Shadows & Tall Trees 7

by Michael Kelly

  Baum attempts to speak, to tell her he has watched her move from window to window, from door to garage; watched her sit on the back stoop in the cool evenings with only a cigarette and a mug, and watched her rub her face and the back of her neck alone in the dark. But there are no words, only a quiet and fluttering rustle. Only in this moment does Baum realize Heike could be unreachable in her sorrow. His round knots well with tears as his crooked limbs stretch farther out. The wind picks up, blows through the leaves, and Heike wordlessly puts her wrench on the truck’s running board, then pulls Baum to her breast. Her heart makes a sound like knuckles on a hollow door.

  There were never children between Heike and Reiter, and his clothes were given away long ago, so Heike has nothing that will fit Baum’s irregular shape. She makes any alterations she can to her own old clothes using nylon thread and stiff-backed perseverance. It’s not the easiest solution, or the swiftest, and Baum’s small round eyes stare unblinkingly at her the entire time, but eventually Heike is able to fashion a rudimentary pair of trousers to envelope the trunks of Baum’s legs, and a jigsaw shirt that makes room for the blossoming pink shoots along his grooved skin. When she is done and Baum is dressed, the noise is like the whistle of rain-soaked leaves. Baum lights up, and Heike recalls how it feels to smile.

  The two sit by the dried up pond, soaking their bare feet in memories. Memories are all Heike has of Reiter—the two of them cooling off by the water, laughing and teasing one another. Sometimes she thinks she can see his weathered face reflected back in the remembered water. Other times, she can’t see the reflection at all, no matter how long or hard she squints. At these moments, there is nothing in the pond but sunbaked mud, its cracks as deep as the grooves on Baum’s flesh. Slowly, they spiral outward.

  The farm is no place for a boy. The days are long and hard and Heike likes it that way because it keeps her from remembering Reiter. Remembering his wasting face and body and pallid skin. But Baum needs more than that. He is alive and Reiter is not and he needs to learn more than Heike can teach, see more than Heike can show.

  Baum has never heard the knocking sound before and even after Heike explains it’s a visitor at the door he still lumbers away to hide. The front door opens and unfamiliar voices mumble in the other room. One he believes is Heike’s, but the woman is so taciturn Baum cannot be certain. The second is not familiar at all, and leaves him unhappy and apprehensive. Dry twigs break as he shifts, scratching the worn floor. Leaves fall. If he remains motionless perhaps he will fade to safety.

  The tutor, Ana, is not prepared for what she finds when she turns the corner in the faltering farmhouse. She has taken odd assignments before—she hasn’t had much choice; there are too few tutors so far outside the city, and yet too few students needing help to discriminate. Ana took the job with Baum because she had to, but also because the cousin she remembers most from childhood wore an oversized hearing aid and a single thick-soled boot. That boy went out of his way to treat her well and demanded nothing in return. She hopes helping other challenged students will in some small way assuage her guilt.

  But when Ana turns the corner she understands this is not her cousin. This is nothing she has seen before, and for a brief moment the world is completely still, and she is staring at Baum who is staring back with round shimmering eyes, Ana convinces herself it’s a joke of some sort. A hoax. A horrible statue posed in a dark house to surprise her. She glances around for her husband and her friends who will soon emerge to laugh at her discomfort. It is only at the end of that second, when the horrible statue moves and she understands it’s alive and looking right into her that she gasps and turns away.

  There isn’t much to say after Ana flees, bags pressed against her chest, eyes darting madly, but Heike does her best to find words to comfort Baum. A rivulet of tears runs in the grooves of his face. It doesn’t matter what Heike says, however. They both understand perfectly. Ana, the tutor, has done exactly what she was hired to do and more. She has taught them an unforgettable lesson.

  Nothing is the same afterward. Leaves darken. Dry. Fall and crunch underfoot. Pink shoots wither. Baum becomes sullen, withdrawn. Heike does her best to talk to him, but Baum shrinks from the feel of her gnarled hands on his corrugated flesh. When he speaks, if he speaks, it’s with branches thrashing and cracking in thunderous resentment. The farm is too small, its fences a prison of constricting walls. He lashes out and storms through Heike’s life with wind and fury. Baum wants to escape, but where can he go where he won’t be judged or mocked or shunned? Heike doesn’t know. But she must do something.

  The farm is so far from the city she and Reiter had to stay overnight during each of his treatments. She knows it will be the same for Baum. She has spoken to the county hospital and there is no specialist closer than Dr. Meyer. But this is what Baum wants. He wants to be normal. Through Baum’s winter branches Heike can see those knotted eyes and thinks not for the first time there is something of Reiter in them.

  Baum never believed he would ever see what lies beyond the tall grass, but Heike’s truck sputters and pops, and the air smells as though it’s on fire, and he doesn’t worry about memorizing that moment because the smell will always remind him of sitting in the truck, branches scraping the bare metal cab. The farmhouse shrinks behind the grasses, then the road, then the world itself, and where Heike is taking him is filled with bright blue sky and nothing more for a long time.

  Baum’s angst withers when the trees come into view. Towering giants marching over the horizon, they grow with each passing moment until they eclipse the sky, laying a veil of shadows over the road and Heike’s truck. Baum presses his grooved face against the window but still cannot see their dark canopy. All he sees are the hundreds of trunks woven together on each side of the road, two impenetrable walls ushering the truck toward the wavering sun bursting orange as it approaches the horizon.

  They could make it to the city if they drive into the night, but Heike doesn’t want to push the truck too hard. The engine needle is already creeping higher than she’d like, and the radiator is guzzling water like Reiter once his kidneys failed. Heike doesn’t like thinking about his yellowing skin or cracking lips, so she turns off the highway at the first neon sign she sees. It has become night so swiftly, so completely, it’s as though a switch has been thrown, which Heike hopes will keep passersby from noticing Baum in the car as he waits for her to pay for the room. He doesn’t deserve whatever strangers at a rundown motel might heap upon him.

  But she needn’t have worried. There is only one person who walks by. He introduces himself through the truck’s grimy window as Waechter. Impossibly tall and slender, his coats are black and yet the tie he wears is the colour of summer soap bubbles. In his lapel he wears a pink flower whose petals radiate like a starburst. Waechter peers at Baum with eyes just as slippery, just as mesmerizing, that make his face look as though it has recently caught fire. The brim of Waechter’s hat is large and folded and beneath it Baum can see the rows of gleaming teeth. Waechter taps a long finger on the car window, and Baum’s branches tremble as he shifts in his seat. He searches for rescue but cannot find Heike.

  Baum chirps nervously, the hitch in his voice like a bustle of squirrels caught in autumn branches. Waechter sizes him up while simultaneously looking past him. Then he speaks with a sonorous boom and asks Baum why he is in the car. Baum doesn’t know how to respond. Is fear stifling the answer, or is there no answer at all? He is travelling with Heike westward. Branches creak.

  Waechter understands. Baum is a prisoner.

  Baum protests, but Waechter ignores him, taps his long finger again above the lock. Baum looks at the door, then up at the man’s broad smile and slow nod. Leaves blanket the car as Baum shakes. Heike will help him, he repeats to himself. When Heike comes, she will help him.

  But Heike does not help him. Heike is inside the motel office, impatient for paperwork to be completed by the stout clerk in thick glasses, wondering how her life twisted so strangel
y. Everything has been familiar since leaving the farm despite it being years since she’s seen any of it. Every inch of road, every curve of hill on her road trip through her memories has been a reminder of how far that journey has taken her only to end up in the same place. The only difference being Baum beside her instead of Reiter. Afterward, when Heike leaves the office, room key in hand, and steps outside, she takes only two steps then stops. The truck is where she parked it, but the passenger door is open, and the solitary light from the motel flickers blue neon and illuminates the empty passenger seat inside the cab.

  Cold creeps up Heike’s spine, dries her mouth, disassociates her. She floats a half foot above herself, watches from the aether as her body goes on, always a few seconds delayed. She hears herself call out Baum’s name, sees herself jog to the truck. There are leaves and twigs on the cab’s floor, something like sap on the handles. Heike’s body looks in every direction while her mind tries to understand something that’s just beyond her. She calls out with more volume, moves more frantically.

  The neon buzzes then clicks and light shines on the edge of the parking lot. There is a familiar rustle, and both Heike’s halves turn to see the shadow of branches swaying in the periphery. No less frantic, Heike swallows her concern and approaches Baum who stands on the edge of the paved world and who stares into the darkness of the arboreal.

  Heike puts her calloused hand on Baum’s rough bark. She thinks of Reiter.

  Baum doesn’t turn, but he too thinks of Reiter. His hand is twisted into the shape of a fist. He creaks and moans and wonders where Waechter has gone. A few minutes later, Baum looks at Heike but he can’t see anything, his knotted eyes engraved by the forest. Heike guides him back to the truck, then into their rented room. During the night the neon buzzes and clicks and neither Heike nor Baum are able to sleep for the thoughts rattling in their heads.

  In the morning Baum is more or less himself, although quiet, and Heike does not want to push him. Instead they gather their things and drive off in the direction of the city with a burst of exhaust and the rattle of a truck unused to meeting its limits. If anyone from the motel has seen Baum, they make no effort to get a closer look. Baum looks for Waechter, but if he once was near, he has long since retreated into the woods.

  And the two drive on.

  The jagged cityscape rises from the horizon as the forest had, but with concrete taller than trees and lights brighter than fireflies. It looks grand and endless, but Baum finds little excitement in seeing such a vast monstrosity. There are loud and sudden noises, and the air grows harder to breathe the closer the truck gets. Baum looks at Heike and sees her aged hands turned pale as they grip the steering wheel too tightly. She turns her head a fraction and her hands and shoulders slacken. The corner of her mouth offers a smile. Reassured, Baum turns back to the window, and the sights there bend his rough bark into a frown.

  It’s nearly noon when the truck, overheated and thirsty, finally pulls to a stop in the small parking lot adjoining the hospital. Baum has never seen a building so large, and makes him feel insignificant. His problems, nothing in the face of the gigantic. He puts his hand on the concrete wall to prove its real, and it’s cold and rough and splinters catch on it like brambles. He can’t put into words why he isn’t surprised, nor explain why he pretends not to notice Heike watching.

  Dr. Meyer is officed on the fifth floor. They take an elevator, and Baum cannot help inspecting every inch of the small room. It makes Heike weaken, but she says nothing and wonders again if she was wrong to hide Baum from the world. But what choice did she have? Heike does not like the city—too many reminders of Reiter in the curved streets and looming buildings. Avoidance had served her well, and would have continued to do so had Baum not needed her more than she needed herself. The understanding makes Heike stagger, but she doesn’t falter. Instead, she pushes the realization aside. It won’t help her where they’re going.

  When Heike and Baum enter, the receptionist purposely avoids reacting to Baum’s corrugated face. Instead, she hands them a clipboard with a pen tied to it by a piece of frayed twine. The form must be filled out, and she asks them to sit in the waiting chairs while they do so. Heike struggles for the words to describe her relationship to Baum, afraid to write what she knows is true.

  A nurse with tight brown curls leads them to a room only slightly larger than the elevator and has them wait behind the closed door. Baum is nervous and timid, but once she is gone his inquisitiveness resurfaces. Heike watches him probe the room and test the world. Baum wraps vines around drawer pulls and leafs through a stack of forms, but with each investigation he comes away disappointed and soon disinterested. Whatever he was looking for, he can’t find it.

  There is a clipped series of knocks on the door, and before either Heike or Baum can react Dr. Meyer enters the room. Energy crackles off him as he speaks, lightning-eyed and curious in a way that Heike doesn’t trust. But she never trusts anyone who is too curious, and since Reiter’s passing she trusts doctors even less. Dr. Meyer introduces himself but Heike doesn’t pay much attention. She’s too busy looking at Baum to see how he’s reacting. Limbs shake as though there are rodents scurrying between them, the sound like a crashing river. Baum’s knot-holed eyes have sunk so deep into his phloem that they are hidden. The only evidence they are there at all is the glint of light from deep within the recession of his tear-filled eyes.

  Dr. Meyer reassures Baum it will be okay, but something about his manner concerns Heike. He acts like a pig waiting impatiently by the trough.

  Baum nods when Dr. Meyer says he needs to run a few tests, and asks if Baum can be brave for him. He feels as though birds are nesting in his branches, their weight slight but aggravating, and knows the only way to dispel the sensation is to shakes them out. He does this obsessively three times to be sure they’re gone, and when he looks up again through the rain of dry coloured leaves floating to the ground it’s only Heike’s smile that is no longer there.

  Dr. Meyer finds it hard to contain his excitement about such an important autosomal case, and is nearly skipping as he leaves the subject in the small room, promising to be back in a moment with more information. But leaving was only to give him a moment to process the intensity of his excitement. Dr. Meyer looks at the nurse, aware of the broad smile on his face, and sees her eyes are already alight. She, too, has never seen anything like this. Epidermodysplasia verruciformis, in all its glory. It’s a find that could, if coordinated properly, mean solving the riddle of HPV and potentially more. There is so much good they can do. When Dr. Meyer gets to his private office, he places a call to the Research University, then waits as he’s transferred to the dean. Above his door hangs a framed novelty Time magazine cover with his photo, and above the headline reads: “Doctor of the Year”. Dr. Meyer smiles and puts his feet up.

  But in the middle of explaining his find, there’s an urgent knock at Dr. Meyer’s door. He puts the receiver to his chest as the nurse rushes in with the news. It’s the last thing Dr. Meyer wants to hear. It takes a moment to catch up with his thoughts. He tells the dean he’ll have to call him back.

  Getting to the car again is more difficult than Heike had expected. There are too many people rushing through the streets, and if they make Heike feel uncomfortable and claustrophobic, she can only imagine how they are affecting Baum. There’s no point in going back into the hospital—no one there is interested in helping. Heike urges Baum to hurry as she notices passersby slowing. She can see it in their mannerisms: they are beginning to question if what they’re seeing is real, and instinct is prompting them to advance. Baum notices it, too, the slow migration toward him, and he shrivels in fright, branches shaking off his last straggling leaves. Heike is helping him into the truck as the first curious gawker arrives.

  What is that? he asks. Some kind of costume? And Heike won’t look at Baum because if she doesn’t maybe Baum won’t have heard anything. But Heike hears. She hears twigs scraping the roof of her truck, back and fort
h the sticks worrying the old metal, and Heike grows irritated, angry. She puts her hand flat on the chest of the man trying to peer through the truck’s window and shoves him. Tells him to mind his own damn business. The man corrects his twisted shirt; looks hurt and annoyed. He was just asking about the costume, for Pete’s sake, and Heike teasingly imagines for a second—for less than a second, for a fraction of a second—slamming the man’s teeth into his face to show him and all the approaching gawkers that they can’t say these things about her son.

  Baum. Her son.

  The idea frightens her. She looks through the window at the trembling Baum and understands how much Reiter would have loved him, and he Reiter. Death robs so much from everyone, stopping only when there is nothing left worth taking. Heike turns, unsure if she intends to hug the man or beat him senseless, but it doesn’t matter. He’s already gone—back up the street to rejoin the gawkers who now keep their distance, who have decided they no longer need to see the freak—and the end of the afternoon feels closer than ever. The wheat is probably ripening at the farm as she stands on the dark asphalt of the hospital parking lot, so far from her centre, from where Reiter waits patiently for the day she will inevitably join him. She’ll be there soon, she thinks. Home with Baum, home with Reiter close by. She feels better when he’s near. Closer to being complete.

  Baum doesn’t speak as the truck pulls out of the parking lot, finds the long road toward home. He watches out the window, tendrils on the glass, as the world passes by; as the crowds on the streets thin, as office buildings become storefronts become houses. The truck crawls from the depths of looming concrete to surface on the flat landscape of grasses and rocks. And all the while, Baum doesn’t speak, not even as the city fades in the rear mirror, taking with it the last of Baum’s hopes. There’s nothing left for him now. The roughness of the road vibrates from the tires into the cab but Baum doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t feel anything. Disconnected and untethered, he is starting to float away. He turns to Heike, though he’s not sure if it’s for help or to say goodbye. What comes out of his mouth is the long sorrowful creak of a branch about to yield from strain.