while ago that I’d hit anything.”
“You trying to tell me you didn’t hear him scream?”
Jan winced. “I’m sorry, Mr. Novotny. Believe me, I-”
“Bullshit,” Novotny said. “You didn’t stop. You didn’t even slow down.”
“I had a headache, a bad headache. It’s a chronic condition-”
“That’s no damn excuse.”
“I know that. I know I shouldn’t have been out driving. I’m not trying to excuse myself, I’m only trying to tell you how badly I feel about the accident.”
“Sure you do.”
“Worse than you can imagine. I’d like to make it up to you somehow, if you’ll let me. Perhaps buy you another dog, any kind you-”
Novotny hung up on him.
Jan sat holding the receiver for a time before he cradled it. Then he got up again, went into the kitchen. Alix, wearing a pair of old jeans and one of his old shirts, her hair tied back with a scarf, was up on a stepladder scouring the smoke-grimed ceiling with abrasive cleaner and a sponge. Her face was flushed and shiny with perspiration.
“I talked to Mitch Novotny,” he said.
She stopped her scrubbing and looked down at him. “What did he say?”
“He doesn’t believe me that it was an accident. He hung up when I offered to buy him a new dog.”
“Maybe you should try talking to him in person.”
He nodded. “But not today. After he’s had a chance to cool down.”
“Whatever you think best.”
She returned to her cleaning, still with that vehement determination. He watched for half a minute, wondering if he should offer to help. No. Any other time she would have been pleased if he had, but not now. She needed to be alone a while longer, needed to finish regrouping.
He left her and climbed the stairs to the second floor. The idea of physical labor, the kind Alix was doing which didn’t require thinking, appealed to him too; perhaps it would help him regroup. He continued up to the lightroom. In one corner was the lighthouse’s diaphone, removed from its mounting halfway down the westernmost cliff wall when the Coast Guard abandoned the station in 1962. The air compressor that had operated it was also there, along with most of its four-inch air line.
Diaphones fascinated him; he intended to do a full chapter on them in Guardians of the Night. Large or small, they produced an amazing amount of noise and vibration-one high-pitched note that could be heard during most kinds of weather for a distance of seven miles, one low-pitched note, or “grunt,” that could be heard much farther away. The volume of compressed air that passed through the instrument, even at a pressure of thirty pounds, was so enormous that the actual operating time of the diaphone was seldom more than eight seconds per minute. He had had the pleasure (if you could call it that) of standing within fifty feet of the big diaphone at the Point Reyes Light-house, near San Francisco, when it was in operation; any closer than that and it would have damaged his eardrums. He had literally been able to feel the noise and vibration all over his skin.
He assembled his tools and began to dismantle this one, taking time and care so as not to damage its working parts. Inside the cylinder, the brass reed-shaped somewhat like an automobile piston-that was the diaphone’s heart looked to be free of corrosion, and it moved freely enough when he tested it. When you pumped compressed air past the reed, it vibrated back and forth in short strokes, rather than rotating as the reeds in the air sirens that had preceded diaphones as the preemptory fog-signal had; that produced the high-pitched note. You got the grunt by rapidly diminishing the quantity of air being fed to the reed.
He cleaned the reed and the other interior parts, reassembled the instrument, and cleaned and polished the outer brass casing. Then he examined the compressor and its air line. The line looked to be in reasonably good condition, considering its age; the compressor was dusty and needed cleaning, but he thought it would probably work well enough. He tinkered with it for a time, confirming his suspicion-and then found himself wondering if the diaphone would actually work after all these years. If he could make it work. Mount it outside somewhere away from the lighthouse, run the lines, see what happened. A test, an experiment-why not?
The thought intrigued him. A-1 Marine in Hilliard would probably have compressed air tanks. Better yet, he could pick them up while he was in Portland next week.
There was nothing more to occupy his attention in the lightroom; he went from there into his study. He felt somewhat better now. His labor with the diaphone and the prospect of operating it had temporarily crowded the death of Novotny’s dog, all his other fears, into the back of his mind. More work on the book? Yes, while he was still in a productive mood. He sat down before the Underwood, loaded and fired another of his pipes, and plunged into work without any of his usual mild procrastinations.
Lighthouse construction. Basic design of the modem light-house originated by John Smeaton in 1757-famous Eddystone Light in the English Channel near the town of Plymouth (where tallow candles served to light its beacon for more than fifty years). Stone tower in place of wood. Huge blocks of granite weighing upwards of a ton each, cut so that they interlocked-not only on the flat first course but from one course to the next above. This pattern of construction used as a model for future lighthouses worldwide…
It went well. Eight and a half pages. And all of the material, he felt, incisive and informative without being dry or pedantic. He lost all track of time, so that when Alix appeared at his side, startling him slightly, to announce that dinner was ready, he said, “Dinner? My God, is it that late?”
“Almost eight.”
He glanced over at the window. Dusk had fallen without his having noticed it. He rolled his head, stretching the tightened muscles in his neck and shoulders. After a moment Alix moved over behind him and began to massage the tight area, her thumbs kneading along his fourth cervical vertebra. That, and the weariness that had replaced the anxiety and anger in her expression, told him that it was all right between them again. At least for now.
He said, “Wasn’t it my turn to cook tonight?”
“I came up earlier, but you were so involved I decided not to disturb you.”
“Thanks. I’ll take mess duties tomorrow and Monday.”
They went downstairs. Pan-fried chicken, asparagus, a small salad. Beck’s for him, white wine for her. He ate with some appetite; Alix picked at her food. They made small talk at first-neutral topics. Then he told her about the diaphone, and they discussed her next illustration (the Eddystone Light), and after that they were no longer awkward with each other. They cleaned up the dishes together, went upstairs, she read his pages, they went to bed. And during all of it he felt almost relaxed, normal, as if nothing ugly had happened last night, as if their life together weren’t about to change so radically that neither of them would ever be the same again.
But the feeling of normalcy was an illusion, a lie erected by his mental defenses. It was his body that told the truth. He had the desire to make love, once they were in bed, and Alix was willing, but there was no physical response in his loins; it was as if he had gone dead from the waist down. Alix’s touch, always electric, did nothing for him. He had never had this kind of failure, no failure at all except for the one time he’d gotten a little too high on champagne punch at the faculty New Year’s Eve party.
“It’s okay,” she murmured against his ear, “don’t worry about it,” but it wasn’t okay. It was another thing that frightened him. What if this wasn’t just an isolated instance? What if he became permanently impotent as well as permanently blind? Pain, deterioration both physical and mental-unmanned in every way.
What if I did hit that dog on purpose? I don’t remember, I don’t remember…
He held her tight and began to stroke her slowly, gently, concentrating his caresses on her clitoris, concentrating his thoughts on her instead of himself. In the dark she whispered, “You don’t have to,” and he thought, Yes I do, and said, “I want to,” and after a while she came shuddering against him, with her face turned sideways against his chest. And even her orgasm did nothing to arouse him. Nothing at all.
Her face still pressed to his chest, she whispered, “Oh, Jan, I love you.”
“I love you too,” he said, and thought: That’s enough, isn’t it? Even at the end, when the darkness comes, it’ll be enough.
He went to sleep holding her, loving her, and not believing any of it.
