by Ward Just
Ned had not eaten lunch and his stomach was hollow. He lit a cigarette and stood leaning against the fence gate. The cemetery was untended. Most of the gravestones were atilt in the soft earth. They were gravestones made of marble or granite. He remembered that the stonecutter lived in Mill City. He had the reputation of a fine craftsman. There were a few monuments five or six feet tall, the banker’s family and lawyers and the surgeon. The haberdasher. They were mostly clustered in one section, along with his father and mother and Uncle Ralph. Off to the rear many of the gravestones dated from the nineteenth century. Two tornadoes in April of 1876 killed a score of residents and injured many more. The tornadoes came out of nowhere, sudden as a cloudburst. Black April they called it. The graves were overgrown with weeds and thickets of bramble. Crushed cigarette butts were scattered here and there, some of them of recent vintage. Bottles and beer cans were part of the litter. So this was where the boys and girls of Herman assembled at night, as they had done for decades. Ned remembered it well. Probably if he looked hard enough he could find a used condom or two or three. Rare in his day, not so rare now. However, he had no particular desire to scavenge used condoms.
He found the three graves of his family without difficulty. They looked a century old and without ornament of any kind, only the names and dates and a decayed flowerpot. The names and dates were still legible. Ned said silent prayers for his parents and for Uncle Ralph, different prayers but with a common blessing. Godspeed. He gathered a few loose rocks and placed them atop the gravestones. Now that he was here, he was glad he had come. He expressed hope that these dead were together and content. Ralph with his war stories, his mother’s teasing, his father’s laugh, and then he remembered their quarrels. The judge was quarrelsome, and only his Ollie could tame him when his moods ran amok. At dinner on election night, 1960, she announced that she had voted for the Irishman. Oh, my God, Eric Ayres said. You couldn’t’ve. Not that! That wretched father, bootlegger and skirt chaser, tried to buy the election—
Ollie stood up and said, a little jump to her voice, I voted for him because he is beautiful! And the other one isn’t.
Ned bent to brush twigs off the gravestones, then noticed the cobwebs at the base. He moved them aside with the toe of his shoe, scattering the long-legged spiders, filthy insects. He crushed a few and ground them into the dirt. He thought there was something precarious about the gravestones and the mostly forgotten souls beneath the earth. His father had bought a plot for him, too, without saying anything about it. The only mention of it was in the old man’s will. So somewhere in the vicinity was his own resting place, an eternity of Uncle Ralph’s war stories, his father’s certitudes, and his mother’s merry laugh. But Ned had the idea he would buy space in Rock Creek Park, perhaps invite some friends to join him when the time came. At least Rock Creek Park was well tended. There would always be the possibility that some stranger would happen by and remark, Ned Ayres, wasn’t he the editor of the paper? My goodness, he had a long life! Ned laughed out loud at that. At the far corner of this cemetery was a shack for tools, but the shack looked derelict. Ned pulled at the brambles surrounding the three graves but they would not yield, stiff as barbed wire. Ned Ayres stood quietly a moment, wondering how the cemetery could be allowed to deteriorate in this way. He reached to collect a few of the cigarette packs and empty bottles. He put them aside. It was criminal, really, the disorder. No doubt the reason was that Herman was broke.
Ned stood at the graves a long while. He knew this was the last time he would visit. Herman was so out of the way. He backed off and checked his wristwatch, late afternoon, rain in the air. Dusk was coming in a rush. His stomach growled and he thought of dinner somewhere, a drink and a fat sirloin. He wondered where he would spend the night. Not Herman. There were no hotels in Herman. Neither did he wish a meal at the taberna, an addition since his time. He supposed there was an immigrant community, refugees from Mexico or Puerto Rico. Good luck to them. Probably to the immigrants Herman was a paradise: the taberna, a school system, houses selling for a song. The rule of law, more or less. He wondered if, when the immigrants began to die, someone would take charge of the cemetery. In the meantime there was a decent hotel in Muncie and good restaurants and only an hour or so away. Ned turned his back to the graves and walked out of the cemetery, hurrying now, saying one more silent prayer that surely would be heard by someone.
He paused on the way out of town, pulling off the road in order to look again at the nursing home high on its hill, gradually disappearing piece by piece in the gathering darkness. In that aqueous light the Everett had the aspect of a prison long abandoned, lifeless, diminishing as he looked at it. Why had he come here? There was nothing for him in Herman. Herman represented past time and Ned Ayres had always looked to the future, tomorrow’s newspaper, the promise of things. But—this was the future, wasn’t it? This wasn’t yesterday. It was tomorrow. His throat filled up. Shadows embraced the Everett until it was lost to view.
Three
Elaine
THE DREAM ARRIVED fully formed at two a.m. on a Sunday morning. He knew the time because the little clock in his living room chimed softly twice. He was in a familiar neighborhood, either Herman or Indianapolis. Ned was standing on the sidewalk of a residential street, massive houses with outsized windows and enormous oaks in the front yards. There were pedestrians, too, also outsized, giants almost, even the women. They moved cautiously to and fro as if they had no fixed destination. They were not threatening but not benign either. Ned decided at once that what he saw was more hallucination than dream. He watched events unfold behind his eyelids, as on a movie screen. He was awake in a world of his own making. The sky was purplish. Heavy clouds gathered above the hills back of the houses and soon it was raining, heavy drops the size of marbles. They rolled off the pavement and into the gutter, causing a racket, the rustling of linen bedsheets. He understood suddenly that this was a Chicago neighborhood not far from his office. The rain ceased. The pedestrians vanished, all but a lone figure in a double-breasted blue serge suit who raised his hand in a gesture of farewell. Then he disappeared, leaving Ned alone on the sidewalk of the unfamiliar neighborhood for which he was somehow responsible. Ned was fully awake now and frightened. He felt himself imprisoned in the bed. On the corner ahead was a newsboy delivering papers, and then he, too, vanished. Beside Ned, someone stirred and murmured something incoherent but evidently an endearment. Whoa, he thought. Whoa. He was unable to open his eyes. The rain turned to drizzle.
Extra! the newsboy called from somewhere out of sight. Extra!
The woman beside him said, Shhh.
The clock chimed once again, three times.
Then Ned was asleep and dreaming, though the next morning he could not recount the dream. He tried and tried with no success. He knew it was nothing like the hallucination, which was easy to recall, each frame of the film. He wrote it down later on, one for the archives. Still, it made no sense to him, and when he tried to tell Elaine, it made no sense to her. Forget it, she said. But he had already written it down. Something so strange was worth keeping. Perhaps there was an omen in it somewhere, a key to the future.
Whyever would you want a key to the future? Elaine said.
He said, Maybe I have no choice.
You always have a choice, Elaine said. What nonsense.
Later that morning they took a walk along the lake. The day was mild. A breeze had come up from the west, ruffling the lake waters. They were each preoccupied with their own thoughts, Ned Ayres with his midnight hallucination, Elaine Ardmore with her doubts about Ned. Now and again Ned would make an observation, an ore boat far out on the horizon, probably bound for Gary. A sentence, then he was quiet. Elaine was not certain she could make a life with this Ned, who had recently informed her that he had had a cot installed in his office at the paper, the better to supervise his staff, unruly at all times. Every few days there was a late-night story, a gangbang or a fire. Fires were common, except for the one last
Thursday that had killed fifteen children and the three nuns who were in charge. His staff had mishandled the story and in the confusion no one had notified the managing editor. That was Ned. He was determined to set things right on day two and days three, four, and five. Elaine did not see him for a week. He seemed to her obsessed with news, bringing to it a passion that properly belonged elsewhere. Her own self, for example. A hurried telephone call from an exhausted Ned. Distant, preoccupied. At such a time Elaine was not even second fiddle. She was a near-anonymous musician in the back row of the orchestra. With him, she had decided, it was more than ambition. It was a kind of lust, a days-long preoccupation. He was fascinated by the thing itself, news. As for his hallucination, any numbskull could figure that out. The man in the double-breasted blue suit was Dad, an admonishment. The judge doing what he did best, making a ruling. Adjudicating. Judging. Elaine sighed. It was so darned transparent. Ned’s life was transparent generally, even the hallucinations, which made it visible if not entirely comprehensible. He did love her and told her so. She believed him. He was faithful to her and considerate—when he was not sleeping on his cot in the newsroom, chasing commas. Better commas than the interns. He did seem to have no other life outside the newsroom, its news and intrigues, its relentless—one might say remorseless—competition with the other papers in town. She went with him to the Christmas party and he was good with her, introducing her to the other editors and reporters, the publisher. Everyone was drinking and most of them were frankly drunk, hilarious in the fluorescent glow of the newsroom, the interns, too. Everyone was polite, but in their manner Elaine saw that she was an outsider and would always be an outsider. Could you make a marriage with one an insider and the other an outsider? Since Ned would always have another life?
And she herself was adrift so far as employment was concerned. More than anything she wanted to travel, Europe first, then Asia. In school she excelled in geography and botany, but where did that lead? She did not wish to teach. She did wish to see the Alps and the Mekong Delta, Surabaya and Cape Town. When she described these places to Ned, he looked at her blankly. Most men did. How did you earn a living in Surabaya? It was awkward for her to explain that she had money, via a salty grandmother, recently deceased. Elaine was Gamma’s favorite. Gamma left her a trust that would take her around the world nine times if that was what she wanted. Spend the money, El. Let it sit and it’ll begin to rot like tomatoes. The trouble with American girls is that they don’t know geography and have no desire to learn. You will be different. You will travel the known world and that will lead you to the unknown world where you will meet a fabulous gentleman of means. Perhaps slightly older, a man of the world without bad habits. A man who holds his liquor. These days, you only find them abroad. Be careful of your virginity, El. You can lose it. But make sure it’s a good moment to do so. You will have a life I never had. Do take my advice. It’s hard-won, El. Elaine was much tempted, wondering now if Ned would be there when she returned. Of course he would. Where else would he go? But after seeing the world, would she want to return to Chicago? And if she did, would she want Ned Ayres? Elaine looked sideways at him, so lost in thought. His mouth was moving, talking to himself again. He made no sound. His eyes were narrowed, squinting. He took her hand, pausing a moment to inspect the boats in the inner harbor, rocking gently in the breeze. The lake was vacant, odd because the day was fine. Elaine wondered why none of the boats were out and about. And then she saw a small cabin cruiser slip its mooring and motor slowly to the mouth of the harbor. Elaine saw Ned steal a look at his wristwatch. His stealth irritated her.
Ned watched the boat and its helmsman head to open water.
He said, Maybe we should take up a sport together. Tennis, golf.
She said, What about daggers?
Fencing? We could do fencing. It’s dangerous, though.
And when would we have time for that, given your busy, busy schedule?
They walked on. The cabin cruiser gathered speed, turning to starboard, heading east and soon lost to view. Ahead of them were sharp reports, shotgun rounds from the skeet shooters at the Lincoln Park Gun Club. They were shooting doubles, bang-bang. Ned reminded her that the gun club champion was a woman. They could see her now, beautifully turned out in khaki trousers and vest, black boots, a man’s fedora, chamois gloves, and Ray-Bans with amber lenses. One of the men said something to her and she laughed, but not before she had scored another double, bang-bang.
Elaine said, Maybe that’s our sport, shotguns at fifty paces.
Ned did not reply, listening instead to the siren of a police prowler. He thought to himself that it sounded like a skirmish, the siren and the shotgun reports. He had an idea that Sports should do something on the gun club and the woman champion. The sports pages lacked women. He made a mental note to talk to the sports editor, who would disapprove but was attentive to Ned’s suggestions. Instruction was more like it.
He said, Can we turn around? I have to get back to the office.
On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, Elaine said.
Yes, but after Saturday comes Sunday, and that’s the big paper, right? Fat with news. Our bestseller.
Right, she said.
The one that pays the rent. Sunday.
You bet, she said.
He glanced at his watch again and said, Sorry.
Do you know the woman in the amber glasses?
I’ve met her once or twice.
Is she fun?
I guess so. I guess she’s fun. She’s a hell of a good shot.
Well, that would make the difference.
Come on, Elaine, let’s go back.
I’ll be leaving tomorrow, she said.
Where are you going? This is sudden.
I’m going to visit my father.
Your father’s in Italy.
True enough. I haven’t seen him in ages.
But we have plans for Sunday night. You’ve forgotten—
I haven’t forgotten.
—the symphony.
The symphony will be there when I return.
And when will that be?
Who knows, Ned. It’s pretty much open-ended as things stand now.
He opened his mouth to say something more, then didn’t. He was damned if he was going to plead with her. Instead, he shook his head and looked at his watch.
Will you stop looking at the time. Just stop it.
I’m late.
Catch a cab.
I’ll see you at home, he said.
Or not, she said.
Or not, he agreed.
A combustible conversation, anyone would agree. It did seem to Ned Ayres that it came from nowhere. Probably it began with his crack about paying the rent. She disliked talking about money, a matter of upbringing. It was normal for her to trash the symphony tickets and fly to Capri where her father lived. Then his pride became involved. She seemed to want him on bended knee, and that wasn’t the way things worked. He would not ask her for permission. She seemed to be asking him to choose between her and his work. She wasn’t beautiful when she was mad, either, her mouth a thin line and her eyes hard as marbles. At another time he might have turned her head with a joke, but not this time. He thought that at some level Elaine did not understand his work or even know what it was, the craft of editing. What it meant to be in charge, the way readers depended on a reliable newspaper, a product you could trust. It wasn’t a Holy Grail or the Nobel Peace Prize and the occasional blunder was built into the job. So the editor cited the blunder, apologized for it, and got on with the job. Ned had fallen for her in part because she knew nothing of his work. His shop talk stopped at the office, pretty much. Occasionally he would call her attention to a particularly smart piece of work. She would read it with apparent pleasure, then set it aside without comment and return to whatever she was doing. He was not certain she valued what he did. She preferred the radio, the music and the talk.
This time he was only reminding her that he had to go to the offic
e, as working people did in order to earn a living. It seemed that Capri had trumped Anton Bruckner. The nasty little secret was that just then he preferred the office company to her company. He and El had been walking for an hour or more, had looked at the boats, had watched the gunners at skeet. His place was downtown; the Sunday paper required his supervision. He knew that she did not understand that fully. And so she made a row and decided to play her trump in order to close things off. Assert her independence, if that was what it was. Probably it was that. Really it was a sullen little power struggle that she did not intend to lose. She was lovely, though, easygoing, with an enchanting smile and a ready wit. A creative bedmate also. Often in the night she would ease herself from bed and tiptoe to the window seat, recline, and watch the empty street. She moved like a dancer, careful to make no sound. A single streetlight threw a gaunt glow as if from a forty-watt bulb. She lay motionless, appreciating the after-midnight stillness and intermittent intrusions, a clumsy couple walking arm in arm, voices loud in the street. Elaine would raise her head in a little frown, then lie back. In a moment she would be humming something, a popular song. She sang in the shower and when she was driving. He thought she knew when he was watching her and when he was asleep. If the night was warm she removed her negligee and lay nude, her hands on her belly. He thought of her posture as self-possession. On the window seat Elaine was utterly herself, an object of desire no less than a brilliant dawn rising over a windless blue sea. In time she returned to bed, lying close, wondering if he would like an encore.