1
1
T
he day was made for monsters.
Dawn was nothing more than a shift from black to light.
On the radio, talk about the appearance of the clouds, how fronts and isobars and pressure systems denied them. But they were there nonetheless, streaked with black and grey, bulging downward, pressing downward, arcs and tails and veils dangling from the mass of them, while old-timers nodded and agreed that someone was getting rain today.
Somewhere out there.
Out there, but not here.
A breeze the breath of a dry oven, curling leaves on twigs while leaves quivered on the ground, shifting dust on Black Oak Road in and out of the gutters, avoiding the surface of the Balanovs’ pool, coasting across the river without the trace of a ripple, ruffling the feathers of two crows in the meadow while they walked like old men through the trembling weeds, searching for food, eyeing each other.
In the Palmers’ stable, horses kicked and snorted in their stalls. A mare with her ears back. A gelding who wouldn’t stop staring at the door. In the corral a young stallion gnawed at the rawhide that held the gate shut.
The temperature rose.
The clouds hovered, and baked the air.
No sound at all.
* * * *
2
Lupé lay on her bed, hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling while Stan, in the bed beside her, snored comfortably. Escobar had been given the front-room couch. She didn’t know where the little one was, and she hadn’t seen Susan since daybreak.
She yawned, and shivered, a goose walking over her grave, and for the first time in memory, since her mother had died, she crossed herself without thinking, glanced toward the kitchen and mouthed, I’m sorry.
Although she hadn’t noticed any units in any windows last night, the gentle breeze of an air conditioner kept a sheet over her, made her drowsy the way she used to be, when times were good and getting up in the morning was a pleasant chore, not a sacrifice.
The shades were down.
Not much light out there, she thought as she checked her watch, surprised at the hour coming up on noon. Rolling over gave her a way to pull aside the shade beside the bed, and what she saw, all that grey, reminded her of November.
She lay flat again and scratched her head, massaged her face, sat up and held the sheet against her breasts. “Stan.”
He snorted.
“Stan.”
He woke up slowly, stretching, making her smile at the way he got used to sleeping on a mattress, decent food, something to do. For him, this must be close to heaven.
When he saw her, he turned away. “Sorry.”
She grinned. “What for?”
“You’re ... not dressed.”
She shrugged one bare shoulder. “Come on, Stan, you never saw a woman before?”
He didn’t answer right away. When he did, it was, “Not you.”
For some reason that made her unimaginably sad. She smiled anyway. “I’ll tell you, gringo, it ain’t much to look at, believe me.”
He looked back, head still on his pillow. “He hurt you real bad, didn’t he.”
A nod, nothing more.
His hair like wire, his face sagging with sleep, he scowled and said, “The stupid son of a bitch.”
The connecting door to the bathroom was open, and movement in the kitchen distracted her, made her realize how hungry she was. Not bothering with false modesty, she leaned over, scooped up her clothes and said, “I think we’re getting food. And I get the first shower.”
He watched her cross the room.
She felt the gaze, and couldn’t help it. As she closed the door she looked over her shoulder and winked at him. “You and me, amigo,’’ she said. “When this is over, you and me are going to party.”
When this is over.
The water was hot and smooth.
When this is over.
The towel was fresh and soft.
She looked in the mirror as she brushed her hair.
Lupé, she told herself, this ain’t never going to be over.
* * * *
3
They sat at the kitchen table, Lupé and Stan facing the counter, Escobar facing them, the little one at the head, while Susan fried and mixed and poured and squeezed.
Lupé ate as if she hadn’t eaten in a week, joking with Stan, teasing the little one, but not looking at the man who sat opposite her. He gave, her the creeps.
He had dressed in a suit, but it was stained with blood and grass, with bits of grass and leaves clinging to the lapels and to his trousers. One sleeve was torn at the shoulder. His shirt was white and dark red. Scorch marks. The clear stench of gasoline and smoke.
She reminded him of one of those zombie things she had seen in a movie one time, lurching across a field, sagging jaw and dead eyes.
Escobar’s eyes weren’t dead, they were bright.
Susan fed them and answered no questions.
Escobar didn’t say a word.
Lupé felt a giggle and suppressed it. Instead: “Stan and I are going to elope when we’re done here.”
Stan choked a piece of bread into his palm and his face turned red, the little one laughed, Escobar stared at his plate and kept on eating.
“If you wish,” Susan said calmly, pouring them each a cup of coffee.
Lupé watched the steam rise. “We are getting out of here, aren’t we? Like the other times, I mean. They can’t stop us, right?”
Escobar ate.
Susan poured a glass of milk, placed it on the table, and moved to the back door, rubbing her upper arms as if to drive away a chill. Faded curtains hid the view, as did the curtains drawn across the window over the sink. When she finally turned around, Lupé didn’t feel like eating anymore.
Neither did anyone else.
But it was Stan who said, “Who are you?”
* * * *
4
Susan wore blue jeans and a denim shirt; her feet were bare, her hair brushed carelessly back over her ears.
After today, she said, it won’t matter who I am, you can do what you like.
Stan, the road is yours again, to go wherever you want for as long as you want it.
Lupé, you can go back to your mountains and your desert, there won’t be anyone left there to hurt you.
Diño, you will have everything you want.
Little one, only the little one, will come with me when it’s over.
I’m telling you this because, no, Lupé, this won’t be at all like the other times. This place, this insignificant little hole in the wall, is different. Smaller, but that’s not it. Fewer people, but that’s not it.
Every End has a Beginning; it all has to start somewhere, and it might as well be, it will be, here.
This is the place where Time stops and waits, where I stop and wait to see if I, and Time, will ever move again.
I am not alone.
But I am, this time, and don’t look so miserable, it has nothing to do with you. You should see yourselves, you look like children whose party has just been canceled.
Poor things.
When you’re finished here, every scrap gone from your plates, I want you all to go out there, walk around, see the place, know it, find the dens and the lairs and the holes and the traps. When they speak to you, speak back and say nothing. Or say it all, it doesn’t matter, because they won’t understand then any more than you do now.
But do not speak to the man, not even if he speaks to you first.
You’ll know who he is.
Stay away; he’s mine.
Talk, look, but do absolutely nothing.
Do you understand?
Nothing.
* * * *
Don’t make me angry.
* * * *
I will let you know when to bring the fire down.
I will let you know when to start the games.
Don’t worry about a signal, that’s for people like them, not pe
ople like you.
No matter where you are, you’ll know it’s time.
All you have to do is listen.
* * * *
2
1
C
asey woke up with one hand clenching his throat, as if he could throttle the cry the hand twisted into a whimper.
There may have been light, he didn’t know, his eyes were closed; there may still be clouds, he didn’t know, he wouldn’t open his eyes.
If he did, he would see.
If he did, he would know.
the fiddler’s on horseback
Lord, he prayed, I told You before, You’ve got the wrong man.
Points of light, pricks of pain, the sound of the blood pounding in his ears was the sound of hoofbeats racing down Black Oak Road.
Lord, no.
and he’s riding this way
A fan on the dresser blew ice across his bare chest, swiveled away and there was fire on his skin until the ice wind blew again.
Points of light, pricks of pain, and a girl-child behind a counter shrieking as he towered over her, fury in his eyes, murder in his fist.
And hate.
Hate for the warmth she worked in, in the winter; hate for the money in her purse beneath the counter; hate for the meal she had had at dinner.
Hate for those who had lost faith and refused to search it out again, blaming the God they didn’t believe in for the God they didn’t have; hate for the bishops bejeweled and berobed who wrote checks for the poor while the chauffeur waited patiently in the limo in the street; hate for the man he saw in a dusty mirror, whose so-called down-home, homespun, easy way with God was only a shield to protect him from making up his mind just how far his fear went. How deep. How strong.
He kept his eyes closed. A child’s game. If you can’t see them, then they can’t see you.
But he could hear them.
The fiddle and the harmonica and the guitar and the banjo, the soft horns and gentle woodwinds, the distant drums, the distant bells.
Symphony for the End.
No, he thought.
No.
* * * *
2
Mabel Jonsen sat at her makeshift desk behind the counter. Crumpled papers piled in drifts on the floor around her; had been flung across the counter into the aisles; were stacked to overflowing in the Claridge Casino wastebasket beside her. On the desk were photo albums thick with newspaper clippings, so fiercely opened that some of the bindings had buckled and some had torn. The only light was the fake brass gooseneck lamp she had nailed to the wall years before.
On a narrow shelf beneath the lamp was her collection of fat plastic cups, from every casino on the Atlantic City boardwalk, every one once filled with quarters, dimes, and nickels, every one commemorating a major winning streak. Now they held sharpened pencils, ballpoint pens, pencils with fancy erasers, receipts, casino chips, scraps of paper she hadn’t looked at in ages.
She grabbed another pencil from its cup, tried to write on a fresh sheet of notebook paper, but the point snapped, the lead bouncing off the wall and onto the floor.
The paper tore.
Mabel wept—anger, with a large dose of frustration.
She tried again.
She would keep on trying until she got it right.
It had already taken her most of the night; she had barely had three hours of sleep before she started again, keeping the store closed, ignoring those who banged on the door.
She didn’t care.
They laughed at her.
She knew that, and until last night, it hadn’t really been a bother. A kind of dumpy, middle-aged woman living in a place not big enough for any map, looking for those who would visit her from the stars. Correspondence she had received from all over the world told her she wasn’t alone; laughter was something you got used to, that’s all. The kidding, the teasing, the not-quite-condescending pat on the shoulder. It hadn’t mattered, not really.
Until last night.
Until the stranger, a woman, had come in and began piling rood on the counter. Canned stuff, mostly, some bread, milk, a little bit of junk food, two boxes of cookies. A lean woman, not unattractive, who said very little; dark-skinned, Spanish accent, but definitely not from anywhere near here. A few words exchanged, and Mabel learned she had rented the place behind Vinia’s drugstore, her and her friends.
Nothing so odd about that, although the timing was weird, and Mabel had packed the groceries in two bags, rang up the charges, and nearly gasped aloud when the woman dropped a handful of new bills on the counter and said, “Is this enough?”
Like she didn’t know how much she had.
Like she didn’t fully understand the currency system.
Mabel had counted it, nodded, reached into the register for the woman’s change, but the woman had said, “Keep it, I don’t need it,” and left without another word.
Mabel didn’t know whether to laugh, to sing, to cry, or to chase after her.
Instead she had stood there, dumbfounded, blinking so rapidly she had nearly gotten a headache. Then she had gathered the woman’s money carefully and stuffed it into an envelope, sealed it, and set it on the shelf below the counter, all the while cursing for not having recognized the signs before—the bell, the wind, the clouds, the sudden stillness, the early dark.
They were here.
Dear Lord, They were here.
Not long afterward, Moss had come in, stood swaying on the threshold as if battling a high wind.
“They’re here,” Mabel had told him excitedly, her voice high as a girl’s.
He had belched, staggered to one side and grabbed the jamb for support. “Who cares? I’m not building those damn lights, Mabe. It’s stupid, a waste of time, and it’s still too damn hot. You’re crazy.” He laughed and backed out to the sidewalk. “Stupid!” he yelled, and tacked across the street against the force of his giggles.
She had wanted to run after him, shake him, bring him to his knees and make him understand; what she had done instead was close and lock the door, turn the Closed sign around, and run to her desk, where she began the first draft of her welcoming speech.
It was awful. They were all awful. All of them echoing Moss Tully’s drunken laughter.
Sleep, then, restless and clammy and tangling the sheets around her ankles. Waking with a cry, hastening to dress, making toast and coffee and finally back to the store.
To try again.
Fail again.
And she couldn’t stop the tears no matter how hard she tried.
At last, hunched with defeat, she fumbled her reading glasses off her nose and onto the desk, rubbed her eyes, and kicked to her feet. A glance at the doorway that would take her to the stairs that would take her home and the rest of needed sleep, and she switched off the lamp and went outside.
The clouds didn’t excite her.
The dry breeze sapped her and made her stride short.
Walking east toward the Crest. Head down. Tears dripping from her chin to the pavement. Forcing herself not to sob. Letting the weight of the clouds press on her shoulders as if it were the punishment due her. For thinking they would believe. For thinking she was special enough to greet Them on her own.
“Oh...yes!” a hoarse voice tried to cry.
She was abreast of Trinity Church, saw Enid Balanov at the foot of the walk, and stopped, using a sleeve to dry her face.
“Mabel.”
The woman wore a summer-blue dress, pearls at her throat, white dress shoes. Sunday best. Except, Mabel thought, she looked as if she had been run over by a truck. Her eyes were bright, but ringed with black; her hair was tangled as if combed with claws; her legs had no strength, she had to lean against the picket fence. Her clothes looked as though she had slept in them all night, or hadn’t changed them for days.
In her left hand she held a Bible.
“Mabel, it’s coming.”
Mabel winced. Enid’s voice was painful to listen to, half rasp, half
beseeching.
“Mabel, please.”
Symphony - [Millennium Quartet 01] Page 25