His father’s mustache also was part of the deception. He had not worn a mustache as a reporter in Blount. He had also given up cigarettes. “That was torture, Adam. But Grey insisted, and your mother was delighted to see me stop smoking. She said it was one of the few good things about our new lives. I’m still dying for a smoke today …”
Adam’s questions seemed endless.
“Did you and Mom ever actually live in Rawlings, Pennsylvania?” Adam asked, telling his father of the visiting editor Amy had called him about.
“No. But we were flown there for a weekend visit so that we’d be acquainted with the town—the layout of the streets, the buildings, the feeling of the place—in case we ever encountered anyone from Rawlings. I remember standing outside the newspaper office there, thinking I’d like to meet the editor, talk shop. But I didn’t. In fact, I’ve always avoided talking to Amy’s father, afraid that I might betray myself.” His father’s voice was wistful.
What about his mother and those telephone calls to the woman who was Aunt Martha?
His father explained that Martha was a cloistered nun in a convent outside Portland, Maine. She was his mother’s only living relative and Grey had allowed arrangements to be made for the weekly calls.
“It’s the only risk Grey ever allowed, although it was a minimal risk,” he said. “Your aunt had never lived in Blount and she had gone away to the convent as a teenager. A cloister is closed to the outside world, Adam. Never a visitor. Grey was able to arrange for a special dispensation to allow that weekly call—your mother’s only link with the world she once knew …”
A: I am curious about something.
T: What is that?
A: You never ask about my mother. Only my father. As if you’re not interested in her at all.
T: You are mistaken. It is you who doesn’t speak of your mother. I have told you before—I am merely a guide. I do not lead you.
(15-second interval.)
A: I want to talk about my mother. I mean, I want to find her in all these discoveries I’m making.
T: By all means. Go ahead.
(10-second interval.)
T: What’s the matter? Why the delay? Relax—take it easy.
(5-second interval.)
A: Nothing—I can’t even remember her face right now.
T: Take your time. She is there, a part of your life. She will come …
And she did, of course.
A: Funny about my mother. All my life, from the time I was just a little kid, I thought of her as a sad person. I mean, the way some people are tall or fat or skinny. My father always seemed the stronger one. As if he was a bright color and she was a faded color. I knows it sounds crazy.
T: Not at all.
A: But later, when I learned the truth about our lives, I found she was still sad. But strong, too. Not faded at all. It wasn’t sadness so much as fear—the Never Knows.
T: What were these Never Knows?
A: Something she told me about one afternoon when I got home from school …
That day, he found himself alone in the house with his mother. She was sitting at the window, looking out, a forlorn figure, wistful. He had not confronted his mother like this ever since his discovery of the past. She seemed to have been avoiding him, refusing to meet his eyes, appearing very busy if he approached. Once, he looked up at the dinner table and saw his mother regarding him with tenderness—but a kind of terror in the tenderness—and he wanted to go to her and fling his arms around her. And he wasn’t certain whether he wished to bring reassurance to her or to himself.
This particular afternoon, she was caught off guard when Adam came in the house. She turned from the window and looked up at him, startled.
“You’re early,” she said.
“They called off the Lit. Club meeting,” Adam responded. A lie—he hadn’t felt like going to the meeting.
“Let me make you some lunch,” she said, getting up, moving quickly as if she didn’t want to be left in the same room alone with him.
“Wait, Mom,” he said, touching her arm.
She looked up at him, innocent, questioning.
“Let’s talk, Mom,” he said. “We haven’t talked in a long time.”
“Oh, Adam,” she said, tears gathering in her eyes, her face consumed with grief.
And he found himself holding his mother in his arms, trying to comfort her. She was suddenly the child, not Adam. And that was when she told him of her special terrors—the Never Knows.
“You see, Adam, it’s never knowing what’s going to happen, that’s the worst thing. I’ve always been proud of your father and that decision he made back then. In many ways, it’s been worse for him because he loved newspaper work so much and Mr. Grey said it would be too dangerous to continue in the work even with a new identity, a new name. So we came here, both of us, and tried to make the best of it. We even drilled ourselves. To be careful. To never use our real names, for instance. To be sure that you’d never suspect. I didn’t mind the subterfuge. Actually, the things that really matter were still real to us. I’ve always been a Catholic and have gone to church and received the sacraments. I wanted you to be brought up Catholic, too. Mr. Grey arranged for papers to be made to show us as converts. So, you, see, we kept our religion. And your father and I still had each other. And you. Mr. Grey kept telling us—and we had to agree—that the essential things had been kept, the things that mattered. We were a family together.”
His mother was still looking out the window, as if watching for something. “And yet your father and I knew—we still know—that there are no guarantees. I sit here at the window and see a car come down the street and I wonder, Who’s in that car, what do they want? And until the car passes by, I hold my breath. Even after the car has gone, I wonder, Were they studying the neighborhood, laying their plans …”
“But who would they be, Mom?” Adam asked. “Weren’t the people Dad testified against sent to jail? And how could they trace you?”
“That’s the trouble, Adam. Maybe you become paranoid after a while, suspicious of everything and everyone, for no reason. But there are reasons, Adam. The people your father testified against are members of a huge organization, linked perhaps with other organizations. Like an evil growth: cut off one part and another part still grows. Your father’s testimony killed one part, but who knows about the other parts? And then there’s Grey, this Mr. Grey. Or Mr. Thompson or whatever he calls himself. He revealed to us once that he is identified in the government as a number—2222. He told us that when it was necessary for him to give us a way of reaching him in Washington in case of an emergency. We have placed our life in his hands, Adam. We have to trust him. In a way, he’s our creator. He created the lives we lead today. He gave us names, decided what your father’s profession would be. He also decided whether we could remain Catholic or not. I often wonder, Is it right to be at the complete mercy of this man, this number 2222? He’s almost assumed the role of God in our lives, Adam. And this gives me the shivers.”
She turned from the window. “Even now, we shouldn’t be sitting here talking like this. The only safe place to talk, Grey says, is downstairs in the paneled room. Or outside, away from places that could be bugged. And here again, Adam, we’re doing what Grey tells us. Sometimes I hate him. Fiercely. With a hate that’s almost sinful. And I think, We trust him too much. What would happen if, for once, we defied him?” She shook her head ruefully. “We almost did, once or twice …”
“Tell me about it, Mom.”
“One summer, we decided to take a vacation. The three of us. We would never leave you behind, of course. I’ve always wanted to go to New Orleans—the Mardi Gras, the jazz your father loves—such a colorful old city. But Grey ruled it out. He said New Orleans was off-limits that year.”
“But why?” Adam asked.
“Because the people your father testified against have strong ties in New Orleans. We almost defied Grey. But we didn’t, of course, because there was too m
uch at stake. Another time, we wanted to go to Europe. But Grey said there would be too much fuss with passports. By fuss, he meant danger. So our hands were tied, Adam. That’s what I mean about Grey—he rules our lives. And that’s why I do defy him sometimes, in small ways. Talking like this, without going to the paneled room. And then I worry afterward because I think that I’ve exposed you and your father to danger. I don’t care about myself anymore …”
Adam suddenly felt so sad, so sad.
“And always, Adam, there are the Never Knows. Never knowing who can be trusted. Never knowing who that stranger in town might be. The phone rings and I think, Is this the call I’ve always been afraid of? Have we been discovered? A woman I’ve never seen before glances at me in the supermarket. And I worry. Because you never know. Even Grey. I’m afraid to look at him sometimes. I avoid him, in fact. Because we are at his mercy. He could snap his fingers tomorrow and our lives could change completely again.”
Adam found himself afflicted with his own Never Knows. He felt safe at home or at school but found himself uneasy when he went downtown or walked the streets. Instinctively, he kept an eye out for strangers, people he had never seen before. He was suddenly acutely conscious of the actions of other people. Was that man heading in his direction? Was someone following too closely behind him? Did the man standing next to him at the newspaper rack in Baker’s Drugstore appear to be studying him? Crazy, Adam told himself. I am the same person I have been for fourteen years. These are the same people I have seen all these years. The only difference was that Adam had never noticed them before. Monument is a city of thirty-three thousand people, he told himself—he had done a study of the city for his social science class at school—and he couldn’t expect to know everyone. Some faces had to be the faces of strangers.
Suddenly, life became unbearably sweet to Adam. Funny, he had taken the events of his life for granted for a long time, the days and nights passing routinely as if they’d continue forever, but the threat to that life and the routines suddenly made every minute and hour precious. Food had never tasted so good before. He’d stop after school to buy a Mister Goodbar or a Three Musketeers and the candy was more delicious than it had ever been. He also loved his father and mother more and wanted to be with them. When they ate dinner together, he felt a sense of intimacy with them, as if he were more than just a son, more than someone who was told to make his bed and take out the rubbish. He was part of them. Somehow fear had forged love.
T: So, it was not all nightmare, then, was it?
A: No. There were good times when we were a family together. But sometimes I’d look in the mirror, studying myself, trying to find some remnants of my Italian heritage. Crazy—I’d joke about it—I didn’t even like spaghetti. I’d look in the mirror and pronounce my name, the name I was born with. Paul Delmonte. But I’d only whisper it. Already I was abiding by my father’s rules, by Mr. Grey’s rules. Then there were times when I felt like standing on a rooftop and shouting to the world, “I am Paul Delmonte. I didn’t die in that accident in New York.” I’d think, Poor Paul. As if he had been another person and not me. My father said we had to live in the present, not the past. It was my mother who led me back to the past once.
T: Tell me about that time.
A: It was just a moment, just a glimpse …
During that period when he was learning about the past, Adam realized that despite her gentleness and wistfulness, his mother was more defiant than his father about their situation. His father played to perfection his role of insurance agent, Rotary Club member, Chamber of Commerce committeeman. Adam marveled at the performance, knowing that it was a performance. His father was always in character; Adam found it hard to believe he had been a crusading newspaperman. (“Well, not exactly crusading—investigative reporting is mostly monotonous work, digging through thousands of words for the one word that doesn’t ring true.”)
His mother was really the rebel. She often spoke resentfully, almost contemptuously, of Mr. Grey. “I sometimes think we were too unquestioning, Adam, too naive. Did your father really have to give up newspaper work? Weren’t there any other alternatives?” Adam was delighted to see this defiance. He realized that his mother wasn’t the compliant woman he had known before. Although she seldom smiled and sadness clung to her most of the time, she was capable of anger. And deception. One day, she studied Adam’s face as if trying to make up her mind about something. Finally, she said, “Come with me, Adam.”
She led him downstairs but not to the paneled room. There was a shadowy alcove at the other end of the cellar, filled with old furniture and other stuff. Adam recognized old wicker chairs they had used long ago in the summer, in the backyard. His mother waded through this debris of other years, clearing a path to a box tied with old rope, about four feet square, in the corner. Patiently, she untied the rope. She opened the box. Inside the box were blankets neatly folded, blue and white, patchwork quilts. His mother peeled off the blankets, like turning the pages of a book.
“Look,” she said, holding up a jacket that seemed vaguely military. “Your father wore this in the army.” Her probing uncovered a green scarf, soft, wispy, the material so flimsy that it seemed like fog. “Your father gave me this one Valentine’s Day—he’s always been so sentimental, your father.” She held the scarf to her cheek, closed her eyes. “We had such a wonderful life, Adam—and when you came along, it seemed too good to be true. There are times when I think we had too much and we had to pay for it.” His mother shivered slightly in the dampness of the cellar. She replaced the green scarf in the box and unfolded another blanket. “I suppose I should have thrown these things away a long time ago—they’re relics of that other life and your father says that for the sake of safety, we have to forget that other life. And he’s right, of course. But I cheated. I’ve kept a few things we had when we fled through the night. A pathetically few things—some of your baby things, an old hat your father used to wear …”
“You’re sentimental, too, Mom,” Adam said, glancing into the box, wondering about those baby things of his. Not his, actually, but Paul Delmonte’s.
The doorbell rang upstairs, and his mother stiffened. So did Adam. The bell rang again.
“This is what I hate,” his mother whispered, arranging the blankets in the box again, closing the cover. “This never-knowing. A doorbell rings and it’s like an alarm bell.”
“I’ll go up and see who it is,” Adam volunteered, “while you tie up the box.” And for the first time, Adam got a taste of what it was like for his mother, the deceptions that were a part of her life, and the constant threat of danger. Even if danger didn’t exist, the possibility existed and this was maybe even worse. As it turned out, Amy was ringing the doorbell.
“It’s only Amy,” Adam called out to his mother, wanting to reassure her that everything was all right.
“What do you mean—only Amy?” the girl asked as Adam opened the door. “What kind of hello is that?”
He had been a stranger to Amy during this period. He met her briefly after school and walked home with her, but he made excuses for their not getting together, not carrying out more Numbers. She looked at him quizzically, obviously puzzled, but said nothing. He apologized for not accompanying her on the Number at the church parking lot. Actually, he had been relieved to have avoided the experience.
“That’s okay,” she had said. “I gave you a rain check—we can pull it off at the next wedding.”
One afternoon, as he left her on the corner near her house, she called to him, “Are you all right, Adam? You don’t seem the same these days. Anything bugging you?”
Bugging. He thought of the paneled room downstairs. “No, Amy,” he said. “It’s my mother. She’s not feeling well and I try to spend more time at home.”
Actually, he was in agony. He desperately wanted to share his predicament with Amy—he wanted to share his entire life with her—but his father had sworn him to secrecy. “It’s life and death, Adam,” his father had
said.
Life and death …
T: There is panic in your eyes again. Did those words—life and death—disturb you?
A: I don’t know. Every once in a while, a dark cloud, something like a dark cloud, crosses my mind.
T: Do specific words or specific thoughts bring the black cloud?
A: Sometimes. But the blankness always brings it. Not always, really. I can stand the blanks sometimes. But other times, there’s terror in the blanks.
T: At this very moment, for instance?
A: Yes. I wonder, What happens next? Or, rather, what happened back then? And I don’t know. I don’t know. Then the terror comes. Yes, that’s when the terror comes.
(10-second interval.)
T: You must relax. You must not become agitated. Perhaps a pill. To calm you down. This is merely an anxiety attack. This gasping for breath—this is only anxiety. Try to relax.
(5-second interval.)
A: What happened back then? What happened?
(10-second interval.)
A: Where’s my father? Where’s my mother?
T: You must calm yourself.
A: What’s happened to them? Where are they?
T: Please, you must control yourself.
A: What’s happening? What’s happening to me now? What’s going on? I feel—
T: I think medication is necessary. I have rung and they are coming. The medicine will calm you, take away the terror.
A: What’s going on? What’s happening?
T: Let us suspend for now. I think it is best. They are arriving—
A: Please—
T: Suspend.