THE HOLIDAY HAS BEEN SPOILED. From where I am lying on a straw pallet frozen hard as a bed of rocks, I can see, through a chink in the logs, snowflakes twirling downward in the moonlight. Somewhere here—on the floor/ground, I suppose—is a mess of scattered papers: my research, which had seemed so promising. Although I believe I have lost most of my senses, including smell and feeling, a phantom trace of vinegar, or rotten wine, haunts my numbed olfactory bulb.
It seems there’s been an accident. Someone, I’ve heard, was hit in the head by a train. Although I am not sure who (or what such a person can have done to put himself in the way of such harm), I am confident that my personal conduct has been blameless.
Yes, there was the sniveling weirdo whose least crime was the interruption of my snack, the conductor of dubious innocence who may or may not have illegally tried to confine me, and the wholly unmerited hostility of some or all of the other passengers. But if there was a single moment when I should have been able to see the awful direction things were taking—the escalating series of misguided assumptions and malicious suggestions that seems to have conspired to land me here—I must have somehow missed it.
Or perhaps I merely caught the wrong train.
IT WAS THE END OF MY SABBATICAL in the picturesque hill town of Munktohnville, and I was on my way home for Thanksgiving. My wife and son, who often joined me on the weekends, had gone on ahead while I stayed behind to tie up a few loose ends in my research. I was completing a monograph on the history of the Munktohnville “Barn,” an unassuming stone and mortar structure that now housed a small tourist office as well as Ted’s Bait ‘n’ Bite. Yet according to records I had unearthed in the Munktohnville Library, the Barn had served as a plague hospital during the epidemic of “sleeping sickness,” that most shadowy and ruinous of contagious neurological syndromes, which is now understood to have ravaged all of the larger cities (except Portsmouth) during the early years of the American republic.
What had happened was this: Infected city dwellers who would not or could not be kept shut up safely indoors were obliged to accept free transportation via “ambulance” (a crude wooden cart over unpaved highways) to the newly established “hospital” (an outbuilding on the property of a wealthy absentee flax planter) in the outlying hamlet of Munktohnville. This hospital—the aforementioned Barn—merely warehoused these patients, there being, then as now, no treatment for their affliction. Some victims must have unwittingly consented to be taken there. Others would have been more or less plucked off the curb and hoisted into the cart like bizarrely missculpted statues, all gnarled fingers and rolled-up eyeballs.
My hypothesis had evolved from painstaking archival work, in which I had to do what any serious historian does: conjure from the skeletons of newspaper articles and pamphlets the living tissues of a secret, truer, history. It is too intricate and exhaustive to reassemble here, but to put it in layman’s terms: It is well established that in certain cases, and for reasons that are unknown, a victim of the sleeping sickness will “unfreeze” from his cataleptic stupor for a period of minutes or hours, and go about his business as if nothing has happened, before just as suddenly relapsing into that corpselike state that my colleague Otto Searl has referred to as a “psychic tomb, a paradox and a dead end.”
According to my evidence, certain of the captured sufferers “unfroze” in precisely this manner, long enough to escape from the ambulance cart as it approached Munktohnville, and fled into the hamlet at large. We know that town officials and vigilante groups went to great effort to recapture these so-called walking cases before they could vanish, as it were, into the uninfected citizenry. There are even accounts of seemingly healthy Munktohnville residents who, caught napping on a streetside bench, were mistakenly identified as quarantine dodgers and expatriated straight to the Barn.
Just how many “walking cases” there were is a matter of conjecture and, no doubt, future controversy. I welcome it, just as I welcome the feigned indifference of certain of my colleagues. Professional jealousies will come and go. Sound scholarship is permanent. I will mention here that I was the recipient of a coveted grant from the Krupp-Nudenheim Foundation.
Most of my work, as I have said, was accomplished in the library. I only glimpsed the inside of the Barn on those occasions when I’d stop to chat with Tonya in the tourist office, or take my son Kenneth to shop for a few provisions. Ted’s Bite ‘n’ Bait was nothing much. Yet even amid the meager shelves of Yuban and Swiss Miss, toenail clippers and motor oil, I was struck by a secret thrill, an enchantment known only to those who are able to, as we say, “come alive to history.” This is the floor upon which they suffered, I’d muse, absently toying with an Eagle Stik—This is the roof under which they perished.
Although he knew nothing of that cryptic past, I believe Kenneth shared in a mutual pleasure: he would beg to come along, knowing I’d allow him to buy some little item—a Glu-Pop or a box of rubber bands—and that as we approached the checkout counter with our plastic basket of goodies, the owner’s luggish nephew Charlie would dip his paw into the jar of pickled eggs, fish out one of those spicy, glistening treats, place it in a snack boat with a grunt of satisfaction, and offer it to Kenneth—gratis. My son never ate them, but oh how he loved to get them.
I puttered around our rented cottage, sweeping up, shutting off the water heater, mentally tweaking the acknowledgments page of my monograph. (A certain scrupulousness overtakes a man when preparing to collect a security deposit, or to submit the fruits of his labor to peer review.) I poured out the dregs of the milk, deflated and bagged the Poke-Bote. I was struck by a pang of nostalgia for a Munktohnville that even at that moment seemed far away, as if I were already gone. Latching my briefcase, thinking of my little carrel in the library, dust motes dancing in a beam of afternoon sunlight, I was embarrassed to find my eyes moistening with tears.
On the front porch, having locked the door, I remembered Lynne’s sharp cry, paddling in the Poke-Bote in the brook behind our cottage, and the nervous smile on Kenneth’s face as grinning Charlie delved for the lucky egg.
Yes, it had been a deeply invigorating summer and autumn. But the holidays were upon us; my true home beckoned. Juicy bird, gravy boat, plump pillow, warm wife. Creaking down the porch steps with bags in hand, I vowed not to look back. Time marches on: I had a four o’clock train to catch.
AS IF TO AFFIRM MY CHEERFUL RESIGNATION, the train arrived on the dot. Soon I was settled into my window seat—I had both seats to myself—with my briefcase snug at my feet. With a gentle oomph, the train chuffed into motion; frozen bluish fields slipped effortlessly past. It was dusk, and bits of sunset flashed through chinks in the wall of pine forest, like rose jewels glittering on dark velvet.
Soon the conductor appeared and requested my ticket. He was a pale and rather short elderly man, wearing a woolen uniform coat that was too baggy and long for him. He hovered over me eagerly—he seemed animated with a nervous, almost childish energy. Purplish blood vessels webbed across his bulbous nose and loose cheeks.
“Your ticket?”
He spoke in a disarmingly effeminate tone. I handed him the ticket. He glanced at it, said “Oh,” and frowned. Then he peered more closely at the ticket, and scratched at it with his longish thumbnail. “Oh,” he repeated with a nervous half chuckle—then punched the ticket, tore it, and handed me the stub. I slipped the stub in my jacket pocket and the conductor moved on.
I decided it would be relaxing to glance through the items in my “keepers” file: rare newspaper clippings I had managed to acquire in the course of my research. I unlatched my briefcase and fondled the clippings: the paper was almost translucent with age, soft and fragile, like dried skin. I sniffed it: rich and pulpy, with a faint acidic tang, the ferment of tangible history. But even more tragick are the changes in moral character which often followe the disease. . . .
These lines of text, I thought, are from a time not so unlike our own. You can hold them in your hand: you can touch them and read them. Outside it was almost fully dark, and in the window I saw a ghostly reflection of the clipping. Perhaps the window of some private carriage trundling urgently through the night had held the reflection of those very words, when they were real.
Someone coughed in the seat behind me. As I mused over the clippings, the coughing continued softly but insistently. Eventually, I was forced to acknowledge that the distraction was interfering with my quiet pleasure, and I replaced the materials in my briefcase.
I glanced to my left: in the seat across the aisle, a sullen-faced woman slouched against her window. She was enveloped in a shapeless yellow sweatshirt. Her eyes were shut, and her mouth hung open in a kind of grimace. Her legs dangled from the seat.
The coughing behind me continued. The coughs themselves were so weak and halfhearted that I began to think the cougher wasn’t trying hard enough, or was somehow perpetuating the tickle by virtue of the feathery coughs themselves. I imagined it must be some frail or aged person who couldn’t (or perversely wouldn’t) muster the strength to break through the mucous blockage and bring the fit to a conclusion.
I decided to go find the café car. I was in need of a snack, and perhaps by the time I returned, the coughing (or the whole person) might have managed to go away.
But when I stood up and began to move down the aisle, I saw that sitting in the seat behind me was not the pathetic valetudinarian I had pictured, but a squat, robust man with cropped black hair and a thick mustache. He gave me a challenging glance.
Approaching the café car I heard a loud voice and caught a whiff of microwaved food. A few passengers stood waiting in line for service. The man directly in front of me was tall and fit, with a crisp green polo shirt tucked into stone-colored pants, and a blow-dried sweep of chestnut hair. I noticed that that his left arm—oddly well tanned for the season—ended not in a hand but in a kind of smoothly fused nub. He tapped a loafered foot with impatience. I wondered what he would order.
“Goddamn unrecognizable,” boomed the voice I’d heard from the entryway. Beyond the small group of customers, a corpulent man leaned against the service counter. The elderly conductor who’d punched my ticket stood next to him, head bowed.
“The God’s honest truth, I had thought it was a woman,” said the fat man. His voice was loud and gregarious, with a folksy twang. He was bald, with a large moist forehead, and wore a waistcoat with his shirtsleeves rolled up. “Although I think it can have an effect on the—well, on the physical side.” The man seemed to be lecturing the elderly conductor, who, still looking downward, nodded soberly.
“Am I right?” he implored the conductor. Resting his elbow on the counter, he propped his mug in a meaty palm. “Eh?”
“Oh, oh yes,” said the elderly man. “I’m sure it could.”
“I know I’m right!” cried the fat man.
The conductor made a weak gesture of agreement.
The café attendant, a grave-faced man in kitchen livery, moved deftly about his confined space, preparing items and swiftly assembling them in neatly divided cardboard trays.
“But by then,” declared the fat man with a heaving sigh, “little can be done.” Retrieving a nasal spray from an inner pocket of his waistcoat, he plugged one nostril and then the other, shutting his eyes and squeezing the bulb with a deep sniff and a groan.
“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” murmured the elderly man, gazing at the fat man’s procedure.
The well-dressed man whose hand was a nub was next in line for service. I watched him as he directed the server from one item to another—he seemed to want a series of complicated mixed drinks.
“You want ginger ale?” asked the server.
“No, I told you: the club soda.”
The server seemed confused—he manipulated a number of miniature bottles of liquor and filled plastic cups with ice. “Lime?” he asked.
The nub man sighed and rolled his eyes: they landed on me with a glare.
I looked away. But as soon as I did, I felt the nub man’s glare intensify, as if I had caused him offense. In the corner of my eye I saw him hold aloft the interrupted arm, as if to chastise me for some perceived squeamishness or pity.
“Low sodium, please. Low sodium,” he barked as the server added the final items to his tray.
He paid the server, grunted his thanks, and laid a dollar bill on the tip plate. He held the tray poised between hand and nub, eyeing me sternly as he exited the café car.
I ordered my food: a chicken sandwich with cheese, and a lemonade. When the microwave stopped with a ding, the server peeled away the limp, steaming plastic from the sandwich. He accepted my money with a self-effacing nod and returned my change. I was discouraged to see that the tip of his index finger was enclosed in a grimy-looking bandage, but grateful that he skillfully avoiding touching that fingertip to my hand.
The fat man was tearing open a package of peanuts.
“Let me tell you something,” he said to the conductor. He dumped the peanuts into his palm and slapped it to his mouth. Munching, he signaled a pause—.
As I steadied myself back down the aisle I tried to stare straight ahead, so as to avoid the gaze of the nub man, in case he happened to be sitting in one of the seats I passed.
Still, I couldn’t help but sneak a peek at the seats. The passengers lolled in contortions of repose, in the dark or in pools of reading light. Some were collapsed across two seats, their feet or heads protruding into the aisle. Others sat upright, eyes shut and heads cocked back, Adam’s apples sticking out like choked-on bones. Others hunched awkwardly over their fold-out trays, thrusting their heads into the seat backs in front of them. I hurried through this battlefield of exhaustion, trailing fumes of chicken as I went.
I couldn’t find my seat right away. The café car was at the midpoint of the train. . . . Could I have walked back in the wrong direction? In my mind I began to retrace my steps, but I had lost my orientation. It seemed I could go in either direction, but instead I stood still in the dark aisle, holding my tray. A strange wave of fatigue passed through me. I shut my eyes, and saw a scene from the cottage: my papers stacked neatly on the good oak desk whose drawers could be locked with an antique key. Had I forgotten something? A dead bolt, the propane gas? I remembered my wife’s face, paralyzed in bliss or terror as her Poke-Bote slipped over a little waterfall and down into the frothing spray—and felt the train plunging blindly, evenly across the darkened landscape.
But when I opened my eyes I saw a long pale face peering up at me in the dimness. I was standing beside my own seat. There was a strange young man sitting in it.
In retrospect, as stated previously, it seems that I missed some crucial juncture. And yet, what could have been done? When, on the edge of sleep—as now, with the snowflakes falling—some shadow of a voice whispers in one’s inner ear that a grave catastrophe is imminent (a fire, a robbery, a secret evacuation), does that prevent one from slipping yet further into dreams—curious but harmless dreams, to which that vague warning turns out to have been merely the cryptic prelude, the quiet clarion?
THE BLOOD RUSHED TO MY FACE AND I SWOONED, for I could not see my briefcase, which held all of the documents crucial to my work. The man wore a loose green jogging suit trimmed with white stripes, and held a small red paperback book.
Beneath the reading lamp he seemed powdery, like a translucent moth. He wore round spectacles and his eyelashes looked white. Above a high smooth forehead his hairline receded drastically, but the pale hair was longish in back, clustering in curls around his ears and neck. Lips pursed, he gazed up at me with expectation.
Standing in the aisle, laden with cooling food, I broke my speechlessness: “Are you sitting there?”
The strange man’s eyes came unfocused from mine. He rose gravely from the seat and gestured for me to sit back down in my place next to the window.
“Silly of me,” he murmured. “I bet you think I must have been hit in the head by a train and then forgotten to take my medication!” He burst into a peal of sniffling laughter, clutching with three fingers at his sunken chin. “That’s an old joke,” he said.
I hesitated, then stepped forward, muttering an apology in my confusion.
“Hot snacks!” noted the man, oozing past me (almost through me) and reseating himself immediately to my left.
I gathered together my things, concealing my aggravation, and hunched against the window. I released the fold-down tray, anxious to enjoy my meal. I felt uncomfortable that he’d been left alone with my briefcase. As soon as I finished eating I would inconspicuously check over it to make sure everything was in order.
The chicken sandwich was bland but warm. I ate quickly and mechanically, regretting the man’s presence, and wiped my mouth with a napkin. Outside the window a cold moon fled through the dull purplish sky, keeping pace with the train over empty black-and-white towns.
“Clume,” spoke the man sitting next to me. I turned: he extended his hand. “I’m Clume.”
I wiped off my fingers, ruefully accepting his moist, limp grip, and told him my name.
“You know,” he said, “that was pretty unfair. That scene back there in the café car.”
“Scene?”
“You know, with the—.” Clume balled his fist and retracted it into the sleeve of his warm-up jacket.
My face went hot with embarrassment. “You’re referring to . . .”
Clume nodded knowingly. “It was like he imposed his own self-consciousness on you. Not your fault about the—you know . . . very bad taste. Speaking of which—.” He gestured at my partially eaten sandwich. I searched my memory but was almost sure I hadn’t seen this person—“Clume”—in the café car with me. There had been the nub man, the conductor and his corpulent friend, and the few other passengers in line.
“I just wanted to express my sympathies,” said Clume. Then, in an arch tone: “I tend to notice the little things.” He winked.
Clume’s skin gave off a medicinal odor, as if he’d been rubbing himself with lotions or salves. He rummaged in a cloth tote bag near his feet, producing a plastic deli container. He popped it open, revealing an oversized golden-brown baked dumpling, like a calzone or knish. It smelled delicious.
“You sure didn’t buy that on this train,” I remarked.
Clume looked puzzled. “I didn’t?”
“Back there,” I said, gesturing toward the café car. “I never saw anything like that on the menu.”
“Must have been sold out,” said Clume. “Here—take this little piece.”
I declined, but Clume insisted. He tore off a corner of the baked dumpling and dropped it on my tray. I now had no choice. It did look awfully good. But when I bit into the morsel I had to restrain myself from gagging. It was revolting—sort of like fish, but creamy and sweet, with an eggplantish texture.
Clume grinned at me as I forced a swallow; his round lenses caught the glare from the overhead light.
Steeling myself, I grunted and nodded in thanks.
Clume licked his lips. Looking at him in profile, you could see he had too much neck fold for a man of such slim build. The image reminded me of a sitting portrait of one of those angry and anemic English preachers from the enthusiastic era. I pictured him spitting forth godly language, condemning sinners to hell.
He pinced bits of crumb off his clothing, dropped them in the plastic container, and clasped it shut.
“I was noticing,” he said, “your clipping.”
At first I thought he was making some reference to my personal appearance. Then, with horror, I followed his eyes down to where my shoe tips nestled against the soft leather edge of my briefcase.
There on the floor—stray, single; a honey-colored rectangle against the black foot pad—was one of my rare clippings.
I leaned closer. For a moment I felt as though I’d lost some part of my body: a tooth, a toe, or a finger. How had it gotten outside the sealed briefcase? What was it doing cast on the floor like a disused ticket or candy wrapper? A neat little hole was punctured in my warm humming world and a black breeze of panic seeped through. I thought I must have somehow gotten myself into a nightmare. Just then I felt terribly weary. My ears rang, and the reading light oppressed my eyes like a migraine.
“It’s not yours?” said Clume. I smelled the lotion and could hear his faintly whistling, almost inquisitive nasal exhalations. He smacked his lips.
“Oh my God,” I sighed. My voice buzzed in my throat, and the corner of my eyelid twitched.
“Here, let me—.” Clume extended his fingers to retrieve the clipping.
“No!” I said, lunging forward to snatch it up, so that my head nearly knocked into his.
I held the clipping up close. My vision seemed to blur.
WARPED MINDES AND BROKEN BODIES: THE HEARTACHE OF OURE SEPTEMBER.
“Are you a scientist?” asked Clume.
“What?” I said. “No, I’m . . . I am a scholar.”
“Really? Well, you’re looking at a fellow who knows his way around a library.”
“I’m very tired,” I said.
It was true. I felt overwhelmed with exhaustion. The gently jostling train lulled me. I folded the paper and stuck it in my pocket, then jabbed at the reading-light button until I was in darkness. Pulling my coat tightly around me, I slumped against the window. The glass was cold against my cheek.
“I like research so much,” continued Clume. “In fact, I’ve been thinking about a project of my own. Although, that kind of work has its risks, you know.”
“Please,” I begged, shutting my eyes.
For a moment Clume was silent. “Are you sure?” he whispered. “You know, with the digestion . . . so soon after you’ve eaten? Well, I suppose it’s none of my beeswax.”
My eyes fluttered open. Was Clume still talking? Through the icy glass, I saw something in the distance. I must have been too weary to register what it was—though in retrospect I should have paid closer attention. Whatever it might have been, it was the last thing I saw before slipping into a doze—it glowed there in the distance, hovering on the brink of my unconsciousness, like a dim signal sending forth some strange allegation.
ONCE OR TWICE, DURING THOSE WANING AUTUMN DAYS in Munktohnville, I’d stolen a nap in my library carrel. Perhaps I’d been reading accounts of the provincial postmasters who (not understanding the cause of the sleeping sickness) gingerly, using tongs, dipped the letters in vinegar before handling them; or of all those editions of the Munktohnville Evening Gazette that, before the day’s alarming news of the plague’s progress and the mysterious “walking cases” could be read, were disinfected with vinegar and dried before many a household fire.
My current dream must have drawn me back to those days, for I found myself seated over a thick volume the librarian had retrieved for me. Oddly, the tome was still in its packaging: a translucent, slightly tacky membrane, which must have escaped the attention of the librarian. I hated to mar this delicate skin, but I was eager to look at the words inside, words that would help me understand the terrible and baffling sickness. My monograph depended on it. I scratched with my nails, fearing that I might be wrecking something precious, or doing something illegal. The membrane/wrapping came away unevenly, uncleanly, but I resolved to get the stuff off, rolling portions of the skin into pellets and flicking them under the table. I had just released the cover and was opening the book when I sensed a presence, spied a glittering eye—and there was Clume, snooping in the stacks; Clume, somehow disorganizing my work while I was distracted with the unpleasant packaging. (I wondered if the librarian was complicit—could they be collaborating?) I heard him clear his throat; the odor of salves was unmistakable. I leapt from my seat, heart pounding, and caught Clume ducking into a restroom, avoiding eye contact yet obviously aware of me, feigning nonchalance yet hurrying in arrogant, effete little steps, a volume tucked in the crook of his arm. . . .
A clot of anxiety stopped up my chest, and I woke to a finger prodding me in the ribs.
It was Clume. I heard the whistling in his nostrils.
“I like the bones in your face,” he said. “They settle nicely when you snooze. It reminds me of my cousin.”
My head throbbed; my throat felt dry and constricted.
“Why isn’t the train moving?” I asked.
Clume peered at me. “The train?”
In the wintry darkness outside the window, a cluster of lights, like flashlights or portable lamps, bobbed in the near distance.
“Did something happen out there?” I asked.
Clume leaned over to look out the window, his pale hair grazing my face.
“Hmm,” he mused. “I don’t know what that was. Some kind of accident?” He leaned back and settled his hands in his lap.
“What do you mean, ‘was’?” I asked. “What accident?”
Clume seemed not to hear. He’d returned his attention to the paperback book.
“Don’t you think we should ask the conductor?” I persisted.
Clume glanced at me. “I suppose, perhaps . . . but wouldn’t it be impossible for us to do anything? I mean, that accident—if there ever was one—had nothing to do with this train.”
I looked out the window, but the bobbing lights had vanished. In fact, the train was moving again—so smoothly and evenly, it felt as though we weren’t moving at all, but nevertheless I discerned the murky shapes of leafless trees and pointed rooftops passing slowly from left to right.
“Anyways,” said Clume, snapping shut his book. “We were talking about your research. It sounds so interesting.”
I continued to look out the window. I remembered the stray clipping—my nap had allowed no respite from this fact—and got a nauseous, sinking feeling. Was I becoming sloppy, my materials disarranged? The Krupp-Nudenheim wasn’t going to sit around forever while I tinkered with my project. The Foundation would expect clarity and closure.
“In fact,” Clume went on, “I’ve been thinking of doing an article myself. Or a book.”
“What?” I said distractedly. “Which article?”
“It would be similar to your thesis. The expropriation. Involuntary committal. There were fakers, you know. It’s compelling subject matter.”
I found it difficult to listen to Clume’s prattle, for that painful notion was nagging at me—had I indeed forgotten something back in Munktohnville? There was a kind of cubbyhole under the windowsill in my study in which I sometimes kept notes, but I remembered clearing it out, even cleaning it. The damp paper towel had picked up some insect husks and bits of mummified cocoon. Everything had seemed so secure, so wrapped up when I’d left: the book deal, the gravy boat, the four o’clock train. . . .
I had merely done what I’d planned to do all along: board the train and go home.
I MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP AGAIN, because I felt a prodding in my ribs, and woke with a start, expecting it was Clume. But Clume was gone. The train was dark, except for the small bright lamp glowing over Clume’s vacant seat. My mouth tasted rotten. The elderly conductor was standing in the aisle with a regretful expression.
“Um, ticket, please,” he managed. He gazed down at me with his large, watery eyes.
“You already took my ticket,” I said. “Much earlier. When I got on the train.”
“Oh, gosh,” said the conductor. He fidgeted nervously. “Yes, well, I know . . . but, you see, there have been some changes. May I see your ticket stub? The small stub?”
With a sigh, I fished the stub from my jacket pocket. The elderly man examined the stub, turning it over in his oddly tough-looking fingers, as if it were some interesting artifact. “Okay,” he murmured. “Um, all right, well . . .”
“Is something wrong with this train?” I asked.
The conductor looked shocked. “Oh my!” He trembled. “Of course not. It’s only the train has been delayed. So, you know, in the meantime, because of the delay, we won’t be able to—”
“What delay?” I interrupted, unable to keep from raising my voice. “Does this have to do with an accident? There was a man, sitting in the seat next to me, I don’t know whether you’d taken his ticket, but he must have . . . he boarded late, or . . .” I lost my train of thought.
The conductor patiently, almost pityingly, waited for my rambling speech to conclude. Then he said—now in a kind of rapid cheerful monotone, as if reciting some official statement—“Fortunately, because of your class of ticket, we are happy to provide you with a special accommodation for the length of tonight’s trip.”
“Accommodation?” I said.
“A Q compartment,” he explained. “That’s, well, a Quality Compartment.”
“Compartment?”
“In, um, the sleeping car. Because of, you know, the delay.”
“How long could the delay possibly be?” I demanded. “I did not purchase a ticket for an overnight trip.”
“Oh, oh dear,” stammered the elderly man. “We like to please all of our customers. I, um . . .” He bent down close to my face. There was a babyish smell on his breath, like apple juice or custard. “I think you’ll find the accommodation quite pleasant.”
“I am hardly concerned with that. As far as I know, this is not a sleeper train. What I wish to know, immediately, is when this train is expected to arrive.”
“Oh, well,” he continued, “a determination will be made, you know, in the morning. Or perhaps even sooner, sometime tonight. All passengers in the ‘Q’ receive a complimentary muffin, as well as a Preferred Traveler’s Kit.”
“Couldn’t I be let off at one of the intermediary stops? Surely there’s another train on this route.”
The elderly man licked his lips and smiled at me sadly. “It’s the express,” he said. “I’m afraid there’s only the one stop. At the end. And the train, you know, just doesn’t go any faster.”
THE “Q COMPARTMENT” WAS FURNISHED with a single fold-down berth. There was a brushed-steel washbasin, over which a square of mirror was affixed. The window’s cream-colored vinyl curtains were drawn.
“It’s a shared lavatory, I’m afraid,” the conductor explained, hoisting my small suitcase with difficulty into the compartment. “But you’ll find, um, the Preferred Traveler’s Kit, with an exfoliating cake and, you know, some other personal items.”
After indicating the call button (a large blue knob) and urging me to summon him personally should I need anything, the conductor left me alone.
I stood there, eyes closed, feeling the jostling of the train. The whole business had left me physically and emotionally spent. I lowered myself onto the narrow berth and gazed grimly at the ceiling.
Someone knocked. I scrambled up and thought: my briefcase! and spun around, as if unable to locate it—but there it was, on the floor beneath the washstand. I seized the briefcase and popped it open, while the knocking at the door continued, and hastily rifled through my research. The mass of papers seemed perplexing and badly disordered. Bits of language from photocopied newsprint and my own vague scribblings leapt out at me: Public papers were locked up in closed houses when the clerks left. . . . He promised to expose the doctor’s reply to sun and air for some hours before handling it . . . the doctor seemed sure the disease could not be communicated in a letter. The sentences confused me, and I panicked at my failure to recognize them. Which doctor was being referred to? A doctor from the Barn? Or was the doctor writing to a Barn administrator about some patient he had sent there? And what was contained in the papers? Information about the walking cases? I thought of the present-day Barn, with its brochures touting the caverns and the inner tubing, its shelves of Bisquick and fingernail polish; and poor Charlie, twiddling his fingers in the vinegary egg jar. . . .
“Knock-knock!” chirped a muffled voice, followed by more raps on the door. I reached across the compartment, fumbled at the latch and flung the door open.
It was Clume. Who else? Alas, Clume had returned—and he held in his hand a single yellow cupcake in a fluted wrapper.
“I thought you might be hungry for a snack,” he whispered conspiratorially. “The café car closed some time ago, and I thought . . .”
“No,” I said. “I am not in the least bit hungry.”
“Oh?” Clume replied. “Well, in my experience, I’ve found that nothing works up an appetite like some hearty research. Have you made any progress? I’ve been mulling over some ideas and I thought we could maybe compare notes. For instance—oh, I see you’ve got a Q!”
“Yes, that’s right,” I said. “Look, Mr. Clume. I appreciate your gesture, but I really, really must insist that—”
“Cut the shit,” said Clume. He leaned in and whispered in my ear. His hair smelled like sebum. “I need to talk to you. Forget about the snack. This is serious. You’d better let me in and shut the door.”
He glared at me through his spectacles. I noticed that his pupils were of slightly differing sizes.
“Okay,” I relented, ushering him into the compartment and latching the door behind us.
Clume sat gingerly on the cot and sniffled. He peeled back the curtain and looked outside. I remained standing.
Clume took a deep breath. “I admit that I was wrong before.” He nodded to himself. “I was mistaken.”
“Mistaken about what?”
“When I told you that nothing was wrong with this train.”
I tried to recall his earlier aggravating comments, but it all seemed so long ago. . . . Had I ever asked Clume if something was wrong with the train? Hadn’t it been the conductor I’d asked?
“So what is it?” I said.
Clume sighed, as if he were trying to explain some simple but vital concept to a dull child. “Do you know what the ‘Q compartment’ really is?”
A flutter of fear rose in my chest. “Of course I know what it is. Naturally, it’s this. If you’re asking me why this train has been delayed to such a ludicrous extent that I’ve been obliged to—”
“That’s not what I’m asking you,” said Clume gravely. “I’m asking if you know what the ‘Q compartment’ is.”
I stood glaring at him. His mouth twitched at the corners, as if he were concealing a smirk.
He said, “It’s for Quarantine.”
“What’s for quarantine?”
“The Q compartment,” said Clume. “That’s what I meant when I said I was mistaken when I said nothing was wrong with the train.”
He crossed his legs, rustling the synthetic fabric of his jogging pants.
“Utter nonsense,” I said.
Clume threw his hands up. “Okay,” he said. “I’m just here to tell you some information. Apparently a rumor’s been circulating. People on the train have been talking.”
“What people?”
“I don’t know,” said Clume. “People.”
He examined the tips of his fingers. I repressed a powerful urge to strangle his fleshy neck. Then, collecting myself, I decided to humor him.
“Why,” I asked, “would I be in quarantine? I am not ill. Are you in quarantine? Are you ill?”
“Ha!” he snorted.
“What’s funny?”
“Let me ask you a question,” he said. “Why are you still on this train? Didn’t you have somewhere to be?”
I felt my head fill up with blood. I remembered the gravy boat. My family, and the plump pillow.
“The train,” I said, “was delayed.”
“By what?”
“By, I presume, an accident.”
“I already told you,” said Clume, “that accident has nothing to do with this train.”
“Which accident?”
“The accident you just referred to several times.” He squeezed and poked at the moist-looking cupcake.
“Look, Mr. Clume,” I said. “If I’m in quarantine, then why am I free to roam this train as I please?”
“Are you?”
“How could I not be?” I laughed.
“Fine,” said Clume. “Roam the train.”
He tore off a bit of the cupcake and popped it in his mouth. He sat there chewing and looking at me.
“Get out,” I said.
Clume raised his eyebrows. “Me?”
“You’re like a bad dream,” I said. “An infection. You’re here and nowhere. I want you out.”
“Who’s nowhere?” said Clume.
“Out!”
He hopped up and oozed past me as I stood there shaking with frustration. I would have shoved him out the door had I not been so loath to touch his cringing form.
When he was gone I leaned against the door with my head in my hands, furious that I was now forced to contemplate the variety of absurd propositions uttered by the demented Clume. If only I could forget it all, go to sleep, and wake up to find that the train had gotten me home. As for Munktohnville and whatever holes still remained in the fragile texture of my research, whatever loose ends still lay about from the flurry of productivity in the final weeks of my sabbatical—whether or not I would have to go back and compile additional evidence, or reconsider certain of my earlier hypotheses—it would all have to wait until after the holiday, until after I’d had some rest.
While I stood there grappling with these thoughts, I began to hear muffled noises. I put my ear to the wall. At first I heard nothing. Then the noises resumed: a monotonous, repetitive moaning, then almost a lamentation or wailing. It would rise and subside, rise and subside. . . . Suddenly the voice burst out in a fit of what sounded like uncontrollable cursing. Then silence. The process repeated itself: moaning, wailing, fit of cursing, silence. I realized from the tone of the voice that it was the fat waistcoated man from the café car, whom I’d seen conversing with the elderly conductor. It was unmistakable. As I listened, I heard another voice, vibrous and murmuring, which belonged to the conductor himself. It was as if he were trying to calm or assuage the larger man, who was obviously in some type of distress.
I don’t know what made me press the call button. It was loosely attached, and I wondered if it was merely decorative. I didn’t think it could really summon anyone. At first nothing happened. But then the noises fell silent. I waited. There was a vague shuffling—something bumped against the wall—and the sound of a latch. After a few seconds, there came a knock at my door. I hesitated to open it, suddenly abashed, as if I had intruded or interrupted something.
The conductor stood facing me. His thinnish gray hair was disheveled, his large eyes mournful and red. He grinned up at me weakly: “Is there, um, something we can do?”
“I’m sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I hit the button by accident. But now, since you’re here, I am wondering . . . because of the unusual delay . . .” I fumbled for a question, but I was confused. I tried to remember what Clume had said. “Could you tell me, is this a ‘normal’ sleeping compartment?” I had framed my question poorly.
“Oh, oh yes,” he said, “it’s the normal kind. It’s quite normal. But, you know, with the upgrade.”
“The ‘Quality’?”
He seemed confused. “Yes, it has full quality.”
“But it’s not . . . special in any way.”
The conductor fidgeted with his hands nervously in front of his uniform coat. “Oh, well, we consider all of our passengers special guests.”
Whether or not it had something to do with the conductor’s speech or mannerisms—he appeared to be alone in the passageway—I felt a strong impression that somehow Clume, wherever he might have been, was overhearing our conversation.
“Let me ask you this,” I said. “I don’t have to stay in this compartment for the duration of the night, do I? Naturally, the rest of the train is open to the passengers?”
“The rest of the train? Well, I suppose it is. Did you, um, need something? A pillow?”
I thought of the warm pillow I’d anticipated earlier in the day—a crisp, sunny morning that seemed so long ago. “No,” I said. “But I might want to stretch my legs.”
“Oh,” said the conductor. “Stretch your legs—hmm.”
After some pleasantries and confused assurances, the conductor left me alone.
I listened to hear whether he would reenter the compartment adjacent to mine. Beneath me and around me the train hummed, hurtling down its track.
The walls were completely silent.
PERHAPS IT WAS CLUME’S INANE SUGGESTIONS, or the elderly conductor’s failure to address my concerns, or the fact that I may not have been able to clarify those concerns to myself. But at some point I decided to venture out.
Standing in the dimly lit passageway, I found no indication of the direction in which the regular section of the train might lie. I went left. When I came to the end of the car I pushed the rectangular button that opened the doors to the interstice between cars and continued through. This car was the same as the last—a narrow, carpeted passageway, also dimly lit, with three or four doors (presumably to sleeping compartments such as mine) on either side.
I passed through two or three more sleeping cars just like the previous ones—and while I was relieved to find that I was indeed perfectly free to “roam” the train as I pleased, yet I wondered whether all the other passengers with whom I’d been seated earlier were in fact occupying these compartments. I lingered outside the doors, listening for sounds of human activity—snoring, or conversation, or someone getting up to use the lavatory—but heard nothing. Perhaps this was simply on account of the very late hour.
When I passed through into the next car, I was struck with a sinking feeling. There, seated on a stool, was the elderly conductor.
As I came closer I saw that he appeared to be sleeping. Yet his body was slumped at an angle, as if he was very gradually falling off the stool. Carefully, I approached him. The conductor’s cap sat askew on his head, his eyes were shut, and his large hands rested in his lap, where the woolen coat was bunched up. He was wheezing softly.
All of this made a grim impression. Had he been placed here as a kind of sentry? (And if so, by whom?)
I reached out and prodded him lightly on the shoulder. He didn’t react. His face was slack, expressionless. Mottled. Somewhat corpselike. Almost peaceful.
Then his right eye opened, but only a bit, revealing part of the nacreous eye. Gradually it closed again.
What was I to make of this? I couldn’t ascertain whether he’d seen me; perhaps it was merely some sleep tic, a myoclonic jerk in the midst of a dream.
I began to maneuver around the stool. Since the conductor was blocking the middle of the passage, I had to suck in my stomach in order to slip through the narrow space.
I’d nearly gotten past him when I felt a hand pawing at my chest, and cried out as if in pain. The conductor was pulling weakly at my shirt.
“Nooo,” he whined, grasping at my arms.
“Please, stop that!” I shouted in a whisper. “I am going past.”
I was disgusted to find myself caught up in a physical struggle with the elderly man, as if he were trying to pin me against the wall or tickle me. His efforts continued, and I smelled the babyish custard smell as his breathing became labored.
“Um, the café car’s at the other end,” he protested. “Plus, it’s closed now, or . . . or it may be open for night snacks . . .”
“I don’t want any snack! Please, stop this behavior,” I insisted.
“Oh dear, um, if you need something, you can press the call button,” he said as he continued to grapple at me. “In your Preferred Traveler’s Kit, you’ll find—”
“Get. Off!” I grunted, shoving him away. I hurried to the end of the car, looking back over my shoulder.
“Oh, oh dear,” he whimpered. “It’s impossible . . .”
Moving quickly, since I couldn’t see whether he was attempting to pursue me, I slapped my hand on the button, and the doors to the next car flew open with a shudder. The interstice rocked abruptly, and I gripped the doorway for balance. The doors remained open as I passed through into the next car, and glancing back I saw the hunched silhouette of the conductor resting against the wall at the far end of the passageway.
Finally, the doors shut behind me. I lurched down the length of the car, smacked the button for the doors, rushed through into the next car, and the next one, and the one after that. Every car I passed through was exactly the same as the one before: narrow passageway, dull carpeting, dim lights, closed doors on either side. On and on I hurried, ever more frantic, increasing my pace and determination, though I had no idea where I was going or what I hoped to reach. How many sleeping cars can there have been? And where were all the passengers? What sort of accommodation had been made for all those people I’d glimpsed in their seats, contorted and dozing in the pools of reading light, collapsed or rigid or hunched over their trays? Should I have banged with my fists on the doors to those compartments, shouting aloud that there had been an accident, an emergency, that everyone should wake up and come out of their rooms? But I did none of that, as if it was already far too late for a warning. And would I have been able to say what it was that I was warning them about?
It seems unlikely that a train should have been so long. Perhaps some illusion of perpetuity was created through the cunning use of a trick. But at last I came to the end of the very last car.
There was no door here, only a small window, partially frosted over. I went up close and peered through it.
All I saw were the wooden ties, ribboning out behind the train for a little ways before disappearing in the darkness and snow.
ADMISSION: I HAD BEEN FOOLED. Yes, I had roamed “freely,” as it were, and had even gotten well beyond the point that the conductor had not wished for me to pass. Yet I now saw that all of this told me nothing with regard to the “Q compartment” and my ostensible access to the train as a whole. For couldn’t it have been possible that the entire expanse of cars I’d just traversed had all, in fact, been “Q”? And that I alone had been set loose to wander in this godforsaken zone? That, indeed, the conductor had planted himself at his stool post as a kind of decoy (hence the feigned struggles), and the section of the train forbidden to me (the section where the other passengers had been relocated?) had been in the opposite direction—that is, toward the front rather than the rear of the train?
But these ruminations were useless. In a flash of horror, I realized that Clume’s insinuations had contaminated my thinking, disabled my vigilance in precisely the manner he’d wished.
It was the briefcase.
I’d left it unattended—again. Good God. The Krupp-Nudenheim . . . the history, all those who had suffered . . . my months and months of effort . . .
Fine, his voice echoed in my memory, like a curse. Roam the train.
I spun around and set off at a full tilt. As I ran anguished through the empty cars I imagined the throttling I’d give the conductor, elderly or no, when I came upon him, conscious or not, perched on his stool. But no—there would be no time for a throttling, such measures would play further into Clume’s hand. I had to get back to my compartment, to the briefcase.
I ran faster, and at one point stumbled over some soft object on the floor, though I had no time to stop and look. I kept expecting to find the conductor, and his absence only increased my panic and doubt (could I be going in the wrong direction again?) until at last I emerged through a set of doors and found not the conductor, but Clume.
I was back at my own compartment.
Clume leaned casually against my door.
He was nothing but a cipher, a rag doll, a chattering toy. It occurred to me that almost all of my troubles had been caused by the mistake of my having acknowledged him as an entity. I shoved him aside (he giggled; I smelled wine) and entered the compartment.
The briefcase was there—lying beneath the washbasin where I’d left it. As I knelt down to open it and check the safety of my materials, Clume spoke from behind me.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
He had come into the room.
“Of course,” he said, “I’m not you. Ha!” (The sniffling laughter, the fondling of the sunken chin.) “My cousin used to say ‘I am I and you are you’ whenever we had a disagreement. She was such a card. Anyway,” he continued as I fumbled at the latch, “like I said, that type of research frequently has its hazards: there’s the fatigue, plus there’s always the chance that the subject matter has already been ‘handled,’ so to speak, by others—”
“Shut up!” I commanded.
“And those libraries—oof. All that dust. One has to consider one’s health.”
Grabbing the briefcase by its handle, I stood up. The blood rushed from my head. My vision went gray with a snow of spots.
“I am getting off this train,” I said.
“How?”
“I don’t care. I’ll notify the engineer of an emergency. I’ll feign an illness. I’ll jump out of a damned window if I have to.”
Clume stepped closer. He’d been sipping something loathsome; the fetid wine smell was nauseating. “Well,” he said, “I’ll tell you a piece of information. I happen to know that shortly there is going to be a stop. An ‘unofficial’ stop. The only one before the terminus—which, as you might fathom, is still quite a ways off.”
“Hmm, that’s so interesting,” I said. “Does it have to do with the ‘quarantine’?”
Clume pretended offense at my condescending tone.
“Actually,” he said, “it has to do with maintenance. No passengers allowed on or off. I think it’s a place called Munktinburg, or Martonburg, or . . .”
The train began to slow. I could feel it—wheels and gears grinding and groaning deep in the floor.
As if sensing the same thing, Clume grinned.
“Get out of my way!” I cried. Briefcase in hand (forget the rest of my belongings) I pushed past Clume into the passageway. This time I knew what I wanted: I turned right, toward the front. The train shuddered and I lost my balance as I came to the first set of doors. Clume was close behind. As I hit the button, bells started ringing.
“We never finished discussing our research!” he called out.
The doors opened only a crack, but (holding the briefcase between my knees) I forced them several inches apart and squeezed through into the interstice.
“You know,” Clume continued (he too was trying to squeeze through the doors), “I have to say that I think I disagree—respectfully, of course—with some of your premises.”
A loud siren began to whoop and wail over the noise of the bells and the sound of the train’s brakes grinding.
“For instance, some of those ‘walking cases.’ Couldn’t it have been that they only thought they were sick? . . .”
Thank God—here was an exit. The doors were shut, but there was a red lever marked EMERGENCY USE.
“Couldn’t it be,” he said, “that they got in the ambulance but somewhere along the way made a good-faith judgment that they were fine after all?”
I yanked on the lever and nothing happened. I stomped on it. Clume had nearly squeezed through the doors into the interstice and was reaching out his arm as if to grab me.
“It’s a personal judgment call, wouldn’t you say? Be true to thine own self, and so forth?”
“Aghh!” I grunted, heaving with all my strength on the emergency door’s handles. The train had stopped, and the sirens had reached a deafening pitch, over which Clume shouted:
“Of course, it’s easy to become confused . . .”
The doors sprang open—they were mounted on a sliding track—and a blast of cold wind rushed in. Getting on my knees, I began to lower myself off the side of the train.
“Deficiencies in moral character are sometimes known to result . . .”
My feet, kicking in space, at last found purchase on the ground, and I let myself down. A little squeal of pain escaped from my throat—I’d set my briefcase down while I was struggling with the doors; but the doors were still open, so I lunged up, reached inside and snatched it out. At the same time, Clume wedged his elbow in the doors, as though he were trying to follow me out of the train. I flung the briefcase behind me onto a bank of snow, and turned my attention to Clume’s arm, trying to stuff it back inside.
“Ow!” he yelped, retracting the arm partway. I grabbed the exterior handles and tried to force the doors shut. But they kept jouncing off Clume’s hand. And although I understood that rationally it didn’t make sense for me to be slamming the doors over and over on Clume’s hand, smashing it repeatedly, that was what seemed to be happening. In a kind of half dream I flung the doors together, so that they rebounded off the hand and came together once more, crushing the hand to a bloody pulp. (“Don’t worry,” he seemed to remark, quite matter-of-factly, in the midst of this punishment—“we’ve both handled the clipping.”) My face was bitten by the freezing wind and my shoes scrabbled on the icy ground as I threw my weight into the slamming of the doors.
“Uncanny behavior,” muttered Clume, who finally pulled his pulverized hand back inside the train.
I staggered back and collapsed onto the snowbank. Out of breath and delirious, I watched as the train’s machinery rocked slowly into gear, and it began to roll away.
And as I watched the cars glide past, I thought I saw people looking out at me from softly lighted windows: the elderly conductor and the grieving fat man in one window; in another, the sullen-faced woman with the yellow sweatshirt, and the grave-mannered café car attendant; in yet another, the carefully coifed head of the man with a nub for a hand.
There were many other faces in many other windows, all peering out at me—regretful, reproving, relieved—as they drifted past into the night. The one face I didn’t see, thank heaven, was Clume’s.
I AM NO LONGER CONVINCED THAT IT IS, IN FACT, the holiday season. Holiday is a time of cheerful and restful celebration with one’s family—and this is decidedly not that. There is no turkey here, and no pillow. There is no gravy here, unless by gravy you mean howling wind. It has been a long, long night.
Where is here? I am not, as yet, in a position to investigate that. Shortly after the train left, I found that my motor coordination was poor. Bells rang in my ears unremittingly. There were certain ocular difficulties. . . . It would require too much energy to describe them. Or I could put it this way: I felt as though I’d been hit in the head by a train, so to speak, and forgotten to take my medicine. (Ha!—is that an old saying?)
I staggered over a hill and through a wood, not to grandmother’s house, but to this structure in which I am currently—temporarily!—housed. I have no reason not to expect a prompt rescue and deliverance. Perhaps in the morning another train will pass through.
It now occurs to me that, in some sense (and despite the mess of papers scattered on the ground beside me), I believe I may have achieved the means to advance my research even further. True, I no longer have access to a library, and I may have to forgo, for some time, the beneficence of a Krupp-Nudenheim. But I have attained a power of mind that comes only when most of the senses have gone. I never expected the project to be easy. I like to think that today’s scholar, plunging boldly into our collective dream of history, revivifying the dormant past, is the stolid pioneer of a new era: an era of reembodied knowledge.
There . . . I believe I have felt a sensation in my toe. Perhaps my limbs, after a brief winter’s nap, are starting to reawaken to new life. Soon, indeed, the quickening will spread through me, as swiftly and surely as a fever, all the way up to my brain! Then—if I can only muster the verve to grab a pen—I will retrace my steps, stare down the evidence with a colder eye, and think my way to a new, uncharted place.