The Sunlight Dialogues (73 page)

“We’ve been so frightened,” she said.

He studied her, smiling with only his mouth. “You look guilty as hell. Been up to something?”

She knew her alarm showed.
A wink would tell him,
she thought, but she did nothing.

Still he was looking at her, but with another part of his mind he was listening to something far away. Could he hear them, down in the cellar? He said, “What is it? Come out with it.”

“Really,” she said. She gave a little laugh. “I can’t imagine …”

The other policeman had gone into the downstairs bathroom to look there. He came out holding a bottle. “Look at this,” he said.

Miller unscrewed the cap and smelled the pills, then broke a little piece off between his fingernails, watching her as he did it. He ground the powder between his thumb and first finger and tasted a little.

“What you think?” the other policeman said.

Miller screwed the cap back on and shrugged. “I think the druggist’s label came off,” he said. “Get back to work. Don’t get sidetracked.” The other man went back through the livingroom toward the stairs, and Miller leaned toward her. “Look, we got bigger fish than that to fry, right now, so you’re in luck. But throw it away or something. Understand?”

She managed a sickly smile.

Miller studied her.

“What’s in here?” he said.

“That’s the door to the cellar.”

He opened it and looked down. “There a lightswitch?”

“It’s here.” She reached in past him and turned the stairway light on. The stairway was crooked and worn and had no railing. She could see the dim, cobwebbed stone of the wall, and on the floor two inches of water from seepage and last night’s rain.

“Stinks,” he said.

She nodded.

“These old cellars always stink,” he said thoughtfully, looking at her. “You should smell mine. Rats?”

“Hundreds of them,” she said. “Sometimes at night you can hear them swimming around.”

Miller made a face. He went halfway down the stairs and leaned over to look around. There would be nothing to see, she was sure. The shelves of ancient mason jars full of long-ago rotted tomatoes and peaches and pears, all black now; the old wood furnace with its side caved in; the cobwebbed pipes leading out from the furnace; the chutes for wood, the doors to the apple bins, empty for years. He came back up the stairs and called to the other one. They both went down. They were there for a long time, but they found nothing. They found nothing upstairs either. Was it possible that he really had become invisible? The shorter one went out to look in the barn. Again, nothing.

“You haven’t seen or heard anything?” he asked when they were getting ready to leave.

“Nothing,” she said feebly.

Luke was rubbing his eyes with both hands, and she could feel his frustration and anger like a shock running through her. She refused to be thrown off.
I exist, no one else. …

“Ok,” Miller said. “Sorry to take your time.” He said something more, and she watched his mouth move, trying to concentrate on the words, but her mind seemed to have snapped off, she could not make herself listen to anything but the silence of the flooded cellar.

Then they were gone, and she and Luke were alone again, staring at each other with the old dull hostility, weary to the heart.

“Well, what more could I do?” she said.

“You could have winked,” he snapped. “You could have slipped him a note.”

“And you
couldn’t?”
she said.

Luke said nothing.

They heard something moving through the water in the cellar, then coming up the stairs.

3

He returned from the cellar a changed man—exuberant, expansive, tyrannical. He stalked back and forth through the kitchen in his bare feet, his wet shoes and stockings on the oven door beside Nick’s, and he bounced up and down as he walked, making a kind of dance of it, his huge rear end protruding and his beard jutting forward. “We were superb,” he said, “we were brilliant! Millie, I underestimated you!” But he would not let her have a cigarette or a drink. “Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health,” he said. “Get your mind off it. Sing after me.” He threw out his arms and sang, still in the false, high squeaky voice:

“Mae swn yn Mhortinllaen, swn hwylie’n codi,
Blocie i gyd yn gwichian,
Dafydd Jones yn gweiddi; Ni fedra’i aros gartre yn fy myw;
Rhaid i mi fynd yn llongwr iawn ar Fflat Huw Puw!”

He said: “That’s Welsh. Magnificent language. Magnificent song, too, as you can hear. All about Huw Puw’s boat. Let’s do it again now. First phrase. All together!
Mae swn yn Mhortinllaen .
. .” He drew himself up and glared at them. “I’ll say it just one more time.” The pistol appeared in his hand, and he aimed it at Millie.
“Mae, swn, yn, Mhortinllaen .
. .” She tried, feebly, to sing with him. He shook his fist. “What’s the matter with you people? You sing along with Mitch. I hear you. You sing along with Lawrence Welk. But I ask you to sing a simple little boatsong, the most ridiculous, simplest little song in the world, and you act like you’ve gotten a sliver through your tongue.” Abruptly he stomped away, curling his toes as he raised his feet. “Forget it,” he said. He whirled and pointed his finger at her, the gun in the other hand aimed at the ceiling like a starter’s pistol. “The trouble with you is, you’re rotten,” he said. “I see those magazines you read. ‘Horoscope for Weight-Watchers.’ ‘Barbara Walters Visits Princess Grace of Monaco.’ ‘FDR’s Secret Affair.’ ‘How James Bond Destroyed My Husband, by Mrs. Ian Fleming.’ ‘Foods Everyone Loves.’ ‘The Truth about the Best Seller List.’ ‘Why Teen-Agers Rebel.’
Gyuck!
How can you improve your mind, reading tripe like that? Heads stuffed with cotton candy!” He bounded closer, like a fencer, and shook his finger under her nose. “Everyone should learn at least one Welsh song, if only for the double
l
’s. The guttural noises clean out the throat and help to prevent brainless cooing. Now. One more time. He moved the revolver slowly toward her forehead until the metal pressed against her skin. Her heart pounded violently. “Repeat after me,” he said.
“Mae swn yn Mhortinllaen, swn hwylie’n codi.”

She repeated it.

He smiled. “Good. Excellent! We may have discovered an important new educational method!” He swung away. “As I’ve said, my object is to make you a saint. I do what good I can as I pass, you know. After we’ve learned ‘Fflat Huw Puw’ we’ll learn ‘The Dream of the Rood’ in Old English.” He looked at his hand as if surprised. The gun was gone. He shrugged. “I understand how you feel,” he said. “But we mustn’t waste valuable time, simply because we’re imprisoned here. Keep the mind alert, I always say. Try to learn something new and significant every day.” He tipped his head, crafty. “What do you know about manure?” he said.

She waited and became aware that she was wringing her hands.

“A well-kept manure heap may be safely taken as one of the surest indications of thrift and success in farming,” he said in the voice of a lecturer. He leaned toward her. “Neglect of this resource causes losses which, though little appreciated, are vast in extent. According to recent statistics—or anyway recent in 1906—there are in the United States, in round numbers, 19,500,000 horses, mules, and burros, 61,000,000 cattle, 47,000,000 hogs, and 51,600,000 sheep. Think of it! If all these animals were kept in stalls or pens throughout the year and the manure carefully saved, the approximate value of the fertilizing constituents of the manure produced by each horse or mule annually would be $27, by each head of cattle $20, by each hog $8, and by each sheep $2. 1906 prices, of course. You didn’t know that, did you? You’d be surprised how much I could teach you about economy, the fine art of getting ahead if you ever catch up. Take burdocks—those weeds right out there across the driveway—also known as cockle button, cuckold dock, beggars’ buttons, hurrbur, stick button, hardock, and bardane. Worth money! Around 50,000 pounds of burdock root are imported annually from Belgium, for medical purposes. Or were in 1904. Or take common mustard. The imports into the United States of black and white mustard together during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1903, amounted to 5,302,876 pounds. Three to six cents per pound for the seeds. The Lord be praised!”

“Listen,” Luke said.

The Sunlight Man drew himself up. “It is interesting to note that in South Africa pumpkins are often given to horses as green feed.”

“I need a drink,” Millie said.

“Did Teresa drink? Did St. George drink? I withdraw the question.”

He went on and on, and whenever any of them tried to leave the room he stopped them and demanded their attention. Exactly at seven o’clock he bowed from the waist and said, “Students, I bid you good evening. I must go make a phonecall,” and without another word he went out. They watched him hurry down the driveway toward the road.

When he returned, half an hour later, he was again completely changed, it seemed to her. He was not wearing the stocking over his face now. He had a wide red hat embroidered in what might once have been white—it had gone through last night’s rain, apparently—and dark glasses. His suitcoat was stuffed with plants he’d found along the road. He began making supper.

“Where did you phone from?” Millie said.

“Phonebooth,” he said.

The nearest phonebooth was five miles away. “That’s impossible,” she said.

“Not at all. There’s a special kind of slug you use. The phone company spends millions a year on slug detection, but one little slug they just can’t beat. Like this.” He drew from his pocket a washer approximately the size of a quarter, with a little piece of tape across it. He winked.

“You’re a strange man,” she said thoughtfully.

“Have to live by my wits,” he said. He pointed at his temple. He laughed. “But then, don’t we all!”

“Can I help you with something?” she said. He was leaning over the sink now, washing the roots and leaves he’d brought in. But her mind was far away. He powerfully reminded her of something or of someone, or perhaps simply, in a general way, of her childhood.

“Why yes, thank you,” he said. “Get the hamburger out of the refrig.”

She did so absently, trying to locate the center of her unrest. As she was unwrapping what was left of the hamburger she said aloud without meaning to, “What happened to us, I wonder.”

His hands stopped moving for an instant, under the faucet, then moved as before. “You belong on TV,” he said. He smiled, bowed, clutched his red hat and tipped it to her.

She watched his antics and said nothing. In the bathroom Luke was filling a glass of water, taking a pill. His headache was back, then. She should have known. Nick Slater lay on the livingroom couch asleep. She watched the stranger mixing the hamburger and the chopped-up plants in a yellow plastic bowl. Out of nowhere it came to her that he was Taggert Hodge. She knew it but didn’t believe it. If he’d been burned like that they would have heard, wouldn’t they? The false voice, the absurd gestures—were they all meant to fool her? Hardly breathing, she watched now his hands, now his eyes; but she couldn’t be certain. It was fifteen years.
Taggert did card tricks,
she remembered.
He was good.
But she thought the next instant,
Not that good.
The Sunlight Man was a pro, as good as anybody, and there was all the difference in the world between a few tricks with cards and the unbelievable things he did—the huge solid gun appearing in his hand from nowhere, certainly not from, say, his sleeve. Her heart began to race before she fully understood what she was about to do. She said, “Poor Tag.”

He showed no sign. None. Merely turned his head, saying, “Tag?”

“My brother-in-law,” she said. “I was thinking about him.”

He nodded, uninterested.

She couldn’t tell what to believe.

He didn’t talk at supper, nor did they. She was still uncertain. Luke ate nothing. Nick got out his cigarettes afterward, and when he lit the match the Sunlight Man started violently. She said nothing, merely filed it to think about later.

Then the Sunlight Man pushed back his chair. “Rise up and follow me,” he said. Nick rose slowly. Luke did not stir, merely sat pressing his temples with his fingertips. The Sunlight Man leaned down to him. “Are you deaf?” he hissed. She said, “Stop it. It’s his head.” But now Luke came awake and looked up at him, squinting. The Sunlight Man said coldly, “Come with me.” It couldn’t be Tag. He went toward the cellar door. After a moment Millie followed. “Go down,” he said. She obeyed, and then Nick and Luke came too. Looped in his left hand, the Sunlight Man had clothesline. “What are you going to do?” she said. He smiled. “You’d never believe it.”

Suddenly she knew. Perhaps it was because he forgot to change his voice, or perhaps in her blood, though not in her mind, she had known the truth all along. She went cold all over.
“You!”
she said.

His eyebrows lowered and he met her eyes—or looked through them; she could not tell.

“Don’t do this,” she whispered. “Luke’s
sick.”

He seemed to reflect. His burnt face showed nothing. Then, eyes vague, he came down the steps toward them. In his right hand he had the gun.

I exist,
she said in her heart,
and no one else.
She drew back her mind from the pain of the tight bonds on her wrists and ankles and around her waist, from the cold of the water around her feet, and from the gag biting deep into the corners of her mouth.
I understand the reasons for your viciousness, your madness, but they’re yours, not mine: I have a life of my own, griefs of my own, and I warn you, I can match all your magic tricks sleight for sleight. I have no time for complications, I’ve spent too much already. Let all the rabbits in your hat—and all the false boxes, trick handkerchiefs—come out and save you from the things that are coming upon you.
Luke writhed, banging the back of his head on the post he was tied to. She closed her eyes.
What do you want of me? What?

They had found her brother Gil in a pile of straw in the corner of the barn, and he looked as if he were sleeping like a baby, they said, but he had killed himself. At the funeral she’d kept a face of stone. Hadn’t she talked with him, stewed with him, done everything in her power to prevent it? But in the end he had not thanked her for it; he’d grown to hate her. He couldn’t get a driver’s license because the first time he tried to kill himself, an overdose of sleeping pills, she’d made Will drive him to the hospital, and after that the thing was on his record. But she’d accepted his hatred, had shrugged it off as easily as she shrugged off Luke’s hatred, or Will Jr’s. Self-preservation. It was all one could find to cling to. It was enough.