(24 page)

“
But
you know where it is.”

“
I
don’t.”

Viciously
her flashlight arched upward and went out. We resumed the ascent by
moonlight.

The
reservoir was another hole in the ground, smaller than the one out of
-which we had just come, with another trap door. Only a couple of
feet of the concrete walls were visible above the wild grass. Milton
fished a key out of his denim overalls, mounted the flat wooden roof
of the reservoir and unlocked the trap door.

“
The
girl first,” Tilly said.

Rufus
tugged her toward the reservoir. Milton came down from the roof and
took her other arm. She did not hold back, or whimper, or beg for
mercy. There seemed to be ho bones in her face, but her step was firm
and her carriage erect.

She
could die well. She could do everything well.

Beezie
and Ed Weaver were holding me. I felt myself buck against their
grips; I heard myself make animal noises in my throat. They braced
themselves, clinging to me, Rufus and Milton stopped as they' were
about to push Molly up on the roof and looked back. With my arms
free, I might have broken a jaw or two, but my futile thrashing was
only a demonstration of fear. I forced myself to subside, and I spun
my head to Tilly.

“
Why
her?” I cried in a voice that wasn’t mine. “She
doesn’t know anything. She can’t tell you anything.”

Tilly
was as solid and low and unshakable as the boulders planted on the
hillside. “She came with you. If she doesn’t know, it’s
up to you to save her and yourself. But I think you both know.”

A
thin exclamation cut the night. There was a splash and then silence.

When
I turned my head back to the reservoir, Milton and Rufus were alone
on the roof. They peered down through the trap door! “She’s
come up,” Milton announced. “Say, Tilly, they’ll
last longer if we untie their hands.”

“
They’ll
last long enough.”

Beezie
and Ed Weaver yanked at my arms. Rufus and Milton reached down. I was
pushed and pulled to the roof. Somebody leaped away from in front of
me, somebody shoved hard against my back, and suddenly there was
nothing under my feet. Momentarily I was checked by my shoulder
smacking the side of the trap door, then the water came at me. I fell
sideways into its outrageous coldness. Automatically I kicked out.
One foot scraped against a wall; my head bobbed up by itself. My
knees found support on the concrete floor, and I felt air on my face.

I
remained kneeling in the reservoir with my chin barely out of the
water. My tongue, remembering its thirst, licked wet lips. I lowered
my head and drank.

“
Anyway,
we won’t die of thirst,” Molly said in a voice which
struggled to be flippant.

She
had pressed herself into a corner to avoid being struck by my body as
it hurtled down. Moonlight slanting through the opening above covered
her mellowly. The water reached her waist, and her wet wool dress was
plastered to her splendid body. Her mouth was twisted into a grimace
which was supposed to represent a smile at the grim joke she had just
made, but she was breathing hard and shivering.

I
squirmed to my feet. Directly overhead faces hung under a cloudless
sky. They were without individuality, as blurred as if seen through
tears. One of the faces spoke in Rufus Lamb’s voice. “When
you’re ready to sing, we’ll hear you.”

The
faces pulled away. I glimpsed legs and then light was blocked out as
if by a shutter closing. Darkness as complete as in that other hole
closed in on us with-the banging of the trap door.

Outside
Tilly said: “Beezie, you and Ed go down and turn on the pump.
And stay there. I don’t want the house and lot left alone.”

Water
swished gently in the hole. Molly’s shoulder touched my upper
arm. With our wrists tied behind us, we could riot hold each other.
Even that small comfort was denied us. We could only stand face to
face and press our soaked bodies together.

“
The
cold, honey.” Her breath was on my wet cheek as she spoke. “I
won’t be able to stand long.”

“
Let’s
find a wall to lean against.” We moved together through water.

A
wall stopped us. Face to face, we stood against it. Snatches of
muttered conversation from the outside world drifted in, but what
they said could not be important to us. They could do no more to us
than they were doing, and they would do no less. The side of Molly’s
face rested on my shoulder and I felt her mouth on my neck. God, how
I wanted to touch her with my hands!

Abruptly
water gushed down on our heads. The pump had been turned on and we
were standing under the inlet pipe. That was the ultimate indignity.
Fresh from the well, the water was a shower of ice. It beat us down,
tore us apart. I hit against another wall and realized that I had
lost Molly.

“
Are
you all right, Molly?”

The
blackness laughed brokenly, not quite sanely. “I’m
wonderful. The only thing that bothers me is that I’m slightly
wet.”

“
Where
are you?”

“
Here.
I’ll always be close to you, honey. They’ll even bury us
together.” Blindly I waded. There could not be many feet
between us anywhere in that small hole. My body found hers. I- felt
her sag. Her chin dug into my chest.

“
Don’t
let yourself go to pieces,” I said.

She
started to laugh again and chopped it off at the first gasp. I felt
her straighten against me. “Why not go to pieces?” she
said. “What difference will it make?”

“
None
maybe, except that it’ll make it harder for the one who’s
left.”

“
I
guess so,” she said emptily.

A
wall was a step away. We leaned against it and listened to water from
the inlet pipe striking water in the reservoir. Little waves rippled
about my hips and now and then drops splashed into my face. Very
close I heard a weird clicking sound. For a while I wondered about it
before I recognized it as Molly’s teeth chattering. My own
teeth were locked on my lower lip.

“
Honey,
they say drowning is an easy death,” she said. “Not like
dying of thirst.”

“
That’s
consoling.”

“
It’s
waiting like this that’s so terrible. We don’t have to
torture ourselves. I’m going under.”

“
No!”

“
Why
not? All I have to do is let myself go. Why not, Adam?”

“
For
God’s sake, Molly, wait!”

“
Wait
for what? For the water to reach up for me? Rufus said it would take
a few hours. I couldn’t stand on my feet that long, anyway. But
why should I stand and wait. Why?”

There
was no answer that made sense, but a dying man does not ask for
sense. He wants only to cling to life, beyond hope, beyond reason.

“
Maybe
they’ll change their minds and let us out,” I said.

“
You’re
kidding yourself, honey. I 'don’t mind dying. I’ve
nothing to live for.”

“
Goddamn
it, I have!”

“
I
know,” she said quietly, sadly. “Your wife, your
daughter, your two children who’ll never be born now. I’m
sorry I got you into this.”

“
Don’t
talk like that. It was my own idea.”

“
No.”
She dug her shivering body into mine. “Kiss me, honey.”

“
Don’t
let go.”

“
Not
for a while yet. Kiss me.”

I
dipped my head and all at once I could see her face. Our lips did not
quite touch. A flashlight beam angled down from the trap door.

“
They’re
still on their feet,” Rufus said. Then he spoke to us. “How
do you like it down there?”

I
waded to a spot under the trap door. “I haven’t got it!”
I yelled up at him. “I haven’t, I haven’t, I
haven’t! Can’t you understand, I haven’t, got it?”
The flashlight went out. I could see Rufus now. Moonlight showed him
squatting at the side of the trap door opening. He faced somebody who
was not on the roof.

“
We’re
up the wrong alley,” he said. “A mummy would talk.”

“
He’s
got to have it,” Tilly’s voice replied savagely.

“
One
will get you fifty he ain’t. What’s he got to lose by
talking now? He ain’t even tried to make a deal.” There
was a silence. Rufus looked off to his left and tugged at his long
jaw. Then Tilly said: “Close that trap door.”

“
What’ll
that get us except we’ll have to clean out the reservoir after
we fish them out?” Rufus protested.

“
So
we’ll clean it out. He’s figuring we’ll get soft at
the last minute.”

“
Nuts!
A mummy we put down there would talk.”

“
What
do you suggest, that we let them go?”

“
We
sure can’t do that.” Rufus’ face turned down to me.
“Here it goes, pal. Anything you want to say first?”

My
chin sank to my chest. Darkness returned with a crash. I had had my
last look at anything I would ever see. My legs were dragging weights
as I waded back to where I had left Molly.

My
body touched a wall. She wasn’t there. I moved along the wall
and reached a corner, and still she wasn’t there.

“
Molly!”
I screamed. “For God’s sake, Molly!”

The
blackness said quietly: “I’m here.”

I
had gone to the wrong wall. I found her leaning against another wall
and pressed myself against her.

“
I
wouldn’t go down without telling you first.” Her lips
fluttered against mine. “Did you notice how high the water is?”

“
It
feels higher.”

“
It’s
reached my breasts. And my legs are so tired and numb. Even if I
wanted to wait to the end I couldn’t.”

“
Wait
a little longer.”

She
laughed, but with little hysteria now. “For Rufus to rescue us?
If he does, honey, it’ll be to take us out and shoot us so that
our corpses won’t spoil the water supply.”

“
Wait,”
I said.

“
I’ll
try, honey.”

Time
was measured by the rising of the water level. Molly was very quiet
now. We would die well, I knew, which meant that we would not make
too much fuss. The noisy deaths were for the sound effect of radio
shows. I had seen enough of death in bombed cities and just behind
the front; and to soldiers and civilians alike it came not with a
bang or a whimper, but in the end with weary acceptance. It would
come softly to us, like falling asleep. Very soon now I would
suddenly be aware that she no longer stood against me. There would be
nothing for me to wait for then. I would simply fold my knees and
breathe the water into my lungs.

“
What’s
that?” Molly said hoarsely.

I
awoke as if from a drugged dream. The voices outside were louder than
they had been before.

“
Probably
Tilly and Rufus arguing,” I muttered indifferently.

“
No,
listen.” Her cheek moved away from the side of my jaw.

“
There’s
the trap door!” somebody outside exclaimed. “Hurry!”
And feet thumped on the roof.

Molly
stiffened against me. I tilted my head. The trap door started to
lift. I watched a patch of sky appear, and then a light blinded me.

“
They’re
alive!” a man shouted.

The
light left my eyes and lay on the water. Another light stabbed out
from somewhere off the road and momentarily illuminated a face
hovering above us.

It
was a face with a twisted nose and a deeply cleft chin.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

I
was awakened for breakfast. I looked at the small creamy-tan room and
at the nurse who was wheeling a bed tray toward my chest. A window on
my left framed a grassy slope falling sharply away into morning mist
and rising distantly on the other side of the valley.

“
Is
this Badmont?” I asked the nurse.

“
Well,
of course. Don’t you remember being brought here?”

I
remembered that I had sat huddled in the back seat of a sedan. My
soaked outer clothing had been on the floor at my feet and a couple
of coarse but snug blankets had covered me to my chin. Molly had been
in another police car right behind us. All the way there Lieutenant
Batterman, who was mostly belly and jowls, had prodded me into
talking when what I had wanted was sleep. And sleep had won out over
the lieutenant before we had reached our destination. I remembered
now having been put to bed somewhere, but I hadn’t known where
or by whom and hadn’t cared. The bed had been the important
thing.

It
still was. I yawned mightily. “What’s wrong with me?”

“
Nothing
that food and rest won’t cure. Eat your breakfast.”

My
eyes refused to remain open. Between orange juice and a soft-boiled
egg I dozed off. The nurse shook me.

“
A
phone,” I muttered. “Got to call my wife.”

“
You
must eat first, Mr. Breen.”