Ghost Lights by Lydia Millet (classic fiction txt) 📕

of water he found standing on the dusty metal lid of his air-conditioning unit. He grabbed his green backpack and a baseball cap, filled the water bottle again from the sink and took a fresh one from the shelf. You weren’t supposed to drink the water here but there were filters on the taps in the rooms . . . he should feel guilty in the company of Hans, he thought, but curiously he discovered his conscience was more or less clear. Maybe it was Hans’s automaton quality.

The armed forces were present; he had flown down here on a whim and somehow now there were armed forces to do his bidding. Fortunately Hans would lead them, Hans would manfully take the reins. Hans would assume the armed-forces leadership. He, Hal, had no interest in armed-forces leadership.

He checked himself in the mirror. He had a tan, he noticed. Would Gretel come with them today? Would she see him by daylight and cringe?

He could hardly blame her. He had seen her as in control, seamless and perfect, mostly because she looked that way. But in fact she had been as drunk as he was, if not more, and she had the upper hand—laughably so. She was far younger, far better-looking, and married to a kind of Germanic Apollo who also happened to be an avionics genius. She must be regretting her rash act, her fleeting impulse. He could almost imagine the knot of remorse in her stomach.

He would respect that remorse. He would comport himself with discretion. Lowered eyes, deference.

•

But she was not there. It was only Hans, the armed forces, and him. The two of them stood with an officer on the forward deck of the Nantucket.

“Gretel is spending time with the boys today,” said Hans when Hal asked. “They are going to see manatees. In the lagoon.”

“Manatees,” said Hal, and nodded.

“It is also possible to observe dolphins, crocodiles and sea turtles,” recited Hans dutifully, as though from a brochure. “There are hawksbills, green sea turtles and loggerheads.”

It was high above the water, which Hal was not used to since the few boats in which he had been a passenger before this were small boats. Except for a ferry once, past the Statue of Liberty. In the ferry there had been kids running and eating hotdogs, gum stuck on the undersides of benches and vomit in the bathrooms. Overall it was none too clean. The Nantucket, by contrast, smelled only of bleach. And she was moving fast. Easy to see how in the armed forces, wearing a clean authoritative uniform with a machine like this beneath you, you might come to believe you ruled the seas.

On Hans’s other side was someone named Roger, who was apparently in charge.

“Now in the event we get a Medevac situation,” Roger told Hans, “that’s going to be at least an hour out for the Dolphin. Minimum. Sorry we couldn’t bring reconnaissance airpower on this one. Woulda been nice to have all the new toys to play with. But you know how it is. All dollars and cents. With UAVs, too much bureaucracy.”

Hal moved away from them, stood at the portside rail and gazed out over the ocean, the white-blue curl of froth rolling away from the ship. He could see fishing boats dotting the waves out toward the atolls, though they were too far away for him to make out the fishermen. But he imagined all their faces were turned toward him, in awe of the leviathan. Or resentment, if the engine noise was driving off the fish.

He was finding it hard to relinquish his doubt. To get past his own skepticism that this was real—the vast boat, the gunmen—he had to remind himself he did not need it to be real. Accordingly he could take it lightly, as though it might easily be nothing more than a drunk or a delusion . . . if the hurricane had brought humanitarian relief, for instance, in the form of these men, such relief seemed to have missed Seine Bight with its muddy field of shanties. He recalled the light-brown earth dried in right angles where it had flowed around the corners of buildings that were now gone. He thought of sheds the size of closets whose particleboard walls were held to the plastic roofs with what looked like duct tape—sheds that apparently housed whole families, because half-naked kids were running in and out of them in every appearance of actually living there.

He had not seen any sign of officials or their vehicles, a vast white prow looming on the water or brand-new supplies being offloaded into eager hands. Maybe the humanitarian assistance had gone to settlements up the coast. Or maybe the humanitarian assistance had been the duct tape.

But clearly his information was incomplete. He glanced over his shoulder at Roger, who was nodding, close-mouthed and sanguine, at something Hans was saying. He had a humble, sun-chapped face with a beaklike nose. Such a face was homely and workmanlike. It seemed trustworthy.

Appearances were often deceiving.

The engines thrummed beneath Hal’s feet. Their noise was deep and steady, their vibration relentless. He was silenced. He felt he had left his personality on dry land. He should ask Hans how to address the men; their uniforms flummoxed him. When he felt the urge to ask a question his instinct was to preface it with “Officer,” timidly and with a sycophantic tone, as on the rare occasion when he had been pulled over for speeding. He did not like policemen; neither did he enjoy the company of soldiers, but he felt more respect for them. Many came from poor backgrounds and were lured by the GI Bill.

Safer to say nothing.

When one of them walked past him he received an impression, in the quickness of the step and the forward-looking, dogged progress, that the walking itself was in the service of a greater business; the detail, the formality of personal transit was a small machination for the sake of general welfare.

And