The Cypress House

by Michael Koryta

  She picked up the rag and began to scrub again, rubbing so hard that the muscles in her arm stood out.

  “As you already said, my private affairs are of no concern to you.”

  He watched her for a long time, waiting for more, but she didn’t look up again. At length he turned and went back outside.

  They finished the porch roof by noon on Sunday, and as they stood in the sand surveying their work, Arlen was unable to avoid feeling a small tug of satisfaction at the way the job looked. For what they’d had to work with, it was damn fine construction.

  “Could leave,” he suggested. “Most everything’s done now.”

  “We’re not even close to done,” Paul said, smearing sweat around his face with a rag. He looked older, with his skin burned dark brown and his hair a few weeks past cutting. “Haven’t even started on the widow’s walk or the generator.”

  Arlen stopped with a cigarette halfway to his mouth. “The generator? Have you lost your senses?”

  “She can’t buy a new one,” Paul said calmly. “So I’d say that one will need fixing.”

  “Son, ain’t a mechanic alive can put that thing back together now, and neither of us is a mechanic. You’ve got to know what you’re doing to work on one that’s solid, let alone one that’s been busted up into a hundred pieces. That thing’s covered in sand and grit and—”

  “I’ve got it cleaned up. Come have a look.”

  So they went around to the front porch, and Paul pulled free a tarpaulin and there were the pieces of the generator, all neat and tidy.

  “When’d you do that?”

  “Been getting up early,” Paul said, dropping to one knee and running a fingertip over one of the flywheels. “Brushed all the sand off and then wiped it down with a rag and oil, because that salt water would rust it awfully fast, I think.”

  “Any chance the thing came with some sort of a book? A manual?”

  “She said she never saw one. But she has all the tools for it.”

  Arlen stared down at the mess and shook his head. “You ever worked on an engine before in your life?”

  “No. But the way it works is, it charges that bank of batteries,” Paul said, pointing at a row of batteries stacked against the back wall. “All of them seem fine. The exhaust pipe is still solid, too.”

  “Great. But the engine is not. Not to mention that however it was connected to the house is no more than a memory.”

  “Well, let me show you what I’ve done. There were two plugs on the frame, and I got those out and then the frame came off and I could get at the flywheel and the camshaft and the main bearing. All of those are intact.”

  “How in the hell do you even know what they are?”

  Paul shrugged. “I’ve read a lot about engines. My point is, the main assembly of this thing is fine. So now that I’ve got it cleaned up, it’s just a matter of figuring out how it went together in the first place. That’ll be common sense.”

  “Sure,” Arlen said, looking down at the gears and wrenches and belts scattered on the porch floor. “Common sense.”

  “I got the inspection plate off,” Paul said, oblivious to Arlen now, focused on the machine, “and you can see the connecting rods in here. Looks like they got loosened up when it was knocked around. See here, when I move the crankshaft? It’s wiggling down at the bearing. That shouldn’t happen. It needs to be tight. So I’ve got to get those tightened up before we try and run it again.”

  “Even supposing you get the thing in a condition that it could run again,” Arlen said, “you’ve got to get it set up so it actually feeds power the way it used to. Those wires were all torn apart.”

  “Oh, that’ll be easy. Just a matter of looking, seeing how it makes sense.”

  “I suppose that leaves me to that damn widow’s walk myself?”

  Paul’s lack of response allowed that it did, and Arlen walked out into the yard, grumbling and swearing, and stared up at the peak of the roof. The widow’s walk was perched onto the back, affording an expansive view of the Gulf, and all except for one corner piling had been torn off. They’d gathered the pieces from out in the yard and stacked them up alongside the house. Even from down here, Arlen could tell that it was going to be awkward and dangerous work.

  He found the stairs to the attic, sweat springing out of his pores as he climbed into the dank, closed space. It was so dark he had to feel around with his hands to locate the trapdoor, but it opened easily enough and he poked his head up through the roof and into fresh air. He’d never been unsettled by heights, but this roof was pitched steeply, and he felt a swirl of doubt as he climbed out onto it, keeping a tight hand on the braces of the door frame. Ordinarily the railings would keep you from tumbling off, but they were stacked on the ground now, nothing between him and a broken spine but a few bounces off the shingles.

  Had to admit, though—once he was up here, the view was stunning, like being in a lighthouse. He could see out into the sea and along the shore. This was his first realization of just how damn isolated the inn was. To the south the beach ran on unbroken, and to the north the trees grew thick along the winding inlet. No such thing as a neighbor. He turned to look east, inland, and saw the boat in the inlet.

  It was positioned around a bend, where there was a slot in the trees that afforded a view of the house. The boat was flat-bottomed, outfitted only with oars—a craft you could move damn near silently if you knew how to use it. There was only one man inside. From here, all Arlen could tell was that he was an older man: stringy gray hair showed along his neck down to his shoulders.

  Don’t stare, he thought. He’ll know that you’ve seen him.

  He turned away and got busy taking measurements for the roof deck, working with his back to the inlet for a while. When he finally turned around and risked a glance, the boat was gone.

  That night they all sat together on the porch, as had become their custom, and ate dinner as the sun went fat and red in the west and slipped down toward the horizon line. It moved at a crawl right until the bottom edge touched the water, and then it was as if something greedy were waiting for it on the other side, snatched it away quick, leaving only a crimson smear on the horizon.

  “This place sure is something,” Paul said, stretched out on the porch floor with the already empty plate on his lap. “It’s beautiful.”

  Rebecca nodded but didn’t speak, and he turned to her.

  “Why doesn’t anyone ever come out here?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well… why don’t you have any customers?”

  She looked away from him. “Corridor County is a very rural place. There aren’t a lot of people. Less now that the lumber mill closed.”

  “Well, still, somebody has to live around here.”

  “I don’t have much business from locals. Mostly people who rent it out for a few days at a time. There’s less of that now. Hard times.”

  “Have you always been out here alone?”

  “Not always.” Her voice was tight. “Tell me, where are you from?”

  If Paul sensed that the redirecting of the conversation was intentional, he didn’t show it.

  “New Jersey. Town called Paterson. Back there, we’d be sitting in an alley and looking at trash cans if we wanted to eat outside.”

  “You don’t care for it?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know. It’s just a place… doesn’t look anything like this, though.” Then, after a pause, “But there’s a bridge you ought to see. Just up from the waterfalls.”

  Rebecca Cady laughed, and Paul looked perplexed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just thought it was amusing that you’d mention a bridge before you would a waterfall.”

  He shrugged. “I just like it, that’s all.”

  Arlen smiled and sipped his beer. She didn’t know him yet. With the exception of the ocean in front of them, Arlen had never known the boy to show the slightest interest in the natural world, only in man-made structures. He
was mighty American in that way: show him a river, he’d want to see a bridge; show him a mountain, he’d wonder how you could get a tunnel through it. For all his carpentry experience, Arlen didn’t have the same mind-set. The older he got, the more he wished people would leave things alone. As a boy he’d watched the hills around his hometown blasted open with dynamite, laced with gouges that looked like wounds of the flesh, and in their own way they were exactly that. Had watched the skies above them turn black with soot and coal smoke, the stretches of ancient forests replaced by stump fields. No, he wasn’t the conquering sort. That was one of the things he’d liked so much about the CCC. Back at Flagg Mountain, they’d spent weeks at hard labor to build a tower. Its purpose? To afford a view of the beauty around it. That was all. Arlen loved that damn tower.

  He didn’t know for certain what he’d even have thought of the bridge in the Keys, that attempt for road to conquer water. Maybe it would’ve been impressive. Maybe it would’ve been heartbreaking.

  “Did you always live in Paterson?” Rebecca was asking Paul, and Arlen looked back at the boy, realizing Arlen himself didn’t know the answer to this one.

  “Yes.” Paul got to his feet and set the plate aside. “I’m going to go for a walk before it gets too dark.”

  He left without another word, headed south with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. Rebecca Cady said, “Did I say something wrong?”

  “I think you both did.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You didn’t want to answer questions about yourself,” he said, “and neither did Paul. Everybody’s got a few things they’d like to keep quiet on.”

  He finished the warm beer and tilted his head and studied her. Her face was lit with fading sunset glow, and it made her blond hair look red.

  “Can you really see the dead?” she asked. The question hit him like a punch.

  “Paul told me about the train,” she said when he didn’t answer. “Why you two got off.”

  “Wasn’t his place to tell you that.”

  “Don’t be angry with him. He was just fascinated by it. Maybe a little frightened, especially after reading that newspaper article and learning what happened to the men who stayed on the train. He told me you see smoke or—”

  “I don’t know why we’re talking about this.”

  “I just wanted to hear what it’s like,” she said.

  “I can’t tell you what it’s like. You won’t believe it if I try, and I don’t give a damn what you think. It’s a waste of everybody’s time.”

  “I might believe it.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “You can see death before it happens,” she said. “That’s what Paul said.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Did you see anything with Walter Sorenson?” she asked.

  He studied her for a long time before saying, “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why do you think that was?”

  “I’m not sure. But I suspect it’s got something to do with this place.”

  “This place?”

  “That’s right. There’s something wrong here.”

  He could see her throat move when she swallowed. She said, “You can feel that?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Can’t you?”

  She said, “I’m not part of it. You think that I am, but I’m not. When I arrived, it was with the expectation that I’d be leaving soon, just like you.”

  “That some kind of warning?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Answer the question I asked,” he said. “Do you feel like there’s something wrong with this place?”

  “Of course. It hangs in the air like the salt smell from the water. But I don’t need to have feelings about it. I’ve been here far too long for that. You have bad feelings; I have bad memories.”

  They fell silent after that. Eventually he said, “As long as everybody’s trading questions, I have one for you. Why don’t you like to be called Becky?”

  She’d bristled every time someone said it, from Sorenson to Barrett, the delivery driver. It seemed to Arlen to go well beyond a dislike of the nickname.

  She looked at him with a steady gaze, but something in her face faltered. He felt, for just a moment, as if she were about to tell him things that had gone unsaid for too long. As if she kept a silence that pained her. He knew about that. He had his own untold tale, guarded for years, but somehow, on this porch, lit by the fading sun and warmed by the Gulf breeze, he wanted to tell it to her. That last part was key. To her.

  She turned from him, though, and when she spoke her voice was distant and her eyes were on the sea.

  “People used to call me that,” she said. “Different people in a different place. I’m not that person anymore, so that name… it doesn’t suit me these days. It’s not mine, not anymore.”

  She rose then and walked to the end of the porch and stood with her back to him as the last smears of red light faded, and though they shared the shadowed space, they were each alone with their silent sorrows.

  16

  REBECCA WAITED UNTIL THE next morning to try to get rid of them. She came out onto the porch, where Paul was working on the generator and Arlen was sanding down pieces of the broken railing from the roof deck, and held out a slim stack of worn dollar bills.

  “Here,” she said. “You’ve earned it, and I don’t want to make you stay any longer. I can drive you into High Town, let you find a ride from there.”

  Arlen just sat back on his heels and didn’t speak. Paul looked from the money in her hand to her face and frowned.

  “We’re not finished,” he said.

  “You’ve done enough. You’ve done more than enough.”

  He shook his head. “No. I’m going to get this generator running again.”

  “There’s no need to—”

  “You trying to run us off because the judge’s friends are coming?”

  That stopped her.

  “No, it’s just… you’ve both already done enough,” she fumbled. “You were a big help, but you’ve done enough, and I can’t afford to keep you on anymore. So please take the money and I’ll drive you—”

  “I’m going to finish this job.”

  She stared at him, then slowly folded her hand over the bills. Her eyes were still on Paul, but they’d gone distant.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “It might be best if you weren’t around tonight.”

  “Why? Who are these guys? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  Arlen said, “Paul, it ain’t your concern,” but the boy never looked at him.

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?” he repeated.

  “No, I’m not. But when Solomon Wade rents this place out, he wants it empty. It’s supposed to be for his friends; no one else is allowed.”

  “Well,” Paul said, “we’re here.”

  “All right,” she said, “then you stay in the boathouse tonight.”

  “The boathouse?” Paul said. “It doesn’t even have a roof.”

  “You’re the one who won’t leave; you can deal without a roof for one night.” She snapped it at him, and Paul’s jaw tightened and he looked away.

  That’ll do it, Arlen thought. He’s going to say enough is enough, finally, and take that money from her hand and we’ll be on our way…

  But Paul said, “Fine. We’ll stay in the boathouse.”

  Rebecca lifted a hand to the side of her face, and for a moment, just a blink, it was the gesture of some other woman, a gesture of someone vulnerable. Then she seemed to catch herself and pushed her hair back over her ear as if that’s what she’d been planning to do all the time.

  * * *

  That was the last that was said about it. Paul continued to battle with the generator. By midafternoon he was satisfied that the mechanical workings were solid again and began to put the pieces back together. Arlen watched him do it, rebuilding something he’d never built in the first place, working without benefit of a manual or diagram, an
d shook his head. The kid was a natural, no question. He still didn’t think the thing would ever work again, though.

  By five he had the generator together and hollered at Arlen to come down so they could test it. He came over and watched as Paul filled the tank with gasoline and explained that he had it connected to the battery bank, and once he was sure it would work all they’d have to do is wire it back into the house and build a new enclosure for it. Rebecca came out while he was talking, and as soon as she arrived Paul’s voice deepened and his speaking became more authoritative, as if he’d been repairing generators all his life. Arlen lit a cigarette to hide a grin.

  “Here we go,” Paul said, and then he made some adjustment, which Arlen figured was to the throttle, with his left hand while turning the crank with his right.

  Nothing happened. There wasn’t a sound but the turning of the hand crank, not so much as a gurgle or cough of gasoline power. Paul frowned and jiggled the throttle and spun the crank faster, sweat beading on his forehead. Still nothing. He dropped his hand from the crank and stepped back.

  “Give it a minute,” Rebecca said. “Maybe you just need to crank longer.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not even trying. Something’s still wrong. It wouldn’t even try to start.”

  His voice was his own again, softer and younger. Arlen blew out some smoke and said, “You did more than I thought you could just getting it put back into one piece. Getting it to run is a mighty tall order.”

  Paul didn’t answer, dropped to his knees and picked up a screwdriver and set to work removing the inspection plate again.

  Rebecca said, “You may not be able to get it, Paul. It may just be ruined.”

  “It’s not ruined,” he said, but she’d stopped looking at him and the generator, was instead staring up the road and into the dark trees. She wet her lips.

  “You’ll have to stop soon,” she said. “I need you to be gone by the time the… guests arrive.”

  “Right,” Paul said. “The guests.”

  Her “guests” had arrived in three vehicles that came in succession, like the funeral procession of an unpopular man. The cars pulled in and parked, and their occupants began to pile out. The first was a battered truck, with dents all over the door panels, and the last was the sheriff’s car. Between them was a shining black Plymouth.