Vida

by Marge Piercy

  Larkin. If she came East permanently, she would have to make up her mind about him—something she had been avoiding for four years, since she had parted finally with Kevin. She felt Lark’s frail wiriness and spun-steel will and experienced that mixture of compassion, attraction and uneasiness he always stirred up in her. He had been in Cincinnati just before her, but they had missed each other by a day. She would see him soon enough, since there was work to do before the Board met. She sighed. Could she get Leigh to come up to Boston? It was only slightly farther than Philadelphia. Except for the weekend with Leigh she had been emotionally alone since the summer, and she was tired, with a deep and pervasive hunger of the senses and the heart that must stay unfed. Two people down the coach were reading newspapers: touch of danger. She retired her face behind her own.

  So Natalie had a task for her: excellent. An immediate political task would lighten her mood, till she could connect with the Network again, and do her much more good than hanging around libraries doing research on capital flow. Not that she did not enjoy libraries: they soothed and stimulated her at once, like one of Natalie’s good tisanes. But she could have become a scholar by staying in the university instead of running off to marry Vasos, and a fugitive scholar was a bizarre notion. She needed a job to do, not set by herself, to feel part of the world of working people.

  5

  Laura Kearney, a divorced pediatrician whose son had died of leukemia she blamed on radiation, sheltered fugitives for a set period of up to two weeks per visit, as long as they were political. Vida had once lived for a week in her basement in Newton, in a former coal bin fixed up as a sub rosa guest room. She expected to be put up, or down, there again.

  Instead Laura drove her out to Cape Cod. “I’m taking you to my summer home.”

  “I’m nervous about off-season places. Berrigan got caught on Block Island.”

  “He was living pretty openly, wasn’t he? You’re safe at my house, just don’t hang around town. It’s a couple of miles. I’ve stocked the place with food, and I’m leaving more with you. Oh, you’ll have a housemate.”

  “Who?” She felt a rush of anxiety, huddling against her side of the car staring at the headlights eating into the dark highway.

  “A very nice young man. I didn’t ask his name any more than I ask yours”

  It could be anyone she knew or anyone she didn’t, a plant, an agent. Did the Network know he was here? She balked at the idea of being dumped in the woods with some strange man and left to manage as best she could. “Why can’t I just stay in the city?”

  “Really, the accommodations here are much pleasanter than in my cellar. Don’t worry about that young man. He seems quite well mannered. I’m sure he won’t bother you. The house is big enough so that you needn’t get in each other’s way.”

  At a little after 9, Laura turned off the highway and began driving on a pair of sand ruts through pine and oak woods. The road was dark and bumpy. The Datsun slithered into dips and thunked its muffler on exposed roots. The sky had clouded over, and the woods pushed in on the narrow road, black and uninviting. They passed an occasional cabin, dark too. To their right she saw faint sky shine reflecting off the waters of a pond. The Datsun labored up a steep hill and over a bump. Then she saw another pond to their left. They drove along it high on a wooded bluff. One house showed its lights at each end of the oval pond. Laura gestured at the far lights. “That’s my house.”

  “Doesn’t it seem conspicuous?”

  “A burglar wouldn’t turn the lights on. I told the local police I’d be using my house all fall, so they won’t be excited at someone being there.”

  “Who’s at this end?”

  “She teaches the second grade. He’s a carpenter. They have three kids, name of Kensington. They live here year round. They won’t bother you” Laura turned sharply left and they bumped along a road in even worse shape, the bottom of the car scraping on the overgrown middle as the wheels struggled in the deeply eroded ruts. “We’re almost there.”

  “Do you ever get stuck?”

  “Oh, in the winter. I’ve ruined a muffler or two” Laura sounded cheerful. Vida could see the lights again through the trees. Suddenly they went out. Laura pulled into a driveway to park. “We need to walk down to the house—it’s on the water. Could you take a bag of groceries?”

  Laura strode ahead whistling and swinging her keys by a finger. Vida, carrying two sacks and her pack on her back, clambered awkwardly down the rough stairs of railway ties and sand after her. The house was a log cabin with a wide deck around it, the pond glimmering dully like pewter just beyond.

  “Hello, hello!” Laura was calling. The man must be hiding. “It’s me, Laura,” she shouted, sounding amused. How our precautions amuse them; Leigh was the same way. Forgetting to call me Vinnie, as if it were an arbitrary demand without foundation, yet they’d be furious if we endangered them. He, whoever he is, must be frightened in the dark watching us.

  Laura went into the house turning on lights, switching on the outdoor floodlights, calling in the tone of voice she might use to a child, a patient, “It’s all right. Hello there, wherever you are. It’s me, Laura, and a friend who’s come here to stay. Hello?”

  Vida felt wary about walking into the light but the bags were heavy, and finally she lurched forward to rest them on the kitchen counter. A man came out of the woods and shambled toward them. He was not tall, perhaps exactly her height with dark hair. He was wearing a black T-shirt underneath a denim jacket and jeans with his hands shoved in the pockets. Slowly he came toward them, climbed the deck, and pushed open the sliding glass door.

  “Hi’’ he said with a small gritted smile. He stared at Vida. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

  ”Sorry to surprise you, but with the phone disconnected, there’s no way to get in touch. She’s in the same boat you are. She’ll be staying here.” Laura turned, not bothering to take off her coat or gloves. “You should both come out to the car with me to carry the groceries. I want you to have enough food. Then I must be off!’

  They stumbled up the log steps from the squares of light thrown by the house, into the darkness beyond where the car waited. Then Laura gave Vida a key to the house, instructions for returning it if she left in a hurry. At once Laura drove back along the road. In a few minutes, they could see the headlights touching the trees across the lake as they stood side by side, the groceries at their feet, before he led the way back to the house.

  First they put away the food. “Aw, coffee, that’s good. Didn’t have none” he said appreciatively. He had a pleasant voice—not butterscotch like Leigh’s, but warm. Not Eastern. Not Midwestern either. What? She wasn’t sure yet. “Sardines, canned chicken, ham. She ain’t exactly the warmest woman I ever met, but she does right by you. There’s still veggies out in the garden, too.” He turned and looked her in the eyes.

  “You have green eyes too!” she said in surprise, and then was angry at herself because it sounded flirtatious. “It’s cold in here,” she added irritably. “I don’t suppose you’re cold?”

  “Would you like a fire? Matter of fact, that’s all we got to heat this cabin—the fireplace and a wood stove”

  “I’m cold and tired. I had to hang around Boston for hours till she could meet me … I could use a bath. Is there hot water, or is that disconnected?”

  “I turned it on. Look around, it’s a pretty cabin. We’re smack on the lake. A sandy beach at our door. I even went swimming this morning.”

  “Swimming?” she shuddered. “Did you cut a hole in the ice?”

  “Water was warmer than the air. I like to get exercise.”

  “Where’s the john?” At last she would be alone, relax.

  He pointed the way. “Want some fresh coffee when you hop out?”

  She didn’t. She wanted to sleep; but she had better wake up, battle her fatigue and figure out who this kid was before she rested. It was indulgence to bathe first, but she could not find the strength to deal with him u
ntil she had somewhat collected herself. With real satisfaction she locked herself in the bathroom, stripped and ran the water good and hot.

  She took a long soak, washing herself slowly, trying to blot anxiety from her mind for this interval. She needed sleep, she needed rest, she needed quiet and safety. Her back ached from too many nights on couches. The last time she had stayed someplace was a week with Saul and Dee Dee in Cincinnati, where she and Bill (who was on his way back to L.A.) had run a workshop on how to do pirate TV actions for the live fugitives in the area. That was the last time she had unpacked, relaxed and done some political work. She felt crazed with traveling, bumping warily against strangers, weaving a veil of lies and dancing within, moving, constantly moving.

  Green eyes—that clear hard green. Suddenly she knew him. She sighed profoundly and slid into the water with a shiver of relief. Joel his name was, Joel White. He was a kid who hadn’t made C.O. and had deserted when he was nineteen and been a fugitive since. He’d hung around with Jimmy. Joel wasn’t really in the Network but one of that much larger group who loosely related to it. Jimmy and he had traveled together before Jimmy settled at Hardscrabble Hill with Kevin and her. Joel was okay, then; he had been under a long time, and he was safe. Only what connection might he have with Kevin? She had to feel that out.

  When the water had lost its warmth, she got out of the tub reluctantly and cleaned it, dried herself. She did not want to put on the same dirty clothes. No, a clean pair of cords and her funky moss green velour top. A squirt of Laura’s Femme cologne from the medicine cabinet pricked up her spirits.

  Coming out, she scanned the house, a log cabin but hardly Lincolnesque. The floor was pine in the bedrooms and slate of various subdued colors in the kitchen and huge living room, while heavier slabs of the same stone faced the fireplace. Two walls of the living room were glass, the third wood paneling, and the fourth was open to the sizable kitchen. The furniture was rattan. A settee heaped with plush cushions faced the fire he had built. At one end of the settee he was waiting, one leg crossed over the other. On the coffee table he had placed a tray with the hot coffee in a heavy blue ceramic pitcher, cream in a jug, a sugar bowl and two mugs and spoons. Beside that apparatus stood a bottle ofJohnnie Walker red and a couple of glasses with ice in them. “Dug that up too. I figured you might go for it. I sure do”

  Wavering, she wanted to take the chair, well away from him to inspect him better, but that would represent obvious avoidance after the way he had set things up. She settled for curling at the other end of the none-too-wide settee with her legs brought up between them. “I’ll have a little, Joel.”

  “Didn’t think you knew me!” He grinned. “I recognized you immediately. Vida Asch.”

  He seemed to enjoy saying her name, while she experienced an automatic spurt of cold along her arteries. In contrast, he had been flattered when she called him by name—not frightened or at least startled as she had expected. That had not given her the commanding edge she had anticipated, but rather had eliminated some small advantage she had not been aware of. “I’m not sure we should be finishing her Scotch”

  “I don’t think she’s a heavy drinker. The bottles had cobwebs running between them.”

  “We scared you when we drove up.”

  He ignored that probe. “I’m not a big Scotch drinker. Like sour mash better.”

  “So do I.”

  “Yeah, I always think of New Yorkers drinking Scotch”

  “I was born in Cleveland, and I finished growing up in Chicago. Where are you from?” She wanted to place that voice.

  “Born in New Jersey. Family moved to North Carolina. Then at fifteen, to Sacramento.”

  “Such a cosmopolitan upbringing!”

  “We both know there’s nothing cosmopolitan about Passaic, Roanoke Falls and Sacramento.” He raised his eyebrows at her, over his glass. His hair was black and thickly wavy and his complexion ruddy through the remains of what had been a dark tan. He looked contagiously healthy. He was not slight, as he had seemed at first in his boyish faltering approach, but solidly built, muscular, although his features were delicately made: a small slightly puckered arrogant mouth, beautiful ivory teeth, a well modeled flaring nose, arched brows, a perfect lightly cleft chin. His manner of speaking was emphatic, almost flirtatious. Oh, he’s gay, she realized, of course. That was the nice tea tray with the coffee, the cups, the Scotch, the air of elegance as he sat there in worn denims with a soiled bandage on his left hand. Probably he had been lovers with Jimmy. She should have guessed that earlier. She relaxed against the back of the settee, letting her spine sag. Nothing to worry about, then.

  “So we’re both from the provinces,” he said.

  “Exactly” She nodded. “I remember seeing New York for the first time, wanting it, wanting it the way you want somebody gorgeous you see at a party, some guy you see dancing.”

  He smiled very slightly and knelt to put another log on the fire. “We danced together at Wichita.”

  “You and I?”

  “Oh. You don’t remember. Why should you?” He was pouting, drawn up aloof on the couch again. He rattled the ice cubes in his glass and poured in more Scotch.

  What vanity! What a perfectly self-centered kittenish puffball! Ugh— and she would have to get along with him for however long she stayed here. Then she remembered he was a fugitive too. He was not sheltering her. She was not forced to get on with him any more desperately than he must get on with her. It was equal! How delightful: she was free to dislike him if she wanted to. They could divide up the house and ignore one another. They were of no use to each other whatsoever. How marvelous and unusual it was. She didn’t have to please him, she didn’t have to take care not to step on his prejudices, she didn’t need to extract help or money or transportation or information or message delivery or mail drop or anything at all out of him. They could fight. They could scream. They could take out their ill temper on each other because neither had any power. The only people with whom she ever let out feelings were her real family when she saw them, and sometimes, as with Leigh, she had to be cautious even there. The Network was artificial family. You could let out feelings, yes, but you were stuck with each other till death or disaster parted you. When a divorce occurred, as it had with Kevin, the result was possibly lethal.

  He was glancing at her with that pout. She asked, “There are no houses near this one?”

  “She’s got neighbors to both sides—you’ll see when you walk around— but they’re boarded up for the winter.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to ask each other questions like that? Never mind. What day is this?”

  “Tuesday night.”

  “Since last Friday … I think she has a boyfriend at her house in Newton and that’s why she toted us out here. We had to turn on the water and open up the house, and all the time she was in an awful hurry to rush back.”

  She finished her drink and let the coffee stand. “I’m going to bed … Where have you been sleeping?” She added quickly, “I don’t care which bedroom I take.”

  “I’ve been sleeping in my bag in front of the stove” He pointed to the wood-burning stove between the living room and the kitchen. “It gets pretty damn cold.”

  “I’ll put on a lot of covers”

  The bed was double and covered with an Appalachian quilt. She checked that the window opened and that she could pry herself out through it if she had to. Undressing swiftly, she launched herself into the iron-cold sheets. Immediately her teeth began to chatter as she curled into a ball. He was right: the room was appallingly cold. Her body felt as if the warmth were seeping from it. Weary as she was the cold kept her awake, but she would not go in there with him. She did not want his company. She stayed in the double bed on the Great Greenland Ice Shelf and froze.

  As sun warmed the house in the morning, she slept late. She was exhausted through and through, and what was there to get up for? She recognized that
she was close to an emotional bottom and must coddle herself. It happened from time to time; it happened. She did not want to get up and face the day, him, her life, anything. Leigh with his new all-too-serious affair. Surveillance on Natalie. What the hell was the Network doing with itself? Marking time. Generating rhetoric like an antiquated wind machine in the desert. She had been in the forefront of a movement that had blown away. Her days were spent in simple survival. It was fine for Larkin; he lived on victories in Angola and Afghanistan. It was fine for Kiley; she lived on abstractions. How did Eva manage? Gently, Eva and Alice and she had kept one another intact, but survival was not enough. Their little actions felt paltry to her. She could not live on distant struggles.

  Finally she realized she was smelling coffee and eggs, and she promised herself another hot bath. In L.A. Eva and Alice and she had a tiny gas heater. In a day it was possible to generate enough hot water morning and night for one bath or one shower or one dishwashing or one clothes washing in the sink. Therefore, at most she could bathe every two days. Traveling, she had often had to go longer. Her skin crawled. Leigh had once told her she kept her pussy so clean a crab couldn’t find it on a dark night; certainly she was used to being called fastidious. Hot water was her favorite luxury.

  In the kitchen, the wood stove was stoked up. Joel had made coffee and juice. He was sitting at the table mending his spare pants, where a seam had opened in the crotch. A real domestic type.

  “Would you like me to scramble you some eggs?” he offered.

  “Oh, I can do it.” Better than he, she suspected, for from the evidence of the pan he cooked eggs on too high a flame.

  Breakfast was a nice quiet meal, but he seemed disturbed by the silence and finally began to make conversation as she sipped her coffee.

  “Worst thing for me is no TV. No radio, even. No papers. You can’t find out what’s happening.”