by Tim O'Brien
For a few seconds he hugged himself, feeling the cold, and then he was moving.
There was no real decision. He'd lost touch with his own volition, his own arms and legs, and in the hours afterward he would remember how he seemed to glide toward the enemy position—not running, just a fast, winging, disconnected glide—circling in from behind, not thinking at all, slipping through a tangle of deep brush and keeping low and letting the glide take him up to a little man in black trousers and a black shirt.
He would remember the man turning. He would remember their eyes colliding.
Other things he would remember only dimly. How he was carried forward by the glide. How his lungs seemed full of ashes, and how at one point his rifle muzzle came up against the little man's cheekbone. He would remember an immense pressure in his stomach. He would remember Kathy's flat eyes reproaching him for the many things he had done and not done.
There was no sound at all, none that Sorcerer would remember. The little man's cheekbone was gone.
Later, the men in Charlie Company couldn't stop talking about Sorcerer's new trick.
They went on and on.
"Poof," somebody said. "No lie, just like that—poof!"
At dusk they dragged the sniper's body into a nearby hamlet. An audience of villagers was summoned at gunpoint. A rope was then secured to the dead man's feet, another to his wrists, and just before, nightfall Sorcerer and his assistants performed an act of levitation, hoisting the body high into the trees, into the dark, where it floated under a lovely red moon.
John Wade returned home in November of 1969. At the airport in Seattle he put in a long-distance call to Kathy, but then chuckled and hung up on the second ring.
The flight to Minneapolis was lost time. Jet lag, maybe, but something else, too. He felt dangerous. In the gray skies over North Dakota he went back into the lavatory, where he took off his uniform and put on a sweater and slacks, then carefully appraised himself in the mirror. His eyes looked unsound. A little tired, a little frayed. After a moment he winked at himself. "Hey, Sorcerer," he murmured. "How's tricks?"
In the Twin Cities that evening, he took a bus over to the university. He carried his duffel to the plaza outside Kathy's dorm, found a concrete bench, sat down to wait. It was shortly after nine o'clock. Her window was dark, which seemed appropriate, and for a couple of hours he compiled mental lists of the various places she might be, the things she might be doing. Nothing wholesome came to mind. His thoughts then gathered around the topics he would address once the occasion was right. Loyalty, for example. Steadfastness and love and fidelity and trust and all the related issues of sticking power.
It was late, almost midnight, when Kathy turned up the sidewalk to her dorm.
She carried a canvas tote bag over her shoulder, a stack of books in her right arm. She'd lost some weight, mostly at the hips, and in the dark she seemed to move with a quicker, nimbler, more impulsive stride. It made him uneasy. After she'd gone inside, John sat very still for a time, not quite there, not quite anywhere; then he picked up his duffel and walked the seven blocks to a hotel.
He was still gliding.
That dizzy, disconnected sensation stayed with him all night. Exotic fevers swept through his blood. He couldn't get traction on his own dreams. Twice he woke up and stood under the shower, letting the water beat against his shoulders, but even then the dream-reels kept unwinding. Crazy stuff. Kathy shoveling rain off a sidewalk. Kathy waving at him from the wing of an airplane. At one point, near dawn, he found himself curled up on the floor, wide awake, conversing with the dark. He was asking his father to please stop dying. Over and over he kept saying please, but his father wouldn't listen and wouldn't stop, he just kept dying. "God, I love you," John said, and then he curled up tighter and stared into the dark and found himself at his father's funeral—fourteen years old, a new black necktie pinching tight—except the funeral was being conducted in bright sunlight along an irrigation ditch at Thuan Yen—mourners squatting on their heels and wailing and clawing at their eyes—John's mother and many other mothers—a minister crying "Sin!"—an organist playing organ music—and John wanted to kill everybody who was weeping and everybody who wasn't, everybody, the minister and the mourners and the skinny old lady at the organ—he wanted to grab a hammer and scramble down into the ditch and kill his father for dying.
"Hey, I love you," he yelled. "I do."
When dawn came, he hiked over to Kathy's dorm and waited outside on the concrete bench.
He wasn't sure what he wanted.
In mid-morning Kathy came out and headed down toward the classroom buildings. The routine hadn't changed. He followed her to the biology lab, then to the student union, then to the post office and bank and gymnasium. From his old spot under the bleachers he watched as she practiced her dribbling and free throws, which were much improved, and after lunch he spent a monotonous three hours in the library as she leaned over a fat gray psychology textbook. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Several times, in fact, he came close to ending his vigil, just grabbing her, holding tight and never letting go. But near dark, when she closed her book, he couldn't resist tailing her across campus to a busy kiosk, where she bought a magazine, then over to a pizza joint on University Avenue, where she ordered a Tab and a small pepperoni.
He stationed himself at a bus stop outside. His eyes ached—his heart, too—everything. And there was also the squeeze of indecision. At times he was struck by a fierce desire to believe that the suspicion was nothing but a demon in his head. Other times he wanted to believe the worst. He didn't know why. It was as though something inside him, his genes or his bone marrow, required the certainty of a confirmed betrayal: a witnessed kiss, a witnessed embrace. The facts would be absolute. In a dim way, only half admitted, John understood that the alternative was simply to love her, and to go on loving her, yet somehow the ambiguity seemed intolerable. Nothing could ever be sure, not if he spied forever, because there was always the threat of tomorrow's treachery, or next year's treachery, or the treachery implicit in all the tomorrows beyond that.
Besides, he liked spying. He was Sorcerer. He had the gift, the knack.
It was full dark when Kathy stepped outside. She passed directly behind him, so close he could smell the perfumed soap on her skin. He felt a curious jolt of guilt, almost shame, but for another ten minutes he tracked her back toward campus, watching as she paused to inspect the shop windows and Thanksgiving displays. At the corner of University and Oak she used a public telephone, mostly listening, laughing once, then she continued up toward the school. The evening had a crisp, leafy smell. Football weather, a cool mid-autumn Friday, and the streets were crowded with students and flower kids and lovers going arm in arm. Nobody knew. Their world was safe. All promises were infinite, all things endured, doubt was on some other planet.
Neptune, he thought, which gave him pause. When he looked up, Kathy was gone.
For a few moments he had a hard time finding focus. He scanned the sidewalks, shut his eyes briefly, then turned and made his way back to her dorm. He waited all night. He waited through dawn and into early morning.
By then he knew.
The knowledge was absolute. It was bone-deep and forever, pure knowing, but even then he waited. He was still there when she came up the sidewalk around noon. Arms folded, powerful, he stood on the steps and watched her move toward him.
"I was out," Kathy said.
Sorcerer smiled a small covert smile. "Right," he said. "You were out."
They married anyway.
It was an outdoor ceremony in the discreetly landscaped yard of her family's house in a suburb west of the Twin Cities. Balloons had been tied to the trees and shrubs, the patio was decorated with Japanese lanterns and red carnations and crepe paper. Altogether, things went nicely. The minister talked about the shield of God's love, which warded off strife, and then recited—too theatrically, John thought—a short passage from First Corinthians. Oddly, though, it was not the
solemn moment he had once imagined. At one point he glanced over at Kathy and grinned. "And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge"—Her eyes were green and bright. She wrinkled her nose. She grinned back at him—"and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains..." A lawn mower droned a few houses down. A soft breeze rippled across the yard, and spikes of dusty sunshine made the trees glow, and pink and white balloons danced on their little strings. "For how we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even, as also I am known."
Then the minister prayed.
They promised to be true to each other. They promised other things, too, and exchanged rings, and afterward Kathy's sister opened the bar. Her mother gave them bed sheets. Her father presented them with the keys to an apartment in Minneapolis.
"It's scary," Kathy whispered, "how much I love you."
They drove away in a borrowed Chevy to the St. Paul Ramada, where they honeymooned for several days on a package deal. The secrets were his. He would never tell. On the second morning Kathy asked if he had any misgivings, any second thoughts, and John shook his head and said no. He was Sorcerer, after all, and what was love without a little mystery?
They moved into the apartment just after Easter.
"We'll be happy," Kathy said, "I know it."
Sorcerer laughed and carried her inside.
The trick then was to be vigilant. He would guard his advantage. The secrets would remain secret—the things he'd seen, the things he'd done. He would repair what he could, he would endure, he would go from year to year without letting on that there were tricks.
8. How the Night Passed
Twice during the night John Wade woke up sweating. The first time, near midnight, he turned and coiled up against Kathy, brain-sick, a little feverish, his thoughts wired to the nighttime hum of lake and woods.
A while later he kicked back the sheets and said, "Kill Jesus." It was a challenge—a dare.
He closed his eyes and waited for something terrible to happen, almost hoping, and when nothing happened he said it again, with authority, then listened for an answer. There was nothing.
"Fuck it," he said. "Kill Jesus."
Quietly then, John Wade swung out of bed. He moved down the hallway to the kitchen, ran water into an old iron teakettle, put it on the stove to boil. He was naked. His shoulders were sunburnt, his face waxy with sweat. For a few moments he stood very still, imagining himself kicking and gouging. He'd go for the eyes. Yes, he would. Tear out the bastard's eyeballs—fists and fingernails—just punch and claw and hammer and bite. God, too. He hoped there was a god so he could kill him.
The thought was inspiring. He looked at the kitchen ceiling and confided in the void, offering up his humiliation and sorrow.
The teakettle made a light clicking noise.
"You too," he said.
He shrugged and got out the tea bags and lay down on the kitchen floor to wait. He was not thinking now, just watching the numbers come in. He could see it happening exactly as it happened. Minneapolis was lost. The suburbs, the Iron Range. And the farm towns to the southwest—Pipestone, Marshall, Windom, Jackson, Luverne. A clean, tidy sweep. St. Paul had been lost early. Duluth was lost four to one. The unions were lost, and the German Catholics, and the rank-and-file nobodies. The numbers were implacable. There was no pity in the world. It was all arithmetic. A winner, obviously, until he became a loser. Which was how it happened: that quick. One minute you're presidential timber and then they come at you with chain saws. It was textbook slippage. It was dishonor and disgrace. Certain secrets had been betrayed—ambush politics, Tony Carbo said—and so the polls went sour and in the press there was snide chatter about issues of character and integrity. Front-page photographs. Dead human beings in awkward poses. By late August the whole enterprise had come unraveled, empty wallets and hedged bets and thinning crowds, old friends with slippery new excuses, and on the first Tuesday after the second Monday in September he was defeated by a margin of something more than 105,000 votes.
John Wade saw it for what it was.
Nothing more to hope for.
Too ambitious, maybe. Climbing too high or too fast. But it was something he'd worked for. He'd been a believer. Discipline and tenacity. He had believed in those virtues, and in the fundamental justice of things, an everyday sort of fairness; that if you worked like a son of a bitch, if you stuck it out and didn't quit, then sooner or later you'd get the payoff. Politics, it was all he'd ever wanted for himself. Three years as a legislative liaison, six years in the state senate, four tedious years as lieutenant governor. He'd played by the rules. He'd run a good solid campaign, working the caucuses, prying out the endorsements—all of it—eighteen-hour days, late nights, the whole insane swirl of motels and county fairs and ten-dollar-a-plate chicken dinners. He'd done it all.
The teakettle made a brisk whistling sound, but John Wade could not bring himself to move.
Ambush politics. Poison politics.
It wasn't fair.
That was the final truth: just so unfair. Wade was not a religious man, but he now found himself talking to God, explaining how much he hated him. The election was only part of it. There were also those mirrors in his head. An electric buzz, the chemistry inside him, the hum of lake and woods. He felt the pinch of depravity.
When the water was at full boil, John Wade pushed himself up and went to the stove.
He used a towel to pick up the iron teakettle.
Stupidly, he was smiling, but the smile was meaningless. He would not remember it. He would remember only the steam and the heat and the tension in his fists and forearms.
"Kill Jesus," he said, which encouraged him, and he carried the teakettle out to the living room and switched on a lamp and poured the boiling water over a big flowering geranium near the fireplace. "Jesus, Jesus," he was saying. There was a hissing noise. The geranium seemed to vibrate for an instant, swaying sideways as if caught by a breeze. He watched the lower leaves blanch and curl downward at the edges. The room acquired a damp exotic stink.
Wade was humming under his breath. "Well now," he said, and nodded pleasantly.
He heard himself chuckle.
"Oh, my," he said.
He moved to the far end of the living room, steadied himself, and boiled a small spider plant. It wasn't rage. It was necessity. He emptied the teakettle on a dwarf cactus and a philodendron and a caladium and several others he could not name. Then he returned to the kitchen. He refilled the teakettle, watched the water come to a boil, smiled and squared his shoulders and moved down the hallway to their bedroom.
A prickly heat pressed against his face. The teakettle made its clicking sound in the night.
Briefly then, he let himself glide away. A ribbon of time went by, which he would not remember, then later he found himself crouched at the side of the bed. He was rocking on his heels, watching Kathy sleep.
Odd, he thought. That numbness inside him. The way his hands had no meaningful connection to his wrists.
For some time he crouched there, admiring the tan at Kathy's neck and shoulders, the wrinkles at her eyes. In the dim light she seemed to be smiling at something, or half smiling, a thumb curled alongside her nose. It occurred to him that he should wake her. Yes, a kiss, and then confess to the shame he felt: how defeat had bled into his bones and made him crazy with hurt. He should've done it. He should've told her about the mirrors in his head. He should've talked about the special burden of villainy, the ghosts at Thuan Yen, the strain on his dreams. And then later he should've slipped under the covers and taken her in his arms and explained how he loved her more than anything, a hard hungry lasting guileless love, and how everything else was trivial and dumb. Just politics, he should've said. He should've talked about coping and enduring, all the clichés, how it was not the end of the world, how they still had each other and their marriage and their lives to live.
In the days tha
t followed, John Wade would remember all the things he should've done.
He touched her shoulder.
Amazing, he thought, what love could do.
In the dark he heard something twitch and flutter, like wings, and then a low, savage buzzing sound. He squeezed the teakettle's handle. A strange heaviness had come into his arms and wrists. Again, for an indeterminate time, the night seemed to dissolve all around him, and he was somewhere outside himself, awash in despair, watching the mirrors in his head flicker with radical implausibilities. The teakettle and a wooden hoe and a vanishing village and PFC Weatherby and hot white steam.
He would remember smoothing back her hair.
He would remember pulling a blanket to her chin and then returning to the living room, where for a long while he lost track of his whereabouts. All around him was that furious buzzing noise. The unities of time and space had unraveled. There were manifold uncertainties, and in the days and weeks to come, memory would play devilish little tricks on him. The mirrors would warp up; there would be odd folds and creases; clarity would be at a premium.
At one point during the night he stood waist-deep in the lake.
At another point he found himself completely submerged, lungs like stone, an underwater rush in his ears.
And then later, in the starwild dark, he sat quietly at the edge of the dock. He was naked. He was all alone, watching the lake.
Later still, he woke up in bed. A soft pinkish light played against the curtains.
For a few seconds he studied the effects of dawn, the pale ripplings and gleamings. He'd been having a curious nightmare. Electric eels. Boiling red water.