Lydia Millet - Ghost Lights

Or all the dogs in the world. What room was there for you in this panoply?

People were like dogs and this was why they took pity on them — dogs alone all the hours of their days and always waiting. Always waiting for company. Dogs who, for all of their devotion, knew only the love of one or two or three people from the beginning of their lives till the end — dogs who, once those one or two had dwindled and vanished from the rooms they lived in, were never to be known again.

You passed like a dog through those empty houses, you passed through empty rooms. . there was always the possibility of companionship but rarely the real event. For most of the hours of your life no one knew or observed you at all. You did what you thought you had to; you went on eating, sleeping, raising your voice at intruders out of a sense of duty. But all the while you were hoping, faithfully but with no evidence, that it turned out, in the end, you were a prince among men.

•

Someone was knocking on the room door — knocking persistently. He had dozed off again, a glass of water on the nightstand beside him. The red light was still blinking. The knocking would not let up.

“Hold on. Hold your horses,” he struggled to say, resenting the interruption. “I’m coming, dammit.”

He stood at the door in his skivvies. He opened it, realizing in the same instant that he had powerful morning breath.

In front of him were Hans and Gretel in skimpy trunks and a flowery bikini, showing their tan, smooth bodies and cornflower-blue eyes as they smiled at him.

“I have contacted the Coast Guard,” said Hans proudly.

“Sure, right,” said Hal. “Right. Sure.”

“Good news!” said Gretel. “They will send a task force.”

“Very funny,” said Hal, and wondered if they would allow him to go brush his teeth. From the second he met them, he had basically been their captive. Even in his own room he could not get away from these eager Germans.

“No, but seriously,” said Hans. “The Coast Guard has a boat in these waters currently. I was put through to them. Also there are some local cadets they are helping, a mentoring exercise. The Americans are training them in search-and-rescue, so it will be like a practice.”

“I don’t. . give me a second, I have to splash some. .” He was mumbling as he retreated, but still they stepped into the room after him.

Gretel pulled open the drapes with a certain exuberance.

“You need some fresh air in here, Hal Lindley!” she said.

Probably to let out the morning breath.

Germans were not known for their sense of humor, he reflected as he brushed his teeth, the flimsy bathroom door shut carefully behind him. Their idea of a joke was not his own, that was all. Cultural barrier. Not uncommon. But he could have used another hour of sleep.

Let them stand there in all their terrible beauty. He was secure here in the bathroom, with a toothbrush and a tap and a clean toilet. In the end there was not much more a man truly needed.

But it could not last forever. Breath freshened, head aching, he stepped out again. There was no helping it.

“They will arrive tomorrow,” said Hans. “The Coast Guard and also the cadets. All of them.”

“Ha. . it isn’t that funny, though,” said Hal. He hoped the fly on his boxers was not gaping. Couldn’t risk a downward glance, however. He was already playing the buffoon in this particular comedy. Where were yesterday’s pants?

He bent down and grappled with the bedcovers.

“No, but really, really,” said Gretel, and smiled again. “It is a special task force! There will be approximately twenty persons.”

“That’s impossible,” said Hal flatly.

He felt around under the bed for the pants, found them collapsed in a heap.

“Hans was just talking to his friends,” said Gretel. “It’s not a problem.”

“Hans has friends in the Coast Guard?”

“Actually they are working for NATO,” said Hans, nodding. “The Supreme Allied Command Atlantic. In Virginia?”

“He consults for them on the avionics systems,” said Gretel.

“I called in a small favor,” said Hans.

Hal shuffled away from them to pull the pants on. When he zipped up and turned back, their heads were backlit by the window and their faces indistinct; he saw them for a second as leviathans. They might be slim and standing there in their G-string swimwear, which had an all-too-floral tendency and made them look far more naked, even, than him. But in the strength of their Teutonic conviction he put his finger on what it was about them.

They were machines of efficiency, purposeful. Even in the simple act of unwrapping a granola bar there was the sense of a necessary fueling.

•

“I’m afraid you may be drinking too much,” said Susan.

She had him paged in the dining room while he was eating his breakfast. Because the Germans were sitting at the table with him, believing him to be a family man who was close to his loving wife, he could hardly refuse to take the call. Reluctantly he had followed the waiter to a telephone at the end of the front desk.

“Not at all,” he said.

“What was that fax about, then?”

“It was accurate. There’s a task force involved. Something to do with NATO.”

“Come on, Hal. I don’t get how you’re acting, these last few days. I’m asking you please just to be serious.”

He had brought his coffee cup to the phone with him and took the opportunity to sip from it with a certain poised nonchalance, his telephone elbow braced on the high, polished wood of the counter.

Robert the Paralegal could not raise a task force. A Trojan perhaps, but not a task force. None.

“What can I say? I met Germans with connections. Germans who refuse to take no for an answer, I’m guessing.”

“See? This is what I mean, Hal. You just don’t make that much sense right now.”

“I’m telling you, Susan. Either there’s a twenty-man task force trained in search-and-rescue that’s arriving tomorrow to look for your friend Stern, or the Germans are conning me. It’s possible. As history has taught us, Germans are capable of anything.”

She was silent for a few static beats. He sipped his coffee again.

“Really, Hal? Honestly?”

“So they tell me. We’ll see.”

“But that’s amazing, Hal. Amazing!”

“The jury’s still out on it. OK? Keep you posted. I was right in the middle of a hot breakfast, though. Do you mind if I get back to it?”

More static. He had hurt her feelings.

“Not that I don’t want to talk. Just a rush here — hectic. Wreckage, repairs. Aftermath. Hurricane. You wouldn’t believe the scene.”

He gazed out over the tranquil dining room, where lilies stood in tall vases on the white tabletops. Hans waved out the window to the boys in the pool, and Gretel, her long, languid legs crossed, was peeling an orange and licking the juice off the tips of her elegantly tapered fingers.

“OK. But keep me informed, OK Hal? Tell me everything that happens.”

“I always do. We’ve always told each other everything, haven’t we?” He was feeling a pinch of malice. Speaking with a dangerous transparency. He told her goodbye, hung up and downed the tepid dregs of his coffee.

• • • • •

There was no reason, he found himself deciding, not to enjoy himself while he waited for the armed forces. The day was still young, he had hours to kill before the night came on, and Hans and Gretel had invited him to go scuba diving.

Fortunately the children of the corn were too young to qualify for the scuba course and had resigned themselves to playing ping-pong.

“For the whole boat trip? They’re going to play ping-pong for five straight hours?” he asked Hans, when he saw the boys hitting the ball back and forth at the table beside the pool. They were steadfast and tightly wound, their lips compressed, eyes darting only a fraction to the left or right with a predatory glint as they followed the bouncing ball.