Norman Rush - Mortals

Morel was pulling sharply at his legs. Ray edged his way back inside. Morel was going to be in favor of waiting until nightfall before they actually both got out and began to peregrinate. Ray didn’t want to wait.

“Tell me what you see,” Morel said. He was anxious.

“Well it’s all quiet on the western front, from what I can see. Except for the shooting. And the smoke. There may be a fire over in the parking area. You said that koevoet had their military vehicles herded in there, in the courtyard, for security. You saw that out there, didn’t you?”

“That’s right, just their military stuff, trucks, and one personnel carrier, one of those funny-looking South African ones that you can feel safe in running over a mine. A Casspir. But I didn’t see our vehicles. I don’t know where they put those. Somewhere around, I guess.”

“I’m guessing that that’s where the fire is, where they’ve parked. I can tell you that if it was me attacking this place, I couldn’t wait to put a mortar round into that spot. But would Quartus be stupid enough to not disperse his vehicles? The fire is on the way out. It’s not a conflagration or anything out of control. But I’m going to edge farther out to see what else I can see.”

Morel was agitated. “Wait a minute. Let’s think. Say it turns out that we’re in a sort of backwater in the fighting, for now. Let’s think what it would be smart to do. I mean, this might be our moment, if their attention is elsewhere …”

“Let me take another look.”

“Wait, we need to figure out in case it looks like we should jump into action. Right now we’re at risk, with this hole in the wall, not to mention your sticking your face into it. I don’t know. Maybe we should concentrate on breaking out enough more of the hole so I could get through too, in a pinch. So we’d be ready. It wouldn’t take much.”

Ray tried to be measured. Morel was unraveling. Ray said, “Look, it’s possible I could get out and slip around to the front of the shed and see how they’ve got us locked in. All we know is that when we push on it we see two segments of chain across the opening. We don’t know if there’s a padlock. Why should there be? It’s more likely they’ve just got a chain looped around and cinched up someway in a knot.”

Morel was breathing rapidly. “No I think we need to both get out of here together, both of us at the same time. I don’t think we should work it so that just one of us goes and leaves the other waiting to see what in the name of fuck is happening. You see my point. I think we should take our chances together, like a team.”

“Maybe so. But let me take a good look in the other direction first.”

It was clear Morel didn’t want to be abandoned, which was interesting, as a development. Ray was feeling brave. Against his will, Morel was showing he was afraid. But of course Morel had something to lose that Ray no longer did.

Ray inched out again, this time as far as his knees. Morel was holding his ankles and producing muffled protests and instructions.

There was something frightening to the east. It was a body. It was a dead body. The body of a man was lying near the footpath fifty feet down. The dead body was the scene, with the rest of what he could see secondary to it, a frame for the dead man. He was assuming this man was dead. He concentrated on detecting any sign of life. There was nothing. Gunfire rattled from the far ridge of the pan and there seemed to be some action taking place on the floor of the pan to the west. He could make out part of one of the zoo cages. It appeared to be empty.

The body was face down. The back was bloody and seemed wrong, torn up and irregular, not smooth. The man was clad only in bush shorts. And he was wearing combat boots. Ray had to tell Morel.

He withdrew into the shed.

“What’s wrong, man?” Morel asked.

“There’s a body fifty feet down the path, lying there. A black guy. I don’t know if he’s one of Quartus’s men or not. He could be a cook or one of these locals they’re making do chores for them. I think I need to go look at him. I think he’s dead but I don’t know. There’s blood all over, but he might not be dead.”

“You’re not going out there.”

“I think I need to. The fact that nobody has bothered to collect him shows that nobody is paying attention to this side of the hotel right now. Or it means he’s nobody. I just think I have to go see, ascertain if …”

“Don’t be insane. What could you do? Say he’s still alive, what could you do?”

“I don’t know. I have to see.”

“Listen. This is the deal. This is what we agreed. We don’t do anything out there we don’t both agree has to be done.”

“We never agreed that.”

“Well, de facto we did.”

“We didn’t. I’m going out there.”

“Were you raised religious?”

“What the fuck does that have to do with anything? But okay, my family tried, with me, but not very hard. So what?”

“You’re saying you’re going out there in broad daylight. You could die. You’ll be exposed. You don’t think you’re going to die, do you? That’s one thing religion does for us, it plants the conviction that we’re going to live forever. It explains a lot of irrational action.”

“So does needing a pair of boots,” Ray said.

Morel was silent.

Ray got down and prepared to exit fully. The ragged slot was tight against his shoulders. His shirt was ripping but he was making it through. He was full of urgency to get to the corpse, if it was a corpse. He was hoping it was a corpse because he was going to take the man’s boots. Morel had boots. The dead man’s boots represented power. He would be more than back to normal if he could get the boots and get them on his feet. It would change everything. It could save him, save Morel too.

Excelsior! he thought, aware that it wasn’t quite the right word. He wanted something that signalized getting out of confinement in a more specific way, but all he could think of was Voilà , which was funny.

Excelsior! he thought again, emerging. He was about to be free. One arm was free. It would be helpful if Morel would grab his legs and push, help him, but he could manage without help.

He was locomoting, if that was the word, on his right side. Both arms were free and God was good because dark smoke was building up again in the space between the sheds and the hotel proper. He was feeling giddy. He was afraid, but, irrationally, he wanted to dance around, flail his arms around. He was afraid, but that was what he wanted to do.

He was out. He made himself lie still, lie against the wall like a slug. His heart was beating violently. He needed to think of something to calm himself down. The lines Escaping from the enemy’s hand … Into the enemy’s vast domain came to him. Perfect, he thought. But he wanted to know why it was always the twentieth century that provided him with what, literary comfort. What was wrong with Milton? He had to force himself to be calm, to keep his movements small and incremental. He looked back at the hole he had squeezed through, feeling a ridiculous pride and a sort of fascination with it, the smallness of the aperture. He was almost in control of himself.

There was a conflict between what he wanted to do first and what he ought to do first. He wanted to go for the boots like a shot and he was having a slight mania about them that was impelling him to do that, instead of what he ought to do first. He had his eyes on the boots. The mania he was having was in the genre of the wallet connected to a black thread and left on the sidewalk on April Fools’ Day to be jerked away by a joker when some dupe reached for it. In this case it would be the dead body getting up and strolling off saying Gosiame, demonstrating that this had only been someone who happened to be taking a nap in a pool of blood. He knew he was being insane.