Lark and Termite (24 page)

Lark’s sake. Lark’s sake.
The words are beating in the rapid thump of Elise’s wipers. And then the car stalls, and the wipers stop.

The sound of the storm comes up louder. Now it’s the only sound. Through the rain, we see an orange Civil Defense pickup wavering toward us like an opening bloom.

“There,” Elise says, “we’re saved.” She’s rolling the windows down, leaning across me to open the passenger door.

“Elise, what are you doing?”

“You get out, Noreen, where they can see you. Then you reach in and help me. I’m going to need a hand.”

The flood catches at the open door and pulls us deeper, and the car fills so fast that water pours into our laps.

Termite

He hears the rain open and shut, hushing and pouring and falling hard, waiting for the wind. Rain sheets the roof in long falls, silvers the windows and fills the tracks of the alley. He wants the rain louder but the windows are shut and water studs the glass in clear round drops. Each drop runs fast and slow, high thin sounds that tremble before they fall. Rain pours fast like the river would if the river could stand up. He wants to be outside in the hard pour of the rain but Lark only shuts the door and opens it, pulling the sound and pushing it. He hears the river surge, waiting with the rain, and the ragged orange cat stands on its stone crag, high up in the tunnel wall, scenting the river and watching. The dogs in the tunnel turn and snarl before they yelp and whine and burrow close. The orange cat knows to wait until they sleep, warm in their damp fur, each tongue a long red slather. The cat will climb the steep rock bank to the rail yard when water fills Polish Town field, when the woods stand still in the smattering fall of the rain. The rain will pound harder, whirling in the wind, but now there’s a long smooth hush where the tallest trees are thickest. High up their layered boughs hold a flattened mesh of slick wet leaves and needles. They block the sky, bending with the weight of the water, and the deer stand sheltered, touching flanks. They lean into one another and listen.

The white stones of the alley float in the drowning grass. Termite hears them move and the grass is one clinched root. Lark doesn’t know, she doesn’t see. She opens the door and Solly stands at the sink, moving all the air. His black coat shines and drips and his long thin hands turn the faucet side to side. Solly holds the jugs while the water pours and fills, trapped in a shape and changing sounds. Solly makes them change and sound. He says Nonie won’t get home if the water is high.

That wagon would fill up and float. I know he knows me.

Solly, all those people, all that noise.

Termite hears the water sounding low, rising in the dark slant of the basement. Lark gives him toast and the warm square smells of butter but then they turn and go. He hears them on the basement steps but he doesn’t tell and tell. The water sliding up is the green edge of the rain, clogged with earth, seeping through the concrete floor in a line that moves, tasting slow and reaching. The boxes Lark watches and touches are full of weight. Each thing inside is wrapped and closed. Solly stands in the basement dark and the one bulb hanging from the ceiling throws its yellow glow. His hard black coat is on the floor and Lark steps back and away and up the stairs. Termite hears her move each step until she sits with him and tries to say. She smells of warm flowers like her hair and dark like the water on the floor. The water will slide high. Maybe he could stop it raining but he holds still and listens.

Lark makes the eggs with the yellow smell. Water on Solly’s face and the soap smell on his hands. The spoon comes and goes and Termite hears the river in Solly’s skin, moving long in Solly’s arms, wet in Solly’s hair. Listen to these voices Termite, they sing the way you talk. Solly holds the radio and finds sounds that glide and sweep, slide bright and swerve, swing and stop and start. Termite turns the knobs loud and louder to listen for the sounds behind. Clicks and beeps are deep inside the wires, stops and ticks that snap. He wants the hum of air between, the urgent pause and fall inside the trills and crashing.
He hears snow falling on the alley behind the restaurant, flying and covering like blurred white petals.

Noreen, will you hold the chalice?

Father Salvatore, I never agreed to this.

Noreen, Charlie asked that I administer the sacrament—

I wouldn’t let you baptize Lark. No sign of the cross will make Termite more pure than he is.

Noreen, Lark may decide to come to God, but the boy can’t. God’s church exists where His sacraments take place. The child is compromised. Grant him the protection of God’s grace.

I don’t know where God’s grace was when Termite needed it, and his natural father was a Jew, if that makes any difference.

They’re silent.

Charlie holds him.

Nonie, I consider him my boy, my son, the same as Lark is mine.

I won’t take him from you, Charlie. Because I don’t want him upset. But I won’t hold the chalice or be any part of this.

There now, Charlie says. He doesn’t mind.

A big hand behind Termite’s head, a warm palm on his forehead tilting him back and the water running into his ears. The water in his ears fills and swells and he moves and says to hear.
Lark doesn’t know but Termite hears a wall of rain gather in the river and the wind, a billow of weight and cloud. He feels it slam the house and then the flood is inside, softly, the spread of a silver finger going darker as it moves and pulls. Lark is splashing toward him before they’re up the stairs. He likes the attic piled high with shapes in the dark and she gives him the heavy flashlight to hold. He wants it dark but she turns the light to shine a narrow beam and says she’ll come and go. She says he likes storms and this one is his and she’s up and down the narrow attic ladder. The ladder folds from the ceiling of his room like an arm flung up or down and the air falls smashed around her as she moves. The boxes Solly stacked in the attic are breathing all the space. He feels the attic go darker with every sound. Lark says they can eat by the attic window and watch the water rise. She says Solly will come with a boat. You might like that Termite a ride in a boat through the water.

Lark doesn’t hear. The rain is a black field, falling and pulling the wind. The ragged orange cat claws its way along the splintered tipple to a broken overhang and squeezes small. Polish Town field is deep and tossed, silent now, filled and covered. Termite hears the river roll inside the flood and tear the island loose. The island begins to slide, groaning and sucking before it turns and floats. Deer climb to the top of the mound and stand, moving on a clutch of silt and dump and roots. They kneel and roll in the softened ground, dig down to hold fast in the pouring. He feels Lark bend over him in the dark and the curve of her forehead is like the shine of a plate. Downstairs the flood holds still and the plastic mattress from his bed can move and turn, nudging the walls. The rats are soft dark lumps, scrabbling when they tilt and slide. They hold still and ride, moving their small faces. The farmer has a wife with a carving knife but Lark sings the song about the cheese and feeds him with her fingers.
It’s summer and Lark says she’s wearing the dress he likes, the one their mother wore that Nonie still keeps in the closet. Lark’s a white blur pulling the wagon, walking the short grass between the stones with the wet of the grass on her feet. The wagon crunches across the gravel to the Tuccis’ tall porch steps. Electric buzz inside the house is raging and smashing loud.
American Bandstand
won’t hurt you Termite, but she calls Solly out to the porch. He yells in for Joey to turn it off, Lark’s come to make them dinner. The television goes off, crackling to stop the hornet buzz that might leap up and up.

Solly brings him inside and Nick Tucci is drinking a beer. He says he remembers that dress, she wore it with red shoes but it looks better on Lark, even barefoot. Hey Junior, he says, Lark’s cooking dinner for the lugs while the old man makes do with a lunch pail on night shift. Ain’t it the way. He pounds down the steps and the car door opens and slams. Solly sits still. Joey stays at the table shuffling cards, snapping and cutting the shapes. The cards stop moving when the car sounds fade. Lark is in the kitchen. Water running and refrigerator sounds. Joey and Solly at the table while Joey cuts the cards.

Joey, you see him looking at her?

Everyone looks at her, Solly. You’d have to be dead. She reminds him of someone.

Someone. Her mother, that walked off and left her kids.

And ours left us. So what. Dad’s not saying why and we don’t know.

I know Lark. We know each other. Nobody else raised us.

Click of the cards on the table. Joey shuffles them fast and pulls them apart in falling lines. Zeke bounces a basketball upstairs. It pound pound pounds against the wooden floor.

Dad would say goddamn it he raised you, Nonie and him. He’d say Lark is like a sister to you and don’t you forget it.

Yeah? So she’s like a daughter to him?

He wishes. Thinks he would have done better by her.

I’ll do better.

You? Solly, you’re almost fifteen. Old enough to be doing something else. You should be out with me in the car at night, screwing whatever moves, not sitting here playing house. She keeps you off her and you’re welded to her. Anyone can see it. Hell, Termite sees it. You need to stay away from her.

Then they’re silent. Joey puts the cards in Termite’s hands and they scatter like small sharp pages.

I’ll sit with him awhile, Joey says. Then I’m out of here. I got someone I’m meeting. She might like to meet you too, but fine. Go on out there.

Solly goes into the kitchen. The fan is on loud. Joey makes the cards appear like whispers at Termite’s ear. He makes them stand and fall across his forearm, near Termite’s face where he can see. They twirl their numbers before they fall. Then Joey says he’s leaving and he’s turning the TV on loud so they’ll know he’s going. He smooths back Termite’s hair and puts his forehead close a moment, dark and rapid and blurred.

You’re my boy, he says. Here’s a kiss.

His mouth is on Termite’s hair but there’s no kiss. He turns away in two strides and the TV blasts its bright lines, blaring and talking loud, layers of shouts and words and hums between. Joey’s car squeals as he backs out fast and gravel flies up in the alley. Termite begins to say until Lark picks him up and says they won’t come back here anymore, she’ll make him dinner at home. The cards fall on the grass and he’s in his seat in the wagon. He can smell Joey’s car like a cooling smoke. Lark is walking fast and she says it’s no one’s fault.
Lark makes the candles blaze little fires. The attic is shut tight but Lark opens the window wide to let the sound come in. The rain is a cloud Termite, sit with me and see. She lifts him close and leans out to let him hear. The flood is rushing wide around the houses, churning and knotted in the tops of trees, slipping fast in white streams. He turns to hear it race and pour, one layer touching another, then Lark puts him in the bed. The bed is a nest and the candles glow in his sleep but the ragged orange cat sees the flood, working its pale shapes. The splintered wood of the tipple is fuzzy with damp, high over the town, and the flood in the dark is like a sky looking up and moving.
A dell sounds like a bell Termite but it’s a valley deep with trees. The farmer takes a wife and the wife takes a child. The child takes a nurse but a nurse is for a sick child not like you. Derry-o is a dairy where the farmer milks the cows. The dog takes the cat that catches the rat so the cheese can stand alone. A song moves a story fast or slow like the river moves the water. Fast makes it funny and slow makes it sad. I’ll sing it slow now listen.
He hears the boat far off, buzzing and droning like a fly caught in a glass. The yawning flood churns where no one sees, opening deep where the boat can’t float or ride. The boat moves high by the house, pulling on the rope that grinds, wobbling on the water. The boat will find the river in the flood and the flood will open. The flood can turn and spin, a froth and fall like music. Stamble’s cool pale light is in the air. Clouds drift on the brown murk, moving when the flood moves. The boat’s blades turn in the muddy water, pushing in the pull of the flood. Termite feels the dark branch reach under them, pronged like a hand with fingers. The boat slams and screams and he wants to go but Stamble goes, flung like a white cloth, furled out and diving deep. Stamble spirals down and down in the heavy water, finding the dark and the shapes and the light in the curve.

The moving air is full of dense wet cloud. Termite hears it rain and rain the story of the train. The water and the train and the pounding are raining and pouring through. Even on a clear day, he can hear it. Now the sound is wide. He listens.

North Chungchong Province, South Korea

JULY 28, 1950

Corporal Robert Leavitt

24th Infantry Division

Mashuhyo, mashuhyo.
The girl is talking in the dark. She’s come back; it must be nearly dawn. Drink, she whispers. The word in her language is sibilant and hushed, like the sluice of water in the stream none of them can reach. She lies near him, pressing the dripping fabric of her shirt to his mouth. It tastes salty and black. He thinks the words or says them. No, she tells him in Korean, the water is pink. There are so many bodies in the water. She squeezes the wet cloth against his lips, his teeth, touching his tongue with the bloody water. He thinks he moves, pushing her away, but he only opens his hand. She drops her forehead onto his palm and a pulse in her temple beats like a minnow holding still. The day before he left Louisville, he gave Lola his mother’s little derringer, the pearl-handled pistol she kept out of sight beside the cash register. She’d never had to use it but she kept it loaded. The musicians and junkies took drugs that made them crazy, and the drunks and merchant seamen got mean late at night if they hadn’t found women. She was always alone, closing up. The old man was always out. Bobby was out by then too, an underage teenager haunting clubs that let him sit in with bands, pick up what he could. Ma, he asked her, do you even know how to use that gun? Does it work? Sure it works, she said, it’s just you have to aim for the head, or a knee if you’re stopping someone running. You ever fired it? Bobby asked. How hard can it be, she said. I told the man I wanted a lady’s pistol, small, no kickback, something I could put in a purse. And why would you do that, Ma, put it in a purse. I might want to take a trip, she said. He didn’t worry about her at night. The grocery didn’t sell liquor or even beer. It was the safest place in Philly at 10:00 p.m. Waitresses and women and cops, bus drivers going off shift. He talked her into taking the derringer upstairs with her after closing up. To keep it safe, he said, suppose someone broke in, despite the iron grates she slid across the doors and windows. They’d open the register and see the gun, more use than cash and day-old bread. Really, he wanted her to have it in case the old man showed up loaded and Bobby wasn’t home yet. It was what he feared. Long ago he’d taken sides, become her partner, but when she did die, alone on the floor in quiet he could only imagine, he ceded all territory. There was no territory without her. He’d hated the store for the shabby continual way it imprisoned both of them, he’d wanted out, but he hadn’t protected her, he wasn’t there. Blood clot in her brain, they said, wouldn’t have mattered. It mattered to him. He wouldn’t let anyone move her things. When he left a few weeks later, all he took from her room was the derringer.

He’d thought he was a man at sixteen; he felt free, unencumbered, capable. He’d been with girls for years and found women, always, easily, but he stayed clear of commitments and was somehow loyal to his mother’s aloneness, to her life and death, without ever thinking of her, until Lola.
Mother may I.
Lola knew, almost by instinct, who he was. Something in her was that alone. They began to tell each other why, with their bodies and words. Lying in bed, smoking cigarettes, talking for hours. The postwar army was a good job, a start, and there were no emergencies. They had their whole lives to plan.

He joked that his mother’s gun was a wedding present. He wasn’t worried about Lola, with her girls and Onslow close by, not worried for her
safety,
he said. Not worried, the phrase itself, was a shadow, a dark tug inside him. Every woman should have a firearm, he told Lola, for her own protection. It was your mother’s, Lola said. That’s why I’ll keep it for you. She touched the pearl handle to her face and held the derringer on the flat of her palm, like jewelry, an object. It was just the length of her hand. Leavitt sees her hand, and the old woman’s hand, holding his service revolver. The two images are startlingly clear: one picture superimposed on the other. The soft flat of a woman’s hand, the guns, the angle and attitude of support the same, but the bigger gun dwarfed the old woman’s small palm, and the barrel shone in the dark. Your weapon is your life. Basic had drilled the phrase into him. He heard the girl pleading. Let him stay with them. And the old woman listened to her, took her own life instead. All their lives, if she’d given the troops an excuse to say the refugees were armed. Or maybe it didn’t matter, had no bearing. Command had sealed the tunnels, treated the refugees as combatants from the beginning.

He can’t see the girl, the boy, but he feels them against him, as though constant physical contact is their only safety, all that’s real in the dark.

He’s with them and he’ll stay with them.

He’ll never get out. None of them will. What he sees is wobbly, unreal. What’s real is inside him, not outside. He sees, he can still see, along a tunnel, stone and cracked concrete. It’s Lola’s picture of an arch into a tunnel, the walls curved, turning like faces he should have recognized, the arch, the stones and the wide river beside, not this place, this stream running bloody and small, feeding him, wetting his face. He hears the girl whispering against his hand, every syllable distinct, a rush and cadence of words. He’s not speaking, can’t speak, and she thinks he can’t hear her, but he recognizes the words of a Buddhist chant having to do with journeys, purification.

There’s movement outside, a groaning of wheels and heavy equipment. He hears her reach for the boy. She lies down behind Leavitt and pulls him against her, with the child between them.

Sound stops, as though by some agreement or mutual sense. Leavitt hears the click of the searchlights come on. Impossible, but he hears it. They’re powerful circular searchlights on wheels, each the size of an airplane engine; the North Koreans use them in battle and now the Americans use them too. The lights are in position at either end of the tunnel and their white beams cross midway. The American units have lit the tunnel and they’re going to fire until no one’s moving.

He feels the girl behind him, holding the child. Leavitt feels her mouth on the back of his neck, silently forming syllables. It’s now, he can feel it. His baby is born, deep inside him where the pain throbs. It’s all wrong and it’s true, his legs are dead and his guts are torn apart but his spine opens up like a star. He can feel Lola split apart, the baby fighting her, tearing his way. The girl’s arm tightens across Leavitt. She holds the boy motionless and pulls Leavitt tighter against them, against the tunnel wall. He draws back, into her hard thin limitless chest, inside her embrace.

The bodies are lit and white in the arched space. Those still alive draw closer to one another; mothers lie down to shield their children. Light pours through them and over them like an avalanche. He can’t see but he can hear acutely, in slow deliberate measure, the sound of the machine guns turning on their pivots. He hears, surrounding them on all sides, a deepening pressure, an approaching density, like the roar of a vast train so wide and heavy it can fall forever, a barrage of fire to scream over and through them so hard and long it will pull the war into nothingness with it.

When the pounding begins the white light on his face goes blue. Look inside, he tells his son, inside is where you really are. He wants to lift his baby away from this beautiful deadly world. The planes always come, he wants to say, like planets on rotation, a timed bloodletting with different excuses. Part of a long music. Don’t look, only listen. His son is born. Leavitt feels him turn in the salt and the blood, squalling and screaming in the close hot wet. Stop screaming, Leavitt tells him. Never scream. They’ll find you. Stay still. Listen. You can’t come with me now. Breathe, breathe. Take your turn.