Read Online Pitch Dark by RENATA ADLER - Free Book Online

law of a nation, or to seek furtively to escape from its jurisdiction and its police. But it was cold. I was alone, and it was dark. I thought I was lost, and then I looked at my gas gauge. A quarter of a tank. I would have to look out for gas stations, not that I recalled having passed any that were open. On the highway to Dublin, surely, there would be one. If I could find the highway. Headlights appeared in my rearview mirror, distant at first, and then closer. I pulled over to the left, off the road again, got out and flagged down what turned out to be an enormous truck. I’m sorry, I said, I seem to be lost. Could you tell me how I get on N.5 to Dublin. He hesitated. A shifty, wily look of suspicion, which I thought I’d seen innumerable times since I arrived in this strange country, passed over his face. Then he said, I’m going to Dublin. You can follow me. He drove off, and I followed. What was that look of suspicion, I wondered, could he have taken this nightrider who flagged him down for a terrorist? Why not. Who else would be out, at this hour, flagging people down? Then I wondered what load he was transporting in that immense truck. Come to think of it, I had seen no other trucks on the road that night since Cihrbradàn, certainly none of that size and weight. Could he be carrying gelignite, at this hour? Was he, perhaps, a terrorist, and did that look of suspicion cross his face because he feared for a moment that I was the police? Strange odds, those, too, for my ancestors.
    But there we were, he and I, haring single file through the Southern Irish countryside. I was no longer alone. A new fear, a sort of paranoia, crossed my mind: had he hesitated because he planned to mislead me, was he heading, not toward Dublin at all but straight back to that place named, come to think of it, like some hybrid out of Freud and Kafka, Castlebar? Miles and miles. No signs that I could see. Irish road signs, in any case, are grey-black on grey-white, and in print so small that they are virtually illegible to any driver on the road. From time to time, I kept looking at my gas gauge. Then, I sped past him, drove, slowed, stopped, switched on my hazard lights and stood in the road to flag him down again. Patience, no look at all of What is it this time? on his face. I said I was running out of gas. I secretly hoped he had some, but I did not mention it. Is there likely to be a gas station pretty soon? I asked. Not till nine-thirty in the morning, he said. How much gas did you have when you started out? Three-quarters full, I said. Well, then you ought to be all right, he said. Of course, like so many things that were said to me in Ireland, this seemed to make no sense. I mean, surely it depended, not on how much gas I had when I set out, but on how much would be required for the distance that remained, or at least how much I had where I was starting from.
    Maybe what we have here is Mayerling for one. Maybe Mayerling always was for one.
    There we stood, though, this tall broad man and I, in the sleet, on the road, in the beam of his enormous headlights. I asked how much farther it was to Dublin. He said, About a hundred twenty miles. Are there no all-night gas stations in Ireland? I asked. He said no. Well, then I guess I won’t make it, I said. My flight from Dublin leaves at ten. A pause. We stand, not looking at each other. The sleet has abated. His headlights are muted now, and diffused by mist. Do you suppose, I ask, speaking as slowly as the thought evolves, that I could drive till I run out of fuel, and then ride the rest of the way with you? He reflects. He looks toward his truck. He seems less surprised by the question than I am. That would be all right, he says. I ask, Where shall I leave my car, at some closed gas station, or just any place where it runs down. Oh, he says, locked, I think, on the street at Ballyhairness. I find it difficult to understand what he says, not just because he speaks softly and I am