Three nights later I wandered into Heinrich's room, where the TV set was temporarily located. He sat on the floor in a hooded sweatshirt, watching live coverage of the same scene. The backyard was floodlit, men with picks and shovels worked amid mounds of dirt. In the foreground stood the reporter, bareheaded, in a sheepskin coat, in a light snow, giving an update. The police said they had solid information, the diggers were methodical and skilled, the work had been going on for over seventy-two hours. But no more bodies had been found.
The sense of failed expectations was total. A sadness and emptiness hung over the scene. A dejection, a sorry gloom. We felt it ourselves, my son and I, quietly watching. It was in the room, seeping into the air from pulsing streams of electrons. The reporter seemed at first merely apologetic. But as he continued to discuss the absense of mass graves, he grew increasingly forlorn, gesturing at the diggers, shaking his head, almost ready to plead with us for sympathy and understanding. I tried not to feel disappointed.
30
In the dark the mind runs on like a devouring machine, the only thing awake in the universe. I tried to make out the walls, the dresser in the corner. It was the old defenseless feeling. Small, weak, deathbound, alone. Panic, the god of woods and wilderness, half goat. I moved my head to the right, remembering the clock-radio. I watched the numbers change, the progression of digital minutes, odd to even. They glowed green in the dark.
After a while I woke up Babette. Warm air came rising from her body as she shifted toward me. Contented air. A mixture of forgetfulness and sleep. Where am I, who are you, what was I dreaming?
"We have to talk," I said.
She mumbled things, seemed to fend off some hovering presence. When I reached for the lamp, she gave me a backhand punch in the arm. The light went on. She retreated toward the radio, covering her head and moaning.
"You can't get away. There are things we have to talk about. I want access to Mr. Gray. I want the real name of Gray Research."
All she could do was moan, "No."
"I'm reasonable about this. I have a sense of perspective. No huge hopes or expectations. I only want to check it out, give it a try. I don't believe in magical objects. I only say, 'Let me try, let me see.' I've been lying here for hours practically paralyzed. I'm drenched in sweat. Feel my chest, Babette."
"Five more minutes. I need to sleep."
"Feel. Give me your hand. See how wet."
"We all sweat," she said. "What is sweat?"
"There are rivulets here."
"You want to ingest. No good, Jack."
"All I ask is a few minutes alone with Mr. Gray, to find out if I qualify."
"He'll think you want to kill him."
"But that's crazy. I'd be crazy. How can I kill him?"
"He'll know I told you about the motel."
"The motel is over and done. I can't change the motel. Do I kill the only man who can relieve my pain? Feel under my arms if you don't believe me."
"He'll think you're a husband with a grudge."
"The motel is frankly small grief. Do I kill him and feel better? He doesn't have to know who I am. I make up an identity, I invent a context. Help me, please."
"Don't tell me you sweat. What is sweat? I gave the man my word."
In the morning we sat at the kitchen table. The clothes dryer was running in the entranceway. I listened to the tapping sound of buttons and zippers as they struck the surface of the drum.
"I already know what I want to say to him. I'll be descriptive, clinical. No philosophy or theology. I'll appeal to the pragmatist in him. He's bound to be impressed by the fact that I'm actually scheduled to die. This is frankly more than you could claim. My need is intense. I believe he'll respond to this. Besides, he'll want another crack at a live subject. That's the way these people are."
"How do I know you won't kill him?"
"You're my wife. Am I a killer?"
"You're a man, Jack. We all know about men and their insane rage. This is something men are very good at. Insane and violent jealousy. Homicidal rage. When people are good at something, it's only natural that they look for a chance to do this thing. If I were good at it, I would do it. It happens I'm not. So instead of going into homicidal rages, I read to the blind. In other words I know my limits. I am willing to settle for less."
"What did I do to deserve this? This is not like you. Sarcastic, mocking."
"Leave it alone," she said. "Dylar was my mistake. I won't let you make it yours as well."
We listened to the tap and scratch of buttons and zipper tabs. It was time for me to leave for school. The voice upstairs remarked: "A California think-tank says the next world war may be fought over salt."
All afternoon I stood by the window in my office, watching the Observatory. It was growing dark when Winnie Richards appeared at the side door, looked both ways, then began moving in a wolf-trot along the sloping turf. I hurried out of my office and down the stairs. In seconds I was out on a cobbled path, running. Almost at once I experienced a strange elation, the kind of bracing thrill that marks the recovery of a lost pleasure. I saw her turn a corner in a controlled skid before she disappeared behind a maintenance building. I ran as fast as I could, cutting loose, cutting into the wind, running chest out, head high, my arms pumping hard. She reappeared at the edge of the library, an alert and stealthy figure moving beneath the arched windows, nearly lost to the dusk. When she drew near the steps she suddenly accelerated, going full tilt from what was almost a standing start. This was a deft and lovely maneuver that I was able to appreciate even as it put me at a disadvantage. I decided to cut behind the library and pick her up on the long straight approach to the chemistry labs. Briefly I ran alongside the members of the lacrosse team as they charged off a field after practice. We ran step for step, the players waving their sticks in a ritualized manner and chanting something I couldn't understand. When I reached the broad path I was gasping for breath. Winnie was nowhere in sight. I ran through the faculty parking lot, past the starkly modern chapel, around the administration building. The wind was audible now, creaking in the high bare branches. I ran to the east, changed my mind, stood looking around, removed my glasses to peer. I wanted to run, I was willing to run. I would run as far as I could, run through the night, run to forget why I was running. After some moments I saw a figure loping up a hill at the edge of the campus. It had to be her. I started running again, knowing she was too far away, would disappear over the crest of the hill, would not resurface for weeks. I put everything I had into a final climbing burst, charging over concrete, grass, then gravel, lungs burning in my chest, a heaviness in my legs that seemed the very pull of the earth, its most intimate and telling judgment, the law of falling bodies.
How surprised I was, nearing the top of the hill, to see that she had stopped. She wore a Gore-Tex jacket puffed up with insulation and she was looking to the west. I walked slowly toward her. When I cleared a row of private homes I saw what it was that had made her pause. The edge of the earth trembled in a darkish haze. Upon it lay the sun, going down like a ship in a burning sea. Another postmodern sunset, rich in romantic imagery. Why try to describe it? It's enough to sáy that everything in our field of vision seemed to exist in order to gather the light of this event. Not that this was one of the stronger sunsets. There had been more dynamic colors, a deeper sense of narrative sweep.
"Hi, Jack. I didn't know you came up here."
"I usually go to the highway overpass."
"Isn't this something?"
"It's beautiful all right."
"Makes me think. It really does."