Long After Midnight (14 page)

 
          
I
walked up on the porch and saw on the mailbox in small letters:
underhill
.

 
          
What
if his wife answers?

 
          
No,
I thought, he himself, with absolute Greek-tragic perfection, will open the
door and take the wound and almost gladly die for old crimes and minor sins
somehow grown to crimes.

 
          
I
rang the bell.

 
          
Will
he know me, I wondered, after all this time? In the instant before the first
shot,
tell
him your name. He must
know who it is.

 
          
Silence.

 
          
I
rang the bell again.

 
          
The
doorknob rattled.

 
          
I
touched the pistol in my pocket, my heart hammering, but did not take it out.

 
          
The
door opened.

 
          
Ralph
Underhill
stood there.

 
          
He
blinked, gazing out at me.

 
          
"Ralph?"
I said.

 
          
"Yes-?"
he said.

 
          
We
stood there,
riven
, for what could not have been more
than five seconds. But, O Christ, many things happened in those five swift seconds.

 
          
I
saw
Ralph
Underhill
.

 
          
I
saw him clearly.

 
          
And
I had not seen him since I was twelve.

 
          
Then,
he had towered over me to pummel and beat and scream.

 
          
Now
he was a little old man.

 
          
I
am five foot eleven.

 
          
But
Ralph
Underhill
had not grown much from his twelfth year
on.

 
          
The
man who stood before me was no more than five feet two inches tall.

 
          
I
towered
over him.

 
          
I
gasped. I stared. I saw more.

 
          
I
was forty-eight years old.

 
          
But
Ralph
Underhill
, forty-eight, had lost most of his hair,
and what remained was threadbare gray, black and white. He looked sixty or
sixty-five.

 
          
I
was in good health.

 
          
Ralph
Underhill
was waxen pale. There was a knowledge of
sickness in his face. He had traveled in some sunless land. He had a ravaged
and sunken look. His breath smelled of funeral flowers.

 
          
All
this, perceived, was like the storm of the night before, gathering all its
lightnings
and thunders into one bright concussion. We
stood in the explosion.

 
          
So
this is what I came for? I thought. This, then, is the truth. This dreadful
instant in time. Not to pull out the weapon.
Not
to kill. No, no. But simply—

 
          
To
see
Ralph
Underhill
as he is in this hour.

 
          
That's
all.

 
          
Just
to be here, stand here, and look at him as he-has become.

 
          
Ralph
Underhill
lifted one hand in a kind of gesturing
wonder. His lips trembled. His eyes flew up and down my body, his mind measured
this giant who shadowed his door. At last his voice, so small, so frail,
blurted out:

 
          
"Doug-?"

 
          
I
recoiled.

 
          
"Doug?"
he gasped, "is that
you?"

 
          
I
hadn't expected that. People don't remember! They can't! Across the years? Why
would he know, bother, summon up, recognize, call?

 
          
I
had a wild thought that what had happened to
Ralph
Underhill
was that after I left town, half of his
life had collapsed. I had been the center of his world, someone to attack,
beat, pummel, bruise. His whole life had cracked by my simple act of walking
away thirty-six years ago.

 
          
Nonsense!
Yet, some small crazed mouse of wisdom
scuttered
about my brain and screeched what it knew: You needed Ralph, but,
morel
he needed
youl
And you did the only unforgivable, the wounding, thing! You
vanished.

 
          
"Doug?"
he said again, for I was silent there on the porch with my hands at my sides.
"Is that you?"

 
          
This
was the moment I had come for.

 
          
At
some secret blood level, I had always known I would not use the weapon. I had
brought it with me, yes, but Time had gotten here before me, and age, and
smaller, more terrible deaths....

 
          
Bang.

 
          
Six
shots through the heart.

 
          
But
I didn't use the pistol. I only whispered the sound of the shots with my mouth.
With each whisper, Ralph Underhill's face aged another ten years. By the time I
reached the last shot he was one hundred and ten years old.

 
          
"Bang,"
I whispered. "Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang."

 
          
His
body shook with the impact.

 
          
"You're
dead. Oh, God, Ralph, you're dead."

 
          
I
turned and walked down the steps and reached the street before he called:

 
          
"Doug,
is that
you?"

 
          
I
did not answer, walking.

 
          
"Answer
me?" he cried, weakly. "Doug! Doug Spaulding, is that you? Who is
that? Who are you?"

 
          
I
got my suitcase and walked down into the cricket night and darkness of the
ravine and across the bridge and up the stairs, going away.

 
          
"Who
is that?" I heard his voice wail a last time.

 
          
A
long way off, I looked back.

 
          
All
the lights were on all over Ralph Underhill's house. It was as if he had gone
around and put them all on after I left.

 
          
On
the other side of the ravine I stopped on the lawn in front of the house where
I had been born.

 
          
Then
I picked up a few bits of gravel and did the thing that had never been done,
ever in my life.

 
          
I
tossed the few bits of gravel up to tap that window where I had lain every
morning of my first twelve years. I called my own name. I called me down in
friendship to play in some long summer that no longer was.

 
          
I
stood waiting just long enough for my other young self to come down to join me.

 
          
Then
swiftly, fleeing ahead of the dawn, we ran out of Green Town and back, thank
you, dear Christ, back toward Now and Today for the rest of my life.

 
          
"You
wish to kill your wife?" said the dark man at the desk.

 
          
"Yes.
No ... not exactly. I mean ..."

 
          
"Name?"

 
          
"Hers
or mine?"

 
          
'Tours."

 
          
"George
Hill."

 
          
"Address?"

 
          
"Eleven
South St. James, Glenview."

 
          
The
man wrote this down, emotionlessly. "Your wife's name?"

 
          
"Katherine."

 
          
"Age?"

 
          
'Thirty-one."

 
          
Then
came a swift series of questions. Color of hair, eyes, skin, favorite perfume,
texture and size index. "Have you a dimensional photo of her? A tape
recording of her voice? Ah, I see you do. Good. Now—"

 
          
An
hour later, George Hill was perspiring.

 
          
"That's
all." The dark man arose and scowled. "You Still want to go through
with it."

 
          
"Yes."

 
          
"Sign
here."

 
          
He
signed.

 
          
"You
know this is illegal?"

 
          
"Yes."

 
          
"And
that we're in no way responsible for what happens to you as a result of your
request?"

 
          
"For
God's sake!" cried George. "You've kept me long enough. Let's get
on!"

 
          
The
man smiled faintly. "It'll take nine hours to prepare the marionette of
your wife. Sleep awhile, it'll help your nerves. The third mirror room on your
left is unoccupied."

 
          
George
moved in a slow numbness to the mirror room. He lay on the blue velvet cot, his
body pressure causing the mirrors in the ceiling to whirl. A soft voice sang,
"Sleep ... sleep . .. sleep ...."

 
          
George
murmured, "Katherine, I didn't want to come here. You forced me into it.
You made me do it. God, I wish I weren't here. I wish I could go back. I don't
want to kill you."

 
          
The
mirrors glittered as they rotated softly.

 
          
He
slept.

 
          
He
dreamed he was forty-one again, he and Katie running on a green hill somewhere
with a picnic lunch, their helicopter beside them. The wind blew Katie's hair
in golden strands and she was laughing. They kissed and held hands, not eating.
They read poems; it seemed they were always reading poems.

 
          
Other
scenes. Quick changes of color, in flight. He and Katie flying over Greece and
Italy and Switzerland, in that clear, long autumn of 1997! Flying and never
stopping!

 
          
And
then—nightmare. Katie and Leonard Phelps. George cried out in his sleep. How
had it happened? Where had Phelps sprung from? Why had he interfered? Why
couldn't life be simple and good? Was it the difference in age? George touching
fifty, and Katie so young, so very young. Why, why?

 
          
The
scene was unforgettably vivid. Leonard Phelps and Katherine in a green park
beyond the city. George himself appearing on a path only in time to see the
kissing of their mouths.

 
          
The
rage. The struggle. The attempt to kill Leonard Phelps.

 
          
More
days, more nightmares.

 
          
George
Hill awoke, weeping.

 
          
"Mr.
Hill, we're ready for you now."

 
          
Hill
arose clumsily. He saw himself in the high and now-silent mirrors, and he
looked every one of his years. It had been a wretched error. Better men than he
had taken young wives only to have them dissolve away in their hands like sugar
crystals under water. He eyed himself, monstrously. A little too much stomach.
A little too much chin. Somewhat too much pepper in the hair and not enough in
the limbs . . .

 
          
The
dark man led him to a room.

 
          
George
Hill gasped. "This is
Katie's
room!"

 
          
"We
try to have everything perfect."

 
          
"It
is,
to the last detail!"

 
          
George
Hill drew forth a signed check for ten thousand dollars. The man departed with
it.

 
          
The
room was silent and warm.

 
          
George
sat and felt for the gun in his pocket. A lot of money. But rich men can afford
the luxury of cathartic murder. The violent
unviolence
.
The death without death. The murder without murdering. He felt better. He was
suddenly calm. He watched the door. This was a thing he had anticipated for six
months and now it was to be ended. In a moment the beautiful robot, the
stringless
marionette, would appear, and . . .

 
          
"Hello,
George."

 
          
"Katie!"

 
          
He
whirled.

 
          
"Katie."
He let his breath out

 
          
She
stood in the doorway behind him. She was dressed in a feather-soft green gown.
On her feet were woven gold-twine sandals. Her hair was bright about her throat
and her eyes were blue and clear.

 
          
He
did not speak for a long while. "You're beautiful," he said at last,
shocked.

 
          
"How
else could I be?"

 
          
His
voice was slow and unreal. "Let me look at you."

 
          
He
put out his vague hands like a sleepwalker. His heart pounded sluggishly. He
moved forward as if walking under a deep pressure of water. He walked around
and around her, touching her.

 
          
"Haven't
you seen enough of me in all these years?"

 
          
"Never
enough," he said, and his eyes were filled with tears.

 
          
"What
did you want to talk to me about?"

 
          
"Give
me time, please, a little time." He sat down weakly and put his trembling
hands to his chest. He blinked. "It's incredible. Another nightmare. How
did they
make
you?"

 
          
"We're
not allowed to talk of that; it spoils the illusion."

 
          
"It's
magic!"

 
          
"Science."

 
          
Her
touch was warm. Her fingernails were perfect as seashells. There was no seam,
no flaw. He looked upon her. He remembered again the words they had read so
often in the good days.
Thou art fair, my
love. Behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks. Thy lips
are like a thread of scarlet. And thy speech is comely. Thy two breasts are
like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies. There is no
spot in thee.

 
          
"George?"

 
          
"What?"
His eyes were cold glass.

 
          
He
wanted to kiss her lips.

 
          
Honey and milk are under thy tongue.

 
          
And the smell of thy garments is like the
smell of Lebanon.

 
          
"George."

 
          
A
vast humming. The room began to whirl.

 
          
"Yes,
yes, a moment, a moment." He shook his humming head.

 
          
How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O
prince's daughter! The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the
hands of a cunning workman. ...

 
          
"How
did they do it?" he cried. In so short a time. Nine hours, while he slept.
Had they melted gold, fixed delicate watch springs, diamonds, glitter,
confetti, rich rubies, liquid silver, copper thread? Had metal insects spun her
hair? Had they poured yellow fire in molds and set it to freeze?

 
          
"No,"
she said. "If you talk that way, I'll go."

 
          
"Don't!"

 
          
"Come
to business, then," she
said,"coldly
.
"You want to talk to me about Leonard."

 
          
"Give
me time, I'll get to it."

 
          
"Now,"
she insisted.

 
          
He
knew no anger. It had washed out of him at her appearance. He felt childishly
dirty.

 
          
"Why
did you come to see me?" She was not smiling.

 
          
"Please."

 
          
"I
insist. Wasn't it about Leonard? You know I love him, don't you?"

 
          
"Stop
it!" He puts his hands to his ears.

 
          
She
kept at him. "You know, I spend all of my time with him now. Where you and
I used to go, now Leonard and I stay. Remember the picnic green on Mount Verde?
We were there last week. We flew to Athens a month ago, with a case of
champagne."

 
          
He
licked his lips. "You're not guilty, you're
not"
He rose and held her wrists. "You're fresh, you're
not her. She's guilty, not you. You're different!"

 
          
"On
the contrary," said the woman. "I
am
her. I can act only as she acts. No part of me is alien to her. For all
intents and purposes we are one."

 
          
"But
you did not do what she has done!"

 
          
"I
did all those things. I kissed him."

 
          
"You
can't have, you're just born!"

 
          
"Out
of her past and from your mind."

 
          
"Look,"
he pleaded, shaking her to gain her attention. "Isn't there some way,
can't I—pay more money? Take you away with me? We'll go to Paris or Stockholm
or any place you like!"

 
          
She
laughed. "The marionettes only rent. They never sell."

 
          
"But
I've money!"

 
          
"It
was tried, long ago. It leads to insanity. If s not possible. Even this much is
illegal, you
know
that. We exist only
through governmental sufferance."

 
          
"All
I want is to live with you, Katie."

 
          
"That
can never be, because I am Katie, every bit of me is her. We do not want
competition. Marionettes can't leave the premises; dissection might reveal our
secrets. Enough of this. I warned you, we mustn't speak of these things. You'll
spoil the illusion. You'll feel frustrated when you leave. You paid your money,
now do what you came to do."