Brett thought it was odd, Cressida had been surprised by being homesick. He’d been wracked with what must’ve been homesickness—and missing Juliet—for most of boot camp at Fort Benning.
Cressida had emailed Brett, too. Terse and coy and he hadn’t taken much time to puzzle over her riddle-like letters. Probably he hadn’t answered most of them. Boot camp had been exhausting and intense and when he had time to think it was Juliet of whom he thought—Juliet whom he missed.
He hadn’t wanted to think that Cressida had been jealous of Juliet and him. Jealous of her beautiful older sister whom everyone adored. It was in mockery she spoke of those beloved of God—which certainly included Juliet.
Yet he couldn’t believe she was serious now, claiming to love him!
Seeing her at the Roebuck Inn, in that crowd—what a surprise it had been to him! Then realizing she’d come to see him.
He hadn’t encouraged her. He hadn’t responded to her. Yet he’d felt responsible for her.
She’d insisted upon sitting with him in one of the booths, alone.
He’d told her that he wanted to drive her home and she said Oh thank you Brett but not immediately—oh please. Shyly, daringly, she’d laid a hand—a small, tremulous hand—on his arm.
Which he should have eased off, or shaken off—but didn’t.
He was used to girls and women coming on to him—or had been, until recently. But this was different.
It was hard to look at her, he was so—shocked.
Disapproving, embarrassed.
Yet he’d complied with her wish. Her will.
He’d decided to leave the lakeside tavern and not return. Take the girl home, as he told his friends.
They’d stared at Cressida. Only just waiting for Brett to take her away so that they could make crude jokes Brett didn’t want to hear repeated.
He’d had to help her up into the cab of the Jeep. She’d been excited, anxious. Unsteady on her feet as if a single can of beer had gone to her head.
In the Jeep he’d driven a little too fast.
Windows rolled down so the rushing wind made it difficult to hear what she was saying.
She seemed to be pleading We have so much to say to each other Brett. I don’t think you know me at all, I am not really one of them—the “Mayfields.”
Behind the wheel of the Jeep he felt slightly better. Fresh air in his face and lungs, a smell of the lake, pinewoods.
. . . had to see you. If you want to talk about Juliet, or . . . about us. What I think I could bring to you, how I could help you . . . not “adjust” . . . I don’t mean any silly cliché like “adjust” . . . I mean in your life now your life is so changed and I am the only one who understands, I think.
He’d listened to her: that was the mistake.
He’d listened, he’d been persuaded. Not that what she said was attractive to him, or that she was attractive to him, but that the surprise of her words was hopeful to him, who did not believe—(he would have claimed)—in anything so unlikely as hope.
She’d asked him please not to drive back to Carthage. Not yet.
She’d asked him please to drive into the Preserve, and along the river—by moonlight.
(It hadn’t been a clear moonlight but muggy, hazy. A smudged-looking sickle-moon past which thin fingers of clouds moved like dazed fish as if self-propelled. Beyond the Jeep’s headlights was a penumbra of faint, faded light like blindness in which the straight tall trunks of pines emerged with dramatic suddenness.)
He’d wanted to warn her—What’s between Juliet and me—I’m not talking about. But I can’t be near people, I will hurt them.
Somehow it happened, though he knew it was a mistake, the Jeep turned into the Preserve.
Somehow it happened, the Jeep turned onto Sandhill Road.
Making its way along the rutted dirt road by moonlight. And the river only a few yards away, beyond the passenger’s window, frothy white water in glimmering patches, the sound of the water confused with wind rushing through the Jeep’s windows.
She’d asked him please to stop the Jeep. Just—stop.
He would remember this—(not immediately, not when he’d been questioned by the Beechum County sheriff’s detectives, but weeks later)—but not what he’d said trying to reason with her while not looking at her, as in boot camp you learned not to look at the drill sergeant who was yelling at you, it was forbidden to look, to lock eyes, as if you were his equal; whatever she was saying to him, touching his arm, causing the hairs on his forearm to stiffen; leaning closer to him, frightened of him, trembling with her own audacity—Of course she’s a virgin: she’s terrified. But of course this has to happen, for her it is time. Can’t turn back.
More forcibly he wanted to tell her—he couldn’t risk it, hurting her.
She was his fiancée’s sister. He could not hurt her.
Fuck fuck fuck this is such a fucking mistake Kincaid. Get out before it’s too late.
There were tears on Cressida’s cheeks. She was heedless, distraught. Pushing herself at him as if, having made a decision in violation of all that she believed and was, it was not comprehensible that he could deny her.
How long she’d planned this, or something like this, rehearsed and plotted, feverish, silly and sad—he couldn’t have guessed.
How many weeks, months. Sick with jealousy which she’d have denied was jealousy.
And now, Juliet was out of his life. So far as she knew.
. . . two of us understand each other. Misfits, freaks—now you know what it’s like and it has deepened you and made you more like me. What has happened to you is visible, what happened to me is . . .
They were parked on Sandhill Road near the Point. He hadn’t been here in, how long?—not since Iraq.
Not since he’d died. This frantic buzz at the base of his skull.
The girl was clutching at him at first lightly, playfully—you could still interpret what she was saying as provisional. Then, with more force.
He understood: the girl had no idea what she was doing. What she was inviting. No idea what sex was.
For all her superiority, her exalted sense of herself, she was a child, basically.
Never had touched anyone as she was touching Corporal Kincaid. Never dared, for she’d feared being rebuked.
Trying to laugh telling her Hey no—better not.
He was pushing her away. Not hard but hard enough so she’d know he was serious. And at once she pushed him back laughing, a wild sort of laughter, hurt, angry—Brett please I know this: no one can love you like I can, now. Now you are—changed. I promise I can love you enough, I can love enough for two, it won’t matter if you don’t love me.
SEVEN
The Corporal’s Confession
October 12, 2005
HE’S CONFESSED.”
“‘Confessed’—what?”
“About Cressida. What he—you know . . . What he did to her.”
But Zeno was having trouble comprehending. Confessed what?
In the interregnum between a late supper and bedtime sprawled in his leather chair in the comfortably cluttered room that was his study Zeno glanced up over bifocal glasses at his wife who’d appeared breathless in the doorway but had not stepped inside.
In his hands an old college ethics text he’d been examining curious at the many highlighted passages in yellow, green, and red like faded neon—in the margins of Plato’s Symposium for instance were How proved? Doubtful! Bullshit!
How earnest he’d been, Zeno Mayfield at the age of nineteen or twenty. How involved with these revered old philosophers as if any critique of his, any remark, any query could have the slightest bearing on their philosophies or reputations.
In the doorway Arlette stood uncertainly. Zeno registered a sudden strangeness in his wife: a look in her face stricken yet dreamlike as her lips trembled in a semblance of a smile.
No one would mistake his dear wife for a girl now, even at a distance.
Since July
her hair had begun quite conspicuously to turn gray. Her face for so long young had begun to crinkle like parchment.
“McManus called. He’s coming over. He told me he had ‘news’—I made him tell me over the phone. He wanted just to come here, to talk to us—first. I think that’s what he wanted. He was emotional . . . You don’t expect Bud McManus to be emotional, do you.”
Zeno was fumbling to set aside the paperback. On the armrest of the leather chair glazed with age like varicose veins a can of lukewarm pilsner, that toppled onto the floor spilling beer.
Arlette stared at the fallen can, the wetted rug, without a word of reproach.
IT WAS 11:08 P.M., October 12, 2005. The Mayfields would note—the twelfth of the month.
Her ghost had been everywhere, these months.
Almost, so long missing, she’d come to assume a kind of ubiquity—imperviousness to harm.
Abruptly now, that had ended.
HE’D HURT HER, yes.
Hadn’t meant to but he had. Yes.
Oh God he was sorry. God have mercy on his soul he was sorry.
HE’D HURT HER he thought.
Seemed to think yes—he’d hurt her.
Couldn’t remember—why . . .
Why he’d hurt her, then tried to bury her, couldn’t remember why.
AT SHERIFF’S HEADQUARTERS. In custody.
He’d been arrested out on Route 31. An altercation in a tavern parking lot, police were called, two men were fighting and one of them was Brett Kincaid, face bloodied, staggering and aggressive and in a rage initially attributed to alcohol, then to marijuana laced with phencyclidine—PCP.
Police backup was required. Three officers to subdue the corporal despite his injuries, throw him down onto the dirty pavement and cuff him.
And in the back of the police cruiser being taken into custody trying to tell the officers I did it, I’m the one. I killed her. I want to make a full confession.
REFUSED TO SEE HIS LAWYER. Refused to see his mother.
They would tell him to lie, he said. He was finished with lying.
SEVEN HOURS’ INTERROGATION. Videotaped.
Couldn’t remember exactly why, the quarrel between them.
It had been his idea—to drive her home.
They had not been at the Roebuck Inn together. She had come later, alone.
Somehow, in the Nautauga Preserve.
She’d slapped at him, maybe. Pushed at him and he’d lost control, he understood now that’s what had happened.
Lost control. Didn’t mean to hurt her. Then, it was over.
How?—he wasn’t sure. His fists maybe. Or she was so small like a child he’d maybe just pushed her too hard against something, the windshield, the passenger door window, like a lighted match tossed into something you don’t anticipate is going to explode and it explodes and you can’t retract the match nor even a clear memory of why you’d done such a thing—who it was who’d made such a mistake.
Many mistakes he’d made. Can’t retract.
Or maybe he’d strangled her. Now it seemed possible, his hands had done that.
WHY?—THIS WAS HARD to compute.
Like an object too large and sharp-edged being shoved inside his head making him wince.
On the videotape the corporal’s young-ruined face like layers of onionskin beginning to peel, scabby with dried blood.
Saying maybe it was—why he’d killed her—because she wasn’t happy.
Or maybe—he’d killed her because she was saying he was a freak like her, she loved him that he was a freak like her.
And he could not stop himself.
He’d warned her, he might hurt a civilian.
Why a civilian, why would you hurt a civilian, he wasn’t sure. Except civilians are afraid of you. In their eyes you can see they expect you to hurt them.
He had warned her. And her sister—his fiancée.
He’d hurt her—Juliet. He hadn’t meant to but it had happened.
She’d made him angry never judging him, never seeing who he was, what he’d done, terrible things he’d done, he’d witnessed but also he’d done and she had not wished to see or to acknowledge. What was unbearable to him, she did not know what he’d done but forgave him anyway as if none of it mattered and if none of it mattered then nothing mattered including her and what there was between him—Juliet and Brett. Like it was a sacred marriage, Jesus had blessed them. And if what he’d done or witnessed over there was bullshit then this other too was bullshit which was why he had to laugh, his mouth hurt with that special twitchy laughter. So Christ he’d hit her, or maybe he’d shoved her. She’d fallen the way they all do, that look of surprise but also embarrassment, even shame—Oh! this is not happening to me. Struck her jaw against the edge of a table and stumbled away crying and he’d wanted to drive her to the—what’s the name of it—“ER”—the hospital he’d wanted to drive her but she’d said no no she would drive herself, she’d run from him afraid of seeing in his freaky face what their life together would be and he’d hoped she would not return to him but she had for she forgave him you could see the forgiveness and the fear shining in her eyes.
But—he hadn’t strangled her.
YOU HAVE TO ASCERTAIN if an enemy combatant is actually dead.
It isn’t enough to shoot him you must shoot him dead.
The sergeant would give the command usually. Or any officer at the scene.
Finish him.
Finish! It was a word to lodge in your brain. A word at the back of the throat like the rotted date he’d almost swallowed. And at the checkpoint. The command to fire and several rifles had been discharged into the (fleeing?) vehicle, unclear whose shot or shots actually struck any of the Iraqi family though all were dead or dying by the time the gunfire ceased.
These are the rules of engagement.
Operation Iraqi Freedom.
SOME OF THE INTERROGATORS had come to his room, he was saying.
Which interrogators?—he thought they were the military police.
In fact they were—(he realized now)—the Beechum County police.
In his room on Potsdam Street. Where they hadn’t a warrant.
Or maybe he was mixing them up with—wasn’t sure . . .
One of them, he’d wakened the corporal in his Jeep, where he’d passed out. Scared the shit out of him he’d thought he was back in Iraq he’d fallen asleep on patrol.
No idea where he was except it wasn’t Iraq. Taste of vomit in his mouth making him want to puke again.
Vomit and bloodstains on the front of his shirt that was pulled out of his pants. Every joint and muscle in his God-damn body aching and that dull pulsing ache behind his eyes—as soon as he awakened, it returned.
An officer in a gray-blue uniform was asking to see his driver’s license, car registration. He was trying to wake up but didn’t move fast enough for the officer and so somehow it happened, the officer had drawn his billy club and was prodding the corporal with it, then restraining him with it, laid against the corporal’s straining left forearm.
Don’t want to do that, son. Don’t want to force me to cuff you.
Here was a surprise: the Jeep was at an acute angle partly off the road. Right front wheel in a ditch. And it appeared to be morning—in some wilderness place, the corporal didn’t recognize.
Didn’t know the name of the road though later he would learn it was the Sandhill Road. And he was in the Nautauga Preserve not far from the front entrance.
The Jeep’s front doors were open as if they’d been flung wide. The door on the passenger’s side had opened downward into a tangle of briars.
In the other vehicle, the sheriff’s deputy’s cruiser, a two-way radio was emitting a crackling noise you might confuse with the fierce cries of jays.
The river was about twenty feet from the Jeep, on the passenger’s side. The water level was high, the river was rushing splashing and glittering in the early-morning sun.
The deputy commanded the corporal
to step away from the vehicle. Step away from the vehicle and kneel on the ground, hands on his head and elbows pointing out.
The deputy glanced into the vehicle, front and back.
Anything here he should know about? Guns, drugs, needles?
Somebody with you in this vehicle? Was there?
Looks like—what’s this—blood? Blood on the windshield?
Who scratched your face and why are your clothes torn?
The deputy called for backup. The Jeep was secured and the corporal silent, dazed and unresponsive was taken into custody like one of the enemy not understanding the words shouted at him, something in his eyes gone out.
FINISH HER! FINISH the job.
No. He’d tried to resuscitate her. He knew CPR: in basic training he’d learned.
Then, he tried to bury her in a grave but could only dig with his hands. There was no shovel or any other implement in the Jeep. Tried to use flat moderately sharp rocks but these were awkward. He could not dig a grave deep enough. The land here was marshy, yet pebbly as you approached the river. The water level was not predictable. In early spring as snow melted in the mountains there could be flooding, in late summer it could be only a few inches deep. But now after last week’s thunderstorms the depth was ten, twelve feet close to shore.
Finish! Asshole did you finish her.
The grave was too shallow with stones and pebbles he’d placed on top of her. He did not want to cover her face with dirt (for possibly she was breathing, she would inhale the dirt) so he placed a rag over her face he’d found in the Jeep. There was the fear too that birds would come at daybreak and peck out her eyes—hawks, crows. Or in the nighttime, owls. But as soon as the filthy rag was in place, he felt better.
Then, he wasn’t sure who the girl was. The girl who’d come to the Preserve with him against his wishes.
Laying a hand on his arm, rousing him to desire.
The angry desire of the cripple, whose potency is fury charged hotly in the throat.