13

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE DEATH

THE STORY of how the Solar family each came to be cursed with a great fear began in Saigon in 1972.

It was a warm tropical evening on the fragrant streets of the city, everyone in a slow-moving haze from the leftover heat of the day and years-long exhaustion that follows war without end. Everywhere, the French past of the town was laid bare: the little bistros frequented by diplomats and their families, the white columns of the neoclassical post office and the bare breasted marble statues of the opera house, the tree-lined streets, and the brightly colored colonial terraces, stuck together like little squares of candy melted by the sun.

Signs of war were all over, but Saigon had escaped the worst of it; the city was shabby, dilapidated, but still a thing of grandeur, the streets alive and bustling with activity. Small Vietnamese women sat in doorways, chopping meat on tree stumps wedged between their knees. Then, as now, mopeds clotted the roads, honking and grunting and swarming around each other, a chaotic avalanche cascading down every major avenue and flooding every tiny lane alike. Old men, faces leathered by the sun, fixed upturned bicycles or invited Americans into their restaurants or smoked while leaning against the hoods of their white and royal blue taxis, waiting for a fare.

A whole city, swaying and uneasy, the anxious population going about their evening tasks, unsure when the war was going to end, not knowing, yet, that the Northerners would take and hold the city in a matter of a couple of years.

It was in a smoky, nameless haunt frequented by soldiers that Reginald Solar first laid eyes on young Jack Horowitz, who was not yet Death, but would soon become him. Esther’s grandfather had just that day arrived in Saigon to take the place of a fellow lieutenant who’d lost his life the week before. The fallen man’s platoon members were among those drinking in the bar that night, though they didn’t know that their new commanding officer was among them.

The Man Who Would Be Death sat not far from them, by himself. They knew him as Private Jack Horowitz, eighteen years old, born in the South, raised on a farm, and the weirdest son of a bitch any of them had ever met.

“He’s a fucking warlock, I’m telling you,” said Private Hanson, the only one of these soldiers Esther’s grandfather ever mentioned by name.

“He’s a vampire,” said another. “Needs a stake through the heart.”

None of them would say what they really, truly believed about strange Jack Horowitz: that he was Death incarnate. Maybe not the Grim Reaper himself, but a cousin at the very least, an ill omen sent to shadow them through the jungles, act as a beacon for the Horsemen to come trampling after their mortal souls. The soldiers were not unaccustomed to the presence of death, as one can imagine. In 1972, the war was very close to its end for US troops, and all those who remained in Vietnam had grown intimate with the Reaper. They knew the sound of him, the smell of him, the burnt flesh taste of him that lingered on the tongue. Sometimes he was loud, the screaming that accompanied sheared-off limbs or shrapnel tearing through skin and muscle to bury itself deep in bone. Sometimes he was quiet: an infected wound, a poisoned water source, the last gurgling gasp of tired lungs exhaling at the witching hour when everyone but the nearly dead was sleeping.

Yes, they were very intimate with death, which made them certain to their bones that young Jack Horowitz was some kind of henchman. They had three reasons for this belief:

1. Before his arrival, they weren’t doing too badly, not compared to the rest of the platoons stationed around them. They lost men, sure, but their losses were far below average. Then Horowitz arrived and they started being sucked into the jungle.
2. Horowitz himself had been shot a total of eight times. Eight times, and each time, without screaming, without flinching, without breaking a sweat, he dug his combat knife into the flesh of his arm or his gut or his leg, cut out the bullet, and patched himself up. Didn’t wait for the gunfire to stop either. Just sat himself down in the cross fire, the occasional bullet dinging off his helmet, dug around in his wounds for a bit, mended the rent flesh, and was off again, darting through the jungle like a weasel.

Now, most soldiers this would kill, or at the very least land them in an evacuation hospital with a one-way ticket back to the US. Every time Horowitz got shot, the platoon was relieved. Surely this time the wound would be bad enough to ship him home.

It never was. Horowitz never came back from medical with more than a couple of stitches: the bullets never seemed to leave more than a graze on him. The one time that they were sure he was dead—when two rounds sank into his chest—both bullets hadn’t managed to make it more than an eighth of an inch into his skin. Something about the angle of the shots glancing off his sternum, even though the soldier closest to him swore he saw the shots tear Horowitz’s chest apart.

1. The way Horowitz breathed at night. Most of the men in the platoon hadn’t slept—really slept—in months. They lay awake at night in their cots, listening to the quiet rattle of Horowitz’s breathing, and since it sounded so much like death, they found themselves unable to concentrate on anything else, and listened to the sucking wheeze—in and out, in and out, in and out—of his desperate lungs.

•   •   •

AT THE BAR THAT NIGHT, also sitting by himself, was Lieutenant Reginald Solar, already a seasoned war veteran at the age of thirty-five. Like his granddaughter, he had red-tinged hair, a face that burned quickly in sunlight, and barely a square inch of skin that wasn’t spattered with freckles of a dozen different tones. Unlike his granddaughter, he had large ears and a large nose that would only grow larger as he aged, but he was, at that time, quite unconventionally handsome, and looked tack-sharp in his officer’s uniform, as the portraits of him from that time attest.

Lieutenant Reginald Solar was called the Milkman behind his back by the men he commanded, because even when the luxury of alcohol was available, Reg preferred milk. Cow’s milk, goat’s milk, coconut milk—whatever he could get his hands on. The son of a violent alcoholic, spirits had only passed his lips once, when he was eighteen and curious to see how a liquid could turn a gentle man into a monster. Much to his surprise, being drunk didn’t make him angry, just sad, but he decided to steer clear of it all the same.

During the war, the only thing he missed as much as his wife was strawberry milkshakes, though he didn’t mind the cinnamon hot chocolate the Vietnamese made with sweetened condensed milk, which was what he sipped on then, the first night he met the Man Who Would Be Death.

There were whispered superstitions that the platoon was cursed, but Reg was neither a godly man nor one to believe folly (he had seen too much war for the former and been an officer too long to allow the latter), so he accepted the transfer without hesitation.

What he overheard as he sipped his hot chocolate: “I’ve seen flowers and plants wilt as he walks past them. I’m telling you, he’s a warlock, and a bullet magnet, and bad fucking luck. We should do something about him ourselves if Charlie can’t get the job done.”

“I don’t think he can die. What if we stick him with a knife and he just patches himself up like he does out in the jungle and then goes to the brass?”

Reginald looked over his shoulder at the man whom they were talking about. Jack Horowitz was drinking—to Reg Solar’s great surprise—warm milk. Horowitz didn’t look much like a vampire, or any other kind of supernatural creature at all. He was young, hardly a day over eighteen, with deep-pitted acne scars all over his cheeks and chin, like the skin of his face had been eaten away by termites. Apart from the scars, he was unremarkable; no one who met him could later recall the color of his eyes, or his hair, or what his voice sounded like. The only things that could be agreed upon were that he was a) short and slight, b) very unattractive, and c) unsettlingly calm.

Over the course of the evening, the concern that Horowitz wasn’t dying grew so great, and the plots against him so elaborate, that Reginald eventually had to pull the young private aside and speak with him personally.

“Private Horowitz,” he said when he followed him out of the bar. Reginald was not a man who was easily scared, but the way Horowitz moved without making a sound, the way his footfalls made no noise, well—it was strange, to say the least.

“Lieutenant Solar.”

Reginald motioned to a pair of stools on the roadside, left there earlier in the night by men in sedge hats with rolled cigarettes burning between their fingers. “Please, take a seat.” Horowitz took a seat. The chair made no sound as it scraped across the ground. “How are your wounds treating you? I hear you recently took a round to the shoulder.”

“Oh, I barely notice it. It was only a graze.”

“Do you mind if I see it?”

“Triage advised me to keep it covered to prevent infection.”

“I’m sure, I’m sure. Still. If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Yes, sir.”

Horowitz stood, shrugged off his jacket and peeled back the dressing taped to his left shoulder. Beneath it was a bullet graze, about the length of a finger. The wound, no more than a few days old, was fresh pink and smooth. A scar.

“You heal quickly,” said Reginald.

“Like I said, it was a graze.”

“Do you know why I asked to speak with you?”

“Because the other men think I’m a warlock and are planning to murder me in my sleep.”

Reg was taken aback by both his honesty and deadpan delivery. “You heard them? They aren’t really planning to murder you.”

“Oh, I assure you they are. There’s no cause for alarm though. Their attempt will fail.”

There was a beat of silence. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“A . . . warlock?”

Horowitz smiled. “You don’t strike me as a superstitious man, Lieutenant Solar.”

“I’m not. Yet you still haven’t answered my question.”

“I’m not a warlock.”

“You seem to have a lot of close calls with bullets. Took two in the chest not long back, I heard.”

“What can I say. I’ve been perpetually lucky.”

“Luck tends to unnerve the luckless, especially in the middle of a war.”

“Are you suggesting I should try not to be lucky?”

“Perhaps you should be a little luckier and not get shot at all.”

Horowitz laughed. “I shall keep that in mind for the future.”

“One last thing. The men, I overheard them say . . . but I’m sure this can’t be true . . . They say they’ve never seen you so much as point your weapon, let alone pull the trigger?”

“Oh, it’s true. I’ve not killed anyone. It wouldn’t be fair if I discharged my weapon.”

“Excuse me?”

“You see, Lieutenant, I never miss. If I were to shoot into the jungle, even if I don’t aim, my bullet would find its way into the chest of some poor Vietnamese man.”

“That’s the point. That’s what we want from you.”

“No, Lieutenant. It would be wholly unfair for me to fight in this war. I am an impartial party.”

“Why the hell did you come to Vietnam if you’re an impartial party?”

“Well, sir, because I was drafted, but not by the United States. I was drafted by Death.”

There were several more beats of silence. “Death?”

“That is correct. Death. The Grim Reaper. Whatever you want to call him. I am apprenticed to him and he sent me here to learn my craft.”

“How in the hell did you get drafted by Death?”

“I don’t know why I was chosen, only that I was. Every night for a month, Death left orchids on my pillow, as a warning that he was coming.”

“Orchids?”

“Death hates them, apparently. He fears their strength, and so he has made them his calling card.”

“How’d you pass your psych test?”

“Alas, I didn’t take a psych test.”

Reginald took off his reading glasses. Rubbed his eyes. Jesus. “Look, Horowitz, you can’t keep acting like this. You’re worrying the other soldiers. You keep being a strange son of a bitch and it might be you push one of them too far and they stick you with a knife. I can’t have that.”

“I was sent here to reap one soul in particular. My very first assignment. Would it give you comfort to know who I’ve come for?”

Reginald shifted in his seat. “Wouldn’t that upset some sort of cosmic balance?” he said, a twinge of panic sparking through him.

Horowitz stared at him for a while and then nodded. “I suppose. Still. This is a dreadful line of work.”

“So is war. Tell the Reaper to get off our backs, would you?”

“I assure you, my master does not listen to me.”

“What does he need an apprentice for anyhow? Why can’t he do his own dirty work?”

“I am to become Death when he is gone.”

“Oh yeah? Where’s he going?”

“Death is dying.”

“Death can’t die.”

“What monstrous creatures humans would be if they could not die. It is no different for Death. Death dies because he must, because everything does. He’s on vacation in the Mediterranean at the moment. I hear it’s nice this time of year. He has left the war in the charge of his apprentices, which, as I have explained, I am one of.”

Reg stared at Horowitz for a moment, unable to quite think of what to say. “Okay, well, just do me a favor and reel it in a bit, would you? Don’t talk about any of this Death shit with the others. Dismissed.”

Horowitz nodded and stood and made his way down the darkened alley back toward the bustling streets of the city.

“Horowitz?” Reg called, just before he rounded the corner. “Hold up for a second.”

“Yes, sir?”

“If you really are Death’s apprentice, then it shouldn’t be too hard for you to tell me . . .” He couldn’t help the small grin that spread across his face. Just because he didn’t believe didn’t mean he could resist asking. “How do I die?”

“It’s a terrible thing, to know for sure. The knowledge is a curse that would drive most men mad.”

“I think I’ll manage.”

“You drown, sir.”

Reg had to laugh—he was an excellent swimmer. “Well, now I guess I’m never getting in water again.”

“And thus by knowing it, you have already changed your fate, and with it your death. Well, maybe.”

Reg’s grin widened. “The drowning thing’s a joke, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps. But would you risk it, knowing what you know?”

“Hmm.” He thought for a moment. About the swelling breakers of the ocean, and the way the salt seared your throat and nose after a wave dumped you on a beach. About the screaming, desperate burn of your lungs when you dived too deep and black spots that started forming in your vision as you kicked for the surface. People thought drowning was peaceful, but Reg had spent enough time in water to know it would be otherwise—it was not the way he’d want to go.

“Dismissed.”

Jack Horowitz went AWOL the next day, the same day the war ended for Reginald, because he was shot in the heart.

Reg, while recovering in a makeshift hospital before his journey home, thought of Jack Horowitz, and then, when he returned to the US, he thought of him more still. Whenever he went to the beach or took a bath or went fishing, a niggling fear began to bite at the back of his mind. You drown, this fear whispered to him every time he was caught in a rip or knocked down by a wave or his chest began to ache from being under for too long. This is how you will die. For a time, the rational part of Reginald’s brain argued with this voice. For a time, it won.

Reginald Solar was a sensible man, after all; he did not believe in ghosts, or curses, and he especially did not believe in the Grim Reaper.

But what if?

What if?

Soon the fear bit a little harder, and the rational voice grew shaky, and Reginald stopped going to the beach.

Stopped fishing.

Stopped taking baths.

Slowly but surely, day by day, the curse of knowing his fate settled into his head and there it made a home for itself. Reg moved away from the coast, began to circumvent storm drains, wouldn’t go outside when it rained. Each day he avoided water, he fed his fear, and each day, the fear grew a little stronger, a little crueler, until it metastasized into something fat and ugly and totally in control of his life. When his children were born, so great was his fear that he passed it down to them, so that each of them would know, without knowing how they knew, exactly how they would die, and they would fear this knowledge with the same intensity he had.

And still, he wondered what had happened to Horowitz. Reg believed he’d simply deserted after the escalating threats of harm from his fellow soldiers, but he found out five years after the war from a rather intoxicated and remorseful Private Hanson that a group of them had bound and gagged Horowitz in the early hours of the morning, weighted his feet with stones, and dropped him into the depths of the Saigon River. Horowitz, Hanson reported through his sobs, hadn’t fought back at all, had serenely gone along with the whole thing like it was a Sunday afternoon trip to the beach.

By this point in time, Hanson was dying from emphysema from sucking back two packs of cigarettes a day—a habit he picked up in ’Nam—and all the other men involved in Horowitz’s murder had perished before the end of the war. There was no one left to court-martial. Still, Reg went to his superiors and explained what had happened, only to be told that there was no record of a Private Jack Horowitz ever having served in the war, let alone a birth certificate or social security number as proof of his existence, which Reg found very fucking strange indeed (but not strange enough to believe the dead man had actually been Death’s apprentice, mind you).

Hanson died a month later, in excruciating pain, drowning in his hospital bed from the fluid in his lungs. A just death, Reg thought.

Horowitz had no grave, no memorial, no place for Reginald to go and mourn the unfortunate man he’d known for only a matter of hours, the man whose mental illness had cost him his life.

It was quite a shock for Reginald, then, when a very not-dead Jack Horowitz showed up on his doorstep in 1982 and asked him to be best man at his wedding.