Renata Adler - Pitch Dark

Quanta, Amy said, on the train, in that blizzard, in answer to my question. Not here, Diana said, to her lasting regret, to her own daughter, who approached her, crying, in front of all those people.

The turning point at the paper was the introduction of the byline.

He ceased to be a writer from the moment he began to tape.

The truth was, there was something in the ice cube.

I don’t want these colloquies and asides, you know, any more than I want to hear how the reporter got the story. But so much of the story, for some time now, has been, says who?

Grieved like, pined like…Why must there always be a simile? Why must you drive always to first questions, way beyond the goalposts every time. Well, what do you keep sacking our quarterback for, when it comes to that.

She had loved him, you know, with the operatic intensity of a basset, or a diva, or a child.

I find the turnoff to Castlebar all right. I’ve seen it on my way to and from the Waltons’. Then I drive straight, straight, and the rain stops, the sky is clear black, all the stars are there. I cannot see, on either side, the roadside, but I have the sense, always, of those long stone walls, meadows, sometimes the sea, the cows, the incredible unseen beauty of the Irish countryside. Only a car or two, at intervals of many minutes. On what errands can they be, on what errand am I, why are cars so few? And in the isolated houses, even in the towns, no lights in any windows, except, again many miles apart, one light, upstairs or down: a solitary insomniac, a worker on the night shift, a terrorist, a poet, who? But in the long spells of driving through the dark, there begins to arise in me an exaltation. I cannot see where this will end. I still have the sense, how to put this, that the land, even the sleeping country towns, know of me. That they are aware that I am passing, whether they follow or not: one car, torn fender, missing rental sticker, bound, they cannot yet know for where. Suddenly, street lights, curves, a traffic light or two. No sign that I can see, however, for Dublin, or any other major town. So I drive straight on, and when the lights and intersections recede, I assume that what I have just been through is downtown metropolitan Castlebar itself, such as it is. Straight on, exhilaration. Is it the hour? the passing over into crime? although I know in my legal heart I cannot yet have broken any law. What comes to me now, as I look up at Orion, and think of childhood knowledge of stars, myths, constellations, dinosaurs, is also the memory, the physical courage of that outlaw, that reckless vandal, fearless of death, that child. Into this kinetic scofflaw joy, the realization that I have, in all probability, missed my turnoff, the turning round, the car arrived too late to see me turn, so that, if he was following, I will have lost him now. And what, I have thought, if I’m caught actually getting on the plane at Dublin. Why, I’ll say I was planning to return tomorrow. Ask them at Cihrbradàn, ask also Captain Walton. And my car’s not due till then; look, I still have the key here in my pocket. At the airport, I will have bought a ticket to return, tomorrow, from London. Look, I have a ticket back to Ireland. And the missing rental sticker. I have already explained it. (I can’t say I don’t know how it came off; someone may have seen me remove it.) It’s in order not to be overcharged for car repairs. And I would use the argument of so many arguing from the botched nature of their crimes: Would I have done this, kept the key, parked the car with its torn fender facing out, peeled off the sticker, if I was really intending to abscond. Do you take me for such a fool, I mean, what kind of fool do you take me for. But I’m uneasy, uneasy, about what happens after that. Do they say: A likely story. No. But do I have to stay, and pay, right then and there, whatever extortionate price I’m becoming a fugitive to avoid. Almost certainly. I’m uneasy, in fact, about what happens as I get nearer to Dublin. If I am getting nearer to Dublin. And then I notice that the fuel gauge registers only slightly more than a quarter of a tank. I drive on, counting the miles I have driven back from the point where I turned around, wondering how much mileage I have wasted. What looms behind me, of course, is that immense truck. And when I flag him down, he stops. I ask him the way to route N.5 for Dublin, and there crosses his face that look of suspicion, hesitation, which I recognize even by night; I have now so often seen it. He says, I’m going to Dublin, you can follow me. We set out, and then I start to suspect him. My trust, in other words, is entirely depleted, and I wonder whether they have sent another of their agents, or alerted him, and is he headed now, not to Dublin at all, but straight back to the station at Castlebar. There is Kafka’s castle, of course, and the castle where I have been staying; and the bar, well, I leave that train of thought. And Mummy’s beach. All the time, there persists my own inexplicable impression that there has been something quite wrong in the course of these events, and I keep wondering what it is, apart from a small accident in which I have been at fault, wondering just what it is that they can want to frame me for, in the matter of this car. I think instead of ways to account for the man’s hesitation. I think, perhaps he thought I’m IRA, dressed like that, in the night, on whatever errand, in that scarred car, with my corduroy pants, and my down jacket. And then the other thought occurs, perhaps he’s IRA, and his truck is loaded with gelignite, and what accounts for his suspicion is that he thinks I am the police. And the sheer unlikelihood of this position, this situation, the sheer statistical implausibility of it, begins once again to strike me, and I am full of joy, only partially diminished by the fact that I am no longer quite alone. Solitude has seemed so much a part of the adventure until now.

The schema is this, a jug band; the schema’s a clarinet quintet; the schema’s a guitar, a fado, an orchestra. Going with Paul Wiseman on his motorbike to the Boston Symphony; the little girl onstage playing an oboe in Gina’s kindergarten class; John’s saying, frankly, I think letting women into the Century would be as inappropriate as introducing a trombone into a string quartet.

When I learned about the shrew, the poor unevolved, benighted shrew, which will keep jumping high in the air at a place in its accustomed path where an obstacle, a rock perhaps, once was but no longer is, well, I wondered about all those places where, though the obstacles have long been removed, one persists either in the jump or in taking the long way round. It seemed such an unnecessary jolt or expenditure of time and energy. And yet if you have acquired a profound aversion for just such a place simply because of an obstacle that once was there, or an incapacity to discern that the obstacle no longer exists, or an indifference as to whether it exists or not, or if the habit of pointless jumping, or detour, or even turning back dejected has become for you the path itself, or if you have a superstitious need to treat the spot as though the obstacle remained, or even a belief that the discovery that the obstacle is gone is in itself a punishable offense, if any of these things is true for you, then you are lost. Or probably lost, unless the habitual path, the compulsion, the leap, the turning back, the long detour have for you another value. Individuality, for instance, love, obsession. Or for that matter, art.

Is this the way you lead your life? I said. You said no. I said, me neither. And that delayed it for a year.

The road now is sometimes clear, sometimes overlaid for quite a stretch with mist. On both sides still, of course, in that intense, modulated dark, the incredible, unseen beauty of the Irish countryside. I look at my watch, 4:35, and since I’ve taken my eyes off the road, and since we are speeding, I think, Will it be said that she died while/because she was looking at her watch? I look at the fuel gauge. I look at the gas stations, every one of which is closed. I pass the truck, on the right of course, and, hazard lights flashing yet again, I wave, full of hope that he will not leave me now, I wave again for him to stop. I say I’m running out of gas. He looks shifty, suspicious, sly. I point to my fuel gauge. I ask whether there will be any gas stations open on the way to Dublin. He says not before nine-thirty. I say, Are there no all-night stations then in Ireland. He says no. I ask how much further it is to Dublin. He says, About a hundred twenty miles. I have not yet learned that distances in Ireland are so notoriously understated that there is an actual distance that the English call an Irish mile. But I say, I’ll never make it. My flight from Dublin leaves at ten. And I ask, Can I just drive till I run out of fuel, and then ride the rest of the way with you. And he says, That would be all right. And he speaks softly, and has a stammer; but, as I say, I have grown by now to love him. We drive and drive, and there’s a sign reading Ballyhaunis 10. I wonder whether my car will make it that far. I wonder if, when I stop, he will just keep going. But we reach a town. He slows down, and so do I. This is evidently Ballyhaunis. Though there is a parking lot, of sorts, in the village square, with several cars parked, and several empty spaces, he suggests that I park my car elsewhere, beside the curb. I ask again, since I may have misheard him, whether I should lock the car. He says, Oh yes. So I lock the car. He waits. He opens his door. I hand my bags up to him. Since the cab is very high, and I’ll have to be unencumbered to climb on, I also hand him my purse. He shuts his door. I go around to the other side. He leans over and opens that door for me. I manage to climb aboard. I slam the door. I find I am still, for some reason, clutching the rental agency’s Irish map. And off we go.