He grew close to Elizabeth, his Russian-born TA. There was no question of romance. Growing up in the provinces like a Chekhov heroine, Elizabeth had come to realize that she and her parents commanded a cultural level beyond that of the Americans they lived among. The transplantation had destroyed her father. All through her years of education she had sought mentors, individual Americans more cultivated than the rest. She had had a favorite high school teacher. Family responsibilities compelled her to settle for college at Fort Salines and she was making the best of it. Attracted by his erudition and despair, she had settled on Ahearn as a guide for the next stage of her enlightenment. They drank tea with lemon in his office at odd hours.
"Your memory problems are from the fever," she told him one night. "You should see a doctor."
Ahearn, as usual, agreed.
"You're young," Elizabeth said. "You must act somehow."
He laughed. "And you're old beyond your years, Elizabeth. Wise beyond them."
"You're a valuable man. Truly!" she said. "You are exceptional. The beauty that you have absorbed, the poetry and wisdom. I hope," she said, "you don't think I'm flattering you. I'm speaking out of turn, I know."
"Oh, I can tell," he said. "You're flattering me for a grade."
"May I say something more outrageous?"
"Of course, Elizabeth."
"Your wife is foolish to leave you for that man. Cevic."
"She knows what she's doing. I have my problems."
"Excuse me," said Elizabeth. "But to say this is so…" He watched her avoid the obvious in three languages. "So unfair to yourself." She watched him slyly. "What is the worst problem?"
"Oh," he said. "That I have no soul."
One night in the mall he had a strange encounter with Paul. It was dusk, a wild gusty night. Paul was skateboarding with three friends; he and his father nearly collided at the sloping edge of a parking lot.
"Whoa," the boy said. Every time Ahearn saw his son he was surprised at the boy's growth, the thin arms hanging from wide bony shoulders, the long legs and hardening jaw. Paul skated around him in what felt like a hostile enveloping motion.
"Well, how are you?" Ahearn said. The fact was that they had seen very little of each other over the summer and fall. Partly it was because of his illness, but Paul was avoiding him. Out of some self-mutilating impulse Michael had been allowing it. Also, he realized, it was a way of punishing Kristin. The three boys with Paul backed away, withdrawing from a parental encounter.
"Hey, I'm like OK," Paul said. His face began to change. In a few seconds a startling range of expressions showed themselves. Ahearn thought it was like the approach of a loa to the possessed.
"Yeah, I'm OK. How are you, man?"
"Don't call me man," Ahearn said.
"Oh yeah, sorry," Paul said.
"We'll go hunting this year," Ahearn said.
The boy kicked his board and went off in something like terror. His friends fell in behind him.
Finally he had a note from McKie.
"Check this out!" the note said. Enclosed was a clipping from the "News of the Americas" column in the Miami Herald. It announced that Marie-Claire Purcell had been appointed the island republic of St. Trinity's ambassador to France. There was a small picture of Lara.
Ahearn rarely shopped for groceries. He took his meals at a Greek diner called, for some reason, the New York Restaurant. Occasionally, out of some old homing habit he would find himself walking the aisles of the local Albertson's supermarket. The place was a state of mind, its light peculiar. People picked their way along in some engineered commercial condition, watchful, grim, passing each other with secret glances. Some of its charge was erotic, and he was aware that men who knew how it was done could pick up women there.
One day, prowling Albertson's, Ahearn saw Kristin and Norman Cevic shopping together. Norman pushed the cart and Kristin scanned the racks, ready to strike, seeking out specials, twofers, coupons. Ahearn moved closer to the wall, hiding. He put his glasses on to watch Kristin's diligent gathering. It seemed to him he knew her every motion from the inside out. It was impossible for him to believe he would not go home with her.
They were very affectionate together. Cevic, Ahearn thought, looked younger. His bearishness was subdued. Kristin looked at peace. Shopping. On their way to the register, Cevic put his hand across the seat of Kristen's jeans. As Michael knew she would, without saying anything, without turning to him, she moved his hand away. Michael foresaw her reaction as precisely as he knew the feel of that warm denim. Before taking hold of his hand with hers she pressed it against her behind for a moment, for the fraction of a second. So it appeared to Michael.
He watched them at the cashier's line, joking about the tabloid headlines, both of them with wallets out. Cevic managed to keep his hands on her. It occurred to Michael that he himself had nothing to lose. He was driven and it might be petro, he thought, the loa that drove him. He could easily be on them before they got to her car. He would kill them both with his bare hands.
The next day he went to the doctor and asked for sleeping pills and tranquilizers.
"What do you want them for?" asked the impolite young doctor.
"Social self-discipline," Michael said.
The doctor gave him a long look but he got his tablets.
Deer season opened. The bare trees of Fort Salines were hung with carcasses. Men and women in DayGlo were everywhere. On impulse, he called Alvin Mahoney. He had seen Mahoney only twice since the beginning of term. Both times Alvin had been in a hurry to take himself elsewhere. He had actually acted offended over something, although that was quite impossible. It was only awkwardness and shyness. The maladroit Mahoney.
"Alvin! Mike!"
"Oh jeez," said Mahoney.
"What do you mean, oh jeez, Alvin?"
Alvin tried to laugh politely.
"Thought we might have a shot at the critters," Ahearn said to him. "What do you think?"
"Oh jeez." Then silence. And then he said, "You know my back is seizing up something fierce. I ain't… you know."
"Ain't you, Alvin?" He had no idea why he had called the poor man. Perversity. "Well, I promised my boy I'd take him this time."
"Paul?"
"Paul," Ahearn said. "My son."
"Oh. Sure."
Truly the man was a trial.
"Alvin, do you mind if I borrow a couple of your pieces for tomorrow? The twelve-gauges, maybe."
"Well, I only got two. You wanna borrow both of them?"
"Yes, I would. If I may. If that's all right."
Alvin could hardly refuse, although it was close.
Hardly anyone glanced at him twice as he walked the shotguns in and out of the Student Union, the barrels poking through a crushed cardboard box. That evening he called Kristin. It was Monday evening of the second week of the season.
"Look, you didn't say a word about this," she told him. "He isn't prepared to go. He hasn't the junior permit. You must be joking."
"I'll tell you what," Ahearn said. "I'll come by in the morning and ask him if he wants to go."
"Have you lost your mind, Michael? I mean, really! No fucking way is he going hunting with you. You should—" she began, then stopped herself.
"Right," he said. "I should have taken him last year."
He started drinking, straight Scotch, about two in the morning, watching a seventies movie with the sound off. The film made him think about how ugly and stupid the seventies had been. Bad luck to have spent his youth in them. After a couple of hours he took some gear and his shotgun and drove out to what had been his house. He left the guns in the car.