Lullaby for the Rain Girl (51 page)

“Sure, Ben. If that’s what you want.” She smiled. “We need to get dressed, though.”

“Yes. Let’s. Hurry, though, will you?”

# # #

It was quarter past four as we came up the escalator into Dupont Circle. The rain was steady and cold. I was already wet from the walk before; Sherry’s umbrella was too small for the both of us. It didn’t matter. I was hardly aware of the rain. The skies had turned dark and menacing and I was overcome, I didn’t know why, with feelings of onrushing doom. I took the steps two at a time.

“Ben, slow down! Wait a minute.”

“I—I can’t,” I cried, several steps ahead of her as we hit the street.

“Do you think something’s wrong?”

“Yes.”

I ran across the Circle, Sherry behind me. The rain pelted my eyes and made it difficult for me to see anything. I nearly stepped out in front of a car on Connecticut—a horn blast kept me from being hit.

“Ben, be careful! Ben!”

But I couldn’t stop then. The building came into view, streaked and blurred through the rain. It looked as normal as anything in this waterlogged, nightmarish landscape I was traversing now. Cold rain streamed down the back of my neck and soaked my socks and feet. Heart smashing, I careened into the lobby and past the reception desk. I pushed the button for the elevator again, again, again. By the time it came, Sherry had caught up.

“Ben,
slow down,”
she said breathlessly.
“
We’ll be there in a second. What’s wrong? I’m sure she’s...”

The doors opened and I rushed in, pushing the top floor button over and over. I could hardly breathe. My head throbbed. No, I thought. No.  The millennium. The darkness spreading across the land. Chaos, collapse. Disaster. No.

At last the doors opened again and I ran down the corridor to our door. I fumbled the keys, dropped them. Fumbled them again, dropped them again.

“Ben...”

“No...” I heard myself gasping.
“No...”

I pushed opened the door.

As I did I heard a curious ripping sound, had a fleeting sense of
absence,
a rushing-away, air displaced, and a powerful vacuum seemed to pull me violently forward into the room. I looked toward the windows, saw what might have been a flash of pale fingers, lank brown hair suddenly, wildly airborne in wind. Then I saw nothing.

Sherry, behind me: “Ben? What happened?”

The window at the far end of the room was open. The wind blew freely in, the rain spattering the sill and carpet. The screen wasn’t there. The screen was dangling outside the window.

I ran to the window, looked desperately down, down.

She was there. For an instant she was. Splayed face-down on the pavement below. For an instant I saw her, saw her as clearly as I’ve ever seen anything in my life. In her drab brown coat, not the big one I’d bought her, the thin one I’d first met her in, too light for a Washington winter. She’d chosen it—had she?—to try to stay warm on her lonely trip out of the world. All this I saw in an instant. Then she was gone.

“Ben?”

I turned slowly to Sherry, unable to speak. My mouth opened but no sound emerged. I fell away from the window.

“Ben? Ben, what...?” She stepped to the window, looked carefully out and down for a long moment, then turned to me again. “Ben? What happened? Why is the window like this? Where is Rae?” She moved into the apartment. “Rae?” she called. “Rae, where are you?” I heard her moving in the bathroom, the bedroom. “Rae?
Rae?”

I stood at the window. The screen dangled outside in jagged strips, as if she’d torn her way through it with her bare hands. There was nothing but empty air between me and the concrete below. It would only take an instant’s resolve, a slight push forward and release. I felt the rain slicing my face. If I could just fall, let myself collapse forward and drop...

Then Sherry’s hand was on my shoulder. She pulled me away from the window and slid it closed. The room was suddenly very quiet. The rain sounded far away.

She looked at me, wide-eyed.

“I don’t understand,” she said slowly. “Ben? Where is Rae? I don’t understand.”

I stepped away from the window, stumbled sluggishly to the middle of the room. I stood there for a long time, purposelessly. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I noticed then that on the floor was the piece of art she’d made me as a Christmas present. The picture. It was ripped to bits, paper and string and slivers of tinfoil rain blown everywhere across the carpet. In a far corner was the gold necklace I’d given her, tangled and torn. Our tiny Christmas bush was toppled over by the sofa, dirt and little ornaments splayed across the carpet. The contents of the Nike shoe box were strewn everywhere: the notebook, photos, piercings, everything.

She took my arm, looked closely at me. “Ben?”

“Sit down, Sherry,” I said at last, with deep, shaky breaths, my voice a broken murmur. “Sit down. There are...there are a couple of thousand things I need to tell you.”

11

The sky darkened as I spoke: darkened, and then blackened. There was no light whatsoever outside. We switched on lamps. The rain, strong before, became a windswept downpour, so much rain falling from the heavens at one time that the windows began to leak, trickles and rivulets seeping down the window frames, onto the sill, down the wall. We placed towels there to soak up the excess and then sat watching this extraordinary deluge dropping from the sky. There was nothing else we could do.

I talked. I talked for a long time. Hours. At times Sherry could hardly hear me, had to lean close; my voice was husky and weak, the sound of the rain and wind like a terrible, agonized howling filling the room. I told her everything, back to the beginning: Rachel, our relationship, the El Mirador clock tower and what happened there. But I told her more, much more. No sane person would have believed what I said about impossible daughters, soul catchers, worlds between worlds. Even as I said the words they sounded like madness. Yet I kept talking.

Then the lights went out and left us in complete darkness.

“It’s all right,” I said, looking up. “They have generators. It’ll be back up in a second.”

But as we sat there in the blanket of night, no lights came on. The rain kept raining. The wind kept howling, sighing, crying.

“I’ll call,” I said, getting up wearily, banging my shin against my crate-table. “I’ll ask what’s going on.” I moved toward the phone, felt my way to the receiver, lifted it, listened. “Hm. There’s no dial tone.”

She stood—I could see her figure only very dimly, black on darker black—and moved to me. She took my arm.

“Ben? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

The windows rattled violently. I thought for a moment they would burst entirely. Then I felt water dripping on my cheek. Looking up, I could see nothing in the dark; I reached my hand to the ceiling, felt a wet spot there.

“My God,” I said, “the ceiling’s leaking. That’s never happened before.”

“Do you have a flashlight? Or candles?”

I had a couple of old, half-used candles that had been sitting in a kitchen drawer for years. I felt my way to them, brought them out.

“Do you have a match?” I asked her. “A lighter? Anything? The stove is electric.”

“No. No, I don’t. You must have matches.”

“I—I don’t know. Hold these.” I gave her the candles, fumbled blindly toward the closet, found my coat and rifled the pockets. Nothing. I was anxious now, afraid. The darkness was total, like the darkness of the grave. I suddenly
had
to have light. I felt my way to the bedroom, ran my hands through my desk drawer, over my nightstand. This was absurd. I’d smoked for over twenty years and I couldn’t find a single source of flame? I dug through the nightstand’s drawer frantically, pulling things out and tossing them away.

“Ben?” Sherry cried from the other room. “Are you there? It’s so
dark.”

“Yes! Just wait!” At last my hand grasped a familiar shape—an old lighter I’d used years before. “I’m coming!” I banged into the door frame on my way into the main room. “Where are you?”

“Here. By the door.”

We found each other. I had no idea if the lighter still worked. I flicked it once—a spark, nothing more. Again. On the third time it caught. I lit the candles.

“Thank goodness,” she said.

“Yes.” The light calmed both of us slightly. I was able to look around the shadowy apartment. Dark wet spots had appeared in several places on the carpet; looking up, I realized there were a half-dozen places where gray water circles had appeared in the ceiling.

“Let’s get pans to catch all this,” I said, moving into take-command mode. “I have a mop bucket under the kitchen sink. And an old paint bucket, too. Can you get those, Sherry? I’ll round up all the towels I can find.”

We spent the next several minutes charging around the apartment, catching the rain that was falling on us, into us. When we were finished I went to the phone again. Nothing.

“I’ll use my cell,” Sherry said, fishing it from her bag. She fumbled with it for a moment and held it to her ear. “Hello?” She pushed buttons. “Hello? Hello?” Looking at me, she said, “It doesn’t work. I’m not getting anything. This is really weird.”

“This is crazy,” I said. “We have to find out what’s going on. The elevator will be out, I guess, but it’s only eight floors.” I looked at her face, flickering in the candlelight. “Want to?”

“Anything would be better than staying here, Ben. I feel like we’re going to drown.”

“Yeah. We’ll go downstairs, see what’s what.”

I reached to the doorknob. It wouldn’t turn.

I checked the lock, tried to turn it again. Nothing.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“The door’s stuck.”

“Stuck? How can it be stuck?”

“Sherry, hold this, will you?” I gave her my candle, wrapped both hands around the knob, twisted it with all my strength.

It would not move.

I stood back, quite frightened now. Sherry gave me back my candle and then tried the knob herself.

“Is it locked?” she said. “Does the lock stick?”

“It’s not locked,” I said. “Look for yourself. And it’s never stuck.”

She pulled at it some more. Then she looked back at me.

“What’s happening, Ben? I don’t—this is like a dream. A nightmare. I don’t understand.”

I looked toward the window, listened to the incessant wind. “Do you think that I do?”

She banged on the door. “Is anyone there?” she called. “Can someone let us out? Anyone? We’re stuck in here, can someone call the—the manager, or...can someone let us
out?”

  Candle in hand, ducking between the leaking spots in the living room, I walked over to the window again. It seemed that at any moment it would implode, come crashing in on us, submerge us forever. What remained of the window screen flapped and waved in the wind, slapped against the glass.

“Ben? Ben, I—I want out of here. I want to get out of here.” She picked up the phone, pushed buttons on it. “Hello? Hello? Can anybody hear me?”

I moved to her again. She put down the phone and wrapped her arm around me, holding the candle steady in her other hand.

“I want to get out of here,” she said again.

The wind screamed. Thunder roiled the sky. The windows rattled and shook.

“Let’s sit down,” I said finally. I led her to the kitchen table. She sat. I stepped into the kitchen, found a couple of saucers and hand towels, came back to the table.

“Here,” I said. “We can jerry-rig some candle holders. Wrap the towel around the candle, prop it up on the saucer.”

We did. Two candles glowed on the table. Everything else was dark, everywhere in the world. At least the world we could see. Or not see.

We sat there a long time. I had no idea what to do. I realized I was trembling.

We tried talking now and then, but the volume of the storm was tremendous and it pushed us back into silence. From time to time we held hands. I don’t know how long we sat there, staring into that darkness beyond darkness. It was a long time. Lightning began to flash blue in the window frame and in one flash as I watched—yes,
she
was there, far larger than life, gazing in, her hair wet and windblown, her eyes enormous, glistening, hungry. Not hungry for food, I knew. No, not food.

I heard Sherry gasp.

But as quickly as she appeared, suspended before the window, she vanished again.

“Ben—Ben, did you
see—
it was—”

“I saw,” I whispered. I stood.

“Ben, don’t leave me. Please. I’m scared, Ben.”

“Don’t be. The building won’t collapse.”

“It feels like it will.”

“It’s all right.” I tousled her hair and stepped away.

“Don’t leave me. Please.”

“I’m right here.”

“I can hardly see you.”

I sat down again. Her fingers wrapped around mine. She kept talking. I kept talking. After a while I noticed that there was a little pad of paper on the table which I used to make up grocery lists. Next to it was a tiny stub of a pencil. At some point, hardly conscious of doing it, I picked them up, started writing. It didn’t matter what I wrote. I just wrote. What Sherry said, what I said. I simply kept the pencil moving. There was something comforting in it. There always had been, since I was a child making up my very first stories. I found tears trickling down my face. If I’d gone with her, I thought, if I’d lived the life she’d wanted, just the two of us, on the road together forever. People did. We could have. We could have lived on the streets or in the country, just the two of us, if I’d been able to give her enough...to love her enough...