Thomas Harris: Black Sunday

Dahlia was standing by the window, the sun warm on her cheek and neck. “How do you feel?”

“You mean am I crazy today? No, as a matter of fact, I’m not.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Shit you didn’t. I’ll just go into a little office with one of them and we’ll close the door and he’ll tell me the new things the government is going to do for me.” Something lunged behind Lander’s eyes.

“All right, are you crazy today? Are you going to spoil it? Are you going to grab a VA clerk and kill him and let the others hold you down? Then you can sit in a cell and sing and masturbate. ‘God Bless America and Nixon.’ ”

She had used two triggers at once. She had tried them separately before, and now she watched to see how they worked together.

Lander’s memory was intense. Recollections while awake could make him wince. Asleep, they sometimes made him scream.

Masturbation: The North Vietnamese guard catching him at it in his cell and making him do it in front of the others.

“God Bless America and Nixon”: The hand-lettered sign the Air Force officer held up to the window of the C-141 at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines when the prisoners were coming home. Lander, sitting across the aisle, had read it backward with the sun shining through the paper.

Now his eyes were hooded as he looked at Dahlia. His mouth opened slightly and his face was slack. This was the dangerous time. It hung in slow seconds while the motes swarmed in the sunlight, swarmed around Dahlia and the short, ugly shotgun by the bed.

“You don’t have to get them one at a time, Michael,” she said softly. “And you don’t have to do the other for yourself. I want to do it for you. I love to do it.”

She was telling the truth. Lander could always tell. His eyes opened wide again, and in a moment he could no longer hear his heart.

Windowless corridors. Michael Lander walking through the dead air of the government office building, down the long floors where the buffer had swung from side to side in shining arcs. Guards in the blue uniform of the General Services Administration checking packages. Lander had no packages.

The receptionist was reading a novel entitled A Nurse to Marry.

“My name is Michael Lander.”

“Did you take a number?”

“No.”

“Take a number,” the receptionist said.

He picked up a numbered disk from a tray at the side of the desk.

“What is your number?”

“Thirty-six.”

“What is your name?”

“Michael Lander.”

“Disability?”

“No. I’m supposed to check in today.” He handed her the letter from the Veterans Administration.

“Take a seat, please.” She turned to the microphone beside her. “Seventeen.”

Seventeen, a seedy young man in a vinyl jacket, brushed past Lander and disappeared into the warren behind the secretary.

About half the fifty seats in the waiting room were filled. Most of the men were young, former Spec 4’s, who looked as slovenly in civilian clothes as they had in uniform. Lander could imagine them playing the pinball machine in a bus terminal in their wrinkled Class A’s.

In front of Lander sat a man with a shiny scar above his temple. He had tried to comb his hair over it. At two-minute intervals he took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. He had a handkerchief in every pocket.

The man beside Lander sat very still, his hands gripping his thighs. Only his eyes moved. They never rested, tracking each person who walked through the room. Often he had to strain to turn his eyes far enough, because he would not turn his head.

In a small office in the maze behind the receptionist, Harold Pugh was waiting for Lander. Pugh was a GS-12 and rising. He thought of his assignment to the special POW section as “a feather in my cap.”

A considerable amount of literature came with Pugh’s new job. Among the reams of advisories was one from the Air Force surgeon general’s national consultant on psychiatry. The advisory said, “It is not possible for a man exposed to severe degrees of abuse, isolation, and deprivation not to develop depression born out of extreme rage repressed over a long period of time. It is simply a question of when and how the depressive reaction will surface and manifest itself.”

Pugh meant to read the advisories as soon as he could find the time. The military record on Pugh’s desk was impressive. Waiting for Lander, he glanced through it again.

Lander, Michael J. 0214278603. Korea 1951, Naval OCS. Very high marks. Lighter-than-air training at Lakehurst; N.J., 1954. Exceptional rating. Commendation for research in aircraft icing. Navy polar expedition 1956. Shifted to Administration when the Navy phased out its blimp program in 1964. Volunteered for helicopters 1964. Vietnam. Two tours. Shot down near Dong Hoi February 10, 1967. Six years a prisoner of war.

Pugh thought it peculiar that an officer with Lander’s record should resign his commission. Something was not quite right there. Pugh remembered the closed hearings after the POWs came home. Perhaps it would be better not to ask Lander why he resigned.

He looked at his watch. Three-forty. Fellow was late. He pushed a button on his desk telephone and the receptionist answered.

“Is Mr. Lander here yet?”

“Who, Mr. Pugh?”

Pugh wondered if she was making a deliberate rhyme with his name. “Lander. Lander. He’s one of the specials. Your instructions are to send him right in when he comes.”

“Yes, Mr. Pugh. I will.”

The receptionist returned to her novel. At three fifty, needing a bookmark, she picked up Lander’s letter. The name caught her eye.

“Thirty-six. Thirty-six.” She rang Pugh’s office. “Mr. Lander is here now.”

Pugh was mildly surprised at Lander’s appearance. Lander was sharp in his civilian flight captain’s uniform. He moved briskly and his gaze was direct. Pugh had pictured himself dealing with hollow-eyed men.

Pugh’s appearance did not surprise Lander. He had hated clerks all his life.

“You’re looking well, Captain. You’ve bounced back nicely, I’d say.”

“Nicely.”

“Good to be back with the family, I’m sure.”

Lander smiled. His eyes were not involved in the smile. “The family is fine, I understand.”

“They’re not with you? I believe you’re married… it says here… let’s see, yes. Two children?”

“Yes, I have two children. I’m divorced.”

“I’m sorry. My predecessor on your case, Gorman, left very few notes, I’m afraid.” Gorman had been promoted for incompetence.

Lander was watching Pugh steadily, a faint smile on his lips.

“When were you divorced, Captain Lander? I have to bring this up-to-date.” Pugh was like a domestic cow grazing placidly near the edge of the swamp, not sensing what was downwind in the black shade watching him.

Suddenly Lander was talking about the things he could never think about. Never think about.

“The first time she filed was two months before my release. While the Paris talks were stalled on the point of elections, I believe. But she didn’t go through with it then. She moved out a year after I got back. Please don’t feel badly, Pugh. The government did everything it could.”

“I’m sure, but it must—”

“A naval officer came around several times after I was captured and had tea with Margaret and counseled her. There is a standard procedure for preparing POW wives, as I’m sure you know.”

“I suppose that sometimes—”

“He explained to her that there is an increased incidence of homosexuality and impotence among released POWs. So she would know what to expect, you understand.” Lander wanted to stop. He must stop.