Jim Shepard - Lights Out in the Reptile House

He washed himself in a small claw-footed tub. Was she in danger? Why had Kehr send the note? It had to have been Kehr. What was happening? What was Karel doing to her and her family by lying to them?

The water when he got out was gray. It left a ring, and he knelt and tried to wash it away with his hands. When he came out she looked pleased and the air in the living room was cool.

Now a nap, she said, and he was thrilled at the idea of her lying next to him, her family gone, his having braved great dangers to be at her side.

But she kissed him once on the mouth and pulled herself away from his hands, and told him it was wonderful to see him, and hugged him again. She shut the door behind her as she left.

He was disappointed but the plainness of the bedsheets in the sheer white morning light seemed paradisical. He sat on the mattress with his hands on his knees, gazing unsurprised at the extent of his own exhaustion. He lay back and thought it was possible to have kinds of homecomings without home, and fell asleep.

He woke to voices through the walls, the next apartment, and listened for a while before deciphering that the people were refugees and they were arguing over whose situation was worse. He heard other voices, too, and realized the rest of the Schieles were home.

They were all happy to see him. Nicholas pointed out that Karel was wearing his shorts and that Leda was much happier now, and the insight made him radiant. He sat across the room still wearing his bathing suit and smiled as if he knew each of Karel’s secrets.

David stood with both hands on the arm of Karel’s chair and asked about the desert and did Karel see any nomads or scorpions and said he had plenty of things to show Karel in the city. His mother hushed him and made Karel relate everything he’d already told Leda, stopping him to shake her head and then nod every so often. He knew she’d retell some of what he told her as part of her store of catastrophe tales, all of which featured her in a prophetic role, unheeded by the foolish (“I had a feeling something was going on at that zoo …”).

There was news for him. The war was as usual but there were reports of troubles inside the army and there’d been in the city alone in the last month nine explosions, set by God knew who. There had been two bombs left at municipal offices in bookbags, and in one of the markets a donkey had exploded; down by the waterfront a blond boy had walked into a hotel foyer and had blown up. They were now in a special state of emergency, which Leda’s mother confessed she thought they’d been in, though officially the explanation was still that these were not partisans but delinquents.

The hotel explosion had destroyed the front of the building housing the nursery center, so now Leda was out of a job.

When he looked at her she arched her eyebrows and shrugged.

Which didn’t help financially, but still, her mother said.

Did he have a place to stay? she added.

“Can’t he stay with us?” Leda asked. “After all he’s done for us?”

Karel looked away in genuine embarrassment. “Of course,” Leda’s mother said. “I was just curious. I’ll fix it somehow.”

“I can get a place,” Karel said. “I’ve got money.”

“Plenty of time for that,” her mother said. “For now you’re our guest.”

They were all awkward and silent and then Karel said that what he wanted most was to have some real seafood again, and would they let him take them out for dinner? Leda’s mother graciously vetoed the idea, to his relief, over the protests of David and Nicholas. She suggested slyly that the two of them go. Leda colored when he asked and said she’d love to.

In the street she took his hand. She was wearing the red linen dress and he considered it a good sign. She’d glossed her lips with something even though he’d heard her complaining to her mother when getting ready in the bedroom that there was no lipstick or anything else she could use anywhere.

She said she knew a restaurant and led the way. She asked if he was sure he could afford it, if maybe this was irresponsible of them, considering. Then she squeezed his arm and said she thought celebrating his being here was not going to hurt anything, really.

They passed cinnamon and cypress trees that made the air fresh and fragrant. Down a side street people were being made to scour slogans off a wall with wire brushes while soldiers looked on. Leda didn’t notice them and Karel didn’t point them out. They passed wide yards of washing, and ahead of them on the street from the backseat of a car a woman’s hand stretched to caress a man on the sidewalk who leaned toward her. Karel began to recognize where he was. Leda crouched and spread a finger and thumb around a cricket, but it shot ahead and disappeared into a hedge. Everything seemed suddenly touching to him, his return, the city, Leda, the shadows of the leaves on the streets, and he felt the need to stop and put his hand on his heart and look around. As they turned a corner he imagined himself imprisoned or stranded on a far-off island and remembering the ordinariness of this walk with her as the perfect walk and the perfect happiness.

The restaurant was the Sea’s Trade.

They sat in the open-air section, furnished now with new wire café-style chairs and smaller tables. They could see down into the harbor and the sun flashed off the water around the boats. The gulls he remembered still circled and settled endlessly.

“This is so nice,” Leda said.

They ordered wine and melon. Karel told her he loved her letters and quoted passages from them, and she was pleased. She apologized for always being so mopey and pessimistic in them and he said not at all, they were wonderful, and she was even more pleased. She asked him if he was getting taller and he sat up straight and said he thought he was. She asked if he was okay considering everything, and he looked away, guilty, and said he was, though he was worried he wouldn’t see her enough even here in the city.

Was that a major worry? She wished she had his problems, she said, but she smiled to indicate she was flattered.

How about her? he wanted to know. Was she okay?

Much better now, she said. The menu was on a chalkboard, and the waiter brought it by. She ordered ocean catfish with dates and turmeric and he got fried brislings or sprats, tiny and plump fish he hadn’t seen since he was six or seven.

It was hard, though, she said when the waiter went away. He could see she was delighted at the sophistication of eating out, of the two of them here alone. Today he had perked everyone up, but it wasn’t always like that. It seemed as if everyone had lost his enthusiasm for everything, which was understandable. She put her hands down and touched her silverware and plate with appreciation. It had been hard on her mother especially. Not all the girls where Leda had worked had been let go, and her mother was convinced Leda’s attitude had had something to do with it. She smiled at him. She said, “Nicholas meanwhile has gotten completely quiet, and David I really worry about — he’s getting like the dog from across the street, Eski, full of all these terrors that just come and go. He’s always waking us up, and he sits there during the day saying these little wild things to himself. But maybe the scariest thing is that I can feel it wearing me down. I’m getting slower mentally. I can feel it. Sometimes when I’m reading I have to go back and read the words aloud, and still they just lie there and it’s like I don’t absorb them or something.”

Karel stroked the top of her hand sympathetically.

“It’s scary,” she said.

They were quiet, though they smiled at each other occasionally to show they were half sorry the conversation had gone in that direction.