Sarah St.Vincent - Ways to Hide in Winter

I left with a nod goodbye to my aunt, who watched me with surprise and seemed to be asking a question of my grandmother. My father looked up at me, a pack of cards in his hands, and we held each other’s gaze for a moment. Then his eyes flitted away uncomfortably and he began to deal.

“Make sure she takes her meds,” I ordered the table in general, pointing at my grandmother. “If anything goes wrong, it’s on you and I’ll never forget it.”

The door closed solidly behind me as I walked to the car.

At the hostel, Martin looked at me quizzically. I dropped my suitcase on the floor in front of the reception desk and reached for my wallet.

“Are you crazy? You’re not paying for anything.” He pushed my money back at me. “It’s not like we’ve got any big crowds tonight, anyway. We’re still just the Two Musketeers up here, me and him.”

“Thanks. I’ll just need some sheets and stuff then, I guess.”

He examined me before turning to the linen closet, my mud-spattered jeans and tired posture. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s fine.”

He handed me a room key, and I accepted it with a gratitude I was torn between expressing and hiding. Then he handed me something else, a white card that had been sitting on the polished wood of the desk.

Tyler MacDougal, it said. Pennsylvania State Police.

I turned it over; the edges of the card felt sharp in my palm. “What’s this?”

“They were here earlier today. I thought you should know.”

I stared at him. “What for?”

“I’m sure you can guess.”

“What did they say? Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

“Well, you weren’t here, and I didn’t see any sense in worrying you.” He closed the ledger. “Someone,” he said, “thinks I might be harboring an illegal immigrant, it seems.”

I looked at him and swallowed, the specter of Jerry’s face passing through my mind.

“I’m sure it’s one of the rangers,” he added. “I don’t know who else would know or care what I do up here. I could be running the biggest murder-for-hire operation east of the Mississippi and nobody’d be the wiser.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, nothing, in the end. They came, they asked a couple of questions, and they left. Which is exactly as it should be, since nobody’s doing anything wrong.”

“What kind of questions? Was he here?”

“He was down in the game room. They didn’t see him.” He toyed with his pencil. “They wanted to know if he was working for me. I said no, I hadn’t paid him a dime, he just helped me out with chores sometimes. They then very kindly explained to me what ‘harboring’ means.” He scratched the back of his arm. “I reminded them that I’m running a hostel. Harboring people is what I do.”

“That’s it? They didn’t go looking for him?”

“They didn’t have a warrant. I’m not as dumb as I look—I know how these guys work. I asked them to leave, and they did.”

I imagined Martin face-to-face with the police, saying those words, and was struck with a mixture of awe and apprehension. “You said that?”

“You bet I did. If you let them mess with you once, they get the idea they can do it forever. It’s a gamble—if they decide to come back at you, they’re probably gonna do it pretty hard. But I don’t see how they have any kind of leg to stand on—they’re just doing something somebody told them to do. And at the end of the day, I’m willing to bet they have better things to do than drive all the way up here again to chase some rumor. Nobody gets promoted over something like this.”

I was still watching the scene in my mind with amazement. “I would never have known to do what you did.”

“Yeah, well. One of the many things I learned in my misspent youth.” He smiled lopsidedly. “Anyway, I don’t think there’s any call to panic. Besides, panicking is how bad decisions get made. No sense in doing that here.”

“Does he know?” I lifted my chin to indicate the floor above us, where the stranger’s room was.

“Yeah, it would’ve been pretty hard not to hear the guy stomping around here like he owned the place. I think Danya’s upstairs now, if you want to talk to him. Here, let me carry that suitcase for you.”

“No, I’ve got it.”

I climbed the stairs as quickly as I could and made my way down the darkened corridor.

There was no response when I knocked.

“It’s Kathleen,” I called.

There was a pause, and then a sound like the shuffling of papers. The door opened a crack, showing a cautious eye and wet hair. He must have just showered.

“Oh,” he said. “Yes, it is.” He opened the door until I could see his face perched on its white neck. “I thought you had gone home?”

“I did go home.” I put the suitcase down. “Now I’m back. Are you okay?”

“Yes, of course. Come in,” he urged, opening the door to reveal a darkened room lit by a single lamp. I saw that he was naked from the waist up, a towel clutched around his hips. Averting my eyes, I saw a book on the bed, a pile of papers, a pen. His shoes were aligned by the dented folding table that was meant to serve as a desk, his clothing folded neatly and stacked on the broad windowsill, the guitar propped in a corner. He raised the blind, but the room became no brighter, late as it was. There were long pink lines on his back, I noticed, faint but discernible against the pale skin, like the creases that come from sleeping on a wrinkled sheet, but deeper and darker. Embarrassed, I looked at the floor.

He turned to face me, and I caught a glimpse of other pink marks on the inside of his arm as he reached for a sweater. These were small and round, not much bigger than a dime, and quickly disappeared from view as he pulled the shirt over his head, catching the towel awkwardly with one hand before it dropped. “Please sit,” he said, gesturing toward the metal chair by the desk, then caught sight of the suitcase in the hall. His eyes widening, he looked back at me. “Are you staying here?”

“Yes. I mean, not here in this room, obviously. In another one.”

“But you live very close to here. Or at least, that’s what I’ve always thought.” He remained standing, looking like an absurd scarecrow in his sweater and towel. Close up, I could see that he looked fatigued, but there was nothing in his face of the shock or terror I had expected to find.

“Yeah, I do,” I said. “My grandmother’s just having guests, so I decided to clear out for a while.”

“Clear out?”

“Leave.” I watched his movements. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“Yes, yes. Let me bring your suitcase in.” He stepped to the doorway and reached down, touching the brittle sides of the case, its rusted handle. “Oh, my. This is an old one.”

“Yeah. It was my grandfather’s.”

“It reminds me of the one my father had when he was young and traveled from Moscow to Tashkent. He still has it somewhere, but I never even thought of trying to use it.” He placed the suitcase carefully by the desk and closed the door.

I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or alarmed by his seeming serenity. “You’re a lot calmer than I expected.”

“You mean about the police?”

“Of course I mean about the police.”

“Well,” he said. He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking away as he gently smoothed the covers with his hand. His thin legs dangled from the towel. “When they first came, it was—of course, I was upset. But it’s a bit like a fire, being frightened in that way. It burns very terribly all at once, and then it’s gone and you’re only rather tired.”

Water trickled from his hair onto his neck. He looked exposed, vulnerable, like a man dropped into a hostile wilderness.