The Sunlight Dialogues (45 page)
“Yes, I see,” Clumly said. “I’m with you.”
“Precisely,”
he said. “But what a terrible dilemma! What of the invasion of privacy? What of our wire-tapping of the
heart?
In short, what of—as you say—our voodoo? We pry into men’s souls. It’s our stock in trade!”
Clumly nodded, a trifle startled. It was an interesting question. He stood up, studying the cigar. “What’s
your
opinion?” he said.
“My opinion,” the minister said, “is that I am responsible. I recognize the megalomania in myself, and I recognize that I must make perfectly sure that my motives are as pure as possible. But ultimately, when I find what we might call sin, I must act against it. I can see no reasonable alternative.”
“You may be right,” Clumly said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“For instance.” He smiled. In the gathering dusk his smile seemed ghostly now, perhaps a little mournful. “If I discover a man who in my best judgment is destroying himself and those near and dear to him, whether that man is a member of my congregation or not, I believe it is my responsibility to worm my way into his thought. Am I right, do you think?”
“It’s a question,” Clumly said.
“God bless you, so it is!”
The minister stood up and began to pace slowly, with exaggeratedly long steps, back and forth in front of the bench. “A man, say, who, with the best intentions, has so thoroughly thrown himself into his work that he’s forgotten what worries may be torturing his wife. A man who, by his very diligence, has begun to set people around him to talking and fretting against him, people who might, potentially … Hypothetical, of course. But possible, barely. I suspect I should make myself his demon.”
Clumly stood watching him. “Maybe you should.”
He stopped pacing. “It’s difficult to know, isn’t it. By what right? I ask myself. All very well for the prophet to tell David, ‘Thou art the man.’ He had God’s voice buzzing there in his ear. But the voice of reason is not necessarily the voice of God, is it?”
Abruptly, surprising himself, Clumly said, “What are you getting at?”
Again he smiled whitely. “Conversation,” he said. “You’ve no idea how starved a man … one thinking man … hard to express.”
Clumly said, “Well, it’s getting dark.” Then: “Would you care to have supper with us? I assume Esther—”
“No thank you,” he said. He seemed alarmed.
Clumly smiled, puzzled. “Whatever you like.”
They studied each other in the reflected red of the sunset. Abruptly, the minister shook Clumly’s hand, then put his hat on, ready to leave. “You’ll excuse me to your wife, I hope. I really must run.”
“Certainly, yes.”
The minister nodded and smiled one last time, funereal, and started across the grass to the side of the house.
“You had a nice talk with Reverend Willby?” Esther said.
“Very interesting, yes.”
“He’s such a kind man,” she said.
“Mmm. Interesting.” He looked up briefly, watching her chase her stew around the plate with her bread. Like all blind faces, her face had a look of unspeakable weariness, despair. “This past couple weeks has been hard on you,” he said.
“Oh, don’t think about me.”
“Well, it won’t last forever,” he said cheerfully, though he didn’t feel cheerful.
“I hope not,” she said.
He drew his Sanka toward him and sucked at the edge.
She reached for her teacup.
“To the left,” he said.
She found it and leaned forward, raising the cup to her lips.
Clumly said, “Any interesting mail?”
She lowered the cup a little. “I’m sorry. I forgot to look.”
“That’s not like you,” he said.
She laughed, glass eyes staring, and he was distressed.
“Why are you laughing?” he asked. It came out a little sharp.
She said nothing for a moment, her face fallen to despair again. “You’re right, it’s not like me to forget the mail. I’ll go get it.”
“No no, I’ll do it.” He got up.
There was nothing. An electric bill, a second notice from the water company, a letter from Esther’s younger sister. “There’s a letter from your sister,” he said. “Shall I read it to you?”
She said nothing, and he read it in an interested voice. Halfway through he realized she wasn’t listening—in fact she was talking to herself. He went on with the letter. When it was over and she’d made no response, he said, “Aren’t you feeling well, Esther?”
She smiled. “Just tired.”
“We’ll get us a good night’s sleep,” he said.
She got up to clear the dishes and, after a moment’s thought, Clumly got up too. He patted her shoulder. “I’ll help with the dishes,” he said.
“No, don’t bother. Please. No trouble at all. Really.”
He stood in the kitchen doorway rubbing his nose. What was wrong? But he knew, yes, now that he thought about it. The Sunlight Man again. She was worried, that was all it was. She’d picked it up from him. He would have to be careful. Tomorrow he’d bring her flowers.
Later, in the bathroom, looking at the braille
Today’s,
he had a sudden suspicion that the copies were old; she’d allowed her subscription to run out. The image of the minister’s smile came back to him, and then the black, narrow back hurrying across the yard to the side of the house.
Just as he was crawling into bed his usual nighttime fears came over him more powerfully than ever. He was absolutely certain that there was someone in the house. So certain, in fact, that he drew his trousers on over his pajamas and got into his slippers and bathrobe and went downstairs to investigate. She lay sleeping like a log, as far as Clumly could tell as he left. He stood in the darkness of the livingroom, listening with all his ears, but there was nothing. He looked out at the lawn. There too, nothing. And yet the crawling of his skin was not to be denied. Something was very wrong. Where?
Miller had talked with the Mayor this afternoon. About what? They might have sat there for hours in the Mayor’s office, swapping stories, perhaps, and then slipping back to business. One could guess pretty well what business it was. Then finally they’d have parted, and after his laughter at his own last joke, the Mayor would have returned to his office, abruptly sober, grim, and would have gotten his suitcoat from the closet next to Wittaker’s office. … If only there was some way of knowing how much time a man still had! But forget it. Drive as fast as possible down the road to the Sunlight Man, the rest would take care of itself, more or less. He would go back to his bed.
But the sky was very light, the night air warm, the street completely deserted beyond the window out of which Clumly stood peering. What was happening over on Ellicott Avenue now, at the Mayor’s house? The hunger to be sure grew into an ache in his abdomen, and sweat prickled on his chest. He remembered with revulsion the Sunlight Man’s words in one of the examinations: “I have thoughts of spying on my boss, listening outside his window.” The man was a devil! He knew your desires before you knew them yourself, or maybe it was that he created them. The devil. Insane, the whole business insane. He’d go up to his bed. Lord yes.
But he’d been wrong, it came to him. The street was
not
deserted. Directly in front of his house, in the dappled shadows under the maple trees, by the sidewalk, there was a car—not hidden, though not out in the glare of the streetlamp either—impossible to miss except by a trick of one’s vision. It was not the car of anyone he knew, but he knew in the back of his neck that he’d seen it before. After a moment it came to him. It was the car he’d seen parked down the block on Ross Street, when he’d gone with Boyle to the Woodworths’. He drew back from the window and collected his thoughts. “All right then,” he said aloud, and he walked quickly to the clothespress where his hat and pistol hung. He fastened the belt around the outside of his bathrobe and started back for the front door. Just as he was passing it, the telephone rang. He jumped. He let it ring again—he stood with his head cocked, looking at it—and then, full of dread, he lifted the receiver. “Yes?” he said.
“Good evening.”
He could not recognize the voice. After a moment:
“This is a friend of yours. You’ll realize who in a moment. We have things to talk over. Problems. I should like to arrange—”
“You!” Clumly whispered. He felt again throughout his body the half-superstitious alarm he’d felt in the waiting room at the hospital as the man held out toward him his own wallet, his whistle, the bullets, the keys. …
“That’s right. Your friend. I should like to arrange a meeting.”
“Where
are
you?”
“Always the wrong questions.” For an instant the voice itself was recognizable, but then it was once more a voice he had never heard before, not a disguised voice, he would have sworn, but the voice of some other man. The Sunlight Man said, “We have problems, both of us, which we must reason out. Your world is tumbling around your ears, and as for me—”
“How’d you get into Will Hodge’s apartment?”
“As for me, my situation is as difficult as your own. I propose that we talk. Negotiate, so to speak.”
“Tell me where you are.”
“Sorry. Come to the sanctuary of the Presbyterian church at midnight tomorrow night. Be alone.”
“Why there?” Clumly said, “—why midnight?”
“Because it amuses me.”
“All right, all right. Tell me just one thing. …”
The line went dead.
He dialed the operator on the absurd chance the call could be traced. As he hung up he remembered the car and crossed quickly to the window. The car was pulling away just as he looked out. He drew his revolver, on some impulse, but hesitated and slipped it back into its holster. “What the devil?” he said. He rubbed his head. Had the person in the car made the phonecall?—tapped in from right outside his house?
Behind him the door to the stairway opened, and when he turned Esther was standing there, listening in his direction. She had her eyes out. “What’s wrong?” she said.
“Nothing,” he said gruffly. “Everything’s all right. Go to bed.”
“You had your gun out,” she said.
He shivered. “It’s all right,” he said. Then, gently: “Everything’s all right.”
Very well then, I’ll meet with you, my “friend.” And yes, I’ll come alone. It’s irregular, I’m cognizant of that. But I’ll find you out, and sooner or later I’ll nail you. I give you my word.
Chief Clumly felt mysteriously calm. Also, he felt ravenously hungry. This time he did nothing to resist the urge. He made himself ham and tomato sandwiches in the kitchen, then carried them down cellar with him. There he sat in the half-dark, silent as a huge block of ice, chewing solemnly, and drank two bottles of beer.
1
of release. Sometimes she can hardly remember, and she is confused by dreams. It was very much like a dream, and now it has been a long time since the operation failed. There was a round greenish light and the shape of a head (perhaps) bending toward her, the doctor’s head it must have been, but she couldn’t see his features, perhaps she had never been able to see people’s features, she was confused about that—saw only light with colors in it, and shapes of people and forms like objects in a fire—but after the operation she would see things clearly: “We can never know for sure about these things,” they said; “there’s a very good chance.” So she fell from the round greenish light into darkness and the operation that was going to make her well at last, released from all bungling and stumbling and confusion and released from pain—the operation began, and failed. “Esther,” he said, “my dear, dear Esther,” and she understood that it was even harder for him than for her: they must live out their lives like two people in a dungeon, and for her the dungeon was blindness, and she could rail against it and hate it and scorn it and eventually learn to tolerate it, but for him the dungeon was his wife. “I’m so sorry,” she said. He said, “No no no. Don’t say that. You act as if it was your fault.” It was not, that was true. But just the same she was his dungeon and he would not be free till she was dead, and since she was younger than he was, and since women live longer, he would not be released until the day he stepped into his grave. “I’m sorry,” she said. Well, she’d loved him. She’d wanted to die, and one night when he’d been kinder than ever before to her, more gentle than anyone had ever been, so that the moment when the climax came was like fire exploding through all the room (it was September; she smelled burning leaves and there was a taste of winter in everything: the time of year when her mother would sit at the window, depressed, looking out without hope as though winter were all that remained for her—and rightly, yes, because all her life she must live in September or the memory of it or the fear of September) she, Esther, got up quietly when he was asleep, and put her clothes on, full of sweet pity for herself, and walked out on the lawn of the house they had lived in then, by the creek, and walked quiet and unseen as a druid to the footbridge and stood there believing she would drown herself, free him, but not yet, in a minute or two, not yet. The wooden railing was cold and damp and she could smell the water below her, and she could hear it, though it moved quietly, a sound as sweet and gentle as the pity for herself that filled her heart. In a minute, she thought. She could not tell how it was or how far below her. The air was warm but it had the smell of winter and burning leaves in it and …
