Into That Darkness

by Steven Price

  Mrs Clarke, he said gravely to the woman. He lifted his face, peered past the old man, the boy, to the ruined quadrangle. Where’s Kat?

  Anna Mercia shook her head. She’s not here?

  Isn’t she with you? Then all at once the man understood. Jesus. You haven’t found each other yet? He looked at her and stepped forward. You know she’s alive, right?

  Anna Mercia folded her arms and glanced at the goalposts standing against the skyline lean and polished like strange bones and breathed. She was afraid to speak. The music teacher gripped her shoulder and his meaty hand was hot on her skin.

  He said, I saw her myself right after the quake. Right here. She’s alive.

  You saw her.

  Yes. I saw her.

  She felt herself starting to cry. She hardened her face, looked away.

  Kat was right here, on the field, when we took roll. Jesus, and his voice drifted off. I would’ve told you at once. I’m sorry.

  I knew it, Mason said. I told you.

  The music teacher looked down at him quickly, then back at the woman. In the strange light a crescent of darkness scythed along his jaw and his eyes were luminous in the shine. Kat said she was going home. I think that’s what she said. She was going to look for you.

  We haven’t been home yet, the boy said.

  Anna Mercia has, the old man interrupted. No one was there.

  Her head was still reeling. You’re sure it was her? she said softly. You’re absolutely sure.

  Ray, a man was calling from the rubble. Hey, Ray.

  The music teacher glanced back over his shoulder.

  She blew out her cheeks and she saw that her legs were trembling and all at once she sat down and started to shake. Her son put his arms around her.

  Mom, he said.

  She wasn’t hurt, the music teacher went on. I can tell you that much. Maybe she went to a friend’s house? Most of the students got bussed home late Wednesday afternoon. Listen, I got to get back to this. He peered across at the salvagers then crouched down next to the woman where she sat. Go on up to the office, Mrs Clarke, he said. They have records up there. They’ll tell you where Kat was heading off to.

  I thought she was dead, she said.

  Just go on, he said.

  She picked her slow way across the quadrangle, her shoes crunching, following the old man and her son. She did not recognize the feeling in her and then she did and it was not relief but a dark joy. Two boys were lashing a tarp over a stack of desks and a man stood and was shouting but she could not make him out and she did not stop. She started to laugh and then she started to gasp. A red dust had risen from the brickwork and the air smelled of dirt and broken timber and it felt cooler on her hands and face. As if autumn had come.

  She saw her son reach up and take Lear’s hand as they walked. There was that thrumming in her spine as if a small engine were pistoning away and she could not help the happiness building there.

  Lear stopped, waited for her.

  You knew this place? she said.

  He nodded. When I was a boy my best friend lived near here. Tommy Gates. His father built motorcycles. He coughed into his fist, withdrew a rumpled cigarette from his shirtfront with two fingers.

  Kat wants a motorcycle, Mason said.

  They’re very dangerous, Lear said.

  That’s what Mom says.

  Lear looked at her and she felt herself staring with great intensity. Do not lose sight of this Anna Mercia, she thought. Keep it clear until you have found her.

  This school was built the year I was born, Lear said. He turned his shoulder to the wind and lit the smoke and drew deeply on it then shoved his lighter into his hip pocket with a thumb. You wouldn’t know it, he said. The school seemed old even then. Tommy and I used to come throw stones at the lit-up windows on Sunday nights. He smiled at the crumpled schoolhouse, the dark slash in the roof.

  What happened to him?

  Tommy? He died in 1987. We weren’t close at the end.

  I’m sorry.

  Her son’s skin like smoke in an autumn sky. What must her daughter have lived through. She swallowed painfully.

  Lear said, I remember a Chinese cook hanged himself in the bell tower one night during the war. They had a hell of a time getting ahold of his legs. And the bell clanged at each pass of the body. Imagine. It woke Tommy’s whole neighbourhood. Lear looked all at once embarrassed and he glanced away and then after a moment he said, Everything crumbles I guess, given time. He took a long drag on his cigarette then crushed it under his heel and said softly, There are things in this world that I will miss.

  You have some time left yet, I’d guess.

  The steel weights of the flag ropes were clanking against the poles in the quadrangle and it sounded hollow and thin and sad. She shivered.

  Here it is, Lear said. Lock him up. Gone sentimental and old.

  I don’t think so.

  Arthur? her son said.

  Mm?

  I think you are wise.

  She saw the old man flush with pleasure and drop his chin and turn aside and she thought in an upwelling rush, So you too then. So it is the same for you as well.

  In the small office a tall grey secretary with a faint moustache shading her upper lip received them. Clenched her jaw and studied them.

  Yes?

  Anna Mercia said, I’m looking for my daughter. Katherine Clarke, she was here—

  Clarke?

  That’s right.

  The secretary held a thick plastic binder of papers and she flipped the pages crisply and she ran her finger along the lists. Her nails were blunt and very clean. She flipped to the back of the binder. Scanned some page further.

  Is there a problem?

  Hm? No. The secretary took up a red binder from below the counter filled with loose sheets and turned the sheaves carefully.

  She was beginning to feel distinctly uneasy. She peered about at the shabby office, the mismatched furniture, the damp thick silence in the walls. Something was not right.

  What’s wrong? she asked. It’s Clarke. With an e.

  The secretary frowned. Yes, yes, she said. I know Kat, she’s a lovely girl. I just can’t find anything in here. Nothing’s where it’s supposed to be. Could you just wait a moment? I’ll only be a moment.

  She can’t find Kat? Mason asked.

  Anna Mercia put her good hand on his shoulder to stay him. Why don’t you go sit down, she said.

  The secretary had turned to speak to a tall man in a brown sweater who looked at Anna Mercia and then shrugged and then she went on through a glass door into some adjoining office. After a moment she returned. Anna Mercia could feel some part of herself shutting down. She studied the secretary only half-hearing what she said. A light dusting of dandruff at her collar. A throat wattled with age. She was staring at it and could not stop. When it swallowed a deep cleft of skin sank and rose and settled at her collarbone.

  Mrs Clarke?

  We were told you’d know where to find her.

  Yes. If you’d please come with me, the secretary said. Dr Philips maybe can help you.

  The headmaster?

  She nodded. Just this way, Mrs Clarke. He’ll be with you shortly. Then she glanced across at Mason and back at Anna Mercia and said, softly: Maybe your son should wait out here.

  She told herself to be calm. It is only that they do not have a record of her. It is just that he wants to tell you himself. It is nothing bad. There is no need to be nervous.

  Still she hesitated. Arthur? she said.

  I’ll stay with Mason, Lear said. We’ll be outside. Take as long as you need.

  The secretary led her through a thick oak door, into a library. Nodded and withdrew, shutting the door with a click behind her. The lighting was dim with the overcast sky slanting in through the drawn blinds but even so Anna Mercia could see the room was not large and the furniture was dark, and moth-eaten, and old. Bookshelves lined the facing walls and two dormer windows were inset along the ou
ter wall and photographs in rosewood frames hung crookedly over the papered walls. Here and there she saw pale squares where some had fallen or been removed. Nailed above the windows were lacquered wooden plaques emblazoned with the names of students many decades gone. She did not know what to do and after a while she sat.

  The desk stood cleared of all papers and books, its polished mahogany gleaming in the faint light. In the middle of its wide expanse stood a solitary white box of tissues. It seemed to glow in the darkness. Anna Mercia tried not to look at it.

  A short man in a dusty suit entered after a moment through the same door she had come in by and he crossed the room and held her hand a long moment. His wrists were hairless and very white.

  John, she said hollowly. Where is she?

  Mrs Clarke, the headmaster said.

  But when she looked at him something very cold and very heavy turned over inside her.

  I’m sorry to keep you waiting, he said. We’re entirely overwhelmed by what’s happened. As you can imagine.

  She nodded slowly. She felt nervous, frightened, her limbs liquid and sluggish as if moving through dark syrup.

  Where is my daughter? she said again.

  The headmaster released her hand and then rolled a chair on its castors from the desk and drew it in close and he sat and set the box of tissues on the floor at his feet. Anna Mercia stared at the box.

  Well, he said. What have you been told so far?

  Nothing. No one will tell me anything.

  Okay, he said.

  Her throat felt suddenly sharp. I talked to Ray Singh outside, she said. He saw Kat after the quake. Out on the field. He said I should come here.

  I’m afraid Ray is mistaken, the headmaster said in a soft firm voice.

  What do you mean?

  He breathed heavily.

  Where is Kat, John?

  He’s made a mistake, he said again. He steepled his fingers before him and he leaned forward and his eyes were fixed on hers. Kat, he began. She wasn’t at the roll call we held on the field after it hit. I’m sorry. We don’t have any record of her after.

  I don’t understand.

  Her car’s still out in the lot.

  I don’t understand.

  The headmaster took her good hand again in his own and she shuddered but could not pull away. His soft hands were warm and moist. She watched the white cuffs of his shirt creep from his blazer sleeves. A silver ring on his hand shone like dark pewter.

  It was a very confusing time, he said. We organized the kids as best we could but we know some of them went off on their own without telling us. So the records we’ve got aren’t at all thorough. I want you to know that. I know of at least two kids who came back yesterday and we thought we’d lost them. They went home right after it hit. He wet his lips and then he went on. On that first day some of the students we recovered were taken to the morgues before anyone thought to write down the names. I don’t want to scare you, he said. Kat was in one of the buildings that was worst hit. We haven’t found her.

  You haven’t found her.

  We haven’t found her. No.

  He released her hand and she slumped forward and her hair obscured her eyes, her mouth. She could feel her shoulders lifting at each breath. The throb of pain in her bandages.

  How do you know Ray didn’t see her?

  He frowned. Kat’s not in the register. If she was on the field—

  Maybe she was missed.

  Maybe.

  Maybe she went off looking for me or Mason.

  It’s very possible. It was a confusing day.

  But already something in her was burning down and when she looked at the headmaster she saw him very coldly. But you think she’s dead, she said.

  I don’t know where she is. That’s all I can say.

  But she’s probably dead.

  No.

  And if she’s— But her voice caught on the word that third time and she did not finish the sentence. She sat in that chair shaking and shaking and the headmaster did not touch her. Do not cry, she told herself fiercely, do not let this man see you cry. Do not.

  Mrs Clarke, he said at last. Anna. Have you checked the emergency shelters? Her friends’ houses?

  She said nothing.

  Kat could be anywhere, he said. When were you last at home? She might be waiting for you at home.

  She said nothing.

  I wish I had something more to tell you.

  She looked up and when he saw her face he fell silent.

  I lost her John, she whispered. I can’t find her. I can’t. She wiped the wet grime from her cheeks with the flats of her hands. Something terrible was rising in her.

  Anna Mercia, he said.

  She stood. She stood and she passed from that library without sound and her legs were thin and insubstantial as smoke. She felt herself loosening at the joints, her limbs lean and prickling, and all of what had been in her was suddenly gone as if it had not been there ever.

  Mrs Clarke? the secretary said as she came out.

  She said nothing. But went past and descended the stairwell in the slanting grainy light. On the lower landing she stood a long while breathing and then she smeared a hand across a pane of glass but the dirt did not come off. Slats of daylight, slats of shadow. Her son would be down there eager for news. She did not know how long she could wait and at last she continued down. Her hands rattling the wood banister.

  How did it go? the old man asked as she came out.

  She felt scorched and thin and when she saw her son she kneeled and pulled him to her with great fierceness and the old man did not ask anything more.

  Where’s Kat? her son said.

  Oh, honey, she said. She squinted up at the old man. I need to be alone with Mason for a minute, she said. Can you give us just a minute?

  He nodded sadly down at her and he gestured out at the weather-stripped rugby posts. I’ll be just over there, he said. Come to me if you need me.

  She met his eye and nodded. Then she was watching his hunched shoulders as he picked his way across the quadrangle and as soon as he was out of sight she took her son by the hand. She did not look at him.

  Kat’s not here, honey. They think she might’ve been hurt.

  Is she at the hospital?

  Maybe. I don’t think so.

  Maybe she went home. Should we go home?

  There was a charred taste in her mouth.

  She crouched down and touched his face. Not yet, honey. Not just yet.

  Talking about my father. Jesus.

  At the end of our weeks in India, I left David for an afternoon and borrowed a bicycle and went into the hills. It was only April but already there was a smell in the air of burnt flowers, an earthy sweetness so rich it made you hungry. We would be going back to our lives in Canada and I didn’t think I’d found what I’d been seeking. I pedalled up a hill, panted through a lane of sweltering shaggy trees, and then the whole sky broke open.

  On one side lay a field of yellow grasses, breathing in the wind. On the other side rows of tilled fields, green and upright. I pedalled slowly. Over everything loomed the strange shapes of windmills. I don’t know if they’re still there. I guess it must have been some kind of foreign development back then. I don’t know. They were behemoths, huge industrial flowers. I felt alone up there, the hot wind spitting at my clothes, loud in my clotted ears. That was freedom, and wildness. Like I’d ventured into a treacherous place in order to save myself.

  A building emerged from the grass. A tiny stone temple. I could just make out candles burning. A little open temple in the middle of all that nothing. I slowed, and stopped, and dropped the bicycle in the grass. In the soft sun the candles were a vague illumination, like a torn piece of sky. I went in. The room was narrow, the stone walls cold and black from centuries of candle smoke. The floor smelled of wet ash. It was no bigger than a great hearth, and yet the silence—my god—was immense. I sat on the lone stone bench. The silence had a depth beyond itself, like an
echo in a concert hall, and I sat and I raised my eyes.

  Carved into the stone walls was a kind of relief sculpture. I don’t know if that’s the right word. It was blackened from smoke or age, I don’t know. It looked very old and I couldn’t quite make out the scenes carved there. It seemed to tell some kind of story. I remember turning around, and studying the figures over the stone lintel. A man in a robe was kneeling before a horse, or a donkey. A halo surrounded his head. He had four arms and was holding what looked like a pair of blacksmith’s tongs. But there was a cart attached to his shoulders, and in the cart what must have been the sun. He was in a harness, and a man with an elephant’s head was striking his shoulders with a whip. I don’t know if it was the dark stain in the stone, or the years rubbing down the edges, but the blurred figure’s face looked almost exactly like my father.

  I felt, very distinctly, something like fear on the back of my neck. It’s one of the sharpest memories I have of him. It wasn’t even of him.

  INTO THAT DARKNESS

  He stood a long time at the edge of that field with one hand on the rusted lid of an old rain barrel and his face turned back to the ruined schoolyard. He did not see the woman or her son and after a while he understood they were not coming. He felt suddenly foolish, and old, and sad.

  He turned away, crossed under the posts of the rugby pitch. Here the ground sloped up into scrub and trees and flowers grown wild. A strange silent corner of the campus. He scrambled over a knot of roots and turning shaded his eyes to study the salvagers below. The dappled leaves, the cantilevered branches gone grey with old weathers. He thought of the woman wandering out there in her grief and of the boy trailing behind her through the ashen daylight.

  His wife did not die in autumn. Still something in the late golden grass, in the shimmer of leaves dying slowly red, in the strange lingering light that pressed itself into the back of his neck like a warm hand and held itself there, something in all of that led him back to her. He saw in a flat bench of earth the cracked and weather-sprung marker of some forgotten fence and he stood a moment in that place staring. Then kicked through a shunt of leaves run up against an oak trunk in the nettles and went on. Thinking of those weeks after his wife’s funeral. How he would go to the cinema and sit alone in the dark, his big hands pressed to his face. He would get to his feet and the seat would creak shut behind him and he would make his way back up the aisle and out into the hot evening air half-blinded by it all. Oh, Callie, he thought, it does not ever cease and we do not imagine at the beginning how long we will have to carry it with us.