Norman Rush - Mortals

Ray crouched down to get a closer look at the damage, his heart racing. He tried to insert his fingers into the crack. He couldn’t, but it was close. Air was feeding in through the crack, whose bottom edge was inset a little. There was a definite separation between the base of the wedge and the plank flooring touching it. He pushed at the wedge. It wouldn’t budge. If it could be driven out there would be an exit that a man, men, could fit through. He wanted to say to the wedge, You are yearning to be a door, so be one, swing open.

Morel was elated. But he was conducting himself ridiculously, in Ray’s opinion. He was gesturing frantically to the effect that they shouldn’t say anything, that they should be quiet, avoid attracting attention. Ray understood Morel’s impulse, but he was going on too long with it. They had to get to work to see if this crack could be made, ultimately, to let them out. They had no tools.

They knelt together at the crack.

Morel was shaking. He tried, himself, to work his fingers into the crack, but with more force than Ray had used, which struck Ray as dangerous and premature. The wall might shift in the event of another blast and Morel’s fingers could be crushed. Or the wall could shift on its own. There were other fractures in it, higher up.

“This is just cheap cement block,” Morel whispered.

“Get your fingers out of there.”

“Don’t shout at me. We have to be quiet.”

“I didn’t shout. I just don’t think it’s going to be helpful if you get your hands stuck.”

“This cement is cheap shit. It’s crumbling.”

Morel had thrust the fingers of both hands well into the crack. It was reckless. Ray thought he could see blood. He was considering pulling Morel forcibly away from the wall. He didn’t think that what Morel was trying to do could be done. Unaided brute force had its limits. They needed to think together, think how to combine their strengths. He thought Morel should stop acting Herculean. Or probably he himself should join Morel in futility just to be friendly. He had to come to a conclusion. He had no role, just standing around observing.

Morel was being primal. Maybe it was good that somebody could get into that mode. And maybe it was something to do that felt better than wallowing in the impossibilities in a situation. For example there had been all that debate about what they should do as the battle got closer, whether they should keep mum and stay where they were, play dead, or whether they should move heaven and earth to find a way to break out and then run and hide in a donga until the battle was over, or whether they should barge out and get into the fight. It looked like Morel had resolved everything unilaterally. They were not going to stay in their dungeon if at all possible. He was going to create an exit barehanded singlehanded. There really wasn’t time to discuss any of this again. Their deliberations had taken place when it hadn’t been clear that the battle was ever going to reach them. Now it was not a question. There was such a thing as slipping out into a scene of confusion and finding a place to hide while everyone was distracted with killing. Maybe they could still do that, if they got loose.

Morel was determined. There was blood showing on the back of one hand. He was ignoring it.

“I don’t recommend this,” was all Ray could think of to say.

He knew what Morel was attempting. He was trying to get his fingers in as far as the void at the core of the cement block so that he could get a solid grip on the fragment and really wrench away at it, pull it hard. He was endangering his hands. Fortunately he wasn’t a surgeon, but still, he had to touch people in his practice. His diagnostic procedure involved a lot of touching. That was what holistic medicine was, apparently.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Ray said. He couldn’t see how Morel had gotten his fingers so far into the crack, but he had.

He had to try to help. Morel was being a machine. The fucking chunk of wall seemed to be actually moving, tilting. Morel’s shirt back was dark with sweat.

“We need a crowbar,” Ray said, provoking a hiss of exasperation from Morel.

Ray hastened to assist. The crack was tighter where he was, to Morel’s right. But by brute force he was now getting his fingertips in up to the first joint. He had to do better. He had to get them in far enough to bend them down into a hollow space so he could grip and pull, like Morel.

Morel was extremely strong. Ray could feel the effect of his force in the definite rocking movement being produced in the fragment. Morel was pretending the abrasions on the backs of his hands weren’t happening. I have to help, Ray thought. He drove his fingers in and found the void in his segment of the chunk and grasped hard.

Ray said, “I think we should push. We should stop rocking this thing. It hurts when it rocks back in. I think we need to just push out.” There were ridges of scraped-off skin midway between his second and third knuckles, on every finger. Morel seemed not to be listening to him. Ray’s hands were in agony and the kneeling position he was in was hell on his bad knee.

Morel was still insisting on whispering. He was saying that they were not coordinating. They paused. Morel put his ear to the wall. Ray couldn’t imagine what the point of doing that was. Morel seemed satisfied, though, and resumed his efforts, pushing, only, now. The floor was drooping under them, but not alarmingly.

Ray scanned the fractures in the upper wall, thinking that they had, what was the word, ramified, since the last time he’d glanced at them, raising the possibility of a Samsonic, if that was a word, conclusion, as in the entire side of the edifice collapsing in on them, burying them. It was far-fetched but it added something to the moment. And there was still the possibility of one or even both of them getting caught like idiots with their hands stuck in the wall. He didn’t know how it could be, but he seemed to be having fun, despite everything, the pain. He wanted to see if he and Morel could do this thing.

Morel was resting again. That was natural. His exertions had been greater. But they had to continue soon. Ray had the germ of a feeling, a spark of belief that they could do this, do it together if they kept the momentum up. And if he could exclude from his mind questions like whether, once they got the chunk detached from its what, its moorings, they should push it all the way out or just edge it out as far as they could without creating a glaring cavelike hole for all to see. The question was should they pause and wait once they were sure they had an exit, but without using it immediately. The thing to do was to proceed. There was no exit yet.

Morel was kneeling and resting, his forehead against the wall. He appeared to be talking softly to himself. What he was doing resembled praying, which couldn’t be. Ray felt he had to know.

“You’re not praying there, are you?”

Morel looked balefully at him. He said, “How could you ask me that?”

“I don’t know. That’s what it looked like.”

“Well, it wasn’t.”

“Well, I’m relieved.” That was true. The idea of Morel praying had been unsettling.

But Morel resumed murmuring to himself. This was obviously some personal ritual he was going through preparatory to their climactic next effort. Finally Morel seemed to be through.

Ray couldn’t help himself. “What were you saying, if you don’t mind my asking?” He was truly curious. If he were to write a vignette of Morel the answer to that question would be just the kind of thing that might turn out to be emblematic. And he had no idea what Morel might have been saying, unless it had been some idiosyncratic mantra to the first atheist or to Bertrand Russell, except that mantras weren’t addressed to particular heroes, now that he thought about it.