Voices in the Night (24 page)

We call them the Halfway Climbers. These are the ones who begin the ascent but stop partway, attracted by the wooden benches placed along the paths, or by the small clearings that invite repose. There they sit down, enjoy the view, perhaps take out a small bottle of energy drink concealed in their clothes. Sometimes they spread out towels in the sun, lie down, and close their eyes; sometimes they read the paper or watch their children wade in a stream. After a while they may move farther up to another bench, another clearing, a better view. But they do not climb to the top, and the time always comes when they decide they’ve had enough, and so they return to their cars and drive home. The question we have about the Halfway Climbers is this: Why do they come at all? To be fair, the views along the way are very fine; on a clear day, you can pick out many buildings in our miniature town and look out at the distant villages and hills. But not far above is the Place itself, the very reason to come at all. The Halfway Climbers know that the Place is there, just at the top of the trail. Why do they stop? Can it be that their only desire is to move toward the Place without actually reaching it? It’s tempting to think of the
Halfway Climbers as lazy, but this is unlikely to be true, since many of them walk most of the way up and often pass us with vigorous strides. Is it possible that the Place frightens them in some way? Do they fear a change in themselves that they can’t bear to face? Perhaps what they want is only to escape from the town for a short time but not to arrive anywhere else, since to arrive might be to weaken their connection to the town—a connection that escape only strengthens. Another explanation is possible. Do they hope for so much from the Place that, filled with doubt, they refuse to climb all the way, in order to avoid disillusionment? They interest us, these Halfway Climbers. Almost to arrive, almost to experience what is tempting and unimaginable—for them, is it really enough?

In senior year of high school I fell in love with Diane DeCarlo. I knew it was love because I didn’t only want to touch and be touched by her all over our bodies, I wanted to touch and be touched by her all over our minds. Sometimes I thought of her as a sunny house I wanted to move into for the rest of my life. We read our favorite children’s books to each other, explored each other’s attics, sneaked into each other’s houses at night. Mostly we laughed and went driving around together in my father’s car. One day I took her up to the Place. I’d been going up a lot since Dan Rivers moved away, and though I never saw the lady in white again I felt good up there, as if I could get rid of something for a while. I wanted Diane to see the Place with me, the way I wanted her to see my room, my body, my childhood bear with the missing arm. It was a sunny day in spring, one of those days that make you want to burst out laughing, because it looks as if it’s trying too hard to imitate your idea of a perfect spring day. As we climbed the path, she was taking it all in—the green fields, the wildflowers,
a light green grasshopper on a dark green bench. We were holding hands, swinging our arms. When we reached the top she closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun, her cheeks shining in the light as if they were wet. “I love it up here,” she said, and gave me one of her tender, playful looks. “What’s wrong?” she said. I remembered the time I’d come up to the Place with my mother, but things were now reversed: I saw in Diane’s eyes the look that must have been mine as a child, when my mother did not give me her attention. “Nothing,” I said. I understood what a fool I’d been, inviting her up here, where she craved intimacy and I wanted—but who knew what I wanted? I knew only that the Place was not for holding hands and staring out together at pretty views. I felt angry at myself, and angry at the Place, and sorry for her. Under the blue sky we walked uneasily side by side, sat down on one of the walls, looked about. We returned to the car in silence. I continued seeing Diane after that, but I never took her back to the Place, and we broke up two weeks before graduation.

Some call it the Great Revulsion. That’s when you suddenly turn against the Place, for no reason you can understand. The stone walls seem to give you a hostile stare; the sky is a hand pushing against your neck. In the stillness you can almost hear voices calling to you from the town. And so you hurry back to the world below, where you laugh with friends, drive out with your wife and kids to the picnic tables at Burrows Park, plan vacations to the seashore. You can’t understand why you ever wasted your precious time at the dead top of a boring hill, while life was swirling down below. Sometimes you forget the Place for a month, for a year. But a time comes when the town begins to irritate you with its familiar roof slopes, its clatter of cups on café tables on Main Street, its shimmering water-jets from lawn
sprinklers, its creaking porch gliders. Then you remember the Place, up there, away from it all, and you are shaken: by remorse, by longing, by gratitude.

Because the Place is owned by our town, maintained by the Parks and Recreation Department, and paid for by our taxes, it is not surprising that voices are regularly raised in favor of a different use of the land. The Town Board is repeatedly asked to consider business proposals from local groups and outside developers eager to convert the Place to profitable use. One of the more popular plans is for a six-story hotel, with spacious balconies, a farm-to-table menu, and an outdoor café open to the public. Other development projects include a thirty-two-unit town-house-style apartment complex, a private school for girls, a family-owned restaurant with an Irish pub, an assisted-living facility, a recreation center with weight rooms and indoor pools, and a medical building specializing in dementia care. All proposals are presented for voting at town meetings held throughout the year. Those of us who defend the Place against business designs that are clear, well thought out, and of undeniable financial advantage to the town are often hard put to say what it is about the Place that makes us want to maintain it in its unprofitable state.

In college I hurled myself into books and friendships as if I had only a few months left to live. I took up fencing, joined the debating club, stayed up till five in the morning arguing about whether happiness is the true goal of human life. I spent the summers at home, working odd jobs and visiting college friends on weekends; I thought of
going up to the Place but somehow never got around to it. The Place was like an old board game that I thought of fondly but no longer played. At the same time, it represented a temptation that I needed to resist: the temptation of falling back into a small-town adolescence I longed to transcend. After college I returned home for the summer, during which I prepared my résumé and interviewed for jobs that I thought of as experiments, while I waited to discover my real work, whatever that might be. When I was hired as an entry-level paralegal in a medical malpractice law firm located in a city two hours away, I began making trips to search for an apartment. On the day before I left home, I drove over to the hill. I had been saying my goodbyes, and I suppose this was another. As I walked up the path under the August sun, I asked myself what I thought I was doing. At the top I looked around. Except for a slatted metal bench that had replaced one of the old wooden ones, nothing had changed. It struck me that each blade of grass was in the precise position it had held when I had last been here. That was in the summer before college, when I worked at one of the concession stands at the South Side Rec Field, went swimming at Indian Lake with friends, and mostly stayed away from the Place, with its memories of Diane DeCarlo. I’d last gone up at summer’s end and stared hard, as at something already slipping away. Now I walked about, gazed down at the town, sat against a wall, where the edges of stones pushed into my back, and quickly stood up. I could feel myself waiting for something, without knowing what it was. I glared at the grassy slopes, the distant hills, as if I expected them to speak aloud. And an impatience came over me. Why had I come here? I was starting a new life. This was the old life, the time of childhood birthday parties and family picnics in the park and Dan Rivers and Diane DeCarlo. I remembered the white dress, the blazing room, but that was only a summer dream. The Place held nothing for me; I was so filled with the future that I was barely in a place at all. Still I waited, demanding that the Place give me something, anything—whatever it was I had come for. I felt like bursting into
wild laughter, like crouching down and pounding the ground with my fists. I opened my mouth, as if to shout. Then I glanced at my watch and turned back toward the car.

Some people say that the Place is the realm of the spirit, as opposed to the realm of the body. Down below, we feed and clothe our bodies, we work at our jobs, we eat and marry and die. Up above, where our bodies are freed from worldly concerns, our spirits can flourish unimpeded, as we enter a place of contemplation, serenity, and quiet exaltation. This explanation, attractive to those who welcome the Place as a spiritual retreat, as well as to those who ignore the Place but accept that it may be of value to others, is not convincing. One of the pleasures of the Place is the sheer delight our bodies feel, high above the strains and tensions of the town below. The air, fresher and cleaner, is drawn deeply into the lungs, the way a thirsty throat receives cool water; the body is invigorated, filled with an energy that feels nourishing rather than restless. At the same time, it’s surely a mistake to think of the town as occupied solely with material things. Down there is where we read, think, go to school, attend piano recitals, make moral choices, experience the ecstasy we call love. If the Place is where we leave the town-world for something else, then we leave all of it, including our most cherished adventures of the spirit. What the Place invites is a withdrawal from all human things—a withdrawal that is like a surrender.

On her thirtieth birthday, Lucy Wheeler stood in her sunny-and-shady backyard surrounded by friends and family, who were laughing
and telling stories and walking about with glasses of wine and paper plates of shrimp and barbecued chicken, she was looking at the red and yellow balloons her husband had tied to the branches of the old sugar maple, and half-closing her eyes she felt the happiness of her life flowing through her like sunlight through wine. At the same time she had the sensation that she was standing a little apart from herself, watching Lucy Wheeler as she stood there with a flush of happiness on her face, a striking face with its almost dark eyebrows and its rich blond hair pulled loosely back. She had been having these little moments of self-separation lately, these rifts, as she liked to call them, and now, as she stood among her friends and felt her happiness streaming through her, she had a sudden desire to leave herself standing there and walk away, out of the yard, out of her life, a desire so sharp that it made her look around quickly, as if she were afraid that something hard and cold had appeared in her face. The next day, when her husband was at the office and her children were at Jody Gelber’s house for the afternoon, Lucy Wheeler drove out to the Place. She had climbed up there once with her husband when she’d moved to our town six years ago, and she had admired the view. Now she stood alone at the top of a rise and felt something fall away from her. She remained standing there for a while and was startled to see on her watch that three hours had passed. She’d forgotten the kids, already her husband was on his way home, she still had to pick up some chicken breasts for dinner. She began driving over to the Place every day, after arranging for friends to care for the children. At night she would wake up at four in the morning, longing for the moment when she could return. At dinner she caught her daughter looking at her. “Is everything all right?” her husband asked one evening, and for a moment she did not remember who he was. One Saturday she drove out to the Place and stayed until the sun was setting behind the distant hills. At home she felt guilty, apologetic, defiant. A week later she stayed beyond sunset, beyond closing time. She wanted to watch the darkening of the sky, the fullness of night. She lay on her back
on a low slope below one of the walls. When she heard a car driving up from the trailhead, she understood that someone was coming for her, and she thought of hiding, but what was the point. She heard the footsteps and saw the dark policeman drawing near. She thought: I am so happy. Is there something wrong with me? She thought: Now my life will never be the same.

After six years in the city, during which I met my wife, completed a law degree, and went to work in the legal department of City Hall, I moved back to my old town in order to raise a family. I had never thought of myself as the kind of person who would move back to his old town, but there I was, in a house with a porch on a shady street in a good school district. I worked in a local family-practice law firm specializing in mediation, divorce, and child support, and later was able to set up my own practice. We entered a life of backyard cookouts, neighborhood block parties, day care, ballet lessons, baseball practice, family vacations at a camp on a lake. I was in love with my wife, my family, my work. Smiles burst from me like breaths. One summer afternoon the two of us, Lily and I, drove out to the Place, where we sat on a bench and held hands as we looked down at the town. A week later I returned alone. I hadn’t been up there by myself for ten years, and I don’t know what it was I expected, now that I was done thinking of myself as a son and a student, but it was as if I wanted to set something right. The memory of my failed visit burned in me. I saw that I had done everything wrong that day—I had made demands on the Place, as though it owed me something. This time I asked for nothing. I merely wanted to get away from the town, for a while. Though the weather was warm, the sky was filling with dark clouds. I walked along the stone walls, under the stormy sky; down
below, in the distance, I could see rain falling in slanted lines beside a burst of sun. I became aware of a sensation that was almost physical: a tightness, an inner thickness, was passing out of me. I glanced at my hands, as if I expected to see something flowing from my fingers. I sat down against a wall. I could feel my back against the stone, my legs against the ground. It’s difficult to say what I felt next. I’m tempted to call it a contentment, a deep peacefulness, but it was more powerful than that—it was like a dissolution, an unknitting of whatever it was I was. I was the stone in the wall, I was the grass in the field, I was the honeybee hovering above the blossom of clover, I was all, I was nothing at all. When the rain came, I remained sitting there. I could feel the water streaming down my face, beating against my shirt, blurring my edges, slanting through me.