Jack Womack, page 20
“Sunday papers are out now,” said Wanda, edging into the far right lane, careful not to bump any of a multitude of taxis, cars and streetcars. Seeing a sign, I wondered what an Automat was; there was no driveway leading in. “I’ll stop and pick ’em up. You all can see what’s going on in the world.”
“News of our action’ll show when?” I asked. “By dawn?”
“If it’d just been the cops and Norman no paper but the Age would’ve covered it,” she said. “Since you all got two G-men as well it’ll be front page on ever’ paper in the country by tomorrow night and Monday. Not till then, though.”
After curbsiding the car near Forty-second, by one of the larger newsstands seen, she got out.
“I’m burning hot,” Oktobriana said; her metabolism was increasing everfaster, and even as she sat outwardly still her interior consumed itself with terrifying speed. “Climate seems so tropical here all the time. Unlike Russia where we have no jungles. Here we have forest of light.” She murmured some uncatchable phrase as she stared at the lightscroll, just to our left. CLOUDY, RAIN TOMORROW, I read. UNEMPLOYMENT RATE NEXT YEAR TO HIT FIFTY PERCENT, SAYS LONG.
“Pardon?”
“Number of times bulbs will light in hour,” she said, explaining her lost remark. Several times she attempted to toss back her hangs from her face; failed, finally handswept them away. “So tired and aching. Like stretched on rack. Like running without cease for weeks. Four thousand five hundred eighty-nine kilometers. Seeming tendonitis in joints. Artoscopic treatment. Mentally I feel twice the normal person,” she said. “What is wrong with me?”
This was no place to tell; growing anxious, I looked for Wanda. She still stood at the stand, waiting on line. Oktobriana’s thoughts passed and faded at everincreasing rate.
“With appropriate machinery all lights could run with single machine’s touch,” she said; Jake kept an arm around her to keep her from bouncing off the seat. “Tesla could do such. Must have vast plan. Great business support must help him here. Temperament more suited to commerce. No fear of round surface. ‘New York—New York,’” she started singing, badly. “‘Want to wake up in city full of creeps.’” Her laugh came as a hyperventilating bray. “Parody version American defector astrophysicist taught me one time. Before leaving country he moved to Vermont. Hated city. Moved where Solzhenitsyn lived behind chicken wire. Like fence. Not like Tolstoy. Not like fence of gulag. Not—”
Through my carwindow Wanda heaved in her buy, lapping me full with multisectioned Sunday rags: the Times, the News, the Herald-Tribune and Mail, the Mirror. Info of any unrelated nature wasn’t my desire just then; I’d long reached overload. Before flooring them between my feet I noted the News’s head: WHERE IS STALIN? In regards to what or whom? I wondered; his attitude would be surely similar towards all. The pact with Hitler wouldn’t be penned until August, unless it had been already signed, or unless it wasn’t going to be signed. To see the future’s possibilities without being able to guess which would eventually come to actuality was much more troubling than having no idea what the next day might hold; it was like watching a car speed towards crash, knowing one of four within would be killed, but not which one.
“We’re going to go out in the country,” said Wanda. “Get things sorted out.”
“Won’t we have to transit checkpoints?” I asked. “We’ve been APBed by now, surely—”
“We’re not going to Jersey,” she said. “There’s a place on Long Island I know.” Waiting until traffic broke enough to allow us exit, she at length pulled back into its flow; we crossed several lanes and bore left onto Forty-second.
“That’s safe?” Jake asked.
“Safer than here,” she said. I didn’t want to go, but there was no choice. When my feet last touched Long Island I’d stepped onto its soil from chopper’s safety, laying sole on unmined ground; it was during my first operation following my promotion to first lieutenant. My sergeants and my men belonged to the Suffolk Unit Reconnaissance Forces, and had been ordered out one June day to assist in an assault on Southampton, Amagansett and Wainscott having been slammed the week previous to little effect. Johnson, my Johnson, was with me as my master sergeant. There’ve been few afternoons more beautiful, few skies showing more unclouded blue. Reflected sealight made even the bleakest ruins glow with old master’s touch. The weather was so perfect that there didn’t seem to be any. A day so lovely gave me the shudders, everafter.
Passing an unsecured, unlit Grand Central, Chrysler’s stone and marble shaft and several blocks of seemingly abandoned tenements, we turned left onto First. Abattoirs and meat-packing plants stood where the UN rose in our time, blood’s inescapable tang not yet supplanted by political deodorant. Reaching the Queensboro Bridge at Fifty-ninth, sweeping onto it across its cobbled approach, I found myself, for the first time, being driven across it rather than flown over as we aimed into the eastern region. White light of unknown source shone across northern Queens’s distant horizon.
“Where on Long Island?” I asked, the names forever impressed in my mind: Mineola, Farmingdale, Stony Brook; Shirley, Riverhead, Southampton; all the others where so many had fallen.
“North shore,” she said. “Takes about an hour and a half to get there. It’s what Norman and me called our summer place. We discovered it one afternoon driving around about seven years ago. We went out there ever’ couple Sundays all through the summer ever’ year. Place’s falling apart but it’s livable long as it’s not too cool, and it’s right next to the beach, almost. Real empty out there. We’d’ve probably headed out there tonight, in fact, if our plans hadn’t changed—”
On the bridge’s far side the setting’s look suggested that the Depression was in its twentieth year and not its tenth—as in our own time so many places remain as they were left following our own economic readjustment thirty years after it came, changing all everafter. The small frame houses huddled next to one another, five-story courts, small, unpeopled restaurants with signs lacking one or more letters, blocklong factories with boarded windows; all showed neglect’s touch plain, even those whose owners continued to attempt upkeep. The limitless gray blocks seemed gradually to be wearing away, eroding with each passing year until, one windy afternoon, the east would send forth into the sky its own clouds, from its own dust bowl. We continued east on Northern Parkway; I noticed a sign arrowing Holmes Field’s direction, due north. At the crest of an overpass we sighted the source of the horizon’s icy glow.
“The fair?” I asked; Jake and Oktobriana looked on as if at their first Christmas tree. Wanda eyed the scene no more than a second.
“Yep.”
From the midst of blackness rose a shiny white world dotted at places with pastel traceries, its elliptical acreage centered with that inescapable needle and sphere. Unmoving searchlights lit the thin bone and fat ball; affixed to the spire’s highest surface, just below the point, was a circular metal framework of unguessable purpose; on none of the reproduced logos had it shown.
“Have they a name?” asked Jake.
“The Trylon and Perisphere,” said Wanda.
“Why?”
“Sounds modern,” she said. “Doesn’t it?”
Smaller buildings scattered about held their own peaks and caps; buildings in boat’s shape, or with cash registers planted topside, emerged from the surrounding glow. Towards one end of the plot, beyond a lake, another highrise rose over the skyline, a metal framework resembling an enormous utility tower. Parachutes seemed to be dropping from its broad summit, as if sightseers were so appalled by their surroundings that they couldn’t wait for the elevator.
“In afternoon paper was picture,” said Oktobriana, her hair blowing back in the window’s wind; her cheeks twitching without cease. “Central structure has remarkable similarity to needed device.”
“Device,” I repeated. “How so? What similarity?”
But Oktobriana added nothing to her previous remarks, and fell disturbingly silent. As I looked on I saw what appeared as a great shadow suddenly darken part of the fair’s illumination; looking above, I saw but vaguely an enormous dirigible, moving at gentle pace across the sky, its silver belly reflecting the lights below as at groundlevel it darkened them; on its rear fins, I saw swastikas.
“That blimp,” I said. “What is it?”
Wanda peered up from windshield view long enough to note; returned view quickly to the road. “The Hindenburg,” she said. “Coming out of Lakehurst, I’d bet. Heading back to Germany. They was saying it wouldn’t be back for a while.”
We outdistanced the still-surviving zeppelin soon enough, passing through the tag end of Queens, entering the country. Fair became factory, became farmhouse and field. The moon cast its own shadows over marsh and timberlot. The road narrowed; narrowed again. All before us glowed in negative light as we roared ahead; sidegrowing brush raked our car’s sides as if to hold us back. After a time no other cars showed during our flight.
“Much longer?” I asked, feeling that unsatisfied anticipation always suffered when the ETA of one’s destination remains unknown; when each minute triples in experienced duration. That we rode a federal highway astonished; its sole improvement over mudtrail was the broken pavement. On odd occasions signs appeared, showing amidst the wild familiar names, names I connected with disconcerting ruin and unforgivable waste; names from the old days, out here.
“Twenty minutes, maybe,” she said. “Never can remember the name of the damn road it’s on but I recognize it when I see it. Don’t know if it even has a name, thinking about it. We’ll be fine though, once we get out there.”
“For how long?”
“Long enough,” she said. “We will have to decide what to do at some point—”
“We?” I said. “Why include yourself?”
“I’m in this shit neck-deep just like you are, Luther. Accessory to first-degree murder of two colored policemen and two white feds. They got us all on that right now. They can get me on harboring fugitives, transporting fugitives, conspiracy, well, you name it and I think we’ve done it.”
“What options show?”
“For me?” she asked. “None. I go back, say what happened. I get booked. Won’t take long to take care of me. Excuses don’t hold with Colored Court judges. Then—”
“What options show for us?”
“Less than none,” she said. “It’ll be the hot seat for you all inside a month, ’less you’re lynched first. They lynched some poor bastard in Riverside Park just a month or so ago.”
“But the longer you’re with us the deeper—”
“Doesn’t matter at this point. Can’t go anywhere else. Try to get to Canada they’ll pick me up at the border. Everything I hear makes me think it’s not that much different up there, they’re just not such assholes about it. I don’t know—”
“All’s meant for purpose,” I said, offering the feeblest lie I knew; wishing to comfort, all the same.
“Shit. Finally had a real simple life going. Not the happiest life but I could deal with everything in it. Then you all come along. Now look.” She spoke more with resignation than with anger, which relieved.
“We didn’t intend interference,” I said.
“I know. Good intentions. No use crying over spilt milk.”
At last, slowing, she wheeled us onto a more primitive road that ran off to our left; its grade was so ill-lain that each bump threatened to throw us into the surrounding woods. No lights lightened its length other than our own.
“Here we are,” she said as the house rose into view; as seen through night’s cloak it showed as an oldstyle residence, the type in which dozens might hide. It was a two-story stone, long and rambling, with high brick chimneys. Trees surrounded three sides; the fourth side was open to the sea. Approaching a small building behind the house, I heard drumbeats, the pound of cannon: breakers. Across the rear meadow I thought I discerned the ocean’s moon-shimmered plain. We pulled into a ramshackle garage, parked and emerged. Wanda pulled the garage door shut with a length of heavy rope.
“What was this?” Jake asked as we headed up the walk, our feet crunching the pebbles below. Insects surfeited our ears with their buzz.
“Somebody’s house,” she said. “Big old places like this stand all along the shore out here. Few of ’em are still occupied but most have either been repossessed or the owners can’t afford to keep ’em up anymore, so they just let ’em sit out here and rot.”
“None patrol?” I asked.
“Never saw a guard or policeman whole time we been coming out. Wouldn’t be a cop left in the city if they had to keep an eye on all these places.” We stepped onto a roofed, wide-planked porch that ran houseround, careful of our tread so as to avoid gaps and weak spots. “Door’s never locked, either,” she said, slamming it open with her shoulder. “Never have to worry about burglars in the country. Come on in.”
We walked into a two-story foyer; within its space my apartment could fit twiceover. Curving upward from floor to second story was a long stairway, its banister and railing leaning outward as if sprung by the passage of millions; in night’s black-and-white light the scene looked as a set down which Astaire might dance. Seabreeze wafting through shattered windows cooled the house, brought tidesound. Above room’s warped woodwork showed mold-splattered walls. What furniture remained hid beneath ghost-drawn sheets. Mouse’s rustle sounded among the debris.
“Looks better in the daylight,” she said, crossing the plaster-littered floor, gliding in and out of shadow. “Norman and me, we always slept on that big old couch in the front room. You lovebirds take that, why don’t you?” She fell silent for a moment, her face unseen in the dark. “I’ll slide a couple chairs together over in the library. There’s a trundle out on the sun porch you can sleep on, Luther. We better all get some shut-eye. Sun’ll wake us when it comes up and if we don’t get a little rest we’re all going to be even more worthless in the morning than we already are.”
I tossed the papers floorways, immediately regretful as I choked in the ensuing dustcloud. All departed to their respective spots; Oktobriana had fallen into quiet ever since we’d seen the fair; whether there was something to which she turned her thought, or whether it had become too hard for her to speak and simultaneously connect what she heard herself say with what she was thinking, I had no idea. Seasound beat loud throughout the screened, openair porch, sending a soothing rhythm.
“Jake,” I shouted into the front room. “He’s moved?”
A pause. “He’s not.” I heard him snap the tracker’s cover shut as he pocketed it. By trundle, evidently, Wanda referred to a small metal bed standing in midfloor, surrounded by breeze. Tugging down the dusty, clammy sheet, finding a mattress mildewed but sleepable, I sat at bedside, moonlight making all in the near-empty room visible. A Bible lay floored, nearby; picking it up, I made a quick flip through its damp pages, looking for a quieting passage, finding instead: For the sons of light came unto battle with the lot of the sons of darkness, which are known as the Army of Belial, and against the troop of Edom, and Moab—This wasn’t the Bible I remembered as a child. In the contents I read the names of the books of the now-discredited New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Thomas, the Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel of Truth, the Hymn of Light. The front page announced it to be the Holy Bible of the Albigensian Church, Redeemed. Unwrapping another gift, I’d found only another body. Having had overmuch surprise when least expected, or desired, I reclined, feeling the pain in my head, my ribs, my heart; feeling pain wherever Doc stepped. No sooner had I lain than I slept.
Dawn nuzzled me awake with groping light; I remained bedded, feeling that to rise too soon would only hurl reality onto my head again too hard, too early on. Hurling was already in progress, I gathered; Oktobriana moaned in pain, pain of disease and pain of knowing of the disease. Shortly I heard crying’s sound, deep and choked, as Jake told her.
Freshening as best we could once we’d risen, meeting in the living room, Jake and I sat listening to Oktobriana while Wanda walked out onto the sun porch. Possibly in response to the pain she now felt, she seemed to have so focused her mind on the ramifications and pertinents of her situation—now that she knew what it was—and so kept such grip over her body with her mind that her multitudinous thoughts now came worded clear, with patterned logic. Her English, too, had become perfectly worded with classic phrase, if at times overrich with science’s jargon and distance. As she lay on the couch, her arms wrapped round her drawn-up knees, she spoke as if to herself.
“The agent, then, would seem to be a highly mutatable retrovirus of unknown origin. The site of first appearance is fascinating in that were there to have occurred here an incident matching the noted Tunguska astronomic strike of 1908—that was in Siberia—then it would be impossible to disprove the likelihood of a relationship—”
