Whatever Lola Wants

by George Szanto

  Cochan strode ahead, to lead.

  Theresa’s little twelve-horsepower engine rolled her through the cooling air past construction material and dozens of men in overalls and hard hats, and many large machines. She thought, Where are Ti-Jean’s demons when you need them?

  John Cochan described the forthcoming function of near-complete buildings. He detailed their construction, in cement, steel, brick, stone, wood, glass. He noted the choice settings of the condominiums of Terramac, their fine views. And he made much of the hollow beyond, soon to be flooded, Lake Fortier. They arrived at the elevator building. Cochan held open the door.

  Theresa looked around. A naked land. She stared up at the sky, a few clouds, sun nearing the horizon. That would be the west, then. She nodded, and rode through the doorway.

  •

  I shifted my focus and watched them descend. And yes, it was Lola, exquisite in silver, riding on Theresa’s lap. What now?

  •

  They dropped some fifteen hundred feet, a trip of less than two minutes, Cochan tour-guiding the whole while. They got out. Thick warm air hit them. Yakahama Stevenson met them. John Cochan glared. “Well?”

  “Everything’s ready, John.”

  A four-seater golf cart. “We’ve got about a mile to go.” Milton strapped Theresa onto a back seat, her chair to the flatcar trailer. “We’ll be dropping an additional three hundred feet here, feel the slant? It’s all natural, built the way the cavern slopes. We’ve kept it like we found it, completely natural.”

  A momentary rush of claustrophobia took Milton. Too humid. Too sticky.

  “In about four months these golf carts will be replaced by an electric tramway. Right over there, that’s where the casino will be.” And a couple of minutes later: “Along here, this is the boutique district, over a hundred shops. We’re very selective.”

  Lola grinned. You ready, Theresa?

  Have to see what it looks like, when we get there.

  A quarter mile beyond: “Now here we’ve got three blocks of elegant homes planned. Two, three, and four bedrooms. But that’ll be in the next stage. Oh, look over on your left, that’ll be the gymnasium there.”

  A thick wall of granite, patched at the peaks with concrete. “It looks immense.” Milton touched Theresa’s left arm.

  “It is.” The response cheered John Cochan. They deserved the preliminary special treat. “Yak. Up ahead, please, a brief stop.”

  “Sure thing, John.” Yak slowed, drove close to the railing, and cut the motor’s hum. As planned.

  “Hear the roar? It comes from deep below, the clear sparkling waters. One of the bits of magic Terramac abounds in, two flashing streams. They meet deep in the flume. We believe it’s a cut-back from the Sabrevois River.”

  Milton said, “How do you figure that?”

  John Cochan nodded happily. “With these waters and no doubt others we haven’t located yet, Terramac connects to the St. Lawrence and from there of course to the sea. Some day it might be possible to sail from Terramac directly into the ocean.”

  Milton said, “My god.”

  His exclamation delighted Johnnie.

  It’s close, Theresa. Very close.

  Yep.

  Any thoughts?

  A hug, Lola. I need a hug.

  Yes, Theresa. I think you need a kiss too.

  John Cochan watched Theresa Magnussen’s arms spread, and squeeze. As if the woman was embracing air! Clearly senile. Which meant he’d be dealing only with the husband. Good.

  •

  I knew! In that instant I grasped what they’d do, Lola and Theresa. I didn’t think. I pressed my eyes tight shut, let go. Yes, I stepped off the edge. It felt a bit like falling. Once again. I forced my eyes open, and landed on my feet. A cinch.

  •

  Milton thought: Convince Theresa to leave right now. He pressed her arm. But she wouldn’t respond. The golf cart stopped beside two smaller ones. Here yet more construction had begun, shattered and crumbled rock, cement foundations. Milton got off, unstrapped Theresa and her chair, and sat her in it.

  “We go this way.” Cochan led them to a rounded opening in the rock face, twenty-five feet in diameter, some eight feet up the wall. The opening was reached by a long steel ramp. Its slant, a few degrees less steep than the makeshift one to the trailer, showed muddy tractor treads.

  “Theresa, you sure you can get up?”

  “It’s a good chair.” She rolled up fast, an easy glide to the lip.

  Milton followed. He was trembling. He squeezed his hands tight around the back of the chair. At the ramp’s summit stood a platform, straddling the opening, constructed from twenty four-by-eight Québois Fina sheets.

  Theresa glanced around. On a horseshoe of tables sat a lot of technology, computers and whatnot. She understood nothing. On the far side another ramp led down into what looked like a large empty space, dark, a chill rising from the thick air. Somewhere water burbled and gurgled.

  John Cochan waited. The company assembled on the platform. Cochan said, “Okay, Yak.” Yak pressed a button. The dark space flooded with lights: green, blue, yellow, red.

  A dream of rapturous illumination. To the left, massive stalactites, stalagmites, speleothons, sparkling red, gold, and silver. At the center, six fountains playing glossy colors, a hundred thousand diamonds, rubies, emeralds in soft motion, their waters connected by rivulets of blue and gold.

  Along the right wall, deep below, its rim twelve feet from the platform, a flume raced the fifty-yard length of the space. Above the chasm hung mirrors angled for a platform view, the reflection revealing waters frolicking a hundred feet down. Down there too the lights played their magic, soft golds, purple, silver, rose. Only the distant wall stood blank, a dull gray-brown.

  Milton shook his head. He grasped Theresa’s shoulder. She nodded.

  Cochan gave them a grand smile. “Wonderful, isn’t it?”

  “It’s very—complex.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  Two more men joined them. Cochan introduced one as somebody Clark, the architect of much of what they’d seen, the other as his assistant Bang something. The second man’s face was held in a permanent scowl.

  “We all set, Harry?”

  “As much as we can be.”

  “Good.” Cochan turned to his guests. “What we’re going to do now— You see that wall of rock directly across?”

  Milton nodded.

  “We’re going to blast through it.”

  “Why?”

  “Beyond it lies a cavern. It’s beneath what’s now your land.”

  “Beneath the Grange?”

  “Which, as you’ll see before you leave, must be part of Terramac.”

  “We’re leaving now. Let’s go, Theresa.” He grabbed her chair, began to turn it—

  Cochan stayed his hand. “Please. You have to see. To know why this must happen.”

  Milton couldn’t help himself: “And why is that.”

  Cochan smiled. “It won’t do you any good, what’s back there.”

  Milton shivered, his fear surely visible now. “Theresa doesn’t like explosions. She wants to leave. Right now.” With his free hand he released the brake on the chair.

  Cochan held his elbow as in a vice. “What Mr. Clark has done, he and Mr. Steele have placed a dynamite charge against that wall. Look with care and you can see it, we circled it in white. Over there.” He pointed. “In a moment Bang will set the timing. Then we’ll step down from the ramp and walk around the corner.”

  “Never mind. I don’t want any blasting when I’m down here.” He couldn’t make Cochan let go.

  “The blast will be clean. When we return you’ll see what lies beyond.” His voice went soft, reverent. “What heights and depths.”

  Milton didn’t understand this heights business but knew Cochan made him good and mad. He looked from the man called Yak to the architect, Clark. They were both staring at Cochan. “What—heights?”

  Johnnie gazed at th
e wall, the circle. He spoke with great respect. “Our future history.”

  Milton’s eyes widened.

  “The future. Yours. Mine. My son’s.”

  Milton said, “You feeling okay, Mr. Cochan?”

  “Bang, set the remote.”

  “Look, Mr. Cochan, I think we shouldn’t—”

  “Set it.”

  Bang Steele turned to his boss. “Harry?”

  Harold Clark stared at the playing lights.

  John Cochan whispered, “Do it!”

  From the passage they’d come along, Milton heard a shout.

  Clark nodded.

  Milton saw Theresa staring at Clark. He watched Steele type a series of numbers and tap the Enter key. He saw the hands on two of the dials leap, one the whole way, one a few degrees. He swung around—“Theresa! Tessa!!”

  Her chair was rushing down the ramp into the bright cavern. It picked up speed, lurched ahead, on the flat now, her pole brandished high, her voice intoning sounds, words, impossible to make out what.

  “Get back here, you fool!” Clark, the architect.

  Milton leapt after the speeding chair—“Tessa!”—but one of them had him around the waist, another grabbed his shoulder—

  “Lola!” I had to make them stop. “Don’t! Please go back!”

  “You’re here!” She grinned at me. Then her pleasure turned to taunt. “So come along for the ride!”

  What’s the shouting, Lola?

  Keep your eye on the steerin’, Theresa— Lola reached behind Theresa and pulled off her hair clip. Here, Theresa, chew on this. Lola handed her a greenish pastille. Chew on this.

  What is it? Theresa took it.

  Powdered bloodstone. For strength.

  Theresa chewed. Time for one more fine special thing.

  “Lola! For heaven’s sake, and eternity’s!”

  “Come with us!”

  I could do no more than watch.

  Sarah and Carney reached the platform. Everywhere hands and faces in confusion, a dozen feet cavorting on a tiny stage. Beyond, below, the wheelchair rushed through a chamber lit up like a hundred Christmas trees. Sarah grabbed a man hanging on to Milton, the three struggled together, Sarah’s fist caught the side of the man’s head, he let go, turned on her, Milton grabbed him—

  Cochan recognized Carney. Someone he’d met. A man who’d lied to him.

  Yak stared at Carney. “It’s going to blow.”

  “What?”

  He pointed, beyond Theresa, to the far wall. Carney shot down the ramp after Theresa, Theresa all aglow in ten thousand lights. Her hair had come loose, a sea of white cloud behind her head. Carney heard a hollow voice yell from behind—“less than a minute”—and he pumped his feet like a crazy man but the chair was too powerful. For a second he thought he saw a white-gold demon riding with the chair—

  Cochan shouted, “Abort, you ass! Abort! Abort!”

  Clark’s head quivered. “I can’t, once it’s set—”

  Come on, Theresa, faster! To the wall, tolerate nothing! This is it, this is us, now!

  “Lola! Come back!”

  You and me, Theresa, push, there’s the white circle, grab the thing!

  Here we go, Lola!

  You should see them back there, all frozen in place, icicles among the stalactites, so funny! No, don’t look, faster!

  —embracing hope upon the fields of danger, the ancient gods rejoice, and death no stranger!

  Reach out, Theresa, the pole, the circle, you got it! Hold on, off off off we go, a splendid grand abandon!

  Here we go, Lola, down the middle, hahahahahahaha!

  Carney heard a voice shrieking, “Off! Off! Off! Off! Off!” And Sarah’s shout, “Carney! Too late!”

  He didn’t hear, ran on. I couldn’t help myself, I flew off after him, caught up and tackled him. He crashed to the ground. Now how did I do that?

  Theresa reached the far wall, she’d turned her chair, her pole thrust high, the tip grasping some kind of package, speeding now to the right, the chasm, and Carney heard Theresa’s laughter, the whole chamber filled with laughter, a life in laughter, laughter from the glistening stalactites, laughter far huger than Theresa’s voice could produce, laughter from the spew of sparkling fountains, echoes of laughter, laughter in spasms, laughter from the flume, the walls laughing, the ceiling and far beyond the ceiling laughter, laughter, roars of laughter, the chair lunged forward— Carney bellowed, “Theresa! No!”

  I screamed, “Lola! No!”

  They disappeared over the edge. The tiniest tickle of a laugh, silver, mixing with, faraway, a hoarse, Off, off …

  And the blast. A wall of air hit Carney. He might have flown fifteen feet. He landed in water, on his shoulder, he heard it crunch. Since I have no earthly substance, the explosion didn’t bother me. Then Sarah and Milton were next to Carney, pulling him from a fountain, sopping wet, standing, dragging him away, up the ramp, to the platform.

  John Cochan stared at the chamber. I remember his eyes, wide, white, their focus far beyond the wall.

  A voice said, “Holy shit.” An arm pointed.

  Rising from the chasm, a spurt, a single narrow spume.

  Someone said, “Harry?”

  Another voice: “I don’t know.”

  Then a second spurt, and another, it became a shaft of water a yard thick. And the roar. A highway of water, spewing, churning, flooding— Over the chasm’s edge a curve of water, more, pumping— Waves.

  The chamber went black. “It’s a short!” Sarah grabbed Carney, pulled Milton, dragged him, shoved toward the golf carts and the light.

  Behind them a voice: “Johnnie, come on, come on!”

  Johnnie’s head nodded. Yes, he stood at the pinnacle. Below him, water fell everywhere, rose, fell again, dark diamonds of water. Playing among the diamonds, Benjie.

  Why, boy?

  How far down, Daddy?

  Why did you ride the waterchute?

  To save you, Daddy.

  You saved me?

  No, Daddy.

  EPILOGUE

  AUTUMN EQUINOX

  2003

  I can’t say the explosion finished Theresa. A sense of her lingers in the down below, in the water and on the sunbeams. No, she’s not been seen up here in the eternal infinite realm.

  They pulled Carney out, and Cochan. Sarah forced Milton to help drag Carney off. Milton had been ready to wade out and follow his wife.

  Carney blamed himself for tripping up while chasing Theresa. But he wouldn’t take her choice of death away from her, not for the world. He prized Theresa’s wild laughter.

  Terramac is gone. The explosion measured 3.1 Richter, not that violent but it built on itself. Belowground it tore into the wall of ancient rock, its shock waves shot miles along schists and striations, its force brought fragile crust crashing down, leaving rifts and two immense crevices. The caverns are flooded. A damage control team from the University of Vermont—not including Carney and Co.—has hypothesized the greatest harm was caused when the blast’s reverberations tore a hole under the Sabrevois River, draining near a third of its flow down to Terramac depth. Then the hole plugged up, no adequate theories as to why or how. But for nearly two days the river did in effect run backward. A new sea, dark and silent, lies below the shorn square miles of the old Fortier Farm, under the Magnussen land as well. The water level has settled, forever or for now, no way of telling, its highest point 1,180 feet below ground. Part of Ginette Seymour’s inheritance.

  Aboveground, structural damage has made even the near-complete condos unsafe. They will be dynamited. Summerclime, like Underland, all done with.

  Handy Johnnie Cochan is gone as well, from Vermont anyway. He’s resigned as head of Intraterra and lives now in the Caribbean, on an island with a high hill in the middle. He’s bought a big house. He climbs the hill each morning. From there he can see in all directions, 360 degrees of perspective. If he’d taken Benjie camping that one time, would it have made a difference? But
events that don’t take place cannot be understood.

  Johnnie’s friend Yak feels great compassion—the Handyman lost his son, his wife, and Deirdre and Melissa, as well as the majesty of Terramac, all in one year. But there’s a shade of enmity there too—why, why that one last cavern?

  Insurance will cover some of the Terramac disaster. How much?

  “We’ll never find out,” Ti-Jean muttered. “It’s not a public company.”

  Or, as Feasie said, “Hell is paved with happy clams.”

  The Sheriff of the county, Henry Nottingham, has launched a campaign for private and government money to reseed the scraped area with conifers, birch, and maple. This will take a while, both the raising of funds and the regrowth of trees. How the new ecology there will compare with the old is hard to predict.

  Milton wouldn’t leave the Grange. When Carney, arm in a sling, shoulder set but the pain still bad, saw Milton a few days after the explosion, he looked years older. His kids had convinced him, he said, that Theresa had been fully aware of her actions. Talking to him this way, Leasie, Feasie, Sarah, and Karl softened their own loss.

  Sarah’s pond filled again, a long blast of water from the spring. After half a day it ran clear. The muck tore apart and was washed away, down Gambade Brook on its way to the sea. Right away she put in two hundred trout, fingerlings. When the pond is still, in the early morning or when the sun sets and there’s a hatch, ripples form as the fish come up to feed. A year from now, Carney figures, they’ll be approaching keeper size. But unless the acidity goes down they’ll never breed.

  Bobbie’s new poem hopped out of nowhere. Or rather from somewhere but a place she’d not been to till now. Last night, going to bed, she felt the compulsion to write. Now she took a sheet of paper from the desk drawer where she’d carefully concealed it, didn’t want some casual anybody to see it. Way unlike her other stuff to now, not even the nature poems. She reread it.

  When I was young I wanted fame,

  The world to know me by my name.