Sea Lovers (4 page)

In the morning Lily and her mother found her father asleep at the kitchen table, his arms spread out before him, his cheek pressed against the wood, his mouth slack from weariness. He had prepared himself a cup of coffee, which sat on the table near his left hand, but he had not drunk half of it.

Lily's mother woke him impatiently. He lifted his head, rubbed his eyes, and looked sleepily at his wife, then at his daughter. He put out his hand to Lily and drew her toward him. “Are you OK now, baby?” he said. “Are you sure it wasn't a dream?” Then, as she was about to protest, his face changed. He looked across her shoulder and Lily knew, without turning, what he saw. Her mother followed his gaze and her expression changed from aggravation to horror. Lily turned and saw him. He had come out silently and stood, calm, though, as always, poised for flight. He moved his ugly head back and forth, watching, sniffing, and Lily could hear again the horrible sound of his breathing. He confronted them and they couldn't look away, for his boldness was as wonderful as his size. Lily's mother reached back suddenly, took the half-full coffee cup, and threw it with all her strength at the animal. He was gone before the cup hit the ground.

For two days and nights the rat was under siege. The animal sensed the change in his situation and responded with the obsessive wiles of the hunted. Traps and poison failed to entice him, though he made frequent appearances in the vicinity of both. The family spent the weekend in an ecstasy of determination, baiting all possible hiding places with poison. Lily's parents moved the stove and refrigerator out from the wall. Lily helped to seal off any holes they discovered, along the baseboards, in the window casings, holes Lily thought much too small to be of use to the large creature that had glared at them so balefully. Her father assured her that it was in the power of rats to make themselves fit into small places, that they were like yogis who know the secret of folding themselves down into suitcases. Lily plugged the holes with spoons of wet plaster. Now that her father believed in the creature's existence, he seemed unable to give it enough credence, and she had been elevated from the position of hysterical visionary to that of reliable reporter on the natural scene.

On Monday morning her father called his office to say he wasn't coming in. The sky was black with clouds, and flood predictions were ubiquitous; he used this as his excuse. Lily's mother called the school and said that she was ill and needed Lily at home. This easy lie shocked Lily, though she was glad of it. Then the three sat at the kitchen table and discussed their plans. They had sealed the rat in the kitchen; they were sure of this. And when next he appeared, he wouldn't find it easy to escape. The pots and pans sat out on the floor in little groups; all the food was in boxes in the dining room. The cabinets stood open and empty. If he showed his face again there would be no place left to conceal it.

But though they sat at the table scanning the room for the better part of the morning, he took them by surprise. He appeared inside the cabinet beneath the sink, and none could say where he came from. Lily's father, who had armed himself with a hammer and a small ax, leaped to his feet and raced to the animal. By the time he had crossed the room the rat was gone. He fell on his knees and inspected every inch of the cabinet with his hands. “How the hell does he do it?” he said, and then, “Oh, this is it.” Lily and her mother joined him and they all looked with wonder at the hole, which was really a broken flap in the plasterboard at the back of the cabinet. Behind it was another hole, smaller, ragged, and deep. It opened into darkness, and the outside edge of it was lined with half an inch of wood.

“Do you know what it is?” Lily's father asked.

“Why is it so dark?” she said, for it seemed to Lily that such a hole should open into daylight.

“Because it's inside a drawer,” her father replied. He seemed immensely pleased with this pronouncement, like a detective who has discovered the long-sought final clue.

“The old dresser?” her mother said.

Her father stood up, gripping his gleaming ax, and started out the back door for the porch. Then Lily understood. On the porch there was a dresser in which, as a baby, she had kept her toys. It backed up against the house, against, she realized, this very cabinet. The rat had disappeared into the dark hole, but the dark hole was the inside of that dresser. Lily and her mother exchanged looks of mild surprise; then they too rushed out onto the porch. Her father stood poised before the dresser. “He's in there,” he said. “I can hear him.”

“Which drawer?” her mother asked.

“The middle, I think.”

“What are you going to do?” Lily cried. She was suddenly desperately frightened.

“I'm going to open the drawer just a little and try to catch him in it.” As he said this he squatted down, laying his ax near his feet, and pulled the middle drawer open an inch. Lily could hear the scratching of the animal's claws against the wood. Another inch, she thought, and they would see his dreadful face. Her father pulled the drawer out carefully, leaning back a little so that his face wouldn't be near the opening. Now he could see into the drawer. Then, abruptly, he pulled the drawer all the way out and threw it down on the porch. Lily saw her old metal tea set scattered across the bottom, and a plastic strainer she had once used for sand flew out of the drawer and rolled in a dizzy circle toward the screen. Except for that, the drawer was empty, and the space in the dresser where the drawer had been was empty as well.

“Did he go back in the kitchen?” her mother asked. The hole that had allowed the creature's easy entrance into their lives was now visible, and they stood looking into it as their greatest oversight. They heard a scratching, then a thudding sound that came distinctly from the top drawer. The rat was trapped at last and he was frantic. Lily's father turned toward them. “Get back,” he warned. Then he pulled the drawer out slowly, carefully, an inch, then another. Inside the drawer the rat was still, crouched, silent, as light flooded his last dark refuge.

Lily grasped her mother's hand and found it cold but willing to hold her own. Her father leaned over the dresser, placing one hand against the front of the drawer while with the other he began to pound on the top. Still there was no sound, no movement from inside the drawer.

“Is he in there?” Lily's mother asked. Her father turned his head to answer his wife, and in that moment the rat made his move. He hit the front of the drawer with such force that her father's hand fell away, leaving the crack open and unprotected. In the next instant the creature flew up before them, straight up; his legs battled the air like wings, his teeth were bared. He leaped straight at Lily's father, who staggered backward and put out his hands to stop this attack. But the rat caught him at the base of his throat, sinking his sharp teeth into the flesh and clinging to the shirt cloth with his sharp claws.

Her father made a gasping sound and whirled around, clutching the animal at his throat. Lily saw his face—his eyes opened wide in shock, his teeth bared too now, in such fury as she had never imagined possible. The rat clung to him as he fell to his knees, dropping one hand for the ax while the other closed over the animal's face. His fingers went inside the rat's mouth, prying the teeth from his flesh, and when he had pulled them free he raised the gray body over his head and dashed it to the floor. Then the rat screamed. It was the only sound he had made in the struggle, and his voice was high, clear, terror-stricken. Lily saw the oily edge of the ax blade as it came down through the air. She remembered how her father had sharpened and oiled it that morning in preparation for this blow.

The edge came down and Lily turned to her mother, who was too stunned by what she saw to look away. There was the soft sound of flesh giving way, of small bones cracking, and it was quiet. When Lily looked back, the rat was in two pieces, his head and forequarters on one side of the ax, his back legs and long tail severed completely and thrown a foot away by the force of the blade. Lily's father stood looking down at the sight, clutching his throat with one hand. He knew he had won the contest, but his rage, Lily saw, was not yet under control. Her mother rushed to him, throwing her arms about him with a passion she had never shown him before, and he held her against him tightly. Lily looked away, allowing her eyes their fill of the curiously rewarding sight of the rat's bisected body. His blood oozed out upon the boards from his wounds and from his open mouth, which was already stiffening with death. The wonder of his death afflicted her. A moment before he had threatened everything; now his harmless body lay before her, bereft of horror, only dull, large, gray, mysteriously still. She turned away from them all and went back into the kitchen. Her hands were sticky from fear and she washed them at the sink.

That night Lily slept fitfully. When she woke she could think of nothing but the rat, of how she had lain and listened to him as he came closer and closer. She sat up and looked about the room. Didn't she hear the scratching of his claws against the floor; wasn't that hushing sound his rapid breathing? She lay back and turned to face the wall.

Her mother had kissed her when she went to bed, and her father had held her for a moment with warm confidence. She had touched the bandage on his neck tentatively. The doctor had suggested that the wound would become more painful before it began to heal. A rat bite, he told the family, was no joke, but there was no reason to expect complications. Her father had astounded the doctor with the story, keeping, as he talked, one hand resting protectively on his daughter's shoulder. He had, he was convinced, done what was necessary to set her fears at rest.

But now she was as full of fear as ever, and she knew she wouldn't sleep. She got up and turned on the light in her bedroom; then she looked under the bed and in the closet. But not seeing anything didn't give her the rest she sought. At length she decided to go out, to take the plastic bag out of the garbage can and look again on the remains of her enemy. She slipped on her robe, turned off her light, and went stealthily down the hall, passing her parents' bedroom door without a pause.

She opened the kitchen door, unlatched and opened the screen, and stepped out on the porch. The rain had stopped, and through the swiftly moving clouds the moon cast its desultory beams. Lily accustomed her eyes to the light and to the unexpected beauty of the scene before her. She focused her eyes on the moonflowers, like pools of milk among the dark leaves that covered the fence. The roses nearby raised their thorny branches, holding out papery leaves and flowers, gray and black, toward the sky. Her mother's vegetable garden fairly hummed with life, and, as she stood there, Lily thought of her mother and of how they had worked together one day, preparing the soil for the seeds.

Her mother had turned the soil with a shovel, and Lily, crouched barefoot in the dirt, came behind her with a garden spade, breaking the big clods down with childish energy. She stopped, then stood up and stepped forward into the rough dirt her mother had just turned. As her foot came down she noticed that the soil was warm; it invited her to press her toes into it. Lily looked at her feet and smiled, overcome with a delicious sensation. “What's funny?” her mother asked, and when Lily looked up she saw that her mother was smiling on her in the same way she smiled sometimes on her roses, with undisguised admiration.

“It's warm,” Lily said. “Underneath. You should take off your shoes.”

Her mother's smile deepened and she indicated her shod foot, which rested on the wing of the shovel, with a look that explained her dilemma: She couldn't dig barefoot. Then she bent down and pressed her hand into the dirt near Lily's feet. She dug her fingers down and came up with a handful of the dark soil. She studied it intently for a moment, sifting it through her fingers. She had lectured Lily that morning on this chore and made it clear that the preparation of the soil was the most important work they would do that day. Everything, by which Lily understood her to mean the future of the garden, depended on its being done right. Now it was Lily's turn to smile, for she saw that her mother couldn't take her mind off the importance she attached to doing this work correctly. It was true, her fingers told her, the soil was warm, but her fingers asked a more penetrating question: Would it yield?

Examining this memory as she stood on the porch in the warm night air, Lily paused and shook her head affectionately at the thought of her mother's passionate gardening. The fruit of that passion stood before her: tomatoes and eggplants heavy on their vines; lettuce like great balls of pearl, luminous in the darkness; the airy greens of the carrots, rustling continuously with the movement of the air; the black tangle of the green peas, climbing skyward on their tall tubes of screen. The scent of the mint and parsley bed rose to Lily, and the sweetness of the air drew her out toward the steps. She looked down at the drawers of the old dresser, which lay scattered on the porch. Her mother had washed them furiously, as if to wash away the evidence of a desecration.

Then Lily thought of the rat, and she looked toward the garbage can with a sensation of dismay. It would be, she thought, foolish and unnecessary trouble to pull out his corpse now. She could consult her memory for a fresh, distinct, and detailed picture of his death; she could see, in her mind's eye, the blood darkening around his mouth, the dullness of his dead eyeballs. She wasn't certain that he wouldn't seek her out again, but she thought he would never again seek her in that particular form. His menace had quite gone out of that form; she had seen it with her own eyes. Her father had discarded the pieces of the rat's body without anger; he had even commented on the creature's remarkable size, taking, Lily had observed, some comfort in having defeated so formidable an enemy. Now that he was a danger to no one, the rat possessed the power to be marvelous.