“What, a little guy like him?” There was humor in the trucker’s tone, an offer of comradeship. “No way. No way at all.”
But the solemn man did not recognize the driver’s existence with even a flick of his eyes. He kept staring into the stage as if it were an abyss.
For a while, his gloom presided over the table. Covenant ordered again, and a few minutes later the waiter brought out a third round—three more drinks. This time, the trucker stopped him. 1n a jocose way as if he were assuming responsibility for Covenant, he jerked his thumb at the middle-aged man and said, “I hope you know we ain’t payin’ for him.”
“Sure.” The waiter was bored. “He has a standing order. Pays in advance.” Disdain seemed to tighten his face, pulling it together like the closing of a fist around his nose. “Comes here every night just to watch her and drink himself blind.” Then someone else signaled to him, and he was gone.
For a moment, the third man said nothing. Slowly the houselights went down, and an expectant hush dropped like a shroud over the packed club. Then into the silence the man croaked quietly, “My wife.”
A spotlight centered on the stage, and the club MC came out of the wings. Behind him, musicians took their places—a small combo, casually dressed.
The MC flashed out a smile, started his spiel. “It makes me personally sad to introduce our little lady tonight, because this is the last time she’ll be with us—for a while, at least. She’s going on from here to the places where famous people get famouser. We at The Door won’t soon forget her. Remember, you heard her here first. Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Susie Thurston!”
The spotlight picked up the singer as she came out, carrying a hand microphone. She wore a leather outfit—a skirt that left most of her legs bare and a sleeveless vest with a fringe across her breasts, emphasizing their movement. Her blond hair was bobbed short, and her eyes were dark, surrounded by deep hollow circles like bruises. She had a full and welcoming figure, but her face denied it; she wore the look of an abandoned waif. In a pure, frail voice that would have been good for supplication, she sang a set of love ballads defiantly, as if they were protest songs. The applause after each number was thunderous, and Covenant quaked at the sound. When the set was over and Susie Thurston retired for a break, he was sweating coldly.
The gin seemed to be having no effect on him. But he needed some kind of help. With an aspect of desperation, he signaled for another round. To his relief, the waiter brought the drinks soon.
After he had downed his Scotch, the driver hunched forward purposefully, and said, “I think I got this bastard figured out.”
The solemn man was oblivious to his tablemates. Painfully, he croaked again, “My wife.”
Covenant wanted to keep the driver from talking about the third man so openly, but before he could distract him, his guest went on, “He’s doing it out of spite, that’s what.”
“Spite?” echoed Covenant helplessly. He missed the connection. As far as he could tell, their companion—no doubt happily or at least doggedly married, no doubt childless—had somehow conceived a hopeless passion for the waif-woman behind the microphone. Such things happened. Torn between his now-grim fidelity and his obdurate need, he could do nothing but torment himself in search of release, drink himself into stupefaction staring at the thing he wanted and both could not and should not have.
With such ideas about their tablemate, Covenant was left momentarily at sea by the driver’s comment. But the big man went on almost at once. “Course. What’d you think, being a leper is fun? He’s thinking he’ll just sort of share it around. Why be the only one, you know what I mean? That’s what this bastard thinks. Take my word, buddy. I got him figured out.” As he spoke, his cobbled face loomed before Covenant like a pile of thetic rubble. “What he does, he goes around where he ain’t known, and he hides it, like, so nobody knows he’s sick. That way he spreads it; nobody knows so they don’t take care, and all of a sudden we got us an epidemic. Which makes Covenant laugh hisself crazy. Spite, like I tell you. You take my word. Don’t go shaking hands when you don’t know the guy you’re shaking with.”
Dully the third man groaned, “My wife.”
Gripping his wedding band as if it had the power to protect him, Covenant said intently, “Maybe that isn’t it. Maybe he just needs people. Do you ever get lonely—driving that rig all alone, hour after hour? Maybe this Thomas Covenant just can’t stand to go on living without seeing other faces once in a while. Did you think about that?”
“So let him stick to lepers. What call is he got to bother decent folks? Use your head.”
Use my head? Covenant almost shouted. Hellfire! What do you think I’m doing? Do you think I like doing this, being here? A grimace that he could not control clutched his face, Fuming he waved for more drinks. The alcohol seemed to be working in reverse, tightening his tension rather than loosening it. But he was too angry to know whether or not he was getting drunk. The air swarmed with the noise of The Door’s patrons. He was conscious of the people behind him as if they lurked there like ur-viles.
When the drinks came, he leaned forward to refute the driver’s arguments. But he was stopped by the dimming of the lights for Susie Thurston’s second set.
Bleakly their tablemate groaned, “My wife.” His voice was starting to blur around the edges; whatever he was drinking was finally affecting him.
In the moment of darkness before the MC came on, the driver responded, “You mean that broad’s your wife?”
At that, the man moaned as though in anguish.
After a quick introduction, Susie Thurston reseated herself within the spotlight. Over a querulous accompaniment from her combo, she put some sting into her voice, and sang about the infidelities of men. After two numbers, there were slow tears running from the dark wounds of her eyes.
The sound of her angry laments made Covenant’s throat hurt. He regretted fiercely that he was not drunk. He would have liked to forget people and vulnerability and stubborn survival—forget and weep.
But her next song burned him. With her head back so that her white throat gleamed in the light, she sang a song that ended,
Let go my heart—
Your love makes me look small to myself.
Now, I don’t want to give you any hurt,
But what I feel is part of myself:
What you want turns what I’ve got to dirt—
So let go of my heart.
Applause leaped on the heels of her last note, as if the audience were perversely hungry for her pain. Covenant could not endure any more. Buffeted by the noise, he threw dollars—did not count them—on the table, and shoved back his chair to escape.
But when he moved around the table, he passed within five feet of the singer. Suddenly she saw him. Spreading her arms, she exclaimed joyfully, “Berek!”
Covenant froze, stunned and terrified. No!
Susie Thurston was transported. “Hey!” she called, waving her arms to silence the applause, “Get a spot out here! On him! Berek! Berek, honey!”
From over the stage, a hot white light spiked down at Covenant. Impaled in the glare, he turned to face the singer, blinking rapidly and aching with fear and rage.
No!
“Ladies and gentlemen, kind people, I want you to meet an old friend of mine, a dear man.” Susie Thurston was excited and eager. “He taught me half the songs I know. Folks, this is Berek.” She began clapping for him as she said, “Maybe he’ll sing for us.” Good-naturedly, the audience joined her applause.
Covenant’s hands limped about him, searching for support. In spite of his efforts to control himself, he stared at his betrayer with a face full of pain. The applause reverberated in his ears, made him dizzy.
No!
For a long moment, he cowered under Susie Thurston’s look. Then, like a wash of revelation, all the houselights came on. Over the bewildered murmurs and rustlings of the audience, a commanding voice snapped, “Covenant.”
Covenant spun as
if to ward off an attack. In the doorway, he saw two men. They both wore black hats and khaki uniforms, pistols in black holsters, silver badges; but one of them towered over the other. Sheriff Lytton. He stood with his fists on his hips. As Covenant gaped at him, he beckoned with two fingers. “You, Covenant. Come here.”
“Covenant?” the trucker yelped. “You’re really Covenant?”
Covenant heeled around awkwardly, as if under tattered canvas, to meet this fresh assault. As he focused his eyes on the driver, he saw that the big man’s face was flushed with vehemence. He met the red glare as bravely as he could. “I told you I was.”
“Now I’m going to get it!” the driver grated. “We’re all going to get it! What the hell’s the matter with you?”
The patrons of The Door were thrusting to their feet to watch what was happening. Over their heads, the sheriff shouted, “Don’t touch him!” and began wading through the crowd.
Covenant lost his balance in the confusion. He tripped, caught something like a thumb or the corner of a chair in his eye, and sprawled under a table.
People yelled and milled around. The sheriff roared orders through the din. Then with one heave of his arm, he knocked away the table over Covenant.
Covenant looked gauntly up from the floor. His bruised eye watered thickly, distorting everything over him. With the back of his hand, he pushed away the tears. Blinking and concentrating fiercely, he made out two men standing above him—the sheriff and his former tablemate.
Swaying slightly on locked knees, the solemn man looked dispassionately down at Covenant. In a smudged and expended voice, he delivered his verdict. “My wife is the finest woman in the world.”
The sheriff pushed the man away, then bent over Covenant, brandishing a face full of teeth. “That’s enough. I’m just looking for something to charge you with, so don’t give me any trouble. You hear me? Get up.”
Covenant felt too weak to move, and he could not see clearly. But he did not want the kind of help the sheriff might give him. He rolled over and pushed himself up from the floor.
He reached his feet, listing badly to one side; but the sheriff made no move to support him. He braced himself on the back of a chair, and looked defiantly around the hushed spectators. At last, the gin seemed to be affecting him. He pulled himself erect, adjusted his tie with a show of dignity.
“Get going,” the sheriff commanded from his superior height.
But for one more moment Covenant did not move. Though he could not be sure of anything he saw, he stood where he was and gave himself a VSE.
“Get going,” Lytton repeated evenly.
“Don’t touch me.” When his VSE was done, Covenant turned and stalked grayly out of the nightclub.
Out in the cool April night, he breathed deeply, steadying himself. The sheriff and his deputy herded him toward a squad car. Its red warning lights flashed balefully. When he was locked into the back seat behind the protective steel grating, the two officers climbed into the front. While the deputy drove away in the direction of Haven Farm, the sheriff spoke through the grating.
“Took us too long to find you, Covenant. The Millers reported you were trying to hitch a ride, and we figured you were going to try your tricks somewhere. Just couldn’t tell where. But it’s still my county, and you’re walking trouble. There’s no law against you—I can’t arrest you for what you’ve done. But it sure was mean. Listen, you. Taking care of this county is my business, and don’t you forget it. I don’t want to hunt around like this for you. You pull this stunt again, and I’ll throw you in the can for disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, and everything else I can think of. You got that?”
Shame and rage struggled in Covenant, but he could find no way to let them out. He wanted to yell through the grate, It isn’t catching! It’s not my fault! But his throat was too constricted; he could not release the wail. At last, he could only mumble, “Let me out. I’ll walk.”
Sheriff Lytton regarded him closely, then said to the deputy, “All right. We’ll let him walk. Maybe he’ll have an accident.” Already they were well out of town.
The deputy drove to a halt on the berm, and the sheriff let Covenant out. For a moment, they stood together in the night. The sheriff glared at him as if trying to measure his capacity to do harm. Then Lytton said, “Go home. Stay home.” He got back into the car. It made a loud squealing turn and fled back toward town. An instant later, Covenant sprang into the road and cried after the taillights, “Leper outcast unclean!” They looked as red as blood in the darkness.
His shout did not seem to dent the silence. Before long, he turned back toward Haven Farm, feeling as small as if the few stars in the dense black sky were deriding him. He had ten miles to walk.
The road was deserted. He moved in empty stillness like a hiatus in his surroundings; though he was retreating into open countryside, he could hear no sounds, no night talk of birds or insects. The silence made him feel deaf and alone, vulnerable to the hurrying vultures at his back.
It was a delusion! He raised his protest like a defiance; but even to his ears, it had the hollow ring of despair, composed equally of defeat and stubbornness. Through it, he could hear the girl shouting Berek! like the siren of a nightmare.
Then the road went through a stand of trees which cut out the dim light of the stars. He could not feel the pavement with his feet; he was in danger of missing his way, of falling into a ditch or injuring himself against a tree. He tried to keep up his pace, but the risk was too great, and finally he was reduced to waving his arms before him and testing his footing like a blind man. Until he reached the end of the woods, he moved as if he were wandering lost in a dream, damp with sweat, and cold.
After that, he set a hard pace for himself. He was spurred on by the cries that rushed after him, Berek! Berek! When at last, long miles later, he reached the driveway into Haven Farm, he was almost running,
In the sanctuary of his house, he turned on all the lights and locked the doors. The organized chastity of his living space surrounded him with its unconsoling dogma. A glance at the kitchen clock told him that the time was just past midnight. A new day, Sunday—a day when other people worshiped. He started some coffee, threw off his jacket, tie, and dress shirt, then carried his steaming cup into the living room. There he took a position on the sofa, adjusted Joan’s picture on the coffee table so that it looked straight at him, and braced himself to weather the crisis.
He needed an answer. His resources were spent, and he could not go on the way he was.
Berek!
The girl’s shout, and the raw applause of her audience, and the trucker’s outrage, reverberated in him like muffled earth tremors. Suicide loomed in all directions. He was trapped between mad delusion and the oppressive weight of his fellow human beings.
Leper outcast unclean!
He gripped his shoulders and hugged himself to try to still the gasping of his heart.
I can’t stand it! Somebody help me!
Suddenly, the phone rang—cut through him as stridently as a curse. Disjointedly like a loose collection of broken bones, he jumped to his feet. But then he did not move. He lacked the courage to face more hostility, indemnification.
The phone shrilled again.
His breath shuddered in his lungs. Joan seemed to reproach him from behind the glass of the picture frame.
Another ring, as insistent as a fist.
He lurched toward the phone. Snatching up the receiver, he pressed it to his ear to hold it steady.
“Tom?” a faint, sad voice sighed. “Tom—it’s Joan. Tom? I hope I didn’t wake you. I know it’s late, but I had to call. Tom?”
Covenant stood straight and stiff, at attention, with his knees locked to keep him from falling. His jaw worked, but he made no sound. His throat felt swollen shut, clogged with emotions, and his lungs began to hurt for air.
“Tom? Are you there? Hello? Tom? Please say something. I need to talk to you. I’ve been so lonely. I—I miss you.”
He could hear the effort in her voice.
His chest heaved fiercely, as if he were choking. Abruptly he broke through the block in his throat, and took a deep breath that sounded as if he were between sobs. But still he could not force up words.
“Tom! Please! What’s happening to you?”
His voice seemed to be caught in a death grip. Desperate to shatter the hold, to answer Joan, cling to her voice, keep her on the line, he picked up the phone and started back toward the sofa—hoping that movement would ease the spasm that clenched him, help him regain control of his muscles.
But be turned the wrong way, wrapping the phone cord around his ankle. As he jerked forward, he tripped and pitched headlong toward the coffee table. His forehead struck the edge of the table squarely. When he hit the floor, he seemed to feel himself bounce.
Instantly his sight went blank. But he still had the receiver clutched to his ear. During a moment of white stillness, he heard Joan’s voice clearly. She was becoming upset, angry.
“Tom, I’m serious. Don’t make this any harder for me than it already is. Don’t you understand? I want to talk to you. I need you. Say something. Tom. Tom! Damn you, say something!”
Then a wide roaring in his ears washed out her voice. No! he cried. No! But he was helpless. The rush of sound came over him like a dark tide, and carried him away.
THREE: The Summoning
The wide roar modulated slowly, changing the void of his sight. On the surge of the sound, a swath of gray-green spread upward until it covered him like a winding sheet. The hue of the green was noxious to him, and he felt himself smothering in its close, sweet, fetid reek—the smell of attar. But the note which filled his ears grew more focused, scaled up in pitch. Droplets of gold bled into view through the green. Then the sound turned softer and more plaintive, higher still in pitch, so that it became a low human wail. The gold forced back the green. Soon a warm, familiar glow filled his eyes.
As the sound turned more and more into a woman’s song, the gold spread and deepened—cradled him as if it were carrying him gently along the flood of the voice. The melody wove the light, gave it texture and shape, solidity. Helpless to do otherwise, he clung to the sound, concentrated on it with his mouth stretched open in protest.