Secrecy (22 page)

She woke late with a headache. For the first time in months the solitary Sunday loomed empty and bleak. Undoubtedly, she had been working too hard, nose to the grindstone. She needed a rest. It was four months since she had been home. Tomorrow, she decided, I will ask for a week off without pay, and go.

T
he pleasant dining room in the European-style inn near the Thailand-Myanmar border was almost vacant, the last tourist group having departed after an early breakfast. Only one man remained alone at the far end of the room, so that Cliff and Claudia had the quiet space to themselves. She looked outward to the surrounding grove, where vines such as she had never seen and could not name twisted their purple flowers through dense shrubbery. An enormous banyan tree, whose trunk had the girth of six stout men, stood in a heap of its own snake-twisted roots. It must be at least a hundred years old, she thought, or maybe even two hundred. From somewhere came the bronze clang of a gong, so mysteriously different from the sound of ringing bells at home.

Everything was strange here, the fat Buddhas with their placid gaze, the fruits in the markets, the dusty villages, the slender women with their rich, long hair,
the curious sound of a cry in an unintelligible language, a tiny monkey sitting in a tree, the gold and scarlet of the temples—all were marvelous and strange.

She knew quite well that Cliff had wanted this trip for her sake. Travel no longer had the allure for him when, in his twenties, he had gone wandering.

“We can’t afford it,” she had objected.

He had argued her down. “The advance for the next volume of my
History of Industry
will pay for it, and people do owe themselves something nice once in a while.”

Careful as she was to conceal those periods of deepest sadness he must be aware that she had them. For, someplace on this globe, her son, too, was wandering, not as the youthful adventurer that Cliff had been, but as a guilty, wary fugitive.

And Claudia shook her head as if to shake off an insect that was buzzing at her cheek. This was the last day here, and she must not waste the smallest scrap of it.

“One more temple today,” said Cliff, “and then we’d better get back here right after lunch to pack, or we’ll miss the plane. You hate to leave, don’t you?”

“Yes, I could do another week, or more,” she added, “but I know you’re thinking about what’s happening at home.”

Things had been going rapidly downhill. The mill’s tenants, Premier Recycling, were a bad lot. And she remembered how Bill had been doubtful about them from the start. Perhaps she ought to have said something then, while the deal was taking
shape.… But she had been a newcomer to the family, she had run a bookstore; so what could she know about a business of such magnitude? The old Dawes Textile Mill, for goodness’ sake! Nobody would have listened to her maunderings, especially when an esteemed firm of lawyers was advising the brothers. Now they were caught in a trap, caught by a long lease that no longer paid enough to cover the property taxes, which had more than doubled during these intervening years.

“Everything’s heating up,” Cliff said. “I spoke to Bill last night while you were having your bath.”

She was all attention. “What’s happening?”

“There was a town meeting. Bill said it was a shocker, an attack. We have come from being the chief employers and main benefactors of Kingsley to being villains. Well, sad to say, we’ve known that for quite a while, and yet Bill said he hadn’t realized how high the feeling was running. It was like running a gauntlet, he said, and you know how sparingly he uses words.”

“True. And yet sometimes he can be so emotional, so excitable. Of course I can’t possibly know his ways as you know them, but—hasn’t he changed awfully since everything happened, since Elena left?”

Cliff sighed. “Yes, yes, he has. He’s hard to talk to some days. Changeable. Supersensitive. And now there’s this business on top of the rest. He told me that people got up and spoke, people he’d never have expected to turn against the Dawes family. They said it was a disgrace to have this filthy eyesore practically at the town’s front door, that the stench was
hideous—which is true—and that we’re breeding disease—which may or may not be true—and that we, Cliff and Bill, should be ashamed of ourselves. We’re hypocrites, with Bill going around the state talking about the environment—”

Indignantly, Claudia broke in. “Just what do they think you can do about it?”

“Cease and desist, naturally. But we’ve tried to work it out with the tenants, haven’t we? You know that, and you know it’s been like talking to a stone wall. They deny that there is any hazardous waste. Why, they’re disposing of industrial waste, that’s all they’re doing. We signed a lease, didn’t we? It has nine years to go, hasn’t it? That’s their answer, flat out. Take it to court if you don’t like it.”

“Well, can’t you?”

“Have you any idea what that would cost, with appeals and the countersuits they would undoubtedly trump up? That’s to say nothing of the time it would take, with half Kingsley up in arms over it.”

Claudia was silent. Even here on the other side of the world, your troubles found you. And her mind made a quick connection: My trouble too. Not that Cliff’s isn’t also mine, and God knows, mine is his. They, and we, are entwined.

Cliff reached over and touched her hand. “I hope I haven’t spoiled the day with this tale of woe,” he said ruefully.

“No, I’m fine. It’s going to be a good day.”

“You looked sad for a moment. Or were you perhaps in one of your philosophic trances?” he teased,
wanting, she understood, to restore her early-morning enthusiasm.

“Yes, philosophic,” she said, smiling back at him.

“I forgot to mention something nice that Bill told me. Charlotte’s taking a week off. She’ll be getting home just about when we do.”

“Oh, great! I’ve missed her.”

“We all do. Okay, shall we start out? Where’s the camera?”

“It’s in the room with my sun hat. I’ll run up for them and meet you on the veranda.”

On the veranda when Claudia returned, Cliff was talking to the man from the dining room.

“We’ve got a car coming to take us to our final temple. Can we give you a lift anywhere?” he was asking.

“Thanks, but I’m going to sit here in the shade and go over these papers,” the man answered, indicating his briefcase.

“They told me the car’s going to be fifteen minutes late,” Claudia reported.

“Oh? We might as well sit here in the shade too.” Cliff said politely, “Cliff Dawes, and my wife, Claudia.”

“Monte Webster. Glad to meet you.”

Hands were shaken, and the pleasantries requisite when compatriots meet at a distant place were begun.

“This temple we’re seeing is supposed to be especially grand,” Cliff said, “noteworthy for—what was it, Claudia?”

The stranger provided the answer. “Some fine
carvings. In fact, an entire wall of dancers in bas relief. You shouldn’t miss it. Go around to the north side.”

Webster was a lean, tanned man, no more than thirty. He had an intelligent face, an easy manner, and nothing that would identify him as a tourist, no painful sunburn, no camera, and no jeans. In his pressed slacks and in spite of his casual shirt, he looked actually a trifle formal.

“Interesting countries here in southern Asia,” he said. “This your first trip?”

“Not mine. I went through here twenty-five years ago. Bangkok was thrilling to me then. Now it’s an imitation of New York, traffic jams and all. But it’s my wife’s first time. And I must say Myanmar—Burma—was a thrill for both of us. Twenty-five years ago you couldn’t even go in there.”

“Right. No traffic jams. Not yet, anyway.”

“To me it felt dangerous,” Claudia said, “and that was part of the thrill, I guess. Probably silly of me, though.”

Webster shook his head. “I wouldn’t call it silly. I go there all the time on business, and I can tell you there’s a lot happening that isn’t very pretty, quite aside from what we all know about the government.”

“What’s your business?” inquired Cliff.

“Farm implements. Tractors.”

Claudia, growing restless, wished that the car would hurry up. They were wasting time, standing here making useless conversation.

But Cliff, sociable Cliff, was very good at making
conversation. He said now, “I had an idea how nice it would be to surprise my wife with a fine Burmese ruby while we were there. The only problem was, I couldn’t afford one.”

“There aren’t that many around, anyway. The big business nowadays is drugs. The place is loaded with drugs, producers, smugglers, and foreign kids. It’s a pity to see so many American kids hiding out in these countries.”

Claudia asked quickly, “Hiding out? How is that possible? You need visas, passports—”

“Anything’s possible,” Webster said, “especially things you would think are impossible.”

“So a boy, a young man, could really spend his life there.…”

“That depends. But probably he could, yes, unless somebody’s looking very, very hard for him.”

“We loved the landscape,” Cliff said quickly. “So colorful. Dramatic. A great James Bond setting.”

“James Bond? Oh, you’re right. Yes, of course—”

“But if you wanted to find someone,” Claudia persisted, “how would one go about it? I mean, are there special places where these young people gather, certain towns, you know, where maybe they can find a job or—”

Without touching him she felt Cliff stiffen. A darting reprimand came from his eyes. She did not understand it, but it silenced her.

The car stopped at the veranda, and Cliff said, “We’ve got to make time. Thanks for the tip about the sculptures. North side, I’ll remember.”

When they got into the car, Claudia inquired,
“Why are you annoyed? Why were you looking at me like that?”

“Didn’t you know you were asking stupid questions? ‘How long could a young man safely’—for God’s sake, Claudia!”

“Well, I stopped, didn’t I? Although I do believe it’s paranoid to suspect everybody.”

At this Cliff laid a not-so-gentle hand on her knee. Angry at being so absurdly chastised, as though she were a child or an idiot, she subsided, and they rode for the rest of the way not speaking.

Out of the car on the temple grounds he began to scold again.

“You really are naive, Claudia. You behaved like a sap, if you want to know. Didn’t you see how that man pricked up his ears? Didn’t you realize how interested he was? Didn’t you sense anything?”

“You freak me out, Cliff. You really do. You are thousands of miles from home, you meet a friendly American man, a tractor salesman, and—”

“To begin with, he’s not a tractor salesman. Huh! Water buffalo salesman is more like it. He’s either in drugs himself or, ten times more likely, he works for the United States government intercepting drugs.”

“I wish we were that lucky, that he did work for the government. If Ted’s anywhere around here, he might find him for us. I’d like to ask him right straight out to help us.”

“Oh, sure. You dropped your needle in a haystack, and you’re going to ask, ‘Please, friendly man, find my needle for me? Please?’ ”

They were standing in a blaze of heat without having
taken one look at the facade of the famous temple.

Claudia’s jaws were hard set. “Cliff Dawes, you don’t want to find my son. No, you don’t want him to come back.”

“That’s a rotten thing to say to me.”

“Life’s more comfortable without him. That’s true, isn’t it?”

“Ask yourself whether you’re eager to have him come back and go to prison.”

Pain, the forerunner of tears, began to press against the back of her eyes.

“When one of those girls he raped is now married to a political lawyer who’d love nothing better than a fat juicy case on behalf of his own wife—can you imagine the trial, the media, the melodrama?”

“I can’t say I’m a hundred percent eager, but still …” And closing her eyes, clenching her fists, Claudia fought tears yet again. “But I do want, how I do want, to see him once more. I need to ask … I need to understand, if it’s possible, why—Oh, never mind, you never had a child, so you don’t know. Your brother would. He knows, even in spite of all that happened, still he knows I remember when Ted was a baby, how he laughed, a laughing baby boy.…”

She stopped to take a long breath. That was how you brought yourself under control. You took deep, long breaths and exhaled.

Cliff put out his hand and took hers, not speaking. They began to walk. A boy came up to them holding a caged bird, a little brown bird, common as a sparrow,
in a cage too small to let it even spread its wings.

“Ten cents?”

The appeal, accompanied by ten raised fingers, was probably the only English the boy knew. Countless times before, they had seen this appeal. The dime was handed over and the bird, released, sped off into the trees.

“I can’t stand seeing anything in cages,” Cliff muttered.

“I know.”

He pressed her hand. “We’re in all these troubles together. Let’s forgive each other for the dumb things we just said.”

“Of course, my darling.”

There was a fragrance in the air, and a sense of peace. Could it be emanating from the Buddha? That, after all, was the general purpose of his life and teaching. Peace, in a latticed framework of scarlet and gold. They walked toward it. Perhaps it will touch us, she thought. Peace.

T
he week at home had not given Charlotte any relief from her tired, restless mood. To the contrary she was in a hurry to go back to work. At the table on the last night, while eating the good food that Emmabrown had prepared, she was impatient with herself. What on earth had she expected, some sort of comfortable, warm return to the womb, or at least to childhood? As if, she thought ironically, my childhood had ever been all that warm.

Bill broke a silence that had lasted for at least five minutes. “Do you hear anything special from your—from Elena?”

“Just the usual. She plans to be in New York next fall and expects to see me there. I wish she’d fly to Boston sometimes. It’s not easy for me to take as much time off as she wants me to take.”