Radiant Days (12 page)

“Who the hell are
you
?” The words were garbled, the voice a not-quite-broken boy’s voice, torn between accusation and wonder. Then it was as though his voice tuned in, like a radio—as though
he
tuned in. I could understand him easily, despite the accent. A dead leaf was stuck to a blondish spike above his left
eye. Instinctively I reached for it, and the boy flinched.

“It’s just a leaf,” I said, and dropped it. I waved away the smoke, coughing. “We should open the door.”

I cracked it so that the smoke could disperse, turned to see the boy crouched on his heels, staring up at me with those challenging eyes. I got a better look at his clothes: an ugly overcoat that hung to his knees; dark pants, too short, exposing his ankles; a filthy blue shirt, its cuffs flapping around knobby wrists; heavy boots caked with dirt. His hands were thick-knuckled and raw-looking, big hands for someone so slight. He looked like one of the poorer kids from back in Norville, wearing handmade clothes and daring someone to mention it. He looked like me.

“Who are you?” he said.

“My name’s Merle.”

“Merle? Merle.” He repeated my name as though tasting it, looked at my face, my paint-stained pants, and frowned. “You’re a girl?”

“Yes, I’m a goddamn girl. You’re a guy, right?”

“Your voice—you sound like a girl. But—” He gestured at my bomber jacket and pants, and gazed at me questioningly.

I stared back, wondering if this was a joke. But he sounded serious. Maybe he was drunk, or tripping. I shrugged. “So where’re you from? Are you an exchange student?”

“Exchange?” He shook his head. “I’m from Charleville. The asshole of the universe.”

“You mean Charlottesville? I’m from Norville. Greene County. Don’t worry, no one’s ever heard of it. Maybe the
universe has two assholes.” I waited for some explanation of his accent, but he continued to stare at me. Finally I asked, “How’d you get in?”

“The door. How did you get in?”

“Ted Kampfert gave me a key. You know him? He hangs out by the river, fishing. He looks like a homeless guy but he’s some famous old rock star or something. He knew Bob Dylan.”

The boy gave me a blank look, then nodded excitedly. “Yes! I know him—he was by the canal, catching carp. A tramp. He told me to come here. The lockhouse, he said I could sleep here.”

“That’s what he told me. He gave me this.” I held out my hand, the fish bone nestled in my palm. “Did he give you one?”

The boy shook his head, staring at the key enviously, and I stuck it back in my pocket. “So how’d you get in?”

“It was open.” He looked past me to where the door revealed a wedge of mist-drenched leaves, brightening from gray to green with dawn. “I’m starving. You want to find something to eat?”

“Yeah, sure. What’s your name?”

“Ar-toorr.”

“What?” He repeated the name and I frowned. “Spell it.”

He jammed a hand into the pocket of his overcoat and withdrew a stumpy pencil and a wad of pages. He wrote something on the corner of a page, angling himself so I could read it. Even in blunt pencil, his signature was surprisingly elegant.

“‘Arthur,’” I said.

He nodded again, replaced the wad of paper, and ran a hand across the inch of stubble on his scalp. “In Mazas, they did that,” he said. “Shaved my head.”

“Mazas?”

“Mazas Prison. In Paris.”

“You were in prison? For what?”

“Vagrancy.” His tone was deliberately offhand. “And protesting the war, and supporting the revolution.”

“Really?” I had no idea what war he was talking about, but I was impressed. “That’s cool.”

He started toward for the door, then stopped. “What’s that?”

The faint morning light fell through the room’s single window and rippled across my painting. Arthur stared at it, mesmerized.

“I saw this,” he said softly, and touched the rayed eye. “I thought it was a dream.”

“No. It was me.”

“You did this?” He pointed at my tag. “What does this say?”

“‘Radiant Days.’ You don’t read English?”

“No. Only French.”

“Then how can you understand me?”

“Because you are speaking French.”

“No, I’m not. You’re speaking English.”

We stared at each other. After a moment Arthur shrugged. “Maybe we’ve invented a new language.” He turned back to the painting. “It’s … archaic. Like hieroglyphics. It means something?”

I began to gather my oil crayons from the floor. “I dunno. I mean, yeah, it means something, but…” I straightened. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just the way I feel sometimes. Like light. Like I can feel light inside me, and…”

I stepped beside him and drew my hand across the stones, the
paint and oil pastels slightly moist, like damp clay. “And this is the only way to get it out. You know?”

I expected him to laugh. Instead he stared at the wall for a long time, then nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “I feel that way, too. Let’s go.”

We stepped outside. I locked the door, turned, and looked at the sky in surprise.

It was still night. What I had thought was the pale glimmer of dawn was actually the light from a brilliant half-moon, filtered through dense fog so that everything—tree trunks, willow leaves, even the mossy ground—had an eerie, greenish glow, as though underwater. The muted sound of the canal flowing nearby faded into the rustle of wind in the trees.

Arthur and I started up the long slope, pushing through dripping willow branches. After a few minutes I saw the sulfurous halo of a lone streetlamp. Headlights sliced the darkness as a car sped down M Street, and I stepped from the underbrush onto the sidewalk. I halted when I realized I was alone.

“Arthur?”

I peered back into the overgrown tangle to see him frozen, his face dead white. “Hey, you all right?”

“My God.” His voice cracked. “My God, what happened?”

I whirled, expecting to see a shadowy figure with a gun, or a cop.

But the sidewalk was empty. I turned back to Arthur, furious. “What is your problem? Are you completely wasted?”

He struggled through the brambles onto the sidewalk and
walked past me into the street, staring as though hypnotized as a Yellow Cab hurtled toward him. With a shout I grabbed his arm and yanked him safely to the curb. The cab didn’t even slow down.

“What the fuck are you
doing
?” I punched his arm. He looked terrified, cringing as another car barreled past. “Are you high?”

“Where are the horses?” he asked in a small voice, and flinched as a third car whizzed by.

“
Horses?
Are you crazy? Listen, you need to calm down, okay?”

I heard the rumble of another vehicle, and shielded my eyes as a car appeared, with lights blazing on top, red and white.

“Shit! That goddamn cop.” I dragged Arthur off the sidewalk and into the underbrush. He tried to pull away.

“Let go!”

“Shut up,”
I hissed, and motioned for him to keep his head down.

The crackle of a walkie-talkie seemed to jolt him: without arguing, he followed me as we pushed our way back through the underbrush, in what I hoped was the direction of the towpath. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw the bluish cone of a flashlight slashing through the mist, but as we ran it grew fainter, smaller, until at last it disappeared.

“I think he gave up,” I gasped, halting behind a tree. Arthur pressed against me, peering out into the night.

“What was that?”

“Police. Vandal squad, probably—a cop saw me today when I
was tagging a wall down by K Street. They go after people doing graffiti. You know, real threats to society like me. I get ripped off back in Brookland, do the cops give a shit? But no one touches Georgetown with a paint can,” I added in disgust. “He saw you playing chicken with that taxi, and then he recognized me. Come on, he can’t get a patrol car in here. We’ll be okay.”

We walked on in silence until we reached the towpath once more. Here beneath the willows everything was dark and still, save for the stirring of leaves. The sound of water in the canal drowned the distant thrum of traffic. I saw no more headlights, just the blurred half-moon shining through the mist. A boulder loomed beside a tree, and I hoisted myself onto it, patting the rock beside me for Arthur to do the same.

“So what happened back there?” I asked. “Why’d you freak out?”

He shook his head, dug into his pocket, and removed a leather pouch. His hand trembled as he opened it and removed a white pipe with a long slender stem, pinched something from the pouch, and tamped it into the pipe’s bowl.

Reflexively I glanced around—getting popped for smoking pot would
not
be a good idea. Arthur lit up, striking a wooden match on the side of a small metal matchbox. He folded the pouch, replaced it in his pocket, and took a long pull at the pipe, his face crowned by a bluish, sweet-smelling cloud.

“Is that hash?” I asked.

He twisted the bowl sideways and exhaled. “What?”

“Hash. It smells weird.”

He passed the pipe to me. I don’t usually get high, but I took a hit, then began to cough uncontrollably. “Ugh, what
is
this?”

Arthur took the pipe back, grinning. “It’s tobacco,
imbécile
.”

“Tobacco? I thought you had hash! You know, hashish.”

“Hachisch?”
Arthur choked on a mouthful of smoke and doubled over laughing. “I have
never
met a girl like you.”

Me, I’d never seen someone my own age smoke tobacco in a clay pipe. For a few minutes, he puffed away blissfully, eyes half closed. At last he dumped the ashes onto the ground and lovingly put the pipe back into the pouch. “There someplace we can eat?” he said.

“I dunno. Maybe. It’s late. Do you have any money? I’ve only got about thirteen bucks.” He shook his head. I thought ruefully of the plastic change purse in my pocket. “Well, maybe it’ll be enough for something. But I don’t want to run into that cop. If we stay on M Street or Wisconsin we should be okay; there’ll be people there. Just don’t bolt in front of a cab again or do anything stupid.”

“What was that, with the lights?”

“I told you, a police car. What, you don’t have cops in France?”

He flushed angrily. “Of course. But not trains in the street.”

“Yeah, well, they’re all over the place here, except when you need them. Like when those kids took off with my bag.” We started to walk along the towpath, and I told him what had happened back at Perry Street.

“So now I don’t have anything.” I picked up a stick and lashed angrily at a bush. “Clea took my best stuff, and those kids stole
the rest. It’s all probably in a Dumpster somewhere by now.”

“They didn’t take everything.” Arthur tapped the pocket that held my spray can and oil crayons. “Just start over again.”

“Sure,” I said bitterly, and tossed my stick into the trees.

We reached a narrow dirt trail that led up to M Street, at the entrance to Georgetown. It was nowhere near where I thought we’d come out. Between the moonlit fog and general uncanniness of the last few hours, I’d completely lost my bearings. For a moment I stood in the darkness, just out of reach of a streetlight’s sallow glare. Arthur huddled beside me, hands jammed into his pockets, and stared at the stretch of road in front of us, mouth parted and his eyes almost feverishly bright.

The fog had dispersed. The chill autumn wind shook streetlamps and traffic signals, so that the entire block danced with light. Even at this hour there was a steady flow of cars and late-night buses. People spilled from restaurants, from Blues Alley and the Cellar Door, the Biograph and Key movie theaters. Lurid blobs of ultraviolet light glowed in the window of Orpheus Records. A couple leaned against the front of Geppetto’s, making out as the manager locked the door behind them. There were plenty of restaurants here, but thirteen bucks would barely get us in the door of any of them.

If they’d let us in the door. I looked down at my bomber jacket, splattered with yellow spray paint, my fingers so crusted with black and crimson oil pastels it looked like I’d jammed them in a blender. Arthur wasn’t any better. His overcoat was filthy, splotched with tobacco ash and leaf mold, and his shorn head
made him look like one of those skinheads who’d been rioting in England.

“Come on.” I sighed and looked up toward Wisconsin Avenue. “I think there’s a Miles Long sandwich place here somewhere.”

Arthur remained hunched beside a doorway, his expression mingled wonder and horror.

“Where are we?”

“Still Georgetown. Let’s go.” I started down the sidewalk.

“What is this place?” he shouted after me. “What’s happened—what in God’s name did you do?”

I groaned. “For chrissake, can we just go?”

He ran toward me, grabbed my collar, and pushed me against a storefront. “Tell me what happened! Tell me what you did!”

I swore and kicked him. “That’s it! Get the hell away from me—”

He stumbled backward as I stormed off.

“The moon—Merle, look at the moon!” He ran up beside me, oblivious of a passing couple who glared at us, and pointed at the sky. “It’s changed!”

I looked up and saw the same half-moon as before. “No, it hasn’t. You can just see it better because the fog is gone.”

“No! It’s
different
. Before it was full. I know it was, because the tramp said something about how the full moon’s best for carp.”

“Maybe you just didn’t get a good look. I mean, I could barely see it through the fog.”

“No! Listen to me—when I left Charleroi last night the sky was clear as water, and the moon was full. I was walking along
the canal,
I saw it
.” His face twisted into a rictus of fear. “A full moon. I fell asleep beneath the trees, and then I woke up near dawn and saw the
aurore
—”

“The what?”

“
Aurore boréale
. Lights in the sky.”

“You mean the aurora borealis?” He nodded, and I sighed, exasperated. “That’s impossible. You don’t get the northern lights here. It’s too far south. And if they had been there, I would have seen them.”

I pointed at a bundle of newspapers in front of a shuttered newsstand. “Look, we can check the paper. I can guarantee you, if there’d been an aurora, everyone would know about it.”