Innocence: A Novel (34 page)

“I have to be. I can never go to a doctor.”

“What do you fear, Addison?”

“Losing you,” I said at once.

“What did you fear most before you ever met me?”

“Losing Father.”

“And what else?”

“Father being beaten and badly hurt. Being beaten myself.”

“There must be more you feared.”

“Seeing other people hurt. A man shot in the back gave me this Rolex. It was the worst thing to watch him die. Sometimes I’m afraid to read the newspapers in the library because they contain so many stories of suffering.”

“Do you fear the policemen who killed your father?”

“No. I don’t fear anyone until I see murder in his face.”

We still hadn’t talked much about Father. I hadn’t told her that the men who killed him were police officers.

Accustomed to the prevalence of mysteries in the world and still reluctant to ask questions that, though she had professed her love, might cause her to withdraw, I didn’t inquire how she had come upon that information.

“What do you hate?” she asked.

I thought a moment. “Only what I fear.”

“
What
you fear. That’s a most unusual answer in this world of hatred.”

Before I could consider what she said, we turned a corner onto a major avenue, drove through three Clears, and came upon a gathering of their kind that reminded me of that night five years earlier, a year after Father died, when I encountered the grand spectacle that I called the Convocation. Now, the city lay dimmed by the seething veils of winter, and the high-rises tiered away into the obscuring weather until those beyond a block might have been only shapes in a murky mirror, mere reflections of nearer buildings. Through the white gloom, standing in air and descending slowly like glowing ornaments
being hung upon the night by invisible hands, came Clears of both sexes and all races, in their white shoes and white or blue or green uniforms, from whatever other dimension and into ours. Upon touching down, each of them at once walked away, with the brisk purpose that perhaps hospital personnel displayed on a busy night in the emergency room.

Until the past few minutes, the sight of Clears always lifted my spirits. Although I believed that in their eyes could be glimpsed some power or knowledge that, though it might not turn me to stone, would shake me to my core, I felt happier in their presence than I was when they weren’t around. But they did not gladden my heart now. Ordinarily, if anything can be said to be ordinary in this world, some of them were solemn while others smiled. This time, not one smile could be seen, and their demeanor seemed to be one of deep, inconsolable sorrow. The great beauty of their incandescent descent chilled my heart, and finally I understood something of what Father had meant when he said that the Clears, although not evil like the Fogs, were in their own way terrible, for their power was supremely grand and formidable.

I closed my eyes, unable to bear that beauty anymore, and after a moment, Gwyneth said, “Have you ever had a sore throat, headache, indigestion, ulcers in the mouth, hay fever?”

“What does any of that matter?”

She said, “You will not die of the plague.”

“I’m in the world more now. I’m at risk of contagion, just like you. I wish you had washed your face.”

“Trust,” she insisted.

BEFORE I EVER CAME TO THE CITY, FATHER’S BENEFACTOR
had given him the key to the food bank. I was never told the man’s position, and the only name that I had for him was Our Friend. Although this stranger cared about us and our welfare, although he could once or twice a year meet with my father for a few minutes and not strike out at him, Our Friend did not trust himself to restrain a violent impulse through a longer encounter. And because Our Friend suffered a bout of depression bordering on despair after each meeting, Father felt that he should impose upon the man as seldom as possible and that I should impose upon him not at all until Father had died.

When that day of misery arrived, and after Father lay at rest on the river bottom, I composed a note as he had instructed me and, that night, I took it to the food bank. The note said:
Father has died. I have done with his body what he instructed. He wished me to tell you how very much he loved you for your tolerance and how much he appreciated your generosity. I know that you told him the key would be mine when he passed away, but he wanted me to ask you just the same if I might keep it. I will never take more than I need from either the food bank or the thrift shop, and I will try never to be found on the premises, never frighten anyone there by revealing what I am, for I would be most aggrieved to ever bring pain or dishonor to the food bank or anyone who staffs it. I miss Father terribly, and I don’t think that will ever change, but I will be all right. He wanted me to assure you that I will be all right
.

Because Father had told me that Our Friend had a sense of humor
and because I knew he would understand the meaning of my last three words, I signed the note
Son of It
.

Father had instructed me to seal the message in an envelope and to leave it in the center drawer of the desk in the smaller of the food bank’s two offices. The arrangement with our benefactor was that any missive would be answered overnight if possible. When I returned, I found a different sealed envelope from the one that I had left, and in it a reply.
Dear boy, I was profoundly saddened to receive your news. I have always kept your father in my prayers, and I will keep him—and you—in them as long as I live. You may of course have the key. I wish that I could do more for you and be more of a comfort, but I am weak and so afraid. I accuse myself daily of cowardice and insufficient charity. As your father might have told you, for much longer than I knew him, I have suffered periodic depression, though I do always bounce back. Each encounter with your father precipitated a bout of the most severe despair, blackest depression, in spite of his great heart and gentle nature, and his face appears in dreams from which I wake as terrified as a child. This is my shortcoming and of course no fault of his. Do not hesitate to ask me for whatever you may need. Each time that I can be of help, I have a chance to mend my soul. God bless
.

Because I knew that Father would be most proud of me if I were to respect Our Friend’s unfortunate vulnerability to depression and if I were as self-sufficient as possible, I asked for nothing more during the following six years. Every few months, I left him a note so that he would know I was alive and well.

On the night when Gwyneth faced down Ryan Telford to save the nameless girl, I met Our Friend, who was not, after all, a stranger to me. These years later, I still think of him with great affection, and I wish that I could send him a note to let him know that I am well, but he has been dead for a long time.

AGAINST THE SIGHT OF SOLEMN CLEARS DESCENDING
, I kept my eyes closed until Gwyneth pulled to a stop and switched off the engine. When I looked, I found that we were in an alleyway, parked on a garage apron, athwart its two roll-up doors.

“Where’s this, what now?” I asked.

“You’ll see. We won’t be here that long, but we can’t leave the girl. Anyway, she’s coming around.”

“She is?”

“She will.”

We got out of the Rover, and she put up the tailgate, and I took the bundled child into my arms again.

Following Gwyneth along the side of the garage, snow almost to the tops of my boots, I kept my head down, because the cold sharp wind stung tears from my eyes. I had been humbled, too, and filled with dread by the presence of so many Clears in the avenue, and I was afraid to look into the sky.

We came into a snow-choked area between the garage and the back of a two-story brick house, where all the windows were as black as if they had been painted over. Walls marked the property line, and the space felt like a miniature prison yard. The back porch didn’t extend the width of the residence, and to the left of it, a pair of narrow rain doors sloped away from the house, covering a short flight of exterior stairs that led to a basement. Evidently in anticipation of us, someone had swept the snow off the doors. Gwyneth opened them.

I followed her down, through the door at the bottom, into a warm basement that smelled of hot coffee, where bare bulbs in old ceramic sockets were recessed between exposed beams, striping the room with soft-edged bands of light and shadow. The space was used for storage, but it wasn’t packed full or cluttered. There were neatly labeled cartons, several pieces of old furniture, including a tattered armchair, and along one wall a folding table on which a coffeemaker warmed a Pyrex pot.

Gwyneth directed me to put the nameless girl in the armchair, and after I had done so, she gently extracted the child from the blanket, which she folded and put aside on a stack of cardboard boxes.

In slippers, flannel pants, a pale-blue cardigan, and a blue-and-white-checkered shirt, Teague Hanlon shuffled out of shadows and put two mugs of coffee on one of three metal barrels of different sizes that stood like an array of primitive kettle drums. “Gwynie takes hers black and said you would as well.”

“I do,” I assured him.

“How’s the child?” he asked.

“She’s coming around,” Gwyneth said.

Just then a series of small kittenish sounds issued from the girl, as if she were waking from ordinary sleep and regretted leaving a sweet dream not quite finished.

“This is hard for me,” Mr. Hanlon said. “I hope you understand, Gwynie.”

“Of course I understand.”

Mr. Hanlon crossed the room to the door through which we had entered the basement, where he engaged two deadbolts.

Gwyneth picked up her mug of coffee and sipped it, watching the girl intently. “You can take off your mask to drink the coffee, Addison. Neither of us will look at you.”

To remove the ski mask, I would have to untie my hood and slide it back, thereupon being entirely exposed, which I never was outside of my rooms deep beneath the city. The thought of such vulnerability distressed me so much that I almost declined the coffee.

But I was cold, not from the short time that I had spent in the open, but from thoughts of plague and death. I needed the fragrant brew. If she said there was no risk, I could only believe her.

As soon as I stripped off the mask, I pulled the hood over my head again and tied it loosely under my chin.

The coffee tasted strong and good, and even through my gloves, the mug warmed my hands.

With his head bowed severely like a penitent monk sans habit, Mr. Hanlon returned to the coffeemaker to fill a mug for himself.

The child raised one hand to her face and traced her features with her fingertips, as if she were not merely confused but also blind and trying to identify herself by touch. She shifted in the armchair, lowered her hand from her face, opened her mouth, and let out a long sigh. Nearly three years of coma seemed to fall away from her as easily as a single night of sleep. Her eyes opened, huge and gray and limpid, and focused at once on Gwyneth. Her voice was hoarse when she said, “Mama?”

Gwyneth put down her mug, went to the girl, and knelt before her. “No, honey. Your mother’s gone. She’s never coming back. You’re safe now. No one will hurt you anymore. You’re safe with me.”

Head still lowered, Mr. Hanlon returned with another mug. “Her mouth will be dry. I made sweet tea for her. It’s cooled enough.” As soon as Gwyneth took the tea from him, he returned to the coffeemaker and stood with his back to us.

I sensed that his discretion might be no less for his benefit than for ours, and I wondered why he was so different now from the way he had been in the Egyptian Theater.

As I sipped coffee and, from the shadow of my hood, watched Gwyneth and the girl, I realized that whatever might be happening in this basement was as beyond ordinary human experience as were the Fogs and Clears. The child returned to full consciousness not as any doctor might have expected, not as any other victim of coma would have returned, not gradually and with weakness, but rapidly and with her physical strength intact. She had sufficient coordination to hold the mug of tea and drink from it. Gwyneth spoke so softly that often I couldn’t hear what she said, and though the girl did not respond, she listened intently and focused her luminous gray eyes on Gwyneth, who smoothed her hair and touched her face, her arms, so tenderly, reassuringly.

Sooner than seemed possible, the girl put aside her tea and got to her feet. She leaned against Gwyneth, though perhaps she did not need that support.

To Mr. Hanlon, Gwyneth said, “Did you get the clothes for her that I requested?”

He turned toward us but didn’t approach. “They’re on a chair at the kitchen table. I left it dark upstairs in case something … someone comes around looking for you. The only light in the kitchen is the range hood, but it’s enough. There aren’t any windows in the half bath, so you can turn the lights on in there.”

Holding Gwyneth’s hand, the child walked on coltish legs that she had not used in nearly three years and that shouldn’t have easily supported her. I watched the pair until they moved out of sight on the stairs, and then I watched their shadows accordion after them across treads and risers.

In a world rich with wonders and mysteries, there are also miracles.

To keep his distance from me, Mr. Hanlon began to travel the
room, stopping at each piece of furniture or stack of cardboard boxes, pondering it as if he were browsing in a shop where he had never been before, evaluating the merchandise.

“Addison, I assume you know what has come into the world.”

“A plague, you mean.”

“The plague, I think, after which the long war between mankind and microbes will have ended.”

Remembering Telford, I said, “It’s going to be bad.”

“It’ll be worse than bad. Latest word is that they engineered the weapon, the bug, for a 98-percent mortality rate. It exceeded their expectations. Then they lost control of it.”

“I’m scared for Gwyneth. Telford was dying and he spit on her.”

Mr. Hanlon looked up, surprised, but then turned away at once. “Where did Telford find her?”