Into the Sun Page 8

  Later, as she slept, I lay restless, panic rising in me each time I stopped thinking about the story. Reporters were trained to offer bright glimpses into a situation, but more often than not their pithy lines reduced it. I was no longer envisioning an article in an American magazine. Such an investigation would end where I wanted to begin. I would write a novel instead.

  That night, I dreamed that I picked the hand up from the street and walked through a field of skulls knowing I would recognize Alexandra from the beauty of her bones. I dreamed that she spoke to me, fire inside her mouth, a perfect sun behind her teeth. I awoke, haunted by my memories of the car, the indiscernible mass of burning plastic and humans cremated in full consciousness.

  The next morning, after Tam left, I examined the card Frank had given me. Calling would cast me into the story I’d been imagining. I would no longer be a bystander. I chose the handwritten number on the back.

  I recognized Steve’s voice instantly. I’d considered various introductions. If I told him I was a journalist and knew about Clay’s disappearance, it would give me a sense of authority, but it might also carry a threat for him and danger for me.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m sorry to bother you. I was a friend of Alexandra.” I paused to see if he’d make a sound of recognition, but he didn’t. “She was involved with Clay. I’ve tried to call him, but his phone has been off. I was wondering if you would be willing to put me in touch.”

  “Where did you get my number?”

  “From Frank,” I said, since there was no other plausible explanation. “I was there during the attack, at your place.”

  “Well, damn,” he said. “That was quite the party. Which one were you?”

  “Michiko. I don’t believe we met.”

  “Yeah. I remember. You were with the pretty redhead. Why don’t you come over?”

  “When would be good for you?”

  “Now,” he said, and hung up.

  An hour later, when the taxi let me off outside a new gate and freshly plastered walls, I asked the driver to wait. The guard opened the door to a courtyard containing a 4Runner without evidence of bullet holes. My heart sped up, my pulse throbbing in my throat.

  Steve had lost the radiance of that night. His pallor and fatigued blotches — his overly white teeth, blond hair, yellow and gray stubble, and the meaty redness around his neck — gave him a motley look. He led me on a tour. Many of the rooms lacked furniture, and traces of the firefight remained only on a small area of wall where bullet holes were patterned like a star, clustered in the center, diffuse at the edges.

  “Jackson Pollock couldn’t have done it better,” he said as I followed him into the safe room. We sat across from each other, on the couches where everyone had huddled, the trunk of guns between us. I’d expected a smell of sweat or at least a residue of smoke. A flat screen showed the security feeds.

  “I wish I could tell you something,” he said. “Clay’s a guy I hired who didn’t come to work one day. We sent someone over to his house. There were no clues. He owned nothing. He was a true mercenary.”

  “Did he ever say anything that might help explain what happened to Justin and Alexandra?”

  Steve had his blue eyes on me. They were unexceptional, a little bloodshot, something faded in them, like scuffed glass. His was the gaze of a soldier exhausted from hypervigilance, scouring a landscape he could never master.

  He cleared his throat. “Frank told you about the video feed, right?”

  “He mentioned that you thought Clay might have died in the car bomb.”

  “That old meddler,” he said and rubbed his knuckles against his chin in a simian motion, scratching his stubble. “Clay’s dead. I wish I could tell you more. He’s gone — maybe kidnapped, but I doubt it. I’d call this one dead. He was probably just in the wrong place when the Taliban went after his friends.”

  Still not swayed by the Taliban story, I asked, “So what about Idris?”

  “Well, there’s the mystery. Someone walked away. I’d place my bet on Idris having been radicalized.”

  “Do you know anything about him?”

  “A little,” he said. “During the attack, Idris was here — under the bed in my room, hiding.”

  “Why wasn’t he in the safe room?”

  “That’s the question. Maybe he got scared, or he was digging around, robbing me, or he planned the whole thing. Clay and Justin vouched for him. Two days later they were all gone.”

  Steve walked me back out, through the gate, his hands in his pockets.

  “I’ve decided to take that wall with me,” he said. “I read it’s sometimes done in Italy with ancient frescoes. I’m going home. I’ll ship it out when I leave.”

  “Where’s home?”

  He sighed. “I don’t quite know yet.”

  At the taxi, I thanked him for talking to me.

  “Would you like to have dinner?” he asked.

  “I have a flight tomorrow.”

  He shrugged and opened the taxi door for me.

  “One more thing,” he said.

  I was halfway seated and twisted my neck to look up.

  “Tell Frank to keep his mouth shut.”

  JUSTIN

  Friday had been quiet. Justin’s voice was still hoarse, but slightly better. That evening, he opened his notepad and entered the number in his cell, under Clay Hervey, making himself feel as if they’d seen each other recently. Then he went to the office to talk to Frank.

  Frank turned from his laptop, swiveling in his chair. He threw one meager leg over the other, leaned back, pulled off his glasses, and picked up a tumbler of auburn liquid.

  Come on in. You’ve caught me enjoying my Friday bourbon. My guts can’t take it, but a man needs a holiday even if it hurts.

  I wanted to talk to you about Idris. He told me he’s worried he won’t get a scholarship.

  You pick one kid, Frank said, and it’s favoritism. Then the others want to know why you didn’t choose them.

  But you pick kids all the time.

  They pick themselves. I just do the paperwork.

  What do you have against Idris?

  Nothing, aside from his arrogance. He’s not ready.

  When will he be ready?

  When he does the work without acting like he’s owed something.

  You’re being unfair.

  Nonsense. Idris has work to do before we can discuss scholarships. Our school is for those who help themselves. That’s our motto. Leaders don’t go asking for handouts. They fight their way to the top. And — let me finish here, save your voice — I’ve seen boys like Idris a hundred times. You get a thick skin. When I first came here nine years ago —

  I was reading online, Justin interrupted, about funding for schools through the US and Afghan governments. If we set up a certificate program, we can apply and —

  And this place will be just another school churning out kids who are going through the motions. I set out to build something different. I’m not going to throw that away.

  This is a fiefdom, Justin said.

  A what?

  I mean —

  I know what you mean. Hell, you sure know how to treat a man on his night off. Thanks for reminding me why I got divorced. At least I have that to feel good about.

  Who are you evaluating for scholarships? Justin asked, his voice raw again.

  Most likely Sediqa.

  Idris’s English is perfect. He’s taken every class here. And he —

  I’ll tell you what he did. He told you his story. That he runs all my errands and —

  Are you educating people or training drivers?

  We’ve got a tight budget. He’s studying here for free —

  So are the girls.

  They’re catching up from a lifetime of being held back. Frank waved his battered
glasses. The only way to change the world is to find those who want to change themselves. You can inspire people, but you can’t fix them. Right now, my priority is female role models. Inspiration for the girls. As for Idris, you’ll see — it’s not the men who are ready to change.

  Justin pressed on, arguing that he was the academic director now and should have a say in who received the scholarship.

  Fine then, Frank said, and he almost seemed to smile. I’ll give you the list of scholarship candidates and their situations, and you can choose the most deserving person.

  Justin was so startled by the sudden concession that it took him a moment to agree. Frank tipped his head forward, the way a king might, granting permission to leave.

  Justin went downstairs, outside into the driveway where the Corolla was parked, and let himself out the metal door, into the street. The cold circled his wrists and throat. Here and there, the lights in compounds radiated up — luminous pedestals lifting the dull mass of the sky.

  His exultation instilled him with courage. He took a step, the mud squelching. He paused, listened, took two steps, then three. He was moving the way a reptile or a rat might: stopping to take stock of danger. He reached the end of the lane. Far away, on the unfinished highway, passing vehicles lifted dust that rose in the breeze and fell like a slow surf. The bulk of the city lay beyond, its radiance amplified in the particulate air.

  He’d known that a new beginning wouldn’t be easy, but now he felt confident. It was time to make peace.

  He held his phone, its LCD a dingy jewel. His thumb lingered over the call button. He composed a text instead.

  Clay, this is Justin Falker. I’m in Kabul. Your mother gave me your number. Let me know if you’re free to meet.

  Part 3

  Louisiana:

  December 1999–November 2001

  }

  JUSTIN

  The first time he heard about the family, he had an impression of a story from his English class or something he’d seen on TV, about desperate, wandering people, and he was surprised that such characters might actually exist.

  They’ve been living in a motel near the overpass, his father said. The brown one. Right after the exit ramp. They spent Christmas there. I told them they can move in on the first.

  Justin was reading on the couch, and in the kitchen, his mother asked, Why not sooner? The carriage house is empty.

  I’ve no inclination to rent to desperate people, his father replied. If they can’t wait three days, they’re not the right tenants.

  That evening, Justin and his friends rollerbladed along the lakeshore’s wide concrete path, racing, picking up speed, and then slowing to catch their breath. As they started back, Justin hesitated.

  A white teenage boy stood on the shore with the black fishermen, watching where their lines disappeared against the water. His shoulder muscles ridged a threadbare T-shirt, his arms veined like a man’s. His ratty clothes weren’t jock or prep or even redneck. Justin’s friends glanced over too — the girls a little longer.

  On New Year’s Eve, Justin went to a party, squeezing into the packed car of Adam McCaskill, who’d just gotten his license. Though Justin didn’t drink, most of his friends did, and not long after arriving at Douglas Breaux’s house, they were wasted and hollering about the millennium. When a girl told Justin that her older brother was on a retreat in the woods, purifying himself for the Second Coming, he asked why she hadn’t gone with him. She said she believed in Christ already and would be taken to heaven. Not tonight, she specified. The millennium is off by like a few months. The Rapture will probably happen in March.

  He realized then that she’d never kiss him, and it was already too late to pair up with another girl, so he called his father for a ride home.

  The next morning a small U-Haul truck and battered gray Ford sedan pulled into his driveway and past the garage, behind the hedges to the parking area next to the carriage house. Justin ate his cereal at the window as a lanky man unloaded the U-Haul, his face so full of harrowed lines that his forehead, cheeks, and mouth resembled a series of descending brackets.

  A girl got out of the sedan. She looked young enough to go to his school, but like a TV star: dark bangs and shoulder-length hair, a black trench coat belted at the waist. The tall boy from the lakeside loped past her, his shoulders curved as if he might pounce.

  Don’t eat standing up, Justin’s father said. He’d come downstairs in his golf clothes, his shirt tight across the chest, his big bones and residual muscle making his body seem lumpy.

  Justin sat back down at the table, angled toward the window.

  They won’t be here long, his father said. People like that, they’re running away from something.

  Why did you rent to them?

  It’s hard to find a renter in the middle of the school year, and they didn’t tell me they had a boy. But now I’m seeing the situation clearly, and I have no doubt they’ll be gone before we know it. Just keep your distance. There’s no point making friends.

  His father normally rented to graduate students from McNeese State, but the girl who’d lived there had dropped out and moved home, leaving a rhyming handwritten note on the door. He’d ranted about the kind of person who absconds and apologizes with poetry.

  He went into the garage. As the door mechanically rose and the Lincoln started up, Justin returned to the window, cradling his cereal bowl.

  The carriage house was tiny, just a bathroom, an alcove kitchen, and a single room partially divided by shelves. His father was right. The family would soon be gone.

  As the boy came out and walked down the driveway, Justin went to the living room and stood just inside the drapes. The boy stopped at the street. He was now visible in profile, and far bigger than he’d appeared leaning on the railing at the lake.

  Justin didn’t think he’d ever seen someone so still — the way he pictured the first woodsmen in America. His friends twitched with energy, rolling their ankles to stand on the edges of their feet or popping their knees in and out. This boy stood like an animal listening in a forest. He set off down the street.

  Justin went to his room and read a chapter in a World War II memoir his father had given him for Christmas, his head propped on a pillow so he could look outside each time the screen door clapped.

  The lanky man and the girl left with both vehicles and came back in a sedan. The man was so tall he had to stoop to go in the carriage house. The girl wasn’t wearing her jacket, only a black tank top and jeans. Justin put his book down and crouched at the windowsill.

  She had tattoos on her shoulders and on the inside of her wrist. There was a hint of another one near her cleavage. In her jeans, her hips were narrow, their curve just wider than her waist. She stood behind the car, opening the trunk, taking out groceries, moving almost dreamily, pausing before each action, as if she were underwater.

  The boy departed first thing each morning and didn’t come back until after Justin was in bed. Saturday evening, Justin read, staying up to see when he’d get home. He fell asleep and woke at dawn to the squeal of the sedan’s engine. Ashen light filtered through the pecan tree, the mass of branches transformed into distinct shapes. At the wheel, the lanky man hunched like someone fearing a bullet from behind. The sedan lurched and then accelerated toward the street.

  Justin couldn’t get back to sleep. When the boy came out, Justin was watching from the dining room. The boy leveled a long glare in his direction and then walked down the driveway.

  At church, Justin’s father elbowed him awake.

  I’ll not have this kind of behavior, Justin George Falker.

  The grogginess lasted through his chores. His father had long ago made the rule that his weekly tasks had to be completed before dark on Sunday. He quickly trimmed the hedges that ran the perimeter of the yard and had grown up densely on either side of a chain-link fence. He was moving along
the hedge’s inside, behind the carriage house, when he felt himself waking up, his peripheral vision expanding. The bathroom window was near his shoulder, the venetians so old and broken their gaps offered glimpses of the tub. The girl lay with her head against its edge, her nipples at the surface of the water.

  Justin moved the electric clipper carefully now, catching every protruding leaf, slowing to tug at the extension cord, as if it were snagged on the cinder blocks that supported the corner of the carriage house. Each time he passed in front of the bathroom again, she was still there.

  The sun hung low over the neighborhood trees as he gathered the fallen pecans into a bucket, raked leaves and clippings, filled a garbage bag, tied it, and put it by the trashcans.

  The lanky man hadn’t come back. A smaller hedge divided the carriage house parking area from the yard, and Justin trimmed it last, in the twilight, making sure the boy wasn’t around.

  He left the rake and a box of plastic garbage bags out, along with the bucket of pecans and the clipper. This way he’d appear to have good reason to be wandering around, picking things up. His parents were having dinner with friends.

  With the lawn free of leaves, his step was silent. He neared the carriage house wall until his nose almost touched it. The siding’s white paint scaled off. It smelled of decaying wood.

  The bathroom window glowed at the crushed edges of the venetian blinds. He lifted his foot and quietly shifted to the right, moving one eye in front of a gap.

  The crescents of her lashes lay against her cheeks. Her wet bangs were pushed back and her hair clung to her shoulders like weeds. Her collarbones spread just above the line of water. Her pale breasts floated slightly, the water rippling faintly around them.

  A yellow lamp was lit on an end table in the corner. The bathwater had a greenish tinge and no suds. He couldn’t understand why she’d stayed in it for so long.