Winter's Tale Part 38

The bridges were crowded with uncountable thousands of refugees who streamed across their darkened roadways unaware that the belts of subcities ringing Manhattan had become a single wall of fire. They walked in stunned silence, children on their backs, briefcasesand bundles in their hands. The streets became a huge rag-and-bone shop as people carried off an infinite a.s.sortment of objects that they wanted to save. Thousands upon thousands fled with books, paint ings, candelabras, vases, violins, old clocks, electronic appliances sacks of silverplate, jewelry boxes, anda"wonder of wondersa"television sets. The more practical-minded headed north on Riverside Drive, laden with backpacks full of food, tools, and warm clothing But what real chance, in the dead of winter, in a world turned upside down, did a man with a chainsaw strapped across his back really have?

Not tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands of looters swelled into the commercial districts. Because the more ambitious among them contrived to ram bulldozers against bank walls, explosions were heard as cache after cache of dynamite blew open vault after vault. But one boom was impossible to distinguish from another as stores of combustibles were ignited by the fires and the militia blasted out firebreaks around the islands. Overjoyed and overloaded looters moved as slowly as snails, pushing or pulling refrigerators, obese furniture, racks of clothing, and sacks of money. The money sacks were the saddest of orphans, for no sooner had they found a new parent than he was shot and killed and they were adopted by someone else. This was repeated without cease, so that if the money bags had been tracked, the plot would have shown them oscillating like bouncing b.a.l.l.s, exquisitely juggled by the powers of insensate greed. All the things abandoned on the street made even the most expensive districts seem like gutted, ruined slums, and it was hard to tell where those with stolen objects in tow thought they were going. Mainly, they moved in circles, wild with happiness that they now had a new this or a new that. Because there were no places left in which to live, those who had stolen furniture would probably never sit or lie on it, but would, instead, spend weeks or months carrying it around on their backs.

Looters of a different sort joined in intoxicated gangs seek libertine pleasures in the rubble. The furniture abandoned by those who found it too heavy to carry served as stations for copulation' between people of all s.e.xes and all ages. The combinations thus effected of groups and individuals, the willing and the unwilling, were terrible and sad.

The police did not know whom to shoot or what to defend, since everything appeared to be at odds with everything else, thunder and fire were everywhere, criminals vanished easily into the dark ashwind, and the streets had filled with lunatics carrying bundles.

The Sun's reporters were also able to report on families that held together and defended themselves against the chaos, on acts of selfless charity, and on the brave and the mad who had tried to stop the dissolution. These acts were rare, isolated incidents which did not turn back the tidea"not through any fault of their own, but because they were neither auspiciously timed nor placed.

Witnessing the unraveling of the city, those of Harry Penn'sreporters who were not killed (as many of them were) returned to The Sun to write about it. They sensed that this was the proper thing to do, even if everything else had gone to h.e.l.l, because they knew enough to know that whenever the world ends it always manages to begin again, and they had no intention of being left out.

While the city burned under skies crawling with dense electrical storms, and his machines worked flawlessly to light The Sun, Peter Lake slept.

PRAEGER de Pinto had hardly turned to greet Harry Penn. Stand-ing in the center of the north deck, peering out the window through a pair of night-vision binoculars mounted on a tripod, the mayor was busy."Who's watching Island Six?" he asked over the amplification system, almost like a G.o.d.

"I am, " replied a normal human voice from a rank of men to his left: deputy commissioners, staff a.s.sistants, and a patrolman or two brought in to sh.o.r.e-up missing s.p.a.ces, all equipped with night-vision optics just as the mayor was.

"Do you see the gap in the southwest side?" Praeger asked.

"I can't see it now, sir, " was the reply."The ash is too thick. But I saw it before, and reported it."

"Did they acknowledge?"

"No."

"Island Six went off the communications net, " a technician announced.

"When?" Praeger inquired.

"Five minutes ago."

"Try to get it back on. Eustis, send a man on foot to the command post there, to tell them about that gap. And give him a radio Island Six is in Chelsea. If he runs, he should make it in twenty minutes."

While the city burned below, exchanges like this transpired in utter calm and tranquillity as Praeger and the others worked to maintain their defenses and save as much as they could save. After several hours, they had grown used to a city of flames and smoke. For Praeger de Pinto and his generation, the notion that their future would be spent in quiet command posts and apocalyptic battles was one with which they had been comfortable almost from birth. Most of the men on the high deck were cool and unmoved. This was their task, something they had always expected. The logic of the preceding decades, the wars against dreams and illusions, the life of expectations in themselves, not surprisingly, had led to this. In fact, rising to meet the challenge of its inevitability, they had, at times, actually wanted it.

But Harry Penn was an old man, who had had different expectations, and he grieved as he watched the tens of thousands of flames flickering in the darkness, seeking out whatever was left to burn. He was deeply hurt by the triumphant clouds of smoke and steam, reflecting orange light as they soared above the city, turning over and unfolding like dough in a baker's hands. They seemed to be laughing at the ruined burnt-out blocks which they had so cowardly abandoned.

Unlike the others, Harry Penn remembered the city when it was young. In general, the people had been kinder and more capable than their descendants, and the city itself had been different, innocent. The curve of the carriage roads, long since obliterated; the billow of sails, long since gone; the flanks and manes of horses working on the streets, long gone too; and the shape even of people's dress, soft and gentle as it wasa"were, in themselves, a prayer thatfound continual favor. G.o.d and nature had been pleased by the immortal and correct curves, by the horses, by the tentativeness of expression, by the city's remarkable ability to understand its place in the world, and the city had been rewarded with clear north winds and a dome of deep blue sky. The city that Harry Penn had known and loved had been young and new.

In a lull, Praeger turned to Harry Penn, and saw that the old man's face, faintly illuminated by the harsh firelight, was full of pain."What is it?" he asked.

"Let's just say, " Harry Penn answered, "that a lovely child I once knew has grown old and hard, and is now dying an ugly death."

"It isn't so, " said Praeger."It isn't dying. This is going to clear the way."

"I'm too old, " Harry Penn told him, "too attached to one time, I suppose, ever to lose faith in it."

"Look, " Praeger said."Out there, in the blackness, I see a new city rising, already."

Harry Penn looked out, and saw only the past of which he so often dreamed.

"Of all people, " Praeger continued, "I would have thought that you would see this for what it is. I thought you knew. The Sun is publishing, isn't it?"

"We've never missed a day."

"Right now, " Praeger said, "The Sun is the only lighted building in this citya"like a beacon."

"That's not so, " Harry Penn replied."The Sun is dark. The machinery froze, and the mechanics say it will take them six months to fix it. When I left a couple of hours ago everyone was working by candlelight, and we were going to run the joint edition by hand, on the treadle press."

"Then you must come with me, " Praeger said as he put his arm around Harry Penn's shoulders and led him toward the east gallery. He deeply loved the old man.

At first they saw nothing except a gray cloud sweeping by, filthy with ash and cinders. But then, as if it were being cranked up, the cloud slowly and awkwardly lifted, and a light shone through the last of its dirty skirts.

Alone in the darkness of Printing House Square, The Sun was lit like a faceted jewel. Astonishingly angular and precisely aligned beams of light radiated from its windows. The floor of the square reflected back a diffuse glow, over which lay the swordlike projections as if they were the branches of a thistle, or the hard metal representations of light in the cross of St. Stephen.

"There, " Praeger said."One of the rewards of virtue."

But Harry Penn knew better."Even a thousand years of virtue, " he replied, "are not strong enough to shape the light. Something far greater than virtue... must be very close."

Then Harry Penn left to go back to The Sun, and Praeger resumed his direction of the difficult battle that was unfolding silently below, and for which he had probably been born.

WHILE Harry Penn walked across Printing House Square, he was so taken by The Sun's light cutting the ash-wind like a surgeon's scalpel that he didn't notice that three men were following him. Half hidden by the miasma surging in and out like a tide of polluted water, they were on a course that would cut across his path two hundred feet from the doors of The Sun. They had been able to tell from his gait that he was a very old and wealthy man. The majestic, endearing, and surprising way in which he walked did not only express the optimism of another age, but seemed to telegraph quite clearly that he was carrying a fair amount of money, a gold pocket watch, and, probably, cuff links, a tie bar, or a stickpin. And old upright codgers like Harry Penn didn't hear too well, their reflexes were shot, and they went down with one quick blow. So the three men who stalked him on the square were not careful of their approach. Had they been Short Tails (which they were not) they would have been very careful. In the Short Tails' day, hundred-year-old men were, even if greatly at risk because of their age, veterans of the frontier, the Civil War, and other action much rougher than the Short Tails had ever known.

The three men were sure that they were going to have an easy time. And they almost did, because, some way before The Sun, Harry Penn stopped for breath. But one of Jackson Mead's huge lifters wasflying perilously low among the high towers. Harry Penn turned at its roar and, as it parted the smoke, he saw them. They kept coming. At first he wasn't sure that he was in danger. Then he saw their knives and blackjacks. His slow and indignant look of surprise both amused and enraged them. Having lived for a hundred years, Harry Penn was absolutely fearless. He didn't shake, he didn't breathe hard, and he didn't blink. He considered himself a representative of the era of Theodore Roosevelt, Admiral Dewey, the great soldiers of the Union, the Indian fighters, and (as Craig Binky would say) Wild Bill Buffalo. Because his reflexes were really quite slow, he stared at his three a.s.sailants for much too long as they came toward him. He was able, however, to summon the past, and the past emerged to protect him. His eyes sparkled. He smiled. (And he reached into his pocket and pulled out a four-barreled pepperbox handgun.) This little machine looked ridiculous and ineffectual. It had thesame harmless air as a blunderbuss. They were about to tell him so when he fired the first barrel and knocked down the man closest to him, with a bullet in the solar plexus. The other two were startled, and stopped for a fatal instant in which he shot them, also.

He stood for a moment, looking at the three bodies over whichthe fog and smoke arched as they blew past. In all his long life, he had never killed anyone, not even in several wars. He trembled a bit, but then he thought that he was too old to bother. He already knew all the terrible lessons that a younger man might have had to learn after doing such a thing, so he turned around, put the old-fashioned pistol back in his pocket, and walked toward the office.

The Sun had become a paradigm of light and activity. Isolated by the natural firebreak of Printing House Square, with armed guards in position behind sandbags at the entrances and on the roof (these men had heard Harry Penn's three shots, but had been unable to see very far into the smoke), with their own source of power, and with their families sheltered in the courtyard and throughout the vast interior of the building, the employees of The Sun worked as they hadnever worked before.

As he took the several flights of stairs, Harry Penn was stopped a hundred times by excited young men and women who wanted toshow him that they were doing their job and were full of hope. They asked him unnecessary questions, and he answered carefully so as encourage them. He knew that to reconcile the festive air at The Sun with what was going on outside, he had only to consider the youth of his reporters.

At the top of the stairs, he ran into Bedford."How'd you get the lights on?" he asked.

Bedford shrugged his shoulders."They just came on. I guess the mechanics were able to fix the machines."

Bedford went downstairs to interview the mechanics. When, later, Bedford reported to Harry Penn's office, Harry Penn was sitting on a couch, smoking a cigar and staring at the paintings of Peter Lake and Beverly.

"The mechanics say that the machinery was hopelessly frozen and jammed, " Bedford told Harry Penn, whose eyes never left the paintings."They had half of it eviscerated and out on the floor, and were prepared for six months of work, when the chief mechanic returned and fixed it in... well, they say a minute."

"What! Trumbull? I don't believe that Trumbull could fix anything in a minute. He takes a year to sharpen my Swiss Army knife. Something's not right."

"Trumbull was the one to whom I spoke." "That liar."

"Mr. Penn, he's no longer the chief mechanic." "He isn't? Since when? Where was I?"

"For quite a while now, the mechanics have had a new chief, whom they themselves have elevated to the position."

"d.a.m.nation, Bedford, " Harry Penn said furiously."n.o.body elevates anyone around here except me. No one designates shares except me."

Bedford shook his head."He takes apprentice's shares. They made him chief because, they say, he was so good they couldn't wait."

"What is he, one of those computer kids? Get the son of a b.i.t.c.h up here. I want to talk to him." "I can't do that."

"G.o.ddammit, " Harry Penn said, glancing at the ceiling in exasperation."Who runs this newspaper?"

Bedford tried to answer, but no words came. At first Harry Penn was livid, but then he was simply amazed."What's his name?" "They call him Mr. Bearer." "Mr. Bearer, " he echoed."That's correct."

Harry Penn was not sure whether to reload his pepperbox or lapse into hysteria."Why can't you get him up here?" he asked."He's taking a nap." "He's taking a nap?"

"Yes, sir. They won't let him be disturbed. They stand in awe of him. They seem to think that he's the king of mechanics."

"Look here, " Harry Penn said, fierce-eyed, rising from the coach."I don't care if he's the king of the gypsies. I'm going to wake this "Mr. Bearer' up, I'm going to fire him, and I'm going to kick his a.s.s. And then I'll rehire him as chief mechanic, and get down on my knees in front of him because I'm so grateful that the son of a b.i.t.c.h was able to keep the light burning."

As Harry Penn took the stairs, rhythmically, one by one, he felt at first a chill, and then his hair stood on end, and then he could neither feel the steps under his feet nor hear his own footsteps or the sound of the machines on the machine deck. It couldn't be, he thought to himself just before he confronted the mechanics. Buta"the best mechanic in the world, who fixed all the machines in one move, who was elevated by the other mechanics and still takes an apprentice'ssharesa"it could only be.

Numb with fear and antic.i.p.ation, Harry Penn questioned the mechanics."Where is Mr. Bearer? Is he here?"

"Yes, he's here, " one of them answered.

"Show me."

"He shouldn't be disturbed, " Trumbull declared."He's sleeping now." "Oh no, " Harry Penn said, falling into Trumbull's reverential tone."I just want to look at him."

"He's down there, " Trumbull said, pointing."Two rows, and then turn in by the compressor. You'll see a little alley of generators...."

Harry Penn was already on his way. He pa.s.sed two rows, turned in by the compressor, and followed the little alley of generators until he came to a man who was sleeping up against a busy, smoothly running machine.

At first Harry Penn could not see his face. He knelt down, trembling, and shielded his eyes from the bright light of a lamp in a conical tin shade. And, then, he saw. He saw what no man has the right to expect to see even in a life of a hundred years. He saw the past arise. He saw the past victorious. He saw time and death beaten. He saw Peter Lake.

TO see Peter Lake unchanged after eighty-five years was not only to see that time could be beaten, but that those whom one has loved do not simply disappear forever. Harry Penn might have died contentedly on the spot as Peter Lake slept before him. But privileges come in droves, this was not the last great thing that Harry Penn was to see, and he did not choose that moment to expire.

He grabbed Peter Lake's wrist and tugged at it to wake him up. Still asleep, Peter Lake pulled back his arm, and said, "That's not what I asked you."

"Wake up! Wake up!" Harry Penn shouted in delight, but no matter how much Harry Penn shook him, Peter Lake still slept. So, Harry Penn resorted to an old and effective reveille that he had used in the wars. Leaning over to within several inches of Peter Lake's right ear, he shouted, as hard as he could, "Hand grenade!"

Peter Lake's body coalesced into a bolt of lightning that took to the air, where he somehow managed to remain until he had scanned every inch of the floor. When he descended, he saw a very old man with a wide smile."What did you do that for?" Peter Lake asked.

"You wouldn't get up. It's good.... What do I mean it's good? It's not just good, it's magnificent, a glory, the happiest thing in my life, to see you again."

Peter Lake eyed him with some apprehension."Have we met?

Harry Penn threw back his head and laughed with maniacal satisfaction."I'm Harry Penn!" he said.

"You're the publisher of The Sun. You're my boss. But we never met."

"Oh yes we did, " Harry Penn affirmed, gleefully bouncing up and down on his bent haunches."More than eighty-five years ago! I wasn't even fifteen. Of course, you wouldn't recognize me now, but I know you. You haven't aged a day. Ha!"

Peter Lake looked carefully at the old man, waiting for some more of the story. He tried to envision what Harry Penn had looked like as a boy, and found that it was too difficult to do.

But Harry Penn, still enraptured (as he would be until the day he died), slapped his thigh, and gathered up his thoughts."You know, " he said, happily, "this reminds me of a time when I was just a small kid, and we were up in the mountains, on the way to the Coheeries. I was about four, I think.

"It was a beautiful June morning, and at the inn where we stayed the night, my father was sending a telegram, or waiting toreceive onea"I don't know. I was itching to get to the Coheeries, but I was told that we wouldn't be leaving until the afternoon. I went up to a high place that seemed to overlook all the world and take in half its sunshine, and there I found a field of blueberries. Soon I was lost in the grazing, and would have stayed there, eating, until my father called mea"were it not for the approach of a train winding up the mountainside. The tracks were just a short distance from where I was, and I knew it was going to go past me.

"As I watched it draw close, I was greatly agitated. I wanted to stop it, because I realized that if it were going to come to me, it would have to leave me, too. And because I grieved in advance for its leaving, I decided to stop it, even if it meant that I had to destroy it. Do you know how I contrived to do that?"

Peter Lake shook his head to show that he didn't.

"I was going to throw a blueberry at it, " Harry Penn said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"I got the biggest blueberry I could find, and went to wait by the side of the rails, stricken with guilt that I was going to slay a fine train, merely for my love of it. I remember that as it came closerand began to bear down on me I was trembling with remorse At very moment that the seventy-ton locomotive pulled up even with me, I forsook the world, and threw my blueberry at it.

"The next thing I knew, I saw the caboose rushing away into the meadows where I had been afraid to go because there were too many bees in the wildflowers, and the train continued on, disappearing into the bright snowfields at the top of the ridge.

"Never in my life have I been so relieved. With that terrible weight off my chest, I skipped down to the hotel, and resolved not to throw blueberries at locomotives.

"I thought that when you saw me you would be as amazed as I am to see you. But you don't have the slightest idea of who I am, do you?"

"No, sir, not really."

"It was as vain of me to think that you would know me, or that I would matter, as it was for me to think that I could derail a seventy-ton locomotive with a little berry. You hardly knew me even then. But, don't you recall my sister?"

"I can't say that I do. You see, I know that you're right when you talk about a hundred years ago. I remember it in flashes. But it's never clear."

"Then you don't know who you are, do you?"

"No."

"I do."

"I would be most relieved if you would let me in on it. It's been at the tip of my tongue ever since they pulled me from the harbor.

"You don't even know your own name?"

"No, sir, not even that."

"Then come, " said Harry Penn."Come upstairs with me, and I will show you who you are, not in words, but in beautiful images that could not ever be counterfeited or forged. And you will know exactly who you are, forever, by knowing what it is that you love.

AS he and Harry Penn ascended the hanging staircases at The Sun, Peter Lake clutched his side. Each step was a greater agony, for the wound had not healed. But, still, he almost floated up the stairs, andwhen they reached the last floor, Peter Lake continued to rise beyond the landing, and had to pull himself down so as not to strike the ceiling. A young copy boy who witnessed this dropped both his lower jaw and a large sheaf of papers that he had in his arms, and the breeze carried the papers down the hall with the same graceful, free, weightlessness that had been the mark of Peter Lake ascending the stairs.

Only with ironclad discipline and concentration was Peter Lake able to move through the long halls one step at a time. He knew that if he lost himself for even a moment he would accelerate through the walls and into the open aira"hurtling toward something that pulled him forward with mounting and limitless velocity. He wondered what it was that was pouring into him the power to float, and run, and rise.