They drove through scrubby sandy woods. The flat middle land of the Cape, you could tell from the pale mist in the sky that the sea was near by. Paula and Merton talked. He saw Peter and Jenny trying not to be caught staring.
The house was in the woods a half mile from the bay. A dirt driveway with grass in the middle climbed up from the road. They gave him the same room he had occupied with Laura. From the window you could see over the tops of the trees to the bay dazzling blind in the afternoon sun beyond the line of dunes. The room smelled of pine, the floors were gritty with sand.
They went to the beach, deserted in the late afternoon. A sharp breeze blew off the bay from the west, and it was chilly. In their bathing suits Peter and Jenny put their sweaters on. “Aren’t you going swimming?” Tony Hastings said with effort.
“Too cold!” Jenny said. Peter had a frisbee, and he and Jenny tossed it back and forth, to avoid having to talk to him. They didn’t know what to say because they were afraid to ask about the big thing they knew about him. The wind chopped up a ragged surf. The beach showed remains left by the crowd that had been there, the big rusted trash can was full with papers and plastic food cartons blowing out of the top. A large seagull walked on the sand, gawky with orange legs, an evil eye, a vicious beak. Another came down out of the sky and hung in place on the wind two feet above the sand with great motionless wings, looking things over. Remnants of a sandwich. Empty egg carton. Someone’s sweater, half buried in the sand.
“I’m shivering to death, let’s go home,” Peter said.
Plenty of animated conversation at dinner that night. Tony Hastings knew he should take part if he could keep track of what it was about. Later he thought, I’m a dead log, I should try harder, I mustn’t forget who I am.
In the morning he slashed off his mustache, which disgusted him. The beach was bright. The air was fresh, the bay green and calm, the water warm, and the children swam long. He swam with them for a while, and wondered if it was doing him good. He noticed a query on Jenny’s face as she came up out of the water, bubbles in her face and soggy hair, looking at him and diving away. He knew what she was thinking. She was remembering Aunt Laura the underwater swimmer who used to prowl like a submarine among the surface waders, nibbling and dunking. Or water cavalry with Uncle Tony and Aunt Laura. He thought, if they ask, I’ll play horse, but no one asked.
Since he felt little pleasure in either water or land, he came out soon and sat on a towel. When the children returned, he made an effort. “Would you like to walk to the inlet?” he said. It was hard to ask questions like that, for words sat on his chest like lead.
They walked toward the inlet. Now (he knew) they were thinking of last year’s walk, Aunt Laura looking for shells and pebbles, Uncle Tony identifying shore birds, Helen digging out the little holes in the wet sand, wondering what was down there, a clam, a crab? Silently he defended his pain, refusing to care about pretty stones or delicate crab shells, indifferent to sand dollars. He did not want to distinguish gulls from terns. The sand was thick around his feet. The children walked quietly. Then Peter muttered something to Jenny. She ran ahead and he threw the frisbee to her. They broke loose, circling with the frisbee the rest of the way, while he marched on.
He spent two weeks at the Cape, trying to be depressed without being uncongenial. Paula said, “Tony, you have every right to be depressed.” She suggested he go to a psychiatrist when he got back.
When he got home two weeks later, arriving in the empty house alone in the afternoon, this house absolutely and only his own from now on, he found a letter waiting from Grant Center.
Thought you would like to know a fingerprint on your car matches one found in the trailer. Plus, another on your car has been identified as belonging to Steven Adams formerly of Los Angeles. He has a record in California, stolen car, with acquittal on a rape charge. Enclosed please find a picture, face and profile, of said Adams and would appreciate if you can identify him as any of the people who attacked you and your wife. An A.P.B. has been sent out for him.
No one has responded to our call for witnesses.
Looking forward to hearing from you promptly, will let you know further developments.
Robert G. Andes
The picture trembled. Mug shot, front and side, a gaunt man with long black hair, full black beard like a prophet. Tony Hastings stared, trying to see into it. Who? Crooked nose, sad eyes. Not Ray, not Turk. He tried to remember, warding off the keen disappointment, Lou’s beard, Lou’s hair? Lou’s beard was not so long, his hair different, though Tony could not remember how, and the eyes in the picture flashed nothing. This was a picture of no one he had ever seen. He tried to imagine Ray with a beard, but the picture made it hard to remember what Ray looked like without one.
The letter stirred motion in him, a desire to punish. He thought, What difference does it make whether they catch them or not, yet at night he had murderous thoughts. They made him bite his lips and bang his fist on the sheet. But he forgot to answer the letter, and after a few days he got a telephone call from Bobby Andes. He heard the voice weakly, a poor connection.
“Did you get my letter?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“What?”
“Do you recognize the face?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“I don’t recognize it.”
“Aw shit, man.”
“I’m sorry.”
“God damn it, man. This is the guy whose fingerprints are on your car. What do you mean, you don’t recognize it?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“Ah hell.”
Depressed though he was, Tony Hastings did what was necessary to stay alive. He cooked his breakfast and made sandwiches for lunch. He went to cheap restaurants for dinner. Sometimes when he felt less apathetic than usual he cooked his own. He went to his office, but it was hard to keep his mind on his work and he came home early. At night he tried to read but he could not concentrate, and he spent most of the time watching television. He could not concentrate on that either and usually did not know what he was seeing. Once a week Mrs. Fleischer came to clean and do the laundry. In between, the house got messy, newspapers and books and dirty dishes. He was impatient for the summer to end so he could resume teaching, though he was not eager to teach.
One evening, having decided it was time to get ready for his fall classes, he went to his study and tried to think where to start. But his thought went in other directions. He wanted to perform a ceremony, but he could think of none that would do. He went to the window, but all he could see was his reflection in the glass. A person outside could see in better than he could see out. He turned off all the lights, so that the house was completely dark. Why am I doing this? he asked. The dim illumination from outside, from the streetlamps and the neighbors’ houses and the glow in the night sky, came in through the windows and cast patches and shadows on the walls. He went to the side window looking up at Mr. Husserl’s house all lit up, and around to the other windows, the black night over the bushes and choked gardens. He walked around the darkened house from room to room, looking at the night outside and the patterns it made inside.