The 14th Day

by K. C. Frederick

He’s started walking back toward the campus without any destination in mind, just an urgent need. He has to keep moving; it will calm him and make thinking easier. And yet, even as he makes his way past scenes that have become familiar in the past few months, he’s haunted again by images of The Willows. In those days whenever he was agitated about something he could take the trolley there, a short distance outside the capital. Like all inhabitants of the city, he’d visited the place as a child and marveled at the long, carpeted corridors lined with dim paintings and suits of armor; he’d been thrilled by the dozens of sumptuous rooms, as individual as snowflakes. His favorite had been a small but richly furnished space that had once been a study. There were gilt walls, a tiled fireplace and a writing desk with thin curved legs, an oriental screen behind which a small window looked out on the lavish grounds. As a boy he’d determinedly kept his eyes level on entering the room, taking in all he could see before raising his head toward the domed ceiling. There an ingenious artist had painted a pale blue sky in which plump angels played among the clouds. In the very center of the ceiling there reached down from one of those clouds a plaster arm, presumably God’s. It was as slender as a female’s, extended languidly, the hand open as if either bestowing or soliciting a gift. The room was the fancy of some baroque monarch, a nondescript king during whose brief reign nothing important happened. Yet for the boy, this whim made him one of the most fascinating of the nation’s rulers.

  It was his father who taught him the trick of keeping his eyes down. The first time he took his son to the palace he prepared him. “Here’s a surprise,” he said. “We’re coming to my favorite spot in the whole palace. When we step into that room keep your eyes down until I tell you and it will be your favorite too.” It was ironic that the place in that vast building he should remember most fondly was also his father’s favorite. It always puzzled the older Jory to acknowledge his father’s delight in something so gratuitously dramatic—it was so much at odds with his own picture of the careful man who’d wanted the world to remain orderly and predictable. But to the boy, the older man’s excitement about this odd little nook didn’t seem strange at all, and the grown Jory had to contemplate in wonder a time when father and son were closer.

  When Jory went to the summer palace as an adult, though, it wasn’t to revisit the room that had delighted him as a boy. Looking out the window of the trolley that carried him past boulevards and parks to what was once the countryside, he was most likely to be troubled and lonely, wondering where his life was headed. On those excursions he rarely entered the palace itself but found more satisfaction in strolling across the spacious grounds and pondering things, tramping through the shaggy grass all the way to the willow-lined bank of the slow-moving river, where he could watch the loose dance of the leaves in the clear water, occasionally lifting his head at the casual splash of an oar that signaled a pair of lovers in a boat. There was something timeless about The Willows. Even during the troubling events leading to the Thirteen Days—the strikes, the demonstrations, the power failures—Jory could find in the summer palace a place of refuge.

  In one of the cities of his exile he dreamed he was back there: he was fishing on the bank of the river and he caught a small, flat-bodied red fish with the face of an old woman, which spoke to him as it lay on the grass. He listened carefully and he even nodded in response but an instant after coming awake he couldn’t remember anything of what the fish said, though he was certain that it had communicated some deep wisdom. Curiously, in the dream the palace was set not in the middle of the extensive acreage but at the river’s edge and as he contemplated the creature who spoke to him from the grass, he heard a snap and turned to see a pair of French windows flung open, revealing a short, fat man in a jester’s outfit who laughed at him. It was a long and complicated laugh, with sudden rises and falls like an aria. In the fluid dream-space, the building was so close to the river that Jory could see the man’s curled violet shoes planted on an ornate bed; he could hear the tinkling of tiny bells sewn onto his parti-colored outfit. Here in this other country that dream is so vivid that the bells’ tinkling, the man’s high-pitched laughter echo in Jory’s ear.

  Suddenly the smell of damp wood makes him sharply aware of his surroundings on one of the back streets of the university town. And I’ve even lost that, he thinks, I’ve lost that jester from my dream whose laughter I could never interpret, though it sounded like derision. But Jory can’t just loiter here in the street; there’s no trolley in this town to take him to a summer palace and he has nowhere else to go to. He certainly doesn’t want to return to his apartment. He can imagine himself within those confining walls, trying to read but only thinking about Carl, getting up, going to the window as if on the lookout for something, watching the clock’s hands move slowly toward the time when he might be able to escape into sleep. And how likely would that be? It would be all too easy to believe that Carl had set spies on him, that he was being watched, even in his dreams. Jory stops for a moment and allows things to settle. This is ridiculous, he knows. After all, this isn’t the Thirteen Days.

  Still, when he resumes walking, his quick steps take him in the opposite direction from his apartment. He crosses the campus instead: in the quiet after the storm the old buildings are brooding and somnolent; an occasional lighted window is outlined against the dusk; birds call to each other from thick trees heavy with the recent rain. He vaguely remembers that Vaniok said something about seeing an owl here and his eyes pass over the dark foliage but if there are any creatures there, they’re keeping out of sight. There are no other walkers on this part of the campus, the brick walks are dark with damp. This is the place where he’s lived and worked for the last few months and yet he could be seeing it for the first time. Standing by the bank of the river near the summer palace, wondering about his future, he could never have dreamed himself here.

  Before long he’s back on the town’s main commercial street. The brief homebound traffic rush is over and only a few cars’ tires hiss on the wet pavement. There are smears of reflected light on the slick walks in front of the stores whose roofs are outlined against a clearing sky of charcoal blue. The day’s humidity has been broken, a sharpness has returned to the air, and Jory’s heart races with involuntary excitement. Back home a spell of warm days would often be ended suddenly when a weather system from the north infused the atmosphere with a piney astringency, conjuring up icefields, dark firs, a gray, heaving sea. He breathes in the air with anticipation but the coolness is thin, a mere pause in the heat.

  Passing shops and restaurants, Jory glances without interest at books, clothes, menus; but he stops before a rain-pocked window where shiny photos of houses are pasted above lines of text. Dimly he recalls having stood here at an earlier time. He studies the images of wide porches, slanted roofs set among shady trees, quaint gables, spacious lawns. Gradually he comes to realize that he did look at pictures like these once before, though he can’t remember when—these could even be the same pictures. “A charmer,” he reads. “Old-fashioned elegance.” He’s prepared to be amused by the predictable language but instead he’s ambushed by a sudden sadness that he can’t account for until it occurs to him that this is the business that Ila has chosen to pursue. He hears the words he’s read spoken in her voice and the sounds are heavy with loss.

  This isn’t a time to be lamenting the loss of Ila, though; he has to bring his attention back to what Vaniok told him about Carl—at least that’s a situation that calls for some response. The thought of the man transforms Jory’s sadness into another emotion that he can almost convince himself is rage, except that he knows it contains a large element of fear. The curl of his co-worker’s mouth as he spits out an order, the menace in his slow walk, the movement of his shoulders, his large hands hanging loosely at his side—they’re all vividly present and Jory knows he has to settle his turbulent feelings. He’s been able to deal with this situation until now. After all, he’s come to expect daily insults from Carl, extra work th
at by rights he shouldn’t have to do. He knows he can bear this; he knows that however much Carl insists on his doing, he’ll be able to accomplish it without begging for mercy; and this has been his strength: he can withhold what Carl wants him to give, acknowledgement of his power. But the sense of vindication Jory feels is only momentary. There’s something dark and threatful in what Vaniok told him: for Carl to go behind his back and run his past between his short, stubby fingers is more than just a challenge to his spirit.

  Now Jory is walking again, more quickly this time, as if somebody were actually pursuing him. It seems ages ago that he was in the bar with Vaniok and yet he hasn’t traveled very far from that spot. Before long, though, he’s made his way past the town’s small shopping area into its residential sections; he passes darkening lawns, houses set behind thick trees that stand silent, wet and heavy. The sky is still light but street lamps have come on, throwing yellow circles into the trees above them. The sight of these patches of light in the leaves moves him obscurely and like some character from a fairy tale he follows them, until before long, he’s reached a neighborhood of more modest dwellings. These surroundings are more familiar, comfortable; he can think more clearly here. He has to get control of himself; he has to devise a plan to deal with this new situation. He reminds himself that no one knows whether Carl has actually followed through on what he talked about with Vaniok. Still, for the man to have spoken about it at all means it’s possible. He feels a flash of anger toward Vaniok. Why did he have to tell him this?

  “Jory?” When he looks up he sees a woman coming toward him. It takes him an instant to recognize that it’s Ila, and that all his walking has brought him to the block where she lives. For long seconds he exists in a vacuum, without breath, without heartbeat; he lives only in his eyes, a spectator watching a film, he registers the familiar stride of the figure he’s seeing, the tilt of her head, he recognizes the pale blue blouse—it’s a film he’s seen before and he watches with total attention. Then his trance-like state feels the prod of wonder: how did he manage to come here in his wayward wanderings, what ingenious route did he take to arrive at exactly this spot precisely at this moment? “What a surprise,” Ila says. Her words, like her eyes, are without inflection.

  In an instant the scene fills in around him. He becomes aware of noises in the background, and the smell of wet vegetation: the two of them are in the same world now. “I was just walking,” he says, hearing the voice of a stranger. “And how are you?”

  “Fine, thank you,” she answers. “A little rushed.” She’s holding her keys in her hand and they glitter in the evening light.

  “What weather.” He gestures to the wet streets. His breathing is quick.

  “Yes,” she smiles, standing a few feet away from him. How quickly each of them would have bridged that gap not long ago. “And how are things with you?” she asks.

  “Fine as well.” He’s calmer now. In the brief seconds of their encounter he’s been able to make the adjustment, to find the proper manner. The two of them have talked a few times since the day on the lake and they’ve developed a measured way of relating to each other.

  “I’m going off to my class,” she says. Under her arm is a dark blue notebook.

  Of course he would have known this, to the minute, without thinking about it. Even as he talked to Vaniok, as he watched the bartender walk past them to the door, as he heard the storm outside, some part of him was keeping track of Ila’s whereabouts. “How is your class?” he asks.

  “I like it.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” He smiles. “You’ll be a rich woman one of these days.”

  “That’s what Vaniok says.” Her laugh is contained. “I’ll be happy not to be a poor woman.”

  “I saw Vaniok a little while ago,” Jory says. “We had a drink.”

  Her eyes brighten. “And how was he?”

  “He’s fine. Vaniok manages pretty well.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  He has a sudden wish to ask her if she’s ever been to The Willows but the time for that has passed. “I won’t keep you,” he says.

  “I wish we had more time,” she says. She gets into her old green car and drives off, trailing a plume of exhaust. As he watches the car move down the street, the numbing sense of loss he feels is entwined with a sense of wonder that in his blind rush across town he’d measured to the second Ila’s movements so that the two of them intersected at last. The world is a very mysterious place indeed. She looked well, though, determined. He smiles to think it’s actually possible she will become a rich woman. It was difficult to exchange the meaningless comments with her and not tell her how much his talk with Vaniok had upset him. But he isn’t her business now, Jory reminds himself. This is his business alone.

  And yet he wishes he hadn’t run into her that way. The meeting stirred up too many painful feelings. In the midst of his sorrow he thinks of The Willows and it seems to him that this sadness would be easier to bear if he were standing near the ancient trees beside the river that flowed slowly by as it did in the days of the kings. But that haven is unavailable to him; very likely it will never be available again.

  Jory consciously shuts out these memories but he doesn’t know what to do next. He knows he’s not returning to his apartment and he turns back in the direction he came from. In a few minutes he manages to find his way back to the bar where he met Vaniok. There are more people now, though it’s still too early for crowds. A one-armed man wearing a baseball cap over his ponytail stands beside the bar, talking to the bartender; a middle-aged couple are playing pool. Though he has no appetite for it Jory gets a beer and goes to the booth where he sat with his countryman earlier in the evening, as though, he thinks, I want to find a familiar spot. It was here, after all, that he remembered the summer palace of the kings. But the presence of other people has changed things and the place no longer has the feel it had when he was here with Vaniok. He sips his tasteless beer. The pulsing blur of sound makes him aware of a faint throbbing in his head. It’s oppressively warm in the bar; the air is stale. He puts the cool bottle against his flushed face. The wet curved shape is soothing but the heat returns as soon as he takes the bottle away, as does any sense of relief. He feels sluggish and heavy, his thoughts are scattered. He remembers his talks with Fotor and he wonders how his countryman is doing on his island. King Fotor, he thinks and his lips curl into a smile but his wish to feel amused doesn’t drive away his sense that he’s being hunted. He moves his hand along the sticky table. Everything that’s happened this evening—the talk with Vaniok, his meeting with Ila—points in one direction: he has to do something.

  Once more he thinks of his encounter with Ila, he hears her voice, reserved, confident, purposeful. They both knew from the beginning that their relationship wasn’t likely to last; they both acted reasonably about its ending and he’s told himself a thousand times he can accept it. All this is true but he hadn’t been prepared for how desolate he’d felt when he watched her green car move down the street, leaving only a thin trail of exhaust that quickly dissipated. He smells that exhaust now, a sour unpleasant odor.

  It isn’t just Ila he’s lost, though: when she drove away in that car she was carrying away everything he’d told her. And soon she’ll be going even farther away, with his history, his memory. Taking them to the desert. Only she in this town knows about his quarrels with his father, about the moment in front of the orphanage when his mother sat silent in the car while her son’s hand rested on the metal near the door in hopes his parents wouldn’t drive away; only Ila knows about his long talks in his uncle Jory’s study, the pipe, the tweed jacket, about the trip to the border with the silent Keslar at the wheel. Once more his nostrils twitch with the memory of the smell of her car’s exhaust as she drove away, a smell that’s become increasingly unpleasant.

  He sits there in the booth, bent forward on the vinyl-covered bench, his arm resting on the damp formica table. He picks up his glass of beer but he realizes
he doesn’t want to drink it; he can’t imagine how anyone could want to eat or drink anything. People around him talk loudly, they laugh. His head is heavy and there’s a weight pressing against his stomach. He shifts position several times but it brings no relief. He looks around the bar. A man near the pool table raises a handful of popcorn to his mouth and Jory has to look away. He groans softly. A sour taste is rising in his throat and gradually he’s become aware that as the pounding in his head has increased he’s felt more and more queasy. Now he’s flushed and uncomfortable, he wishes he were anywhere else. Even as he’s thinking this, he realizes that he’s nauseous, he’s going to have to find a place to throw up. With sudden resolution he pushes his way out of the booth and gets to his feet shakily. Because he’s closer to the street than to the men’s room he moves quickly to the door and in seconds he’s outside. Behind the evening coolness he can feel the waiting heat. He tries to appear normal though he’s slightly hunched as he walks down the sloping street, hoping to get around the corner, away from the lights; but he only manages a few steps before he has to stop. He lurches to the curb where he drops to his knees, facing the street in a space between parked cars, bent over as if in prayer. The first convulsions bring nothing but shudders; then he feels the rush and he watches as the burning, stinking fluid is expelled from him into the stream of water flowing in the street. The air is cool on his face, the smell of vomit rises. And yet it’s all happening to someone else. Once again something surges up, his insides buckle, he hears himself retching. At last, after a few more spasms he’s quiet. His shirt is damp with sweat. A chill covers him but he’s empty and clear.

  Too exhausted for thought, he’s dropped into the scene from his dream: on the bank of the river near the summer palace of the kings, the flat-bodied red fish with the face of an old woman moves its mouth. The creature’s words are lost under the sound of Jory’s panting and yet as he looks at his hands pressed down against the damp pavement he understands at last what the fish has told him: that he has the power to act, to do things.