The Clearing

by Dan Newman

  Nate read each of them, and then looked out over the water of Rodney Bay. He thought of his mother, and he thought about the many puzzles she loved to do. There was always one on a board that sat on the dining room table. It was moved in and out for the few occasions they ate there, but mostly it sat on the dining room table, slowly being completed, piece by piece as his mother gave it five minutes here and five minutes there. As he thought about her, he remembered that his father, who was always the one who bought her the puzzles, would always produce them in only the box’s bottom—with no lid and no image of the puzzle itself. Nate had never questioned this, and for many years assumed that all puzzles were images that revealed themselves as you built them—until the day he found a small stack of puzzle boxes, tops included, in a closet up high. The uppermost one was a meadow scene with flowers in purple tones and a large white horse, and Nate knew immediately that this was the image his mother was blindly compiling on the board on the dining room table. It was a moment of elation, a rare slice of purity where everything coalesced and his understanding of the world moved a complete notch upward with an almost audible click. The puzzle was still unsolved, but he knew what the goal was.

  Nate looked down again at the four articles, and as he sat on his bench at Rodney Bay in the warm wash of a gentle Caribbean breeze, he understood that he was looking at the top of a puzzle box that had been there all along. The picture was crafted in 1976, but the puzzle, like the lives it depicted, still lay in many pieces.

  • • •

  The four boys and Vincent, Tristan’s dad, sat in the bedroom at the front of the house, eating dinner at a large wooden table set against a long set of windows. The windows lined the entire wall of the room, and overlooked the area in front of the house where they had parked the old Land Rover. The windowsill sat two feet off the room’s floor and extended almost all the way up to the ceiling. But on the outside of the building, the same sill sat almost twelve feet off the ground, thanks to the concrete arches that served as the structure’s foundation. The room they ate in had originally been a sitting room, but being among the largest of the rooms with a serviceable door, Vincent had adopted it as the bedroom. The door itself had two locks: a deadbolt and a sliding latch, both of which were securable only from the inside.

  Through the window they could watch the day fading quickly, see the laborers strolling unhurriedly down the track toward their rickety houses, see the insects rousing from their slumber as the day’s heat faded. And they could see the bats. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands. As dusk fell, they swarmed from the house, from the high reaches and dark corners of its great rafters, peeling out through the yawning windows. Most of the house was uninhabited and open to the night air, with only the kitchen and the bedroom locked and secured with closable wooden shutters and mosquito netting. Before dinner, the boys had gathered in the main hall of the house, running back and forth and squealing with terrified laughter as the house swarmed with bats exiting into the night. The boys ran to and fro, stooped and bent, their arms held protectively aloft. They giggled and screamed as the small velvety creatures swirled around their heads before streaming out. But once the bats had cleared the house and set off for a night of feeding, the house seemed to darken at a pace that outstripped the night itself, and the boys quickly retreated to the bedroom and the only electric lights on the estate.

  Directly below the bedroom sat a small Honda generator that supplied enough power to run a few lights and a portable radio/cassette deck. A length of blue nylon string ran up from the generator’s on/off switch, through a hole that was bored in the floor of the bedroom, and tied to a small wooden dowel that stopped it falling back through. At the end of the evening, Vincent would simply pull the string, flicking the switch off and quieting the engine’s gentle purr. And with the generator silent, the sounds of the forest and its millions of tiny, vocal inhabitants came through in an unstoppable insect clamour. Apart from that single lockable, temporarily powered room, the rest of the house was open to the night. No front door. No windows. No power. Just room after room of gaping blackness.

  They dined on sausages cooked almost black, great torn hunks of fresh bread slathered with butter, and heaps of steaming sweet potatoes. They washed it down with mugs of strong, sweet tea and ate till their bellies could take no more—except, of course, for dessert: golden sticky buns so impossibly fresh that they stuck insistently to the roofs of their mouths with every bite.

  As was the norm this far into the rainforest, dusk rolled toward darkness with a speed that had to be seen to be believed; Nate stood looking through the windows and down the track, and swore he could see the night coming on like a steadily turned dimmer switch. “That’s why we have the curfew,” said Vincent, clearing away the last of the sausages and bread. “You get caught out there when the day dies, and you’re spending the night in the bush. It all looks the same in the darkness.”

  “It’s creepy out there,” said Nate to no one in particular. And as his eyes wandered to the darkness of the encroaching jungle, he felt the first pangs of what he guessed was homesickness. He was having a great time at Ti Fenwe, especially with those Wrist Rockets, but some part of him would have been happier tucked snugly in his single bed at home with his dad wedged tightly beside him reading a chapter of The Hardy Boys. There was something about the remoteness of the estate, about the blackness all around them that made Nate feel especially far from home.

  “Nate,” said Richard. “Check this out.” He moved over to the far end of the bay window, and threw it open wide. There was no mosquito netting there, and the large pane folded easily outwards and against its neighbor. “You see that?” said Richard, pointing across the track that ran along the front of the house. “That pole there?”

  Nate squinted into the darkness. To his left and below sat the Land Rover, but directly across from the open window he could just make out a thick pole standing upright with a platform about the size of a pizza box secured to the top. The small platform was at the same height as the window, and, sitting on the opposite side of the track, was only about fifteen feet away.

  Nate pointed at the dark rectangular shape on the platform. “What’s that thing sitting on top?”

  Richard turned briefly and pulled something from his backpack next to his unrolled sleeping bag. He pointed it across the track and flicked it on, casting a bright beam into the night. The flashlight illuminated the pole, the platform, and the car battery sitting on top. With the new light Nate could also see that the pole was braced on three sides by smaller poles, each leaning in like the struts of a tepee, and it was clear the whole affair was designed to be dismantled and reassembled regularly. “What is it?” he asked, his face twisted in question. He was glad for the distraction; thoughts of home scatted. At least for now.

  Richard smiled knowingly, brushed a blonde lock from his face and turned to the others in the room. Vincent was holding court with Tristan and Pip, sitting at the now cleared table showing them how to tie some knot or other in a thick length of rope. “Uncle Vince,” Richard called out to him. “Nate wants to know what the pole’s for. The one outside the window.” Richard was smiling.

  Vince didn’t even look up from his knot. “No,” he said firmly. “No way. Not you lightees.”

  But clearly there was something exciting at hand here, and in an instant Tristan was standing beside his father and smiling, too.

  “I said no,” repeated Vincent, still not looking up from the length of old rope in his hands.

  “S'il te plait, papa!” begged Tristan. “Please!”

  His father shook his head lightly and muttered no again, this time with much less vigor. He was going to cave—he just needed another small push. “Tristan, you know I can’t. These boys are just puppies. What are you?” he said gesturing with the rope toward Nate, “Eight? Nine?”

  An indignant shadow skated briefly across Nate’s face. “I’m thirteen in two weeks!” he declared.

  Vincent
backpedaled. “All right, all right, twelve, almost thirteen. But what about Richard—the poor lad’s only…what? Seven?”

  “Try almost eleven,” Richard replied.

  “And what would your mother say if she heard about this?” said Vincent.

  “My mother knows everything already.”

  Vincent laughed and rose from the table with his hands raised in defeat. “Fine, fine. But don’t complain to me if your parents ban you all from ever coming here again!” He walked over to Richard and buried the boy in a hug, and from somewhere in those coils Richard giggled in delight.

  On the other side of the room, Tristan folded his arms and set his lips to a thin hard line. It wasn’t the first time Nate had seen that hard edge in Tristan, particularly where his father’s obvious affection for the youngest De Villiers was concerned.

  “All right then,” said Vincent, crossing the floor with all the drama and showmanship he could muster. He walked in a slow and deliberate fashion, like a man buying time and stoking his courage before some mighty task. He rubbed his hands together, fixed the cabinet on the other side of the room with an overly serious stare, and then cocked his head from side to side like a prize fighter readying for the ring.

  “Oh puh-leeez!” said Richard, rolling his eyes and collapsing on the one bed in the room. The boys all laughed, and Vincent lost his composure and laughed, too.

  “Okay, fine,” he said, reaching for the cabinet and fumbling with a set of keys. “But we need to be serious here for a moment, okay?” The timbre in his voice brought all the boys to attention, and they gathered around him without needing to be asked.

  Vincent swung the cabinet’s double doors open and exposed two shotguns propped up against the inside wall. On the lower shelf were a few small boxes, and a bundle of rags. “These are not toys, understand?”

  The boys all nodded.

  “You only hold and fire when I give it to you, and the barrel never points anywhere except out of the window.”

  Nodding all round.

  “Where does the barrel point?”

  “Only out of the window,” the boys repeated.

  “Fine.” Vincent reached down and lifted a small bundle of rags. Slowly he unwrapped the bundle, and at its center sat a small black pistol. The boys collectively gasped.

  “This, my boys,” said Vincent, pushing the black cylinder out of the housing, “is a snub nose Airweights .38 Special.” He tilted the little black gun toward the boys, careful to keep the barrel pointing away from everyone, and let them lean in to look. Pip reached his hand out instinctively to touch it, and Vincent recoiled lightly. “No, no, Pip. No one touches this until we are at the window, ready to fire, and you’ve had some basic instruction.”

  Nate looked on at the gun in something akin to awe. He had never seen one before, not for real, and the little black chunk of metal with its wooden handle seemed to ooze a sense of threat. To Nate the gun was ugly, stunted looking, as if it had never completely finished growing into a real gun—at least not like the ones Dirty Harry carried. Still, the gun captivated him, and as he stared at it with the others he realized that its simplicity, its tiny size, its matte black color and its dull, worn wooden handle all seemed to be so unimpressive. Sure it was a real gun, but it didn’t speak to him the way the Wrist Rocket did.

  Vincent led them over to the open window, and placed a small carton on the sill from which he extracted a number of brass-cased bullets. He slid them into the cylinder one by one, and the boys all followed his actions with wide eyes and loose jaws—all of them but Tristan whose face was carefully pinned with an expression of impatient disinterest. His attitude said he’d seen it all before, but the effort was wasted. The others were studying Vincent’s actions with rare intensity.

  With all the chambers filled, Vincent snapped the cylinder closed and pointed the pistol through the window. “All right, boys. When it’s your turn, hold it like this,” he said showing them how to use both hands to cradle the weight of the gun. “Once you’re holding it, I will pull the hammer back for you, because it’s very hard to do just with the trigger. After that, just squeeze gently. Like this.” As he said this, the gun let out a pop, and it flicked slightly in Vincent’s hand.

  The boys ooh’d and aah’d.

  “Right, who’s first?” he said, and everyone’s hand went up. Vincent put a meaty hand behind Richard’s head and gently brought him to the front. “Youngest first,” he said, holding the gun out the window and guiding Richard’s hand toward it. “Okay, it’s cocked. Line up the sights on the battery over there, and just squeeze.”

  Again the gun popped and again the boys paid homage.

  Next it was Pip’s turn, and he too fired the little gun at the battery across the track. “Another miss!” cried Vincent, taking the gun safely back from Pip. “Now you, Mr. Almost-Thirteen.” Vince winked at Nate and then set the little gun in his hand. Pop! Another miss. Nate let Vincent take the gun and in truth he felt better just watching; the gun felt awkward in his hand, dangerous, without boundary.

  “All right, my boy,” said Vincent, ushering Tristan to the front. “Here’s your chance to show them how it’s done. Three shots, three misses.”

  “Ha,” said Tristan. “Watch this.” The little gun popped again, and the battery across the track shuddered, gently rocking the pole. “How’s that!” he crowed, instinctively turning to the other boys with his hands outstretched in victory.

  In his hand still sat the pistol, his finger still curled around the trigger. He had fired the gun many times before, and he had heard his father’s safety talk on every occasion. But Tristan was thirteen, and victorious in front of his friends. He forgot everything and turned to fully face the boys. As he turned, the barrel of the small black gun tracked across the chests of the little group in the bedroom.

  And as his father barked in alarm, Tristan flinched, causing a quick tightening of all the muscles in his legs, his back, and in his hands.

  15

  By the time Nate’s mind came back to the moment, the sun had moved and chased the shade a few feet away from his little bench by the water. He flicked his thumb softly through the pile of papers, lingering in what they had to say. Then he slid all the newspaper clippings, the photographs, and the assorted documents back into the manila envelope.

  He thought of his father again, about the last time he had spoken to him and the promise he’d made himself to simply leave the old man to dissolve in his pathetic puddle of gin. The guilt was there, as it always was, but after reading the contents of the envelope, the old sensation was suddenly overwhelming, like a crushing wave driving him down into the hard sand. As Nate stared out over the shimmering water his mind knit together a thousand pieces of information gathered from family members and friends over the years. Everything suddenly fit together: the envelope was the Rosetta Stone, a key piece that made the puzzle entirely apparent once you had it, but left it unsolvable in its absence. Like the child he had once been, Nate looked down at the envelope with the same sense of wonder that had gripped him the day he found those long absent puzzle box tops sitting high up in the hall closet.

  The envelope contained so much information, so many details, but it was those four little articles from The Voice that connected so much for Nate—four fairly unremarkable blurbs that helped close out the story that had gripped the island back in the summer of ’76. Together they formed something of an epilogue, a chronicling of the demise of a diplomat whose son was somehow linked to the death of the De Villiers boy. It told of the sudden departure of the diplomat and his family, whisked away from the island and the unfolding investigation under the protection of diplomatic immunity. It picked up months later with the diplomat’s dismissal from the Foreign Service, and then on the second anniversary of the boy’s death, there was one final entry. In it, Nate’s father was little more than a closing fact. It told of a series of arrests for DUI and domestic assault, and gently implied something of a karmic balance. That the former
diplomat’s life had ultimately disassembled entirely in the wake of Richard De Villiers’s death was somehow fitting, according to the writer, given the privileged and untouchable exit their diplomatic status had provided them. It was a rather pathetic end to the whole story.

  It connected things for Nate like a jolt of electricity, and the words hummed through his mind with a clarity that pained him: I goddamn well shut the doors tight on those bastards. I protected you! I protected your mother, this whole family. I protected you. And then the bastards pull the floor out from under me. He could practically see his father standing there, weaving unsteadily, accusing finger in place. Nate had never really understood the rant—or perhaps more accurately, he’d chosen never to listen to it that closely—but now, in the wake of the manila envelope and the four simple articles, it all made perfect, guilt-ridden sense.

  His memory opened wide and was flushed with another version of his father, a version where the man was tall and powerful and imbued with the unassailability that all fathers have in the eyes of their sons. He saw him in the days after Richard’s death, standing in the corner of the brightly lit room, watching as the questions kept coming and coming from lawyers, policemen and social workers. Finally, his father waded through the suits and uniforms, put up his hand and said, Enough. He remembered his father’s hands about his shoulders, pushing him firmly past them all and walking straight out of the station. He was magnificent. He just took Nate and his mother right to the car, straight to the airport. True to his word, he shut the doors tight on those bastards.

  But the fleeting sense of awe was quickly overshadowed by a stark realization: that simple walk had come at a terrible cost. In that moment on the island, being ushered from the room with his Dad’s hands wrapped protectively about him, it had, for Nate, just been his father making everything all right. He’d even said it as they moved past the people and out through the police station doors: don’t worry, Nate, everything’s going to be okay. But now, Nate realized his father’s simple act had cost so much more.