Waking the Dead

by Scott Spencer

  And though I didn’t know why I would say it, I said yes. The silence returned; it seemed to wash over us like the tide. I listened; the silence laid its hands upon me and pulled me out of my chair. I was standing now, leaning across the desk, one hand holding the receiver, the other pulling at my hair.

  “Sarah?” I whispered.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s me. It’s … me.”

  I found myself sitting on the floor. The phone had slid off the desk but the wire tethered it so it dangled in midair.

  “No,” I said. “Who is this?”

  “I’m sorry, Fielding. I’m sorry.” She took a deep breath with a sob beating within it like a wing. “This has been so hard. Every day I had to decide whether or not to call you, to let you know. That was something I needed to do every day. I tried to bring you to me. I tried to conjure you. I wrote your name on a piece of paper and I pinned it to the top of my blanket.”

  “Sarah?” I said. “Is this really happening?” But even as I asked it, even as my heart swelled and raced within me, I knew it was her voice: she sounded exhausted, slightly frightened, and there was a distance, an involuntary strangeness that I had never heard before. But those were just passing clouds across the face of the moon.

  “It’s such a hard story, Fielding,” she said. “I did what I had to. I needed to sacrifice. I couldn’t stay where I was. I couldn’t stay that person.”

  “Sarah. Where are you? Where are you right now? Are you far away?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know … I called you up to tell you. But now I don’t know. It seems like a vanity on top of a vanity to give you up and then come back.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I just wanted you to know I was alive. It wasn’t me in that car. It was so complicated. An ugly thing. It was one of the Chileans, the woman, but she was wearing my clothes. It wasn’t my idea. But I didn’t say no. I could do things I could never do otherwise.”

  “Where are you right now? I’m going to hang up if you don’t tell me.” I was not shouting; I was bellowing. I closed my eyes to picture her face as I had done so many times before, but now I could not see her: there was just blackness and a slow traffic of trembling dots. It struck me in a glancing sort of way that I was dying.

  “Please don’t,” she said.

  I stood up. I placed the phone back on the desk. I looked at the pictures of Rudy and Malik, the lamplight on the darkened windows, listened to the icy rustle of the falling snow.

  “Was that you I chased into Stanton’s church last week?” I asked.

  There was a silence. And then she said, “No.”

  “You’ve been everywhere, Sarah. Christ. I don’t even know who I’m talking to.”

  “I’m so proud of you, Fielding. You’re so close to what you’ve been working for. You’ll be in a position to do so much good.”

  “Oh Christ, I don’t want to talk about that. You don’t know what this has been like. You don’t know what it’s like right now. How can I know this is you? I’ve got to see you, Sarah.”

  “Maybe later. I want to see you, too, you know.”

  “Then right now, right now.”

  “I’m far away.”

  “Just tell me where. I’ll be there. Tell me.”

  “I can’t. I can’t turn back and neither can you.”

  “Are you married?” I asked her.

  She had to think about it. Finally, she said, “To a man? No.”

  “To a woman?”

  “To no one on earth.”

  “What are you? A nun?”

  “No, Fielding. No.”

  “But are you with someone?”

  “Yes, I am,” she said. “I’m with you.”

  The connection broke. This slight interruption of electronic impulse sent me hurtling back to the wrong side of eternity again. I placed the receiver into the phone’s cradle and walked through the apartment, swinging my arms back and forth, talking to myself but not making the slightest bit of sense. A sob came up out of me and it felt as if an umbrella had opened up in the middle of my throat. I put my hand over my mouth; my breath was hot. And then the next thing I can remember is I was outside, dressed in overcoat, scarf, and gloves and the deserted street was its own frigid planet, separated from the rest of the universe by an eternal impenetrable darkness, illuminated only by a line of cool, dim moons.

  14

  I WAITED FORTY-EIGHT hours for her to call again. Juliet did not come home, Danny and Kim went up to Toronto, I debated Bertelli in front of the local chapter of the League of Women Voters and he trounced me, beating me right back into the arms of my old childhood stammer and reducing my usual lilting logic to mere thrusts of half-believed notions. Then it was Friday, four days before the special election. Tony Dayton had done a nonscientific poll that put Bertelli and me in a dead heat. The money the Democratic machine had allotted me had already been spent and suddenly Bertelli was getting all sorts of fresh financing—from the national Republicans, and Teamsters, the Chicago Gay Alliance, and from that black preacher who was leading the antiabortion campaign up and down Cottage Grove. Isaac and Adele caught up with me Friday night to tell me they were going to loan me $20,000 to take me through the last couple of days of the race. They asked me over for a late supper, so they could present the check and talk about the campaign.They were clearly worried, though if my having lost Juliet during this sudden tailspin was a part of their concern, they gave no indication.

  I appeared at the Greens’ apartment about eight in the evening. Mrs. Davis let me in—she was wearing her fur coat and was on her way home. Her dark eyes threw off sparks of impatience like a tailpipe hitting the pavement at sixty. “They’re in there,” she said, “waiting for you.” She walked right past me and into the hall. She was limping; she had an Ace bandage around her ankle.

  “What’s with Mrs. Davis?” I asked, walking into the dining room with my coat over my arm.The snowflakes were turning to little dots of water and then disappearing into the wool.

  Isaac and Adele were at the dining room table. Places had been set and a platter of cold brisket was on display. All this was within the bounds of acceptable behavior but unfortunately they were not alone. Sitting next to Adele was Tony Dayton, with a thick computer printout next to his gold-trimmed plate, and sitting next to Isaac was Juliet, wearing a penitential black sweater and delicate ruby earrings (to say she wasn’t really that sorry).

  “Trapped,” I said, trying to have it both ways by finishing with a smile.

  “Sit down, Fielding, and eat,” said Adele. “Then we’ll talk.”

  “Your best friends in the whole world are at this table,” said Isaac with a frown.

  “Hello, Juliet,” I said. “They put an all-points bulletin out on you?”

  “Hello, Fielding,” she said. “You look tired.”

  “Tossing and turning.” A place had been set for me next to Juliet and I took it. No sense acting emotional about it.

  “OK,” said Isaac, “whatever problems of adjustment you two have been having can be put aside for a while. You two have been a team and an effective one and this is not the time to potchky around with that.”

  The others all had wine in their modern little goblets; mine had been filled with club soda. I took a sip; it was violently gaseous and salty. Like seawater after a nuclear war. “Are we really going to talk about this in front of Tony?”

  “As if I didn’t already know,” he said, shaking his head. “What am I? Blind?”

  “Oh God, I forgot to tell you, Isaac. Tony’s been doing a great job.”

  “That you feel so divided from Tony is as good an indication as any how much trouble you’re in,” said Isaac. He raised his finger at me, but did not wag it. “How can we wage a successful campaign if you treat Tony as if he was an outsider?”

  “Have I hurt your feelings, Tony?” I asked, smiling.

  “Well,” he said, looking down, “it is like t
rying to win a horse race while your horse is reaching around trying to bite your foot.”

  Isaac closed his eyes for a moment and touched the tablecloth with his open hand, looking for the strength of forbearance in the privacy of his own internal darkness, the feel of his own possessions.

  “I doubt that’s what you really meant to say, Tony,” I said.

  “You know what I mean,” he said.

  “Yes, of course. Do I have to take a saliva test after the election?”

  Juliet reached beneath the table and took my hand. I squeezed her fingers hard until she let go.

  “I thought you said this thing was a walk,” I said to Isaac. “I thought I wouldn’t lose.”

  “Are you really going to accuse me of making your mistakes?” Isaac said.

  “So what does your latest informal poll tell you, Tony?” I asked.

  “You’ve lost a tremendous amount of support,” he said. “Fifteen points, more or less. But now we’re hitting the bedrock of Democratic support and we seem to be holding. Bertelli’s people are going to have to find a way of breaking that last support barrier—and if they do, then they can have the election.”

  “What are we talking about here?” I asked. “The people who vote Democratic no matter who’s running?”

  “Party loyalists,”Tony said. “They’re called party loyalists and if I were you I’d speak about them with respect.”

  Suddenly Isaac slammed his fist down onto the table. The china jumped. “What has been going on in this campaign?” he asked. “What has happened to our high hopes? Are we really going to lose a congressional seat to some nobody who runs a coffeehouse?”

  “He isn’t beating us on issues, Isaac,” said Tony. “On issues we cream him every time. But he’s a very affable fellow and it comes across.”

  Finally, Juliet spoke. I’d been waiting for this. “When he wants to be, Fielding can be the most charming man on earth.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  “Well, it’s true, Fielding. Maybe it goes against this—this self-image you have, of the rough guy from the poor family and all that— that decoration. But it’s true.”

  “Why are you here, Juliet? How did they get you to do this?”

  “I am here because I want to be. I’ve seen you through all the steps you’ve had to take to get this far. It seems wasteful to just let you throw it away when you’re this close.”

  “Even if you win, Fielding,” Adele said, “and I think you will, you’re not creating an impression on the people you need to impress if you’re going to continue with your career. I think we just need to focus our thinking. We’re all jittery with the election so close.” She took a deep breath and reached for the platter of brisket; it was brown, cold, an instant pathway to vegetarianism. “Why don’t we all have a bite to eat and then get down to cases? It’s brisket. Jeremy’s favorite.”

  It was rare for them to mention Jeremy. He had escaped his parents’ plans for him and now here I was eating his dinner.

  “I wonder if you would all excuse Fielding and me for a moment,” Isaac suddenly said. He took his napkin from his lap and rubbed his hands against it.

  “That’ll be just fine,” said Adele. She had just served Isaac a slice of the brisket but she speared it again with the serving fork and put it back on the platter.

  I leaned next to Juliet and whispered in her ear, even as she raised her shoulder and tried to protect herself from me. “I’d get out of here right now. Wherever you’ve been staying, whatever you’re doing—it’s got to be a better deal than you’ll get here. The ship is sinking.” And with that I stood up and followed Isaac out of the dining room.

  We went across the corridor into his study. A small almost transparent fire was trembling in the hearth. The darkness that had settled into the corners of that room seemed heavy, like the darkness of another planet, a darkness that would take more than mere light to remove. Isaac switched on a lamp; it dropped a ring of light on the high polish of the table. I stood at the window and looked down at the view of streetlights and frozen lake. Though it had been only a few weeks, it seemed years before when I’d stood here with the governor and Isaac at my back. It was snowing then and it was snowing still. I wondered if on the South Side in my apartment the phone was ringing at this very instant. The thought went through me like a wheel of fire. I pressed my forehead against the window.

  “Shall we get down to cases?” asked Isaac. He sat on the arm of one of his club chairs and crossed his legs at the ankle, folded his arms over his chest. He looked dapper, furious.

  “I’m going to win the election, Isaac. Don’t worry.”

  “Don’t worry? What right have you to tell me not to worry? You know very little about this process. You are a neophyte. But I thought you had the instinct. I actually thought you were ready to take this step. And now I see how wrong I was.”

  “You’re only wrong if I lose. And we don’t know that I’m going to lose.”

  Isaac shook his head. “You see how upset Adele is. I don’t like her to be upset. She is talking about Jeremy and she never does unless it’s in private or she isn’t paying attention. You don’t seem to realize that when you enter into the lives of other people, they count on you. There is an obligation. A moral obligation.”

  “I think if Adele wants to talk about Jeremy it’s fine.”

  “As you know, our son is a painful topic.”

  “For God’s sake, why? He’s not a criminal. He’s not curled up in some room whispering into his own hand. All that’s wrong with him is he didn’t do exactly what you wanted him to. What’s the tragedy? Especially since you found someone else to fill that spot and you went right on.”

  “And by that someone else, I assume you mean yourself.”

  “Of course.”

  “And do you feel you’ve been … victimized? In any way?”

  “Not by you. No.”

  “I didn’t come into your life,” said Isaac. “You came into mine. You had all of your appetites before I ever laid eyes on you. And when we met, you saw in me a vehicle that could carry you more or less in the direction you wanted to move. You used my counsel, my home, my connections. So please don’t suddenly pretend you were the victim of some diabolical plot on my part. What makes you so dangerous and so distasteful is how canny you are at imitating a gentleman.”

  “I already said I didn’t feel victimized, Isaac. You’ve only been decent to me.”

  “Decent. You don’t realize how goddamned lucky you were to have me. You think coming from a family like yours you had the slightest preparation for public life? We’re talking about the real world, the big table where the big decisions are made. Not $4.85 an hour and going to work with your little lunch pail. We are talking about decisions of global proportion.”

  “Isaac, I want you to tell me something. What did you do for Governor Kinosis that he owed you such a huge favor?”

  “Governor Kinosis is a frightened, sentimental Greek and you’d be surprised how little you have to do to make him feel in your debt.”

  “OK, then. Surprise me.”

  “It is not any one particular thing. He considers me an intellectual. It bolsters his confidence to think he and I are friends. From time to time, I write something for him, or look over some papers. Kinosis is a man of tremendous drive but he is very insecure and he takes my goodwill as a benediction.”

  “Yes. Well, this is the impression you gave me.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is I no longer believe it. He doesn’t give you a congressman because he’s impressed with your letter to the editor of the New Republic. There’s something more.”

  Isaac took a deep breath. He went to the little rosewood bar and poured himself a drink from one of the decanters. Isaac was a ridiculous drinker; I doubt he even knew what he was pouring into his glass. There were just times when his own sense of himself and the choreography of the moment told him he ought to
have a drink in hand. He took a sip. I glanced at the decanter but didn’t make a move.

  “I have helped the governor with his investments and I’ve given him legal advice.”

  “What kind of legal advice, Isaac?”

  “I resent—”

  “Yes. I know. And I’m sorry. But I really do have to know.”

  Isaac finished his drink and placed the glass down on the table, glancing at it with what looked like disappointment, as if the liquor had betrayed him by not setting him at his ease. “He had some investments that could have been construed as a conflict of interests.”

  “Were they?”

  “Technically speaking, yes.”

  “How bad was it?”

  “He had a thirty percent share of a company that was getting state contracts.” Isaac shrugged, smiled. “The idiot owned a chicken farm that was supplying chickens to the state prison. All very low level. But lucrative, of course.”

  “Well, what did you do for him?”

  “A little of this, a little of that. You know.” He was talking to me as if everything was going back to normal. He was summing it up, putting it into perspective; presumably this was something we would laugh about.

  “I’ve got to go now, Isaac,” I said.

  “Go where?” His voice rose in anger and surprise. “Where do you think you’re going? This is absolutely indefensible.”

  “I just have to go. If I told you the reason you’d be even more upset.”

  “I leveled with you, Fielding.”

  “You didn’t tell me anything.”

  “Come. We’ll go to the dining room. We’ll have dinner. There’s still ample time to put this back together.”

  “I can’t do that, Isaac. I don’t want it back together. Not the way it was.”

  “Pardon my gross insensitivity,” he said, placing his hand over his heart, his voice rising beneath the swell of sarcasm, “but I’d be less than candid if I didn’t tell you I have no idea what you’re talking about. What are you? Finding yourself?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “We have three days before the voting begins, Fielding. Three days.”