Carthage (36 page)

Nor did she think of it now. All that—even
him
—was swept away, in the enormity of the moment.

Saying, “This is a beautiful day to die.”

TEN

The Betrayal

Temple Park, Florida, March 2012

S
HE COULD NOT
bring herself to say.

To utter the words. Could not.

“ . . . have to be leaving you. I’m so sorry.”

He did not reply. He might have been shocked.

He might have been
incensed
. She could not look at him!

Saying, stammering, “—think that I have to go back to where I—I’ve . . .”

She was feeling faint. That ringing in her ears, that is the pressure of heightened blood.

“ . . . I’ve been gone from. I’ve been ‘missing.’ ”

THE INVESTIGATOR TURNED
from her. Abruptly, the Investigator walked out of the room.

She heard a door shutting, hard. Another door, slammed. She pressed her hands against her ears.

This had not ever happened before, between them. The Investigator and his Intern: their relations had always been wholly professional, impersonal.

He had not noticed her watching him. (Had he?)

He had not noticed her smiling at him, behind his back. (Had he?)

The Investigator’s pale-blue gaze, moving over her. It had not been a tender gaze, it had not been an affectionate gaze, and yet—seeing the Investigator looking at her, his quizzical smile, his bemused and beguiled smile, she’d felt a stirring of hope, and yearning; she’d felt a stirring of something she had long believed she’d quenched, out of self-disgust and shame.

“McSwain! Come here, I need your advice.”

Or, he would call: “McSwain! Here.”

It was the Investigator’s pretense that he was, like many of his generation, computer-illiterate. He could not navigate a computer as the Intern could. (In fact, this was not true. The Investigator was reasonably skilled at the computer, at least the computer programs he knew. The Intern’s method was random, hit-or-miss, a patience that is the consequence of a desperate need not to become hysterical. The Intern exuded
calm
as a principle.)

“McSwain!”—sometimes the call was pleading, a
cri de coeur
. Yet the Investigator was being funny, too.

Asking her to open a jar for him. A tall hefty bottle of his favorite juice—pomegranate. Why?

“Your fingers are stronger than mine, obviously, McSwain. You’re young, you can
grip.
”

Anything requiring fine-print-reading. Anything requiring the use of a remote control, a “menu”—“Never learned to use a ‘menu.’ Just do it for me, McSwain.”

But now. There was no humor, no playfulness between them now.

For she was trying not to shatter into pieces. Carrying herself with extreme care, caution. In the diving bell that had been painted a bizarre robin’s-egg blue she had been made to realize how close she’d come to annihilation, extinction.

Death had been precipitated, in that place. Death had not come haphazardly or by a “natural” sequence of events—death had been bidden, death had been
executed.

Sick with guilt. Gut-sick, guilt.

This evening at the Investigator’s glass-walled house on the Rio Vista Canal. This evening after their exhausting tour of the Orion prison, from which they hadn’t returned until late afternoon.

The Investigator had had to drive the SUV most of the way. The Intern had felt so weak, light-headed. The Intern had felt so
emptied out.

The first time she’d broken like this, in at least a year.

The first time, as the Intern.

Pieces like shattered glass. Slipped from her fingers, broken.

You scream, but it’s too late. Once
shattered
—too late.

She tried to tell him at first, it was nothing. It was nothing, and she was fine, and she was—well, she was disgusted, as he was, at the Lieutenant’s revelations, and the tour—the tour through that terrible prison!—and she was anxious, and she was . . .

Terrified, she was. Her life like water rushing in a drain, circling a drain, then in an instant gone.

HE’D STOPPED AT
a mini-mall at South Bay.

He’d sent her into the liquor store. As the Intern, this was her usual task: store purchases. While the Investigator remained in the vehicle peering through his little notebook, taking notes.

Then, he came inside, too.

Tall white-haired gentlemanly Investigator who did resemble a retired judge, in a TV episode.

And she the young woman who resembled a boy, boy’s clothing, boy’s hair razor-cut at the nape of her neck, corduroys, flannel shirt, hiking boots. Drifting along the aisles pushing a shopping cart beneath the bright fluorescent lights, uncertain why she was there.

In convex mirrors like mad distorting eyes positioned to glare along each aisle of dark-glittering bottles her figure moved stealthily, hesitantly—might’ve been (in the sharp gaze of the proprietor who’d been shoplifted, held-up how many times in the past decade) an ashy-faced junkie/hooker looking like a kid of twelve, not to be trusted. In the convex mirrors her distorted face, scarcely recognizable.

Why here, what was her mission here. But where was
here.

“McSwain.”

Blindly she turned. The name came to her—
Zeno.

She was trying to remain upright. All her strength went into this—the effort of remaining upright. At the execution chamber, she’d had to stumble outside, into the fresh air, or what had struck her with the force of fresh damp air. Yet she’d fallen, to her knees. She’d lost the strength of her young body, she’d wakened to discover herself lying on the ground. Voices were uplifted, she’d violated the protocol of the tour-group by fainting.

Not vomiting. She had not been gut-sick, as she’d feared she would be.

In the wine-beer-liquor store. Somewhere on the North New River Canal headed south, to Fort Lauderdale.

Her lips were cold, numb. Her face was bloodless. The Investigator who was a gentleman in his early seventies was not one to take alarm, easily. His public manner was poise, cool, aloof, in control. His public manner was courteous. Yet now staring at the Intern, frowning.

But you are my young Intern! You are younger and healthier than I and you are to outlive me, I’ve hired you for that reason, to take care of me. McSwain!

She’d managed to select the whiskey the Investigator had requested: Johnnie Walker Black.

She’d managed to drop into the shopping cart a six-pack of seltzer water which the Investigator favored, and which the Intern often drank at their impromptu meals together.

The Investigator took the shopping cart from her faltering fingers. Pushed the cart to the front of the store, to the cashier now frankly staring at them—this ill-matched couple—had to be, what?—father, grandfather—young guy, or maybe girl. The cashier rang up the charges with quick-darting fingers, long painted-plastic fingernails it was a miracle to observe.

“McSwain. Go back out. I’ll take these.”

“No. I can help you, sir.”

“I said
go on
.”

Their accents weren’t Florida. Nowhere near.

SO EXHAUSTED!
The Investigator glanced over at her, in the passenger’s seat.

Not ever had the Intern been so—
helpless.

Worriedly the Investigator wondered: Maybe we should take you to an ER.

Maybe you need a shot of cortisone. Maybe you’ve had an allergic reaction to the execution chamber.

Driving south on Route 27, back to Fort Lauderdale. All the signs, gigantic billboards, drawing travelers south, to Fort Lauderdale and the Atlantic Ocean.

Female bodies horizontal on white sands, in tiny bikinis. Female bodies with luminous golden-glowing skin.

Weakly the Intern protested: No.

No ER, no medical examination. The Intern was fine, she insisted.

The Intern had a fear of being examined. The Intern had a fear of being
found out.

SHE WAS HALF-CONSCIOUS.
She was comforting herself, felt an almost voluptuous thrill, the prospect of—seated close beside the Investigator, at his large desktop computer, as the Investigator displayed on the screen the many mini-photos he’d taken surreptitiously at Orion. As they peered at the images, tried to identity the images, and the Investigator would play the tapes he’d recorded, or had tried to record—(for such surreptitious taping, in miniature, was not a flawless operation)—and the Intern would take notes, the Intern would number and name and eventually print out the photos, and file. And there was a comfort in this, the Intern wished badly to think.

We are collaborators. In a project of social justice.

We will work together from now on.

For he knows he can trust
me
.

THAT NIGHT AT
10:40
P.M.
It seemed clear, the Intern would stay the night at the Investigator’s rented house where there was a room for her, a narrow bed, a bureau of drawers and a private bathroom.

Where she’d stayed in the past, from time to time.

Stammering she had to—in the morning—would have to . . .

She had no choice now but . . .

. . . had to return home.

(
Home!
This had not been a word in her vocabulary, the Investigator had ever heard. No more than
home
had been a word in his vocabulary, the Intern had ever heard.)

(For hadn’t she assured him, hadn’t she insisted, she had no parents living, no family—or the remnants of a family, from whom she was estranged? No
home
. And no memory of
home
.)

Her employer was astonished. He was stunned. He was not a man—(you could see this)—accustomed to being surprised but rather—(of this, he was proud)—a man who surprised and upset others.

Saying, was she ill?

What was she saying?—
home . . .

It was so, Sabbath McSwain wasn’t looking good. Eyes stark in their sockets with too much seeing.

He was saying, No shame in being sick. Or weak.

We are all weak at times, McSwain.

Tenderly he spoke. Or tried to.

He did not want a personal relationship with his assistant. It was something of a joke, to call her “Intern”—she knew.

He did not want an emotional relationship nor did he want—this was clear, this had not ever been an issue—any sort of sexual relationship.

She knew. She would not have wished to upset him.

He said, “Fuck. I took you to that God-damn place, and it has made you sick.”

She hoped he would not blame himself. She’d have preferred, he blame
her.

He’d opened the bottle of Johnnie Walker. Rarely the Investigator drank and only at such times, as the Intern had observed, when he believed he’d completed a difficult or arduous assignment, or had failed to complete a difficult or arduous assignment; when he wanted to “celebrate”—(inviting the Intern to join him, please). Now splashing whiskey into a glass and drinking and still he could not believe any of this, what the Intern was telling him, and trying to tell him.

“Something happened to you in the ‘execution chamber.’ In the ‘diving bell.’ God damn, I shouldn’t have sent you inside.”

“You didn’t, sir. I volunteered.”

“Fuck ‘sir.’ Call me—”

The Investigator paused. For there was no name he could offer to his employee.

“—call me ‘asshole.’ For making you sick.”

“But you didn’t. I volunteered.”

“Yes, but I signaled you to volunteer. Both times.”

Silence fell between them. The Intern feared to shut her eyes, she might lapse into unconsciousness, extinction.

Hearing herself say, faltering: “Just that I—love you. I think I love you. Sir.”

The Investigator laughed. A flush rose into his face as if the Intern had slapped him.

“But you are fifty years younger than I am. Christ, you are a
girl
.”

“I am not a ‘girl.’ I don’t think that I was ever a ‘girl.’ I was—I am—some sort of freak. But I have the strength to love you, because you don’t want love from me.”

The Investigator laughed again. He could not believe any of this.

Another several inches of precious whiskey. He drank and still—could not believe.

A speeding vehicle, headed for disaster, and no one to clutch at the wheel.

Silence between them. But an agitated silence not the companionable silence of the past eight months.

When she’d thought
If this could continue. Not forever—there is no forever.

Observing the Investigator—(for whom she had no name, in fact: he was supremely
he, him
)—in another part of the large office at the Institute, or at his computer in the home-office, whistling through his teeth, cheery and absorbed in his work, listening to crystalline notes of early-Mozart like raindrops—thinking secretly, subversively
If this could continue it is all that I could want.

All she’d hoped was to help the Investigator assemble the new
SHAME!
exposé. The Investigator had planned eighteen months of traveling and research. The Intern had been surprised to discover that, despite his best-selling books, the Investigator didn’t really seem to know what he was going to write until he began to write it: like groping in the dark, he’d said. Yet, he had faith, after the other groping-starts, that he would assemble the manuscript, and it would repay the effort.

He believed that the strongest passages would be eyewitness accounts of executions. He hoped—(was this unreasonable? The Investigator had contacts in law schools)—to be granted a pass, to actually witness an execution in one of his target states—Florida, Texas, Louisiana, etc. If he was lucky—(but this was terrible to speculate!)—he would witness one of the numerous “botched executions” that occur routinely, and are rarely reported. In this way, in
SHAME!
and in the media he would bear witness to the inhumanity of the death penalty; he would lobby in Congress, maybe. Certainly the strongest passages in the book would be eyewitness accounts of “botched executions”—in the ordinary vernacular speech of Americans like the tour-guide Lieutenant.