“The woman. Linda. Nobody else.”
His first customer in the morning was Robert Schilling. Rob was the town’s resident model train hobbyist, a retired customs inspector who came by the store occasionally to pick up wire and screws and plaster of Paris. Rob was in his eighties, and moved, as one might say, with great deliberation. Arnold didn’t believe the depleted energy levels were a function of his age. Even when Arnold and Rob had been relatively young, he had not been the man you would want to lead the escape from a burning theater. But today, he entered the Lock ‘n’ Bolt in a state of considerable excitement.
He pushed in immediately after Arnold had unlocked and opened the door. “Damnedest thing I ever saw,” he said.
Arnold grinned. “What’s that?”
“You been over to Floyd’s?” Rob’s eyes were wide, and he looked thoroughly rattled. Rob never looked upset. Not ever.
“No,” he said. “Why?”
“Go see it.” He never quite got out of the doorway.
“Go see what?”
“Floyd’s house. It’s devil’s work.” He banged out, crossed the street with long, sure strides, and crashed into Ed’s Supermarket. Arnold stared after him. It was the only time he’d ever heard Rob mention the devil.
There was a fair amount of traffic in the street: People were boiling out of the Downtown Cafe and the Federal Building. Some were pointing in his general direction. Or toward Fifth Street. Then, the supermarket began to empty. Ep Colley, wearing a long gray woolen sweater twice his size, hurried out of the bank next door to the Lock ‘n’ Bolt. Maude Everson, the teller, was right behind him. Arnold leaned out the door. “Hey, Maude, what’s going on?”
“Something about Floyd being buried.” She threw the words over her shoulder and kept walking.
He heard sirens.
Arnold never considered simply leaving the store. Tradition weighed far too heavily. Instead, he called Janet and invited her to come in early “if you can manage that.” When she arrived, thirty minutes later and out of breath, she looked frightened.
“Something really strange happened at Floyd’s,” she said. But her explanation was too garbled to understand easily, so he left her in mid-sentence and hurried outside. The sirens, by then, had stopped. Cars were moving, but an out-of-uniform Border Patrolman had taken up traffic duty at the Fifth Street intersection, and was letting no one turn in there. Large numbers of people were coming out of the side streets from the south side of town, and were running and walking, collecting into a steady stream that moved past the Jefferson School and flowed north past the Border Patrolman.
Devil’s work.
Floyd.
A chill worked its way up Arnold’s back. He had complained bitterly to the Traveler about Floyd. Had suggested joint action aimed at him.
But the wind creature was not human. Had he forgotten that essential point? And spurred it on to commit some terrible atrocity?
He crossed the Jefferson school grounds and joined the small army moving up Fifth Street. Arnold’s minimum stature prevented his getting a good look until he’d gotten to within about a block. Then his blood froze. The crowd was thick around Floyd’s property, and vehicles cluttered the street, but that wasn’t what had drawn his eye: something dark and enormous, some Mesozoic thing had attached itself to the front of the modest frame house. Emergency lights blinked, and a couple of the volunteer firemen tried to maintain control in the absence of police. Fort Moxie had no police. Arnold assumed that a deputy would by now be on his way over from Cavalier.
He got closer, and the Mesozoic thing gradually resolved itself into an enormous pile of dead leaves. Floyd’s once-exquisite front yard was piled high with them. They rose in vast mounds, spilled across the top of his porch, buried the upstairs windows, buried the box elders, buried the driveway and maybe the Nissan. They spilled into the street, and washed across the property on either side.
Arnold looked nervously for Floyd, and was relieved to see him off to one side, gesturing to an EMT. The EMT was there with the rescue unit, all of whom had joined the crowd gawking at the spectacle. Floyd was alternately jabbing with both hands and throwing his palms out, imploring the skies to open up and drown someone.
Some spectators were pointing off in various other directions, and talking with considerable excitement. They had noticed that, with the exception of Floyd’s immediate neighbors, who had suffered by their proximity to his house, every visible lawn, every piece of open ground, including the library and the high school, was immaculate. It appeared that something had swept every stray leaf within several blocks, and dumped it all on Floyd. And Floyd’s place was engulfed with a mountain of vegetable debris.
A child came from nowhere, dashed among the rescue workers, and leaped onto one of the mounds. Its mother was right behind her, pulled her out, and dragged her kicking and screaming away.
Someone snickered. The volunteers grinned. The Border Patrol laughed. The people from the Federal Building roared. The crowd hooted. And cheered. It was as if a wave had broken: Gales of laughter swept through the street. Arnold joined in.
Abruptly, Floyd was standing in front of him, his face squeezed into a brick-red snarl. He pointed a trembling finger at Arnold. “You did this,” he shrieked. And then, to the entire baffled assemblage: “It was Whitaker.”
Linda was seated on the middle bench with a book when Arnold arrived at a few minutes after five that afternoon. He had traded in his sweatsuit for slacks, a tennis shirt, and a yellow sweater that didn’t quite fit anymore.
He posted himself about fifteen yards away, on another bench, pretending to read a Russian novel. But his heart pounded, and his juices flowed, and his level of terror mounted. He held onto his book, gripped it with white fingers, as if it were the only thing anchoring him to his secure, predictable existence. She was the loveliest woman he had ever seen.
He could not make out the title of her book. As he watched, she turned a page and he thought, for a moment, she would look up. But it did not happen. An empty plastic bag, from which she had been feeding the squirrels (O, happy beasts!), lay beside her. She was not actually looking at the open book, but seemed instead to be gazing off into the distance, and Arnold noted with satisfaction that she paid no attention to the admiring glances she drew from all who passed, both male and female.
He tried to catch her eye, to see whether he might elicit some faint encouragement. But she never looked his way.
He was going to have to get up and walk over. What would he say?
Hello. My name’s Arnold Whitaker. May I join you?
No. He might have tried that when he first arrived. It was too late now. Too much a blatant attempt at a pickup.
He could stroll in her general direction. Casually. Put his hands in his pockets, and pretend to admire the oak tree behind her, or the Greek pillars fronting the library. Nice columns. Doric, aren’t they? Or maybe show some interest in her book.
His pulse hammered in his ears. He clung to the arms of the bench.
There was more traffic than normal on Fifth Street, but they were all headed for Floyd’s house, to gawk and take pictures.
He tried to surprise himself, and threw a quick command to his muscles: Get up.
No response.
Go on over. Say hello.
A passing breeze stirred her hair. With an achingly feminine gesture, she brushed it back. He tried to imagine that hand touching his wrist. Holding his cheek while those lambent eyes poured themselves into his own.
Do it.
The breeze lifted Linda’s skirt. And while he sat, desperately aware of the hard surface of his bench, of the individual planks and the spaces between, and of the texture of the paved walkway, she closed her book, got up, brushed her skirt with a graceful left-handed movement, and without (as far as he could tell) ever having seen him, strode off.
“What happened?” The sky smelled of coming rain.
“Forget it. I really do not want to play games wi
th you.”
“Okay.” The wind rolled through the trees, splashed into the water, cut the tops off ripples. It moved among the box elders, pushed dead leaves before it, tugged at his trousers. And finally faded.
“You know I can’t bring her up here.”
“Why not?”
Arnold trembled. Here, in this solid American place, on the banks of the Red River, on the edge of Fort Moxie, North Dakota, he was acutely aware of standing at the threshold of another world, looking across the top of a globe-circling forest at multiple moons and strange constellations. “Because she’s a stranger. You don’t just invite strange women into the woods.”
“You’re not afraid of her, are you, Arnold?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why don’t you make the effort?”
“Why does it have to be her? Why not Aggie? Or Rob Schilling? Or almost anybody else in town?”
“The woman on the bench is extremely attractive.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“I would like to meet her.”
“Why?”
“As simply as I can state it: I share your own appreciation for beautiful things. I would enjoy speaking with her.”
“Then do it. You don’t need me.”
“Arnold, you’ve expressed the wish that you and I had never spoken. I can assure you that if she were a jogger, we never would have.”
Arnold sighed. “You called us simians. Why would you care about a simian?” He was leaning against a tree at the edge of a glade.
“Tell me: are you familiar with the gazelle?”
“I know what it looks like.”
“Would you say that the animal is beautiful?”
“It’s all right. I can take it or leave it.”
“Picture the gazelle, with its wide eyes, and its clean, innocent features. Endow it with intelligence. Note that its compassion already exceeds the standard for most humans. Add self-awareness, of the kind that the woman has. Would you not find the creature attractive?”
Suspicion had begun to grow in Arnold’s heart. “You’re not planning some sort of assault, are you? That’s indecent.”
“Of course not. Arnold, are you thinking sex?”
“I don’t think so. You’re not capable of sex, right?” The Traveler was slow to respond. “Are you?”
“Not strictly speaking.”
“Unstrictly speaking.”
“I am capable of orgasmic response.”
Arnold shuddered. “How?”
“You have no word.” A long silence played out between them. “By engulfing something warm and intelligent and beautiful.”
He began to back away. “Engulfing?”
“It is not how it sounds. No one is harmed.”
“It sounds kinky.”
“Your term is unfamiliar. But I can guess the meaning. Emotional relations between intelligent species is not unknown, Arnold.”
“It still sounds unnatural to me.”
“It’s not even rare.”
“Raped by a wind storm. Listen, I want you to keep your hands off her.”
“Stop thinking sex, Arnold. Anyway I don’t have hands.”
“You know what I mean.”
“We are beyond sex. We are speaking of a higher emotion.”
“Love?”
“Perhaps.”
“Love is a temporary chemical imbalance.”
“Others would define it differently.”
“How would you define it?”
“As a sublime appreciation for the noblest qualities in a fellow creature. Affection ignited by passion. In the higher beings, it is accompanied by an obsession for its object’s welfare.”
“I’m not going to deliver Linda to you. The whole idea’s obscene.”
“You don’t trust me.” It sounded genuinely offended. “I would never harm anyone.”
“Ha,” said Arnold. “Look what you did to poor Floyd.”
“Floyd’s an exception. And you feel sorry for him now, right?”
“Yes.”
“You incited me to do it.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Arnold, Arnold. Can you not face the truth even when we both know what it is?”
“She won’t come. Even if I wanted her to, she wouldn’t.”
Again, a restless movement in the trees. “Certainly not, if you insist on sitting there all afternoon until she gets up and leaves. Did you think she would walk over and invite you to go for a stroll by the river’s edge?”
Arnold felt a blush coming on. “You were there today, weren’t you? You didn’t tell me you’d be there.”
The grass rippled.
“I want you to stay away.”
“As you like.”
The temperature had dropped a couple of degrees, but she was there, on her accustomed bench.
Arnold understood her inclination, while the weather held, to visit the park each afternoon. Fort Moxie’s winters were long and bitter; one did not waste sun-filled days, particularly in September, when so few remained.
It was cooler today. The sun was hidden by a swirl of gray clouds.
This time, he instructed himself as he approached along the paving. Walk right up to her. Say hello as casually as you can, and sit down. He had hoped the other benches would all have occupants, but he could see immediately after coming off the parking lot that there was plenty of room for him on any bench he chose.
His mouth went dry. His pulse began picking up.
She had propped her book in her lap and seemed to be focused on it. Several children played unnoticed on the lawn behind her. She wore blue slacks, a white blouse and sweater. An oversized multi-colored scarf was laid across one shoulder. Arnold wondered what it would be like to have such a woman in his life. He suspected there must be a husband or boyfriend lingering somewhere.
He summoned all his courage and stopped in front of her. Actually stopped. He pretended to look at the box elder behind her, hoping to suggest appreciation for its subtle beauty. The truth was, of course, a box elder is anything but subtle. Meantime, he strained his peripheral vision for some sign of response from her.
She turned a page.
“Lovely day,” he said, in a strangled voice.
Dumb. Couldn’t he do better than that?
Her eyes touched him. They were vividly, electrically green. Brilliant, luminous eyes that could have swallowed him. “Yes,” she said, in a neutral, uninterested voice, “it is.” And that magnificent gaze slid off over his right shoulder and locked again on that goddam book.
Our Mutual Friend, he noted. Dickens.
An icy chill expanded in Arnold’s stomach. This is not going to work. “I noticed you here yesterday.”
She nodded without looking up.
Arnold did a kind of mental countdown from six and, on zero, took the plunge: “Do you mind if I join you?” His lungs weren’t working right, his voice had gone to a higher register, and he mumbled the last two words. Maybe mumbled all of it.
“Of course,” she said, with an inflection that neither invited nor rebuked. She moved over to make room. Plenty of room.
“Do you come here often?” he asked.
She continued to study the page. “Only to read.”
A terrible silence settled over the park. Three adolescent girls came out of the library entrance. They were laughing in the conspiratorial manner of females everywhere. He sat at his end of the bench, pushed against the planks, felt the heat rise in his face. He was trying desperately to think of something else to say.
Would you like to join me for dinner? We could discuss Dickens.
How about a walk down by the river?
“How’s the book?”
She was about halfway through. “Quite good,” she answered brightly. She looked at him again, and he felt opportunity beckon. What next? He could only think of the pain that would come with being sneered at by this lovely creature. And of the certainty that she would respo
nd to any initiative in just that way. She sat resplendent in late afternoon sunlight, end-of-the-day sunlight, dazzling against the fading, pedestrian world around her. How often, he wondered, had the Traveler floated invisible beside her?
Was it there now? He didn’t necessarily take his visitor at its word.
She seemed suddenly to recall something she’d forgotten. She held up one slim wrist to glance at her watch, and frowned. “I didn’t realize it was so late,” she said. She rose, and, without another word, snatched up her bag and strode off into the deepening evening.
He was too embarrassed to go back to the wind screen. The prospect of trying to explain himself to the Traveler was painful. Damn the thing anyway. Arnold sat up late that night, watching TV, and later reading a techno thriller, unable to concentrate on either. Linda filled his mind. And the Grand Forks weather man predicted high winds and unseasonable rain tomorrow.
It started in the early morning. By the time he went downstairs to open up, a fifty-five mile-an-hour gale had developed. It rattled the old building and drove everyone off the streets.
Arnold tended an empty store. He put some tape on the windows as a precaution, and set up a portable TV back of the cash register, to follow the weather reports. Grand Forks thought conditions would abate shortly after midday. Meantime, high winds were sweeping the prairie from northern Manitoba into South Dakota.
They were doing some damage. They blew over Curt Gaarstad’s garage and knocked out a few windows and picked up the bright new metal sign over Ed’s Supermarket and lost it. Nobody ever saw it again. They also caught a shipment of shingles and roofing material down at the lumber yard and scattered it around town. The remainder of the dead leaves deposited at Floyd’s (about half had been trucked away) went south, and they too vanished out over the prairie.
A Voice in the Night Page 35