Radiant City

by Lauren B. Davis

  The traffic at this time of night is light and they make it to the Bok-Bok almost faster than Matthew wants to. He pays the driver and watches him take off hurriedly, making for the safer, better-lit areas of Paris. He half stumbles down the stairs. Charlie and John sit in a corner. Three men he does not know huddle in the back. A new girl sits at the bar, dressed in a cheap gold halter dress, the skirt so short her panties show above her crossed legs.

  “What’s up?” says Dan.

  “Jack. Have you seen him?”

  “He was in this afternoon.”

  “Not just now?”

  “Nope.” Dan tilts his porkpie back on his head and looks at Matthew suspiciously. Then he pulls out the crowbar. “Am I going to need this?”

  “I don’t know. Don’t suppose you have another one of those, do you?”

  “You want a drink? Looks like you could use one.”

  Thankful that Dan is not the kind of man to ask questions, for he would break down if he has to say the words, he takes a double scotch, no ice. He holds his forearm close to his body to lessen the shaking in his hand. He sits at the back of the room and waits, sipping, for fifteen minutes. Then he waits twenty more.

  “If he shows up,” he says to Dan as he leaves, “try and keep him here. I’ll call in half an hour.”

  “Don’t suppose I could stop Jack if he wanted to leave,” Dan said. “And I’d be a fool to try. Anyone would be.”

  “Do your best. It’s important. And Dan … watch yourself.”

  “Matthew, wait.” Dan reaches under the bar and then holds something out to him. “Take this.”

  It is a sap. Heavy as only a ball of lead in a leather casing can be. Matthew cannot find a cab and has to walk blocks, until finally he hails one on rue de Gambetta. He jumps in, gives the address on Châteaudun and has the driver wait while he talks to the border guard at the squat. No luck. Jack’s not there. The guard says Matthew is free to come on in, but Matthew believes him and does not bother. He really does not think Jack would want to be in a crowd just now.

  He calls Dan. No sign of Jack.

  And then it comes to him. He has no doubt in his mind where Jack has gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The girls and almost-girls swarm the taxi even before it comes to a halt. A pair of breasts press against one window and through another, hands lift a skirt—proving the pantyless owner is at least technically a woman. A girl hops up on the hood and the driver curses, saying the paint will be scratched; however, when he turns to face Matthew to accept his payment he grins. Matthew fights the urge to grind the francs into his face and eradicate that smirk. He gives him no tip, which earns him an insult he ignores. He opens the door and pushes into the wall of lace-covered, rubber-corseted, leather-wrapped flesh.

  They call out to him in French. “Come with me, I give the best head.” “No, don’t listen to her, she’s too old. I’ll make you come until you scream for mercy.” “You are so pretty. You want to see my pretty little pussy? The real thing, cherie.” Their hands on his arms, their hands everywhere. He clutches his back pocket, guarding his wallet, and with the other hand he reaches in his jacket pocket and finds the sap there, waiting like a sleeping demon, heavy and dense.

  “Fuck off!” he yells and throws his arms up, shaking them off. His hand swings back, threatening. The hot ember of a cigarette on his neck burns and he slaps it away.

  “Con!” Bastard, calls a deep voice. A sharp heel kicks him.

  He breaks through, jogs to the fence and hops over into the Pré Catalan Garden. Unlike the last time he was here, this night is not clear; there are no stars overhead, no moon. The terrain is dark and deeply shadowed. He senses he is not alone. The great tree in the centre of the lawn creaks as the wind blows. He heads across the grass in a straight line toward Shakespeare’s Garden and the cave. His passing startles a crow roosting in a birch tree and its caw is a mocking rasp in the veiled night. Matthew’s nerves jump like downed electrical wires. There is the flap and flutter of wings above him. Dark shapes only, bats or birds. Sentinels, raising the alarm. Not that he thought it would be possible to come upon Jack without warning. He tells himself it doesn’t matter.

  At the next fence he calls, “Jack? You in there? I’m coming in.” Bravery boosted by bravado.

  He climbs the fence and drops to the other side. As before, he tears his palm, which gives him a new focus for his anger. Sucking on it, he slowly walks across the centre of the circle of grass. He catches a faint whiff of tobacco on the wind, but it is gone so quickly he can’t be sure. As he reaches the edge of the grass he hunkers down, resting on his heels.

  He waits as his breath slowly returns to normal. The rage leaches out of him, spreading across the hard earth, the cold stones. He gazes into the cave mouth, not even a real cave, but a make-believe cave, although the stones are real enough. It looks impoverished, lonely, more a place for a scared twelve-year-old to go than the hulking man he is looking for. Soul-piercing sorrow slinks in to claim ground beside his anger.

  It is hard to tell what, if anything, lies beyond the cave’s mouth, and from where he sits he can’t tell if the lock has been jimmied.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” He thinks of the endless nights Jack has spent standing in the green jungles, still as a held breath. The minutes tick by and nothing moves. From beyond the confines of the garden come the distant sounds of car tires and now and then the voice of the prostitutes. It is as though a transparent dome, a bell jar, has settled over the Jardin de Shakespeare. The place becomes a microcosm of other places, specific to the truth—the isolation and danger—of all other places and yet removed from their reality.

  Of course, it is possible Jack is nowhere near this place.

  “What’s the matter, Jack? Waiting to sneak up on me? Finish me off? Is that the plan? Well, give it a try. I’m not going anywhere.”

  The darkness remains merely darkness.

  More time passes, perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps half an hour—it is difficult to keep track the way his thoughts race. Anthony’s face swims before him in the dark. The sound of his laugh floats in on the wind. Guilt like a sack of squirming snakes writhes in his gut. He fingers the sap, heavy in his pocket, uses his coat sleeve to dry tears he hasn’t noticed crying. His fury grows with the tears.

  He stands up. “Fuck you, Jack,” he shouts into the cave. “You fucking psycho.” He braces himself, one foot in front of the other, balanced for impact.

  The cave entrance is opaque as a piece of coal.

  “I’m not going in that cave of yours, so if you want me, you’re going to have to come out. And you’ll have to come out sometime. I can wait until daylight. People will be here then. Is that what you want?”

  Another ten minutes, fifteen minutes.

  “So what? Have you offed yourself? Done us a favour? Is that it?” Aw, shit. Regret. With the words the taut wire of rage begins to sag. He wants a drink the size of a gallon drum, something he can fall into and drown. He has to know if his friend has found a permanent solution to his terrible troubles. My friend? The thought knocks Matthew as surely as a hammer blow to the head. Fucked up. Kindred soul. For it is possible, isn’t it? That look on Jack’s face as he strangled Matthew? The blind look that sees only ghosts. Tries to kill the ghost. Matthew has worn that look.

  Jack. Betrayer. Comforter. Corrupter. Killer. Friend. One way or another. It must be settled.

  “Fuck it. I’m coming in there.”

  He walks slowly, straining to see. The lock at the barred entrance to the cave, although replaced on the hook, is not clicked shut. His mouth dries up and the nausea churns. He touches the lock.

  “Matthew,” a voice says.

  Matthew nearly tumbles backward. The voice is Jack’s but it doesn’t come from inside the cave, it comes from above the cave. He steps back and looks up. Jack sits cross-legged on the roof of the cave. His face is covered in what looks like mud and only his eyes and teeth shine.
He looks like a nightmare version of the Cheshire cat.

  Matthew tries to keep the fear from his voice. “How long have you been up there?”

  “Watched you walk across the grass. Didn’t want you to see me. What do you want?”

  “Anthony’s dead.” There, let it be said for the first time. Let it find its target like a bullet. There is the sound of something being stifled, swallowed, choked down. “Come down.” Matthew tries to see if Jack has anything in his hands.

  “You scared of me?”

  There is no point in lying. “Yes. But not so scared I don’t want to fucking kill you myself.”

  Jack nods. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m better than I was. Some. When you first got here, well, I think it’s good you didn’t come all the way in.” He uncurls himself with an ease Matthew didn’t think possible in a middle-aged man who has apparently sat on the cold earth completely motionless for the past hour at least. He disappears behind a bush and then soundlessly reappears to Matthew’s right. Matthew’s hands form involuntary fists.

  “Where’s Anthony?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What’s happened to his body?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you know?” Jack’s voice is flat.

  “I guess I left—came after you before the police got there.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that. You should have stayed with him. What happened to Joseph?”

  “He took off. Went home, I think.”

  Jack nods. He pulls a package of cigarettes out of his pocket and offers them to Matthew. Matthew takes one. Jack flicks a match on his thumbnail and cups the flame so it is hidden.

  “So you want to kill me?” Jack says.

  “I don’t know.” Matthew’s hand shakes as he lifts the cigarette to his mouth.

  Jack sits with his back to the cave wall and indicates Matthew should do the same. They look out across the garden. A pair of rabbits nibble on the grass. Jack straightens his left arm and raises his right, squinting along the line, miming the action of looking down a gunsight. He aims at one of the rabbits. “Pow,” he says.

  “Have you got a gun?” Matthew says. It will move things along, asking this question, get to the heart of why they are here together.

  “No gun. I said I’d never have a gun again.” Jack’s teeth are very white against his darkened skin. “I was afraid somebody’d get hurt. Bad joke, huh? I kinda wish now I had one. I got a knife, though.” He reaches around behind him and pulls out what looks like a hunting knife with a long serrated blade. He offers it to Matthew, handle first. “Kabar. U.S. Marine issue. You take it.” Matthew hesitates and then takes it. When it is in his palm, for a moment Jack’s hand is still around the blade and their eyes meet. “It’s good that you take it,” says Jack. “I want you to take it.”

  And so, if an attack comes now, things will be more easily decided. The scales have tipped in favour of Matthew’s survival. Survival entails responsibilities. Matthew discovers he is disappointed at this turn of events. Then he slips the knife into the pocket on the inside of his jacket. It feels warm.

  “Matthew.” Jack’s voice is strange—thin and hoarse. “I’ve had some time to think up here.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t keep fighting it anymore. I can’t let go of it either. Can’t get it out of me. This is what’s happening now—but it’s the end of a fucking chain reaction that started a long time ago. There are other things.”

  It is only then that Matthew realizes Jack is crying. “What kind of other things?”

  “I never told you what I did in Nam. I mean, what I really did.” Jack’s laugh is filled with the harsh salt-grind of tears. “I never told nobody. Not my brother, not my wife. Fuck.” Jack rubs his palms together as though he is cold. “They must have been testing for guys who’d do it. And that’s what I can’t figure out. How did they know I’d do it? What did they see in me?”

  Jack lifts his eyes abruptly. “I’m not making excuses, you understand. I always had a choice. All soldiers have choices.

  “You get down in the dark with dark things and you just do it, and then after a while it stops feeling weird. It starts feeling good because disciplining yourself to do these things means you can overcome everything, even your own self—your own sense of what’s right. Everything becomes possible then. There’s no line that can’t be crossed. At first you were afraid, see, that doing these things would mean you were a sick fuck, but it takes almost no time to talk yourself into believing it doesn’t mean that at all, because you’re on the right team—the good guys. You can overcome anything, even yourself and every Sunday School lesson you’ve ever been taught, right? Because you have been turned into one tough motherfucker.”

  He almost looks like a kid then, crazy-eyed and tearful, but still massive and dangerous.

  “‘Get the information,’ they said. ‘Get the slant-eyed gook to tell you what we need to know and you’ll be saving the lives of your buddies, Jack. Remember what the gooks do to American POWs. Never forget what they do, the slimy yellow bastards. Here, just take this little shiny thing and touch him with it. You can be gentle, in fact it’s better if you’re gentle. You’re doing your duty, soldier. Just don’t leave any scars. That’s the golden rule. And if you have to do something that might show up on the body later—make sure the body don’t show up later.’

  “And why do you do it? Because you’re in the middle of hell. Because the lines have blurred. Because you’ve got so you like it. You’re in a tent with an interpreter and a VC prisoner. You got to find out if there’s a trap waiting for you. You don’t want to look like a fucking wuss. And you’re scared blue and that makes you crazy-angry. That’s how it starts. You want the guy to just fucking talk. If he talks there won’t be any need, right, for the other stuff. But he won’t fucking talk. He won’t fucking TALK! It makes you mad, because if he’d tell you something, you could just stop the whole shit-show before the curtain even goes up, but he’s not helping you out. He’s this little shit who’s making you do terrible things because he won’t talk. You hate this little slant, then. Which makes things easy. Inevitable.

  “You start with just a little flap of skin, maybe. And the gook looks down because he can’t believe it didn’t hurt that much. Oh, it hurts, and hurts bad, but not as bad as he imagined. And he thinks maybe it won’t be so terrible and he’ll be able to hold out, and be a fucking hard-ass, but he’s also got in his head all the shit he’d do to you if the situation was reversed and maybe he starts feeling a little smug because he knows that he’s a tougher little fuck than you are. You can’t have that, see, you just can’t have that because even if he survives this, escapes or something, he has to go back to his people with stories that’ll scare the shit out of them. So when he looks down at the flap of skin on his arm that’s neat and clean and bearable, that’s when you put the sack over his head and you make sure it’s a wet sack so he starts to think about not being able to breathe. Then you do something small. Just touch a nerve under the skin and make him jump like a dissected frog in high school biology. It’s a shock to the little fuck and he’s starting to freak out now and that’s just the beginning.” Jack’s voice is soft and soothing, and Matthew pictures him speaking into the ear of a small man with a wet canvas sack over his head, speaking to him as though Jack were his friend, his lover, his priest.

  Jack’s eyes are fixed on a point and they do not blink as he talks. His forehead is pinched and his lips pulled back, but he isn’t smiling. When he turns his head his eyes remain stationary and the tears fall unimpeded.

  “You get a bandage maybe, and fix up the knife wound, because there’s blood but it’s the sort of thing that might have happened in a righteous fight and if the guy survives and anybody’s stupid enough to question you, you can say, look, I didn’t hurt him, I gave him medical treatment. And the prisoner is confused now, right, because you’ve hurt him, but then you’ve helped him and you talk to hi
m so pretty. But he’s not talking, not telling you anything, so you get a field telephone, which runs on batteries and a generator. You start with the hands, see, and then you move on to his nuts.

  “You know, I had three friends back in Nam. All black guys. Soul Brothers, we said then. Frankie and Terry got shot, Thaylen got a bamboo stake covered in human shit through the throat. Seems the brothers were always on point, you know? They always got to go first. I stopped making friends after Thaylen.” Jack wipes the tears and snot off his face roughly, and hangs his head. His shoulders slope and his hands are mammoth paws. He is a great deadly bear, baited, blinded and beaten, tied to the stake of his nightmares. “Until Anthony. I never got to know another black guy, until Anthony. Fucking Anthony.”

  At some point Matthew has taken his hands from between his knees and put them over his ears, and it now takes a great effort to pull them away. It has not helped. He has heard everything. Another boundary shifts, another solid piece of ground slips away beneath him. The Killers of Kigali. The Butchers of Bosnia. El Salvadorian death squads. The mass murderers in Chechnya. Iraqi torturers. Palestinian suicide bombers. Israeli hit men. Jack, his friend, who sits before him hiccupping with tears. Jack. Friend. Torturer. Murderer. Matthew is weighted. Filled with stones. Skulls.

  “We’ve all done things, Jack. None of us is innocent.”

  “I took pleasure in it, Matthew. I took pleasure. Came a time I didn’t want to stop. Most of my talk is just bullshit, you know that, but this thing, it’s true. And I liked it. How did they know that about me? It had to always have been there. What did they see?” He shudders, deep and violently. “Would it have come out anyway? That’s what I just don’t know. And then you come along. With your book deal and your little adopted Lebanese family and everybody thinking you’re a hero. So like me in some ways. So unlike me. I hated that.” Jack raises his face and looks to the sky, but there is nothing there, no moon, no stars, the clouds an opaque nothingness. “There’s only one thing for it.”