by Sara Davis
“It is mine!” I said. I lifted it by the handle and brought it to rest at my side. It had a pleasing weight to it. The bartender continued to watch me with elaborate disinterest.
“I’ll be on my way, then,” I said, stepping back from the bar, briefcase in hand. “Thank you for your help.”
It had been convenient, I reflected, as I crossed the lobby, for my own purposes, that the bartender was such a surly, silent type. And yet wasn’t it surprising, I thought, that in an establishment so characterized by its professionalism, such a person had found employment? I skirted the front desk, where I saw that the shards of vase had been swept neatly into a dustpan and looked now as though they were patiently waiting for someone to take them away.
* * *
The briefcase was empty. I switched the light on in the car, incredulous, but it was as empty as if I’d just purchased it from a shop. And not just this, but the lining was pristine, soft and dry. It could not be the same briefcase, I thought, as the one I’d discovered on my first visit to the Old Mission Hotel, beneath the desk in the guest lecturer’s hotel room, because not even the most virtuosic of dry cleaners could have removed that mysterious thick liquid from the delicate material without leaving a stain. (Of course, I told my former self irritably, that liquid could not have been blood—that had been very melodramatic of me.)
Two briefcases, I thought, switching off the light in the car. Two identical briefcases. It was undoubtedly all very strange. Why would the guest lecturer be so eager for me to have an empty briefcase? Why had she called herself my representative and waited for me at the hotel bar, but then disappeared before we’d had a chance to exchange even a single word? And of all the things one could leave at a hotel, a briefcase seemed to fall into the category of vital things, things one would be unlikely to forget.
I shut the briefcase, closed the buckles, and laid it gently on its side in the passenger seat, as if I were putting it to bed. I had in mind a moment of relaxation; I let a breath escape me. It had been a very long day—it was hard to believe that only that morning I’d been interrupted by Alex Foss in the break room. It seemed much longer ago.
I looked out at the sky, where dusk was edging into night. And that was when I saw that something was stuck under my windshield wiper, obscuring the view. I’d been in such a hurry to open the briefcase that I hadn’t noticed.
Suddenly I was alert again, as if I’d been pricked with a pin. What was the matter with this hotel and pieces of paper on windshields? I felt an indignation rising in me, pure and white; I hailed it like an old friend. If I had not already spent enough time in that soulless lobby, I would have gone back inside to complain. Surely a person should be able to park his car somewhere for ten minutes without it being blanketed by nonsensical papers, to who knows what end? I looked around, and sure enough, each windshield in the lot had its own little sheet. Like the last, this one had the look of something badly photocopied, but unlike its predecessor it had no image, only text. THE MISSIONS, it read, in angry black lettering, WERE FURNACES OF DEATH.
20
I crossed the reservoir under a black night sky; I rolled my window down, took a breath, and felt the sting of the cold air at the bottom of it. I just needed a little time to think, I told myself, that was all. The smell of the sea was very far inland tonight, I thought, and took another, more modest breath through my nose. So many things had happened, developments of all different weights and categories; it would take time and some distance to put everything in order. Now I came up out of the reservoir and onto the ridge, where a white sickle moon was visible intermittently through the tops of the pines. Triage, I thought, smiling a little to myself at the word, because if the day’s events had taught me anything it was that I was not a doctor.
I set the briefcase down in the foyer, where it looked unconvincing, like a prop for a play. The clock above the stove read five minutes to eight. On the drive home I’d imagined myself sitting at the table with a paper and pen and writing down all that had occurred while it was still fresh, but now, in the tinny light of the kitchen, with the monolithic black pressing in against the windows, this plan looked overly ambitious. It had all been so exhausting—it would probably be best to direct my remaining energy toward tasks I knew I could accomplish, like making a sandwich and going to bed. Yes, I thought, a quiet sigh escaping me, that would likely be best. I opened the refrigerator door and, ignoring the pot of spaghetti that sat reproachfully on the top shelf, I took out the jar of mayonnaise, a can of salmon, and two slices of bread. I ate my sandwich standing over the kitchen sink; then I washed the knife and cutting board and went to bed.
* * *
I’d been looking forward to reading my book—to escaping for a while into someone else’s concerns. But after several minutes, I was forced to return to the beginning of the chapter and start it again. I read more slowly this time, concentrating on putting the words together carefully, and yet the sentences refused to reveal any of their meaning to me, and I found myself going over the same lines again and again, puzzling at certain banal phrases, at descriptions of the scenery and the weather. In the end I gave up, put the book down, switched off the light, and went to bed mildly dissatisfied. I still could make neither head nor tail of the plot; the only thing I’d gleaned from my efforts was that the police inquiry had moved, for a reason unintelligible to me, to a group of tiny islands north of the Arctic Circle. These islands were apparently of great personal interest to the author—he had included several pages’ worth of description of their unique landscape, industry, and inhabitants. Early in the book, I suppose, such material could have been a welcome addition to the “atmosphere,” but so late in the investigation, frankly, it was difficult to see the point.
* * *
The next morning when I arrived at the university I found myself heading in the direction not of my own building but of the medical school library, a modest building adjacent to the hospital. The attendant behind the desk at the entrance was always the same—a kindly bald man who every Monday set out cookies and a samovar of tea. I nodded to him as I descended to the basement level, where I knew there was, next to the periodicals, a gigantic globe—almost as tall as I was, illuminated from within by a mysterious light source, and set at an angle on its spindle. I gave it one gratuitous spin and watched the patchwork countries flow beneath my fingertips, and then brought it to rest. Here was Germany: a small, cracker-shaped country wedged between Poland and France. Here in little tiny writing was Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, and Berlin … But Tübingen was nowhere to be seen. All I had wanted was the basic information—was it in the south? The north? And yet, I thought, deflated, what would the point of that be, exactly? Even if I did happen to encounter Mr. Reinecke again, I could not pretend to have just remembered something about Tübingen. How exactly, I thought, giving the globe a final and unfriendly push, did I imagine I would work that into the conversation? Oh, Mr. Reinecke, how funny to run into you here—I have just remembered that Tübingen is in the south.
* * *
When I opened the door to my office, I saw that the small red eye on my telephone was blinking.
Someone has already called this morning, I thought, which would be unusual, or alternatively they had called in the night after I’d gone, which would be stranger still. I stood in the center of my office, considering. Push the button and get it over with? Or delay? There was something ominous about that light and its blinking. That, and it was too early to listen to the voice of another human, someone I knew, speaking my name with some demand—the thought was repulsive.
I would go and make a pot of coffee first, I decided, before I let whatever was behind that red eye intrude. A pot of coffee and a good, careful thinking over of all of yesterday—then I would feel more equipped to push the button marked play. I set the leather briefcase down gently on the floor beside the desk.
The hallway was deserted; the break room, too. Someone had ripped open a packet of sugar and spilled it in an
impressive arc across the counter; I tidied it up, rinsed out the coffeepot, and set it to brew.
Now, I thought, I will open my mind to the investigation; I will welcome in whatever thoughts that come. It was clear that the most important sequence of events had begun with the young man at the front desk’s unexpected announcement that my bag, or rather, Daniel Shriver’s bag, had been picked up by a “representative,” and culminated in the vase of white lilies falling to the floor with a crash. With the briefcase, I corrected myself, with its appearance, and then, I thought, or was the last in the important sequence of events in fact the piece of paper wedged under my windshield wiper? The missions were furnaces of death, it read, a phrase not easy to forget. But in the end, after some thought, I rejected the connection. It was bizarre and irritating, whoever was doing it should be reprimanded, and not only that, but the logistics of it were difficult to understand, but it had nothing to do with me, and I would not waste my time thinking of it.
Next I had a moment of doubt. Because I hadn’t actually seen her face—had it really been the guest lecturer sitting there at the bar with her back to me? I closed my eyes and pictured her: that brassy hair in the reddish candlelight, the white of the suit jacket. It had to be her.
On the counter, the coffee was brewing; it was sputtering loudly and with abandon. As much as I would have liked to make some headway with regards to the investigation, over and over again I found myself at a standstill. There were the components: the vase of lilies, the brassy hair against the suit jacket, the briefcase on the stool. But, while I could catalogue them, I had greater difficulty fitting them into any larger scheme. Why did I need an empty leather briefcase? Why hadn’t the guest lecturer stayed to chat? These did not appear to be questions that could be answered merely by spending more time thinking about them.
Without warning the figure of Mr. Reinecke came to mind, unbidden, with his head of blond hair and graceful way of moving about the room. I could picture him now, over by the refrigerator, mug of coffee in hand, his eyebrows raised interrogatively.
Just then the coffee maker clicked itself off with an air of quiet triumph.
Tübingen, Tübingen, I whispered softly to myself. Yes, I imagined myself saying. Lovely place, I visited there in the spring of ’85. I felt a sudden pang of loss, as if an opportunity that had been promised to me had just been taken away.
* * *
I let myself into my office and raised the blinds, admitting a bleary half-light that bathed the contents of the room in a new kind of dinginess. I had entered the room with every intention of listening to the message on my answering machine, but now I no longer felt capable of such a task. Instead I propped a thick white piece of mail against the telephone so that it obscured the blinking red light. Then I sat for a while, without moving. I had the semiconscious feeling that I was falling prey to the same kind of interlude as I’d experienced yesterday in the break room, another precise little daydream, and from the same period of my life—those days in Ottawa leading up to my withdrawal from medical school.
* * *
We’d had an argument in the night, and when I rolled over and reached out in the morning upon waking, I had the disconcerting experience of grasping at empty space: a rumpled sheet and a deserted pillow. We had argued, but still, I thought, as I swung myself around and out of bed, leaving before dawn was a little extreme. I thought I had made it clear that the morning ahead was an important one, and I would have liked some company at breakfast. Still, I was prepared to forgive it. In those days I was in the habit of forgiving a lot.
It was not until I had made myself a cup of coffee and sat down at the tiny table in the kitchen that I noticed the note sitting in front of me.
N, it began.
Can’t go on much longer like this. Part of the trouble is me, of course, and my “situation” as always. But now it’s—[this was crossed out and abandoned] Why won’t you be honest with me about what happened last week? I can’t believe, as it seems you would like me to, that it was all just a “misunderstanding.” That didn’t seem to be the way the doctors were treating it anyway. If you could have them call me from the hospital, why not just tell me the truth? And—another thing—didn’t want to mention it at the time, but for me to be your emergency contact! Darling, it isn’t wise. It was only by chance that I was alone and could come straightaway. Especially if you [crossed out] if it should happen again, [here the word “which” had been vigorously crossed out] and it is my [an unintelligible word] that it might. In any case, I can’t help you very much if you won’t tell me the truth about it. I’m sorry but I think it’s in my own best interest to keep my distance until you can speak honestly with me about this.
Your F
It was written on a page torn from a book of notepaper I’d bought from a shop on Lady Ellen Place that sold imported British stationery (F, the only child of wealthy, doting parents, had a blithe disregard for other people’s possessions) and was accompanied by a sad little key—the spare key, I realized, F’s key, looking quite unequal to the drama of the situation.
I opened the drawer of the desk by the door and put the note and the key inside. I would give all that some thought later, I decided. I checked the clock on the desk and saw that if I didn’t leave right away, I would be late. But as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t quite impress the spirit of haste upon my limbs, and slowly, like a sleepwalker, I sat down at the chair at my desk to put on my shoes—first one, then the other. I rose, took my coat from its hook by the door, wound on a thick wool scarf, and ducked out into the rain to meet my father.
* * *
When I surfaced from my daydream the light in the room had taken on an unpleasant, congealed quality, and I was left with a pit of resentment. It was just like me, I thought bitterly, to dwell on the past—the past, the past, always the past. How did people do it? I wondered. How did they insert themselves into the present?
21
There was still so much leftover spaghetti, I thought with a heavy heart as I drove home, and still I found myself turning down the road where the dingy little Chinese place was, in the crook of the valley, where I gave my order to the unsmiling woman in a hairnet at her window. We should have been on a first-name basis by now, I thought, as I sat to wait, trying to warm my hands on a cup of watery tea. I’d been her regular customer for at least twenty years, but instead things seemed to be progressing in the opposite direction: if she had once been merely indifferent, now she was unmistakably hostile.
At home, I opened the waxed paper boxes: green beans swimming in red oil, noodles in a brown sauce, a pea-flecked, perfectly level block of fried rice. I ate too quickly, and then felt thirsty, a little sickly, and in an unpleasant mood. I could not be expected to think of my father now, I told myself, for god’s sake a man must have a break. Also, I thought, it was time to stop pretending I might eat the rest of the spaghetti. I hoisted the pot above the sink and watched as the noodles clumped sluggishly down the drain. I should not have made so much, I thought, as I ran the hot water and the garbage disposal. I filled a tall glass with cloudy water from the tap and took it to the bedroom, where I brushed my teeth, changed my clothes, installed myself under the covers, and opened my book.
The detective and his colleagues had left the Arctic islands, so that was a relief. Now there were some pages devoted to another questionable subplot—the one about the detective’s friend, who owned the boarding facility for racehorses. He and the detective had been great friends in their youth and now the detective was eager to reconnect, although the friend, so far, appeared significantly less interested. The only eyewitness to the murder, incidentally, had been the victim’s horse. As far as the investigation went, it was just as irrelevant as the islands interlude, but for some reason I minded it less. My intention had been to read until I felt sleepy and then turn out the light, but instead I found that the more I read, the more awake I began to feel, and alongside it a growing sense that the key to the whole book, the begin
ning of the end of the investigation, as it were, was close at hand. When the part about the racehorse-keeping friend drew to a close, the book entered a moody, somewhat aimless passage that seemed to me to be signaling clearly what it was, that sequence so familiar to all readers of the genre: the little lull in the action before the killer is revealed.
All the telltale signs were there: the detective had been transferred off the case; the detective had been spending a lot of time just as various professionals had instructed him not to, i.e., drinking, smoking, and brooding alone. The police chief had ordered that the case be put on the back burner, for lack of any new developments. Deep winter had turned into an anemic spring, and the detective felt obliged to call on a colleague of his who had been diagnosed with cancer. I had—any reader would have—every reason to believe that sooner or later the bulk of the evidence would begin to tip in the direction of one of the suspects: Would it be the neighbor? The estranged son? The serial killer known to have once operated in the region? A pleasant sense of anticipation washed over me, and I put the book down for a moment, splayed open on the coverlet to keep my place. I listened absentmindedly to the mannered two-note shriek of the crickets outside. Through the crack in the window I could feel the sharp edge of cold night air; I could smell the damp salt breath of the sea, but there I was, warm beneath the blankets, and, for this moment at least, content. If only real life could be like this, I thought, thinking of the book, its trends so clearly recognizable.