Jim Shepard - Lights Out in the Reptile House

Fetscher looked around the room, dumbfounded. He looked at the others, and Karel, as if it were their responsibility to help. Everyone backed up a step.

“What kind of question is that?” Mrs. Fetscher finally said, after a silence.

“Please come with us,” Kehr said.

But he was a butcher, Fetscher said frantically, repeating himself to avoid making another mistake.

They made way as Kehr and the others led him out. Sherron stood straight with her feet together, as if at a ceremony. “Where will I reach you, Tommy?” Mrs. Fetscher wailed, and no one answered.

Eski, sitting now in the middle of the foyer, looked at Karel with an excited and irritating expectancy, as if he were the one who was supposed to do something. The last Civil Guard officer when he passed said to Sherron, “See that you’re a good girl,” and in response she smiled and showed him a handful of marbles.

For a week he met with Mrs. Fetscher over their fence each morning to exchange the fact that they hadn’t heard anything; then she disappeared, not answering the door for three days, and Mrs. Witz when she caught him passing the house told him that Mrs. Oertzen had made a mistake, turning in the wrong Fetscher, and that this Fetscher had on top of everything else had a fatal accident. He’d lost his head and had fallen against the wall. They hadn’t been able to wake him. Mrs. Fetscher was in a bad way. They were going to bring her something later. The funeral was on Thursday, if Karel was interested in attending.

School was suspended again. He roamed the neighborhoods during the day. At night he listened to the radio, which didn’t help but at least broke the silence. He entertained the hope he’d learn something of use. The war was at a standstill and the news concentrated on fifth columnists and shirkers. The head of the Civil Guard promised that when final victory occurred the. Party would return its attention to all those of that sort who had slipped by. Karel stopped listening. He ate some mealy peaches. He turned the radio back on and suffered through a long playlet involving a simpering character who made trouble for every-one and who was finally identified as a profiteer and a corrupting intellectual spirit. They shot him and after the theatrical sounds of the gunshots he made a surprised ‘Oh!’ as if he’d found something in his shoe. Somebody else gave a talk about saving wood palings. The only concrete news Karel heard was the announcement broadcast on all channels that for the duration of the emergency the administration of justice was now out of the hands of civilians and entrusted to the bureaus of the Special Sections of the Civil Guard.

He slept in his father’s room. He rummaged through the closet, kneeling on the floor, setting aside piles of shoes and old newspapers. He found things he could not have said belonged to his family: folded brightly colored table-cloths, a musical instrument made from a gourd, copies of Guardian of the Nation, a magazine “dedicated to the preservation of civilization and race,” a chessboard of copper and dark wood, a cigar box full of chess pieces, a loop of wire, a photo of a desert path, a leather shoe repair kit. There was nothing in all of it that seemed like part of his life, and he remembered his mother’s letter, and imagined desolately a historian peering into his parents’ history and finding no trace of him whatsoever.

The next morning he found a letter without postage from his father under the front door. He looked up and down the street as if it had just been dropped off, and then opened it. It said his father was well, and that Karel shouldn’t worry. There was great news. All would be explained soon. There was more money for food under the top step below the landing. It added in a P.S. that Karel should call a plumber if he hadn’t already.

He sat slapping the letter against his cheek, mystified and angry. Had his father dropped it off? Had a friend? He checked beneath the step and found more money than his father had ever claimed to have had. He stood staring at it. How long had his father been lying to him? What was he saving this for? Where had he gotten it?

He almost destroyed the letter. He was considering it when Albert showed up. Albert poked around the house as if looking for someone and then said he’d just stopped in to see what the news was. He’d never visited before.

Karel showed him the letter. Albert took it and before opening it mentioned that the zoo was once again shut down. He shook his head while he read. He refused to speculate on what was going on. He agreed Karel had a right to be angry.

They sat in Karel’s kitchen contemplating the letter until Albert finally asked if Karel was going to offer him anything to eat.

Karel laid out a few things — a hard-boiled egg, some carrots, some fennel — after giving the old man an incredulous look. He was determined not to apologize for not having anything else. What did I get over there? he thought. Olives? Old bread? Albert looked at the vegetables and egg and made a disappointed chewing noise and then went to the sink to wash up. He noted the water wasn’t working.

“I know that,” Karel said, banging a dish down. “I live here.” The egg rolled onto the table.

He should have that fixed, Albert told him.

They ate without speaking. Karel thought, If I could go to a country where there were no people, I’d go.

Albert asked him if there was any salt. They looked at each other. It occurred to Karel that he was in a country like that now.

“Pretty quiet next door,” Albert observed.

Karel crunched his carrot.

“A newspaperman I admire,” Albert said, “or admired, from your home city, wrote in one of his last columns the day after the Party took over, ‘Are we a joke? Are we a bad dream? Whoever hears our speeches has to laugh. Whoever sees us coming had better reach for his knife.’”

Karel nodded. The egg and the carrots were gone. Albert was acting peculiar, and Karel had the feeling he wanted to ask something.

“Well, I’m still here,” Albert said finally. “After some of the indiscreet things I said in your presence the other day. I assume that means you don’t aspire to National Greatness.”

“I don’t aspire to anything,” Karel said bitterly.

“Very wise, in our country right now,” Albert said. Karel wished he would leave. He had a headache, he was out of food, and he was having trouble imagining a subject that wouldn’t depress him.

Albert said, “Perren joined the Party.”

Karel suddenly realized that Albert’s earlier remark meant he thought Karel was capable of turning him in.

“Said it was something he had to do,” Albert said. “That it was in the best interests of the zoo.”

They were silent, Karel toying with the rhyme in his head: had to do, of the zoo . “So will it help?” he finally asked, out of some sense of obligation as host to extend the conversation.

“Hey,” he said when Albert didn’t answer. “You really think I would’ve turned you in?”

Albert looked at him closely. He gave a small shrug. “Before today I would’ve said that Perren wouldn’t’ve.”

Karel looked away, and then got up and cleared the table. When the old man didn’t move, he was forced to sit back down.

“And they go on about uniting the country,” the old man said.

Karel tipped the empty dish to show everything had been finished. You should talk, he almost said. His father was gone. Albert was turning into a jerk. He had no friends. He had a fleeting image of Leda with her head turned to listen more acutely to something, and then an image of her lips lifting to his, and then she faded entirely.

He was sad and frightened and upset about his father. Albert was going on about the regime. The white hairs in his ears moved when he talked. Karel didn’t want to listen anymore and asked suddenly if he remembered the beaches from the city. Did he remember the beachfront hotels? The huge trees, and the way the gables would stick out?