“Ronald. Ronald,” she shouted.
Again. A peculiar, childlike sound. Fearful, pathetic, desperate. A faint, wordless cry.
“OK, Ronald,” she called. “Get ahold of yourself. We’re here. Hold on.”
She turned her head back toward Andre. “How deep is it? Why can’t he get out?”
“He told me he was all right,” said Andre. “I had read about it in this book. Always hoped to find one. A cave, I mean. In the book, a man goes through the cave and finds himself in the process of coming out. Ronald said he would go first and I would follow. About a half-hour ago. He got caught.”
She interrupted Andre, trying to draw out a clearer story.
But he continued as before. “It was my fault. My idea. He got caught on a rock or something. Maybe the tide frightened him. Couldn’t move either way. It’s the water. The water. The time. I know I should have left to get help. But I was … paralyzed. Afraid I would never find him again. I thought you would come.” His voice broke and he began weeping. “I waited forever.”
“Now hold on,” she said, “it’s not your fault. It’s not our fault. Look, what are we drivelling on about? There’s a man down there who’s going to drown in high tide if we don’t do something.”
Susan measured the width of the cave. “It’s a problem of time. That tide probably has a half-hour. Maybe we could get help from the village if we ran. Maybe not.”
“What can we do?” shouted Andre.
“Colin, why don’t you get up to St. Just?” she said. “You run. I’ll try to do what I can here. I’ll try to release the rock or whatever’s catching him.”
“No, no. I’ll do it.” Colin moved her to the side and peered into the cave. “I’m stronger.”
“It’s the only way,” she said. “I’m the only one who’s small enough. Please,” she shouted. “We don’t have time.”
He ran off toward the yellowed village.
“Ronald,” she shouted. “Listen, Ronald. We’re coming down to get you.” She heard the moan again. “Try to prop yourself up as high as you can. I know you’re tired, Ronald, but try.”
Andre was standing over her, tapping his walking stick against the opening. “He said he didn’t know who he was, bound up by all those pressures,” Andre spoke frantically. “I told him he was being rash, impatient.”
Why couldn’t he shut up for a minute? Susan was sorry for Andre, but she was more worried about Ronald. And if she told him to be quiet, he would just start sobbing again. Suddenly she said, “Andre, the stick. Have you got any matches?”
“I smoked my last cigarette twenty minutes ago, sorry.”
“I don’t want a cigarette,” she snapped. “Do you have any matches, Andre? Quick.”
“Matches. Yes, here, but.…”
“And the stick.”
He looked at her blankly.
“The walking stick.” She pulled it out of his loose grip. “It’s the only piece of dry wood around here.”
Before he could protest, she was trying to ignite the cane.
“Have you gone mad?” shouted Andre. “Take hold of yourself, Susan. What are you doing?” He tried to wrestle the cane from her.
“Light. Don’t you see? Light. To look inside the cave. To get a sense of dimension. To see how Ronald is.” She spit out the words, more and more anxious about the stick. Finally it caught the flame. Backing away from the glare for a moment, she thrust it firmly into the black hole. She could see the moist, jagged ridges of the cave, then the edge of its crouched inhabitant. All she could recognize was Ronald’s back. A patch of red parka. The flame went out.
“Ronald. Ronald. Can you hear me, Ronald?” Another low moan rose. The contortion of his body must be terribly painful. How could he have done it? How could they get him out? Why was he doubled over? He must have changed his mind about how to get out. He must have turned upside down and tried to swim out the bottom. But the cave was too narrow to exit there. So now he was stuck, with his head and feet facing down. His back wedged across the cave. Caught both ways. Worse than she thought. She had counted on his height giving them time against the tide. But he lost three feet by bending over. Ten minutes? Maybe fifteen. Colin would never make it back.
A faint sound surfaced.
“How is he?” Andre demanded.
“See for yourself.” She lit the cane and turned toward the village.
“No. I’m a coward,” said Andre. “I admit it. Just tell me how he is. Does it look hopeful?”
“No.” She looked over the ocean now, the cane flaming in her hand. It left her blind against the black water, as if she were using flashbulbs in a long, dark tunnel.
“Why?” said Andre.
“He’s got himself stuck in a Chinese puzzle. Caught both ways.”
“Poor Ronald. He was so afraid of something.”
She stamped out the flame and removed her parka.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m going down.”
“Without the flare?”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” she said, lowering her foot carefully. “It’s a matter of feeling out the wedges, of grabbing and holding. Anyway, there’s no room for it.”
“You’re crazy,” he screamed. “At least wait until they get back.”
“There’s nothing to wait for, or there won’t be,” she got a foothold. “He’ll be gone by that time, if he’s not already.”
“Well, what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
She placed one foot close after the other, climbing deeper. Deeper. Her left foot slipped and she could feel the shoe loosen. She heard it swoosh off her foot. It seemed to take minutes before it landed on Ronald’s back. A thud, followed by a groan. At least he’s alive, she thought and cried, “Oh.”
“Are you OK?” shouted Andre. He hadn’t needed to shout. She was just an inch or two below the beginning.
“Yes. Don’t worry about me yet. Think about ropes—things we can use to pull us out. Your belt. And that strap from Ronald’s handbag.”
“And my binoculars,” he shouted.
“Right.” The waves were higher than she anticipated. Her only chance was to dislodge Ronald, attach him to a rope and pull him up after she climbed out.
Her foot slipped and the rock on which she was balancing crumbled against the wall. She thought she would fall straight on Ronald. Her only reaction was acceptance. A sense of inevitability. No regret or fear. No reaction, really. But she felt a ledge below and managed to catch herself diagonally across the tunnel.
“Are you all right?” shouted Andre.
“Yes,” she said, “yes.” His panic was oddly reassuring. It gave her something to react against. Steadied her. She felt a cold chill run down one leg, paralyzing her for a second. Then another chill. It was the water. The waves spitting. The water. Everything accelerated. She felt like the film had snapped and the projector was speeding. Dark. Water. Hard, rock edges. Cold. Roars from the waves; echoes from the cave. Sloshing feet inside and outside. Moans from Ronald. “Are you all right? Are you all right?” She realized she was the one who was supposed to answer. She felt free. A sense of release. Surrender would be so easy. No one to see or hear. No one else. She caught herself. She groped for Ronald with her foot. He was just beneath her. She could feel his warmth through the parka. She could also feel the wet.
The tide had risen. Water just below her feet now. And above her were sheer walls, the ones she had fallen past. Straddled over him, her legs astride the tunnel, she bent down to pull him up. Frantically, purposely, systematically, she tried various ways of releasing him. He couldn’t budge. Impossible. One life, feelings fragmented her thoughts. One death, one life, were enough.
“Are you all right? Are you all right?” She wished she could reassure Andre. She slipped down to something soft.
“No,” she shouted suddenly. She ranged her hands over the sides of the cave. No way to climb back up. Water had reached her an
kles. Standing on tiptoes, she was revolted that her support was Ronald’s back. She could feel the slipperiness of his parka through her stocking. Something. One finger touched something. Some kind of projection above her head. Not tall enough, she was not tall enough and the water … the water was reaching her knees. She felt a sudden anxiety about her watch. The watch she had bought in Switzerland years ago. The watch wasn’t waterproofed. She pulled the chain over her head and swung it, lasso-like, in the direction of the protrusion just above her head. It caught and held steady. Very precisely and forcefully she tugged it. Working as a lever, it supported her to the ridge several inches above. Surprised by the endurance of the chain, she felt a twinge of remorse as the watch smashed against the wall of the cave. What was that John Cameron Swayze commercial with all the water rising faster and faster and.…
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.” On her way out now, no question. As the water lapped after her, she strained and pushed and forced her way out. The momentum was there. The water was more reminder than threat. She knew she would make it. That was certain. And for the last minute of straining and stretching, she actually enjoyed this sensation of movement. She caught sight of a fire at the top of the cave. Torches. They lit the faces of four men. Four serious, worried—and now—relieved faces.
“Ronald?” asked Colin. “We’ve lost him?”
“Yes,” she said.
“But you’re all right?” asked Andre. You’re all right?”
She nodded.
Susan was sitting alone, sorting through a dozen contact sheets. The village shots were OK, but she would have to go back with a filter for the cliff photographs. It was odd to be back in Cornwall after all these months. She was glad she had returned for the inquest.
The hearing was brief and uneventful. Ronald’s wife had requested the body. The cave had been sealed off by the Council. Testimony was finished in an hour. This inquest reminded Susan that her sadness for Ronald had not ended, would probably never end. It revived old fears and she was grateful to realize that some of these had already ended. The memory of that afternoon was like a cold fog through which her heart passed during splinters of her nightmares and during twinges in uneasy days. But she knew she would be OK. For her the inquest was a sober commencement ceremony. She knew she would be OK.
After the hearing she climbed into the familiar old car with Andre and Colin. They exchanged news. Both men were surprised her book was almost finished. Andre said his life was going well. He was coming to terms with his ambition. Working full time to pay for his psychoanalysis. Going every day helped him a lot. Colin barely got a word in. He said he was standing as a Scottish National Party candidate. The inquest was making a big dent in his campaign, still he had wanted to come down for it.
Colin offered her a lift North. Andre invited her to have lunch. But she said she had more photographs to take. So they both promised to write and dropped her off at the beach alone.
Cultured Green
Hot, crowded, chickens underfoot. Suffocating, but if she opened the window, the pig on the roof might piss in her face again. Mother had told her those Towel Moists would come in handy. So what was a nice Job’s Daughter, magna cum laude social studies teacher from Seattle doing in a twenty-year old Bluebird school bus sputtering from Guatemala City to Oaxaca on the grace of a reconditioned rear axle and a dust-streaked statue of the Blessed Virgin?
Six months from Southern Chile. Buses all the same vintage, all with the same Noah’s Ark contingent. Six months of brown-bellied Australians who drove vans cushioned with semen-caked sleeping bags. She was ready to go home. She didn’t know if she belonged in the States. She did know she didn’t belong here. Rudolfo’s wild orchid was dying from its own steam in the plastic bag at her feet. Her backpack was stuffed with mementos from Eduardo in Santiago, Anna in Rosario, Señora Pardo in Belem. Remarkable hospitality. Volcanoes of food. The best bed in the house. Nothing accepted in return. One thing, expected, in return. If it were not too much trouble (the best English, including the subjunctive, in cases like this), did she know a school for their brother Juan or Lupe or Raul? Her new friends—they were the innocents abroad. This responsibility they gave her was heavy and maybe that’s why she was going home. The further north she went, the hotter it got. The orchid was dead an hour ago.
Too hot to read. Too hot to write. Too hot to eat. Not that she had much. Fifty dollars to the border and a plane ticket from there. A box of Arrowroot cookies, a can of Spam, a loaf of bread she bought yesterday in Guatemala City. The cookies were all she had last night. Still, she couldn’t bear to open the can of carnal imitation. Maybe she would chew on the bread. Maybe that would wake her from this goddamned stupor.
The Indian woman in the next seat watched closely, more fascinated by the khaki youth hostel backpack than by its contents. The woman was from Nabaj. You could tell by the huipuil. What was she doing this far north? After six months, you get used to observing and being observed.
The bread was moldy. Green pimples. Since yesterday? Had they cheated her? Did they know it was rotten? Gringa sucker. How could she get mad at them? She had fifty dollars to get to the border. Fifty dollars was gold to them. Cortez stole the gold from Montezuma. She closed her eyes. She would be home soon. Whatever that meant. And now they were pulling into La Puerta. There was bound to be at least some warm Coke at La Puerta.
She took only her wallet and the bag of bread with her when she got off the bus. Once she bought the Coke, she chugged it greedily, and walked toward a fence where she could dump the loaf of bread. As she moved the bread over the edge of the fence, she felt a tug, pulling back her hand. The woman from Nabaj. She looked at the Indian woman silently and released the bag. The woman, whose face shone with determined indifference, put the bread under her huipuil and returned to the bus. It was 4:15, July 20, six months on the road.
VII
Cooperative
Susan had a terrible time finding the cooperative. They told her to look for the broken-down factory on Hemingford Road, but she cycled by the New You Bra Company three times before recognizing the building. As Susan chained her bicycle to the wrought iron gate, a sari floated past her. Odd to think of herself and this Indian woman both as immigrants. They had moved to such different Englands.
Inside, the building was colder than outside, drafty. A heavy metal door resisted the latch. Wind lashed down through broken windows. Susan stepped around the clutter of old furniture on the first landing. The corridor was littered with cardboard boxes, rusting dollies, a dress rack with Santa Claus costumes. She recognized this as the conscious neglect with which people design their “alternative spaces.” She almost missed the green sign, “Cooperative Press.” Drafty even up here. Securing the peacoat with its only remaining brass button, she commended herself for appropriate dress.
The corridor turned into an open door—rather into an open wall. Three people sat clustered at one end of the long factory room, around a small electric fire. They were two pale women and a thin, blond man.
The man looked up, waved with great angularity, strode over to her and in a bright Australian accent, declared, “Hello, you must be Susan.”
Susan, who was staring at the women huddled over their work, nodded.
“You’re the girl Alexander sent, right?” He reached behind himself for the ringing telephone. “Hang on a minute. Hello, Gordon Moore speaking.”
The cold red concrete floor was scattered with throw rugs in a desperate claim on warmth. And books. Parcels of books. Great 100 volume cases. The mailing table was piled with small packages. Galleys were draped over a sawhorse. Manuscripts, mostly unopened, spewed over a cluttered desk. Susan’s Copperfield fantasies were interrupted by the bright posters: Madame Binh, Ché, Malcolm X, Leila Kahled, Chairman Mao and a blazing Soviet headline dated 1917. Shivering, she wished she had sewn on the other buttons, wished they owned more than one electric fire. The only warmth was an electric breathing f
rom the New You Bra Company upstairs, a loud machine hum sewing through the ceiling. She wondered why the Indian woman had left so early. Had she been fired?
“Hey, Ghilly, Lynda. This is Susan, the journalist Alexander sent to solve all our problems.”
Ghilly glanced up from her ledger and smiled. Lynda regarded Ghilly closely and said, “Welcome, we could use a Joan of Arc.” Her voice was broad Yorkshire.
“Here, here.” Gordon said. “Won’t you have a cup of coffee? And let me show you around.”
Reassured by scraps of paper on the floor, Susan thought of the frantic, busy, good days when she worked at The Artisan.
“That’s the darkroom.” he said. “Well, today it’s the loo, but tomorrow with a little imagination, it’s the darkroom.” He plugged in the kettle.
Susan turned to laughter coming from the entrance. From a tall, red-haired woman and a friendly couple with a baby.
“Wina, Malcolm, Rita,” Gordon shouted down the long room. “What’s this? On time for a meeting? And just in time. I’ve plugged in the kettle and Susan had arrived to save us.”
Susan sat in a corner of the couch sipping Sainsbury’s instant coffee and watching them greet each other. Hugs, jokes, gossip. Running out to the shop for more long-life milk; moving the fire; boarding up a hole in the window.
“Rocks,” sighed Gordon. “Damn kids. Come the revolution, they’ll understand we’re on their side.”
Everyone laughed. They were friendly.
“Can you type?” Lynda asked.
“A little,” Susan answered, trying to hide her disappointment and look cooperative.
“We all share the shitwork around here,” Gordon explained.
“And the glory,” laughed Malcolm.
“Ah, yes, the glory,” sighed Wina.
Gordon cleared his throat. “Let’s get down to business. How’s the anarchist book, Wina?”
“Super,” said Wina, her rich Dutch accent surfacing even in one word. “Just got ten more pages. Jan’s lawyers smuggled them out. Not having so much luck with the women’s stuff. Apparently security on them is tighter. I think if we could just postpone the printing two months, we’d have it.”
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