First time she’s ever seen a man go from paralyzed to moving in less than the length of a three-minute song.
“Like this?”
She holds the paper for Philip to see.
“The hair should be longer. Knee length. The hooves barely visible beneath it. Long white hair. And the steel between the horns, bigger.”
Ellen makes the changes. She notes the change in Philip, too. As though his spirit is recovering at the same rate as his body. He’s talkative, mobile, and his eyes are only getting brighter.
“Here,” Ellen says. And she recalls the reflection of Francine in the metronome, administering the medicine.
“Good,” he says. “Now could you color the entire background red?”
“Red,” Ellen repeats, already reaching for the pencil.
“The whole thing.”
Beginning at the top, Ellen shades the page red.
“Yes,” Philip says. He raises an arm, reaching unsteadily for the paper.
His expression changes with such immediacy, Ellen almost pulls the drawing away from him. He looks suddenly ill, she thinks, completely blanched, as though the image she’s given him, the simple child’s drawing of a white goat on a red canvas, has set him back.
His arm falls to the cot.
There are tears in his eyes.
“Philip, I’m sorry. Here, let’s put this away for now.” She tries to think of a joke. Tries to be funny. “How about a boring radio drama instead?”
She expects him to say no, no, it’s fine, no, it’s not your fault, it’s me, I was only remembering.
Instead, with wet eyes, he only stares to where the wall meets the ceiling.
“Philip . . .”
But he’s not talking anymore.
Ellen rises. She flattens the front of her uniform with one hand and carries the drawing in the other.
“You should have some water,” she says. “I’ll get a glass.”
He’s crying. Silently. Staring to where the wall meets the ceiling.
As she crosses the threshold, he speaks.
“You played our song as well as we did.”
And his voice is wet with tears.
Ellen wants to tell him that he’s helping her as much as she’s helping him. Instead, she watches him. Then quietly leaves him to cry, to remember, alone.
20
Larry and Ross are setting up the Ampex machines, using shovels to dig holes in the sand, deep enough to keep the recorders stable. The sandstorm was brief, gone as quickly as it came, but served as an immediate notice of how far they are from home.
Foreign topography.
Foreign continent.
Foreign threats.
Camp has been set up between two distinct gravel plains, large dry pools of brittle rock that look more like scorched land than beach. Mountain outcrops can be seen in the distance and the dunes between here and there look as kinetic as the ocean Philip stands in. Despite the fog, the sun is high, though Lovejoy warns that, come nightfall, it’ll be as cold as Minnesota out here. They’re using canvas tarps and metal poles as tents; they’ll be sleeping like cowboys from America’s Old West. A different kind of soldier.
Greer is a bottomless pit of information. Now, as he assists with setting up camp, he extrapolates on the information from Mull’s packets. Greer, it seems, knows more than the military that sent him here.
“The desert is somewhere between fifty-five and eighty million years old. The site of our absolute earliest ancestors. The first known people. This is a fact. You think they frolicked in the waves, Private Tonka? I bet they did. And I bet we lost many of them to storms like the one that greeted us.”
The bivouac stood up to it, though, and they have Lovejoy to thank for that. Greer says Lovejoy is an expert in creativity.
“It’s why he was a general. His mind doesn’t stop. And he’s always got a bigger plan than you do.”
Duane, who has never been to a beach that doesn’t border the Detroit River, is marveling at the white surf rolling less than a hundred feet from where he kneels. He taps a drumbeat on his thighs. Playing along to the rhythm of the waves.
“Two weeks,” he says, reminding whoever is in earshot that their stay here is finite.
Lovejoy is securing short wooden legs to a plastic board that will act as a table to support the radio, a Korean War field radio phone, model 71 B; the platoon’s only line of communication with the United States. Each of the Danes has inspected the unit, and they agree that it’s much more sophisticated than what was being used twelve years ago, near the end of World War II. And yet, nobody has gotten it to work, not yet.
“It’s a long way for a signal to travel,” Ross says. “And the sound, our sound, might obstruct it.”
Our sound, Philip thinks. The phrase doesn’t sit well with him.
Philip and Larry are assembling the microphone stands. They use rope and rocks to secure them against potential wind and sand. The rocks are found in the knee-deep lip of the ocean. Philip stands in the water, his green pants rolled up to his thighs, his bare feet on moss-covered rocks. He reaches his hands into the water, feeling for the heaviest ones, then hands them to Larry.
Behind him, probably no more than a hundred yards, must lie one of the sunken ships he spotted from the plane.
He thinks, back and forth, of two things:
First, he’s wearing military clothing again. When the war ended, and long before Philip landed back home in Detroit, he accepted that his days in the service were over. Not partially over. And not the sort of over that a man might return to. Like an ex-girlfriend. Or a drug habit. This over was true; he had served his country.
And yet . . .
Philip is wearing dark green army pants and a dark green T-shirt. His helmet rests on the beach. In his pack are the same variety of socks, underwear, gloves, and boots that he once wore, back when he packed for the United States Army.
It’s a strange reality to swallow. As if he’s a soldier from the past, dead then, living again, rejuvenated on a desert-beach in Africa.
The second subject he thinks about is a single word. Three syllables that have come to frighten America more than any enemy army ever has. A word that appears in his mind, then quickly disappears, over and over, as if looped through the two Ampex machines in the sand.
Nuclear.
Because nuclear is scary as hell. Nuclear is new, and nuclear means whole countries can disappear with the pressing of a button. It isn’t war, Duane said. It’s a decision. Stein may morbidly imagine himself photographing the mushroom apex of ultimate destruction, and Greer may find fascination in the chain of events that could lead to such a decision, but the Danes are dreaming of Detroit. A Detroit that will always be there.
Home.
Mull’s mention of the word in the studio, the inoculation of the nuclear warhead, was unsettling enough. But to be out here, closer to whatever did that, takes a bravery Philip isn’t sure he possesses.
Two weeks.
Larry rams the shovel into the sand, then wipes sweat from his forehead. His long hair is already damp from the heat. He’s shirtless.
“Better be careful I don’t set something off.”
But he does not say nuclear. Not yet.
And Philip, searching the water for rocks, wonders if the source of the sound might not be submerged.
Toxic waste.
Dark syllables under a bleating sun. A frightening new-world phrase, new-world fear. Images of deformities, fish swimming sideways, nature forced inside out.
Philip’s stomach turns.
He absently brings a handful of water to his forehead, trying to cool off what feels like a sudden fever. He rises to his full height and breathes deep, slow, believing he’s panicking a little. If he’s going to be out here for two weeks, he needs to learn how to be here.
“Be Here.”
The hidden wilderness of dark ocean ahead, Philip looks over his shoulder to Larry, expecting to find his friend waiting for a
nother rock.
But Larry is on his knees, a pained expression on his face.
Beyond him, Duane and Ross are stumbling.
Stein and Greer.
Feeling sick now himself, Philip scans the sand for Lovejoy, finds him sitting, lotus position, eyes closed.
“Larry, hey,” Philip starts to say, but the words are too sticky, glued together; the individual letters feel bulky, keep his lips from fully parting.
He looks, too fast, dizzying, to his feet beneath the rippling water. He sees thick yellow liquid floating above them, pooling about his ankles.
He backs up on the slimy rocks, and falls, back first, into the water.
The yellow liquid has clusters of food in it. Philip understands that he’s thrown up.
He throws up again.
He looks out to the horizon, rippling with waves. Throws up again.
The sound, he knows, is here.
But he doesn’t hear it, not exactly. A rippling of something thinner than sound, perhaps the space the sound has to travel to reach his ears. Philip retains a vivid image of this as he rolls onto his side and dunks his head beneath the surface.
Down here . . . the sound is different than it is above.
Not louder . . .
. . . but clearer.
Down here he can hear individual notes, a chord again, momentarily, before the notes retract, back into the fold, back into the waves.
Philip opens his eyes.
Ten feet from him, the water is dark. And in the water is another person.
Red pants.
Black boots.
But are they boots? Shaken, disoriented, Philip thinks he sees . . .
Hooves.
Clomping toward him in the mud.
Philip rises and gasps for breath. There is nobody standing in the water, nobody breaking the undulating horizon, nobody in the ocean but himself.
He dunks back under. Looks. Sees Nothing. The sound is a chord, the sound is not.
He turns toward shore.
Shadows. Boots. Movement.
Red.
Philip emerges again.
He clutches his stomach with one hand and points to shore with the other, points where the figure should be, where a body must be because he saw it, saw it exiting the water.
But no.
No red pants. No black
(hooves)
boots.
The sound is fatter, wider, heavy, like it’s physically capable of squeezing Philip’s ribs.
He thinks he hears the chord again, a triad of unnatural, unmusical notes. Played by a hand with only three fingers, each with only one purpose; to play, to press, that note, these three notes, three half-steps, the sickening sound of a musician gone daft; a child angrily pressing his fingers upon the exact three keys that he knows will force his mother to her knees, reaching out for him, pleading . . . Stop playing! Stop playing!
STOP MAKING THAT FUCKING SOUND!
On his knees, the F key loose around his neck, Philip cuts his hand on a rock. He wipes blood from his palm. More appears. He wipes. More. He cleans. More. He dunks his hand into the water.
(what’s in the water, Philip? nuclear?)
When he pulls his hand out it looks like his palm is split in two. In his deliriousness, in his crazed state of what can only be called hallucination, Philip imagines the sound is coming from the wound in his hand.
“Help!” he yells.
But the syllable is thick honey, a spoonful of glue.
He dunks his hand again. Looks to shore.
Sees him.
Standing above the others as they writhe in the sand. Stout as an officer.
Red pants. Red coat. No shirt beneath the coat. A white beard, long enough to touch Larry’s shoulder as Larry attempts to get to his knees.
The space between Philip and what he sees is rippling, as if the sound itself were visible.
Can’t see the features. Can’t trust what he sees.
Sees hooves.
Sees horns, too.
A shimmering reflection of the sun between the horns. Metal there . . . diamond there . . .
Philip feels pressure at his temples. He blinks sticky eyelids, looks up to see the man (he can’t call it a man, can’t name it) crouching by Lovejoy. The sergeant’s eyes are closed.
The thing in red brings a rippling hand to the former general’s lips.
Philip can’t see details, can’t see a face . . .
He has to say something, he tries to say something, tries to warn Lovejoy.
The thing looks to Philip.
Like it heard him. Heard him like Mull heard him in the studio.
Philip has to close his eyes. The pain is too much; unseen fingers pressing against his pupils. When he opens them again his vision is as distorted as his balance, his stability, his stomach.
He sees a silhouette, rising. He sees hooves. He sees horns.
He dunks his head under. Brings it back out. Gasps for air.
It’s something in red. It’s a shadow. It’s something in red. It’s a silhouette. It’s stepping toward Ross. It’s a shadow. It’s a silhouette. A thaumatrope. Two pictures. One disc. String. Rotate. Back and forth. Flip it. Like a wheel.
It’s something.
It’s a shadow.
It’s something in red.
It’s a bleeding shadow.
It’s kneeling beside Ross in the sand. Ross who is helpless on his back. It’s sliding indecipherable hands under Ross’s shoulders, under his knees. It’s opening its mouth. The white beard hides Ross’s rippling face. Philip screams but can’t scream. Instead what comes out is spittle, vomit, toxic—
STOP!
And the thing
(man shadow thaumatrope)
does stop.
Like he heard him. Heard him thinking, heard him unable to speak.
Then he’s moving, carrying Ross, rippling, a pulsating ribbon of red. Philip gets up and stumbles, runs, barefoot on the slimy rocks, runs toward the thing, to Ross, to put a STOP! to all of this before it begins because if this is how it begins how will it end?
Philip makes it two steps, feeling vertigo, running sideways; slips, falls, smashes his head against a rock.
Philip blacks out. Instantly.
Out.
On the way, he half dreams of the sound traveling over black hills, through black woods, on black paths, the Path, Philip’s own, charred black, with no boundaries, no demarcation, no signs either, telling people to stay out, stay away, you had it good in Detroit, the Darlings of Detroit, the Danes, you had it good, and this, this won’t end well, this won’t end.
Black quicksand on the Path.
Everything sinks.
Into nothingness. Into tranquil, brainless silence.
When Philip wakes again, when he comes to, sweating from a sun hotter than all American suns, he will bring a hand to his bandaged head and look into the horrified eyes of his fellow soldiers, all of them on edge, all of them panicked, all of them needing to know if he knows any more than they do about the whereabouts of Ross.
When Philip emerges from the black, Ross will be gone.
And only hoofprints, traveling into the desert, will remain.
21
To Philip, in the dark of his unit, the footsteps in the hall sound wet. The suction sloshing of damp, bare soles on administrative tiles. He can almost see the shape of the naked feet, the sound is so clear, can hear the contact between the heel and the tile, the toes like a quiet roll on the snare. The lifting again, the next step. The coming down.
Coming down the hall.
Philip is able to turn his head entirely to the closed unit door.
Footsteps. Bare skin in the hall.
How far off? Philip can guess. Forty feet off. Is it another patient? Up to use the bathroom? Maybe someone else in this hospital is healing too quickly, too.
Thirty feet. Twenty feet. Less than that now.
Philip stares at the door, looks to the thin rectangl
e of light at its base.
Thinks of Africa.
Thinks of a sight just like this. A different door. Same rectangle. Same evidence of somebody being home.
Silence from the hall.
Philip waits.
Silence.
He looks to the ceiling. Closes his eyes.
Begins to drift. But does not dream.
Instead, he experiences the lack of pain without asking what it is that’s helping him. What’s in the syringes he receives, the two shots twice daily, and the dosage that was no doubt upped this afternoon, as Ellen played him his own song on the piano.
Now, floating painlessly, so long as he remains this way, arms at his side, head straight, on his back, Philip feels capable, or like he’s on his way to being so, almost there, closer, healing, soon able to rise, to go to them, to find them, to rescue the rest of—
The Danes.
A creaking of a door, but Philip is at peace, so close to sleep, balancing on the spire of a dream, delicate, still, momentarily uncluttered, and that moment is long enough to show him it’s possible, it’s true, there is hope, there is a new Path being forged, or perhaps it’s the old one all along, there is a light at the end of this, all of this, Iowa, Macy Mercy, himself, the Danes.
But the light he senses, the light he sees, is not imagined. And Philip opens his eyes.
The door to his unit is open, allowing a slat of hall light to illuminate the tiles to his right. He attempts to raise his hand to his face, to wipe the near-sleep from his eyes, but it’s too much effort, too painful, and he lets his palm fall to the bedsheet once again.
There is a figure in the room with him.
At first, not yet adjusted, Philip thinks it must be a shadow, but as the darkness recedes, as the details of the unit rise to the surface of the shapes they make, Philip sees a man.
Dr. Szands is standing naked beside the cot.
Philip does not speak.
Szands is staring at Philip’s body and Philip understands, realizes, that his sheet has been lowered, exposing the injuries, the bruises, the brokenness.
He tries not to move. Doesn’t want the doctor to know that he’s awake.
Dr. Szands is touching his own body; mobile, fluid fingers across a symmetrical chest; smooth white wrists against his neck and chin.