Songs of the Dead (35 page)

Fully awake now, she dismisses the voice and especially the message. Staying here is a nice notion, but of course impossible if she wants to avoid another visit from her dealer, who'd promised that next time he wouldn't let her off with a warning.

The thought barely occurs to her—as it sometimes does— to quit the heroin, but she rejects that immediately—as she always does—as absurd, impractical, and undesirable. Almost unthinkable.
The knife
, she thinks w
ould be less painful than being clean
. And quicker.

She looks around at the weeds dying from the change of season, at the chain link fences, the discarded refrigerators and gutted stoves, the broken glass and crushed cans, and thinks she doesn't want to stay here anyway. She doesn't want to stay anywhere. Nor does she want to go anywhere, mainly because no matter where she would go, she would have to bring herself along. And that's too much weight to carry.

She'd thought, a very long time ago, that by running away from home she'd be able to leave behind everything that happened there and start all over. But she'd learned almost immediately that there was no such thing as a fresh start. The wounds came with her. The memories came with her. The self-destructive impulses came with her. And she had known from the beginning, even consciously, that no matter how clean her rationalizations, too many of her impulses, actions, motivations were self-destructive. The nightmares came with her. The lack of impulse control. The hatred—earned hatred—of men. The hatred of herself.

Even more than scared now, Kristine is tired. She's tired of running away only to find herself still at the same place. She's tired of being tired. She's tired of being.

She cooks up some heroin, thinks very seriously about taking way too much, ending it right now. She holds the knife against the tacky chunk and pictures the knife slicing through, pictures heating it all up, pictures injecting herself again and again, pictures how that would feel to take that one last glorious gasp before going away to feel no more pain, to enter no more nightmares, to see and feel no more flashbacks. How good that would be.

But she can't do it.
Coward
, she thinks.
Fucking coward
. She thinks that has always been her problem, that she was a coward from the beginning. She didn't fight off her brother or her uncle. She's never fought off any of the men who've taken her. It's as both her brother and her uncle—and so many others—said to her more times than she could ever count, “You won't do anything about it because you're a fucking coward, and a slut besides. You wanted it more than I did. I was doing you a fucking favor by even looking at you.”

As always, Kristine puts in only enough heroin to take off the edge. She's disappointed in herself, as she is every time she goes through this, every time she considers ending it but cannot because she's a fucking coward.

She gets up, puts on the same pants as yesterday, rummages through her garbage bag to find her fuchsia blouse, and puts that on. She starts walking toward East Sprague.

“Fuck it,” she says. “Fuck it all.”

Jack is collecting. He's in his truck. He's thinking about his childhood.

He remembers his parents telling him when he was very young that happiness comes not from being but from striving. You'll never find happiness, they'd said again and again, by gaining some goal or by being in any specific way or place or circumstance, but rather by setting a goal and seeking to attain it. Once it's attained you need to set another. Again and again Jack has found that to be true in so many areas of his life. Certainly in his professional life. His position yields no happiness. Nor do his publications. Happiness is always around the corner, in that
next
promotion, that
next
publication, that
next
bit of knowledge gained through his experiments. And it's just as true in his personal life. Courtship brought him far more happiness than marriage, dreaming of buying a home far more than living in it.

Jack thinks this is what separates humans from animals, or one of the things: this intense restlessness, this need to always conquer always-new and always-larger peaks. If you aren't ever-striving, ever-building, ever-progressing, you're nothing more than an animal.

The hunt is always better than the kill. He remembers that the first time he'd killed someone had been—like the first time he'd had sex—deeply disappointing. His first thoughts in each case had been the identical question: this is what all the fuss is about? The best part is the leadup, and also what this leadup and consummation makes clear about his own power. In the case of sex: this is what you'll let me do to you. In the case of killing: this is what I can do to you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Kristine is cuffed to the table in Jack's basement. She is naked. She is shaking from fright. He'd picked her up, hit her, drugged her, brought her here.

She doesn't want this. When she'd said she wanted to die, she didn't mean this way. She realizes now she'd meant it metaphorically. She wants parts of herself to die. She wants her awful memories to die. She wants her self-destructive impulses to die. She wants her addictions to die.

But she does not want to die. Not here. Not now. Not like this.

Jack—he'd told her his name—is talking. He has been talking ever since she came to, stopping only to hit her when she screamed. She isn't screaming anymore. She's feeling the pain in her head and not wanting to die. Jack is talking. As he talks he paces alongside the table.

He says, “You're shaking. That's because you're scared, and
that's
because you're a coward. I am not shaking. I am not a coward. You think I'm going to rape you. You think that's why you're naked. You think I want sex. You
want
me to want sex. But I don't want sex. Sex is not the point. Sex is never the point. You think the point is pleasure. The point is never pleasure. The point is power. The point is always power. Not just with me. With everyone.”

She's shaking even more.

He continues, “I long ago realized that sex is all about power. This shouldn't be surprising since relationships are all about power. And
this
shouldn't be surprising since life itself is all about power. Life boils down to one simple consideration: Who does what to whom. And key to all of this is to always—
always
—be the doer.”

Kristine begins to sob. She does not want him to hit her. She does not want him to kill her. She says, “Please. . . .”

Jack seems to ignore her. He says, “That's one reason I'm a scientist.” He stops, looks through her, asks, “Did you ever wonder why we spend so much time and energy and money trying to make life in a laboratory when there's so much life everywhere?”

“Please,” she says.

He slams his open hand on the table. “Did you?”

She doesn't know what to say. “No,” she says.

“Of course you didn't. But I did. That's why I'm me and you're you. That's why I'm here and you're there. That's why I do and you are done to. You see that, don't you?”

“Yes,” she says, because that is the answer that will not make him hit her.

He takes a deep breath, again begins to pace. He says, “People say we do scientific research to make the world a better place or for progress or for knowledge or for all these other reasons. Some people say we do it for prestige or to make money for our employers. But we know those are just excuses, don't we?”

“Yes,” she says.

He says, “No, you don't know. I know. You don't.”

“Yes,” she says.

“I'm going to tell you why we do it.”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to know?”

“Do you “Yes.”

“Power. Science is all about power. Everything is all about power. We do it because we can. Because we are doers. There is us and there is them. We do. They don't. And if you are not a doer your life is nothing. You are there to be used.
You
are there to be used. Everyone is there to be used. That's it. Do you get it?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don't. I'll make it simple, for your simple mind. What you create, what comes out of here . . .” He jabs at her pubis. “. . . is nothing. It's just what animals do. It doesn't count. It doesn't come from here.” He points at his own head. “It doesn't last. It's not immutable. It's not eternal. It dies. Now do you get it?”

She doesn't know which way she should answer.

He continues, “Because death is a problem. Death is a big problem. It is the biggest problem of all. Because it happens to everyone. Death is the great equalizer, the great doer. Animals die. We should not. Because we are not animals. We
cannot
be animals. Do you see why death is a problem? Even you must see why death is a problem. Do you?”

Kristine is quietly crying. She says, “I want you to tell me.”

“Of course you do.” He taps lightly on the table, thinks, says, “Death is the only thing we cannot control.
You
cannot control anything. Animals cannot control anything. We can. I can. You are on this table. You are crying because I allow it. If I wanted you to stop crying, you
would
stop crying.”

“Yes.”

“But I control everything. You live. You die. I choose. You don't control me. I control you.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” He stops, then continues, thoughtfully, “Of course there's God. God controls me. I don't control God. But I am
aligned
with God. Do you see? So that is not control because I decide what to do, and it is what God would decide, too. So God decides, and I decide, and it is the same. God doesn't need to control me. I am still a doer, just as God is. I do to you. I do to animals. I do to knowledge. I do. I am a subject. You are an object. Animals are objects. Everything in the world is an object. I am a subject. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“And then there is death.”

“Yes.”

He leans down close, says, “Can I tell you a secret?” Before she can answer he continues, “Of course I can. I decide. You don't. But I'm going to tell you a secret. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

He stands straight, paces, makes distance before he says, “I have a fear. I can tell you this because you are a coward. I am not a coward. I have a fear. It is that I am afraid of death. My own. Not yours. I can control yours. Of course. I am not afraid of that. But I cannot control my own. I don't know what will happen when I die. God says there is a heaven where we live forever, but God told me that is a lie. God lies to people so they will believe Him, believe
in
Him. Otherwise they wouldn't. But I believe God, I
know
God, I am aligned with God, even though I know there will be no heaven. But I don't know what will happen when I die. And you are going to tell me. You will tell me what you see on the other side.”

“Please,” she says. She is shaking. “Are you going to kill me?”

“I'm a doer,” he says. “You are done to.”

Kristine asks, “Why are you doing this?”

“I told you. Because I can.”

“Why me?”

“You were there.”

Kristine is still alive. Jack is going through her clothing. He finds a scrap of paper in her front pants pocket. He unfolds it, reads. He asks, “Who are these people?”

She doesn't know who he's talking about.

He shows her the paper, asks, “Did you know Nika?”

“We were friends.”

“Who are they to Nika?”

It starts to occur to her why she hasn't seen her friend. She asks, “Did you kill her?”

“I cut out her uterus.”

Kristine catches a sob, asks, “Why?”

“Because she wasn't a doer.”

He asks again, “Who are these people?”

“I don't know.”

He hits her. “What did you tell them?”

“Nothing.”

He hits her again. “You told them everything.”

“There was nothing to tell. How could I?”

“What do they know?”

“I don't know. I don't know.”

“I don't believe you.”

Kristine is dead. Her body is in the river. Jack derived no pleasure from any of this. He didn't even bother to ask her what she saw as she died. He wishes he would never have found that piece of paper. He can't get those people out of his head. It cannot be a coincidence that they had contact with two of these women. How many more do they know about? They must know something. But what?

twenty six

the voice of god

I'm up late writing, and when I come to bed, Allison is longsince asleep. I remove my clothes and put them on the floor in one corner, then briefly flash the overhead lights so I can find my nightshirt. In the dark I put it on. I slip into bed. Allison doesn't stir. I whisper her name to see if she's awake enough to chat or make love, and she doesn't respond. We both have standing invitations that if the other wants to make love they can wake us up, but we almost never pursue that. There's always plenty of time when we're both awake.

I'm tired, but as so often happens the moment I lie down the muse begins to speak to me. She gives me words and sentences and images. This night she begins by telling me to listen to Nika. I don't know what that means, in part because I don't remember Nika saying anything. I keep picturing her reaching out. I keep feeling our fingers touch.

And then the images shift as I start to drift. I see the demons and I hear the stamping of their feet. I hear the director say in a hissing voice, “Choose.”

I am asleep now, and I am dreaming. I am dreaming of the attempts to assassinate Hitler, and I am dreaming of the miracles that kept Hitler alive. In this dream I am wondering how we can possibly defeat the force that made—and makes—these miracles. I am wondering what miracles can possibly overmatch these.