The Anniversary Man

by R.J. Ellory

  They heard of what happened to Costello′s boy, to the girl who was with him, and they closed their eyes.

  A deep breath. A silent prayer. A wonder as to what had become of everything, and how it all would end.

  And then said nothing to one another, for there was nothing more to say.

  Erskine Costello told his son that Man was the Devil in human form.

  ′A man went for cigarettes and never came home,′ he said. ′You will hear that. It has become a thing all its own. Means something other than the words used. Like most things. Italians. Irish sometimes. He went out for cigarettes, he went to buy a pack of Luckies. Sure he went out for cigarettes, but whatever cigarettes he bought they were his last, you know? He′ll be in the bottom of the Sound without his fingers and toes.′

  Later - dental recognition, other scientific advances - they used to break the teeth.

  Axes, hawsers, machetes, butchers′ knives, hammers - ball-peen and flathead.

  Burned a man′s face off with a blowtorch. Smelled bad. Smelled so bad they never did it again.

  ′These things happen,′ Erskine said. ′You go looking for the Devil, you′ll find all the Devil you could ever want right there in a man.′ He smiled. ′You know what they say about the Irish and the Italians? First son to the church, second to the police, third to jail, fourth to the Devil.′ He laughed like a smoky train in a dark tunnel. Ruffled John′s hair.

  And John Costello listened. He was a little kid without a mother. His father was everything to him, and he could never lie.

  And later - afterwards - John realized that his father had not lied. You could not lie about something you did not understand. Ignorance influenced his understanding, gave him a slanted view.

  John saw the Devil, and thus he knew whereof he spoke.

  She came three times in the following week.

  Nadia. Russian for hope.

  ′I am studying art,′ she said.

  ′Art.′ A statement, not a question.

  ′You know what art is.′

  John Costello smiled with certainty.

  ′So I am studying art, and one day I′ll go to New York, the Metropolitan perhaps, and I will—′

  Costello′s mind drifted, away to the sidewalk, the street beyond. It was raining.

  ′Do you have an umbrella?′ he asked, a question out of left field with a curve in its tail.

  She stopped mid-sentence, looked at him as if the only acceptable response was a headlock. ′An umbrella?′

  He glanced toward the window. ′Rain,′ he said matter-of-factly.

  She turned and looked. ′Rain,′ she echoed. ′No, I don′t have an umbrella.′

  ′I do.′

  ′Well that′s good for you then, isn′t it?′

  ′I′ll get it. You can bring it back whenever you like.′

  She smiled. Warmth. A real sense of something. ′Thank you,′ she said, and for a moment looked embarrassed. ′That′s very thoughtful of you, John.′

  ′Thoughtful,′ he said. ′Yes, I s′pose it is.′

  He crossed from the counter to the window after she′d left the diner. He watched her hopscotch between puddles toward the corner. A sudden gust caught the umbrella, her skirt, her hair. Looked as if she′d blow away.

  And then she was gone.

  Now he lives in New York.

  He writes everything down. Prints in blocks. He used to write down sentences, but these days he abbreviates.

  He still keeps a diary, more a ledger, a journal if you like. He has filled many of them. If he has no event to describe he conveys the feeling of the day in single words.

  Exigent.

  Palpable.

  Manipulation.

  Something he likes, he learns all about it. Often he learns things by heart.

  Subway stations: Eastern, Franklin, Nostrand, Kingston, Utica, Sutter, Saratoga, Rockaway, Junius. The stations on the 7th Avenue Express, all the way through Gun Hill Road to Flatbush.

  Why? No reason. He just finds comfort in it.

  Mondays he eats Italian, Tuesdays French, Wednesdays he has hot dogs with ketchup and German mustard, Thursdays he leaves open to chance. Fridays he eats Persian - gheimeh and ghormeh and barg. A small restaurant on the corner near Penn Plaza in the Garment District where he lives. It is called Persepolis. Weekends he eats Chinese or Thai, and if inspired he makes tuna casserole.

  Lunch he takes in the same place every day, a block and a half from the newspaper where he works.

  Routines. Always routines.

  And he counts things. Stop signs. Traffic lights. Stores with awnings. Stores without. Blue cars. Red cars. Station wagons. Disabled people.

  Safety in numbers.

  He invents names for people: Sugarface, PaleSocrates, Perfectsilentchild, Deepfearhopeless, Drugmadfrightened.

  Made-up names. Names that suit them. Suit the way they appear to be.

  He is not crazy. He knows this for a fact. He just has a way of dealing with things, that′s all.

  Doesn′t harm anyone, and no-one would know.

  Because, on the face of it, he looks just like everyone else.

  Same as the Devil.

  John Costello and Nadia McGowan ate lunch together for the first time on Saturday, October 6th, 1984.

  They ate corned beef on rye with mustard, and green pickles, and they shared a tomato the size of a fist. Scarlet, a blood-red thing, sweet and juicy.

  They ate together and she told him something that made him laugh.

  The following day he took her to the movies. Places In The Heart. John Malkovich. Sally Field. Won two Oscars, best actress and screenplay. John Costello did not kiss Nadia McGowan, nor did he try, though he did hold her hand for the last half hour.

  He was nearly seventeen, and wanted so much to see her perfect breasts, the way her hair would fall across her naked shoulders.

  Later, after everything, he would remember that evening. He walked her home, to a house on the corner of Machin and Wintergreen. Her father waited for her on the doorstep, and he shook John Costello′s hand and said, I know your father. From the soda bread. And he looked at John closely, as if to ascertain intentions from appearance alone.

  Nadia McGowan watched John Costello from her bedroom window as she took off her sweater. John Costello, she thought, is quiet and sensitive, but beneath that he is strong, intelligent, and he listens, and there is something about him that I can love.

  I hope he asks me out again.

  He did. The following day. A date fixed for the subsequent Saturday. They saw the same movie, but this time they paid attention to one another and not to the screen.

  She was the first girl he kissed. Proper kisses. Lips parted, the feeling of a tongue other than your own. Later, in the darkened hallway of her house, there behind the front door, her parents out for the evening, she removed her bra and let him touch her perfect breasts.

  And then later: the second day of November.

  ′Tonight,′ she said. They sat together on a narrow wooden bench at the end of Carlisle Street near the park.

  He looked at her, his head to one side as if bearing a weight on his shoulder.

  ′Did you ever . . .′ she said. ′You know . . . did you ever have sex before?′

  ′In my mind,′ he whispered. ′With you. A thousand times. Yes.′

  She laughed. ′Seriously. For real, John, for real.′

  He shook his head. ′No. You?′

  She reached out and touched his face. ′Tonight,′ she whispered. ′The first time for both of us.′

  They fell into a rhythm, as if this was somehow familiar territory. It was not, but it didn′t matter, for discovery was as much a part of the journey as the destination. Perhaps more than half.

  She stood ahead of him and she held out her arms to close around him, but he smiled and moved to the right, and he stood beside her so she could rest her head against his shoulder.

  ′You smell great,′ he said, and she laughed, and
said, ′Good. I wouldn′t want to smell bad.′

  ′You are—′

  Ssshhh, she mouthed, and pressed her finger to his lips, and she kissed him, and he could feel her hand on the flat of his stomach, and he pulled her in closer.

  They made love for the first time.

  She said it did not hurt, but the sound she made when he pushed himself inside her told him something different.

  And then they found the rhythm, and though it seemed to last no time at all it didn′t matter.

  They did it again later, and it lasted so much longer, and then they slept while her parents stayed overnight in Long Island City and were none the wiser.

  John Costello woke in the early hours of the morning. He woke Nadia McGowan just so they could talk. Just so they could appreciate the time they had together.

  She told him she wanted to sleep, and he let her.

  Had she known she would be dead before the month was out . . . if she had known, she perhaps would have stayed awake.

  He remembers so many things, which - he is sure - is the only reason he keeps his job.

  He is an index.

  He is an encyclopedia.

  He is a dictionary.

  He is a map of the human heart and what can be done to punish it.

  He was sixteen when she died. She was his first love. The only one he really, really loved. He convinced himself of that. It didn′t take much effort.

  He has been through everything a thousand times and he knows it was not his fault.

  It happened on the same bench, the one at the end of Carlisle Street near the park.

  He could go right back there now, in his mind or in person, and he could feel something, or he could feel nothing at all.

  It changed him. Of course it did. It made him curious about the nature of things, about why things happened. Why people love and hate and kill and lie and hurt and bleed, and why they betray one another, and why they steal one another′s husbands and wives and children.

  The world had changed.

  When he was a kid it was like this: A child′s trike on the corner of the street. Mom must have called the kid for supper. A passer-by would pick it up, set it to the edge of the sidewalk for later collection, so as no-one would fall over it and hurt themselves. A simple, nostalgic smile. A memory of their own childhood perhaps. Never a second thought.

  And now, the first thought would be abduction. The child snatched inside a single heartbeat, bundled wholesale into the back of a car. The trike was all that would remain of them. The child would be found in three weeks′ time - beaten, abused, strangled.

  The neighborhood had changed. The world had changed.

  John Costello believed that they were the ones who′d changed it.

  After the death of Nadia McGowan the community fell apart. Her death seemed to mark the end of all they held important. People no longer brought their children to The Connemara. They stayed home.

  His father watched it come to pieces, and though he tried to reach John it didn′t really work. Perhaps his mother would have found him, hiding within whatever world he had created for himself.

  But she was gone.

  Gone for good.

  Like Nadia, which was Russian for hope.

  It was not easy, finding enough time to be together. John Costello worked and Nadia McGowan studied, and there were parents to consider. She would run errands to The Connemara as often as she could, and sometimes Erskine Costello would be there, and John was nowhere to be seen, and Erskine saw something in her anticipation, the way she hung back at the door before leaving, something that told him that soda bread was not the only reason she came.

  ′She′s a pretty girl that one,′ he told his son.

  John hesitated, didn′t look up from his plate. ′Which one?′

  ′You know which one, lad. The redheaded one.′

  ′The McGowan girl?′

  Erskine laughed. ′That′s not what you call her to her face now is it?′

  They did not make eye contact, and neither of them said another thing.

  Saturday November 17th, the McGowans out to see Nadia′s grand-mother once more. Anniversary of her grandfather′s death, Nadia staying back saying she had work to do. As soon as the parents′ car pulled into the street she walked to The Connemara, found John, told him that her folks were away for the night, would be gone until the following evening.

  John left his room a little before eleven. He crept downstairs, feet to the edges of the treads, for the treads were old and they strained and creaked with his weight.

  Erskine was waiting for him at the back door. ′Away are you?′ he said.

  John didn′t speak.

  ′To see the girl,′ Erskine added matter-of-factly, his voice monotone, his expression saying nothing. Smell of good whiskey about him, a familiar ghost.

  John couldn′t lie to his father. Had never been able to, and would never learn.

  ′She′s a sweet girl she is. A studious one, no doubt.′

  John smiled.

  ′You and your books and your writing things down . . . wouldn′t be right for you to get a wild one with no sense for reading and things.′

  ′Dad—′

  ′Away with you, boy, away with you. You′ll only be doing what I wished I′d been doing at your age.′

  John made to step by him.

  ′Remember your mother, eh?′ Erskine added. ′And don′t do anything you′d be ashamed to tell her.′

  John looked up at his father. ′I won′t.′

  ′I know that, boy. I trust you. That′s why I′m letting you go.′

  Erskine watched as his only child, now a man, went down the back steps and hurried across the street. He had more of his mother in him, and she′d have been proud, but he was not one to be staying in Jersey City, at least not for long. He was a reader, a literary one, forever thinking of smart ways to say things that didn′t need to be said.

  Erskine Costello closed the door of The Connemara and walked back to the kitchen. The smell of good whiskey followed him, the familiar ghost.

  To see someone die, someone you love, and to see them die so terribly, so brutally, is something you cannot forget.

  I am the Hammer of God, he said.

  John remembers the voice, that more than anything, though he never saw the face, and for years later wished that he had. So he would know.

  He saw photographs of the man, of course, but there is no substitute for seeing the person themselves. There is something about a human being that a picture can never capture, not even a film, and that is their personality, the feeling around them, their smell, their thoughts, all those things that can be sensed.

  If he had only seen him . . .

  By the time John Costello spoke she was already buried.

  Erskine had believed his boy might never speak again.

  For the first days - four, perhaps five - he came every day and sat beside John′s bed. And then it seemed Erskine Costello could not face the silence, the waiting, the fear, so he went home, and he drank, and he stayed drunk until New Year.

  John could not blame him. To see his only son, his only child, lying there in a hospital bed, his head bandaged, nothing visible but his eyes, and those eyes closed, and tubes and pipes and lines of glucose, and saline drips, and the sound of monitors beeping, the constant hum of a room filled with electricity . . .

  John could not blame him.

  John Costello woke on the sixth day, the 29th of November, and the first person he saw was a nurse called Geraldine Joyce.

  ′Like the writer,′ she said. ′James Joyce. Mad bastard that he was.′

  He asked her where he was, and when he heard his own voice it was like listening to someone else.

  ′You′ll sound like yourself after a while,′ Nurse Geraldine told him. ′Or maybe you′ll just get used to it and start thinking that that′s the way you′ve always sounded.′

  She told him there was a police detective outside who wanted
to talk to him.

  By then John Costello knew that Nadia was dead.

  She was waiting on the stoop. The front door was open and upstairs there was a light in the window of her room. The rest of the house was in darkness.

  She held out her hand, and the last few yards he ran toward her, as if they were meeting at the train station. He′d been away to the war. His letters had never arrived. For a long while she thought he might have been killed, but had never dared to believe it.

  ′Come in,′ she said quickly. ′Before someone sees you.′ The Irish lilt in her voice, gentle yet distinct.

  They′d made love twice before. Now they were professionals. Now they were no longer shy or embarrassed, and she left her clothes along the upstairs hallway as they hurried to her room.

  Outside it started raining.

  ′Do you know what love is?′ she asked him when light started to find a way between the drapes.

  ′If this is it, then yes,′ he said. ′I know what love is.′

  Later, they sat beside one another at the window, naked beneath a blanket, and they watched the world as it rained. Saw an old man in slow-motion, his angular gait distorted through the rivulets of water on the glass. Come daylight there would be a gaggle of children in slickers and galoshes, the excitement of puddles, hand-in-hand on the way to church.

  ′Do you need to get back?′ she asked.

  He shook his head. ′It′s okay.′

  ′Your dad—′

  ′He knows where I am.′

  A sudden intake of breath. ′He . . . oh my God, he′ll tell my parents . . .′

  John laughed. ′No he won′t.′

  ′God, John, if they find out they′ll kill me.′

  ′No they won′t,′ he said, meaning that they wouldn′t find out, never thinking to mean that they wouldn′t kill her.

  Because they wouldn′t.

  That, it seemed, was to be someone else′s job.

  Most people who kill people look normal.