Lost Everything (22 page)

“Where is the shadow man now?” he said.

She lowered the gun, put a hand to her chest.

“Right here,” she said. “All the time.”

The River

AFTER DANVILLE, THE TREES
crowded the banks again, hung their branches over the current as the
Carthage
passed among the bones of bridges. There were towns in the hills somewhere, cracked highways following the valleys. But the people on the
Carthage
could see nothing, hear nothing. As if we had all left already, and the land was eating the abandoned houses. Reaching under the roofs to pry them off, pressing against walls and windows until they broke and the ants and spiders could swarm in. The plants and insects were marauders, come to raze and pillage, to colonize spaces they would occupy for the next thousand years, even after the Big One came and went.

That night, a thunderstorm shredded the sky, dragged knives across the river’s skin, sent bolt after ragged bolt of lightning to scar the hills, a message from the north and west. From the hold, they could hear the monkeys screaming on the shore. The monsoon roaring to life again. The storm before the storm. In a few weeks, the pilot thought, the space within the ship’s hull would be the only dry place around, for as long as the monsoon lasted. They would drop the anchor and repair to the theater, fire up all the lanterns, and wait, like they did every spring when the rains came. By the end of that season, strangers would be friends, friends become lovers. All the quarrels they’d had and worked out. The hands of the weather would pull them tighter together, and though it meant that the pilot’s heart had been broken a dozen times, the tightening was worth the sundering later. Perhaps they could convince themselves that was all the storm was then, just a bigger monsoon.

But then the river spoke at last, told him what Judge Spleen Smiley had been asking about all the way from Harrisburg. Showed him his first glimpse of a flock of souls surging into the air, leaving the boat behind in rising water. The heart of the storm was coming, Faisal Jenkins now knew, but the
Carthage
would not see it.

In the gray mist of the next morning, six rafts piled with clothes and furniture and milling with people passed the
Carthage
on their way downstream. The people shouted and waved their arms, trying to tell the pilot something, but they were already gone before he could hear. Then, all at once, the river was filled with boats. A family of eight and all that they possessed, piled onto a raft made from the side of a garage. Another family on a piece of roof, the mother and son with long poles in the water, the daughter asleep on a pyramid of clothes. A rowboat holding three boys, a dog, and the salted remains of a half-butchered calf. Thirty-seven people crowded onto a plastic barge, taking turns standing and sleeping, sitting cross-legged on the roof, one of them blowing into a rough clarinet made from a pipe, another pattering on a plastic bucket for percussion. A lone man in a bright blue tub. It was unclear if he was wearing any clothes. They all parted around the
Carthage
as they passed, punting with metal poles and shovels. Reached out and put their hands on the
Carthage
’s hull, as if offering benediction. The
Carthage
’s children leapt from the rails to swim among the passing boats, hitch rides for almost the length of the ship, then reach for a rope thrown by a friend, wavering like a snake in the water.

“Where are you from?” Elise called.

Scranton, they called. Wilkes-Barre. Then shouts of warning, of despair. The war had come there, it was there now. Don’t go. Do not go. And then they were gone, and it was only the
Carthage
and the river again, as if there were no war at all. The wave of corpses came an hour later.

*   *   *

IT WAS NIGHT, AND
still. The dark gray outlines of the hills to either side. Not a star or moon in the sky. No wind. The water in front of the ship a sheet of smoky glass, murmuring as it slipped past the hull. The river still whispering to the pilot, but too low for him to hear. It was easy to think the river was cruel, teasing him, playing with him and everyone he knew. But his mother, his grandmother, had taught him better than that. The river was just a river.

He heard the tap of boots behind the pilothouse, could tell who it was without turning.

“Hey. You have any more of that coffee left?” he said.

“Sorry, my man,” Judge Spleen Smiley said. “Saving it for a rainy day.”

“They’re all rainy days now, chief.”

“Point made, but still no coffee. Got you some whiskey, though.”

“Not tonight,” the pilot said.

Judge Spleen Smiley lost his smile. “You got the message.”

“Yes. The
Carthage
won’t make it to the end of the season.”

“Ah.”

“…”

“When’s it going to happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you’ll tell me, right?”

“Yes.”

“We have a deal.”

“Of course.”

“Because I want to be here when…” He waved his hand north. “I want to see it. Hear it. Because I have this theory, see.”

“That it isn’t really happening. That it’s just another storm. That if we hadn’t heard the news, we’d never know the difference between it and the monsoons we’ve always had. I’ve heard those already.”

“No, no. I don’t believe any of that. It’s real and it’s coming. But I think it will be beautiful.”

“Are you giving up on me?”

“No, no,” Judge Spleen Smiley said. “It’s a good world we have here, even with what we’ve done to it, and I’ll be sorry to see it go. I just think that what’s coming might be better.”

“…”

“It has to be better.”

“I think your music has gone to your head,” the pilot said.

“Maybe. I just want to hear it coming.”

“I don’t think you’ll have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice, my man.”

“…”

“Listen to us,” the judge said. “You’d think we’ve been friends for years.”

“I don’t even know your real name, Judge.”

“That’s okay.” He laughed. “Neither do I, anymore.”

“…”

“So, are you staying with the ship?” the musician said.

“Yes.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too.”

But they are always here with me.

*   *   *

THE FERRIS WHEEL CURVED
high over the trees on the north bank, an arc of yellow and red, a long chain of white lights. Carnival machinery tilted toward the clouds, rose and fell, blurred in a haze of smoke colored by neon as if in a grainy film, a projection of a fair decades ago. The illusion lasted until they heard the screams and cries, straining chords. A child’s long wail. A chorus of fireworks shot above, exploded into a garden of fire, illuminating the water, the ship, the five peaks around the town, in sheets of green, blue, purple.

“Is this Shickshinny?” Captain Mendoza said.

“Where else could we be?” Elise said. “But I don’t remember it like this.”

I don’t remember anything like this, the captain thought. The sense that everything was turning to smoke, to light. Keeping its shape only as a matter of luck. She had found herself, in the last few days, touching her own forehead with three fingers, examining the texture of the skin, the hardness of the skull beneath. Thankful that it was still there. The boy from the camp seemed to understand. He was sleeping better, the first mate said, maybe too well. Ten, twelve hours. Had begun to play with the other kids on the ship. Soccer, a frantic frolic in the water. A game of hide-and-seek through the
Carthage
’s dark halls, during which one of them burned an arm in the boiler room, lay in her bed with bandages from wrist to shoulder, trying to ward off infection. The boy was lying on the deck now, faceup toward the fireworks. Eyes wide open, chest heaving. As if the blooming color was a gate opening, and something was walking through it that only he could see.

“Do you still want to go?” the captain said.

Elise looked at Andre: the ship’s child, the deck his nation. The place where his girl was. She had seen them, walking back onto the deck from somewhere darker, their clothes rearranged. Trying not to hold hands. And she had seen the looks they gave each other, eyes flashing and darkening, charging the air. It was hitting him so hard, the poor boy. She understood, for she had felt it herself, that jumping spark. Still felt a little of that thrill when something her son said, something he did, reminded her of his father. It was going to hurt him to be taken from the ship, from that girl and her green eyes, her small hands. But he would survive it, and she could not let him go.

She let him say good-bye to her, then made him climb into a small boat facing the shore. The girl stood at the rail, unmoving. For the space of two breaths, the mother felt guilty, for she had broken her son’s heart. Looked back at the girl, trying to communicate to her. You will see. When you have a child of your own, you will see. Then she took his hand, turned away, and did not look back.

The shore was thrown into shadow by the lights beyond it. She thought at first that it was choked with the wreckage of a building, then realized it was a pile of rafts and small craft, scattered across the rocks and mud, tangled in the exposed roots. A dozen bodies twisted into the debris. She rowed until she could not get any closer to the shore, then dropped an anchor, put a leg over the side into the water.

“Come in,” she said to her son. He was looking at the bodies.

“I don’t want to go. I heard gunshots.”

“Those are fireworks.”

“I know the difference.”

“Come on.”

“What do we need to find Monkey Wrench for anyway?”

If you couldn’t find me, she thought, you would understand. But she knew it was unfair to say it. “Just come on,” she said.

They waded to shore together through the crowd of boats, then up to the line of trees, of damp sandbags. Broke through to the marshy field between the town and the river. It was ablaze with light, thick with smoke and people. The carnival rides swung overhead, dropping rust, joints creaking, engines screaming too loud. With a wrenching hoot, a car carrying three people bent from its frame, fell seventeen feet to the ground, crushed its passengers. The crowd first dispersed, like water disturbed by a stone, then flowed back in again. The people waiting in line stayed there, brushed the rust off their shoulders. Only flinched a little when another car careening over them shuddered downward. A gun went off behind them. Another, another. A short burst of machine-gun fire. Weeping. On the midway, a man cutting a zigzag through the dirt, holding a bottle by its neck, sidled up to Elise, put his hand on her shoulder, and said, is this a party or what?

Just off the midway, still in the glow of its lights, a horde of people were hopping on one leg, shaking as if in a fit. Behind them, four bodies lay on a long white sheet, weak surprise on their frozen faces. Another carnival ride stuttered and whined, and a ripple of violence swept over the crowd, a crest of gunshots and shouting that flew through them and was gone. Three of the dancers fell, and one crawled away out of the light. His legs shuffled in the dust and then did not move.

Under the shriek of the machines, Elise and Aaron could hear wailing. They ran, then, mother and son, out of the field, until they were crouching next to a brick building, in the glass-strewn mud under the branches of a wide, old tree. The tree surveyed the chaos as if from a hundred miles away. It could wait.

“Mom, why did you bring me here?”

“It was never like this.”

“It’s because we’re back before the war’s over, isn’t it. Because the war’s still here.”

This is not just the war, she thought. “It’ll be over soon,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“No, Mom. How do you know?”

She turned on him. I don’t, she thought. I don’t even know if we’re going to be alive next week. I don’t know anything anymore, and I can’t bear the thought of watching you die. She kept herself from saying it, but her eyes sharpened with the effort, got much sharper than she had intended, and her hands shook. Andre saw it and was a small boy again, a kid who had fallen and hurt his arm, who had broken a good toy. Trying to be brave.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean it.” She had not known she still had such power over him. Felt a flash of embarrassment that he had seen her like that. Getting away from herself.

The street leading to the center of town was clogged with tents, shacks with thin metal walls. Houses to either side with porches full of people, piles of belongings slipping toward refuse. Small fires everywhere. The smells of burning wood, burning paint, melting plastic. A blue-gray gauze thrown across the air. Three brothers standing against the side of a house, trying to sleep, their arms around each other. A corpse, swaddled in a dark blue sheet, lying on the cracked pavement. One mourner kneeling next to it, her hand on the covered forehead. She did not make a sound. They were all refugees from upstream, kept asking Elise if she had any food, a roll, a potato. A carrot for a child. There was not enough to go around, they said. When the rest ran out, things could start to get ugly.

She looked toward the low wooden buildings in the valley, the stone bank building, the white church nestled against the cliff, growing from the earth like a tooth. The houses in tight knots along roads tangled in the hills. The canal running by the school. They would take this place apart, she thought. It could not withstand their hunger.

Goodbye, beautiful town. Every Sunday, the Baptists used to cram into the church up the hill, park their cars all over the road in front, and sing loud inside. She’d kissed a man by the canal once, put her hand on the back of his head, got up on tiptoes to be closer to him. Andre still a baby, lashed to her back and dreaming, fidgeting against her. Perhaps in his head he was flying, like the birds he had seen, though he could not yet walk. You saved me, she said to the place. Me and my son. I’m so sorry I can’t save you. And the town answered: Don’t worry, child. I am already moving on. I always was.