Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (29 page)

"What are you doing down there?" she barked. "How high do you think the water will rise?" I blinked awake and shouted up.

"High," was her pointed reply. "The only sure thing is the water won't reach the top."

"How many more steps?"

"Lots." Another nice answer.

We kept climbing. Her flashlight swung about wildly by its shoulder strap. I gave up counting the steps after two hundred. The sound of the angry torrent slowed to a hungry maelstrom to a racy gurgle. No doubt about it, the water level was rising. At any moment now, the water would be licking my heels.

"Couldn't we swim?" I asked her. "We could float up. It's got to be easier than this."

"No," she ruled. "There's a whirlpool under the surface. If you get caught in the undertow, you're not going to do a whole lot of swimming."

Which meant this way was the only way. Plodding up these miserable steps, not knowing when the water was going to get to us. I was sick of it.

Back to the newsreel, arcs of water shooting across the screen, spillway emptying into the big bowl below. Dozens of camera angles: up, down, head on, this side, that side, long, medium, zoom in close-up on the tumbling waters. An enormous shadow of the arching water is cast against the concrete expanse. I stare, and the shadow gradually becomes
my
shadow. I sit there, transfixed. I know it's my shadow flickering on the curve of the dam, but I don't know how to react as a member of the audience. I'm a ten-year-old boy, wide-eyed and afraid to act. Should I get my shadow back from the screen? Should I rush into the projection room and steal the film? I do nothing.

My shadow stays on screen, a figure in the distance, unsteady through the shimmering heat. The shadow cannot speak, knows no sign language, is helpless, like me. The shadow knows I am sitting here, watching. The shadow is trying to tell me something.

No one in the audience realizes that the shadow is really my shadow. My older brother, sitting next to me, doesn't notice either. If he had, he wouldn't miss the opportunity to box my ears. He's that kind of brother.

Nor do I let on that it's my shadow. No one would believe me anyway.

Instantly the dam segment ends and the news changes to the coronation of a king. A team of horses with fancy headgear is pulling a fairy-tale carriage across a flagstone plaza. I search for my shadow in the procession, but all I see are shadows of the horses and carriage.

There ended the memory. Though I couldn't be sure any of it had really happened to me. I had no recollection. Perhaps this was a hallucination induced by the sounds of the water in the darkness, a daydream dredged up in the face of extreme circumstances. But the image was too vivid. It had the smell of memory, real memory. This
had
happened to me, it came to me with a jolt.

Until this moment the memory, it seemed, had been sealed off from the sludge of my consciousness by an intervening force.

An intervening force?

Or an operation, like the one done on my brain to give me shuffling faculty. They had shoved memories out of my conscious awareness. They had stolen my memories from me!

Nobody had that right. Nobody! My memories
belonged
to me. Stealing memories was stealing time. I got so mad, I lost all fear. I didn't care what happened.
I want to live
! I told myself. I
will
live. I will get out of this insane netherworld and get back my stolen memories back and live. Forget the end of the world, I was ready to reclaim my whole self.

"A rope!" she yelled out of nowhere. "Rope?"

"Quick, get on up here. There's a rope hanging down." I hurried up the next three or four steps to where she stood and felt along the rock surface with my hand. Most definitely, there was a rope, a length of mountaineering line, the end of which reached chest-high on me. I pulled at it to test its strength. It seemed to be secured at the other end.

"It's got to be Grandfather's doing," she exclaimed. "Grandfather's dropped a line for us."

"To give us a better start, let's go around once more." Exasperating as it was to keep checking each step, especially in my tennis shoes, we ascended one more circle around the tower and found the rope hanging in the same position. There were knots for footing every thirty centimeters or so. Let's hope they went up all the way to the top.

"It's Grandfather all right/Only he would think of such details."

"I'll say," I said. "Can you climb rope?" "Of course," she retorted. "I've been a climber since I was a little girl. Didn't I tell you?"

"Well then, you first," I said. "When you get to the top flash me a signal with your light. Then I'll start my climb."

"But by then the water will have reached here. We'd better climb together."

"No, one rope, one person. That's a mountaineering rule. There's the strength of the rope to consider, plus it takes more time for two people to climb the same rope. And even if the water does rise this high, as long as I hold onto the rope I'll be safe."

"You're braver than you look," she said. She was up the rope without so much as another word. I clung with both hands to the rocks and stared up at her swinging, like the assumption of a drunken soul.

I craved a swig of whiskey, but it was in the knapsack on my back and the idea of twisting around to extract the bottle did not seem altogether wise. Nix on that. So I
thought
about having a drink instead. A quiet bar, MjQ's
Vendome
playing low, a bowl of nuts, a double whiskey on the rocks. The glass is sitting on the counter, untouched for a moment, just looked at. Whiskey, like a beautiful woman, demands appreciation. You gaze first, then it's time to drink.

This scene set up, it came to me I didn't have the right clothes. The two thugs had taken care of that. What to do? Get some new clothes. A dark blue tweed suit. Three buttons, natural shoulder, no taper, old-fashioned cut. A George Peppard number from the early sixties. The shirt, a lighter shade of blue, Oxford broadcloth, regular collar. The necktie, a two-color stripe, a subdued red with a might-be-blue-might-be-green storm-swept seafoam shade. The drink, Scotland's finest.

Bringing the glass to my lips, I noticed that the sound of the water had stopped. Did this mean that the water had stopped gushing up from the holes? Or merely that the water level had risen to where it drowned out the sound?

I no longer cared. The water could rise all it wanted. I was set to survive. To get back my memories. I would be manipulated no more. I'd shout it out loud. I'm mad as hell!

Nobody's pushing me around any more! Do you hear!

Not that it would do much good to shout it out while clinging to a rock in subterranean darkness. I decided to forgo the proclamations and craned my neck to look up again. The chubby girl had climbed a good three or four flights' worth of department store steps. Up in the women's wear or kimono department. How tall was this mountain anyway? Why couldn't her grandfather be waiting for us in a saner, less baroque place?

Finally, she signaled with her light that she'd made it to the top. I signaled back, then shined the light downward to see how far the water had risen. I couldn't make out a thing.

My watch read four-twelve in the morning. Not yet dawn. The morning papers still not delivered, trains not yet running, citizens of the surface world fast asleep, oblivious to all this. I pulled the rope taut with both hands, took a deep breath, then slowly began my climb.

Shadow Grounds

THREE days of clear weather have come to an end. I know it as soon as I awaken. I open my eyes with no discomfort.

The sun is stripped of light and warmth, the sky is cloaked in heavy clouds. Trees send up crooked, leafless branches into the chill gray, like cracks in the firmament. Surely snow will fall through, yet the air is still.

"It will not snow today," the Colonel informs me. "Such clouds do not bring snow."

I open the window to look out, but cannot know what the Colonel understands.

The Gatekeeper sits before his iron stove, shoes removed, warming his feet. The stove is like the one in the Library. It has a flat heating surface for a kettle and a drawer at the bottom for the ash. The front opens with a large metal pull, which the Gatekeeper uses as his footrest. The Gatehouse is stuffy from kettle steam and cheap pipe tobacco, or more probably some surrogate. The Gatekeeper's feet also smell.

"I need a scarf," I begin. "I get chills in my head."

"I can see that," snorts the Gatekeeper. "Does not surprise me at all."

"There are old clothes in the Collection Room at the back of the Library. I was wondering if I might borrow a few."

"Oh, those things," says the Gatekeeper. "You can help yourself to any of them. Take a muffler, take a coat, take whatever you like."

"And the owners?"

"Forget about the owners Even if the owners are around, they have forgotten about those things. But say, I heard you were looking for a musical instrument?"

He knows everything.

"Officially, the Town has no musical instruments," he says. "But that does not rule out the possibility. You do serious work, so what could be wrong if you had yourself an instrument. Go to the Power Station and ask the Caretaker. He might find you something."

"Power Station?" I ask, surprised.

"We use power, you know," he says, pointing to the light overhead. "You think power grows on apple trees?" The Gatekeeper laughs as he draws a map. "You take the road along the south bank of the River, going upstream. Then after thirty minutes, you see an old granary on your right-hand side. The shed with the roof caved in and no door. You make a right turn there, and follow the road until you see a hill. Beyond the hill is the Woods. Go five hundred yards into the Woods, and there is the Power Station. Understand?"

"I believe so," I say. "But it is dangerous to go into the Woods in winter. Everyone tells me so. I fell ill the last time."

"Ah, yes, I nearly forgot. I had to carry you up the Hill," says the Gatekeeper. "Are you better now?"

"Much better, thank you."

"A little less foolish?"

"Yes, I hope so."

The Gatekeeper grins broadly and shifts his feet on the stove handle. "You got to know your limits. Once is enough, but you got to learn. A little caution never hurt anyone. A good woodsman has only one scar on him. No more, no less. You get my meaning?"

I nod appropriately.

"No need to worry about the Power Station. It sits right at the entrance to the Woods. Only one path, you cannot get lost. No Woodsfolk around there. The real danger is deep in the Woods, and near the Wall. If you stay away from them, everything will be fine. Keep to the path, do not go past the Power Station."

"Is the Caretaker one of the Woodsfolk?"

"Not him. Not Woodsfolk and not Townfolk. We call him nobody. He stays at the edge of the Woods, never comes to Town. Harmless, got no guts."

"What are Woodsfolk like?"

The Gatekeeper turns his head and pauses before saying, "Like I believe I told you the very first time, you can ask whatever questions you please, but I can answer or not answer as I see fit."

I open my mouth, a question on my lips.

"Forget it. Today, no answers," says the Gatekeeper. "But say, you wanted to see your shadow? Time you saw it, no? The shadow is down in strength since winter come along. No reason for you not to see it."

"Is he sick?"

"No, not sick. Healthy as can be. It has a couple of hours exercise every day. Healthy appetite, ha ha. Just that when winter days get short and cold, any shadow is bound to lose a little something. No fault of mine. Just the way things go. Well, let it speak for itself."

The Gatekeeper retrieves a ring of keys from the wall and puts them in his pocket. He yawns as he laces up his leather boots. They look heavy and sturdy, with iron cleats for walking in snow.

My shadow lives between the Town and the outside. As I cannot leave to go to the world beyond the Wall, my shadow cannot come into Town. So the one place we can meet is the Shadow Grounds, a close behind the Gatehouse. It is small and fenced in.

The Gatekeeper takes the keys out of his pocket and opens the iron gate to the enclosure.

We enter the Shadow Grounds. It is a perfect square, one side backed up almost against the Wall. In the center is an

In a corner stands a lean-to of bricks and building scraps. No glass in the window; only a rude wooden panel that swings up for a door. I see no chimney, so there must be no heat.

"That is where your shadow sleeps," says the Gatekeeper. "Not as bad as it looks. Even got water and a toilet. Not quite a hotel, but it is shelter. Care to go in?"

"No, I'll meet him here," I say, still dizzy from the stale air in the Gatehouse. Cold or not, it is better to be out in the fresh air.

"Fine by me, let me bring it outside." The Gatekeeper storms into the lean-to by himself.

I turn up my collar and sit down on the bench, scraping at the ground with the heel of my shoe. The ground is hard, with lingering patches of snow where shaded by the Wall.

Presently, the Gatekeeper emerges and strides across the Grounds, my shadow following slowly after. My shadow is not the picture of health the Gatekeeper has led me to believe.

His face is haggard, all eyes and beard.

"I imagine you two want to be alone, ha ha," says the Gatekeeper. "Probably got heaps to talk about. Well, have yourselves a nice, long talk. But not too long, if you know what I mean."

I know what he means. My shadow and I watch the Gatekeeper lock the enclosure gate and withdraw to the Gatehouse. His cleats rasp into the frozen distance. We hear the heavy wooden door shutting behind him. Not until he is gone from sight does the shadow approach and sit next to me. He wears a bulky rough-knit sweater, work pants, and the boots I got for him.

"How are you holding up?" I ask.

"How do you expect?" says my shadow. "It's freezing and the food's terrible."