Nobody Knew They Were There

Saturday, November 2

There is at least a foot of new snow on the ground outside.

The bell tower is tolling nine o’clock. I turn from the window, go into the bathroom, and begin lathering my face. Sara stands in the doorway, watching.

“Are you going to shave your mustache?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“I wish you wouldn’t. I like it.”

“Have to,” I tell her.

It is more difficult than I imagined it would be. I began growing the mustache the day we learned that Adam had been killed, more than six months ago. It is thick and full, and I do not have a scissors with me. It resists me almost willfully, clogging the razor, refusing to be shorn. I cut myself repeatedly. My hand is shaking, I curse often. Sara watches silently from the doorway. At last, I bend over the sink and rinse my face and look at myself in the mirror. I see Sara’s eyes studying me. I turn to her.

“You look very young,” she says.

“As young as Roger Harris?”

“Roger who?” she asks, and smiles.

“Do you like it?”

“I’ll grow used to it,” she says. “In time.”

I dress swiftly. Sara continues watching me, seemingly intent on my every move, absorbed by simple routine acts like tucking my shirt into my trousers or fastening my belt. I am knotting my tie, eyes on the mirror, Sara standing just behind my shoulder, watching, when she says, “You were up very early this morning.”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing?”

“Writing a letter.”

“To your wife?”

“No. My partner.”

“Why?”

“Last minute instructions. In case anything happens to me.”

“Nothing will happen to you.”

“I hope not.”

“You’ll blow the bridge, and I’ll drive you to the airport, and you’ll go home to New York.”

I turn away from the mirror, go to the closet, and take my jacket from its hanger. “I’m going down to put on the chains,” I tell her. “I think we may need them.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, I’d rather you stayed here.”

“Why?”

“Sara, please do as I ask.”

“I want to be with you.”

“I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

I kiss her on the forehead, and quickly leave the room. From a pay telephone in the lobby, I call Eugene at his apartment in New York.

“I was just about to call you,” he says. “Abby tells me…”

“Never mind Abby. I haven’t got much time and there’s something I want to…”

“Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“What she said you’re going to do.”

“I don’t know what she said, but I imagine it’s true, yes.”

“Who the hell do you think you are? Captain America?”

“Maybe so. If getting the bad guys..

“Getting them? What the hell are you, Sam, some kind of twelve-year-old kid? Getting them?”

“Getting them, yes.”

“Murdering them, you mean. Isn’t that the word you’re looking for? Good guys or bad guys, if you get them, it’s murder.”

“I don’t look at it that way.”

“Sam,” he says, and takes a deep breath. “Sam… what you’re doing is wrong. Legally, ethically, morally, any way you care to name.” He pauses. “I think you know it’s wrong.” He pauses again. “You must know it’s wrong, Sam. Either that, or you’re a raving lunatic.”

I do not answer him.

“Sam?”

“I’ve got to do this.”

“Why? Don’t you realize…?”

“I’ve got to.”

There is something in my voice that stops him cold. The line crackles with static. We are silent for several seconds.

“Eugene,” I say at last, “I've written a letter than I'm going to mail as soon as I get off the phone. You should receive it by Monday or Tuesday. You’re to open it only in the event of my death. It’ll give you the name and address of a girl out here, and specific instructions to follow should anything happen to me.”

“If you came home right this minute, nothing would happen to…”

“Eugene, let’s not argue, okay? Do you know where my will is?”

“I think I know where your will is, yes.”

“It’s in the office safe.”

“I know where your goddamn will is, Sam.”

“In the event of my death, my estate goes one-third to Abby and two-thirds to my issue, per stirpes.”

“I’m familiar with the will.”

“This girl may be pregnant, Eugene….”

“Which girl?”

“The one I wrote you about, in which case I want to make certain the child’s taken care of. In the event of my death, and should the girl give birth within nine months…”

“When was the date of last access, Sam?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. Monday, I guess. Yes, Monday night. That’s not important, Eugene.”

“You’re acknowledging paternity, it’s damn important when you last…”

“Today’s date will cover it fine. Nine months from today, Eugene. That’ll be fine.”

“Suppose she runs out tomorrow and gets laid by the local…”

“Eugene, I love this girl.”

He is silent.

“I love her and I trust her. She’ll have a copy of the letter, and I’ll instruct her to contact you should anything happen to me. The letter acknowledges paternity, and gives you her name and address. It should hold, if Abby or David decide to contest it.”

“If you wrote it, I’m sure it’ll hold. You’re a very good lawyer, Sam. And a goddamn fool.”

“Thank you. Eugene, if anything should happen to me, and if for one reason or another you don’t hear from her, will you please contact her and find out what…”

“I will, yes.”

“This’d be covered by the doctrine of en ventre sa mère, Eugene. A child in esse at the time of my death…”

“I know, Sam, please stop talking about the time of

your death, will you?”

“I’m leaving it up to you, Eugene. To take care of everything, okay?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Okay then.”

“Sam? Come home. Please.”

“Good-bye, Eugene.”

I signal the operator and ask for my overtime charges. I deposit the change, and then walk to the mailbox across the lobby, and drop the letter to Eugene into the slot. Ralph is watching me from behind the desk. I pay the hotel bill and leave a Los Angeles forwarding address. In the garage next door, I put on the chains, and then check out the car and drive it around to the hotel entrance. It is now twenty minutes to ten. I go upstairs to Sara, and she embraces me the moment I enter the room. I tilt her face and kiss her. There are fresh tears in her eyes. The telephone rings, startling us both. I fully expect it will be Eugene. Instead, it is Professor Raines.

“Has Wegiowski been paid?” I ask at once.

“I don’t know, Epstein’s in charge of money matters. Besides, it hardly matters any more.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve decided not to go ahead with it,” Raines says.

“What?”

“We’re calling it off.”

“What?”

“Can you hear me all right?”

“What do you mean you’re calling it off? Who decided it?”

“We did. The three of us.”

“Why? What the hell prompted…?”

“It’s too dangerous. Hester was visited after the party last night by those two gentlemen you mentioned. It’s unsafe to do it here, we’d all be involved. We’d rather wait until another time.”

“I'd rather not”

“That’s unfortunate, Mr. Eisler.”

“For you, maybe. I’m blowing that bridge at ten forty-eight. Good-bye, Professor Raines.”

I slam the phone onto the cradle. Sara is watching me from across the room.

“Come on,” I tell her.

It is a cold clear day.

The sky is intensely blue, cloudless. The fresh snow in the ravine seems strewn with glittering minuscule diamond chips. At twenty-five minutes past ten we arrive at the overlook a half mile past the bridge. The car radio is blaring rock-and-roll music. Sara makes her turn past the redwood picnic tables, swinging the car around in a wide U. Then she pulls up the brake, and I go back to the trunk and remove the gift-wrapped blasting machine from it. In the car again, my hands tremble as I try to untie the knot “Let me,” Sara says.

I hand her the package. Swiftly, soundlessly, she loosens the ribbon. “All right?” she says.

“Yes.”

She smiles fleetingly, lowers the brake, and starts back toward the bridge again. It is now ten-thirty. I take the blasting machine out of the cardboard box. My hands are still shaking. Sara parks the car on the far side of the curve, and again asks, “All right?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I cut the engine?”

“Yes. If anyone comes along, just say the carburetor’s flooded.”

“Yes, fine.”

“What will you say?”

“That the carburetor’s flooded.”

“You’ll hear the train when it’s coming. That’s when you can start the engine again.”

“All right.”

“Sara, do we need that damn music?”

“It relaxes me.”

“Sara, this is a copy of a letter I mailed to my partner today. If anything should happen to me…

“Nothing will happen to you.”

“But if, I want you to open it and read it.”

“All right.”

“And if there’s any problem at all, you contact him. My partner, Eugene Levine.”

“All right”

“I have to go now, Sara.”

“All right, Arthur.”

“I love you.”

“Oh, yes, I love you.”

I take her into my arms, kiss her gently, and get out of the car. I cross the highway and climb over the guard rail. I am beginning to think we have been squandering time, we should have left the hotel earlier. I push my way through the deep snow, and climb up to the boulder. I brush snow away with my gloved hands, searching for Weglowski’s lead wires. I look at my watch. It is ten thirty-six. I find the wires at last, quickly fasten them to the brass screws, and tighten the wing nuts over them. I stand up and wave to the car. Sara is on the highway, facing me and the bridge. She waves back, and then gets into the car again. I look at my watch. Two minutes have gone by since I fastened the wires to the box. I look out over the tracks to the western end of the bridge. I wonder if the snow will affect the dynamite in any way. Will it explode if it is wet? My heart is pounding. I glance down to the concrete pier on my side of the bridge.

There are footprints in the snow.

For a moment, I mistake them for my own, assuming automatically that they are the tracks I left when climbing up to the boulder. But then I see that they move inexorably across the ravine toward the center of the span where they become tangled and confused, as though whoever left them had been milling about there for some time, and then they continue on in a straight purposeful line of march toward the concrete pier at the western end. I am suddenly panicked I look at my watch again. It is twenty minutes to eleven, the train will arrive in eight minutes.

I scramble down off the boulder, half sliding, half falling to the concrete pier below. I brush snow away from the girders.

The wires running from the dynamite have been cut

Someone has cut the wires.

These wires, and presumably all of them, the ones connecting the charges to each other, the ones running back to the boulder and the box. The lead wires buried in the boulder’s snow, the ones I carefully wrapped around the brass screws and fastened with the wing nuts, are meaningless. They go from the box to nowhere. Bob and Harold, I think. Those sons of bitches walked the track this morning. Or maybe not. I can visualize an envious Seth, a cheated Weglowski, a doubtful Raines, either or all of them committing this senseless sabotage that now renders me impotent I am filled with blinding rage. I begin digging deeper into the snow, thinking I will tear the sticks of dynamite free of the footing to which they are taped, clasp them in my arms, and run onto the tracks to meet the train. But I remember what Weglowski told me about the comparative safety of dynamite, and I do not know whether impact with the onrushing locomotive will detonate it. There is too much I do not know. I am a fool on an expert’s errand.

I remember something else Weglowski told me.

I scramble up to the boulder again, Sara’s idiotic jingle racing in my mind, Oh, dear, what can the matter be, and lift the blasting machine by its leather handle, rush across the tracks to the center of the span, climb under the trestle. The train is not yet in sight. I look at my watch. Four minutes. I do not know whether this single charge of dynamite at the keystone point will indeed be enough to demolish the bridge and the train, not even Weglowski could tell me that for certain. But it is at least a chance, and if I can reconnect the severed wires here… I look at my watch again. Three minutes. I look down the track. Nothing yet. On the highway, Sara has climbed out of the car and is waving to me again.

There are wires dangling from beneath the trestle, a tangle of cut wires. I look for the dynamite, knowing for certain that this is where Weglowski placed his center charge, but I find only strands of tape sticking to the girders. Cut tape. The dynamite is gone. The train will arrive in two minutes, and the dynamite is gone. Whoever did the job has done it completely, there is nothing left, nothing.

On the highway, Sara yells, “Arthur!”

I turn my head to look at her.

“It’s not coming,” she shouts.

“What?”

“It’s not coming! The train. I just heard it on the radio.”

“What?”

“They arrived by jet. At the airport. They’ve already been helicoptered to the campus.”

“No.” I shake my head

“Yes, Arthur.”

“No,” I say again.

But I realize it is true.

There is rock-and-roll music flooding the automobile. It provides a shock background for my numbness. I cannot yet accept the total disintegration of the plan. The reversal of events has stunned me, and I sit in silent gloomy speculation as I drive the winding mountain road into town, where crowds are already streaming toward the campus.

The road to the airport is clogged with automobiles heading in the opposite direction, bound for the university, where our beloved loyal leaders will once again assure the American people that we are unified in our goals and aspirations. I begin wondering about their decision to fly. Was the Peace Train abandoned because of security reports from their advance agents? Or was that the plan all along, lead us to believe they were coming by train, and then board an airplane instead? Are they really that clever at manipulation and deception, can they so bewilder and confuse, can they rob us of decisive action forever — the way they robbed Adam of life and David of direction?

I cannot believe it.

There is yet a future not of their making, there is a baby in Sara’s belly, there is hope. And although they may have succeeded for the present, they will have to meet that future one day, and it will succeed where we have failed, it will rush to challenge whatever trains come roaring over that fucking bridge, whatever planes drop unexpectedly out of the sky overhead. I drive silently, and Sara sits silently beside me, her hands folded in her lap.

At the airport, I park the car and take my bag from the trunk.

“Shall I come in with you?” she asks.

“Yes. Please.”

We go into the terminal. At the check-in counter, I show my ticket, and the uniformed airline employee pushes his computer buttons and verifies my seat and puts a tag on my suitcase and staples my baggage claim check to the ticket folder. Sara and I walk together to the gate, still silent. I want to tell her what I was thinking in the car. I want to tell her there is still hope. But I sense she knows this, I sense it is this she has contained in her own silence ever since we left the bridge. The plane has not yet begun boarding passengers. Sara excuses herself and goes to the ladies’ room. The huge jet is waiting at the end of the ramp. I stare at it blankly through the long terminal windows. They are announcing the flight when Sara returns.

“I just got ray period,” she says.

I look at her. There are tears streaming down her face.

“Good-bye, Arthur,” she whispers.

“Good-bye, Sara,” I answer, and turn away.