by Sophie Jaff
That is the good part of the dream.
Then he picks up the knife. It’s a normal cake knife, silver, curved, and flat. As he takes it, it turns in his hands as if it were alive. It moves like a small animal; it shifts. He looks down and sees that it’s changed. It’s older and larger. The blade is sharp on both sides. The hilt is curved. It’s rusty with age, almost reddish.
This is the part where he begins to be frightened.
The clapping and cheering grow louder.
Someone calls, “Cut the cake!” Everyone takes up the chant: “Cut the cake! Cut the cake!”
He does not want to cut the cake with this knife. This knife is wrong. Katherine puts her hand over his. Katherine does not notice that the knife has changed, that it is no longer a cake knife, that it is something else. He tries to tell her that it is not the same knife, that there is something wrong. He doesn’t want this rusty, strange knife near their wedding cake.
She shakes her head and smiles at him. Her hand pushes down on his hand that holds the knife. It’s not a cake knife. It’s a dagger.
She smiles tenderly but she is very strong. He is being forced to cut the cake with the dagger. He tries to move away and he looks up at his guests to ask for help and then he sees—
The woman.
The woman stands at the entrance. Long dark hair falls heavy and spreads across her shoulders. Her skin is pale and waxy. She wears a long-sleeved green dress. The dress seems worn and patched and white with mold in parts, but no, It can’t be mold, he thinks. He peers, trying to see more, but she stands well apart from the crowd. She does not chant or clap or cheer or laugh. She looks at him, as he remembers she always looked at him. Her eyes are hollowed shadows. She smiles.
“Cut the cake! Cut the cake!”
He looks down again and sees that the knife is hovering over the large white cake.
He tries to cry out, No! Because that knife shouldn’t touch their cake, their future, their happiness.
But in the dream he cannot stop. In the dream they plunge the knife into the cake.
Dark liquid oozes out on each side of the knife. Dark red liquid pools on the plate.
He looks up and the guests are gone. There’s no one except David and Katherine, now sitting at the back of the tent.
They both look at him and start to clap and cheer. He smiles at them but then he sees her, the woman with the long dark hair, moving toward them from the side. She’s holding out a plate. On the plate is a piece of the bloody cake. Katherine and David cannot see but behind her back she holds a dagger with a large and ornate handle. She shuffles slowly toward them, her hair obscuring her face.
No! He tries to scream, but no sound comes out. He tries to run but the air has thickened and turned to taffy. The woman is at their table and both David and Katherine are looking up and she bends down to speak with them and she is offering a slice and David holds out his plate and says—
Stop, he tries to howl. Stop!
David holds out his plate and says, “Please.”
And the woman takes the knife from behind her back and holds it high above her head and as the knife swings down Katherine doesn’t look at the woman or at David but twists her head to look at Sael. She grins and her grin is a bloody smear of red.
And then he wakes up, drenched in sweat, his heart pounding. He lies awake. Lies staring up at the ceiling as the white noise machine says shhh. He can see the ceiling because of the crack of light that comes from the bathroom. He can’t sleep in total darkness anymore. He lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Maybe he’ll switch on the TV. Maybe in a moment he’ll get up, take a piss. Maybe he’ll go to the kitchen, open the fridge, close the fridge again. Maybe he’ll think about having a beer. Maybe he’ll pour himself another glass of water. Maybe he’ll surf the web, maybe he’ll do some work. He might do any of these things. He lies awake, stares at the ceiling.
“What does it mean?” he asked a therapist, back when he thought therapy might help him.
What do you think it means?
But Sael doesn’t want to talk about what it means; he just wants the dream to stop. Therapy doesn’t seem to be helping. In the bathroom cupboard there’s a small bottle filled with pills. There are prescriptions for Ambien and for Xanax and for Clonazepam. He might go and take one. Once he has the dream sometimes he can sleep afterward, with a little help. Maybe he’ll take one. He doesn’t.
He lies awake.
God knows how many of the sleeping tablets she had given him. You could have killed me—you know that, right? Or maybe that was the plan. He was out of it but he still hears that scream that ripped him up, and still dazed and blinking he saw—
It was self-defense; he was about to kill us.
—her stabbing David full in the chest as he stood before her with open arms. David, eyes rolled up to the skies, falling back through the rails, already a broken thing.
Sael, please believe me.
But how can he believe anything she says ever again?
So David told you that I was—
Yes.
And you believed him?
Yes.
Why, Katherine? Why?
I don’t know, I don’t know! I guess the time you cut off my underwear, or you came to my window—
And that makes me a serial killer—
I was scared! And he told me that lie about Sara.
I told you about her already. I was honest with you—
I was scared shitless. I didn’t know—
The irony will kill him. He who betrayed David has now been betrayed. David, the one who brought them together, will be the one who will ultimately and forever keep them apart.
So you thought I was—
It’s not like that—
You thought I was a serial killer.
. . .
You thought I had killed Sara and all those other women.
Sael, I—
You thought I was going to kill you.
. . .
Answer me, goddamn you!
Yes.
It’s everywhere. Their faces, the story, but not the real story, any version they can get, any rumor they can find. A viral disease, a rash of opinion, speculation; splashed out, debated, discussed, argued, agreed, theorized, and marveled at. He hardly goes out in public these days. When he has to, he wears sunglasses and a hat. It doesn’t help.
The Sickle Man, responsible for the deaths of twelve known victims, a monster that terrified a city, was pronounced dead on—
People look at him differently. It’s not just the police, the incredulous, disbelieving detectives who are suspicious of his motives. You never had a suspicion, never talked about it? Come on. You were sleeping through the attack? For how long?
Even close friends no longer seem close, as if he should have known something. Did he know something? Why didn’t he know something? Why? Perhaps he was in on it. You were always so close. Perhaps he knew deep down that there’s a cover-up—there always is. Why didn’t he know or say or do something about the man he knew as his best friend, about David, who was squeamish when it came to putting jars over spiders, roaches, refusing to use traps for the mice that overran the dorms?
But they’re so cute! We can tame them, train them to bring us beer, sing in an a cappella group.
The experts call them trophies, the things they found in David’s apartment. Not just the journals and the notes and all the rest, not the underwear, but things like the book, the figurine, the hair clip, and the lipstick. It’s the mundane and trivial. There’s an earring and a shoe, a toothbrush, a photo, some fish food.
David calling him, or concerned over beers: “Sael, man, I’m worried about you, talk to me. What’s going on?”
There were many, many objects, each a tribute to the girl he had slaughtered.
Sael, Sael! Give us a comment! What do you have to say? Sael! Would you be prepared to do an interview? A story? Sael, we’d love to know what really happened, we want to kn
ow, we need to hear your side of it.
“Not David,” he said to the police, to the detectives, to anyone who would listen. “Not David, he couldn’t have been.” There’s been a mistake, a terrible mistake, but the letter and what tiny shreds of evidence remained were all saying yes, yes, yes, he was.
Hi, do you know where Cooper Hall is? I’m totally lost.
No problem, I’m going that way myself.
Thanks.
I’m Sael.
I’m David, nice to meet you.
Our hearts go out to those who were involved in this tragedy and to their families and friends.
Want to grab a drink after class?
Sure.
Katherine Emerson, age thirty-four, is the sole survivor of the Sickle Man’s brutal attacks.
This brave and courageous young woman fought to defend not only herself but also her boyfr—
He had run, groggy and stumbling, down the steps to where David lay. He had screamed at her when she tried to come close. Bloody and dirty like some cliché from a horror movie. Screamed and screamed and sobbed and the words he eventually said were lost in the sirens’ howl heard from far away in the country night. They had had to give him a tranquilizer. His voice was hoarse from screaming.
You crazy bitch, you psycho, you killed him, you killed him, you killed him!
It’s been one month, two weeks, and four days since he last saw her.
I love you, Sael, please don’t do this.
Maybe he’ll get up, put on some running clothes, go for a run.
Sael, I’m begging you. Please, please let’s get through this together.
He can run along the river. Not many people around. They won’t bother him.
Sael, I need you.
He’ll run and he’ll run and he’ll run until the thoughts are squeezed from his mind and only the path lies before him; he’ll run until all he will hear is the pounding of his heart and all he will feel is the heave in his chest for air, in and out, in and out, driving him on and on and on.
Sael, you said you loved me. I thought you loved me. I thought you wanted to marry me.
He’ll run until he can no longer think of anything or anyone, until there is nothing but him running.
The thing is, Katherine, I thought I did too.
In a moment he’ll get up, but for now he lies awake.
31
We sit on a park bench and watch the people go by. Some teenagers sit on the grass, all denim and laughter; there is the inevitable guitar but nothing too terrible. For once the Hare Krishnas aren’t singing. There are pigeons fighting over half a roll. People stroll. A girl and a guy take pictures with old-fashioned cameras. I turn to my companion.
“How are you holding up, frozen-yogurt-wise?”
His solemn brown eyes regard me for a moment, and then he goes back to meticulously licking round and round the side of his cone to make it even and not drip. He nods.
“It’s good?”
“It’s good.”
“Good.” I close my eyes for just a moment, lean back, allow myself to listen to the city around us.
A breeze blows, scuttling the twigs, a paper cup; somewhere a small dog barks; cars honk but sound almost amiable. It’s easy to believe in the world at the tail end of a Sunday afternoon while eating frozen yogurt. I open my eyes as a young couple, midtwenties, walk by hand in hand, talking, laughing.
Instinctively I put my hand up and feel the faintest presence underneath my shirt, where it still hangs. Katherine, will you wear this, now and forever?
“Kat?”
“Yes, hon?” I sit up, look at him. “What’s up?”
“Want a taste?” He proffers his cone.
I know what this means. When I was four years old ice cream was sacred, not to be shared with anyone, or hardly anyone. I must have looked really sad just then.
“Thank you so much!” I take a tiny taste. Still, the amount of sugar is enough to light up a city. “Wow! That’s sweet.”
“Want another one?”
“I’m okay. Thanks, love.”
I yawn. It’s been a long day. I was up at seven and on the train. Reading the Sunday paper I saw my story slip to page sixteen. Again I gave silent thanks for the governor who had come so chivalrously into my life to take the brunt of the media.
Thank you, Governor, for your insatiable appetites, for your penchant for underage girls, for your taste in leather whips, diapers, and cocaine. While I feel terrible for your wife and family, I promise that I will vote for you in the next election. If you’re kicked out I’ll send you a fruit basket, something to say thank you.
It is Sunday and the train is on its off-peak schedule, so there was time to go over the documents again, to make sure I’ve signed all the places I needed to sign. The pages sent by the lawyers, and the New York State Office of Children and Family Services and the courts and the IRS all working it out so Katherine Anne Emerson can become the legal guardian of Lucas Theodore Bowers.
Most single women should take out a life insurance policy, but many don’t. I never did. However, nonsmoking, in excellent health and her early thirties, single working mother Andrea Bowers did.
I could have told them, though, that Andrea was always careful, always meticulous when it came to her financial life. Always paid the rent on time, split the utilities, paid her taxes early, saved and was frugal, not cheap, but man, she was careful.
And in this case Lucas will be well provided for.
There is a stipulation that a large portion of the insurance payout must be put away for college, which I am happy with, and the rest is left to the legal guardian’s discretion, which turns out to be mine.
In just three weeks the system has become all speed and efficiency; after all it’s for the good of the child and honoring the final wishes of the parent. It probably has nothing to do with the fact that when the attractive young woman who defended herself against the infamous killer known as the Sickle Man, and who became the city’s and America’s and most likely the world’s darling, was prevented from being able to care for her murdered friend’s adorable orphaned child, she threatened to become vocal on talk shows and in the media, and perhaps she did have the potential to make things extremely uncomfortable for everyone involved.
Take care of him, Katherine.
Or maybe it is for the good of the child.
Regardless I was there, ringing the doorbell of this tired-looking suburban house, and I heard him running with a cry of:
“Kat!”
He was finally in my arms and squeezing me tight and tight around the neck.
“Kat! Kat!”
Andrea, I will.
On the ride back we were silent, looking out of the window, lulled by the motion of the train, by the station names receding. It seems somehow that we both want distance between that place and us until we know that we’ve truly escaped, until we are ready to speak.
And there is so much to talk about and so much to do that I am completely overwhelmed. That’s why we’re eating frozen yogurt in the park. First things first, one step at a time.
Now, as Lucas concentrates on licking the sides of his cone, I can ask. “So what happened to Mrs. Kaskow? She seemed . . . kind of strange when we said good-bye.”
She had been more than that; white-faced, tight-lipped. His bag had been packed, standing ready at the door. “Good-bye, have a good journey,” then closing the door fast, clicking the lock.
“She scared. She scared of me when I told her those things.” He is matter-of-fact, just stating a truth.
The police were reluctant to tell us, but we eventually we found out.
Mrs. Kaskow was the anonymous tipster who informed first the New York detectives and then the local sheriff’s department in Vermont. “She must really care about you,” said one cop, shaking his head. “She was determined that we send somebody out here.” Sael had nodded, grim-faced, but I knew who was really behind it.
Now I have to ask. “What
things?”
“Momma and this other girl came.”
“Girl, not a lady?”
“No, she was teenager, she had metal bracelets on her teeth.” He bares his teeth at me.
“Braces? Okay, go on.”
“And they say that I needed to wake her and tell her to call the police to tell them to go find you.”
He had stood at the side of her bed. The cabin address had been scrawled in a childish crayoned hand.
“What did she say?”
“She was real mad. She told me to go back to bed if I didn’t want a spanking.”
“What did you do?”
“They said that if she said no, I had to tell her that her sister Mindy said, ‘Remember the summer with Uncle Nicky and the pool.’”
What the hell does that mean? “What did she do?”
“She turned on the light and look at me and she got very scared like she seen a monster and shaking and she said, ‘It’s a joke, how do you know that, you can’t know that, no one knows about that, you can’t know that, why are you doing this to me?’
“Then I told her that Mindy say, ‘Tell Lalabelle that a promise is a promise. Tell her I say she has to call.’”
So Cheryl Kaskow was a Lalabelle once. “And she called?”
But now Lucas can’t stop; the words tumble out. “Kat, she was crying and crying, she told me to go to bed and called me a bad name.” He looks down.
“You felt bad?”
He nods. “She say I was a freak. She screamed at me to get out of her room. ‘Get out of here, you freak.’” He looks up. “Why did she say those things? Why was she so mad with me?”
You killed him, you bitch, you fucking bitch, you killed him, you killed him, you fucking psycho bitch, you killed—
“Oh, honey, you’re not a freak. I’m sorry she called you that. She was just a little scared. Sometimes we sound mad and say mean things, but we’re not, we’re just scared.”
You psycho, you fucking stabbed him, you stabbed him, why, you bitch, you crazy bitch—
