Ghost Lights by Lydia Millet (classic fiction txt) 📕

to seem casual, which luckily was not difficult in the wave format.

Did she regret it? How deeply? Was she kicking herself? Seeing him now she would probably feel repulsed. Then again, maybe she would not notice him: he had T. in his company, the prodigal son. T. would demand her attention by not being dead.

“The Germans?”

“With the whole Coast Guard search thing? Looking for you? Her name is Gretel. The pink kayak? Those are her kids.”

The cornboys were bearing down. They paddled fiercely, their small mouths clamped into grimaces that indicated they were trying desperately to win. Yet there was no competition.

“Hey, guys,” called T., throwing his rope over the piling. “How’s it going?”

“Their English is rudimentary,” said Hal.

“My father went to get the airplanes,” called one of the cornboys proudly, slowing the kayak with his paddle.

“Yes,” nodded the other. Hal was still unclear as to whether in fact they were twins.

“Sounds pretty good to me,” said T., bent to his knot-tying. “The English.”

“I never heard them say that much before,” admitted Hal.

“Airplanes!” repeated the second cornboy.

“Gotcha,” said Hal. “He went to get the airplanes. Good to know.” No idea what the kid was talking about, but who cared. Wanted a shower, actually; wished he could have had one before he ran into Gretel. Not that it mattered: he expected nothing, or less than nothing. But just for the dignity.

T. was climbing up onto the dock; Hal followed him. The cornboys were staring at them in that way children had—staring with no goal in mind, just like it was normal.

“This is the man your father was helping me look for,” said Hal.

“The dead one?” asked the first cornboy. He tended to speak first; probably the Alpha. Possibly he was older, but they both looked the same.

“Exactly,” said Hal, and hoisted himself onto the dock after T. He wanted clean, dry clothes, and the sun was making him squint.

Gretel stood at the end of the dock now, one hand on a hip, smiling quizzically; she was curious about T. already.

“Hi there,” she said as they approached.

“This is the guy,” said Hal. “This is him. Thomas Stern.”

“No way!” said Gretel, and leapt into T.’s arms, hugging him. “Oh my God! You’re alive!”

“I feel bad to have caused all this trouble,” said T., and pulled away gently.

“Doch, the important thing is that you are safe,” said Gretel, beaming joy as though he was a long-lost friend. Hal stood by with his arms dangling, awkward.

“Well, thank you,” said T. “I am. Thank you.”

“I’m going to get him cleaned up,” said Hal apologetically. “We’ll see you a little later?”

“Yes, please,” said Gretel. “I want to hear the whole story!”

“Of course,” said Hal.

“OK,” said T., and they left her smiling at their backs.

“She actually means it, I think,” said Hal.

“I can tell,” said T.

•

Hal lay down on the hotel bed while T. took a shower. The sound of its steady falling was a hello from the civilized world. Welcome home. He listened with his head on the soft pillow, his body on the long, solid bed. What a relief. It was so good to have them. The pillow and the bed. The lights, the air-conditioning, and the running water. He was no nature boy. T. could keep his tree-house, no matter how good the view. There was a reason their hominid ancestors first stood upright and started beating smaller creatures to death with cudgels. It was better than what came before, that was why.

The whole atavistic thing was overrated at best.

There had been a shaving kit in T.’s suitcase, which the manager had handed over to Hal several days ago now—a shaving kit and clean clothes, and T. had taken them both into the bathroom with him. But still Hal worried he had failed to impress upon his new friend the importance of a mainstream appearance, when dealing with authorities in a third-world country, and when there was the corpse of a local involved.

Sure: in the past the guy had been Mr. Mainstream. In the past the guy wore Armanis and refused to get behind the wheel of anything but a Mercedes. Once Susan had been forced to rent him a Lexus, when his Mercedes was at the shop for service. To hear her tell it the guy had suffered a martyr’s holy torments.

But he was not that guy anymore. No indeed. Now he was a guy who ate chili from a can, had long toenails and a wiry beard that almost grazed his nipples, and apparently sported a well-worn, formerly white baseball cap—now sitting humped on the nightstand next to Hal’s bed—whose inside rim was ringed with a crust of brown stain best regarded as a potential disease vector.

He had to call Susan, of course. He was still tired, felt almost waterlogged with a fatigue that wouldn’t lift off, but he had to call her. Duty.

He raised the receiver, then remembered he needed the phone card from his wallet and rolled slowly off the bed to reach for it. As he typed the digits, it occurred to him that she might be in flagrante with Robert the Paralegal—she might not deserve this prompt, nay servile attention. Then the telephone rang on her end, rang and rang until he hung up before the answering machine clicked in. He had to tell her this himself, wanted the clamor of it in person—his reward in the form of her stunned amazement, her astonished gratitude at the good news.

He tried Casey’s number next, but the line was busy.

She was probably working.

Lying flat on his back, waiting for the shower to cut off, he considered the likelihood the authorities could be bribed to overlook the problem of a dead tour guide. Of course, to offer a bribe would imply guilt. Were they corrupt? Were they righteous? And where were they, in the first place?

He called the front desk to ask. The nearest police station, said the receptionist, was twenty miles up the peninsula to the north. It was connected to an