Ghost Lights (7 page)

There was a garish, yellow-green color to the palms and other trees, gaudy and somehow translucent. He did not believe in the permanence of the trees any more than the buildings. He had read that many of the trees and flowers here had been shipped in from far away—Tahiti and Australia.

The peninsula was a glorified sandbar, he thought, waiting to be washed away by a towering swell.

As the jeep jerked along in the ruts he saw debris collected against the base of palms, clustered along hedges—food trash mostly, cardboard and plastic, but also netting and newspaper and old shoes and wrinkled pieces of mildewed rug or fabric. They turned left at what seemed like a construction site, many small shacks going up all over the place on the slick, muddy ground.

It was like a minefield of outhouses, he thought.

“Seine Bight,” said the driver.

“This?” asked Hal, before he could stop himself.

“Rebuilding,” said the driver, nodding. “You know: it was all knocked down. In the big storm last month.”

They drove between the shacks, not on a road at all as far as Hal could tell—bumping over the corrugated curves of culvert pipes, weaving and tipping sideways. A white bird, duck or goose maybe, flapped out of the way and children ran alongside the car. He was enraptured by this, stared out the window at the flashes of light on skin, the kids’ stretched and laughing faces. Then quickly the field of shacks was behind them again, the beach and ocean not so far ahead, and on their right in a grove of palms was a colorful small house with a nice garden.

“Here you go,” said the driver.

“Please wait,” said Hal, even though they had it all prearranged.
“I won’t be long. Maybe fifteen minutes.” He recalled the driver from the airport, how he had randomly stopped at service stations and once leaned against a wall, doing nothing but gazing at the ground. The driver had kept up the pose so long that it seemed he was dutifully observing an officially appointed function.

The contract between driver and passenger here was a loose one.

He walked up to the house and knocked on the door, thinking he wished they had a telephone so that he could have called to warn them, but god
dammit
,
while he was standing there waiting he heard engine noise and turned and sure enough there was the taxi pulling away again. He had the urge to run after it screaming—half-turned from the front door to do this, even—but then figured maybe the driver needed to use the toilet or some other mild embarrassment. Surely he would be back in fifteen.

Still. Couldn’t he have said something? What was it with these people?

Impatient and a little anxious, Hal waited until the door opened. It was a short woman, her black hair tied back with a red ribbon. She was dull-eyed and barely looked up at him.

“Excuse the interruption,” he said. “I’m looking for Marlo?”

“He is out working,” said the woman.

“Can you tell me where I can find him, then? It’s about Thomas Stern. His disappearance.”

The woman nodded vaguely. “He’s at the big hotel. The Grove.”

“Oh you’re
kidding
,
” he said, exasperated. “I just came from there. It’s where I’m staying.”

She nodded again, unsmiling.

“All right,” he said lamely, and turned to go. Then turned back. She was already shutting the door. “Listen, could you tell him I’m looking for him? If we miss each other again? My name is Hal Lindley. Here, here’s my card. Wait, let me write my room number on it. He can stop by whenever. Room 202.” She had to open it wider again for him to stick the card into her fingers. “Thank you.”

After she closed the door on him he stood there for a long moment letting the foreignness absorb him. He had an impression of being out of place: that was what it was, ever since he got here. Even more now, near the village that was in ruins, than at the hotel, of course, since the resort was populated by people he could just as easily have run into on the streets of Westwood.

He looked down at the details of the doorknob—a cheap brassy color—and the frame, which was painted purple. Marlo’s house was not an American house: nowhere in America would you find a house like this. The difference might be in the physicality of the doorframe, the stucco, he couldn’t put a finger on it. Possibly it was more asymmetrical than he was used to, or the lumber was a tree species unknown to him. But somehow there was an irregularity, a foreignness. It seemed to discourage him, imply he was not natural here. He was an intrusion.

Or maybe he had forgotten, over time, how familiar elements everywhere had a steadying influence. At home there was the security of known formulations and structures all over the place, in window fastenings, in the door handles of cars, gas pumps, faucets, sidewalks, restaurants, shoes. Products and habits were so deeply linked it was hard to separate them. And their reliable similarity helped keep him on an even keel, apparently, had given the world a predictable quality that made passage through daily life calm and easy: he glanced around when he was out in the world and he recognized everything. There was almost nothing that jolted him, almost nothing in the landscape that broke him out of his reverie of being.

He had not considered it before, this effect of mass production. Could it be that the very sameness of these commodities, these structures both small and large that gave the physical world its character, afforded a certain freedom from distraction? The ill effects of their sameness, of this standardization and repetition were talked about and studied—how their homogeneity devolved the world and denuded it of forests and native peoples and clean water and difference. But now that he was far from all the standard objects and dimensions what he noticed was how they also gave a feeling of civilization. In their reassurance they conferred strength on the walking man—strength and the illusion of autonomy.

On his way down the garden path he noticed the skull of an animal. It was stuck on a fencepost among flowers—a goat, he guessed from the horns. It still had a little meat on it.

His taxi was nowhere in sight. He stood for a few seconds, waiting, and then started walking back along the troughs of baked road-mud to the village.

• • • • •

H
e could not find Marlo on the hotel grounds and soon he gave up looking, found a lounge chair beside the pool and ordered a midday beer. He planned to sleep afterward, and was looking forward to it with a kind of greedy anticipation, when the manager of the resort bent over to talk to him. Hal blinked at the blinding light of the sun, saw the man’s broad face recede as he sat up.

There was a small valise of Stern’s clothes, the manager said, which he would have brought up to Hal’s room. Beyond that he feared he could not be helpful; he knew nothing but the name of the town where Stern had rented his boat, and what he had already told Mrs. Stern. It was a very small village at the mouth of the Monkey River, so small it made Seine Bight look like a crowded metropolis. You could only reach the town by water, said the manager, which was why it was so small. There were no roads overland.

The boat itself, said the manager, had come floating back downriver to Monkey River Town during the night. He had told Mrs. Stern all of this. The boat had struck a dock and become wedged underneath, and kids had found it in the morning. They had noticed nothing out of the ordinary. It had been cleaned and tied up but that was all that the manager could tell him. If he wished to learn more Hal could visit the tour guide’s brother, who was not reachable by telephone.

Hal nodded, drained his beer glass and hoped the manager would give up. The double bed was calling, with its bleach-smelling sheets and blessed privacy.

But the manager persevered. “There is a family,” he said. “Other guests. They are from Germany. They are renting a boat to go on a day trip up the river.”

To get to the river Hal would first have to take another, larger boat to the town, he went on. You took one kind of boat to travel down the coast over the ocean, to reach the river delta; then you disembarked and walked to a smaller dock, where you took a different boat to go up the river. Hal could tag along with the Germans if he liked, said the manager, as far as the delta town where the guide’s brother lived. The Germans were taking an afternoon cruise up the river themselves, however; he would have to wait a few hours for the return trip.

So without his rest in the double bed, and slightly disgruntled, Hal met the German family on the dock where they were waiting for the first boat. He shook hands with them and smiled quickly. There were four of them, a mother and father and two young boys, all tall and tanned and lovely, with shining hair in shades of blond and golden-brown and perfectly molded biceps visible where their short, well-ironed cotton shirtsleeves ended. To make matters worse they seemed resolutely cheerful. They radiated something akin to joy. Such Germans were irritating.

On the one hand they were an unpleasant reminder of Vikings and Nazis, on the other hand you envied them.

He, by contrast to the Germans, was a low creature. He was not sleek and limber as a tree, but hunched and preoccupied; he was not shining and tanned, but dim and pale despite the fact that he hailed from Southern California, where movie stars and surfers reigned. He wore a baggy windbreaker and clutched his green-reptile backpack; he was a tired assemblage of imperfect elements. Protruding from his jeans pocket was a wallet messily stuffed with small bills and old receipts.

He watched the Germans file into the powerboat ahead of him, and in particular the two blue-eyed, tow-headed boys, who reminded him of a horror movie he had watched with Casey called
Children of the Corn
. It struck him that he had been picturing himself in a movie ever since his arrival. It was a movie of his life, which had suddenly become interesting in the way only a story could be, with hills and valleys of plot like a rollercoaster. There was much to laugh at in this posture, certainly, but the feeling of cinematography lingered. He was still half-dazzled by the warm beer.

All of them sat on a bench at the prow, touched by the clean spray as the boat thumped over the waves. No one spoke, though they were all quite close together, perfect strangers, side by side. The Germans, he sensed, felt no awkwardness at this. Probably they were content just to Be.

Though the kids, at least, were now rummaging impatiently in their bags.

“My wife’s employer disappeared on one of the Monkey River boat tours, just a few weeks ago,” he announced.

The boys ignored both him and the scenery. They had found what they were looking for; frantically they pressed buttons on their handheld video games. Beadily concentrating. This was a comfort since it showed they were as venal as regular U.S. children.

“We think he’s probably dead,” he went on.

There was something about the Germans and their seamless tans. He felt like shocking them.

“Oh my God,” said the German woman.

She seemed earnestly concerned. The husband held her hand and nodded, also looking worried. Not only were the Germans beautiful and cheerful, they were also capable of empathy.

“What do they think happened?” asked the husband.

Hal was faintly gratified to note he had the typical German accent, endearing because it was also quite foolish-sounding. A slight but recognizable
z
sound on his
th
’s.

“No idea,” said Hal, a little too breezily perhaps. “The boat came floating back empty.” He turned and dipped into the backpack, handing over one of the photographs.

“When was this?” asked the husband, studying it.

“A few weeks ago. I’m here looking for him,” said Hal.

“But there aren’t any rapids,” said the woman, peering over her husband’s shoulder at the picture. “It couldn’t have been a drowning accident, or?”

“Maybe there were mechanical problems,” said the husband. “If you are going to see this boat, you should check the outboard motor.”

“Cannibals,” said Hal.

They looked at him blankly. No doubt alarmed at his callousness. But they had a point. It wasn’t witty.

“The truth is, we don’t know what happened,” he went on quickly, to cover up his inane remark. “That’s what I’m here for. I’m here to find out.”

He caught himself wanting to mollify them. The Germans should not think ill of him, after all. They were not unlike superheroes. You might mock them for their stolid, self-righteous attitudes and overly muscled chests, but still you wanted to remain in their good graces.

The three of them sat in an ambiguous silence for a few moments until the Germans turned and said something to each other in discreet, low tones in their guttural language. He imagined it was along the lines of “What a pig this guy is,” or “Americans are stupid.” He faced into the spray and closed his eyes, but then he felt a soft hand on his arm.

“Let us know,” said the German woman gently, “if there is anything we can do to help you.”

He found he was blinking back tears. It came on him without warning. He tried to smile at her, at the same time turning away a little to disguise his emotion. Ahead of them there were a few boats out on the water, and to the east a low, blurry line of trees on a far-out island.

What about him and Susan? Once, when they were young, they could have passed for Germans. Couldn’t they? He was unable to look at the Germans to verify it. They might see the tears that stood on his lower lids. But if he could look at them, he would see statuesque beauty. See what humans could be: weightless and straight, beautiful in their purpose and their autonomy. The sun shone down on them and the breeze whipped back their light clothing.

But he and Susan had both aged out of that splendid independence, or the illusion of it. Whatever it was that young, beautiful people had—people who were young and strong, who could scale cliffs and toss their heads back in laughter, whose cheekbones caught the sun. Their own outlines were not so fine, their shoulders and profiles not so elegant.

Was it worse to have been beautiful once and not be beautiful anymore? Or to never have been beautiful at all?