Читать книгу The Long-Shining Waters - Danielle Sosin - Страница 16

2000

Nora stands on the blackened threshold, keys in hand. There is no door. It’s cold and wet and everything stinks like fire, though it’s not the smell of a fireplace. It’s the smell of things you’re not supposed to burn, vinyl and plastic; the stench is bad. Her heart beats in her ears as she takes a step forward, uncertain whether the floor will hold.

Weak light angles down from a large patch of sky framed in stumps of charred wood. What’s left of the bar is largely unrecognizable, mounds of blackened and soggy debris. She lifts a metal pole and pokes through a pile. A broken picture frame. Part of a drawer. It could be her stuff, it could be Rose’s—it’s hard to tell since there’s no floor keeping their things separated.

She always imagined firemen putting out fires as if that were that, but it’s impossible to say which caused more damage, the fire itself or their water hoses. She pulls her sweater up over her nose, but it’s no match for the acrid smell. She pokes at broken glass and table legs, water soaking through her shoes.

Edging herself behind the bar, she peers into the long mirror. It’s broken and sooty. Her face doesn’t show.

Nora stands unmoving where she’d stood so many years, as a sensation of heaviness sinks through her body, anchoring her feet to the floor. She should simply get out. She knows it’s dangerous.

A plane passes overhead, leaving a vapor trail like a zipper in the sky. She’s chilled right through. It looks like a boxcar came down on her pool table. It’s Rose’s refrigerator. There are dark recesses and unrecognizable shapes, tiny sounds that she can’t discern.

Nora lifts one foot just to know that she can, then tries the other but the toe of her shoe is caught. With her pole she uncovers a piece of netting to find it’s holding a glass float. Fist sized and bottle green, it’s filthy and dripping, but somehow intact. A feeling wells in her chest. She can’t even tell whether it’s happiness or sadness.

She should walk away.

She doesn’t have the strength.

If she leaves, there will be no going back.

She’s knows that she’s not making sense.

There’s a rumbling train, and the metal-on-metal shriek.

She can’t leave, and it’s starting to scare her.

She doesn’t expect a miracle—the cigarette machine to blink on, or the bottles to reconstruct and line up on the riser.

Something else is in the room. She senses its presence in the shadows.

She can’t even move her arms.

Slap. She feels the sound in her chest. A pigeon bolts from the kitchen, and Nora flies.

Burt Schnell slips a free fifth of vodka into Nora’s bag.

“Thanks,” she manages. “That’s nice of you.” She doesn’t realize her fingers are sooty until she holds out her hand for change.

“What a loss,” he says, “a crying shame. I remember when we were kids, my dad would bring us in for burgers. Me and my sister used to practically kill each other trying to get the bar stool across from Josephine.”

Nora nods and feels her throat tighten. She hadn’t thought of Josephine, her carved figurehead behind the bar.

“And the thing is,” Burt continues, “the Schooner hadn’t changed a bit. It was timeless, you know, like real places are.” He shakes his head. “Irreplaceable. So what are you going to do now? It’s hard to imagine you anywhere else.”

“I know.” She slides her bag off the counter. “I can’t think that far ahead yet.”

Nora puts the liquor in the front seat and drives to the supermarket at the other end of the lot.

She’s standing in a row of detergents and fabric softeners, flanked by orange and pink plastic bottles. Everything is absurd. The bright swirling labels. The moms wheeling their kids in shopping carts. The “everyday low prices.” The bulk peanuts.

Water douses the produce, but no one seems to notice.