Before, During, After Read online

  They stopped for a moment, lying there out of breath, and for a while that was the only sound—their breathing, mixed with the low roar of the surf.

  When he bent to her, she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed and made the word no out of the movement of his tongue in her mouth. She pushed hard. Repeatedly. And at last he lay over on his back, making the sound she now knew was crying.

  “Please go away from me,” she heard herself say. “I’m sorry to hurt your feelings, but I don’t want this. I do not want this. I’ve told you. Please. Please leave me alone.”

  He didn’t answer. He was passed out, mouth open, eyes squeezed shut as if he were facing into high winds. He looked to be suffering some kind of pressure inside, the veins of his neck showing.

  Getting shakily to her feet, she stumbled to the water, splashed in, and pushed out to where it was up to her thighs. Then she dove under, suffering the shock of it like a slap to her face. She swam for what seemed a long time, away from shore, into the rising and sinking surf, feeling the pull of the tide and the weight of her jeans and blouse. Suddenly the tide gripped her. The thought rose to the front of her mind that she was going to drown. She swam parallel to the beach, working it, near exhaustion, keeping on, until the ocean began to let go.

  At last, turning, going under, and coming up to gasp for air, she made her way back in and reached the shallow water, where she could get to her feet, standing while the waves pulled and pushed at her knees. She coughed and sputtered, shaking, then got down in the water and urinated, looking around at the sand, the sea and sky. The water jostled her. She finished and rose and walked, splashing and reeling, out of the waves and on up toward the line of palm trees bordering the wide half circle of the beach. Lying down in the sand, still out of breath, she looked up at the moonlit clouds in the sky, the sparkle of the stars across which they sailed. It felt as though the beach were moving. She lay there shivering. In a moment, she would get up and go back to the resort, to her room, and lock the door. In a moment. But it was good here, too, being alone. The waves came in with their shuddering, murmurous whoosh, and the sound lulled her. She felt a strange, empty kind of deliverance; that nothing, finally, had taken place. She looked down the beach in the direction of where she had left Duego but couldn’t see him. Lying back, staring at the shapes in the silvery mists over the moon, she began to feel almost pleasantly sleepy.

  2

  The train made every stop heading south. At the Thirtieth Street Station in Philadelphia, it sat for more than an hour without any apparent cause. When Faulk asked one of the porters what was going on, the porter said, “Got me, sir.”

  “Is there something wrong with the train? Has something else happened?”

  “Don’t know, sir. I think maybe they waitin’ for son’thin’ down in the District.” He was very dark and had a wide mouth that looked like a cut in his lower jaw.

  “Thanks—if you hear anything, I wish you’d let me know.”

  “I doubt I’ll hear anything, sir. But I sure will if I do.”

  “Which way is the dining car?”

  “Both ways,” the porter said. “Equidistant, too.” He smiled.

  “Thanks.”

  “Food ain’t much good, though, I gotta tell yeh. Sammitches mostly. Process meat.”

  “Well.”

  The young man shook his head, wringing his hands. “Before today, I don’t know that I would’ve felt the need to tell you that.”

  “I know.”

  “That boggles my mind, man. You feel how different it is now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe something good can come of this misery.”

  Faulk decided to take the opposite direction from where the Asian boy had gone, believing that an encounter would produce pressure in the other for some kind of response and be a source of further unease. He stepped out into the cool vestibule and pushed the panel that would open the door into the next car. This one smelled heavily of perfume, mingled with some kind of cleanser. A man was sleeping in the first row, legs draped over the arm of the seat next to him. Two elderly women were at the far end, talking quietly, and they studied him as he passed them. The dining car was empty. At the food counter in the little vending area a middle-aged woman sat, reading a thick paperback. Her tight-curled hair was red, and many freckles dotted the light brown skin of her cheeks. There was something puffy about her face. “Hello,” she said, putting the book down.

  Faulk sat at the counter. “Hello.”

  “Slow trip.”

  “Do you know why the delay?”

  She shrugged. “Something about D.C. They got hit there, too, you know.”

  “I heard.”

  “You coming from Boston?”

  “I got on this one in Newark. I was in New York.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “Didn’t hear a thing. I was uptown. My aunt called me about it from Washington.” He gazed toward the small window into the next car, which looked empty. “There were so many people on the train out of New York.”

  “I don’t think I ever seen it this empty on this one.”

  “How long have you worked here?”

  “Eight years. Got the job when my husband passed. Raised four kids and never worked outside the house.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about your husband.”

  “Well.” She gave him a forbearing look. “Eight years ago. You notice how this kind of trouble makes you want to tell people—” She stopped and seemed to have reminded herself of something. “Well, it does me, anyway.”

  “I know what you mean.” He gazed at the menu card.

  “You married?” she asked.

  He looked at her.

  “Sorry to pry. I just feel this need today to know everybody I meet.”

  “It’s fine. We’re all going through it.”

  “Right. You got that one right for sure.”

  “I’m divorced.”

  “There’s a lot of that, I guess.”

  “Fifty percent of the time, I believe.”

  “Guess I read that somewhere.”

  Presently she said, “They all begin in hope, though.”

  “That’s true.”

  “All that happiness and celebrating.”

  “Right.”

  “Nobody does it planning to get miserable.”

  “No.” He liked her. He felt a surge of grief for her troubles, whatever they were. “Actually, I’m getting married for a second time. If she can get home from Jamaica.”

  “Jamaica.”

  “She was vacationing with an old friend. Now since all the planes are grounded—well, today I was stuck on one island, and she was stuck on another. She was supposed to fly home tomorrow.”

  “Well, I hope you can get together and be happy.”

  “Fifty percent chance.” He smiled at her.

  “I wonder what gets into people,” she said. “My husband and me, we were happy as kids together right up to the end.”

  “You were lucky.”

  She nodded emphatically. “We were that. We felt that.”

  The door of the car on the other side opened, and a man entered, carrying a small brown briefcase. He sat at the far end of the counter and placed the briefcase in front of him. He looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties, with a drooping, pale face and light blue eyes that had shadows under them. His hair was dark gray with white streaks, and it was disarranged, as if someone had ruffled it. He smoothed the hair down with one hand, leaning forward to look over the varieties of snack foods in the baskets on the wall behind the counter.

  “Hello,” the woman said to him.

  “You have fresh coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  The man turned his attention to Faulk. “You live in Washington?”

  “No, but that’s where I’m headed.”

  He seemed satisfied with this.

  “You?” Faulk said.

  “I live there.”

  When the woman put
the coffee in front of him, he took her hand. “I wonder what you think of all this.”

  “Oh—well. I—I can’t—I don’t know what to think. I was just telling this gentleman I feel like I have to get to know everybody I meet.”

  “Yeah.” He let go of her.

  “You got a family?” she asked.

  “Four grown kids. Three girls and a boy. A nice friendly wife. Like that.” He smiled. “They’re all waiting for me to get home and try to explain this day to them, you know? They’ve all gathered at the house.”

  “I think the Lord works in mysterious ways.”

  “Yeah. His wonders to perform, right?”

  “Mysterious.”

  “Okay.”

  “I think maybe it’s like this,” she said. She appeared to be trying to formulate the idea as she went on, hesitating. “It’s like we all—flowers, and—and the Lord is like the gardener. Right. We all flowers in his garden. And sometimes he needs one flower, or maybe two or three, and then sometimes, you know, he needs a whole bouquet of them.”

  “You believe that.”

  “I hope so.”

  “And you’re happy.”

  She stared at him. “Yes, sir.”

  “And today was just a gardening day for God.”

  “Will there be anything else, sir?”

  “You know the suicide bombers over in Jerusalem. They believe that when they blow themselves up and a lot of innocent men, women, and children die, they themselves are going straight to paradise for it.”

  She took up a rag and began to wipe the counter. She lifted his cup and wiped under it and then set the cup down with a little force.

  “They believe deep in their hearts that they’re going straight to paradise where they will be greeted by virgins. Virgins. Think of it.”

  She said nothing.

  “And for us it’s gardening.”

  “Excuse me,” Faulk said. “There’s really nothing to be gained by haranguing someone at this time of night and in this situation, is there?”

  The man did not answer but opened the briefcase. For the moment his head was obscured by the open lid of the case. Both Faulk and the woman watched him. Then she turned to Faulk and said, low, “You want anything to eat or drink?”

  “Thought I was hungry,” Faulk said. “Feeling’s gone.”

  She said, “Terrible day.”

  The man closed the lid with a snap and lifted his coffee cup. He sipped from it. “I was in Boston at a funeral,” he said. “Business associate of mine. We were in ’Nam. He got wounded, and I pulled him onto a chopper in a firefight. Bullets ripping the air all around us and pinging on the metal. All hell breaking loose. I pulled him in. Nice guy. Another war altogether. Jungle rot and little people hiding in the leaves, some of them just kids. Kill you quick as look at you. I’ll tell you, lot of gardening going on in that war. And it’s one goddamned war after another, isn’t it.”

  The woman did not respond, standing by the cash register looking at him.

  “Wish I could see the world like you do, ma’am.”

  “Excuse me, but you don’t know how I see the world, sir. You don’t know the first thing about me.”

  He raised the cup as if to toast her. “To gardening.”

  “Maybe I said that to make you feel better.”

  “Well, it did that, all right.”

  “What’s your point, anyway?” Faulk said.

  “Pardon?”

  “What’re you getting at? What’s the point of bothering to be so unpleasant tonight?”

  “And what are you, a lawyer?”

  “I happen to be a priest.”

  Both of them stared.

  “Now, you want to start in on me?”

  “I didn’t know I was starting in on anybody. I was just talking. Seemed odd, that’s all—that business about God the gardener. I don’t know how anybody can think anything positive after today.” His voice broke. “I’m sorry.”

  After a little pause, the woman, in a soft, ameliorative voice, said to him, “You want more coffee?”

  “Yes, thank you.” He held out the cup.

  Faulk said good night to them and went back through the vestibule and the door, the mostly empty car, to the next vestibule and his own car and along the aisle to his seat. The train rattled and tossed, and then it entered a tunnel, the dark at the windows becoming blackness with intermittent rushing lights. He sat down and saw his own reflection in the glass. So, he thought. I happen to be a priest.

  3

  She woke in bright moonlight, wrapped uncomfortably in the wet clothes. She sat up and had a shaken realization of the whole long day. It played across her memory in an instant. She saw the couple, looking so small, leaping from the hole in the massive burning side of the building. She saw the slight, brave, doomed, waving woman with the smoke coming from her hair and back. And she thought of Michael Faulk. “Oh, Jesus God.”

  The sea made its steady rushing. She could not see the resort nor anything but empty beach with the blackness beyond it and the moving whitecapped waves. She sat up, shivering, the residue of the dream playing across her nerves.

  Suddenly, with a strange forceful slow assuredness, someone was upon her from behind, hands on her breasts.

  She yelled and tried to turn, swung her elbows back to strike. Reaching over her head, she got ahold of hair and pulled and was pushed forward until her face was in the sand. The other was heavy on top of her, knee in her upper back, one hand pressing her head down. The sand was in her nose and mouth, and this was going to be her death. But then he let go enough for her to turn over, and she saw Duego and kicked at him, attempting to rise, the sand choking her. “Stop it! Get off me! Are you—get off!”

  “You—are—beautiful,” he groaned, moving back on top of her. “We both—want this. You—know we both want this.”

  The force of it amazed and bewildered her. He was very strong. She kicked twice more at him, gagging, coughing, and when she reached for his eyes, he took her wrists and forced her over and held her, so that once more the sand was in her mouth. She had to use her hands to keep her head out of it, to breathe, and now he was pulling at her jeans, the sand choking her. She lost consciousness, her mind buckling. She was elsewhere, her hurting body separate from her, something not hers, and his hands were at her hips, pulling her up and toward him. “You know you—want this,” he breathed. “Come on.” She was sick, coughing deep, spitting, trying to scream and gagging, crying. He was ramming himself at her, thrusting at her and then into her with what felt like a tearing. He held her there, by her hips, rigid, pressing tightly and then moving, murmuring something about fate, their fate. It went on, hurting, wounding, until she lost consciousness for another moment, drifting off in a terrible asphyxiating fog, her face down in the sand. Everything was blank, gone, nowhere, and suddenly she was awake, him pushing in and pulling out and pushing in, gripping her at her hips. “Oh,” he said. “God.” Then there were the little spasms. He held her even tighter to himself, shuddering, moaning.

  Finally he moved away from her, lying once more on his back, making the crying sound of before, arms flung out, looking like someone who had been knocked down.

  Struggling to her feet, she kicked him in the side of his chest. It hurt her foot, and she shouted in pain and rage and then couldn’t get sound out anymore, still choking on sand and blood where she had bitten her tongue and her lip. She kicked at his groin and fell back. He did not seem conscious. But then he was up and upon her. “You should not have done that,” he said, holding her down with one hand on her chest and with the other taking hold of her jaw. She flailed, and gagged, and his knee came down on her middle, both hands at her head. He took a fist full of sand and thrust it down in her face, then took more and held her jaw tight, squeezing, jamming the sand at her mouth, packing it in, and pressing it, and grabbing more and pushing it at her, while she tried to bite at the fingers and coughed and the knee was pressing her chest, the one hand pulling her ja
w down, the sand going in. He rolled with her, was back on top, ranged across her lower spine, his palms on the base of her skull, forcing her face down into the wet sand. Her vision blurred and ended, was all black. She was gone and nothing, no sound and no sensation but the choking and no air at all, and the heaviness on her chest, and this was death. This was the last of life.

  But she rose from the dark, awake, still choking. He had fallen from her. She got to her knees, gouged at his eyes, spitting, the sand coming up in a clod with the contents of her stomach. He pushed her aside and stood up, taller than she could believe, as if he had undergone some elemental transformation and had become more than human, taller than anything. He would surely kill her now, and now all she wanted was to keep breathing, to be alive, away, and quiet. She watched him stagger away with his long shadow in the moonlight, on down the beach, crying that he was sorry and that it was something meant to be. Apologizing. Apologizing! She tried to scream but was too woozy and sick. The sickness kept coming and coming, mixed awfully with the sand. “Oh, God!” she screamed, choking. “Help me.”

  She managed to get briefly to her feet, sought to bring forth another scream, nothing coming but more heaving. She was on her knees again and then on all fours, head down, sputtering, gagging. The sand burned in her eyes, the grains of it scraping the iris, stinging, and she couldn’t get it out of her nose and mouth. It came rushing out of her with the whiskey she had drunk. She could not breathe in, kept trying to, hearing the whooping sound that came from her.

  At last, slowly, with great difficulty, as if having to break through something heavy and solid in the air around her, she rose and moved to the shore, tottering into the surf, falling to her knees, the waves crashing over her. She put her face down in the water and ran her hands over the grit of sand in her hair and along her hairline. The water seemed colder than it had been earlier. There was so much moonlight now. She got down, so that the water was just below her shoulders. It jostled her, but she remained crouched there, shoved by the motion of the waves, looking at the clean white moon surrounded by shadowy clouds.