Gwyneth said, “How often do you get a cold?”
In our current circumstances, the question seemed curious. “What do you mean?”
“Only one of those words had more than a single syllable.”
“How often do I get a cold?”
“Is there any word in that you need defined?”
“I don’t get colds,” I said.
“How often have you had the flu?”
“Never. How would I possibly catch a cold or the flu? I’ve had virtually no contact with people, sick people or otherwise. I’ve lived almost in isolation.”
“What about the man you called Father? Colds, the flu?”
“Not in the time I knew him. He had no more contact with people than I did.”
“Toothache?”
“No. We floss and brush. We’re very diligent about it.”
“That must be miracle floss, a magic brush. Not one cavity?”
“What is this about?”
“Ever cut yourself?”
“Of course.”
“Ever had an infected cut?”
The Clears distracted me from answering her. We were still in a residential neighborhood, where they could be seen from time to time, as they could be seen anywhere, but suddenly they appeared in numbers. One in hospital blues crossed a lawn where, in the early hours of the storm, children had rolled together a snowman, using discs of reflective orange plastic for its eyes, a tennis ball for its nose, and what appeared to be the keys from a toy piano for its teeth. Another in whites passed through the wall of a house and came toward the street, leaving no rubble and bearing no wounds from his passage, and two in greens glided down from a roof to drift across a yard, all of them moving atop the mantle of snow rather than through it. On a branch high in a bare-limbed tree, a glowing woman in blues stood as if sentinel, and as the Land Rover approached, she turned her head to stare down at us, and in spite of the distance, though being in no danger of coming eye-to-eye, I looked away, as Father had told me always to do.
Gwyneth said, “How long do you need to ponder it?”
“Ponder what?”
“Ever had an infected cut?” she repeated.
“Not with Bactine and iodine and bandages.”
“You’re very careful about your health.”
“I have to be. I can never go to a doctor.”
“What do you fear, Addison?”
“Losing you,” I said at once.
“What did you fear most before you ever met me?”
“Losing Father.”
“And what else?”
“Father being beaten and badly hurt. Being beaten myself.”
“There must be more you feared.”
“Seeing other people hurt. A man shot in the back gave me this Rolex. It was the worst thing to watch him die. Sometimes I’m afraid to read the newspapers in the library because they contain so many stories of suffering.”
“Do you fear the policemen who killed your father?”
“No. I don’t fear anyone until I see murder in his face.”
We still hadn’t talked much about Father. I hadn’t told her that the men who killed him were police officers.
Accustomed to the prevalence of mysteries in the world and still reluctant to ask questions that, though she had professed her love, might cause her to withdraw, I didn’t inquire how she had come upon that information.
“What do you hate?” she asked.
I thought a moment. “Only what I fear.”
“What you fear. That’s a most unusual answer in this world of hatred.”
Before I could consider what she said, we turned a corner onto a major avenue, drove through three Clears, and came upon a gathering of their kind that reminded me of that night five years earlier, a year after Father died, when I encountered the grand spectacle that I called the Convocation. Now, the city lay dimmed by the seething veils of winter, and the high-rises tiered away into the obscuring weather until those beyond a block might have been only shapes in a murky mirror, mere reflections of nearer buildings. Through the white gloom, standing in air and descending slowly like glowing ornaments being hung upon the night by invisible hands, came Clears of both sexes and all races, in their white shoes and white or blue or green uniforms, from whatever other dimension and into ours. Upon touching down, each of them at once walked away, with the brisk purpose that perhaps hospital personnel displayed on a busy night in the emergency room.
Until the past few minutes, the sight of Clears always lifted my spirits. Although I believed that in their eyes could be glimpsed some power or knowledge that, though it might not turn me to stone, would shake me to my core, I felt happier in their presence than I was when they weren’t around. But they did not gladden my heart now. Ordinarily, if anything can be said to be ordinary in this world, some of them were solemn while others smiled. This time, not one smile could be seen, and their demeanor seemed to be one of deep, inconsolable sorrow. The great beauty of their incandescent descent chilled my heart, and finally I understood something of what Father had meant when he said that the Clears, although not evil like the Fogs, were in their own way terrible, for their power was supremely grand and formidable.
I closed my eyes, unable to bear that beauty anymore, and after a moment, Gwyneth said, “Have you ever had a sore throat, headache, indigestion, ulcers in the mouth, hay fever?”
“What does any of that matter?”
She said, “You will not die of the plague.”
“I’m in the world more now. I’m at risk of contagion, just like you. I wish you had washed your face.”
“Trust,” she insisted.
70
Before i ever came to the city, father’s benefactor had given him the key to the food bank. I was never told the man’s position, and the only name that I had for him was Our Friend. Although this stranger cared about us and our welfare, although he could once or twice a year meet with my father for a few minutes and not strike out at him, Our Friend did not trust himself to restrain a violent impulse through a longer encounter. And because Our Friend suffered a bout of depression bordering on despair after each meeting, Father felt that he should impose upon the man as seldom as possible and that I should impose upon him not at all until Father had died.
When that day of misery arrived, and after Father lay at rest on the river bottom, I composed a note as he had instructed me and, that night, I took it to the food bank. The note said: Father has died. I have done with his body what he instructed. He wished me to tell you how very much he loved you for your tolerance and how much he appreciated your generosity. I know that you told him the key would be mine when he passed away, but he wanted me to ask you just the same if I might keep it. I will never take more than I need from either the food bank or the thrift shop, and I will try never to be found on the premises, never frighten anyone there by revealing what I am, for I would be most aggrieved to ever bring pain or dishonor to the food bank or anyone who staffs it. I miss Father terribly, and I don’t think that will ever change, but I will be all right. He wanted me to assure you that I will be all right.
Because Father had told me that Our Friend had a sense of humor and because I knew he would understand the meaning of my last three words, I signed the note Son of It.
Father had instructed me to seal the message in an envelope and to leave it in the center drawer of the desk in the smaller of the food bank’s two offices. The arrangement with our benefactor was that any missive would be answered overnight if possible. When I returned, I found a different sealed envelope from the one that I had left, and in it a reply. Dear boy, I was profoundly saddened to receive your news. I have always kept your father in my prayers, and I will keep him — and you — in them as long as I live. You may of course have the key. I wish that I could do more for you and be more of a comfort, but I am weak and so afraid. I accuse myself daily of cowardice and insufficient charity. As your father might have told you, for much longer than I knew him, I have suffered periodic depression, though I do always bounce back. Each encounter with your father precipitated a bout of the most severe despair, blackest depression, in spite of his great heart and gentle nature, and his face appears in dreams from which I wake as terrified as a child. This is my shortcoming and of course no fault of his. Do not hesitate to ask me for whatever you may need. Each time that I can be of help, I have a chance to mend my soul. God bless.