by Ana Simo
The snow had begun falling thickly. How long could a dog survive in this cold? McCabe had to take Route 24 to reach Elmira. She might see the dog. Rescue it. Or run over, maim, or kill it. A golden retriever would be visible against the snow, but it was hard to stop a car suddenly in this weather. You might crash into the icy ramparts that formed on either side of the road. McCabe would get out of the car anyway, whether or not she had hit the dog. She would rescue the dog if it was unhurt, or if it could be healed; if it was beyond help, she would finish it off, I didn’t know how, perhaps by snapping its cervical vertebra with her big hands; then she would drag the dead dog to one side of the road so that other vehicles would not disfigure it. Wasting time with a stray dog on a night like this was risky, especially if you were driving alone and were not accustomed to the fierceness of winter storms in this part of the country. It snowed in Maine, but nothing like this. What I was seeing through the kitchen windows could not be called a heavy snowfall anymore. It was a winter gale, the kind that buried Shangri-La for days, until we dug ourselves out with hand shovels and a snowplow that Ezequiel would chain to the corner Negroes’ decrepit pickup truck. He had found the snowplow in an illegal car dump down that same Route 24 the golden retriever was now wandering down. After one of his performances in front of their porch, he had asked the Negroes to help him fetch it. They did. Chained to their pickup, it became Shangri-La’s official blizzard buster. The Negroes were known to accept tips from grateful neighbors. Most went to keep their truck running. It was perennially being repaired in their yard. Ezequiel claimed he never saw a penny, nor did he want to. But I saw him exchanging bills and coins with the head Negro several times. I don’t know what he spent the money on. He did not smoke or drink, and Genoveva must have kept him fully occupied. My mother’s cousin was too “young and appetizing” for her own good, according to my grandmother. She preferred Ezequiel to her own niece. She sided with him in all their marital squabbles while pretending to be neutral. “It’s a pity that Rafael takes so much after his mother,” she used to say. Her pronouncements were absolute. Once uttered, they stuck to the person forever, at least in my mind.
I imagined McCabe and the dog in the snowstorm against all reason. The chances of her encountering that dog on that road at that time must have been staggeringly slim. Besides, McCabe was not a dog person. There had been no dogs in her stories. No mammals, in fact. But she had rescued me on a night not unlike this. And, genetically speaking, 85 percent of me, or any human, was doglike. On the other hand, she may have rescued me in spite of my genetic links to dogs and other inferior mammals. Perhaps it puzzled or amused her that, while genetically so close, nothing else in me was doglike, except my physical addiction to Mrs. Crandall. I was not loyal. I also thought that I was smarter than a hound. I’m not so sure anymore. It was one of those persistent images that cannot be dislodged by reason or sophistry: McCabe and the dog in the snowstorm. I stopped fighting it. I felt her large, warm hands touch my muzzle, then my furry belly, to see if my heart was still beating. I could not open my eyes. They were frozen shut. I felt her take me in her arms and walk with me for a long time. My head flopped to one side. I was dead or sleeping.
The grandfather clock brought me back to what we doubtfully call reality. It was 9:00 p.m. I was still sitting in the fragrant, darkened kitchen. The storm had eased for a moment. I went to the window. Something white and large was moving at the far end of the driveway. A large snow-covered branch swaying, I first thought. Then it seemed to move forward as well. A large, furry animal. A gigantic white bear. As it lumbered toward the house it became clear to me that this was no four-legged creature, but a biped sunk almost to the waist in the snow, and fighting its way forward. This was not McCabe. It was taller and wider. A tall man covered in a long, white fur coat and hat. Rafael may have been telling the truth after all. I considered grabbing a hunting rifle and blasting off his face the moment he came through the front door. But that would only alert the rest of the death squad. He wouldn’t be alone. Better lure him sweetly into my bathroom so that he could relieve himself, and hang up his wet coat. Get rid of him there, quietly and cleanly. Rafael might try escaping into the meadow behind the icehouse, and onto the road past the farm. I’d take him all the way to the icehouse. We’d both be wearing the Judge’s snowshoes. I would make him walk behind me, stepping in my tracks, so it would seem that only I had been out. On my way back to the house, I would create as many confusing and interlocking tracks as possible. I would explain them to the interrogators as healthy exercise. But the corpse of this first killer, what could we do with it? He was almost here. As he came up the last stretch of driveway, I moved away from the window so he wouldn’t see me. He had a large satchel across his chest. His chin was tucked into his coat, and his hat covered the rest of his face. I waited behind the front door holding my breath. I heard him stomp the snow off his boots on the front steps. I opened the door with a big smile.
McCabe smiled back at me. When I did not move, she picked me up in her white bear arms and delicately put me down to one side. Then she stepped in and closed the door behind her.
28
The Future Generations
When Rafael Cohen realized that he had little time left in this world, he was terrified first by death, then by oblivion. He could do nothing about the first, so he waged war against the second with the only weapons that he had left: pen, paper, and the certainty that he was right.
“I am leaving life,” he wrote. “I am helpless before an infernal machine that uses medieval methods, possesses a titanic power, and fabricates lies according to a carefully mapped plan, a machine whose audacity is matched only by its arrogance.
“The great traditions of our nation—the democratic ideal that inspired all our actions and justified our cruelty against our internal and external enemies in order to defend ourselves—have little by little sunk into oblivion. Once our government and security agencies deserved our trust and respect. Today, our government is disfigured and our security agencies have become degenerate conglomerates of well-paid, morally bankrupt bureaucrats. Avid for medals and glory, they wrap themselves up in their past credibility to feed the sick mistrust of our rulers. They invent sordid stories, not realizing that they are digging their own graves. History will not forgive them.
“These omnipotent agencies can annihilate in a second any member of the government, Congress, the military, or our servile media, to make him or her look like a traitor, a saboteur, or a spy.
“I knew nothing of a coup attempt. I am not guilty of anything, yet I will drag down thousands of innocents with me. A fictitious organization has already been conjured: the ‘Cohen Gang.’
“I have been at the service of my country since the age of eighteen. My entire life has been dedicated to a single goal: the survival of our nation and the victory of democracy. I can already foresee the front page of the newspaper that usurps the hallowed name of the Times trumpeting that I, Rafael Cohen, wanted to destroy our nation’s prosperity and security, and weaken it so that it would fall like an overripe fruit into the Caliphate’s gluttonous mouth. What despicable slander!
“I have made more than one mistake in my efforts to serve my country. I only ask posterity not to judge me more severely than I already judge myself. The President and I took a road never before taken, to save our country. At cabinet meetings, everybody expressed their opinions, freely. We butted heads, vigorously, for the sake of our country, whose very survival was threatened. It was a golden era.
“I am speaking to you, future generations of leaders of our nation, who have the historic mission of untangling the monstrous maze of crimes that, in these terrible times, is catching fire like a dry prairie, asphyxiating our nation.
“In these days, perhaps the last of my existence, I am convinced that historical truth will cleanse my name from all the mud that is already soiling it.
“I am not a traitor. I would have given my life without hesitation to save the Presi
dent. I loved the President. I never conspired against her.
“I ask the future generations of leaders of my country, young and honest men and women, to read my letter before Congress, and to rehabilitate my memory.
“Know that the banner that you carry in your triumphant march toward a more perfect union also has a drop of my blood!”
When Rafael Cohen finished writing, he went back to the beginning and spent a long time considering a title. He knew that the wrong one could land him in the dreaded dustbin of history, mocked by the reading elites and unknown to the functionally illiterate masses who, by definition, could not get past the title. His heart wanted to cry out loud, “Save Our Dying Land!” But his immoderate sense of dignity made him settle for “Letter to the Future Generations.” His last minutes of life were consumed by regret at his own lack of audacity.
29
White Fur
McCabe swept into my bathroom, leaving a trail of snow, mud, and ice. I crouched by the front entrance, my swirling head between my knees. Had she worn this white fur coat when she picked me up from the tree hollow and brought me back, unconscious? White fur was preferable to the cadaverous latex gloves through which she had always touched me. It was softer, more animal. I am stating this as an objective fact. I neither wanted nor did not want to be touched by McCabe, skin to skin, or to touch her.
Steam filled the bathroom and was invading the Judge’s studio. McCabe’s coat, boots, and clothes were in a heap on the bathroom floor. She had not even bothered to close the door. I did, on my hands and knees, still fighting off vertigo. Then I cleaned her filthy trail all the way to the front door. Her behavior was disquieting. McCabe had always been laboriously polite with me, almost courtly. That is, after her transformation. Was old, boorish McCabe resurfacing? Even that fat pig had never crashed my bedroom and used my private bathroom. I’m not your maid, I muttered, using the mop handle to stand up. I cleaned after her because filth had no place in my house, particularly not on this day of days. I did it for me, the mistress of the house, not for her. When I was done cleaning, I locked away McCabe’s odd return in the same box as her unexplained absence. My eyes had to stay fixed on the quarry.
McCabe came out of the bathroom sooner than I had expected. I heard her slam the bathroom door and walk around my room. When she appeared in the kitchen, I was uncorking a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, more precisely a La Grande Dame Brut 2005, kept by the Judge, and me, for the grandest of occasions. She hung her fur coat from the back of a chair, and balanced her hat on top of it. Her boots were now clean. “Happy New Year,” she said incongruously when we clinked glasses. I tried to steer her to the dining-room table, with its appetizer display. She preferred to stay in the kitchen. It was warmer there. She was not hungry, yet. She drank most of the bottle, as if it were water. “I’m thirsty,” she said, when she realized I was staring at her. I uncorked a second one. This she drank at almost human speed. She surveyed the kitchen, as if taking an inventory of each item. “Why do you crawl?” she suddenly asked. My throat narrowed, choking me. Could she see through doors and walls? “Your feet must hurt still,” she said. “No,” I lied. While I was mobile, my feet were permanently deformed and pain kept me awake at night. “That happened a long time ago…” I blurted out, trying to cover up my terror. “Not that long ago,” she said. I had walked into my own trap. We were dangerously close to a subject I wanted to avoid: McCabe’s absence. Time, dates, calendars would unavoidably lead us there.
A month and two days ago, McCabe and I had had our last supper together. That was the last time I had seen her. Thirty-one days ago, I had last heard her voice in this kitchen, along with Petrona’s and Mrs. Crandall’s. But I had not seen her. She had been totally absent for thirty-two days, and absent in all but voice for thirty-one. McCabe, not I, should have been the one eager to avoid the subject of time. “Thirty-two days is not long to learn to walk again,” she persisted. Was she being guileless or cruel? I often asked myself that question about McCabe. It was misdirected. She did not know the difference. Her purity of intention depended on that. I was the only one who could answer the question, (self-) helpfully rephrased: did I feel like the target of McCabe’s cruelty, or of her innocence? A nonsensical question for a rationalist like me.
McCabe went to the window. The snowfall had stopped. Low dark clouds were moving northwest, toward the footprints of the Great Prairie. The moon was struggling to come out. “Let’s go,” said McCabe, grabbing her coat and hat. When I didn’t follow her immediately, she added, “please.” Her car was stuck in the mud at the bottom of Round Hill. She needed my help to bring it up. We got into the Land Rover. McCabe sat on the passenger seat as always. She slammed her door shut. I tried to close mine noiselessly. Her eyes were fixed on my hands while I fumbled with the lock. She leaned over me, opened the door and slammed it shut so hard that the Land Rover shook. Rafael must have heard it. With McCabe watching my every movement, I had been unable to warn him about our little spin. Before he could stick out his head, I careened out of the garage. I was afraid he would run away or kill himself, thinking we were his executioners gone to get reinforcements. McCabe did not seem to notice the blue sedan opposite her in the garage. There was no way she could miss it when we got back.
The black Lincoln had its left front wheel stuck deep in the mud. McCabe insisted on doing everything herself. I was there only to drive the Land Rover. “Keep them warm,” she said, throwing her coat over my feet. She quickly chained one vehicle to the other, back to back, and wedged a piece of wood under the Lincoln’s sunken front tire. Both the chain and the wedge came from the Lincoln’s trunk. McCabe sat on its driver’s seat and signaled me to start the Land Rover. After a few pulls failed to dislodge the car, McCabe asked me to trade places with her. “I’m too heavy,” she said. She did seem taller and wider than before, but that could have been the effect of heavy winter clothes. The Lincoln had D.C. restricted-zone plates. Inside, it smelled like apples. The registration in the glove compartment listed McCabe as the owner, at a Dupont Circle address. She rapped on the glass. I lowered the car window. “You can look at that later,” she said, evenly. McCabe never got angry. That was her advantage. Before I could say I was sorry, she was striding back to the Land Rover. McCabe always fled ahead of my apologies. The Lincoln was freed on the second try.
The Washington, D.C. restricted zone was the last place on earth I would have associated with McCabe. With his tall tale, Rafael had uncovered fear behind my cynical loathing of the place. I was shamefully afraid of our rulers. That is why I pretended all my life that they did not exist. McCabe was powerful, but she was not one of them. She had taken care of me, who was planning to kill her. Her goodness was beyond doubt. It was also inexplicable. Would McCabe have helped Rafael? A logical question I should have asked myself. I didn’t. It was as if he inhabited a different plane. Someone of McCabe’s caliber could have a car registered in the D.C. restricted zone for any number of business reasons. Nevertheless, I wished I had brought the Mauser with me.
McCabe agreed to drive to the last vestiges of the Great Prairie. The moon was now out. We might see swift foxes hunting for rabbits. First we drove back to the house. While she waited outside in the Lincoln, which she insisted on taking, I parked the Land Rover in the garage. Inside the maid’s room, Rafael had fallen asleep fully clothed. He was snoring. Saliva trickled from one corner of his open mouth. I wrapped him in a blanket just as I wrapped the Mauser. The extra bullet went into my pants pocket. McCabe followed me with her eyes as I placed the bundle on the back seat. Unasked, she moved to the passenger seat. “I’ll drive so you can see the landscape,” I said, redundantly. She nodded. McCabe was always kind to me. The roads had been freshly plowed, and traffic was light, so we got to the prairie’s ancient edge in less than an hour. The moon shone brightly on the snowy flatlands. McCabe leaned forward in her seat, glancing left and right the way people do at tennis matches. There was nothing to see other than endless snow
and sky. Yet she radiated excitement. I told her the names of the different prairie grasses and flowers, and the seasons in which they appeared. “You should see this in the spring, when cardinal flowers lap at the clumps of bluestem grass; it’s like a sea on fire,” I rhapsodized, forgetting time was running out for her. “I can see it,” she said. My words were that vivid. Flattered, I described for her the martyred prairie dogs, poisoned, torched, gassed, drowned, or quartered by the government and military farmers, and the near-extinct black-footed ferret, whose main meal had been prairie-dog meat. We were silent for several miles. Then she said, “When are you going to write again?” I stopped the car, ran out into a field, and threw up in the snow. My mouth stank. I cleaned it with fresh snow. When I got back, McCabe was not in the car. The motor was running but the headlights were off. The Mauser was still in the back seat. McCabe was standing on the opposite side of the road, about fifty feet away, her back toward me. I grabbed the rifle and walked toward her. When I was about twenty feet away, I stopped, aimed the rifle at her, and called her name. She did not turn around. I called her again. She remained still. I cocked the rifle and called her a third time. She turned around and faced me. It started snowing again, softly. We were there for a long time, facing each other, until my shoulders hurt and I lowered the gun. She let me reach the car and wrap the gun in the blanket, before she started walking back and got inside. “I’m hungry,” she said, as she shut her door.