STORY: Lake Geneva (full)

(This is the story in full and revised)


The old man's head looked like an abandoned hornet nest rotting in the cranny of a barn. He was grey and papery as if his skin might flake and crumble like fish overcooked in a skillet. He was given to the porch in the mornings where from his wheelchair he played sentinel over the farmlands, until the house staff, judging the zenith of that day's heat, dispatched, and pushed him back inside the house to the road-facing windows, where he would resume the watch, looking there against the blaze like an elder planet waiting on a dying sun.

It was at those windows the old man spotted a black Plymouth coming down the rows of corn like a rhinoceros in the high grass, agitating him, him ringing his bell, swinging it violently while gripping the wheelchair with his free hand, until the house girls with queer looks for each and the other, came to him, and heard him demand again the porch, making no more sense than usual to these adolescents from town.

"It is a Plymouth, you understand? Not Chrysler, a Plymouth -- I want the porch, quickly!"

It took two girls to move him through the parlor, past the hunting trophies and the old gravelly maps, to the front hall, and there a final dip to the porch; with the courage befitting the senior girl on staff, one asked the old man what the difference was between the Plymouth and the Chevrolet.

"Plymouth and Chrysler, not Plymouth and Chevy; a Chrysler is a shylock not so far from dirty fingernails that he'll try to rob us outright. But the Plymouth, such as that there, that's for the pure and high fascist -- a man who thinks God made him for policing the rest of us even beyond the outskirts of where he ought to place himself. The porch! Go!"

And they did.

The girls did not think the man in the Plymouth looked like a

copper. He was handsome. He wore a grey suit and a grey fedora; coppers never wore clothes as this in the pictures.

The man took down his hat and swung it across his body as hello to the girls. He nodded and turned away from them and to the sun as if to spotlight himself. Handsome, but he was odd; later the girls would all agree it was his face: the smooth forehead and lean jaw, the blu-black grid of hair tamped down from the hat -- these, fittings of vitality, but loose-fitting; and behind it, the preabundant experience of great age. When the man smiled his teeth were grey. The suit was light linen, but it was ninety degrees, he stood in then sun, and did not sweat.

"David Ross?"

The old man picked a mosquito off his nose, "Yes?"

"It was told that David Ross who owns a farm up this way, as well many thousands of acres, could show me the way to Lake Geneva."

"No one told you that." The old man said.

"Can you show me the lake?"

"Naah. It's a long way. That's Swiss."

"A man's name is Demidov."

"See my chair? I'm not much for hikes these days. I know this

Demidov never told you such a thing."

The man in the suit looked over the girls lined up in the shade.

"I said, a man's name is Demidov. I said, It was told."

"Well what's that supposed to mean, sir?"

"It means speech is overheard as often as told. We talk to

ourselves. We hear it. God overhears it. Sometimes others."

"Maybe this Demidov is the man you should talk to."

"I'm looking for the lake, Mr. Ross. It is told this lake is

unreachable wilderness, a curiosity. As for Demidov -- when I see him again it won't be for directions."

The Old Man smiled. The other, in the suit, was dry; if it was a joke what he said, he gave no cue. He took his hat down again, and examined it as if it had yet to be purchased.

"I think it's time you went back the way you came." The old man said.

The man in the suit took a package of cigarettes from his jacket, tapped two free. He stepped to the stairs, and reached one out to Old Ross; it was received along with a match, lit and inhaled.  Ross waved the girls away from their hiding places behind him, and they obeyed, going inside the house. Ross wheezed over the smoke.

"If I ask again for you to leave, sir?"

"I'll leave. And soon I will come back. I will see the lake if

I have to burn every tree, every crop, every acre; it will be

purged; I'll make a lake of fire. Your acquaintance, Demidov: he has said you are the man to show me this lake. This lake I desire to be shown.

Ross rubbed the cigarette against the arm of the chair.

"Demidov -- I am not like him."

"I know perfectly well what you are, David Ross, what I don't

know yet is what the lake is. I would like supper. I would like

a bath, supper, and a room tonight. Tomorrow I would appreciate your guidance to the lake. The lake you showed the Russian."

The man in the suit blew smoke rings, halos in the sun.

"Have the girls show you in."

The man in the suit put his hand on Ross's trembling fist.

"Capital."

As he walked past the wheelchair, his hand remained on Ross's.

The old man asked him, "What's your name?"

"Witten you can call me."

They took dinner in the kitchen. Old Ross had his Frenchman cook, and the girls on duty to audience his stories, to pour wine, the two men, Old Ross and Witten, taking dinner huddled around a small table in the kitchen rather than the dining room.

"Take Phillip here: a despicable man, but what a cook."

Ross motioned for wine, and the girls came.

"Tonight we have a prize!"

On cue the girls came back from the cold pantry marching into the great long kitchen like graduates, three of them carrying a roll of paper that looked like rifles wrapped for transport across lines of state; they angled awkwardly; the cook waved them impatiently; Old Ross clapped his hands to the rhythm of their struggle. It was a heavy surprise.

Finally to the Frenchman's mis-en-place the girls dumped the package.

"Bring one here, Phillip."

The cook rolled his eyes, and from the paper hefted into the light a great dead fish, three feet long; by the strain the Frenchman showed it had to weigh the same as one of those girls.  Witten placed his cigarette on the floor, "It's a trout." He said.

Old Ross with the piggish smirk of drunkenness, "Caught yesterday."

The cook slapped the brown trout down on the table, an impressive declaration of it's weight that noise -- a triple exclamation point.

Witten reached, and touched the cool dry scales, "Where was it caught?"

"I can take you to the place," Ross said, "The only place where they can be found; a different place. For tomorrow."

"It's a beautiful fish." Witten said.

"Just a baby." Ross said.

"Lake Geneva." Witten said.

And again, with serene finality, "Lake Geneva. Tomorrow. Before dawn."

Old Ross's smile went away, he sunk into his heft, "An early start.

Snap, snap, Phillip." The cook took the fish back, and chopped off the head with a hatchet.

They ate soon after; they drank wine late on from Phillip retiring, the girls at the perimeter of the room waiting on Old Ross to order up more wine or bread, which he did often, as he recalled to his guest the expeditions evidenced by the game so carefully displayed throughout the house: the Canadian bears; the lions; Africa in '22, Tasmania in '27. Of these exploits he told for himself; Old Ross was quite sure, (how, he could not explain), that this Mr. Witten already knew of these things; all the dirty work, the truth from the lies; it was a viny haze, of course, that made Witten look so familiar, like a soldier, maybe huntsman, or guide, out of deep past.

It is a particular kind of drunk to wind down with talk on the

poets. But here was Ross to Witten, "I presume you read Latin and Greek, and not in translation??

"I do."

"Give me an Englishman. In English."

"Then Master William's your agent?" Said Witten.

"No, no. That one? No soul. An ignorant, a void, Shakespeare.

Gets himself in ruts, makes up words; decapitations and rapes -- the worst of all writers."

"I thought the bloodshed would appeal to you." Witten said.

Ross waited for Witten to avert those old eyes, but Ross lost the contest.

"Tomorrow." Witten said.

"Yes, tomorrow."

"It will be the lake, David."

"Indeed."

Witten stood, took his jacket from the seat-back, and bowed with his good night. As he walked out he said, "I would have had you a man for the Scottish play, Ross; your kin after all, consorting with witches and demons -- animals eating upon other animals."

And he was gone. The girls helped Old Ross to his chair. He was asleep before they could push him into his rooms.

When the girls woke each other two hours before dawn, Old Ross was not in the house. They went to chores. They set breakfast out. Lunch. Phillip served them cold dinner. It was silent in the kitchen. It was the old man's wake; they all thought it.

But all that day Ross lived: he passed on to the outskirts of his lands, with Witten driving the farm's truck, and not the Plymouth, onto wild paths as far as that vehicle could climb, until the next night when they disembarked.

Old Ross wrote the directions to continue on foot from where Wittenstopped the truck at the crust of a stony hill, but Witten surprised Ross by lifting him from the truck, and carrying him up the hill. His strength was terrifying; he held Ross with one arm while the other produced a small leather cup.

"Take this cup. Every thirty steps you must drop a stone from

it. Do this as I've said."

Ross took the cup without comment, but his thought was obvious: He does not plan to carry me back.

Witten carried the old man for many miles, slowly, listening to Ross's directions, making his path in the dark as the tree and bush closed in; he never labored under the weight. Ross was obedient in dropping the stones -- curios polished dabs of rock.

Then finally, abruptly, they came out of the trees on a high ridge,before even Ross expected, and stretching before them was the low elbow inlet, a glimmer, a ghost, the dark water.

"There." Ross said. "Beyond that island the lake opens up, and my boat is there. Bring me. There is a cabin, sir. We can stay there."

"The hill will do us fine." Witten said, as he lowered Ross to

the grass.

It was a warm clean night the kind one could lay in a field and sleep on dry grass. Ross heard no insects. Witten sat with him.

"Why try to get me on the water at night?
Ross ignored him.

"You don't remember me." Witten said.

Ross looked over, "I think I should.", and the old man again

searched that flip book of years and peoples, hunting camps and military outposts, for the answer to the face in the murk so close to him.

Witten said, "Lewiston. Drumnadrochit. When you were a boy."

To himself Ross said, "I remember."

"You were the boy who first saw the thing in the Loch."

"And you believed me."

"Because you told the truth." Witten said.

"I asked you to take me with you."

"You were a boy."

"That was seventy years ago." Ross said, "And you haven't aged."

"I have. I certainly have."

"Did you find her?"

"The animal was not killed for sport like your trophies; each of them that gets down here is a bandit at the perimeter of our village. Someone must carry the sword. You asked me just now to go down to your boat; you would have me go out on that water where what you hide would be as that same metaphor, and cut me down for the transgression. No matter your thinking is backward, I know you would go on the boat, and die with me, to protect the lake.  Maybe it was a mistake leaving you in Scotland."

Old Ross wept. He could not annunciate for who, for what, but he did. Witten laid back on the grass. Old Ross knew he could not kill this thing beside him, so he sat and thought until the sun rose behind them, making all that was a murmur in the night anxious noise.

Witten awoke. Tied his shoes. And walked down to the lake.

Walked along the beach, gathered stones. Skipped some.

From the ridge Ross heard him whistling. The skipping stones became arcing heaves. Then he seemed satisfied, and Witten turned his back on the lake, and looked up to Ross squatting on the ridge.  Then there: the tell-sign double ripple scything the surface water.

Old Ross stuttered. It might have been a warning had it come

out. But nothing came. Let the bastard figure it out himself.

A murky tan came to the water, extending like the building of

railroad track, it grew in the direction of Witten and the beach.

Ross was still.

The head breached. An anvil thrice as wide as the neck that lifted it. Ross waited for the moment he had seen before, and secretly delighted in; when Demidov had seen the creature, his people along, the one cavorting with a female on the beach as entertainment for the rest, got a nasty surprise for his grunting; but the snake hung there like a gargantuan marionette swaying, never dipping, never snapping.

Great eyesight was the gift of youth that stayed with Ross, and he noticed a peculiarity: Witten, his back to the creature, looking at the sand, was whispering. Then Witten faced the creature, as calmly as if the thing had softly called his name. The snake sunk down into the water until only tiny black eyes and crown showed.

Old Ross blinked. He rubbed sweat out from under his chin.

The creature snatched Witten and took him under the water.

Ross slumped, hypnotized by this finale. Once the water stilled it stayed that way.

Ross touched his legs. Sensation even now. Nostalgia of days

when he could climb and walk and make his way wild back to the farm; even the bad days, the trench days, days running parallel to a thing, and sighting down it's demise -- these days seemed good.

He would die out here. But the man in the suit was dead. The

lake was safe. So be it. Not even Demidov could find his way

back. No man would come here until the world changed.

Ross laid back on the grass, closed his eyes, and let the sun

burn him into afternoon. Dying time. What trip should he dream to finalize it?

A nine year old boy. Three days from sneaking out from the home, his mother's sister's, to see It, and the strange Americans who had come and spoke to him in the kitchen his aunt's, as to what he thought he had seen out in the black water of the Loch.

He went back. He thought boy's thoughts how it would not end this way, with he, the boy, sulking home in the cold morning to the obedience of a beating; to orphanhood, that curse. This was all that would ever matter to this boy, the moon shining on the ascent of that other creature; had not Americans come for him?

A lifetime later, one long hunt, the boy who became the man

Ross, his farms successed, his home a museum to the miles he had walked in wild lands, followed the Indians up into the forest to the high lake for the first time, and there, tricked by the Indians, met the second such creature of his life, lost the boat, and his legs. Thus branded, thus grounded from the old blood jaunts, hobbled as if slave to the monster, Ross showed obedience, as beatings taught him, to the thing that done it. And all he had thought of in the moments when the snake broke him was: What if those Americans had taken me on? Sun fevered, his mind drew shapes as roads to and fro: my life began with a creature, and for a dream I gave that creature to Witten. A foolish boy becomes

just a fool; one who stomped into the world, and made himself the killer he thought those Americans must be, until the second creature revenged him his ignorance. And all these years late, finally retribution: Witten to the creature for the first creature given to Witten -- And Why not? Why not die right now? This instant!

A dozen young men stood over Ross. Thompson guns. White shirts.  Handsome faces. Americans.

"David Ross? We're gonna move you, sir."

"Why?"

"Time to go home, sir."

"Then I'm not dead?"

"No, sir."

"No. Of course not. Angels don't carry Tommy."

The soldiers lifted him. Later he felt them place him in the back of some vehicle. He thumped down through the woods. When the flap opened he saw crops.

He remembered they carried him into the house, through the empty parlor, and into the kitchen where more men were seated, eating Phillip's supper, drinking up the house's wine, and smoking so much tobacco that a fog of it divided the room horizontally.

They set Ross at his table. Phillip came with cabbage and beer.  Ross questioned none of it, but ate his cabbage, and drank his cup. The house girls waved at him from far away. Something about that bothered him.

Ross chewed cabbage. He looked through the smoke and bodies, and saw Witten sitting in the corner with three young soldiers around him, they taking his instruction. Then Witten left, escaping through the back pantry tunnels.

A young man brought Ross more beer. He drank it.

Later the polite boy came again, and asked Ross's permission to take him in his chair to the porch. Other boys disappeared through doorways.

Witten was on the porch. Smoke rings. The boy put Ross in his usual place as if they has always done this.

"Is she gone then?" Ross asked.

Witten flicked the cigarette to the yard. He said, "The choice

is, relinquish control of the house and lands to my men, live out your days here, or refuse.

"How did you do it?" Ross asked.

Witten went by that, "Cooperation. Feel thankful giving this place to me. Better than what you gave in your life."

"I was a soldier."

"And the women?"

"To Hell with you."

"The Englishman, David. Remember. My men stay on here, and when you die it's theirs -- the farm, the forest, and the lake."

"The creature. What of it? What is it?"

"I'm not dickering with you."

"How did you escape?"

"It let me go."

"No." Ross said.

"Yes."

"You killed her."

"No, Ross, you killed her. You killed many hers. That down there is a beast, not a her."

Witten stood up. He lit a last cigarette.

"You are a ghost." Ross whispered.

Witten said, "The thing broke you because that thing was your judge. You know that. But do not think the creature judges me.

Good night."

Witten walked off the porch. One of his boys started the Plymouth.

He turned back a final time, "I let you live, David Ross. You

and the thing in the lake. I know, that once, you were a boy.

He went to his car. The car went.

The girls came for Ross. Without his asking they pushed him

in. They smiled at the new boys.