The Traveller (54 page)

Then he laughed wildly at the sheer outrage of it all.

Anne Hampton heard the key in the door lock and she

stiffened against the ropes. From where she lay, she could

not see the door, but she heard it creak as it opened. She

made a muffled sound through the gag and tape as the

door closed and footsteps approached her. She lifted her

head so that her eyes could meet Douglas Jeffers’. She had

concentrated hard to remove the weak animal fear that

she felt within and replace it with an obstinate, defiant,

demanding look. Their eyes met, and Jeffers seemed

surprised.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘Boswell seems angry.’ He reached down and tore the tape from her mouth. The nipping sound made her think that her lips and cheeks were cut. She held herself motionless while he loosened the gag. ‘Better?’ he asked.

‘Much. Thank you.’ She kept her voice even and slightly irate.

Douglas Jeffers laughed. ‘Boswell is angry.’ ‘No,’ she said. ‘Just uncomfortable.’ ‘That’s to be expected. Are you hurt?’ She shook her head. ‘Just stiff.’

‘Well, let’s do something about that.’ Douglas Jeffers produced a knife. She could see the blade reflecting the light from the bedside lamp. She breathed in hard, thinking, Boswell, Boswell, he called you Boswell, you have nothing to fear. Not yet, not yet.

He placed the blade flat against her cheek.

‘Have you ever noticed how hard it is to tell whether a knife is hot or cold? It depends on what kind of fear you’re experiencing. The touch can seem red-hot or ice-cold, just like the feeling in your stomach and around your heart.’

She didn’t move. She stared ahead.

After a moment he pulled the blade away.

He started to cut the rope and her hands came free.

‘I shouldn’t have struck you,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

She didn’t reply.

‘Just call it a moment of weakness.’ He paused. ‘A rare moment.’

He helped her to her feet.

‘There you go. A little unsteady, but not so bad. Use the bathroom to clean up.’

She took a few uncertain steps, using the wall to help her maintain her balance. Inside the bathroom she saw that blood had clotted around her lips and nose, but that it washed away with some vigorous scrubbing. She felt all her exhaustion rush back, then, and she had to grip the edges of the sink to keep from collapsing.

When she came out, she saw that Douglas Jeffers had turned down the bed for her. She dropped her jeans to the floor and crawled in gratefully. He disappeared into the bathroom and she heard the water run, then the toilet flush. He came out and hopped into the other bed. He switched off the light and she felt the darkness wash over her like a wave at the beach.

He was silent for a moment, then he spoke:

‘Boswell, have you ever thought how fragile life is?’

She didn’t reply.

‘It’s not just the living that’s so delicate, but the entirety of, I don’t know, life’s balance. Think of the mother who turns her back for an instant and whose child wanders into the roadway. Or the father who just doesn’t bother, this one time, to fasten his seat belt on the way to work in the family car. Accidents. Disease. Bad luck. Death ends life for some, certainly. But worse, it unsettles. It throws the

living off balance, out of whack. It disrupts their centers. Think of all the people you’ve known and who’ve loved you. Imagine for an instant what your death will mean to them …’

She closed her eyes and suddenly all her brave intentions vanished and she wanted to sob.

‘ … Or what their death would mean to you. Emptiness. A certain vacuum space inside. Some memories that persist. Maybe a photo album, somewhere. A gravestone. Perhaps a once-a-year visit. We are all linked in so many ways, so dependent on the others to maintain our equilibrium. Sons and fathers. Daughters and mothers. Brothers. Sisters. Everything a tenuous relationship. Too many connections. Everything completely, delicately, chinalike fragile.’

He paused, then repeated the word.

‘Fragile. Fragile. Fragile.’

Again he hesitated.

‘I hate that more than anything,’ he said. His voice was filled with the barest of controls, defined by bitterness. ‘I hate that you don’t choose who you are. I hate that you have no choices. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, hate, hate, hate …’

In the darkness, Anne Hampton could see that Douglas Jeffers was lying on his back, but that both his fists were clenched in the air in front of him.

He exhaled sharply into the night.

‘Everyone’s a victim,’ he said. ‘Except me.’

Then she heard him roll over and devote himself to sleep.

In the morning they drove north, finding Route 91 in New Haven, heading past Hartford into Massachusetts. She thought that Jeffers seemed to be acting with control again; he was watching his watch, measuring the distances, careful with his timing. That reassured her, and she relaxed, waiting for something new to happen.

They reached southern Vermont in the early afternoon, continuing north at a steady pace. Anne Hampton wondered, almost idly, whether they were going to Canada. She tried to recall any crimes from that nation, thinking,

What could be up there that he wants to show me? She was unable to remember any, but she was certain that people killed each other there. It’s cold, she thought, it’s frozen and dark and long winters must mean some horror or another emerges.

Before any other thought took root, Douglas Jeffers said, ‘There’s a little town up here that you should see …’

He did not describe Woodstock further, preferring to drive a few hours in quiet. She will see for herself, he thought. He mentally reviewed the elements of the plan that remained. He wanted to check in his briefcase for the letter from the New Hampshire bank, but he knew that was unnecessary. They are expecting you in the morning, he said to himself. It will be quick and precise and the way things should be.

When he turned off the thruway toward the small town, he said, ‘Have you ever noticed that almost every one of these old New England states has a Woodstock? Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts. Probably even Rhode Island, if they can squeeze it in. Rhode Island. They say: Rowdilan. Or NeHampsha. Of course the important Woodstock was New York’s Woodstock and the festival that actually was held elsewhere. Do you remember it?’

‘I was only a kid,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘I was there,’ Jeffers said.

‘Really? Was it as big as the books say?’

He laughed.

‘Actually, I wasn’t there …’

She looked confused.

‘There are certain common events that become common memories through popular culture. Woodstock was one of them. I knew a guy, once, in the newspaper business, who was the guy who created the Woodstock myth. He was just starting out, the college stringer for the New York Daily News. It was summertime, and so they asked him to go up to the festival, just in case something unusual happened. They had no idea that the crowds were going to be, well, like they were.

‘Anyway, he went up the day before, to check on the

festival preparations, which was real lucky, because by mid morning the next day, cars had backed up for ten or twenty miles. People were streaming in. Long-hairs. Hippies. Bikers. College kids. You probably saw the movie. Anyway, as you know, it became this massive jam of music and people and suddenly a front-page story. So there was my buddy, sitting behind the stage, on the phone to the city desk at the News and there was some editor yelling at him, “How many people are there? How many people?” and of course he had no fucking idea whatsoever. I mean, everywhere he turned there were people and trucks and helicopters buzzing the place and bands turning up the volume and you name it. And the editor yells, “We need an official police estimate of the crowd!” so he runs over to some cop and asks what they’re estimating in terms of crowd size, and of course the cop looks at him like he’s totally berserk, and how the hell should they know. He goes back to the phone and the editor realizes suddenly it’s his ass on the line because here’s the biggest story to come down the pike in some time and he was stupid enough to send some college stringer up to cover it and he can’t get a real reporter in because the roads are jammed and there aren’t any more helicopters for rent because the damn television stations have grabbed them all.

‘And my buddy has this inspiration. He decides to lie. He yells into the phone, “Police are estimating more than a half-million people have descended upon this sleepy burg. Suddenly Woodstock is the third-largest city in New York State!” And this the editor loves. Just loves. Because it’s the front-page screamer for the next morning. After the News put the figure on the front page, the Times picked it up and then the AP, and that meant the world. And suddenly my buddy’s lie becomes historical fact…’

He snapped his fingers.

‘Just like that. And everybody got happy and everybody always assumes that’s how many people were there. Just because my buddy had the good sense to lie to someone who desperately wanted to hear a lie.’

Douglas Jeffers paused. His voice, as so many times

before, seemed to ratchet between a schoolboyish storytelling delight and some ominous hatred.

‘So now I lie as well.’

He grinned, then grimaced.

‘I just say I was there. I mean, who’s to check?’

Douglas Jeffers paused, and Anne Hampton saw that he’d diluted the lightheartedness of this story with some darker thought. She plucked out a notebook and scraped down a quick series of notes about Woodstock and a half-million people and some fellow her age plucking a figure from midair.

‘You see, in a way, that’s what we do in the news business. We create a commonality of experience. Who can say they weren’t in Vietnam? The pictures invaded us. How about the Watts riot? Or get more current: Beirut. The Mexico City quake. The TWA hijacking. They held a press conference, if you can believe it. The final answer in absurdity. Criminals in the midst of a crime seeking publicity and receiving it. And we were all there, right there, right with them. It depends, it depends.’

He hesitated again.

‘The news business is like the old saw about the tree falling in the forest. If no one’s around to hear it, did it make a sound? If a thousand Indians die in the rain forest, but we don’t report it, did it happen?’

Jeffers laughed out loud. His first burst was one of anger, then followed one of release.

‘I am sometimes so boring I’m surprised you haven’t killed me.”

He laughed again.

She knew she wore a stricken look.

‘Lighten up, Boswell, we’re near the end. That was a joke.’

He smiled.

‘Or was it? Poor Boswell, sometimes she doesn’t think my jokes are at all humorous. And I can’t say that I blame her. But indulge me with a smile, a little bit of laughter, please.’

This last was a demand.

She complied instantly. She thought the sound sickening.

“Not much of an effort, Boswell, but appreciated nonetheless.’

He paused.

‘Work on it, Boswell. Work on all those little things we do in life that remind us of who we are. Concentrate, Boswell. I think, therefore, I am. I laugh, therefore I am …

‘ … If I laugh, I breathe. If I smile, I feel. If I think, I exist.’

He fixed his eyes on the road.

‘Boswell lives on,’ he said.

She felt her heart tighten with despair.

‘But so does Douglas Jeffers.’

He looked down the highway, turning onto a small two-lane road. Evening was sliding up on them; the rich greens and browns of the Vermont hills flowed about the car, the shadowed darkness broken by the occasional wan shaft of late daylight. They passed by the Quechee Gorge, which is on the road to Woodstock, and he saw Anne Hampton crane her head to see the precipitous drop from the car.

He cruised through the quiet streets. Anne Hampton saw trim white clapboard houses behind wide lawns with gazebos that had clinging vines next to small flower gardens.

‘You see,’ he said, pointing toward a stark white church that rose up against the green darkness of the Vermont night. ‘You see how relaxing it all is? Who would think that such terror was abroad at night in such a little safe town?’

He parked the car.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘even terror gets hungry.’

He looked at Anne Hampton.

‘Another joke,’ he said.

She forced a smile.

‘But the best humor is always based on reality.’

He took her hand and led her into a restaurant. It was candlelit and lovely, glowing with a golden warmth. She

could smell food cooking, the mingled sensations pouring over her palate. It all made her nauseated.

What is happening? she wondered.

What is going on?

Why are we here?

Why is everything in the world so normal when it isn’t?

What is happening to me?

This last thought screamed through her head. She could barely keep from collapsing. I’m standing, waiting to be seated in an elegant restaurant in a beautiful town. Everything is backwards. Everything is wrong. What’s going on?

Again she felt sick to her stomach.

‘I could eat a horse,’ said Douglas Jeffers.

They ate quietly, efficiently, joylessly. Jeffers ordered wine, and he sipped from the goblet, staring over the edge at Anne Hampton. She could see the light reflected in the glass.

After he’d paid, Douglas Jeffers took Anne Hampton’s arm and led her through the darkness around the town common. He felt her shiver. The warmth had fled the day, replacing the air with Vermont’s promise of autumn.

‘Quiet,’ he said. ‘Peaceful.’

She felt no sense of relaxation. It was all she could do to keep her arm loosely on his. She wanted to grab him and scream: What next?

But she didn’t.

He led her back to the car. Within a few moments they were enmeshed by darkness on the backroads of the state, heading toward the interstate. Douglas Jeffers was driving slowly, obviously thinking, his concentration diminished by the wine, a full stomach, and his plans.

He started to say, ‘I know a couple of nice inns, down the road a little ways …’