Lights Out in the Reptile House (17 page)

“Whip snake,” Kehr said. “A striped whip snake.”

“That's right,” Karel said. “How'd you know that?”

Kehr snorted. “Zoology is a school for precise feeling,” he said. “‘The eye of the naturalist is as penetrating and as scrupulous as the eye of the sniper.'”

Karel made a puzzled face for his own benefit in the darkness. He asked what that meant.

“That means there's a lot to be gained by doing what you do, by learning what you know,” Kehr said.

“There is?” Karel said.

“There is,” Kehr said. He was unwrapping old joint-sealing tape from an S-shaped piece he wanted to extract. “I'm always interested in people who take the time and effort to study what's around them. They're practicing seeing with clarity and precision.”

“I guess that's true,” Karel said.

It was true, Kehr said. It was both a gift and a discipline. There was a thump and a light clatter, and then a tiny lapping sound: the ringtail had turned over the dish of water and was drinking off the floor. It was what his country required of him, Kehr said. And it was what his country needed: more people who could do that.

“How'd you know I knew about stuff like that?” Karel asked.

“Abilities like that are hard to hide,” Kehr said, and Karel felt flattered. Then it occurred to him that there were nine thousand books and study sheets on reptiles up in his room.

“I grew up almost completely alone,” Kehr said.

“You did?” Karel said. As close as he was in the darkness he couldn't see Kehr's eyes.

“I did,” Kehr said. “Nature for me was something I could learn about and lose myself in, something that demonstrated order and reason: comparative study, classification, the relations of the total design.”

“I don't know,” Karel said uncomfortably. “I think I just think reptiles are great.”

“And so they are,” Kehr said. “Look. Look at the way her head scales are edged in white. Little crescents.” The whip snake raised its head farther, watching them with sidelong intent.

Karel saw. Kehr was not quizzing him and not judging him. “See the way she tries to distract you from the nest?” he said.

Kehr murmured he did. They were still close in the darkness under the cabinet, and Karel began to register the heat and stillness. His arm ached. He was still supporting the catch basin.

“Let's finish this and leave Mother alone,” Kehr said.

The threads on the pipe section that was the problem were now stripped and had to be refiled. Kehr had him let the catch basin down, and they climbed out from under the cabinet. He gave Karel a part of the filing job and showed him how to use the reamer and how to smooth and clear the diagonal grooves.

“Do you work with animals?” Karel said.

“Not technically,” Kehr said. “I work with people. But the training with one helps me with the other.”

“How?” Karel said.

“I'll tell you sometime,” he said. “What I do is a lot of questioning.” He hesitated before the word. He nodded toward the door. “If you and I walked into your shed, we could see certain things in some of the rabbits, couldn't we? Which ones were like this, which ones were like that.”

“I guess,” Karel said. “You mean like who's most scared and stuff.”

“That's what I mean,” Kehr said. “And when you pick one out for dinner, you don't do it randomly, do you?”

“No,” Karel said, realizing that fully for the first time. While Kehr worked he thought about that.

“So you had no interest in joining the Party,” Kehr said, as if summarizing an old story. He was absorbed in the pipe. “Did you ever consider joining the partisans?”

Karel was immediately alert. “No,” he said. “Nobody asked me. I don't know any partisans.”

Kehr arched his eyebrows. “I don't have much against the partisans,” he finally said. “They're simply activists, like me. They act. If I weren't doing what I am doing I'd probably be doing what they're doing. If their fathers hadn't been Republicans they'd probably all be in the Civil Guard right now.”

“Aren't they killing people and sabotaging things?” Karel asked cautiously.

“They're frustrated,” Kehr said. “It's natural. They want to act. They want more of a voice. They feel all the exchange with their government's one-way. It's like the son who wants to get his father's attention so he can explain himself. Do you see what I mean?”

“Umm-hmm,” Karel said. He put his section of pipe down and stood up. The ringtail was on the stove, its tail curled down the front like a potholder, and its mouth open in some sort of silent communication.

That night Kehr brought some tea up to Karel once Karel was already in bed, and they sat in the dark. Karel was under the covers with his back against the wall. Kehr sat at the desk. The photograph of Karel's mother was on the table between them, illuminated by the light from the window. Karel thanked him for the tea. Downstairs in the spare room Stasik and Schay were moving things around. Here he was in his bedroom with a stranger from the Civil Guard and a picture of his mother and there was something comforting to him about even this ghost of a family. Kehr told snake stories in a quiet voice as if they'd had plenty of talks like this before. Karel cupped his tea in his hands and listened to the occasional shooting in the distance sounding like the popping of grilled corn and was glad somebody was in his house. Kehr told a story about a constrictor that had swallowed a rolled-up rug because it had been used by a dog for a bed. He talked about the Party and the way it was like something out of nature, always growing, organic. Had Karel seen all the building going on around town? It was like that all over, and in all different ways—the whole idea was to keep doing, keep growing, so that the movement itself was always changing and becoming more radical, leaving even its own members psychologically one step behind it. Could Karel recognize that kind of excitement?

Karel said he could, after a pause in which he realized he was expected to reply. He wasn't listening well, he realized, flattered that Kehr was talking to him as an adult.

Was there anything Karel was devoted to? Anything that gave him a reason for being? What was Karel doing? What was he here for?

There were the reptiles, Karel thought. But what would that come to now? There was Leda. He imagined Kehr's response, and winced.

“I see these people's lives,” Kehr said, his voice coming out of the dark, “and I just don't understand it. Their lives just go on, like lights left on in rooms when everyone's gone.”

Karel slid down in the bed, imagining himself like that. He was saddened and angered by his own mediocrity. He focused on Leda. She was crouching on the talus slope with him, intent on his nooser. Kehr was still talking. The photograph of his mother was up there somewhere in the dark. He put his hands over his eyes and wished for another world. Kehr finished and got up and gave his leg a pat and then went downstairs. Karel heard him talking with the others in a low voice, and then they all went to bed.

School was now closed indefinitely. Leda asked to meet him somewhere other than either of their houses, so he chose the zoo. He didn't want to go back there, but the café reminded him of Kehr and the zoo was all he could subsequently think of. Another walk south of town was out because of all the activity around there, and he was worried that if he hesitated too long she'd suggest Nicholas's hospital. He showed up early and regretted his choice even more: he had to pay to enter. He walked around as just part of the crowd. It felt like the confirmation of his new outsider's status.

He trailed his hand on the railings fronting the enclosures and thought about the work going on behind them. The anoles and whiptails seemed miles away. It was early and the constrictors were still not out, and neither was the tortoise. He wondered if it was having problems again.

He ended up in front of Seelie and Herman. There was a shank of something dark brown and covered with flies near the glass. He guessed that she was still giving them trouble with her eating and they were letting the meat go to see if it would tempt her.

He watched her while he waited. She was drooped along a granite lounging area on the far left of the enclosure. It was the way she got when she was unhappy or irritable. Herman was lying on his side on the opposite end, his eye fixed on the wall. It was like an illustration of reptile divorce or estrangement. He imagined the two of them in their blank matter-of-fact way having given up on each other, having registered, the way Karel imagined people did, that it had come to this.

When Leda arrived they went to the restaurant. Karel showed his work card to the waiter and asked if he still got a discount and the waiter said no.

Leda said, “My mother's at home and we couldn't talk at your house because of that guy.”

“So,” Karel said. He folded and unfolded his arms at the table. He was unhappy and beginning to get a little worried. “What's up?”

“I want to get out of here,” Leda said.

Karel made his I-know-that face.

Soon, because of Nicholas, she said. She pursed and unpursed her lips in a small, affecting way.

“Your cousin again, in the Civil Guard?” Karel asked.

She nodded. Had that guy said anything about anything going on at the hospital?

“I think he's in another bureau,” Karel said. She looked at him skeptically.

“I want to have it all set up,” she said. She began drawing lines and then boxes on the table between them with her index finger. “Then I'll tell my mother. If she wants to go, fine.”

“It's going to be real hard to travel now,” Karel said. She looked off, and he knew he was losing her when he said things like this, fulfilling her worst image of him. He hadn't done much at all to find out about getting out, as she'd asked him to. Kehr he figured would know things like that, but he didn't know if he should bring it up around Kehr, however obliquely.

“Also David says he wants to join the Kestrels,” she said morosely.

He found himself trying to trace the outline of the invisible box she'd drawn. “Can't you say no?” he asked.

“My mother says it looks bad. And that they're not so horrible in the first place. It's getting so the only other kids who haven't joined are off with Nicholas.”

There was an older couple beside them who hadn't said anything in a while. Karel had the impression they were listening.

Here was the thing, Leda said. She wanted to know if he wanted to come, if he wanted to help. It was going to be hard, taking care of Nicholas and David and her mother.

And getting travel passes, Karel said.

And getting travel passes, she said. She looked at him and he felt nasty and cynical. Five was a lot, she said, and it would be easier if two different families tried to get them. Plus maybe his friend Albert from here could help. Leda said, “You told me they have to travel to get specimens and stuff.”

Karel said he didn't think Albert would help. He was feeling again that she just wanted something from him, and he was fighting that feeling. She ran her fingertips tenderly over her eyes and then pulled sideways at the skin on her temples, accentuating her eyes' slant. He had a momentary and clear sense of how much all of this was hurting her, how much the planning and worry were taking out of her. “But maybe this guy in my house can,” he added.

She looked at him cautiously. “Him then,” she said. She sounded as if she hadn't had much faith to start in this meeting and had just lost most of that. “But we have to do something soon. I'm taking Nicholas for a walk on Saturday and I'm not bringing him back. My cousin says there's going to be something over there again on Saturday night, Sunday at the latest. He says to get him out of there. When I don't bring him back they're going to send somebody, and when they do we can't be home.”

“So you're going to go by this Sunday?” Karol asked incredulously.

“Yes,” Leda said. “Yes.”

“What if I can't get any stuff by then?” he said, panicked. “Information?”

“Then I'm going anyway,” she said.

“But they'll pick you up,” he said. “How will you get anywhere?”

“
Do you understand what's going to happen to Nicholas
?” she said.

The metal table rang with the question. They shifted in their chairs, and noticed the quiet. The older couple listened in for a minute more, and then the man cleared his throat.

“I better go talk to this guy,” Karel said. “I better go now.”

“Why do you call him ‘this guy'?” Leda said. She was looking at him suspiciously. “What's his name again?”

“Kehr,” he said. “What's the matter?”

She continued to look. “Nothing,” she said finally. Then she said she didn't want to call and they should meet back here tomorrow.

“I need more time, I think,” he said.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” she said, getting up. “Just find out what you can. If you're not going I have to start figuring out what I'm going to do.”

She waved, once, from across the street. The waiter came and asked if he was ready to order. The older couple at the next table chuckled together. They were sharing a piece of honey cake. He got up while the waiter waited and pushed in his chair before he left the table, to make up in a small way for his not having bought anything.

He had two days. On top of that he had to meet with her tomorrow, too. No one was home when he returned. The spare room was locked. He sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands and looked at two spoons crossed and balanced over a coffee cup as if the configuration meant something and had been arranged for him to find. The ringtail tracked by in a jaunty trot.

It was what he wanted, to run away with her. But now he was confused and frightened, as if he'd been asked to do something terrible. He owed Kehr something. He owed his father something. He had the impression they were both out there somewhere waiting for him to make a disastrous mistake. But he remembered too Leda's face at the restaurant: she was equally convinced he'd fail in the opposite way.