“When I felt it, I distracted myself by thinking instead about the mud people and what would happen to them. There was talk of judgment after death, and though the details seemed obtuse, this made sense. Surely El must eventually deal with them; this could not go on forever. He would reach an end to his patience. He would, I was certain, see the constancy of human failure—the only consistent thing about them—and destroy them all yet, for they grew worse, not better.”
She was pulling at the watch now in a way I found strange and distracting. And then I noticed with alarm that she was not toying or fiddling with the watch at all but digging her nails into the skin of her forearm above it so that it rose up in red welts and had even begun, in one place, to bleed.
Something about the sight of that struck me as particularly destructive—more so than if a human had done it —so that I instantly wanted, needed, to get away from her. I felt unable to breathe in the confined space of the car and got quickly to my feet as the train pulled into the station.
“Go to your party, Clay,” she called after me. “Go to your party,
There was something about the way she shouted my name that propelled me out the door, the skin on my back pricking as though it expected a knife thrust. I felt her eyes on me even after I hurried up the path to the street and the train receded toward Riverside.
Standing on the curb, I was glad for the chill, the sound of voices, the idling cars waiting on commuters. Despite the fact that I would not have had this latest portion to add to my account had I stayed in my apartment, I thought I never should have left.
As I searched for Phil’s gray Honda, I was disturbed, unable to push from my mind the image of her clawing at her skin as though it were a growth, a leech to be pulled away. And now, with that image in my mind, I must make conversation over mini-quiches, crab claws, imported cheeses, and macaroons—ask the appropriate questions of my colleagues’ spouses about their jobs and families. They, knowing of my divorce, would ask me about my work, which I did not want to talk about. I would deflect their questions with inquiries about their children and be regaled with Carolyn’s latest lacrosse accomplishments or Dayle’s college application or little Ravi’s latest rash. And because Helen had a particular talent for being everywhere in a group at once, she would no doubt make up for my deficit of family news by inquiring about the status of my manuscript in front of my peers. And I would have to come up with some way to explain the thing unfurling on my computer, including what it was called and when it would be done. Questions for which I had no answers.
A disturbing thought struck me then with such force that I halted on the curb just as Phil, double-parked down the street, opened the door to his Honda to wave at me.
I was not only writing an account of my every meeting with Lucian and each thing he told me; I had offered it as an excuse for my absences and lack of productivity. As an editor at Brooks and Hanover, I had a contractual obligation to show any of my work to our committee first.
The account could never have been published as memoir. No credible writer would claim it as nonfiction.
And then I knew: Lucian hadn’t expected me to. I was an editor of fiction with a yearning to write—and more important, publish—again.
The fiend had played me perfectly.
18
In the days following Helen’s Christmas party, I told myself I was finished—with the story and possibly writing in general. Even if I saw the demon, I would write no more. But then, I knew, would come the lilt of his voice, wending its way through my memory. I wouldn’t be able to bear it if I couldn’t expel the words onto the page like a medieval surgeon bleeding himself into a bowl to cure himself of ill humors.
So I would write only to rid myself of it, but I would shred the pages. And I would delete the account beckoning to me from my hard drive like a Lorelei.
But even as I thought this, I knew I wouldn’t.
At least I wouldn’t publish it. I would tell Helen it wasn’t working, that the well had gone dry, that I had a phenomenal case of writer’s block. She would have no choice but to accept it.
But I didn’t talk to Helen because the truth was this: I wanted it. I wanted the story, and I wanted to publish it. I had access to something no one else did, a story too fantastical to stay in the drawer. And like Cassandra of myth, I could never purport to be telling the truth without being seen as a liar, a lunatic, or worse. But I could sheath it in fiction, where lies were warmly welcomed.
Meanwhile, as though to punish my vacillation, five full days passed in silence.
I stared at the papers on my desk. I returned to the chronicle on my computer.
SHEILA CLOSED MY DOOR and came to stand at the corner of my desk, her arms crossed not so much in front of her as around herself, her hands clasping her upper arms as though she were cold.
“Yes?” I didn’t bother to disguise my impatience with her hallway request to talk to me. I was practically unable to look at her of late and found the way her wasting state garnered sympathetic inquiries from others nauseating.
“Clay, I need a favor.”
“Yes?” I repeated.
“I know you haven’t seen Dan much since your divorce. . . .” She unfolded her arms and pulled at her hands as if they ached. Her lips looked chapped, as though they would crack and bleed if she merely grimaced. “But right now, I don’t know what’s going through his head.”
I looked at her.
“I thought if you could talk to him, it might help.” Her eyes were shining but did not seem to have the energy to well over.
“Excuse me?”
