Lydia Kiesling - The Golden State

“Looks a little unpleasant toward the camp, weather-wise,” I say.

“I brought my umbrella,” Alice says looking ahead.

We haven’t been driving for very long when she starts speaking extempore.

“I keep thinking about that trip to Turkey, the one you made me remember.” I glance over at her and make a sound for her to go on.

“We took a train all the way to the east part of the country, Diyarbakır it was called.” Diyarbakır where Ellery died, my mnemonic device until the end of time. “It was such a boring train ride—very long unbroken expanses of countryside.” She laughs. “I remember that’s what he said to me, ‘My goodness, this is a rather unbroken expanse of countryside,’ and then he flashed me a little look and suggested we pass the time by kissing and I said all right so we set about kissing, and it made a tremendous scandal. There was a lot of tsking from the ladies around us.” She laughs and her voice is rusty in her throat. “I was always such a prim young woman, I can’t believe now that I did it.” I’m honestly stunned by this story. “I’m amazed someone didn’t attack you. In 1960!” It’s hard to picture this woman behaving like a drunk Brit on a beach package tour, rolling around in the sand while the aunties and uncles cluck their tongues with scorn.

She looks out the window again. “I remember when I first met him I thought he was nice looking. Someone introduced us at a potluck and I remember the feeling of waiting to be introduced, as though we were in a play. I liked the shape of his hands.” She smiles again.

And now she is quiet and I wait to see if she will start again but she doesn’t. Her eyes are open. “The girl who died,” I say. “She was in Diyarbakır. I’ve never been there. I keep trying to picture what it was like.”

“You should be thankful that you don’t have that in your mind’s eye.”

“It seems like the least I can do, to sort of witness, I guess.”

“You suffering won’t ease anyone else’s suffering,” she says drily and then she doesn’t say anything else and I don’t either.

The drive is much longer than I thought and after a very long stretch of silence during which Honey is mostly sitting glassy-eyed we finally pass the sign for the camp, a regular state highway sign as you’d see for a town, and I make the turn. We travel a nicely maintained dirt road for ten minutes and then we turn onto a very bad dirt road and I have a pang like what if I can’t get the car back up what if we slide off the road and then we come to a small clearing in the trees with a ramshackle cabin and a very faded interpretive sign. “I think… this must be it.”

I pull the car over near the sign and cut the engine and Honey is immediately squirming squelchily and cooing to be let free of her seat. There are no other cars to be seen. I can’t tell what kind of land we’re on. It doesn’t seem to be parkland but there were no Private or No Trespassing signs, but it also lacks the assiduously nicely kept signage of a national forest or state park or county forest or state point of interest or whatever they call the lesser administrative entities. I unbuckle and get out of the car and stretch and peer into the back seat where Honey is trying very hard to wake up and has a look on her face like it’s the worst thing she’s ever done. I leave my door open and walk over to the cabin, which is flaked and cobwebbed with a padlock on the door. I walk to the interpretive panel which is peeling up at the corner and faded all to hell, a mottled beige surface crisscrossed with scratches. I can make out “many original structures are no longer extant,” and I trot to the car to report back. She says, “I expected as much.” Unease is gathering in the trees and the gray clouds above. Honey cries in the back seat. “Hi buddy,” I poke my head in and say. “You just sit tight.” “This isn’t the camp,” Alice says. “It was down a hill,” and motions at the dirt road ahead and I marvel at her memory. She smooths her hair behind her ear and I’m stuck for a moment admiring the elegance of the gesture. “Okay,” I say. “Here we go.”

I start the Buick and edge its nose down the road, which declines down past the cabin and is furrowed and rutted but dry. The shocks of the car absorb the bumps beautifully but I’m perturbed by how much the hood rises and falls with the changes in terrain. “Bumpy,” I say. I look at Honey in the rearview mirror. “Bumpy,” I say in a singsong for her benefit. It takes us a long time to wind our way down this dirt road, guessing on some unmarked forks, always choosing down, down, down. We inch our way down for probably twenty minutes, trees crowding us on either side, and then we are in a large clearing—a small valley, with tree-covered hills gallumphing up on all sides. Some collapsed wooden structures dot the clearing. I drive out into the middle of the field. “Wow,” I say. “Looks like this is it.”

“Yes,” says Alice. She looks at me. “This is it.” She looks sad. “Now I’d like to get out and have some time by myself.”

“Sure thing,” I say. “We’ll just hang back by the car and have a snack.”

“No,” she shakes her head vigorously, hands in her lap. “I want to be alone. I don’t want anyone hovering around.” Shit.

“Alice, I’m sorry, there could be all kinds of holes and uneven ground and I just don’t think you should be walking around here by yourself.” She looks at me and puts her hand on my hand, which is still on the steering wheel.

“Please,” she says. “Go find us a motel and check in and then come back for me. I want to be alone. I won’t be foolhardy. I promise. Give me two hours.” She gives my hand a little squeeze. I agonize for a second. “Okay,” I say, hearing Yarrow’s worried voice on the phone. “But first I’m going to get out and do a lap and make sure there aren’t any big holes or snakes or anything. You’re going to let me do that.” I try to sound commanding. She nods. “And you’re going to let me pull some food together for you to keep in a dry spot. And you’re going to let me drive you over to the buildings.” “Sure,” she says. I go around to the trunk and get Honey a cheese out of the cooler and I collect the other leftover picnic materials crackers and cold cuts and put them into a couple of gallon Ziplocs. I put these on top of the car and give Honey her string cheese and think about getting her out of the car but then consider what it will then be like to get her back into the car seat. She is whimpering and straining but the cheese pacifies her for the time being. “Tseeeeeeeee,” she says. “Tseeeee.” I start a slow jog toward the buildings and am encouraged that the ground beneath the ankle-high grasses is dry and reasonably flat. I feel my lungs scratching and protesting and my ancient sports bra riding up over the underside of my breasts and I slow to a brisk walk. One of the long, low bunkhouse-looking buildings is a ruin, not burned, just collapsed in at one corner, splintered planks raised in mute supplication. Some of the buildings are in better shape, but all appear to be padlocked. I try to shake off my overwhelming recent feelings of helplessness and try to be the person I am at my job during my most successful efficient and results-getting. I have written a multimillion-dollar federal grant, I think to myself. “What are the things I need to assess this situation,” I say aloud, but I don’t know, I just don’t know what exactly is the right thing to do. Some kind of bird of prey caws hoarsely above and I think For god’s sake. I go to the edge of the clearing, a hundred yards or so from the nearest structure, and there are some huge worn stumps right before the forest starts in earnest and I find the flattest one, about the height of my thigh, tucked under an enormous pine, and I say, “Okay,” and I run back to the car and point out the stump to Alice. “This is where I’m going to put the food and everything,” I say. “Do you feel like you can walk that far from the buildings? I’m going to drive you right up to them.” She nods. “Sit tight a little longer” I tell her and she is sitting there as is Honey who is crying now and she laboriously twists her back to try and wave a crooked finger at her and get her to smile. I get the food, and one of Honey’s blankets, and the trunk flashlight for good measure and scurry back to the stump and lay them out. Back at the car Alice raises an eyebrow. “It looks like you’re getting ready for me to live under that tree.”