The Arrest

by Jonathan Lethem

  Journeyman saw it. At last, he saw it. This whole island converted to a gigantic kit for raising Todbaum and the Blue Streak to the top of the tower. Todbaum wouldn’t know of the closer, the enormous granite chunk balanced perilously on the south cliffs, the ballast to which he was now shackled.

  “Ah . . . so . . . you’re probably wondering why I’ve gathered you here today. God, I still love that joke! So, yeah, let’s not overlook in our artisanal zeal the common enemy we’re facing here, people! Them that chased us off the mainland, amiright? In any final battle scenario you quaint farm folk are gonna need my odious retro-tech. This exoskeleton of mine works like a rolling people-crusher kind of gizmo, it’s meant to stay on the road . . . Maybe if you want to put someone on top of a tower it ought to be one of your vegan chefs, to dump a cauldron of piping-hot miso chowder with lemongrass on their heads, huh?”

  Journeyman savored his faceless role inside whatever it was they consisted of now: anonymizing collective, silent mob. Naturally, then, Todbaum singled him out.

  “Sandman!”

  Why should Journeyman believe himself invisible? The Blue Streak’s dashboard, lined with tiny monitors, made a three-sixty view of its surroundings. The high moon and the supercar’s glow provided the lighting. Todbaum had sunk into his captain’s chair, a blot in the radiance.

  “Well, mon petit frère, you turned the tables. So, what’s your play?”

  Maddy avoided Journeyman’s gaze, gave no clue. Journeyman was stirred by a smell. Ed Waltz’s winches and pulleys, lathered in pig grease. It wafted out with a burnt tinge as the cables labored at the supercar’s weight. For weeks Journeyman had obediently delivered the unrefined lard to the boatworks, never thinking to ask its purpose. The communal machine working around him, leaving him oblivious. Journeyman felt as though he were not here on the ground but trapped in the cockpit with Todbaum. That, like Nowlin, he needed to be bargained free.

  “What, you can’t come up with a line? You never did write the villains too great, Sanderton. You’re a sidekick, you write what you know.”

  The Spodosolians began to move, in silence, following the cables where they led into the trees. Drenka moved in the same direction, a little apart from the group. Not having yet joined or enlisted herself to anything. No one appeared to question her witnessing role among them on the island, whether it puzzled them or not. Journeyman wanted to call to her, but didn’t.

  “So now you found your way to a murder party at world’s end. Elegant scheme. Blow me up like a fireworks, make it visible from shore, play for both teams. Do a good murder, Sandy.”

  Journeyman heard himself speak. “Nobody’s doing a murder, Peter.”

  “What do you think this inverted piñata of doom is for? You’re offing me in fucking Sensurround. I’m proud of what I taught you, Sandy. What’s that joke? How did the cadaver heckle the comedian? I died onstage, like you. Hey, where you going? I say something wrong?”

  Astur started for the cliff. Nils too, and Renee and Ernesto, their effort at the winch concluded. Only Ed and Dodie remained stationed at the tower’s bacon-stinky mechanism, to monitor the works. Maddy waited for Journeyman, though shirking his gaze. Moon sped behind cloud, the tower’s summit now barely visible. Now only pale glaring dome. That egg, that rheumy eye. Todbaum’s dark bulk its rotten yolk or pupil. Scent of scorched lard and crushed thyme, mingled in air of salt rot, raked seaweed, the supercar’s garlands. Faint lapping of waves, squeak of the trap, Todbaum’s voice.

  “Come back and talk, you silent fucking pissants. You peasants, you posse. You pussies. You’re going to miss me. I swear if you just say something I’ll shut the fuck up and listen. I’m just talking to hear myself think. How do you think I made it all this way? I have to talk on drives, man, you know? I have to keep my thoughts outside my head in this motherfucker. I should never have kicked Pittsburgh out of the car; she had some motherfucking balls on her, that one. Listen to that hollow fucking ringing, it’s like the sound of one hand clapping, worst sound in the world. You need me, I’m your sole survivor. None of you know shit about what’s out there. I came all this way. None of you fucking know. None of you had anything to fucking survive before I came along. You fucking need me.”

  “Come out,” Journeyman said. He heard in himself again a gentle undertow of the police. Please exit the vehicle.

  “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  “Why not? They’ll find a job for you to do.”

  “A job?”

  “They even found a job for me,” Journeyman joked.

  “I have a fucking job. I’m your storyteller. I’m your story.”

  “Tell your story on the ground.”

  “No.” Maddy stepped into the radiant circle, the field of distortion.

  “No what?”

  “Sandy’s mistaken. We don’t have a job for you.”

  “There you go, Sandman, like I said. A murder party.”

  “This island is your place now,” said Maddy, almost absently.

  “Island of the fuckwads! Who lives here, Eke and Ekette? Eating pickled dandelions? No thank you very fucking kindly! I live in supreme splendor, I live in the lap of fucking luxury. I think I got a few jars of beluga in the back of the fridge. I definitely got the last working cache of hentai anime porn in the known galaxy. Ever fuck a cartoon, Sandy? Better than the real thing, though I doubt you’ve got a point of comparison, these days. I’m still breathing recirculated air trapped here from Malibu Beach, wouldn’t trade it for the world. The Pacific, now that is a real fucking ocean, the blue fucking horizon, none of this E. coli, red-tide, a-daughter-of-the-Mayflower-once-cut-her-foot-on-this-very-barnacle shit. Give me the Pacific any day. I should have stayed home. But I’ll go down with the fucking ship, yessir, shantih, shantih, shantih.”

  Did the words suggest finality? Journeyman should have known better than to suspect Todbaum, ever, of finality. Todbaum’s tone changed, then, rose out of the depths of his barrel chest, high into his mouth or sinuses. He whined, yes. But also he was doing one of his voices. “I don’t wanna die.” It turned into a kind of incantation, though the words were never the same twice. “I don’t wanna die up there. I don’t wanna go up there. Don’t send me up there to die. Don’t wanna go up the murder tower. Don’t wanna get murdered. Don’t murder me up the tower. I don’t wanna go up there.”

  Journeyman stood dumbstruck. Maddy knelt, palm resting on her holstered hammer, to confer in a whisper with Ed and Dodie. Todbaum’s voice filled Journeyman’s head. Journeyman recognized it now, the voice. Todbaum’s Sandy Duplessis impression. Unmistakable, once Journeyman allowed himself to hear. “Don’t make me go up there. Don’t make me. No go up there. No murder up tower. No no mamma. No mamma no murder no tower. I don’t wanna wanna. Don’t wanna wanna do it. I didn’t didn’t do it. I didn’t do whatcha say. I never never said it. I never did do do it. I didn’t done it nohow. I didn’t doo doo. Didda doo doo poo poo.”

  Maddy tugged Journeyman by the hand to shatter the spell of Todbaum’s voice. They were back on Rehoboth, Journeyman imagined.

  “Maddy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is this revenge?”

  “Revenge for what?”

  “What Peter did, in the Starlet. When you came to visit.”

  “I don’t care what he did in the Starlet, Sandy. You’re the only one who even remembers.”

  “So why does he have to die?”

  “He doesn’t have to die, his car does. Todbaum just has to stay on the island, where Eke and Walt can watch him.”

  “Because of what he did coming across? The people he killed?”

  “Because he’s a ripple in the field.”

  “He thinks you’re the author of the Arrest, you know. Because of Yet Another World. He thinks one half of the story is trying to win.”

  “I’m not interested in that,” said Maddy firmly.

  “It’s not personal,” Journeyman suggested.

  “Not for me. Maybe
for you.”

  “Why for me?”

  “It’s your voice he’s putting on, you know. All the nonsense shit. Goo goo gaga, oinka doinka doo.”

  Todbaum’s abject catechism went on, broadcast to the ocean fog, the moon’s veil, now grown tattered. His voice rose into the starry void. “No no murder mamma don’t wanna no go dojo poo poo tower up go wanna go homo lobrow no soap radio no no low blow no glow hobo ho ho don’t wanna wanna wanna go go—”

  Maddy nodded her chin at the path the others had followed. Tugged Journeyman’s hand again. Journeyman allowed himself to be led this way. Guided. To the ocean cliffs. To next occasions.

  “Sandy?” Todbaum called out.

  Maddy put one finger to her lips. She stepped onto the path. Journeyman followed.

  “I hope you don’t imagine you’re getting a percentage of gross on this deal.”

  72.

  Another Arrest, Part 3

  MOON AND STARS WHIRRED THROUGH black awning, racing them to the cliffside. The ceremony’s conclusion was underway. Paulo and Ernesto and Andy labored with picks and crowbars, with chisels and wedges, undermining the counterweight stone, to which the cables were strung taut, as if securing moon to earth. Chunks of stone prized loose, exposing roots that dangled over the water. The granite block might just be a hair’s breadth, a hair trigger, from tumbling now, it looked to Journeyman.

  Drenka stood at the edge of the group, half in, half out. With her there, hovering, Edwin Gorse’s daughters. Journeyman wondered what those girls had been told. Whether they’d been told. By whom.

  Maddy tended Journeyman, guided him, helped him to understand what his work was to be here. She passed him her claw hammer. A wedge had been placed at the base of the stone block. Cliff, stone and soil, sodden to mud by ocean water siphoned up from the beach below. A few blows to make it all topple off into the sea. These few blows had been saved for Journeyman. Never the author, he was sometimes given last word. Maddy placed her hands against the backs of Journeyman’s, her fingers through his fingers around the hammer’s handle. Then released him to do the work himself, to strike. Journeyman struck. And again. It took every piece of his strength, but the wedge bit deeper. Mud and gravel shuddered, sucked, liquefied, gave way. The block tipped. He struck again; the cliff’s face crumbled, the block fell roaring into the surf, the imprisoned supercar ascending howling on larded cables to take its place as the tower’s head, a sunflower weary with time. A glimmering oracle to answer the moon. Beacon of warning to all future French boats. The hammer fell from Journeyman’s hands.

  All turned to behold it. At last.

  Astur’s lighthouse.

  73.

  One More Picture for the Files

  V.

  Aftermath

  74.

  Breakfast

  BY MORNING THE PLUMES OF smoke had died. The beach fires gone cold, rinsed over at high tide. Those set by the Cordon, the two at Founder’s Park, now layered in dew. The remains of Edwin Gorse’s house too, when they reached it later. Settled to ash and cinder.

  Lucius had taken command of the island’s last, the cook fire. He ladled out bowls of hot grains and compote and they wandered to the beach at low tide and breakfasted in the bright cold morning. A few went down to boats, then a few more. Journeyman sighted Drenka but didn’t approach. She sat eating with Augustus. Journeyman at first felt jealous. But Drenka and the butcher sat with Gorse’s daughters and Journeyman saw the girls had been told about their father. Drenka sat close with them. Journeyman kept his distance, instead found his way to Astur’s boat for the crossing.

  75.

  Cynthia Pitchings’s Account

  WHEN THEY APPEARED BEFORE HER she’d fed them. That was what Spodosol did, after all. The farm was for growing and feeding. The people of the Cordon when they finally came were nothing if not hungry. So Cynthia had laid out a table full of food and drink.

  Spodosol’s was a good, long table, wooden and scarred by smokes laid on its edges and by the rings of cast-iron skillets and cooking pots set down without protection. They sat there now, listening to Cynthia Pitchings’s account. Journeyman had helped Astur secure the boat, then walked with her past the park with its ravaged gazebo, down the path to Spodosol. They’d come to see how Spodosol had fared through the night. They sat drinking cider, and Cynthia Pitchings related what had gone on when the Cordon had come.

  Cynthia had fed them, then said they should go home. There were no more boats. There would be no more crossings. The persons they sought—the person, the one—was on Quarry Island. He wasn’t coming back. They could go confirm it themselves if they liked, but it was unnecessary. Needless. The person was being contained. Arrested. He’d been entrusted to their vigilance, hadn’t he, at the start? Now was accounted for by their community, in their manner. It might not be the Cordon’s, but it should be enough. They should eat and be content and go home. We all had homes to go to, or nearly all. They ought to keep this blessing in mind.

  Had the Cordon people by the end of Cynthia Pitchings’s feeding and lecture apologized? Not that, no. They were not people of apology. Had they felt chagrined? Perhaps so.

  She’d fed the Cordon, and now she fed the islanders, for they were again hungry. Possibly they’d never stop eating. Hot loaves were just coming out and Cynthia and Astur went into the cellars and brought out the good cheeses and the jars of fruit, the rhubarb chutney and pickled corn. At first Journeyman was confused by the profusion: hadn’t the stores been evacuated to Quarry Island?

  Foolish. He’d been so impressed at a single shed crammed full of mason jars. The Farm had much deeper reserves. What had been ferried to Quarry Island was a winter’s share for those who’d go on living on Quarry Island. Eke, and Walt, and Peter Todbaum. Plus a little more, to last the evacuees through the—retreat. Stand? Whatever it should be called. The long day and night of Todbaum’s capture and elevation. The amount shifted from Spodosol’s cellars to the island was a fraction. The cellars held so much more.

  In fact, Cynthia explained she’d sent the Cordon visitors home laden with goods. Treats, as though they’d been obedient dogs. They nearly were dogs, under her hand. Her generosity helped the Cordon people rationalize coming in such numbers: They’d carried back a winter’s supply. Wouldn’t need to visit again so soon. This turned out true. Journeyman didn’t resume handing off goods at the North Grange for several weeks.

  Time enough to forget the burning.

  Time enough it might seem the tower had always been with them.

  Time enough to bury the dead.

  76.

  The Note

  IT HAD BEEN JOURNEYMAN’S FATE to go with Augustus into the Alamo of Edwin Gorse’s burnt kitchen. It was his fate also to find Jerome Kormentz’s body, alone. No one else had thought of Kormentz. This had been the purpose of his placement at the lake, after all: out of sight, out of mind. Journeyman visited the second morning after the return from the island. Early, in the cold glare. No one followed. No crows in the trees. No one would have known if Journeyman hadn’t gone.

  They’d cut Kormentz down and placed him in a chair at his kitchen table. Journeyman suspected they’d had to set the table back in place—that Kormentz had used it to climb to the rafter, then kicked it from under his feet. The chair wouldn’t have been high enough. The rope still lay around his neck. Journeyman thought they’d wanted whoever discovered Kormentz to see and understand.

  The room was very cold. Kormentz had laid a fire, but never started it. Journeyman thought he might, before he walked back to town.

  The note, a single folded sheet, lay on the table. Journeyman first imagined it would be in Kormentz’s hand. Though this was impossible, if his guess about the table’s overturning was correct. It wasn’t in Kormentz’s hand. It wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be—it spoke for those who’d found him first. Though he could have no proof, Journeyman believed the note.

  WE DID NOT MAKE HIM DO IT. HE WAS LIKE THIS WHEN WE GOT
UP TO THE HOUSE.

  Kormentz had likely hanged himself the moment he heard them coming down his road. The act, an I-told-you-so. A vote in favor of the worth of ritual action.

  Two lives lost, then, in the Cordon’s occupation. Two lives and one house. And a gazebo. Gorse’s and Kormentz’s deaths rhymed: a suicidal murder, a murderish suicide. Both a form of self-fulfilling assertion. Gorse proved the Cordon were dangerous by dying at their hand, Kormentz that they’d come for him by dying at his own.

  Yet Journeyman wondered. Had the discovery of Kormentz’s cooling shit-stained body spooked the invaders? The note suggested their reluctance to be implicated in murder. Maybe Kormentz and Gorse had in dying saved the towns. The needlessness of their deaths serving as an admonition to the Cordon: You can’t control these people. Stupid-ass hippies might start dying on you right and left. Perhaps it was this that froze the invaders at the shore, or turned them from Spodosol’s table.

  If so, they’d saved not only Tinderwick but Todbaum.

  Journeyman buried the note with Kormentz in the soft bank at the edge of the Lake of Tiredness. No need to light the fire. The digging work warmed him for the walk back to town.

  77.

  Citadel or Prison?

  THE DAYS AFTER TODBAUM’S ASCENSION, Drenka busied herself with Gorse’s daughters, so suddenly orphaned and without a home.

  Few had gotten to know the girls, thanks to the anxious quarantine their father held around his house. Did Drenka feel that gave them something in common, enough to make them her responsibility? In any case, Raina and Davida moved into the library with her. As if Drenka had found her purpose, a large one, all at once. It hardly punctured her own air of remove. Gorse had protected the girls—now Drenka took up the task. The windows to the library remained shuttered. Drenka’s appearances remained fleeting. Caring for the orphaned girls gave her ambivalence a retroactive air of necessity.