Damnation Street wab-3

by Andrew Klavan

  Part Three

  Cats and Mice

  21.

  I followed Emma.

  I woke up that morning in the white tangle of Sissy's fast embrace, in the smell of her, the older-woman perfumed smell that I was drunk on, that had me spellbound. My face was tucked into the hollow of her throat, and my dick was hard as rock against her thigh as she lay sleeping. Almost at once, I started thinking about Emma, fantasizing about walking along some street with Emma, holding Emma's hand, standing on Emma's doorstep at the end of a date and kissing her, drawing her into my arms, moving my hand inside her blouse. And so it went, until I wanted Sissy desperately, Sissy because… well, because Sissy was there-right there in the flesh when I was hard and crazy with love for Emma.

  She liked it that I woke her up, that I couldn't wait. It made her laugh that I was so aroused, that I was inside her before she was even fully conscious. I looked down at her, trim and pink and white beneath me, her eyes swimming with tears, her lips parted on her small whispering cries. I looked down at her and thought if I couldn't have Emma I would die.

  When I was getting dressed to leave, she called to me, "Where are you off to so early, sweetie? Aren't you gonna come in to the office with me?"

  I was in the bedroom, standing in front of the full-length mirror on the inside of her closet door. She was calling to me from the bathroom, calling over the noise of running water. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my clothes in her closet, my jeans, my slacks and button-down shirts, hanging among those schoolgirl outfits of hers, the white blouses, the pleated skirts. It was all so comfortable, so domestic, as if our lives were already thoroughly intermingled, as if the deal were already done. I despaired at the sight of it. I would never get free of her, never.

  "I gotta go to Berkeley, remember?" I called back to her. "On the case for that guy, that professor guy, the one who says his daughter is avoiding him. I'm supposed to follow her."

  I heard her shut the water off. "What?" she called.

  "I have to follow the professor's daughter. "

  For whom my love-I fretted obsessively as I drove over the Bay Bridge half an hour later-for whom my love had become utterly impossible. Never mind Sissy. Never mind that I hadn't the courage or will to leave her. Now there was Emma's peculiar, intellectual, alcoholic, not to mention intimidating father to deal with. If she found out he had hired me to follow her, it would all be over. And if she didn't find out, he would find out that I'd followed her for my own purposes and then he'd tell her, and it would all be over. And it was all over anyway, because she was probably seeing someone else already, that was probably what I was following her to find out.

  I knew I shouldn't have let it come to this. I should've turned the job down at the very beginning. But I couldn't. Because it gave me a reason to see her again. And by the time I reached Berkeley, that's all I was thinking about. I drove up the hill on the north side of campus, past the book store and the coffee shops and the sandwich shops and the students walking down toward the campus under big white clouds and a bright sun. I drove on into the oak- and elm-tree shadows of the hills, past the oak- and elm-tree-shaded houses. And all I was thinking about was that I was going to see Emma again.

  And then I did. I did see her, up in the leafy neighborhood of the foothills. Not half a minute after I pulled my car to the curb a little distance from her parents' house, she stepped out the front door.

  It was a moment of truth. After all my fantasies about her, the actual sight of her might have been a disappointment. She might've been less attractive than I remembered, or I might've exaggerated the quiet shock of connection I felt when I was with her. All that sense of destiny, of completion-it might've vanished before the fact of her like smoke in the wind. I might have watched her through my car window, smirking at myself for a romantic imbecile, sagging inside with sadness and disenchantment.

  But oh no. It was not like that at all. She stepped out of the modest peak-roofed clapboard, out of the shadow of the porch into the bright autumn day. I took one look at that long, slim figure, the mischievous, valentine-shaped face, the adorable red beret atop the short, shaggy black, black hair. And, brothers and sisters, the angels sang, the birdies went tweet-tweet-tweet, and somewhere in that nexus of heart and testicle that passes for a man's soul, there was a spiritually audible snap as if all the jigsaw pieces of the world had leapt together in an instant.

  So that was one second. Then, the next second, I realized Emma was walking straight toward me, that in yet another second, she would see me watching her from behind the wheel. Grasping the situation at a glance, I panicked instantly. I grabbed the ignition key, twisted it. A scree that sounded like the attack cry of a swooping harpy flew up from under the hood-because the engine was already running.

  "Shit," I observed.

  I didn't wait to see if the hellacious noise had drawn Emma's attention. I popped the car into gear and hit the gas. The car let out another screech-the tires this time. It tore away from the curb, roaring up the hill. I muttered a prayer of the please-please-please-please-please variety that she hadn't recognized me as I thundered past.

  So began the latest and last phase of my career as a private detective.

  I went around a curve, out of her sight. I parked the car. Got out. Went after her on foot.

  When she came into view again, she was still heading downhill. She was wearing a long, flaring coat and that beret, the same one she'd worn the night I met her. She was carrying books under her arm, striding purposely beside the winding road toward the campus.

  I stayed about a block or so behind her. She moved rapidly under the trees, her figure brightening and darkening as she went from sunlight to dappled shadow. We descended together past small lawns and small houses nestled in foliage.

  At first it all went smoothly. We were soon surrounded by other students on their way to school and older locals heading for the shops. It was easy for me to blend in and remain inconspicuous, easy to keep her in sight. There was only one problem. After the first moment of passion and excitement was over, I began to feel like scum. Following her, spying on her. Taking money from her father to find out what she was doing on the sly. I felt slimier with every step, guiltier with every step until, by the time we came within sight of that final stretch of stores and restaurants leading to the campus, I wanted to be anywhere other than there, anyone other than myself.

  We reached the last residential corner above the commercial stretch. Emma stopped at the edge of the sidewalk to let a motorcycle pass.

  I stopped too, several yards back, standing close to the trunk of a broad oak, hunkered deep in its shadow. I waited there. I watched her. I yearned to step out into the light, to stride up behind her and take her arm. I wanted her to turn and look up at me with those wicked, witty, incredibly sweet green eyes so I could tell her everything, everything.

  I just didn't have the courage.

  I stood where I was, hiding behind the oak tree. Waiting for her to cross the street and continue on to the campus.

  But that was when things got strange.

  Emma took a look around her. It was not an ordinary look. It was a slow, deliberate scan of the crossroads. It was as if she was searching for something or someone suspicious, out of place. It was almost as if she suspected she was being followed. She checked the cars going by, the faces of anyone near her. Then she glanced back over her shoulder to check the sidewalk behind.

  I was so surprised, I only just had time to pull back, to pull up and stand at attention behind the tree trunk. My heart started beating hard. My breath started coming fast. An endless second passed, and then another.

  Finally, I dared to peek out around the tree. Emma was on the move again.

  She'd changed direction. She wasn't heading toward the campus anymore. She'd turned left, headed east, up another street of trees and lawns and houses.

  Everything suddenly became a lot more difficult. Because Emma was moving with caution now, looking a
round her with every step, checking to make sure that no one was moving secretly in her wake.

  And since, as it happened, I was moving secretly in her wake, it was no easy thing keeping up with her. I couldn't exactly creep from tree to tree like a cartoon spy. This was Berkeley, a town to the left of reality, and so feminist you could get arrested for your daydreams. The morning crowds were absolutely peppered with joyless silver-haired spinsters who looked like they did nothing all day but call the police to report men furtively following women. One false step and I'd end up in the back room of a station house with some six-foot broad hitting me over the head with Our Bodies, Ourselves.

  I had to think fast. I spotted an apartment house, a brick building across the street. I ducked between two moving cars to get to it. Dashed up the front steps. Stood studying the mailboxes by the door, as if I were searching for a name. At the same time, I stole quick glances up the street. I watched helplessly as Emma moved farther and farther away. She was almost at the next corner now, looking around, looking nervously back over her shoulder.

  Then she reached the corner, turned the corner. Hurried out of sight.

  "Shit!" I spat between clenched teeth.

  I skittered down the steps. I jogged up the hill after her, dodging and weaving through the oncoming crowd. I cursed myself with every yard. Not only was I a piece of slimy scum for following her, I was an incompetent piece of slimy scum, following her badly.

  I reached the intersection. I looked up the street. She was gone. No-there she was, just moving out of the piebald pool of sun and shade under an autumn maple tree. I stood where I was, right out in the open like a fool, staring after her. If she had looked back just then, she would've seen me. She couldn't have missed me.

  Then she did look-but she was one second too late. Realizing how exposed I was, I had just moved forward to hide myself behind the low hedge dividing one lawn from another. It was from there I watched Emma scan her surroundings one last time. She peered down the hill toward me, then up the hill, then to the left and right. Then, pressing her chin to her chest as if to hide her face, she turned down the front path of a husky brown two-story house. In four steps she was at the door. The door came open before she knocked or rang. A man stuck his head out, glancing around. Then he pulled his head back and Emma followed him inside.

  I came out of my hiding place and hurried after her.

  Half a minute and I was at the house. Then I spent another half minute hovering like the stalker I was around the eucalyptus tree on the edge of the lawn. From there I could see through a front hall window. I saw Emma peel off the adorable red beret, peel off her flaring coat. She handed them both to another figure, a man, the man, I assumed, who had met her at the door. I saw the man put his hand on her arm.

  My heart plunged. I'd been right. She was meeting a secret lover.

  But the next instant, my plunging heart did a roller-coaster climb. I saw Emma and her companion walk deeper into the house, toward the light of an inner entranceway. There, just before I lost sight of them, more people came from the room beyond to greet them. It was not a lover's meeting. It was a gathering of some kind.

  Now, strange as it is to relate, I forgot all my caution. A combination of urgent curiosity and desperate longing overtook me. I was so focused on finding out what was going on, so focused on getting closer to Emma, on knowing her secret, that the need for stealth-the stealth on which everything depended-simply slipped my mind.

  Boldly, stupidly, I stepped forth. I crossed the lawn, the shaggy lawn, the grass above my shoes, the last dew of morning clammy on my socks. I went to the house. I placed a hand on the rough surface of one of its wooden shingles. I pressed my face to the window. I peered through.

  I could see shadows-two, maybe three people-just within the inner entranceway. The rest of the room beyond the threshold was out of sight. I heard a voice-a man's voice-speak in there, but I couldn't make out what he was saying. What the hell were they doing in there that had to be kept so secret?

  I needed a better view, a window at the rear of the house that looked directly into that back room. I didn't hesitate. In fact, I was so wrapped up in what I was doing now, I barely took the trouble to conceal my movements at all. Like an old friend or a meter reader or the guy who mows the lawn, I sallied forth to the gate in the white picket fence beyond the far wall. Without hesitation-without even covering the noise-I opened the gate and walked into the backyard.

  It was just a little square of land between this house and the one behind. Brick paths through shrubs, a lemon tree at the center. The windows here were larger, tall and open and clear. I was completely exposed as I approached them. My footsteps whispered loudly through the pachysandra.

  I didn't care. I didn't even think about it. I was too curious, too fascinated. What was this? What was going on?

  I heard the people in the house start singing. It sounded like a church choir. In fact, it sounded like church music, like a hymn. What the hell?

  Just as I came close enough to make out the words, the singing stopped. That voice, that man's voice, rose again. It sounded steady and sure, but it was still too damned low to understand. I had to get closer. I stepped right up to the window. I pressed my face against the pane.

  I looked in. I saw everything.

  There was a large, open room. There were benches, rows of benches, facing the rear wall, eight or ten benches with maybe twenty-five people sitting on them. There was the man, the man whose lone voice I'd heard. He was standing in front of the others. Standing with his arms half-lifted, his hands open at his sides. Behind him, on that rear wall, heavy purple curtains hung. In front of the curtains, held up by ropes or wires, I wasn't sure which, there was a plain wooden cross about the height of a man.

  I watched. The people slid in unison from the benches and went down on their knees. All of them, Emma too, went down on their knees, clasping their hands in front of them. The man before them lifted his eyes to the ceiling. He began to recite the Our Father, the Lord's Prayer. The others joined in.

  By this time my jaw had fallen nearly to my chest. My mouth was wide open.

  They were praying. They were Christians. All of them. Emma too. Emma was a Christian.

  I could not have been more shocked if I had looked in and seen her fucking a horse.

  How on earth? How in hell? What was she thinking? How could she possibly be a Christian? What happened to all that stuff her father told me? Homer to the deconstructionists? The realms of gold? What happened to her high school paper about God being an illusion of an illusion of our psychology or whatever?

  I mean, no wonder she was hiding from the old man. No wonder she was afraid someone would see her coming here, that word of these religious high jinks would get back to Daddy. He was so proud of what he'd taught her: a whole course on Western civilization, he'd said. The Enlightenment, modernity, the deconstruction of the old beliefs. It was what connected her to him.

  And she had abandoned it, all of it, everything she'd learned, to sink back into medieval superstition and hocus-pocus.

  Look at her! I thought to myself wildly, staring wildly, gaping wildly. I was appalled. I was a modern man, an intellectual, sophisticated man. I was appalled to see such a smart, witty, knowledgeable girl kneeling there with her hands clasped like a child, with those wonderful green eyes lifted like a saint's and that valentine face upraised like the face of some pert, mischievous angel who seemed to give off an almost mesmeric radiance so that I couldn't stop staring at her, standing there at the window and staring and staring through the glass and feeling this tide, this wave, this surge of hunger for a lifetime at her lips and in her arms rising up through me, washing away every other thought and caution and consideration…

  So that it was many long moments-I don't know how many, I don't know how long-before I realized I had been discovered.

  22.

  When I die and go to hell, they will lock me in a screening room and play the movie of that moment for a
ll eternity. They won't need fire. I'll burn from within.

  All this time later, I remember every detail. I can see it as clearly as if I were in hell already. My breath started it. In my curiosity to know what was going on, I had instinctively held my breath. Then, as the full truth hit me, the air poured out of my lungs in a long huff of surprise. It fogged the glass of the window I was peering through-a circle of mist blossomed on the pane. The preacher caught the movement of it in his peripheral vision. Halfway through an "Amen," he turned and saw me standing there.

  Some part of my brain must have registered this, but it didn't fully get through to me somehow. I was too busy staring at Emma. She and the rest of the congregation were rising from their knees, settling back into their seats. And one by one, noticing that the preacher had turned his head, they were following his gaze.

  Still, I didn't completely realize what was happening. I was staring at Emma. I was thinking about Emma.

  Then she turned too. Emma turned too.

  Our eyes met through the window. I came to myself with a jolt. The shock I felt was answered by the shock on Emma's face.

  I remember thinking: Ah. Well. That's that…

  Emma stood crisply. She gestured to the others to go on without her. Calm and stately, she walked out of the room.

  The congregation was still staring at me, every one of them. I offered them a Cheshire grin of infinite apology and withdrew through the whispering pachysandra to stand abashed in the shadow of the lemon tree.

  A moment later they started singing again. Why shouldn't they sing? I thought miserably. They aren't me. I stood and waited. I heard the front door of the house open and shut. I saw Emma walking slowly to the garden gate.