by Dan Newman
“Roly?” comes an unexpected voice. “It’s me, Warren.”
“Warren? Fuck, sorry, man. I thought you were someone else.”
“Hey, no problem. So, how’s the life of an international jet-setter?”
“Tiring,” I say, and immediately I remember the call Warren had from the Star-Telegraph years ago—it was similar to the one the Professor had and my paranoia ramps up one more notch. I have tunnel vision and all I can think of is that the Star-Telegraph was—is looking into my background. Warren starts to speak, but I cut him off as I did Leo.
“Hey, Warren. Do you remember that time you got called about me from the Star-Telegraph way back when?”
“You mean the time you chewed my head off for speaking to them?” he asks sarcastically.
“Yeah, that time. Do you remember who it was that was calling?”
“No, sorry, man. I just remember it was a woman. And I know where you’re going with this, Roly, but trust me, I learned my lesson, and I do just like you told me now—I say nothing.”
I feel another wave of panic creeping up behind me. I know what’s coming next. “So you’re telling me there have been other calls since then?”
“Yeah, sure, that was why I was calling. I got calls twice in the last two weeks or so—but don’t freak. Like I said, I gave them nothing!”
“Who called? And what were they asking about?” I’m trying to sound cool, aloof, but there is an edge to my voice that even I can hear.
“Jeez, Roly. You okay, bud?”
The question is getting repetitive, and I want to tell him—and the Professor—to just answer the goddamn, motherfucking question.
Deep breath. “Yeah, just tired and pissed off.” Another deep breath and I command myself to physically calm down. “Anyway, what’d they want?”
“It was a woman that called, but she never got as far as what she wanted. She told me she was from the Star-Telegraph, working on a story about you and that she wanted to ask a few questions. That’s when I told her you were a friend and I’d prefer not to comment. She tried to sweet-talk me, but no dice. Then a week or so later—just this past Friday—I got another call, from a guy this time—and fuck me if it wasn’t the man himself, Mr. David freaking Barret! The face of the Star-Telegraph!”
My breathing hitches. I can feel panic moving in.
“Anyway, I guess they thought I’d spill once he called, but I followed the Tao of Roly and gave him jack shit.”
Warren is looking for kudos, but all I have is a quickly evolving urge to hurl. “So he didn’t ask any actual questions?”
“No, he asked plenty, but I just kind of laughed it off and said I really can’t say.”
“What kind of questions?”
“I dunno. How you knew Chloe, where you went to school, what you liked to do in your downtime, where you grew up, where you’ve lived in the city, stuff like that.”
My mind is a blender set to liquefy, and I notice that my hand is clenched into a fist so tight my fingernails are close to drawing blood. I can’t stay on the line with Warren any longer. I need to get off. I need to have a full-blown panic attack and run screaming through my apartment. I mutter something about having to go, that I’m sorry, and hang up.
• • •
In the corner of my bedroom, tucked down between the bed and the wall, I clutch my knees to my chest, watching helplessly as darkness gathers around me. But it’s as if there are two of me: one weeping uncontrollably and feeling sorry for himself on a world-class scale, and another coolly observing the whole pathetic scene.
The evening comes and hours later I’m still tucked in my corner. By the end of the night I’ve moved only once: to send an email telling work I won’t be in for a day or two—sick with a bug or something I picked up on the road.
Even if I could remember what Dr. Coyle taught me back then, I know in my heart there are no clever strategies to employ here—no breathing techniques, no mantras, no exercise regimen that can get me out of this one. I’m alone, save the restless ghosts with whom I plead. I try to strike bargain after bargain for forgiveness, but they’re having none of it.
38
After two days of darkness, I begin to write myself a new chapter. I set it all down in a modest brown notebook. It’s new, unspoiled, bound by an unopened cover that means whatever goes into it has no history. It is hope.
As I write, I feel the veil lift. My longhand scrawls about the page, unrestrained by the powder-blue lines or the center spine, sometimes in carefully crafted sentences, sometimes in solitary words, and sometimes in nothing more than a deeply etched scribble that threatens to rip the paper. There are arrows, circles, underlined names, boxes with bulleted points, and lists cribbed into the margin.
The cool observer in me is aware of how it all looks, how unstable the whole idea would seem to an outsider, but still I scribble on. As the words come, so too does a sense of excitement. The pen flicks at the page and the words and letters become flatter, longer, more akin to squiggles: childlike doodles of snakes and worms. My hand begins to cramp.
What I’ve written here is perhaps not as dramatic as what I first set out where Chloe was concerned, but at least it’s not designed to hurt anyone. Well, no one but me, that is. Still, the gist of the thing is there, laid out with a purpose that is for once not just for the good of me. And why? Because like Zimmerman once said, that evening’s empire has returned into sand.
There’s a price for everything, and like I said once to myself: perhaps my something good is just paying it.
39
Like practically everything else in life, it’s the accepting of the facts that causes us the most pain. Once that’s complete, the rest is relatively easy. As I ride in the cab over to the USBN offices, I’m surrounded by an almost blissful calm, an afterglow left by that dark mistress I have not seen for so long. It persists and stays with me. The cab is filled with warm, soft light. I’m comfortable, breathing easily, undisturbed by the living or the dead. I suspect I’m as close to being at peace with this world as I’ll ever come.
I know that the source of this Zenlike state is the result of my own cowardice—with no room to maneuver, I’m forced into a corner by the actions of others. I wonder: would I have had the courage to get here given sufficient time to reflect on things? Maybe. Maybe not.
Before being cornered, there seemed to be options, wiggle room, a space to squeeze through, and the acceptance that a life might still be grudgingly eked out alongside my demons. But not now. In the end, it makes no difference. I’m here.
I move through the USBN offices and smile and nod to all the right people, and work my way down to Gordon’s office. He waves me in and says all kinds of nice things about my last assignment, then sends me on my way. I’m to find Jane Tanner, who apparently has all the details on Rwanda, and on what appears to be poised to happen there again. I smile and nod—unruffled by the thought of a new wave of genocide that needs witnessing in Central Africa—and set off to find her.
Hours later, sitting with one ankle perched on the opposite knee at gate 47, I watch an old man with what must be his granddaughter as they giggle and poke at each other on the seats opposite mine. After a while the little girl, who can’t be more than five or six, calms down and pops herself up onto the old man’s knee, pressing herself into his thinning cardigan until she almost disappears.
The PA crackles to life as the flight is announced, and the little girl’s face is now pleated with concern, eyebrows tented as she lifts her eyes to her grandfather’s. She says something I can’t make out and the grandfather smiles and says to her in the kindest, clearest voice, “Everything’s okay, sweetheart. Everything’s just fine.”
And I know it will be.
• • •
A day later I step off the plane and into the heat of Rwanda.
At the Intwan Hotel, a familiar voice calls out to me from the entryway of the main bar, where I’m alone nursing a cold beer. “Hey, Roly, I just go
t in.” It’s Vince, lugging his backpack and two cases of technical gear. “What do we know?”
I nod to him in welcome. “Rumors mostly,” I say. “Memories of ’94. People are saying the Hutus are organizing, caching weapons and making lists. Folks are scared.”
“You have a game plan? Anywhere you want to go? Anyone you want to interview?”
“I think so. We’ve got a little cash to spread around. Hopefully we’ll get a bite.” Vince’s disdain is immediate and poorly camouflaged. He hates dropping dollars for callers, but it works, and if we don’t do it, someone else will and we’ll miss the story. It’s just the business.
I continue, ignoring his sour expression. “There’s supposed to be a guy here soon—says he can take us to a spot where a bunch of kids were executed just last night. He says they were dumped in a pit, in a whatayacall it—a latrine.”
“Fun, fun, fun,” says Vince flatly.
“Where’d you come in from?” I ask, redirecting him.
“I was with Jamie in Somalia. He’s working on a warlord thing. I touched base in New York for one night and then turned around to catch up with you here. In the lovely Intwan Hotel,” he says in mock approval.
And with that, our conversation runs dry. Vince tolerates me as he’s fully one half of our deft little two-step. The relationship works, each doing our part, dutifully filing stories on time and on spec that are routinely hitting the mark for the network.
The pause doesn’t last long. “Well, I’m beat,” says Vince, half turning away. “I’m going up to my room. Call me when your guy shows.”
“Sure thing,” I say, and drain the last of my beer.
As Vince is walking away he stops, snaps his fingers, and points back at me. “Almost forgot. I have something for you.” He puts his bags back down, rummages briefly through his backpack, and comes up with an envelope. It hasn’t traveled well and is creased and dog-eared. Vince hands it to me unapologetically.
“Who’s it from?” I mutter.
“An old workmate of yours. Dave Barret over at the Star-Telegraph.”
As Vince disappears from the empty bar, I run my fingers over the creases in the envelope. What’s inside specifically, I don’t know, but what I can tell, what is sure beyond the shadow of a doubt, is this: the letter Vince handed me and what I scribbled into a brown notebook only a few dozen hours ago are effectively the same thing. They are my opportunity to atone.
I place the letter on the bar in front of me, then raise my eyes in time to catch the bartender and order another beer. When it comes I take a sip, set it down, and look at the letter and the beer, my hands folded in my lap.
40
The road is lonely and dark in almost every way it can be this far from Kigali—nothing but the glow from my instrument panel, the pool of yellow light cast in front of the Land Cruiser, and the white dots hung high in the African night sky. I’m scared, as scared as I’ve ever been, but also filled with something that strangely seems like hope, a sense of nervous anticipation as if a long-held goal draws near.
I push on through the darkness, past the dirt road cut off where we found the executed children earlier in the day, and on into the ever-blackening Rwandan night. The police roadblock I was stopped at only twenty minutes ago seems another world away, as do the warnings they gave me through giddy, toothy smiles. I’m alone now in absolutely every sense of the word (you’re going to piss the world off, and you’re going to be alone), and the only handhold I provide myself is that what I’m doing is all I can to atone, to dull their pain, and provide some small respite from the jarring impact I’ve had on their worlds.
My hand rises to my breast pocket and touches the outline of the folded letter stowed there, the letter Vince handed me yesterday morning when he arrived in Rwanda. Perhaps now is the time to read it, with nothing but blackness on the road ahead of me, save the brightness that I know is coming. I swing the Land Cruiser onto the dusty shoulder, although with no one daring to drive this far from the city at night, I could just as easily stop the car in the middle of the road. I snap on the map light, and under its sallow glow I carefully remove the single sheet, and begin to read.
The letter is on Star-Telegraph letterhead, with the words FROM THE DESK OF DAVID BARRET printed in raised blue ink at the top. Beneath them, written in Barret’s almost feminine cursive handwriting, is a letter that outlines the end of me—which in itself is no surprise—but it also contains the answer to the one question I’ve not been fully able to answer. The letter, in its entirety, reads:
Dear Mr. Keene.
Over the course of the last year, my team, on behalf of the Star-Telegraph and the news magazine show Foreign Correspondent, has been conducting a detailed review of the circumstances surrounding the death of Ms. Chloe Dysart, daughter of Mr. Colin Dysart. In the course of our inquiries on this matter, documents have recently come to light that implicate you specifically, and outline a detailed plan that led directly, if not expressly, to her demise.
The document I am referring to is a notebook that appears to be yours, filled with details of the alleged plan. This notebook was in a box of personal items delivered to the Star-Telegraph by your associate, Mr. Warren Barton.
This story will be produced and aired in cooperation with Foreign Correspondent, and as a courtesy we would like to conduct an on-camera interview with you to capture your side of the story. A crew from FC is currently on the ground in Rwanda and will be in contact with you to arrange the interview.
I would strongly advise you to take advantage of this opportunity to speak on your own behalf and comment on the documents and interviews we have collected to date.
Yours with all sincerity,
Dave Barret
My mind slips back to the day I searched for one of my notebooks at the condo; I remember being relieved that Chloe’s was not there, not sitting on top, waiting to remind me of all I had done. I remember thinking it was just somewhere nearby, that I’d look for it later. Then my mind flicks back a little further, to the day I moved out of my squalid studio apartment. I’d collected my notebooks, I remember that clearly. But then there was Trots at the sidewalk, the ambulance ride, and an orderly placing a single box beside me after my ear was dressed and wrapped. Where was that second box? The super. He was there. He probably gathered up the contents of the box spilled when Trots knocked me down.
“So that’s how they knew,” I whisper aloud to myself, shaking my head gently at the revelation. The box that I never collected at the Star-Telegraph, the one Warren dropped off after the super hounded him to pick it up. In that box would have been a few old shirts, some underwear—junk, really, just the replaceable clutter of my life. And, of course, the notebook.
If I’d collected that box at the Star-Telegraph would it all have been any different? Either way, it changes nothing now. It can all only end in one way.
So I fold the letter into my pocket, swing the Land Cruiser back onto the darkened road, and push on.
Moments later, it happens.
Out of the darkness, I hear the rounds impact the car and the engine block. The Land Cruiser dies, and I emerge from the vehicle with the camera light on, shouting into the blackness of the night that I’m a journalist. Seconds later the camera explodes in my hand in a shower of plastic and shattered lens glass, and I shout out again, “Journalist! Journalist!” I make out the form of a small man in rags, and see by the black swatch pinned to his shoulder that he’s a member of the reformed Hutu Interahamwe. There’s a small pop and a moment of brightness near him, and I’m knocked backward into a wet heap on the road.
I can’t move. I can’t speak.
And so this is how it all ends. I had been wondering what it would be, how exactly I would atone for my sins, and this seems at least fitting. An eye for an eye, the Bible says, and as I think it, mine are snuffed out.
41
I am aware of intersecting lines.
Fuzzy at first, then clearing. The image swims in and ou
t of focus briefly, then fixes, and I try to move my head to the left but discover a tightness there. The intersecting lines make sense now: ceiling tiles, white squares neatly arranged in the ceiling of what I slowly come to understand is a hospital room.
As consciousness returns fully, I become aware of pain in my upper chest and in my left shoulder, and a thick pressure on my tongue and throat, like a mouthful of meat frozen in midswallow. My left hand won’t rise, but my right hand moves haltingly across my chest and neck, past a hard white collar bracing me from sternum to chin, and on to a heavy tube disappearing into my mouth and down my throat.
There are monitors of some sort beside me, but unable to move my head, I can only catch their outline. The room is small, off-white, and bordered with a heavy wooden rail at hip height. The door to the room, just past the foot of my bed, strikes me as overly wide and as I study it, a woman comes through. She speaks to me but I don’t hear her, or maybe I do, but I can’t make sense of the sounds. And so I close my eyes.
• • •
Someone is speaking to me, then touching my face. A bright light stabs into my right eye, then my left. I recoil from the shock of it and swear.
“Easy, Mr. Keene. Relax, you’re fine.” It’s a male voice, and as soon as my eyes recover from the blinding flash I see a man with a round face, glasses, and a closely cropped beard. He speaks to a nurse beside him, and then turns back to me. “How are you feeling?”
My right hand comes up to touch the tube disappearing into my mouth, but I find nothing there, and I realize that while my throat is slightly sore, the pressure is gone. But around me something else is struggling to the fore, something tattered and ragged, images that are unfinished but frightening nonetheless: the dark road in the Rwandan night, the letter, the Land Cruiser dying. Then, nothing.