The Throat (41 page)

"Tim
will take me home."

John
pushed himself off the car. His mother was zigzagging over the lawn,
picking up garbage.

Alan
pulled himself across the sidewalk on heavy legs. Shorn grass gleamed
up from the lawn. We went into the house, and for a moment he turned
and looked at me with clouded, uncertain eyes. My heart sank. He had
forgotten whatever he had planned to do next. He hid his confusion by
turning away again and moving through the entry into his hallway.

He
paused just inside the living room. The curtains had been pulled aside.
The wood gleamed, and the air smelled of furniture polish. Neat stacks
of mail, mostly catalogues and junk mail, sat on the coffee table.

"That's
right," Alan said. He sat down on the couch, and leaned against the
brown leather. "Cleaning service." He looked around at the sparkling
room. "I guess nobody is coming back here." He cleared his throat. "I
thought people always came to the house after a funeral."

He had
forgotten that his daughter lived in another house. I sat down in an
overstuffed chair.

Alan
crossed his arms over his chest and gazed at his windows. For a moment,
I saw some fugitive emotion flare in his eyes. Then he closed them and
fell asleep. His chest rose and fell, and his breathing became regular.
After a minute or two, he opened his eyes again. "Tim, yes," he said.
"Good."

"Do you
still feel like going to the morgue?" He looked confused for only a
moment. "You bet I do. I knew the boy better than John." He smiled. "I
gave him some of my old clothes—a few suits got too big for me. The boy
had saved up enough to be able to pay tuition and rent, but he didn't
have much left over."

Heavy
footsteps came down the stairs. Whoever was in the house turned into
the hall. Alan blinked at me, and I stood up and went to the entrance
of the room. A heavy woman in black trousers and a University of
Illinois T-shirt was coming toward me, pulling a vacuum cleaner behind
her.

"I have
to say that this was the biggest job I ever had in my whole entire
life. The other girl, she had to go home to her family, so I finished
up alone." She looked at me as if I shared some responsibility for the
condition of the house. "That's six hours."

"You did
a very good job."

"You're
telling me." She dropped the vacuum cleaner hose and leaned heavily
against the molding to look at Alan. "You're not a very neat man, Mr.
Brookner."

"Things
got out of hand."

"You're
going to have to do better than this if you want me to come back."

"Things
are already better," I said. "A private duty nurse will be coming every
day, as soon as we can arrange it."

She
tilted her head and looked at me speculatively for a moment. "I need a
hundred and twenty dollars."

Alan
reached into a pocket of his suit and pulled out a flat handful of
twenty-dollar bills. He counted out six and stood up to give them to
the cleaning woman.

"You're
a real humdinger, Mr. Brookner." She slid the twenties into a pocket.
"Thursdays are best from now on."

"That's
fine," said Alan.

The
cleaning woman left the room and picked up the hose of the vacuum
cleaner. Then she dragged the vacuum back to the entrance. "Did you
want me to do anything with that floral tribute thing?"

Alan
looked at her blankly.

"Like,
do you water it, or anything?"

Alan
opened his mouth. "Where is it?"

"I moved
it into the kitchen."

"Wreaths
don't need watering."

"Fine
with me." The vacuum cleaner bumped down the hall. A door opened and
closed. A few minutes later, the woman returned, and I walked her to
the door. She kept darting little glances at me. When I opened the
door, she said, "He must be like Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Heckel, or
something."

Alan was
carrying a circular wreath of white carnations and yellow roses into
the hallway. "You know Flory Park, don't you?"

"I grew
up in another part of town," I said.

"Then
I'll tell you how to get there." He carried the wreath to the front
door. "I suppose you can find he lake. It is due east."

We went
outside. "East is to our right," Alan said.

"Yes,
sir," I said.

He
marched down the walkway and veered across the sidewalk to the Pontiac.
He got into the passenger seat and hugged the big wreath against his
chest.

On
Alan's instructions, I turned north on Eastern Shore Drive. I asked if
he wanted the little community beach down below the bluffs south of us.

"That's
Bunch Park. April didn't use it much. Too many people."

He
clutched the wreath as we drove north on Eastern Shore Drive. After ten
or twelve miles we crossed into Riverwood.

Eastern
Shore Road shrank to a two-lane road, and it divided into two branches,
one veering west, the other continuing north into a pine forest
sprinkled with vast contemporary houses. Alan ordered me to go
straight. At the next intersection, we turned right. The car moved
forward through deep shadows.

Indented
orange lettering on a brown wooden sign said FLORY PARK. The long drive
curved into a circular parking lot where a few Jeeps and Range Rovers
stood against a bank of trees. Alan said, "One of the most beautiful
parks in the county, and nobody knows it exists."

He
struggled out of the car. "This way." On the other side of the lot, he
stepped over the low concrete barrier and walked across the grass to a
narrow trail. "I was here once before. April was in grade school."

I asked
him if he'd let me carry the wreath. "No."

The
trail led into a stand of mixed pine and birch trees. I moved along in
front of Alan, bending occasional branches out of his way. He was
breathing easily and moving at a good walker's pace. We came out into a
large clearing that led to a little rise. Over the top of the rise I
could see the tops of other trees, and over them, the long flat blue
line of the lake. It was very hot in the clearing. Sweat soaked through
my shirt. I wiped my forehead. "Alan," I said, "I might not be able to
go any farther."

"Why
not?"

"I have
a lot of trouble in places like this." He frowned at me, trying to
figure out what I meant. I took a tentative step forward, and instantly
pressure mines blew apart the ground in front of us and hurled men into
the air. Blood spouted from the places where their legs had been.

"What
kind of trouble?"

"Open
spaces make me nervous."

"Why
don't you close your eyes?" I closed my eyes. Little figures in black
clothes flitted through the trees. Others crawled up to the edge of the
clearing.

"Can I
do anything to help you?"

"I don't
think so."

"Then I
suppose you'll have to do it yourself."

Two
teenage boys in baggy bathing suits came out of the trees and passed
us. They glanced over their shoulders as they went across the clearing
and up the rise.

"You
need me to do this?"

"Yes."

"Here
goes." I took another step forward. The little men in black moved
toward the treeline. My entire body ran with sweat.

"I'm
going to walk in front of you," Alan said. "Watch my feet, and
step
only where I step
. Okay?"

I
nodded. My mouth was stuffed with cotton and sand. Alan moved in front
of me. "Don't look at anything but my feet."

He
stepped forward, leaving the clear imprint of his shoe in the dusty
trail. I set my right foot directly on top of it. He took another step.
I moved along behind him. My back prickled. The path began to rise
beneath my feet. Alan's small, steady footprints carried me forward. He
finally stopped moving.

"Can you
look up now?" he asked.

We were
standing at the top of the hill. In front of us, an almost invisible
path went down a long forested slope. The main branch continued down to
an iron staircase descending to a bright strip of sand and the still
blue water. Far out on the lake, sailboats moved in lazy, erratic
loops. "Let's finish this," I said, and went down the other side of the
rise toward the safety of the trees.

As soon
as I moved onto the main branch of the path, Alan called out, "Where
are you going?"

I
pointed toward the iron stairs and the beach.

"This
way," he said, indicating the lesser branch.

I set
off after him. He said, "Could you carry this for a while?"

I held
out my arms. The wreath was heavier than I had expected. The stems of
the roses dug into my arms.

"When
she was a child, April would pack a book and something to eat and spend
hours in a little grove down at the end of this path. It was her
favorite place."

The path
disappeared as it met wide shelves of rock between the dense trees.
Spangled light fell on the mottled stone. Birches and maples crowded up
through the shale. Alan finally halted in front of a jagged pile of
boulders. "I can't get up this thing by myself."

Without
the wreath, it would have been easy; the wreath made it no more than
difficult. The problem was carrying the wreath and pulling Alan
Brookner along with my free hand. Alone and unhindered, I could have
done it in about five minutes. Less. Three minutes. Alan and I made it
in about twenty. When it was over, I had sweated through my jacket, and
a torn zipper dangled away from the fabric.

I knelt
down on a flat slab, took the wreath off my shoulder, and looked at
Alan grimly reaching up at me. I wrapped a hand around his wrist and
pulled him toward me until he could grab the collar of my jacket. He
held on like a monkey while I put my arms around his waist and lifted
him bodily up onto the slab.

"See why
I needed you?" He was breathing hard.

I wiped
my forehead and inspected the wreath. A few wires and some stray roses
protruded, and a dark green fern hung down like a cat's tail. I pushed
the roses back into the wreath and wound the stray wires around them.
Then I got to my feet and held out a hand to Alan.

We
walked over the irregular surface formed by the juncture of hundreds of
large boulders. He asked me for the wreath again. "How far are we
going?" I asked.

Alan
waved toward the far side of the shelf of rock. A screen of red maples
four or five trees thick stood before the long blue expanse of the lake.

On the
other side of the maples, the hill dropped off gently for another
thirty feet. A shallow groove of a path cut straight down through the
trees and rocks to a glen. A flat granite projection lay in a grove of
maples like the palm of a hand. Below the ridge of granite, sunlight
sparkled on the lake. Alan asked me for the wreath again.

"That's
the place." He set off stiffly down the brown path. After another
half-dozen steps, he spoke again. "April came here to be alone."
Another few steps. "This was dear to her." He drew in a shuddering
breath. "I can see her here." He said no more until we stood on the
flat shelf of granite that hung out over the lake. I walked up to the
edge of the rock. Off to my right, the two boys who had passed us at
the beginning of the clearing were bobbing up and down in a deep pool
formed by a curve of the shoreline about twenty feet below the jutting
surface of the rock. It was a natural diving board. I stepped back from
the edge.

"This is
April's funeral," Alan said. "Her real funeral." I felt like a
trespasser.

"I have
to say good-bye to her."

The
enormity of his act struck me, and I stepped back toward the shade of
the maples.

Alan
walked slowly to the center of the shelf of rock. The little
white-haired man seemed majestic to me. He had planned this moment
almost from the time he had learned of his daughter's death.

"My dear
baby," he said. His voice shook. He clutched the wreath close to his
chest. "April, I will always be your father, and you will always be my
daughter. I will carry you in my heart until the day of my death. I
promise you that the person who did this to you will not go free. I
don't have much strength left, but it will be enough for both of us. I
love you, my child."

He
stepped forward to the lip of the rock and looked down. In the softest
voice I had ever heard from him, he said, "Your father wishes you
peace."

Alan
took a step backward and dangled the wreath in his right hand. Then he
moved his right foot backward, cocked his arm back, swung his arm
forward, and hurled the wreath into the bright air like a discus. It
sailed ten or twelve feet out and plummeted toward the water, turning
over and over in the air.

The boys
pointed and shouted when they saw the wreath falling toward the lake
pool. They started swimming toward the spot where it would fall, but
stopped when they saw Alan and me standing on the rock shelf. The ring
of flowers smacked onto the water. Luminous ripples radiated out from
it. The wreath bobbed in the water like a raft, then began drifting
down the shoreline. The two boys paddled back toward the little beach
at the bottom of the stairs.

"I'm
still her father," Alan said.

When we
pulled up in front of John's house, only the shining gap between Alan's
eyelids and his lower lids indicated that he was still awake. "I'll
wait," he said.

John
opened the door and pulled me inside. "Where were you? Do you know what
time it is?"

His
parents were standing up in the living room, looking at us anxiously.

"Is Alan
all right?" Marjorie asked.

"He's a
little tired," I said.

"Look, I
have to run," John said. "We should be back in half an hour. This can't
take any longer than that."

Ralph
Ransom started to say something, but John glared at me and virtually
pushed me outside. He banged the door shut and started down the path,
buttoning his jacket as he went.