“Wait. I know where they’ll take you, Pearce,” I said.
“Where, sir?” he answered. “How do you know?”
“They’ll take you to the ‘house,’ ” I said, and my mind shimmered with this bright and singular connection to the past.
“What house?”
“I don’t know, Pearce. I honestly don’t know. But I’m positive that’s where they’ll take you, and I promise you one other thing.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“If they get you to the house, they’ll run you out of this school,” I said, and we stared at each other.
“There’s one thing I forgot to tell you, sir,” Pearce said. “Before this voice left me at retreat formation, he put his finger on my back. He made a mark on my back. He drew something with his finger.”
“What did he draw, Pearce?”
“The number ten, sir.”
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “I don’t understand any of this, Pearce. Every time I think The Ten is a figment of the collective imagination of the Corps and the alumni, something happens to make me feel they’re as real and actual as the Gates of Legrand. Just when I think that you and the Bear are paranoid, these small events occur and I think we’re being watched and studied by people who anticipate our every move. Then I start to wonder if I’m paranoid.”
“Sir, someone is taking the notes from the book. We know that for sure. And someone came to talk to me at retreat formation. And someone drew a ten on my back.”
“Why have they waited so long to make their move? Why haven’t they tried to get you out of here before now?” I asked.
“I don’t know, sir,” he replied coldly. “I’m not a member of their organization.”
“Don’t be a wiseass, Pearce. I was just starting to like you.”
“I’m scared, Mr. McLean,” he said. “I’ve been scared ever since that guy came and talked to me. He sounded mean.”
“I’m scared for you,” I said, putting my arm around his shoulder and walking him to the floating dock, where we sat and stared out into the dark waters that surged toward us from the Ashley River. The tide lifted and moved the dock gently beneath us.
“But we might both be scared for nothing. This could be some elaborate prank someone is playing on both of us. Nothing has really happened that’s bad or sinister. It’s just that we’re talking like something has to happen, like we’re waiting for a storm that doesn’t even exist.”
“It exists, sir,” he said. “I can feel it happening all around me and now I’m sure it’s going to happen. I thought you weren’t answering my notes, that you just didn’t give a shit. But I thought you were at least receiving them, Mr. McLean. That means someone intercepted them before you got there. That means someone knows everything between us.”
“How’s your roommate, Pearce?” I asked.
“A nice guy,” he responded. “From Connecticut or New Jersey or one of those New England states up there. It’s all just north to me. But Chuck’s been great this year, and he takes a lot because he rooms with me. They make him wear white gloves at mess because he rooms with a nigger and they don’t want him to get nigger germs on their food.”
“Nice world, the planet Earth, eh, Pearce?” I said, taking off my shoes and socks. “Have you ever seen a basketball player’s feet? We’ve got the ugliest feet in the world. Blood blisters, peeling flesh, and dead yellow skin all over. After a game, my feet burn all night, Pearce. Sometimes I come down to this dock and soak my feet in the water.”
“It’s freezing, sir,” he said as I lowered my feet into the water, grimaced, then pulled them back onto the dock and wiped them dry with a handkerchief.
“I don’t know whether it hurts or feels good, Pearce, but I do it when the pain in my feet is real bad. I think it helps me but I’m not sure. That’s the way I feel about this school sometimes. I think it’s doing me a lot of good because so many people tell me it’s good for me. But it hurts. It hurts all the time. Are you glad you came here, Pearce?”
“Yes, sir,” he said without a trace of hesitation.
“I mean really, Pearce.”
“I like it here, Mr. McLean,” he said. “I don’t like it when they call me nigger or coon or spear-chucker, but I knew that was going to happen. I like the military and I want to make a career out of the Army when I graduate. I’ve wanted to do that since I was a little kid, and this is the best preparation in the world.”
“You’re looking good, Pearce,” I said, studying him with admiration. “A very sharp young knob. You’re only about four months away from being a sophomore.”
“I’m going to make it through this school, Mr. McLean,” he said with sudden, absolute fervor. “I’m going to do what I have to do to make it because I’m going to wear one of those one day.”
He pointed to my ring.
“Here,” I said, removing my ring. “Try it on for size.”
He placed the ring carefully, reverently on his left hand. It fit perfectly.
“The reason I asked about your roommate is this: Does he know you send me messages? Does he know how you send them?”
“Yes, sir,” Pearce said in an embarrassed, sheepish voice.
“I told you not to tell anybody, didn’t I?” I said harshly, becoming an upperclassman again.
“You’ve got to talk to somebody, Mr. McLean. And you told your roommates, too.”
“I’ve known my roommates for four years. You’ve known yours for five months. Maybe he’s the one feeding out information to our unknown friends.”
“No, sir,” Pearce said. “He’s not that kind.”
“Who is that kind?” I asked.
“I’ve thought of one or two people,” he said. “It might be the Bear, sir.”
“Bullshit, Pearce!” I shouted. “The Bear was the one who set this whole thing up. He was the one who was worried about you getting run out in the first place. He first mentioned the rumor about The Ten. He’s the one who assigned me the job of making sure you stayed in school. He busted the corporal who was hazing you. He receives every note I pick up in the library.”
“That’s what I mean, sir,” Pearce said when I had finished ranting. “He’s the one who knows everything. Except for one other person, sir.”
“Who’s that, Pearce?”
“You, sir.”
“You think it could be me, Pearce?” I said furiously. “That’s just nigger talk. That’s dumbass nigger talk.”
He glowered at me in the darkness, an impotent sullenness to his anger.
“Yes, sir,” he said, taking off my ring. “That’s all I am. A dumbass nigger. A scared dumbass nigger surrounded by two thousand white boys, I don’t know who to trust, Mr. McLean. I don’t trust anybody. I don’t mean to offend you, but you’ve got to know that you’re just one of them to me. Just another white boy who’s called people ‘nigger’ all his life.”
“I didn’t mean to say that, Pearce,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said that to you. I apologize. I hate that word with all my heart, and I’d do anything not to have said that to you. I had no right.”
We stood up and faced each other.
“I could have gone to the Bear,” he said. “I thought about that but I chose you. I had to tell someone who could help me. My roommate’s as scared as I am.”
“I promise you this, Pearce. I am not your enemy. I’m your friend and I’ll help you in any way that I can. If there are people who are working against you in secret then I’ll try to find out who they are and stop them.”
“I believe you, sir,” he answered.
“We’ll get a new system of communication. I won’t even tell the Bear about it. It’ll be between you and me. And your roommate if you want. I won’t even tell my roommates. But we’re going to beat these bastards, and we’re going to do it together.”
“Thank you, sir,” he said, and I saw that he was standing at attention again.
“We’re usually allowed to recognize knobs only at the end of
the year. But I want to recognize you tonight, Pearce.”
I extended my hand for him to shake. He took it, and I felt the strength of the boy who stood before me.
“My name is Will,” I said.
“My name is Tom, Will,” he answered.
And Tom Pearce began crying on the dock, in the darkness, as though he would never stop.
Part IV
THE TEN
FEBRUARY-JUNE 1967
Chapter Thirty-one
I drove to the beach house on Sullivan’s Island on the third weekend in February. Annie Kate’s child was due in a week. A more profound alienation and solitude gripped her during those final days. She was very large now, and we never left the house even after dark. The child within had become her jailer. She still wore her raincoat, out of habit, I suppose, or because it granted her some irrational protection against the movement of the universe that had enveloped her in its rhythm of change and time and inevitability. She had become a season unto herself, and we could measure the passage from September to February by the growth of the child within her. Though she was unaware of it, Annie Kate had become the archetype of maternity and there was immense power and authority in her presence as she walked restlessly around the house, gazing out toward the city, or adding a log to the fire to cut the bitter island cold. The child may have been illegitimate, but the process was still magnificent and one could only observe it with amazement and humility. I felt that ancient inconsequentiality of being a male as I witnessed the rosy elaboration of her body. Here, then, at last, was divinity, the limitless mystery, the infinite strength of women. Was this why I had always been afraid of them? I did not know, and it did not matter. Annie Kate despised the way she looked and thought my ravings about mystery and infinity were only so much bullshit. She wanted it over with and asked for nothing more.
Before I went to the house, I walked along the stretch of beach between the lighthouse and Fort Moultrie. The tide was out. The sea was breathing in small, halfhearted waves. The water was flat and gray, almost mouse-colored. I was hunting for a sand dollar to add to Annie Kate’s collection. She missed the walks on the beach, and I could always lift her spirit when I found one of those small, alluring shells impressed in the sands, still glistening from the withdrawn tide. I passed a dead seagull that the crabs had mutilated. There were dead she-crabs, with their white bellies showing and claws rigid. Pelicans, four of them, flew low over the waves, skimming the water like brown Frisbees. I walked for a half-hour before I discovered a sand dollar small enough to be included in the cricket box on the mantel in her bedroom. It was the smallest one I had found all year. The cross in its center could have fit inside a human tear. If smallness was fortune, then I had come across a treasure, infinitesimal and beyond value. I felt lucky. You had to decide what was estimable and precious in your life and set out to find it. The objects you valued defined you. So did this quest. This sand dollar would join the others in the cricket box, the accumulated relics of our long walks together as the child grew within her. I did not need any proof that our system of currency was special, extraordinary, and rare. I was in love for the first time in my life, and that was proof enough to me.
I drove to her house, parked in the back yard, and walked through the back door without knocking.
“Yoo-hoo, it’s me, Paul Newman,” I said, calling up the stairs.
Annie Kate came down the stairs and I kissed her on the cheek. Sometimes she let me kiss her on the mouth, but not often. She said she did not feel like kissing very much, and we had only made love twice since December. I remained an enthusiastic but pitifully inept lover, and she received little pleasure from my carryings on. I always let her make the decision to kiss me or not, to make love to me or not. Her rejection of me hurt more than she ever knew or I would admit, so I would rather let her make the overtures than have mine refused. I still retained the Catholic boy’s belief that sex was some grotesque and beastly urge of men that women endured as part of the misery of their station. Annie Kate’s condition was proof of the wages of sin and the horrors God visited on the impure. I think both of us looked upon her pregnancy that way sometimes.
“I brought you some flowers,” I said. “They’re white roses and they cost ten bucks a dozen.”
“They’re daisies, and they cost fifty cents a dozen,” she said, going to the kitchen for a vase. I brought her flowers each time I came to see her. She would place them in water but never look at them, and I’m sure they brought her no joy.
“Thank you for the flowers,” she said when she returned.
“And a final gift,” I said, proferring the sand dollar in my palm.
“Oh, it’s exquisite, Will. It might be the smallest yet.”
“I ordered it out of the Sears Roebuck catalogue.”
“Look, it’s so thin you can see the light through it,” she said, holding it up to the window.
“I passed by it the first time. I didn’t see it until I was coming back to the car.”
She took my hand and squeezed it and kissed me again on the cheek.
“Your hands are freezing,” I said, rubbing one of them between mine.
“You ought to feel my feet,” she said. Annie Kate was one of those people who never seemed to get enough blood in their extremities. Even on warm days her hands and feet were cool to the touch. On cold days, I would jump when she touched my neck.
“Sit over by the fireplace and I’ll rub them down with alcohol before I go. Do your legs ache, too?”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Commerce and Abigail are giving their annual Mardi Gras party.”
“Well, la-di-da. Are you one of the token cadets? Of course, I imagine you can have a lot more fun at her house than you can have with me.”
“I’ve refused almost every dinner and party at their house this year, Annie Kate. I promised Abigail I’d come to this party. What have you got against the St. Croixs?”
“A lot! They’ve always considered themselves far superior to my family, who just happened to have come to Charleston before theirs did.”
“I’m not invited because of my family,” I said.
“No, Will. I’m sure you’re not. Quite the opposite, I would say. Despite your family, I would say.”
“What’s eating you, Annie Kate?”
“They didn’t invite my mother to their silly party.”
“She couldn’t go anyway She has to stay with you.”
“That’s not the point. They never invite her. And I was snubbed so many times by Abigail I can’t even count them. She just takes what she likes from people and gives nothing in return.”
“I think you’re as wrong as a person can be,” I said defensively.
“Wrong?” she answered. “I know damn well I’m right. I know a lot more about her than you do. What costume will you wear?”
“Costume?” I asked.
“It’s a Mardi Gras party. I’m sure they’re going to wear costumes,” she said.
“I think I’ll go as a cadet from Carolina Military Institute since the General and the Bear will be there and I’ll walk tours for the rest of the year if I’m caught in Charleston out of uniform.”
“I still wish they’d invited Mother.”
“Where is your mother?” I asked.
“She ran down to Ogletree’s to pick up some food. She’ll be back in a second. Will you rub my feet now, Will? I don’t want to fight today.”
“I’ll get the alcohol.”
“I already got it. It’s here on the table.”
I removed her shoes and socks and took one of her feet in my hands. Her feet were always cold and aching, especially during these last months of her pregnancy. I would rub them until they felt warm and they glowed in my hands with health and blood and vigor. Her feet were small and delicately shaped. Her toenails were immaculately trimmed and pale as shells. They were lovely in the firelight, mother-of-pearl and translucent. She kept her hands over her stomach as I strok
ed her feet.
Her mother walked in the back door carrying a single bag. Mrs. Gervais had come to like me very much, of that I have no doubt whatsoever. I assuaged her loneliness, and she had become accustomed to my professionally good-natured presence. And unlike her daughter, she took pleasure in my sense of humor.
“What are you doing to my daughter’s feet?” Mrs. Gervais asked as she entered the room and sat beside Annie Kate on the couch. She touched Annie Kate’s cheek affectionately and blew me a kiss as she wearily lit a cigarette. She wore defeat like a piece of cheap jewelry.
“Worshiping them. Anointing them with oil, Mrs. Gervais,” I said. “When I’m finished, I’ll dry them with my hair.”
“Mary Magdalen had longer hair, I believe,” said Mrs. Gervais.
“She didn’t go to the Institute. It just takes me an hour longer to dry feet than it took her. But you’ve got to make do.”
“You ought to try it, Mother. Your feet get every bit as cold and sore as mine. In fact, I inherited your frigid little feet.”
“No, thank you,” Mrs. Gervais replied, watching me pour alcohol into my hands and work it into Annie Kate’s feet.
“C’mon, Mrs. Gervais. It’s one of the great pleasures in the world. And it gives me pleasure. I’m not attracted to women at all, but I become fiendish when I get hold of a foot.”
I held Annie Kate’s foot aloft in my hand.
“Look at this perfect foot. I dream about this foot. I would walk to the ends of the earth for a glimpse of these delicious toesies. After I’m finished I take these delicate toes and suck the alcohol off them.”
I took Annie Kate’s smallest toe gently between my teeth and began moaning and slurping.
“Stop it,” Annie Kate said with a giggle. “It tickles.”
Mrs. Gervais laughed her rich, affecting laugh.