Red Dress in Black and White

by Elliot Ackerman

  Another half dozen police left the precinct’s offices and gathered by the cell door. They formed up in a line, gripping their black batons. From inside the cell someone reached through the bars, grabbed one of the officers by the belt and pinned him in place. He thrashed about for a moment but couldn’t move, and in that moment someone snatched the steel handcuffs looped onto his belt and managed to secure the free cuff to one of the bars, locking the officer to the cell. In a panic he seized his canister of pepper spray, which he emptied indiscriminately. All of the prisoners had time to turn away except Peter. Crouching in the corner, he couldn’t see the stream coming at him.

  But he felt it as it seeped into his skin’s already clogged pores and coated the membranes of his eyes. Whether it was the noise of Peter’s screams, or the realization that the police would willingly stand behind the cell bars and douse every person inside into compliance, the result among the prisoners and even the officers was silence.

  The cell door rolled open.

  The officers stood in the threshold. They clutched their batons, their round knuckles bulging tightly beneath the skin. The only noise came from Peter.

  He lay on his side, his legs pumping and his heels stamping the floor as the burn continued to spread. Deniz struggled to lift him as he kicked. “Calm down,” he whispered to Peter, trying to remain calm himself as he hooked his arms beneath Peter’s and hoisted him toward the cell’s exit. “Give him some help!” Deniz shouted at the officer who had sprayed Peter and whose colleagues had managed to unlock him from the bars where he’d been cuffed.

  Deniz impatiently heaved Peter up once more and motioned to leave the cell. The officer raised his baton. He would strike if Deniz attempted to cross the threshold. Undeterred, Deniz shifted his weight forward.

  “Let him out!” In the open door at the far end of the corridor, from where the police had emerged, stood a man in plainclothes. He hadn’t shaved and wore jeans and a cheap leather jacket. Although he didn’t have a uniform, he had the same black shined police boots. “Are you trying to kill him?” he said.

  Deniz stepped across the threshold in defiance of the other officer, who moved aside, casting a resentful look at the plainclothes detective, who seemed to be his superior. “Help him into the infirmary,” ordered the detective, nodding down the corridor that ran next to their cell and into the parts of the precinct that were lit up and clean.

  Hearing this new voice, Peter took a deep, calming breath. He tried to open his eyes. The pain was searing. His vision came down to a near pinpoint of light as he almost lost consciousness.

  “We need to use a phone,” said Deniz.

  The detective glanced inside the cell, where the other officers brandished their canisters of pepper spray or clutched their batons by both ends, like rolling pins, as they efficiently restored order. The officer who had been rough with Peter carefully helped him along the corridor with another officer, who had also come to his side. This left Deniz alone with the detective. He asked again about the phone call.

  “We’ll handle all of that,” said the detective. “But your friend doesn’t listen.”

  “He didn’t do anything,” said Deniz. “They sprayed him for no reason.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” said the detective. “I told him to be careful when I first met him. He didn’t listen.”

  Deniz silently followed the detective. The rubber soles of his black boots squeaked down the corridor as they walked toward the harsh lights and linoleum floors of the infirmary. Behind them the cell had returned to silence and it seemed, finally, that everyone had chosen to go to sleep.

  “He’s an American?” asked the detective, glancing in the direction Peter had been taken.

  Deniz nodded.

  “It’s always good to have an American who owes you a favor,” continued the detective. “But I imagine you know that.”

  Two-thirty on that afternoon

  Their cab stops right as the rain starts. Catherine has made a plan with Peter and she needs to keep to it. So she wanders into the park. She stands with William beneath a row of elms. The air has measurably cooled and William clutches the white, nameless terrier’s warm body to his own. The occasional raindrop navigates through the weave of overhead branches with their broad flat leaves and finds its way onto William’s exposed neck, or into the dog’s gray eyes. Across the grass is a vast playground, and as the rain picks up, heavier drops hit the hollow plastic slides and the sound is like a drumroll, as if some incredible stunt were about to be performed.

  The more rain that falls on Catherine, the more her expression sets with determination. Peter’s plan to meet here, outdoors, hadn’t been a good one and she needs somewhere else to go.

  Behind the playground is a parking lot with a small tollbooth that houses an attendant. The lot is empty, so the booth is likely empty as well. Catherine removes her black jacket and hangs it from one of the low, bare branches that jut like pegs from the side of the tree. “We’re going to run over there,” she says to William, pointing across a muddy field with puddles to the booth. “Hop up on my shoulders to keep your feet dry.” She grasps William under his arms, as if to hoist him in a single thrust above her head. Murat often carried William in this way, lifting him in a clean jerk, his technique as perfect as that of any weight lifter. When Catherine bends to try, she realizes that she isn’t quite strong enough. William then sets his dog on the wet earth and shimmies up the side of the tree, high enough to dangle by his arms from one of the limbs. Catherine tucks her head between his legs. The nameless dog nervously runs figure eights around her feet while she regains her balance.

  “Hold my blazer over your head,” she says, her voice choked with the effort.

  William asks about the dog.

  Catherine glances down, bends her knees slightly as if to pick him up, but stumbles. “Don’t worry,” says William. “He’ll follow us.”

  “Ready?” she asks.

  Before William can answer, she strides out into the rain.

  Catherine runs quickly, but unsteadily. William holds her blazer above their heads; when it catches the breeze, it tugs upward like an insufficient wing. With his hands occupied, William’s balance is off and he totters on Catherine’s shoulders. She lurches from one side to the other with each of her uneven footfalls, nearly toppling into the mud as they chart their way out from under the trees, past the playground and then finally onto the parking lot. By this time the cadence of her steps has slowed. She falters through the deep puddles in the chipped and uneven macadam. She grips William by the ankles. Each of her fingers presses firmly into his skin, holding him more tightly the closer she comes to falling herself. “Too tight,” he protests. She apologizes under labored breath. Then, losing her balance, she clamps down once again.

  They arrive at the tollbooth. Catherine collapses at the waist, nearly dropping William, who still holds the blazer above their heads. The two of them become tangled in it as they try to stand. She tugs on the shut door. When it unlatches, she releases a single expiring breath, which she quickly muffles with a confident “In you go” as she rests her hand on William’s shoulder and sweeps him inside.

  William stops her when she reaches to pull the door closed.

  The terrier saunters in their direction from across the parking lot, holding a steady pace, in no rush it seems, as if accepting that he cannot get any wetter than he already is. Catherine calls after him, yet he refuses to hurry. He processes with a great dignity, even stopping at one point to have a drink from one of the puddles, his spry tongue lapping up the fresh water. It is only when Catherine motions to shut the tollbooth’s door a second time that the small dog chooses to cover the last few meters between them.

  Catherine places William on a three-legged stool, the only spot to sit in the booth. A single lightbulb radiates above them. Catherine glances at it, concerned—though f
or the moment she chooses to ignore the question of who left it on and whether they might return. Water trickles down the backs of William’s legs, pooling beneath his shoes. Catherine clamps her hair at the neck in a ponytail and wrings it out. Droplets speckle the dust on the plywood floor and form into puddles. Catherine unhinges a small panel window above a shelf and this allows the air to circulate. Spread across the shelf are a phone book, some tabloid glossies and a portable television the shape of a cinder block with a transistor receiver jutting from its top.

  Catherine lifts William from the stool, sits herself down and then places him on her lap. She fiddles with the dial on the television, tuning through static and a few daytime talk shows, until she eventually finds some cartoons in black and white. She kisses the top of William’s head and smooths out his hair, which is mussed from the rain. “This isn’t so bad,” she offers, but she speaks as if convincing herself. William leans against her. The dog curls up in a dry corner beneath the shelf.

  “How long are we going to stay here?” asks William.

  “Until the storm passes.”

  “Then we’ll go home?”

  Catherine begins to thumb through one of the glossy magazines.

  William asks again.

  “Watch a little television,” she says, keeping her eyes fixed on the pages. “The rain will let up soon.” She has found one of William’s favorite shows, but he fidgets restlessly on her lap as he watches. Without color, the story no longer holds his attention.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes have passed when the front door swings open. A man dressed in a yellow waterproof suit kicks the toe of one of his molded rubber boots against the threshold, knocking the mud loose. His head is bent forward, beneath a hood. He doesn’t notice Catherine or William as he wheezes into his closed fist as if coming down with an ailment lodged in his chest. He raises his head to step inside and then freezes. By reflex, Catherine clutches William tightly toward her. Before the man can say anything, or Catherine can offer an explanation, the terrier begins to bark violently from under the shelf. The noise of his yips pierces the quiet and a snarl reveals the small, sharp rows of his teeth. The man removes his hood.

  Outside the rain has picked up, lashing against his bare head as he comes to a crouch in the doorway. He holds out his hand, palm down, offering his scent to the dog. His skin is as black as the dog’s muzzle. The barking stops. He cradles the dog’s head in his palm and scratches him beneath the chin. The man steps into the tollbooth. “Welcome,” he says, glancing down his long hawkish nose at Catherine and her son.

  Removing his slicker, he apologizes as rainwater trickles off the hem. He hangs it by the hood on a peg nailed to the back of the door. His rain pants are clownishly baggy, cuffed several times at the ankles, and held up by a set of wide suspenders, which cling to his narrow shoulders. He wears a white polo shirt with the logo of the parking lot company embroidered over his heart. “Excuse me,” he says, reaching toward the back of the tollbooth.

  Catherine makes way, pressing herself against the wall. The man lifts a canvas bag from beneath the narrow shelf. He rummages through its contents, an empty sandwich wrapper, an apple core and whatever else he’s had for lunch. He then removes a thermos. He loosens its cap and pours out its steaming contents, which he offers to Catherine. “Would you like some tea?”

  She refuses.

  “But you are freezing,” answers the attendant. He points to Catherine’s clasped hands, which she holds in front of her. For the first time she notices how she is shaking. Her reaction is to check on William, who sits next to her on the stool. His shoulders have also begun to tremble with cold. A wave of expansive, nearly unmanageable guilt possesses Catherine. Soaked, freezing, huddled in a parking attendant’s booth—this is where she has led her son, gone are the four corners of his vast room, with its toys, its sprawling wood floor covered by three carpets. Each involuntary shudder of her body against the cold threatens to knock loose the tether of control she holds over her emotions. She tries to swallow but can’t. She feels dangerously close to a precipice, as if she might collapse into tears. And she won’t do this in front of William.

  To avoid those tears she takes the tea and drinks. After a first and then a second sip she feels more in control of herself and the paralyzing tightness in her throat dissipates. The cup has warmed her palms and she places one on the back of William’s neck. He turns toward her, a generous smile on his face, and she offers him some of the tea, which he takes without hesitation. William empties the cup and returns it to the attendant, who pours him another.

  “Such a miserable day,” the attendant says to himself, craning his neck toward the window. The rain comes in violent whorls, slashing against the tollbooth, receding to little more than a drizzle, and then slashing again.

  “I don’t think anyone will be visiting the park,” answers Catherine, who listens intently to the man’s voice as she tries to place his accent.

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “We’ll leave as soon as this weather lets up.”

  “You are my guests,” he says. The corners of his mouth creep upward and he offers a slight, subservient bow of his head. “Please stay as long as you like.” The attendant reaches beneath the narrow shelf, where, bent over, he searches for something and awkwardly brushes up against Catherine, who, avoiding him, presses herself against the shut door and nearly topples back out into the rain. From a nylon backpack the attendant removes a collapsible stool.

  As he unfolds the stool’s metal legs and pulls its canvas seat taut, Catherine glances into his open backpack. She notices a sleeping bag, a hiker’s water bottle and a toiletries kit. The contents puzzle her. Glancing out of the window once more, she sees an orange cone blocking the parking lot’s entry. If the lot is closed, then why is the attendant working? In fact, she realizes, he isn’t working. Like her, he has nowhere else to wait out the rain. This also explains his hospitality. This tollbooth is his home, or the closest thing he has to one.

  She sits on the stool that he offers.

  “I’m Catherine. This is my son, William.”

  “A pleasure to meet you both.”

  Catherine waits for the attendant to volunteer his name, but it isn’t forthcoming. Instead he stands and bent at the waist works over his backpack as he quickly returns its contents. He then stows it under the shelf and leans against the tollbooth’s corner with his arms crossed. Catherine notices his wedding ring, a slim gold band. “Do you have family here?” she asks.

  The attendant shakes his head. “No, my wife and daughter are in Germany. It was the only place that would help us.” If he is reluctant to offer his name, the attendant is not reluctant to offer other particulars of his life. He goes on to explain that he and his family had fled their home three years before. When Catherine asks where that home was, the attendant refuses this detail, answering only “North Africa,” and then, to clarify his separation from his family, he adds, “The money I earn goes to them. Work is easier to find here, but without a permit it’s dangerous. So I have to be careful. I was a lawyer before. Now I park cars.”

  Catherine glances around the tight quarters. The air is dank, thick with recycled breath and heated only by their bodies. William seems to be ignoring their conversation. Instead he watches the small television. Catherine imagines the countless hours this man has spent, huddled in his tollbooth—freezing in winter, sweltering in summer—watching that same television and parking and reparking cars.

  “And you,” asks the attendant, “you are American?”

  Catherine nods, but she feels that the attendant asks not so much to discover the answer to this question, which he must have already surmised from her accent, but rather to acknowledge a specific disparity between them: one’s nationality when an expatriate confers a certain status, although not without the complexities that so often accompany—and in their way diminis
h—privilege.

  The attendant glances down at William, who continues to watch the television in black and white. He then reaches over the boy’s shoulder and toggles a hidden switch in the back of the set. The screen lights up with color. William beams upward at the attendant, who tussles his hair. “My daughter is around his age,” he says and then offers Catherine a weak, closed-lipped smile.

  “How much longer until you see her?”

  “Until I can afford a passage on the ferryboat.”

  The rain shows no sign of letting up. It continues to strike the side of the tollbooth, making a rasping sound as if on the television white noise had replaced William’s program. Catherine stamps her feet against the cold. The attendant offers to brew more tea. Catherine refuses. She no longer wants to take anything from him. The attendant folds his arms across his chest, leans against the wall and gazes outside into the bleak, monochromatic day.

  Catherine again glances at the attendant’s wedding ring. The gold band is likely valuable, perhaps worth enough to secure his passage on the ferryboat he’d mentioned, so that he could join his family. Had she known him better or been certain it wouldn’t offend, Catherine would have asked him why he didn’t sell the ring. Considering this suggestion shames her. This man isn’t like she is. He had sacrificed his entire life’s happiness to secure the happiness of his family. He had sent them across a sea so that they might have a future while only able to make half the journey himself. She can predict his reply to her suggestion: that he’d rather never see his wife again than present himself to her impoverished and having pawned their last shared possession. The joy his wife would feel on their reunion would soon temper when she imagined the indignity of him hawking his wedding ring. There is a moral hollowness, which all through her life Catherine has suspected herself of and learned to conceal. Her well-cultivated instincts tell her not to suggest to the attendant that he try to sell the ring.