Northern Lights

by Tim O'Brien

  She laughed. “A honeymoon, I’ll bet. Am I wrong?”

  “It was just a trip.”

  “Well, you’ll have to take me on a trip, too. Nothing else will do. The badlands.”

  “Where do you get this badlands stuff? Harvey’s thinking you’re crazy.”

  “Imagination. You have to have it.”

  Cold rain drizzled down through supper and the summer seemed to end at 6 p.m. sharp. Harvey did not come.

  “Scrabble?” Grace said brightly.

  “No.”

  “You don’t want a game of Scrabble?”

  “No, I don’t want a game of Scrabble.”

  She pouted.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s walk. How about a walk?”

  “It’s raining.”

  “Do you good to get wet.”

  “You’re a clown.”

  “Aren’t I? I wonder where the devil Harvey is.”

  “With Addie. You told me, remember? Don’t they make a nice pair? I think so. I do. Karen Markham thinks so, too. She thinks they’ll get married and she asked me what I thought and I said I didn’t know. Addie’s good for him. You know? She keeps him … You know.”

  “I know.”

  “She’s nice, too. Addie. Don’t you think so? I wish I could be that way sometimes. I don’t know. Shall we just watch television?”

  She washed the dishes and he dried them. The rain was cold, and he smelled the winter coming.

  “Do you want to just watch television? Or we can listen to records.”

  “You’re one for excitement.”

  “I was just …”

  “I know.” He pretended to smile.

  “You’re a kidder,” she said. She looked relieved. Her teeth clicked together.

  They finished the dishes and watched television, then Perry got up and put on his raincoat. She didn’t say anything. Gently, he closed the screen door and stood on the porch. The yard light illuminated a narrow swath of the forest. Behind him, slightly muffled, he heard the sound of the television, Grace moving across the kitchen floor, hesitating then moving away. He zipped up the coat and put his hands in his pockets. He felt foolish, no longer restless, and for a moment he considered going back in. He heard Grace inside, running water, rinsing something. The rain let up, turning to mist and fog in a combination of great depth. He stepped off the porch and hurried blindly across the lawn, on to the path, and towards Pliney’s Pond. The earth smelled of salamanders and pine, and it was cold and wet and deep, and the earth sank beneath him, and the fog transmitted faraway sound, and faraway stillness, and above him the pines were dripping, he heard water lapping somewhere, his shoes sucking on the forest floor. He came to the pond. It was dark, almost a part of the land. It was too cold to sit on the rocks. He stood with his arms folded and hugged himself and looked out on the pond. The summer stink was gone. The air was sharp. The pond was perfectly still. Sea of swamps, mother marsh, womb of man.

  “So,” he murmured at last. “So,” he murmured, as if settling something.

  So, he thought, a historic discord, linguistics and tone, a cataclysmic blindness, a pathless thicket of twisted meanings and intentions and desires, a guttural and inarticulate melancholy, passion without vision, simple elements.

  Behind him there was a noise. A shadow came from the woods, dressed in fog. “I been lookin’ for you,” the shadow said.

  “Who is it?”

  “I been lookin’ for you, all over.”

  “Who is it?” Perry said.

  “Shit, you blind, son?”

  “Who is it?”

  “I been lookin’ for you, son.”

  “Oh. Jud. What is it?”

  Jud came hidden in fog, bent low.

  “What you doing here?” Perry called.

  “Ha!” the mayor said. “I could ask you the same thing, son. I could ask you the same question.” He stopped and coughed and blew his nose like a trumpet. “I been lookin’ … Goddamn cold. Gonna be one bitch of a winter, tell you that right now.”

  “Jud, what you doing out here?”

  “Lookin’ for you, son, just lookin’ out for you.” The mayor came to the rocks. The fog twisted about his face like a mask. He smelled of mothballs. He blew his nose, stuffed the handkerchief in a pocket, dropped his hands to his hips.

  “Jud?”

  “Just lookin’ for you,” he said. “Grace told me … One crazy place on such a night, expected to find you floatin’ face down. Such a night. I had me a notion. Had a notion driving out. You gotta be careful, son. Here, you better swig on this. Helps y’ see clearer, that’s all. Seeing clear. Had a notion when I drove out, Paul Milton Perry floatin’ face down. Take some of this, son, take it.”

  “Jud.”

  “Take a swig, son, take it. There. Ack, such a night, winter, winter. Phew. I had me a notion, all right, just in time.” Jud coughed, spat into his handkerchief.

  “Jud.”

  “Time’s comin’, son, it’s comin’. Cold as shit, ain’t it? Winter, winter. Here now, take some of this. There. Fuckin’ winter.”

  “Jud?”

  “Now,” said the old man, “now what’s this about sellin’?”

  “Selling?”

  “Ha!” the mayor cackled.

  “Jud, you’re sick, come on.”

  “Tell me about sellin’, son, tell me. What’s this about sellin’ out?”

  “Nothing, Jud. Come on. You’ve got it mixed up.”

  “You’re sellin’, I heard it, I know it. Had a notion drivin’ out, you’re sellin’ and leaving, I know it.”

  “Jud.”

  “Here, take a swig of this, son, take it.” Jud handed the flask through the dark.

  “Jud, what’s this about selling, tell me.”

  “Sellin’?” Jud turned to the pond. “Sellin’, I don’t know. Had a notion. You sellin’?”

  “No.”

  Jud shivered.

  “Come on.”

  “Jesus, son. What the shit you doin’ here on such a night?”

  “Come on, Jud.”

  “No need to sell,” Jud said.

  “I know. I know that. Now let’s go get some coffee, what do you say?”

  Jud pulled away. He backed off and slipped into the fog. For a moment it seemed he had gone. Then he cackled. “And, hey! Tell Harvey I got him his parade. You hear? Tell him I got his parade for him. Tell your pa, too. You hear? We’re all heroes, you hear? Hee, hee. So long, now. We’re all of us heroes, you hear, even you, down to the last man, hee, hee.”

  Shelter

  It was an early snow, but Grace was ready for it. The firewood was stacked, the windowsills were puttied, the larder was full of canned tomatoes and peas and string beans from her garden. Burrowing in, she’d prepared the house for winter, spreading a new Hudson Bay blanket on the bed in time for the first snow. All summer she’d worked on it, quietly foreseeing winter, a blue and yellow blanket with the design of ripe orchids. There were warm clothes from the attic, rubber boots ready on mats by the door, a full tank of heating oil, potatoes in the cellar.

  The snow started as a wind, then rain, then an expansive pale sky, then snow.

  Perry watched it develop from his office window. It was Friday. Cheerfully detached, he watched the snow develop with the relief of knowing he would not have to anticipate winter any longer. He felt fine. The farms would be locked in, which meant that his work would end until spring, a dead-end job mercifully cut short, and the Swedes would lie low and hope for a better spring, better soil, another chance, good luck and fair weather, corn from boulders and water from granite. Sometimes he did not hate the town. Sometimes it didn’t matter one way or the other. He whistled a little tune and watched the snow. It was always a new emergency, people scurrying before his window as if they’d never seen a snowfall before, as if they’d never seen winter, drawn faces pointing to the pale sky, anxiously conferring. There was nothing more to do. He swept down the office and when he saw that t
he snow would be permanent he pulled down the blinds and latched the door and left early. It was early winter.

  The snow melted. For a week the skies were clear. Then it snowed and the snow hardened to ice, the pines turned stiff, then it snowed again.

  Harvey began talking about winter camping. Ski racing, finding a job, leaving the town, leaving the state, becoming a mercenary in Africa, writing a book, rejoining the army, going to college. Some days he spent with Perry in the office, drinking coffee and elaborating on his plans, cajoling Perry into agreement or argument, persuading him. He talked of adventure. His bad eye would seem to roll. He talked about the cross-country ski races in Grand Marais. He talked about ice fishing, the hardships of cold weather, the exhilarations of the spirit. Perry listened and nodded. He had no better ideas. Evenings, Harvey would take the car to visit Addie, or Addie would come for supper and the four of them would sit at the fire and play cards or Scrabble, and Harvey would talk about adventures, always planning and always insisting that he be taken seriously, demanding that they all play together, drawing them all in. Perry would nod and Grace would quietly disagree, but only Addie could control him, teasing him out of plain nonsense, puncturing fictions, bridling him.

  “Well,” Harvey would mutter, “you can’t live in your small worlds forever.”

  “What about Vietnam?” Addie would tease.

  “What about it?”

  “Some magnificent adventure.”

  “What about it?”

  Pointing to his dead eye: “That,” she would say, challenging him. “Tell us about that.”

  Startled, puzzled, Harvey would reach to it. “Oh. That’s nothing. That’s part of it. You see, I’d forgotten. Taking chances, that’s all.”

  Addie would keep after him. “So tell us about it! Tell us how it happened. You haven’t said a word about it. Tell us about your heroics.”

  “It’s not important. It happened, that’s all.”

  “Oh,” she would grin, egging him on. “Did it hurt? Did you feel great adventure when it happened?”

  “Hurt? Well, yes. Sure it hurt. What do you think?”

  “Was it worth getting hurt? I mean, if it hurt, you must have thought something about it. You don’t just lose your eye and forget it.”

  Harvey would glare at her. “I don’t see what my eye has to do with anything. It’s not the point. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Just tell us how it happened,” Addie would laugh. “Tell us about a great adventure where the hero loses his eye. I want to hear every last gruesome detail. How did it feel, what did you think, did you cry? Do heroes ever cry? How did it feel, what did you think? Did you think you were going to die, was it worth it? Tell us this great adventure story. Tell us everything!”

  It would stop him. Addie knew how to pin his ears back. She could find his soft spot and sear it and stop the nonsense.

  Perry envied her. She wasn’t taken in. She was free and clear of his influence, able to ride him with ease, effortlessly swaying with him, guiding him like a matador, stopping him short, turning his plunges into wasted energy.

  “Well,” Harvey would say, “I still think we all ought to take a great ski trip. Anything crazy about that idea?”

  “The cold,” Perry would say.

  “No spine. You don’t really have spine, do you?” Harvey would sneer.

  But Addie could smooth even those moments. She was good to have around. She was young and always teasing, and her skin stayed dark even without sun. The snows frosted on the ground. The days were crusted and cold. He continued his exercises, dieting, walking into the woods around the house. He felt stronger, but it was energy without much purpose. Preparing, searching for some use for his new leanness, he counted off the push-ups and sit-ups, listened to Harvey’s talk, watched the town get ready for winter, watched Addie, dribbled from day to day in a sleepwalking, restless disgruntlement. Grace was quiet. One evening she suggested a vacation. He ignored her. She could be sweet and understanding and soft, almost infuriating, and he just ignored her. Harvey was harder to ignore. Sardonic and sententious, Harvey would lay his grand plans, playing on Perry’s feckless preparations and invoking the teachings of the forest, their common history, their father, the town, the Arrowhead, adventure. At night, lying still with Grace, Perry heard his brother roaming the upstairs hallways, sometimes with the wind in the timbers, sometimes with Addie’s voice, joint laughter. He felt alone. He felt sometimes, lying there, as if he were being hurtled headlong into a scrambled thicket, caught in Harvey’s wind.

  “Don’t you like being warm?” Grace would say.

  “Yes.”

  “Me, too,” she whispered.

  He turned, lay on his side, faced the wall. Her breath was on his neck. The wall looked like a sky. Sallying, dazzling white points of light.

  “Are you sleeping?”

  “No.”

  She was quiet. He turned again, involuntarily, wrapped around her. Now he smelled her hair. Her body seemed to sink away from him.

  Harvey moved about in the upstairs bedroom. The ceiling squeaked. Perry listened and heard them talking. He heard Addie’s laughter. He wanted to listen in, creep up the stairs like a cat and put his ear against the door and listen in, find a window to peer through beclouded. He was intrigued.

  “Cuddle me,” whispered Grace.

  “I am.”

  “Brrr.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Are you happy?” she whispered. She was happy, he could feel it. Bed was her place, the warm sheltered soft center of the bed, and she wanted a child.

  He heard the toilet flush. He listened, fascinated, thinking of Harvey’s blinded eye. The floor seemed to shiver. Then the house settled into quiet.

  “I hate winter,” Grace said.

  “It’s not winter.”

  “It is. It’s here. I hate it. I think we should take a vacation. Don’t you think so?”

  He rolled again, restless, turned to the wall. He smelled her flannel nightgown. The house was finally silent.

  “Wouldn’t a vacation be nice?” she said. “Someplace warm. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  He murmured yes, it would be nice, and in a while he heard her soft breathing. He listened to her sleep. He listened to the house, brittle timbers, a man’s house. He listened to the outside wind. It had been that way forever. He tried to reconstruct his mother’s face. Imagination played its tricks. He did not know her but he still imagined a face, like Grace, a certain feel and sensation that was entirely separate from the old man’s house. No notion of family, no blending of softness with the leaden tread of his father or the squatting bomb shelter in the backyard. Grace turned, curled to the bed center. The night thoughts crept on him. Disorganized. A new job maybe. He felt vulnerable. Grace was warm beside him. It was that water-like soft center that first attracted him. A ripe smell tantalizing his imagination, something known instinctively but never encountered, like a nerve numbed and blunted. His father hadn’t liked her much. “Looks like somebody’s mother,” he’d once muttered, his only comment. Home from college, college boy with Iowa girl. He liked her bigness. It was nothing erotic, no Addie, but the big bones had flesh that seemed to sink to the touch, down and down. He wondered what the hell she thought about.

  Harvey wore his dress greens. He looked trim. A silver bar twinkled on each shoulder. Five medals were linked in two neat rows on his chest.

  “I’m so excited!” Addie cried. “Doesn’t he look just like a war hero? This is a grand night. And I’m so glad I know a hero! Don’t you think Harvey looks just like a genuine war hero? I think so. Smile, Harvey. There, you see? A hero. I’m trying to persuade him to walk with a limp. Don’t you think a limp would add to the overall effect?”

  “You look great, Harv,” Perry said.

  The kitchen was warm.

  Grace put napkins on the table. She pulled goulash from the oven, then hot biscuits. They ate quickly and Addie chattered on, and Harvey was q
uiet and sober and trim. He’d had his hair cut.

  Perry drove the eight miles into town. Over the forest, the white fuzz of the football field lights glowed. Perry drove up deserted Mainstreet, turned on to Acorn Street towards the field. Harvey sat in the back seat with Addie, straight and quiet and confident. The snow was steady.

  The teams were already on the field warming up.

  The bleachers were crowded. They had come from all over, Two Harbors and Silver Bay and Grand Marais.

  The snow blew in drifts across the field. The high-school band marched on to the field and formed two rows, and the teams ran through the marching aisle to their dressing rooms and the crowd rose to cheer them.

  Harvey was dignified and erect. A few teenagers whistled at his uniform. Harvey ignored them, and they took seats near the fifty-yard line. Bishop Markham waved. He was sitting with Herb Wolff and two members of the town council. They were the core of the Sawmill Landing Boosters. They all carried red and black pennants. Bishop wound down the bleachers to shake hands.

  “This is your night,” he said to Harvey. “You look great in that uniform.”

  Harvey nodded. He was solemn and dignified.

  “A genuine hero,” said Addie.

  “I should say!” Bishop held both of Harvey’s shoulders for a moment. “The town is proud. This is a fine moment.”

  Bishop went back to his friends and the band played the national anthem. The VFW honor guard carried the flag to the north end zone, hoisted it up into the snow. Then the crowd cheered again and the cheerleaders led more cheering, and on the opposite side of the field the Silver Bay rooters did the same, and the noise picked up.

  Harvey stared resolutely at the snowed-in football field. The two teams returned to the field. They were jumping and exercising and the loudspeakers called out the starting lineups. Grace unfolded a blanket and draped it across everyone’s knees. The bleachers were full of people. The whole town was there. The band played the Sawmill Landing fight song and everyone stood. Perry’s glasses steamed over.

  Spreading a white haze over the forest clearing, floodlights sparkled with the snow, and the teams lined up.

  The Sawmill Landing boys were in red and black.