Orient (22 page)

“Adam, you’re just scaring people,” Bryan said into the microphone. “That’s not a discussion.”

Adam turned to him.

“You saw that monster on the beach, same as we did. It was a mutant, stewing right there in our water. I thought security was important to you. I thought that was how you made a living. How can you stand here and tell us we shouldn’t be scared?”

Bryan felt obliged to respond but his microphone had been unplugged.

“We all saw what happened to Jeff Trader,” Adam shouted. “How much longer are we expected to drink the water, eat the local fish, find mosquito bites on our arms, watch the deer graze, and not wonder what that level-three animal-disease lab is doing every day right on our horizon? They’re not out there worrying about our safety. They’re developing disease agents. Foot-and-mouth, Ebola, polio, Lyme, cholera, swine fever, West Nile, duck plague—we
know
those are out there on Plum, and who knows how many others besides. It’s not natural.”

Mitch Tabach, with his prosthetic hip, seemed to agree. Reverend Ann Whitlen nodded along: it
wasn’t
natural. Bryan had already ruled Ann out as a supporter, due to the fact that she believed
in the Rapture and wouldn’t care what happened to the land after God sky-vacuumed his followers away.

The Stillpasses left their table. Paul Benchley and his teenage delinquent hurried to the door. But Cole Drake shouted, “Go on,” and the Michelsons started perusing Adam’s brochures. Bryan wondered when Adam would start handing out refrigerator magnets for Pruitt Securities and his ludicrous environmental tests.

“My advice,” Adam said, “is not to trust others to take care of you. Just because they say ‘everything’s going to be fine,’ doesn’t mean it
is
fine. We haven’t heard a single word from the government on what that mutant was. Don’t we as citizens deserve the truth? We need to stand up and demand answers.”

Bryan was tired of standing. As he hopped off the stage, his pant cuff caught on the corner of Magdalena’s photograph and tipped it forward over the red poinsettia leaves. “This doesn’t help us,” Bryan yelled. “Adam, you have no idea how important it is that we save Orient from the
actual
threat it’s facing. What we need is a plan for the future, how to protect our village from development, starting today.”

Adam had seen this one coming, and he grinned as he responded. “Bryan, has it ever occurred to you that no one is going to
want
to buy the land out here if it’s polluted? You’re so scared of developers. Hell, if it’s a biohazard, we’ll be praying for them. You’re the one who’s missing the point.”

“I
see
your point,” Bryan muttered. Adam called for volunteers to join him in protesting at the next council meeting in Southold. Behind him was the gluey, tilted picture of Magdalena, a woman who had spent the last years of her life fighting to preserve the ecosystem of Orient. She had been so beloved in the community for her dedication that it seemed incidental, maybe even disrespectful, to mention that she’d been killed by wild animals, stung at least partially to death by indigenous bees.

CHAPTER
12

O
ne of the stranger things Beth learned about her husband after they moved to Orient was his fear of the dark. After sunset, darkness settled so thick in the house that walking to the bathroom or climbing the stairs felt like donning a blindfold. Despite all of Gail’s hysterical remodeling, she had never bothered to update the electrical wiring. Sensible light switches near doorways were rare. Most of the rooms were lit by ceiling lamps with long beaded chains, forcing the light-seeker to swat the air in hopes of catching the phantom string.

In New York, Beth had detected no hint of Gavril’s nyctophobia. Their East Village apartment glimmered yellow at all hours, thanks to the constant light from the street. In Orient, however, Gavril complained that he felt drowned by the blackness, like a child adrift in the ocean. During their first weeks there, Beth often woke to find him calling out to her from the hallway, needing her voice to lead him back to bed. “I’m embarrassed,” he admitted one morning, eyes swollen from lack of sleep. “In the night, I had to go to the bathroom, but I was so scared I waited until dawn to pee. I almost went out the window.”

“You almost jumped out the window, or you almost peed out the window?”

“Both.”

Beth had always been comfortable with darkness; she had never thought that an otherwise highly functioning adult could envision
strange, serial-murdering horrors awaiting him on a simple ten-yard trip to the toilet. She bought Gavril a flashlight to keep on his side of the bed, but for weeks thereafter, Beth would be startled awake by an intense spotlight on her face.

“Just making sure it’s still you,” he said before climbing under the blankets.

“Who else would it be? Oh, just get under the covers. I’ll hold you.”

Before she knew she was pregnant, Gavril had been her child. “The darkness is as heavy as soup. I can’t even see my hand,” Gavril said in bed, presumably holding up a hand neither of them could see.

Now, finally, Gavril had learned to sleep soundly, moving his arms in dreams. After Magdalena’s death, it was Beth who stayed awake, marginally terrified. Was that the sound of a key turning in the kitchen door? Was that creak someone’s foot on the creaky third stair? Had the person who killed Jeff and Magdalena heard her tell Mike Gilburn it was murder, and decided she too must be silenced?

Beth had to go to the bathroom. Lately she had to go all the time, but she couldn’t bring herself to go out into the hall, where a killer could stab her or snap her neck with ease. If she was attacked, would she scream for help? And would that wake up Gavril, making him the second victim? Would she love him enough to stay silent while she was being murdered, just so he could live?

She shifted in the sheets, wishing women could urinate out windows. She distracted herself by imagining a dildolike contraption that women could strap on to urinate with masculine precision. But the fear soon returned, settling back into her like stirred sand returning to the sea floor. It was fear that made a person feel most alone—even a married woman in the safety of her childhood home next to her two-hundred-pound husband.

In the two days since Magdalena’s death, Beth had tried to convince herself that she’d behaved irrationally, a slave to her raging hormones, as if her own body had sacrificed her sanity to support
the new life within her. That new life was in her right now, growing, dividing, mimicking her heartbeat. It could be gotten rid of. A trip into the city for an appointment at the clinic was all it would take. And they could try again later, when she was ready. She willed herself not to think of the fetus as a baby. It was a
mass
, and she would think of it that way until she decided if she would keep it.

Gavril shifted next to her, slamming his elbow against her ribs, and she rolled onto her side to keep their skin from touching. She listened to the clock tick. She had thought of driving over to Paul Benchley’s to collect Jeff Trader’s book from Mills that evening, but she’d decided against it, reluctant to give more free rein to her insanity. Mike Gilburn’s incredulous reaction to her had left her feeling ashamed. Her outburst to the detective—
he was murdered, she was murdered
—now sounded to her like the ranting of a delusional mind.

Yet no matter how often in the past two days Beth admonished herself for acting irrationally, her mind kept leading her back to the evidence. Magdalena had told her that someone had murdered Jeff Trader. The caretaker himself had pointed the blame at the OHB when he spoke to Magdalena just before he died. Only days later, Magdalena herself was dead. How was murder an irrational conclusion to draw? The problem was, Beth had been the only person to hear Magdalena’s suspicions. She couldn’t shake the sense that it was her duty to pursue that possibility. It was, at least, a distraction from sitting around in indecision about the mass. Tomorrow she would call Mike Gilburn to ask for a deeper investigation. Tomorrow she would retrieve the book from Mills. Tomorrow, after Magdalena’s funeral, she would try to work out what possible gain there was in two loosely connected deaths.

A shuffling sound came from the walkway outside the kitchen door. Hinges yawned. Wood slapped. Beth quickly sat up and shook Gavril’s shoulder. She was never certain he was awake until she saw his eyes.

“
Çe este?
” he groaned. “What?”

“Gavril,” she whispered. She couldn’t make out the contours of
his face. Only the liquid cowry-shell eyes, already shrinking closed again. “I think there’s someone downstairs.”

“Go back to sleep,” he mumbled, roping his arm around her.

“No.” She gouged a finger in his armpit, causing him to flinch. “I really think I heard something.”

“I don’t hear anything.” He was alert now, listening, or at least pretending to listen. He pushed his chest against her and began to rub his groin against her hip. She shoved him back by the shoulder.

“Don’t.”

“Come on.” He tried again, slipping his fingers under the elastic of her underwear. She squeezed his hand to stop it from foraging deeper. “What’s wrong with you?” Gavril withdrew his hand. “We have not had sex in almost a month. Why can’t I?”

“I don’t want to.” She had to match his wounded tone to affect a stalemate. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Never in the mood lately,” he said gruffly. “How can we have a baby when we don’t—”

“Maybe I don’t want a baby right now.” She said it more calmly than she had intended. He grabbed for her breast, and she knocked his hand away. Gavril crouched on his knees, wide awake with rejection.

“Why are you acting this way to me?” His eyes and lips were wet; the tips of his shoulders gathered a trace of moonlight. “We used to do it every night. Now you don’t let me touch you. What have I done?”

“Nothing,” she whined. She hated that whine, that last bit of girl in her.

“You don’t want a child anymore?”

“Someone is downstairs!” She no longer thought anyone was downstairs, but she hadn’t worked out a map for this convoluted midnight conversation. Beth wasn’t exactly lying when she said: “And I told you, and you didn’t listen, that our next-door neighbor might have been murdered.”

“Murdered.” He laughed. “American obsession. You’re too smart for that. Why are you acting crazy lately?”

“And you’re still not listening to me. I heard something. But, sure let’s fuck while there’s a burglar in our kitchen.” Beth pulled her underwear down to her knees to drive the insanity home. She lay there, exposed to the cold, arms crossed against her stomach.

“Now maybe I’m not in the mood.” Gavril grabbed his pillow and hugged it against his stomach. “You’ve been—”

Glass shattered. A chair toppled over in the kitchen. The sounds Beth had only invented became real sounds, the last sounds of vulnerable sleepers before they were killed. For a minute they lay frozen, two people living every second except this one, a second that felt like it couldn’t possibly be theirs to live. People were murdered so easily because they didn’t believe they could be.

Gavril jumped from the bed and located his flashlight. “Someone is downstairs,” he whispered. “We push the bed against the door. We take the bed apart and use the metal for bats. We go out the window.”

A broom whisking across linoleum. Glass shards dumped into a soft, yielding substance.

Beth pulled her underwear up. She climbed off the mattress and placed her palms against the bedroom door.

“Is someone there?” she screamed.

“Don’t, Beth,” Gavril pleaded. But her act emboldened him, and he gently pushed her aside to turn the knob. “You stay here. I go.” In her nightmare, she died in the hallway, Gavril after her in the bed, not vice versa. Best to die first, not second. What had seemed to her an act of bravery, she now understood as the easier sequence. “
Çine esti tu?
” Gavril yelled. “
Lasati!
”

Footsteps. Loud, clunky footsteps.

“Gavie, it’s Mom,” Gail called from the bottom of the steps. “Sorry. Broke a glass. A little tipsy. Couldn’t drive home so I used my keys. Don’t worry about me. I’ll curl up on the couch. Don’t you worry about Mom.”

“You scared us half to death,” Beth shouted into the darkness. “Don’t ever do that again.” She placed her forehead against Gavril’s shoulder. They were both moonlit with sweat.

For once, Beth
got out of bed first. She went downstairs to a living room of long morning shadows and small dark furniture. A quilt was folded on the couch, one of its cushions still dented against the arm. Gail stood in the kitchen brewing coffee, her skirt rumpled, her feet webbed in beige panty hose. Outside, branches swayed in the rain. A fly crawled across the window over the sink. Gail’s high heels were stowed by the plant pots.

“I’m going to kill you,” Beth said flatly. “I mean it. I’m actually going to kill you right now.”

Gail turned with an exaggerated smile. Gail was an expert turner. She must practice turning with a grand expression on her face in front of her condo mirror.

“My lord, what a fuss you’re making.” She chose a mug from the shelf for her daughter. “I’m sorry I didn’t call first. I figured it best not to wake you. And it would have been fine if you hadn’t left a glass on the counter for anyone to knock over. I hope it wasn’t a favorite. I think I managed to get all of the slivers.” Gail diligently inspected the floor for sharp, bright slivers.

“Never again, okay? Unless you want to give us both a heart attack. What were you doing in Orient last night anyway? Drunk.”

“I was
drinking
, not drunk,” her mother said. “I had a few glasses of wine at Ina Jenkins’s house after the town meeting at Poquatuck. Have you seen your third grade teacher lately? Homely as ever, I’m afraid. And all those dogs. Just because they’re purebreds doesn’t mean they should be allowed on a table.” Gail shook her head. “But Ina did have a little gossip. Apparently Sycamore is terminating Ted Herrig after the semester. Cutting back on the entire geography department. And good riddance, as far as I’m concerned. Who needs a teacher to show someone how to look at a map? But I feel for his family. He and Sarakit were there last night, lecturing.” Gail started recounting the story of the town hall meeting. When she mentioned Magdalena, Beth glanced at the microwave clock.

“Are you going to her funeral today?” Beth asked.

“Why would I? I’m the last person she’d want there. I believe in respecting the wishes of the dead.”

“I’m going,” Beth replied.

Gail gave her a thin smile. “That’s sweet of you. I raised you right.” Her mother poured twin coffees. “Is Gavril going with you?”

“No. He refuses to set foot in a church. He thinks religion is humanity’s way of trying to be as immortal as a cockroach. Anyway, he hardly knew her. But I knew her. And you did too.”

Gail shrugged and opened the refrigerator. “I’m convinced soy milk is detrimental to fertility. Oh, thank god, you have two percent!”

“Has it occurred to you that Magdalena might have been murdered?”

Gail clasped her hands together and stared out the window at her old nemesis’s cottage. “Are you accusing me? I wouldn’t blame you if you did. That woman was a bully. She actually bullied me. Still, that’s a little far-fetched. Murdered at that age? In that ramshackle house? You’ve been in the city too long.” Gail dropped into a chair with the heavy resignation of a commuter settling in for a long train ride. “New York City, where no one knows a single thing about the people living right next door. Am I right? You could share a wall with someone for twenty years and never learn their first name. I can just see the real estate ads: ‘You will never be invited to a neighborhood barbecue. No one will make eye contact in the elevator.’ That sounds like heaven.” She took a sip and burned her tongue, wincing in pain.

“If that’s what you want, why would you go to a town hall meeting?”

“Honey, I own this house and the two and a half acres it sits on. When the board starts talking about new zoning restrictions, I damn well better pay attention. I’m invested. Bryan Muldoon really shamed himself last night. It was a delight to watch.” Gail held her head up by the temple.

Beth sat down across from her. “Did Jeff Trader ever do repairs for you?”

“Yes. Here and there. Who do you think was going to clean the gutters? Mario? I would have paid to see that. Jeff even installed our boiler.” Gail looked around the kitchen, as if she could gauge the air temperature by sight. “Do you have the heat on? That thing has a warranty. Why is it so cold in here?”

“So he had keys? Keys to this house?”

“Let me think.” Gail ruminated, counting on her fingers either husbands or the number of times she’d been forced to change the locks. “Yeah, he probably does. Did. Not that it matters.” She nodded toward the windows. “None of the latches actually work. The historical board wouldn’t let me do all the improvements I wanted. They insisted that the façade couldn’t be touched.
The original fingerprint needs to be preserved
, they said.
For who?
I said. What about those of us who are living inside the fingerprint? How about wanting to keep warm in a fingerprint?”