Chris Mooney - World Without End

"In the interim, Raymond, please try to keep yourself together. The ride is going to get very bumpy."

When she was eleven, Renee Kauftnann learned that her grandfather had terminal lung cancer. She didn't believe it. This man had survived the worst hell on earth, the Holocaust, and although she didn't know the specifics of his ordeal (Zayde never talked about it), he did say, once, that he knew he would survive that never-ending stretch of nightmare because he had prayed to God every day. God, he had told Renee, never let good people down.

So when Zayde got sick, Renee knew God wouldn't let her down. She went to Temple, she prayed, she believed in God, she could feel Him deep in her heart, the kind of warm comfort that reminded her of the way bed sheets smelled after coming out of the dryer. Deep in her heart she knew God wouldn't take away such a brave man from her, this old man with thick glasses who loved to do magic tricks with cards and make coins materialize into dollar bills, his clothes always smelling of smoke and Vicks Vapor Rub. Besides, Grandpa looked fine. But here was her mother crying in the bedroom, her father next to her, trying to comfort her but not knowing how, Renee standing in the hallway and watching, not knowing that the second man she loved would collapse from a heart attack a year later in the basement while working on a cabinet for her mother.

Zayde sat upright in the hospital bed, his smile bright (he was always smiling) when she came in, alone, Mom waiting out in the hallway.

"Well, hi there, Button!" He loved to call her Button because, even at eleven, she was so small.

"Mom says you have cancer."

"You were always blunt, Renee." Then he laughed and coughed and hacked, the deep, wheezing sounds of a man struggling to breathe.

"Don't ever lose that. It will help you weed out the bad ones later in life."

"You didn't answer my question."

No change of expression in his face. He reached over and grabbed the paper cup of water and drank it out of a straw, his eyes dropping to the bed, glancing at the skin of his wrist painted with the blue numbers. In the harsh sunlight pouring in from the window, he suddenly looked so old and frail.

"Come sit with me," he said, patting the bed with a shaking hand.

Renee sat next to him, close to his sour breath and the smell of medicine and alcohol, her eyes staring at the hanging bottle of clear fluid attached to a tube that ran into Zayde's wrist.

"You don't look sick," she said.

"I am, Button."

"Are you in pain?" she asked, her voice low, afraid of the answer, but more afraid if he said yes, she knew, even at that age, there would be nothing she could do to take his pain away.

"I'm never in pain."

"Never?"

"No. I want to share something with you. A secret." He leaned in closer, conspiratorial. When he whispered, she could smell the smoke on his breath.

"When I was stuck in the camp, I would close my eyes and think of a special place that no one could touch. It's beautiful. It's full of gardens and open fields, the sky is always blue and the air is cool and sweet and smells like apples. But what makes it so special is that your great-grandmother and grandfather are there, my friends, my dog Piper, all of the people and things I've ever loved are always there, waiting for me."

"What are you saying?" She was trembling and didn't know why.

"Build a special place inside yourself and don't let anyone touch it.

When you get older, you'll discover that the world has a nasty habit of kicking good people. Sometimes they get hurt. It's not God's fault, it's just the way the world works, Button. When that happens, escape to that place and remember all the good things you have in your life."

Renee was there now. Her eyes were clamped shut and in her mind she saw the old farmhouse she had always envisioned buying someday, the bedroom window overlooking a valley of trees, the leaves those burning colors of red and orange and yellow and gold. She was there right now, far away from the basement with its musty air lingering with piss and waste and sweat, far away from the sensation of her full bladder and the pounding cuts and bumps on her face from the man who had hit her the same man who had killed John and far away from a more frightening sight: the terrified expression of the skinny man bound to the same dentist-type chair next to her, the man with two missing fingers.

John is here, he's lying on his back in the bed they had first made love in, his naked body white even in the dimming sunlight. She sits on top of him, riding him, he is so gentle as he touches her, then he slaps her rump and starts wiggling his body while he yells out, "Who's your daddy? Who's your daddy?"

She laughs you have to laugh when you're around John, you can't help yourself and she swats him on the arm. Then he sits up in bed and brings her close to him, his face serious, and buries his face against her chest as if he is trying to find a way to burrow past her skin and take her with him to a place that doesn't exist in the real world, a place where two hearts are safe to whisper promises and share secrets and laugh and live forever.

"Renee."

The voice was bright and warm. Renee opened her eyes, not wanting to leave the place in her mind and looked down the length of her bound body. She saw a man with blond hair standing at the foot of the chair.

He looked like a construction worker who had come home to his family.

His eyes were a deep blue, kind.

Smiling, the man with the blond hair walked around to the side of her head and knelt down. Renee heard something scrape against the floor, something that sounded like metal. She could feel the man's breath washing over her ear. She couldn't look at him her head was bound against the chair's headrest.

"Are you okay?" the man whispered.

"Talk, but keep your voice down."

She didn't respond, didn't move. She wanted to lose herself back inside the vividness of a magic fall day where John waited for her.

Concentrate. She tried to rebuild the image in her mind but it wouldn't form.

"Relax, Renee. I'm a friend of Stephen's."

Stephen Conway. The name brought back all of her rage. This was his fault. He was mixed up in some sort of CIA bullshit and had mixed John up in it and now John her life was dead because of Steve Conway.

"I'm here to help you and the guy next to you, Dixon. I can't remove the straps yet. I have to wait until some of them leave and then I can bust both of you out of here, okay?"

Was what this man saying true? Could he be here to help? Really?

Before John, she had dated enough men to know that, by nature, they were full of secrets, often greedy, being kind and polite and charming so they could talk you out of your pants, only needing you if you had something of value to them. Still, she wanted to believe him.

"Steve told you he was CIA, right?"

The man's voice sounded so kind, so gentle and confident. Risk answering the question?

She nodded.

"So you did talk with him," the man said.

"A little." Her lip was split and swollen, but her voice was strong.

Hearing it renewed her hope.

"Why did you want to meet him alone?"

She swallowed and said, "You said you talked with him."

"Briefly. We got split up." The man swallowed and then sighed.

"They got him, Renee. He's in danger. That's why I need to know what you talked about. I know you saw what happened in the condo."

A voice cried out, telling her to stop talking. But she didn't want to stop. She wanted to purge this dark and terrible knowledge from her heart once and for all.

"A man with gray hair came down here and hit me," she said. She closed her eyes and felt the welts throbbing across her face and head.

"His name is Raymond Bouchard."