Potboiler (29 page)

116.

He used public phones.

He dared not try more than once every few months. He didn’t know who was monitoring the line. He also worried that overdoing it would lead her to stop picking up calls from strange Mexican numbers. On balance he preferred the answering machine. His sole aim was to hear her voice, if only for a second, and it was less painful to get a recording than to listen to her asking
Hello? Hello?
without being able to respond.

117.

He liked to tell himself that he had chosen to settle in the seaside village because of its pleasant weather, or because reaching the Pacific implied some sort of finality. The truth was he had simply run out of money. At that point he had been on the road for more than a year, and he was tired: tired of the smell of diesel, of falling asleep sitting up, of waking up and having to ask his seatmate where he was. He was tired of dispensing vigilante justice. It had been fun for a while—he had been blessed more than a hooker having an allergy attack inside a confessional—but on the whole, the country was so saturated with corruption that he wasn’t doing much except gratifying his own ego.

The focal point of every Mexican village was an overlarge church, and his was no exception. Among other tasks, Pfefferkorn swept up, shined the pews, did the shopping, and helped prepare meals. He had become reasonably handy. If a lightbulb got stuck and broke off, he could get it out with a raw potato. If a chair went wobbly, he could screw the leg back on.

His chief duty was maintaining the belfry. He shooed away the birds and bats. He scaled off the guano. He oiled the hinges. He re-rigged the ropes. It was hard work, but later he would be reading or walking and he would hear the hour peal. What busy people heard as a single sustained note was to the patient listener a densely woven cloak of tones and overtones. Knowing that he had contributed in some small way to its beauty gave him a sense of accomplishment, one that lingered long after the ringing had died.

For his efforts he received a few pesos, two meals a day, and the right to sleep out back in a converted coal shed. It measured six by nine, with a packed dirt floor and a screened window that kept out most of the larger insects. He fell asleep to the sough of the ocean and woke to the mad babble of chickens running free in the yard. The gulls and pelicans that perched along the rear fence made an odd, bobbing skyline. Summers he slept nude. In winter the padre loaned him extra blankets, and Fray Manuel spread a tarp across the tin roof. Just in case, as soon as the clouds started to darken, they disconnected the extension cord. For this reason Pfefferkorn kept a flashlight on hand. His spare shirt hung on a nail. Obeying the rebukes of his ancestors, he had surreptitiously taken down the crucifix. There was enough space for a cot and—on the floor, along the wall—his growing library.

On the first of the month, he wired money to an independent bookseller in San Diego. A few weeks later, he received in return a parcel addressed to “Arturo Pimienta.” The postage alone ate up most of his spending money. He didn’t mind. What else did he need it for? Four paperbacks per order made for a nice, unhurried pace. One would be a classic novel he’d always meant to read but had never gotten around to. The second book was the seller’s choice. She leaned toward contemporary fiction that had received favorable reviews in certain publications of repute. The third and fourth books varied. Biographies, history, and popular science were his favorites. This month, with Christmas coming, he had chosen a thriller for Fray Manuel, who liked to work on his English, and Graham Greene’s
The Power and the Glory,
which he planned to reread before giving it to the padre.

He put the food away in the rectory kitchen and retired to his shed. He hung up his hat, kicked off his shoes, and sat on the cot with the package in his lap, combing his fingers through his beard. He wasn’t ready to part with the delicious feeling of anticipation. He spanned the package with his hand. It was bulkier than usual, owing to the presence of a fifth book, a hardcover.

He had a ritual. He began with the cover. If there was an image, he analyzed it as one might a work of art: framing, perspective, dynamics. If the design was abstract, he contemplated the effect of its color scheme on his mood. Did it match the contents? He would have to wait and see. Next he read the flap copy, sleuthing out hidden meanings. He read the blurbs aloud, warmly dismissing their extravagant comparisons. He flipped to the front matter, starting with the Library of Congress information. He admired its tidy divisions. He read the author biography, stitching together names, institutions, cities, and accolades. The omissions spoke loudest. If a writer had graduated from a prestigious university, and this, ten years on, was her first novel, Pfefferkorn inferred that the intervening decade had been full of rejection. Other writers claimed advanced degrees, as if to explain why it had taken them so long. Still others made a fetish of their struggles, boasting of time spent driving taxis, delivering pizzas, working as short-order cooks or process servers. All wanted it to seem as though writing had been their destiny. Pfefferkorn understood the impulse and pardoned it.

He studied the photo, picturing the author buttering toast or waiting at the doctor’s office. He imagined what he or she would be like as a brother, a sister, a lover, a teacher, a friend. He imagined the author calling his agent and pitching a half-formed story that made no sense outside of his mind. He imagined the frustration the author felt when he understood, yet again, that his mind was not synonymous with anyone else’s, and that to tell his story he would have to sit down and write and rewrite and work and rework. And the frustration that came with knowing that the story would never come out quite the way he had envisioned it. Writing was impossible. It was easy to think of books as products, made in a factory, churned out by some gigantic machine. Pfefferkorn knew better. Books came from people. People were imperfect. It was their imperfections that made their books worth reading. And in committing those imperfections to paper, they became omnipotent. A book was a soft machine that made a god of its builder. It was impossible and yet it happened every single day.

Writing is impossible, Pfefferkorn thought, reading more impossible still. To read truly—to read bravely—to read with compassion and without fear—did anyone? Could anyone? There were too many ways to understand, too much emptiness between word and mind, an infinite chasm of misplaced sympathies.

118.

The hardcover had red library binding stamped with gold lettering. Breaking with tradition, he turned straight to the last page.

He wanted to feel disappointed, but disappointment entails the possibility of surprise, and he had formed in advance a fairly clear notion of what to expect. In the final, unattributed canto of the revised West Zlabian People’s Press edition of
Vassily Nabochka
, the king died before the antidote got to him, and a grief-stricken Prince Vassily repudiated the throne, deeding the royal lands over to the people and going to live as a commoner, tilling the fields and herding goats, finding redemption in manual labor before dying peacefully beneath a runty tree in the meadows of West Zlabia. It was the worst kind of agitprop: heavy-handed, impatient, and artless. The turns were improbable, the imagery fuzzy, and the characters reductive.

Pfefferkorn laughed until he cried.

119.

Three days before Christmas he made a pilgrimage. The bus dropped him at a dusty intersection in a village thirty miles south. He visited the market and the plaza. He admired the murals. He noted with pride that the church bell was not as fine as the one he tended.

He checked to make sure he was not being watched.

He entered a bodega and found the pay phone at the back.

He put in his phone card.

He dialed.

It rang once.

It rang twice.

They had it set to answer after the fourth ring.

It rang a third time.

“Hello?”

Pfefferkorn’s heart pitched. It felt as though he were breathing through a drinking straw.

“Hello,” his daughter said again. She sounded harassed. He wondered if she had had a bad day. He wanted to console her. It’ll be all right, he wanted to say. Let me help you. But he could not say that. And he could not help her. He silently implored her to stay on the line. Don’t give up, he thought. Say
Hello
again. Or don’t. But don’t hang up. Say something else. Say
I can’t hear you
. Say
Can you call back.
Say anything at all. Get angry. Yell. Only: speak.

A child cried.

She hung up.

Pfefferkorn did not move for some time. The receiver was heavy in his hand. He replaced it softly. The phone ejected his card. He slid it into his pocket. He went to wait for the bus.

120.

The next morning, Fray Manuel greeted him when he came back from the market.

“You have a visitor. I asked him to wait in the vestry.”

Pfefferkorn handed over the bags and went down the hall. He knocked and entered.

They stood face-to-face.

“Hello, Yankel.”

“Hello, Bill.”

“You don’t seem that surprised to see me.”

“It takes a lot to surprise me these days.”

“I like the beard,” Bill said. “It makes you look distinguished.”

Pfefferkorn smiled. “How are you?”

“Not bad, for a dead guy.” Bill glanced around. “Some place you got here.”

“You want the tour?”

“Why the heck not.”

They went out back to the shed.

“It suits my needs,” Pfefferkorn said. “Although—a doorman. That I miss.”

“You have the priest.”

“That’s true.”

Bill’s gaze settled on the hardcover on the cot. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Be my guest.”

Bill opened
Vassily Nabochka
and paged to the end. He read. He closed the book and looked up.

“Well, that’s shit,” he said.

Pfefferkorn agreed.

“What about you? Working on anything?”

“Oh no. I’m done with that for good.”

“Sorry to hear it.”

“Don’t be,” Pfefferkorn said. “I’m not.”

“Not even a little?”

“I’ve said everything I needed to say.”

“You sound very sure of yourself.”

“When you know, you know.”

“And so that’s that.”

Pfefferkorn nodded.

“Kudos,” Bill said. “It’s a rare writer who knows when it’s time to shut up.”

Pfefferkorn smiled.

“Carlotta sends her love,” Bill said.

“Same to her.”

“She wanted me to tell you that she appreciated the letter.”

Pfefferkorn said nothing.

“She wouldn’t tell me what was in it. But clearly it meant a lot to her.”

There was a silence.

“I’m sorry about that,” Pfefferkorn said.

“It’s all right.”

“I thought you were dead. I’m sorry.”

“Water under the bridge,” Bill said. He tossed the book back on the bed. “You want to get out of here?”

“Sure.”

They headed down to the beach. It was a cool day. The light was flat and even, sharpening the gray gulls turning circles against a scrim of gray clouds. Flaking pangas lay like casualties in the sand. The wind came whipping off the water, driving back Bill’s hair and causing Pfefferkorn to snuff brine through his sinuses. They had walked perhaps half a mile when the hour began to toll, nine rich peals.

“You’re back together, then,” Pfefferkorn said. “You and Carlotta.”

“Well, yes and no. More no than yes. I’m sort of in limbo, myself.”

“What happened to you?” Pfefferkorn asked.

Bill shrugged. “I said the wrong things to the wrong people. Someone decided I was no longer reliable. Next thing I know, I’m treading water in the middle of the Pacific. Five and a half hours. I got very, very lucky someone happened by. Terrible sunburn. Hurt for weeks.”

“What did you do to piss them off?”

“I wanted to write a book,” Bill said. “A real one.”

“Carlotta mentioned something about that to me.”

“She did, did she.”

“She said you were working on a literary novel.”

“‘Working’ is a bit of an exaggeration.” Bill tapped his forehead. “Still all up here.”

“What’s it about?”

“Oh, you know. Trust. Friendship. Love. Art. The difficulty of meaningful and lasting connection. I don’t have much in the way of plot, yet.”

“It’ll come to you.”

“Maybe,” Bill said. He smiled. “Maybe not. That’s part of the adventure.”

For the first time, Pfefferkorn noticed that Bill had gotten rid of his beard. He had not seen him clean-shaven since college.

“You look good, too,” Pfefferkorn said.

“Thanks, Yankel.”

The surf surged underfoot.

“So how come you’re not in hiding, like me.”

“I was, for a long time. They found me. They always do.”

“And?”

“I guess they felt bad about the way things ended, because they invited me to come back on board. They even threw me a bone and said I could write whatever I wanted. Clean slate.”

“Good deal.”

“There’s a catch.”

“I would assume so.”

“They want me to prove my loyalty,” Bill said.

Pfefferkorn snorted. “Figures,” he said. “How.”

The gulls banked sharply and dove, screaming, toward unseen prey.

“You have to leave town,” Bill said.

Pfefferkorn smiled at him strangely. “What?”

“Listen carefully. You have to go. Today.”

“Why would I do that?”

“And you have to stop calling her.”

Pfefferkorn slowed and turned and faced him.

“That’s how they found you,” Bill said. He came in close, taking Pfefferkorn’s sleeve in his hand, speaking quickly and quietly. “They mapped all the places you’ve called from and triangulated.”

Pfefferkorn regarded him as one regards a madman.

“No calls,” Bill said. “No books. You get on a bus and you go somewhere. Don’t make friends. You stay out of sight as long as you can and then you get on another bus and repeat the whole process over again.” He pulled tighter on Pfefferkorn’s bunched sleeve. “Are you hearing me? Not tomorrow. Today. Do you understand? Say something so I know you understand.”

“They asked you to do it,” Pfefferkorn said.

“I checked the bus schedule. You can be gone by sunset. How much cash do you have?”

“They really did. They asked you.”

“Answer me. Cash. How much.”

Pfefferkorn shook his head admiringly. “Unbelievable.”

“Stop talking and listen.”

“The chutzpah . . . Unreal.”

“You need to listen. You need to concentrate.”

“Let me see,” Pfefferkorn said. “They said something about a ‘loose end.’”

“You’re not listening.”

“‘We’ve got a loose end we need you to tie up.’ Is that right?”

“Christ, Art, who cares? That’s hardly the point.”

“So? What did you tell them?”

“What do you think I told them? I told them I’d do it and then I came straight here to warn you. Now can we be practical for a minute here?”

Pfefferkorn pulled away from him. He put his hands on his hips and looked out at the ocean.

“I don’t want to leave,” he said. “I like it here.”

“That’s not an option.”

“Anyway, I hate the bus.”

“For God’s sake. Be reasonable.”

“Let’s not talk about it right now,” Pfefferkorn said. “Please?”

“This isn’t the time to—”

“I know,” Pfefferkorn said, “but I don’t want to talk about it. All right?”

Bill stared at him.

“Let’s talk about something else,” Pfefferkorn said.

Bill said nothing.

“Let’s talk about the old days.” Pfefferkorn smiled. “We had some fun, huh?”

Bill said nothing.

“Play along, would you,” Pfefferkorn said.

Bill continued to stare at him.

“Remember that time I was driving your car and got pulled over?” Pfefferkorn asked.

Bill’s face softened, just perceptibly.

“You remember,” Pfefferkorn said.

“We can’t talk about this now.”

“I want you to tell me if you remember.”

The wind relented, allowing a stillness to rush in. The cries of the gulls were no longer audible.

“If I play along will you listen to me?” Bill asked.

“Just answer the question,” Pfefferkorn said.

There was a long silence.

“I remember,” Bill said.

“Good,” Pfefferkorn said. “That’s very good. And? Then? You remember what happened next?”

“How could I forget? My glove box smelled like a urinal for six months.”

“And the thing we did, with the oars in the trees? What were we thinking?”

“I have no idea.”

“I don’t think we
were
thinking.”

“You were always thinking,” Bill said. “You probably meant something symbolic by it.”

“I was stoned,” Pfefferkorn said.

Bill smiled his most generous smile, the one Pfefferkorn loved and depended on, and despite the distress it concealed, it still made Pfefferkorn feel like the most important person on earth. He never wanted it to end, and to prolong its life he asked another question. “What else do you remember?”

“Art—”

“Tell me.”

“I remember everything.”

“Do you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then tell me,” Pfefferkorn said. “Tell me everything.”

They walked on for some time. The surf crashed and roared. The church bell tolled, ten peals. They went on. The sand was firm and cold. It shined like a ballroom floor. The church bell tolled eleven. They worked their way back through the years, excavating the past and rebuilding the destroyed landscape of their memories. They walked on and on and then the beach ended where a bluff pushed out into the ocean. Waves boiled through the rocks and smashed against the base of the bluff, flinging curved lines of froth like lariats. They stopped walking and leaned against the water-beaten rock.

“Berlin,” Pfefferkorn said. “One night you went out around two in the morning.”

“If you say so.”

“Come off it,” Pfefferkorn said.

“All right, I remember.”

“What were you doing?”

“What do you think I was doing? I was meeting a girl.”

“What girl.”

“I met her on the night train from Paris.”

“I don’t remember any girl.”

“You were asleep. I ran into her coming out of the bathroom. We got to talking and she told me she’d meet me the next night at a park near her aunt’s house.”

“You didn’t tell me where you were going,” Pfefferkorn said. “You just snuck off.”

“Come on, Art. What was I supposed to say.”

“You thought I would tell Carlotta.”

“It did cross my mind.”

“I can’t believe you thought I would rat you out,” Pfefferkorn said.

“I didn’t say that. I said it crossed my mind.”

“I may be jealous but I’m not a bastard.”

“I knew how you felt about her.”

“So?”

“I assumed you would want to protect her.”

“Yeah, and how did you think I felt about you,” Pfefferkorn said.

There was a silence.

“You loved me,” Bill said.

“You’re goddamned right I did,” Pfefferkorn said.

There was a silence.

“I’m sorry,” Bill said. “I should’ve said something.”

“Yes, you should have.”

“I’m sorry. I truly am.”

“It’s all right,” Pfefferkorn said. “Did you ever end up telling Carlotta?”

Bill nodded.

“Was she mad?”

“A little. But, look. We never had that kind of relationship, she and I.”

Pfefferkorn did not ask what kind of relationship he meant.

“Out of curiosity, what did you think I was doing in Berlin?” Bill asked.

“I don’t know,” Pfefferkorn said. “Something top-secret.”

Bill laughed. “Hate to disappoint.”

They stayed there a while longer. The tide began to rise.

“There’s a baby,” Pfefferkorn said. “I heard it on the phone.”

Bill nodded once.

“Boy or girl?” Pfefferkorn asked.

“A boy,” Bill said. “Charles.”

“Charles,” Pfefferkorn repeated.

“They call him Charlie.”

“I like it,” Pfefferkorn said.

Bill hesitated, then took a wallet-sized photo from his breast pocket.

Pfefferkorn looked at his grandson. He didn’t see much of himself. After all, his daughter looked like his ex-wife, not like him. The baby had black hair poking out from under a white ski cap. His eyes were blue, but that meant nothing. Pfefferkorn’s daughter had had blue eyes, too, before they darkened to an inviting chocolate brown. Things changed.

“He’s perfect,” Pfefferkorn said.

Bill nodded.

“Does he have a middle name?”

Bill hesitated again. “Arthur.”

There was a silence.

“Can I keep this?” Pfefferkorn asked.

“I brought it for you.”

“Thanks.”

Bill nodded.

“So you’ve seen her, then,” Pfefferkorn said.

“I hear things,” Bill said.

“And? How is she?”

“From what I can tell, she’s getting along. She misses you, of course. But she’s living her life.”

“That’s what I want. Although, I have to say, I don’t feel too terrific about leaving her in his hands.”

“Can you think of anyone you
would
feel happy leaving her with?”

“Not really.”

“Well, there you go.”

Pfefferkorn nodded. He held up the photo. “Thanks again for this,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

Pfefferkorn tucked the photo in his pocket. “You’re a good writer,” he said. “Always have been.”

“You don’t have to lie to me.”

“I’m not lying. You have talent.”

“Nice of you to say that.”

“Take a compliment.”

“All right.”

Silence.

“This deal they offered you,” Pfefferkorn said. “There’s something I don’t get about it. You’re supposed to be dead.”

Bill nodded.

“Now all of a sudden you’ve got a new book out?”

“They’re going to put it out under my real name.”

Pfefferkorn laughed. “At long last.”

“If it sells more than a dozen copies I’ll be surprised.”

“That’s not why you’re writing it.”

“No.”

“Still, from their end, why bother?” Pfefferkorn said. “What do they get out of it?”

“I suppose it’s their way of rewarding me for thirty years of service.”

“Come on. Even I know they don’t think like that.”

“I don’t have any other explanation.”

Pfefferkorn mused. “Better than a gold watch, I guess.”

“A lot better than being thrown off a boat.”

“That depends,” Pfefferkorn said. “Who’s your publisher?”

Bill smiled.

“Let’s say you did do it,” Pfefferkorn said.

“Do what.”

“Uphold your end of the bargain.”

“Knock it off.”

“Theoretically. Let’s say you did. How would they know?”

“They’d know.”

Pfefferkorn looked at him.

“They’re watching,” Bill said.

“Right now?”