The Passage

by David Poyer

  Nineteen East Battery was bigger than he expected, a two-story Federal on the most desirable waterfront in the city. They climbed brick stairs to a pillared doorway. “Oh look,” she said, “gladiolas. Aren’t they beautiful?”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled, looking upward to where chandeliers glittered through a beveled fanlight.

  A butler showed them down a narrow, creaking hallway, past rooms of fragile-looking antiques. Gentlemen in neck cloths and ladies in bonnets stared down from the walls. A dumb anger welled in him. He felt out of place, out of body in someone else’s clothes and his bike-riding boots.

  “Mind the step, ma’am, sir,” said the butler, holding the door, and Dan followed Strishauser’s erect, expectant back down again into a walled garden dark with greenery and shadow. Lights glittered above gentlemen in tuxedos and ladies in cocktail dresses, and behind them, in darkness that stretched back and back, fireflies sparked and drifted in evanescent reflection. Flambeaux flared over white-draped tables glowing with old silver. Hearing the soft Charleston accents, he felt even more like a just-arrived immigrant.

  “The bar’s over there—”

  “What do you want?”

  She said gin and tonic, then went smiling toward hands that reached out to touch, to welcome her.

  He got two drinks, but instead of taking hers to her, he stood at the edge of the crowd, gulping his own till the alcohol warmth flicked on and slowly spread, relaxing, comforting, till he felt no more out of place here than anywhere else.

  “Saw you come in with Beverly.”

  An older man with thinning hair and a supercilious smile introduced himself, but Dan responded in monosyllables, till the man excused himself and went toward a knot of people beneath a palm.

  Time went by. He had a couple more drinks, talked to an old lady who quizzed him about when the Navy was going to admit women. He told her he didn’t know, said he was only a lieutenant.

  Later he found himself in line at a buffet table, staring at Strishauser’s back. He touched it with his glass, and she winced and turned a displeased face. He stared blankly at her. Her face came back, concerned now. “Are you having fun?” she asked him. “Where did you go? I turned around and you were gone.”

  “You didn’t tell me this was going to be dressy.”

  “It’s not ‘dressy,’ Dan. The Densons came casual.”

  “Everybody I’ve seen’s been in a suit. I don’t know any of these people.”

  “You’ve met the host and hostess. And I know I introduced Tony and Bess, and Mrs. Chassen, Mr. Parkey … . There’s someone—isn’t he in the Navy? You could talk to him—”

  “He’s a rear admiral, Beverly.”

  “That sounds so funny … ‘rear’ admiral … . Well, does that mean you can’t speak to him? Why don’t you go down into the gallery after you have something to eat. Maybe you’ll like it better there.”

  He liked the gallery better. It was a basement, and the low overhead was arched and the floor old hand-laid brick. There was a band and he smelled pot smoke. He got a beer out of a tub of ice and cracked it, looking around at the art that covered the rough walls, and at the women. There were dozens of them talking, drinking, looking at the pictures and sculptures, which were on pedestals, in niches that must once have held candles or lamps. He leaned against the curved wall, thinking about women.

  The divorce had been like being released from prison, or from many prisons. The first was what they’d drilled into him in church: that women were chaste vessels to protect and worship. And against that was the way his father treated his mother: the shouting, the bullying, the beatings. And in some kind of weird rebellion, he’d built the last one himself: his self-imposed faithfulness to Susan.

  Betts had been the first girl he’d gone to bed with, and the only one till after the divorce. Closing his eyes, he saw her again … hair dark as oiled walnut … legs tanned dusky, breasts with a hint of saffron. Compared with her, other women still seemed oversized and hairy. Other men took advantage of being overseas. He never had. Instead, he’d done what he had to do; done it thinking about her, eyes fixed on her picture, pinned to the bunk above his. There hadn’t been much emphasis on chastity at the Academy, but there was on honor. And if a wedding vow wasn’t giving your word, then what was? Back then, he’d thought that if he did what was right, nothing bad could ever happen … .

  You fucking fool, he thought, draining his beer. Right or wrong didn’t make any difference. They fucked you one way or the other. His hands shook as he fished out another brew, cocked it, and put it to his head.

  Since then he’d become like everyone else. If you could get it, take it. And it seemed like you could. That changed everything, the heady prospect of sex with every woman you met.

  “Excuse me, friend, can I get to the beer?”

  He yanked his tie down and strolled through the rooms, drifting from picture to picture, looking over the women more than the art. They glanced back boldly or dropped their eyes; he imagined each naked. Then his eyes, flicking around the walls, suddenly froze.

  At first glance, it was crude, angular and stylized. But its misshapen figures huddled in the corners of blank white spaces conveyed alienation and fear. It looked like something drawn by a battered child. A short woman in a green dress was standing in front of it. He looked around, saw no Beverly, and walked over. “That’s quite a piece,” he said.

  When she looked up, he saw she was drunk, breasts falling out of her dress. Green velvet and soft white flesh, lost eyes that attracted him instantly. Flushed cheeks, a hand that trembled as it held a martini glass. Or maybe not drunk—she had a hand-rolled cigarette in one hand.

  “You like it?”

  “It’s grim.”

  “‘Grim’ is good. I like ‘grim.’ So you like it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “This.”

  He realized she meant the painting, and he looked at it with new eyes. “You’re an artist? This artist? Wow. You’re”—he leaned to read the signature—“S. Bond?”

  “Baird. Sibylla Baird. I was probably stoned when I signed it.” She chuckled and swayed. “I know who you are. Saw you with Beverly. I know Carl, her ex. Isn’t that his jacket?” She touched his lapel.

  “Uh-huh.” He looked at the painting again. The figures were childlike, stick trees, a round yellow sun with lines coming out of it, a corkscrew of smoke spiraling out the chimney of a house. But there was no comfort, only alienation and loneliness and horror. “It’s not fun to look at. But I can’t look away.”

  “You know why, don’t you? Because that’s the way you feel inside.”

  “I guess,” he said slowly, still staring at the stick figure in the corner. It was a child, he was pretty sure. “It makes me feel … like I did when my dad would come to beat me. I hid under the bed once. I thought it’d be too narrow for him to come in after me. But he just lifted up the whole bed and pulled me out from under it.”

  “You know what it reminds me of?”

  “No.”

  “Looking in the mirror when I was fourteen. Lying on the bed, with my stepfather fucking me from behind.”

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “I saw you by the beer tub. You looked like you wanted to kill somebody. Was that who you wanted to kill? Your father?”

  “I was thinking about my ex-wife.”

  “What did she do to you?”

  “It’s a long, boring story.”

  “She fucked somebody else. And you can’t forgive her.”

  “I pay too much alimony,” he said bitterly, looking away. Why was he telling her this?

  “If she fucked around, why does she get alimony?”

  “It was simpler no-fault. There’s a kid involved, my daughter.”

  “You do sound bitter. What about Beverly? Are you in love with her?”

  “No.”

  “Sleeping with her?”

  “I
don’t understand why you’re asking me all this stuff.”

  “You don’t screw and tell. That’s unusual. Interesting. A closemouthed type.”

  He looked down at her breasts, and she said, “They’re a lot bigger than hers. Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “Well … yeah.”

  “You ever read Erica Jong?”

  “No.”

  “She has a fantasy. A man she’s just met—she doesn’t even know his name. They have what she calls a ‘zipless fuck.’ Because there are no zippers, no buttons, everything just falls away. Do you have fantasies like that?”

  “I’m having one now.”

  “Oh my God. We have to do something about this.”

  She glanced around, then drifted toward the exit. He hesitated, looking after her. She didn’t look back, just went slowly up the steps, holding the wall for support.

  He followed her up, out into the garden.

  It was late now. The flambeaux were guttering low and the bar was empty except for elderly men. He followed the green shadow of her dress back and back, along a path between the live oaks, until it faded away into leafy, cricket-racketing blackness. His heart began to pound, making him feel breathless.

  For a moment, he wondered if he should turn back, find Beverly. Then anger and contempt for himself and her and the woman ahead, for everything human, made it impossible to look back. The world held no faithfulness. Why should his heart? Between the wandering beacons of fireflies, he staggered, hands extended, till they found her, leaning against something that glowed white in the starlight. His fingers tightened on her shoulders and she pulled his head down to kiss her.

  The white gridwork was a trellis. As he lifted green velvet, her outstretched arms twisted into it like ivy. A little later, it began to shake, raining down fragrant petals in the warm and windless night.

  7

  Dorchester County, South Carolina

  IN the night, the highway rolled down across the flat land like a concrete river, leaping impatiently over the narrow country roads with immense wide-legged overpasses. Straight as a ray of light, paved with moving light, the interstate arrowed down from Washington, Richmond, Fayetteville, Florence on its way to the cities of the south. Along it in the darkness roared a torrent of metal a hundred yards wide. Each driver intent only on the vehicle ahead, the trucks and cars and huge tractor-trailers bored blindly past the pine forests and palmetto swamps around and beneath them, as if they had moved beyond the need for anything but the next fuel stop, the next rest stop, the next Exxon or Days Inn or McDonald’s.

  On a forest road not far from an exit, a dark-colored car rolled quietly, lights off, to a halt along the berm. Its tires whispered on sandy soil just past a curve, engine murmuring beneath the black masses of the tall straight pines.

  The door swung open to admit a windless heat. Footsteps hissed through pine needles, kicked aside the cones that littered the road.

  The beam of a flashlight stabbed out under the stars. It touched the rusting shell of a gas pump, gleamed off the shattered windows and sagging tin roof of a long-abandoned service station. Swept around, then steadied on the reflective letters it pulled out of the dark ahead.

  The call of an owl, the chirp of peepers were joined by the faint hollow shriek of thin metal being penetrated.

  The figure moved back, and a momentary burst of light illuminated an empty Dr. Pepper can impaled on the post of a bullet-punctured NO HUNTING sign. A moment later, the note of the engine rose. The car lurched back onto the pavement and moved off, headlights flashing on a few hundred yards away.

  Half an hour later, another set of lights separated themselves from the stream of southbound traffic. They swept down the off ramp, hesitated at a crossroads, then turned left. They probed into the forest, pausing occasionally as the driver flicked on a courtesy light and consulted a map or checked his watch. At last, they rounded the curve. They swept over the abandoned building, the sign, the bent can. Then, as the first car had, the second rolled to a halt.

  The driver, a large, heavy man, got out hurriedly. Despite the heat, he wore a dark overcoat and a hat. He ran back to the sign, lumbering through the undergrowth that bordered the woods. Sweetbrier and blackberry thorn cut at the legs of his trousers.

  Then he stopped. He looked searchingly for several seconds into the shadows of the trees, wiped sweat from his face with the sleeve of his coat.

  Finally, he decided. Reaching up, he seized the can, crumpled it with a powerful grip, and thrust it deep into a pocket. He bent and groped around at the base of the signpost.

  Returning to the sedan, he unlocked the trunk. The sudden brilliance of the interior light made him squint. Under it, in the clean empty trunk of the rented car, lay a plastic trash bag, full and taped shut. He jerked it out and laid in its place the neatly wrapped package he’d just retrieved, then slammed the trunk closed and ran back to the sign. Bending, he nestled the bag carefully against the base of the metal post, then brushed the tall grass up to conceal it.

  Straightening, he peered around again, listened to the strange creak and whirr of hidden insects from the darkness. He wiped his face once more, then pushed himself back into motion, back to the car.

  When the growl of its engine faded, the woods lay in silence and darkness for an hour. No other vehicle passed. An owl hooted occasionally, questioningly, and a faint wind began to ghost through the treetops.

  Then the first car returned, this time with headlights on. It passed the curve and the abandoned shack. Its lights steadied on the sign. The brakes locked and the tires skidded a few feet in the soft sandy ground.

  The door made a soft thud as it opened, creaked faintly on its hinge, coming to rest; then it creaked again and closed with an echoing slam.

  The car moved off. It made a sharp right at the next road, then a three-point turn. It doubled back and made two more abrupt turns before passing beneath Route 95, heading east.

  THE rental car was thirty miles to the north before it turned off the interstate at a roadside rest outside Manning. The man in the overcoat carefully slit the masking tape and peeled the white wrapping back from the stack of paper beneath.

  The topmost sheet—a photocopy, but perfectly legible—was labeled TOP SECRET. SPECIAL CATEGORY. Along the left margin was a list of dates, one line for each day of the month. The rest of the sheet consisted of column after column of numbers, closely ranked.

  The heavy man nodded slowly, as if satisfied, but no hint of a smile touched his mouth.

  THE other car doubled back and made two more abrupt turns before passing beneath Route 95, heading east. A mile farther on, it crossed a state highway. At this point, it swung off the road, losing itself in the crowded parking lot of a truck stop.

  Walled in, surrounded by trucks and vans, its driver tore open the green plastic membrane of the trash bag with an eager swift motion. In the dim yellow glow of the lot’s lights, empty bottles, soda cans, candy wrappers spilled out onto the seat. But the bottles had been washed and carefully recapped and the wrappers were clean, free of food detritus. Beneath them was a brown paperwrapped bundle. As a tank truck snorted and grunted past, his hands hovered for a moment over it, then tore down one side, revealing the green-gray edges of a stack of currency. He ran a thumbnail down it, as if preparing to cut a deck of cards. Fifties and hundreds—all used.

  There were four more identical stacks in the bag, each wrapped the same way. He didn’t open these, just pushed them aside. One fell off the seat onto the floor. Beneath it was a floppy disk in a white paper jacket—unlabeled, unmarked.

  As if it could be read by sight, the driver held it up, peering at it in the dim light filtering through the windows.

  A few minutes later, the seat had been cleaned up. The bottles and cans lay at the bottom of a Dumpster at the truck stop. The disk and the bundles of cash lay locked in the glove compartment. The jeep swung out of the lot, flicked on its lights again, and pulled up at last onto the road that led
back to Charleston.

  8

  Alcorcón, Cuba

  THE windless night spread over the land, turning the stars to shimmery blurs. Voices murmured from rectangles of yellow light as men and women squatted on the stoops of bohíos. From the dark around them came the endless vibrating song of insects, the tapping of a bongó, the far-off roar of the generator at the central.

  Graciela listened to the summer night as she sat beside the pallet where her husband lay. Three flies circled under the bare electric lights. They landed in turn on the table, the floor, the sleeping man. When they brushed his face or hers, she moved a hand abruptly and the buzzing resumed, endless, thoughtless, a mindless futile searching through the dark.

  She’d nursed him since the night Miguelito led him home across the fields. For the first two days, she’d stayed in, but on the third she’d been forced to act by the realization they had nothing more to eat. The tin box was empty; the rice sack hung limp from its nail; the last malanga had been boiled. She’d dressed him, then helped him up. Armando didn’t walk well. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t see; he couldn’t make his legs go the way they had to. He’d leaned on her arm as he had on Miguelito’s. She cut him a stick to grip, and together, with many pauses to rest, they’d walked the dusty road down to the central.

  Cooperative Number 176 had its own dispensary, actually one room in the long steel-roofed building that held the offices. She took him there first, signed him in, and told him to wait until the médico came in.