Among the Dead

by Michael Tolkin

  Frank asked himself what it was about Piet Bernays that made him so unhappy, so jealous. He was tired of putting these questions to himself, tired of comparisons, tired of jealousy, tired of the way his family made him feel.

  ‘Fuck you,’ he said to Bernays. He had meant to keep this under his breath, but it came out.

  Bernays gave him a quizzical look, hurt puppy, hurt angel, more fraudulent compassion.

  ‘Frank,’ said his mother.

  ‘It’s over, Frank,’ said Lowell. ‘This is one of the good guys.’

  Bernays raised a hand in peace and told Frank that he understood anything Frank said or felt now.

  ‘We know you do,’ said Ethel.

  Frank got up and walked out of the room. Lowell ran after him, but Frank pushed him away. He didn’t want to say anything, and he left Lowell behind, calling his name in frustration. Some rage surged in Frank, something new, something that felt like the energy he had always missed in his life, the thing he never had when he played games in school, the thing that makes the basket, or kicks the ball or strikes out the batter, this focus of all emotion into a single beam. He was ready to talk to a stadium filled with losers and tell them how to win. Who was this Piet Bernays, this negligible faggot with queer suspenders? Who was this Dockery, this Ed? Who was this Bettina Welch, this weak-chinned nothing, this wage-earner, this uneducated, processed cheese-eater, this fool who thinks that in exchange for her dedication the airline actually gives two shits for her? Losers, losers, losers. All of them. And his brother too, and his father. And Ethel? Beside the point. No, a loser too. She married Leon, and the bet was wrong. Apartment dwellers, mansion sellers.

  Here in this hotel corridor, past meeting rooms with names evocative of San Diego history, the Nimitz Room, the Dana Room, the Serra Room, the Coronado Room, the Drake Room, Frank, running better than he had ever run in his life, wove in and out of the knots of men and women in suits who were going and coming from different conferences in all these rooms, regional sales managers, local medical societies, the boards of trade associations, men and women with jobs in a world so far from his, and Frank looked at them, and thought, losers also, all of you, losers. At the end of the hall, where it joined the next wing of the hotel, was a small sitting area with a couch and a table, and he jumped over the couch and landed, he felt, with the grace of an African, a runner from Kenya. When the hall turned, he ran down the corridor and then into a fire escape and down the stairs to the lobby, and then out the lobby to the street. Sudden change of light. Late afternoon. The sea air. The sound of cars on the freeway nearby, a kind of heavy, tired breathing.

  Was anyone watching him? Did he care? Fuck them all, he thought, again he had that thought, and this time the thought, his disdain, his perfect scorn, rose inside him the way great waves build off the north shore of Hawaii, scooping up the old shattered waves returning in defeat from the beach and then piling them into another massive wall to roll across the reefs and try again to tear down the island. All these puny beings who tormented him today, the police, his brother, his parents, Bernays, the airline reps, none of them could ride for long on the massive waves of energy that collected inside this thing that used to be Frank Gale. None of these fuckers can surf on me! I am tsunami, the hundred-year wave, killer of sharks, destroyer of whales, widow-maker, orphan-maker! I eat villages whole!

  And so he ran on, in this convention zone in San Diego, past the Marriott, the Holiday Inn, the Ramada, the Sheraton, the Embassy Suites, the Days Inn, the Hilton Inn. How many executives unpacked their bags behind him, in front of him, beside him, and, bored, turned the pages of the Guide to San Diego with the picture of the trained dolphins at Sea World, and played with themselves, or poured a drink from the mini-bar, or made a call to their families, or looked up old college chums in this big navy town, and did all of this without knowing that outside their rooms Frank Gale ran like a hero?

  He ran along the curving drive that linked the hotels, and as the road turned back towards the Marriott something in him sagged, and then his ankles hurt, and he stopped running beside a long planting bed of ground cover, in purple bloom.

  The hotel looked so far away, and he was so tired. He lay down on the ground cover and looked up at the setting sun. If the family had not died, he would be in Mexico now. If Anna had not found the letter as she packed, she would have read it as he had intended. He wondered if he really would have given it to her, or if, at the last moment, or not even the last moment but any moment, he would have decided that taking her to Mexico with contrition in his heart made sufficient amends. Hadn’t he broken up with Mary Sifka? Would he have needed to give Anna the letter? By the second full day of the trip, today, she would have known that something was different with him. She would have seen his love for her. And it would have been love. And he would have proved it by making love to her, slowly, wonderfully, letting her come first. Oh, how he would have set a slow pace, starting with a back rub, massaging her feet, taking time. And then, when she would have expected him to pull out, or to reach for a condom, he would have stayed inside her, he would have risked – no, not risked -he would have thrown himself into pregnancy. No blow-jobs, no coming anywhere but inside, towards the womb! That would have been the seal on the new contract, that would have been the rededication, the proof, better than any declaration of love or any confession of his crimes. A new baby, a child, more to love.

  He wondered where she was in that cold warehouse on the docks, and in how many pieces she had finally come to rest, and whether something of her had mingled with something of their child. I should have been on the plane, he thought. I should have crashed with them, I should have died with them. And as he thought this, the phrase guilt of the survivor poked into view, and his mind went blank, and he got up and walked back to the hotel.

  The sun was almost gone as he reached the lobby, where his brother waited for him.

  ‘Let’s talk,’ said Lowell.

  ‘There’s nothing to say.’

  ‘No, no, there is, there is. We’ve been expecting you to behave in a certain way, and we’ve been wrong.’

  ‘What was the certain way?’ asked Frank. Someone took his picture from across the room, a woman. She wore a vest with a lot of pockets, and a name-tag on a leather loop around her neck. So she was a press photographer, thought Frank. She looked around the room for someone, and found him, the reporter she’d been sent out with.

  ‘Reasonable,’ said Lowell. ‘We thought you’d be reasonable, but you’re not, and you don’t have to be. This is not a criticism. Behave the way you want.’

  ‘So I’m being unreasonable. That’s not a good thing.’ Frank watched the reporter and photographer approach them.

  ‘Don’t take it that way.’

  ‘But what other way is there to take it?’

  ‘And this is why I’m here. I’m here so we don’t fight. There’s nothing to fight about.’

  ‘So now you’re humouring me.’ Frank knew that he really was being unreasonable now, and, worse, cruel to his brother who meant him no harm. The photographer took another picture.

  ‘Don’t put it that way, that isn’t fair.’

  Frank wanted to tell his brother that he was right, to say, ‘Yes, I’m being unfair.’ Instead he asked about Piet Bernays. ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘He had things to take care of.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have yelled at him.’

  ‘Maybe you were right.’

  ‘What did Mom and Dad say?’

  ‘They’re in their room.’

  ‘Drinking?’

  ‘He is, she’s trying not to.’

  ‘But she will,’ said Frank.

  The photographer took more pictures. Frank pointed her out to Lowell.

  ‘We really should get a publicist,’ said Lowell. ‘We can’t keep getting mad at everyone. We have to be cool. Elaine Swofford handles stuff for the stores here. She’s OK. I’ll call her.’

  ‘What will she do?’ asked Frank.<
br />
  ‘She’ll talk to the press first for us. She’ll set up the interviews, or tell them why we can’t be interviewed. She’ll keep them away from us if that’s what we want.’

  That’s what I want,’ said Frank.

  ‘And will you come back to my place tonight?’ asked Lowell.

  ‘No,’ said Frank. ‘But I’ll behave myself.’ They crossed the lobby to the reception desk, and Frank asked for his messages. The desk clerk gave him another pile of message slips. The first was from Mary Sifka. Frank quickly moved it to the bottom of the pile, but Lowell didn’t seem to notice his nervous speed. Five were from different reporters, asking for interviews.

  ‘Let me handle these,’ said Lowell.

  The reporter and photographer were next to them now. The reporter introduced himself. ‘Mitchell Hefter,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I’m a reporter.’ He named a press syndicate, and showed his identification.

  Frank took a quick look at the other message slips, to see who had called, and also to avoid eye contact with Hefter. A few cousins had called, also his secretary.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ asked Lowell.

  ‘We just wanted to ask about the night your brother was arrested.’

  ‘It was a mistake,’ said Lowell.

  ‘Yes,’ said Frank. ‘I saw my wife’s suitcase.’

  ‘Was there anything you were trying to get from it?’ asked the reporter.

  ‘Not really,’ said Frank.

  ‘Were you aware that it was against the law for you to have opened it up?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about that,’ said Frank.

  ‘What were you thinking about?’ asked the reporter.

  ‘He was thinking about his family,’ said Lowell.

  Frank wanted to disagree, but held himself back. Besides, he couldn’t remember. The reporter thanked them and walked away.

  Frank told Lowell to go home, and Lowell said goodbye. Frank read the message from Mary. She gave him a few specific times to call, ten in the morning, which had passed, and then again at one, and then three. The message said for him to call only at those times. So she was hiding this from her husband and from her work. He had an hour before he could call her. If it was time to connect again with the world, he would begin by returning the other calls, to tell the people who cared enough to call, whatever their motives, morbid curiosity or true concern, that he missed his wife and daughter, that he needed and welcomed the support of his friends. He would say that he was fine.

  The first call he made was to his parents. They were on the same floor, and his mother told Frank he should come to their room. He said he wanted to take a shower first, and return a few calls. His mother said they should go out to eat, just the three of them. ‘I think we should go to a good restaurant,’ she said. He knew that she meant something expensive, the kind of rich man’s restaurant they used to go to when he was a child, and he wanted that too, a martini, and carrots and green olives in a little tray filled with ice, and cheese toast, and the salad made at the table by an old waiter. They would have two rounds of drinks, and then they would order a bottle of good wine, and talk about the past. They would not ask Lowell to join them. The club of three. At the end of the meal, on the way out, Frank would filch a handful of mints from the large glass snifter at the maitre d’s station, and eat them all in a few minutes. He would be a little boy again, when his father was wealthy, the year he bought the house in Bel Air. The kind of meal that lasted as long as a summer. He would order a steak for dinner, or else a rack of lamb and split it with his mother. There would be mint jelly, and he would dab the meat into the green sauce, and then scoop some of it against the creamed spinach. He would eat a few of those olives during the meal too, for the lost pleasure of ruining, with that overlay of vinegar and salt, the taste of the wine and the meat. And he would butter his bread. How long has it been since I have buttered my bread? Frank asked himself. Tonight I will not abstain. I will not worry about calories. Tonight I will order what I want. I will have the shrimp cocktail if I want it! And the chocolate mousse! If he couldn’t bring himself to hug his parents and feel their love, at least he could fall into the embrace of what was left of their money. He called the front desk and asked the receptionist if there were any old, expensive restaurants in San Diego that had strolling violinists.

  ‘We have an excellent dining room right here,’ said the receptionist.

  ‘I want to leave the hotel,’ said Frank.

  ‘You’re looking for French food?’

  ‘What I’m looking for is probably called Continental.’

  ‘Let me ask someone who might know, and I’ll call you back.’

  Frank thanked him. He started to undress for the shower, but stopped. A shower would only delay his next responsibility, which was to return phone calls.

  Mary Sifka still needed another forty minutes before he could call her. He would talk to Julia Abarbanel first. I can probably fuck her now, he thought. She’s probably thinking that too.

  He didn’t recognize the area code of the phone number. It might have been Massachusetts, or Chicago, he wasn’t sure. He dialled. Someone answered, a man. Frank asked for Julia. The man asked him who was calling. Frank told him. The man mumbled something, Frank thought it was, ‘I’ll get her,’ but he wasn’t sure. So the man knew who he was, and why he was calling.

  Julia was there. ‘Frank, it’s Julia.’ This was good, she didn’t start by wailing at the injustice of it all.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in Colorado.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I’m staying with a friend in Denver.’

  ‘What are you doing there?’

  ‘She’s my roommate from college. She had a baby.’ Julia said this trying not to sound excited or happy for her friend, not to hurt Frank again with his own loss.

  ‘So that was her husband.’

  ‘Yes. Howard.’

  ‘Where are you living now?’

  ‘I’m still in Minneapolis.’

  ‘And what are you doing these days?’

  ‘I went back to school. I’m getting my law degree.’

  ‘No kidding. Thaf s great.’

  ‘It was time to grow up.’

  ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ said Frank. He wondered how to take advantage of this situation. Maybe he could turn her towards a rude conversation, so they could masturbate while creating a scene.

  ‘Frank, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do.’ What could she do? She could tell him if she would have fucked him in Yosemite. Why can’t I ask?

  ‘Nothing now, really.’

  ‘I want to be direct with you.’ Another one testing herself.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re going to need help at home, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Yes. Cleaning the house. Packing all of their clothing. The baby’s toys.’ The way Julia said ‘baby’ made Frank think that she wasn’t sure of Madeleine’s name. And Madeleine wasn’t a baby any more; she was a dead three-year-old.

  ‘I haven’t thought about that yet.’

  ‘I think we’re all coming out for the funeral.’

  ‘I don’t even know when it is.’ I don’t even know if there’s anything to bury. But he couldn’t say that.

  ‘You know that you have all of our love,’ she said.

  ‘It helps a lot.’ No, it doesn’t. When will you fuck me? ‘Thanks,’ said Frank. He could say anything, and the best thing to say now was, ‘I have to say goodbye now.’

  ‘Goodbye Frank.’

  He hung up and dialled the number Mary Sifka had left. It was a number he wasn’t used to, neither home nor office.

  There was a high whine when the connection was made, and then Mary said, ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Oh, Frank.’

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m at home.’r />
  ‘I didn’t recognize the number.’

  ‘It’s my fax machine in my office. I told Stewart I had to work.’ Had he ever heard his name before? Stewart.

  ‘So that was the sound I heard.’

  ‘They’re dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you missed the plane because you were with me.’

  ‘No, the traffic was heavy.’

  ‘No, you didn’t leave enough time. If you hadn’t had lunch with me, you would have gone to the airport with them. Right?’

  ‘Unless I had business. I was busy all morning.’

  ‘Frank, no. You were seeing me. That’s why you didn’t go to the airport with Anna and Madeleine.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘Then it’s true,’ he said, not knowing what to do with this. If she was guilty for the affair, then she was guilty for the long lunch, the last kiss that delayed him, and then she was guilty for saving his life. Or was she guilty for the affair, because the trip to Mexico was his bid to save the marriage from the affair, and without the affair there would have been no trip? He wanted to ask her what kind of fax machine she had; he had been thinking about getting one for his house.

  ‘I don’t know who to talk to about this,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid of telling my friends.’

  ‘Didn’t anyone ever know about us?’

  ‘Sort of, at the beginning, but once we started, I kept it a secret. How many people did you tell?’

  ‘No one. That was one of the things I liked about it. That it was a real secret.’

  ‘I told one girlfriend that we’d had lunch, and kissed, the first time. She’d broken up with a married man. She told me not to go ahead with this, so I told her I didn’t.’

  ‘Maybe you should see a therapist.’

  ‘I’ve thought about that. I don’t know how I’d justify it to Stewart.’

  ‘Tell him you’re unhappy.’

  ‘Then he’ll want to know what he can do to help me. He loves me.’