The Eyeless Prison - The Eyeless Prison by Tait Mckenzie

Sobs resounded in the cramped black cell. The man took his ear from against the immobile concrete and whispered through the hole in the wall. “Randolph? Is that you?”

There was a groan. “Thank God you’re still there Murphy, I don’t know if I could have born this any longer, not without you to talk to. The things they did…”

“It’s okay, friend, I’m still here, as much as I wish otherwise. I don’t think they’ll ever let us out.”

“Murphy? This time it was my eyes…”

Murphy sank to the straw and piss covered floor in despair. It was inhuman. When would it be his turn? He could barely remember how long it had been; years lost rotting in this shit-smelling hole. He used to try and count the days, the constant light dancing just out of reach in the thin, barred window by the ceiling. But then it grew dark, for what seemed like months at a time, they must have been covering it, trying to break his will, make him confess to the impossible, the same way they gave him cigarettes without a math, lavish dinners wafting on the other side of the locked iron door. Until Randolph had appeared in the adjoining cell Murphy thought he’d go mad, days pacing back and forth between the tight walls, avoiding the growing pile of offal in the corner. He wondered at what point things had gone wrong.

The last he knew for certain was a confusion of small rooms, train cars tumbling through the ancient, gloomy forests of Europe towards this place, bound and occasionally beaten within an inch of his life. The brown-uniformed officers snarled at him like wolves. They’d stripped him of his good suit and brass pocket watch, waved the notepad in front of his face asking where he’d hidden the secrets. American spy, they barked, and paraded in front of him a panoply of identities that offered some hope of freedom if he’d but given in. Yet he swore these names were not his own, if only he could convince them who he was, why didn’t they see it in his face, the fear contrasted by the electric torches in their rough hands?

“Randolph,” he asked when the man had stopped moaning though the hole, only large enough to transmit their words and cries, “did they get you to talk?” Murphy scratched at his beard, how he wanted to shave it. He wished there was a mirror to se how haggard he looked, but there wouldn’t have been enough light in the cell for a reflection.

“Only so much, doubt they believed any of it, though I swore it was the truth. Ha, as far as I can see it. I told them about us, everything, except what they wanted to know. I’m sorry, but it’s been on my mind.” Randolph’s big mouth had made him the first target of interrogations, but Murphy feared he too would be reduced to this same fate before he saw the light of day again. He tried to remember Eleanor’s face, as she’d stood on their porch in the brilliant Massachusetts spring, a quickly fading talisman in the dim of the prison.

Through the desperate numb of the days that felt like one endless night, Murpy’s only safety, his sanity now was with this friend on the far side of the wall, who once was a braggart and now a shriveled husk of a man. Randolph would tell stories through the ragged hole to keep their spirits up, starting with what he’d do when they escaped and moving on to a progressively incoherent fantasy that Murphy feared was rubbing off on him. He hated the man, but they’d been through so much together, he was all he had. Eventually the two recounted their delirious history, trying to sort out how they’d ended up here, afraid that the answer still wouldn’t set them free.

* * *

“For God’s sake, man, hold onto that rope!”

Murphy O’Neil hauled at his end, trying to steady the barge against the rickety wharf. A crash of lightning momentarily illuminated the shipping yard, the squat stone buildings so foreign to his American sensibilities, like hulking, age-old gremlins lurking in the urban woods. “Better shut that mouth and keep loading, before you get us both killed.”

He had been all set to leave Austria, having tracked down the looming front of the war. While waiting for the Venice train to board, Murphy sat in a small Viennesse bar trying to write the article for Hearst and imagining the smile with which his wife would greet him, when a man in a tattered yet familiar pinstriped suit and an obviously false beard grabbed his arm.

“Murphy, you’re a sight for sore eyes, you gotta help me.”

In the smoke-stained mirror behind the oaken bar he suddenly recognized his old friend. “Randolph? What are you doing here, what’s happened to you?”

“There’s no time to explain, the Nazi’s are on my tail, they know about the art. Please, Murphy!”

“Whoa, slow down, what do you want me to do? Tell it to me from the beginning.” Murphy put an arm around the distraught man’s shoulder, shocked by how much thinner he’d grown over the last year. There was even grey in his black hair.

* * *

The last time he’d seen Randolph Carter was at the wedding. “I never saw this one coming,” the man had said, the reflection of his cavalier smile dancing beneath the wire-rim glasses. “Going and getting married, jeez. And to Eleanor Crane at that. You’re a lucky dog, Murphy.”

“Well, if you hadn’t talked me up so much I may as well have been invisible.” Murphy adjusted the collar of his borrowed tuxedo in the hall mirror of the Crane residence, admiring not only his suddenly handsome image, but also the magnificent ballroom of marble columns and stairs among which his future wife had played as a child. He glanced at his pocket watch before meeting the smile of his best man, who stood behind him dwarfed by a monstrous potted palm. “But did you have to wear that gangster suit?” Randolph had been wearing the baggy pinstriped affair on the day they’d met, fist year at Harvard, and had hardly taken it off since.

“You know it’s the only one I’ve got!”

“Ha, you mean the only one that fits over that new gut, I’ve seen your full closets.”

“Touché, my man, touché.” He lit a cigarette and laughed. “Wow, Eleanor… I had always thought that she and I, you know. But who could love a week-eyed little barrel like me?”

Murphy glanced at his pocket watch again and clapped Randolph on the back. “I do, chum, God knows why, but I do.”

“Yeah, well, you got the girl.” He adjusted his glasses and took a sip of champagne. Expensive, he thought, Eleanor’s father had poured it from his personal cellars for the occasion. Randolph wondered how much he could get for a bottle.

“Don’t take it so hard. I’ll probably just settle down and have a family, while you still get to gallivant around and have all those grand adventures you used to talk about. Tell me, what do you plan to do next?”

“Me? Get drunk, and maybe charm a bridesmaid into one of this mansion’s plaza-sized broom closets.”

Murphy laughed, “No, I mean with your life.”

“I know, well, a friend of mine’s got some opportunities in Europe. Things are still settling there after the war. He said there’s lots of money floating around. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up getting married too, but to some rich exotic princess.”

“That’s the spirit!” Murphy adjusted his tie and smiled at the white room in the mirror, at the beauty of his coming life. “Come on, the ceremony’s about to start.”

* * *

While Murphy had aspired to become a journalist, a profession that clashed with his near impenetrable shyness, Randy was a boisterous clown who aspired only to carousing and maybe a bit of petty theft. Nonetheless they’d become fast friends, which probably had kept Murphy from killing himself out of a youthful sense of alienation. Murphy had caught the hoodlum trying to steal legal pads from the Journalism Department to resell, sneaking through the granite halls with a stack under his frayed sleeve. But Randolph had told such a complex sob story of his poor upbringing that instead of turning him in, Murphy ended up buying the fellow drinks at a bar in Harvard Square till it was almost dawn. Randolph had never let Murphy forget how much he’d appreciated that gesture, and it was a shock to now see him in such a desperate state. Randolph had indeed gotten drunk at the wedding, slapped one of the bridesmaids for not dancing with him, and then stormed out yelling about grand adventures. They hadn’t seen each other since. Murphy wondered what the man had stolen this time.

Murphy grabbed his friend’s arm and propelled him onto the cobble-stoned street, ducking down labyrinthine alleys and forcing cigarettes into his stubby fingers until Randolph finally spat it all out. “That opportunity, you know, it was smuggling, paintings and statues ‘misplaced’ during the war. I guess we didn’t realize that there’d be another one.” When the Germans had annexed Austria his partner Franz had been summarily shot, and Randolph now had a couple hot crates of art hidden in a warehouse by the Danube he needed to make off with, tonight.

“Oh no, you’re not getting me involved in another one of your heists again. What would Eleanor think if I got hurt? She’s expecting, her last telegram said she’s about due.” He patted the breast pocket of his new tweed suit, which Hearst’s agent had fitted Murphy with on his arrival.

“What? Damn, congratulations, I always knew you had it in you. But just remember, you still owe me, you two would never have gotten together if it wasn’t for me.”

* * *

Another crash of lightning revealed Randolph’s bulky figure trying to wrestle a crate onto the shaking barge. The rope bit into Murphy’s hands but he wound it tighter as a fierce wind rushed in. The storm would hit soon, even the ugly warehouses looked like they might be blown away. This was crazy, he thought, but what Randolph had said was true.

One day after they’d been drinking all afternoon, he’d come up with a plan to break into the girl’s dormitory and make off with some jewelry. Murphy had only gone along thinking that it might make for a good story for the next day’s paper, and because he hoped to get a glimpse of the mysterious Eleanor Crane. She was also in the Class of ’37, a tall, elegant girl who had come from an old prospecting family turned industrialists. Rumored to have fabulous riches tucked in her bureaus, Randolph quickly agreed to scour her suite first, figuring they’d heist the mother load and get out easy, as quick as a caboose. But when they burst through the doors they found themselves in the middle of a tea party, girls in white sundresses lounging among lace pillows and art deco mirrors. Before the girls could scream Randolph grabbed three oranges and started juggling, his buffoonery multiplied in the scrolling glass walls, all the while joking in his loud patter that he was the entertainment hired for their gala.

“Then who’s he supposed to be?” Eleanor smiled demurely, not missing a beat, and pointed to Murphy, who stood silent and handsome by the French doors, ready to bolt.

“Well if I’m the fool then he’s your knight in shining armor.”

“Hmm, that sounds promising.”

The three of them had taken to hanging out on the Charles River after classes, boating up to Observatory Hill to watch the ships leaving port. The robust clown did most of the talking, which somehow drew his silent friends towards each other. Eventually Murphy had found the guts to propose, and with her enigmatic smile Eleanor had said yes.

* * *

“Hold her steady now, I’ve only got two more to load!” The man was louder than the closing storm. The dock trembled under the boxes’ weight.

“Jeez, Randy, be quiet.” Yeah he owed his friend, but was this worth it?

“Why don’t you get up here and heave these boxes then? Just keep your pants on.” Randolph yelled down at Murphy, “Eleanor can fucking wait.”

“Hey, I’m only doing this for you, you don’t have to talk about Mrs. O’Neil that way.”

“Damn, man, I’ll talk however I want.” He strained against the box and swore. “You know, I had her once.”

“You what?” Murphy almost lost grip of the rope and the barge banged against the dock with a sharp crack.

“C’mon hold her tight now. Yeah, don’t worry, it was before you proposed.”

“Randolph, don’t tell me this.”

“Hey, I just thought you should know,” he grunted and swore louder, “in case we, uh, never see each other again. She ever do that thing to you, you know, with her…”

“You bastard!” Murphy leapt up the peer at his friend. The rope spiraled away and the boat lurched out into the Danube. Randolph had been shoving the last crate onboard, but it tipped and fell into the black water with a monstrous splash.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” He yelled, “Look what you did. Those paintings were priceless.”

“Wrong with me?” Murphy yelled right back. Somewhere dogs started howling, and unnoticed by the pair a light went on in the guardhouse across the yard. “You’re the one provoking me, how could you?”

“Hey, you were out of town, getting interviewed by Hearst that week, and she asked me to.”

Murphy grabbed Randolph by the pinstriped collar and started throttling him. “I thought we were friends. I can’t believe you did this. I can’t believe I didn’t turn you in all those years ago.”

Randolph was waving his arms wildly and gasping for air when a shot rang out. Murphy leapt back and the two men froze, staring at each other in hatred.

“Stop and identify yourselves,” someone yelled, the language German but the meaning universal.

“I’m sorry pal.” Randolph muttered, and then scrambled onto the drifting barge.

Murphy turned and ran through the yard towards the looming buildings, the night pierced by gunshots and the barking of the canines. But then suddenly another bolt lit up the tableaux, Randolph shoving off down the river, the SS police coming in from all sides, and Murphy stranded in the middle with nowhere to run. The storm finally broke, and slashed down on him in great torrents.

“Eleanor,” he cried out, and sank to his knees and fate. Then something hit the back of his head and everything went black.

* * *

It had come as a shock to some, but as an expected disappointment to the rest, that another war was brewing, though still yet in whispers. Murphy felt it his duty as a journalist to cross the Atlantic and get a sense of what was going on.

“But it could be dangerous,” Eleanor pleaded, pacing through the rooms of their new house on the Charles, a gift from her father “and how will you live over there?”

“Don’t worry, Hearst has set up an account for me in London. He says if I pull this off it will seal my career. I’ll be well taken care of.” He finished packing his trunk and stood up.

“But what about me, and the baby?” Eleanor clasped her hands around the belly swelling under her white dress. “What if she’s born while you’re away?”

“It’ll only be a couple of months. I’ll back before you know it and get to see the whole wondrous miracle of birth. Don’t fret so much my love, you could hurt our child.” Murphy glanced at his watch, kissing the initials she’d had engraved in the soft brass. “I’ve got to catch that steamer, kiss me goodbye.”

As the car rounded the gravel lane he glanced back. Eleanor was standing on the porch, as tall and elegant as on the day he’d first laid eyes on her, hands still clasped around her belly as if in chthonic prayer. Though not a superstitious man, nor prone to dark premonitions, he hoped to always remember her like this, no matter what happened. Her face would certainly make the boat ride more enjoyable, though it looked like it might storm.

* * *

A light suddenly shattered the prison, breaking in through the iron door with a sharp clang that sent Murphy too his knees. He thought they were taking him back, another round of interrogations, why wouldn’t they just end it? But then a strong, American voice called out. “The war is over, you’re free now.”

Free. Murphy huddled against the wall, pressing his scarred cheek to he cold stone. What would become of him now, of Randolph, of Eleanor? He would never see them again. Eleanor, he had forgotten her face at last. “Randolph,” he called tentatively, but the man was already gone, taking with him that past they’d clung to in the dark, that friendship they’d rekindled, and now lost in that vast, invisible world outside these tangible walls. He groped for his pocket watch, still forgetting that it was not there. Slowly he got up, and with the soldier’s help stumbled into the light. He felt the sun on his face, and cried. Murphy was going home, to Eleanor at last, but he would never leave this eyeless prison, the war that had stolen his sight and condemned him to relive his memories like someone old and blind, unable to sleep in the interminable night.