by Joe Meno
WHEN JONATHAN GETS HOME and pulls the car into the garage, he sees the Volvo is still gone. Backing into the garage beside Madeline’s empty spot, he holds his hand over his heart and finds a white EKG tab left stuck to his chest, then another, then another. He sits there, holding the steering wheel in his hands, and thinks, I have ignored everything important around me. I have made my life a stupid, empirical, factual thing. I’ve forgotten what it means to be happy or unhappy. I have been so narrow-minded that I’ve forgotten to look around at the rest of the world: I’ve been in a kind of fog for years and years. He climbs out of the car and goes to find his wife, knowing what he wants to say to her now, how badly he wants to apologize, to convince her of his love for her, knowing none of it will be easy.
OF COURSE, Jonathan does not find Madeline. She has vanished completely: no note, no sign, no message to be read in the arrangement of her shoes near the back door, because all of her shoes are gone. Jonathan sighs aloud into the empty stillness of the house. Where are the girls? Certainly they should be home by now. But no. It’s four p.m. and there’s no one. Nothing. Jonathan retreats to his bedsheet tent in the den. He climbs inside and stares at a black and white wedding photo of his missing wife. In the photo, Madeline is wearing a strapless dress that does not exactly fit, the cut a little low along the bustline, but she looks elegant, with tiny flowers in her hair. She is laughing at something, holding her dress up with one hand and her bouquet in the other. Madeline. She is smiling a smile Jonathan does not quite remember, a smile before a certain kind of impatience set in, a certain kind of frustration, a certain kind of indifference. The smile, in its perfect lightness, with her one dimple on her left cheek, is the most lovely, unfussy thing Jonathan has ever seen. Its shape, and the whole of the rest of Madeline and Madeline’s face, are now gone, somewhere else: missing. Where is she right now? Where has she gone? It is Thursday, October 28, 2004, 4:35 p.m., and it feels like the world is ending.
AS THE EVENING wears on, Jonathan climbs out from the fort and decides, fuck it: he will get high. His daughters are still not home. And there are some rolling papers in the drawer of the oak desk, and a little baggie of very dry weed, hidden in a dense volume of Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” Madeline’s idea of a joke. Jonathan does a terrible job of rolling a joint, it looks bunched up at one end and the paper keeps coming unwound. But, finding an old blue plastic lighter in his desk, he lights it anyway and inhales deeply. His lungs contract and expand, his heartbeat slowing lazily. Uncoordinated thoughts drift through his head. He finds himself sitting on the floor in front of the television, eating a bowl of frozen strawberries, flipping through the channels with the sound off, admiring the shape of everyone’s mouths. When he gets to CNN, what he sees nearly causes him to choke.
It is footage of the prehistoric giant squid: Tusoteuthis longa. Floating in an enormous blue tank, the creature looks pale white, its innumerable tentacles reaching out, drifting behind it like listless seaweed. The animal does not look well. In fact, it looks terrible. A close-up reveals its huge, alien eye, bubbles hurrying past as the squid drifts aimlessly in its tank. Jonathan grabs the remote control and turns up the volume.
“Scientists are reporting that the prehistoric giant squid they captured five days ago has died. Researchers are still trying to determine the cause of the creature’s unexpected death. At the moment, they believe the animal may have suffered a severe shock when it was removed from its natural habitat.”
The camera cuts to footage of Dr. Jacques Albert behind a small metal podium, his hands folded before him as if in penitence. He looks exhausted. Jonathan climbs from his chair, then across the carpeted floor, placing his face as close as he can to the television screen. The Frenchman is answering questions from the press, saying, “Yes. At four o’clock this morning, the specimen emptied all the ink from its ink sacs. We feel that the great animal did this in a final attempt to remain hidden, as it is a creature that prefers the solitude of the ocean, unaccustomed to captivity and the interaction of other species. By seven this morning, I was informed that the animal was…deceased.”
Dr. Albert, speaking in a philosophical tone, stares beyond the camera and the lights, removes his glasses from his thin face, and then leans into the collection of five or six microphones, looking grim. “What we have learned in the short time we have been able to study this magnificent creature is nothing short of amazing. Although this one specimen has expired, there is great promise in our study of its DNA, which will affirm what we have long suspected…”
Jonathan crushes the power button on the remote and falls on his back. He stares at the tiny lines and cobwebs along the ceiling; his perfect dream of discovering that great animal alive, of one day observing it, of coming to know it on a scientific and even personal level, has now disintegrated. There is now no hope of him being the one to come up with a simple answer, to find a single, unified conclusion. With the squid’s death, it has all been crushed, left dead floating in an enormous saltwater tank. Now even this, his idea, his plan, his wish has disappeared, vanished, poof! Like everything, like Madeline, like his father—or at least very soon. Yes, science teaches us everything: where we come from, what we share with the world and the universe. It shows us the entire, impressive fabric of all creation, Jonathan thinks, lying there before the blank television screen. It tells us everything, all the secrets we ought to know, everything except the most complicated, the really difficult things.
Twenty-two
A. On Thursday morning, just before dawn, the cloud-figure returns. Lying in bed, staring through the bedroom window, Madeline discovers that the figure has finally come back. She sees it standing there in the backyard, unmoving in the top of the highest trees. Then, slowly, it begins to step away, climbing apprehensively just above the telephone lines. She glances over at the alarm clock and sees it is not even six a.m. She gets dressed without worrying about what clothes she is now wearing before she rushes downstairs, out to the garage to start the car.
B. In the Volvo, Madeline circles around Hyde Park, following the cloud-figure, who seems lost. It steps without any sense of direction across the early morning sky. Madeline does not know what to do. Crossing among the other low-hanging clouds, the cloud-figure stumbles toward Fifty-fifth Street, then races back to Fifty-sixth Street, ambling above the tallest branches, back and forth along Cottage Grove Avenue. The sun has just begun to break across the sky.
C. It is Thursday morning, five days before the presidential election. Like the world, like the country, the cloud seems unable to make up its mind.
D. After nearly five hours of following the figure, Madeline pulls away from where the cloud is circling, and rushes into a fast-food restaurant to use the bathroom. When she returns, the cloud is still there, moving from treetop to treetop, describing the same route along the hazy sky. Madeline stares at it, waiting for the figure to make a decision of some kind. But it doesn’t, it seems totally incapable of moving on.
E. After another seven hours, Madeline falls asleep, watching the cloud-figure stand solemnly in the tree limbs on a narrow side street. Shifting the station wagon into park, she closes her eyes, putting her legs up on the passenger seat.
F. When she wakes, it is dark out. It looks like it might start snowing. The sky is gray and ominous. She switches on the radio and it reads 9:49 p.m. The news on NPR is unpleasant, several dozen dead in the Gaza Strip. She switches off the radio and glances up through the windshield and sees the figure moving restlessly from one tree to the next, back and forth and back again.
G. Finally, she understands: it is pacing.
H. The cloud-figure is walking back and forth. Seeing it now, Madeline switches the Volvo off and hurries beneath the figure on foot, glancing up through the trees at the odd shapes the stars make in the dull gray sky.
I. The cloud is pacing back and forth, directly above one of the university’s libraries. Fog from the lake hangs above the grass as Madeline crosses a stretch of lawn and
stands before the unlit building. Closed. Of course. She checks her watch again but it seems to have stopped working. It reads 3:25 p.m. She looks up and sees the figure stepping back and forth, anxious, as if making some grave decision, and then, slowly, as if descending a staircase, the cloud-figure begins to sink, first just a foot or so, then more, gradually, gradually, until it is walking just above the threaded grayness of the evening mist.
J. Madeline rushes toward the cloud as it pushes its way into a field of fog. Madeline, her heart beating nervously, follows, seeing that the haze is a city of its own, rising up and down, with phantom trees, and misty buildings, and a long, narrow field made of silent gray clouds. To the west, there are some other shapes. The enormous library has strangely faded behind the bank of gray, and Madeline is startled to see there is a group of other cloud-figures: rows and rows of them rising up from the fogginess, glinting and ephemeral, glowing from the distant starlight. Madeline watches her cloud-figure join the others until it finally disappears.
K. The other cloud-figures also seem indecisive. Watching them shift and move back and forth, Madeline sees their feet and hands and shoulders almost shapeless, swirling in place. The stars overhead have mostly gone black, a few silent glimmers of light cutting through the cloud-figures’ chests, their bodies made briefly clear, their hearts suddenly visible. Something happens then, with the moon and the stars streaking over the cloudy figures. A blur of light, circles of gold and blue and silver intersect, and something behind Madeline begins to glow as well.
L. Madeline turns and what she sees is inexplicable. There is a moment of absolute stillness, as if the sun itself has just set behind her, and the heat of the thing causes Madeline to shout, closing her eyes and turning away. There is a countdown ringing in her ears, like a loudspeaker in a dream.
M. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.
N. Then a new cloud, great and darkly shaped, rising above all the others, fills the evening sky. “Reproduction factor k of 1.0006…” the cloud-figures all raise their hands in exaltation. A loudspeaker hisses from somewhere with unfamiliar words and static: “The Italian navigator has landed in the New World.” A second voice, trembling along invisible telephone lines asks, “How were the natives?” to which the loudspeaker responds, “Very friendly.”
O. Almost immediately then, Madeline sees the cloud-figures begin to disappear, one by one, vanishing like ghosts. Next the eerie evening fog begins to dissipate, until there is only one figure left, the one Madeline has been following all this time: standing there, high in the topmost branches of an elm tree, it stares out at what was once Stagg Field, at the remnants of Chicago Pile #1, both of which are now gone, now only another university building, now only a library.
P. Madeline finally understands what she has seen: it has been a test. This is the spot right here, she thinks. All this time and I forgot. It’s been here, right here, all along and I forgot. Here, right here, she thinks. The world’s first controlled nuclear reaction. December 2, 1942, 3:25 p.m., happening beneath the empty western grandstand of this field, that moment kept still in time, relived again and again and again, the thoughts of those brave, intelligent men and their doubts, all of their immeasurable fears and reluctance, burning, lingering there in the air, in the trees, in the grass, in the colorless stretch of sky. Madeline sees the cloud-figure standing there, his movements no longer anxious but now just incredibly weighty, ponderous, sad, stepping from branch to branch, tree to tree, as if it is measuring and remeasuring the terrible consequences of this decision, perhaps the worst decision in history. Why? it seems to be asking, wavering there above the trees, uncertain, as temporary as a ghost. Why did we do what we did? Why did we believe this was necessary? Madeline begins to back away, watching as the field slowly starts to fade into darkness, the cloud-figure growing more and more opaque. Why did this happen? it whispers soundlessly. Wasn’t there some other way? Didn’t we realize we might end the war and condemn the world at the same time? Why didn’t we see that there was no science on earth, no idea, no experiment, no device, to keep people from hurting each other? And why didn’t we see that this thing, this creation, would only make things worse?
Q. Watching the cloud-figure slowly fade into nothingness, Madeline begins to tremble. She does not want to be here. She wants to be at home with Jonathan, with her daughters, she wants to hear them arguing with each other and laughing. She does not want to be here, like the cloud-person, having made its terrible decision, now lost, now lonely.
R. Madeline looks up as the figure vanishes into the trees. She stands there for a few moments before she realizes it is gone. She finds her car parked in a tow zone, searches for her keys in her coat pocket, and drives off toward home in a frenzy.
S. When Madeline looks up again, pulling to a stop at a traffic light, she realizes it is morning. The sun has begin to peak in the east and there is a soft glimmer of dew along the Volvo’s windshield. She switches on the radio and discovers it is already 8:00 a.m. Somehow it is Friday morning.
T. The election is only four days away, or so the radio broadcaster claims. Madeline turns off the radio before she can hear any other bad news.
U. Madeline parks the Volvo in the garage and sits behind the wheel for a few moments in the dark. She is trying to understand exactly what has happened. She glances over and notices that her husband’s car—the red, rusting Peugeot—is gone. She switches off the engine, takes a deep breath, opens the car door, and steps toward the house, her entire body trembling.
V. Thisbe is eating her breakfast in silence at the kitchen table. At first she looks up at their mother with doubt, and then, soon enough, she is beaming.
“You’re back,” Thisbe says with a dimpled smile, blinking her sleepy eyes.
“I am,” Madeline says, frowning a little, taking a seat beside her at the kitchen table. “Where’s your father?”
“He’s gone. He went to visit Grandpa.”
“Where’s Amelia?”
“Still in bed,” Thisbe whispers.
“Still in bed?”
“She said she’s not going to school today. She said she’s giving up.”
“On what?”
“On everything.”
“I see,” Madeline whispers, finally realizing, in this moment, exactly what her absence has meant.
“Are you back for good?” Thisbe asks, setting down her spoon, glancing up suspiciously.
“I think so.” Madeline watches her daughter’s face for any sign of anger or dismay. There is none, only her two, mismatched dimples gleaming brightly. “How do you feel about that?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Pretty good, I guess.”
“Good.”
“But…but you guys shouldn’t keep doing this to us,” Thisbe whispers. “I mean…you’re supposed to be our parents. You’re supposed to be in charge of things.”
“You’re right. It isn’t fair. And I’m sorry.”
W. Madeline leans over to take her daughter’s hand but Thisbe pulls it away. All at once, her daughter’s face is shiny with tears. Thisbe tries to cover her eyes with her hands, but it is hopeless. She is crying hard now, her shoulders awkwardly trembling.
“It’s okay,” Madeline says. “You’re okay, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, honey, shhhh.” She stands, wrapping her arms around Thisbe’s shoulders. “Shhhhh. You’re okay. We’re all going to be okay.”
X. Madeline presses her lips to her daughter’s forehead.
Y. Thisbe closes her eyes, trying not to cry anymore.
Z. Madeline closes her eyes and tries to do the same.
Twenty-three
BY EIGHT A.M. FRIDAY MORNING, AMELIA HAS RESIGNED herself to a life of absolute mediocrity. She lies in bed upstairs, considering how best to go about it. Maybe she’ll only eat at fast-food chains from now on and become grotesquely obese. Or no. Maybe she’ll stop worrying about being taken seriously as a young woman and start dressing like the sluts on MTV. Or no. Maybe she’ll get rid of all her French
records and start listening to the garbage on the radio. Wow. Anything is possible now. Amelia stares up at the cracks in the ceiling above her bed, these cracks and lines that, as she squints, seem to resemble exactly how she is feeling. I’ve been kidding myself all along. Everything I believed in has turned out to be nothing. She listens to her sister slam the front door, hurrying off to school, and immediately a nervous ache begins to fill her chest. She is going to miss her classes again, and because she’s kind of mean—she knows she is but can’t help herself—no one will share their notes with her tomorrow, and then she’ll fail civics and history, and then she’ll have to spend all summer making up stupid classes that she should have passed in the first place. But it really won’t matter then. Because at that point, she’ll still be here, lying in this very bed. Amelia is imagining how long it will take for her legs to atrophy when, all of a sudden, the door opens and her mother barges in.