770: You see, . . .
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 58 concludes
YOU SEE, one night Terrence arrived in a sober mood. He embraced Ariane in silence, and held her long and hard. Then he kissed her once and set her aside—put his hands on her shoulders and moved her gently but firmly away, in the direction of the kitchen.
He was carrying a duffel bag. He walked to the center of the living room and set the bag down. From it he removed a “space blanket,” a sheet made of several laminated layers of plastic and foil that campers and wandering hippies used at that time. He spread this blanket on the floor, very carefully, smoothing the wrinkles, making sure that it was oriented directly toward the largest section of seats in the auditorium.
He took his shoes off. He removed his shirt. He sat on the blanket and assumed the lotus position. Ariane had stood to one side throughout all of this, wondering what was up, wondering what her part was supposed to be. Now, it seemed to her, it was appropriate for her to sit beside Terrence. She approached him. When she reached the edge of the blanket, he held his hand up to tell her to stop. He smiled his sweet smile, and he shook his head, slightly, gently, as if she were a child.
He pointed to the television set. It was off. Ariane knit her brows quizzically. Terrence made the gesture of turning the set on. Ariane went to the set and turned it on. It was time for the news.
The news that night was much the same as it was on any other night. War news led the report, as it usually did. This was not one of the big moments of the war, just one of the average days. The report began with the body count, then there was some footage of a firefight, some helicopters racing along a tree line, infantrymen carrying a shattered boy across a field, huts burning in a village, children weeping at the side of a dirt road, a crowd of scrawny people running, some of them falling. Ariane watched in spite of herself, and the revulsion and dizziness came over her, and she held the counter for support, and she started to say, “No more; I will not be a witness to this anymore,” when she smelled the gasoline.
She turned, slowly, in disbelief, to look at Terrence. He was drenched with it. A can was beside him. He was holding his Zippo lighter above his head. Very clearly she saw what she should do. She went to him, sat beside him, picked up the can, and doused herself with what was left in it. She was surprised at how much there was. She was as soaked as he. Suddenly she was afraid. She looked Terrence in the eye and let him see the fear. She hoped it would make him feel responsible for her, and she hoped it would keep him from using the lighter. She ran her hand up and down his back, soothing him, and kept whispering in his ear, about the life they might have together if he just put the lighter down and they walked away, leaving everyone else behind, how happy they might be, together, forever, but he began shaking his head mechanically from side to side and saying no, no, no, and in an instant he was aflame and so was she. The audience sat in stunned silence. This was more than they had bargained for: this was an unforgettable moment.
The fire might, in another moment, have gotten out of control; the audience might have run, screaming, for the exits, trampling one another in their panic; Ariane’s entire house and the warehouse around it might have burned to the ground; Terrence might have died as he intended, drugged and indignant; and Ariane might have died in unspeakable agony, unwilling and unprepared—if it hadn’t been for quick-thinking Duncan Rollo of the Zoning Board. He dashed onstage wielding one of the fire extinguishers that he had insisted be installed at intervals around the auditorium, covered them both with foam, and led Terrence away, to the applause of the crowd.
[to be continued]
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