—You sound funny. Are you all right?
—I’m just distracted. I’ve been…I was looking at something weird.
—Something weird aboard Viator? Who would have thought?
The detail of the forest and the city on the wall seemed sharper than before, as if the image were setting, like a print in a bath of developer.
—So, she said. Are you going to tell me what’s weird?
—I don’t know how to explain it. I…I’m not sure what I’m seeing anymore.
Wind swayed the linden boughs; the clustered leaves rustled and appeared to be spinning; clever, shiny green paddles registering the flow of light and air; the hidden metal-throated bird gave its long, declining cry. Wilander had an eerie feeling of dislocation, as if—were he to turn around—he would discover that the walls and the body of the ship had dissolved and he would see, instead, a forest, and, below, a lagoon and a city.
—Should I be worried about you? Arlene asked.
—I don’t suppose it could hurt, he said.
Five
“…betwixt and between…”
When he called in his reports to Jochanan Lunde, as he did one sullen, gusty July afternoon not long after this conversation with Arlene, Wilander would usually take himself to Viator’s stern, where reception was the clearest. Approximately forty feet of the stern protruded from the forest, the ruined screws hanging like two huge crumpled iron blossoms above a shingle littered with weathered shards of trees that had been crushed and knocked aside by the ship’s disastrous passage, and strewn with mounds of dark brown seaweed that Wilander, though he knew better, often mistook on first sight for the bodies of drowned men. Standing by the rail that day, he felt exposed, vulnerable to the open sky and the leaden sea, its surface tented by innumerable wavelets close to land, but heaving sluggishly farther out, making it appear that a submerged monster was shouldering its way toward the wreck, and he had to repress an urge to duck back under the canopy of boughs, because the view from the stern was menacing in its bleakness—it seemed that the treeline marked a division between a lush green security teeming with life and a cold, winded purgatory populated by crabs and shadows. He gazed down at the shingle as he delivered to Lunde a litany of partial estimates and hastily conceived plans, responding to the old man’s terse questions, yet only half-involved in these exchanges; and so, when Lunde asked if he had noticed anything out of the ordinary aboard the ship, instead of offering his usual pro forma answer, distracted by a movement on the shore below and to the right of the hull (an animal, he thought; one whose coloration blended so perfectly with that of the motley pebbles and the shattered, silvery gray wood, he could not discern its shape), he asked, What kind of thing are you talking about?
Following a pause, Lunde said angrily, How can I answer that? I’m not there. I don’t know what’s ordinary for you.
—It’s all out of the ordinary, isn’t it? Living on a wreck’s not what I’d call normal.
—It bothers you? It’s becoming stressful?
—No, I’m not saying that. I…
—Is the job wearing on you, then? The solitude? If so, I can look for a replacement.
Wilander retreated from a confrontation. It’s just that given the context, I’m not sure how to answer your question.
—Well, let me ask it another way. Lunde’s voice held a distinct touch of condescension. In context of your experiences aboard Viator, using them as a standard for normalcy, has anything occurred that you’d consider abnormal? Anything unexpected? Anything startling?
Wilander would have liked to ask why Lunde wanted to know, what possible interest could such information hold for him, but he felt he had pushed the old man as far as he dared. Nothing startling, he said.
—Unexpected, then?
—Not really. There’s been some…odd behavior.
—Which is it? Not really, or there’s been some odd behavior.
The animal below cleared a cluster of wooden debris and crept across open ground, but its camouflage prevented Wilander from identifying it—it looked as if a portion of the shingle had become ambulatory. The other men, he said. They’ve developed hobbies. They don’t interfere with the job, of course, but…
—I should hope not.
Wilander peered at the animal—it appeared to be smallish, about the size of a badger, and moved fluidly, albeit slowly, as if sliding rather than walking.
—Are you there? Lunde asked.
—Yes. What were you saying?
—You were doing the talking. Something about the men’s hobbies.
—Right.
As Wilander described Arnsparger’s passion for rust, Halmus’ obsession with glass, the animal passed into a clump of ferns at the verge of the shingle, leaving him disquieted, and when Lunde expressed impatience with his recital, stating that such eccentricities were to be expected among men dwelling in solitude, Wilander, annoyed, no longer so concerned with placating his employer, felt inclined to elaborate upon the unexpected, to tell of his recurring dream, the pictures materializing on the walls, the mirror, the unseen bird with the metallic cry that hooted incessantly in the crown of the linden tree, this nearly invisible creature on the shingle (a porcupine, perhaps?), and the forest itself—now that he thought about it, wasn’t such temperate growth so close to the Arctic Circle not merely unexpected, wasn’t it implausible, impossible?—but before he could begin, Lunde said he had business to attend to and reminded him that they would talk the following week, saying he hoped Wilander would have something more substantial to report, and ended the call, his bluntness giving Wilander cause to wonder if he had misjudged him, if the kindly old fellow he remembered from Fairbanks had only seemed kind in contrast to the unkindness of the shelters and the streets. That question, and the question regarding the overall reliability of his perceptions, nagged at him as he headed toward Kaliaska, and, taking into account his reaction to the forest, reminiscent of the reaction he had displayed after his talk with Mortensen, a feeling of unease growing stronger with every step, a pleasant walk evolving into a nervous, hurried flight, stopping now and again to mark an unfamiliar cry that filtered down through the boughs, glimpsing furtive movement in the undergrowth, sensing enmity in a place that had often nourished him with its dark green complexity, he revisited the notion that his problems might not be due to business failures, to failures of character, but stemmed from a physical condition that provoked intense mood swings. Since his arrival, he had more or less succeeded in dismissing this concern; yet now the idea had resurfaced, he fell victim to it as though to a sudden onset of illness, a sweat breaking on his brow, his hands trembling, unsteadiness infecting his thoughts. He decided to turn back, but, realizing that he had come over halfway, he went forward again, going at an erratic clip, briskly for a minute or two, then pausing, detouring around a suspicious hollow, a forbidding bush, and when at last he left the forest behind and reached the rise overlooking Kaliaska, he felt ambivalent in his relief, like a sailor who has survived a disaster at sea and swum to landfall on a hostile shore. The streets were empty of traffic, pedestrian or otherwise. Smoke trickled from chimneys; a few birds circled above the dock, keening. Wind struck cold into Wilander. Something was wrong. The wasted town and the barren earth beyond testified to wrongness as might an unfavorable array of cards; the line of the mountain peaks graphed a feeble vitality and its decline. Weakness pervaded his limbs, tattered his thoughts. He imagined he was fading, his colors swirling, his form blurring, drifting on the wind. Somebody fired up one of the Caterpillars parked behind the trading post; a gout of black smoke gushed from its exhaust, and a dog that had been sleeping beneath the vehicle slunk away, casting rueful glances back at the rumbling thing that had disturbed it. As if this had been their cue, two paunchy Inupiat women in jeans and sweatshirts, their hair loose about their shoulders, stepped around the corner of the post, walking at an angle that would carry them past his position. One waved with a hand holding a paper sack, the sort tha
t generally contained a pint bottle and shouted, Hey, Tom! He returned a wave, but he didn’t recognize them. They veered toward him and stumped up the rise. Their chubby, lined faces seemed like those you might find on copper coins of great antiquity, well-worn images of glum, inbred, unlovely queens. He still had no clue as to who they were. They smelled of whiskey and that smell sang to the weakness in him. The heavier and older of the two had matronly breasts, gray flecks in her hair, a Seattle Seahawks totem emblazoned on her sweatshirt; she asked what he was doing standing there.
—Hovering, he said. Feeling a little betwixt and between.
—Don’t tell me there’s trouble in paradise?
He realized she must be talking about him and Arlene. I’m just pulling some things together in my head.
She held out the paper sack. Want a swig?
His hand twitched toward the sack, but he said, No, thanks. The younger woman, her sweatshirt sporting an American Idol logo, squinted at him; her lips were badly chapped and a shiny pink scar, at least a centimeter wide, roughly paralleled the curve of her right eyelid. Man, you look sad, she said.
The older woman gave a sardonic laugh and the younger, angry, pried the sack from her grasp. Well, he does! she said. Look at the guy. He’s fucked up! She drank and wiped her mouth on the shoulder of her sweatshirt.
—I’m fine, Wilander said.
—It ain’t love trouble, what do you figure it is? The older woman reached for the paper sack, asking this in a murmurous voice, not making it clear whom she was addressing, but leaving Wilander with the impression that the subject of discussion was of little consequence to her, and she felt compelled to placate the younger woman with a response, otherwise she might hog the liquor.
Wilander’s instinct was to reiterate that he was not fucked up, not sad, but then he remembered the women—mother and daughter, Roogie and Cat by name, they ran the coin laundry on the edge of town, and were genial, hardworking types except on the weekends, which they habitually spent drinking. He suddenly perceived them to be wise fools, like drunks in a play, existential savants capable of delivering a profound commentary.
—The thing that’s bothering me, I get these mood swings, he said. One second I’m okay, I’m happy, I’m going about my business, and the next I’m paranoid. I think it might be something chemical.
The women stared at him, perhaps surprised that he had confided in them, perhaps too drunk to understand what he had said, and then Roogie, the mother, gave her daughter a nudge and said, Sounds like your cousin Alvin. What the judge told him before he went to rehab. Judging by her baffled expression, Cat did not recall the event, and Roogie went on, About how he had a syndrome from his drinking?
—Oh, yeah. Cat squinted up at Wilander once again. Maybe you oughta cut back on the booze.
—I’ve been clean and sober for over a year.
—But you was a drinking man, right? Maybe you caught the syndrome, too, and it stuck with you.
From somewhere in the town came the flatulent noise of an unmufflered engine starting up.
—Sounds like Bert got his truck going, Roogie said.
Cat grunted. Big fucking deal! That worthless son-of-a-bitch never’s gonna give us a ride.
—Well, he might if you was nicer, if you didn’t call him names everytime you see him.
—You want me to sleep with him? That’s what it’ll take. I’m not gonna sleep with him just so he’ll carry you around to wherever you want.
—Only thing I’m asking is you treat him like a human being!
—He ain’t no human being! He’s a filthy old dog who owns a truck! Why you want to ride with him in the first place, I’ll never know. Damn thing smells like he sleeps in it.
Someone—the malodorous Bert, if Cat and Roogie were to be believed—began gunning the engine, racing it. The women glared at each other, and Wilander, hoping to steer the conversation back on track, said, I’ve been thinking my problem, the mood swings, they might have to do with me living on Viator.
—Bitch! Cat said to Roogie. What do you care what he does to me? He could knock my eye out and leave me crawling in the mud, that’d be all right ’long as he drives you over to Anchorage once a month.
—I should smack you for saying that! Hands on hips, Roogie faced down her daughter.
—Go ahead! Wouldn’t be the first time!
—All I done for you, how can you accuse me of not caring?
—It seems I’ve always had them, Wilander said. But since I came here, it’s like moods that used to last for months come and go in a matter of hours.
Scowling, Roogie swiveled her head toward him. What the hell are you talking about?
Cat said, You done so much for me, how come I’m still living in this shithole?
Wilander decided to try another tack. Either of you ever hear any rumors floating around about Viator. Anything strange.
—I hear there’s a buncha queers living out there now, said Cat.
—I don’t know where you get your mouth, Roogie said to her. You didn’t get that mouth from me.
—Naw, I musta got it from my real mother!
The engine shut down and, as though its operation had been tied in with the functioning of the weather, the wind died. In the quiet, Wilander heard waves slapping against the dock. There aren’t any scary stories about the ship? he asked. Ghost stories…anything like that.
Cat scoffed at this. You seen a ghost, didja?
Wilander said that he had not.
—Then why you going on about ’em for?
Roogie put a hand on Wilander’s shoulder, her expression a parody of sympathetic concern. Whatever your problem is, Tom, there’s an easy solution. All you gotta do is do right by Arlene, and everything’ll fall into place.
—How am I not doing right by her?
—Arlene’s a good woman. You need to get off the fence and commit to her. You take care of her, she’ll take care of you.
—A good woman don’t charge six dollars for a pack of smokes, said Cat.
—That’s the tax! She can’t help that!
—Did Arlene tell you that? asked Wilander. She’s looking for me to commit?
—She don’t know her ass! Cat said. She makes up shit all the time!
Roogie folded her arms, affecting injured dignity. Matter of fact, I did talk to her. Even if I didn’t, it’s plain how she feels.
Cat took a long swig of whiskey, too long, apparently, for Roogie’s tastes—she snatched the bottle back and lifted it from the paper sack to check how much was left.
—That guy who came off Viator after it crashed, Cat said, he acted like he’d seen a ghost. Walked around staring at shit and giving a jump whenever you come up on him. He was here for a day about…then they came got him.
—Like you remember! You were twelve years old! Roogie said.
—I remember better’n you! Cat turned to Wilander. She was drinking so much back then, she didn’t know about the crash ’til a week after it happened.
—What guy? Wilander was startled not just by her statement, but by a recognition that, until now, he had only considered in passing what must have transpired with the crew.
—The captain. Roogie re-sheathed the bottle in the sack and had a delicate sip, as if she intended to ration the whiskey from that point on. I heard it was the captain.
—How about the rest of the crew? What happened to them?
—He’s the only one I know about, Cat said, and Roogie chimed in, Mark Matchett, that’s the doctor we had back then, he told me the guy was telling some kinda wild story about how come he ran the ship aground, but wouldn’t nobody believe him.
—Mark Matchett’d tell you anything to make your eyes get big, Cat said. So when he slipped his hand in your pants, you’d think it was all part of a story.
—I taken all your mouth I’m gonna take! You don’t know nothing about me and Mark!
—I know he’d give you a wink and you’d drop to your knees! I musta walked in on the
two of you a dozen times.
—Goddamn you!
—Him with his back turned, fixing his zipper, and you wiping your mouth off. Didn’t take a genius to figure out what you was up to.
Roogie made to punch her daughter, and Wilander, trying to stop her, catching at her arm, sent her off-balance; she slipped and sat down hard, fell onto her back, somehow managing not to spill the whiskey, and, after giving him a look that went through quick stages of bewilderment, hurt, and rage, finally settling on despair, she began to sob. He bent to help her stand, but Cat pushed him away and shouted, Keep your fucking hands off my mama!
Wilander attempted to explain what had happened, but she screamed at him and Roogie’s sobs escalated into a wail, as if she were encouraged by Cat’s solicitude.
—See what you done! Cat shoved him hard in the chest and he reeled backward a few steps. You keep the fuck away!
Tears leaking from her eyes, she kneeled to console her mother, putting an arm about her, joining her in a community of grief that was founded—Wilander knew—upon no specific ill, but was informed by the sense of impermanence that tars the human spirit, the stuff that glues it to the flesh, a sticky emotional ground where drunks and addicts and other fools are prone to wander, mistaking it for evidence of a grand significance in their lives simply because it’s something they can feel through their self-imposed numbness. She took Roogie in her arms, rocked her. I’ll kill you, she said in a shaky half-whisper, as if the words were an endearment. Touch her again, and I’ll kill you.
* * *
The wallpaper in Arlene’s bedroom, a gold foil-like material with black bars of sheet music printed across it, clashed with everything else in the room, but so did each object in the room clash one with the others, and thus from a jumble of color and shape and function was yielded if not a harmony, then a discordant uniformity: a brass bed piled high with pillows and a wine-colored satin spread; a teak armoire hulking up at the foot of the bed, like a beast gloomily observing the activity thereon; curtains of Belgian lace that, when blown inward, reminded Wilander of filmy sea creatures gathering food from a current; a leatherette recliner nearly buried beneath laundry; candlesticks of brass and silver and crystal and pewter, oddly paired, no two alike; glass jars filled with agate pebbles; a dressing table of age-darkened cherrywood covered—as was every surface—with a dozen varieties of clutter, its mirror wreathed by a string of Christmas tree lights; the sixty-inch television set, a different sort of beast, sleek and blandly modern; clothes and books and shoes and change and magazines and toiletries scattered across the floor (Arlene had foresworn the art of housekeeping); and, on the bedside table, a lamp with a lacquered green shade whose dim emerald glow lent a transitory unity to these disparate objects, hollowing the night shadows into the semblance of a mystic cave, an underwater place where might dwell a sorceress who had removed herself from the world in order to master some contemplative discipline. You could not simply enter the room, you were absorbed by it, becoming an element of its dissonance, and Wilander had occasion to think that the decor might not be, as it appeared, haphazard, but rather was so designed to accommodate the haphazard collection of men who had slept there.
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