Boundaries

by Wright, T. M.

  "I saw a window, a room, a man. The man said, ‘I love you, I love you.’ Through the window a flat blue sky." The thin man paused. "I wrote this. So this, I believe, is where I come from. The place where there is a flat blue sky. It’s not the sky we have here. We have a sky that moves and changes, as you’ve seen. I think that the place I came from, to be here, is a place of stillness."

  David looked at the man for a long moment. Then he said, "You come from the same place that I came from."

  ~ * ~

  In another city, a woman felt her way along narrow streets, her hand reaching for walls that were never close enough.

  She needed walls.

  She needed closeness.

  And she needed space, too. She felt hungry for it. But she was fearful of that hunger. The out-of-doors was so numbing, so overwhelming, as if it were hungry for her.

  The two needs—for closeness and for space—fought each other within her and at times she wept because she felt as if she were being pulled apart and compacted at the same time.

  ~ * ~

  "Detective Kenner?" Karen Duffy said into Christian Grieg’s telephone receiver, and told him who she was. She paused, then, uncertain how to continue.

  "What can I help you with?" coaxed Leo Kenner.

  She took a breath. "I’m a friend of David Case’s. He’s the brother of the woman who was murdered recently."

  "Anne Case. Yes." His tone betrayed his piqued interest.

  Again, Karen paused. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, talking to the police. So what if Christian had had an affair with Anne Case. And so what if he had never told her, or David, about it. He was entitled to a private life. And his letters, and Anne’s writings—on balance so . . . bizarre. But no. That wasn’t the right word. "I was simply wondering," she said to Leo Kenner, surprising herself by continuing the conversation, "how your investigation was proceeding."

  "Actually," Kenner said, "there is no investigation, per se. We’ve pretty well established that...”

  “Brian Fisher. Yes. I know." The words were coming out as if unbidden, now. "David told us.”

  “Us?"

  "Yes. I have a friend. His name is Grieg. Perhaps you’ve heard of him—he’s a writer—" She hung up.

  She kept her hand on the receiver. Her hand was shaking.

  ~ * ~

  The woman in the yellow cottage on Sylvan Beach Road was there only for the day. She was making the cottage ready for her employers, who were planning on staying there for the weekend. Her employers had asked her to "freshen it," meaning that she should open all the windows and fluff up the pillows and air out the sheets and blankets—to generally dispel the clamminess that a closed-up lake cottage gathers to itself over the course of a winter and spring.

  There had been no actual cleaning up to do. The cottage was as she had left it the previous autumn—spotless. The woman’s employers had always insisted that it be that way, and she had always been only too happy to oblige. A dirty house—or even a house that wasn’t spotless—was, after all, a reminder that, as she put it, "we’re just one rung up from the animals." But, even though the cottage had been spotless, she had still cleaned it thoroughly, until it stank of lemon-scented spray cleaner, Lysol, and Spic’n’Span, a mixture of odors that—as she stood in the living room, her back to the front door—brought a broad smile to her pudgy, middle-aged face, a smile that said God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.

  That smile froze when she heard a loud knock on the glass door behind her. She did not move for a moment, both surprised and a little fearful because the knock had been so loud, then she turned her head a quarter turn, so she could get some idea, at least, who was at the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that it was probably a man. The figure at the door was stocky, mannish. She did not turn her head further for a moment. She didn’t like the idea of a man being at the door while she was alone here. The neighbors had never been very friendly, and since none of the cottages nearby were yet in use for the summer, it was unlikely that the person at the door was a neighbor. So, by definition, it was a strange man at the door, and strange man easily translated, in her mind, as dangerous man.

  Still, she realized, she had to be polite. She had to acknowledge the man—he could see her there, after all.

  She turned, faced the door, studied the man in front of it for a moment, decided he looked harmless enough, except for the way his head was cocked, as if he were having a hard time seeing her, and except for his eyes, which seemed especially wide, somehow. And there was a queer sort of smile on his face—now that she thought about it. A crooked sort of smile, a Cheshire cat smile.

  "What is it you want?" she said.

  But the man did not reply. He continued to stare wide-eyed at her, continued to smile at her crookedly, his square head cocked.

  "What is it you want?" she repeated, voice louder.

  Still, he remained silent.

  She quickly grew very afraid. People who stared that way were people she did not want to be around. She was certainly not going to open the door for him. Should she move away from the door? she wondered. Go into the kitchen? To the second floor? What would that gain her?

  She glanced quickly at the telephone on a small glass-and-wrought-iron end table nearby. She whispered a curse. The phone wasn’t hooked up yet.

  She looked ,back at the man at the door. She thought that he had shifted position a little. She wasn’t sure. Yes, she realized. He had shifted position. He’d cocked his head the other way.

  She felt her breathing grow quick, and shallow.

  She felt a sweat start under her arms.

  This man, she realized, was a very dangerous man, and she did not have use of the phone, and running to another part of the little cottage would be stupid. It would gain her nothing. Only time.

  She shouted at the man, "Get away!"

  He did not move. He stayed silent.

  "Get away!" she shouted again, and stepped quickly to the phone, visible from where the man was standing, picked it up, held the receiver to her ear, kept her eyes on the man all the while.

  His lips moved. He’d said something, she realized. But she had heard nothing.

  She kept the receiver to her ear. She planned to pretend to be talking to someone on it. She wondered frantically what words she would use. She didn’t know. She had no idea. Dammit! Her fear was making her light-headed, stupid.

  The man’s lips moved again. Still she heard nothing.

  She screamed at him, "What do you want?"

  His lips moved again. Again soundlessly.

  "Get away from here!" the woman screamed.

  "This is private property!"

  She threw the phone down. She ran to the narrow stairway that led to the small upstairs bedroom. There was an access to the crawlspace attic there. That’s where she’d hide.

  She got halfway up the stairs when she heard the front door crash open.

  ~ * ~

  In another part of Sylvan Beach, the small white dog that had gotten herself lost several days earlier was trying hard to get some sleep. It was very difficult. The dog had crawled under a porch, thinking she would be safe, but the darkness behind her was daunting, and every few moments she glanced around, certain that something was there, in the darkness—one of the dogs that had chased her, for instance.

  The dog was so certain that something waited in the darkness behind her under the porch, in fact, that eventually she crawled out from under the porch, glanced anxiously about, and made her way through the bright sunlight, over the slippery rocks, to the beach.

  FIFTEEN

  Karen Duffy realized that she couldn’t call Detective Kenner back. He’d think she was some kind of lunatic. Maybe he’d even think she knew something about Anne Case’s murder.

  Maybe she did know something about it. Maybe she knew quite a lot about it.

  Wasn’t that the reason she’d called Kenner in the first place?

  She closed he
r eyes. Christ, yes, of course that was the reason.

  She picked up the phone. Put it down. Picked it up again.

  ~ * ~

  "Fred," Detective Kenner said to Fred Collins over the phone, "did you interview someone named Karen Duffy in connection with the Anne Case homicide?"

  "No," Collins answered. He was at home. He was very tired. "I don’t think so. Why?"

  Kenner told him about Karen’s phone call, then said he had tried to call her at home but there had been no answer.

  "Maybe she wasn’t calling from home," Collins suggested.

  "Or maybe she wasn’t answering the phone," Kenner said.

  "Are you going to pursue it further?" Collins asked.

  "Yes," Kenner answered.

  ~ * ~

  The rest of the yellow cottage was spotless, but the crawlspace attic was home to a hundred varieties of spiders and insects; the cellulose insulation—installed two decades earlier—had begun to disintegrate and, because there was an opening to the crawl space from under the eaves—caused by the effects of dry rot—the brisk winds that day pushed the disintegrating insulation about like dust.

  The pudgy-faced housekeeper hiding in the crawlspace—she was hunched precariously on the joists; there was no floor, only the old, rotting joists, the decaying insulation between, the Sheetrock kitchen ceiling below—could see nothing except a sliver of yellowish light at the bottom of the small attic-access door. But she could feel a hundred tiny legs tickling her exposed arms and calves, and the cellulose dust blowing about was quickly clogging her nose so she had to breathe through her mouth, which was nearly impossible because her terror was forcing her to breathe very rapidly. As a consequence, she was hyperventilating and becoming dizzy.

  She did not think it was possible she was going to die.

  She thought it was a certainty.

  She began to pray. Silently.

  And somewhere behind her terror, she wondered about heaven.

  ~ * ~

  "David?" Christian Grieg mouthed silently. "David? I know you’re up here." No words came out, only the passage of air, a whisper so small even he could not have heard it.

  The small room stank of cleaning fluids. This displeased him. David was trying to clean him out of his life. That wasn’t friendly. They had known each other a good long time—Who knew how long?—and now David wanted to clean him out of his life, as if he—Christian—were nothing more than a spot of dirt, a mote of dust, a stain.

  "David?" he mouthed. "David?" He looked about. A full-sized bed, beige comforter, newly fluffed pillows. A nightstand—oak. A wastebasket. Track lighting above. "David, I saw you come up here." No words. Only air. He moved quietly across the room, to the front of the bed. He looked right. A window. It opened onto the lake. There were whitecaps. They were silent. The room was silent. "David?" Air moving. "David?" He looked left. The door. The stairs. A chest of drawers. Cherry. A mirror.

  A man was there, in the mirror. He stood silently, eyes wide, head cocked, mouth crooked.

  "Hello," Christian said.

  "Hello," said the man in the mirror.

  Christian looked straight ahead. Another door. Much shorter, waist-high. Closet? he wondered. Attic?

  "David?" Only air. Stillness. Silence.

  He leaned over. There was no knob, just a rectangular block of wood nailed vertically to the door. He grasped the block of wood, pulled it. The door would not open.

  He chuckled silently.

  He pulled the door harder.

  He heard a scream from beyond the door, the sound of wood cracking, another scream, something thumping hard—with grim finality—to the kitchen floor below.

  "David," he said.

  ~ * ~

  The woman stretched her arms out to touch the walls that were never close enough. She needed closeness. She needed space. She felt pulled and compacted all at once. She wept. She laughed.

  She remembered.

  The soft, oval face of a man with sensitive gray eyes.

  "Brian," the woman said. But it meant nothing to her. It was a little more than a tic, a random movement of her lips, that made her feel warm for an instant.

  Then the face dissipated.

  And, again, the woman found herself trying almost desperately to reach the walls that were never close enough.

  ~ * ~

  The thin man sat in an uncomfortable-looking wooden rocking chair and sipped orange pekoe tea from a delicate blue teacup as he rocked. White daylight streaming in through the room’s tall, narrow window illuminated his legs, his middle, his legs, his middle.

  He has been watching David for some time.

  Because David, standing very still near the manuscript-laden bookcase, had not spoken for some time.

  The faceless man wanted to coax David. He wanted to ask David lots of questions—questions that had plagued the man forever, questions the man was certain David could answer. But the man was telling himself that he had patience and sensitivity, and that he knew that David had suddenly become very troubled. So, he would hold his tongue for the moment. It was difficult—his lips quivered with the effort—but he remained silent.

  Suddenly the light through the room’s one window grew dimmer. "Darkness again," the man said, and wanted desperately to elaborate.

  David said nothing.

  "It’s very unusual," the man said. "Darkness so soon after darkness."

  "Darkness," David whispered. "My sister’s name is Anne."

  "Anne," said the faceless man wonderingly.

  "She’s here. Anne’s here," David said, and his voice rose in pitch as he spoke, as the excitement and certainty mounted within him. "Anne is here. In this city. I can feel it!"

  "Anne," the thin man whispered, lost in the name, trying to find meaning in it. He said, "Sister," and wondered at it. He said, "Anne," and wondered at it. "Anne. Sister," he said.

  "I can’t stay here," David said, and started for the door.

  The faceless man rose abruptly from his chair, sending it rocking way back, until it nearly fell, then way forward. The faceless man crossed the room in a moment. He grabbed David’s arm.

  David looked at the man’s long, dark fingers, then into the man’s face, the large eyes, wide nose. The mouth was set in a stern, straight line.

  The man said, "I can see your face now. I think that that may be of some significance.”

  ~ * ~

  Christian stared silently at the chunky woman lying dead on the kitchen floor of the yellow cottage. The woman was on her back, her arms wide, ankles crossed beneath her calf-length blue housedress. The dress had ridden up to just above her fat, dimpled white knees.

  She was surrounded and covered by bits of gray cellulose insulation, whitish-gray Sheetrock and blond lengths of splintered, decayed, floor joists. Spiders of varying sizes and colors—they had fallen with her from the attic crawlspace—were busily retreating to hiding places in the kitchen.

  The woman’s eyes were open and Christian thought that that was interesting—whatever could she be looking at?

  "Well, now," he said aloud, and leaned over and put his open hand on the woman’s face, so his palm was on her nose, and his lower palm was on her mouth, and his fingers were touching her open eyes. He had never touched the open eyes of another person. He had always been interested in how they might feel. Moist? Cool? Warm? He found that the chunky woman’s eyes were cool and hard, like whole eggs.

  He lingered with his open hand on her face for half a minute, then he straightened and gently toed her at the waist. He whispered at her, "Dead, huh?"

  He sighed. He had the wrong cottage, that was obvious. But the past few minutes here had been wonderfully entertaining.

  ~ * ~

  "Detective Kenner, this is Karen Duffy again. I’m afraid we . . . somehow we got cut off a few minutes ago. It’s this phone, I think. It’s very old. One of those black table models that weighs a ton—"

  "Could you tell me where you’re calling from, Miss Duff
y?" Kenner interrupted.

  "Do you mean you want the number here? The telephone number?" She started to give him the number.

  He interrupted again, "No. Whose house are you calling from? Your own?"

  A moment’s silence. Then, "Christian’s house," she said.

  "That’s the man you mentioned earlier? The writer?"

  "Yes. Christian Grieg."

  "Could you spell that, please."

  "Grieg? Of course." She spelled it. "And Christian, his first name, is spelled as you’d imagine it is."

  Kenner spelled Christian for her, anyway, then asked, "Is that right?"

  "That’s right, yes," she answered, her voice shaky.

  "Are you nervous, Miss Duffy?"

  She hesitated, then said, "A little, certainly." She was trying to sound casual, offhand. "I imagine that lots of people are nervous talking to police detectives."

  "Of course. Could you tell me the reason for your call, please?"

  Silence.

  "Miss Duffy?"

  "I’m not sure." Her voice still was shaky. "Perhaps I’ve . . . " Silence.

  "Please, Miss Duffy."

  "No, I’m sorry for bothering you unnecessarily," she said. Then there was a click, a dial tone.

  "Goddammit!" Kenner whispered. He got the phone book out of his desk drawer and looked up Christian Grieg’s number and address.

  ~ * ~

  "Ah, but there you go again," said the thin man. "I can’t see you." He sounded playful. "It’s sort of a game of peekaboo you’re playing, isn’t it?"

  "No," David said, his tone heavy with meaning. "No game. I’m dying."

  The thin man shook his head; the darkness covering his face moved from side to side.

  "You haven’t the faintest idea what I’m talking about, do you?" David said.

  "I don’t know about dying," the man said. "God, I don’t know about dying, but I surely want to, I have always wanted to know about dying, ever since I first put the word to paper—"

  There was a loud, harsh gurgling noise from close by.

  The man crossed quickly to a length of fat gray pipe that emerged from the floor near the darkened window and disappeared into the ceiling. He rapped on the pipe. The gurgling stopped. "Unequal pressure," he said. "No one knows why. There are these pipes everywhere. They go down through the houses and then into the ground, and from time to time they make that awful noise."