The man cackles. It sounds like his laughter rises toward the sky he speaks of. She thinks to ask, How far back did you see one? But she doesn’t.
‘Leave us!’ Malorie yells.
From her struggle, cold river water splashes into the boat. The Girl shrieks. Malorie tells herself, Ask the man how far back he saw it. Maybe the madness hasn’t set in. Maybe it’s slower with him. Maybe he will perform one final act of benevolence before he loses all sense of reality.
The rowboat is free.
Tom once said it had to be different for everybody. He said a crazy man might never go any madder. And the sanest might take a long time to get there.
‘Open your eyes, for Christ’s sake!’ the man shouts.
His voice has changed. He sounds drunk, different.
‘Quit running, miss. Open your eyes!’ he pleads.
‘Don’t listen to him!’ she yells. The Boy is pressed up against her and the Girl whimpers at her back. Malorie shakes.
‘Your mother is the mad one, kids. Take off those blindfolds.’
The man suddenly howls, gargling. It sounds like something has died in his throat. How much longer before he strangles himself with the rope rail or lowers himself into the spinning propeller of his boat?
Malorie is paddling furiously. Her blindfold doesn’t feel tight enough.
What he saw is near. What he saw is here on this river.
‘Do not remove your folds!’ Malorie screams again. She is paddling past the boat now. ‘Do you two understand me? Answer me.’
‘Yes!’ the Boy says.
‘Yes!’ the Girl says.
The man howls again but he is farther behind them now. He sounds as if he’s trying to yell but has forgotten how.
When the rowboat has gone another forty yards, and the sound of the engine behind them is almost out of earshot, Malorie reaches forward and touches the Boy’s shoulder.
‘Don’t worry, Mommy,’ the Boy says.
Then Malorie reaches behind her and finds the Girl’s hand. She squeezes. Then, letting go of both of them, she takes the paddles again.
‘Are you dry?’ she asks the Girl.
‘No,’ the Girl answers.
‘Use the blanket to dry yourself off. Now.’
The air smells clean again. The trees. The water.
The gasoline fumes are well behind them.
Do you remember how the house smelled? Malorie thinks.
Despite the horror of having encountered the man on the boat, she remembers. The stale, stuffy air of the house. It was there the day she arrived. And it never got any better.
She does not hate the man with the boat. She feels only sorrow.
‘You did so well,’ Malorie says to the children, trembling, paddling deeper down the river.
Malorie has been living in the house for two weeks. The housemates subsist almost entirely off the canned goods from the cellar, plus whatever frozen meats remain in the freezer. Each morning, Malorie is relieved to find the electricity is still on. The radio is the only source of news anymore, but the last remaining DJ, Rodney Barrett, has nothing new to tell them. Instead, he rambles. He gets angry. He swears. The housemates have heard him sleeping on air before. But despite all this, Malorie understands why they continue to listen to him. Whether his voice is on quietly in the background or fills the dining room where the radio sits, he’s the very last link they have to the outside world.
Already, Malorie feels like she’s inside a vault. The claustrophobia is incredible, weighing in on her and her baby.
Yet, tonight the housemates are throwing something of a party.
The six of them are gathered around the dining room table. Along with the canned goods, toilet paper, batteries, candles, blankets, and tools in the cellar, there are a few bottles of rum – which nicely complement the grass brought by Felix (who sheepishly admitted he expected more of a ‘hippie’ gathering than the clearheaded troupe he met upon arriving). Malorie, out of respect for her condition, is the only one who doesn’t partake in the drinking and smoking. Still, some moods are infectious, and, as Rodney Barrett uncharacteristically plays some soft music, Malorie is able to smile, and sometimes even laugh, despite the unfathomable horrors that have become commonplace.
In the dining room there is a piano. Like the stack of humour books beside the dresser in her bedroom, the piano appears a remnant, almost out of place, from another lifetime.
Right now, Tom is playing it.
‘What key is this song in?’ Tom, sweating, is yelling across the dining room to Felix, who sits at the table. ‘Do you know keys?’
Felix smiles and shakes his head. ‘How the hell would I know? But I’ll sing with you from here, Tom.’
‘Please don’t,’ Don says, sipping rum from a drinking glass, smiling.
‘No, no,’ Felix says, grinning, ‘I’m really very good!’
Felix stumbles as he stands up. He joins Tom at the piano. Together they sing along to ‘De-Lovely’. The radio rests on a mirrored credenza. The music Rodney Barrett plays clashes quietly with the Cole Porter song.
‘How are you doing, Malorie?’ Don, sitting across the table, asks her. ‘How do you like the place so far?’
‘I’m okay,’ she says. ‘I think a lot about the baby.’
Don smiles. When he does, Malorie sees sadness in his features. Don, she knows, lost a sister as well. All the housemates have experienced devastating loss. Cheryl’s parents, scared, drove south. She hasn’t spoken to them since. Felix hopes to hear news of his brothers with every random phone call he makes. Jules often speaks of his fiancée, Sydney, whom he found in the gutter outside their apartment building before answering the same ad Malorie found. Her throat was slit. But Tom’s story, Malorie thinks, is the worst. If such a word applies anymore.
Now, watching him behind the piano, Malorie’s heart breaks for him.
For a moment, when ‘De-Lovely’ comes to an end, the radio is audible again. The song Rodney Barrett is playing ends as well. Then he begins talking.
‘Listen, listen,’ Cheryl is saying. She is crossing the room to where the radio sits. She crouches before it and turns the volume up. ‘He sounds more depressed than usual.’
Tom ignores the radio. Sweating, sipping from his drink, he fumbles through the opening chords of Gershwin’s ‘I’ve Got Rhythm’. Don is turning to see what Cheryl is talking about. Jules, stroking Victor, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, turns his head slowly towards the radio.
‘Creatures,’ Rodney Barrett is saying. His voice drags. ‘What have you taken from us? What are you doing here? Do you have any purpose at all?’
Don rises from the table and joins Cheryl by the radio. Tom stops playing.
‘I’ve never heard him speak directly to the creatures before,’ he says from the piano bench.
‘We’ve lost mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers,’ Rodney Barrett is saying. ‘We’ve lost wives and husbands, lovers and friends. But nothing stings as much as the children you’ve taken from us. How dare you ask a child to look at you?’
Malorie looks to Tom. He is listening. There is distance in his eyes. She rises and walks to him.
‘He’s been heavy before,’ Cheryl says about Rodney Barrett. ‘But never like this.’
‘No,’ Don says. ‘Sounds like he’s drunker than we are.’
‘Tom,’ Malorie says, sitting beside him on the bench.
‘He’s going to kill himself,’ Don suddenly says.
Malorie looks up, wanting to tell Don to shut up, then hears the same thing Don has. The complete desolation in the voice of Rodney Barrett.
‘Today I’m gonna cheat you,’ Barrett says. ‘I’m gonna take it first, the one thing I’ve got left that you can take from me.’
‘Oh God,’ Cheryl says.
The radio is silent.
‘Turn it off, Cheryl,’ Jules says. ‘Turn it off.’
As she reaches for the radio, the sound of a gunshot explodes from the speak
ers.
Cheryl screams. Victor barks.
‘What the fuck just happened?’ Felix says, staring blankly towards the radio.
‘He did it,’ Jules says emptily. ‘I can’t believe this.’
Then silence.
Tom gets up from the piano bench and turns the radio off. Felix sips from his drink. Jules is on one knee, calming Victor.
Then, suddenly, as if an echo of the gunshot, there is a knock at the front door.
A second knock quickly follows.
Felix steps toward the door and Don grabs his arm.
‘Do not just open that door, man,’ he says. ‘Come on. What’s the matter with you?’
‘I wasn’t going to, man!’ Felix says. He pulls his arm free.
The knocking comes again. A woman’s voice calls to them.
‘Hello?’
The housemates are quiet and stand still.
‘Somebody answer her,’ Malorie says, getting up from the piano bench to do it herself. But Tom is ahead of her.
‘Yes!’ he calls. ‘We’re here. Who are you?’
‘Olympia! My name is Olympia! Let me in?’
Tom pauses. He looks drunk.
‘Are you alone?’ he asks.
‘Yes!’
‘Are your eyes closed?’
‘Yes, my eyes are closed. I’m very scared. Please let me in?’
Tom looks to Don.
‘Somebody get the broomsticks,’ Tom says. Jules leaves to get them.
‘I don’t think we can afford any more mouths to feed,’ Don says.
‘You’re crazy,’ Felix says. ‘There’s a woman out –’
‘I understand what’s going on, Felix,’ Don says angrily. ‘We can’t house the whole country.’
‘But she’s out there right now,’ Felix says.
‘And we’re drunk,’ Don says.
‘Come on, Don,’ Tom says.
‘Don’t turn me into the villain,’ Don says. ‘You know as well as I do exactly how many cans we have in the cellar.’
‘Hello?’ the woman calls again.
‘Hang on!’ Tom responds.
Tom and Don stare at one another. Jules comes into the foyer. He hands one of the broomsticks to Tom.
‘Do whatever you want to, people,’ Don says. ‘But we’re going to starve sooner because of it.’
Tom turns to the front door.
‘Everybody,’ he says, ‘close your eyes.’
Malorie listens as his shoes cross the wood floor in the foyer.
‘Olympia?’ Tom calls.
‘Yes!’
‘I’m going to open the door now. When I do, when you hear it’s open, step inside as quickly as you can. Do you understand?’
‘Yes!’
Malorie hears the front door open. There is a commotion. She imagines Tom pulling the woman inside like the housemates pulled her inside two weeks ago. Then the door slams shut.
‘Keep your eyes closed!’ Tom says. ‘I’m going to feel around you. Make sure nothing came inside with you.’
Malorie can hear the broomstick bristles against the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and the front door.
‘Okay,’ Tom finally says. ‘Let’s open our eyes.’
When Malorie does, she sees a very pretty, pale, dark-haired woman standing beside Tom.
‘Thank you,’ she says breathlessly.
Tom starts to ask her something but Malorie interrupts him.
‘Are you pregnant?’ she asks Olympia.
Olympia looks down at her belly. Shaking, she looks up, nodding yes.
‘I’m four months along,’ she says.
‘That’s incredible,’ Malorie says, stepping closer. ‘I’m about the same.’
‘Fuck,’ Don says.
‘I’m a neighbour of yours,’ Olympia says. ‘I’m so sorry to scare you like this. My husband is in the air force. I haven’t heard from him in weeks. He may be dead. I heard you. The piano. It took me a while to get the courage to walk here. Normally, I’d have brought over cupcakes.’
Despite the horror everyone in the room just listened to, Olympia’s innocence breaks through the darkness.
‘We’re glad to have you,’ Tom says, but Malorie can hear exhaustion and the pressure of looking after two pregnant women in his voice. ‘Come in.’
They walk Olympia down the hall towards the living room. At the foot of the stairs, she gasps and points to a photo hanging on the wall.
‘Oh!’ she says. ‘Is this man here?’
‘No,’ Tom says. ‘He’s not here anymore. You must know him. George. He used to own this house.’
Olympia nods.
‘Yes, I’ve seen him many times.’
Then the housemates are gathered in the living room. Tom sits with Olympia on the couch. Malorie listens quietly as Tom sombrely asks Olympia about the objects in her house. What she has. What she left behind.
What can they use here.
Malorie has been rowing for what feels like three hours. The muscles in her arms burn. Cold water sloshes in the boat’s bottom, water she has splashed, little by little, with each dip of the oars. Moments ago, the Girl told Malorie she had to pee. Malorie told her to do it. Now the Girl’s urine mixes with the river water and it feels warm against Malorie’s shoes. She is thinking about the man in the boat they passed.
The children, Malorie thinks, didn’t take off their blindfolds. That was the first living human voice they’ve ever heard other than each other’s. Yet, they didn’t listen to him.
Yes, she has trained them well. But it’s not a nice thing to think about. Training the children means she has scared them so completely that under no circumstances will they disobey her. As a girl, Malorie rebelled against her parents all the time. Sugar wasn’t allowed in the house. Malorie snuck it in. Scary movies weren’t allowed in the house. Malorie tiptoed downstairs at midnight to watch them on television. When her parents said she wasn’t allowed to sleep on the couch in the living room, she moved her bed in there. These were the thrills of childhood. Malorie’s children don’t know them.
As babies, she trained them to wake with their eyes closed. Standing above their chicken wire beds, flyswatter in hand, she’d wait. As each woke and opened their eyes, she would smack them hard on the arm. They would cry. Malorie would reach down and close their eyes with her fingers. If they kept their eyes closed, she would lift her shirt and feed them. Reward.
‘Mommy,’ the Girl says, ‘was that the same man who sings in the radio?’
The Girl is talking about a cassette tape Felix used to like to listen to.
‘No,’ the Boy says.
‘Who was it then?’ the Girl asks.
Malorie turns to face the Girl so her voice will be louder.
‘I thought we agreed you two wouldn’t ask any questions that have nothing to do with the river. Are we breaking this agreement?’
‘No,’ the Girl quietly says.
When they were three years old, she trained them to get water from the well. Tying a rope around her waist, she wrapped the other end around the Boy. Then, telling him to feel for the path with his toes, she sent him out there to do it on his own. Malorie would listen to the sound of the bucket clumsily being raised. She listened to him struggle as he carried it back to her. Many times she heard it fall from his hands. Each time it did, she made him go back out there and do it again.
The Girl hated it. She said the ground was ‘too bumpy’ out there around the well. She said it felt like people lived below the grass. Malorie denied the Girl food until she agreed to do it.
When they were toddlers, the children were set at opposite sides of the living room. Malorie would roam the carpet. When she said, ‘Where am I?’ the Boy and Girl would point. Then she’d go upstairs, come back down, and ask them, ‘Where was I?’ The children would point. When they were wrong, Malorie would yell at them.
But they weren’t often wrong. And soon they were never wrong at all.
What would Tom say about t
hat? she thinks. He’d tell you that you were being the best mother on Earth. And you’d believe him.
Without Tom, Malorie only has herself to turn to. And many times, sitting alone at the kitchen table, the children asleep in their bedroom, she asked herself the inevitable question:
Are you a good mother? Does such a thing exist anymore?
Now Malorie feels a soft tap on her knee. She gasps. But it is only the Boy. He is asking for the pouch of food. Midrow, Malorie reaches into her jacket pocket and hands it to him. She hears as his little teeth crunch the once-canned nuts that sat on the cellar shelves for four and a half years before Malorie brought them up this morning.
Then Malorie stops rowing. She is hot. Too hot. She is sweating as much as if it were June. She removes her jacket and places it on the rowboat bench beside her. Then she feels a small tap against her back. The Girl is hungry, too.
Are you a good mother? she asks herself again, handing over a second pouch of food.
How can she expect her children to dream as big as the stars if they can’t lift their heads to gaze upon them?
Malorie doesn’t know the answer.
Tom is building something out of an old soft guitar case and a couch cushion. Olympia is sleeping upstairs in the bedroom next to Malorie’s. Felix gave it to her just like Tom gave his to Malorie. Felix now sleeps on the couch in the living room. The night before, Tom took detailed notes of the items Olympia has in her house when she told him. What began as a hopeful conversation resulted in the housemates’ deciding that the few things they could use weren’t worth the risk of getting them. Paper. Another bucket. Olympia’s husband’s toolbox. Still, as Felix pointed out, if and when the need for these objects outweighed the risk, they could fetch them after all. Some things, Don said, might be needed sooner than later. Canned nuts, tuna, pasta, condiments. While discussing foods, Tom explained to the others how much stock they had remaining in the cellar. Because it was finite, it worried Malorie deeply.
Right now, Jules sleeps down the hall in the den. He is on a mattress on the floor at one end of the room. Don’s mattress is at the other. Between them is a high wooden table that holds their things. Victor is in there with him. Jules snores. Soft music plays on the small cassette-deck radio. It’s coming from the dining room, where Felix and Don are playing euchre with a deck of Pee-wee Herman playing cards. Cheryl is washing clothes in a bucket in the kitchen sink.
Bird Box Page 6