Shadowland (46 page)

 
   ''Take him out,' I said to the astonished attendant, who had been half-dozing at the back of the room: he had seen the nurse run out, but nothing of the operation. Washford went one way, I went another — I was floating. I came out into the big tiled hallway outside the theater. The nurse saw me and backed away. I started to laugh, and realized I was still wearing my mask. I removed it and sat on a bench. 'Don't be afraid,' I said to the nurse.

 
   ''Holy mother of Jesus,' she said. She was Irish.

 
   'That miraculous power was ebbing from me. I held my hands up before my face. They looked skinned, in the tight surgical gloves.

 
   ''Holy mother of Jesus,' the nurse repeated. Her face was turning from white to lobster pink.

 
   ''Forget about it,' I said. 'Forget what you saw.'

 
   'She scampered back inside the theater. I still could not comprehend what had just happened to me. It was as though I had been raised up to a great eminence and been shown all the things of this world and been told: 'You may have what you like.' For a second I felt my blood pressure charge upward, and my head swam.

 
   'Then everything gradually returned to normal. I could stand. I went back inside the theater, where Withers was just finishing with the boy on my table. He looked at me in disgust, finished his sutures, and returned to his own table. I did five more operations that day, and never felt the approach of that power which had healed Washford.'

 
The magician looked up. 'Night.' Tom, surprised, saw the lamps burning in the woods; lights on the beach pushed his shadow toward the lake. 'Time to go to bed. Tomorrow I will tell you about my meeting with Speckle John and what happened after the war.'

 
   'Bedtime?' Del said. 'What happened to . . . ?'

 
   Both boys simultaneously saw the crushed sandwich wrappers, the paper plates laden with crumbs.

 
   'Oh, yes, you have eaten,' Collins said. His face was serene and tired.

 
   'We've only been here . . . ' Tom looked at his watch, which said eleven o'clock. 'An hour.'

 
   'You have been here all day. I will see you here tomorrow at the same time.' He stood up, and they dazedly imitated him. 'But know this. William Vendouris, whose name I had taken for a time,
put a hurtin' on me.
Without Vendouris, perhaps I would have remained an amateur magician, locked out and away from everything I wished most to find.'

 
5

 
Tom and Del climbed the rickety steps by themselves. Their minds and bodies told them it was late morning, but the world said it was night: the thick foliage on the bankmelted together into a single vibrant breathing mass. They reached the top and stood in the pale, yellowish electrical light, looking down. Coleman Collins was standing on the beach, looking out at the lake.

 
   'Did you know he used to be a doctor?' Tom asked.

 
   'No. But it explains why he didn't send for one when I broke my leg that time. The whole story explains that.' Del put his hands in his pockets and grinned. 'If I started to heal wrong or anything, he would have fixed me like he did with that colored man.'

 
   'I guess,' Tom said moodily. 'Yeah, I guess so.' He was watching Collins: the magician had extended one arm into the air, as if signaling to someone on the other side of the lake. After a moment the arm went down and Collins began to stroll along the beach in the direction of the boathouse. 'Could we really have been down there all day?'

 
   Del nodded. 'I was sort of hoping I'd see her today. But the whole day vanished.'

 
   'Well, that's just it,' Tom said. 'It vanished. It was ten in the morning, about an hour went by, and now it's eleven at night. He stole thirteen hours away from us.'

 
   Del looked at him, uncertain as a puppy.

 
   'What I mean is, what's to stop him from taking a week away from us? Or a month? What does he do, put us to sleep?'

 
   'I don't think so,' Del said. 'I think everything just sort of speeds up around us.'

 
   'That doesn't make sense.'

 
   'It doesn't make sense to say that you met the Brothers Grimm, either.' Del's tone was wistful, but his face momentarily turned bitter, '
I
should have.'

 
   'Well, I never met Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe.'

 
   'Uncle Cole said I had to watch out for your jealousy,' Del blurted out. 'I mean . . . he just said that once when we were alone. He said that one day it would hit you, and you would want Shadowland for yourself.'

 
   Tom fought down the impulse to tell exactly what Collins had said about his nephew. 'That's crazy. He wants to break up our friendship.'

 
   'No, he doesn't.' Del was adamant. 'He just said — '

 
   'That I'd be jealous. Okay.' Tom was reflecting that Collins had after all been right: though it was not Shadowland that made him jealous, but Rose Armstrong. 'Tell you what. Do you really want to meet the Brothers Grimm?'

 
   'Right now?' Del was suspicious.

 
   'Right now.'

 
   'Are you sure it's all right?'

 
   'I'm not sure of anything. Maybe they're not even there.'

 
   'Where?'

 
   'You'll see.'

 
   Del shrugged. 'Sure. I'd like to,'

 
   'Come on, then.'

 
   Del gave a worried look down at the beach: Collins had disappeared into the boat house. Then he followed Tom through the sliding doors into the living room.

 
   'I guess we really ought to be in bed,' Del said a little nervously.

 
   'You can go to bed if you want to.' Then he felt sorry for being so abrupt. 'Are you tired?'

 
   'Not really.'

 
   'Me neither. I think it's eleven-ten in the morning.'

 
   This was said in defiance of all the physical evidence. All Shadowland seemed put to bed, even if the principal occupants were still out of theirs. One lamp burned beside a couch; the carpet showed the tracks of a vacuum cleaner. On the end tables, the ashtrays sparkled. Tom marched through the dim, quiet room, almost hoping to see Elena silently buffing the furniture.

 
   'Upstairs?' Del asked.

 
   'Nope.' Tom turned into the hall. One of the recessed lights gave a pumpkin-colored illumination.

 
   'In the Little Theater?'

 
   'Nope.' Tom stopped where the short hallway intersected the main hall to the theaters.

 
   'Oh, no,' Del said. 'We can't.'

 
   'I already did.'

 
   'And he saw you?'

 
   'He was waiting for me when I came out.'

 
   'Was he mad?'

 
   'I guess so. But nothing happened. You saw how hewas today. Maybe he even forgot it. He was pretty drunk.

 
   He wants us to see them, Del. That's why they're there.' 'Do they just sit there? Or can you talk to them?' 'They'll talk your ears off,' Tom said. 'Come on. I

 
   want to ask them some questions.' He turned into the

 
   short hallway and pulled open the heavy door.

 
6

 
'Our young visitor again, Jakob,' said the one with the seasoned, kindly face.

 
   'And behind him, is there not another little
Geist?'
'He has never been curious before, that one.' 'He has never had his brave brother's help before.' Both of them laid down their pens and looked inquisitively at Tom, but Tom did nbt move forward. He was aware of Del stretching on tiptoe behind him, trying to see over his shoulder. Instead of the cluttered, cozy workroom in which he had seen them earlier, the two men in the frock coats and elaborate neckwear were surrounded by a more barren and purposeful but equally cluttered room. The walls were earthen, crumbling here and there; nails had been driven into the packed earth, and from the nails hung khaki jackets, peaked hats, and tin helmets. Complicated green-and-white maps hung on a wide board. A clumsy box with a crank and a headpiece sat on a trestle table which also supported rolled maps, bundles of paper tied with shoelaces, more military headgear, a fleece-lined jacket, and a kerosene lamp. Stark wooden chairs surrounded it. In this curious setting, the two men sat at their ornate desks.
A soldier's room,
was all that Tom could make of this.
Staff room?

 
   'Yes, little one,' said Wilhelm. 'They let us work here.'

 
   'For our work goes on,' said Jakob, standing up and beckoning the two boys into the room.

 
   Tom stepped forward and smelled the close loamy odor of earth; the trace of cigars. Del came alongside him. From far off, what could have been miles away, came the booming of big guns.

 
   'And on and on. For the stories' sake.'

 
   'Where are you supposed to be now?' asked Tom.

 
   'Shadowland,' both brothers answered. 'It is always Shadowland.'

 
   'I mean, France? Germany?'

 
   'Things are getting dark,' said Jakob. 'We may have to move again, and take our work and our families with us. But still the stories continue.'

 
   'Even though Europe is dying, brother.'

 
   'The sparrows have given up their voices.'

 
   'Their choice.'