Renee lay beside me in my cot, the Tenets tilted on her belly.
"Don't pop it," she said.
"Why not?"
"I want to."
I tendered my nose to the lamplight.
"Go ahead."
"Hey," said Renee, "did you know Heinrich has a son? Or had a son?"
"It says that in the book? I missed it. Ow!"
"There," said Renee, held out the dark squiggle, my coagulated essence, in her palm. "It's vague, towards the end of the preface: 'My only issue emerged somewhat amphibious, due to pharmaceutical miscalculation on the part of his mother. He lived for a while in a ventilated, see-through tube. Then he returned to precellular nullity.' "
"That's not so vague. How could I have missed that?"
"I think I have an older edition."
"Why would he take it out?"
"Why would he put it in?" said Renee. "At least like that?"
"That's part of his appeal."
"Appeals to you, maybe."
"What aspect of the master most pleases you, young novice?"
"His shoulders. From behind he looks like my father."
"Women and their fathers," I said.
"Is that supposed to be insightful?"
"It's a saying," I said.
"You have a daughter, don't you?"
"I did. I definitely did."
"You're breaking my heart. I feel my heart actually cleaving. Is cleaving the word?"
"We thought the school was a good idea."
"I'm sure it was. It's you and your wife that weren't such a good idea."
"We tried."
"That's what I mean."
"Lay off, okay? I want to ask you something. Did you know Heinrich reads our item books?"
"We give them to him. Before we're mothered by fire."
"I mean all the time."
"I don't think so."
"He read mine."
"He must like you."
"I don't trust the bastard."
"Don't talk that way, Steve."
"I'm not Steve."
"You keep saying that. I'm all for mantras, but really, the trick is to find one that isn't so rooted in negation."
"Listen, why don't you drag your numb ass back into your little fucking go-cart and get lost. I have work to do."
The compound was quiet tonight, lit low by a pale slice of moon in the sky. The wind carried moans of milk cows in their stalls. Renee wheeled off near the dining-hall door without a word. She'd been crying. I'd thought she'd been sneezing but she told me through snot-wet bursts that this was how she cried. Wires crossed up after the accident. Not that I would care. Now I looked over towards Heinrich's cabin. He sat near the window, reading by candlelight. Strains of some cantata poured through the crevices of his home. His sloped shoulders bucked with what looked to be spasms of amusement. Maybe Renee's father laughed like that. I sneaked up to the sill. Let him put one in my neck, I thought.
Heinrich saw me, cracked his window.
"Evening," he said. "Out for a stroll?"
He laid the pamphlet he was reading on the sill. Adult Children of War Criminals: A Copebook.
"Cheese to Ease the Disease," I said.
"Not bad," said Heinrich.
"It's terrible," I said.
"Yes," said Heinrich, "it is."
"I don't have to help you, you know."
"It's a free country. A dry county, but a free country."
"I don't even know what the hell I'm doing here. I think it's some bizarre belief that the more ridiculous the situation is, the better the chances of something good coming from it."
"That is bizarre," said Heinrich.
"You don't have the fucking cure," I said.
"Good night, Steve."
"You know, you could go to prison for what you're doing here."
"I could go to prison for lots of stuff," said Heinrich.
Dietz called me over from his doorway. He said he had some bourbon, a little weed. Lem was building a customer base. Dietz's cabin was small and stank of Dietz. Books and torn parts of books and chunks of cinder littered the floor. There was a doorless mini-fridge in the corner. Pasted over the opening was a poster of a well-stocked ice box-pickle jars, milk jugs, wrapped steaks, fruit. Dietz sat on a steamer trunk with his derby in his lap. He was pinching out the creases in the brim. His Coleman threw light up on his berry stain. He caught me staring at it.
"Mark of Cain," he said. "Born with the thing."
"I like it."
"I don't care so much about it. When I was a kid, sure. Girls, before I met the right kind. But it's hard to get people to look you in the eye. Look me in the eye."
"I'm looking."
"Yes, you are."
"What do you want, Dietz?"
"What do I want? What a question. I remember when I was a child my folks took me out to the beach. I hadn't said a word yet. Mute little fucker. Far back on the baby curve. But it so happened that on that day I saw something out on the water. Something that appealed to me. It appealed to me enough to summon language in me. Language was called up from my tiny toddler database for the first time in my tiny miserable life. What do you think I said? Remember, I saw something that appealed to me."
"Seagull," I said. "See the seagull."
"That would be grand, Steve. See the seagull. I'd be a fucking poet now, wouldn't I? No, I did not say see the seagull. What I said was, I want boat. That's all I said. I want boat."
"You knew what you wanted."
"My mother was amazed. She cried, she says. She says she cried."
"Did you get boat?"
"They took me out on a day cruise. Bought tickets, bundled me up. They were not wealthy people, Steve. Vermont syrup trash, tell the truth. But, like I said, they bought tickets, bundled me up, walked me up the gangway. We're out five minutes and I'm a goddamn disaster area. Or so I've been told. Five minutes sounds like an exaggeration, an embolism, not an embolism, you know what I mean."
"An embellishment."
"Point is, I'm a wreck. Puking, weeping. Sea sickness. The sickness of the fucking sea. And it's at this moment in the experience I make utterance once more. Once more language is called upon to do my bidding. What do you think I said?"
"There are so many possibilities."
"No, there aren't. You're missing it. Think about it logically. What could I have said? Okay, I'll tell you what I said. No more boat. That's what I said. No more boat. Now, I'm a dude, I'm the kind of dude that can babble on and on. To anybody. About anything. How many times, for instance, do you think I've said a word like anybody, or anything, in my life? Millions, probably. How many times have I said the word probably? How many times have I used my gift of language to explicate myself out of this or that shit-fucked situation?"
"Extricate."
"How many times have I said shit-fucked, or situation? Brother, it's all language. Dope, cars, finger-banging, rock 'n' roll. It's all just language. You think it's not, buddy, but it is, trust me. You think the ultimate is out there somewhere, beyond language, but it's not. It's just totally not. For example, what's the ultimate, anyway? It's a fucking word. But here's my final point, Steve. For all those goddamn words, for all those combinatory combinations of words, for all their various shades and schadenfreudes of meaning or unmeaning, it just comes down to two basic things. I want boat and no more boat. That's all there is."
"I know what you mean."
"You have no idea what I mean. Do you really like my stain? Or do you mean to say you like to look at it?"
"What's the difference?" I said.
"That's a good question. I wish I had the answer. But I'm just a dumbfuck. I'm just trying to keep it together."
"Did you know Wendell?"
"I knew Wendell."
"What happened to him?"
"He couldn't find the language," said Dietz. "Hungry?"
He pointed to his picture of food.