Stillness & Shadows

by John Gardner

“Brothers?” Craine exclaimed.

  The inspector looked uneasy and hurried back to his subject. “You have no idea what it is you’re suppressing?” he asked, “—what it is you feel guilty about?”

  “None,” Craine said wearily, and. smiled.

  The waiter appeared at the curtain.

  “Whiskey here,” McClaren said. He glanced at Craine’s cup. “And more coffee—with cream. A little Scotch in it.” He leaned toward Craine. “This is on me, Gerald. You keep what’s in the bottle.” He smiled like a mother, head tipped.

  “Thank you,” Craine said. “Thank you very much!”

  The waiter disappeared.

  “I imagine you saw the movie The Seven Percent Solution?” McClaren said. “Excellent movie. Very good acting in it.”

  “Yes I did,” Craine said. He hadn’t, in fact. For that matter, he’d never seen Columbo on TV. “It was excellent. I thought the acting was very very good.” Instantly he saw he’d again gone too far. McClaren was smiling, far back in his chair, his smoky blue eyes murderous. The darkness of his blush was alarming.

  “You take us all for fools, don’t you, Craine,” he said. “The police, I mean. Perhaps because few of us read books about Sanskrit.”

  Few of us, Craine thought. McClaren too had put wonderful energy into becoming what he’d become. Guilt flooded through him, the kind of guilt he felt, at times, with Carnac. (He glanced at his watch and saw that it had started again, though it was still, of course, behind.) Mock all he liked—and mockery was Craine’s nature; a serious fault, he admitted it—the inspector had a good deal invested in that ludicrous image of his, the genteel, all-knowing professor who almost without thinking could talk like The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Who was he, Craine, to make light of it? All the while Craine was thinking this, something else was happening, and now, suddenly, he came awake to it. Inspector McClaren was whispering, his lips slightly parted, not visibly moving, I’ll get you, you cocky little son of a bitch. You’ll make your mistake, taking us for fools, you’ll steal somebody’s money, or you’ll kill some poor bastard, and I’ll be down on your little white ass like a duck on a daisy! Craine jerked so badly that the coffee remaining in his cup splashed all over him. McClaren jerked too, first forward, as if instinctively defending himself, then back, almost knocking his chair over, getting out of the way.

  “Shit!” Craine exclaimed. He hit the table with the flat of his hand.

  “Jesus, Craine,” Inspector McClaren said, trembling.

  The waiter appeared, wide-eyed, hurrying toward the table with the coffee.

  “They told me you were crazy,” the inspector said, “but I must say, you outdo yourself!”

  “It’s the liquor,” Craine said. “Bane of my existence!”

  “I can see that. You should check into a hospital!” He was wiping his lapels with both hands. Craine glanced at his watch.

  Now the waiter was mopping up the table with a cloth from the bar. “It’s all right,” he said, laughing. “Everybody spill things.” When he finished he went to the bar for the inspector’s whiskey.

  “Actually,” Craine said, “I haven’t read the book on Sanskrit myself. I just got it.”

  McClaren, still wiping his lapels, looked at him as if it was the craziest thing he’d said yet.

  “I did read a page or two, at the bookstore, before I bought it.” The image of Two-heads Carnac rose up in his mind, then the airplane with the eye on it, and he shuddered.

  McClaren studied him, his left hand mechanically going out to take the whiskey from the waiter. Graceful as a dancer’s, the hand brought the glass directly to the inspector’s mouth. The mouth opened and drank. The waiter poured Scotch into Craine’s coffee, then backed away and, in a moment, was gone.

  “It’s an Aryan language,” Craine said soberly. Absentmindedly he reached out to open the sack, uncap his own Scotch, and pour in more.

  “The Vedic priests did an interesting thing. They analyzed the sounds in Sanskrit with a kind of mechanical contraption, a little brass plate with grains of sand on it. They discovered that each sound made a different kind of pattern in the sand—an o makes a circle, for instance—and they revised the sounds until the patterns corresponded, or so they believed, to the fundamental forces in the universe. This was in 58 B.C.”

  McClaren stared at him.

  “How they knew the fundamental forces, I’m not sure. But in any case—” It occurred to him that McClaren was right; he was crazy as a loon. It wasn’t news, but it made him uneasy. He noticed he had the cap of the Scotch bottle in his hand—he couldn’t remember how it had gotten there—and carefully, trying not to shake too badly, he reached to the bottle and, after a moment, got the cap back on. He twisted the sack shut, his chest full of guilt for no conceivable reason, as if he’d mocked and scorned not just McClaren, but others more important somehow, perhaps the person who’d stood watching him from the stacks at Tully’s bookstore (only the skin on the back of Craine’s neck remembered it with absolute clarity). “As for the trouble I have with my memory, it’s an interesting question,” he said, “you’re right. I’ve wondered about it myself, to tell the truth.”

  As he spoke, a strange thing happened. Neck hairs a-tingle, he got a flash image of his aunt Harriet in her coffin. A single frame—maybe two or three—as the people who make movies say. (He’d read articles on the subject.) She looked serene, a wax figure. Beneath the closed lids, he knew, the pale blue eyes were staring. The memory stirred no particular emotion, or none beyond his surprise and alarm at remembering. He had a feeling that if he concentrated, he might remember something more. His fingers shrank inward, making fists.

  McClaren was uneasy, restless. He was watching himself in the mirror beside their table, image of himself a split second ago, removed from him forever, locked behind the glass. (Craine thought of mentioning it, then decided he’d better not.) “Language is an interesting thing,” Craine said “There are some who maintain that we’re imprisoned inside it. I have a neighbor, a poet, who’s very troubled by that idea.”

  “You remember him, then?” McClaren asked.

  “Dimly.” Craine smiled and opened his hands as if to show he was unarmed. He must remember to think about why McClaren was so angry.

  McClaren drank, glanced down at his watch.

  “Time Lost Can Ne’er Be Recaptured,” Craine said and smiled again.

  And now for a second time (so far as Craine was aware) a brief memory flamed up in him, so powerful it made his hands shake. He was a child in his room at his aunt Harriet’s house, looking up at a picture on the wall, an engraving of the sphinx. It stared out horribly—such was his impression—at miles and miles of desert. Did it follow that Eternity lost could ne’r be recaptured? He reached into his inside coat pocket for his pencil and a scrap of paper, laid the paper on the table—there was something written on it already—and jotted down his question on the edge of it.

  “Something’s occurred to you?” McClaren said, distant.

  Craine raised the paper and pretended to read it. “Remember to pick up laundry.” He folded the paper and put it, with the pencil stub, back into his pocket.

  For a full minute they sat in silence, Craine listening to the stillness, thinking nothing whatsoever, as far as he was aware, the inspector staring into his glass. At last, thoughtful, the inspector looked up. “That boy you were chasing on the street. You say he was tailing you?”

  “Actually,” Craine said, “I believe he was a sexual molester.”

  “Ah?”

  There’s no lower form of life,” Craine said. His hands began to shake again as he got into it. “Vermin!” he said. “Filth! Hanging’s too good for them!”

  Nobody hangs people in Illinois,” McClaren said. “At least not legally.”

  “They’re fiends incarnate,” Craine said, and showed his teeth. “They follow some girl into some dim, dark alley, or they lurk in department store dressing rooms—”

  McClare
n tipped his dome, writing invisible letters with one finger on the tabletop. “Does it ever occur to you,” he asked softly, thoughtfully, “that this lunatic act you do might get out of hand?”

  “Detective, I kiss you on the lips,” Craine said.

  Detective Inspector McClaren blushed deeply, and once again, for an instant, his eyes showed rage. That moment, the front door of the restaurant opened, throwing light along the floor. A figure came in, closed the door, and stood adjusting itself to the darkness. McClaren turned in his seat to see who it was. “Sergeant Eggers,” he called; “You looking for me?”

  “Ah, there you are!” the man called back, waving both arms in a broad, slow gesture like flying. He groped his way toward them, taking off the police cap as he came. Craine hunted through his pockets for a matchbook, carefully not spilling any papers this time, then, when at last he’d found his matches, poked down the dottle in his pipe with one finger and lit it.

  “Have a seat,” McClaren said. “You want coffee? Hit the bell.” He pointed toward the service bell on the bar.

  “No, thanks,” Eggers said, “just got through with a cup. H’lo there, Craine.” He took a chair from the table across from them and drew it up.

  “Afternoon, Sergeant,” Craine said. He looked for an ashtray for the match, then laid it neatly on the table, lined up with his book.

  “You feeling all right these days?” Eggers asked. He seated himself and laid his hands, pointing inward, on the fat of his upper legs. “I heard you were away at some cancer clinic.”

  Cancer?” McClaren said, reproving, as if Craine had held out on him.

  “Well, there’s some rottenness in all of us,” Craine said.

  “Amen,” Eggers said, his tone so serious that Inspector McClaren glanced at him.

  “Sergeant Eggers is a born-again Christian,” Craine explained. He blew out smoke.

  Eggers smiled, lowering his eyelids modestly. He had a button chin, bright cheeks, ears that stuck out like sugar bowl handles. “Well—” he said.

  Now McClaren was watching Craine again. “This cancer,” he said, “what kind was it?”

  “Colon,” Craine said. “Pain in the ass, believe me.” He cackled. The others didn’t smile.

  “They got it all out?”

  For no reason, Craine cackled again, playing madman. “Clean as a whistle,” he said. “It makes a feller think, though, I’ll tell you that!”

  McClaren studied him. “I imagine so.” After a moment, he drew the horn-rimmed glasses partway off. “You must think I’m a pretty insensitive person, getting over you that way, at a time when … I assure you, I had no idea.”

  “On the contrary,” Craine said, waving it off. “You’d be surprised how seldom you get a chance to work ontological time into the conversation.” McClaren laughed politely, eyes snapping. Eggers looked at him, hoping to be let in.

  Craine’s cup was empty. He put down the pipe and poured in Scotch from his bottle.

  “That stuff good for you?” Eggers said.

  “Drives away the horrors,” Craine said, and winked. He pushed the whiskey sack toward Eggers. “Have some?”

  Eggers shook his head, distressed.

  McClaren was thinking again. “That boy you say was following you,” he said.

  “The pervert.”

  McClaren let it pass. “Has he been following you long?”

  “You think it’s paranoia?” Craine said, wobbling the cup two-handed toward his lips. He drank, then set the cup down, almost empty.

  “Somebody’s been following you?” Eggers said, eyes widening.

  “Everywhere I go,” Craine said. He made his face mock-cunning, playing crazy again; he knew himself that he was overdoing it, tipping his hand.

  Foolishly, drunkenly, kicking himself as he did it, he pushed on. “Everywhere!” he said, throwing his hands up, crazier than Two-heads Carnac.

  “Above me, below me, behind me,” he raved. “Eyes on me! Watching me!” That instant, he felt those hostile, sullen eyes again, as he had in the bookstore and on the street. He was shocked and for some reason filled with shame, as if he’d betrayed someone, horribly and crudely. So the eyes maintained. In fact they said something …He tried to think clearly, stepping back from the part of him that raved. Suddenly, conjured up from God knew where, he saw again—more clearly than before—the small, round, female face with the clipped, Egyptian-looking beard. The eyes, just perceptibly slanted, were large and dark, soulful as a doe’s, yet baffling; dangerous.

  “It’s the Lord,” Eggers said, simply, directly, with such authority that, though he knew the idea was ridiculous, Craine jumped. He found himself leaning forward as if eagerly—McClaren watching him—Craine’s eyes hungrily searching the sergeant’s plump face. “I had that, before I was saved,” Eggers said. He brought his lips together, slightly trembling, then looked down, embarrassed.

  “I doubt that Gerald will believe that’s his problem,” Inspector McClaren said. “He doesn’t strike me as a religious type.”

  “Ah, but I am!” Craine said, “—that is, I was once.” Vividly, he saw himself in the choir at his aunt Harriet’s church. A touch of nausea swept through him. Something quite incredible was happening to his mind: in a rapid succession of vivid images—as if the walls were cracking, letting in light, or some healer had lifted the scales from his eyes—he saw himself going through museums with his aunt, saw himself riding in a bus of some kind—he was very young, dressed in dark blue short pants, a stack of books on his knees. “Gerald?” his aunt said, right behind his chair.

  “Excuse me, where’s the rest room?” Craine said, pitching forward.

  McClaren looked around the room in alarm, at the same time reaching out, touching Craine’s shoulder. “Through there, I think.” He pointed toward the curtain.

  Craine got up quickly, unsteadily, clenching against the force in his unpredictable bowels, and hurried toward the curtain. He found himself in a grimy hallway, the kitchen at the far end of it. The rest rooms sign was halfway down the hall. He got his pants down and his seat over the toilet just in time. An explosion, a ringing in his chest like sorrow, a brief, sharp pain behind the star-shaped red gouge where his colostomy bag had hung, and he was better. He sat forward over his knees, straining, his head pounding furiously, then reached for the toilet paper. The image or vision, whatever it had been, was gone now, vanished from every cranny and closet of his mind. His past was gone too, as if fallen to the center of the earth.

  When he returned to the table, Sergeant Eggers and Detective Inspector McClaren were standing, getting ready to leave. They were talking about a poker game, apparently one not yet played, for which McClaren had high hopes. He broke off when he saw that Craine was listening. “Everything all right, Gerald?” McClaren asked.

  “Wonderful,” Craine said. He picked up his pipe from the table and put it into his pocket.

  “If you wanted to come to … one of our prayer meetings.…” Sergeant Eggers aimed his eyes above Craine’s hat.

  “Thank you very much,” Craine said. “Thank you.”

  McClaren was looking at his watch again. He’d put money on the table, though the waiter had brought no check. “It’s been a pleasure getting to know you,” he said. “Can I drop you off someplace?”

  “No, I’m heading for my office,” Craine said, and reached across the table for the whiskey sack. It occurred to him that he’d forgotten to get lunch. McClaren came toward him. Too late, Craine realized that the hand was coming for his crazybone again.

  “Well, take care of yourself,” McClaren said, and grinned. He gave the crazybone a squeeze, then drew his hand back.

  “I’ll do that. Thank you very much.” He moved with them toward the door. Somehow he bumped a table, and the soy sauce went over the edge and thumped on the rug. Eggers stopped quickly to pick it up, looking sheepish as if he’d knocked it off himself. “It jumped me,” Craine explained, pointing to the table with his whiskey sack. “You have
to keep watching every minute.”

  They smiled politely.

  “Most people don’t realize how much things move in this world, ” Craine said. “They don’t mean to make trouble, I recognize that. But you know how it is, things get boring for them.”

  Now McClaren had the door open. Eggers put on his cap, one hand in front, one in back, getting it just right.

  “You think it’s the Lord, eh?” Craine said, “—hounding me for my sins?”

  Eggers smiled vaguely, slightly hurt.

  It occurred to Craine that he couldn’t go out there, not yet. Where the sun hit the chrome on the cars along the street, it was like looking at the light of a welding torch. And there was, of course, that other problem. Whoever it was would be waiting—standing on the sidewalk opposite, perhaps, reading a book, waiting as if all eternity were not too long. Book! he thought, and looked down. He had the whiskey sack in one hand; the other hand was empty. “I forgot my book,” he cried. “It’s back there on the table.”

  “Well—” Eggers said.

  McClaren tipped his dome and half-smiled, solemn. “I’m glad I ran into you,” he said. He raised his hand to touch the side of his glasses. “Drop by the office sometime. We’ll do this again.”

  “Yes, good,” Craine said. “Thank you very much.” He willed them out the door, and at last, when the door swung shut behind them, he turned quickly, furtively, and went back for his book.

  “Worried?” someone said. He started violently, raising his hands in self-defense. In the chair opposite the book, where McClaren had been sitting, sat a large gray cat, one paw extended toward the table. “Worried? ” the cat said again, pretending to yawn, watching him ironically.

  Cautiously, Craine reached for his book and slid it across the table toward his belly. “Of course not,” he hissed. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  But the cat was onto him.

  Three

  In his dingy, grim-walled hotel room that evening, Craine sat motionless, breathing shallowly, like an invalid trying to make out whether he’s better or worse. He’d come to that familiar part of the day when healthy, happy men pause for a moment, relax with a beer, and look out over their lawns, their children’s bicycles, the new Toyota wagon, taking stock; a time men like Craine spend carefully not thinking, drinking whiskey and smoking strong tobacco without a flicker of thought about cancer or heart attack, since they’ve been drinking and smoking for six, seven hours now, and if they’re going to stop—as perhaps they will, who knows what will happen from one day to the next?—they can stop tomorrow, first thing in the morning, which is still a long way off. Despite the day’s unsettling events—not that much worse than any other day’s, he could see now, putting it all in perspective—his situation was not yet critical. What one had to bear in mind, he thought, gesturing with his pipe stem as if to an audience in the street below, was that (McClaren was right) when the mind plays tricks, it has reasons. His face began to twist like the face of a State’s Attorney conducting a difficult trial. In the end, of course, there could be only one reason—not drink, overwork, even loss of conviction; all those were mere evasions of the bottom line: psychological pain. Craine nodded, a movement so slight that only the sharpest eye could have caught it in the mottled dusk. So the question was, he thought, his face twisting more, what was he doing, unbeknownst to himself—what was he doing that he hadn’t been doing for the past twenty years—that was causing psychological pain? Craine pursed his lips to a sudden small O and stared blankly, eyes slightly widened, as if some fool, some irrumpent stranger, had broken in on his thoughts to raise the question. He frowned, trembling, pretending to consider, then cleared his throat, relit his pipe, and looked down at his book.