The Mysteries of Soldiers Grove

by Paul Zimmer

  To conclude the poetry, I read something briefer and gentler—a translation of Tu Fu:

  March is gone, and April here.

  How many more chances to welcome spring?

  Do not think of things beyond death;

  Just drain these last allotted cups of life.

  “It’s almost like he is talking directly to the two of us,” Cyril comments. “He is saying good-bye with only a few words, before he says hello again from 1,300 years ago.”

  I want to play some music for Cyril. The afternoon is short and I have to be selective, so start with small pieces or short movements from Mozart, Debussy, Mendelssohn. He listens hungrily, happily, and always, without hesitation, makes some comments.

  This is Cyril on Debussy’s fifth Étude: “He pops right into that, doesn’t he? Gives a theme and works it over hard a few times, then runs his tune like a horse. People were still running around on horses in those days, and a lot of that galloping sound gets into his music. I heard it in the Mendelssohn you played, too. That pianist is quick! A statement with a theme; he gets it all in there. Debussy’s very French, isn’t he? He starts fast, then slows to a trot before he surprises us by galloping on some more. He’s got to be firm in the saddle. He gets a lot done in that little bit of time, doesn’t he? What is an étude?”

  Cyril, so swift sitting there—looking like a bear burned in a forest fire—takes my breath away. What could he have been if he’d had half a chance? It doesn’t matter. He is the keeper of the lives—and that is worth more than three advanced degrees or a billion dollars.

  “An étude is a brief exercise, I guess you would call it,” I tell him. “Like a hop, skip, and jump in a track meet. It’s meant to give the pianist a chance to show off.”

  It’s getting late in the afternoon. I had wanted to show Cyril some painting reproductions and had taken out a stack of big art books. But there was really only time to show him one artist, so I select the relatively unknown Gustave Caillebotte, whose work has always intrigued me. An odd choice amongst the French galaxy of painters—but then Cyril and I are both odd choices, too. We page together through the book, admiring the painter’s skill and energy. Cyril particularly likes Caillebotte’s painting of workmen scraping a floor in some building, their weariness evident in late afternoon.

  There is only half-light in my room now. I switch on several lamps. I had wanted to play some of the jazz I love for Cyril, too, and hear his comments—perhaps Lester Young or Thelonious Monk, but it has grown too late, and we are tired. We’ve learned a great deal about each other in these hours. I will host many more teas for the two of us, I promise him. Cyril is finishing a second scone.

  “Perhaps we better stop eating,” I say. “We’re going to be too full for our dinners.”

  “I hope so,” Cyril says.

  CHAPTER 21

  Cyril

  We buzz into the dining room just in time for the end of dinner service. Crumbled hamburger cooked with Wisconsin cheddar and topped with a tomato sauce, corn from a can, and two boiled potatoes—not exactly tournedos Rossini—but I give it a go. Louise is a little slower getting to it, poking her fork around, but eventually she digs in, too. The singer is working on her rendition of “Falling In Love With Love.” Fortunately, she got it started right and is not off-key, so she doesn’t sound half bad tonight. Sometimes she can reach back into herself and hit some of those notes pretty good.

  We’re both sleepy after our afternoon of culture and no naps—but we’ve had a time, a wonderful time, and will sleep well tonight. I notice Danderman a few tables over, trying to put some moves on an attractive, recently admitted widow. She doesn’t look very interested. In fact, she looks as if she’s not hearing most of what he says. Danderman yammers on, trying to look cool, a man of dogged habits.

  Louise and I have talked a lot this afternoon, so we don’t have much to say to each other at dinner. It’s often like this when the day is done—a weariness that takes full possession of us. I see the same thing in the protracted movements of the other home guests sitting around us—a sort of heavy cloud that comes into the institution and bears down on us when light falls; we are a roomful of old folks in various stages of decay; the faint glimmering in our eyes that might have been present in the morning is obscured almost completely now. It is a time of day when, if you are going to get a disease, or feel the beginning of some kind of attack, or get a fever—it happens now. Days are generally okay, but when night inches in, the trolls seem to slip out from under the bridges around Soldiers Grove and creep into town to do mysterious things, and mostly they head for this old folks’ home.

  After the dining hall we all return to our rooms. A little television, medicines, and wash-ups, then there is only one thing to do—go to bed and begin the cramped tussle between consciousness and bizarre subconscious dreams, interrupted by trips to the john. You piece together the best sleep you can—just suck it up and go on. Some folks are better at this than others. Louise and I do okay, but we’ve had a lot of things on our minds these past days and weeks.

  The dessert that evening in the dining hall is canned fruit salad. Louise picks out only the maraschino cherries, but I eat it all. We touch shoulders as we shamble through the corridors to our rooms; we’re still glowing a bit from our very special day. I take her to her door, make sure no one is looking, give her a big hug and a small kiss, thank her for the tea, take in her astonishing smile one more time, and then, happy as an ant milking aphids, head off for my own digs.

  As usual I haven’t locked my room; I close the door behind me and hustle straight into the bathroom just inside to take an urgent pee and wash my hands, and when I come out to switch on the lamp over the couch I sense that somebody is in the room, sitting in the chair in the far shadowed corner.

  I don’t make any sound, but I take a step back, drop my canes, and almost fall over. A large, vile-looking shape in the corner shadows—I begin to see it more clearly as my eyes adjust to the light. An ogre with dirty hair all over his face and neck. It looks as if someone has slashed a mouth into his face with a flick knife.

  “Well, well, well, geezer,” Balaclava rumbles. “I see you are still peeing all the time. But you’re changed since the last time I saw you. Did somebody run over you with a hay rake?”

  I take another teetering backward step. “How did you get in here?”

  “I walked right in like the local undertaker does every day. That desk attendant always has her nose in a book, and you left your door unlocked. I could have driven a Hummer in here and they wouldn’t have known.”

  “Get out of here! I’ll pull the emergency cord.”

  “It’s already cut, gramps. Don’t start talking tough. I think you better sit down. We’ve got some serious things to discuss.”

  But I choose to continue standing on my uneasy pegs. “What do you want with me?” My new little gun is strapped under my shirt, but I’d never be able to get it out in time. He’d be all over me if I started fumbling for it.

  “Pops, you caused me a whole peck of trouble. Ever since I left you out in that blizzard the fuzz have been hot on my ass. It’s given me fits trying to stay clear of them. But you—you make it through that storm and hang on long enough for the cops to find you.

  “Then when everyone finds out you are going to pull through and defrost, they make you into a national hero! I thought they were going to give you the fucking Medal of Honor before they were through! All that ink they were giving you and they went on and on about how you were so goddamned courageous. Courageous, my ass! You were sucking your thumb. Big brave shit-ass! You were shaking and peeing your pants in my truck.

  “Then the pictures of you in the paper, smiling like you’d just eaten a dozen chili dogs. They give you that goddamned award for bravery—50,000 smackers and a tuxedo dinner in New York! Bravery! Your pants were wet, old man! You were begging for mercy—and I gave you mercy. I let you go and made you famous. Do I get a 50,000-clam award for giving you mercy
? Naw! They are chasing me down like a dog. You owe me big time, geezer man. Big time! Where’s that money they gave you?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  Balaclava is up out of his chair and rolling toward me like a jagged boulder from the shadows. Cyril, I say to myself—as I did when I was about to be put out into that blizzard—Cyril, this is it. All the lives in this world aren’t going to save you now.

  Balaclava claps onto my shoulders and starts shaking me. My head is bobbing like an apple in high wind and I almost black out. “Wait, wait,” I manage to gargle. “Don’t kill me. That won’t help. Let me think.”

  He lets go of me and sits down on the edge of my bed, breathing hard. The money is right under his ass, in two socks tucked under the mattress. I know this . . . but he doesn’t. I fall onto the rug, and he’s looking down at me. I try to make it look like I’m completely vulnerable—but I’m thinking fast. “I put it in the bank in Viroqua,” I manage to whimper. He picks me up again like a broken twig, backhands me across my face, and tosses me onto the couch.

  “Then you better figure how you can get it the fuck out of there so you can give it to me and save your ancient carcass. I want all of it!”

  “I spent some of it.”

  “Don’t give me that shit!” I wince because I think he is going to grab me again and start shaking. “What were you spending it on? Viagra? I seen you running around with that old cutie. I want all that goddamned money, geezer. All! Get it?”

  I am thinking—how can anything so big and evil stay hidden? But Balaclava seems to manage. Apparently he can tuck himself away like a mortal sin in the darkest places, and then come out of the wallow to strike again.

  I thought again about the small gun against my ribs. But I’m so slow and fumble fingered, I would die surely if I tried to reach into my shirt and pull it out. Everything would go.

  “I can’t get the money now,” I say. “It’s in the bank in Viroqua, and it’s closed until tomorrow morning.”

  Balaclava looks like he’s going to pitch another fit, so I lower my head. But he manages to calm down. “Okay, Pops. Then I’ll spend the night with you, smelling your stale piss. And that is not going to put me in a better mood. Hanging around in the boonies watching old shitheads fall down all the time is not my favorite thing to do. So we are going to move this thing along; in the morning you will get your rickety ass over to that bank and withdraw the dough, and give it to me.”

  “I don’t have a car. How am I going to get to Viroqua?”

  “Get the goddamned limousine to take you! Get your little honey to drive you over. I been watching this place for a while. Don’t screw around with me, gramps! I know how it all works and how you work. No tricks! You wouldn’t want your sweetie to get all messed up, would you? I could make her look like mangled red cabbage.”

  He’s really got my attention now. He looks at me carefully. “I seen how much you like her,” he says slowly. Lights are going off in my head, I feel my heat going up. I almost go for my gun right then. My blood is pumping and my old claws are twitching. But if I die, it will only be hell to pay for Louise. I watch Balaclava thinking and it scares me.

  I remember then the sheriff’s little warning mechanism. What the hell have I done with it? I think I put it in the drawer of my bedside table, but I can’t be sure. How can I get to it now? I can’t be rooting around in drawers. I should have carried the thing with me. What a hopeless old idiot!

  I can almost hear the gears meshing inside Balaclava’s huge, oily head. The cogwheels finally click into place. My back hurts and my legs are cramping now. I am so angry and afraid, knowing what he’s going to say next. I feel so helpless.

  Balaclava says very slowly: “In fact, I think you better go get your little cookie jar right now and bring her back to this room. She can spend the night with us, too. That will make the cheese more binding. Isn’t that what they do in Wisconsin? It should be real cozy, the three of us together for the night.”

  Why don’t I just reach under the mattress and give him the money right now? I don’t know. My God, I don’t know! Because he would just knock me off anyway before he takes off with it—and kill Louise as a witness on his way out. Because it’s the most money I have ever had in my life. But mostly because I have decided to use it to surprise Louise and treat her with a trip to France. That’s the biggest reason of all. They gave the money to me because I was brave. If I’m so goddamned brave, then I don’t want this perverted ball of hairy dung to have a dime of it!

  He shows me his weapon then, slides it out of a long pocket in his boot, under his fat pant leg.

  My God, that gun! Everything changes in the room when that gun comes out. I’ve never seen anything like it before—a long pitiless thing that looks like the devil’s penis, with an attachment on the end of the barrel that seems to be a silencer. As he slips in a long clip of bullets, the darkness in the room consumes even more light. Everything is dimmer and seems more hopeless.

  He says, “If you aren’t back here in five minutes exactly, I’m coming after you. I mean it, geezer; and while I’m coming I’ll kick down some doors and start taking out a whole lot of other old lizards. Remember, I’ve got nothing to lose. Then I’m going to blow the two of you away, too. But slow, one at a time, her first, with shots in the legs and guts before she really gets it in that pretty face. So you can watch. Does that make you know I’m serious, geezer? Think of your baby’s face caving in when I blow it off with my cannon. You know I mean it!”

  I grind my stubs of teeth. My ancient eyeballs boil in their sockets. I am thinking murder. I am thinking total violence. My gray fists clench painfully. I want to grind this creature up like a hog. But if I went for my pop gun now I wouldn’t get past the top buttons of my shirt. I’d be spattered on the wall like an action painting, and Louise would be next. I have never felt such helplessness. He knows where she is. There are no doors for brutes like Balaclava.

  He is nudging me hard with his huge weapon. “Get your ass rolling, old man. I’m looking at your clock. Get her back here in five minutes or everything goes!” Balaclava goes to the door, opens it and checks the hall, then shoves me out on my canes. I almost fall down.

  I move as fast as I can, scrabbling along the corridor. I rap urgently below Louise’s room number. I can hear her stirring slowly, getting out of bed. She speaks wearily through her door, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Cyril. Louise, please, quick. There’s trouble.” She opens, and I reach to take her arm. “Don’t ask questions now. I’m so sorry. So sorry. Just come with me.” She slips into her robe, takes her cane from behind the door and we slide and shuffle down the hall together as fast as we can. I feel her rising tension when she looks at me. She quickly senses what’s going on.

  My room door is slightly ajar; we push it open and falter in. Balaclava is behind it, and shuts it firmly. Now both of us are in his wicked hands. I ask myself again, should I just give him the money? But I know, even if I handed it over, he would shoot us as witnesses anyway, and God knows what else he would do.

  CHAPTER 22

  Louise

  The beast signals us with his gun to move to the dim center of the room and points to the couch. We sit down.

  So this is Balaclava. He is everything Cyril has described to me—hirsute and hideous, with a look that would freeze a ticking clock. How did this creature come into our lives? The door is shut, the room is small, and we are ensnared by this reeking monster.

  “Hello, sister,” he says, as offensively as possible, “I thought you’d like to join this little discussion. We’re talking about money.”

  Some sort of ransom that he’s demanding from Cyril? I look at Cyril and see how wary and pensive he is. He has a bleeding cut over his left eyebrow, a big bruise on his cheek. I reach to comfort him.

  “No touching!” the sloth bear snarls. He points to Cyril. “The iceman here, he understands this now; he is going to get the money from the bank for me tomorrow morning. A
whole lot of money. So we are all going to spend the night here together before we make the trip to Viroqua to get it. Ain’t that cozy? And we are going to keep our goddamned mouths shut, and we are going to behave ourselves, aren’t we, sister? Because any funny stuff that you try means that I start pulling this trigger, and once the two of you are all chewed up, I’m gonna walk down the hall and knock off as many old fogies as I can find on my way out.

  “So we’re going to keep our pretty mouth shut, aren’t we, precious? And we are not going to try any tricks or make any signals. Right?” He turns to Cyril, “What time does that Viroqua bank open in the morning, pee-pants?”

  “Nine o’clock,” Cyril tells him. “But there’s something else you should know.”

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “The money is not deposited in a bank account. I cashed the check when I got the award, took the money in cash, and rented a safe-deposit box for it.”

  “What kind of hair-brained bullshit are you trying to give me now? Why would you do that?”

  “I just don’t like writing checks. I like cash,” Cyril says.

  The brute thinks about this and is greatly agitated. I fear he’s going to assault Cyril again. I don’t know what this money is that they are discussing or whether it exists. Cyril might be taking a big chance, just trying to get the beast out of here. Balaclava is out of his chair and standing in front of Cyril now, waving his ultimate weapon. “Are you playing games with me, gramps?”

  “There’s something else I might as well tell you now.” Cyril has lowered his head, as if expecting another blow. “I can’t remember where I put the bank-box key.”

  The monster roars and rams the tip of his gun hard against Cyril’s cheek. Cyril slips over against me, but makes no noise. I can see he’s bleeding from another cut and blood is coming from his mouth. I take the Kleenex from my robe pocket and dab at his wound. “You pig! If you keep hitting him, the people at the bank will wonder why he’s all beaten up when he comes in!” I raise my voice. “He’s doing his best!”