Voice of our Shadow Read online

It lowered its head and growled.

  "Go away, Joe, you're scaring it."

  It growled again; only this time the sound was longer and deeper, far more feral and threatening. The lips curled back, and it began to wag its stump of tail too fast.

  "Oh, God. Joe?"

  "Move back."

  "Joe –"

  I spoke in a quiet monotone. "If you go too fast, it'll come. Go slow. No, slower."

  She was in a squat, and it was almost impossible for her to move backward. For an instant I looked around for a branch or a stone I might use to hit it with, but there was nothing. If it came, I would have only my hands and feet; stupid, impossible weapons against the giant boxer.

  India managed to move two or three feet. With all the courage I'd ever had in my life, I slowly slid over so that I was standing between India and the dog. It was growling continually now; I wondered if it was rabid. I didn't know what to do. How long would it stand there? How long would it wait? What did it want? The growl turned into a kind of snapping snarl, and it sounded as if something were hurting the dog from inside its body. It turned its head left and right, then widened and narrowed its eyes. If it was rabid and bit me . . .

  I realized for the first time I was chanting, "Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ . . ." under my breath. I didn't dare move. My hands were splayed flat against the sides of my legs. My fear had turned into a thick, evil taste in the back of my mouth.

  Someone whistled, and the dog snapped at me in a madness of fast little bites at thin air, but it stayed where it was and moved only when the whistle came a second time.

  "Very good, Joey! You passed the Matty test! He passed, India!"

  Paul stood at one edge of the park. He was wearing the Little Boy top hat, white gloves, and the most beautiful black overcoat I had ever seen.

  The dog bounded up to him and jumped high at a hand Paul had raised in the air over his head. The two of them disappeared into the dark.

  5

  "Joseph?"

  "Karen!"

  "Hello, love. Is it okay to talk?"

  "Sure, just let me sit down."

  Karen. Karen was on the other end of the line, and Karen was the heaven that made everything right again.

  "Okay, so tell me what's up? Tell me everything. I tried to call you."

  "Hey, Joseph, are you okay? You sound as if you just got your teeth pulled."

  "It's the connection. How are you?"

  "I'm . . . I'm okay."

  "What does that mean, okay? Now you sound as if all your teeth were pulled."

  She laughed; I wanted the sound to go on forever.

  "No, Joseph, I'm really fine. What's goin' on there? What's happenin' with that Miss India and you?"

  "Nothing. I mean, nothing's going on. She's all right."

  "And you?"

  Oh, did I want to tell her. Oh, did I want her there with me. Oh, did I want this all to be over.

  "Karen, I love you. I don't love India, I love you. I want to come back. I want you."

  "Uh huh."

  I closed my eyes and knew something awful was about to come. "What's with Miles, Karen?"

  "You want the truth?"

  "Yes." My heart raced to match the beat of the heart of a man about to be hanged.

  "I've been stayin' with him. He's asked me to marry him."

  "Oh, God."

  "I know."

  "And?" Don't say yes. God in heaven, don't say you said yes.

  "And I told him I wanted to talk to you."

  "He knows about me?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you want to marry him?"

  "The truth?"

  "Yes, goddamn it, tell me the truth!"

  Her voice went cold, and I hated myself for snapping at her. "Sometimes I think I do, Joseph. Sometimes I do. What about you?"

  Shifting in my seat, I banged my calf on the leg of the chair and nearly fainted from the pain. It clouded my mind badly, and I groped for something clear and right to say to stop the best thing in my life from going down the drain.

  "Karen, can you wait before you tell him anything? Can you wait a little while longer?"

  A silence followed that lasted a hundred years.

  "I don't know, Joseph."

  "Do you love me, Karen?"

  "Yes, Joseph, but I might love Miles more. I swear to God, I'm not trying to be coy, either. I don't know."

  I sat in my room and smoked. The radio was on, and I smiled bitterly when India's song from our night in the mountains, "Sundays in the Sky," came on. How long ago had that been? How long ago had I held Karen in my arms and sworn to myself I wouldn't go back to Vienna? Ever. Everything was in New York. Everything. But how close was I to losing it now?

  As had happened several times, the face of a white boxer raced across my mind, followed by the sound of India screaming. I knew somewhere inside I should have felt proud for having saved her that night, but the experience only made things seem more futile. How do you defeat the dead? Do you tell them to fight fair, no tricks or crossed fingers behind their back? What good was it to put up your two dukes, only to discover your opponent had a hundred, and another hundred, waiting when the first ones tired. I asked myself if I hated India, and knew I didn't. I didn't even hate Paul. It was impossible to hate the insane – like being angry at an inanimate object after you've banged your elbow on it.

  I heard the refrigerator click on in the kitchen. A horn beeped in the street. Some children in the building screeched and laughed and banged a door. I knew it was time to talk to India. I would stay and help her all I could, but in return she would have to know that, if Paul's siege ended, I would not stay with her any longer than I had to. It would hurt and confuse her, I knew, but my ultimate allegiance was to Karen, and I could not ask her in all good faith to wait for me so long as I was being dishonest with India. Before we hung up that night, Karen asked if I was staying in Vienna because I was India's friend or because I was her lover. When I said "friend," I knew it was time to start acting truthfully, all the way around.

  I asked India to meet me at the Landtmann. She wore a moss-green loden coat that came down to her ankles and black wool gloves that suited her perfectly. What an attractive woman. What a hell of a mess.

  "You're sure you don't mind being here, India?"

  "No, Joe. They have the best cake in town, next to Aida, and I owe you at least two disgusting pieces after the other night.

  "Remember the first night we met? How we sat out here and I complained about how hot it was?"

  We stood with our backs to the door of the cafй. The trees were bare; it was hard to imagine them in full bloom. How could nature shed its skin so completely and then recreate it so exactly only a few months later?

  "What are you thinking about, Joey?"

  "The trees in winter."

  "Very poetic. I was thinking about the first night. You know what? I thought you were kind of nerdy."

  "Thanks."

  "A good-looking nerd, but a nerd."

  "Why in particular, or just generally?"

  "Oh, I don't know, but I forgave you because of your looks. You're very cute, you know."

  If you want Vienna to live up to your romantic expectations, get off the plane and go directly to Cafй Landtmann. It is marble tables, velvet seats, floor-to-ceiling windows, and newspapers from every interesting part of the world. It is, to be sure, one of the places where people go to look at one another, but it's such a large cafй that even that doesn't matter.

  We chose a table by a window and looked around a while before either said anything. When we did, it was at the same time.

  "In –"

  "Who was –"

  "Go ahead."

  "No, you go ahead, Joe. I was only going to blabber."

  "Okay. Are you in the mood to talk? I want to tell you something important."

  She bowed her head, giving me the floor. I had no idea if this was the proper time to bring up Karen Mack, but like it or not, I had to.

&
nbsp; "India, when I was in New York, I was with someone."

  "I kind of thought so by the way you've acted since you got back. Somebody old or somebody new?"

  "Somebody new."

  "Uh oh, they're the most dangerous kind, aren't they? Before you go on, tell me her name."

  "Karen. Why?"

  "Karen Why. Is she Chinese?"

  Despite the heaviness of the moment, I cracked up. I shook my head and kept laughing. Then our cake came, and we compared whose was better and who'd gotten gypped with a smaller piece.

  "So go on with Karen, Joe. She's not Chinese and she's new."

  "Why did you want to know her name?"

  "Because I like to know the name of the enemy before I charge."

  I told her about it generally, and India didn't say a word until I'd finished.

  "And you slept with her?"

  "No, not yet."

  "Spiritual." She took a fork and squashed half her cake down flat on her plate.

  She wouldn't look at me when she spoke again. She kept attacking the cake. "Why did you come back?"

  "Because you're my friend and because a lot of this is my fault."

  "Any love in there, Joey?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "I mean, did any of your choosing to come back have to do with loving me?"

  Her head was bent, and I saw the careful, exact part in her hair.

  "Of course there was love, India. I'm not . . ."

  She looked up. "You're not what?"

  "I'm not a good enough person to have returned if I didn't love you. Does that make sense?"

  "Yes, I suppose. What are my chances against her?"

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my face with my hands. When I took them away, I looked at her. She had the most astounded look on her face. She was gaping over my shoulder, and both hands were on the table, trembling. I turned around to see what was so amazing. Paul Tate, in his beautiful black overcoat, was making his way through the cafй to our table.

  "Hello, Kinder, can I sit down?" He slid in next to his wife and kissed her hand. Then he reached over the table and touched me gently on my cheek. His fingers were warm as toast.

  "It's been a long time since I was in here. Right before you went to Frankfurt, Joey." He looked around fondly.

  It was Paul. It was Paul Tate. He was dead. He was sitting across the table from me, and he was dead.

  " 'Men, you may wonder why I've gathered you all here today . . .' No, I won't be dumb now."

  "Paul?" India's voice was the chiming of a small clock in a room miles away.

  "Let me say what I have to say, love, and you'll understand everything." He smoothed his hair back with one brisk gesture. "You were right, by the way, India. Right all along. When I died I didn't know if it was because of my heart or because of what you two did to it. It doesn't matter. It's over. Now all of my stuff is done, too. All of the Boy, all of the birds and the white Mattys . . . Done. You two betrayed me once and that's unforgivable, but it was because you loved each other. Finally I'm convinced of that. I see it's true now."

  Despite his presence, India and I snuck glances across the table to see how we were reacting to that. Especially in light of what we'd just been saying.

  "I loved India and could not believe she'd done it. You see, Joe, she really is a true person, no matter how it looks now. You remember that. When she loves you, it's all yours. When I realized what had happened, I wanted to kill you both. Big irony – I died instead. Death wasn't what I thought it would be; I was given the chance to come back and get you guys, and I took it. Brother, did I take it! It was fun at first too, seeing you little bastards screech and run around, really scared. It was. Then, Joe, you kept protecting her. Sticking your neck out so far it should have been cut off ten times. You did everything right and loving, and after a while and a lot of pain, it struck home how much you loved her. You didn't have to come back from New York, but you did. The way you protected her from the dog the other night . . . It showed me you loved her with everything you've got, and I was amazed. You passed the test, if you can call it that, with flying colors, Joey. You convinced even me. So no more Boy. No more of the dead, Goodbye."

  He got up, buttoned his overcoat to the neck, and, with a quick wink for both of us, walked out of our lives.

  6

  One of the famous Lennox family stories goes like this: Right after my father's mother died, my mother made us all go on a picnic to Bear Mountain. She wanted to keep my father as busy as possible, and picnics were a favorite of his. Ross didn't want to go at the last minute, but after a slap and some whispered oaths from the boss, he behaved himself and ended up eating more fried chicken and potato salad than anyone else. When we were done, my father and I went for a walk. I was terribly worried about him and kept thinking of the right thing to say to ease his pain. I was five and there weren't many things I knew how to say, much less well, so when it came I was excited and proud that I had thought it up all by myself.

  We sat down on a couple of tree stumps, and I took his hand in mine. Did I have something to tell him!

  "Daddy? You know you shouldn't be so sad that Grandma's dead. You know why? Because she's with our Big Father now, the one who takes care of evvveryone. You know who that is, Daddy? He lives up in the sky and his name is D-O-G."

  In the days that followed our meeting with Paul, I wondered where he was. If he'd told the truth, where did people go after they died? I now knew one thing for sure – there were choices on that other side of life; things were far more complex there than anyone could imagine. Never once when he was sitting with us had I thought to ask him about it, but afterward I realized he probably wouldn't have said anyway. I was sure of that. It was Paul's way.

  D-O-G. I was sorry I'd never had the chance to tell him that story.

  7

  "Where's Paul's pen?"

  She stood in the door of my apartment in a purple rage.

  "Do you want to come in?"

  "You took it, didn't you?"

  "Yes."

  "I knew it, you little thief. Where is it?"

  "It's on my desk."

  "Well, go get it."

  "All right, India. Take it easy."

  "I don't want to take it easy. I want that pen."

  She followed me in. I felt stupid and guilty. Ten-year-old guilt. My head bulged with conflicting ideas and emotions. Paul was gone, but exactly what did that mean? I could go now; I had done my duty to India. When was anything ever that simple? I hadn't answered her question about whether or not she had a "chance" against Karen. If Paul had remained a factor in our lives, I wouldn't have had to answer that question for a long time. Now I did.

  "Give me that! Why'd you steal it, anyway?" She shoved it into her pocket and patted it a couple of times to make sure it was there.

  "I guess because it was Paul's. I took it right after he died, before anything started to happen, if it makes any difference."

  "You could have asked, you know."

  "You're right – I could have asked. Do you want to sit down or anything?"

  "I don't know. I don't think I like you very much today. What are you planning to do now? What's on your agenda? You could have called me, you know."

  "India, back off, huh. Slow down."

  Karen in New York; a fifty-fifty chance I could win her back if I left immediately. India in Vienna; free, alone, angry. Angry because she had betrayed the true love of her life for me. Angry because she thought I had come back to her for all the best reasons in the world, only to find at the worst possible time I'd done it out of ninety percent duty and only ten percent love. Angry because her betrayal had caused death and pain and fear and finally, in the end, a future that promised little more than permanent guilt and self-hatred.

  Looking at her, I knew all of that and, in an incredible instant of clarity, decided that no matter what happened I would stay with India as long as she needed me. A montage of Karen in bed, at the altar, raising and loving his childr
en, laughing forever at his jokes, came and went, and I told myself I had to believe it didn't matter anymore. India needed me, and the rest of my life would be utterly false and selfish – inexcusable – if I failed her now.

  It wasn't martyrdom or altruism or anything as lovely as all that. I would simply be doing what was right for the third or fourth time in my life, and that was good. I realized how naive and unrealistic people are to think you can be both right and happy.

  If it happens that way, you are truly one of the blessed. Right, however, should win if you have to choose. A great deal has happened since those thoughts paraded grandly through my head, but I still believe that's true. It is one of the few things I still believe at all.

  "Joe, since you'll probably be leaving soon, I want to tell you something. I've been wanting to tell you for a long time, but I haven't. I think you should know, though, because it's important, and no matter what happens with us, I still love you enough to want to help."

  "India, can I say something first? I think it might have some bearing –"

  "No, not until I've finished. You know me. Whatever you say may take the wind out of my sails, and I'm mad enough at you to let it rip, so just let me, okay?"

  "Okay." I tried to smile, but she frowned and shook her head. No smiles allowed. I sat back to let her blow her top, knowing I had the ace up my sleeve the whole time. Was she going to be surprised!

  "This pen is part of it. I know why you wanted it. Because it was Paul's, and you wanted it to remind you of Paul's magic. Right? I understand. You're like that, Joe. You want part of everyone's magic, but you're too damned wimpy at heart to reach it the hard way, so you snitch Paul's pen, make love to me –"

  "India, for godsake!"

  "Shut up. You make love to me . . . You even steal your brother's life, put it down on paper, and make it into a million-dollar story. Okay, not a million dollars, but enough to keep you sitting pretty for the rest of your life. True? You're talented, Joe, no one is arguing that, but have you ever thought maybe your greatest talent is stealing other people's magic and using it for yourself? Here, I want to read you something."