Viator

Wilander was a realist, an espouser of statistical truth, a believer in coincidence when no better theory arose to explain the inexplicable, but his rationalism did not completely immunize him against fear, and the idea that the ship was showing him pictures, that it possessed the unreasonable power to do this, frightened him. He did not believe in ghosts, in the symbolic weight of hallucination, in magic, in extrasensory perception, in oracles (though once his Yahoo horoscope, pointed out by a girlfriend, an ex-Goth with lacy black tattoos columning her spine, a vine-like structure made of spiderwebs in which tiny women were trapped that evolved into a curious evil blossom spreading across her shoulders, had proved uncannily accurate, predicting that he would receive good news from a banking institution about a private venture on the day his business loan was approved); nor was he credulous about miracles or people who communicated with the spirits of the dead or those who had dreams that allowed them to divine the locations of the victims of kidnappers and serial killers—he was impervious to such claims, he resisted them with adversarial fervor, and while he found it difficult to sustain this denial of the supernatural in the face of Halmus’ mirror and the pictures emerging from the walls, he managed after a prolonged study of the wall in the officers’ mess to control his uneasiness, countering speculations as to what the pictures might be—views of another world, another dimension, the work of a poltergeist—with the notion that it didn’t matter what they were; so what if a ghost was sending signals or the ship was coming alive or some more equivocal madness was involved, because nothing had happened, nothing bad, in all the weeks, the months now, that he had lived aboard Viator; and what was there apart from these piddling anomalies, anomalies that could well be supported by a logical explanation, one he hadn’t fathomed yet, to suggest that anything bad would happen? If a scrap of ectoplasm was acting unruly, an imp or spirit making sport, it didn’t change the fact that he was healthier and more psychologically sound than he had been in years, that he had a woman who cared for him and hopes for the future. He set about tidying his mental processes, trying to sweep aside anxiety, but his cell phone rang, seeming to leap against his chest from the breast pocket of his shirt, and the superficial calm he had established was demolished. He switched the phone on and said, Hello, assuming it would be Arlene, but half expecting to hear a grinding tonality, the voice of the ship announcing itself for some grim purpose.

—Where are you? Arlene asked.

—Viator, he said.

—I know! I meant, why aren’t you here? Did you forget? You were going to help me this afternoon.

—Not until two.

—It’s after three.

—I’ve been waiting for the rain to let up.

—It stopped raining hours ago.

Wilander glanced at the open door. The rain had, indeed, stopped; the wind had subsided and the sun was out. I’m sorry, he said. I’ll come right now.

—You sound funny. Are you all right?

—I’m just distracted. I’ve been…I was looking at something weird.

—Something weird aboard Viator? Who would have thought?

The detail of the forest and the city on the wall seemed sharper than before, as if the image were setting, like a print in a bath of developer.

—So, she said. Are you going to tell me what’s weird?

—I don’t know how to explain it. I…I’m not sure what I’m seeing anymore.

Wind swayed the linden boughs; the clustered leaves rustled and appeared to be spinning; clever, shiny green paddles registering the flow of light and air; the hidden metal-throated bird gave its long, declining cry. Wilander had an eerie feeling of dislocation, as if—were he to turn around—he would discover that the walls and the body of the ship had dissolved and he would see, instead, a forest, and, below, a lagoon and a city.

—Should I be worried about you? Arlene asked.

—I don’t suppose it could hurt, he said.

Five

“…betwixt and between…”