This is the Way the World Ends (37 page)

For the ninth gift, George devised a rag doll out of patches and swatches cut from commissioned officers’ uniforms. Its eyes were brass buttons.

The final gift had been hanging in his closet for months.

Half a day. So short. Best to trim the tree in advance. After all, she would have all those presents to unwrap and play with. For hooks he used the paper clips that held the pages of Captain Sverre’s bad poetry together. By Friday afternoon the former orange tree had become a cheerful mass of glittery, twisted armatures and curled, nameless metal.

He beat the lid from a canned ham into a star. Christmas trees without stars on top were totally unacceptable. He moved the step-ladder into place . . .

Why am I lying on the floor? he wondered. What am I doing staring at the ceiling? He glanced at the rivet-studded walls, the unfinished tree. I am lying on the floor because there is no point to anything. People are extinct.

Midnight came. He stood up. ‘The point,’ he said aloud, ‘is that Holly and I are not extinct.’ He placed the star where it belonged.

Saturday, the final preparations. He wrapped the ten gifts in aluminum foil and set them under the tree, stacking and restacking them in an effort to find the perfect arrangement.

Sunday.

Seven
AM
.

Round and round the Christmas tree he cut a path of nervousness and doubt, periodically stopping to rearrange the presents or reposition an ornament. She wouldn’t like the doll. She would start fussing. Something . . .

Eight
AM
Nine
AM
Ten
AM
.

After Chester the cat had died, they had decided to give him a proper burial, complete with a little headstone inscribed
CHESTER
that George had prepared at the Crippen Monument Works from a stray scrap of granite. Holly hated the whole idea; she refused to attend the funeral and screamed at her parents for dreaming it up. But the very next day, just as George and Justine had predicted, she began telling everyone about the big event – the monument, the grave, the cardboard coffin from the veterinarian – and continued doing so for months . . .

Eleven
AM
.

Justine had blown up a tarantula. This was really pretty funny when you thought about it . . .

Noon.

Outside the cabin: quick, trundling footsteps. Veins throbbed frantically in George’s neck and wrists, seeming almost to break free of his body. His bullet wound ached, and he breathed deeply. Dear God, make this a good day.

A little girl ran into the cabin. Her feet cycled furiously. Her arms opened wide.

‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Though raspy – a cold coming? – her voice still had the angelic tone that George had never heard in any child except his.

‘Holly!’

They embraced, the child giggling and trilling, George weeping. She was warm. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and blocked his incipient tears, Holly being too young to comprehend why anyone would weep out of happiness.

‘It’s so good to see you,’ he said.

‘It’s so good to see
you
,’ she said.

The war had taken its toll. Her hair looked like yarn. Her smile was interrupted by far more missing teeth than the predations of the tooth fairy alone could explain. She moved cringingly, with a slight limp. But her green eyes sparkled, her face was incandescent, she still had her wonderful compactness, and it was her, it was her!

‘Ahh – look at the
tree
!’ Holly shouted.

‘Do you like it? You can actually
eat
those oranges.’

‘No thank you. It’s beautiful. It has a star on top. That
reminds
me of something.’

‘What?’

‘Those Halloween trees we used to put up.’

‘Yes. We hung rubber bats on them.’

‘And little pumpkins. They were so
cute
.’

‘I want us to have Christmas,’ George said. ‘You did not get Christmas this year. This was because of the war.’ He was always careful to speak in complete, grammatical sentences around her.

‘Daddy, I have something very sad to tell you. This is important.’

‘What?’

‘This is important. Mommy died.’

‘You are right. It’s very sad. The war killed her.’

‘I
know
that,’ she said, mildly annoyed.

‘You gave her orange juice, didn’t you?’

‘She died anyway.’

‘Holly, Holly, it’s so
good
to have you here. See those presents down there?’

‘Are they for
me?
’

‘Yes. They’re all for you.’

‘All of them? All? Oh, Daddy, thank you, thank you. I’m so
excited
.’

‘Why don’t you start with this one?’ he said, handing her the gin bottle. She sheared away the aluminum foil. ‘A flower vase,’ he explained.

‘Later could we pick a flower?’ she asked.

‘Of course.’

Lunging for the big box, she stripped it bare. ‘That says, “Super Duper Cooking Set,” ’ her father explained.

She pulled back the lid, took out the dishes, cups, saucers, pots, pans, kettles, and tureens. ‘Oh, Daddy, I love it, I love it. Will you play cooking with me?’

‘I think maybe we should finish the unwrapping.’

‘
Then
will you play with me?’

‘Of course.’ Apprehensively he picked up the doll. ‘Try this.’ She tore at the foil. ‘I know you wanted a Mary Merlin,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t find any.’

‘Couldn’t Santa Claus either?’

‘The stores were out of them.’

‘That’s okay.’ Holly kissed the doll and stroked its hair. ‘I like her so much. Her name is Jennifer.’

She put Jennifer to bed in a roasting pan from the Super Duper Cooking Set, covering her with a blanket of aluminum foil. Next George gave his daughter the white alabaster raven. She unwrapped it, named it Birdie, and laid it next to Jennifer. Soon the doll and the raven were fast asleep.

‘Be very quiet, Daddy.’

‘Okay.’

‘I want to pick out the next one.’

‘Sure.’

She yanked the stovepipe hat from the pile, unwrapped it. Making no comment, she put it on and grinned her ragged, episodic grin. Now the bright cylinder caught her eye. Bits of foil took to the air. ‘Oh, a clown!’ she said, unscrolling the harlequin poster. ‘He’s funny. I want to hang him up.’ They taped the poster to a bulkhead.

‘And now you’ve got this one,’ George said. Gleefully she ripped the foil. ‘It’s a story I once told you,’ he explained. ‘A bunny wants to ride a two-wheeler bike, and—’

‘Read it to me.’

Done.

‘Read it again.’

He did.

‘Read it again.’

‘You’ve got another present over here.’

‘I’ll bet it’s a beach ball.’ She pulled apart the wrapping, continued beaming even after the beach ball proved to be a globe. ‘What does it do?’

‘It shows us what the world is like. Well, it’s really a kind of game.’

‘Let’s play it.’

‘Okay. You need this thing over here.’ He handed her the poker chips, and she unwrapped them. ‘You see, they have the names of countries on them. Everybody gets ten. Then you spin the globe like this, and you keep your eyes closed, and you put your finger out the way I’m doing. And if your finger stops on a country that’s the same as one of your chips, then you—’

‘Is that last present for me too?’ Holly asked, removing her stovepipe hat and waving it toward the tree.

‘Yes. It’s from Santa Claus.’

She freed her civil defense gear from its foil. ‘Oooh, a
gold
one. Pretty.’

‘It’s called a scopas suit.’

‘I
know
that.’

‘I thought you might like to dress up in it.’

‘Nice. What’s the matter with the glove?’

‘Something hit it.’

‘Let’s play tea party. I’ll be the sister. You be the visitor.’

Holly distributed her new cooking things around the coffee table. She set out Sverre’s gin bottle, filling it with several tree ornaments that vaguely resembled flowers. The raven was invited, and the doll, and the visitor, and also the scopas suit, which Holly decided was a scarecrow. Everyone had invisible cake and gossamer ice cream. During the course of the afternoon, the scarecrow’s name went from Suzy to Margaret to Alfred.

Later she played alone, giving Birdie, Jennifer, and Alfred their bottles, putting them in for their naps. Outside the submarine, the black of day gave way to the black of night.

Father and daughter went to the galley and had Christmas dinner. The stale pretzels were scrumptious. They sneaked extra sugar into their cocoa.

When they were back in the cabin, George said, ‘Holly, would you like a horsey ride?’

‘No.’

He was grievously disappointed.

Ten seconds later she said, ‘Give me a horsey ride.’

For George it was to be a test. All previous horsey rides had ended with him insisting that he was too tired to continue. In truth he had been too bored. Each time, he had received the impression that there was no point at which Holly herself would end the ride, that she would more likely fall asleep in the saddle.

She climbed atop his big equine shoulders, and he galloped down the corridor. The pressure on his spine was extraordinarily pleasant. Waving her stovepipe hat, she urged him on. ‘Turn . . . down here, Horsey . . . go through the door . . . that’s the way, Horsey.’

Fifteen minutes passed. Horsey became bored. He thought: how can this be? Yet there it was, boredom. I shall keep going, he told himself. Nothing will stop this horsey ride, nothing.

‘This
reminds
me of something,’ Holly said.

‘What?’ Horsey asked.

‘That ride you put the money in. Back home. Oh, I wish we were home again, Daddy. I miss my kitty.’

‘Horsey is tired now,’ he said. The lump in Horsey’s throat felt like a stuck walnut. ‘Horsey wants to go sleep in the stable.’

‘Can we play that
game
? The one with the world in it?’

‘Sure, honey.’

Back in the cabin, they made a half-hearted attempt at playing the stupid game. Holly became frustrated and ornery. ‘How about another round of
Bicycle Bunny?
’ he suggested.

They read it in the bunk, huddled beneath blankets. After it was over, she said, ‘This book
reminds
me of something. Long ago, when I was very little, like three or something, you used to read me a book about the beach.’

‘
Carrie of Cape Cod
. We read it lots of times last fall.’

‘Remember the part about the Big Spoon?’

‘The Big Dipper. Yes.’

‘Could we go see the Big Dipper? I mean,
now
could we see it?’

‘All right,’ he said, dragging her scopas suit away from the tea party, ‘But you’ll have to wear this. It’s cold out there.’

‘No, no,
that’s
Alfred Scarecrow!’ she shrieked.

‘Here’s the deal, honey. If you don’t put this on, we can’t go see the Big Dipper. I’m going to wear one too.’

‘Birdie wants to come.’

‘Sure.’

He girded his daughter against the elements. The suit fit perfectly. She looked adorable in it, her round, glowing face popping from the gold collar. To compensate for the bullet-shattered glove, he wrapped her hand in silk strips torn from the bedsheets.

He scooped her up, carried her and Birdie through half a mile of corridor, pausing briefly to remove an electric lantern from a bulkhead and hook it around his wrist. Twenty risers spiraled from the navigation room to the first sail deck. At the door he stopped and said, ‘Honey, there’s something I want to ask.’

‘What?’

‘Do you know what’s happened to you?’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘What’s happened to you?’

‘I don’t want to tell you.’

‘Please tell me.’

‘You
know
what’s happened.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I died.’

A thick stratum of snow covered the outside deck, sealing the missile doors. Ice flowed from the diving planes in silver sheets and drooped from the periscopes like the web of some monstrous Antarctic spider. Ragged bergs squeezed the hull from all sides, locking it tight against the barrier.

‘Oh, great!’ Holly said. ‘It’s been snowing! Look, Daddy, it’s been snowing!’

He did not want to tell her that it did not snow in Antarctica, that the crystals were simply redistributed by the winds.

She looked up. The stars were sharp and bright. ‘Is it there? Can we see the Big Dipper?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘I think I see it.’

‘Honey, I just realized something. We’re in the Southern Hemisphere—’

‘Is that it?’ she asked, thrusting her stubby, insulated fingers heavenward.

He studied the sky. Amorphous clusters. Meaningless forms. ‘Yes, honey, I think that’s it.’

‘You’re just
saying
that! We
can’t see
the Big Dipper!’

‘I’m sorry, honey. I’m really sorry. We’re too far south, and—’

‘It’s okay, Daddy. Put me down.’ He lowered his arms, and she slid into the crusty snow. Groans filled the air as ice and hull ground against each other. ‘I love you, Daddy.’

‘I love you, too, Holly.’

‘Mommy couldn’t come,’ she said softly.

‘Yes. That’s very sad.’

‘We couldn’t see the Big Dipper.’

‘Yes. That’s sad too.’

A wind blew up, churning the snow, tossing iceballs against the sail. ‘Thank you for all the presents,’ she said. ‘I
love
that doll. This has been a
great
Christmas.’

‘It’s been the best Christmas ever,’ he said.

‘I have to go now.’

‘No! You can’t go!’

‘I really like that cooking set, and I had fun playing visitor with you. And thank you for Birdie. And be sure to take care of Jennifer. She gets her bottle at six o’clock midnight.’

‘Please stay, Holly! Please! You’re not allowed to go yet!’ He ripped a gob of wolverine hair out of his parka hood. ‘I need to tell you a bedtime story. It’s about an elf who casts a golden shadow. Please! So one day the elf’s uncle asked him to—’

‘Good-bye, Daddy.’

They hugged, squeezing so hard it should have hurt.