Northern Lights

by Tim O'Brien

  “Franzie!” Harvey got up and clapped. “Nothing ever changes.”

  “Getting older.”

  Everyone started clapping. Franz came out in knickers and a hiking cap. A monstrous accordion was strapped around his neck. “What you wanna hear?” he called and everybody kept clapping, so he smiled and played a song and everybody got up to dance polkas. The crowd whooped and Perry leaned back, feeling swallowed in all the fun. Addie was there in the center of the crowd, dancing with one of the Silver Bay boys, and the wood floor and walls bounced and the crowd whooped and stomped and the room was brightly lighted. The young waitress took Harvey to the dance floor. Everyone cheered him and Harvey did a deep bow.

  Perry stepped outside.

  He stood very still. Music strained like lost Old World through the walls and rose to the forest and floated away in a single resonant chord that slowly swallowed itself. He could not get into it. He lit a cigarette. Old Addie, he thought. Addie could get into it.

  He stood quietly. In the grass there were crickets and the air was warm and soggy. Down the road, out of sight, the lights of the town were eaten by fog. Old Addie. He smelled methane and ammonia. Mosquitoes, june bugs. He urinated against the foundation of the old tavern and Bishop Markham came out and peed beside him. “That Harvey is some rascal,” Bishop said.

  “That he is.”

  “He’s having a helluva time. No bitterness there. Wolff was worried he’d be bitter.”

  “Not Harv.”

  “A hard charger.”

  “That he is.”

  Markham went inside and Perry smoked another cigarette, listened to the music. He flipped his butt into the gravel parking lot and went through the doors.

  Addie waved. A Silver Bay buck had her tight, they were reeling, half polka and half two-step, Du, Du, liebst mir im Herzen, Du, Du, liebst mir im Sinn, Du, Du … the Black Forest, the Magic Forest, back and forth, the great campfire, tribal rhythms. Perry watched them all dance. Addie was hot and wet and brown. There were red callouses on her heels where the sandal straps rubbed.

  “Come on,” she called, “dance, dance.”

  He grinned, shook his head. He was a little drunk.

  “Dance!” Harvey called.

  Bishop Markham hollered something and waved. Herb Wolff, holding a big woman, also waved. Franz beamed and played the accordion.

  When the song ended, everyone clapped and Addie’s friends thumped the accordion player and bought him a beer.

  Harvey sat down. It was too noisy to talk and they drank their beers and watched people.

  In a while, Addie joined them. She could be very gay.

  “You should dance more,” she said, sitting down, “It makes everyone happy when they dance. Is this your hero brother?”

  “This is the monster.”

  “You look something like a pirate. Do you know what the reason is?”

  “Everyone says that.”

  “This is Addie.”

  “She looks like a bloody Indian.”

  “Everyone says that, too. Actually I’m from New Guinea.”

  “Really? No shit? I plan to go there someday.”

  “Look up my relatives,” she said.

  Perry found himself grinning. “Addie works in the library. She’s a kind of assistant librarian or something. She saves all the good books for me.” He wrapped his hands around the bottle and squeezed. It was a great blur.

  “You look just like an Indian,” Harvey said. “Sure you’re not Indian? You could make a very classy Indian.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “She is part Indian, Harv.”

  Addie was very gay. She talked about dancing and swimming and people. Harvey became quiet. Franz came out again with his accordion and Harvey asked her to dance and Perry sat alone and watched them, and when they came back he felt tired.

  “You must learn to dance,” she said. “A great picker-upper. All my friends have to dance.” Addie moved beside him. “Here, I’ll show you how. You can’t be watching all the time, come on. I’ll show you a tricky polka.”

  He put his glasses on the table. It was a long, exhausting dance. He was out of shape. Over her shoulder, he saw Harvey watching.

  Afterwards he went outside to pee. It was a ritual that the men peed outside and the women peed in the women’s room. He breathed some fresh air.

  Inside again, Harvey and Addie were dancing. The Hamms beer sign was revolving. She was bright and fun and she danced on her heels. He got a beer and watched Harvey and Addie and Bishop Markham and the others.

  Jud Harmor came in, took a stool at the end of the bar, refused a beer, and pulled his straw hat down. People gave him lots of room.

  Harvey held Addie, whooping on the dance floor, and the old timbers were rocking.

  When the dance ended, the young waitress took Harvey back to the floor.

  Addie was wet and smiling.

  “He’s a real pirate,” she said. “He can dance.”

  “I was watching.”

  She touched his arm. “Peeping Paul.”

  “Yeah. Ol’ peeping Paul peeped a peck of pickled trouble.”

  “So clever.”

  “Would you like a beer?”

  “Here, let’s us sit down,” she said.

  They took a corner booth. Addie watched Harvey and the beehived waitress dance. “He is a fine dancer,” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “Tell me about your brother the pirate.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. He’s a nice guy. Everybody says that. He’s a rascal and a scamp.”

  “A pirate!”

  “I guess so.”

  Addie was barefoot. She put her sandals on the table.

  “There’s nothing like a pirate to brighten things up. Why isn’t Grace here? You should have brought Grace. Then we would have been a group, and groups are always more fun. What happened to his eye?”

  “He was wounded.”

  “Well, I know that. How did it happen?”

  Perry shrugged. He had a tight fever. “The telegrams just said he’d been wounded, I don’t know. He’s all right now. He hasn’t said anything about it.”

  “That’s silly. I’ll drag it out of him then. I’m good at that. I’ll drag out the whole gruèesome story and make him feel all better about it.”

  “You’re the one to do it, Addie.”

  “Want to dance with me?”

  “Not that. Not now, I’m pretty tipsy.”

  “Such a pirate.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s dance. That’ll make it better.” She got up and held his arm.

  “Don’t be so happy.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Everything gets better, you know.”

  “Let’s dance then.”

  “I’ll dance barefoot.”

  “Spectacular, Addie.”

  “Hmmm.” She removed his glasses. “There, how’s that?” Very slowly, she pulled him up. “Very tribal, don’t you think? Firewater and campfires and wild rhubarb, all erotic.”

  “Stop that.”

  “Don’t be silly. You should be barefoot, too.”

  She was lean and athletic.

  “Isn’t this a nice song? Very erotic, isn’t it? Don’t step on my bare feet.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Isn’t this better now?”

  “It’s fine. I’m pretty hot.”

  “Dance closer. You don’t have to be so stiff. That’s better. See how? One, two, three. One, two, three. Isn’t it nice? Think of campfires and firewater.”

  The accordion music was slow and swaying, deep forest. People were singing.

  “Don’t you like me?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And isn’t it nice to dance a little?”

  He saw Jud Harmor watching. Jud smirked, raised his hat.

  It was a long slow dance.

  “We should all go for a swim. Is that your brother’s girlfriend?”

  “
Are you looking at them? I thought you were dreaming with your eyes closed.”

  She laughed. “I was dreaming. Is that his girl friend?”

  “Her name is Linda or Lorna or something. She’s a patient of his.”

  “We should all go swimming.”

  She was light and the skin was tight across her shoulders.

  “We really should go for a swim now,” Addie said. “Wouldn’t that be good?”

  “I have to go home.”

  “Yes,” she said. “There’s always that, isn’t there?”

  In town, the dry spell was all they talked about. The air was crisp and inchworms were eating up the forest. At night, trying to sleep, Perry heard them munching with the sound of rainfall. But it did not rain. The days were hot and dry, and it did not rain.

  It kept him busy. Meager to begin with, the corn crops were baked away. One by one, the farmers slipped into the office, shamed, filled out their loss statements and applied for loans. On the highway into town, the hands of the fire danger clock pointed to high noon: Forest Service firefighters checked into the U-Rest Motel, arriving in green trucks and jeeps. The town turned out to watch them arrive. People were excited. In the drugstore, they swapped stories about earlier fires. It was suspenseful and important. Heat killed the mosquitoes. It killed the grass on Perry’s lawn. A dog dropped dead on the church steps. Everyone talked about it: the town was built of timber, white pine that had been cut and sawed and planed and notched and molded, hammered together and lifted up and painted bright. The paint was peeling. The forest crept up to the town and into the parks and on to the lawns and kept going, and if the forest burned, then the town burned, too. There was no distinguishing it.

  Perry watched the excited faces through his office window. The twelve-man fire brigade was put on alert.

  “You gotta sign up,” Wolff insisted. “Your ass burns with the rest of us, you know.”

  “Not me, Herb. I’ll watch it from the window.”

  “Harvey joined up.”

  “Harvey’s good for that.”

  “Geez,” Wolff prodded, “you don’t join anything around here. You ought to show a little more citizenship.”

  In late July a Forest Service agent stopped at the office. The skin was black and flaky in the hollows of his face. He wore a silver badge. He was solemn. He told Perry they were moving in another crew of firefighters. “Doesn’t look good,” he said. “One spark, that’s all it’d take. I’m not kidding.” He told Perry they worked for the same boss—“Good old Uncle Sam, the USDA. We’re going to have to use your office for a headquarters, just till this thing blows over.”

  Perry turned over the keys. He left quickly. He celebrated with a beer, drove home and went to bed.

  Grace worked hard on the garden, watering the soil, protecting the tomatoes and green beans, fed them fertilizer, cooed to them. And she taught Sunday school.

  Harvey prepared in other ways. He cleaned out the bomb shelter, throwing away all the rakes and hunks of hose and old furniture Perry had stored there. He swept the shelter down, hosed it out, repaired the air filter, filled the water tank, put in a new store of sheets and blankets and pillows.

  That July was hot. There was small-town suspense.

  Perry stayed away from the bomb shelter. He didn’t say so to Harvey, but he thought the place dark and depressing and buried away.

  “The old man wasn’t so crazy after all,” Harvey kept saying.

  “Right,” Perry said.

  “You don’t have to be so damn arrogant about it.”

  “I’m not.”

  “He wasn’t dumb or crazy. You don’t have to smirk.”

  “I’m not smirking, Harv. It’s a solid bomb shelter.”

  The floor was laid in massive tumulary stones. The air was musty. Tepid air, a moldering preservation. The past and extended future. A stack of magazines lay in one corner. There were books and games, a typewriter, liquor and candies and soap. Boxes of canned food were stacked to the ceiling. There were cots and flashlights and folding chairs, candles and rope and wire, tools and cigarettes and matches, foul air, electric lights connected to a small generator, string and blankets, paper and silverware and pots and plates and survival gear.

  Harvey’s eye shined. “We could last it out in here.”

  “What?”

  Harvey shrugged.

  Gleaming, the streets were white metal.

  Thursday, the last day of July.

  There were jeeps and trucks and firefighters, the streets were fizzing with people, everyone was waiting.

  It was Harvey’s birthday. Grace held the party on the lawn.

  When the sun faded, Perry turned on the spotlights and lit battery-powered lanterns in the trees. Then the guests arrived. Harvey received them in front of his bomb shelter. He drank beer from a paper cup. The sky was changing. Headlights flowed up the lane. Lantern shadows, sky shadows. The wind was changing. The party comers moved like electricity through the night, trooped in bearing gifts and loaves of bread, hot dishes, meat loaves. Old people and young people. Bishop Markham brought his wife and children. Reverend Stenberg brought candlesticks. Hot beans, hot corn, fruit salad, biscuits, burgers, ham and chops, baked potatoes, warm salted butter, pies, a birthday party. The ladies of Damascus Lutheran brought plates and tablecloths, their husbands carried ice. The sky was changing. The headlights kept coming up the lane, new voices. High above, in the highest depths, the sky budded new stars and the patterns developed. Herb Wolff brought his father, pushing him in a wheelchair. The forest was full. Jud Harmor came in his pickup and straw hat and talked about the war and garbage. Addie came alone. Grace was busy and happy. There was potato salad and talk about the dry spell. It was a birthday picnic, and the evening was dark and the lanterns played on the trees. Town shadows flowed about his yard. Addie was there. Now and then he saw her passing by a lantern. “Geronimo!” wailed Jud Harmor. Grace was happy. She served people’s plates and cut the birthday cake. She fixed a smile on the festivities and held Perry’s hand and bustled for paper cups. She was breathless and soft. She kissed him. “Isn’t it nice? Everyone’s here.”

  “You invited them. You’re the attraction.”

  “It’s so nice. Is Harvey enjoying it?”

  “I think so,” Perry said. Harvey was sitting on the bomb shelter with Addie.

  There were forms and shadows and the sky was changing.

  “Hey, Paul.”

  Perry walked to the shelter, head down.

  “Addie says you have a secret.”

  Addie giggled. “Hop up here, Paul. It’s a fine place to watch the party.”

  “Tell me the great secret,” Harvey said.

  “There’s no secret. Tell him, Addie.”

  Addie giggled and took his arm. The party seemed far away. The townspeople were silhouettes and old shadows.

  “What’s this great and wonderful secret?” Harvey demanded.

  “Nothing. I swear. Tell him it’s nothing, Addie.”

  “If we told our secret, we would die and go to hell. That’s what happens when people tell their secrets. People must always keep all their secrets secret, if you follow me.”

  “Tell me,” Harvey said.

  Addie giggled. She still held Perry’s arm. “Okay,” she said. “But first you tell us your secret, Harvey. Tell us how you hurt your eye, all the gory stuff.”

  Again the party poised.

  “Nothing,” Harvey said softly.

  “Tell us all about the eye, Harvey. And tell us how you were a war hero.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Okay, then I’ll just have to tell you the sad facts,” Addie laughed. “You see, Paul and I are running away together. To the badlands of South Dakota.”

  Harvey stared at her. He was a bit drunk.

  “Yes,” she said. “We’re going to Rapid City or Deadwood. I’ll sell Indian carvings and Paul will … I don’t know what Paul will do. Anyway, that’s the secret. We’ve been planning it
for ages.”

  “Rapid City,” Harvey muttered.

  “Isn’t that a fine secret? Now you promised. Tell us about your eye.”

  “Crap.”

  “What? What’s that? Harvey, now you promised.”

  “This is a bunch of crap.”

  “It’s a fine secret,” Addie teased.

  “I’m going to Africa,” he said.

  Addie shrugged and giggled. “Don’t be a silly. It wouldn’t be the same at all. Who’ll buy Indian carvings in Africa?” She giggled and there was new movement around them, in the air and woods. It stopped. It became quiet and for the first time Perry felt the transformation. The air was soggy.

  “Wouldn’t touch the badlands,” Harvey muttered.

  “It’s actually quite clean in the badlands,” said Addie. “Isn’t it” She touched Perry’s arm.

  “Sterile,” he said.

  “See? Ha! Paul’s taking me there.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Addie moaned. “Tell him, Paul.”

  “Never.”

  “Oh, you will. Tell him you will.”

  “I won’t. Let’s go back to the party.”

  “You’re both silly,” Addie said. She turned to Harvey. “I swear he promised.”

  “Never.”

  “Betrayed,” she giggled.

  Perry left them. The new forest motion was back. And there was sound. The groups were mingling. Like compounds forming, electrons splitting and taking new orbits, shared spheres. From somewhere, music was coming on to the lawn, the lanterns were swaying. Bishop Markham was lecturing, Jud Harmor was squinting towards the sky. There was a hum in the forest. Perry wondered if old Jud felt it, or heard it.

  He watched Grace move through the crowds. It was a fine big party, she was good at it. She listened to people. She wore dresses; it wasn’t often she wasn’t in a dress: in the garden, walking, combing her hair out. She wormed through the crowd and hooked his arm. “Hungry?” He shook his head. “You aren’t drunk?”

  “Nope. Don’t always ask that.”

  “A nice party, isn’t it?” She was whispering.

  “Yeah. You did a nice job.”

  “Be nice then. Talk to people,” she whispered.

  “Okay.”

  “You aren’t sick?”

  “I’m fine, hon.” He pulled free and held a paper plate that leaked potato salad. “I’m okay, really. How are all your lovely church friends? How’s the Reverend Stenberg?”