The 14th Day (14 page)

“I'd like to see that church,” Ila says and a silence falls over them, transforming the landscape: nothing has changed physically yet she feels separated from it. She's sure the other two are feeling exactly the same thing: all three are wondering if they'll ever be back there.

After a moment Vaniok asks, “Was that town near Bostra?”

“I don't know,” Jory says. “It would have to be, I suppose.”

Vaniok is looking at him intently as if Jory has the answer to some question that's been bothering him for a long time. “Did you by any chance come into Bostra on the bridge over the river?” he asks.

Jory's eyes narrow. “You know, I'm not sure I went through Bostra at all. Why, is there something special about that bridge?”

“No,” Vaniok says after a while. “Nothing special.” He looks toward the ocean.

“But did you ever find your old teacher?” Ila asks.

Jory laughs. “Yes, I did. And I wished I hadn't: I'd forgotten how boring he was.”

After that the three of them pass the foods around, enjoying their Constitution Day picnic. They talk about earlier celebrations of the holiday in the homeland, they drink toasts. Vaniok joins in the storytelling, he contributes his own memories of past holidays; but he seems detached from his own stories. There's a relentless quality to his drinking and after a while he seems to be covered with a transparent coating, a sheen. His attention drifts away from the talk about the old country and he constantly calls attention to the gathering clouds. “There's going to be a storm,” he declares, “a big one.” He laughs to himself. “A real roof-rattler.” It's as though the storm is what they've come to the ocean to see.

The other two, glancing toward the darkening western sky, can't dispute his prophecies: it's only a matter of when the storm will reach them. The wind has become more blustery, sand dances in the air around them. “I'm going to the water,” Vaniok announces at last. “I didn't come all this way just to look at the ocean from a distance. Besides,” he adds with a grin, “I have to pee.”

Ila watches her cousin go off. “He's a complicated person,” Jory says. “Pursued by many ghosts.”

“So are we all.” She looks at the dune behind which Vaniok disappeared and she realizes she's thinking about the statue Jory described, the archangel Michael driving the spear through the heart of the writhing devil. “Are you religious?” she asks, suddenly curious. “I mean, you said you liked to visit churches.”

Jory shakes his head. “No,” he says with a sad smile. “That's just a hobby.” Then he falls silent.

“I used to be very devout as a girl,” she says. “For a time anyway.” In the little town where tourists came in the summer to fish and in the winter to skate on the frozen lake, to ski through the nearby forests and to hunt, she would say her bedtime prayers every night. “It slipped away little by little, though. Every morning I woke up with a bit less fervor. I sometimes think I left my belief on the pillow. One day when I was thirteen or fourteen I said it aloud: I don't believe anymore.”

“Were you sad about that?” Jory asks.

“Yes,” she says, “but what I was sad about was that I couldn't be a martyr anymore. The nuns used to talk about the heroic virtue of the martyrs and I always wondered if I could pass the test as they did.” She remembers the classroom, the sound of the radiators rattling in the winter, the smell of wet wool. “The nun would tell us that what happened to the martyrs could very well happen again and that we would have to be ready. I always wanted to raise my hand and tell her, ‘I'm ready.'” She laughs, remembering that little girl's fervor.

“You did, though, didn't you?” Jory says “You passed many tests.”

Ila shakes her head sadly. “Yes, of course, but it didn't matter. Or it didn't matter in the same way.”

They're both silent. The sounds of wind and water engulf them. Ila remembers telling Stipa when she thought she lost her faith. “Poor Ila,” he said with his crooked smile. “That's all right. It will heal.” And it did. Yet who could predict what was coming after that, who could foresee Ila's lying in the hay while men with bayonets called to each other close by? How could she communicate to anyone the absolute certainty she felt that she would be dead in seconds, that she was taking her final breaths? She'd never believed anything more strongly. I should have been dead, she wants to tell Jory. I already accepted it: everything afterward has been life after death for me. You can't know how much of a gift every second was after that. Rain, snow, pain, hunger—it was a gift. This moment now, it's a gift. That's my religion, she'd tell him. She drives her hand into the sand, squeezing its rough grains. Like sandpaper, she thinks: it will smooth away her fingerprints.

The wind howls around them. “And so,” Ila says at last, “here we are.” Vaniok seems very far away at the moment and she's suddenly aware of their being alone. “It seems so strange to me sometimes,” she says. “Being alive.”

“Yes,” Jory says quietly. She expects him to go on but he says nothing. His gaze is turned inward, his expression has darkened.

Respecting his silence, she waits a while before asking, “What are you thinking about?”

He still isn't looking at her. “There are even stranger things than just being alive,” he says at last, then takes a deep breath before going on. “I could tell you that the man you're talking to is a dead man,” he says with a pained smile. His hand is open before him as if he's offering something to her.

“I don't understand.” She leans toward him, impatient for an explanation. She feels as she did at Miss Lorraine's.

Jory looks into his open hand like a cardplayer trying to decide how much risk he's willing to take. “I haven't told you my real last name,” he says at last. “I have false papers.” He stops again as though this might be all he's willing to say. But he goes on. “I got into some trouble in the place I was before I came here,” he says, “and they gave me the last name of a man who died in the city where I was living.” He tells her his real name.

For a long time Ila can say nothing. Without speaking she keeps repeating the name to herself. Meanwhile, a few feet from her, Jory is still looking into his hand. “My God,” Ila says at last, “you must have been terrified when the policeman stopped us. Concerned, I mean.”

He smiles. “No, you were right the first time: ‘terrified' is more accurate.”

“He wouldn't have checked up on you just because I was speeding, would he?”

Jory shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe I am overreacting. I don't know.”

Ila lets out a sigh. “Still …” she says. She reaches across to him and takes his hand. “I'm sorry I put you into that position with my driving.”

He shakes his head. “I'm not sorry. Things turned out very well, I think.” He squeezes her hand in response.

Seconds pass in silence, the wind blows through the grass, there's a sting of sand in the air. There's a sudden understanding between the two of them, she knows he can feel it too: time has become as spacious as this seaside landscape. Their hands are still loosely joined but there's no need to hurry anything. “Yes,” she says. “This has been a very fine Constitution Day, hasn't it?”

“The best,” he answers. His expression is relaxed, he looks younger. “Though it may be a short one. Look at the sky: our weatherman Vaniok will be happy.” The dark bruise moving toward them has changed the quality of the light over the water and even the shrieks of the gulls now seem to signal the imminence of the storm.

“I hope we haven't lost him to the ocean,” Ila says, letting go of his hand slowly. “Maybe we should find him.” When she gets up Jory joins her and the two of them scan the shoreline. “There,” he points down the beach, “running along the water. He's found a friend.” Now Ila can make out the figure of her cousin running along the water in their direction though he's still a good distance away. A black dog is running with him.

“Let's clear up so that when we have to get the things to the car we can do it quickly,” Ila says and at once the two of them go to work efficiently. She's pleased with the way they complement each other, just as they did when the policeman stopped them. “Thank you,” she says, handing Jory the picnic basket, “for helping to make this day a success.”

Jory smiles warmly. “And thank you for taking us to the moon. But let's hope our fellow astronaut gets back soon.”

Ila looks down the beach. The first raindrops are only minutes away. When she sees Vaniok running with great energy, the dog beside him, she waves, calls his name. Though he's closer it's still impossible from this distance to tell whether he's running for pure joy or with the desperation of a fugitive.

Below, Vaniok's lungs ache but he pushes himself forward through the salt spray. He hears the slap of his feet on the slick beach, the waves booming to one side of him, the dog's panting to the other. This was in my dream, he thinks, I dreamed this, this very moment. In the decreasing distance his cousin is waving to him. Let the two of them have their picnic; he's running in his dream. He's come to the edge of the land and is running, he can see the first distant flashes of lightning. Let the storm come, he thinks, let all hell break loose. He wishes he could run forever.

Vaniok is usually one of the first people off the bus on Monday morning, already on his way to work while others are still getting out of their seats. Today, though, after the trip to the ocean, he has little heart for the job, for the inevitable encounter with Jory. Even after the bus has pulled away Vaniok stands a few feet from where he disembarked, watching a mass of jean-clad students flow past a professor shambling along in rumpled corduroy. Not far away a quick-stepping woman darts across the street, her head cocked to a cell phone; and when the traffic fills in behind her, a hairy-armed man in the white outfit of a cook dances in place, waiting for his chance to cross. The whole world is in motion and it's only Vaniok who's still. He can't help feeling it's Jory who's separated him from those others.

“Excuse me.” A bearded young man bent under a backpack brushes against him and Vaniok's instinctive step starts him walking. A bicyclist passes and he vaguely remembers his encounter with the priest not long ago. Father … what?… Tom, was it? He's probably on his way to work too, off to some chapel. Vaniok looks at his watch: he's early, of course, and it strikes him that he's under no obligation to get to the warehouse before most of the others. He's facing away from the campus and, experiencing a sudden surge of freedom, he decides this is the direction in which he wants to go. For a few minutes he enjoys an aimless stroll but he stops when he comes to a coffee shop. There's a coffee machine at work, but why not have a cup of something decent before showing up there? It's an excellent idea. Since all the tables are occupied, he takes his cup outside where he watches the hurrying passersby, feeling like a man of leisure. Good: maybe the people at work won't take him quite so much for granted.

Standing there under the arbor in front of the coffee shop, Vaniok holds his paper cup with both hands, cradling its warmth. He's told himself he's not going to think about the weekend, he won't let himself remember again that humiliating moment of panic on the highway, Jory taking him by the wrist like a schoolboy. Yet for all the pain of that memory, something else keeps pushing at his consciousness: something else happened on that trip that he can't quite recover, that's eluded him teasingly, though he knows it's important. He breathes in the aroma of the coffee. He can't shake off the feeling that what's escaped him so far is something he needs to know, something that will make him feel better when he remembers it, possibly even dispel the shame he feels when he thinks about his behavior in the car. The desire to remember becomes so strong that for a moment he feels a shape as hard and tangible as that of the cup he holds in his hand. And yet, when he closes his fingers all they touch is the paper cup. Disappointment washes over him. Still, he knows there was something.
It's more important than what happened to me when the policeman stopped us. It's not about me
.

Whatever it was happened not at the picnic or even on the trip to the ocean but on the ride home, when everything had changed and Vaniok was in the back seat of the car, his head heavy with exhaustion and drink so that he might have dreamed all of it, the policeman, that strange town they visited, the beach, stormy skies of dark marble—everything. And maybe after all, what he thinks he's remembering is just something he dreamed in the back seat as Ila's car hurtled through the night with Jory at the wheel. Even now he can see the two of them, their heads bent, talking in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Dreamed or not, it feels like something that actually happened and what goads him most of all is that he's sure it has to do with Jory, that somehow Jory revealed a chink in his armor.

Jory. He thinks the name and half-expects that that mental act will recall the phantom moment he's been seeking. He breathes in the rich aroma of the coffee, he takes a sip but no illumination comes. He shakes his head. Maybe he did dream the whole thing, maybe they never went to the ocean at all. It's still a good thing to have taken this detour from his normal routine, he feels better able to face the work day.

When he crosses the campus and arrives at last at the warehouse, he catches a glimpse of Jory in a truck with a landscaping crew. Probably headed for the observatory, he concludes. He's relieved that he won't have to encounter the man for a while. Already he has a bonus for his leisurely course this morning.

“There you are,” Royall greets him as though he wasn't sure Vaniok was going to show up. “You're just the man I've been looking for.” Vaniok is ready to defend himself—he isn't really late, he wants to say, he just isn't as early as usual—but his supervisor isn't interested in hearing explanations. “We're a bit short today,” he says, “and there's a small job over at the Music Library that's just come up.” A leak in the library's basement has caused some damage to a number of pieces of furniture, he explains, and somebody has to check it out and find replacements. “Think you can handle it yourself?” he asks with a little smile.