Behold

by Barker, Clive

  He didn’t know how long he’d slept when a crash wakened him. He poked inaccurately at the light switch and staggered about until he located the disaster. The shower holder had fallen off the wall, taking a tile with it to smash. His laugh at this involved very little mirth. It was more of a preamble to the complaint he would make in the morning, though the prospect made his head feel empty and numb.

  Now that he was aware of all the heat that had gathered in the room he didn’t expect to sleep much, but he’d hardly returned to bed when he no longer knew where he was. Sunlight wakened him, and he remembered the shower. Was it really worth reporting, or should he just leave it for the staff to notice, which they presumably couldn’t avoid? He lay in the companionable tangle of the sheet until a surge of anger at his inertia roused him. He wasn’t supposed to be here just for himself, and as soon as he was dressed he stalked off to Reception.

  Win spoke from the office as he approached the counter. “You’ll have your fan today, Mr Warden.”

  “I hope so, but meanwhile the shower has fallen off the wall.”

  “You’re meant to hold it. That way you won’t make the room so wet.”

  Didn’t that seem reasonable? Straining to recall why it shouldn’t revived the tight ache in Warden’s head. “It smashed a tile, as well,” he said.

  He thought Win was about to tell him to clear them up until she said “Have your breakfast and I’ll look into sending someone.”

  If she meant him to hear weariness, that was surely how he ought to feel. At the buffet he made do with a glass of orange juice and a ragged chunk of bread that he smeared with liquescent butter. The items tasted only slightly stale, he reassured himself. He lingered over them and then over their remains in the hope of giving someone time to deal with his room. At last he ventured back to find that most of the broken tile had been taken away, and a fan was plugged in near the bed.

  The bracket from the shower lay on the toilet cistern. While he showered he tried to avoid spraying the room. The mirror reminded him that he was wearing a wristband, though by now it looked almost as undefined as the image blurred by condensation. Was there something else he ought to remember? Yes, he’d neglected to take his passport with him the last time he’d gone to see Win. Instead of slipping it into his pocket he’d left it on the bedside table. He towelled himself more or less dry and padded into the main room. The passport wasn’t by the bed.

  He searched all the pockets of every item of clothing in the room, but he hadn’t forgotten putting it there, and it was nowhere else in the apartment. He dressed so hastily that he heard a shirt button skitter into the bathroom. As he made for Reception, Dick and family watched him, and so did Stan along with his. Warden heard a not especially stifled laugh, followed by a murmur. “Looks like someone’s off to make more trouble.”

  Win stayed in the office to watch his approach. “I’m sure your fan is on its way,” she said.

  “It’s there.” As she conveyed that she wouldn’t mind being thanked Warden protested “My passport’s gone from the room.”

  “What a pain. Where do you think you might have left it?”

  “I told you, in my room. Someone’s taken it. Whoever put the fan in must have.”

  “I don’t think you can say that, Mr Warden. If the door was open, anybody could.”

  “Then they shouldn’t have left the door open. What’s going to be done, may I ask?”

  “I’ll make enquiries. You’re with us for a while yet. We’ll see you’re fixed up.”

  Warden found her undertaking worse than vague. “Maybe the police should make the enquiries.”

  “You can have what you ask for, Mr Warden.”

  He gave that a fierce nod, though it tightened the noose of a headache, which was making it hard to talk. He heard Win pick up the phone and dial, and her side of a conversation in Greek. She leaned out of the office to say “Someone will be coming for you. Don’t leave the Magic.”

  “I’ll be by the pool,” Warden said and took a glass of wine to the lounger, hoping to regain some calm while he waited for the police. He stayed well clear of the families he felt sure were surreptitiously watching him. In a while he dozed, only to keep waking with a sense that it was dangerous to drift off. He felt close to fancying he was handcuffed by the wristband to the lounger, but was the impression hindering a memory? Recalling that he’d lost his passport threatened to rouse his headache, but was that all he’d lost? No, his identification from the travel firm had been inside the passport. Both the loss and having overlooked it made him feel as if he hardly knew who he was. He needed reassurance, but not where he could be overheard, and he took his phone to his room.

  The answer wasn’t as swift or as bright as Rhona’s welcome meeting had suggested. “Rhona Martin.”

  “Rhona, it’s Douglas Warden at Mediterranean Magic.” He sounded as though he was associating himself with the place, which was one reason why he added “I should tell you I’m with the firm.”

  “The firm.”

  “Yes, ours. They sent me to report on the accommodation.”

  After quite a pause Rhona said “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought I just did.”

  It wasn’t much of a joke, and it earned him another silence before she said “Are you reporting me, as well?”

  “I’m afraid that’s part of the job.”

  “What are you going to say?”

  “You must know I can’t reveal that. That’s how the job’s done too.”

  “Then I don’t understand why you’ve told me as much as you have.”

  “So that you know who I am in case you have to help me get home. Somebody’s stolen my passport.”

  “Are you sure you haven’t just mislaid it?”

  “I most certainly am. I’ve got all my wits about me.”

  He didn’t need her to pause yet again, especially if that was some kind of response. “If it’s been stolen,” she said at last, “you need the police, not me.”

  “I’m waiting for them now.”

  “Then I expect you’ll be taken care of. You can let me know if you haven’t been,” she said and immediately ended the call.

  Did she treat all her clients’ problems like this or just his? In any case he would be reporting her behaviour. How dull must the girl be if she didn’t realise she’d made trouble for herself? Though he shouldn’t expect special treatment, it might have helped them both. He’d told Win he would wait by the pool for the police, and he hurried back to the lounger, seeing only fellow guests. “Putting up with it after all,” he heard someone mutter.

  “Putting up with us,” someone murmured lower still.

  Warden wasn’t going to acknowledge the comments. As he fetched another drink he asked the barman “Have the police been here?”

  The man kept any expression to himself, not least with his voice. “No police.”

  He could hardly be saying they weren’t welcome, let alone that they wouldn’t come. Warden subsided onto the lounger, raising his head whenever he heard anyone approaching. Before long he forgot this was a reason to move his head. When he woke he felt as though his arm was weighing him down, unless the whole of him was. He didn’t need to stir when he was here to enjoy the sun—no, to talk to the police because it was somehow his job—no, because he’d lost his passport. Prising his leaden eyelids open, he saw it was late afternoon. This sent him off the lounger to stumble to Reception, where Win made a visible bid to look resigned at the sight of him. “Have the police been in touch?” he demanded.

  “Why should they?”

  That felt like a threat of having his memory stolen. “Because you called them on my behalf,” Warden said with all the force he could find.

  “They haven’t come just yet, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Do you think someone should remind them?”

  “Best not to pester, Mr Warden.”

  It sounded like more than advice, and he understood it wasn’
t prudent to antagonise the Greek police. As he returned to the poolside he could have fancied that he was being led by the wrist back to the lounger. Once he’d finished another drink he fell into a doze. He had days before he would need the passport, after all.

  An outbreak of shuffling roused him. Guests were heading for the buffet, and he saw Dick’s son was limping. Since nobody seemed concerned, Warden was disinclined to comment. “Are you coming for dinner?” someone called.

  Though Warden was unsure if he was being addressed, he said “Maybe later.”

  “Isn’t their food good enough for you?” the man said, or someone else did.

  Warden’s hunger simply felt too remote to need assuaging—certainly not worth the bother of troubling Win yet again, since he would have to let her know he wasn’t by the pool. He couldn’t even find the energy to go to the bar, which would involve summoning the barman now that he was morosely busy with diners. Warden reverted to dozing until Win’s voice to some extent roused him. She was only saying “In future we’ll just do full board” and not to him. Could that bring her unanimously favourable reviews? Before he’d grasped the thought he was asleep.

  He woke to find he was alone. Even the bar was deserted. It was almost midnight, and he couldn’t help shivering with a sense of an imminent chill. When he hurried to Reception he wasn’t surprised to find it unstaffed. Knocking on the counter failed to bring anyone out of the office or wherever they were hiding. He craned over the counter and found a pad together with a splintered ballpoint pen. He wrote I’M IN MY ROOM WARDEN on the top sheet, which he tore off and left behind the counter. Perhaps just the shaky ballpoint had made it hard to write. He was heading for his room when he realised he’d glimpsed movement in the graveyard.

  He sneaked along the side of the staff block and piled up rubble so that he could peer over the wall. At first the view hardly seemed worth the effort—the activity he’d glimpsed had just been the flickering of light on some of the memorials—and then his vision grew used to the intermittent dimness. The door of the hut was open, and the occupant was at work.

  The only illumination within the hut came from the lights on the graves. Surely the worker couldn’t be as thin as the dim unstable outline made the figure look. It was dressed from head to foot in black, exposing no more than the sketchy arms. From their rapid relentless movement Warden deduced that they were weaving some material. Why should he think of a spider? He tried to think that just the movements suggested the resemblance, until he couldn’t avoid noticing too many arms on the table where the figure was at work. Surely the extra limbs were composed of stone and belonged to a memorial. That would explain why they were overgrown with vegetation, strands of which the figure was peeling off with its exceptionally long nails to weave into another wristband.

  Warden retreated from the wall so fast that the heap of rubble collapsed with a protracted clatter. He wasn’t conscious of taking a breath until he was back in his room. He might have tried to tear the greenish bracelet off his wrist, but it was indistinguishable from his skin. Trying to insert a fingernail beneath it only scratched his wrist until it bled. This failed to dismay him as much as it should, and he tried to recapture his awareness of the situation by phoning Rhona. A voicemail message met him, and he wondered if she was refusing to answer, having recognised his number. Unable to think of a message to leave, he called their firm in England, but that line was recording messages too. “It’s Douglas Warden investigating a hotel for you. My passport has been stolen. You may need to help me get home,” he pleaded. “Call me back.”

  He’d done all he could think of to do, and he subsided on the bed. At least the police would be able to find him. Before he managed to decide how much of his plight they could be expected to believe, he was asleep. Did a trace of his thoughts about the police make him dream that he was being handcuffed and led to a cell? Another notion roused him—the possibility that Win had never called the police. His eyes sprang open, letting in more of the dark.

  Far too little of the dream had gone away. Both his wrists felt constricted, and so did the room. By the time he finished groping for the light switch he knew it wasn’t where it ought to be. The naked bulb fluttered alight, showing him how much the room had shrunk. No, it was a wholly unfamiliar room, with walls patchily darkened by damp and furniture so meagre it seemed hardly there at all. There was a band on his left wrist now, already growing embedded in the flesh. He lurched to his feet and saw lights dancing in the graveyard beyond the window. The occupant of the hut was still crouched over its spidery work, and Warden was in one of the rooms for the staff. “I don’t belong here,” he cried, or tried to, but his voice barely left his restricted mouth. “This isn’t me.”

  “It is now,” the answer came, and he was reduced to hoping he’d heard Win or even Rhona until the figure in the hut turned slowly but inexorably to face him.

  IN AMELIA’S WAKE

  Erinn L. Kemper

  May 15, 1937. Kenyon Airfield, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.

  The first night of guard duty was quiet for Edward Hammer and his brothers. Or at least nothing happened with Amelia Earhart’s plane. The Hammer brothers did a lot of talking, which meant they started out talking and quickly raised their voices to echo in the cavernous hangar. At midnight, even with the bay doors open, it was still hot, adding fuel to their already foul mood.

  The air show’s organizers hired three of the brothers to guard the plane—Edward, Roy and Frank. Arnie, being deaf, didn’t get the job. The regular night guards skulked about the airfield while the Hammer brothers kept an eye on the Earhart plane. Things might have been different if Arnie had been there. His deafness allowed him to turn away from his brother’s bickering and focus on more important things. Things you could glimpse if you didn’t look too hard in one direction. Things you could feel like a quake in the air.

  Edward got them the job. He’d been spending time at the airfield. The Hammer farm was a few fields down from the landing strip and the back of Edward’s neck got sore some days from tracking dusters and passenger planes as they tipped their wings and swooped around. Pa kicked clouds of dust, gazing out over his fields and said those flyboys were just showing off, looking to get themselves killed. Edward knew different. It was an expression of joy. The pilots felt it in their chests, in their lungs, like a bellows stirring a fire they filled, and their joy came shooting out in bursts of elation they scribbled across the pale blue sky.

  Only one thing in the world made Edward feel that way. And each time he saw Mata Setter waiting on the highway for the bus to secretarial college, swinging between her crutches like a bell, he had to turn away for fear his brothers would see how his chest swelled, his cheeks flushed, and say something to Pa.

  In Pa’s mind there was only one curse more terrible than life as a cripple, and that was letting a machine do what a man could do with his own two hands and a little backbone.

  “What business does a pretty girl like Miss Earhart have with all this pilot daredevilry?” Roy said. He was the youngest, just turned twenty-one in April, dressed for the rodeo in his tight jeans and dress boots. He’d even polished up his buckle so it flashed as he walked over to the plane. He wore his black Stetson with the owl feather he’d found on the day of Ma’s funeral tucked in the band. Ma would have kept the feather for luck. She had been gone a month, but Roy planned to wear that hat and feather all year.

  “Not everyone’s happy with flying off the back of a horse, kiddo,” Frank said to Roy as he ducked under the wing of the plane and ran his hand along the gleaming metal, leaning close to the reflective surface to check his teeth for bits of tobacco. He turned to face his brothers, tipping his tan Stetson back and hooking his thumbs in his suspenders. “Maybe she dreamed about it as a kid. I’ve had dreams like that, about riding my horse out over the hills, nothing holding us back, the freedom like a wind pushing us on. Sure wouldn’t feel so free stuck in this tin can, hurtling through the heavens.” He flicked one of t
he propeller blades and it sounded a bright ping.

  “Careful. Don’t break anything,” Edward said. His brothers stalked about the hangar, the hollow clomps of their cowboy boots echoing up to the ceiling.

  “If I can break this machine by touching it, she’s better off knowing that now, wouldn’t you say?” Frank kicked the tire, but not hard.

  “Thing looks like an overgrown trout.” Roy sat on a crate and leaned against the wall, taking off his hat and hanging it on his knee. “Wouldn’t catch me in one, no way.”

  Edward admired the airplane’s torpedo-smooth hull. The polished metal glowed under rows of lights that dangled from between the trusses that crisscrossed the hangar’s ceiling. In the morning, when Amelia Earhart fired up the engines, would this beauty have a deeper voice than the buzzing whine of the crop dusters that usually worked the landing strip? He’d have to convince his brothers to stay on a bit for the demonstration—endure their jibes. That made him nervous, too.

  “Wonder who the trouble-maker is?” Frank was talking about the reason the Hammer brothers were guarding the plane. “Jesperson thinks it’s that Japanese kid down the way. Complains that the little fellah’s cagey. Way too quiet.”

  “Naw,” Roy said. “That kid’s just shy. More likely it’s those rascals you see fishing down by the Baker Bridge. Caught them laying stones on the road out by the Hutterite colony, trying to tip one of their wagons. Tampering with farm equipment would be a day at the circus for those boys.” He smoothed his hair and put his hat back on, setting it just right. “Or maybe it’s something else. Hey Eddie? You see anything at the house, any little critters fooling around with the engines? Some of Ma’s wee friends messing with the radio?”

  Frank smacked Roy with the newspaper he’d brought. “Don’t make fun of Ma.” He flapped the pages open, tugged his suspenders up on his shoulders, and cast a stern glance over the paper at Roy. For a moment Edward saw the deep lines of Pa’s scowl in his expression.