The Open Curtain

by Brian Evenson

  The boy gave a strangled cry and gripped his throat and then, as Hooper watched, he began to change, his body stretching in every direction until he was fully a man.

  “Lael?” said Hooper.

  “Elling,” said the man, still holding his throat, his voice rasping.

  Yes it was Elling, thought Hooper. But how was that possible? “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Where do you come from?”

  “You’ve gone too far,” said Elling. “Can’t you see this is just a game?”

  “A game?”

  Elling nodded. “Pay the boy and get on with it,” he said.

  “Why?” said Hooper.

  “And,” said Elling, ignoring him, “you forgot to mail the note.”

  “The note?”

  “Jesus,” said Elling, “don’t you remember anything? ‘Search in vain; have killed myself’ Does that ring a bell?”

  Hooper shook his head. “I don’t have any paper,” he said.

  “Ask the boy,” said Elling, still rubbing his throat, which, Hooper saw, was now smeared with blood.

  “What boy?” Hooper asked. He reached down and touched his own throat and brought his hand away to find it bloody as well.

  “Brothers always,” he heard Elling say. But when he looked up, Elling was nowhere to be seen, in his place a small boy holding out his palm.

  He shook his head to clear it, then reached into his pocket and absently removed a coin, pressed it into the boy’s hand. Then he started past.

  The boy stopped him. “There’s something you’re forgetting,” he said.

  “Forgetting?” said Hooper.

  “Something you wanted to ask me.”

  “There is?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “It must not have been very important,” said Hooper, and brushed past.

  But there was a larger hand on his shoulder and when he turned he saw not the boy, but a pale-eyed man, hawk-like and older.

  “Lael?” he said.

  “Elling, goddammit! Can’t you keep something straight in your head for three goddam seconds? No wonder you have problems!”

  “Problems?”

  “Problems, yes, problems!” Elling slapped him hard in the face. “All right,” he said. “I’ll write the note,” he said. He took out a pencil and a square of paper, a tiny envelope such as those made for visiting cards.

  “Search in vain,” he said slowly as he wrote, “have killed myself. H. Young.” The signature, Hooper saw, was his own. “I’ll post it as well,” he said. “I’ll do all the goddam work. Now go,” said Elling. “Board the train and go.”

  Confused, Hooper stumbled off. He looked back over his shoulder and saw Elling having a conversation with himself. Where was he, Hooper, going? Yes, the train.

  He climbed aboard the first train leaving, bought a ticket from the conductor. The latter gave him a long look through his thick spectacles but sold him a ticket and passed on.

  There were two others in the compartment with him. One an older lady who kept her hand always on a carpetbag in the seat beside her, the other a gentleman about his own age, starched collar, well-dressed, who was reading a copy of the Times.

  Young cleared his throat.

  “Where is this train going?” he asked.

  The woman just gripped her bag more tightly. The man moved his paper down slightly, looked at Hooper over the top of a pair of spectacles. The man looked vaguely familiar, Hooper felt. So, for that matter, Hooper realized, did the woman.

  “You don’t know what train you’re on?” asked the man.

  Hooper looked at him. “I believe I might have climbed aboard the wrong train,” he said.

  “Well,” said the man, folding the printed sheets over and laying them in his lap. “What train were you trying to get on?”

  “What train is this?” asked Hooper.

  “Why didn’t you ask the conductor?”

  “I didn’t think to,” said Hooper. “Please, there’s no reason not to be civil.”

  The man picked up the paper again. “Upstate,” he said from behind it. “We’re traveling upstate.”

  “Thank you,” said Hooper. He looked back, stared at the empty seat across from him. Upstate, he thought. He would travel a few more stops, step down once he was a little distance away from the city, and then hide, “tramp it,” as it were, live incognito and by the rough a few weeks until it was safe, until he could think of what to do.

  He closed his eyes and felt the slow rhythm of the train. Yes, he thought, he would hide. He would start his life over. Everything would be all right. He was nearly asleep now, his eyes closed, occasional light from outside passing over his lids. Everything, he told himself, would be all right.

  He heard a sound at a distance, like a bell. What could it be exactly? Like a bell but not a bell. Something was shaking him, had been shaking him, he realized, for quite some time.

  “Hooper,” a voice was whispering. “Hooper!”

  He rubbed his face. He opened his eyes and saw beside him, in the seat that had been occupied by the man with the newspaper, his half-brother, Lael.

  “How did you come here?” Rudd asked.

  “I’m like the Holy Ghost,” said Lael. “I’m always here.”

  He heard the sound again, the pitched vibrations after it. The train seemed to ripple as if underwater, but then kept on in its steady, rocking motion.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “What?” said Lael. “The doorbell,” he said. “But no reason to answer. They’ll be here soon enough.”

  Rudd struggled to get up, fighting against the motion of the train. “I should answer,” he said. “It’s impolite not to.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you do or don’t,” said Lael. “It’s too late.”

  Rudd made his way out of the compartment and into the companion-way. It was louder out there, the motion and movement of the train all around him. He began to make his way toward the front of the train.

  “Time to say good-bye,” said a voice behind him.

  He turned and looked to see Lael, his head poking out of the compartment door.

  “Good-bye?” Rudd asked.

  “You won’t see me again,” said Lael. “At least not for a long while.”

  “But you’re like the Holy Ghost,” said Rudd. “You’re always here.”

  Lael nodded his head. “That’s right,” he said. “But how often do you catch a glimpse of the Holy Ghost?”

  Rudd started to speak but the doorbell rang again and the train shook and was gone, and Lael along with it. He was in a hallway. The hallway of his house, Lyndi’s house. He felt bereft and adrift.

  He went back to where the train compartment had been, where there was now a door. Opening it, he went in. It was a bedroom. On the bed was a girl, hands tied, mouth gagged, eyes closed. Was she dead? He got closer, bent down near her face. No, she was breathing.

  He loosened the gag and pulled it down around her neck. Immediately, she opened her eyes.

  “Rudd,” the girl said, keeping her voice even, looking at him with an unwavering gaze. “Don’t you know who I am?”

  He stopped, nodding. Who was she? She looked familiar, didn’t she?

  “I’m Elling,” she said.

  “Elling?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said, “don’t you remember? You gave me that name, didn’t you? In the temple?”

  In the temple? he wondered. Yes, he thought, the name had been Rachel, but he had changed it, he had pulled a fast one on God.

  “But if you’re Elling, who’s the other one?”

  “The other one,” she said. At first he thought he’d found her out, that she didn’t have an answer. “The other one,” she said finally, “is an imposter.”

  An imposter? But how had it happened? How had he let it happen?

  “Rudd,” she said, this new Elling said. Or was it the old Elling? “Let me go.”

  He looked at her a long time. “All right,”
he finally said.

  Her legs, loosely tied, came quickly free. In fact, he couldn’t understand why she hadn’t gotten free of them on her own. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to kill you.” He started back to work on the knots around her hands. They were very tight, her hands he could see curled and dark, perhaps permanently damaged. What did he feel? He did not know what he felt. No, he felt hemp cord, rough, tightly coiled.

  The doorbell rang again.

  “Hello?” he said. “Just a minute,” he said. The ropes weren’t coming loose. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “Untie me first.”

  “I’ll hurry,” he said. “I just have to answer the door.”

  “But—” she said.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, going out. “I promise.”

  Looking through the peephole he saw the girl’s—Anna’s? no, that wasn’t quite right, what was her name?—aunt, two uniformed officers behind her. He opened the door a little way, peered out around it.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “I demand to see my niece,” said the aunt.

  “She isn’t here,” said Rudd. “I told you that already.”

  One of the officers took a slight step forward. Officer Etting, his tag read. Did he look familiar? Rudd wasn’t quite sure. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but this woman has a suspicion that something untoward has happened to her niece. Would you mind if we came in?”

  “Officer Elling?” asked Rudd.

  “Etting,” the man corrected.

  “She’s not here,” said Rudd again.

  “Where is she, then?” asked the aunt. “Where is she?”

  What was it he had said before? What was wrong with him that he couldn’t remember? He looked behind him for his half-brother, but nobody was there. He was alone.

  “Well?” said the aunt. “Well?”

  “Lael?” he called out.

  “Excuse me?” said the other officer on the porch.

  “If we could just come in a moment and look around,” said Officer Etting. “Just to reassure her.”

  “No,” said Rudd. “Absolutely not.” He started to close the door but the officer already had his foot wedged in to block it.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Officer Etting said soothingly. “Just let us come in, just for a moment, and then we’ll leave you in peace.”

  Rudd looked at him for a long time. Did it matter if they came in? What mattered anymore? He wasn’t sure. “I have too much to do,” he said.

  “We don’t want to have to call for a warrant,” said the one who wasn’t Etting.

  “Who said anything about calling for a warrant?” asked Etting smoothly. “You’re going to let us in, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not,” said Rudd.

  “Sure you are,” said Etting. “You want to cooperate.”

  He tried to force Etting’s shoe out of the door but it wouldn’t go. “Lael?” he called again, but there was no response. He began to grope around for something to help force the shoe out but found nothing; he was in the entrance hall, he had nothing but himself, but then, he realized, there, in his coat pocket—

  He opened the door wide, reaching into his coat pocket at the same time, bringing out a fistful of pepper.

  “There,” said Etting, “that’s more like it.”

  He threw the handful of cayenne pepper into the policeman’s eyes. The man stumbled back, shouting, rubbing his face. Rudd slammed the door shut and bolted it, rushed up the stairs and into the bedroom, closing and locking that door too.

  His heart was beating hard. The girl, he found, had managed to get up off the bed and was on her way, swaying, into the closet. He took her by the arm and pulled her out, pushed her onto the bed and tumbled on top of her, knees straddling her hips. Below, downstairs, he could hear someone pounding on the door and the door beginning to give. They would be through soon, and he was not, he realized, even quite sure what door it was or what place it opened into. There is so much more, he thought: his father’s face at the trial, his temporary cell, the testimony of witnesses, his rabbit’s foot, the rush of the crowd toward him and their attempts to kill him, and then finally his own jail cell and twenty years of peace. But no, he thought, he didn’t have a father, his father was dead, he had no father, that had been the trouble all along. But at very least, someone’s father’s face at a trial, someone’s holding cell, the testimony of blank-faced witnesses, someone’s rabbit’s foot, the rush of a crowd toward someone and their attempts to kill him, and then finally someone’s jail cell and twenty years of peace. But not his. In any case, so much more. But no more time.

  These painful moments of lucidity, an affliction. What can we do but wait for them to pass?

  They were through the door downstairs, and he could hear them going through the house, shouting, making their way in. Where was his half-brother now, now that he needed him? He shouted his names, but there was no response.

  Only me now, he thought. He felt the girl beneath him swallow, her throat shuddering against the web of his thumb. Only me, he thought. And as he did so she faded from beneath him, disappeared. So she had gotten away after all, he thought. But how?

  He stayed there, motionless, his hands still clenched where her neck had been, trying to bring her back. He waited for someone to tell him who to be next.

  AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR

  I was Mormon when I started writing The Open Curtain. By the time I finished it, years later, I had left the Mormon Church of my own volition, first by gradually ceasing to participate in the ceremonies of the Mormon temple, then by tapering back my participation in weekly church services, and finally—finding neither of these to give me sufficient distance from a culture that objected to my first book of fiction on moral grounds—by formally requesting, in 2000, to be excommunicated. The book itself was an integral part of a movement from a position of faith to a position of unbelief, a movement that the book itself charts in a real and palpable way.

  The novel began when I, much like Rudd himself (though I was years older than he at the time), stumbled across an account of William Hooper Young’s early-twentieth-century murder of Anna Pulitzer. I was intrigued by early newspaper speculation that the murder was related to the Mormon practice of Blood Atonement, a doctrine that the Church has actively denied ever existed despite a great deal of (admittedly shadowy) evidence to the contrary.

  Young’s crime reminded me of a ritual murder I hadn’t thought about in a long time: fundamentalist Mormons Ron and Dan Lafferty’s double killing of Ron’s wife and young child in American Fork, a town a few minutes away from where I grew up. The murder had occurred just shy of my eighteenth birthday and somehow became firmly imprinted in my mind as I moved into my college’s dorms and became for the first time semi-independent of my family. At the time, I felt like the Lafferty murders revealed a part of Utah culture I’d never known existed.

  Thinking of these two ritual murders with eighty years between them, both of them committed by Mormons on the fringe of their faith, I began to feel that the undercurrent of violence in Mormon culture really hasn’t changed, that the conditions that made violence well up in earlier Mormon culture are still very much present today. Violence, as Jon Krakauer has suggested in his Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, a book that focuses on the Lafferty murders, has always been a largely suppressed and unacknowledged part of Mormon culture. This notion of the continued relation of violence to Mormonism became the basis for trying to understand Rudd’s obsession with Hooper Young’s crime, as well as the basis for the temporal confusion that takes place later in the novel.

  A few years after the Lafferty murders, the Mormon temple endowment ceremony was changed in significant ways. The most significant changes to my mind involved the deletion of the “penalties,” a portion of the ceremony in which each temple participant mimed out stylized ways of being killed if they were to reveal temple secrets. Many temple-going Mor
mons saw this as a positive step: I tend rather to see it as a further repression of Mormonism’s relation to violence. Changing the ceremony hasn’t changed Mormonism’s underlying violence; it has only hidden it.

  Since the Mormon temple and its ceremonies are so integral to Mormon experience—and are also the most hidden part of Mormon culture, I felt that any book that spoke in any detail about the relationship of Mormon culture to violence needed to acknowledge the connection of the temple ceremony to violence. To do that, I would have to talk, at least a little bit, about the ceremony itself. I have tried to limit my discussion of the ceremony largely to one chapter in the second section of the book, and have tried to signal it in such a way that Mormon readers who hold the temple ceremony sacred will be able to see it coming and will be able to avoid it if they so choose. I’ve tried as well to be as respectful as possible and to focus on portions of the temple ceremony that are no longer practiced. I think this information is essential to non-Mormons who don’t know anything about the ceremony itself, but may also be important for Mormons who came to the temple ceremony after it changed in 1990. I give a great deal less information away, by the way, than one can find in a two-minute search on the internet.

  The newspaper articles are actually from the New York Times and are quoted for the most part verbatim, with ellipses indicated where a portion of the article has been removed. I have in one or two instances made changes in spelling or corrected an error, but every attempt has been made to preserve the accuracy of these articles.

  As the newspaper articles suggest, Young did write a piece called “Sunrise in Hell,” which he published in a newspaper called the Crusader. I tried to find this piece with the help of several different researchers, but though we located other issues of the newspaper we had no success finding the issue in question. I suspect no copy is extant, but would be delighted if I can be proven wrong. The poem that ends the second section is meant not to serve as Hooper Young’s actual work but as Rudd’s attempt to recreate the poem as a kind of Mormon hymn.

  I intend for this to be my last Mormon-themed book, at least as far as fiction is concerned. It is my departure from Mormonism both as a person and as a writer. Mormonism is a culture that nourished me as a person and as a writer growing up; without it I would not be who I am. And yet at the same time I feel remarkably comfortable having left it and am not sorry to be free of it. Or at least as free of it as one can ever be of a culture whose rhythms of speech and ways of thinking one still finds oneself to lapse naturally into years later. I suspect those rhythms are sufficiently burned into my brain that they’ll stay with me until I die. But that relation to language, to me, is the best thing about the culture.