The Woman Who Lost Her Soul Hardcover

by Bob Shacochis

  Take the bed, I’ll take the couch, she said.

  Negative, babe, and off went his socks and boots and his shirt and his trousers in an odorous pile on the floor—The pecs! she teased. The glutes!—and by the time he reached the leather sofa she was back from the hallway with a sheet and pillow.

  Are you sure? she asked.

  About what? he said, closing his eyes, and she kissed him chastely on the forehead and the lights went out and he began to doze off with the weight of grave disappointment in her self-absorption, that she hadn’t asked how things had turned, better or worse, in Haiti and she hadn’t wondered about the fate of Margarete and her brother, two people with some responsibility for saving her life from Ti Phillipe and his thugs, and she hadn’t been fully forthcoming with the truth, or maybe she had told him everything she knew, which amounted in the end to partial truths and confused ripping crosscurrents of bad agendas and perfidious motivations. Then he heard her walk back into the room in the darkness and stand in the quiet looking at him.

  I wanted to say, she said, and maybe it didn’t matter to her if he was awake or asleep. I wanted you to understand. It’s not just my father. It’s him and his cohorts, his friends, his associates, his affiliates. His congregation. These powerful men, if you disagree with them, it’s like you’ve made a heretical assertion. Challenged the will of God. Questioned the divine mission. Dissent in their eyes being the equivalent of disloyalty.

  Without opening his eyes he told her he knew, and he told her good night, but she was not finished.

  That’s what worries me, she said. I know you know, so you know where this is going. He kept his eyes closed and his mouth shut because she wasn’t making sense again, and let’s get real, he said to himself, wasn’t it a bit belated in her universe for second thoughts and soul-searching? He heard her there breathing for another minute, holding out for a better answer than his silence, and then she went away and then he heard her stop, more silence expanding, pressurizing the air, but the cocaine’s there, the beers went down fast, and she’s still not finished.

  He wants the gloves off, he wants to hurry up, she says but she’s muttering to herself. I’m saying, she said more lucidly, he’s creating you. That’s different than teaching. That’s not the same.

  Speak for yourself, he would have said, if he had anything more to say.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  At five he sat straight up and stared at his wristwatch, waiting for his brain to get the call, good message or bad, the pain is here? not here? which is how he awoke most mornings since his induction into Delta, getting his feet on the ground, and when he walked down the hallway to the bathroom he saw her light and kept walking into the bedroom to take the book from her chest and put it on the new nightstand and turn off the new lamp, these ambiguous investments, and withdraw without ever truly looking at her because looking at her now was something he desired.

  Back in the bathroom he performed his ablutions and dressed in his running shorts and wife-beater top and then tiptoed back into the bedroom for clean clothes, which he folded into a daypack and strapped over his shoulders and wrote her a note saying he’d be back by dinnertime and then hit the road for the ten-mile jog to the Wall, where he showered in the gymnasium locker room and redressed himself and walked over to the clinic for HIV and drug tests, mandatory after every deployment, then gathered up Scarecrow and the other two members of their four-man squad and reported to command for an after-action debriefing.

  They took their seats around a conference table, joking, getting settled, slurping mugs of coffee, spitting vile tobacco juice into paper cups, and Burnette asked Scarecrow how was Panama and Scarecrow made a face of exaggerated incredulity and said, Dude, don’t tell me you’ve never been. How does one explain mango pussy to an Eskimo? The major jumped in, Any hitches down there, Scarecrow? And Scarecrow said, Same old, sir. Temper tantrums and snits. The agency contractors, the Bureau, the DEA, the DIA and the League of Women Voters squabbling over jurisdiction, butting heads over interrogation techniques, swiping fountain pens. But if you ask me, sir, said Scarecrow, this rendition doesn’t pass the smell test. Who are these bozos—the Mexican and this Haitian? Why was this a Delta mission?

  Sir, if I may, said Burnette. The capture and rendition of the two suspects was a last-minute OGA request to provide assistance during a developing emergency, a confirmed and immediate threat against an agency asset. At every level of our original mission they were in the way, magnets for blowback, and the plane was on station. Sorry, man, he said to Scarecrow, the tempo was fucked and I told you what I could.

  Bad karma, Bernadette, said Scarecrow, smiling wickedly. Squad keeping secrets from one another. You could have whispered in my ear.

  For the record, said the major. Burnette, because of a previous but tangential commitment under Title 50 authority, goes dark for two days, ends up in Tampa with a dead US citizen, female—

  Off-limits, sir.

  —turns around, heads back to the AO and completes the mission. What about you two guys? he asked the other squad members.

  Tilly and I remained behind in Cap-Haïtien, said the broad-chested D-boy from Perth Amboy called Spank. We monitored the situation until Burn returned to theater, sir, and then it took us a few more days to successfully conclude, or fuck up, the mission—take your pick, sir.

  Let’s talk a little about that, said the major. JSOC got a call from some fuckwad at the PAP embassy complaining about American special forces in Cap-Haïtien operating in support of a coup d’état.

  Horseshit, sir.

  It would have to be, Burnette, said the major, since we sent your squad down there to stop one.

  I think some people at the embassy might be confused, sir.

  Wow, said Scarecrow. Zow.

  What the fuck were you thinking, Burnette, said the major. Where’d you get the idea you can walk into an American embassy and start threatening people?

  No threats, sir. Just miscommunication. I was trying to do the right thing.

  There you go, bro, said Scarecrow. Sink your ass in boiling water.

  That day at Augusta with FOG, no sooner had his call ended with Renee when his pager buzzed and he asked to borrow the satphone and Ben gave it back and he called Fayetteville and the major said where are you exactly and Burnette told him and the major said wait a minute and when he came on the line again he told Burnette he had until 1800 to get himself to Daniel Field, an airstrip operated by the city of Augusta, and when he got there the flight manager said, Get your gear, son. Your ride’s on approach and they already cleared for a turnaround. In comes a Gulfstream with his squad aboard, Scarecrow pops his head into the hatchway and hollers, Party! Tilly’s behind him waving a bottle of Courvoisier and Eville takes a minute to feel the love, let’s all just go off together to Hell Central and die for each other and be one thousand percent forever beautiful.

  The final score, ladies, said Tilly. Ass-clowns, one; Cacaville, nothing.

  Permission to speak, sir, Spank said, grinning at the major. We need therapists.

  I’m gonna say something, Ev, said Scarecrow.

  Yeah?

  There’s only one little thing wrong with your story, said Scarecrow. The story about the chick.

  Just say it.

  How much time did I spend with these skunks, on the plane, listening to their blubbering in Panama. Right, but I don’t speak Haitian-speak, so this witch-doctor boogeyman might as well be talking to the moon. Mi español, that’s another story. I listen to this greaser on the flight and then I listen to his crap when they start hammering on his ass in Panama, and here’s what you should know. The Mex worked for this guy Jack Parmentier, not that punk Ti Phillipe. The hit was not husband and wife—the hit was wife. Ever wonder why she was alone down there at the party? Your man Parmentier put th
e contract on her. We fucked up, Burn, said Scarecrow. The girl’s dead, her husband punched her clock, and we could have stopped it.

  That’s not right, that’s half right, he said, his despondence suddenly genuine.

  What say to a seven-day furlough, gentlemen? said the major. I think you need to catch your breath.

  She was at the little round table in the breakfast nook with her laptop and a cup of coffee, tapping out the final draft of a report that would join a cyber-queue or paper stack in someone’s cubicle at Langley, perhaps to be perused and discussed for a few ephemeral minutes of geo-pol banter between a desk officer and a case officer or deconstructed by a lonely analyst and then locked away in the agency’s vaults, joining the millions of field reports in a climate-controlled institutional subconsciousness, a shuttered discouraged id, its self-defined and unacknowledged secrets lapsing into a deep, fecund sediment of meaninglessness, the hubris of the past identical to the hubris of the present and as unremembered as its sacrifices. The shit comes in and never flows out, where it might contaminate. She found the process oddly reaffirming

  When Eville sat down across from her she closed the file and key-stroked the computer down with a half-smile of apology and he asked about her plans—short term, long term: what was she thinking about? She was welcome here. He was curious, that’s all, he said.

  I want you to know everything, she said, her voice raspy and her mind still dense with introspection from writing, although of course she wasn’t being as honest as she sounded. She didn’t feel ready yet to reinstall herself in northern Virginia. Practically, physically, professionally, emotionally, she told him, she remained for the time being unprepared, not fragile but not sure-footed, either. The practical was obvious—stay on the rolls of the dead, at least for a few more months until the various investigations would inevitably become sclerotic. Her health and strength were normal, but she was not at the moment up to the challenge of what the Agency would demand for her if now, after two years as a rookie in the field, she accepted their offer to be part of a new wave of tactical application, a favorite fantasy project for the terminally frustrated belligerents, an Agency-owned and operated boutique of paramilitaries, the Agency’s first generation of sanctioned gunslingers since the OSS and the early years of the Cold War, and she was still considering that option, still undecided.

  Some guys—my father’s one of them—want to see the Agency transform itself into a DOO, Department of Offense, no more hired guns, let’s do it ourselves but, you know, I’m not sure I’m made for it, she said. I can’t seem to control my anger. You know this better than me, Ev: If you’re going to be a killer, character matters.

  There was the real possibility she could switch directorates, work for Ben’s counterpart at Langley, develop into one of the young superstar analysts on his team at Alec Station. Maybe instead she would go back to university—the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown had its allure; maybe she would follow her father’s footsteps and slip out of the shadows into the diplomatic corps, dress nice, make nice, or maybe she would return to the Mideast and study classical Arabic to develop a deeper perspective on the cult of millennial revenge. These were the options that Renee’s death had given her the time to consider, to reason through until she could tell herself with confidence, Okay, there it is, my life, the arc of it, the contribution one is called upon to make. She explained, tried to explain without getting into it, her mother’s mother was dying, which meant her mother was in Missouri tending to her grandparents, which meant that if she, Dottie, went back to the DC area she’d be coerced into living with her father at the town house in Vienna until she accepted a new assignment, at the very least she’d have to fight with him about getting her own place, and she couldn’t manage the complexities of that right now.

  You know what I mean? she asked, and he nodded, she could tell, just to nod and agree and let it pass.

  I have a proposition, he said, his tone and countenance rather too formal for her to look forward to what he might say. What do you think about getting away? Going somewhere?

  You want me out of here, she said, frowning at the idea, how it felt, the sink of disappointment.

  No, sorry, not what I meant, he said. I’m off the hook for seven days and I was thinking it’s probably not good for us to hang around Fayetteville and be seen together. So what do you think? Want to go somewhere?

  Together?

  The word together had a heart to it, moved her own solitary heart with a faint sting of impossibility. He nodded cautiously and she said I like that plan and he asked her what appealed to her most, the mountains or the shore, isolation or something in between.

  Going off someplace away from everything, she said. Can we do that? I want to be the only two people in the world. Can that be, just us—leaving unspoken her true concern, the relentlessness of their intimacy, that being alone together would eventually challenge his tolerance for her, summon his puritanical hostility and spoil this unexpected chance for something restorative and perhaps lovely.

  The shore, she said. The ocean.

  There was a place he had wanted to explore since coming to Fayetteville, an uninhabited island on the Outer Banks, but here’s the deal, he said, it’s primitive, no bathrooms, no showers, no stores, no phones, no nothing, just the sea and the burn of the sand and wind and at this time of year, thanks to the southward springtime migration of redfish—mammoth red drum—some of the most awesome surf fishing in the universe. How’s that sound? he asked her pointedly. Sound boring? and she responded with girlish ebullience, telling him, What are we waiting for?

  When he dumped out the contents of his duffel onto the bedroom floor and began to repack she asked him with some timidity if he minded and he said, Go ahead, and she threw her own clothes and stuff in with his, sequestering her toiletries and laptop and her agency satphone in her own day pack and he paused, down on his knees, looking thoughtfully at her things and his snuggled in the duffel and said, You’ve heard the phrase cognitive dissonance? I’m staring at panties in my kit. They seem to be getting along, she said. So far, he cracked, and thank God he smiled again and again crookedly, which made shyness gather on the left side of his mouth, settling up toward his eyes, something he would hate about himself if she ever told him she found it quite adorable.

  The town house had a modest unfinished basement where he stored his voluminous camping and fishing gear and while he was down below puttering around she took the truck and followed his directions to the sandwich shop and came back with subs and chips for their dinner. Afterward they each showered and headed out together into the town to shop—a big-box store first, where she wandered off to buy a bikini and shorts and something loose to wear at night around the campfire. He stood in the sports department, examining the surf-casting tackle, not his style of fishing, before he decided to purchase a rod for Dottie. Crab net, clam rake, bait bucket. Frying pan, a large pot for steaming shellfish, a pair of blue-speckled enamel plates like shallow bowls. She was wearing Hello Kitty sunglasses and a flouncy pink sun hat and a truly ugly purple and green muumuu when they caught up with each other again with overloaded carts at the checkout. Since when did it become so easy to make you laugh, mister? she said, lowering her sunglasses to perform a peering scrutiny of his mirth.

  Next stop groceries, then onward to ice and liquor, two cases of Rolling Rock, an irresistible bottle of Barbancourt and, her last minute impulse, a fifth of tequila. Back at the town house they opened beers and heaped all the gear in the living room and mulled it over and Ev said, impressed, that’s a lot of stuff for seven days, and she said, seven days with a girl—and most of it’s yours.

  He turned on the television, hoping to catch the weather on the late local news, but the broadcast was wrapping up with sports and she said, Let’s not worry about the weather, let’s just go. Drive all night, be there in the morning—doesn’t that s
ound great? she said, watching him consider it, watching him waver. Come on, she said, tell me one good reason why we should wait until tomorrow? Are you too tired to drive? I’ll drive. Or, she said, we can pack the truck and do what’s left of the coke and hit the road. He blinked at her, nodding uncertainly and then just nodding, giving in and not unhappy about his surrender, saying, As influences go, you are definitely not good for me.

  They hauled the gear out and stowed it and stretched a tarp over the truck bed and tied it down and came back inside and split the last of her coke and she went to the fridge and opened beers for the road and he took his beer and said, I believe there goes my life, I’ll be busted before we’re a mile out of town and she said, thank God we’re not risk takers, right, or who knows what the fuck we’d be doing.

  As soon as he felt the coke sear the membrane in his nose for the first time in more than a year he craved a cigarette and when they stopped to gas up he went inside to buy a pack of Camels. I want one too, she said as they drove off. Let’s be bad in all the normal wholesome ways. Reprobates, he said, is what we are. She turned on the radio and spun through the dial until he said, Stop, that’s my parents’ tunes, they loved that fifties stuff, and she slid across the seat next to him and he said, Yo, seatbelt, we’re already asking for trouble and she quoted from Romeo and Juliet, all the world will be in love with night, and told him she wasn’t driving to the beach at midnight with an attractive, kissable hunk of a soldier boy—Did we ever kiss? No. That’s what I thought—listening to sock hop music and feeling so good only to strap herself in on the other side of the cab, a thousand miles away from her mood.

  They headed away from the city lights, east on Route 24 toward the coast. When they weren’t singing along with the Shirelles or Leslie Gore or the doo wop groups, Ev, amped up and unusually talkative, riffed about some new experimental type of D-boy training he had begun out west before he was yanked for Haiti—aikido, a martial arts regimen on the surface but something a bit New Age queer the more you sank into it, he said, developing your so-called inner technology. You heard anything about that? Biofeedback? Meditation?