Christian Kiefer - The Infinite Tides

“More?” Peter said after a time.

“God, no,” he said, smiling. “I’m going to explode.”

“Maybe half piece only then.”

“No, I can’t. Thank you, but I can’t.”

“OK,” Peter said.

After a moment Luda said, “I ask you about your daughter?”

Keith looked at her and nodded reluctantly.

“Petruso told me that you are not home when she goes to God?”

“I was still on the space station.”

Peter said something to her in Ukrainian and she answered him. “I tell her you maybe do not want to talk about this,” Peter said.

“It’s fine,” Keith said. “Really.” But he did not know if it was.

“I apologize,” Luda said.

“No, it’s fine.”

A moment of silence there in the dining room. Then Luda said, “If on space station then maybe you do not see funeral?”

“No, I didn’t see it. But they made a film of it for me. On DVD. So I watched that when I was back in Houston.”

“Because you are on space station for days?”

“Months.”

“Months? How many these months?”

“Nearly three.”

“After your daughter: three months?”

“Yes.”

“In space?”

“Yes, in space.”

It was quiet again and then she covered her face in her hands and Keith did not understand what she was doing at first but then her shoulders rocked and she began sobbing, the sound of it harsh and violent. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He did not know what he was apologizing for, but he said it anyway.

“Shhh,” Peter said. He stroked her back softly and whispered to her in Ukrainian.

After a few moments she quieted and raised a cloth napkin to her face and eyes and dried them. Keith sat uncomfortably, wondering if he should leave, if every meeting between the three of them would end with him wondering if he should leave.

“I am sorry,” she said, her eyes smeared with black mascara like the eyes of a raccoon. “It is very sad to hear.”

He stared at her in a kind of wonderment: her gaze dark, liquid, the outpouring of grief so sudden and unexpected that Keith found it incomprehensible. “It’s OK,” he said. “I’m fine. Really.” He knew this was not true, not anymore, but what more could he say?

“No,” she said. “No, no, no, no.” Her voice fading out. A whisper.

The room descended into a soft, trembling quiet and held that way for so long that Keith again wondered if he should leave.

“It is very sad to hear this,” Luda said at last, wiping at her running mascara with her napkin.

Keith nodded but did not answer.

“He is strong man,” Peter said.

“No man is strong for this.” Her eyes were trembling with tears and Keith could see that she struggled to regain her composure.

“I’m fine,” he said

“Yes, yes, you are fine,” Luda said. “Everyone is fine. You are strong man, like Peter says.” She sounded bitter now, perhaps even angry, and Keith waited for whatever storm had descended upon the table to pass.

Peter said something to her in Ukrainian and Luda answered him with apparent irritation and after a moment Keith said, “So I think it’s time for me to head home.”

“No, you stay please,” Luda said. Peter started to speak but she put a hand on his arm and he fell silent. “I am sorry for this making you uncomfortable.”

“It’s OK,” Keith said, “but it’s late.”

Peter said something in Ukrainian again and this time Luda did not answer him. She continued to stare at Keith, fixing him with her dark eyes as if to hold him there. He knew that she did not believe him when he claimed that he was managing, that he was fine, but there was no other answer he was capable of giving for even though he knew that he was crumbling, there still remained no other answer he could fathom.

“Well, it’s substantial.”

Keith stood with his hands on his hips. “How substantial?”

“We won’t quite know that until we really get in there but I can see where the little buggers have chewed up some of the support here. Usually when we see this kind of thing the damage goes down into the foundation supports. That’s where it can really get pricey.”

“Christ.”

“Yes, indeed,” the contractor said. “Sometimes it doesn’t happen that way. I mean I’ve seen it where we pull off the drywall expecting to find a hell-on-earth scenario and it’s just a little track like the termites got bored and went away to eat someone else’s house. So we bang out a few boards and knock it back together and get the inspectors back out to make sure it’s done right and presto we’re done and out.”

“How much work do you have to do just to figure out how much work you have to do?”

“That’s a good question,” the contractor said. “We’ll need to pull all the drywall off this wall for sure to start with. Then we can try to see if there’s anything else we need to follow. We’ll probably need to pull some off the outside too and maybe on the inside of this wall where it comes up against the house. What’s behind this wall?”

“The kitchen.”

“Yeah, that’s a problem. There’s cabinetry and appliances so you might not even know they’re munching away in there. You ever find sawdust in your cabinets? Like in a plate or a pot or pan or anything?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, that might be a good sign. Or it might not. Termites are crafty and they’re dumb at the same time. They don’t know what the hell they’re doing except eating. Sometimes they come right through the wall like they done here. Sometimes you don’t never see them until you’re leaning against something and it gives way and you fall right through it. Hell, I’ve even seen a whole big colony of them fall through the ceiling in a huge ball of sawdust and termite shit. Fell through right onto the dining room table of a house. All those little pincers everywhere. Scared the hell out of the people who lived there. Little kids probably still have nightmares about it.”

“I’m sure they do.”

They had been in the blazing heat of the garage for the better part of an hour while the contractor and his assistant cut chunks of dry-wall and insulation and probed the interior structure with flashlights. He had asked Keith to kneel on the concrete floor and peer into the dark recesses of his own empty house and Keith had done so as the contractor pointed out the channels in the framing where the termites had burrowed through the wood. At one point the contractor said, “Ah, shit. Shit. Well, shit, shit,” and then shone his flashlight farther into the wall space. “See ’em?” he said, and Keith looked. “Mouse turds,” the contractor said. “You’ve got yourself a regular pest infestation.”

“Fantastic,” Keith said

“Maybe for the pest control people, but probably not so much for you,” the contractor said.

Through the open garage door, Keith watched Jennifer as she moved across his field of vision. She was dressed once again in her gym clothes and Keith wondered at the fact that he had experienced that body at all, the memory of it like some weird and distant dream he could hardly recall. She glanced in his direction but made no acknowledgment of him whatsoever and a moment later disappeared inside her house.

The contractor and his assistant moved through the house methodically. Keith did not understand how they managed to know where to look but when the contractor stopped near an interior wall and told him it was possible or even probable that the termites would have chewed the framing beyond, Keith insisted that they cut a hole to look. His assistant brought a saw and plugged it in and a moment later there was a two-foot aperture in the wall.