The Survivors

by Alex Schulman

  “Isn’t there a doctor here?” Pierre asked.

  “No,” said Mom. “There’s nothing they can do.”

  Someone had tilted Dad’s bed in all the ruckus, so he was lying uphill, his head all the way up at the edge of the bed.

  “Why is he lying like that?”

  “It’s…” Mom stopped, made a gesture with one hand, as if that would explain it.

  Nils and the woman with the wig stood in the shadows, in the back of the room, leaning against the wall. The woman’s wig was like a source of faint light. She was wearing a flimsy blouse tucked into a skirt, and her nipples were visible through the fabric. Also in the room was a nurse, sitting in a chair next to a machine that seemed to be monitoring Dad’s pulse.

  Benjamin had crawled up onto the edge of the bed, next to Dad, and placed a hand on his head. Dad was transformed: he suddenly looked thinner, his cheeks sunken, and his eyebrows wrinkled in concern as if he were having a bad dream. Benjamin shook his shoulder gently and whispered. “Dad. I’m here.”

  He rested his head on Dad’s chest, to hear his heart beating; he closed his eyes and saw the cottage, the little path down to the lake. Dad is standing by the boathouse and untangling the nets; four perch have made a mess of them. Benjamin helps Dad by holding on to a loop of the mesh, lifting the bucket when a perch tumbles out, and the sun is shining between the birches, making a dappled pattern on Dad’s white T-shirt, and Dad is focused on his task and suddenly he looks up and notices Benjamin, as if he’d forgotten he was there. They exchange smiles. “It’s so nice of you to help me,” says Dad. It’s just Benjamin and Dad. And the wind rustling the birches.

  Down by the lake one hot afternoon. Dad and Benjamin have set out towels next to each other on the shore. They’ve just taken a dip and they’re lying on their backs in the sun. Dad asks if he can put his hand on Benjamin’s shoulder. Benjamin wonders why, and Dad replies, “It’s so reassuring to know you’re still here.” Then Dad’s hand is resting on him, pressing him gently to the earth, and he closes his eyes, all his worry gone.

  He’s walking close behind Dad along the water’s edge, on their way to the sauna. Dad calls out to Pierre and Nils: Do you want to sauna with us? No one is interested, and a tiny spark, a tiny point in Benjamin’s chest catches fire—it’s just him and Dad for a while. They go into the sauna. “You take the seat by the window,” says Dad. “I want you to have the view of the lake.” Dad says you have to listen carefully when you ladle water onto the heater, because you can hear the stones whispering, and Dad holds a finger up in the air and it hisses and spits as the water turns to steam and Dad whispers words of encouragement to the stones: “Take care of each other.” He says, “Promise me you’ll go out if it gets too hot.” They compare their hands, stretching their arms out, before the window with the lake in the background. “I am you,” Dad says.

  Benjamin lay on Dad’s chest and tried to hear his father’s heart beating, and each fresh thought began at the cottage, and for the first time in many years he felt the urge to go back; he wanted to walk down to the shore, drain the water from the boat, push it out, see Dad’s hair blowing in the wind. He looked up at the heart monitor. Dad’s pulse was thirty-five. Benjamin didn’t understand. Can you have a pulse of thirty-five and still be alive? It dropped to thirty-four, then thirty-three. The nurse turned the machine away from the family so they wouldn’t have to look at it. And a few seconds later she nodded and said, concisely, “Now.”

  Mom was quick to confirm. “Now Dad is dead,” she said.

  Benjamin looked up, saw Pierre standing in the middle of the room as if he had decided to walk up to Dad and then changed his mind, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and in the low light it looked like he was smiling as he cried. Nils approached slowly. His girlfriend came up and sat on the other side of the bed; she took off her wig, placed it beside her, and kissed Dad on the forehead. A sharp flash illuminated the walls. Nils had taken out a small camera, was standing at the foot of the bed taking picture after picture, the room lighting up with each flash.

  And Benjamin looked at his father, and it was then, on his deathbed, that he recalled what had happened just that very morning when his dad had promised him a ski trip, and with the memory he suddenly realized why he had such a deep love for his father in spite of everything. The chance to be alone with Dad. It was those moments that had sustained him through the years, that had always made him stay on the right side of life. The moments when a window opened and brought a chance for something that belonged solely to Benjamin and his father, and they made plans together, whispered in excitement about everything they would do, as the moment of escape approached.

  Soon it will happen.

  Soon it will just be us, me and my dad.

  | 18 |

  6:00 A.M.

  He leaves downtown by way of its empty streets, traveling high above the city on the raised concrete highways, the only car in all the five lanes. This is a rental car he’s not entirely used to yet; he mistakes indicators for windshield wipers, isn’t familiar with the stick shift or the clutch. The sound it makes when he accelerates at a green light downtown reminds him of when Dad missed third gear and got first by accident, and the car leapt and gave a desperate moan and Mom shouted that she’d had enough. Soon he’s in the countryside, meadows and pastures and electric fences gleaming gently in the dawning sunshine, small lakes full of tall reeds in the morning light, suddenly a bright yellow field of rapeseed comes and goes, whiffs of cow manure from the farms, and the red houses with white trim surrounded by grain fields carefully outlined and squared up by tractors. He drives for nearly an hour, following the directions of the GPS lady. Her apathetic voice that might contain something more, a cautious resistance: Are you really sure you want to do this? He drives through the small villages, past halfhearted flea market signs, knotty tree trunks on either side of the road, like an endless avenue leading to a manor house, paved roads leading to smaller paved roads, he drives fast and crests a hill and there, in the middle of the road, stands a red deer. As if it’s been waiting for him. He brakes so hard the tires screech, and the car stops a few yards from the animal. The deer isn’t afraid, doesn’t flee into the forest with hooves scraping the asphalt. He stays put and gazes in at the driver’s seat. The engine had turned itself off with the violent braking, and Benjamin turns it on again; the deer doesn’t react to the sound, and even when Benjamin revs the engine he doesn’t make any effort to move. It’s a huge animal, six feet tall, maybe even bigger? Benjamin didn’t know red deer could get so big. He stands there, his feet planted wide, quiet and tranquil, as if he is purposefully blocking his passage, guarding something beyond. That reddish-brown pelt. Those massive horns, like winter trees on his head. His eyes look so lovely in the low sun, with the dark, gray clouds peering over the treetops.

  There’s something about making eye contact with a large animal. Benjamin remembers driving with Dad and his brothers one winter night, the asphalt white with whirling snow, the road edged by forest on both sides, swollen birches side by side with snow-heavy firs. Suddenly a moose calf was standing in the road, frozen in the winter like a portrait. Dad was going too fast, didn’t have time to brake. The moose hit the front of the car and flew back along the side and was gone, behind them. Dad stopped and headed out into the snow to see what had become of the animal. The children watched him go as they waited in the car. The hazard lights turned the forest yellow. He came back after a while; the animal had vanished. Everyone got out to search for it along the shoulder, and at last they found it. The calf had limped a few yards into the forest and now there he lay. Benjamin remembers his eyes. They were wet and shiny, as if he were crying with gentle certainty that it was all over. He didn’t try to get up, just lay there looking at the four of them up on the road, and the quartet returned his gaze. Dad dug around in the trunk and came back with a tire iron. What was he going to do with th
at? He told the children to turn around, that they shouldn’t watch. “Look up,” said Dad. “Look at the stars.” And they looked up, the steam rising from the brothers’ mouths, and the night was clear and it was a long way to the next town, no glowing lights to cloud their view, and the stars were sending him signals as if the universe were trying to get his attention from all directions. And it was like everything up there came closer, space pressing against his cheek, and the Milky Way made the sounds of the universe expanding, you could hear it all the way down there, a protracted creaking like when you draw back a bowstring and the wood complains. And he, a boy who so often felt like he was on the sidelines, felt at this moment like he and his brothers were the center of everything, as Dad disappeared into the forest with his tire iron and they stayed behind with their faces turned to the creaking sky.

  Dad leapt back up to the road, shouting, “Come on, kids!” He hurried to the car and tossed the tool into the trunk. Benjamin looked up at the spot where the moose calf had lain down to die, but there were no eyes flashing there any longer. Then, in the car, the boys sat quietly in back and Dad slapped his bloody hands twice against the steering wheel and cried, blubbering like a child, all the way home.

  Benjamin steps out of the car and slowly approaches the red deer, who looks over at the forest and then back at Benjamin. He lets him come very close. Benjamin hesitantly places a hand on the deer’s muzzle. The animal stays put, gazing into his eyes, breathing calmly, warm air streaming through Benjamin’s fingers. The chilly summer-dawn air has been warmed up in his lungs. Benjamin remembers the time he almost drowned in icy water and lost consciousness and was woken by warm water rushing over his hands. It was so nice, he wanted more, wanted the water to keep warming him. Only later did he realize that he had been throwing up water that had ended up in his lungs, and that’s why it was warm; his lungs had warmed it before they sent it back out.

  The deer snorts into Benjamin’s hand and walks off, just a few tentative steps across the asphalt at first, but when he reaches the ditch he begins to weave confidently between the trees. After a moment he turns and looks back. He gazes at Benjamin, then starts moving again. Benjamin watches him until he’s gone. He gets back in the car and keeps driving, and the GPS lady, who had followed the drama breathlessly and silently, resumes her gentle guidance, and after some time she grows more forceful, right, then left, then right again, and soon Benjamin has reached the home of his older brother. Benjamin looks up at the house, which is surrounded by a white picket fence. He honks twice, thinks he might see movement in the window closest to the door. Nils has lived here for several years, but this is the first time Benjamin has visited. It’s smaller than he’d expected, a one-story brick house with a small yard in front. A lone apple tree in the yard. Nils comes out after a moment, with a bag over his shoulder and a sack Benjamin recognizes from yesterday—the boxes of frozen single-serving pierogi they found in Mom’s freezer. There’s a bowl in his hand, too. He stands on the steps to the small porch and gives a sharp whistle, and it doesn’t take long before the cat comes slinking along the wall. Nils kneels down and sets the bowl on the ground. The cat circles it, noses it once, and walks off. She’s gotten so fat. Benjamin remembers when the brothers bought her, at a cat rescue outside the city. It was love at first sight. They tried to determine what color she was, and the lady who ran the rescue, a chapped and red and inflamed sort of woman, said that the name of the color was “coffee with too much milk,” and that description was so spot-on it made Benjamin laugh. Nils wanders down to the car, stuffs his luggage in the trunk and the bulging sack of food in the back seat, and then he climbs in next to Benjamin.

  “Well, at least we’ve got plenty of food,” Benjamin says.

  Nils shoots him a quick glance, as if to gauge his mood, and Benjamin smiles and Nils laughs and runs his hand through his hair.

  “The thing about pierogi is, if you eat one you’ll want another,” he says.

  Benjamin looks up at the house, sees the cat approaching the bowl of food again.

  “Everything good?” Nils asks.

  “Yeah,” says Benjamin. “I saw a red deer.”

  “A red deer?”

  “Yeah. He was standing in the middle of the road and I had to slam on the brakes—the car stopped just a few yards away.”

  “Whoa,” says Nils.

  “Yeah, it could have been bad.”

  Silence between the brothers, a faint hum from the air-conditioning. Benjamin has both hands on the wheel, glances out at the treetops and sees a wall of dark clouds coming over the otherwise clear sky. He pulls into Nils’s driveway and turns the car around, steering slowly back the way he came.

  “If possible, turn around,” says the GPS lady.

  But it’s too late for that. There’s no getting out of this now, no stopping what’s been set in motion. He shoots a look at his brother.

  “Let’s do this,” he says.

  “Let’s do this,” Nils responds.

  And they drive through the early morning, past the sleeping houses, and when they get out on the open roads that cut between fields Benjamin discovers that they’re driving straight toward the storm. It’s low in the sky, as if the rain has weighted the clouds. The sun is still shining on the car, but there’s no mistaking it: it’s chaos in the city. Benjamin looks at the clock. He’s had nothing to do his whole life, but suddenly everything is happening all at once, so many things have to fit into this day and there’s so little time. Just on the other side of a crest Benjamin sees two skid marks on the asphalt; he slows down, orients himself, and cries, “Here it is!” Nils, whose eyes have been on his phone, looks up. Benjamin backs the car up until the skid marks are in front of them.

  “This was where I braked! For the deer.”

  “Oh, shit,” says Nils. He leans forward to see. “You really had to brake hard.”

  Benjamin looks at the parallel black lines on the road. Looks at the forest. He brings his hand to his nose, sniffs his fingertips—there’s still a faint whiff of the deer on them. And then he keeps driving.

  “It happened,” Benjamin mumbles.

  “What did you say?” Nils asks.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  But it is something. Because the instant the red deer disappeared into the forest, Benjamin began to wonder if it had really happened, or if he had imagined the whole thing. He didn’t know, couldn’t tell, and just now when he heard himself telling Nils about it, he didn’t quite believe himself, didn’t think it sounded believable. And by the time they left Nils’s house he was convinced: he’d made it all up. It was as if reality wanted to give him a sign by way of the tracks on the asphalt. It happened. There in the car with his brother by his side, with the sun at his back and the storm far ahead, in a silence he doesn’t have to wrestle with, he feels free of anxiety for the first time in a long time. “I’m glad we’re doing this,” Benjamin says.

  “Me too,” says Nils.

  He turns on the car radio; it’s a song he recognizes and he gently drums the rhythm against the wheel. They’re getting closer to the big city, driving high above it on the concrete overpasses, still completely alone, as if the five-lane roads were built just for them, to make sure they would have free passage on this important journey, and in the city the café owners are opening their security grilles and removing the locking cables from the outdoor seating, and the brothers park outside Pierre’s door and wait for a while. Eventually Nils has to call, and soon he comes down with a small suitcase and a garment bag, which he tosses into the trunk.

  “There’s a real turd-floater coming,” he says, glancing at the clouds as he gets into the car.

  “Well put,” says Nils. “Truly.”

  “Thanks,” says Pierre.

  Benjamin laughs.

  He pulls out, navigating cautiously past the double-parked cars. Pierre fiddles with his
phone, asks Benjamin to link it to the stereo system, and he puts on a song Benjamin recognizes right away.

  “Thought it would be a good soundtrack for our trip,” Pierre says with a grin. It’s Lou Reed, and Benjamin smiles when he thinks about everything they’re about to do, all the enormous weight that lies ahead of them, and how the brothers sync up by way of the music, sheltered by the irony.

  When the chorus comes they fill their lungs with air, Pierre shouts “Turn it up” and rolls down the window, and all three of them sing, through smiling lips, “Oh, it’s such a perfect day, I’m glad I spent it with you.” Pierre puts both hands in the air and makes V signs, Nils is less demonstrative, of course, but Benjamin glances at him, sees he’s singing at the top of his voice.

  He looks at his brothers, thinks he loves them.

  They head south through the city, toward the cemetery, three brothers on their way to pick up the remains of their mother, and the song echoes through the crappy speakers and across the fateful morning. The light turns red suddenly and Benjamin slams on the brakes.

  “Hey!” Pierre shouts. “Take it easy.”

  “We don’t want another incident,” Nils says.

  Pierre looks up from his phone. “What?” he says. “What do you mean, another incident?”

  “Benjamin almost hit a red deer earlier.”

  “Shit,” says Pierre.

  “It was a close one,” Benjamin says.