by Jim Shepard
On the way home he looked in on the Schieles (still no lights) and then found himself staring blankly at his dark front door. Occasional fireworks were still booming in the distance. Mrs. Fetscher called him from next door. She was silhouetted against her lighted doorway. When he got there she nodded him into the house, something she’d never done before. He thought, She has terrible news about my father. But in the foyer he saw with a shock the uniformed man from the Civil Guard he’d seen in the café. The same supporting officers were with him. They all looked at Karel as if they expected him. The uniformed man was looking at him as well. Karel took a closer look, despite himself, at the badge with the nest of snakes and skull. They stood around Mr. Fetscher in a semicircle.
“You are—?” the uniformed man said.
“This is a neighbor,” Mrs. Fetscher said. “He can swear my husband was home yesterday, working in the garden.”
Karel blinked, not sure he could.
“That’s true,” Fetscher said. “I waved to him. I remember thinking, that poor boy.”
“Umm-hmm,” the uniformed man said. “My name is Kehr,” he said to Karel. “You are—?”
“Karel Roeder,” Karel said.
Kehr nodded. He said to Mrs. Fetscher, “Why is he a poor boy?”
“His father’s disappeared,” Fetscher said. “Though it might be anything—”
Kehr looked back at Karel. “What’s your father’s name?” he asked.
“Simon,” Karel said. He thought about the old man’s hand from the café and the cracking sound. “Do you know anything about him?”
“No,” Kehr said. “Mr. Fetscher, get your things.”
“But Karel can swear,” Fetscher protested.
“I’m not interested in what he can swear,” Kehr said. He was absorbed with his cuff. “You’ll only be gone overnight: Collect your things.”
Fetscher continued to protest and was led away by one of the supporting officers. The family dog, a small black-and-white mongrel with rumpled ears, followed them into the bedroom. The supporting officer opened a small suitcase on the bed and began to demonstrate how to put clothes in it. Fetscher relented and began packing, still pleading his case. The dog stood on the bed and unpacked things—folded undershirts, shorts, an eyeglass case—as fast as the harassed Fetscher could pack them.
“Stop that, Eski,” Mrs. Fetscher scolded.
There was a cautious knock on the door and the neighbor from across the street, Mrs. Witz, peered in.
“What do you want?” Mrs. Fetscher said. “Can’t you see enough from across the street?”
“I came to see if there was some trouble I could help with,” Mrs. Witz said, wounded. She had dressed up. Her five-year-old, Sherron, stood behind her and kept peeking around. “If you’d like me to leave—”
“Who is this?” Kehr said. “Is this your son?”
Mrs. Witz looked at Karel in horror. “Oh, no,” she said. “This is my daughter, Sherron.” She brought Sherron out in front of her, holding her by the shoulders. Sherron’s feet left the ground when her mother maneuvered her. “And you are—?”
“A servant of my country,” Kehr said. He stroked an ear with some weariness.
“I didn’t catch your name,” Mrs. Witz said.
“Would you please leave my house?” Mrs. Fetscher asked. Her voice was heading toward shrill.
“What’s going on out there?” Fetscher called. He was told to keep packing. There was the muffled sound and yelp of the dog being cuffed.
“Is there any sort of trouble?” Mrs. Witz asked.
“None whatsoever,” Kehr said. He looked at Karel briefly and turned his attention to the bookcase and two knickknacks, ceramic crocodiles with open mouths. One held stick candy and the other matchsticks. Kehr’s jawline and collar were perfect, and Karel felt shabbier in his presence.
Mrs. Fetscher asked if Mr. Kehr would like some of the sugared wafers she’d been making when he arrived, which, she remembered with a worried look toward the kitchen, were probably ruined by now.
Kehr declined. Mrs. Witz suggested Sherron might like some. Sherron looked toward the kitchen dubiously.
Sherron was fat enough as it was, Mrs. Fetscher snapped. Mrs. Witz glared at her.
“But this is some kind of mistake,” Fetscher called from the other room. There was the brisk sound of clasps being shut.
“We do not hunt for crime,” Kehr said. “I do not have the details.” His subordinate looked aimlessly around the room, arms folded.
Fetscher returned with a small plaid suitcase, trailed by the other subordinate and Eski, who wagged her tail festively.
Kehr checked a pad and repeated Fetscher’s name. Fetscher nodded. His wife touched his arm. Eski stood, with her front paws on his thigh.
The escorting subordinate asked if he was a salesman and Fetscher cried out, new hope breaking over him. See? he said. There was a mistake! He was a butcher.
“Do you often take walks, Mr. Fetscher?” Kehr asked.
Fetscher looked around the room, dumbfounded. He looked at the others, and Karel, as if it were their responsibility to help. Everyone backed up a step.
“What kind of question is that?” Mrs. Fetscher finally said, after a silence.
“Please come with us,” Kehr said.
But he was a butcher, Fetscher said frantically, repeating himself to avoid making another mistake.
They made way as Kehr and the others led him out. Sherron stood straight with her feet together, as if at a ceremony. “Where will I reach you, Tommy?” Mrs. Fetscher wailed, and no one answered.
Eski, sitting now in the middle of the foyer, looked at Karel with an excited and irritating expectancy, as if he were the one who was supposed to do something. The last Civil Guard officer when he passed said to Sherron, “See that you’re a good girl,” and in response she smiled and showed him a handful of marbles.
For a week he met with Mrs. Fetscher over their fence each morning to exchange the fact that they hadn’t heard anything; then she disappeared, not answering the door for three days, and Mrs. Witz when she caught him passing the house told him that Mrs. Oertzen had made a mistake, turning in the wrong Fetscher, and that this Fetscher had on top of everything else had a fatal accident. He’d lost his head and had fallen against the wall. They hadn’t been able to wake him. Mrs. Fetscher was in a bad way. They were going to bring her something later. The funeral was on Thursday, if Karel was interested in attending.
School was suspended again. He roamed the neighborhoods during the day. At night he listened to the radio, which didn’t help but at least broke the silence. He entertained the hope he’d learn something of use. The war was at a standstill and the news concentrated on fifth columnists and shirkers. The head of the Civil Guard promised that when final victory occurred the. Party would return its attention to all those of that sort who had slipped by. Karel stopped listening. He ate some mealy peaches. He turned the radio back on and suffered through a long playlet involving a simpering character who made trouble for every-one and who was finally identified as a profiteer and a corrupting intellectual spirit. They shot him and after the theatrical sounds of the gunshots he made a surprised ‘Oh!’ as if he’d found something in his shoe. Somebody else gave a talk about saving wood palings. The only concrete news Karel heard was the announcement broadcast on all channels that for the duration of the emergency the administration of justice was now out of the hands of civilians and entrusted to the bureaus of the Special Sections of the Civil Guard.
He slept in his father’s room. He rummaged through the closet, kneeling on the floor, setting aside piles of shoes and old newspapers. He found things he could not have said belonged to his family: folded brightly colored table-cloths, a musical instrument made from a gourd, copies of Guardian of the Nation, a magazine “dedicated to the preservation of civilization and race,” a chessboard of copper and dark wood, a cigar box full of chess pieces, a loop of wire, a photo of a desert path, a leather shoe rep
air kit. There was nothing in all of it that seemed like part of his life, and he remembered his mother’s letter, and imagined desolately a historian peering into his parents’ history and finding no trace of him whatsoever.
The next morning he found a letter without postage from his father under the front door. He looked up and down the street as if it had just been dropped off, and then opened it. It said his father was well, and that Karel shouldn’t worry. There was great news. All would be explained soon. There was more money for food under the top step below the landing. It added in a P.S. that Karel should call a plumber if he hadn’t already.
He sat slapping the letter against his cheek, mystified and angry. Had his father dropped it off? Had a friend? He checked beneath the step and found more money than his father had ever claimed to have had. He stood staring at it. How long had his father been lying to him? What was he saving this for? Where had he gotten it?
He almost destroyed the letter. He was considering it when Albert showed up. Albert poked around the house as if looking for someone and then said he’d just stopped in to see what the news was. He’d never visited before.
Karel showed him the letter. Albert took it and before opening it mentioned that the zoo was once again shut down. He shook his head while he read. He refused to speculate on what was going on. He agreed Karel had a right to be angry.
They sat in Karel’s kitchen contemplating the letter until Albert finally asked if Karel was going to offer him anything to eat.
Karel laid out a few things—a hard-boiled egg, some carrots, some fennel—after giving the old man an incredulous look. He was determined not to apologize for not having anything else. What did I get over there? he thought. Olives? Old bread? Albert looked at the vegetables and egg and made a disappointed chewing noise and then went to the sink to wash up. He noted the water wasn’t working.
“I know that,” Karel said, banging a dish down. “I live here.” The egg rolled onto the table.
He should have that fixed, Albert told him.
They ate without speaking. Karel thought, If I could go to a country where there were no people, I’d go.
Albert asked him if there was any salt. They looked at each other. It occurred to Karel that he was in a country like that now.
“Pretty quiet next door,” Albert observed.
Karel crunched his carrot.
“A newspaperman I admire,” Albert said, “or admired, from your home city, wrote in one of his last columns the day after the Party took over, ‘Are we a joke? Are we a bad dream? Whoever hears our speeches has to laugh. Whoever sees us coming had better reach for his knife.’”
Karel nodded. The egg and the carrots were gone. Albert was acting peculiar, and Karel had the feeling he wanted to ask something.
“Well, I’m still here,” Albert said finally. “After some of the indiscreet things I said in your presence the other day. I assume that means you don’t aspire to National Greatness.”
“I don’t aspire to anything,” Karel said bitterly.
“Very wise, in our country right now,” Albert said. Karel wished he would leave. He had a headache, he was out of food, and he was having trouble imagining a subject that wouldn’t depress him.
Albert said, “Perren joined the Party.”
Karel suddenly realized that Albert’s earlier remark meant he thought Karel was capable of turning him in.
“Said it was something he had to do,” Albert said. “That it was in the best interests of the zoo.”
They were silent, Karel toying with the rhyme in his head: had to do, of the zoo. “So will it help?” he finally asked, out of some sense of obligation as host to extend the conversation.
“Hey,” he said when Albert didn’t answer. “You really think I would’ve turned you in?”
Albert looked at him closely. He gave a small shrug. “Before today I would’ve said that Perren wouldn’t’ve.”
Karel looked away, and then got up and cleared the table. When the old man didn’t move, he was forced to sit back down.
“And they go on about uniting the country,” the old man said.
Karel tipped the empty dish to show everything had been finished. You should talk, he almost said. His father was gone. Albert was turning into a jerk. He had no friends. He had a fleeting image of Leda with her head turned to listen more acutely to something, and then an image of her lips lifting to his, and then she faded entirely.
He was sad and frightened and upset about his father. Albert was going on about the regime. The white hairs in his ears moved when he talked. Karel didn’t want to listen anymore and asked suddenly if he remembered the beaches from the city. Did he remember the beachfront hotels? The huge trees, and the way the gables would stick out?
The old man looked at him, a little miffed, and then put his mind to it. He did, he said. He remembered especially the tall white one.
“The Golden Angel,” Karel said.
The Golden Angel, Albert repeated. Rebuilt. Destroyed years ago with the rest of the cove by the tidal wave after the eruption on that island, part of the volcanic archipelago.
“The Roof of Hell,” Karel said.
“Right, the Seprides, the Roof of Hell,” Albert said. He drummed his fingers on the table and cast around the kitchen for food.
“What happened?” Karel said. “When it blew up?”
Albert lifted salt from the plate with his moistened finger and ate it. “You don’t know this story,” he said, as though that were news to him.
“I don’t know this story,” Karel said.
Albert made a face as if his life lately were an endless string of small surprises. One June morning, boom, he said. The entire cove of the city had been destroyed, two thirds. There’d been the usual warning phenomena: tremors, water levels in wells changing, domestic animals refusing food and getting excited, birds and rodents migrating inland. Cattle moved to high pasture. The tide went out completely and abruptly. A lot of people knew at that point but hoped the high ground would protect them. What else was there to hope? There’d been a grammar school right on the waterfront, and Albert imagined the children at the classroom windows, awed, looking at the stranded fish and the muck of the exposed harbor bottom, amazed by the beached and listing ships. And then the wave came in piling up on itself, shoaling and rearing on the shallow harbor shelf to sixty or seventy feet. Albert’s father had told him all this. His father had been on higher ground. His father, Albert said, had never forgotten things: the way whole buildings were driven through the ones behind them like parts of a collapsing telescope, the thunder of the walls disintegrating booming up the cove, the far-off screams, the wash of bodies and debris back down the harbor.
His father dreamed about the wave the rest of his life, Albert said. In the dream they were all whirling and singing, shouting and falling, his father, his brothers, an elderly aunt, his mother, with the wave rising behind them like a curtain. His father, Albert said, lost his whole family to that wave. He’d been playing where he wasn’t supposed to be playing, in one of the high quarries, and their house had been lower down. He used to say he could still hear the sound of their roof going. He used to say, Oh God of mercy, all those roofs and all those people just like that.
On Saturday he found Leda folding sheets and towels in her kitchen. Her mother and David were out and her mother had given her two thousand things to do. She suggested a walk.
On the front step she slipped out of her sandals and laced up some light ankle boots: He watched the lacing proceed before asking her where she’d been. He hadn’t seen her since he’d brought David home. And they kissed, he wanted to add.
He couldn’t see any difference in the way she acted toward him. Maybe she’d forgotten it already. Here he was mooning about it even with his father gone.
They’d gone away, she said, to stay with their aunt. It was hard on everybody. It brought back her father and all. Karel summarized for her disconnected parts of the parades and performances.
>
She got up and rocked back on her ankles to display her tied shoes. “I thought you could show me how you go noosing,” she said. “Catching little lizards with the fishing pole.”
He agreed. He said while they walked to his house, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to predict what you’re going to say.”
She seemed flattered. The street was crowding for the market day. He didn’t know how to tell her now about his father. He’d waited so long it would sound funny.
“My father’s missing,” he finally just said.
“Oh,” she said, and stopped so suddenly in the street that people behind them shied away in alarm.
“Well, I got a note from him—he’s all right,” Karel said, stumbling. “He’s not in any trouble. I don’t know where he is.”
Oh, Leda said, annoyed he’d scared her for nothing.
Before, he’d been worried, he tried to explain. There’d been no note or anything. He still didn’t know what was going on.
She nodded, peering at him. They were at his house and she stopped. Oh, forget it, he thought in disgust. I’m never going to make myself clear to anybody.
While she waited outside drawing shapes in the dust on the side of his house, Karel rummaged around upstairs for the nooser. He tested the action in front of her before they left, pulling the metal loop so the tiny hangman’s knot of string shrank and grew. She arched her eyebrows to show she was impressed.
“How does it work?” she asked, as if determined to be interested.
“This is it,” he said. “This is all it does.”
They walked to the south end of town. They avoided the street that led to the cave with the bats. Leda appreciated the sunlight beneath the wild olives and remarked on the smell of the dusty gravel. Where the town ended some barren hills began, at the foot of which refuse was dumped. Jackals and mangy dogs picked and haggled over the piles and watched them climb the first slope. It got steeper quickly, scree and larger rocks giving way in short cascades beneath their feet.
“Yuck,” Leda said, watching one dog carefully. It was watching her as well. Something filthy and limp was hanging from its mouth.
