by Sol Stein
“Well, then,” Mr. Clifford said, straightening up, his face showing a tinge of color it had not had before. “It seems that I was correct about Brown not having escaped the area. The guests undergoing punishment in the lockers have been released. Fortunately, only two of them have chosen to go with Mr. Brown to commit whatever further mischief he is up to. But another newcomer, Jacob Fetterman, a young man, seems to be unaccounted for, and a trusty by the name of Blaustein, a previously reliable man, seems to be missing from his clean-up station. I therefore want to put my plan into effect immediately. All together you—under the direction of Messrs. Pitz, Trask, and Robinson—are to form a ring around the outer perimeter of Cliffhaven. You are to be close enough to the next person right and left to be seen by each other. Then on signal, everyone, at a walking pace, is to move forward to the center of the compound. Search every building in your path. If you come upon locked rooms, open them and verify that the occupants are there. Check the roofs. When you are certain that you have examined every hiding place, move on. We will scour the entire grounds, and within an hour Brown, Fetterman, and the two new escapees will be back in our control. I trust no harm has come to that older man, Blaustein, who has been with us for half a year and has performed valuable service.”
Clifford was pleased with himself for having avoided mentioning that one of the new escapees was Brown’s wife. He hated her as if she were a Jew. When they were caught, she would suffer Brown’s fate.
“Well then,” Mr. Clifford said, “let us go and solve our little problem.”
*
With Margaret present Henry felt a renewed determination. His adrenaline was running. He couldn’t believe that he would be thwarted now just because neither Jake nor Shamir had matches. He’d have to go back into the compound to get matches from someone. He glanced at Margaret. Leaving her here meant being separated again.
The sound that intruded on Henry’s thoughts was a racking cough. It was Blaustein tied to the tree.
“You sick, Blaustein?” he asked.
It was Margaret who interjected sharply, “He’s not sick. That’s a smoker’s cough.”
“Jake,” Henry commanded, “look in Blaustein’s pockets.”
Jake did and found the matches.
“Thank God,” Henry said, taking them.
The matchbook cover was damp from Blaustein’s sweat. He struck one match. It flickered for a moment, then went out. The others watched as he felt the matches to see if any were a bit drier, pulled one out, and with his thumb on the match head, struck it. “Pray,” he said.
The match stayed lit. Quickly he lit one torch with it, then with the flaming torch lit the other three torches as he gave them final instructions. Then he said, “Let’s do this as fast as possible.”
“I’ll burn to death,” Blaustein said, strapped to the tree.
“If we untie him,” Jake said, “he’ll run.”
“I won’t, I won’t,” Blaustein pleaded.
“You can’t trust him,” Jake said. “We’re wasting time.”
Henry went up to the old man. “Blaustein, if this were medieval times, I’d cut your tongue out and let you go. You better keep up with me so I can keep an eye on you. You try anything and I’ll kill you, understand?”
Blaustein nodded.
Henry unstrapped the belt from around the tree. Blaustein rubbed his wrists.
Jake was already off with his torch for the far end. Now Shamir ran in the same direction to start at the halfway mark, as the plan called for. In minutes the first mounds of brush would be ignited.
“I’ll go to the end,” Henry said to Margaret. “You start at the halfway mark and work your way back here. Will you be all right?”
“I think I’m going to enjoy being an arsonist. You watch out for him.”
“Come on, Blaustein,” Henry said. “You run ahead. That way.”
And they were off to light the pyres.
19
As the Cliffhaven staff spread out in a fan around the perimeter of the resort, each careful to keep the person on his right and left in view, they looked toward Dan Pitz, standing in the center where most of the group could see him, his arm raised for the start signal. Some of them wondered how he got the job, how Clifford found him. They didn’t envy Dan, those that thought about it, having an escapee on his hands the first day.
Some of the staff members had been at Cliffhaven long enough to remember the man named Matusky, one of the first guests, a broad-shouldered fellow in his forties who had had the gall to wear a skullcap in the dining room; who had defied orders to remove it indoors; and who, finally, when taunted about his special shawl and head-bobbing prayers, had gone berserk, punching out with fists like pig iron at the staff member who had goaded him. It took two or three men to wrestle him to the ground. It was George Whittaker who had stomped his heel into Matusky’s mouth. Just once, but several of the man’s front teeth had come loose and his mouth had filled with blood. Somehow he had struggled to his feet and then spit a mouthful of blood straight at Whittaker’s face, yelling “Petlyura!” before he was wrestled to the ground again and rendered unconscious with repeated kicks to the head.
Matusky was the first to get more than twenty-four hours in the lockers. When he was let out, four or five staff members had gathered round the locker, expecting to see Matusky crumpled like a sack of potatoes, his trousers drenched in his urine, begging for mercy. Instead, when the locker opened, Matusky stepped out like an enraged bear, opened his fly, took out his thing, and sprayed a stream of piss at the staff members. Each, in turn, backed away from this madman who had let his bladder fill to bursting in order to hose them down, screaming epithets at them in Yiddish, or Hebrew, or Polish, or Russian, or some unknown combination of curses charged with guttural sounds.
And so Matusky, finally chained but not silenced, was the first taken for a ride to the gully. In the building where Mr. Clifford decided to keep score, Matusky’s name was on the first plaque in the left-hand row. It was in that building that Mr. Clifford assembled the guests—there were only twenty or thirty at that time—and showed them the blank plaques waiting for their names if they followed the path of Matusky to defiance and death. Mr. Clifford admonished them to behave and live. But knowing that Jews could not be trusted to keep their word, and that as a people they had a history of useless resistance that stretched from Masada to Warsaw, he decided that discipline had to be reinforced with some chemical help. He arranged for their food to be laced with a small part of the harvest from the marijuana farm.
*
As the young men and women of the staff spread out around the perimeter, Clifford thought that perhaps he should pursue the idea of a sperm bank from the best of these young men, to hasten the process, double the genetic thrust. Suddenly he was impatient with his plan to round up Hebrews. The process was too slow and needed doing on a much larger scale. Craving allies, he thought himself a fool to have counted on a man like Jordan to share his vision or his leadership. All of the great movements were inspired and led by a single person who commanded the compliance of others. His obligation was not to expect others to start compounds modeled on Cliffhaven but to do so himself! The thrill of the idea excited him as he thought of a place he had visited not far from Houston that was as suitable as the Big Sur area. If he were to do it himself—and he would, of that he was now certain—he would simply call it Cliffhaven Two. And now that it had a name, it took on a reality in his mind that caused his heart to beat faster. As soon as this nuisance was over—perhaps tomorrow—he would begin to work on Cliffhaven Two. He must tell Abigail. He wondered if she would like the challenge of actually running such a place, taking her position in history as a woman as he had as a man.
“Let’s do this fast,” he said to Dan.
Dan surveyed the staff members around the perimeter, all in place, then moved his arm down smartly. “Let’s go!” he yelled. “Go, go, go!”—knowing that few would actually hear him. He watched them trotting
, picking up their pace, running toward the center of the compound where the buildings were.
Clete, near the middle of the inward-moving ring, had his eye on Mr. Clifford. At first it seemed the old man was talking to himself. Then it seemed as if Mr. Clifford was seeing something beyond the ring of staff members running toward the center. Now Mr. Clifford was pointing, but Pitz wasn’t noticing.
Clete broke from the circle and ran full-speed to Mr. Clifford.
“Hey!” Pitz yelled. “Where the hell are you going? You’re breaking the ring!”
“What is it, Mr. Clifford?” Clete said, pulling up puffing. Then he followed Mr. Clifford’s gaze.
“I saw someone running in the woods right there,” Mr. Clifford said, pointing. “I can still see him. There!”
Clete could see the figure also. Just that moment a brush fire flared where the figure had been.
“Jesus!” Clete said.
“Get him!” Mr. Clifford said, and in an instant, Clete was running toward the ring of staff members, through it, and past it to the woods. His peripheral vision caught brush fires starting in other locations. What the hell was going on? Clete kept his attention on the running figure darting through the trees, tracking him the way a machine gunner would track a moving target.
Jake realized he had been spotted. If only he’d stayed deeper in the woods. He stopped in front of his proudest brushpile, perfect for a bonfire, and ignited it. It flared like sudden daylight, and by it he could suddenly see Clete and Clete could see him.
“You son of a bitch!” Clete yelled.
Jake held the torch in front of him as if to fend off a wild dog.
Clete picked a broken limb off the ground. He’d get this fucking Hebe.
It’s stupid to stand and fight, thought Jake. My job is to get the brushpiles lit. And so he turned his back on Clete and took off, carrying his torch toward the next pile, moving as fast as he possibly could, hoping the torch wouldn’t go out.
They were both fast, but when Jake stopped to ignite the next brushpile, Clete caught up and with the wood in his hand struck at Jake’s legs at knee-level from behind. As Jake started to topple backward, Clete swung the limb against Jake’s back with enough force to shatter a spine, and even as Jake cried out, dropping his torch, Clete shoved the boy straight into the bonfire he had just created.
Jake’s single scream cut through the night like a scimitar. His hair and clothes afire, Jake struggled to regain his balance; something was dreadfully wrong with his back, he thought, his body wouldn’t cooperate anymore with the will of his mind. Mustering his remaining life’s energy and calling for the help of God, Jake tried to thrust himself out of the blaze. At that moment, Clete with the tree limb in his right hand, smashed the burning boy across the face. Jake, his vision red with blood, his face a whirling pool of pain, fell backward into the heart of the bonfire.
Clete couldn’t take his eyes off the still-living body wholly aflame, blackening, crisping. This is what we ought to do with all of them, he thought, instead of fucking around with them the way Mr. Clifford was with his crazy genetic whatever-it-was. Clete had a vision of an army of trucks picking up Jews everywhere and bringing them here so he could smash them and burn them the way he had Jake, getting it over with all at once. Maybe he and not Mr. Clifford or that new guy should be running this show!
Clete trotted back to where he had left Mr. Clifford. Sure his face was scratched from the brush and there was a snag in his jeans, but he felt fine, terrific, his adrenaline running through his veins like speed.
When he reached Mr. Clifford, he said, “I got him, sir.”
“The others, the others,” Clifford said, pointing to the bonfires burning far to the left, and then to another group of them, still farther. The sounds of the individual fires were now becoming one indistinguishable roar as the wind whipped the flames through the over-dry forest. Hundreds of yards of woodland circling Cliffhaven were bursting into flame.
We need to put the fire out, thought Clete, then kill the fucking Jews the way he’d done that what’s-his-name. All it took was leadership.
Clete yelled at several of the staff members who had stopped their forward movement. He motioned at some of them to join him. Two did. He’d remember who the others were. He’d get them afterward. He took the two who obeyed with him at a fast trot toward the utility building in which the fire equipment was stored, leaving Mr. Clifford standing stock-still.
*
Dan ran over to where Mr. Clifford was standing, a frightened man.
“Those Jews did this,” Mr. Clifford said. “The ones that escaped.”
“What kind of fire-fighting equipment do you have here?” Dan asked.
“Those Jews did this,” Mr. Clifford said.
“Mr. Clifford,” Dan said, taking a chance, grabbing the man by both shoulders. “Fire-fighting equipment.”
“That’s where Clete went.” He pointed.
The staff members, no longer in the closing circle, were breaking ranks, mesmerized by the fire.
Dan raced after Clete.
Inside the utility building Dan was astonished at how little there was, a small pumper, two ordinary 32-foot ladders, a lot of hose coiled up in the back of the pickup truck.
“Jesus,” Dan said. “How are you going to put that out with this?”
Clete was starting up the pumper. “The old man put his emphasis on prevention. If we had a fire in a room, even the dining room or kitchen, we could handle it. But the woods!”
The two staff members who had followed Clete were starting the pickup truck.
“This is crazy,” Dan said. “You’ve got to call in the Forest Service.”
“That’s exactly what Clifford didn’t want,” Clete yelled, putting the pumper into gear. “We have to be self-sufficient. Let’s go!”
Dan climbed in alongside him and they were off. “Where’s your water supply?” Dan asked.
As they bumped over the ground, Clete pointed at the water tower.
“That dinky thing? How much does it hold?”
“Not enough.”
“Don’t you tie in to community water anywhere?”
“No, just our wells. Mr. Clifford didn’t want to give outsiders that power.”
“What power?”
“To cut off our water supply.”
“Jesus!” Dan said. He grabbed Clete’s arm.
“Don’t do that while I’m driving,” Clete said.
“Let me off near where Clifford is,” Dan yelled over the roar of the engine.
“I’m heading for the water tower,” Clete said, pointing straight ahead.
“Then let me off here,” Dan yelled. I’ll deal with this son of a bitch later.
Clete slowed just enough for Dan to hop off, then roared away in the direction of the tower, where staff members were already gathering.
Dan watched the pumper, thinking at least they have fire drills in this place. He trotted over to where Mr. Clifford was.
“We mustn’t let any of the residents escape,” Mr. Clifford said.
“Mr. Clifford,” Dan said, hoping to penetrate the fog the old man seemed to be in, “I was a volunteer fireman. With those woods ablaze, you’ve got to call in help.”
“This is your chance to demonstrate your resourcefulness, young man,” Mr. Clifford said. “I hope I didn’t make a mistake in hiring you.”
“I think the buildings are safe, sir.”
“That’s right. There’s at least seventy-five yards from the woods to the nearest buildings. It was planned that way. That open space will act as a firebreak.”
“Sir,” Dan said, “if there’s enough heat generated in the woods around us, this middle area’s going to pull in smoke from whatever direction the wind is blowing. See over there.” From the north a dense gray cloud was drifting languidly toward the buildings.
“I’m going to my quarters,” Mr. Clifford said. “I want to telephone my wife.”
Dan walked along with hi
m.
“Why are you accompanying me?”
“Because of them,” Dan said, pointing to the residents who were congregating in clusters at a distance. Most of them were staring at the fire. Some were looking straight at Mr. Clifford.
“They wouldn’t dare,” Mr. Clifford said, thinking they’re afraid of the fire.
Dan Pitz did not give a damn about the old man. He wanted that telephone. “I’ll come with you, anyway,” he said, “just to be sure.”
When they reached Clifford’s house, Mr. Clifford turned to Dan Pitz. “You’d better get back and direct the fire fighting.”
It was worth risking. “Shouldn’t we phone for outside help?” Dan asked.
“Never,” Mr. Clifford said, again wondering if he had made the wrong choice. It was too late, Whittaker was dead.
“You’ll have to put it out yourself,” he said to Dan.
20
Stanley saw the chain across the entrance to Cliffhaven and braked the car to a stop just before it.
“I’m sure this is the place,” he said.
“I hope you’re right,” Kathy said.
Out of the sentry box came a fellow dressed in an orange-and-blue outfit who looked to Stanley like one of those roller-skate waiters at a drive-up fast-food place.
“Hi,” Stanley said, rolling his window all the way down.
“We’re full up,” the fellow said.
Stanley said, “We’re not checking in. I’m just seeing if my parents are registered.”
The fellow’s expression shifted. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Stanley Brown. This here’s Kathy.”
Kathy nodded.
The fellow at the gate thought a moment. Wasn’t Brown the name of the man they were looking for topside? If this kid is his son, Mr. Clifford will be real glad to get him.
“Hold it just a second,” he said, “while I check up top.”
He went into the sentry booth and tried the phone. Stanley was getting impatient.
Then the fellow came out and said, “I can’t get through. Whoever’s at the switchboard isn’t picking up.”
