Into That Darkness

by Steven Price

  As he came out on the road above the school property he saw in the tangled silence two children like apparitions wending down the hill. Wearing collarless shirts and cricket caps from some decade long past. One paused in his descent and raised a pale and watery face towards the old man and held him in his eyes and then both were gone and the old man could hear only the chop and hack of their shoes in the leaves and then nothing. The trees darkening.

  He stood a long while in that road staring after them. Then he heard the boy calling to him, and he turned, and he saw the woman watching him from the road.

  I thought you’d left, he said.

  The woman’s eyes were dark.

  We didn’t, the boy said. Are you coming with us?

  He looked at the woman. He understood that she was going to search among the dead at Henderson Field. He thought of this and then he thought of the boy going into that place.

  I guess so, he said quietly.

  They walked in silence. The air felt cool on the back of his shirt. The streets were empty.

  He felt very clearly his heart settling in him. A weight that had lifted for a time was now creaking heavily back down onto its joists and he walked the more slowly for it. He understood something was ending.

  A flock of starlings gusted up out of the oaks and funnelled past and the flock shifted shadowy and mutable and crackling against the sky like some sentient weather come upon them. There was no sun, only a luminous haze in the west.

  Gulls were ghosting far up in the wimpled sky and the houses they walked past sat dark and forlorn and cold in the cold light. The grey sidewalk was badly cracked. They passed a smouldering storefront, white vapours billowing out of the gaps in its boards. The old man felt weary and unwashed and sad. He thought of her socks laid out to dry in the broken cinema that morning, hanging like the turned-out skins of dead things. The shine of the boy’s bent spectacles.

  Henderson Field was not far. They turned down a street the old man recognized and passed a clapboard church. A rubbled churchyard where he had stood every Sunday of his childhood. The grass and flowering shrubs were coated grey with mortar dust. He could hear the faint clang of a hammer from within the church.

  He could see at the end of the street a crowd gathering and beyond that the tall weathered boards of the fence surrounding Henderson Field. There were crows circling in great numbers under the grey sky. He slowed, and the woman stopped, and looked at him.

  What is it? she said.

  He ran a hand across his eyes. Peered back at the church they had just passed.

  You don’t want all of us in there with you, I guess.

  She nodded.

  We can wait for you here. At the church.

  She glanced past him at the ruined churchyard. Here?

  I grew up here. I went to this church as a boy. It’ll be safe until you’re back.

  Mason, honey, she said. She crouched down.

  I want to come with you.

  She shook her head.

  Mom, he said.

  No, she said. I need you to wait here with Arthur. Make sure that he’s okay.

  What about you?

  I’ll be as fast as I can. I promise.

  It seemed to the old man that something was in her, something very white and pure and hot. She was staring at her son a long moment as if in farewell. It was not farewell.

  I love you, she said to him. I won’t let anything happen to you. Okay?

  Okay.

  She held him. And then she straightened and turned and went on down the street without looking back. The old man came forward and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  Come on son. Let’s find us a seat.

  The boy nodded, his eyes fixed on the diminishing figure of his mother.

  The old man sighed. His knees were very sore and he reached slowly down and rubbed them one at a time and then he straightened and led the boy up the walk to the church doors. I think you are wise, he had said. That sudden flush of pleasure he had felt.

  The heavy carved doors were propped open on wedges of wood. The old man entered the vestibule and stood amid the old smells of varnish and cotton and smoke like the child he once had been. The soft pews gleamed dully in the oiled darkness. He could just make out the big cross where it had fallen and been propped up at a sharp angle over the altar. Through a hole in the stained glass a grey light filtered in. But in that cold church the smokey dark reminded him of a darkness the more absolute and he shivered and turned and glanced at the boy.

  What do you think? he said.

  There was a cough from within and the old man turned sharply.

  Hello? he called.

  Something moved in the darkness.

  Arthur, the boy whispered.

  Hello? he called again. Who’s there?

  It came towards them slowly looking larval and strange in the smokey blue nave and it moved with a kind of measured tread as in a dream. Short and thick and strong-looking despite its age. It was a man about his own age and came forward wrapped in a moth-eaten brown blanket and he eyed the old man and the boy from over the rims of his wire spectacles. His left hand clutched a hammer and a paper bag of what the old man imagined must be nails.

  I guess that was you we heard from the street, the old man said.

  The old custodian ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth, his cheek belling out. His knotted fingers clutched the blanket close.

  We heard you hammering, the old man said more loudly. We didn’t mean to intrude.

  Never mind it, the custodian grunted. What do you need?

  I beg your pardon?

  He regarded the boy. What do you need?

  Nothing. We just came in for a moment. Don’t let us bother you.

  The custodian rubbed a knuckle under a greasy lens. You can sit if you like, he said.

  Thanks.

  What’s wrong with your legs?

  The old man smiled angrily down at them. The knees are a little sore, he said. But they’re alright. I’m just not what I once was, I guess.

  You look alright, he said to the boy.

  None of us are alright, the old man murmured. You’ve had some trouble?

  The old custodian peered about as if to assess the damage for the first time and then he nodded. Some, he said. It could have been worse.

  Yes.

  It is worse elsewhere.

  That’s true.

  We didn’t have any dead here at least. The old custodian frowned as if arguing some point within himself and then he let the blanket fall from his shoulders and he swaddled it in a ball and set it aside on a pew. It folded stiffly, reeking of boiled cabbage.

  I don’t guess you’re hungry, he said. I don’t guess you’ll be wanting something.

  He led them down past the chancel to a thin door of painted wood standing open and he passed into the dim corridor beyond and turned left and descended the stairs to the basement. His wispy head vanishing round a corner into darkness, his shoes scraping the boards. There were no windows in that stairwell and the shadows fell long and deep and the smell of dust and varnish was in the air. The custodian called to them to mind their step and the old man followed the creak of his voice, ducking his head low and trailing a hand against the water-stained wall.

  This is Mrs Tanner and her granddaughter, the custodian said from below. They’re resting here a bit.

  It’s just Becky, a reedy voice said from out of the darkness. This is Kayla.

  Arthur? the boy whispered.

  I’m here. The old man stepped through. Where are you?

  The custodian was standing hazy and indistinct in that dim underground chamber and then he crossed to the far wall and tugged at the dusty curtains. They squealed on their threads exposing a row of high barred windows. A weak grey light sifted in. He could just make out two figures seated at a low folding table near the far wall.

  Come in, the custodian muttered gruffly. Come in, sit down. Becky used to be our organist.

  I
still am, she smiled from the gloom. Don’t mind Sal. You go away for a bit and it’s like you were never here. I didn’t catch your name.

  Arthur Lear. This is Mason.

  They came forward. And then something in the old man lurched, leaned to one side, righted itself. The organist was looking up at him, her cropped white hair in frame at her face, her puckered lips drawn and sad. There was nothing in her to resemble her. She was not her. And yet when he looked at her he saw his wife.

  What is it? the custodian asked. You’re alright? He was at creaking open and brushing off a metal folding chair for the boy.

  He cleared his throat, blushed. It’s nothing, he said. He glanced again at the organist, glanced away. His heart gone liquid inside him.

  A fire was burning in a black cast-iron heatstove. In the shadows of that long room leaned stacks of blue gymnastics mats and a pew cluttered with cardboard boxes of many sizes and the tiled linoleum had been left unlaid along the walls. The old custodian dragged the metal card table out. A pale yellow tablecloth hung crookedly off it looking ghostly in the weak light and the old man sat uneasily down beside the boy.

  We only just stopped in for a rest, he said. Mason’s mother is down at Henderson Field.

  She’s at Henderson Field?

  Not like that, the old man said. She’s looking for his sister.

  Oh, sweetie, the organist frowned. She looked at the boy. She had sad grey eyes. Sal why don’t you get them something to drink. Are you hungry Mason?

  The boy looked at him and then at the organist and he shook his head no.

  We’re alright, the old man said. Just a little sore. Are you tired? he said quietly to the boy.

  No.

  Are you sure?

  Yes.

  Why don’t you lie down on the mats over there? the organist said. She pointed to a shadowed corner, a stack of gym mats. We were resting on them earlier. Come on.

  The boy looked at the old man.

  Do what you want, he said.

  The boy stood and went over to the mats and lay down.

  Mr Lear’s knees are bothering him, the custodian said.

  The organist frowned. Her wrists were ropy and liverspotted and frail. Would an aspirin help? I’ve an aspirin out in the car.

  But he shook his head. That peculiar blue tone that entered his wife’s voice when she asked a question and knew the answer. The grey coveralls she would work in, one long white hand resting on the stool as she chipped away. The soft clink of tools in the low light of the shed. He was suddenly very tired.

  The custodian opened a cabinet and took down a set of teacups and saucers and he set these clinking upon the table and he returned and took down a bowl of sugar and a creamer and a single dented spoon. He chunked the kettle on the stove lid and went to the cabinet and lifted down a glass jar filled with tea bags. Then he upended the teapot and shook the bags into his palm and held the pot up to the light with his thumb gripping the inner wall and he peered into it and blew some dust free and replaced the bags. An orange cat poured between his ankles purring as he worked and he pushed it off with the wall of his shoe.

  It’s strange being in this church again, the old man said softly. I haven’t been in years.

  The organist studied him. No?

  I came here as a boy, he said. Maybe that’s why.

  Did you hear that, Sal? she said. Another prodigal.

  The custodian waved her off gruffly. The cat was wending between his feet and he took it in both hands and walked to one side and pitched it unceremoniously into shadow. But you’re back here now, he said. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence.

  The old man smiled. He felt the big sadness welling up in him again.

  You think I’m joking, the custodian said.

  I don’t think you’re joking.

  Sal doesn’t believe in coincidence, the organist said.

  The custodian came over and sat across from the old man. Coincidence is just another word for providence, he said. Except it is not so frightening.

  The tobacconist shuddering in her stained bedsheets. The weird bandaged stumps of her arms twitching. I feel like I haven’t slept in days, he said. Do you have some water?

  Of course.

  The organist leaned forward conspiratorially. His wife’s cool wrist on his shoulder, the steady rise of her breathing. The bite of her rings in his neck. What is the matter with you? Hold it together, he thought.

  Sal’s a great one for his faith, she was saying. My father was very religious too. I’ve had a harder time of it.

  That seems to be how it works, the custodian said. Faith breeds uncertainty.

  She nodded. I remember when I turned eighteen my father gave me a bible for my birthday. Not much of a present for a young woman. I found it a few years ago in a box in the attic and when I opened it up what do you think fell out? A hundred-dollar bill. It must have been in there all those years and I never knew about it and he never mentioned it. It would’ve been a lot of money back then.

  Yes.

  Imagine. I’d had it all those years and never even opened it once. He must have known.

  A hundred dollars. That’s quite a reward for opening a bible.

  She laughed. Well it seemed pretty miraculous at the time.

  The little girl looked up at her grandmother. I saw a miracle once, she said.

  I know you did.

  I saw Jesus in a piece of toast. Remember?

  I remember. What did you do with the toast?

  The girl smiled shyly.

  You don’t want to tell them?

  I ate it.

  The organist nodded and smiled. That’s right. You ate it.

  She shifted her granddaughter in her lap and the old man peered at the two, at the shadow of the one in the skin of the other. What he did not ever have. As he did not ever think the hour. The kettle was warbling a low pained warble from the stove and he looked away.

  The custodian leaned back in his chair. God’s hand is in more than we know, he said.

  Well. For those who believe it.

  Which is not you?

  I can’t accept any god who would allow this to happen.

  The custodian studied him from behind his wire spectacles. You mean the earthquake?

  Yes.

  Well. There is agency even in that.

  Sal, the organist interjected. Leave it alone. No one did this to us.

  The custodian lifted his dry bony shoulders. His dusty green sweater, his leathery skin. Of course not, he said. But how much good has come out of this, how much charity? God is more visible in what’s taken from us than in what is given.

  The old man was thinking of his wife in the small kitchen of their house those long years ago. The chunt-chunt-chunt of her chopping vegetables, the throaty low hum as she sang along to the radio. A wash of traffic in the street outside. How long ago was that. For how many years had he tried not to remember. The kettle began to whistle and then to shriek.

  The custodian got to his feet. Mr Lear doesn’t agree, he said.

  I don’t. I’m sorry.

  We call the evil within us sin and the evil outside us suffering. But it’s all one.

  Suffering is evil?

  The organist was murmuring to her granddaughter and then looked up as the custodian picked up the kettle. The shrieking fell away into silence. All at once the church felt immense and quiet above them.

  I can’t accept that, the old man said softly. The boy’s eyes were closed in the half-light and the old man saw him again as he was on that first night, climbing out of the ruins. Thinking of that and then not thinking of it. I don’t think evil has anything to do with it, he said. Sometimes we just confuse the thing. Sometimes there’s just no sense to be made of it.

  It is what it is?

  I suppose so.

  The custodian drew his thorny brows in tight as if weighing the old man’s doubt. Evil is the suffering which afflicts us, he said. All of us. It is manifest in us, it is a part of
what we are.

  The old man shifted in his chair.

  God frightens me, he went on. Without such fear I don’t think faith is possible. Fear and love are very close. Many people claim to love their God but they don’t fear Him and I don’t see how this is possible. To know God is to see how unlike us true holiness is. It’s overwhelming. It is what it is and we are what we are. There’s no apology for it.

  You have a hard view of it Sal.

  Maybe. But there’s adoration in the man who trembles before the Lord. He stood with his ropy hands on the metal seatback. I know what you’d ask, he said. How can anyone believe in a God who permits such suffering. What could be the purpose. He shook his wispy head with great seriousness. Fear is a lesson we don’t learn easily. God’s a stranger to all of us, believers and unbelievers alike. Which is as it ought to be. There’s no answer to it beyond faith. You wonder how can God love us and still cause us pain? It’s a meaningless question. God does not love us.

  You don’t think God loves us?

  What is there to love?

  The old man frowned. But a god like that? Capable of such brutality?

  God is not an elected official. He does not act to please us.

  You sound so sure.

  I am sure. It is called faith.

  That kind of faith is blind faith.

  The organist turned her brown eyes upon the old man. Faith is seeing without sight, she said quietly. If you’re looking too hard for it, Mr Lear, you won’t find it.

  I’m not looking for it.

  Of course you are.

  The old man was quiet for a long while. At last he said, I don’t know. It seems to me faith is nothing or it’s everything. There’s no middle to it.

  It’s all middle, said the custodian. That’s why it’s so difficult.

  It’s as real to me as air or water, the organist said.

  But not to me. Not without proof.

  Faith is a kind of proof.

  But only to those who have it. That’s the problem with it.