White Noise - Don Delillo [95]
Three nights later I wandered into Heinrich’s room, where the TV set was temporarily located. He sat on the floor in a hooded sweat-shirt, watching live coverage of the same scene. The backyard was floodlit, men with picks and shovels worked amid mounds of dirt. In the foreground stood the reporter, bareheaded, in a sheepskin coat, in a light snow, giving an update. The police said they had solid information, the diggers were methodical and skilled, the work had been going on for over seventy-two hours. But no more bodies had been found.
The sense of failed expectations was total. A sadness and emptiness hung over the scene. A dejection, a sorry gloom. We felt it ourselves, my son and I, quietly watching. It was in the room, seeping into the air from pulsing streams of electrons. The reporter seemed at first merely apologetic. But as he continued to discuss the absence of mass graves, he grew increasingly forlorn, gesturing at the diggers, shaking his head, almost ready to plead with us for sympathy and understanding.
I tried not to feel disappointed.
30
IN THE DARK the mind runs on like a devouring machine, the only thing awake in the universe. I tried to make out the walls, the dresser in the corner. It was the old defenseless feeling. Small, weak, deathbound, alone. Panic, the god of woods and wilderness, half goat. I moved my head to the right, remembering the clock-radio. I watched the numbers change, the progression of digital minutes, odd to even. They glowed green in the dark.
After a while I woke up Babette. Warm air came rising from her body as she shifted toward me. Contented air. A mixture of forgetfulness and sleep. Where am I, who are you, what was I dreaming?
“We have to talk,” I said.
She mumbled things, seemed to fend off some hovering presence. When I reached for the lamp, she gave me a backhand punch in the arm. The light went on. She retreated toward the radio, covering her head and moaning.
“You can’t get away. There are things we have to talk about. I want access to Mr. Gray. I want the real name of Gray Research.”
All she could do was moan, “No.”
“I’m reasonable about this. I have a sense of perspective. No huge hopes or expectations. I only want to check it out, give it a try. I don’t believe in magical objects. I only say, ‘Let me try, let me see.’ I’ve been lying here for hours practically paralyzed. I’m drenched in sweat. Feel my chest, Babette.”
“Five more minutes. I need to sleep.”
“Feel. Give me your hand. See how wet.”
“We all sweat,” she said. “What is sweat?”
“There are rivulets here.”
“You want to ingest. No good, Jack.”
“All I ask is a few minutes alone with Mr. Gray, to find out if I qualify.”
“He’ll think you want to kill him.”
“But that’s crazy. I’d be crazy. How can I kill him?”
“He’ll know I told you about the motel.”
“The motel is over and done. I can’t change the motel. Do I kill the only man who can relieve my pain? Feel under my arms if you don’t believe me.”
“He’ll think you’re a husband with a grudge.”
“The motel is frankly small grief. Do I kill him and feel better? He doesn’t have to know who I am. I make up an identity, I invent a context. Help me, please.”
“Don’t tell me you sweat. What is sweat? I gave the man my word.”
In the morning we sat at the kitchen table. The clothes dryer was running in the entranceway. I listened to the tapping sound of buttons and zippers as they struck the surface of the drum.
“I already know what I want to say to him. I’ll be descriptive, clinical. No philosophy or theology. I’ll appeal to the pragmatist in him. He’s bound to be impressed by the fact that I’m actually scheduled to die. This is frankly more than you could claim. My need is intense. I believe he’ll respond to this. Besides, he’ll want another crack at a live subject. That’s the way these people are.”
“How do I know you won’t kill him?”
“You’re my wife. Am I a killer?”
“You’re a man, Jack. We all know about men and their insane rage. This is something men are very good at. Insane and violent jealousy. Homicidal rage. When people are