The Traveller (12 page)

failed to make a close friend, despite the warmth, despite the familiarity that it bred.

Pizza friends, she thought.

Beer friends. Beach friends. What-did-you-get-on-the-test friends. Did-you-read-the-extra-assignment friends. Will-you-go-to-bed-with-me friends.

Not too many of those, she laughed to herself.

But not for lack of people trying.

She pulled her notepad toward her and wrote: Face it, you’re a cold fish in the margin. She was pleased. It was an easy association: cold fish and Camus.

She settled into her chair and continued reading.

It was dusk when Anne Hampton left the library and began to walk slowly across the campus. In the west the setting sun had turned the sky an astonishing purple, illuminating massive, stately cloud formations somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico. She thought how she loved to walk at that hour; the residual daylight seemed tenacious, seeking out form and shape and trying, against the oncoming dark, to give solidity to the world before acquiescing to the night.

Dying time, she thought.

She remembered the way it seemed that the last few fragments of sunlight caught on the diver’s regulator when he emerged through the hole in the ice at her grandfather’s pond, carrying her brother’s form. The light had tumbled down from the bright aluminum apparatus of this odd marine creature, just hitting the little boy’s encrusted features. Then she had lost sight; Tommy was surrounded instantly by firemen and rescue personnel, and all she could see was a dark mass being rushed up the hillside toward a pulsating red light. She saw his skates, the laces sliced, tossed aside. She pulled out from her grandfather’s agonized grip and retrieved them.

Of course, she thought, as she walked along, he didn’t actually die then; it was not until two hours later, amidst all the hum and buzz and beep of modern medical apparatus that he technically expired. The hospital’s intensive-care unit was a wonder of lights, she thought; everywhere

she had looked there was another light, filling every angle, probing every corner. It was as if by refusing to allow any darkness into the rooms, they could somehow stave off

death.

She had caught sight of a physician’s chart. It had an entry for Time of Death and the nurse had scribbled in 6:42 p.m. She had thought that inaccurate. When did Tommy die? He was dead when I heard the little spiderwebs growing in the ice surface below my feet. He died when I called out to him and he waved his arm at me in little-boy irritation and over-confidence. He died as he bit the water. She remembered thinking how undramatic it had been: one instant he was sliding along, arms pumping, the next, swallowed by this dark hole that had materialized beneath him, dying as the black cold enveloped him. His head did not bob to the surface even once. She had a sudden memory of the numb-cold pain in her feet as she ran, after stripping her own skates off, for her grandfather’s house. Each step had seemed colder, harder, the snow deeper, more treacherous. She had fallen a half-dozen times, sobbing. She thought: I was only a little girl. And he was already dead then.

A warm breeze plucked at her shirt and she ran a hand through her hair. The sunlight had almost vanished; with it a sense of purpose and enthusiasm, replaced by a summertime lassitude amidst the evening heat.

No thin ice in Florida, she thought.

Not ever.

She cut through the campus, past knots of students making their way to meals, parties, studies, or whatever, and turned down Raymond Street, heading for her apartment. She filled her mind with the mundane, envisioning the stash of yogurt, cottage cheese, and fruit in her refrigerator, briefly considering stopping for a cheeseburger, then discarding the idea. Eat nuts and berries, she said to herself, laughing. She visualized her parents; both had a tendency to size, she thought. She hated the meals of mashed potatoes and steaks that inevitably hit the table before her on her

rare visits home. They must think I’m anorexic, she thought. I’m not. I’m selectively anorexic.

She cut under the mercury vapor light at the corner of Raymond and Bond streets, marveling, as always, at the way the light turned her clothes and skin into a fluorescent purple. She had a brief vision of herself as the star of some 1950s horror flick; accidently exposed to a unique dose of radiation, now she would turn into … into what, she wondered. The Incredible Wallflower? The Fantastic Grind? The Phenomenal Serious Student? She heard raucous laughter pour suddenly from an open window, blending with a quick resonating chord from a stereo with the volume cranked up. Summer session, she thought, is the least serious of all the semesters. She preferred it, she realized; it made her own work stand out amidst all the people making up one failure or another.

She continued walking along, now humming a nameless snatch of music borrowed from the blasting stereo, until she turned onto Francis Street. She was two blocks from her apartment and she did not see the man until she was almost on top of him.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Can you help me? I think I’m lost.’

She started. The man was standing at the edge of a shadow, next to the open door of his car.

‘Did I frighten you?’ he asked.

‘No, no, not at all …’

‘I’m sorry if I did …’

‘No, it’s okay. I was just thinking.’

‘Your thoughts were elsewhere?’

‘Right.’

‘I know the feeling,’ he said, striding forward. ‘One thought leads to another, then another, and before you know it you’re in the midst of some tiny reverie. Sorry to intrude.’

‘Reality,’ she said, ‘always intrudes.’

He laughed.

She looked at him closely in the meager light from a

lamp a half block away. ‘Didn’t I see you earlier today, in the library?’ she asked. He smiled. ‘Yes, I was there, catching up on some reading …’ She saw him study her own face.

‘Aren’t you the girl — I’m sorry, woman - with all the books? I thought you’d never get to leave if you had to read all those.’

She smiled. ‘Some. Not all. Some were read already.’ ‘You must be an English major.’

‘Bingo’

‘Not that hard to tell, really.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ she said. ‘It’s funny. I was just thinking that, earlier.’ ‘See,’ he replied, ‘good instincts.’

She smiled at him and he grinned in response. They were silent for a moment. She thought the man handsome; he was tall, well built, with a sort of easy scruffiness about him. Probably just the seersucker jacket, she thought to herself. It adds a bit of rumpled familiarity to almost every man.

‘Are you a professor?’

‘Of sorts,’ the man said.

‘But not from around here?’

‘No. First visit. And I can’t seem to find Garden Street. I’ve looked all over the place …’ The man turned, first pointing up one way, then peering down the other. She thought for an instant that he was searching for something as his gaze lingered in each direction before turning back toward her.

‘Garden Street is pretty easy,’ she said. ‘Two turns. Left at the comer, two blocks, then right. Garden Street intersects that street a couple of blocks down. I forget what it’s called, but it’s not very far.’

‘I’ve got a little map, not a good one,’ the man said. ‘Would you mind just showing me where I am exactly?’ He smiled. ‘That of course is really a philosophical question, but this once I’d settle for the topographical.’

She laughed. ‘Sure,’ she said.

She stepped next to him as he spread the map out on

the roof of the car. He reached into his pocket for a pencil, talking to himself, really: ‘ … now here is where I think I am …” And then a sudden ‘Dammit! Don’t move!’

‘What is it?’

‘I dropped my room key.’

He bent down. ‘Got to be here somewhere …’ She started to bend down to help him look, but he waved her off. ‘See if you can’t pinpoint for me where I am on that map.’ She stepped forward to the edge of the car and looked at the map. For an instant she was confused: it wasn’t Tallahassee, but Trenton, New Jersey.

‘This is the wrong map …’

She didn’t have time to finish.

For one instant she looked down. She saw the man had a small rectangular device in his hand.

‘Good night, Miss Hampton,’ he said.

Before she could move, he jerked her leg toward him and thrust the device up against her thigh. There was a crackling sound; an immense pain fled through her body; it felt as if someone had reached inside her and seized her heart and twisted it savagely. How does he know my name? she thought. Then she could feel her eyes rolling back and blackness sweeping over her. The crackling sound stopped and she thought: The ice broke.

And then she entered the darkness.

6

Her first thought upon reawakening was that death was not as she had expected it. Then, as her faculties came slowly into focus, she recognized that she was alive. Next she realized the pain; it felt as if every bone and muscle in her body had been straightened to its limit then hit or twisted. Her head throbbed and her thigh burned where she had been struck. She moaned slowly, trying to open her eyes against the pain.

She heard his voice, close but disembodied.

‘Don’t try to move. Don’t struggle. Just try to relax.’

She moaned again.

She blinked her eyes open, thinking that she must not anic, though fear was quickly overcoming the sensation of pain and covering her like a shroud. She gasped in air,

hyperventilating. She heard the voice again.

‘Try to remain calm. I know that seems difficult. But try. It’s important. Think of it this way: If you remain calm, you extend your life. If you panic … I know you’re about to be hysterical… well, that would be hard for both of us. Take a deep breath and stay in control.’

She did as she was told.

She opened her eyes and tried to assess her situation. There was only a small light, in a corner; the room was mostly dark. She could not see the man, but she could hear his breathing. She became aware, slowly, that she couldn’t move; she was lying on her back on a bed, her hands roped together and fastened to the headboard, her feet tied to the baseboard. There was a little play in the bonds; she shifted about as much as they would allow, trying to see where she was.

‘Ah, curiosity. Good. That shows you’re thinking.’

She was suddenly overcome by two swift emotions, one following the other without hesitation. First she felt an abrupt absorbing despair at her vulnerability, and she sobbed once. It was as if she had fallen from some great height and was tumbling downward faster and faster. Then, as quickly as this sensation came, it retreated and she felt a burst of anger. I will live, she thought. I will not die.

Then, as this internal declaration suffused her, it was broken by the man’s cold, even voice.

‘There are many kinds of pains in the world. I am familiar with most of them. Don’t test my skills.’

She could not stifle the sob. She felt tears welling up in

her eyes. She started to wonder what was about to happen,

but managed to stop herself, thinking: Nothing good. But

the words came out of her mouth as if spoken by someone

else, some lost child.

‘Please. Please let me go. I’ll do whatever you want. Just let me go.’

There was a silence. She knew he was not considering her request.

‘Please,’ she said again. She was struck by how useless the very sound of the word was.

‘Tell me what you want from me,’ she pleaded. Her mind raced over the possibilities, but she refused to put words to visions. She heard the man breath out slowly. It was an awful sound.

‘You are a student,’ he said. ‘You will have to learn.’

She felt for an instant as if her heart had stopped.

The man hovered for the first time into view, just stepping past the shadows into the periphery of her vision. She craned her neck to see him. He had changed his clothes, replacing the seersucker jacket and khaki slacks with dark jeans and a black sportshirt. It disoriented her, and she had to look twice to make certain it was the same man. His face, too, seemed different; gone was the easygoing loose grin. He suddenly seemed to be all edges and angles. His eyes grabbed hers and she had the sensation of being tugged forward, helpless, by the rigidity of his gaze. She swallowed hard.

‘Don’t fight things,’ he said.

He paused.

‘If you fight it only prolongs things. It’s smarter to go along with the program.’

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Don’t hurt me.’ She listened to herself speak. The words simply emerged, unbidden, plaintive, impotent. ‘I’ll do whatever you want.’

‘Of course you will.’

He did not take his eyes from hers. The absolute certainty of his words struck her a blow.

‘Whatever I want.’

He hesitated again.

‘But that is a learned response. Conditioned. And the lesson has just begun.’

He held up the small rectangular device so that she could see it. She twitched involuntarily, shrinking from the man. He pressed a button on the side of the device and she saw an electrical current jump from one pole to another. ‘You’re

already familiar with this,’ he said. She was suddenly acutely aware of the pain in her body. She let out a half-groan, half-sob. ‘Do you know that you can buy a stun gun without a license in the states of Georgia, Alabama, Mlissouri, Montana, and New Mexico and at least a half-dozen others? They are also available through mail order, but that is more easily traced. Now, what reason would anyone have for one of these?’ He answered his own question. ‘Except for inflicting pain.’

She felt her lower lip trembling, and the quaver in her voice was new.

‘Please, I’ll do anything, please.’ He put the device down.

‘It would hardly be fair,’ he said again, ‘after letting you experience it once, to use it again.’ She sobbed, almost thankful.

Then she gasped as he thrust his face down close to hers. He hissed: ‘But imagine. It was on its lowest setting when I hit you with it before. Imagine. Imagine how it would feel if I turned it up. Consider that pain. Did it feel like someone had reached for your soul and torn it from your body? Think of it.’

She had a sudden vision of black agony. It swept over her. She heard the little-girl reply: ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ she said. ‘Please, God.’ ‘Don’t pray,’ he said quickly. ‘No, no, I won’t. Whatever you say. Please.’ ‘Don’t plead.’ ‘Yes, yes, of course. Yes.’ ‘Just think.’