Waking the Dead

by Scott Spencer

  “Yes and no,” she said. Cagey.

  “I guess what I’m supposed to say here,” I said, “is whether or not I was working with the Chileans. Well, the truth is, I wasn’t. It was something Sarah did.”

  “Sarah Williams,” McDuffy said to Broderick. “His friend.”

  Broderick nodded. His hand went into his vest; he grabbed a couple of inches of flab and squeezed with all his might.

  “I heard some interesting stuff about old Bertelli today,” said Kathy.

  “This Chilean thing,” Broderick said. “I think I remember it now.”

  “Of course you do,” said McDuffy. “It was huge. Francisco Higgins. Gisela Higgins. They were like South American jet-setters. Very glamorous, very left. Not necessarily Communistic or anything. But, you know, part of that whole sixties, Latin American revolution thing. And it seemed like the generals and whatever down in Chile had sent a hit squad up here to do the Higginses in. But nothing ever was proved. Whoever put that bomb under the car—”

  “They were bombed?” asked Broderick.

  “Golly, George,” said McDuffy. “Where were you in 1975?”

  “I was in London, going to school.”

  “Well, you were certainly out of touch. Yes. The car was bombed. And whoever put the bomb in place got away, just like that. Most people think whoever it was got out of the country. There was the usual talk about conspiracies, you know, the CIA giving the bombers safe passage. And then there were the theories that the left planted the bomb, figuring Francisco and Gisela were worth more as dead martyrs. That the whole thing was a way of embarrassing the new Chilean government.”

  “That’s a pretty far-out idea,” said Broderick.

  “It’s what you call bullshit,” I said.

  “Do you see your candidacy as a way of carrying this fight forward?” Broderick asked me.

  “Now be careful, George,” said Kathy. “He wasn’t a part of that whole thing to begin with.”

  “OK,” said Broderick, “let me put it differently. If you’re elected, do you intend to—”

  “Provocative,” teased Kathy, wagging her finger at Broderick and smiling.

  “Just looking for something to write about,” said Broderick, acknowledging her smile with a shadowy grin of his own.

  What was I waiting for? Why didn’t I clear the table with a sweep of my arm? Had I traveled this far for this? It seemed the path got only narrower and my steps only more careful. What did my tablemates see in me that told them they could talk about the day in Minnesota like this? Did I seem that anesthetized to the horror of it?

  Just then, I heard the hollow thock of a cork being pulled from a bottle of champagne. I turned in my seat toward the sound. A waitress in black slacks was pouring the champagne for a small bald fellow in expensive clothes. He was with a young, trapped-looking woman. He glared at the champagne, as it filled his glass. The candlelight caught the fizz of the wine and made it look hot and angry.

  And then, in that last moment, with the net of my attention still cast out into the restaurant, then, with the border guards of intelligence lighting their cigarettes, gazing at the stars, not at all doing their job of stopping anything from crossing over the line between heart and mind, it was then that I saw her, Sarah, just getting up from her table at the side of the restaurant, near the black and chrome bar. There were three other people at her table but she was the only one leaving. She was wearing a black sweater, gray pleated trousers. There was a look in her face of an anger that was at once immense and familiar. Her jaw was tight; her gestures were quick, almost slashing. She pulled a purple wool coat off the back of her chair. She glanced back at the people at her table and shook her head in disgust and then set off, with the overcoat draped over her broad, square shoulders.

  “Hey, hey,” said Sandra McDuffy, pushing her chair back. I had somehow knocked over my goblet of club soda and it was running off the edge of the table and into her lap.

  “Sorry,” I said, getting up. I watched the back of the purple overcoat go past the bar toward the door to the outside. The piped-in music changed: “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?”

  There was a little commotion at my table. Napkins were thrown over the club soda. Kathy Courtney was talking a mile a minute and George Broderick sneaked two antacid tablets into his wide flexible mouth and then looked around with a weird sort of guilt in his eyes as if it were against the law to take Tums. I knew I was making a very big mistake and I knew I had just a moment to cover it.

  “This is very strange,” I said. “But that …” I pointed toward the door just as she was pushing her way out. I turned back to Kathy and the reporters. They seemed uncomfortable and, realizing that, I suddenly realized that whatever I told them would come as a relief. People would rather believe anything than the chaos of an unraveling mind. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. But that woman who just left has some statistics I’ve been trying to get hold of and she’s … she’s very hard to reach.”

  I groped for my coat but all I felt was chair. Maybe it would be better to leave without it; it might mean I was coming right back. I made what I could only assume was a reassuring gesture and then made my way across the restaurant and toward the door, telling myself with every step that I wasn’t doing anything I couldn’t somehow fix later on.

  The wind was blowing hard like a shoulder against the door but I pushed through. My pant cuffs danced wildly around the tops of my ankles; my tie went straight back over my shoulder; the cold wind was like steel against my belly. The snow was flashing past the streetlights. My heart seemed to be inching around my chest, like an old frightened man walking in the dark. I looked up the block. There was only emptiness. The neon lights of a shop window hung in the web of blackness for a moment and then disappeared, then reappeared. I looked the other way and there she was, near the corner now, where the light governing north-south traffic was red and the westbound traffic moved in a quick grinding blur. Turn around, I thought, hurtling my inner voice at her. But of course she did not. Her figure looked dim, unfocused. Snow was getting in my eyes and the sound of the wind whined chaotically. I began to run.

  I felt agile and quick. I seemed to be gliding toward her. I raced past the little nut-store with the shelled nuts basking in bins beneath infrared lights, past a funky rip-off clothing store called Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, past a dark little bar called Mister Sister. The light changed and she was walking quickly across the street. I could see by the way her elbows and shoulders were moving that she was finally buttoning her coat. I opened my hand as if her warm belly were beneath my palm.

  And then, suddenly, I stopped. How could it possibly be Sarah? What sort of displaced suicide was I committing? I stood on one side of the street and watched her walk away and I was telling myself to turn around. But of course it wasn’t as simple as that: there are moments when precisely what life requires is that you let go of everything you’ve believed to that point. And the problem becomes knowing when those moments are. From the time this campaign for Carmichael’s office began, I had shared the most tender, undefended center of my heart with Sarah. She had come to me in sleep; I had heard her voice humming in the wires. She would not go away; she only got closer. And now standing on that corner with the snow coming faster and faster I had just one more moment to make what I suddenly realized was the most important decision of my life: Was I losing my mind or was I really going to have another chance with her? Put like that, the choice seemed oddly simple and clear. I called her name and started to run after her. My old and everyday mind was like a light on the shore and the rest of me was a ship sailing out toward the invisible curve of the sea.

  She knew I was following her. Her step quickened. She glanced back over her shoulder and then quickly turned away. A shopkeeper had thrown chemical rock salt onto the pavement and her boots crunched over it. In the middle of the block, she stepped onto the street, crossed, and made it to the other side. A bus was coming at a good clip, its windows lighted and
green, exhaust pouring out of it like a black bushy tail. I knew if I let that bus pass it would erase her; I darted in front of it, my wimpy shoes almost failing to negotiate the slimy, icy skin of the street.

  “Sarah,” I said, now that I was behind her again. Only one hundred feet separated us. She didn’t turn around. She started to run and I ran after her. In the movies, a chased woman invariably trips over her own feet but she was sure-footed, more sure-footed than I. The cold was starting to congeal in my chest. Thoughts broke off in large vaporous chunks.

  She began to run in earnest, full out. I shouted at her to stop; my voice, pinched by the cold, sounded desperate, repellent. I tried to run as fast as she, but I could not overtake her. I could barely keep up. She was close to her destination; I could see it in the urgency of her stride. Then the storefronts gave way to the obsidian spears of a high iron fence. Behind the fence were the barred windows of a parochial school and then the swell of large oval stained-glass windows thrust out into the night like the breast of a great bird. The iron fence flashed by. I saw her running up the steps to the church. A wedge of light appeared in the dark snowy air as she opened the door and then disappeared as it closed.

  I went in after her. But there was ice on the steep cement stairs and I lost my footing. I broke my fall with my hands, but my shin cracked into the edge of a step and the pain flew into me like a flock of small frightened birds flushed out of the underbrush. I cursed to myself but tried to keep moving. I was on my hands and knees. My eyes were closed and I made myself keep going. I more or less crawled up to the top of the steps. My left leg was bleeding and so were the heels of both hands, though only slightly. I stood up and grabbed for the door. I heard a low animal moan and then realized it was me.

  I pushed through the vestibule, through the double doors, into the nave. The church was dark, warm, and the shadows trembled so it made everything seem unstable. The pulpit was empty but here and there in the pews I could make out a bowed head. I stood at the back of the church breathing heavily, my hand gripped tight on the smooth back of the last pew. A woman with a black scarf over her head was lighting a votive candle with a long wooden match; she blew out the match and folded her hands to pray. I looked for Sarah. My eyes stung from the smoke and the sudden change of temperature. I squeezed them shut for a moment and when I opened them again I saw her near the altar. In front of and to the side of the altar there was a stone corridor leading to a small chapel off to the left side. She glanced quickly up at the crucifix and then darted into that corridor. I could hear the heels of her boots clacking against the floor. I ran down the central aisle. From the corners of my eyes, I saw here and there an old woman on a kneeling bench, whispering her prayers into the knuckles of closed hands.

  The little chapel was dark. Only two votive candles burned like large red eyes in the shadows. There were no pews, just a basin filled with holy water and a statue of Mary enclosed in glass behind a Communion rail. It was a wooden statue, painted blue and peach and white; there were cracks in the wood near the eyes and two of her fingers were missing. And except for that statue, I was alone in the chapel. “Sarah?” I said, in a voice just above a whisper. I was quiet; all I could hear was my dry, rapid breaths. “Sarah?” I said, louder this time, and then again, louder still, and again, and again and again. Each cry sent up a satellite of echo that went round and round the vaulted ceiling. I looked for the door through which she could have left—but there was nothing, no way out. I picked up one of the votive candles and paced the small chapel with it. I was saying things, calling her name: I’m not really sure what I said. And then I saw a narrow wooden door. I opened it and the wind came rushing toward me. The flame of the candle pressed against the glass and went out. I tasted snow on my lips. I was on a grillwork balcony; an iron staircase led down to a back alley illuminated by a large buzzing street lamp. She was gone.

  I walked back into the chapel. Closed the door. The candle fell from my hand and shattered on the stone floor. I was not large enough to support what I was being asked to bear and as I admitted this to myself what strength I had left fled from me. I didn’t know what to do and the truth is I didn’t exactly know what to feel. I rested my weight against the Communion rail and stared at the wooden statue of Mary. “Goddamnit,” I said, and then I reared my head back and said it again, screamed it this time, and as the echo subsided I heard footsteps coming toward the chapel, hurrying along. “Who is making this disturbance?” said an anxious voice with a British inflection.

  I turned and there was Father Stanton, his hair completely white now, his blue eyes immense and offended. He was dressed in pajamas, slippers, a dark woolen robe. Someone must have awakened him and told him a madman was in the church. He seemed not to recognize me for a moment, but then in a flicker he did. He stepped back and clasped his hands together. “Fielding, my God, what’s wrong? What brings you here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, and then staggered toward him and grasped his hand with all that was left of my strength. What cold fingers, I thought as I fell before him.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  He looked at me. I could see enough of his eyes to notice the alarm. I stepped back so he would not be afraid.

  “Did you want to speak to me?” he asked.

  “I don’t know why I’m here,” I said. “Where am I?”

  “You are in a church,” he said. His voice sounded suddenly sharp, annoyed. “And you’ve created a disturbance. You frightened a woman in prayer. This church is a sanctuary, Fielding. You should know that.”

  “I want to talk about Sarah,” I said. I closed my eyes; I felt his hand taking mine. I felt my strength leaving me like the last light in a room as the door swings shut.

  “What do you want to say about her, Fielding?” said Stanton softly.

  “Is she alive, Father? Please tell me.”

  I waited for his answer. I could hear his soft, calm breaths. Finally, I opened my eyes. He was still holding my hand, looking at me with enormous pity.

  “She is alive in the hearts of those of us who loved her. And beyond that, there is something greater. She is with God.”

  I took my hand away from him. “I followed her into this church, Father Stanton.” I tried to set my face so I would look strong. I wanted to look very, very strong after saying a thing like that.

  Father Stanton came toward me. His image seemed unstable, like something reflected in a very old mirror.

  “Fielding,” he said, shaking his head. He put his arm around my shoulder and I just stood there, accepting his mercy and staring off into the darkness.

  12

  SARAH WAS BACK from Chile and I was racing home to her from New York, where I’d been celebrating my father’s retirement. I got the last plane out and it was empty except for the crew and for me. I remember feeling in my isolation like a president on his own private jet and somehow that felt better than feeling what I really was—a man racing back to his lover with the knowledge growing within him that he was losing her. I was stubborn but I was not a fool: now that she was back from her mission into the steely heart of Chile, I knew that Sarah would need me that night and the next night, too, but I also knew that she was turning and that she was ready to steer her life in a direction I could not possibly follow. It seemed to be just a matter of time. That we had found each other in the first place and managed to stay together for so many, many months seemed in the roaring darkness of that flight home to be a perfect happy accident and now the laws of emotional entropy were asserting themselves. Sarah and I, I thought, were like rockets that had been shot up from the launching pads of childhoods a thousand miles apart. The trajectories of our flights had crossed for a time and we had flown in tandem—but now suddenly our paths were diverging. I could see Sarah cutting her way through space, even as she—or was it I?—got farther and farther away.

  In truth, I felt humbled by her bravery, both horrified and awestruck over the choices she was making. It was a terrible blow—
this feeling she was becoming, in her own eyes certainly and even to an extent in mine, my spiritual superior. It was a feeling I had carried within me in one form or another all of my life.

  In college, I knew a boy who took mescaline five times a week. In a short while he was talking about theories of human electrical energy, angry molecules in the air, hot spots in Harvard Yard, but even as I witnessed his degeneration—the Frosted Flakes in his knitted beard, the staring empty eyes—I could not help but feel a nagging suspicion that he had discovered something I needed to learn and would never be able to. It was akin to what I’d always felt about Danny, who conducted his affairs on a high wire without a net, and it was what I’d always felt about Caroline—with her easy grace under pressure, and her ability to toss out her most tender feeling like a red rose off the side of a ship. For a time, I had felt Sarah and I were exact spiritual equals—conspirators, really. The usual: laughed at the same jokes, noticed the same oddballs hiding in the crowd, were easily aware of the imperfections and even the unavoidable residue of innate human rot that lay at the bottom of every motive, every gesture. We were not angels; we would let the phone ring no matter what brokenhearted soul might have been calling. And we were perfect lovers for each other, too. We went at it with the same sense of risk. We both longed to cut loose from the self we wore like a regulation uniform out into the everyday world. With me deep inside her, Sarah writhed and clutched and it seemed the bones in her face opened a little. I mean her face changed, it truly changed, and I saw a Sarah no one else knew, not even herself, except through me, and this simple, elemental, spacious knowledge bound us: it was the most real and unadorned thing I had ever known and she knew it about me, too. We were each other’s pathways into ourselves and we were young enough and vain enough to care about that.

  But it was an era, a time of our lives, and returning home to her that night I realized it was coming to an end. It had probably been changing long before that night, but this was the first time I could let myself see it—up there in the darkness inside that little pressurized tube, with the nozzle of light pouring out of the overhead reading lamp and onto the book that remained closed in my lap. I knew that our embraces would be different, and with that knowledge came a deeper, sadder knowledge—that they already had changed. We were not only holding each other, but holding on to each other, and I covered my eyes and squeezed them shut and there was a thud, a little jolt, but that was only my book slipping off my lap into the darkness that swirled like smoke around my feet.