How Quickly She Disappears

by Raymond Fleischmann

  And she did fall. Repeatedly. Once every few minutes, Elisabeth’s foot would catch or slip on something beneath her, and then she would pitch forward and the snow would be up to her elbows and her nose would be brushing the frost. But each time, she pushed herself up, and she pushed herself forward. Each time, she reached into one pocket of her parka and glanced at the compass she had brought with her from the car. Straight north. Straight north. Often, it seemed to take her ten minutes to walk just as many feet, but she was undeterred. Straight north. Go straight north.

  The temperature was in the single digits, and the air felt even colder than that. With each passing minute, the snow fell harder, and the sky grew darker. It wasn’t even four o’clock, but dusk was already settling over Alaska, and the woods spread out in every direction like some blue-gray landscape in a dream. Keep moving, and move fast. Go. It’ll be dark soon. It’ll be night. Elisabeth neither heard nor saw any animals—not so much as a gray jay flitted through the trees above her—but she was thinking of Silas Denny. She saw the frozen heap of horror. The straggles of bloody clothing. Bones and masticated gristle. No matter the snow, no matter the temperature: Keep moving. She would get through this, and she would find Margaret. Just keep going.

  And the walk did become easier. Not any faster, or less strenuous, but easier to manage. More tolerable. In time, Elisabeth concentrated just as she had done during the drive from Fairbanks. A foggy serenity overtook her, and she focused less and less on the soreness in her feet and the aching in her muscles and the snow that whipped against her face. Soon, she wasn’t even cold. The rifle hung on her back and the bullets jangled in her pocket, and she moved.

  She thought of John and the other men setting out on their hunting trip that afternoon when she had walked with them. She remembered how the woods had overtaken them, how it had enveloped them in an instant. That was her now, she knew. Today, she was on the other side of things—today, she was the one enveloped by the woods and the snow and the trees collapsing on top of her—and what she found was a world that existed in a kind of limbo. There were only the woods and the snow and the deepening dusk. Straight north. Straight north. She trudged. She pushed. She concentrated on the task at hand, so much so that she didn’t even notice the cabin when she first came upon it, not until she was nearly at its doorstep.

  The cabin blended in with the woods around it, a home more grown than built. Elisabeth stood outside of it for a long minute, studying the cabin, not entirely sure that it was even real. It was small, hardly any larger than her and John’s bedroom had been in Tanacross. The cabin had no windows, just a door held on by a pair of wrought-iron hinges. It was made entirely out of tree trunks and, judging from the weathered darkness of the wood, it was clear that the cabin had been there for many years. It was buried under snow and ice. The roof sagged with age, and in its center, a small stone chimney jutted through the frost.

  The chimney was smoking, pumping out a skein of gray that the driving snow bent instantly and blew away. But apart from the smoke, there were no signs of life around the cabin. No footprints. Not even a woodpile. The trees stood very close to it, just two or three feet from the cabin’s walls, so close that it looked as though the whole structure might be absorbed back into the woods at any moment. Elisabeth pulled the rifle off her back, and she untied the scarf from its stock and barrel. Then she cocked the rifle’s lever, and even with the wind and snow howling past her ears, she heard the bullet shift into place with a precise click. She stepped forward.

  Nothing. No talking. No voices. No footsteps. She stood outside the door, listening, but she couldn’t hear a single sound. The door was held shut by a simple iron latch, and she reached for it now.

  He’s going to be standing there with a gun against her head.

  He’s going to be there with a knife at her throat.

  He’s going to be on top of her. Crushing her. Destroying her.

  But, when Elisabeth pushed the door open, a sallow light swept around her and she saw one thing and one thing only: herself.

  Pictures, paintings, charcoal illustrations. Hundreds of them covered the walls, a lifetime of work, each illustration as eerily lifelike as Alfred’s portrait of Lititz. There she was as a child. There she was on the front porch of her old home. There she was overlooking the field that lay past her back patio. There she was as an adolescent, a teenager, a young woman. There she was in the window of her and John’s home above the pharmacy. There she was with her father, her aunt, her cousin Charlie.

  She noticed photographs now, too, pictures taped between the larger illustrations like chinking between logs. Flanked by her girlfriends, she was walking out of Lititz Public School. She was strolling down the sidewalk. She was reading a book. There she was through the window of a diner. There she was through the window of her aunt and uncle’s home. There she was sitting. Standing. At the post office. There she was sleeping. Pulsing orange light filled the cabin, and from the floor to the ceiling its walls were papered with her, her, her. She felt as if she was standing inside of a film projector, and the movie was her entire life.

  “Do you understand now how much you mean to me?”

  Alfred was walking toward her. Despite its small size, the cabin actually had two rooms. There was the space where Elisabeth stood now, but then—separated by a single wall and a wood-burning stove—a second, much smaller room comprised the cabin’s eastern side. From where she stood beneath the frame of the front door, Elisabeth couldn’t see the second room in its entirety, but she could see the tattered edges of a dozen piled blankets. A bedroom, it seemed, and Alfred was walking out of it. He had changed his clothes from the prison, and now he wore an ill-fitting, mismatched jumble that must have come from a shelter or a church or the trash. Threadbare denim overalls. Three layers of button-up shirts. Peeling black boots. A pair of dark mittens. Elisabeth lifted the rifle as he approached.

  “Stop,” she said.

  And he did. He even raised his hands in surrender, turning his mittened palms out. But he raised them only slightly, and Elisabeth could feel his eyes taking her in. He was sizing her up, considering his options. Her feet were set firmly in place. Her heart was pounding. Her temples throbbed. Bent around the trigger, her finger already ached, and even through the supple stuffing of her parka, the stock of the rifle dug into her shoulder like the blade of a shovel cutting into earth.

  “Where’s Margaret?” she said, but the swift motion of her eyes asked a different question. The sight of the cabin’s decoration was so strange, so utterly arresting, that Elisabeth couldn’t stop herself from looking.

  “Do you like it?” Alfred said. “It’s my shrine. My shrine for you.”

  And when she stuttered for a moment, backing half a step away and sputtering some sound between a what and a why, Alfred went on.

  “I’ve always been with you,” he said. “Ever since that summer, I’ve watched you. I’ve waited for you. I never lost faith that you would come to me.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said, and she shook the rifle at him, feeling something rise in her chest, a knot of panic and unease and pure revulsion. “Margaret. Where’s Margaret?”

  “That summer,” Alfred said. “We had a plan. We had it all worked out. Jacqueline was his, and you were mine.”

  “Stop talking like that. Who’s we? Who’s—”

  “My brother and I,” Alfred said. “Heinrich.”

  She was shaking her head, backing away from him. “Your brother,” she said. “You told me—”

  “I lied,” Alfred said, “and I’m sorry.” His eyes veered away from hers. He wilted. “I shouldn’t have told you that, Elisabeth. I was worried you’d figure things out before the time was right, and I wanted to confuse you. I admit it. He’s my brother, and he’s my twin, but he’s very much alive. I lied. I’m sorry.” He clasped his hands together, pleading with her. “But everything else is true.
All of it. Your sister is alive, and I know where she is.”

  “Then tell me,” Elisabeth said, shouting now. Her arms were shaking—her whole body was shaking—but the rifle never veered from its aim. “This stops now,” she said. “Tell me where she is.”

  “Illinois,” Alfred said, and he pumped his hands at her. “With Heinrich. They live on a farm. They go by different names. They have three children. They’re happy, and we’ll be happy, too. The plan—” His eyelids fluttered. “We were all going to run away together. Remember? You and your sister. Me and my brother. That was us. He and I had watched you two for months. We knew your father, and the moment we first saw you and Jacqueline we knew what had to happen. Your lives were so lonely, so tragic, and ours were, too. We had lost everything in the war, but with all of us together, the world could be good again.” He lowered his hands, just an inch. Then, a single step forward. “We’re meant for each other, Else. The four of us. Two pairs.” Another step, slowly. “Two perfect pairs.”

  “Stop,” Elisabeth said.

  “You know it’s true. You’ve felt me.” Another step. “We’re Gleichgesinnte.”

  “Stop walking.”

  “I don’t like you pointing that gun at me,” Alfred said. “I’m no threat to you, Elisabeth. Look around.” He flung up his arms, gesturing at the illustrations and photographs. “Do you realize how it could have been? There were hundreds of times—thousands—when I could have just taken you. Heinrich, that’s what he did. Your sister put an end to things, and he took her. But me”—he touched his chest—“I’m the good one. I’m the one who’s waited patiently for twenty years.”

  “This is all—”

  “And do you know why?” He gaped at her, pausing for an answer. “Because I couldn’t just take you. I couldn’t force it. I didn’t want to, not even when John came into the picture. I’m not like my brother. I’m patient. I’m a peaceful man, Elisabeth. I wanted you to come to me.” He shook his head. “For twenty years I waited for you to notice me. All that time, I was right behind you. I learned your routines. I followed you. I walked with you. I sat outside your bedroom window. But never once did you notice me. Never once did you reach out”—he held up one finger—“until that morning in Tanacross. And not only that . . .” He drew a long breath, clasping his hands over his heart. “You invited me inside your home.”

  “I didn’t.” She was reeling. The cabin rocked from side to side. “I didn’t do that—”

  “Twenty years,” Alfred said. “Twenty years without you noticing me. And then the first time I came to Tanacross, the very first, you spoke to me. You smiled at the things I said. You brought me into your home. Understand, I had lost you, Elisabeth. Three years ago, and poof, you were gone. I knew you had moved to Alaska, but no one could tell me where. My job with the postal service, I got it to find you. Every route I could get, I would take. And I was starting to think I had lost you forever, but then I found you, and after twenty years it finally happened. You saw me. You chose me. That was when I knew it was time. That was when I knew that nothing could keep us apart.” He sucked his teeth. “The Indian—I hated to do it.”

  “Mack—”

  “I hated it, Elisabeth. And I wish it hadn’t happened. But it did, and I make no apologies for it. He was going to keep you from me, and I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “We’re done talking like that,” Elisabeth said. “What does that mean? Just tell me what you mean,” and again she steadied the rifle, squaring its sights on his chest.

  “Don’t do that,” Alfred said. “I don’t like having a gun pointed at me.”

  “Mack. Tell me about Mack.”

  “Lower the rifle.”

  “Mack—”

  “He found my illustrations.” Alfred lifted his chin, defiant. “He was snooping around my plane. Helping me, he said, with the repairs. But he was snooping. Heinrich had sent me the dress, and I had brought that and a few of my illustrations from Anchorage. For you. As gifts. Proof of my dedication. But then, the Indian. The dress I had already taken inside, but he found my pictures, and I could see in his eyes what he was going to do. He would have told you to stay away from me. He would have stood between us and fate. Our fate.”

  “Our fate?”

  “To run away together,” Alfred said. “The four of us. We’re a family, and the world is eating itself up all over again, and we need to protect ourselves. We need to be together. You want this, too. You said so yourself. You kissed me. You touched me.” He moved forward again, hardly ten feet away now. “You owe this to me.”

  “Stop.”

  “I’ll take you to her. Just like I promised. But first you have to lower that gun.”

  “If you come any closer, I’ll kill you.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Stop moving.”

  “Elisabeth—”

  “Where’s Margaret?”

  But as she said that he lunged at her, one hand darting out. He reached for the rifle, but she had learned her lesson from the prison. She had learned how fast he could move, and she was ready for him. It happened in a flash, but as soon as he moved, she stepped to the side and swung her arms and caught the barrel of the gun against his head, just above his ear. She didn’t fire, but he was on the floor a second later, and the barrel’s steel sights must have cut him, because blood was suddenly trailing down his face, painting his left cheek in a dazzling crimson streak.

  “Margaret!” Elisabeth shouted, and she turned and ran for the other room.

  “She’s not here.”

  “Margaret!”

  But Alfred wasn’t lying. The second room, no larger than a step-in closet, was empty. A burning Coleman lantern sat on a medical box beside the pile of blankets, and on the floor was a roll of masking tape, the adhesive Alfred had used to hang the illustrations. But there wasn’t any sign of Margaret. No sign at all.

  “Where is she?” Elisabeth shouted, darting back into the main room. Slowly, Alfred was rising to his feet. But he didn’t make a move at her. His head hung. Blood streamed down his face.

  “She’s not here,” he said. “But that’s for the best.”

  “You said she was safe.”

  “And she was.” He swayed on his feet, staggering sideways a few steps, but he did nothing to stanch the bleeding from his head. It seemed as though he wasn’t even aware of it. “She was here with me,” Alfred said. “All the way from Fairbanks we were together, but she’s a child, Elisabeth. An incredible child, but still just a child. And she got scared. She left for the town just before you arrived.”

  Elisabeth’s knees almost gave way. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Margaret. The bush. The snow. The night. And as if Alfred could hear her very thoughts—as if the two of them really were Gleichgesinnte—he raised his hand in reassurance.

  “But she’ll be fine,” he said. “She’s no fool, and she’ll find her way back to town.”

  That hand. That raised, reassuring hand, wrapped in its dark mitten. Fabric that seemed darker than before. Wetter. Soaked through.

  “Take off your glove,” Elisabeth said.

  “I know it’s hard to accept, but Margaret is not a part of this. Think of your sister. Lower the gun, and I’ll tell you—”

  “Take it off,” Elisabeth shouted, steadying the rifle, aiming for his head now. “Take it off this second.”

  Silence. Panting. Watching. Then, very slowly, his left hand reached for its twin, and he pulled off his glove. His hand was wrapped in a hasty bandage, soaked through with blood. He had been cut. Slashed.

  It was purely instinctive. A twitch reaction. And yet she knew exactly what she was doing, and she knew that she wanted to do it. She saw that bloody bandage, and she fired. The rifle exploded, and the whole cabin seemed to shake, and Alfred ducked and spun away from her.

  But she missed. She knew that righ
t away—a burst of detonated paper and splinters flew through the air—and of course Alfred knew it, too.

  Instantly, he rushed at her. And then they were fighting for the rifle, stumbling back and forth and side to side around the cabin. Their shoulders slammed against the northern wall, tearing a group of illustrations to the floor, and a shower of dirt and dust rained down on them. His hands were wrapped around the stock and barrel of the rifle, but she wouldn’t let it go. He was strong, and his eyes were wild with fury, but also with terror. Their feet tangled together, and she tried to trip him, pushing him back. But he didn’t quite fall, and instead he stumbled backward—fast—wheeling toward the splintered wall and taking her with him. She shifted forward, nearly falling on top of him, and all of her weight landed awkwardly on one ankle. It rolled. Something snapped. Pain crashed through her whole body—she could feel it in her teeth—and she screamed. But she didn’t let go.

  They were on the floor now, Elisabeth on top of him, and neither of them would release the gun. She pulled him toward her, and when she felt him pulling back, she let her muscles relax for a fraction of a second and used Alfred’s own momentum to slam his head against the wall. There was blood everywhere—on his face, in his eyes, on her hands, on dozens of illustrations taped to the walls—but Alfred still didn’t let go.

  But he was dazed. She could see that. She could feel it in the power already disappearing from his arms, and she pushed him back again, slamming him a second time—then a third, then a fourth—against the wall. She nearly had the rifle. She cranked its lever forward, felt a bullet shift into place. The barrel was pointed at the ceiling, and she was fighting to straighten it out. She pushed it one way, and he pushed it the other. But she was winning. Slowly, she was overpowering him. She cranked the rifle’s lever back. She pushed. She ignored the screaming heat in her ankle, and she pushed. And now she summoned every trace of energy that her limbs still owned, and slowly the rifle moved. Alfred was watching it now, taking huge gulps of air, spattering blood on her face every time he exhaled. But at last the rifle pointed at him, lined up with his neck, and her finger found the trigger, and she fired.