Into That Darkness

by Steven Price

  The young woman turned her face towards them. Her pitted cheeks long scarred over, her milky eyes unmoving. She was blind.

  The sun climbed a pale sky. The light blurred, shimmered. They trudged down into the mess of the wards and went from tent to tent through the drifting crowds. Mason felt a growing dread inside him. At last Lear led him into a vast ward and they stood at the edge of that darkness waiting for their eyes to adjust, the old man rubbing his face with his hands. Mason was remembering his mother with her ruined hand, the old man so serious in that smouldering dark. The tent they had entered was crowded and clamorous and Mason saw the old man lift his head, peer angrily at the rows of the wounded.

  The beds were hospital beds with bars on their sides and they went slowly down the aisles. Mason tried not to look too closely. The bloodstained bandages. The haunted eyes. The groans and weeping and crying out. The air was very bad and he was afraid he might be sick.

  She’s not here, he whispered. Arthur? She’s not in here.

  No.

  Then they were standing at the far side of the tent watching a nurse approach.

  Can I help you? she asked.

  No, Mason said.

  The old man frowned. We’re looking for someone. Her name is Clarke.

  Is she supposed to be here?

  Is anyone?

  The nurse looked at him wearily. I beg your pardon?

  Is anyone supposed to be here?

  She shrugged. After a moment she said, If you don’t see her, she’s not here.

  Where would we find her?

  The nurse was pressing the back of her wrist against her forehead and Mason saw the pinched lines around her mouth, the red skin where her collar was rubbing.

  You looked in the other wards? she asked.

  Some of them.

  She smiled bitterly. There’s no order here, she said. No one’s keeping any records. I’m sorry.

  It’s alright. Thanks.

  She nodded, went on her way.

  The old man looked at Mason. How are you holding up?

  I want to go.

  Okay.

  They slipped back out into the crowded alleys between the tents and the old man led him across to a makeshift counter and they waited in line there. A young man was distributing sandwiches and they each took one and found a seat on the ground nearby. The sandwiches were wrapped in a greasy brown paper and when Mason peered about he saw crumpled brown wrappers all over the ground. He felt very tired.

  What do you think is in these? the old man murmured.

  Mason had not taken a bite.

  The old man peeled back the top piece of bread, studied the mess there.

  It’s not chicken. Jesus.

  Arthur?

  Mm.

  Arthur.

  What is it.

  What if she went back home. Back to the house.

  The old man chewed and studied him with shadowed eyes and swallowed slowly. She was hurt, son. You know that.

  She could have gone home though. Maybe she’s waiting for me there.

  I don’t know. I don’t think so.

  Mason stared at his dusty shoes.

  The old man cleared his throat. Well. Okay. Do you want to look for her there?

  Kat could be there too. She could’ve gone home too.

  Mason. There are a lot of wards here. We haven’t even been through half of them. You don’t think we should finish looking here first?

  Mason said nothing.

  What is it, son?

  He shrugged.

  The old man got to his feet. Well. We won’t find her sitting here.

  They found a smaller ward to one side of the main tents and made their way across to it. The old man looked defeated, disappointed in something Mason did not quite understand though he felt it too. It was not sadness, not exactly. They went in and stood next to a low folded table and stared in exhaustion at the rows of cots. A nurse and a doctor with white hair were speaking nearby.

  The arm’s shattered in the second quadrant, the doctor was saying. I don’t know what happened to her.

  Mason stared at the wounded in their cots.

  They found her in the street, the nurse said.

  Lear turned to them. Who? Is her name Clarke?

  Mason’s eye slid down the second aisle, up the shadowy recesses of the third.

  The nurse turned her head. Excuse me?

  Bed after bed of blanketed figures, unmoving.

  Who are you? the doctor asked.

  And then Mason was no longer listening. He felt tense, electric with some kind of fear he did not understand and then Lear’s hand loosened in his own and let him go. A stained cot, a shifting body under sheets, an arm heavily bandaged and held up out of the bedding. She was still. She was so still. Her haunted face a disc of burnished light.

  Something kicked inside his chest.

  And then he was pulling away from the old man and running towards her.

  You have to be careful with what you have got. Or else you will lose it. Or somebody will take it when you are not looking. That is what people are like. Tobey Blekkenmeyer is like that.

  Yes Kat is pretty. She is a horrible singer though her voice sounds like a crow being tortured to death. Tobey Blekkenmeyer said she was a lesbian but he does not even know what a lesbian is. He just said it because she dyed her hair blue once. I know she is pretty because she looks like Mom, they both have green eyes. Once after supper Kat drove us to the old mall that is going to be torn up next year, I said what are we doing and she grinned and parked and got out but she left the keys in the ignition. It was in July and the sun was still red in the sky. She came around to my side and opened the door and told me to slide over. Why should I slide over I asked. If you do not want to drive well that is fine with me she said. Drive, I said. For real? Don’t make me change my mind she said and I smiled and said Holy shit.

  It was hard to see over the steering wheel. She showed me where to put my feet. I had to stretch to reach. You have to push down one pedal and slowly let the other up to get the car to go. It kept jolting to a stop. Don’t laugh I said. Okay okay she said take it easy, don’t be mad. Then I turned the keys and stalled again. I started laughing too. We did not tell Mom about me driving, it was our secret.

  Another time Kat and her friend Leah drove us out to the caves in Langford. Leah is tall and plays basketball and her arms are very strong. Kat parked by the blackberry bushes we used to pick over for Mom’s pies and followed a path up the hill towards the old trestle. Leah led us down

  through the long grass and along a ravine and up another path to a dark narrow opening. There were pop bottles and plastic wrappers in the grass. Leah went in and Kat went in and I hurried after them. I said Kat? but she just hushed me. Inside it was very dark and the air was cool. Where are you? I whispered. Hello?

  Hello hello hello hello hello hello, said Kat beside me.

  I could not see her but I heard Leah snort close by. The rock walls were wet and cold when I brushed them. It is not funny I said. I could hear her sandals moving around. Kat told me that every month three kids get lost and die in there. Shut up I said. Leah said that it was the truth she knew one of them. Kat said yeah that was right it was Billy from math class. I said I did not believe them but then I imagined my voice echoing down over the bodies and I shivered.

  I felt a sudden cold hand on my shoulders.

  Why don’t you go in and find them? Kat whispered at me and then she pushed me in deeper and my feet went out, the floor dropped. I screamed but it was just a small step I did not fall. There weren’t any bodies. I could hear Leah laughing and laughing outside. I do not know why Kat did that. What is wrong with her. I would not have done that to her.

  MEANS AND ENDS

  Then the old man felt the boy pull away and in the slow darkness he turned slowly and then he saw her too.

  She lay bundled in white sheets and gauze at the end of the third aisle. Her slouched cot barred, the rails folded
up and locked in place. It was her. Not the woman he had met on that dark morning and not the woman he had left in the earth for dead but someone lighter, more translucent, startled out of herself. She lay with her face crushed into the pillow, the sculpted hollow of her clavicle pooling with light, and he watched the boy’s bony shoulders rise and fall where he bent above her. The shells of her ears were white from the dried plaster dust that stuck to everything.

  What’s wrong with her? the boy asked as he approached.

  The old man scraped a plastic milk crate from under a nearby bed over to the woman’s cot and sat wearily. The floor under the cot was bare asphalt, slashed by the white painted lines of a parking lot.

  I don’t know, son, he said. Let her sleep.

  Is she sick?

  I don’t think so.

  Her cot smelled of rust and blood. The walls of that tent were orange and cast a cool orange light over all and when the old man peered up he saw netting had been slung overhead between the posts and in the netting were bundles of clothes, bedsheets, bandages. His knees had begun to ache. Well and what did you think would happen? he grimaced. Old was twenty years ago. Old was Callie just in the ground. Get used to it if you are going to.

  He started to get to his feet.

  Where are you going? the boy asked.

  I’ll find out how she’s doing. Do you need anything? Water?

  You’re coming back?

  He gave the boy a strange look. Of course.

  What if something happens?

  What would happen?

  What if she wakes up?

  Well, he said. An oily light glistened and slid thickly down the boy’s eyeglasses. If she wakes up call for one of the nurses. That’s what they’re here for. Okay?

  Okay.

  But he did not move. He was thinking how little the boy betrayed in his face and how complicated that was. He stared past him then at the battered steel bars of the cot, at the rumpled folds of bedsheet sagging loosely there. The woman’s throat where she lay with her head twisted sharply to one side was pulsing with a weird light. Thrumping shallow and rapid like the breast of a small bird. He glanced up. Her eyes were open.

  Mom? the boy said. Then he smiled.

  The woman turned her face and looked at her son.

  Mason? she swallowed. Mason?

  Hi Mom.

  Oh god. God.

  She was holding him and her good hand was in his hair.

  I knew you were okay Mom. I knew it.

  The old man watching them felt a thickness in his throat. He knew he should not be there. He glanced across the aisles and after a moment got quietly to his feet.

  Mom, this is Arthur, the boy said. He drove me here.

  The old man turned and curled his big-knuckled hands over the bedrail at the foot of her cot and stood uneasily there. He could feel himself blushing as she stared at him.

  Her irises burned green and gold. I know you, she said. You dug us out.

  He cleared his throat.

  But she was staring hard at her son again and holding him fiercely. How did you find me? she asked him. Kat? Is she with you?

  The boy shook his head.

  Her feverish eyes absorbed this. Have you heard from her? Anything?

  The boy glanced at the old man, adjusted his eyeglasses.

  Nothing, he said.

  The woman leaned back, the paper pillowcase at her neck crackled. She shut her eyes.

  Don’t worry Mom, we’ll find her. She’s probably at home.

  Yes, she said, though something had gone out of her. What day is it?

  Thursday.

  Thursday. She opened her eyes and looked at the old man. It’s Arthur?

  He pulled the crate forward and sat close to her and nodded. Yes. Arthur Lear.

  Thank you for finding my son, Arthur.

  He could see then her deep exhaustion. She reached up and brushed a braid back from her face and the skin on her good hand was broken, the black-ringed fingernails ragged and torn. He said very gravely, You’re welcome. Mason’s a brave kid.

  She coughed wetly and the corded knots in her throat stood out in stark relief.

  Let me call a nurse, the old man said. He could feel the dappled bruises along his ribs aching steadily and somewhere just beyond that point a ghostly tingling. As if he had lost some part of himself he had not known of.

  The woman reached her good hand out, stroked the hair of her son.

  Mom you’re crying again.

  I’m not. She blew out her cheeks and glanced aside and her eyes when they met the old man’s were glassy.

  Mom?

  Mm.

  We’ll find Kat. Don’t worry.

  I know we will, honey.

  But she was slipping heavily back into herself now and the old man watched her struggle to keep her eyes in focus and he said to the boy, I think your mom needs to sleep.

  And then she was asleep.

  A nurse appeared, went away. A second nurse appeared, pulled gently back the bedsheet, dabbed at the bruises on the woman’s belly. Her skin was lumped and yellow and brindled badly. The old man looked away. His left hand was still beside her pillow and he could feel her breath pass over his knuckles like smoke. At one point she opened her green eyes and held his gaze a moment and then she was gone again. He felt as if a lamp had been turned off, his skin left cooling.

  He took his hand from off the bedsheets, the print of his palm impressed there. He thought how strange it was to encounter people you worried for. How it could happen anytime and how there was no way to prepare your heart for it.

  While the woman slept Mason drifted like smoke around her, leaning over, fussing with her bedsheets. She was slighter than Lear remembered her or seemed that way asleep and in pain in that ward. He wondered how long she had been under the earth after he had pulled the boy out. Then he thought that the boy’s sister must be out there still. He did not know if she would be hurt or not and he hoped not.

  What are you going to do? Mason asked him. He sucked at his lips as if on something sour. His small hands gripping the metal railing of the bed.

  What do you mean?

  Mason shrugged.

  Lear shook his head. I don’t know, son.

  Kat will find us, Mason said. If we go back home she will find us for sure.

  Your sister?

  She has a car.

  I think your mom needs to stay here for a while.

  Lear watched the boy’s eyes darken at that and wondered just what was in him. He had found the gardener’s body that morning while locking down the house. Last night the boy had squared his jaw and looked him in the eye and lied. He did not understand it. He did not know if the boy was in denial or feared to think about it or if some other darker reason were in him. The old man had covered the gardener’s body with towels from the overturned linen basket by the dryer, not feeling anger but something else while standing there, a heavy sadness, a heavier regret. But now when he looked at Mason he did not feel it. He understood that in times of disaster what is true and what is untrue are sometimes one and the same. That the light we see by is a different light and the places we know change with that light. He thought: The boy is trying to live like any of us are trying to live and he did not do any harm.

  After some time an attendant approached. And how’s Mrs Mackenzie? he asked. He reached gently under her and folded back her sheet and adjusted the pillow and checked the IV.

  Mackenzie? Lear said. You mean Clarke.

  The attendant was a young man with very black hair fallen across one eye and he glanced at the clipboard in his hands. He wore jeans, a blue checkered shirt. Clarke? he said.

  Clarke. Anna Mercia Clarke.

  You sure? The attendant peered from Lear to Mason and back to Lear.

  Yes, Mason said sturdily.

  It’s his mother. I’d say we’re sure.

  This goddamn manifest. They’re supposed to be keeping records of who’s where. They send us these lists b
ut they don’t have a clue.

  What lists.

  From the Records Desk. That’s not how you found her?

  No.

  We just searched through the tents, said Mason.

  Well. They got her down as Mackenzie so it wouldn’t have helped anyway, I guess. How is she? Any changes?

  No. She was awake for a bit.

  She was awake? The attendant looked at her sharply and then at the old man. Has the doctor been by?

  No.

  I’ll get him. Jesus.

  The attendant turned but then he turned back and he gave Mason an open cardboard box. Somebody left this, he said. You’re welcome to play with it.

  Mason took it wordlessly. It was a chess box. Inside was a wafer-thin folding board, small magnetic pieces.

  Then the attendant was gone.

  Mason looked across expectantly and Lear grunted. Not me, son. I’m a little rusty.

  I’ll go easy on you.

  You will, will you. You’re awfully confident.

  Just one game?

  I don’t think so.

  Mason’s spectacled eyes shifted over to his mother where she slept. His hands knotted between his knees. He put the chess board aside.

  Hell, Lear thought. What is the matter with me.

  Alright, son, he said. Give it here.

  He fumbled with the carved figures and held out his fists and the boy tapped his left fist and pulled out the black pawn. He turned the board carefully and looked at the boy and together they set up the pieces and then he sat back and opened. They played slowly and they did not speak as they played. After a while Mason frowned and moved his queen.

  Check, he said.

  Lear moved his bishop.

  Check, Mason said again.

  Lear moved his king.

  He saw a sheen of sweat in the woman’s hairline and Mason looked across and then ran the corner of her bedsheet over her face. A few minutes later Lear was leaning on his fist, intrigued. Sawing at his chin with the back of his hand. The stubble rasping.

  Now why would you do that? What are you up to?

  If Kat isn’t at home she might be at Leah’s, Mason said softly. Or she might still be at her school. She could still be there.