The Houseguest

by Thomas Berger

  “I’ll tell you,” Doug said, shivering audibly, “I’m just about ready to c-capitulate. L-1-let’s face it, he’s whipped us. That happens. I don’t know what it is, luck or fate or something. G-goddammit, I’m cold! I’m going to give myself up and get into a sweater and drink hot chocolate.”

  His tone was that of a wanted criminal under siege by the police, and he spoke as if surrendering to Chuck would bring him the approbation of all right-thinking people.

  But Bobby surprisingly proved of sterner stuff. “No time to let down, Dad! Is he going to be more decent than he was before we almost drowned him?”

  “I have it,” said Audrey. Apparently she was still hugging her husband, though to little effect. “Hugo’s old blanket is still behind the back seat in the wagon.”

  Lydia recognized the name in reference as that of a pet Weimaraner, deceased as of a previous summer or two. Bobby claimed to have been fonder of the animal than it had been of him, but Lydia pointed out that dogs cleave to those whom they live amongst, less to occasional visitors to a household: he had spent most of his time at college or in summer pursuits like tennis camp.

  “I’ll go get it!” he nevertheless said now, and plunged into the even more profound darkness in the direction of the car-park.

  “The hell with that!” Doug said desperately. “I’m going inside.” But Lydia could now see well enough to discern that Audrey was struggling to restrain him and if unaided would soon lose the contest. She allied herself to her mother-in-law and hugged the wet Doug from the opposing side.

  “Damn!” he cried. “Damn you women!” But he was not proving to be as strong as Lydia had assumed: the ladies were winning now, and fairly easily.

  No sooner had she made that assessment than Doug ceased all resistance, and naturally she and Audrey relaxed their grasps—at which their captive burst from them and dashed towards the dark house along the path of flagstones.

  Lydia pursued him, catching up at the door that gave access to the pool area. “Doug,” she pleaded. “Don’t surrender. We can win this thing. You’ll see.”

  He was trying unsuccessfully to turn the knob. “It’s locked,” said he. “I’m locked out of my own house!” He turned to her, as if she might actually have an answer. “This is the ultimate in degradation. He’s in, and I’m out.”

  “Well, so are we all.”

  “So far as I’m concerned,” Doug said icily, “your right to include yourself is highly questionable. If it weren’t for your intervention, this devil would be safely drowned by now and we’d be back indoors, warmed by a blazing fire, once again in possession of that which is ours. And no grand jury in the world would indict us for what was so obviously an accident. All the unpleasantness would soon be over, and the rest of the summer would lie before us, to be enjoyed in the usual way.” He pincered his thumb and forefinger. “We were that close—and you, and nobody else, made the difference!” He had forgotten he was cold.

  “But now he and I are even,” Lydia said. “Don’t you see that? I have paid him back the life I owed. He’s fair game to me now. Can’t you understand?”

  “I don’t give a damn for your moralizing!” cried Doug. “He’s taken my house!”

  She saw that no verbal argument could earn her reinstatement. Once again, action was called for. Though ordinarily she resented aggressive maleness, she would have welcomed it now. Instead of blaming her for his inability to cope, why did he not handle it with the virility that was his by natural definition? Why did she once again have to prove that she was not helpless?

  As usual she derived energy from resentment. She started around the house towards the bathroom window by which she had lately left it.

  All five doors of the station wagon were locked. The vehicle stood lower than normal: then with his improved night vision Bobby saw the slashed tires, and next those of the car parked alongside. This vandalism struck him harder than anything yet. It was so wanton. They were up against an implacable enemy. To be so savagely punished for committing no crime! He swore that after winning this war—and they must!—he would be merciless henceforth. Woe be to the person who crossed him. Not until he had lost his innocence was he aware that he had had so much. He understood that it was not necessary for him utterly to believe or to disbelieve Lydia’s arguments—on any subject, but especially with regard to personal relations: after all, even though being his wife, she was someone else. Giving her the benefit of the doubt (as he should in view of their yearlong connection if for no other reason), she would surely emerge with a decided advantage over everyone else he had ever known, even if she would never again be seen as exactly perfect.

  Meanwhile here he was, frustrated in his purpose as usual: he absolutely could not return to his father with another failure. He searched the edge of the parking area for a sizable stone, found one, removed his shirt and wrapped the rock in it, and in what took several blows against the shatterproof glass, finally battered a hole in the back window of the station wagon of sufficient size to admit his hand. He unlocked the cargo door and claimed the ex-doggy blanket, which still smelled of the late Hugo, with whom, though not for lack of trying, he had never developed a rapport. Indeed Hugo was quite capable of barring his entrance into either of the Graves residences unless one of his parents was present. In the current situation, it could have been predicted that a living Hugo would have shown marked partiality for Chuck Burgoyne.

  Having snatched the blanket, Bobby crouched in silence for a while to determine whether his sounds of forced entry, though muffled by the shirt, had alerted the enemy. But when nothing happened he was emboldened to enter the wagon and crawl forward to the glove compartment, where he found a flashlight with, incredibly, fresh batteries. Armed so poorly, and though Chuck remained in command of the house and all vehicles were immobilized, Bobby was convinced that the tide of battle had now turned in favor of his family.

  He returned to his wet father, who was unprecedentedly being hugged by his mother. He gave him Hugo’s blanket.

  His father was not so demoralized as to refrain from saying, “Phew. This thing is pretty high!”

  Bobby looked around. “Where’s Lyd?”

  “Who knows?” said his father. “She’s gone again. Maybe joined him once more.”

  “No,” Bobby said firmly, though he admitted to himself that it could well be true. “No, she’s helping us now. Take my word for it.” Now that he could see better, what he observed were all those windows that reflected only the black of night and forest: a darkened house, irrespective of tenants, seems a sinister place. “She’s gone around the other side to sneak in someplace. What we should do here is create a distraction, to occupy Chuck so he won’t hear her.”

  But his father was still obsessed with regaining bodily warmth, stamping the ground and mumbling. Finally he said, “The smell is really something, after all this time. Hugo must have puked in this blanket.” He glared at his wife. “Why’d you still keep it?”

  “So that it would come in handy now,” was her waspish answer.

  Bobby thought it essential that the good feeling that had been established between them, as exemplified by the hugging, should not be allowed to dissipate.

  “I miss him!” he said. “And he never even liked me.”

  “No, Bobby,” his mother replied. “He never really got to know you.”

  “Oh, he was a fine old fellow,” said his father, who surprisingly enough had been close to the dog: at dinner Hugo might come and insert a heavy head between the table and his lap and be tolerated.

  Suddenly his father was sad. “I am not as I was in the reign of good King Hugo.”

  “Why do you say that, Doug?” Bobby’s mother asked sympathetically.

  “Please,” said his father. He dropped the blanket, knelt, picked up a rock, and threw it at the sliding door before them. But the missile merely bounced off the stout plate glass, almost striking Bobby on the return flight. “How do you like that!” his father said bitterly. “Now
I can’t even break my own glass door with my own rock!”

  “Well, Chuck’s not to blame for that,” said Bobby. “It’s just a matter of physical laws. You shouldn’t take it personally.” With his fingertips he prized up one of the flagstones from the walk—they were set in loose sand—hefted it, then hurled it against the door. This action was effective. The large pane became several wicked-looking shards that shimmered briefly in the available light before plunging to the earth.

  The destruction was so uncompromising that the Graveses were chastened for an instant, and the sound too was startling. They took ad hoc places of concealment behind the ornamental trees that grew from round islands of soil near the pool, though these were for the most part slender saplings. But when a few moments had passed without response from the house, visible or audible, the trio reunited and advanced on their home, the control of which had been taken from them and not really by force.

  Bobby kicked out the remaining fragment of plate glass and led the way through the now vacant frame of the door. Once inside, he illuminated his flashlight, even though Chuck would thereby be given an easy target.

  When they reached the utility room, Bobby’s father found the main electrical switch and threw it on. The house was alight once again, and they proceeded to search its entirety, growing bolder as, room after room, Chuck failed to appear. But what should have been a satisfying experience was not, for neither could Lydia be found. Which meant one of two things, each sorrier than the other: either Chuck had taken her prisoner or once again, in her perverse way, she had joined him—perhaps temporarily, as usual, and would later on return to the fold with still another argument that she would insist was plausible.

  Bobby made no reference to his wife until they had completed the search of the semidetached guest wing and he could at least put aside his dread that she and Chuck might be discovered in bed back there—which of course she would subsequently explain as having been a means to distract the houseguest while the others recaptured him.

  “I’m worried about Lyd,” he said as they were passing Chuck’s room on the way back. “Do you think he could have kidnapped her?”

  “Let’s hope not,” his father said curtly.

  “No,” said Bobby’s mother. “He’s gone. I know it. I feel it. He finally got the idea that he was not wanted. At long last. But what a struggle it was!” She chuckled. “I’ve heard of persistent guests whom you couldn’t get rid of, but this was a special case. I know people who will find it hard to believe.” She sighed. “We never should have let him talk us out of the annual season-opening party. Now no one will have met him. Nobody will be aware of how charming he could be when on his good behavior.”

  His father grimaced. “I find this whole thing humiliating in the extreme. I’m glad no one’s met him. That is, no one we know. Of course the Finches are only too well aware of Chuck Burgoyne, but they really don’t matter if we can emerge unscathed. In fact, they will be taught a lesson.”

  “Which is?” asked Bobby.

  “That there are limits,” his father said soberly, “and you must know what they are if you expect to be taken seriously in life.”

  “Well, we don’t really know how far Chuck represents the Finches as such, do we?”

  “But you see, Bobby, we must proceed as if he does. It’s not our job to puzzle out every subtle discrepancy. Look, it was he who invaded our property, not the reverse. The burden of proof’s on him.”

  “Good grief,” said Bobby’s mother, looking at her wristwatch. “Look at the time. This Sunday’s certainly been a waste from start to finish.”

  “You know, Dad,” said Bobby. “I wonder if maybe we’re being too smug too soon. We might have missed him in this search. Maybe he’s just stepped out one of the many exits and has been watching us through the windows as we went around.”

  “But,” said his mother, “that would contradict this very definite feeling I have that he is no longer on the premises. You know, he does exude a certain energy when he’s around: that much must be granted to him.”

  His father snapped, “Are you still enamored of that little rodent?”

  Bobby stepped in quickly to prevent a squabble. “All I’m saying is it might be too early to declare unconditional victory for our side.”

  By now they had returned to the kitchen, which had without formal declaration become their headquarters.

  “There’s something in what you say,” his father told him, with obvious concern for his sensibilities, “but what we need most at this point is something that builds morale. We’ve suffered one reverse after another, all day long. If occasionally we had a little success, it’s been short-lived. This is the longest period yet in which Chuck has been out of power. That might be worth celebrating. If you’ll get a blanc de blancs from the cellar, I’ll provide the ice.”

  The wine cellar was not subterranean in this house without a basement, being rather a long cabineted series of shelves beneath the bar in the butler’s pantry. Several hundred bottles were maintained there at a constant temperature of 55 degrees. One of the many things Bobby did not share with his father was a special taste for wines, but he knew where the different kinds were kept, and he went now and pulled out champagnes until he found the appropriate label.

  When he returned to the kitchen, his father had at last discarded Hugo’s blanket. Both of them had forgotten the matter of exchanging their wet clothes for dry. Bobby was about to remind his father when he saw, through the windows over the sink, that the headlights of a car were just entering the parking area.

  “Dad,” he said, lowering the bottle to the counter, “I think Lyman’s come back.”

  Lydia was still trying to find a means by which she could reenter the house when to her surprise the lights had gone on and she saw the three Graveses on their inspection tour. It would have been natural for her to go knock at the nearest door to their current position, but before she could do so, she saw a shadowy figure emerge from one corner of the building and steal out through the parking area and onto the gravel lane that led to the public road.

  Chuck Burgoyne was making his departure, slinking off like a whipped cur. She found it difficult to abstain from sounding derisive applause, perhaps even a raspberry. He was the type to whom it would be heaven to rub it in, and now that she had evened the score by saving his life, she had no motive for restraint. But what revenge would be appropriate for what he had done to her? All she could think up was something obsolete, like public shaming in the pillory.

  But her sense of triumph was soon moderated by the realistic reflection that it would be utterly unlike the Chuck she knew to leave permanently at this point. He had not long before won exclusive possession of the house, having, in a way that might seem magical to him, survived a savage attempt on his life. Why, when things had again turned his way after a short-lived reversal, would he make a surreptitious exit into the night woods?

  Lydia saw it as her duty to follow him as far as the road, if such was his destination, but she could not walk on the gravel, for, though at the moment the sound of her footsteps would be obscured by his own, if he stopped without warning she would be audible at a great distance. She therefore took the verge, in this case a terrain in which parts of dead trees, pine cones, and boulders were routine, and scratchy, even stinging bushes not uncommon. Mosquitoes too were at home in places. A hundred yards of this course left many marks upon her, and soon after leaving the car-park she encountered dense darkness as the lane became a corridor through the woods, too narrow to be penetrated by such feeble light as the sky offered. Yet every time she halted she continued to hear Chuck’s regular crunch up ahead. He had no flashlight. If she quit now, he would have proved he was the more competent night navigator. She had long since determined she would never again surrender to him in any area of human enterprise.

  The lane may have been as long as a quarter of a mile. Every time Lydia stubbed her toe on an invisible obstacle, or was again slashed by a thornbush o
r bitten by another insect, she told herself that this would be the last, that she had earned an easy passage from here on, and on each occasion she was immediately proved wrong. Once she fell outright, and her hair caught in a spiky bush. It was only after her hopelessness had been established that relief arrived.

  The lights of an oncoming car became visible, silhouetting Chuck’s figure in the lane. Lydia now plunged to the ground on purpose. It was a nasty place for this, and her right hand encountered a soft, damp mess of something with the texture of excrement though fortunately with an odor no worse than that of mildew.

  Chuck was waving in the jovial style in which vehicular friends are hailed, and when the car stopped, he went out of sight behind the headlamps and, as the slam of the door would indicate, climbed on board.

  The car stayed where it was; the occupants sat there plotting their tactics for the final assault. Now what she had to do was return to the house as quickly as possible and sound the alarm. Secrecy no longer had a point. She took to the middle of the lane and ran full speed through the gravel, expecting to be immediately pursued by the car and in danger of being ruthlessly run down.

  But whether or not the men had seen her, her backward glance when halfway home told her they were staying in place.

  At the parking area, the end of her run, she checked again, but now the headlights could not be seen at all. This could have a sinister implication; maybe they had launched an invisible, silent advance. She could identify all three members of her adopted family through the kitchen window, could easily have picked them off with a target rifle. They were more vulnerable than she.

  Both screen and inner doors were locked. She banged on the frame and loudly identified herself. Bobby answered the summons, after having peered out apprehensively under a horizontal hand. Yet when he let her in, he pretended to have difficulty in recognizing her.

  “Don’t bother with how I look,” she said, gasping from her expenditures both physical and emotional. “They’re coming! Get these lights out!”