“But—”
“Shh, just watch.”
“Do you know what you're doing?” She was beginning to wonder if Saul might have found his way to Kurt's special cigarettes.
“What did I say?”
“Okay.”
Saul shook the box in one hand, the fishing net waving in the wind. “Clifford, now is the time to call your friend.”
Hooky slumped his taut shoulders with defeat. “We don't know—”
“Call her now.”
Frannie whispered, “Your name is Clifford?”
“What did your uncle say?” Hooky snapped.
“Said your name is Clifford, which is news to me.”
“Shh. Saul, what do I need to say?”
“I don't think the words matter much, but you know what you need to say.” Saul took the book and turned to Frannie. “Here, you hold the book; I'll hold the Dybbuk box.” She could barely hear him because the wind was high, and the white hairs on his arms moved like grain.
“What's a Dybbuk box?”
He asked, “You sure you want to know?”
“Sure.”
“It's a box for catching dybbukim and other invading spirits.”
“Okay.”
“Do you believe me?”
“This book is one of those Blanks, right?”
“Yes, it is.”
“And I think we can agree that those are not your everyday books.” She put her hand on her uncle's shoulder. “I'm trying to say I'm gonna roll with whatever craziness you get up to.”
“Good,” Saul said. “Clifford, look at the book that Frannie holds. Put your hands on it and open it. This book is your story. You started to read it before, but now is the time.”
Hooky let Frannie keep holding it as he held the book beneath her hands and came around to read. Frannie watched him open it, feeling the warmth of his shoulders, watching his eyes search the pages.
Ink began to appear, and
Chapter 19
Hooky is holding a net. A fishing net. He is throwing it down as he trips onto the beach. He is coughing and tripping in the net which has caught him by surprise, the way a fish is caught by surprise, and he tries to crawl through it and scales from other caught fish slice into his foot.
The surf roars and red foam sloshes up as he tries to keep his head above water. He has lost his boots. It was only seconds ago but he was sure they were on fire and he is barefoot and pain wracks through him, a deep slice in his right foot singing with pain.
Crashed. He has crashed. Ol' Cliffy finally bought it, they’ll say. Went down over North Korea. For a second his head falls under the water and he is in the cockpit again, shrapnel bursting through the engine and his sleeves are on fire and his legs and he is tumbling through the air. His face comes up out of the water again and he screams as he drags himself and his parachute to shore.
He awakens again after the sun goes down and a woman is standing over him. She is a blur to him, and he is burning with fever.
The woman chatters as she strips his parachute and his burnt clothes from him and the net he was tangled in as well. She seems to inspect him and clucks something that might mean he is not nearly dead, and he sleeps again.
The parachute and the tiny pack attached to it are a bundle now, under the small of his back.
It is later and mosquitoes are eating him, and he awakens with a mosquito biting his eyebrow and he hisses and swats it. He is awake. For the first time in days, perhaps, he’s awake. He hears her voice in the darkness. The Angel.
The woman has come back, she has long black hair and she has brought him clothes, and he struggles to put them on. His ankle is badly sprained, and he wants to howl as he pulls the cotton pants she has brought. But he has his faculties now, and he doesn’t howl. Because for some reason he is being helped by a strange woman and he is behind enemy lines. His head aches and he feels woozy. He realizes he has been cut over the eye. He moans and the world dims again.
The Angel drags him into the trees, and he is moaning his serial number. He looks down and she is binding his foot with gauze, and where she got the gauze he does not ask and has wondered many times. He nearly loses it over the pain of the binding, but he does not fall unconscious again.
She says something sharp and he looks at her, she has her hands palm-faced towards him; she is certain this means wait here, as though he has other plans. She drags great bamboo leaves over him.
He sleeps and dreams he is being captured and North Korean soldiers are doing terrible things to him with bamboo shoots and knives. Then they take a look at his foot and they get a pair of pliers and
He’s awake again and the Angel has returned, this time with a cherub, a boy of nine or so and by the boy’s tone he is skeptical, and Cliff has the presence of mind to think what the boy might be saying, are you insane? If we get caught helping him, he won’t be the last one killed. But the boy and the woman move him farther up the beach, against a palm tree, and make a better work of his camouflage. He touches his head. At some point she has bandaged that too.
Clifford Carmichael, AF28 248 933, he says. United States Air Force. AF28 248 933. And then: why are you helping—
And she claps a hand over his mouth and stares into the distance. Hurriedly she and the boy cover him up.
The patrol of North Korean soldiers that comes through the jungle then emerges one hundred yards from his hiding place, and he’s with it now, boy. He tries to make himself small. He shakes and tries to will himself to stop shaking. The palm fronds are rattling over him and he swears that they clatter like a xylophone, stop shaking. The patrol comes close, moving up the beach at the edge of the trees.
Through the palm fronds he can see them. Stopping just a few yards away, a North Korean soldier puts up a hand, listening as his men fall silent. He can see it: an American was reported shot down. Probably went in the ocean, but then…
Now one of the soldiers is wandering by his hiding place. The soldier steps on one of the fronds connected to the ones he is under, and the pressure lands on Cliff’s foot and he winces in pain, whimpering inside.
A mosquito has landed on his cheek. He clamps his lips shut. His foot is throbbing and the mosquito is biting and he wants to scream. His heart is pounding and a half-remembered story flits through his mind, Do you not hear? It is the beating of his accursed heart! His breath is shallow, and he swears it is a clashing cymbal, a banging gong. The gig is up and in any second the soldier will plunge a bayonet through the fronds—
She speaks. Emerges from the trees and calls to the soldiers. Hey soldier boys. She is carrying a basket of goodies for the fighting men. She makes a showy presentation of the dumplings and fruits. They follow her.
Later she pulls the fronds away and she and boy—brother? Son? – sit beside him as he shakes with the fever he is now certain he has. She says her name: Sang-ook.
When they leave him he sees lights on the ocean. A ship.
He turns and digs up the bundle, tossing dirt aside and finding it, digging until he finds the tiny pack and the flare. He breaks the flare and fires it into the air. He will be seen by friend and enemy alike. He prays that someone can retrieve him and that the first ones to him are not the North Korean soldiers.
He will always remember the flare, pink and sparking, as it arcs into the air and pops like a firework. He is standing for the first time since he has fallen here, and he turns while the pink light still brightens the beach and sees the Angel at the tree line, staring at him with fear. He falls once more and waits, shaking with fever.