The Pearlkillers Read online

  But now it seemed to her that what remained of the past was just as much where she belonged as was the present. In fact, you couldn’t help living more lives than one. Thought took you into other times. And there was always going to be so much to see and learn: you could never reach the end of it.

  Don came and sat down beside her. ‘That kid’s obsessed‚’ he said. ‘Another one.’

  ‘Numerology?’

  ‘Everything except spacemen. He thinks they had astronomical observatories and balloon flight and just about everything.’

  ‘I think the real facts are more interesting.’

  ‘The reincarnation of priestesses – that kind of thing?’

  ‘Like the fact that all the lower-class people had broken teeth from eating stone-ground bread. Everyone I’ve ever met who’s had a thing about health-food bread has chipped a tooth at least once.’

  ‘Is that in the guidebook?’

  ‘That was in the lectures. They also told us: the men who worked in the mummifying business were divided into different classes, too. And the ones that handled all the poor people’s trade considered it a privilege of the profession that they should be allowed to have sexual intercourse with the corpses.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Apparently it’s a well-known thing.’

  ‘Of course they were completely dominated by the idea of death.’

  ‘Most cultures are. Don’t you like all this?’

  ‘Sure. It’s terrific. But I’m going to be glad to get back.’

  ‘Snow and ice?’

  ‘This is fine for a time. But you know what it is.’

  ‘It’s history.’

  ‘It’s a graveyard.’

  ‘So’s most of history. They lived a long time ago. And all that’s left is what survived. This is here because it’s stone. The houses where they lived were made out of wood and mud and plastery stuff. So, they’re all gone. The tombs and temples – the religious side of life – they were built to last. It’s not so different nowadays; most old churches are made out of stone.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ He took the guidebook out of her lap and flipped through the pages. ‘Franz says he’s going on to Abydos with the group.’

  ‘Good. That’s one of the most sacred places.’

  ‘It’s too far away. It’s got to be someplace nearer. We’d just have time to make Saqqarah, if you wanted to. I’d rather go straight back to Cairo and not have to rush so much.’

  ‘OK‚’ she said. ‘Saqqarah.’ She breathed in and stood up, saying, ‘It’s so clean here. The light’s so wonderful. And the air – you can understand why some people decide they want to go off into the desert and never come back.’

  ‘Would you ever do that?’

  ‘Not without a guidebook‚’ she said, taking it back from him.

  They strolled towards the others. Don said, ‘This is another funny bunch, though. We seem to end up with the oddballs.’

  ‘The family’s nice.’

  ‘But a little weird.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘That boy?’

  ‘That’s just getting carried away by his ideas. And I liked the older girl. She loves everything about the place.’

  ‘I think maybe her sister’s the one that’s going to get Franz.’

  ‘Oh, no. If anybody’s going to get Franz, I’d put my money on the mother.’

  He laughed and took her free hand. They were in tune for the rest of the day: all during the trip back to their hotel, through the evening and night, for the next leg of their journey and on their arrival at the new hotel.

  In the morning they started to quarrel. It happened so fast that before either one of them knew what had led to it, he was hissing at her, ‘The minute you get out of bed, it’s all gone. All I get is that silence. It’s like you can’t stand to be near me. You don’t even look at me. You’d be that way in bed with anybody, wouldn’t you?’

  She wouldn’t answer back. She just continued to put her clothes on, trying to keep out of his way in the small room.

  He came up to her and turned her around. ‘Tell me about them,’ he said. ‘Tell me about the other two.’

  She plunged away, furious, and said, ‘No.’ If it was going to turn into a real fight, she was all set to pick up an ashtray or a lamp and throw it at him. She went on getting dressed.

  They didn’t speak to each other on the way to the site, or when they got there. They sat or stood side by side, enraged and indignant. No one noticed anything wrong because, for the first time, they were in a large group of tourists – nearly twenty people – who didn’t seem to have been brought together before. There was no chatting among the crowd. The guide was an Egyptian woman of studious appearance, who might have been a teacher or lecturer on the off-season. Her voice was rather soft, which meant that her audience had to crowd up close, to be sure not to miss anything.

  They saw the frescoes, heard about the cult of the bull, passed by one of the most famous pyramids. The ancient Egyptians, they were reminded, called every pyramid ‘the house of eternity’; the king’s statue would be seated inside, looking out on to the world through peepholes. If the statue was there, the king was there. The work of art had a purpose beyond mere decoration: it was a stand-in.

  They walked in the direction of a huge mound of building rubble that looked like another, unfinished, pyramid. Lily had forgotten which places were ancient and which had been left by the excavators. Her strength began to recede as they neared the base of the structure. She thought how pointless her whole life had turned out to be. It was no use trying to fight bad luck; some people just had that deal from the deck. To consider marriage for a third time had been foolish beyond comprehending. She didn’t feel that she could ever possibly get to know him, or that she’d want to; and she was suddenly so tired that she was ready to lie down in the sand and stay there.

  He grabbed her hand. She looked back over her shoulder for the others; they’d gone somewhere else with the guide.

  He started to tug her along the ground, yanking her hard by the arm. And he began to yell abuse at her. He was dragging her towards the pyramid-like hill – she couldn’t imagine why. He said that she could damn well pull herself together and take an interest in their future and be a little nice to him sometimes and show that she appreciated it when he gave in to her – because that was what he was always having to do, all the time, and never getting any thanks for it, either.

  When they came to the beginnings of stonework, he started to climb up, hauling her along with him. She had to follow. If she tried to sit down, she’d be cut and bruised. She called out for him to wait, but he wouldn’t. ‘You’re hurting my arm,’ she said. He climbed higher, taking her with him, until she thought her arm was going to twist out of her shoulder. And all at once he stopped, sweating, and faced her. He let go of her hand.

  ‘You know what else your mother said?’ he told her. ‘She said maybe it was a blessing in disguise that your first two husbands died so soon, before they found out what a spoiled bitch you really are.’

  She stepped back. She felt the sun shining on the top of her head, but she was cold. It was like the time when she’d lost her lucky-piece: the same terror. A few voices from below came up to her.

  ‘Oh Jesus, Lily‚’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She took another step back. She still wasn’t able to answer, though her eyes hadn’t moved from his face.

  ‘Look out‚’ he said suddenly.

  She turned, knew that she was slipping and saw her foot skidding over the edge. She started to fall. He grabbed her by her skirt and slid past her. They tumbled downward for several yards and stopped a few feet apart. More voices came up from below them, shouting loudly.

  Lily picked herself up carefully. Her knees and shins were scraped, her left elbow and forearm were bleeding. Otherwise, she seemed to be all right. She crawled over to where Don had fallen. He was lying on his back, looking up at her. She sat down besid
e him.

  He said, ‘I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He said, ‘I can’t move.’

  She called down to the people standing below. She screamed for them to bring help. They said that they were coming; several of them started up the rock surface.

  She touched his cheek with her fingers and took his hand in hers. He smiled a little. Soon after that, he died. She was still holding his hand, so she felt and saw the moment when it happened. She hadn’t been able to be with her first two husbands when they’d died.

  *

  At the airport both mothers were waiting: hers and his. Her mother began to cry straight away, loudly announcing, ‘Oh, poor Lily – I thought this time it had to be all right. But it wasn’t meant to be.’

  Lily gave her a brief hug, pushed her aside and walked on, to where Don’s mother stood. Lily embraced her, finding it strange that the one who was the mother should be the small one. ‘I was with him‚’ she said. ‘He wasn’t in pain at all.’ Her mother-in-law nodded. Lily said, ‘It was so quick. He asked me if I was all right. He was thinking of me, not of himself. And then he just went.’ She started to cry. Her mother-in-law too, wept. And behind her, her mother sobbed noisily, still saying that she’d been so sure everything was going to work out this time; that she couldn’t believe it had happened again.

  The funeral was down in the country at his mother’s place, where they’d had the wedding reception. As Lily walked out of the front door and over to the car, she remembered the other time: when she’d emerged with Don from the identical doorway, to get into the car that was to carry them to their future as husband and wife.

  She asked her mother-in-law if she could stay with her for a while. The two of them took walks together in the snow. Lily began to see more of her sisters-in-law; it was a large family and a lot of them lived near enough to turn up for Sunday lunch.

  She kept expecting to have the same dream about Don that she’d had about her other husbands: to see him being dressed in the winding-sheet and taken away in the boat. But she had stopped having dreams.

  She was pregnant. She told her mother-in-law first. And she was thankful that her sister was planning to remarry near the end of September, so that her mother’s attention would be deflected from her at the crucial time.

  The child was born: a boy. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t concentrate on anything else. She forgot the pain and regret she had felt about not having been able to love her husband. The business of being a mother was harder than anyone had led her to believe. It was exhausting to the limit of her patience, and at times so far beyond that she didn’t think she was going to get through it.

  One day she looked at her son as he stood aside from a group of children he was playing with. He reminded her suddenly of a photograph she had that showed her grandfather at the same age; and also, she realised, of Don: the resemblance was so startling that it was almost like a reincarnation.

  She confessed to her mother-in-law that she thought she hadn’t loved Don enough – not as much as he’d deserved.

  Her mother-in-law said, ‘That’s the way people always feel. But I know you loved him. Anyone can see what a good mother you are.’

  She didn’t think she was such a good mother. She thought she was slapdash and nervous, constantly fussing. The only thing she was sure of was that she loved her son. And she was delighted and extremely surprised that her father, who had always seemed hopeless as far as family matters were concerned, had fallen in love with the child: he’d turn up on the doorstep to take the boy for a ride, or to play outdoors somewhere, or to go on a trip to the zoo; they had private jokes together and stories that they told each other. She began to be fond of her father again, as she had been when she was young.

  One day a reporter wanted to interview her. Her statements were to be included in a programme about war widows, which was going to be broadcast as a companion-piece to a documentary that dealt with veterans. The compilers planned to talk to children, too. They seemed irritated that Lily hadn’t had any children by her first two husbands.

  She told them that she was happy. It hadn’t been easy, she said, and it had taken a long time, but she’d had a lot of help. She praised her mother-in-law.

  Even if she’d been in the mood for it, she hardly had the time to dream. But she often remembered Egypt. One picture especially came back to her from the trip: of two immense statues made of stone – each out of a single piece – that were represented seated on chairs; the figures were sitting out in the middle of nowhere, side by side and both looking in the same direction: east, towards the sunrise. Sometimes she thought about them.

  People to People

  Herb, Dave, Sherman and Joe sat around the table in Herb’s hotel room. He was the only one who lived out of town. At first, after college, they’d all left. Then the three had returned. Herb had worked in Ohio for a while, and in Wisconsin, before settling in Illinois.

  They had had wives and families, divorces, remarriages. Sherman was the only one whose marriage – so far – remained stable.

  ‘I wish it was just to say hi,’ Herb said. ‘Have a couple of drinks, see a show, play a game of poker, talk about old times. I’m afraid I’ve got bad news. I’ve heard from Bill.’

  ‘So?’ Dave said. ‘Last time I heard from Bill, he was campaigning to save the Indians or the jungles, or something like that. It’s always bad news in his book.’

  ‘I’ve got the letter here.’ Herb pulled an envelope from his breast pocket, put on his reading glasses and took the letter out. ‘Dear Herb‚’ he announced, ‘I’ve written this in my mind many times and I’ve wanted to, even more times. All those years I was in South America, the business about Carmen was preying on my mind.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ Joe said. ‘That son of a bitch.’

  ‘He spells it with an A‚’ Herb said: ‘“Praying on my mind.”’

  ‘Let’s see that.’ Dave held out his hand.

  ‘Wait … on my mind. I never felt right about it, as you know.’

  ‘That dumb bastard‚’ Joe said.

  ‘It was like a cloud hanging over my life. I think it was the reason why I never got married.’

  ‘Good excuse, anyway‚’ Dave said.

  ‘But now I’ve found a wonderful girl. We were married last month. I hope you’ll believe me when I say my life is completely changed. I thank God that I have lived long enough to experience this great happiness and at last to know the peace and wisdom of the Church of The Redeemer, which we both belong to.’

  ‘Holy shit‚’ Joe said. ‘One of those California cults.’

  ‘Wait for the punchline, kids. You want me to go on? I have talked everything over with Nancy (my wife) and she agrees with me that we wouldn’t be worthy of God and His gifts to us if we continued to hide the truth.’

  ‘Oh God‚’ Sherman said. ‘Not at this late date. He can’t do it.’

  ‘I am sure in my heart that this is the right thing to do. But I wanted to talk to you first, because I think we should all give ourselves up together. Please let me know as soon as possible what your thoughts about this are, since I am not going to feel right till we get it straight. OK. That’s it.’

  ‘That dumb fink‚’ Dave said. ‘He gets religion and they slam us in the can for the rest of our lives. After twenty years.’

  ‘He can’t do it‚’ Sherman said. ‘There’s a statute of limitations.’

  ‘For murder?’ Joe asked.

  ‘It wasn’t murder. It was an accident.’

  Herb said, ‘Right. Now, listen. I figure old Bill hasn’t stood up and told the multitude yet, only Nancy. So, I wrote straight back and said: yes, I understood because it was preying on me too, but I hadn’t even worked out how to tell my wife and I thought it would be a good thing for all of us to talk about it in private before doing anything. I asked him to set a date and to b
ring Nancy – she’d be able to give us the woman’s point of view. And he wrote back to say fine: they’re coming about a month after Easter. Here, a hotel right down the street. I’ve got them a room and everything. And now I want to ask you all: what do we do when they get here?’

  There was a long pause while Sherman put his hands over his eyes and Dave lit a cigarette. Joe jumped up from his seat; he stamped his feet and shook his shoulders angrily. He made punching motions with his fists.

  Herb put the letter back inside its envelope and into his pocket. ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘We kill them‚’ Joe said.

  ‘Don’t be funny‚’ Sherman told him.

  ‘You got a better idea? What else can we do? They’re religious nuts. There isn’t any way you can deal with that. They’re going to go to the cops and send us up the river to make everything jake with the Lord and save their consciences. We’ve got to.’

  ‘This is why I thought we’d better get together‚’ Herb said. ‘The first thing to establish is whether the guy’s serious, and the second is – if he is, how we stop him. I’m telling you: I don’t intend to have all that brought up again.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Dave said. ‘Sherm?’

  ‘No,’ Sherman said. ‘I don’t think it’s necessary to start talking about killing anyone, though.’

  ‘You wait,’ Joe said. ‘You’ll come to it. You all will.’

  ‘I have a feeling,’ Herb said, ‘that a lot is going to depend on the girl. Nancy.’

  Dave said, ‘She sounds like a creep.’

  ‘How do you get that?’