Forgetfulness

by Ward Just

  When Thomas wandered into the kitchen to look for Florette he surmised she had gone for a walk and would return soon, for the sun was low in the sky and the air smelled of snow. She had stacked the dishes and pulled another bottle of Corbières from the cave. He stepped into the yard to wait for her, noting at once the evening chill. When the sun disappeared, all warmth disappeared with it and he stood worrying in the cold with his empty wineglass, staring hard at the road and the path that led away from it, knowing—not all at once but gradually as the light failed—that something was wrong because she was not in sight. He scanned Big Papa from base to summit, left and right, looking for any movement or flash of color, but the distance was great and the mountain vast. She could be anywhere. Even so, the massif looked as empty and useless as the glass in his hand. He shivered in the cold and took a step forward, calling her name. The sound of his voice echoed in the valley, rising and repeating, expiring at last as darkness continued to gather. Then he had the idea she had gone into the village on an errand but when he looked into the garage their car was still there, so he called again and again with no result. He was furious with her, behaving so recklessly. She thought of the mountain as her private reserve, having lived in its shadow since she was a child. Then he remembered her telling him about malevolent mountain gods punishing trespassers, superstitious nonsense. He remembered looking up and seeing headlights on the road but the headlights disappeared. Night fell like a curtain and he realized he was sweating.

  When Thomas turned from the door, pushing off from it, he found Bernhard Sindelar and Russ Conlon emerging from the guest room with their suitcases, Russ leading the way—Bernhard, half a head taller, much wider in the shoulders, filling the doorway behind him.

  Russ smiled. You look like you just saw a ghost.

  Thomas poured them each a glass of wine and said, I was thinking about Granger.

  Funny, Bernhard said. From the look on your face I would have sworn it was Florette. Bet money on it.

  It was Granger, Thomas said.

  He was a good scout, Russ said.

  He lived too long, Bernhard said.

  Why do you think he lived too long?

  He was worn out, Thomas.

  No, he wasn't. He went to bed and didn't wake up.

  Same thing, Bernhard said.

  I think he was a hundred and six, Thomas said.

  Yes, you told us.

  Thomas poured wine for himself and they clicked glasses, saying what they always said on such occasions.

  LaBarre.

  LaBarre.

  LaBarre, Thomas said. Granger, too.

  He watched Bernhard check the time and glance out the window. Their taxi was due to arrive any time. Bernhard and Russ were eager to be on their way and Thomas was no less eager to have them gone, to reclaim his house once again, listen to the clock tick if it came to that. He wanted to get back to work and just then remembered a remark of de Kooning's, who loved his brushes and canvases so much he could sit and watch paint dry. A sudden chill came on the room, the fireplace gone cold, the long sofa and the chairs surrounding it unoccupied, the coffee table heavy-laden with empty wineglasses and the ceramic ashtrays Florette favored. The remains of a cheese board and heels of bread littered the dining room table. He loved the spaciousness of the room, its high ceiling and whitewashed walls, wide windows looking up the valley. An oversized poster of Piaf in full throat hung on the wall near the dining room table, his portrait of Florette over the fireplace. The two stared at each other from opposite ends of the room. Quite suddenly Thomas had a tremendous desire to hear cabaret music, Piaf, Mabel Mercer, Billie Holiday. He wanted the room filled with music, music turned low, city music, barroom music that conjured dimly lit memories. Then he could sit like de Kooning and watch paint dry. But first he had to get his friends out of the house. Thomas said, I want to thank you both for staying on. Changing your plans. Helping out. It means a lot to me.

  Bernhard drew back. You know how much we cared for Florette.

  I couldn't have managed without you two.

  We don't like leaving now, Russ said.

  I'll be all right. I'll call in a few days.

  Stay in touch, Russ said.

  I will. Count on it.

  Bernhard cleared his throat and said, You're going to be lonely here. Florette, of course. Florette most of all and indispensably. But Granger, too. Your dinners together, billiards, conversation with someone who'd led the sort of life you understand. Where you don't have to explain the references—

  Granger didn't talk much, Thomas said.

  —and winter's coming on.

  But we were good friends, Thomas said.

  Hard to make friends at our age, Russ said.

  Impossible, Bernhard said. You can't get through the preliminaries, too much has already gone by. Where you come from. Who you know, who you don't. What you do for a living and how long you've done it.

  LaBarre, Russ said, raising his glass.

  Our case, Bernhard said, the government.

  Yes, Russ said. That, too.

  So you invent stories, Bernhard said with a smile.

  Granger never did, Thomas said. Someone asked him where he came from, he said he couldn't remember. Someone asked him what he did, he said a little of this and a little of that, and if they pressed him, he said he managed his investments. And then he changed the subject.

  So, Russ said after a moment. I suppose you'll go back to work.

  Right away, Thomas said.

  You'll need more than work, Bernhard said.

  No, Thomas said. You need more than work. I'm content.

  I don't think content is the word you mean, Thomas.

  I'll think of a better one when I get around to it.

  We're wondering how you'll get on day to day, Bernhard said. This place is pretty remote. You're way off the beaten track. Are you sure you belong here? Is this really your place, without Florette and without Granger? Only your work to keep you company? Sounds lonely to me.

  Oh, it's my place all right.

  You know you're welcome at my flat in London. Come when you want, stay as long as you like.

  Thomas nodded but did not reply.

  Bernhard peeked out the window. Where's the damn cab?

  Russ said, Do you think we should call?

  He'll be here, Thomas said.

  Anyway, will you think about it?

  I will, Thomas said. I surely will.

  Bernhard's flat was in South Kensington, around the corner from Harrods, four small, ill-lit, badly heated rooms so situated that sunlight never touched the interior. The neighborhood was crowded with shoppers. Four young Englishmen involved in the Portuguese wine trade lived raucously in the flat above and when the noise became insupportable Bernhard went up and joined them, usually returning with one of the young women who were always about. Bernhard kept his fridge well stocked with champagne and Iranian caviar, or it had been the last time Thomas visited. The telephone rang day and night, friends, or friends of friends, or someone from he government asking for a favor. When he wasn't on the telephone, Bernhard was hunched over his computer, reading his e-mail and hacking into various private accounts, "keeping abreast of things." Bernhard's apartment was always busy with ringing telephones and messengers arriving with mysterious packages. The atmosphere combined the towel-slap of the locker room with the feral anticipation of the casino.

  I've gotten used to the country, Thomas said after a moment. I like the hours, the weather, the pace of things, the silence. Florette—but he could not remember what it was he wanted to say about Florette. It was something she had said about the pleasures of living in a valley surrounded on all sides. He went on, I came for a summer, just fetched up the way Granger had in 1920. I was dead tired and depressed, too. God, it had been an awful year. The year of the Spaniard, as you'll recall—

  Bernhard shuffled his feet and said, No need to mention that.

  Thomas said, Why not?

 
It's private, Bernhard said.

  You know the rules, Russ said.

  Too bad the Spaniard didn't.

  Really, Thomas, Bernhard said. Basta.

  Think about Bernhard's offer, Russ said.

  The apartment's there any time you want it, Bernhard said. I fixed the heat, by the way.

  Good idea, Russ said.

  The boys in the wine trade are gone, too.

  Even better, Russ said. Any replacements?

  Boys in the fashion trade.

  Noisy boys, I'll bet.

  Quiet as little mice, Bernhard said.

  Thomas looked from one to the other as they did their verbal soft shoe.

  I'm worried about the damn cab, Russ said. Shall we call? The train leaves in ninety minutes.

  Bernhard cleared his throat. I didn't mean to be abrupt about the Spaniard, Thomas. I was startled. I wasn't prepared. So I overreacted.

  Thomas peered into his wineglass. He hadn't been listening to them. He said, Do you think an hour would have made a difference?

  Russ looked at him blankly. A difference in what?

  Florette, he said.

  No, Russ said. Not one hour. Not two hours. Put that thought out of your head. Where did you get such an idea? It's ridiculous.

  The doctor said something about it.

  Oh, that's helpful of her. That's so helpful. What does she know? Was she there?

  She was there at the autopsy, Russ. An hour might have made the difference. Florette alive today. Exact words.

  She doesn't know what she's talking about, Russ said. It's only speculation on her part. Guesswork.

  I think an hour might have made the difference, Thomas said. I think Florette would be alive today if we'd realized she'd gone for a walk, kept track of the time. We would have started earlier. Got help sooner. Raised the alarm, arranged for a search party instead of opening another bottle and telling another story. And she'd be alive right now. What do you think?

  Russ was silent a long moment. Finally he said, When my Sandra was sick we went everywhere, Boston, New York, Paris. God, the treatments were painful. No success in Boston, New York, or Paris. So we thought about Mexico. They were supposed to have wonderful experiments in Mexico, things the Americans have never dreamed of and therefore discounted. But Sandy wasn't convinced. I wasn't convinced either. The doctors in Boston definitely were not convinced. So we didn't go to Mexico. We went back to our apartment in New York City and waited. Long months, as you'll remember. I've thought a hundred times about the things we might have done differently. There were plenty of them. And so what, Thomas? They weren't done. If they had been done, maybe the outcome would have been different. Maybe not. At the end, you know what made the big difference? Morphine. I'll tell you something else. She didn't die with a smile on her face. Turn the page, Thomas.

  Sure it's possible, Bernhard said.

  So you agree, Thomas said.

  We started late. What can I say?

  We started when we realized she was late. We didn't imagine she was in danger, Russ said, looking sideways at Bernhard.

  Too late, Thomas said. I believe an hour would have made the difference. It was dark when we started. Because we were telling stories and having a hell of a good time.

  Russ looked away and said nothing further.

  Where are you going with this, Thomas? Bernhard looked at him steadily and moved a step closer.

  Thomas ignored that and spoke to himself, as if he were in an empty room. And we still don't know who they were or where they came from. Or what they wanted. Why they took her to that place and abandoned her.

  I've made inquiries, Bernhard said patiently. I'll know more in a few days. The people I spoke to had no good ideas, at least not yet. They were almost certainly not locals. Maybe they were small-time smugglers, drugs or whatever. Not weapons, because of the weight. Maybe they were only illegals moving from one place to another. Why did they abandon her? Attempt a coup de grâce? Because they thought she could identify them. That's one logical motive. But maybe it was for another reason altogether, something we haven't thought of or even imagined.

  If only—

  I'd forget the if onlys, Thomas, Bernhard said. If only this, if only that. Dead end there. Blind alley.

  Fuck you, Bernhard.

  That's enough, Bernhard, Russ said.

  We did what we could and it wasn't enough, Bernhard said softly. We don't live in an ideal world, he added, his voice rising. He looked up when he heard a horn in the driveway. The cab had arrived.

  Not an ideal world, Bernhard? And all this time I thought it was.

  Then you were mistaken, Bernhard said evenly.

  Thomas opened the door to a landscape flooded with yellow light from the dying sun. He had spoken more sharply than he intended but Bernhard's mordant certainties had struck a nerve. Often Bernhard lost himself among the inflections of his many languages, caustic as a Frenchman one moment, sly as a Levantine the next, while remaining the sharp-eyed baker's son from LaBarre, Wisconsin, determined to get ahead in the wider world where the odds were assuredly—the assurance coming from his immigrant father, who kept a handbook on the side—not in your favor. When something was lost you accepted the loss and set your face. Whatever responsibility you bore was only an inconvenient detail in the larger scheme of things: getting even. Bernhard was mistrustful by nature and therefore a natural investigator who always went, as he said, the last inch. LaBarre's decline had made him a firsthand witness to the obvious truth that everything collapsed eventually and that the world was inherently unstable, so you disciplined yourself or someone else would do it for you. They were all midwestern boys, no matter where they were living or what language was in the street. They had taken different lessons from LaBarre, Russ the milkman's son and Thomas the son of a doctor. His mother was the doctor's nurse, medicine the family business. The consulting room was in an annex off the front parlor and when Bernhard and Russ went home with Thomas after school the parlor was always crowded with patients, people stirring awkwardly or coughing while they turned pages of the Saturday Evening Post or Reader's Digest. Often there was one patient who did not bother with a magazine but sat stoically staring into the middle distance. Russ wanted to rush through the parlor but Bernhard always paused for a long look at the patients before climbing the stairs to Thomas's bedroom to listen to the afternoon radio programs, Terry and the Pirates and the others. When Thomas warned him that they weren't to bother the people in the waiting room, Bernhard replied that he wasn't bothering them, he was only looking at them. What was the harm in looking? Sometimes you could tell a lot by looking and remembering what you saw. Bernhard said you could tell which ones were in pain and not long for the world by studying their faces, where their eyes fell and what they did with their hands, and he mentioned the woman staring blankly into the middle distance as the case in point. Leave them alone, they don't want to be bothered, Thomas said. The woman's thinking about what she's going to tell her family, Bernhard said. But I'm only looking. And besides, they never see me, as if by that assertion he had made himself invisible. Bernhard was old beyond his years and had an answer for everything.

  The cab's here, Thomas said.

  We have to move along, Russ said.

  I'll call very soon, Bernhard said. When I have news.

  Thomas opened the door.

  I know how painful it is, Bernhard said. But you have to get to the bottom of it. That's the first thing. And I'm going to start turning over rocks, every rock I can find. Whoever did this will not succeed. Trust me. They're dead men. We owe that to Florette.

  Outside, they shook hands, promising to stay in touch. Russ proposed a weekend in Paris at the end of the month, nothing grand, a few decent meals and a stroll through the Grand Palais where an exhibit of Degas drawings was newly installed. Beautiful exhibit, Russ said, and by the end of the month the crowds will have thinned. Promise me you'll come. Thomas said he would think about it and let him know. Bernhard prom
ised again to call when he had news of value. Thomas thanked them both and Bernhard said he adored Florette and would remember her always and meantime he would do whatever was necessary to settle the score. We won't let it rest, Russ said. "Without haste, but without rest," Bernhard added, quoting somebody, looking hard at Thomas, a private warning or perhaps a threat, one or the other. And then they were gone.

  Thomas watched the cab winding down the drive to the road. The cab's were the only lights in the vicinity. Granger's farmhouse was dark and Big Papa was very dark against the sudden night sky. Thomas watched the headlights rise and dip, like a ship navigating ocean swells, until the cab vanished at last into the darkness. He said aloud, Bon voyage, but he was thinking of Bernhard's score-settling skills. His American friends lived in a world where scores were always settled because the alternative was unbearable chaos. Chaos was a world without justice. In some sense score-settling was what they did for a living. Florette would become a civic project—a wrongful death, an unnecessary and violent death in the world-that-was-not-ideal, a crime that demanded vengeance. A death in the mountains, and how many of those were there on any given Sunday in November? Deaths in the Alps, the Himalayas, the Caucasus, Atlas, Andes, Blue Ridge, Urals, Pyrenees. He had the idea that in the death-stakes, mountains resembled oceans, brutally dangerous and unpredictable weather with the possibility always of a misstep or marauders, sometimes both at once. A mystery always surrounded an unwitnessed death at sea, the circumstances unknowable; and then Thomas wondered what Bernhard would turn up and whether his findings would bring consolation, meaning facts better known than not known. And now he had a motive, the better to discount the despised randomness. Randomness was the enemy of coherence. The day before, out of Russ's hearing because Bernhard was convinced Russ had lost a step over the past year (Notice how his hearing's gone to hell and his memory's a sieve and he's simply not on top of things; he's become repetitious and he's always talking about Sandra, who's been gone at least a decade), and was therefore an unreliable collaborator, he had confided: I don't think it's likely but you have to consider the possibility that Florette's death may have to do with you, Thomas. Payback for one or another of the odd jobs you've done for us over the years, maybe a job you don't even remember, it seemed so routine at the time. Truth to tell, Russ and I often thought you were too cavalier, doubting the seriousness of your tasks. It's true you never knew the full context of things, safer for you and safer for us, and naturally there were consequences, and these, too, were inside the parameters of need-to-know. And the Spaniard would be in this category.