The Retreat

by David Bergen

  The next day, the Doctor called Lizzy into his den. It was after breakfast and she was passing by as he stood on the porch, looking beyond her or perhaps right at her. She did not meet his gaze, and he called her name and then called it again, and when she finally looked up he nodded and said he would like to talk. She hesitated, and then said that there was nothing to talk about. He disagreed. He said that he might be of some help. He knew Raymond, he knew Constable Thibault, and perhaps he could help her. She went up the stairs and stood in his doorway and then entered the coolness of his private room. He closed the door behind him and asked her to sit. She said she would stand; what did he want to say? He sat in his chair and swivelled so that he faced her and he placed his hands in the form of a tent beneath his chin and he said that Constable Thibault had come to visit him. She had concerns. About Lizzy’s story, about Lizzy’s involvement with Raymond. “If there is something criminal, we must address it,” he said.

  “Only thing criminal is the police holding Raymond,” she said.

  The Doctor smiled. “That boy is not for you, Lizzy. You are better than him. You are like a cipher. And this interests me. Perhaps you are more like your mother than you would wish to believe. Both of you are clearly beautiful, but inside there is something veiled and impenetrable.”

  “I am not my mother.”

  He laughed. “Of course you are. And why wouldn’t you want to be? She is an attractive, smart woman.”

  “I don’t think we should be talking about my mother.”

  The Doctor said the word chaos, and then he repeated it. He said that chaos was necessary because it was the gateway to change. “Funny thing, about chaos, how it arrives un-announced, the result of an assassination, a judge gone wild, a minor insult, someone pissing on someone else’s property. Little spark and, poof, you’ve got a maelstrom. This indefinable something, so trifling that we cannot recognize it, upsets the whole earth, princes, armies, the entire world. Pascal. If Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have been different. We’re talking about love, but love, vanity, lust, they alter the shape of the earth. You watch. That occupation at the park, this wild nighttime stabbing of Hart, your imagined love of an outlaw, will change something. Maybe it already has. You, for example. Is he guilty?”

  “No. He is not guilty.” She was quick to respond, as if she had been holding her breath and waiting for the clarity of the question to appear out of the mist of nonsense. Yet, even as she said this, she saw Raymond’s boots swinging out and Hart falling back onto the road. She pulled in a quick breath and looked right at the Doctor. “And you,” she said. “You pretend to like Raymond, you invite him to dinner, and then suddenly, like everybody else, you turn on him.”

  The Doctor smiled wistfully. He said that she was at an age where everything was black and white. Right and wrong. There was no middle space where she could sort out the world. Some day she would see things differently, but for now he understood her quandary.

  Lizzy wondered if he was jealous. Of her. Of her and Raymond. She moved towards the doorway and said that he knew nothing about her. That he knew nothing about Raymond. Then she turned and left.

  Everett took a wool blanket and fashioned holes at the end of it and looped strings through the holes and tied the strings to empty tuna tins. He dragged the blanket through the scat that had been dropped by the deer near the cabin stairs and then he draped the blanket over his shoulders so that it resembled a cape. He wheeled the camp’s only bicycle up the road to the main highway and set off. In a satchel he carried a few tomato sandwiches and some cookies and a sealer jar filled with fresh water and there were matches and a chocolate bar. To any onlooker, he would have appeared as a vagabond, or a wastrel from medieval times, a fender off of disease and pestilence, or the portent of pestilence itself arriving in a great clatter. He had read, in one of the books from the Doctor’s library, about escape and avoiding detection. A book written by a former marine who had a great fondness for possible invasions by marauding armies. Packs of dogs might be set upon him, and he would avoid detection. The empty tuna tins were to cover his scent. The scat as well. Watery trails were advised. Or fast-flowing rivers. There were no rivers but there was a ditch, almost dry, that sprouted cattails and reeds the height of his shoulders. He parked the bike in the bush and walked barefoot through the ditch, carrying his runners. The sun was warm on his face. He came up out of the ditch and sat and dried his feet with a corner of the blanket and put on his runners. He walked up through the bush and stood at the crest of the rock that looked down upon the dump. Gulls rose and fell with a clamour. The bulldozer sat like a large sleeping animal, blade pressed into the ground. He descended, the cape strung out behind him, the tuna tins banging against the rock.

  He had dreamed, the night before, of his mother. She had come to him wearing only a T-shirt and he could see her bare bottom and he had woken with an erection and a panicky sense of his own demise. Staring up into the darkness he had imagined Nelson running, running. He was calling for help. At supper, he’d overheard his father saying that the police believed Nelson had not gone far. That he was hiding in the bush, or that he might be injured or have fallen. “Must be terrified,” his father had said.

  There had been beets on Everett’s plate and they bled into the spaghetti. Their juice pooled and he could not eat them. His father talked about the dogs and the manhunt as if it were a story that was taking place at a distance. Everett had watched Lizzy’s face, trying to find there some signal, but Lizzy looked blank. And then at night, just after the dream about his mother, he remembered the small cave that Nelson had pointed out to him and he had been certain that this was where Nelson was hiding. In the morning, before anyone else had risen, he crept from the cabin and gathered together the necessities of survival.

  They had shot two raccoons and several rats that day Nelson had taken him to the dump. They had walked the perimeter of the fence, Nelson ahead of Everett, his shoulders pushed forward, his step easy, and Everett had attempted to imitate his rolling gait. And then the lair, or a den of a small animal, the opening covered with branches and leaves. Nelson had squeezed in, up to his waist, and then he reappeared and told Everett to have a look. “A hidey-hole,” he’d said, and laughed.

  Everett, fearful, had turned away.

  And this was the place he was looking for now, because of course this was exactly where Nelson would go. But Everett could not remember the location and so he clattered up and down the length of fence, the cape catching in the bush and pulling at his neck and shoulders. Nothing resembled anything. He sat high up on the rocks and ate one of the tomato sandwiches and the cookies and he drank some water from the sealer jar. The jar smelled of rubber and the water was warm. The blanket was itchy and so he removed it and laid it at his feet.

  A vehicle appeared below; a car pulling a trailer that was piled high with junk. A man got out of the car and removed the lock on the gate and swung the gate open and then climbed back into his car and drove down into the dump. The man backed the trailer up and got out of the car and this time he left his car door open. The radio was on in the car and the music floated up to where Everett sat. He watched the man off-load the junk and then get in the car and drive away. Another vehicle arrived, this time an old pickup with a wood-slatted box. A young boy climbed up into the box and pushed a stove off into the dump. It fell with a rattle and turned over once, teetered, and then rolled down into the hole at the centre of the dump.

  A cat appeared out of the bottom of the dump, scrambling away from the falling stove. It looked like Bull. All black. The boy scrambled into the cab of his pickup and reemerged holding a rifle. He bolted a shell into the chamber, raised the rifle, and fired. The cracking sound fell upwards and the cat jumped sideways, ran in a circle, and fled through a hole under the fence. Everett stood and watched Bull disappear into the trees. Down below, the boy called out, “Hey.” He was looking up at Everett, holding his hand like a visor to his for
ehead.

  Everett lifted his hand and then lowered it. The boy watched him, then shouted, “Goddamn cat, eh?” and he waved and climbed into his pickup and drove off.

  When he was gone, Everett retrieved his cape and climbed down to the spot where Bull had disappeared. For an hour he walked the area, calling out sweetly for Bull to come. “Here, Bull,” he said, and at some point he began to call Nelson’s name, softly at first and then more loudly. Down below, at the dump, vehicles came and went. When they arrived, Everett hid in the bush, and when they were gone, he resumed his search, but it had become a half-hearted search now. The existence of Bull had at first invigorated Everett, but then his enthusiasm had faded. As the day slipped away, he grew tired.

  He climbed over the hill and lay down on the rock in the last of the afternoon sun. He resolved that he would go home and return the next day. He rose and gathered his things. As he descended the hill his foot caught on something and he stumbled and almost fell. He looked down at the opening that Nelson had shown him. He regarded it, then he said Nelson’s name. It came out a whisper. He said Nelson’s name again. He went down on his hands and knees and called into the opening. The smell of earth and grass. The opening was larger than he had remembered. He said, “Nelson, it’s me, Everett. Are you there? Are you hurt? Can you hear me?”

  There was no answer, just the sound of the wind coming up the hill from the dump. The air was cooler now. Everett studied the dirt and grass around the opening, hoping to find evidence of Nelson, but any evidence was in short supply. He pondered the possibilities. Perhaps Nelson had left his cat here at the dump and he had run off. Perhaps the cat had escaped from the cabin and come all the way here.

  Everett knew he should put his head inside the hole, but he did not. Finally, he took the rest of the tomato sandwiches and the sealer jar of water and the chocolate bar from his bag. He laid these things at the opening, then pushed at them slightly so they disappeared into the darkness. He stood and he gathered up his satchel and cape and he set off down the hill. It was only when he had found his bike in the bush and wheeled it up onto the gravel road that he turned to look back, but by then it was dusk and the shapes of things were hard to make out. Everything, the sky and the land and the trees, had become one.

  Late that night, in the Hall, Lewis found Margaret holding and rocking Billy. He had come in to make a cup of coffee and she’d been sitting by the fireplace, singing softly. The scene was incongruous because Billy was such a large boy. Lewis paused, and then Margaret spoke. “It’s me,” she said, and Lewis came forward out of the shadows and said, “I know.”

  “He couldn’t sleep,” Margaret said. “And I enjoy the fire.” She motioned at a chair for him to sit.

  He said he wanted coffee, would she like some? She shook her head. He went into the kitchen and put the water on to boil and he measured some coffee into a filter. When he returned Margaret had laid Billy down on a blanket at her feet. Lewis sat across from her. A candle flickered on the table.

  Lewis said that that morning, when the police arrived with the dogs, he’d suddenly seen that Lizzy was involved in some kind of trouble. He couldn’t sleep, because, if he did, something more calamitous might take place. “I haven’t kept track of my children.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Margaret said. “You’re doing the best you can.”

  Lewis smiled at this sentiment, which was so wrong-headed and clichéd. He shook his head and said, “Funny thing, they didn’t use dogs when Fish got lost. I’m guessing a policeman who gets knifed by an Ojibway teenager is more important than a four-year-old boy.”

  Margaret said that nothing was more important than Fish. He should know that. “You do such a good job with your children. I marvel. You know that I wanted more children, but Amos didn’t.” She said that she’d always wanted a daughter. She’d imagined sitting like this late at night and talking to her girl, talking about things that boys had no interest in. “I look at you, Lewis, and I get envious, all those babies, all those bodies to push up against.” She lifted her hands to her head and pushed her fingers through her short hair, which she’d cut the day before, chopped it off so all that was left were shaggy tufts. Her long, slender neck was more pronounced, and she wore a necklace of black leather from which a silver cross hung. She leaned forward and said that Amos was too fond of himself. He didn’t have room for more children. Her voice slipped to a whisper and she said that Amos liked to sit in her lap like a child sometimes, at night, when they were alone.

  Her large hands were on her thighs, spread out. She said, “Oh my,” and she sat back. “I know you won’t tell anybody this.” She shook her head. “Even if you did tell someone, they wouldn’t believe you.”

  “Who would I tell?” he said. He was amazed by this confession. When he compared Margaret to Norma, he imagined that he had chosen badly. He told Margaret this.

  She laughed. “So, you’re saying you’d marry me if you had the chance.”

  “Maybe something like that. You aren’t greedy.”

  “Aren’t I?” She was quiet. Then she asked if he had something to tell her as well. She said that she was a great repository for men’s desires. For their sadness, their stories. She said she’d have gotten rich as a prostitute. “Do you have something to share with me?”

  Lewis said no, he had nothing. And as he admitted this he felt embarrassed in some way, as if to not have some secret to share with Margaret was an admission that he was a failure.

  Billy shuddered at her feet like a large dog suffering night dreams. She asked if he was lonely and he said that he might be, but that wasn’t the worst thing, was it? He said that he had tried to call Norma in Chicago, earlier that day, to let her know what was going on with Lizzy and Raymond, but there had been no answer at her sister’s house. “She would want to know about all this,” he said. His voice did not match the certainty of his words. Then he said that Norma had written the day before. She wasn’t coming back to the Retreat after all. He still hadn’t told the children.

  Margaret said, “Oh, Lewis,” and then she asked him if he wanted her to hold him. She could do that for him, no kissing or anything, she would just hold him. He could put his head against her chest.

  He shook his head. He said that he was worried about the children. He wanted to check on them. She nodded as he stood, she did not appear to be hurt by his choice. As he turned to leave, she seemed to have descended into another place, as if she had already dismissed him.

  He walked through the clearing and stopped at the children’s cabin. He went inside and just stood and listened for a moment, then went over to William. He was breathing evenly. Everett was the restless child, sheet twisted around his knees. His legs were dark with hair. Lewis had not noticed until this moment that Everett had become a little man. He listened to him breathe. Slow and easy. All was well. Lewis experienced a tug of relief, a buoyancy that didn’t arrive just because his boys were sleeping peacefully, but in recognition that he had said no to Margaret, that unlike the Doctor he did not need to sit in her lap. He walked over to Lizzy’s bed. A double bed that dipped in the middle so that she appeared to be sinking. He leaned forward.

  “Dad. What you doing?”

  “You’re awake.”

  “Hnn-hmmm.” She rolled over so that she was on her back. In the dimness he saw her hair falling across the pillow. “Why are you snooping?”

  “Just checking,” Lewis said. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Dad.”

  He stood outside on the stairs for the longest time. He looked out onto the clearing and the thicket of trees beyond. A soft wind pushed against his face and his bare arms and brought with it the smell of rain. He stood like a sentry, as if some higher order had demanded that he defend this entrance. Only when it began to rain, lightly at first and then with an increasing intensity that turned into a downpour, did he step down into the clearing and make his way to his own bed.

  On the second day, Everett brought
bananas and a Coke and a carrot muffin that the Doctor’s wife had made. He left his bike on the rocks and climbed up above the dump and approached the opening to the cave with seeming recklessness, and with the certainty of someone who wanted not to appear afraid, though he was still, and would remain fearful of what could not be verified. The food he’d left for Nelson was gone: the tomato sandwiches and the chocolate bar. A torn wrapper remained, and the sealer jar was still unopened. He spoke into the hole and said that he had come back. He asked Nelson to talk. “I know you’re there,” he said. “You ate the food I brought. I don’t know if you are sick or well, or if you need me to bring you medicine. I cannot come inside, so please come out. I am alone. There are no police. I haven’t told anyone about this place. If you don’t want to talk, or you can’t talk, leave me some sign that it is you. I’ll come back tomorrow, and if it is you, leave one banana untouched. Then I’ll know.” He paused, looked around him as if there were possible humiliation in being observed speaking into a hole. He sat and waited for a sign of Bull, or the magical appearance of Nelson. The dump was closed for the day; an eerie quiet hung over the area. Fires burned in several spots. There was no wind and the smoke rose directly into the sky and it seemed contrary, as if the plumes of smoke were threads dropped from the sky.

  Everett rode home in the late afternoon with aching legs, tired and hungry. A police car passed him going the other way, and then another. He stood at the side of the road and watched the cruisers disappear over the hill. He imagined a man trapped in a tree with dogs baying at his feet.