Out of the Shadows (Nick Barrett Charleston series)

by Sigmund Brouwer

  The fishermen were out this morning too; the only difference that time had given was that the rods were made of nylon and graphite instead of bamboo, and the buckets at the feet of their stools were plastic.

  I nodded as I passed them. Some returned my nod; others did not. Regardless of the changes in the world outside of Charleston, here the class differences were still punctuated clearly by color of skin.

  I walked slowly along Murray Boulevard with these thoughts. Even so, I reached the address early and chose to stand at the seawall and stare at the water for ten minutes rather than knock on the door before my appointed time.

  Brown pelicans, majestic in their massive ugliness, silently passed overhead. It seemed I was a boy again, staring and wondering what unknown destination called them with such certainty.

  **

  Once, during my travels, I spent an entire day seated in front of a rock wall in the Tassili N’ Ajjer mountains of Algeria, simply staring at a rock face carved with figures of cattle. During those years, deserts drew me, for the night air tends to be clear and cloudless, perfect for viewing through a telescope.

  I’d arrived by camel and guide, mesmerized on the journey by the endless dunes of the northern Sahara, broken only by desolate outcroppings of rock. Our world was a world of rippled tan and brown, framed by the clear edge of distant hills that shimmered against a pale blue sky and the glare of the constant brutal sun.

  Except for the wheezing of camels and the occasional grunt of the guide, it was a world of heat and silence. In fact, at one point during the journey, I asked the guide to go ahead with our camels, leaving me alone in the immense silence of the desert.

  For the first time in my life, I heard no sound. It was eerie, away from the comfort of the noises that break even the stillest of nights in the company of other humans.

  After ten minutes of glaring sun, I began to wish for wind so that I could hear the rattle of sand grains. After twenty minutes, I began to wonder about my own existence, for without sound to confirm reality, it was too easy for my mind to wander into strange caves.

  At that realization, I began to whistle. Partly to create sound where there was none and partly to comfort myself. For in this silence and desolation, I was as alone as a man could be. I did not know my guide well. My telescope was in its case, and all of my other possessions and money were on the camel with him. For all I knew, he had not stopped over the next hill as I had requested but had fled at no risk to himself, abandoning me where my long undiscovered body would eventually dry to parchment.

  He did return, of course, and took me farther into the cliffs of the dry mountains to show what I had been promised.

  I was there, as always in my travels, to view the night skies away from the pollution of the light of civilization, and I was there to view in daylight ancient rock art of which I had heard much about in Morocco. But more truly, I was there for the reason I had spent the previous years in travel.

  Escape, under the guise of seeing the world.

  I did not want to merely find work somewhere and begin the life of a mortgage and car payments. I wanted to be a learned, sophisticated eclectic Renaissance man; I wanted a certain nobleness to my pain. I had the luxury of a monthly stipend, and careful budgeting let me wander wherever I desired, for as long as I wanted.

  Unencumbered by a relationship or family ties, the only disadvantage I faced during all my travels was my artificial limb. To accommodate the physical restrictions imposed on me, I carried little luggage and kept my walking to a minimum. Yet the dangers and difficulties of traveling alone in strange countries as an incomplete man were more than balanced by the apathy I bore because of the events that had taken my leg from me. I had myself convinced that I cared little if fate would take away my life, a suitably melodramatic illusion for a suitably melodramatic wanderer. The carelessness of this attitude took away most of my fear; the romance of the melodrama added vibrancy and color to the dullest and grungiest of bars or cafés, for all that mattered was that I was in an exotic location away from Charleston and the pain of lost love. Self-pity, after all, mixes well with bitter coffee, stale pastries, and indifferent service in a foreign language.

  On this journey, at different stops over a period of ten days, I was to see a procession of giraffes across a cliff face, engraved into the rock some six to seven feet tall, their sense of movement given by a long-dead artist utterly uncanny. On a sandstone wall, I saw the lone figure of an archer painted with pigments, only nine inches tall but with such detail I could make out the string of the bow and muscles of the archer’s legs. I saw a life-size crocodile etched into a giant, cracking boulder, the two-inch-deep grooves still triumphant over wind and sand after millennia of exposure.

  Eight thousand years earlier, this desert had been a great grassland—the crocodile serving as evidence that those who peopled it lived in a wetter climate—until the rains stopped and the land began to shrivel. Where dunes now rippled in isolation, there had been rivers and shallow lakes and green grass to support cattle and nomads. The people had vanished like the rivers and had left behind the stories painted and engraved into the rock.

  My favorite of the primitive art scenes was the cattle, which seemed to emerge from the rock face at my approach. The surface that this artist had chosen caught the sun’s rays perfectly. I watched all day because I had little else to do and it had taken so long to arrive. I watched all day because as the sun moved, so did the shadows across the rock face, giving the illusion of depth and motion to the long-horned cattle.

  It was in this quiet that, had I been so inclined, I might have felt the tugging of God’s call to my soul.

  Only now, looking back, can I understand the mixture of vague unease and peace that filled me to behold this timeless art.

  The unknown artist, I believe, had been seeking immortality. For we are the only species that face the curse of knowing that someday death will steal from us everything we have earned in love and in knowledge.

  In the sun that day, watching the shadows and desert spiders move, I did feel the blackness of the futility of human existence. Instead of embracing this futility as evidence of the soul within me, I chose then to concentrate on the sun and shadow as a way to deny my loneliness and yearning.

  Now, in argument for the existence of the soul, I begin with the observation that to be human means to be alone. However great the love I might find, I cannot merge my being into the being of the other. I will die alone—many may be gathered as I draw my last breath, yet in drawing that last breath, I will be a solitary and tiny figure on that journey through the curtain to whatever lies beyond this life.

  As a human, too, I yearn. It is a feeling impossible to define well. I remember once stepping out of a theater in Charleston on a warm summer night, filled with the emotions of a sad movie, holding Claire’s hand. Above us was a clear dark night and the brightness of the stars, a backdrop of vastness against the emotions in my heart, and something unknown in me responded to this like a harp string plucked by an invisible hand. I yearned with a homesickness to be somewhere else, an unknown place as difficult to define as the yearning itself.

  As a human, too, I dream. I laugh. I cry.

  There are those who believe that because the soul cannot be measured or seen or found through experiment, then the human body is merely a complicated package of protein that exists without a soul.

  Then, at that rock, in front of the engraved cattle by a long-dead artist, I was among those who would deny the soul exists. I was unwilling to let that artist reach across time and speak to me of his longings and his loves and his hates and his fears. I was unwilling to let that artist reach to me from beyond his death to speak to me of his own soul.

  Now I understand all that makes us human—courage in the face of death, loneliness, yearning, the sources of laughter and tears, dreams, love—is as invisible as the soul and equally impossible to place in a test tube or on a scale. I now understand that all of what makes us human de
fies the notion of body and mind without soul.

  For anyone willing to consider the matter, it comes down to this: either we have a soul, or we do not.

  If we do not, death is an eternal void of darkness, and life’s brief dim flash against a span of eternity is next to meaningless. If we do not have a soul, then all the hatred and suspicion and greed that was hidden in the society of Charleston as I grew up was justified, for every person should seek what he or she can during this brief life.

  If, however, we do have a soul—something of essence

  that will exist beyond the life of the body—then come the awesome mysteries of what lies behind the existence of our soul.

  Why? How? Where will it lead beyond this life?

  What is it that calls us forward to our destination?

  **

  The pelicans that had led me to my melancholy musings had long since silently passed when I turned away from the seawall and walked across the street to the address that Helen had given me the night before.

  The retired admiral’s residence was two stories high. Colonial columns dominated the front facade. It was pastel yellow, not as large as the ten thousand-square-foot mansions of East Battery, but still easily big enough and prestigious enough to command over a million dollars. It said something for Admiral McLean Robertson’s naval pension that he could afford to retire on the Charleston Harbor.

  It said more that the entrance was gated and secured with electronic surveillance. I pushed the intercom buzzer. I stared steadily into the video monitor. I expected to have to state my name and reason for visiting into the intercom. Instead, the gate swung open.

  The sidewalk wound past lush gardens, immaculately manicured. I stepped up to the columned entrance to the mansion. The front door opened as I approached. The man behind the door easily stood six feet four, dressed in a well-tailored suit. He had a navy-style crew cut and an impassive face.

  “I’m here to see Admiral Robertson,” I said. “He is expecting me.”

  Without a word, the bodyguard led me across marbled floors into a den beyond the kitchen.

  Swords hung on the magnificent walnut panels of the den walls. As did ink engravings of Civil War battle scenes. The desk held an old cannonball as a paperweight. In the corner of the room was a full-size mannequin dressed in a Confederate uniform, complete with musket and sword.

  A man stood posed at the window of the den, surveying the harbor. Smoke drifted around his head. He turned to me, sucking on a long-stemmed pipe. He wore black slacks and a black sweater and was tall and thin. When he stepped away from the window to ease himself down into a leather armchair, sunlight played across an intense face withered by age, jowls held in place only by the discipline of exercise.

  “I have always loved noting the geographical accident of the island of Fort Sumter,” Admiral Robertson said. “So perfectly situated in the center of the mouth of the harbor. It meant that ships on both sides of the harbor entrance were within cannon-fire distance of that ancient technology. Not that it would matter today, of course, when the distance we fire shells is measured in miles, not hundreds of yards. Still, it always seems to me as if a military mind had placed the island there eons earlier, anticipating not only the limitations of gunfire during the revolutions, but the importance of this city in American history, ensuring that the island was one of the most significant features in the events that formed the character of this nation.”

  The admiral drew on his pipe. “That island tells much of the secrets to military success. Understand the limitations of all weapons at one’s disposal. Use them to maximum effect. Remain aware of one’s flanks at all times. Keep the resolution to do what is necessary to guard those flanks.”

  I wondered if this was an oblique warning.

  “Helen tells me you insisted on seeing me,” Admiral Robertson said. “I assured her it would be a waste of your time.”

  “I want to know about my mother, Carolyn Barrett.”

  “Why would I be able to tell you anything about her?”

  “It was your assistant, Jonathan Britt, who disappeared with her and a sizable amount of navy funds. What can you tell me about the night he and she fled Charleston on a train?”

  Admiral Robertson bent his head as he relit his pipe. He drew on it hard, cupping the bowl of the pipe with both hands. After several puffs, he spoke again. “Jonathan’s private life was his private life. Obviously it was a surprise when he stole the money; otherwise I would have prevented it. To me, your mother was a name in a newspaper. Why should I know anything else about her?”

  “You had such a lack of understanding of your own people that it came as a total surprise when your assistant did what he did? As a military man, your awareness of your unprotected flanks was that incomplete?”

  “Do not insult me.” His voice turned savage so quickly that I wondered if he would step across the room and strike me.

  If so, I was ready to strike back.

  “It’s only an insult,” I said calmly, “if it has any truth in it.”

  “There is no truth in it. Perhaps now you should leave. Unless you have any evidence regarding your mother that demands further examination, our time together is finished.”

  My silence gave him the answer. No evidence. No position of strength.

  “Good-bye,” the admiral said.

  That is why he agreed to see me, I thought. This is a strategic assessment on the admiral’s part. Which meant he did have something to hide.

  I departed the room without a sense of defeat.

  I believed I had heard more than one lie. But among them was at least one lie that I knew to be a lie: the admiral had said Helen sent me to him at my insistence.

  But I knew differently.

  Helen had made the appointment without consulting me.

  The admiral had enough to hide that he’d agreed to see me.

  I needed to learn why.

  Chapter 21

  “Tazo Chai,” I announced.

   Glennifer and Elaine, it seemed, had not moved from where I’d left them the day before. In one hand, I held a tray with cups from the Starbucks down the street. In the other hand, I held a bag with danishes.

  “Tazo Chai to you too,” Elaine answered. “I hope that means hello.”

  I shook my head gravely. “Tazo Chai is a tea. The formula for this ancient beverage will soothe your psyche and enlighten your spirit, if you trust the advertising.”

  They still looked puzzled.

  I set the tray on the desk. “My turn for tea. Starbucks.”

  “Hmmph,” Elaine said. “Our tea costs two cents a bag. You probably paid two dollars a cup. The only person guaranteed a soothed psyche and enlightened spirit is the person making all that profit.”

  “Well, I think Nick is sweet for caring,” Glennifer said. “Even if we both know he has only returned to get what he can from us.”

  “Yes,” Elaine sighed theatrically, “he’s going to use us, then discard us.”

  “Trading,” I said. “You give. I give. Remember? The great American way of life.”

  I handed each of them a cup. I pulled up a chair while they adjusted the milk and sugar levels.

  Glennifer sipped at her tea. “Elegant bouquet.” She giggled. “Oops. That’s a wine term, right?”

  “Glenny, don’t try to fool him into thinking you know nothing about alcohol.” Elaine smiled at me and made a motion of tilting a bottle into her mouth. “She’s a sucker for huckleberry wine. More of a sucker for any man brave enough to come calling with a bottle of it in his hand.”

  “Oh, hush.” Glennifer giggled again.

  “I need to know about a dog owner,” I said, turning them to the business at hand. “I’m guessing he travels in the circles you find familiar. And his dog, a Rottweiler, isn’t easy to forget.”

  Their smiles faded.

  Not, I think, because of my question. But because I had little time for anything else but business.

  Perhaps I sh
ould have felt guilt for my bluntness. These two old women obviously enjoyed the chance for company. Perhaps I should have listened more to their stories, bantered in return, asked them about memories important to them.

  But I was conscious of my desire to strike back at those who had struck me down. And, I reminded myself, these two women had agreed to my terms.

  “I can’t think of anyone offhand,” Elaine said. “Most of our customers run with poodles.”

  “But we can ask,” Glennifer said.

  “Not without payment,” Elaine corrected her. “Nick has not told us nearly enough.”

  “Can you tell me about Lorimar Barrett?” I asked. “I remember he spent a great deal of time with Helen deMarionne.”

  “He and she had a longtime affair,” Elaine said.

  Now I sighed theatrically. “You didn’t mention this earlier.”

  “You give. We give,” Elaine said. “Remember? Surely you can’t expect us to divulge everything. Not for free. Have you learned anything interesting since yesterday?”

  Instead of answering, I rose and unbuttoned my oxford shirt all the way down the front.

  “Oh, my.” Glennifer fanned herself.

  “Oh, my.” Elaine patted her chest above her heart. “Glenny, avert your eyes.”

  “I’ll do no such thing!” Glennifer said.

  With my shirttails out, I pulled my T-shirt out from my pants and lifted it high enough to show the raw, bloody scratches that the Rottweiler had left behind.

  “Last night,” I said, “someone tried to have me killed. I was attacked by a large dog.”

  They exchanged their characteristic glances.

  Elaine stared at me thoughtfully. “Any scratches on your back?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t run, then.” She sounded angry on my behalf. “This person must have called the dog off the attack then.”

  “No.”

  Elaine continued to stare at me with that same thoughtfulness and spoke soberly. “I would not have guessed this about you.”