John Gardner - The King's Indian - Stories and Tales

“ ‘Heal your patient well, Mr. Upchurch,’ he said, and looked away toward Miranda’s room. ‘She’s the only female on the ship, and we have our needs.’ He chuckled, more like an actor playing the part of a villain than like a villain. Wilkins looked up at the ceiling and smiled. I knew, watching Wilkins, that Wolff was not by any means the strongest or cleverest on the ship.

XXV

“I lay in the darkness on the floor beside Augusta’s berth — or Miranda’s, as I must call her now. I’d sealed the ports against the everlasting twilight. The ship wasn’t moving, stalled by a calm I’d never seen the likes of, unless it was the present stall of my brain, or the stillness of Miranda. She breathed without a sound — I could tell she was breathing only by placing my hand on her stomach. It was as if her whole being were listening for something — as if, like the sentient trees and flowers Mr. Knight used to speak of, all the functions of her mind had flowed together to one desperate channel, her absolute, terrible listening. Such was my impression, or faint intuition. I did not pursue it. I was not at my best, to say the least. I must think and plan, I told myself; but my mind was still crowded with nightmarish images — the cook’s axe rising, then slashing down, the twitching and jerking of the murdered men, the blood-steaming deck, the limp, bloody figures of Billy and Mr. Knight … But the image more terrible than all the rest was that of Miranda Flint as I’d found her, raped, ruined, in her cabin. I felt as one feels at the death of a child: stopped, unable to believe the thing. Again and again I reached up to touch her. She slept on, like an innocent — slept or went on listening, if my intuition was right. Listened, waited in the absolute dark of her unconsciousness, like an ancient, iron-jawed trap. Each time I touched that chilly flesh, my hand shrank back as my mind shrank back from the recognition that sooner or later I must face: She was no longer beautiful. The swelling might go down, the bruises fade, but the ugliness would stay — missing teeth, stooped shoulders, the beaten, cunning look of old beggar women. Inescapable. And I must face, too, the fact that what I’d deemed terrible and unholy in Miranda would also be gone forever now: her pleasure in deceit, her monstrous cold-bloodedness. Foul she might be, but never again evil. And that was, suddenly, a dreadful loss. A trickster’s virtue — nay, friend, his glory —is that he says what sounds true, says it ringingly, convincingly, believing he knows for the moment what’s false. But a man whose house has been burned to the ground in an electric storm can never again be an accurate judge of lightning. The murderer’s virtue is that he thinks himself God: perfect, indestructible. Pity his victims, but pity more the murderer converted to belief that his weight is a burden on the earth. I hoped, in short, that Miranda Flint would die.

“I heard not a sound, for all my care — neither in the chartroom nor in the parlor nor where Miranda lay. I knew he was there only when he said, ‘It’s Wilkins. Be still.’

“I obeyed. I did hear him then, or felt him, rather, coming through the darkness toward me as if he knew exactly where I was. ‘After Mr. Wolff, you and me,’ he whispered, just inches from my ear. He gave a voiceless laugh. I was so startled by his nearness — the stink of his breath was suddenly all around me — I could give him no answer.

“With the subtle skill that marks all true masters of the confidence game, he quickly insinuated his way into my sympathy. He asked about ‘Augusta.’ I gave him no hint that I’d discovered the truth about all of them. He was careful not to mention that he himself was the man who’d raped and beaten her; and he did not pretend that he thought the thing shameful. But he observed, objective as a family doctor, that it would not be an easy thing for ‘Augusta’ to get over in her mind. He talked of her feeling of God-given superiority, the mistake in self-appraisal that would make that rape a catastrophe.

“ ‘She’s proud, that’s true,’ I said, stalling against something.

“He chuckled exactly as a snake would chuckle. ‘I used to go in there and tipple with the Captain,’ he said, ‘along with Mr. Knight, God rest his soul. Ah, how she’d put it to us, pious little whore! Swinging her hips out, bending down so her pretties would dangle. And any time she could find a way she’d put that together with her holiness trick. “God bless you, Mr. Wilkins!” says she, and claps her hands together like a lady at her prayers, and draws her thumbs back hard against her chest so you’ll get a good look at her pirate’s guns. “God bless yerself,” says I, and I gives her a wink, most fatherly. She lured me back into her bedroom one time — I’d known her a good long while, understand — and there I am standing erect as a bowsprit, and next thing I know I’ve got dog in my shoulder. Yet I wish her no harm, Mr. Upchurch — no more harm than she’s made other people suffer.’

“If I hadn’t known the truth, nothing in his tone would have led me to suspect. But I did know, and so I heard more than he said. In dressing rooms from Indianapolis to Bangkok he’d pursued poor Miranda, and she’d teased him on, cool manipulator, image of her father. Not even by rape had he brought her down off her snowcapped mountain. Believe in us, she said with every swing of her hips— Believe in us! — cry of every fraudulent outfit from the first bullshit government to the last bullshit religion— Believe in us, Wilkins! — and the poor fierce idiot had believed.

“He got around now to what he’d come to say. ‘Ye’ve answered not a word to Wolff’s theories, Mr. Upchurch.’

“I said nothing.

“ ‘Even when he spoke of his reason for wishing Miss Augusta well, you were quiet as a mouse.’

“I still said nothing.

“ ‘Very well,’ he said. He sounded calmer than I’d seen him before. He said, flat-voiced, just above a whisper. ‘I’ve watched you from the day we first hauled you aboard. Yer yer own man, Upchurch. Yer idea of a chat is to listen and smile, with one eye peeking out the window. Very good. Listen — ’

“And now, all at once, I was hearing Wilkins’ version of the story Billy More had told me. I showed no sign that I’d heard it before or that I knew that, the night of the meeting, Mr. Wilkins wasn’t there. He told of the vows, a whisper full of anger, exactly as if he really had been there and felt he’d been betrayed.

“ ‘Listen, listen well. Wilkins is a villain, says Jonathan Upchurch. He murders with a smile, plots mutiny, scoffs at God, scoffs at beauty. Well, howl and rage all you please against Wilkins, you can’t out-howl the howl in Wilkins’ own spirit, sir. But I’m past despair, though not out of it. Despair’s my foundation. The world’s what the mind of Wilkins makes it — my hand, my head, the ocean, that wretch on the bunk. Today I’m the Devil. Who knows, perhaps tomorrow God! You understand?’

“I kept silent.

“ ‘Do you understand me?’ The whisper was intense, forking out like flame.

“ ‘No,’ I whispered. Miranda’s fingers moved a little, and alarm went through me. Wilkins, too, must’ve heard something. He held his breath, listening, but there was nothing to hear. The ship sat quiet as a boulder.

“He said: ‘My acts add up to nothing. No Heaven, no Hell, mere chain of events neither guilty nor glorious. I may murder again, or I may give away all my goods to the poor. I vow nothing. Nothing. There are no stable principles a man can make vows by, and there are no predictable people, only men like myself. A whole world crammed with cringing half-breeds unfit for the woods or the gabled house. Take Mr. Knight. Once there was no man on all this ship more loyal to the Captain. So I vow nothing. I have come to warn you: Do the same.’ He fell silent, breathing heavily, waiting for my answer.