wanted to talk about in front of a stranger. Some ongoing problem with her daughter, Chris supposed. Anger, depression, post-divorce trauma. But the girl hadn’t seemed angry or depressed when he spoke to her in the kitchen. And he remembered the sound of her easy laughter from the bedroom just moments before the accident.

  It’s none of my business, he told himself. Tess reminded him a little of his sister Portia—there was some of the same guileless amiability about her—but that didn’t make it any concern of his. He had give
n up comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. He wasn’t good at it. All his crusades had ended badly.

  Marguerite came out of the treatment room shaken and spotted with her daughter’s blood, but obviously reassured. “They’ve got her cleaned up and sutured,” she told Chris. “She was actually very brave, once we saw the doctor. That story about your sister helped, I think.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Thank you for your help. I could have driven her myself, but it would have been much trickier. Scarier for Tess, too.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “They gave her a painkiller. The doctor said we can go home when it takes effect. She’ll have to keep the hand immobilized for a few days, though.”

  “Have you called her father?”

  Marguerite was instantly downcast. “No, but I guess I ought to. I just hope he doesn’t go ballistic. Ray is—” She stopped. “You don’t want to know my problems.”

  Frankly, no, he didn’t. She said, “Excuse me,” and took her phone to a distant corner of the waiting room.

  Despite his best intentions Chris overheard a little of the conversation. The way she talked to her ex-husband was instructive. Carefully casual at first. Explaining the accident gently, understating it, then cringing from his response. “At the clinic,” she said finally. “I—” A pause. “No. No.” Pause. “It isn’t necessary, Ray. No. You’re blowing this way out of proportion.” Long pause. “That isn’t true. You know that isn’t true.”

  She clipped off without saying good-bye and took a moment to steady herself. Then she came across the waiting room between the rows of generic hospital furniture, her lips compressed, her hair askew, her clothing bloodstained. There was a stiff dignity in the way she carried herself, an implicit rejection of whatever it was Ray Scutter had said to her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but would you please go out and start the car? I’ll fetch Tess. I think she’ll be better off at home.”

  Another polite lie, but with an unspoken urgency under it. He nodded.

  The walkway between the clinic and the parking lot was cold and windswept. He was glad enough to climb inside Marguerite’s little car and start the motor. Heat wafted up from the floor ducts. The street was empty, swept with sinuous lines of blowing snow. He looked at the lights of the Plaza, the shopping concourse. The stars were still bright, and on the southern horizon he could see the running lights of a distant jet. Somewhere planes were still flying; somewhere the world was still conducting its business.

  Marguerite came out of the clinic with Tess some ten minutes later, but she had not reached the car when another vehicle roared into the lot and screeched to a stop.

  Ray Scutter’s car. Marguerite watched with obvious apprehension as her ex-husband left the vehicle and came toward her with a rapid, aggressive stride.

  Chris made sure the passenger door was unlocked. Better to avoid a confrontation. Ray had that mad-bull look about him. But Marguerite didn’t make it to the car before Ray got a hand on her shoulder.

  Marguerite kept her eyes on her ex-husband but pushed Tess behind her, protecting her. Tess cradled her injured hand under her snow jacket. Chris couldn’t make out what Ray was saying. All he could hear over the whine of the motor was a few barked consonants.

  Time to be brave. He hated being brave. That was what people used to say about his book, at least before Galliano’s suicide. How brave of you to write it. Bravery had never gotten him anywhere.

  He stepped out of the car and opened the rear door for Tess to climb in.

  Ray gave him a startled look. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Chris Carmody.”

  “He helped drive Tess here,” Marguerite said hurriedly.

  “Right now she needs to get back home,” Chris said. Tess had already scooted into the backseat, quick despite the clumsiness of her bandaged hand.

  “Clearly,” Scutter said, his eyes narrow and fixed on Chris, “she’s not safe there.”

  “Ray,” Marguerite said, “we have an agreement—”

  “We have an agreement written before the siege by a divorce counselor I can’t contact.” Ray had mastered the vocal tones of bull-male impatience, equal parts whining and imperious. “There’s no way I can trust you with my daughter when you permit things like this to happen.”

  “It was an accident. Accidents happen.”

  “Accidents happen when children aren’t supervised. What were you doing, staring at the fucking Subject?”

  Marguerite stumbled over an answer. Chris said, “It happened after Tess went to bed.” He motioned discreetly for Marguerite to get into the car.

  “You’re that tabloid journalist—what do you know about it?”

  “I was there.”

  Marguerite took the hint and climbed in. Ray looked frustrated and doubly angry when he heard the door slam. “I’m taking my daughter with me,” he said.

  “No, sir,” Chris said. “Not tonight, I’m afraid.”

  He maintained eye contact with Ray as he slid behind the wheel. Tess began quietly crying in the backseat. Ray leaned against the car door, but whatever he was shouting was inaudible. Chris put the vehicle in drive and pulled away, not before Scutter aimed a kick at the rear bumper.

  Marguerite soothed her daughter. Chris drove cautiously out of the clinic lot, wary of ice. Ray could have jumped in his own car and followed but apparently chose not to; last he saw of him in the rearview mirror, he was still standing in impotent rage.

  “He hates for anyone to see him like that,” Marguerite said. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid you made an enemy tonight.”

  No doubt. Chris understood the alchemy by which a man might be charming in public and brutal behind closed doors. Cruelty as the intimacy of last resort. Men generally didn’t like to be witnessed in the act.

  She added, “I have to thank you again. I’m truly sorry about all this.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “If you want to find a new place to room, I understand.”

  “The basement’s still warmer than the gym. If that’s okay with you.”

  Tess snorted and coughed. Marguerite helped her blow her nose.

  “I keep thinking,” Marguerite said, “what if it had been worse? What if we’d needed a real hospital? I’m so tired of this lockdown.”

  Chris pulled into the driveway of the town house. “I expect we’ll survive,” he said. Clearly, Marguerite was a survivor.

  Tess, exhausted, went to sleep on Marguerite’s bed. The house was cold, icy air rivering in through the broken window in Tessa’s room, the furnace struggling to keep up. Chris rummaged in the basement until he found a heavy plastic drop cloth and a wide piece of maplewood veneer. He duct-taped the plastic over the empty window frame in Tessa’s bedroom, then tacked up the veneer for good measure.

  Marguerite was in the kitchen when he went downstairs. “Nightcap?” she said.

  “Sure.”

  She poured him fresh coffee laced with brandy. Chris checked his watch. After midnight. He didn’t feel remotely like sleeping.

  “I guess you’re tired of hearing me apologize.”

  “I grew up with a younger sister,” Chris said. “Things happen with kids. I know that.”

  “Your sister. You mentioned Portia.”

  “We all call her Porry.”

  “Do you still see her? Before the siege, I mean.”

  “Porry died a while back.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “Now you do have to stop apologizing.”

  “I’m—oh.”

  “How much trouble do you expect Ray to make over this?”

  She shrugged. “That’s a question and a half. As much as he can.”

  “It’s none of my business. I’d just like some warning if you expect him to show up at the door with a shotgun.”

  “It’s not like that. Ray is just…well, what can I say about Ray? He likes to be right. He hates to be contradicted. He’s eager to pick f
ights but he hates to lose them, and he’s been losing them most of his life. He doesn’t like sharing custody with me—he wouldn’t have signed the agreement, except his lawyer told him it was the best deal he was going to get—and he’s always threatening some new legal action to take Tess away. He’ll see tonight as more evidence that I’m an unfit parent. More ammunition.”

  “Tonight wasn’t your fault.”

  “It doesn’t matter to Ray what really happened. He’ll convince himself I was either responsible for it or at least grossly negligent.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Nine years.”

  “Was he abusive?”

  “Not physically. Not quite. He’d shake his fist, but he never threw it. That wasn’t Ray’s style. But he made it clear he didn’t trust me and he sure as hell didn’t approve of me. I used to get calls from him every fifteen minutes, where was I and what was I doing and when would I be home and I’d better not be late. He didn’t like me, but he didn’t want my attention focused on anyone but him. At first I told myself it was just a quirk, a character flaw, something he’d get over.”

  “You had friends, family?”

  “My parents are charitable people. They accommodated Ray until it became obvious he didn’t want to be accommodated. He didn’t like me seeing them. Didn’t like me seeing friends, either. It was supposed to be just the two of us. No countervailing forces.”

  “Good marriage to get out of,” Chris said.

  “I’m not sure he believes it’s over.”

  “People can get hurt in situations like that.”

  “I know,” Marguerite said. “I’ve heard the stories. But Ray would never get physical.”

  Chris let that pass. “How was Tess doing when you said good night?”

  “She looked pretty sleepy. Worn out, poor thing.”

  “How do you suppose she happened to break that window?”

  Marguerite took a long sip of her coffee and seemed to inspect the tabletop. “I honestly don’t know. But Tess has had some problems in the past. She has a thing about shiny surfaces, mirrors and things like that. She must have seen something she didn’t like.”

  And put her hand through the glass? Chris didn’t understand, but Marguerite was obviously uncomfortable talking about it and he didn’t want to press her. She’d been through enough tonight.