The 14th Day (34 page)

When they arrive in the neighboring city where his countryman is to have his rendezvous Vaniok manages to get lost more than once but repeated requests for directions finally bring them to one of the many malls in the area. “There,” Jory points out. “The Motor Vehicle Registry is across the street, just as the man said.”

“Yes,” Vaniok says needlessly, since both of them can see the name in large letters, “this is it.” Still, when he pulls off the street and drives up to the entrance to the mall, he realizes he isn't ready for this yet. Now that they're here it seems only seconds ago that they raised their glasses of the amber-colored liquor in Jory's apartment, only seconds since Vaniok sat in Royall's office looking at the picture of his supervisor with his dark hair. All along Vaniok has been expecting this moment, he's tried to prepare himself for it; now it's come upon him surprisingly. Wasn't it only seconds ago too that he stood on the loading dock waiting for the truck's tailgate to come down? Here at the mall there's a bright buzz of shoppers on the sunny walk; under the elaborate archway people emerge from the air-conditioned interior carrying bags of clothes, toys, electronic appliances. When Vaniok brings the car to a stop, Jory shakes his hand quickly and steps out to get his luggage from the back seat. As the door closes behind his countryman, Vaniok realizes with astonishment: this is the end, this is over. Seconds later Jory is at the window. “Goodbye,” he says. “Good luck. Thanks for the ride. And please thank Ila for the use of her car.”

“And good luck to you too,” Vaniok answers. Though there's so much to say their vocabulary seems to be reduced to a handful of the simplest words. “Good luck,” Vaniok repeats. Jory nods his acknowledgement and sets out toward the entrance of the mall. Vaniok watches him. Carrying his two small bags, he looks as though he's going to exchange them for some of the merchandise on sale at the many shops inside. His tall frame and stiff gait make him recognizable until at last the door opens and he disappears into the crowd.

Well, that's over, Vaniok thinks as he drives out of the mall's parking lot. He retraces his route down the street and finds his way without trouble to the highway that leads back toward the university town. Jory is gone and soon Ila will be gone, he thinks. They're both going and I'm staying. Things are happening to them and I'm being left behind. The thought brings a shiver of panic. Cars and trucks hurtle by and Vaniok realizes that he's driving very slowly. Sun glints off of moving metallic surfaces, large green signs come into view, showing distances to places he doesn't even know; the car shudders in the wake of a passing bus. I'm in a strange land, he thinks. I'm going to be buried here. His hands are trembling and he grips the wheel fiercely. Oh, my God, he thinks, recognizing that he's terrified.

A truck's horn sounds behind him, jolting him into alertness—the wide chrome brow of the big vehicle fills his rear view mirror, and he pushes his foot down on the accelerator. Yes, he recognizes as the car belatedly responds, he's alone, he's in a strange place; but he's able to think that thought, to acknowledge it and to continue breathing, continue moving. He's strong enough to be able to deal with this; he's done this before. Most of his life he's been used to thinking of himself as not very forceful, the younger brother who has to give way before his elders. And he has given way. He remembers countless talks with Ranush about it. So many times he'd had plans and at the last minute he'd had to set them aside because one of his brothers had more important business. It's nothing, Ranush assured him. It's natural but it will pass. Being able to give way, being able to change your plans at the last minute, that was a strength, Ranush said. None of us is strong all the time, he'd say, but mostly we're strong enough. And Ranush was right: Vaniok has survived. He's been strong enough to survive experiences he'd never believed he could endure. In fact he's stronger now than he was only months ago when Jory first arrived. It's true that he's staying here while the others are leaving but it may be that he's changed more than either Jory or Ila. Staying doesn't mean staying the same. Ranush would understand that.

Ila's old car roars as it moves down the highway. Vaniok drives swiftly now, passing cars and trucks, fearing no policeman this time. He takes satisfaction in the skill with which he negotiates his way across the multilaned highway, he's pleased in spite of the sense of emptiness he feels knowing that his countryman is gone—but then, it's possible for both feelings to exist at once. And now as he drives toward the university town, images begin to seep into that emptiness. When he was drinking with Jory he remembered a moment from the homeland but he hadn't been able to identify it. Now it comes to him: the last of Old Ferik's parties before the Thirteen Days. Old Ferik's party. How much younger he was then. He remembers the clang of horseshoes, the soft feel of the deep grass underfoot, laughter coming from the shade of willows, a young priest singing a patriotic song. Then there was Lora: he and she had stood on a dock and watched a fighter plane move over the still waters of the lake. All of this is with him now and here on the highway he feels what he felt then, the mystery and excitement of an uncertain future.

When Vaniok returns her car and tells her about Jory, Ila offers to drive him home but he says he'd rather walk. It's clear the two of them want to be by themselves this evening and Ila is grateful for his understanding. Alone in her room, thinking about her time with Jory, she can't help feeling like the villain in the piece. Yes, finally he wasn't able to pull free of his memories of the homeland but hadn't she seen that from the beginning? Did she venture upon this relationship only to satisfy her curiosity, was Jory only an experiment of hers? Maybe knowing him was simply her way of vicariously living in the capital. She knows that's too simple a statement but it hurts anyway. She cared for Jory, she still cares for him very much, maybe for a time she believed he could actually change, but in the end their relationship was impossible. It's not contemptible to try at something and fail. But her thoughts turn to Jory: she remembers the set of his shoulders when she first met him, remembers his hesitant smile. Where is he going now, what satisfaction can he find on that island with the man Fotor that he told her about? Oh, God, she prays, may he find his way back to the homeland.

She feels herself sinking. This is a dangerous moment. It's so easy to fall victim to hopelessness. In spite of her dreams and her plans, in spite of her recognition that she desperately wanted to live, even while she lay under the hay knowing her family was gone, she hasn't told anyone about the periods of blackness that can come at any time, sometimes just from the fatigue of keeping up her spirits all by herself. She knows those faraway looks, the sudden insinuation of a smell that transports her to that other life, a certain fleeting light, the way the shadow of a window falls across a floor. She knows there's no way to keep from dreaming about water lapping gently against the sides of a boat house. And she knows there's no one to save her from these feelings but herself.

She's restless now. This is over, this adventure of hers, whatever it's cost. She's committed herself to a new venture. God knows what will come of that. She stands before the open window, smoking, contemplating that new world, as yet unformed, but she still has to live through the end of this one. Outside, night has barely fallen. The trees have yielded up some of their color but the dark leaves have become mysteriously thicker. Insects flit around light-bulbs; the air is full of night-smells. Most of the shops in the little town are closed but people will be gathering in restaurants, their faces and silhouettes visible in the windows, and on the porches of the large houses near the university, swings will creak. And she's a stranger, tucked away in a distant corner of this large, powerful country. She feels a ripple of dread.

She ought to go for a walk, if only for the physical exercise. The night's coolness is comfortable, the leaves shift heavily in a slight breeze, insects cry and chitter in the growing dark. She imagines herself walking along the residential street on which she lives, arms swinging as she moves from one island of light to another, passing thick hedges, trees heavy with leaves. Where is that woman going? She sees that solitary walker stopping outside a circle of light. What is she thinking: will I ever have a life like this, the houses, the porches?

Ila is in the car before she realizes that she's decided to go for a drive. At first she has no destination in mind. She drives slowly along the main street of the town. People are lined up in front of restaurants and movie theaters. Music and laughter spill out of doorways she's never entered. Suits of clothing hang on headless mannequins in windows; cars glide alongside her, in no hurry to get anywhere. All these sounds of life have nothing to do with her. Something ended today and soon there will be another ending when she leaves this place. Once more she'll have to live among strangers who will never be able to understand her the way Jory or Vaniok could—who else could she talk to about the famous Singing Priest of their childhood? When she leaves here the last connections to the homeland will be broken. A history will have been taken away from her. She turns down a quieter street lined with dark trees. A sweet, heavy fragrance enters the car. Soon she's passing through a black neighborhood where the smells of outdoor cooking fill the air. Then she's on the fringes of town, which quickly becomes the country. Her car races along the narrow road, the world reduced to a few lights on dark hills. Where is she going? Maybe she'll just keep driving, make her way to the new highway, where she could speed eastward, the wind rushing in through the open windows, dials on the dashboard glowing, past the little town the three of them visited, all the way to the ocean. And then? She could reach the coast in the early hours of the morning, while the world was asleep. She could go to the beach and watch the sun come up over the ocean. The thought brings goosebumps.

And yet, where has she actually come to? She's a few miles north of town, she recognizes, near the place where she turned off shortly after Jory arrived here and drove into the countryside. She remembers looking at the landscape and calling out words in the language of the homeland. There was so much that was going to happen to her, her life was going to change. Now things have happened and everything is different. Is this what she wanted? There's no way of knowing. She only knows she can't return to that place, say those words again so that the story might unfold in another way. She can't repeat that past any more than she can relive experiences in the homeland. Each continues to exist without her having to go back there. Strangely, there's some solace in the thought.

She pulls off the road at an abandoned gas station where three rusty pumps stand erect and ignored in the darkness; she turns back, in the direction of town, though she's in no hurry to return home. She wants to hold on to the feeling that things will yet happen to her of which she knows nothing at all, that her move west will bring her satisfaction, will fill the emptiness that can still come upon her. Seeing a cluster of lights, she pulls into a small shopping center, where she goes to a convenience store. She's strangely buoyed by its harsh light, the bold headlines of the tabloids, the disembodied laughter from the color TV behind the counter and the oddly sinister picture on a black and white security screen where she looks for herself without success. She buys some coffee and takes her Styrofoam cup back to the car. Music booms from other cars, mingling in an oceanic roar. A fat man comes out of a liquor store with a bag, a smile of anticipation on his face. A young man in a baseball cap shouts from a truck to a friend entering the convenience store, who shouts back to him. A station wagon pulls up before the nearby video store. A woman in shorts gets out of the car purposefully but she stops all at once and for a moment she just stands there, her hand on the door handle. The woman, about Ila's age, is pretty though slightly overweight, and she has the look of someone who's constantly running to catch up to things. She stands there a while looking around her, then pushes her hand through her hair. The distracted expression on her face momentarily gives way to a movement around the mouth that could be a smile or a grimace and then she shakes her head. For a few seconds it almost seems as if she's about to decide to drive away but at last she turns briskly and enters the store. What was that woman thinking about? Was she trying to remember the title of a movie she wanted to rent or was she contemplating changing her life completely? Ila holds the coffee cup between her hands, bringing her face down toward its steaming warmth. Bugs circle a light nearby and she breathes in the smell of the coffee. She wouldn't call herself happy just now but the scene around her compels her attention and curiosity. However sad she might be about the way things have turned out with Jory, she can't help knowing this isn't the worst moment of her life.

As they do every year, crowds of people have come to Old Ferik's sprawling lakeside house to celebrate his birthday and over the shaggy grass that slopes toward the water, under white-barked birches and drooping willows, the usual stories are whispered: that before he was a much-decorated soldier and before he built the string of tourist cabins on which his present prosperity rests, young Ferik was a cold-blooded gangster who administered ruthless beatings in the dark alleys of the capital; or that he arrived in the Lakes region as a young man without either shoes or memory of where he'd come from, taking his name from a word he saw on a freight car. There are those who insist in hushed voices that their host had been a farm boy who'd accidentally killed his twin brother and that all his later accomplishments were a vain attempt at redemption. One neighbor even claims to have heard a servant's eyewitness account of the old man's insomniac weeping in his favorite chair, an image that strains and intrigues the imagination. It's hard to say how much credence the tellers give to these tales and there are some who are convinced that Old Ferik himself is their source
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