A Mind of Winter

by Shira Nayman

Barnaby laughed. “It’s only a beetle,” he said.

  It was close to noon when we reached the lake. The air was thick, not a breath of wind; the water, still as glass, held plates of burning flame thrown down by the sun. We’d not thought to bring water or food. My throat ached with thirst.

  Barnaby removed his shirt, pulled off his shorts, reached over and unbuttoned my sleeveless blouse. We walked down the little grassy slope to the water.

  “I hate to disturb it,” Barnaby said, dipping in his toe. Tiny ripples spread out. “Mmm,” he murmured.

  The water was warm as a bath. We separated, swam in opposite directions. Reaching the far bank, I took a deep breath and duck-dove down. I hovered alongside a deep ledge, looking in on watery blackness where I thought I could make out a tiny field of fronds, lazily waving, and the conical darting forms of hundreds of tadpoles. Barnaby’s bicycling legs and arms splashed overhead. I rose upward and, the moment I broke through, felt the sun burning the crown of my head. Barnaby smiled. I expelled the air from my lungs in one long heave. The light was blinding after the darkness below. Before I had time to gulp in some air, I felt the pressure of Barnaby’s hands on my shoulders and the gentle plunge downward again, into the water. I could feel my own arms and legs thrashing about, suddenly clumsy from the need for air. A white hand reached through the bubbles and took hold of my arm. I pulled at the fingers to remove them but Barnaby, thinking it a game, tightened his grip. He must not have seen the panic growing in my face; when the bubbles cleared, he was still dreamily smiling, his tawny face creamy in white bands of light. He drew me toward him; a ballooning in my chest pressed at my ribs. I could see his half-closed eyes and his face, oddly swelling, leveling, then swelling again. The water slid noiselessly between us. My arms now seemed so heavy, I could feel them flapping against my legs. Warmth, like whiskey, poured through me, dissolving the ache in my chest.

  I could feel my eyes rolling backward. I caught a glimpse of something floating by, something knotted and black, and was struck by the beauty of it.

  A crack, loud in my ears. The pressure broke; a rush of water filled my lungs. And then, the crash into air, the heat, the heavy sweet air. I clawed at it, coughing, retching out water, and then an indescribable nothingness, soft and clear and vast.

  I came to on the bank, Barnaby’s worried face hovering above me, framed by the blue sky.

  “What happened?” he asked. His voice was hoarse. Wanting to shut him out, I closed my eyes again and concentrated on the concentric circles of light behind my lids and the soothing sensation of air flowing along my windpipe and into my aching lungs.

  I did not want to touch him, did not want him to touch me. Several times, with each new attempt, I plucked his hand from where he placed it—my arm, my waist, my throat—and set it on the sand. This clearly wounded Barnaby, but I found that I didn’t care.

  * * *

  I don’t as a rule believe in symbols. But, as we walked back to the inn, I noticed something unusual that I probably would have missed had I not, in my tiredness, paused on my haunches to rest. There, in the carpet of leaves and twigs, the wing of a bird pointed straight up as if it were a feathery seedling growing in the ground. I cleared the stones and leaves from around it, expecting to uncover the little body that went with the wing, hoping to find the creature still alive. But the wing sprouted stiffly from the ground.

  Crouching by the buried bird’s wing, I pried away the forest debris. Barnaby was ahead. I glanced up to see the receding soles of his feet. Then I noticed it, the crisscross weaving of reeds, a square the size of a handkerchief in the middle, a loose netting through which the little bird had plunged. It must have put up quite a struggle; the mesh was badly torn. Below, a small pit into which the head hung. I scrabbled some more in the surrounding area, flung aside fistfuls of dropped leaves and moss and dirt. Another miniature pit, about a foot to the left, a third, fourth, fifth, all in a diagonal leading away from the overgrown path and into the woods, a careful handiwork of traps. Nearby, a trill joined the growing dull drone of cicada. Something snapped clear, my thoughts eddied around a still point, an answer. I rose, looked around me, stepped firmly ahead. The forest seemed aware of its own perfection—seemed, almost, to sigh.

  When I caught him up, Barnaby must have sensed I was rattled; he patted my arm and said, “You’ve had a bit of a scare. What you need is a meal and a good night’s sleep.” His sureness, shaken on the bank of the lake, was clearly restored.

  We had dinner sent up to the room. Picking at my green beans, I struggled to tell Barnaby that our affair was at an end. Opened and closed my mouth several times, but could not find the words.

  “What is it?” he said gently. “What’s happened?”

  “I found a bird,” I stammered, feeling ridiculous. “A sparrow. Near the path. Dead in a trap.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I cast my mind back to the moment on the path, saw the little wing, relived the way the forest itself had suddenly seemed an explanation for everything hidden. I recalled, too, that feeling, dense and airy and uncatchable, that I had not stumbled across the sequence of odd little traps by chance.

  “I hardly know you this way,” Barnaby said softly, real distress in his voice.

  I turned away from him and stared at the blue cornflowers on the wall. I felt flooded by everything troubling me; tears oozed from my eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Barnaby said again.

  How could I tell him? I now believed that Oscar was in real danger; but I couldn’t possibly risk his well-being by discussing my concerns with Barnaby. And how could I tell Barnaby about the photographs? About how I had lost the ability to see, really see, through the viewfinder, how it no longer afforded me the protection it once had, so that now I had to face the world unprotected. Barnaby, swashbuckler that he was, or thought himself to be, would never understand this.

  And what of Simon? How could I possibly tell Barnaby that I was only here, with him, because I’d been blindsided into loving my husband too much, that I feared being eaten alive by it, and by the awful knowledge that Simon suffered from a directly converse burden to my own—that of loving me too little.

  “What’s wrong?” Barnaby repeated, as if by saying the words again he might wrest from me an intelligible answer.

  I held my head in my hands and wept. For Oscar, for Simon, who knew nothing of my betrayal: it was, after all, a betrayal, this affair, though I had never intended it to be. I wept for the boy in the olive-green jacket. And I wept for myself, choked with the bitter knowledge that the world had encroached on my camera, clouding my vision, it seemed, forever more.

  “I’d like to go back. Tonight,” I said quietly.

  He was battling himself; I could see that his assurance was now shot to pieces.

  “The story about the bird,” he said. “It’s a load of garbage and you know it.” His tone had turned nasty.

  Though I willed them not to, my eyes again filled with tears.

  “Stop it,” he said. “Don’t pull that simpering act. It’s not going to work. Not on me.”

  I bit the inside of my lip, hard.

  “And you can forget about going back to Ellis Park tonight—it’s too late. Besides,” Barnaby continued, “we’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on. Everything was fine. You had an accident at the lake. Okay, so maybe you’re not the world’s greatest swimmer. So what? You weren’t alone. I was there. I got you out. Nothing broken. No permanent damage. It’s plain childish, if you want to know what I think, turning this into a full-scale drama. Chrissakes, just drop it.”

  There was nothing more to say. I knew I could not tell him the whole truth; it hardly made sense to me and, in any case, he would not have understood. I could not tell him that our affair was over because of what I had seen in his face, the night before when I’d asked him about Christine; because of the way he’d said my Shanghai; because of what the water had done to his smiling face as I clutched
for oxygen—those rubbery lips, swelling and askew, the eyelids two balloons over bulging eyes. Because of the terrible feeling that I was seeing him, the truth of him, for the first time.

  Looking into his suddenly strange face, I made a quick calculation and decided that if I couldn’t tell him the whole truth, I would at least tell him a part of it.

  “It’s because of Simon,” I said. His face remained immobile. I turned away, saw in my mind’s eye another face, Simon’s: oddly serene, despite the frown marks in his brow. Open to truths, his truths as much as those of the world. And free of the need to possess. Not my Spain, my Tunisia, my New York, or my any of the numerous places he had lived in or visited. And certainly not my Marilyn.

  I turned back to look at Barnaby.

  “What about Simon?” he said. “Simon’s been there all along.”

  There it was, incontrovertible: a faint shudder of fear, the search for safe ground.

  I said nothing, and this seemed to steel him; I saw the confidence flowing back into his face. It was a strange thing to witness, like watching a felled creature spring back to life. He let out one of his easy laughs and, when he was finished, the tenderness had returned to his face.

  “Sweetheart, is that it? Is that what’s upsetting you?” Barnaby’s voice was no longer angry. He walked over to where I was sitting cross-legged on the bed, pulled my head into his chest, stroked my hair. Again my eyes welled. Here I was, seeing everything. So why did his touch, the tender fingertip circles at the back of my neck where the hair grew in, feel so much like a lost home?

  “Let’s not fight, darling. Let’s not spoil these last few hours together,” he said.

  “Oh Barnaby,” I whispered, still weeping softly, misunderstanding what he had meant. “Let’s not say goodbye angrily.”

  The words were hardly out when I heard the sound of breaking china, as the table Barnaby had upended crashed to the floor.

  “I will—not—be—left,” Barnaby said, his voice low, unfamiliar. He stooped to pick up the car keys from where they had landed on the rug and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him carefully, precisely, without a sound.

  * * *

  After Barnaby had gone, I fell into a real sleep of the kind I’d not had in weeks. I slept for hours, blankly and well. By the time I awoke, the sun was high in the sky, blooming wild bright yellow into the room.

  I extricated myself from tangled sheets and lay awhile, letting the thick, scented air bathe my bare limbs.

  I dressed, descended, and ate a large lunch of brisket and salad, ignoring the innkeeper, who kept casting furtive glances at the unmanned place setting across from me.

  When I’d finished my coffee, I asked the innkeeper to order me a taxi for later that evening to take me back to Ellis Park. I sat in the garden much of the afternoon, every now and then taking the short walk up the country lane to Main Street and back. When the light waned, I returned to the room, once again crushingly tired.

  The floral-themed décor, which I’d found charming upon first stepping into this room, now seemed oppressive. I longed to return to the sanity and grandeur of Ellis Park.

  I caught myself. Sanity? What was I thinking?

  A picture leapt to mind: Barnaby, Oscar, the mysterious, nameless visitor, and me, all of us creeping about in the gloom of night, illicit meanderings in some vast below-ground cavern.

  The visitor’s business card; how could I have forgotten about it? The thought of it now propelled me to my feet. Had I brought that spring jacket with me? Yes! I’d been wearing it on the drive up. I opened the closet; there it was. I dipped my hand into the pocket.

  I was puzzled by what I discovered, though somehow, at the same time, not really surprised.

  Official lettering at the top, sitting above a distinctive, familiar seal: Department of Justice. Below this, in simple black typeface: Office of Special Investigations. And a name and title—Jan van der Putten. Senior Investigative Officer. A Dutchman?

  Could this have something to do with those photographs Oscar had attempted to develop, and lost? Clearly, his pictures of his family—the woman bore such a striking resemblance to him. Why was Oscar so terribly troubled? And how could any of this require Oscar to obtain legal counsel?

  Impulsively, I picked up the receiver of the white telephone on the bedside table and dialed the number printed on the card. The phone rang emptily for what seemed a very long time. I was about to replace the receiver when I heard a gentle click, and then a voice.

  “Mr. Van der Putten?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Marilyn Whittacker.”

  A pause. “I hadn’t hoped to hear from you so soon.”

  “Why are you stalking us at Ellis Park? What is it you want?”

  “Stalking is a strong word.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “I am an investigator, madam. I am investigating a case.”

  “War crimes. Isn’t that what your office investigates?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Why did you ask me to contact you?” I was aware of the hostile edge in my voice.

  “It is notoriously difficult to build these types of cases; these people are masters of covering up their tracks. We rely on the minute slips. Typically, our most useful sources are those closest to the suspected perpetrator. Someone who is around the person day in, day out—as you are—who is likely to pick up some trifling, but telling clue. I had not planned to approach you quite yet. But then, when I ran into you on the lawn—well, I suppose I was just operating on a hunch. A hunch which, I daresay, if I might judge from the present call, was a good one.”

  A sudden recollection—not something I’d ever paid mind to before: the odd gesture Oscar exhibited, from time to time, of absently reaching up and rubbing a patch on his left upper arm, as if to ease a spasm or ache.

  “Miss Whittacker?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Perhaps you will think about what I have said.”

  I found I was speechless.

  “I’m glad you called. Please feel free to call me again. And if there’s anything—”

  Quietly, I replaced the receiver before he could finish his sentence.

  A trembling took hold of me; it started in my fingers and coursed through my body—like a slap of fever.

  That moment, on the walk, with Oscar: it came back to me like a punch to the jaw. The chill moment of frisson, the baffling desire to ask Oscar not only if and where he had fought in the war, but on whose side. It had seemed like an absurd thought at the time but now, in this moment, it seemed inevitable, even perfect: much like the feeling I would get when I sensed that a perfect photograph was about to erupt from the world and present itself to my eyes.

  I lay down on the bed; a curdling confusion within turned to misery. I don’t know how long I lay there. I shifted toward the window, watched as the sheer curtain billowed slightly and settled to stillness, watched as the rectangle of light moved through the room, then was snuffed to night.

  I lay there in the heat, amidst all those ruffles; drifting into sleep, I found myself again back in London at the site of the bombed-out house. Time had stalled. I was looking up at the sky—seconds, fractions of seconds, I had no way of knowing. The colors in the sky were fading, the undoing of an image, like a developing picture in reverse—a return to the void. Inside, a terrible struggle: sensing, intuiting, somewhere deep within, that the only right thing would be to leave the boy to his grief, to simply turn away. But I did not want to let it go, I had to stop myself from crying out with the loss of it.

  I took the shot.

  My instinct had been on the money; the photograph of the little boy before the rubble was extraordinary. It won several awards and widespread acclaim, became an icon of Wartime Britain. The shot that established my reputation, and also destroyed, for me, that intimate space of the viewfinder that had made my camera a refuge.

  I was awoken by a loud rap on the door. I gl
anced at the clock on the bedside table: eleven p.m.

  “Your cab, miss. It’s waiting outside.”

  I hastily gathered my belongings and rushed downstairs, where I settled the bill and thanked the innkeeper. She appeared to have given my situation some thought and must have decided to pity me, for she reached over, patted my hand, and bestowed a reassuring look.

  Thankfully, the driver was not the chatty type. We sped through the warm night in silence. I was aware of some feeling of resolve, though I had formulated no plan.

  I had the driver drop me at the bottom of the driveway, by the Spanish gates, which at this hour cast fanciful deep shadows. I walked the driveway, aware, in a new way, of what Oscar had intended to achieve with the canopy of leaves overhead: an invitation not to pleasure, but to solace.

  Entering the house through the back door, I made my way directly to the blue suite, Barnaby’s rooms, knocked twice, waited, entered. As I expected, the rooms were empty. I opened the closet, pulled at several drawers: all empty. Barnaby had taken full leave of the place.

  I felt eerily ghostlike as I headed toward the yellow suite on the other side of the house. Once there, I deposited my weekend bag, splashed cold water on my face, pulled a comb through my hair, and brushed my teeth.

  Back in the hallway, I felt sure-footed again; whatever its complications, I realized that I had made Ellis Park mine. Outside Oscar’s study, I hesitated. I had no idea what I was going to say. I knocked, turned the handle, first of the outer door, then of the inner, and stepped into the room.

  Oscar started, his face exhausted. Seeing it was me seemed to have little effect; he continued to look as if he were in some kind of shock.

  “Oscar, it’s only me,” I said unnecessarily.

  His hand rested on his pipe. I sat in the chair facing his desk. He scrutinized my face, as if trying to decipher something.

  “I’d like to help,” I said.

  He was silent.

  “Marilyn, there are some things there’s no helping,” he said finally.

  “What is it? What’s happened? Is this about those people in the photographs, the ones that fell into the vat? They’re your family, aren’t they, Oscar? Your mother, your father, your sister.”