To the Back of Beyond Read online

  She took in the mail, glanced at the paper, and hung up the last of the wash. She had promised the kids their favorite meal, pancakes with applesauce and Nutella. While she mixed the batter, she had the radio on, though she only ever got mad at the chirrupy hosts who talked nothing but nonsense and treated the callers who rang in with the answer to some quiz question as though they were idiots.

  The kids were late back. For five weeks they hadn’t seen their friends, and they would have had a lot to talk about on the way home. Ella gave her a curt greeting and went into the living room. As Astrid set the table, Ella sat on the sofa, reading. What was school like? Ella mumbled something incomprehensible. In the kitchen, Astrid caught Konrad just tearing off a strip of pancake and pushing it in his mouth. Hands off! she called. Can’t you wait? Where’s Papa? asked Konrad. He won’t be back for lunch today, he’s got too much to do. All the more pancakes for us, then, said Konrad.

  Over lunch the children talked about what their classmates had got up to during vacation. Astrid listened absently. She wondered what the story was with Thomas. She managed to calm herself down. What was it going to be? The evening before he’d been the way he always was. It wasn’t as though anything unusual had happened during vacation either, on the contrary, the two weeks had been unusually harmonious. Most of the time they’d been on the beach or in the holiday rental. The drive back had been a strain, twice they’d been caught in traffic in France, but Thomas wasn’t one to get too worked up about things like that. He was pretty even-tempered altogether, just a regular Joe, as he sometimes said himself. There was bound to be some perfectly ordinary explanation for his absence. Astrid didn’t even feel worried.

  That afternoon the kids went back to school, and Astrid did some work in the yard. After weeks of neglect, the garden looked pretty wild, the weeds ankle-high and the tomato plants tangled like nobody’s business. Astrid weeded and tied the tomatoes, and pinched some of the buds. From the west some dark clouds were approaching and covered the sun. Astrid mowed the lawn. The sound of the mower was unusually loud and echoey, almost as though she was in some enclosed space. She hadn’t quite finished when she felt the first drops of rain. Hurriedly she took down the wash and carried it indoors. She put the lawn mower away in the basement, and threw open the shutters all over the house. In Konrad’s room she stopped and looked out at the rain, which was falling diligently and almost noiselessly. It had grown cool; she shivered and closed the window. The house still felt warm, but it was no longer oppressive.

  With the weather, Astrid’s mood had changed as well. As she walked down the stairs, she thought of the kids who would soon be back from school and that she shouldn’t have let them go without their raincoats. Their unprotectedness felt like an accusation. So many times she felt the need to protect Konrad and Ella from all sorts of things, from mean fellow pupils, unfair teachers, perfectly ordinary things that were part of any child’s growing up, and she hadn’t managed. The telephone rang. It was Thomas’s secretary, saying she had tried a couple of times already. She sounded more upset than Astrid felt. There was a meeting scheduled for two o’clock, she said. I was in the garden, said Astrid. And then, she didn’t know why, He’s sick, I should have called to let you know, I’m sorry. The secretary seemed unsurprised that Astrid this morning had asked her if she’d seen Thomas and was now claiming he was at home. The ease of the explanation seemed to clear all cavils out of the way. To lend credence to her lie, Astrid explained that Thomas had a heavy cold. Perhaps it was the air conditioning in the car or just the exhaustion after the long drive. I had a bad catarrh the other week, said the secretary, and laughed as though she had made a joke. Do you suppose he will be in tomorrow? I don’t think so, said Astrid. Well, I hope he gets over his vacation soon, said the secretary, laughing again, give him my best, won’t you.

  Astrid tried to distract herself by thinking about dinner, and what she would cook and how they would sit together in the warm dining room, while the rain fell outside. But suddenly she felt convinced that Thomas wouldn’t be there for dinner either, or tomorrow. The feeling took her breath away, not concern but a crippling fear as though she already knew what would happen.

  Thomas must have slept in spite of his uncomfortable bed. His back hurt and he felt cold. It was pitch-dark under the canopy, and even though he held his wrist against his face he couldn’t tell what the time was. For a while he lay there and tried to go back to sleep, but the cold was so piercing that he finally crept out of his ground cloth and got up. It was a little lighter outside. There was a risen moon, almost full, though it seemed to be a long way off. Thomas walked past the hangar on the grassy landing strip, with thin shreds of mist hanging over it. It was easier to see out in the open, and he could make out the first glimmers of light to the east. He did knee bends until he felt warmer, then he went back to the trailer. It got light quickly. From the woods there was a confused concert of birdsong and, from the distance, cowbells and the occasional car on the country road the other side of the river.

  He was hungry. He tried the doors of all the trailers once more, but they were all locked. He thought briefly about breaking into one, but he would have needed a tool to do that, and all he had was his little pocketknife, which was good for cleaning his fingernails or opening a letter but not much more. He was on the point of giving up when he noticed that a sash window was open in one of the trailers. With some effort he forced his arm through it and clicked the catch. The window was very small, and it surprised him that he was able to twist himself up through it.

  Inside it felt cramped and there was a musty smell. The window Thomas had clambered in through was over a kind of sofa bed. After feeling around for a while, he managed to find the switch. A weak economy bulb shed gray light over the inside of the trailer. The walls and units were cladded with fake walnut paneling, the cushion material was purple-and-beige in an old-fashioned looking plaid pattern, crocheted curtains hung in the windows. Thomas threw open all the cupboards. One contained sticky bottles of oil and vinegar, an almost empty tube of mustard, various spices and flavorings, tea bags and instant coffee; in others there were pasta and rice, cans of tomatoes, packets of instant soup. Finally he found two packs of cookies and half a bar of chocolate. He ate the cookies and felt a bit sick, but at least he was no longer hungry. He turned out the light and opened the door. He was startled to find that it was completely light outside.

  In the middle of the trailer park was a small fenced-in pool and next to it an open building, little more than a shelter, really. Inside, Thomas found showers, toilet stalls, and sinks. There was no warm water, but he took a quick shower anyway. The cold water was refreshing, and even though he had hardly slept that night, he felt very alert. He dried off perfunctorily on a stained towel that was hanging beside one of the sinks. Then he went back into the mobile home, pocketed the chocolate, took the empty cookie packages and threw them in the trash. He decided against the palaver of bolting the mobile home and scrambling out through the window. The next time the owners came by, they might be puzzled to find the door unlocked and the cookies gone, but they surely wouldn’t suppose anyone had broken in.

  Thomas walked on along the narrow road he had come down the day before. As far as the airfield, he had known every path, every meadow and patch of woods. But once outside the perimeter of his village, his mental map of the area grew vaguer and consisted of railway lines, principal roads and towns, and the number of blank spaces in between kept growing.

  At the end of the airfield the strip of grass narrowed between the river and the woods. A few dozen yards away, three deer were grazing in the high grass. Thomas stopped. The deer lifted their heads and looked at him. Even though they were some way off, he could feel that they had spotted him. For a heartbeat they stood still, then with their strangely slow movements they ran off in the direction of the woods and disappeared among the trees. I’ll be safer in the woods, thought Thomas, I need to get off this road. He still wasn’t being sought, pr
esumably Astrid wouldn’t have remarked his disappearance yet, but he didn’t want to run into anyone who would remember him later.

  When he ran off in the night, he had instinctively headed west. Now for the first time he stopped to think which direction he should follow. If he continued along the valley, he would soon get to the city and areas with too much light, too many people, and a dearth of places to hide. Even at night he wouldn’t be safe there. He needed to head south, into the hills, the mountains.

  He followed a narrow gravel track that led into the woods and up the slope. But before long, it was curving around, back into the village. Thomas left it, and cut up through the steeply banking trees. There was a steady hum of traffic; the road was more clearly audible up here than from the airstrip. The birds had quieted down.

  At the top the woods came to an end, and Thomas saw scattered farmhouses surrounded by fields and meadows, stately forms with large outbuildings and mighty silos. A little farther off was a small village, consisting of a handful of houses and a church, and behind that, on the horizon, a chain of wooded hills. Thomas walked down the narrow aisle of a maize field. The stalks were so tall that only their movement would have indicated his presence. After that, the country was open, meadows with occasional tall fruit trees and lower-growth wheat and beet fields. So as to draw the least attention to himself, Thomas followed footpaths. Once, when he saw a tractor approach, he stopped and looked around for a hiding place, but there was no cover anywhere. The tractor was being driven by a kid barely older than Ella, who greeted him with a nod of the head. Thomas replied as casually as he could.

  He managed to get around the village, and came to a crossroads with a little wayside chapel and a large cross with a gilded Savior. He read the Bible verse on the pediment. All ye that pass by, behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. The chapel was locked, but through the barred windows he could see a couple of plain wooden pews and a small altar, decorated by fresh flowers. Thomas sat down on the sandstone steps outside. On the horizon he could see the hill on which his village was situated. He had come much less far than he had hoped. The safest thing would be to hide somewhere and wait for it to get dark, but he was afraid of losing his way, and he was scared too of dogs, which by night were still more unpredictable than in the daytime. He looked up at the sun to orient himself. Not long ago he had taught Konrad the old Boy Scout trick: point the hour hand of your watch at the sun, and south will be halfway between there and one o’clock.

  The gently rolling country continued to rise, and before long, he was in another wood. There were raspberries growing at the edge of it, and Thomas picked a few. A chilly wind had got up that shook the boughs and caused the leaves to rustle. It was an airy, well-tended beech wood, the smooth trunks like pillars in a lot of space, their green canopy in continual motion, casting shifting shadow patterns on the ground. Thomas sat down on a pile of logs beside a logging road. The alertness he had felt after getting up was a memory, he was sleepy now, and exhausted, and unable to think clearly. When he heard footsteps, he fled into a little thicket of pines that felt like a tumor in the body of the wood. He hunkered down and only yards away a woman cantered by on horseback. She had to be roughly his age and sat bolt upright in the saddle, bouncing rhythmically up and down. Through the treetops, sun dogs fell on her slender form. For a moment Thomas had the feeling all was well. The only thing wrong and out of place in the harmonious scene was himself. He went deeper into the tangle of pines. Once he was quite certain that he could no longer be seen from the track, he lay down on the soft, pine-needle-strewn ground. He thought of Astrid as the equestrienne. She had ridden as a girl, there were photographs of it in her old albums. She looked confident and sure of herself, as though she was exactly where she wanted to be. It was that confidence and uprightness that Thomas had fallen in love with twenty-five years ago, even though (or maybe just because) he sensed that it cost her an effort to keep up the illusion. It was at moments of uncertainty, of crisis and quarrel, but also of sexual passion that he felt closest to her, and their love seemed to him as strong now as in the first months of their relationship. He wondered how long she would manage to keep the illusion going before she collapsed.

  The children were in the living room, doing their homework. Astrid hadn’t been able to stand being at the table with them and had gone upstairs. She was sorting through the clothes, folding things up and stowing them away in cupboards. She ironed Thomas’s shirts. Briefly it crossed her mind that it was pointless, and the absurd notion came to her that what she was doing was wiping away his traces. Irritated, she shook her head. The warmth of the steam, the smell of the tidily stacked laundry calmed her. Everything was all right. She concentrated on her work, the collars, the shoulders, the back, the sleeves, the cuffs, and when they were done put the shirts away on hangers on a rail. They hung there like inert clones of Thomas. Once, Astrid thought she heard the doorbell. She set the iron down on the board and listened, but everything was quiet downstairs. She called down to the kids. Have you finished your homework? Konrad’s bugging me, called Ella. Leave Ella alone, called Astrid. She heard Konrad climb the stairs. He stopped in the doorway. Have you finished your homework? I’m bored. Will you play with me? I need to fix dinner, said Astrid. Why don’t you read something. Where’s Papa, asked Konrad. He’s not coming, said Astrid, he’s gone away for a few days. She was surprised at the way Konrad, at the way everyone, seemed to accept her crude lies without a murmur. She seemed to be the only one who actually registered the fact that Thomas had disappeared. To begin with, there had been a kind of consolation in that, but the longer he stayed away, the more panicky she felt, and for moments at a time she had the sense she was going mad, she had only imagined it, and Thomas had never actually lived here, had never even existed.

  While she got dinner ready, she listened to the evening news. Everything was the same as always, the calm voice of the newsreader, the crises dotted around the globe, the political intrigues, the triumphs and disappointments of athletes. Astrid set the table and called the children, who were sitting in front of the TV and only came when they heard a threatening note in her voice. Now Ella finally asked after her father, and Astrid repeated her lie, which cost her less difficulty; it was as though it had acquired some truth from being repeated. She was making herself Thomas’s accomplice, it felt as though she was joined with him in some secret conspiracy. Papa had to go somewhere for a few days, he left very early this morning, that’s why he couldn’t say goodbye to you. Did he take the car? asked Ella. Astrid looked at her in astonishment, and said, Do you know, I don’t know. I don’t think so.

  After she had put the kids to bed, she pulled on a sweater and a raincoat and went out into the garage. The car was there. Then she sat down on the bench outside, where, just twenty-four hours ago, she had sat with Thomas. The rain had stopped, but the temperature had dropped by twenty degrees from the day before, and she could feel the damp wooden bench through her jeans. She tried to reconstruct the evening. They had read the paper, she was given the living section and Thomas had the financial pages. Konrad had called, and she had gone inside to comfort him. He had asked her one of those questions whose only point was to detain her. She had spoken to him briefly and then kissed him good night. After that she had started to unpack the suitcases. She knelt down on the floor. When she got up, she felt giddy, and only then realized she was totally exhausted. She carried the dirty clothes down to the basement, went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth quickly, and got undressed for bed. She went into the bedroom in her underwear and took out a nightgown from the wardrobe. It was as though the fresh clean smell of it made her even more tired. Only when she was lying in bed did it occur to her that she hadn’t said good night to Thomas, but he was bound to be up any moment. She couldn’t even say for sure whether Thomas had come to bed at all that night or not. She had shaken out the duvet right after getting up, the way she always did. Later, she had come upon the newspaper and the wineglasses
outside the house and carried them in, tipped out the end of wine where a few fruit flies had drowned, and rinsed the glasses, quickly scanned the parts of the paper she hadn’t got around to reading the night before, and then put them with the rest of the recycling.

  Astrid got up and walked to the garden gate. Without opening it, she looked up and down the street. Even though it wasn’t yet dark, there was no one around. Most of the houses were inhabited by elderly people who she knew by sight, nothing more. She thought of going to look for Thomas, but she could hardly leave the children on their own, least of all at this time of day. For a long time she remained standing by the gate indecisively, then she went back inside. She picked up the phone, hesitated, called the police number, then set down the receiver. What would the police be able to do at this time of night? She would call them first thing in the morning. The idea of talking to someone else about Thomas’s disappearance soothed her; even so, she lay in bed awake for a long time.

  Thomas felt stunned when he woke up. It was only four in the afternoon, he thought he must have been asleep for longer. The thicket of pines turned out to have been a perfect hiding place, no one could have been there for years. But hiding wasn’t any use to him now. He couldn’t stay in the woods much longer; he wasn’t hungry yet, but he was racked by thirst. He got up, brushed the pine needles off his clothes, and headed out of the woods.