The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [148]
by thought on thought into a knot,
from which, with much desire,
your mind awaits release.
The Divine Comedy, DANTE ALIGHIERI
chapter 50
09:36
“My uncle Hector used to pick me up from boarding school on Fridays and drive me to his cabin in the mountains. …” Russo’s voice trailed off, to pick up an instant later in a lower tone. “He lived there with a quiet woman, Beth. I never called her anything else. I don’t think they were married, but they shared the kind of relationship I’ve sought all my life. I remember their faces and shapes, even their smell, but the image that keeps coming to mind is of moving lips. They spoke to each other often, in low voices, almost whispers, so that I couldn’t overhear their conversations. But she frequently blushed and lowered her eyes with a smile.
“In the evenings, Beth would sit by the fire, hum, and rock her chair until I settled at her feet. Then, without taking her eyes from the fire, she would reach to a shelf by her side and pick up a book. She had many books, and I think the random selections added to her pleasure. Sometimes it was Kipling, other times Virginia Woolf, or Pasternak, or Capote. She would read in the same tone of voice that she spoke—low and throaty, as if she kissed the words. My uncle would join us, having lit a huge briar pipe, much stained by age. He would close his eyes and seem to doze but for the glow of his tobacco and the wisps of smoke escaping his lips. Some evenings I fell asleep at Beth’s feet; on other nights, she would glance at the clock and close the book. Then my uncle would stand, pocket his pipe, and walk me to my room while Beth closed the house for the night. They never went to bed together—I mean, not at the same time. From my door left ajar, I could look down the corridor and peek at Beth entering their bedroom. A little later, freshly shaven, my uncle would tiptoe in like a thief. A smiling thief.”
Floyd Carpenter reached for a glass of juice and placed the straw between Eliot’s parched lips.
“I got lost in the snow when I was eleven. We weren’t far from the house, just checking a few traps my uncle had laid for rabbits. I still don’t know what happened, but the wind hurled powdered snow into the air and I was blinded. I shouted his name, but I couldn’t beat the wind. I had seen a clump of pines a few hundred yards to my left and headed there. My uncle had taught me well. When I reached the tree line, I dug out a hole, tore a few low branches to cover it up, and slipped underneath with a long stick to keep poking open an air vent. It was cold and pitch-dark and I couldn’t stop shivering. I knew I was going to die. In that endless night, I learned the pliable nature of time. All that I could remember afterward was blackness and cold stretching into eternity and Beth’s voice as she narrated Marco Polo’s splendid travels.
“When I saw light at the end of the hole, I dug myself out. No.” Russo made a wry movement with his mouth and shook his head a fraction. “My hands were numb and I couldn’t move my arms well, so I gathered impetus and stood up, banging my head on the roof of twigs. It took a few tries but I managed it. Beth was only twenty yards away, with eyes grown too large for her face. Then she started screaming. I had never heard her do that before.”
“Is that what sustained you?” Laurel’s question sounded redundant, but she voiced it anyway.
“I must have denied the tank.”
“What do you mean?” Lukas asked.
“Things exist only if you acknowledge them. An insult is only sound; it needs your collaboration to have impact.”
Lukas nodded. “So you refused to accept the tank’s existence and shrank instead into the cold and darkness of your childhood snow hole.”
Laurel reached for Floyd’s hand and breathed deeply, awed before the capacity of the human mind to clutch at selected memories to survive and feeling sorry for the lonely being imprisoned in Russo’s skin and skull. Most men would be raving mad after what Russo had gone through, and that would have played heavily in Tyler’s mind when planning the