Among the Dead (23 page)

Bernays apologized if anything he said had implied that he did not respect Lowell's place in the community. He even smiled as he admitted that he often bought records in Lowell's store.

Bernays gave Lowell a boyish, shy smile, and Lowell patted him on the back.

‘What a fucker,' said Lowell, with respect, with envy. ‘You've really done your homework, haven't you?'

Bernays said that the airline was just doing what it had to do, and as a businessman, Lowell would appreciate that they should be expected to do no less. Frank saw that with this Bernays had brilliantly and deftly raised Lowell's business to the stature of any important business, to a level equal to the airline.

And their father relaxed his posture, and even their mother, she relaxed, and sat on the back of a chair. When she did this, Bernays
pulled a chair from a table and sat down. He was so finely tuned, and he used himself brilliantly, his breeding; quietly appealing to Frank's mother and father that they compare their sons to him, with his posture, how wonderfully relaxed he was with himself, so unlike at least one of their sons. And then they all sat down.

It was maddening to Frank! They liked him, this dry Republican homosexual, this catamite to industrialists, this pet of bisexual investment bankers. He could imagine Bernays dressed in nothing but suspenders clipped to a jock strap, with his fucking hornrimmed glasses on, pouring gin martinis for a senator whose campaign he had just successfully managed, in some CIA condominium in Santa Barbara. And the senator, in a pink alpaca sweater, smoking menthols and nattering on about how we did it, we did it, I'm a senator! I'm in the club! I made it, we made it, you helped me make it! And then what would they do?

Frank asked himself what it was about Piet Bernays that made him so unhappy, so jealous. He was tired of putting these questions to himself, tired of comparisons, tired of jealousy, tired of the way his family made him feel.

‘Fuck you,' he said to Bernays. He had meant to keep this under his breath, but it came out.

Bernays gave him a quizzical look, hurt puppy, hurt angel, more fraudulent compassion.

‘Frank,' said his mother.

‘It's over, Frank,' said Lowell. ‘This is one of the good guys.'

Bernays raised a hand in peace and told Frank that he understood anything Frank said or felt now.

‘We know you do,' said Ethel.

Frank got up and walked out of the room. Lowell ran after him, but Frank pushed him away. He didn't want to say anything, and he left Lowell behind, calling his name in frustration. Some rage surged in Frank, something new, something that felt like the energy he had always missed in his life, the thing he never had when he played games in school, the thing that makes the basket, or kicks the ball or strikes out the batter, this focus of all emotion into a single beam. He was ready to talk to a stadium filled with losers and tell them how to win. Who was this Piet Bernays, this negligible faggot with queer suspenders? Who was this Dockery, this Ed? Who was this Bettina Welch, this weak-chinned nothing, this wage-earner, this uneducated, processed cheese-eater, this fool who thinks that in exchange for her dedication the airline actually
gives two shits for her? Losers, losers, losers. All of them. And his brother too, and his father. And Ethel? Beside the point. No, a loser too. She married Leon, and the bet was wrong. Apartment dwellers, mansion sellers.

Here in this hotel corridor, past meeting rooms with names evocative of San Diego history, the Nimitz Room, the Dana Room, the Serra Room, the Coronado Room, the Drake Room, Frank, running better than he had ever run in his life, wove in and out of the knots of men and women in suits who were going and coming from different conferences in all these rooms, regional sales managers, local medical societies, the boards of trade associations, men and women with jobs in a world so far from his, and Frank looked at them, and thought, losers also, all of you, losers. At the end of the hall, where it joined the next wing of the hotel, was a small sitting area with a couch and a table, and he jumped over the couch and landed, he felt, with the grace of an African, a runner from Kenya. When the hall turned, he ran down the corridor and then into a fire escape and down the stairs to the lobby, and then out the lobby to the street. Sudden change of light. Late afternoon. The sea air. The sound of cars on the freeway nearby, a kind of heavy, tired breathing.

Was anyone watching him? Did he care? Fuck them all, he thought, again he had that thought, and this time the thought, his disdain, his perfect scorn, rose inside him the way great waves build off the north shore of Hawaii, scooping up the old shattered waves returning in defeat from the beach and then piling them into another massive wall to roll across the reefs and try again to tear down the island. All these puny beings who tormented him today, the police, his brother, his parents, Bernays, the airline reps, none of them could ride for long on the massive waves of energy that collected inside this thing that used to be Frank Gale. None of these fuckers can surf on me! I am
tsunami
, the hundred-year wave, killer of sharks, destroyer of whales, widow-maker, orphan-maker! I eat villages whole!

And so he ran on, in this convention zone in San Diego, past the Marriott, the Holiday Inn, the Ramada, the Sheraton, the Embassy Suites, the Days Inn, the Hilton Inn. How many executives unpacked their bags behind him, in front of him, beside him, and, bored, turned the pages of the Guide to San Diego with the picture of the trained dolphins at Sea World, and played with themselves, or poured a drink from the mini-bar, or made a call to their families,
or looked up old college chums in this big navy town, and did all of this without knowing that outside their rooms Frank Gale ran like a hero?

He ran along the curving drive that linked the hotels, and as the road turned back towards the Marriott something in him sagged, and then his ankles hurt, and he stopped running beside a long planting bed of ground cover, in purple bloom.

The hotel looked so far away, and he was so tired. He lay down on the ground cover and looked up at the setting sun. If the family had not died, he would be in Mexico now. If Anna had not found the letter as she packed, she would have read it as he had intended. He wondered if he really would have given it to her, or if, at the last moment, or not even the last moment but any moment, he would have decided that taking her to Mexico with contrition in his heart made sufficient amends. Hadn't he broken up with Mary Sifka? Would he have needed to give Anna the letter? By the second full day of the trip, today, she would have known that something was different with him. She would have seen his love for her. And it would have been love. And he would have proved it by making love to her, slowly, wonderfully, letting her come first. Oh, how he would have set a slow pace, starting with a back rub, massaging her feet, taking time. And then, when she would have expected him to pull out, or to reach for a condom, he would have stayed inside her, he would have risked – no, not risked -he would have thrown himself into pregnancy. No blow-jobs, no coming anywhere but inside, towards the womb! That would have been the seal on the new contract, that would have been the rededication, the proof, better than any declaration of love or any confession of his crimes. A new baby, a child, more to love.

He wondered where she was in that cold warehouse on the docks, and in how many pieces she had finally come to rest, and whether something of her had mingled with something of their child. I should have been on the plane, he thought. I should have crashed with them, I should have died with them. And as he thought this, the phrase guilt of the survivor poked into view, and his mind went blank, and he got up and walked back to the hotel.

The sun was almost gone as he reached the lobby, where his brother waited for him.

‘Let's talk,' said Lowell.

‘There's nothing to say.'

‘No, no, there is, there is. We've been expecting you to behave in a certain way, and we've been wrong.'

‘What was the certain way?' asked Frank. Someone took his picture from across the room, a woman. She wore a vest with a lot of pockets, and a name-tag on a leather loop around her neck. So she was a press photographer, thought Frank. She looked around the room for someone, and found him, the reporter she'd been sent out with.

‘Reasonable,' said Lowell. ‘We thought you'd be reasonable, but you're not, and you don't have to be. This is not a criticism. Behave the way you want.'

‘So I'm being unreasonable. That's not a good thing.' Frank watched the reporter and photographer approach them.

‘Don't take it that way.'

‘But what other way is there to take it?'

‘And this is why I'm here. I'm here so we don't fight. There's nothing to fight about.'

‘So now you're humouring me.' Frank knew that he really was being unreasonable now, and, worse, cruel to his brother who meant him no harm. The photographer took another picture.

‘Don't put it that way, that isn't fair.'

Frank wanted to tell his brother that he was right, to say, ‘Yes, I'm being unfair.' Instead he asked about Piet Bernays. ‘Where did he go?'

‘He had things to take care of.'

‘I shouldn't have yelled at him.'

‘Maybe you were right.'

‘What did Mom and Dad say?'

‘They're in their room.'

‘Drinking?'

‘He is, she's trying not to.'

‘But she will,' said Frank.

The photographer took more pictures. Frank pointed her out to Lowell.

‘We really should get a publicist,' said Lowell. ‘We can't keep getting mad at everyone. We have to be cool. Elaine Swofford handles stuff for the stores here. She's OK. I'll call her.'

‘What will she do?' asked Frank.

‘She'll talk to the press first for us. She'll set up the interviews, or tell them why we can't be interviewed. She'll keep them away from us if that's what we want.'

That's what I want,' said Frank.

‘And will you come back to my place tonight?' asked Lowell.

‘No,' said Frank. ‘But I'll behave myself.' They crossed the lobby to the reception desk, and Frank asked for his messages. The desk clerk gave him another pile of message slips. The first was from Mary Sifka. Frank quickly moved it to the bottom of the pile, but Lowell didn't seem to notice his nervous speed. Five were from different reporters, asking for interviews.

‘Let me handle these,' said Lowell.

The reporter and photographer were next to them now. The reporter introduced himself. ‘Mitchell Hefter,' he said, holding out his hand. ‘I'm a reporter.' He named a press syndicate, and showed his identification.

Frank took a quick look at the other message slips, to see who had called, and also to avoid eye contact with Hefter. A few cousins had called, also his secretary.

‘What do you want to know?' asked Lowell.

‘We just wanted to ask about the night your brother was arrested.'

‘It was a mistake,' said Lowell.

‘Yes,' said Frank. ‘I saw my wife's suitcase.'

‘Was there anything you were trying to get from it?' asked the reporter.

‘Not really,' said Frank.

‘Were you aware that it was against the law for you to have opened it up?'

‘I wasn't thinking about that,' said Frank.

‘What were you thinking about?' asked the reporter.

‘He was thinking about his family,' said Lowell.

Frank wanted to disagree, but held himself back. Besides, he couldn't remember. The reporter thanked them and walked away.

Frank told Lowell to go home, and Lowell said goodbye. Frank read the message from Mary. She gave him a few specific times to call, ten in the morning, which had passed, and then again at one, and then three. The message said for him to call only at those times. So she was hiding this from her husband and from her work. He had an hour before he could call her. If it was time to connect again with the world, he would begin by returning the other calls, to tell the people who cared enough to call, whatever their motives, morbid curiosity or true concern, that he missed his
wife and daughter, that he needed and welcomed the support of his friends. He would say that he was fine.

The first call he made was to his parents. They were on the same floor, and his mother told Frank he should come to their room. He said he wanted to take a shower first, and return a few calls. His mother said they should go out to eat, just the three of them. ‘I think we should go to a good restaurant,' she said. He knew that she meant something expensive, the kind of rich man's restaurant they used to go to when he was a child, and he wanted that too, a martini, and carrots and green olives in a little tray filled with ice, and cheese toast, and the salad made at the table by an old waiter. They would have two rounds of drinks, and then they would order a bottle of good wine, and talk about the past. They would not ask Lowell to join them. The club of three. At the end of the meal, on the way out, Frank would filch a handful of mints from the large glass snifter at the maitre d's station, and eat them all in a few minutes. He would be a little boy again, when his father was wealthy, the year he bought the house in Bel Air. The kind of meal that lasted as long as a summer. He would order a steak for dinner, or else a rack of lamb and split it with his mother. There would be mint jelly, and he would dab the meat into the green sauce, and then scoop some of it against the creamed spinach. He would eat a few of those olives during the meal too, for the lost pleasure of ruining, with that overlay of vinegar and salt, the taste of the wine and the meat. And he would butter his bread. How long has it been since I have buttered my bread? Frank asked himself. Tonight I will not abstain. I will not worry about calories. Tonight I will order what I want. I will have the shrimp cocktail if I want it! And the chocolate mousse! If he couldn't bring himself to hug his parents and feel their love, at least he could fall into the embrace of what was left of their money. He called the front desk and asked the receptionist if there were any old, expensive restaurants in San Diego that had strolling violinists.