Dreams Are Not Enough (59 page)

“What exactly were you saying before I arrived?” Alice asked.

“That’s between the two of us,” he said, reaching out to clasp Juanita’s thick body in a hug.

At La Pergola, fragrant pine logs blazed in the fireplace and they ate gnocchi and veal, finishing two bottles ofTrebbiano. He hummed as he drove the black, winding road to the villa.

“Hap, Hap …” She was shaking his shoulder. He awoke with sweat pouring from his naked body.

“Nightmare,” he muttered.

The luminous green numbers on the clock showed it was eleven thirty-seven. He couldn’t have been asleep more than twenty minutes, yet he had been transported through an endless montage of malign, Grand Guignol dreams.

“You were crying,” she said, stroking his shoulder.

After a few seconds he said, “That was the first time I’ve driven since the jeep burned.”

“I’m sorry. I should’ve realized.”

“How could you?”

“Isn’t it time you shared?”

Rolling onto his back, he stared into the darkness.

“Hap?” she prompted.

“Lunda’s a few mud huts with thatched roofs. It’s like thirty miles from the center.” Hearing his slight tremor, he took the light tone with which in the old days he might have told her the plot of some idiotic script.

“Nobody from Lunda, not even the terminal cases or the badly injured, had ever come to us for help.”

“Why not?”

“A lot of people don’t. Mostly it’s pride. They don’t like accepting things from strangers. But a few still believe that whites want to take them slave. Often there’s a language barrier. Whenever I was at the center, I’d visit different areas and explain what we were up to.

As you can recall, when I left Los Angeles I was in a bad way. To pull myself out of it, I immediately began traveling around, proselytizing.

The people in Lunda all spoke French, so communication wasn’t a problem. When I told them about a miracle food that makes children stronger, soy flour—it’s a terrific protein source to prevent kwashiorkor—they agreed to give it a try. I felt I’d scored a major victory. A couple of days later I loaded the jeep with sacks of it and went back. The roads are miserable, and nobody drives after dark, so both Art and I figured I’d be spending the night in Lunda. “

“Art told me there were strangers in the area.”

“I knew that, too, but it didn’t have any significance.

“Stranger’ is the generic term for anyone not born in your village. Looking back, I can see that when I returned to Lunda with the flour, the locals were more effusive than the occasion warranted. At the time, though, the warmth made me feel we were finally being accepted.” He said this last bitterly.

“You were only there to help.”

“Reverse it, love. You’re living in Lunda and some white fat cat comes along to dole out food.”

Memories drenched her. May Sue and her daughters would have preferred starvation—or kwashiorkor—to the pallid turkey dinners served by benevolently smiling church ladies at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“You’re right, Hap. Go on.”

“As I said, I expected to sleep there. But despite the overblown gratitude, no invitation was forthcoming. At that point I certainly should have guessed something was up. People never let you leave after nightfall.”

“What about sleeping there in the jeep?”

“I didn’t consider it. The forest never bothered me. Actually, I found it sort of like being in a cathedral. The trees are huge, and the foliage at the top spreads out so densely that it makes a roof.

Sunlight is muted and dim. Once in a while you pass somebody walking on the road, or tooling along on an ancient bicycle, but mostly you see masses of red colo bus monkeys leaping after one another along the branches, troops of baboons, and once in a while, the chimps. At night, though, it was something else. There was no moon, and the foliage hid the starlight. I’d never felt so utterly cut off. It was as if my headlights were boring through the black hole of the universe. Then, suddenly, a man was waving his thumb in violent hitching gestures. You don’t see that in Zaire—there are so few cars that a ride is arranged in advance. And, as I said, nobody moves around at night. I knew something was wrong, but it could literally be a week before another car or truck came by to give him a lift.

Besides, I was delighted to see another human being. I stopped. “

His voice faded as a phantom pain traveled down his leg.

“What was he like?”

“Tall, with crooked teeth and a strange, high-pitched laugh. He spoke English fairly well. He was carrying something heavy wrapped in a maroon-patterned kanga. I asked what he was doing out here at this time of night, and his answer seemed reasonable enough. He’d thought he could make it to Uele—that’s a village between Lunda and the center. He asked questions about the jeep, what had it cost and where had I gotten it. Then he asked how fast it would go. Like an idiot, I stepped on the gas to demonstrate. The tree trunk sprawling across the road hadn’t been there before. I jammed on the brakes, yelling at him to look out. But he stood up, balancing himself to lift whatever was in the kanga over my head. In that instant when he was about to crown me, everything came together in a gestalt. I understood that I’d been set up. That the people in Lunda had been frightened off. I should’ve been scared shitless. Instead I saw red—actually saw a reddish glaze in front of my eyes. Letting go of the wheel, I tackled him. A rock fell from the kanga, which fluttered away behind us. He toppled. The jeep slammed into the fallen tree. I blacked out.

When I came to, it couldn’t have been more than a half minute later, he was sprawled over the dash, unconscious—or maybe dead. Smoke was pouring from the hood. Something sharp was cutting into the back of my knee. Thin points of flashlights were beaming up the road, and I heard men shouting. “

“In English or what?”

“English and Swahili. They probably were from Kenya. The engine was on fire. My thigh and knee were a mess, bones broken, tendons cut, but it’s true that in dire moments you can perform impossible acts.

Somehow I scrambled out of the jeep and began limping into the forest.

“

“And they believed the other man was you?”

“No. They could see he was black. I wasn’t exactly running, as you can imagine, so they reached the jeep before I got very far. I heard one of them shout Lang’s name several times. He sounded frightened. I was positive they’d come after me to finish the job they were obviously being paid to do….”

Without embellishment he told her how he’d barged deeper into the blackness, every couple of steps colliding with a tree trunk or stumbling over roots. A faraway explosion and a faint, incandescent glow told him the gas tank had gone up. His lungs near bursting, he attempted to run. Then his leg gave way. He pitched forward on his stomach. Too exhausted to move, he lay waiting for the searching beam of flashlights. But nobody was following him. When his breathing quieted, he heard the faraway barking of a tribe of baboons. His scalp prickled. Baboons. They were known to kill humans. Adrenaline raced through him, willing him to flight. Unable to stand, he crawled through leaf mulch and foul-odored softnesses. All at once rain pelleted through the dense foliage high above his head, and almost immediately he was soaked. Snaking through puddles, he reached an outcropping of rock. He clawed to find a way around, but the jagged stone appeared to be a solid wall—in the morning, he saw that if he’d gone a few yards farther to the right, he would have reached the end of the barrier. He grappled around for a weapon, found a heavy piece of shale and tucked himself against the dripping roughness. No amount of mental exercise could cancel the enveloping blackness, the agony in his left leg, the distant chorus of baboons, the nearby slithering noises. All night he remained positive the killers were tracking him.

“Why didn’t they?” she asked.

“They must have been even more terrified of the forest than I was. The way I figure it, they reached a decision to pass the other guy off as me to Lang. After all, nobody besides them knew I had a passenger.”

“It’s gruesome….”

“Art found the charred body in the driver’s seat. He knew right away, of course, that it wasn’t me. Thank God he’s bright. He threw a blanket over the body and acted out grief.”

“Then went looking for the real you?”

“Yes. And kept people out of my room with a lie about a suspected plague case—there’ve been outbreaks in Zaire.”

“What about the conflicting versions of the funeral?”

“Art needed to bury the corpse before anybody else got a good look at it. And, under the circumstances, didn’t feel obligated to tell the press or my family that the services came late. By then I was out of the country. He had bribed the pilot of a Cessna; he’d made the arrangements for fake papers and a flight to Switzerland. By the time I arrived, Chateau Neuchatel had itself a real challenge.”

Her body trembled, and he realized she was crying.

Stroking between her quivering shoulder blades, he said, “It’s in the past, love. The bad times are past for both of us.”

His next physiotherapy session was in two days, on Friday at eight a. m. Much as he longed to remain at the villa, it was an incontrovertible fact that missing an appointment would attract the type of questions he must avoid. On Thursday he returned to Switzerland. As he rode in the wooden-seated, second-class car to Davos, snow began falling. The other passengers talked exuberantly about fresh powder on the Strela Pass. He watched the fat white splotches hit the window, cling to the glass, and slowly melt. His well-delineated eyebrows were raised, making indentations in his forehead, and his eyes appeared a darker gray, an expression he assumed when considering an apparently insoluble problem.

At the villa he had not thought of the future. But these past hours on three different trains he had been continuously turning over the divergence between Adam Stevens’ need for anonymity and Alyssia del Mar’s fame.

Dining at La Pergola, she had faced the fire, yet even so an elderly man with a walrus mustache had come over to say in awkwardly phrased English that he had the honor of seeing her in // Baobab—he was, however, utterly convinced by Alice’s flattered demurrals that she was no movie star but dull, ordinary Ms. Hollister, a teacher from Chicago, Illinois. Would other fans give up so easily? And if Adam Stevens were accompanied by Alyssia del Mar, how long before he was recognized?

People reached for skis and bags as the train pulled into the Davos Platz station. Though he still took the bus down to Chateau Neuchatel for his therapy, he had moved to cheaper quarters, a Spartan pension opposite the Skischule.

He limped homeward through the falling snow. In the twilight sleigh bells jangled. Skiers crowded the sidewalk and the Hotel Central blazed with lights. A cluster of women in fluffy sport furs emerged from the hotel, talking loudly in American accents. One of the men following was turned away. With his black hair and strong, compact body he looked exactly like PD. Positive his cousin was in Davos, Hap stepped hastily into the doorway of a tearoom. The man looked in his direction.

The sleek black hair must be a dye job or a toupee, for the pouches beneath the man’s eyes sagged onto his cheeks, and the flesh hung underneath his jaw. And now it was obvious that the body, too, was thicker than PD’s. Hap moved back onto the snowy sidewalk with a clammy feeling of self-disgust.

“You’re what?” she screamed over the phone.

“I’m tired of skulking. I want to see Dad.” He had finally learned about the stroke that had stilled half of Desmond Cordiner’s body.

“I’m going home. It’s the only solution.”

“What flight are you taking? I’ll phone Nevada. Lang’ll be very busy.

Or have you forgotten he’s not only got it in for you, but me, Maxim, Barry, PD and Beth as well! ” Her voice rose in shrill fear.

He soothed her, vowing not to do anything until they had a chance to talk it over in person.

At the end of the month Chateau Neuchatel’s conscientious medical staff reviewed the case of Adam Stevens. While surgery and physical therapy had not restored the patient’s left knee to full weight-bearing serviceability, he was an athletic man and had achieved a high degree of mobility with his cane. There was no more the sanitorium could do for him.

He returned to Bellagio.

He found Alice with a cold and sore throat. On the second afternoon, deciding to cheer her up with some small gift, he told her he was going for a walk.

“Hold on a sec. I’ll get my jacket.”

“What about your cold? It’s a mean wind today.”

“You’re going to the travel agent! You’re arranging a flight to Los Angeles!” she cried.

Angered by her accusation that he was lying, he said, “Will I need a guard every time I leave the house? Or someday can I be a trustee?”

She drew a sharp breath and ran to the bedroom.

Pulling on his parka, he slammed out the front door. Evergreens soughed in the wind, and he stood on the front step, gazing up at the agitated branches. He was accepting that her fear made sense. After all, hadn’t he told her he planned to return to Los Angeles?

He went back inside.

She didn’t hear him open and close the bedroom door. She was sitting hunched on a chair, her chest rising and falling as she drew a stridently loud breath. He had never seen one of her panic episodes, and he ran to kneel in front of her.

She shot him a look of shamed horror.

“Go away.”

“Is this one of your attacks?” he asked gently.

“Yes.”

“Don’t shut me out, Alice.”

She closed her eyes and let him stroke her back. When the hyperventilation finally released her, he explained that he’d wanted to get her a little surprise, that was all.

“I’m not going back, Alice, I swear. But we better figure out what, exactly, we are going to do.”

She nodded.

“First off, how about your work? Eventually a good script’ll come along.”

“You just saw Alyssia del Mar in action,” she said with a feeble shiver.

“All I want, Hap, is for us to be together.”

They spent two days working out what they both considered a reasonable course of action. While she went home to pick up her final decree and to arrange her finances with the business manager, he would head for Scandinavia, a part of the world where a large, fairhaired man would not attract undue attention. Reunited, they and Juanita would rent a house or flat. Every few months they would move on. As for her appearance, well, people take pride in being a look-alike to a celebrity, and so would she. To stifle the “Whateverhappened-to” school of journalism, she would show up publicly as Alyssia del Mar from time to time.