Текст книги "Nameless"

Автор книги: Sam Starbuck

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"It's been a while since I strapped on my snowshoes," I said with a grin. "Business is slow. I'll make sure your heating is still working..."

"I know how to re-light a pilot now," Lucas replied, but his grin was as wide as mine. "Come on then, but I won't tip you."

I was rummaging through the storage room, where I was sure I'd stashed my snowshoes sometime last winter – and where a wrapped package for Lucas happened to be – when the door slammed and I put my head out. Lucas was loitering near the home-improvement section again; my guest was the boy, who leaned on my counter and waved at me.

"Hiya," I said. "Looking for something?"

"Saw you come in," he said. "I thought I'd say hi."

"Well, hi," I replied, pressing the package into his hands and pointing at the bags by the door. "Haven't seen you around since school let out. How'd exams go?"

"Tell him about your History test," Lucas called. The boy quietly snuck the package into the bag.

"I was really fast, I was third done in History," he said, beaming hugely at me. "And I got done first in Art."

"You had a final exam in art?" I asked, rummaging under the counter.

"Had to write an essay about our favorite piece of art," the boy said.

"What'd you choose?" I asked, looking up.

"That one," the boy pointed over my shoulder at a poster on my back wall. It had come from Chicago with me, years before: a reprint of an old propaganda piece from the forties, extolling the virtues of riding the elevated train. "Lucas says it's early modernist graphic design repopularized by ironic nostalgia."

"Did you say that in your paper?" I gave him a startled look. He shook his head.

"Don't know what it means. I just said I liked the colors and shapes."

"Well, that'll probably earn you a B at least. Aha!" I added triumphantly, as the snowshoes clattered out from behind the glass door. "Found 'em, Lucas!"

"Great!" he said. He glanced up at the boy, who radiated innocence. "We're going out to The Pines. Want to come?"

"Can't today," the boy said. "Gotta go. Merry Christmas!"

"See you at New Year!" Lucas called after him, as the door banged shut again. "Five bucks says he gets an A on his art test."

"Not a bet I'd take," I replied, as I hooked the snowshoes over my shoulder.

"He got me a Christmas present. But I think you probably know that," Lucas added with a smile.

"I had hints," I agreed. "So, are we going or what?"

Ten minutes later we were at the edge of the village, on the last few feet of asphalt before it gave way to unplowed snow, still thick on the ground beyond us. We set down the bags and began putting the snowshoes on, Lucas with more care and deliberation – he'd used them a few times, I think, but I had two full Low Ferry winters on him and I was up on the snowbank by the time he had his first shoe on. I offered him a hand up when he was ready, and we were on our way again.

"It makes me want to keep a sled," Lucas said, carrying a bag in one hand and swinging his other arm for balance, like I was. "I'm surprised more people don't have a few dogs for sledding, with weather like this."

"And do what with them the rest of the year? Horses can haul carts or carry packs in the summertime. Dog-sleds aren't all that useful on mud," I replied. "Then you've got a handful of big, energetic dogs with no outlet all summer."

"Guess so. I wonder what it's like here in the summer. I suppose you know."

"Hot," I grunted.

"Still, they'd enjoy themselves well enough in the winter, don't you think?"

"Probably," I agreed. We walked on in silence until the cottage became visible, a dirty blot on the white surrounding it. Snow had piled up against the back, between the rear wall and the incline of the hill, spilling down on either side.

"You'll come in, won't you?" he asked. "You can't come all the way out here on the snow and not at least warm up a little before you go back."

"It's going to be freezing in there," I said.

"I left wood ready in the fireplace and I didn't turn the heater all the way down. I wasn't planning on staying in town this long."

He bent and scooped some of the snow away from the kitchen door, undoing his snowshoes. Before he opened the door he turned around, and I followed his gaze.

There was a band of blackish blue forming on the horizon above the town, where the setting sun's rays no longer quite reached. We were already standing in the shadow of the hill, the rest of the meadow and the edges of the town touched with gold. You think you never remember it right, that light doesn't work that way – that the world can't look so gold or blue. But once or twice in your life you catch it, and it is.

"Do you know what the French expression for dusk is?" Lucas asked, behind me. "The phrase is Entre chien et loup."

"That's not literal, surely?"

"No – it means between the dog and the wolf. Uncertain times," he said. "Not one way or the other yet. Come in," he added, opening the door.

The house was as cold as I'd imagined it would be, but Lucas went straight into the living room and lit the paper under the kindling in the fireplace. I switched the lights on and looked around while he watched the kindling begin to scorch and burn.

There were still masks everywhere, completed or in progress. There were still little boxes of feathers and trim, thread, glue, sacks of plaster, lumps of clay. Most of it, however, had been pushed aside or relegated to shelves, and on the main workbench there was a wide clear area with only one occupant, an odd armature of sticks held together with glue and string. A series of sewn-together scraps was thrown across it, leather and cloth with wide gaps here and there. No attempt had been made to hide the seams – they were done in thick black twine in an even-patterned diagonal stitch. Other pieces of leather lay nearby, apparently waiting to be added. Behind the workbench was a chair from the kitchen table, over which Lucas had thrown his thick gray coat. At the moment, the assembled parts looked like beginning of an animal's muzzle, shaped around the wooden mold.

"What's it going to be?" I inquired.

"I don't know yet," he answered. "I'm still working on it. It's taking some time; anyway, other things keep distracting me."

He pointed to one of the other tables, where a series of smallish oval masks were apparently waiting to be finished.

"Japanese?" I asked, recognizing the motifs vaguely.

"Yes – Noh masks. They're a sort of symbol," he said. "They say the mask unlocks the actor's talent. You join with the mask and all the learning you've done, the untapped potential, becomes manifest."

"You seem very interested in them," I said. There had to be at least a dozen – all different styles, some with horns or fangs, others with delicate painted accents, but all sharing a similarity of shape that was hard to define.

"I like them," he said simply. "They're a perfect fusion of use and beauty. One day I'll understand them. Those aren't real Noh, anyway, you have to do a lot more studying than I've done to make a real Noh mask. Cheap imitations, but pretty. By the way," he said, and dug a small package out of the desk. "I got this for you."

I looked down at it and grinned – it was plain brown paper, but it had a nice ribbon and Merry Christmas was scrawled in one corner. I tore it open and had to catch a handful of straps as they all but fell out. Beaded and bell-decked – some of the boot decorations the Friendly had sold when they were passing through.

"For your shoes," he said.

"I guessed," I replied, with a smile. "Thank you, Lucas, they're great – I'll wear them home. I have something for you..."

I rummaged the bag I'd been carrying and came up with the package the boy had hidden there for me – slightly better wrapped, but not much larger. He took it, looking delighted and amused.

"Book?" he asked, holding up the oblong packet and studying it.

"Might be," I answered. "Open it, go on."

He unfolded the ends carefully and pulled the paper away, running his hand down the smooth dust jacket.

"I thought you might not have that one," I said.

"The Book of the Werewolf," he read aloud. "I – wow. This is out of print, way out of print."

"You know it?"

"I tried to find a copy in Chicago, once. The library doesn't even let you take theirs out of the building."

"I have connections," I said, watching as he paged through it, then closed it and set it carefully on the edge of the workbench.

"Thank you," he said, and I found myself in a warm, wholehearted hug. He smelled like cheap soap, dust and plaster – not unpleasant scents at all.

"Well," I said, when he stepped back and looked overwhelmingly embarrassed. "Merry Christmas, Lucas."

"Merry Christmas. Can you stay for a while?"

"I shouldn't, it's getting dark," I said regretfully. "I don't want to freeze on the walk home."

"I'll walk you out," he replied. I noticed, pleased, that he took the book with him as we went. "Stay warm once you get back."

"I plan to," I replied, strapping the decorations he'd given me around my boots. They jingled, and we grinned at each other for a moment before I put the snowshoes on over them. "I'll see you for New Year's if I don't see you before, right?"

"Definitely," he said, and I stepped back out into the crisp Low Ferry night.

***

The first year I spent in Low Ferry, I really didn't get why people were so excited about New Year's. I'd already been forcibly welcomed by the Friendly and blindsided by the Halloween festivities, but I thought with Christmas I was on pretty solid ground. In Chicago – especially in Chicago, City of Big Retail – Christmas was the main event. Wasn't it that way everywhere? New Year's was just an excuse to drink and ride the El for free and watch fireworks. Which is all fun, don't mistake me, but not nearly as important as Christmas. And anyway, I didn't see how a potluck at the local cafe could really compare to Chicago for sheer entertainment value.

This is because I was still a city boy at the time.

Christmas in Low Ferry is a strictly stay-at-home event, except for the Christmas Eve service at the church. Everyone confided in me that it was really for the kids, and I'd get it when I saw the New Year's party. This didn't go far towards comforting me when I spent Christmas day alone in my pajamas, reading, but I had to admit that it was pretty relaxing. Still, it bothered me until that first New Year's, and then they were right: I got it.

The New Year's party, held in the cafe with all the chairs and tables pushed back, was less formal than the Straw Bear and it really was a time for the adults – food, talking, company with which to welcome another year. There were usually one or two fights, of course, because there was also plenty to drink, but nothing ever came of them and usually being tossed in the snow by the rest of us was good for a quick, sobering cool-off.

That third year in Low Ferry, Lucas's first, Carmen and Ron had apparently gone a little stir-crazy and distracted themselves by decorating. The rafters were hung with all kinds of bizarre streamers and banners, and the windows were covered in glass-paint proclaiming, in messy unprofessional hand, a Happy New Year to all. The extra unused tables and chairs had been stacked in a careful pyramid in one corner before being strung with about a million tree-lights, and there was so much food.

Clearly they hadn't been the only ones who were bored in the deep winter, either. There were roasted chickens, kettles of stew and soup, eight or nine kinds of meat pie, casseroles, one glorious soufflé, breads galore, bean dips and cheese and home-baked crackers, potatoes in every imaginable way, cakes and cookies, ice cream, some unidentifiable fried things...

"Brings a sort of tear to your eye, doesn't it?" Charles asked, as I stood contemplating the food in awe. "Watch the onion casserole, that'll really do it."

"It's not just me, is it? There wasn't this much last year?" I asked.

"Oh, yes there was, you've just forgotten. Come through to the back; that's where the real party is, and a nip will do you good."

Charles and I collected two heaping plates of food and carried them outside, where a dozen other hand-picked guests were drinking in the little loading yard behind the cafe. They swooped down on our plates and took whatever looked good, then pressed a stoneware mug into my hands with the promise of alcohol as soon as they could locate a bottle.

It's a very clear memory, that one: the scavenged chairs and benches in the snow, the uneven light, a crowd of men and women sitting around and talking with their breath freezing in the air as they sipped from their mugs. It was quieter than inside and, while cold, it was a good place to have a drink, smoke a cigarette, and gossip. Someone finally dumped the last of a bottle of whiskey into my mug.

"Last glass! Married by this time next year!" Charles announced. "Come on, Christopher, we all know it's well past time."

"He has his eye on that Friendly woman," someone said.

"Nothing of the kind," I answered cheerfully, knowing that anger would only make them certain of it. "She won't settle and I won't roam. She's much better off finding some – ugh, this is awful," I interrupted myself, having tasted the whiskey in my mug.

"Yes. It was very cheap," agreed Charles gravely. The others laughed. A shadow moved behind someone's shoulder, and Lucas leaned forward into the little circle of light, his face oddly sharp-edged against the dark.

"We've been playing a game with it," he said, smiling at me.

"Hello, Lucas!" I said, pleased to see him. "What game?"

"Favorites!" Paula crowed.

"How do you play that?" I asked.

"What's your favorite thing, Christopher?" Lucas said, by way of an answer. His face was a little flushed from the alcohol; he seemed more relaxed than usual, even if he was hiding behind most of the crowd.

"Reading," I answered him. One of the men nearby snorted with laughter.

"After books," Lucas pressed.

"I don't know. What kind of a game is this?" I asked.

"He hasn't had enough to drink," Charles said, tipping my mug up so that I was forced to either drink or spill the alcohol on my boots.

"I like trains," I said, when I had swallowed and the heat in my stomach subsided a little.

"Trains?" came the demand from all sides.

"Why shouldn't I like trains? You disqualified reading as an answer. In fact, I like reading on trains," I said. "Especially subway trains."

"Never been on a subway," Jacob said thoughtfully, as he opened a new bottle of alcohol. "Noisy, aren't they?"

"Not once you're on them," I objected. They all looked skeptical. "You asked, and I told you."

"Why?" Lucas inquired.

"Why what, why trains?" I asked. Jacob leaned forward and refilled my mug.

"Yes," Lucas said.

"What's wrong with trains? You always know where you're going, and if you go to the wrong place you get off and walk across the platform and you can get on a new train to take you back the way you came. In the city, trains are a straight line between two points. They have maps, and all you have to know is the map. Do you know," I said, sipping from my mug and warming to my captive audience, "Do you know that my entire knowledge of the city is based on El stations? The whole city is just...circles, to me, going outward from train stations. In my head. I know the whole city that way."

"To trains," Charles said, raising his mug.

"Trains and certainty," Lucas agreed.

"I'm starving," I added, and ducked inside again to fill another plate, having gotten almost nothing from the first one. Then I got distracted, of course – it was nice to stop and speak with people, nice to be able to eat and drink and roam a little. When the whole town assembled, things fitted together differently. You could see how people had changed – who'd gotten bald, who'd lost weight, who was seeing each other and who wasn't anymore. Everyone said hello. People talked and sang, danced and ate.

I thought of Lucas, joking about the horrible secrets of small towns, but all I saw were ordinary people, in their everyday clothes, working to get by and dancing in the meantime. Maybe it hadn't been our best year, and maybe some people weren't there who had been the year before, but we did the best we could to look after each other and there'd be time to worry about everything else soon enough. On New Year's Eve, everyone ate well and everyone had big dreams.

At about a quarter to midnight it was getting a little stuffy in the cafe, and I thought some fresh air might do me good before the count-down to the new year. The loading yard was emptying as people came inside, and I passed Lucas as I pushed through to the back. He grinned and handed me the half-full mug he'd been holding.

There certainly didn't seem to be anyone outside when I walked out, leaving the door open a crack behind me. I stood in the darkness and took a sip from the mug, inhaling, enjoying the momentary silence. I almost closed my eyes, but at the last second I caught movement – a shadow near the wall, behind a scrubby little tree covered in snow. I looked closer as my eyes adjusted, and that was when I solved the mystery of the Great Bank Love Triangle. Two-thirds of it, anyway.

Nolan and Michael were standing under the tree, fingers twined together, heads bent very close – kissing in the quiet cold. I gaped for a minute and tried to turn and retreat, to give them their privacy, but of course I chose that minute to slip on a patch of wet snow and tumble backwards, arms flailing, the mug shattering against the wall as it flew out of my fingers.

"Who's there?" Nolan called, as I tried to push myself up on slick ice. There was a hiss from Michael – "shut up!" – and one from Nolan – "Don't be an idiot!" – and then Nolan was emerging from the shadows. When he saw me, flat on my back on the ice, a comical look of panic appeared on his face.

"Aw, Jesus, I think we killed him again," he said, running over to kneel next to me. I gave up trying to push myself to my feet and turned my head.

"I'm not dead, I tripped and fell," I said. "Help me up already."

"Well, thank god for small favors," Michael grunted, crouching on my other side and offering me a hand. I took it and hauled myself up, Nolan supporting my other shoulder and dusting snow off my coat.

"Thanks," I muttered, swiping at the snow on the seat of my pants.

"Are you okay?" Nolan asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I was just – " I looked up then, guiltily, and both young men were watching me.

"Glad you're okay," Michael said conversationally. "You can't have seen anything very clearly before you tripped and fell, huh?"

"Michael," Nolan began warningly, but Michael held up a hand.

"And you wouldn't want to trip and fall again because you were trying to tell someone about anything you did think you'd seen, would you?" he continued.

I stared at him for a minute and then burst into laughter.

"Oh, lord," I said. "Michael, are you threatening me?"

"Apparently not very," he replied, face falling.

"No, it's fine, don't worry," I said, looking between them. Nolan looked worried, but Michael looked terrified. "Boys, honestly. I know I talk a lot, but I know when to keep my mouth shut."

I grinned at Michael and wrapped one hand around the back of his neck, shaking lightly. "I guess you aren't as bothered by the gossip that's out there now as you would be by this, huh?"

"It's nobody's business," Michael said, shrugging out of my grip.

"Relax. I don't care," I answered.

"Lots of people do," Nolan murmured.

"Well, they're fools."

"We're moving to Chicago," Michael blurted. "Soon as I help my dad with the spring crop."

"And there will be fools in Chicago, I promise you," I answered. "Still, you might have a point. Tell you what, come by the shop in a few days. I'll get you some guidebooks," I said. Nolan gave me a strained, grateful smile. "All right?"

Nolan nodded. Michael didn't.

"Michael, all right?" I asked. He narrowed his eyes and glanced at Nolan.

"All right," he said.

"Good. So. Let's go in, it's almost midnight," I said, opening the door and stepping inside. "They're going to think you were dunking me in the snowbank – HEY, WHAT'S THE TIME?" I called across the crowd.

Most of the eyes were on the cafe's single clock – not perhaps the best timepiece in history, but at least one they could all agree on. I looked around for Lucas but didn't see him; after a few seconds I was swept up in counting-down to the New Year and the melee of inappropriate affection that usually follows things like that.

I glanced around and saw Nolan and Michael drifting casually to opposite sides of the room. Young men moving on, moving up – moving to Chicago in the spring, where there was a little more acceptance and a lot more people, and if someone saw you holding hands it wasn't all that likely they'd even know who you were.

It's hard to find a place you fit, sometimes. I felt oddly grateful for mine.

There was the usual ten or fifteen minutes of jubilation, of course, followed by a sort of expectant feeling that nobody quite knew what to do with. I always think that secretly everyone wants to turn to their companions and ask, "What now?" before they make the hesitant decision to leave.

Plenty of people were headed for the hotel, preferring to sleep there rather than risk freezing to death on the walk home or crashing their cars on the road. As excellent as the cold was for sobering people up, there was no point in being reckless.

I helped get some of the more recalcitrant party-goers to the hotel and then turned back towards my shop, waving to others as they left the cafe and exchanging the usual lame jokes – seems like it's been a year since I've seen you and the rest.

When I finally reached my front walk, the cafe was turning out its lights, but the streetlamps were on and the snow almost glowed against the dark wood of my porch. The contrasts made the world seem flat, almost unreal, and the alcohol probably didn't help. I blame it all for not noticing anything unusual sooner.

By the time I saw the animal huddled on my porch step, I was so close to the door that I almost tripped over it. There was a yelp and a scrabble of claws on wood in the dark, and then there was a large furry shadow pressing itself up against the green door in surprise.

"Hey, now," I said unsteadily, pausing on the step and leaning forward, bracing myself on the railing-post. I peered into the darkness and held out my other hand. "What's there?"

I thought for a second it might have been a wolf, but they're pretty rare even in our part of the country. It was too big for a coyote, much too big for a raccoon or a possum. A dog, then – large, with long powerful legs and a wide chest. When he hesitantly nosed forward, the first thing I saw was a pair of luminous eyes set in two dark patches of fur with an almost comical pale stripe between them. A sled dog of some sort, with eyes that arctic blue.

"Hello," I said, turning my hand over for the animal to inspect, but he trotted past it and sat down facing me, nose barely half a foot from mine. He had short, bristling fur that was a uniform pastel gray on his back, blending into white on his legs and belly. The only dark patches were on his muzzle and around his eyes. "Who belongs to you, eh?"

He whined and backed away, staring so pointedly at the door that I laughed and opened it, waving him inside. Not even a dog bred for sledding should be out in the bitter cold of the new year's first night, and his owner was probably already asleep, unaware their dog had slipped away.

I'd left hot embers glowing in the bookshop fireplace and banked them with kindling; it was still warm enough on the lower floor that I shed my coat and hat, watching in amusement as the big, pale-gray dog trotted to the fireplace and threw himself down in front of it.

"Just as well; I don't want dog hair all over my bed," I said to him, leaving my boots next to the door. The upstairs was not quite so warm, but my bed was piled high with blankets and man invented flannel pajamas for nights like that.

I'll tell you a secret, because it's one I thought about a lot that night before I fell asleep. The real reason I like trains – and I could never have made the others understand this – is that they are the last common form of surrender granted to us in an age of self-determination. You can't control where a train goes or how fast it gets there. You can't even talk to the driver, like you can in a taxi. Your last conscious decision is to step on board, and the only decision you can make once you're on is the decision to get off again. Between those two events, you submit completely, and you're free from responsibility.

I wouldn't like to live my life without any choice, and the life I lived in Low Ferry was full of them, but in a small town you do lose a lot as well, like you do on a train. There are some things you just can't do, which is fine – but there are some things that it's dangerous to do, like Nolan and Michael's secret tryst.

Still, once in a while it's nice to have fewer choices, to give up a little bit of the burden. Sometimes I used to dream about the trains in Chicago. That night I did.

When I woke in the morning, at the dawn of the new year, it was several minutes before I thought of the dog downstairs. I had already put water on the stove to heat and cracked two eggs into a frying pan when I remembered my guest. Not wanting to burn the eggs, I finished cooking them before descending to the shop with a plate and a mug of tea, only to find the fire finally burnt out and the dog nowhere to be found.

Now, a full-grown sled dog does not simply vanish when placed in a small country bookstore. There are very few places for a dog of that size to hide, and I knew them all from the times when children had made the attempt. I checked the bathroom, the rear storage room, the cupboards under the counter, and the shadowy, dusty hollow under the stairs. The doors were unlocked but not open, and the windows were all latched.

I stood in the middle of the floor and rubbed my head in thought, eggs and tea forgotten. Finally I stepped into my boots without bothering to lace them, went outside, and stood at the edge of my porch.

There, in the fresh snow that had fallen sometime after midnight, were wide-spaced dog tracks. I glanced back at the door, then slowly stepped down into the snow and touched one of them. The bottom of the paw-print was smooth and hard, and when I tried to scoop up the snow a thin layer of clear, pure ice – like glass – cracked away and crumbled in my palm.

Well, aside from me, nobody's fooled for an instant, are they?

It's easy to see in hindsight, but at the time all the things that make it obvious were obscured by everyday life: other worries, other peoples' opinions, things that seemed bigger at the time and aren't even very memorable now. There are plenty of people who wouldn't believe such a thing was even possible. It's not hard to deduce that I didn't want to know. I never made the connection. Call me an idiot if you want, but it's true.

Business was sluggish in January. With the snow heavy on the ground and no school in session for the first part of the month I didn't see – nor did I expect to see – much of Lucas. The weather was, after all, the reason that the cottage at The Pines had stood empty for so many winters. It was a long trek in by snowshoe, impossible by car, and the sort of people who owned snowmobiles were not the sort of people who found our little village very interesting.

The mystery dog, however, was around all the time. A few days after New Year's I encountered him begging for scraps of the hot apple tarts the cafe was selling, being spoiled by half a dozen small children and one or two of their chaperons.

"Do you happen to know whose he is?" I asked the boy, who was apparently helping to mind the younger children.

"Nope," the boy answered. "They're going to be annoyed when he throws up apple all over, though. He must've had eight or nine helpings by now."

I gave the dog an absent pat with one hand, gently maneuvered two children out of my way, and continued on to the cafe. Certainly the dog couldn't be a stray. Where would he have strayed from without dying of cold, and where could he be sleeping at night? Unless he'd learned how to let himself into my shop, and even then I'd only kept fires downstairs in the early evening, putting them out when I went to bed.

It snowed a lot that month, not the incapacitating storm-blitz from earlier but steady, light spells on a regular basis. Towards the end of January the snow had finally built up to intolerable levels on my front porch, and I decided it was time to clear it off before the entire structure caved under the weight. The dog, who seemed to spend a lot of time there, was pleased by this turn of events. He danced around the handle of the shovel while I worked and chased after the snow I flung into the yard below, snarling and biting at it playfully.

"You're going to need a new porch soon," Paula told me, leaning against the recently-cleared railing as I scraped snow up off the scarred and weathered wood.

"I think it has about two more winters left," I said, stopping to lean on the shovel.

"Why wait till you have to replace it, though? Come springtime, I'll put it in for you myself if you want."

"Not that the vision of you and power tools isn't overwhelming to the senses, Paula, but I don't know yet. I might try building one myself. I'll buy the lumber from you, anyway," I said.

"Do you want it done right, or do you want to lose a finger?" she asked. "Seriously, by the way, is he your dog?"

"He's not my dog," I said, fending off the dog's playful advances on the shovel. "I don't know whose dog he is."

"We know every dog in town, I'm pretty sure, and I don't know who owns him. He seems to like you. You might not have a choice."

"I don't need a dog."

"Nobody needs a dog, Christopher," she said, hauling him back with one arm around his throat and scruffing his head affectionately. "Besides, he needs a collar."