What Comes Next

THIRTEEN

WHAT DID HE MEAN by leaving him with his wife?

Her face had turned to rubber, and, frightened, not that she was hurt but that she was not real, he had run. Leaving his briefcase with all that mattered behind. Her blood flowing in thin streams, lips plastic, as if she were having a period in her mouth. He was innocent. He hadn’t done it to her. He would not be put to use to plow her field like any beast of burden, he would not be misused. They had tricked him into wanting what he didn’t want. He didn’t want Parks’ clothes or his wife or the hobbyhorse of their kid 01־ their bed. The dumb shock on her face when his fist struck was enough.

His problem to keep out of sight, to go to places where no one would question his presence. It was a delicate time. He needed to get some money so he could move. If he was to continue to breathe, he had to get out of the city. The war was getting larger, closer to home. There had been outbreaks of rioting in the major cities. In some places, open insurrection, guerrilla warfare. Tanks in the street.

He had gone by his house without going in. He had the sense that his induction notice would be there, felt it or knew it, his feelings an odd piece of tubing connected somehow to the fluid of his knowledge. He felt in his blood his time running out.

If he could stop hating him, it would be easier when the time came to do what he had to do.

He had not yet revealed himself. Whatever he had done so far was to be something other than he was. To throw the enemy off the track. They thought he was one of them. Sometimes he thought so himself.

August 1

QUIET SEA CLIFF

SHAKEN BY MURDER

OF SCHOOLGIRL, 17

“At least he had the decency not to touch her,” the father, who had prayed all morning with his family, told the police. “She died pure as a baby, which we can thank God for.”

When he saw his father leave, he went in.

“We’ve been worried to death about you,” she said in welcome. “Your father wanted to call the police. Why didn’t you tell us you were all right? Are you going to give us a kiss?”

He asked her if she had twenty dollars to give him. A dull buzz at the back of his neck.

She pecked him with a chicken’s nervous anger, went to look for the purse she had her money in. Something burning in the kitchen. “Look what you made me do.” Smiling as if she didn’t mean it.

The letter from the government was on his desk waiting for him. His orders. He folded it in half, put it in his pocket without looking inside.

“Will you wait till Dad gets back, Chrissy? He’ll never forgive me if he finds out that you were here.” She was looking through the wrong purse, dumping mirrors, compacts, wads of Kleenex, shaking her head. “I just can’t remember which purse I used yesterday.”

Someone was at the outside door.

“Will you hurry up? I don’t want to see him.” Whatever had been burning fouling the memory of the air.

“No, I won’t hurry up. I won’t have either of you ordering me around.” She stood like a statue, her hands at her sides. He went by, moving her gently out of the way.

It was too late. He was coming up the stairs. Carrying a bag of something, his hands full. The Times rolled up under his arm.

“Well, look who’s here. To what beneficence do I owe this unlooked-for pleasure?”

He thought of coming down on him — the event in his eyes — rolling him down the stairs with his weight, but stood frozen at the top as he lumbered up. His eyes on his face.

His eyes murderous. “Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” he said.

“How can you leave if you haven’t been here?” He stopped two steps from the top, planted himself. “I don’t see him. Do you see him, Mary?”

“He just came in, Ludwig. I didn’t know he was coming.”

“What a beauty he is. Look at him. You don’t have to look at him, just smell him. Whose son is he? Who made him?”

“He’s yours,” she said. “You know he’s yours.”

“Don’t heap all the credit on me. You had a hand in it yourself.”

“Will you get out of my way so I can go?” (Most of his life, Christopher remembered, running from him, afraid of what he might do if he went out of control.)

He came up the two steps and Christopher backed up, making room. Then moved in front of him, in a good position, if he wanted to, to push the old man down the steps.

“Ludwig, stay away,” she yelled.

“You would like to kill me, wouldn’t you?”

“No,” she said. “He wouldn’t. Don’t listen to him.”

“I wouldn’t do it unless you made me.”

“Do you hear that, Mary? He’s threatening me now. You’re a witness. Do you hear what he said?”

“Why are you asking her? You can talk directly to me.”

“What he doesn’t understand is that to hurt me, he has to hurt himself. He doesn’t understand that I want him to be a humane man not for me — what the hell does it matter to me what he is? — but for his own sake.”

“He understands, Ludwig,” she said, her voice like the point of a knife on a slate.

“What does he understand? Decadence he understands. Dirt. Whoring. Look at him. He’s decadent. You can’t be tough and believe in nothing. Do you think he has any feeling for anyone? They want to throw everything out, these kids, and start over. As if nothing existed on the face of the earth before them. He has no love.”

“Look at me.” He stood in front of him, a wall to his sight. “You’re no different. Someday you’re going to die.”

“I’ll kill him,” his father said, moving away, the mother coming between them. “I don’t want to see him in this house again. I’ll kill the bastard if he returns.”

“He doesn’t mean that,” she said. “Ludwig, why do you say things you don’t mean?”

He pushed her out of the way, came for him. “I’ll show him I mean it.” Stopped. His breath in his face. “Do you believe I mean it?” the father said.