Into That Darkness

by Steven Price

  He found her dressed and sitting up in her cot, her bandaged arm folded at her stomach. She cracked a swollen eye, her blood-thick face peering up at him.

  Mason said you’d be back, she muttered. I didn’t believe him.

  Mason sat beside her with a bottle of cola balanced in his lap, a chewed straw standing aslant in it. Mom, he said.

  Is everything alright? Lear asked.

  She gave him a long look.

  He glanced at the boy then gestured at her clothing. She’s dressed.

  She says she’s feeling better.

  But the woman raised her hand from the bedsheets with its palm facing outward as if to fend off further query. I’m not feeling better, she said softly. She lowered her hand onto her son’s head and rested it there a moment.

  But you’re leaving? Lear said. He furrowed his brow and then he sat down.

  I need to find Kat. It can’t wait.

  He nodded. He nodded and glanced at the webbing strung up overhead, at the bundles of clothing and bedding there as if some answer might lie above. Then he said, It’s almost dark. You can’t mean to go out in the dark.

  Why not.

  With Mason? With your son?

  She was silent.

  I don’t care, Mason said quietly. Mom? We can go.

  They need the bed, she said after a moment. There are people worse off coming in.

  Did someone say something to you?

  No. It’s not like that.

  Lear glanced at a harried nurse across the tent leaning over a tray of bedclothes and he watched her run a backward wrist over her forehead and he frowned sadly.

  They’re doing so much, he murmured. He saw in his mind’s eye the tobacconist with her crushed body and then he shut his eyes sharply. Jesus, Lear, he thought in disgust. Pull yourself together.

  When he opened his eyes she was watching him.

  Mason says you took him back to your house, she said.

  He nodded. I didn’t know what else to do. I thought you were dead.

  It’s okay.

  We were going to look for your girl next. Kat. If we hadn’t found you.

  She smiled sadly at him. Mason says you have a truck.

  No. Yes. It’s not mine. It belonged to a man we met.

  Belongs, Mason said. It still belongs to him, Arthur.

  The old man glanced at him.

  That would be Novica? she said.

  Yes.

  Where is he now?

  Lear wet his lips. He saw the boy’s dark eyes boring into him and he met his gaze and did not flinch. How much did you tell her? he asked.

  For a long moment Mason said nothing. Then he stood. He did not look at his mother and he did not look at Lear and then he turned and stalked off out of the tent. The old man watched him go.

  He’s tired, she said.

  We’re all tired. That’s something else.

  What.

  He looked at her, looked away. He cleared his throat. It’s none of my business, he said.

  She was still looking at where her son had stepped out. She said nothing.

  He went on, The nurses said you were picked up in the street. Covered in blood.

  Yes.

  It was someone else’s blood.

  I don’t remember any of it.

  None of it?

  What else did they tell you?

  Nothing.

  Nothing else?

  No, he said. But something in her voice made him pause. Like what? he asked.

  She held his eye a long moment and he felt his scalp prickle.

  She looked away. She picked at her bandages with her good hand and smoothed out the fabric in her lap and the old man felt an old heaviness thicken in him.

  He said, Mason thought you’d be here. I mean, we were told you’d be here. That you’d have been brought here after they pulled you out.

  He was looking at her carefully.

  I don’t remember, she said angrily.

  Well, he said. It’s none of my business.

  Arthur.

  He looked at her.

  I need to find my daughter.

  Lear’s mouth tightened but he did not know what to say. A long brown shadow fell aslant from the boy’s cola bottle and stretched crookedly over the bedsheets and a wasp crawled out of the mouth of the bottle trembling and it circled the rim and then flew off.

  Will you help us?

  But he was shaking his head.

  Please.

  I can’t.

  Of course you can. Why can’t you?

  He slipped his hands into his pockets. The cries of children could be heard drifting in from the crowds outside and the old man saw through the ward doorway a plastic chair where an old woman sat in the sunlight, elbows on her bony knees. Blinking and working her gums and peering about at the passersby. Curled up under that chair lay an old honey-coloured mongrel dog. The old man felt a line of sweat creep down his rib cage.

  He said, Because there’s someone here I need to take care of. He looked at her for a long moment and then he said, You can have the truck if you think you can manage it.

  She lowered her face back into shadow and the old man saw all at once just how fearful and tense she had been. I was afraid you wouldn’t offer it, she said.

  She lifted her head and her dark braids poured about her. She said she had seen nothing in that blackness under the earth to tell of. But that she had heard things. She raised her hand and held his wrist gently a moment and her skin felt cool against his own.

  After a time he said, You must be so tired.

  I’m not tired, she said.

  They were silent and the old man felt something welling up in him again and he ducked his head and crushed his eyes shut but he could not clear it. Something was not right in him.

  I was buried too, he said. I was buried with someone too.

  But you got out.

  His lips whitened and he bit down hard on his words. She’s here, he said.

  Here at the hospital?

  Yes.

  That’s who you have to stay for.

  He leaned into his forearms and knees and his hands were thickly scarred where he held them in the half-light. Out of the drugged whorl of the hammered darkness he peered and peered. Lord the long pitch and roll of the earth. I could not stand it even if I never. The woman was looking at him as if awaiting some reply and he stared at her helplessly.

  I said, where were you when it hit.

  His tired shoulders rose and fell.

  It’s alright if you don’t want to talk about it.

  He picked feebly at the scabs on his knuckles and he wet his lips and he said, I knew her from before. She was an old friend of my wife’s.

  You don’t have to tell me.

  We were in her shop when it hit. I remember telling her, It’s just an earthquake, it’s nothing.

  Yes. I thought that too at first.

  I remember the glass breaking. There was a lot of glass. The doors were banging shut. I wasn’t afraid. I remember the fire alarm went off and the lights flickered and went out.

  And you could hear all of it very precisely.

  Yes.

  And everything seemed to slow right down.

  Yes. He was staring hard at his big sore hands. She wanted to get out into the street but I stopped her. I don’t know what I was thinking. I think I was looking for a table to climb under.

  You stopped her?

  If I hadn’t—

  She might be dead now.

  She might be alive.

  She is alive.

  The old man flushed and did not meet her eye. He could not seem to explain to her just what it was he meant. The words were right and yet he could not get the sense of how his wife hung over all of it, he could not convey this to the woman.

  Nor could he describe rightly his glancing from Aza to the door shuddering in its frame and again to Aza nor him shaking his head nor her face twisting in fear. The street, she had shouted, Arthur
the street. None of that. Nor his seizing her wrist and pulling her back from the lurching floor nor the building screeching eerily as they held their ears though he knew the woman must have heard that too. Aza’s wrist was in his hand and he did not let it go.

  He lifted his face then in that tent and it seemed that the shadows were draining off him like water and he rose uneasily out of it. She watched him as he stood.

  I need to get back, he said. She could be awake.

  She nodded.

  He thought she looked very beautiful and very gentle. Where will you sleep? he said. If you’re giving up your cot.

  Where were you going to sleep?

  He shrugged. At the truck, I guess. There’s room in the cab and in the back.

  That’s fine. We can get an early start.

  I can’t go, he said. I can’t.

  Maybe you’ll change your mind.

  I won’t.

  She nodded. After a moment she said, Send Mason back in if you see him.

  He could think of nothing more to say and he turned then and made his way out. The boy had been sitting with his shoulders slouched against the sun-hot wall of the tarp cleaning his eyeglasses with the underside of his shirt and he got to his feet and called out to the old man as he emerged.

  Did she tell you? the boy asked.

  She told me.

  So you’ll take us?

  No.

  The boy studied him with his burnt eyes.

  He looked at the boy then and then back at the tent where the woman lay and then he shook his head. It seemed so much to explain. I told her she can take the truck, he said instead. I can’t go with you. Not yet.

  The boy nodded but he did not move.

  What is it, son?

  Nothing.

  He gave the boy a long look. Either you tell me what’s troubling you or you don’t. But I don’t think I can handle all of these looks you keep giving me.

  The boy bit his lip and stared with hard flat eyes at the old man. It’s her.

  What about her?

  The boy shrugged.

  Mason.

  I don’t know. She’s different. She’s not the same.

  The old man studied the boy. Give her time, he said. She’s been worried about you and she’s still worried about your sister. Just let her get through this.

  What if she isn’t?

  Are you the same as you were?

  The boy blinked and regarded him and the twin dark coins of his eyes flipped over.

  The old man nodded. But you will be, right?

  The boy said nothing.

  The old man wondered if he should say something about the gardener. No, he thought at last. Let the boy have it. Let him say it or not say it but give it to him to hold on to if he needs it.

  She said to send you back in if I saw you, he said.

  When he returned to the Second Division tent the tobacconist’s cot stood empty.

  He felt suddenly frightened.

  A nurse came past and he stepped forward and grabbed her arm roughly.

  I’m sorry, he said. Please. I’m looking for the woman who was in this bed. She was here just a few hours ago.

  The nurse, clutching a roll of towels to her chest. Peering narrowly up at him.

  Who? she asked.

  Maddin. Aza Maddin. She was badly hurt from the quake.

  She glanced at the cot, furrowed her brow. Just a minute, she said.

  I just need to know where she is.

  I said just a minute.

  The nurse went away and she came back.

  You’re a relative?

  Yes.

  I’ll need some identification, please.

  He looked at her.

  I’m sorry. We can’t reveal anything without proper identification.

  He turned out his pockets. I don’t have any, he said. Please. Is something wrong?

  The nurse bit her lip and glanced behind her and then she studied him with soft brown eyes. Okay, she said. Look. Mrs Maddin was taken into surgery just a little while ago. If you hurry you can catch her.

  Surgery?

  Yes.

  Is it serious?

  Elizabeth will take you. Elizabeth!

  A thin young woman with rolled shoulders and a lean face came over.

  Elizabeth, take this man to 5D. He’s looking for Mrs Maddin. She just went in.

  They went quickly from that tent through a warren of back tents and in and over staked guy wires and they did not talk as they went. The waiting room of the surgery tent was small and cramped and badly lit and the old man stepped through quietly and when he turned his guide was already on her way back to the ward. The room was empty. He ran a hand through his hair and went through the plastic sheeting and found himself in a tall bright tent. Nurses in stained gowns were hard at work over an operating table and he could not make out what they worked on. Against one wall stood a contrivance of buckled steel poles screwed together into a frame bearing above it a huge square lamp. It had the look of an antique camera or drilling tool.

  He found the surgeon scrubbing his hands at a basin in one corner, the shadows falling slantwise across him. He was holding his hands up and his skin looked very white and the water ran down his forearms in brown rivulets as he shook them dry.

  You shouldn’t be in here, the surgeon said. What are you doing here?

  I’m looking for a, the old man began. Then he fell silent.

  Two of the nurses had moved away and he could see now on the operating table a figure laid out half-naked and exposed, her stomach swabbed darkly with iodine. A nurse was carefully unwrapping the stump of her left arm.

  Do you know her?

  He nodded.

  The surgeon looked wearied. Nurse, he called. And then to the old man: We’ll do what we can. She’s hemorrhaging bad. You can wait through there.

  A nurse led him back through to the closetlike entry and left him. It was quiet there. A small metal folding table, two chairs by the entrance. He watched her disappear back into the operating theatre and the plastic strips over the door clattered and cut softly and fell still.

  He stood a moment listening. Picked up a clock on the metal table to wind it and propped it back in place. Upon a white cloth unfolded there lay various weird implements hooked and toothed like articles of dentistry or the refined instruments of some torturer’s bag. He could hear the surgeon murmuring in the room beyond. The click of scalpels. A high whine and sluck of some fluid sucked clear. He sat and leaned back and crossed his ankles to wait. Pinched his eyes shut.

  Sometime later he rolled one eye groggily open. He looked at the clock to see how long he had slept. He rose and looked in the basin and saw silver forceps soaking in the clear water but otherwise all was as it was before. His own watery reflection stared out at him.

  He crossed to the door and looked out. The heat was baking up out of the earth and the old man squinted and ran a hand along the inside of his collar. The tarps were lifting and shimmering but there was no wind and he felt uneasy seeing it. Something had awoken him and he thought perhaps he had heard the tobacconist cry out in pain and then he thought perhaps the surgeon had come in and stood over him while he slept but neither seemed likely and there was a scent of the sea in his nostrils and then he rubbed his eyes for he recalled his dream.

  In the dream he had been standing on a sandy log and a tide was going out and out but it was no tide he had known. In a yellow inflatable raft his wife and grandfather were being carried farther out and they were laughing. He heard out of the grey sky the bellow of a ship. Dark ropes of kelp and shining rocks and rippled banks of mud sat exposed to the air and still the tide went out and the old man began to wade out across it. He wore gumboots in the dream and the going was hard in that mud.

  The sky above the tarps looked blue and pure to his eye and the sun was still sinking at that hour and on another day this would have passed for great beauty. Standing there in that sunlit doorway he thought the world of man ineffable
and fiery and blessed. And he saw the boy pulling a rifle from a corpse and then his dead wife holding a black umbrella at a curb and he saw a sliver of light in a blackened hall. He saw the tobacconist lifting a glass of water to her lips and drinking in the white stillness of her shop and her slender eyes were upon him and he saw the black woman with the bandaged hand laid out in the cot. A yellow rope was tied to the low brass ring of a tarp sheet and he watched its canvas billow and roll and it seemed to him that he stood at a window staring in upon the world, so removed was he from it.

  Then a nurse was standing beside him and she pressed a hand against his shoulder. She told him the tobacconist had died. She told him she had not regained consciousness and she did not suffer in the end. Her voice was soft and tired.

  The old man stood breathing. Is that it? he said at last. Is that all of it?

  I’m sorry.

  The old man looked down at the nurse’s clean white hands and up at her face and he nodded and turned and left that place. Under the dying red sun his heart felt cerulean and cold.

  She said I played the victim. I expect there’s truth in that. She said there was no space in our marriage for her anger. That she couldn’t be justifiably angry ever. Well. She’d smash dishes, throw crockery. She was difficult and sensitive and there wasn’t any right move to make with her. I don’t know. I think this city stifled something in her, the drab buildings and miserable parties and the silence in the streets after dusk. Maybe it was me. It didn’t help that we didn’t have any kind of friend except a Polish mechanic who lived across the alley. He’d stay up late smoking cigars and getting drunk on a brandy he brought over with him. Then he’d close his eyes and get to muttering in Polish and Callie would just give me a look and go to bed. I wouldn’t say we were lonely. Not that. But tying on an apron and cooking and cleaning was never the fate for Callie. I can remember one night she hurled a casserole dish out the kitchen window into the driveway. The raccoons got into it, the metal pan clattering and scraping over the gravel while we tried to sleep. I was a little frightened of her. I think sometimes I argued with her out of shame. She had strong hands and when she hit me it hurt. But she was also kind, and generous, and she tried not to let her unhappiness infect anyone around her. So what do you do with that? It’s been more than thirty years and I don’t pretend she was something she wasn’t. She made me sick with anger sometimes. But I learned more from her than from anyone. And I include my grandfather in that. It’s a hard thing living with a debt that can’t be repaid. I guess that’s what guilt is. I’ve felt it a long time now. I don’t know that I’d take back any of the fights if I could. They were a part of what we were. I suppose Callie’d say otherwise. I do wish we’d been gentler with each other. I do wish that. I could’ve been a better person. I know it.