“It might. It looks like snow.”
“Yes. We’d have to leave earlier if…”
“If it snows, yes. I’ll borrow Seth’s car. I’m sure…”
“No. Let’s leave Seth out of this. We’ll have to get a car elsewhere. I’ll rent one, if you like.”
“That might be best.”
“I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”
“What about after the bridge? Will you come back here?”
“No. The airport. Directly to the airport”
“Do you have a ticket yet?”
“I can get one there, that’s no problem.”
“I’d rather you got one in advance, Arthur.”
“All right, I will.”
“There’s a travel agent in town. On Carter. Will you make a reservation tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“There are flights to New York all day long.”
“I know.”
“I’ll drive you directly to the airport afterward After the bridge.”
“All right.”
“Now what about this party?”
“It’s a costume party, did I tell you that?”
“Ridiculous,” Sara whispers. “Where are we supposed to get costumes?”
“They can be simple.”
“Sure, like what?”
“I don’t know. It’s really not important, Sara. As long as Epstein’s unrecognizable.”
“Oh,” she says. “Oh, I see. That’s very clever, Arthur. Did you think of that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s very clever. But what shall I go as?”
“Anything you like.”
“I think I’ll go as a cheap whore.”
“Fine.”
“Or a pregnant college girl.”
“Anything you like.”
“Or maybe both. Which would you prefer, Arthur?”
“I prefer you.”
“You’ve got me.”
“Have I?”
“Can’t you tell?”
“I can tell.”
“Gloria disapproved of you at first. But I think she liked you by the end of the night”
“I’m glad.”
“I am, too. I’m very fond of Gloria. She’s my closest friend, I tell her everything. I even told her…”
“Yes?”
“No, nothing.”
“What did you tell her?”
She hesitates a moment, and then says, “Only that I love you very much.”
I know this is not what she was about to say, but I can hardly quibble. “I love you, too, Sara,” I tell her.
“Very much?”
“Very much.”
“Yes, good.” She nods in the darkness, and is thoughtfully silent. After a while, she says, “There’s a thrift shop near the railroad station. I’ll stop there tomorrow after class and see if I can find something to wear. They have all kinds of junky, musty crap there. I’ll get something, don’t worry.”
“Epstein’s coming here at nine in the morning,” I tell her.
“Okay. Good night, Arthur,” she says, and sighs.
“Good night, Sara.”
She sighs often during the night, and once she mumbles, “Oh, dear, dear, dear” in her sleep. Something is worrying her, and it worries me in turn. I circle back over our conversation, trying to discover the source of the uneasiness, but I cannot pinpoint the exact location, and I toss restlessly, unsettled.
I hold her close, and each time she sighs, her troubled breath shudders through me like my own.
I do love her very much indeed.
Friday, November 1
Weglowski has not taken the truck tonight, for fear it will be recognized. Instead, he is driving a nondescript, faded blue, 1968 Chevrolet sedan, the trunk of which is loaded with dynamite, blasting caps, coils of wire, friction tape, and tools. I notice that he drives with extreme caution, but I make no comment. He seems dour and uncommunicative, a trifle tense. When at last I ask him whether he is worried about setting the explosives, he answers that he is worried only about going to jail. I tell him, with what I consider to be a humorous edge, that I quite share his concern. He acknowledges my comment with a brief dismissive nod.
We park the car at the overlook, and hastily unload the trunk. He has packed the dynamite and blasting caps into two knapsacks, and we quickly strap these to our backs. There are several large coils of wire, and we loop these over our arms and shoulders. Weglowski shoves the roll of black tape into the pocket of his mackinaw and then straps on his tool belt. We cannot risk being seen on the highway this way, and so we take to the woods at once, stepping into knee-deep snow, and begin the half-mile trek back to the bridge.
I am worried about leaving footprints.
Weglowski tells me, in impeccable English and with a dryness indicating he caught my earlier jibe, that he quite shares my concern.
There is no moon. The land slopes away before us, falling off toward the gap. A rabbit’s tracks hemstitch the snow, circle a tree, vanish. I am no longer fearful of rattlesnakes (it is my city belief that you do not find rattlesnakes in the snow), but now I am beginning to worry about wildcats or wolves or worse. I stay very close to Weglowski, who plows through the snow grunting and puffing, now and then muttering what I assume to be Polish swear words. Above us, on the highway, the headlights of an occasional automobile pierce the darkness, the clinking of tire chains merges with the brittle night The bridge is just ahead.
We hold a hurried consultation, our breaths billowing like comic strip balloons. Weglowski wants to know where I will do it, and at first I do not understand him.
“From where?” he whispers.
“What do you mean?”
“From where you blast?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Where do you think? I mean, where will it be safest for me?”
He looks around. The sloping ravine is barren of cover save for low outcroppings of rock and underbrush. There is, however, near the eastern end of the bridge, a huge boulder. Weglowski suggests that if I station myself on or behind that boulder, I will be safe from the blast and have a clear view of the bridge. I agree with him. We half slide, half run down the southern slope of the gap, and then begin climbing up to the boulder. It is not an easy climb. The northern side of the ravine is steep, and the snow has been blown off, leaving a treacherous escarpment of ice and rock. When we finally reach the boulder, my heart is pounding furiously, and I am covered with a cold sweat. But the boulder itself is a perfect observation platform, large enough for a man to lie prone on its flat top, commanding an unobstructed view of the bridge and its western approach.
As Weglowski starts across the tracks to the far end of the trestle, the knapsack full of dynamite on his back,
I am certain he will lose his footing and tumble into the ravine below, setting off a blast that will demolish both himself and the scheme. But he is a sure-footed old goat, and I watch him as he nimbly picks his way over the ties until he is consumed by darkness and I can no longer see him.
I stretch out on the boulder, and peer into the blackness.
The night is still. It is fiercely cold, but there is no wind. From the other end of the bridge, I hear sounds I think I can identify, the small mechanical click of a pair of pliers, the rasp of tape being tom. On the highway, in the distance, there is the jangle of tire chains, the hum of an approaching automobile. Headlights flash around the bend in the road, illuminate the highway guard rail, and pass on. The night is still again. I can hear my watch ticking in the darkness. The time is nine-thirty. Professor Epstein, wearing the costume we decided upon this morning, will have picked up Sara at her apartment a half hour ago. The masquerade party at Hester’s house will be in full swing by now. If all goes well…
Weglowski is coming back toward the center of the bridge, paying out wire behind him. He reaches the apogee of the arch, climbs under the tracks, and disappears from sight. I can hear the clicking of pliers again, the tearing of tape. He seems to be taking longer at the middle of the span that he did at the far end, and I assume it is because his hold is more tenuous there, suspended as he is above the deepest part of the gorge, and clinging to the girders for support. I look at the luminous dial of my watch. Thirty-five minutes have gone by since he left me here on the boulder, and twenty of those minutes have been spent at the keystone point. I wonder if he is having difficulty. There is the sound of another automobile in the distance, the metallic rattle of tire chains. I crane my neck for a view of the approaching car. As it rumbles past, I see the distinctive red dome light on its roof. The car does not stop, it does not even slacken its speed. But I keep watching until it disappears, and then I continue staring in to the darkness, listening, wondering if it will stop at the overlook where the blue Chevrolet is parked.