Mysterium

He climbed the stairs to his apartment. The front room was as dim and cold as it had been all this autumn. The military were supposed to be running in a high-voltage line from the south, but he’d believe that when he saw it. In the meantime it was cold, and the winter would be much colder. Deadly, unless arrangements were made.

His sofa bed was open and tangled with blankets—every blanket he owned. In that brief impossible time last June, between the accident and the military occupation, he had been clever enough to buy a hurricane lantern and a. supply of lamp oil. The lamp gave him an extra half hour or so of light each evening. Enough to read by. The Proctors hadn’t confiscated every book in town; there were still personal libraries, including his own seven shelves of paperbacks. He was rereading Mark Twain, a bracing exercise under the circumstances.

He ate cold soup out of the can. The Proctors had distributed “ration coupons” mimeographed on rag paper; you redeemed them for food at the dispensary in the IGA parking lot. Dex had used up his coupons early in the week but was sparing with the nonperishable items. Water came from a truck in front of City Hall: you lined up with your old milk jug or a camping thermos or whatever container was handy. The wait was generally about an hour, and the water tasted of gasoline.

He had not had a hot shower since June. It was possible, Dex had established, to keep himself clean with a cloth rag and a little soap and a jug of water at room temperature, but there was no pleasure in it. He had begun to dream about showers.

He read by the fading daylight until it was too dark, then put the book aside and watched nightfall through his narrow window. A rack of cloud had moved in and the wind was gusting. The street was full of tumbling leaves. Nobody had raked or burned their leaves this year. The town seemed tatty, seemed gone to seed.

Tonight he didn’t light the hurricane lamp. When the room was dark, when the streets were dark, he changed into a black T-shirt, blue jeans, and a navy blue overcoat. He put a can of soup in one pocket, two cans of orange soda in the other. After a moment’s thought, he added a bottle of aspirin.

In Dex’s experience, everybody obeyed the curfew. There had been a few exceptions. In July, a twenty-seven-year-old man named Seagram had been shot when he tried to cross town after dark to visit his girlfriend. The body had been on display in the City Hall courtyard for three ghastly days.

The patrols had eased somewhat since then, but Dex was still careful stepping out the front door of his building into the windy street.

The wind was an asset. The tossing of the trees, the rattle of all these dry leaves, disguised any sound he was likely to make. There were no streetlights, only the occasional flicker of candlelight from curtained windows; that was good, too. He followed a line of hedges to Beacon Road and took a good long look before jogging across the intersection to the corner of Powell Creek Park. The park was fine cover but hazardous in the cloudy dark. He followed the faint shine of a footpath.

He ducked behind a willow tree as a military patrol rounded the corner from Oak behind the lightless brick primary school, tires crackling on dry leaf. The soldier in the shotgun seat scanned the sidewalks with a high-intensity lamp. Dex crouched motionless, taking shallow breaths until the engine sound and the flickering light faded.

Then he crossed the street to a small wood-frame house, over a lawn grown wild, to the back, down a short span of concrete steps to a basement door. He had memorized the route; in the dark he could see almost nothing. A tree hissed in the black space of the yard. Drops of rain spattered his coat and the air on his lips was cold and moist.

He opened the door without knocking. When it was firmly closed behind him, he struck a match and touched it to the wick of a candle.

This basement room was windowless. The floor was concrete. There were stacks of blankets, food cans (most empty), a few books, a Primus stove.

There was a mattress on the floor; and on the mattress, Howard Poole. His eyes were closed, his forehead beaded with sweat.

Dex sighed and emptied cans from the pockets of his coat. At the sound, Howard turned his head and looked up.

“Just me,” Dex said.

The younger man nodded. “Thirsty,” he said.

Dex popped a can of soda and pressed two aspirin into Howard’s hand. The hand was hot, but maybe not as hot as it had been yesterday.

Howard was suffering from a flu that had been threatening to turn into pneumonia. Dex believed the crisis had passed, but nothing was certain anymore.

Howard turned his wristwatch to catch the candlelight, then sat up in a slow, pained motion. “It’s after curfew.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Kind of risky, coming here.”

“I didn’t want to be followed.”

“You thought you might be?”