The Night Strangers

by Chris Bohjalian

  People have told you that you would have had a better chance of succeeding that August afternoon in an Airbus than in a CRJ, because the Airbus uses more fly-by-wire technology: A computer prevents a pilot from flying either too fast or too slowly and assures that the aircraft’s pitch and turn angles never exceed the plane’s capabilities. But the issue wasn’t bringing the plane safely to the lake: You did that. You and Amy did that together. In the end, the issue was, son of a bitch, that wave.

  Still, it seems indecent to be alive today when four-fifths of your passengers and your crew are dead. You have no plans to rectify that and join them, of course: Haven’t you done enough to scar your two children already? The last thing they need now is for their father to kill himself. But when you see in your mind the black box—and you see it often, though not as frequently as the dead as they bobbed in the water and the fuselage slipped under the waves—you see also that the only place for you to live is a place like this: a sparsely populated hill in a sparsely populated corner of a sparsely populated state. You are living in exile. As an exile. Emily doesn’t view Bethel quite this way. It was her brainchild to come here in the first place. But you do. You view it precisely as an exile. Your own personal Elba.

  One day when Emily is at her office in Littleton and the girls are at school and you have just been to the hardware store to get lightbulbs and Spackle and have yet another window shade cut, on your way home you decide to detour toward the office of the real estate agency where the agents—first Sheldon, then Reseda—who sold you the house work. You coast into the parking lot of the dignified mock Tudor that houses the agency and sits beside the brick library and across the street from the post office. You stare for a moment at the town common, with its pristine white gazebo and creosote black Civil War cannon, the heavy gun’s small mounted plaque honoring the White Mountain veterans of that war and the ones that followed in Europe and the Middle East. You gaze at the maple trees—willowy, sable, spiderlike—with a dusting of snow on the wider branches from last night. You wonder precisely why you have veered here and what you are going to ask.

  But in you go, and there is Reseda Hill seated behind her desk with her landline phone against her ear and the screen on her computer showing a modest house for sale just off the main street in Littleton. The agent smiles when she sees you, and you stand there awkwardly, not wanting to appear to be eavesdropping on the conversation but not wanting to seem to ignore her, either. There doesn’t seem to be a receptionist, but out of nowhere another agent appears from a backroom, a woman in her mid-thirties—Reseda’s age, too, you believe—who is wearing black pants that are provocative and tight and a cashmere sweater with pearls. She has hennaed her hair and placed it back in a bun and is wearing a perfume that reminds you of lilacs. She introduces herself to you as Holly, but, before the conversation has proceeded any further, Reseda has motioned to her that she will be off the phone in a moment.

  “Would you like some tea?” asks Holly, but you decline. You hear yourself telling her your name, and she says, “I know.” And you’re not taken aback. Not at all. Of course she knows your name.

  “Coffee?”

  “No, I’m fine. Really.” You tell her you can come back, it’s not important, because deference now leaches from you like perspiration.

  “I’m sure Reseda would want to talk to you,” she insists. Then: “I’ve always thought being an airline pilot must be very glamorous. Is it?”

  You find yourself smiling. It is a popular misconception. “It once was—but that was years before I started flying. The generation of pilots before me had it a little easier: They certainly weren’t eating cheese sandwiches on the flight deck.”

  “The airline doesn’t feed you?”

  “My first years, it did. We had vouchers. But no more. The vouchers disappeared with my pension. So, on my first leg—I’m sorry, my first flight—I would usually be eating a brown bag lunch I packed myself before leaving home. I remember some mornings, I would make three identical sandwiches: one for me and one for each of my daughters. I have two. Twins. My daughters would bring theirs to school, of course. But you know what? I liked those cheese sandwiches. I really did. You get to your cruising altitude and you eat and enjoy the view. It’s actually rather pleasant. I loved to fly.”

  “Were you gone a lot?”

  “Probably too much. I was usually flying four days and home three. The rules for rest are complicated, but I might fly a dozen legs those four days. Sometimes, it would be less: seven or eight. Either way, I would say I ate half my meals between thirty and thirty-five thousand feet with a paper napkin in my lap.”

  “And that was safe?”

  You nod. “That was safe. I was always a stickler for safety.”

  Just about then your real estate agent laughs at something and hangs up the phone. She rises from the seat behind her desk, and you are struck by the suede and fur, burgundy-colored boots she is wearing, and how they haven’t any heels at all: This really is a woman who knows how to navigate her way through a White Mountain winter.

  “Chip, how are you?” she says, smiling, her eyes that beautiful, disturbing cobalt blue you noticed the first time you met and you think of whenever you think of her. Reseda is tall and trim, a slight ski jump to her nose, and her cheekbones are almost as prominent as her eyes. Her hair is darker than the chest-high wrought-iron fence that surrounds the cemetery at the edge of the village. She takes one of your hands in both of hers, and you always have the sense around her that, if you were in a big city, she would be the type who would want you to greet her with polite air kisses on both of her cheeks. Her palms are dry and cold, and yet the sensation, the touch, makes you a little warm.

  “We’re settling in well, I think,” you begin. You describe your breakfasts with the view of Mount Lafayette from the kitchen and skiing periodically the past couple of weeks at the nearby resort. You make a small joke—and the joke does seem to you to be woefully inadequate—about the numbers of boxes you have unpacked and yet the numbers that remain. You wonder as you listen to the sound of your voice—a voice that once inspired confidence at thirty-five thousand feet—whether you are capable of asking the questions that have brought you here. They seem ridiculous now. Absolutely ridiculous. But, finally, you start: “You ever notice that door?”

  She angles her head slightly, justifiably confused. The world has a lot of doors. Your house alone has twenty-seven (yes, you have counted), and that doesn’t include the closets and the cupboards and the pantry. “What door?”

  “There is a door in the basement. It—”

  And then there it is, that slight smile and sympathetic nod you have seen so often from people since August 11, and she is cutting you off. You are now in everyone’s eyes an emotional invalid. They need to be … gentle … around you. “Oh, Anise told me you were asking about that,” she is saying. “The coal chute.”

  And you realize that once more they have been talking about you. Anise has told Reseda that you were nonplussed by a … coal chute.

  “I must confess,” she continues, “I never did notice it. But then I rarely showed that house. Still, it must be a guy thing. I never heard other agents mention it. I guess women notice how much light a kitchen gets in the afternoon and men notice the coal chute in the basement. But sit down and tell me. What about it?”

  You sit in the chair opposite her desk, and it feels good, if only because you have been working very, very hard scraping wallpaper and Reseda is indeed lovely to look at. The chair is leather and the smell is vaguely reminiscent of the aroma of the seat on the flight deck: human and animal all at once.

  “I just can’t imagine why someone would have sealed the door shut in such an enthusiastic fashion,” you begin, careful to smile back both because Emily has told you that you have a handsome smile and because you don’t want to sound like any more of a lunatic than you already must.

  She shrugs. “Hewitt Dunmore is a bit of an odd duck,” she says simply, referrin
g to the previous owner.

  “So you think he was the one who closed it up?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know him well. Anise does. She knew his parents and his brother, too. Maybe his father was the one who sealed it up. You know, that’s actually more likely. I imagine it was years and years ago that they stopped heating with coal. It’s LP gas now, correct?”

  “It is. And there’s also that woodstove.”

  “I love that woodstove. Soapstone. Palladian windows on the doors, right?”

  “Right. We’ve been so busy unpacking we’ve only started a fire in it a couple of times.”

  “That must have been cozy,” she says, and there is something vaguely seductive in the sibilant way that she finishes her sentence. Those magnificent eyes widen just the tiniest bit.

  “It’s not really a cozy house.”

  She sits upright behind her desk, that lovely oval of a face abruptly looking alarmed. But you’re not at all sure that the alarm is genuine. She looks alarmed, and it is that same disingenuousness that marked the bad acting of so many of Emily’s friends in Pennsylvania when they pretended to be actors in their community theater dramas and musicals. “Oh, I hope you’re not regretting the move already. We’re all so happy to have you here. You and Emily and your beautiful twins.”

  “No, not at all. It’s a wonderful house. I didn’t mean to suggest I had any regrets. I think Emily and I will be very comfortable there. I think the girls already are adjusting quite well. Especially Hallie. She loves that greenhouse.”

  “That’s important. Is she sleeping well? Are you all sleeping well?”

  You recall Hallie’s bad dream that first Sunday night. You recall a second she had more recently. You wonder simultaneously whether a couple of bad dreams would suggest your child is not sleeping well and why the real estate agent would ask such a thing in the first place. Has she heard something from someone? Did Emily mention something to another attorney in her firm who mentioned it to Reseda? Did Hallie tell her teacher in school, who, in turn, told this real estate agent? Is the town really that small? Is it possible that people really talk that much?

  “We’re all sleeping fine,” you respond, which is, more or less, the case with your daughters and your wife. A couple of nightmares, you decide firmly, does not constitute sleeping badly. And while you yourself haven’t slept well in six months, your nightmares and flashbacks are really none of her business. Besides, you don’t want to appear any more damaged to Reseda than you already must.

  “But right now you and Emily are only … comfortable,” she murmurs, repeating one of the words that you used, and you detect a slight sniff of disappointment. No, not disappointment: disapproval.

  “Sometimes, happy is asking a lot.” You say this with no particular stoicism in your tone; it’s a glib throwaway.

  “Oh, I hope that’s not true. Personally, I don’t think it is. I understand what you’ve been through. But I would like to believe that happiness is a perfectly reasonable expectation here.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Have you taken the door off?” she asks, her eyes growing a little more probing, a little more intense.

  “It would demand a lot of effort.”

  “Have you talked to Hewitt?”

  “About the door?”

  She nods.

  “Nope.”

  “You should,” she says.

  “Probably.”

  “Or …”

  “Yes?” You realize for the first time that there is a scent in the office that is reminiscent of lavender. Burned lavender. As if it were incense. You have inhaled a small, lovely dollop of Reseda’s perfume.

  “You could ask Gerard up to the house and have him just rip that door down. That would be easier than removing all those bolts.”

  You pause for just a moment before responding, because you don’t believe you have mentioned the bolts. But then you get it: “Anise must have told you about the bolts.”

  And for just about the same amount of time that you paused, so does Reseda. Her face remains waxen, unmoving. Then: “Yes. She did.”

  “Who’s Gerard?”

  “Anise’s son—and a very nice young man. A little quiet, a little intimidating even. He’s a weight lifter. Belongs to the health club in Littleton. He will probably be the one haying your fields this summer. He’s big and tall and very, very strong, and I’m sure he could rip that door right off its hinges.”

  You contemplate this notion. The advantage is that you would learn what’s behind the door pretty quickly. The disadvantage is that you would be in violation of an unspoken rural code: You are an able-bodied man and you are having another able-bodied man handle a household chore that you should be capable of managing on your own. You could take an ax to that door as well as this Gerard. You are not that old and infirm. And so you tell Reseda, “Thank you. I think I can handle this one. Maybe I should just rip the door off myself.”

  “Well, if you change your mind, his shoulders are pretty broad. He’s pretty resourceful.”

  “Good to know. Thank you.”

  “Tell me: How is Emily enjoying Littleton? The second floor of a little brick building beside a bicycle shop and a bank must feel like a very big change from a top floor of a skyscraper in Philadelphia.”

  Has Emily told Reseda this, too? Has she told her that her old firm dominated the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth floors of a building on Chestnut Street? Or is this conjecture on the part of the real estate agent? “It is a change,” you say, “but she finds the pace very pleasant.”

  “And I’m sure the drive in to work—the commute—is a lot more civilized.”

  You nod agreeably. “It is. And a lot shorter. About fifteen minutes, door to door. Can I ask you something else?”

  “Absolutely,” she says.

  You turn around in your chair because you remember Holly is there and what you are about to ask feels … private. Holly is at her desk and moving her mouse as she stares at her computer screen. But she senses you are gazing at her, and so she looks up and grins. Instantly you turn your attention back to Reseda.

  “Hewitt Dunmore’s twin brother,” you begin awkwardly, unsure precisely how to broach the subject. “Sawyer, I think his name was. He took his own life, right?”

  “That is what people say.”

  “How? Why? What do you know about his death?”

  “Well, I didn’t know Sawyer. I wasn’t even born when he died. But Anise knew him. She knew the whole family.”

  “Is there anything you can tell me?”

  She shrugs and shakes her head, her face growing a little sad. “Teenage or pre-teenage depression, I assume. He was what, twelve or thirteen? Back then, it wasn’t really understood or treated.”

  “And the … means?”

  “He bled to death.”

  “He slashed his wrists?”

  “Something like that. But, honestly, my sense is that it was more complicated. Anise might know the details.”

  Honestly. The word sounds insincere to you. Deceitful, maybe. How could she not recall the way a local boy had killed himself, even if it was before she was born? Wouldn’t it be a part of the lore of this small village, the sagas and stories and secrets that everyone shared? But, perhaps, you are being unfair; perhaps it really isn’t discussed around here. New England reticence. Propriety. And it was a long, long time ago.

  “You must be looking forward to spring,” she says suddenly, her voice lightening. “It might be my favorite season. I love it—although I understand that for many people around here spring is a very mixed bag: mud and more mud. Lots of gray days. I tell you, crocuses this far north must have a death wish. No sooner do they poke their pretty little heads through the grass than they get hammered with eight inches of very wet snow. But there will also be some absolutely glorious days. Just wonderful! And there is sugaring to look forward to. I don’t sugar myself. But I have friends who do. You must bring your twins to a sugarhouse. I think they
would love it: Sugar on snow, the aroma of maple. The samples. No child can resist a sugarhouse!”

  “We will. Anyone’s sugarhouse in particular?”

  “I think you should stop by the Milliers’. Claude and Lavender Millier. It will be weeks before there’s a sugar run. Or it might be a month. You never know. But I’ll introduce you between now and then.”

  “Thank you. Do they have children?”

  “Grown. But I know their son will scoot up from Salem for a few days to help with the boiling. He’s a doctor. A pediatrician. He’s part of a beautiful practice in a big old barn of a house with fantastic views of the ocean.”

  “Anyone with a sugarhouse and children roughly Hallie and Garnet’s age?”

  “Of course. I’ll just have to think a moment. I hear they’re doing very well in school.”

  “You hear a lot,” you say, a reflex, and wish instantly that you could take the remark back. It isn’t like you. It’s just that everyone always seemed to be talking about you back in Pennsylvania this past autumn and winter, and now everyone seems to be talking about your whole family here in New Hampshire.

  “Oh, you know how people chat in a small town. We haven’t anything better to do—especially this time of the year, when the days are short as a pepper plant.” She looks out the large picture window and continues, her voice a little dreamy. “Soon the geese will be coming back. We’ll see them flying north in just a few weeks. I love geese. Big, powerful birds. They’re another sign of spring.” Then she turns back to you and makes eye contact. “Tell me: Would you and Emily and your beautiful twins like to come to my house for dinner this weekend? Perhaps a casual dinner on Sunday night? Something easy and light?”

  This is an enormous amount of information to try to make sense of: There is, as Emily would say, text and subtext. No one can use the words goose and geese around you without knowing that they connote profoundly disturbing images. They do not provoke a PTSD sort of flashback—you do not find yourself sweating when you hear them, they do not induce heart palpitations—but they do conjure for you the destruction of your airplane and the deaths of thirty-nine people. Thirty-six adults, three children. Including one with a doll dressed as a cheerleader. That, too, wound up floating in Lake Champlain, the eyes open, the hair the color of corn silk fanning out like seaweed in the waves. And then there was the girl with the Dora the Explorer backpack. All of the children were, you would learn later, younger than Hallie and Garnet.