Annalee had hoped they would finish by Daniel’s twelfth birthday, but they’d just started painting the dining room when March arrived. Annalee had given him his major birthday present – an excellent telescope – that morning, so when they’d finished his birthday dinner, they took the telescope up to the top deck and looked at the winter constellations. The chilly, wind-whipped evening soon sent them inside to the captain’s dining room, which they’d made their own. Daniel waited at the head of the table while Annalee ducked into the galley and immediately reappeared with his birthday cake, twelve candles blazing, and set it in front of him as she sang happy birthday. Daniel’s eyes glistened in the candlelight.
‘Don’t forget to make a wish before you blow them out,’ she reminded him.
Daniel thought for a moment, took a deep breath and blew out all the candles except the one in the center. Annalee quickly reached over and pinched it out.
‘I guess I don’t get my wish,’ Daniel said. Annalee seldom heard self-pity in his voice. She didn’t know how to respond to his sudden shift in mood. ‘You know what I wished?’ Daniel said, then continued before she could answer. ‘I wished I knew who my father was.’
She grasped the connection with his birthday, but she was still stunned. She sat down across from him, feeling suddenly old and helpless. ‘I’ve told you before, Daniel – I don’t know. I was young and crazy and lost. I was sleeping with anyone who’d hold me warm all night. It could have been a number of men. I wish I could tell you.’
‘Tell me,’ Daniel cried. ‘Tell me! You have to know!’
‘I can’t, Daniel. I honestly don’t know.’
‘Liar!’ He exploded from his seat. ‘Tell me!’ He raised his right arm and smashed his fist down on the cake.
Annalee slapped him so hard it numbed her hand. Daniel staggered, barely catching himself against his chair. He brought his frosting-smeared hand to his cheek, blinking rapidly at the tears.
‘Goddammit, you little shit,’ Annalee yelled, ‘it hurts. Do you think it doesn’t hurt me too?’
Crying, Daniel nodded mechanically.
‘Where is this coming from? Why are you doing this?’
Daniel kept nodding.
‘Talk to me, Daniel. You can’t do that to me and go hide. What is it?’
Daniel sobbed. ‘I just want to have something. Something I can imagine.’
Annalee understood now what he wanted. She sat down, suddenly calm. ‘I first saw your father,’ she began, ‘when I was hiding out at a resort in Anchor Bay, about fifty miles down the coast from the Four Deuces. There’d been a bad drought for almost two years; nearly everyone was out of water. I woke up one summer dawn and looked out the window. Thin fog was swirling outside, milky in the first light. I saw a man out in the pasture, a tall, bearded man wearing a top hat and a flowing black cape. He was witching for water with a forked stick, holding it in front of him. I could feel his attention as he worked the field. I walked out in the pasture and stood in front of him. He spread his cape on the ground. Without a word, we made love. When we were done, he covered my shoulders with the cape. Before he left, he pointed out into the field and said, “There’s a deep spring near the center, but there’s no need to dig. It’s going to rain soon.” And the next morning I woke to a soft, soaking rain.’
Daniel nodded solemnly.
‘Your father,’ Annalee said, ‘was a riverboat captain. His boat was the Delta Queen. I was a serving girl, a young Cajun from the bayou. I remember how strong his arms were from handling the wheel. You were conceived on the pilot house floor while the wheel twirled slowly and the boat ran free. The next night there was an earthquake. I couldn’t feel it on the water at first, but you could hear people screaming on shore and see the treetops lashing in the moonlight. The river just seemed to roll over everything and you could hear the boat’s timbers snap loud as gunshots and glass shattering in the salon. I was on my way up to the wheelhouse with a bottle of brandy and was knocked back down the stairs. People were screaming and jumping overboard. Suddenly your father was there, lifting me in his arms and carrying me down to the main deck. There was a small dinghy lashed to the bow. He cut it loose with his knife, then lifted me inside. He kissed me, said he loved me, then lowered it. He went back to help the others. As I drifted away, still holding the bottle of brandy in my hands, I saw him run into the salon just before it burst into flames.’
Daniel shut his eyes, absently touching his cheek where Annalee had slapped him.
‘Your father was a bandit,’ she continued. ‘I was working as a cocktail waitress in this horrible Chicago bar. We’d closed up and the bartender and I were washing the last few glasses when he stepped out of the bathroom with a pistol in his hand. He tied up the bartender and locked him in the store-room, then emptied the till. He skidded a roll of dimes down the bar toward me, where he’d told me to sit and not move. ‘Put some music on the jukebox,’ he said. I asked him what he wanted to hear. ‘Whatever puts you in the mood,’ he laughed. It was the sweetest, loosest laugh I ever heard. I ended up driving the getaway car to his apartment. No. Wait. I’m lying to you.’
Daniel glanced at her sharply.
‘We didn’t go to his place. We made love right there, on the long mahogany bar.’
‘Mom!’ Daniel blushed. ‘Geez.’
‘You want to know your father and I don’t know who he is. So I’m going to tell you everything that moved me in the men I’ve known, what I’ve admired and enjoyed and dreamed and desired. And when I’m done, you still won’t have a father, still won’t know who your father is, but you’re going to have a much better idea who I am, and that you’re my son, and that I love you.
‘Your father was a mountain climber who disappeared on the peak. I met him in a Katmandu café just before he started the ascent. I remember …’
The smashed cake between them untouched, Annalee went on for nearly two hours, every man of flesh or dream she could remember or invent, heroes, poets, outlaws, fools. Daniel listened intently, and when she finished he did something that brought tears to her eyes: He broke a piece of the mangled cake and offered it to her.
To their mutual amusement, they finished the boat on April Fools’ Day. Their work, they agreed, was excellent. The forlorn queen had been restored to magnificence – from the Belgian carpet to the chandeliers, she possessed a muted elegance and luxurious dignity.
Annalee phoned Dave Jaspars that evening and told him the work was complete.
‘Fantastic!’ He sounded genuinely pleased. ‘Take a vacation for a few weeks or just hang out and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Elmo’s supposed to pass through toward the end of the month and he’ll tell you what’s next.’
‘I don’t suppose you’d have any idea what that might be,’ Annalee prodded. Dave Jaspars loved to gossip, and was always dropping hints he knew far more than he could tell.
‘Well …’ he began, letting it trail off. ‘You know I shouldn’t tell you this – but you’re going to Indianapolis to join the Sisters of Blessed Mercy convent and Daniel is going to Paraguay to study hallucinogenic medicine with a Yatati shaman.’
Annalee was stunned. She could hear herself producing a strange nasal whining sound, but until she actually blurted ‘No!’ she had no idea she was trying to speak.
‘April Fool!’ Dave Jaspars yelped with glee. ‘Got you!’
‘You miserable fucker,’ Annalee said coldly, ‘it’s a good thing I don’t know what you look like or I’d hunt you down and show you some serious foolishness.’
‘My goodness, Mrs Wyatt,’ he said, ‘I had no idea you thought of me like that. Didn’t you know that April Fools’ is the only religious holiday we celebrate?’
‘No,’ Annalee said, smiling, ‘but it figures.’
When Elmo Cutter entered the main salon, he took the cigar out of his mouth and whistled softly. ‘Holy shit.’
Daniel thought it was a good moment to press his case for complete restoration. ‘It would be real
ly beautiful on the river, but that’d mean getting the engine rebuilt, or maybe putting in a new one.’
‘Nope, Daniel, it ain’t gonna happen. It’s gonna serve as a stationary communication center. She’d attract way too much attention on the water.’
Exasperated, Daniel flung his arms out to indicate the salon. ‘Then why bother doing this? Any of this? Why not just make it cheap, practical, functional?’
‘Because it wouldn’t be doing it right,’ Elmo said. You could have broken a fist on his voice.
‘Is doing it halfway doing it right?’
‘In this case, yes. Shit, son, we couldn’t really afford to do this much right, and a power plant would double up the budget and make it worthless for what we have in mind.’
Daniel muttered, ‘It just makes our work seem pointless.’
Elmo dropped a meaty hand on Daniel’s shoulder. ‘Now that’s up to you, whether it’s pointless or not. Far as I’m concerned, you two did one helluva job, and before you go on bulldogging my ass about this engine and get me feeling mean, let me say thanks, okay? Now you can keep chomping if you want, or we can sit down at this fine table here and talk.’ He lifted his hand from Daniel’s shoulder and touched the polished tabletop. ‘What kinda wood is this anyhow?’
‘Walnut,’ Daniel said.
Elmo caressed it with his thick fingers. ‘That’s just plain fine.’
Annalee said, ‘A long way from that scabby old card table, isn’t it?’
‘A million miles.’ He glanced at Daniel. ‘You done chewing?’
‘If it makes any difference,’ Annalee said, ‘I agree with Daniel.’
‘It makes a difference, but it doesn’t change nothing.’
Annalee sat down. ‘Then let’s talk about something else, like the million miles between here and there and where we’re going next.’
‘That’s up to you,’ Elmo said, sitting down across from her. ‘Next month the boat here’ll be fitted out with radio equipment. There’ll be a permanent crew of about a dozen, and occasionally a full house. You’re welcome to stay on and learn some communication engineering, which is a good skill to have these days, or there’s an opening in our Waco language school if you want to learn Spanish while making sure our borders stay open to certain goods and people. There’s a communal salmon boat in Washington that could always use some extra hands; it’s got an engine, too, at least most of the time, and a crew that would have been pirates a hundred years ago. Or, if you want to learn the fine arts of printing and photography, there’s a paper house about to start production––’
‘Paper house?’ Daniel interrupted.
‘Documents. Licenses. Stuff like that.’
‘Forgeries.’ Daniel nodded.
Elmo shrugged. ‘Well, we have a lot of official seals; we just don’t have a lot of official authorization to use them.’
‘Where is this paper house,’ Annalee asked.
‘Berkeley. In California.’
‘Berkeley, California,’ Annalee repeated with a dreamy joy. ‘Credentials of identity, certificates of accomplishment. Perfect. We’ll take it.’ She looked at Daniel. ‘Assuming it’s acceptable to you.’
‘I’d like to live in a city,’ Daniel said.
‘For how long?’ she said to Elmo.
‘Till you get tired of it or it burns up – paper houses tend to do that. But the better the papers, the lower the heat.’
Annalee nodded. ‘When?’
‘Now, if you want. It’ll be another month before all the tools and materials are delivered, but the house is ready.’
‘It doesn’t need an engine, does it?’ Daniel said, but he was smiling.
Elmo grinned in return. ‘You know what they call a bulldog that knows when to let go?’
Daniel shook his head.
‘Smart.’
‘Do you know what they call a boat without an engine?’ Daniel said.
Elmo sighed. ‘Let me guess. Dumb?’
‘No. They call it a communications center.’
‘You know, I’m gonna start packing a spoon with me.’
Daniel didn’t bite.
Elmo explained anyway. ‘All the shit I have to eat on this job, I could use one.’
Annalee said, ‘As long as we’re asking questions, and since you trust us enough to run a print shop, there’s something I want to know. Where’s Shamus Malloy these days?’
‘Out at sea with a small crew of treasure hunters. That batty scientist still hasn’t showed.’
‘What sort of treasure,’ Daniel asked.
‘Silver and gold.’
Annalee smiled. ‘I bet he’s happy.’
‘Jesus,’ Elmo said, ‘let’s hope so.’
The house in Berkeley was on McKinley Street, not far from the high school. When the Helmsbro Movers (‘If we can’t truck it, fuck it,’ their typically Berkeleyan card proclaimed) delivered some ostensible furniture a month later, Annalee and Daniel found reams of blank birth certificates, drivers’ licenses from every state, draft cards, passports, and various official seals of sundry state governments and federal agencies. The small darkroom in the second-floor bathroom had been completed before their arrival, and the Multilith and platen press, flanked by a battery of typewriters, were set up in an adjoining room. After the friendly tutelage of Jason Wisk, their nominal real estate agent, they could document a new identity in half a day. Since Annalee enjoyed the camera work and embossing while Daniel was particularly fond of the printing, the labor divided itself along lines of natural interest. Jason coordinated the job orders, which were steady enough to keep them busy but not enough to be a burden. No customers came to the house; if photos were required, Annalee either worked from negatives shot elsewhere or shot them herself at Jason’s real estate office.
Because Daniel was often hassled for not being in school, he seldom left the house before 3.00 on weekdays. He usually printed till noon and read after lunch for at least a couple of hours before going out to explore Berkeley’s street life.
By mutual agreement, the nights belonged to Annalee. She was particularly taken with Dr Jamm’s Get-Down Club out on Shattuck. She quickly made friends with the musicians and artists who hung out there. Soon she was a singer and lead kazoo in a perpetually ripped aggregation known as the Random Canyon Raiders, whose repertoire included traditional, if obscure, favorites, as well as spontaneous and raucously pornographic sociopolitical polemics. The Random Canyon Raiders were devoted to high times and low art, and Annalee rediscovered a social life. She began to cut loose.
But some trajectories are immune to change: A year later, early in May, looking for a book of poems recommended by one of her Random Canyon friends, she saw Shamus Malloy standing by the chemistry section in the Berkeley Public Library. His hair was black, he was clean-shaven, and, to judge by the pinned sleeve on his jacket, he’d lost his left arm. But she was so sure it was Shamus that she browsed over beside him and tugged his empty sleeve.
Shamus closed the book he was examining and slipped it back on the shelf without acknowledging her. ‘I’ve loved you and missed you every minute for the last two years,’ he whispered, staring at the stacks, ‘and I’m afraid to look at you, afraid it won’t be you, that’ll it be some desperate hallucination, some hungry dream.’
‘Is it cool to hug you in here?’ Annalee said, her open hand pressing against the small of his back.
‘Probably not,’ Shamus grinned, ‘but please, please do it anyway.’ When he turned to look at her there were tears in his eyes.
She felt his arm under his jacket when they embraced.
‘What are we doing inside on a lovely spring day?’ Annalee murmured. ‘Let’s stroll, if that’s permitted.’
‘Everything’s permitted,’ Shamus said, ‘as long as we’re careful.’ He looked in her eyes when he said it, then glanced over her shoulder. ‘After you, milady.’
They walked two blocks to Swensen’s Burger Palace, ordered coffee, and took a table near the ba
ck.
‘All right,’ Annalee said, ‘what’s going on. The only news I heard was that you were off treasure-hunting.’
‘True. I holed up by sailing away. We were diving wrecks off Colombia. It was work, but it certainly had its moments. It has to be one of the most astonishing sensations in the universe to stand on deck with a bar of gold, still dripping sea water, raised in your hand. It’s not as wonderful as holding you, of course, but one takes what’s available.’
‘Talk that talk,’ Annalee said. ‘Daniel was asking me the other day why I liked you poets so much; I told him because they talked good.’
‘And how is Daniel?’
‘Thirteen going on thirty, and working hard to cut the apron strings.’
‘That shouldn’t prove difficult – you’re not the somthering type.’
‘You never gave me a chance.’
‘If there’s no other men in your life right now, maybe I will.’
‘Just Daniel, and it’s not clear whether he’s a young man or an old boy. But how about you? Can you come out and play?’ She idly ran a finger around the rim of her coffee mug.
‘My deal with Volta was that I’d be a good boy for two years. Cooperative was the term. I guess you didn’t hear that Gerhard von Trakl wandered back to work last week mumbling about sequential centers and the inextricable dance of particle and wave. He claimed he’d been out in the desert thinking things over. Probably true, according to AMO’s information – dressed in tatters with wild long hair and beard. No info on the debriefing, but evidently he told it like it happened, that I let him off and drove away in the night. It’s hard to believe they could cover his absence so long, but the old geezer doesn’t have any family, and the official word was that he was on special assignment.’
‘So now you’re cool?’
‘Well, not completely. They’re still looking, but the urgency has faded.’
With a thin smile and a definite weariness, Annalee said, ‘So you’re ready to try for the uranium again?’
‘No,’ Shamus said. ‘Plutonium – the dark, decadent queen herself. And this time for ransom: the dismantling of all nuclear facilities in the country. Not to mention the political embarrassment of having it stolen, the admission of vulnerability.’ He leaned forward across the table. ‘Nuclear weapons are madness. It has to be stopped. The knowledge and the technologies are always there before our ability to understand the consequences. Linear accelerators, breeder reactors – what do they do except speed everything up beyond comprehension while accumulating deadly materials in kinds and quantities nature never intended? It’s a sickness of greed and power, like amassing gold, and that much power in the hands of so few rots the heart. We’ve got to stop, stop and think hard about the consequences of possessing so much energy and what unleashing it might mean. I said the ransom would be the dismantling of all nuclear facilities, but that really isn’t it. The ransom is time. Time to consider, evaluate, judge. Time is the heart of tragedy. I reread Sophocles on the boat: ‘All understood too late.’ It takes time to come to understanding, and pride and ignorance and fear just grease the chute. We’re running out of time. It’s almost too late. That’s what my guts tell me: We have to buy time. And the only currency I can think of is plutonium.’