AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD

by Gloria Dank

  He led the way indoors. There was a spacious living room, with a fire burning in the hearth and two comfortable-looking sofas. Part of the living room was taken up by a long wooden table which was set for three people, complete with place mats, stoneware dishes, and polished silverware. Crystal goblets glittered in the firelight, and Snooky had uncorked a bottle of red wine that stood in the center of the table, reflecting a dull crimson from its depths. The kitchen was small but modern, and two bedrooms led off from the main room, both with antique bedsteads and plump quilts piled high on thick mattresses. All was crisp, fresh and clean, and a heavenly scent drifted through the air.

  “Dinner,” Snooky said, putting their luggage into one of the bedrooms. “I went all out. I knew Bernard would need something to console him after the trip.”

  Maya picked up one of the crystal goblets and toyed with it absently. “I can see you’ve been roughing it.”

  “None of it’s mine, of course. It belongs to the people I rented this place from. I have it for a couple of months, then they’re coming back from France and they’ll want to spend weekends here over the winter. Good skiing in this area. They have good taste, don’t they? Not bad for a weekend retreat. Have you seen the Cuisinart in the kitchen yet? All the most modern amenities.”

  “So what’s all this babbling about life in the wilderness?”

  “I can’t explain it, Maya. You have to live here a while and get a sense for it. It’s so different from the city.” Snooky sat down on one of the sofas and stretched out his long legs. “You have to be here and smell the air and get a feel for how things work. It’s like your whole metabolism slows down and relaxes. You’ll see. It’s wonderful. I’m never living in a city again.”

  Bernard came out of the guest bedroom. “Misty’s getting her sea legs back,” he announced. “When’s dinner?”

  “It’s almost ready, Bernard. Sit down by the fire and enjoy yourself. I made your favorite: beef stew.”

  Bernard’s grim expression did not change. He sat down and stretched out his hands to the cheerful flames. “I take it there’s no central heating?”

  “This is the wilderness, Bernard. Rural living. Life in the wild. Of course there’s no central heating. I take logs from the woodpile out back and I put them in the fireplace and I light a fire with them and then they burn. That’s how people stayed warm for thousands of years.”

  “Primitive.”

  “But effective. You have to admit it, don’t you? This cabin is a lot better than you thought it’d be.”

  Bernard grunted.

  Snooky turned to his sister and smiled. In the firelight, Bernard noted dourly how similar their faces were. Snooky was five years younger, which put him in his mid-twenties, but they had the same lean, elongated frame and the same intelligent, angular face. Maya had her light brown hair cut in a severe pageboy, and Snooky wore his combed back casually from his forehead, but there was no mistaking them for anything but sister and brother. Bernard sighed and hunkered forward toward the flames. With his massive bearlike build, he sometimes felt as if he had been raised on another planet.

  “Is there electricity?” asked Maya.

  Snooky looked pained. “Yes, there is electricity. This is the wilderness, Maya. It’s not Guyana. There’s a light switch on the wall behind you.”

  “Does the bathroom work?” asked Bernard.

  “Yes, the bathroom works. There is hot and cold running water. This is Vermont, Bernard, not Mars. I think the stew is ready. Come to the table.”

  The dinner (as most of Snooky’s meals were when he put his mind to it) was excellent. Even Bernard could find no fault. The beef stew was thick and meaty, filled with potatoes and carrots and onions and green peppers, swimming in a rich garlicky sauce. There was fresh-baked whole wheat bread (“Don’t look at me,” said Snooky. “I bought it in the village”), homemade apple sauce (“From fresh-picked apples, courtesy of the Cuisinart”), stewed pumpkin with cinnamon and raisins (“It’s nothing, I made it myself—delicious, isn’t it?”), and red wine. Snooky and Maya chatted, catching up on the past few months since they had seen each other. Bernard did not join in their conversation; they did not expect him to. He devoted himself to the food and ate his way steadily through every course offered to him. For dessert, Snooky brought out a huge cherry pie with mocha nut ice cream. Bernard’s eyes gleamed in the candlelight. Afterward, Snooky produced steaming mugs of apple cider with nutmeg and cloves, and they relaxed around the fire. Misty, having crept out from the bedroom to seek warmth by the hearth, had recovered enough to eat some of the food they had brought along for her. Now she lay collapsed, a pile of tangled red hair, at Bernard’s feet.

  “Tomorrow we’ll get up early and go for a walk in the woods,” announced Snooky.

  “No, thank you,” said Bernard.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not getting up early.”

  “Whenever. The peak of the foliage is past, of course, but it’s still very beautiful in its own way. I’ve become a day person, Maya. Can you believe that? I get up early and go roaming in the woods. You haven’t smelled anything until you’ve smelled the mist rising off those big golden fungus things at the base of the trees.” He glanced at Bernard with a faint smile on his lips. “You’re not much of a naturalist, are you, Bernard?”

  “I don’t care what you go out and snuffle early in the mornings, Snooky. I don’t care what you do. Just as long as you don’t put those big golden fungus things, as you put it so elegantly, into the stew, I could really care less.”

  “Bernard hates the city,” remarked Maya with affection, “but he also hates the woods.”

  “Bernard hates everywhere except for his own house.”

  “Bernard,” said Bernard sternly, “doesn’t like to be referred to in the third person, as if he weren’t there.”

  There was a contented silence, broken only by the hissings and poppings and cracklings of the flames. Misty yawned thunderously. They sprawled on the sofas, lulled into a happy stupor by the gentle heat.

  “Have you met any of the people who live in that town we passed through?” asked Maya at last, stifling a yawn.

  “Who, me?” said Snooky, roused from his contemplation of the fire. “Oh, yes. You know me, Maya. I can’t go anywhere without meeting a few people. I’ve made some friends.”

  Maya smiled at him. Snooky was not much in the way of working, but friendship was something he had a preternatural gift for. He could not go anywhere, in his extensive wanderings, without meeting people and striking up an acquaintance. It was something else William hated about him: William, who had no friends, just business partners.

  “Anyone special?” she asked now.

  “One. Her name is Sarah. You’ll meet her tomorrow. She has an interesting family. They’ve invited us over for lunch. We’ll go there when we get back from our walk.”

  “Don’t make too many dates for us, Snooky. You know how Bernard feels about that. And we did come up here to work.”

  “Yes. What’s the name of the newest book, Bernard?”

  Bernard, who made a living writing children’s books, did not reply.

  “Sheep or rats?”

  Bernard stared stonily into the fireplace.

  “Mrs. Woolly Meets the Snowplow? Mr. Whiskers Sings Mozart?”

  No reply.

  “Don’t be angry with me, Bernard. I’m only asking. I’m just expressing some interest in your career, you know that.”

  “He doesn’t like you taking an interest in his career, Snooky,” said Maya sharply. “You know better than to ask questions. It’s not easy for him to get started. He’s having a little difficulty with this one.”

  “It’s going to be about Mrs. Woolly,” said Bernard.

  “Ah!”

  “She takes a trip somewhere, I don’t know where. Somewhere exotic, like Baghdad or Burma. She gives advice. You know how it is.”

  Snooky nodded. He was familiar with Mrs. Woolly, a kind-eyed ewe wh
o peered mistily and nearsightedly through her spectacles and dispensed well-meant advice like candy. “How about you, Maya? How are the articles going?”

  Maya, who wrote for a small, local magazine entitled The Animal World, shrugged and said, “Okay. I’m working on an article about the pronghorn antelope. That reminds me. You haven’t seen any deer around here, have you?”

  “There are no deer around here, Maya. Just hunters. I see them every day, in the woods. They creep along, trying not to shoot each other. Extremely annoying. By the way, Bernard, it’s small animal season up here. If I were you, I wouldn’t let Misty run loose in the woods. She might be mistaken for something. All those people seem to live for is a small moving target.”

  “All right. Any bears?” said Bernard.

  “Bears? I haven’t seen any. Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering.”

  There was a silence.

  “Any mountain lions?”

  “Mountain lions? I think you have the wrong area of the country entirely, Bernard.”

  “Any murderers or psychopaths loose in the woods?”

  “Not too many. Just the usual, you know, that run happy and free all the time.”

  “Anything dangerous at all?”

  “To tell you the truth, the most frightening thing I’ve encountered so far was a bug that got into my bedroom and sat on my bedstead looking at me. The largest thing I’ve ever seen, all legs and wings and about a hundred pairs of eyes. Horrible. Really horrible. It took some doing to get it out of the cabin, I’ll tell you.”

  Maya and Bernard stifled yawns. Misty was already fast asleep.

  “Well, I can only pray for the sake of your sanity that it doesn’t visit you one night. I nearly packed my bags and left for New York City.”

  A little while later Snooky, yawning, said, “Time for bed,” and showed them with a flourish into the guest room. He left them with repeated admonitions to get up early the next morning. The room was freezing cold, but Bernard discovered with joy that it was toasty warm under the goosedown quilt. He kissed his wife a sleepy good-night and rolled over on his side. Misty, left abandoned by the hearth, crept trembling into their room, her toenails clicking on the wooden floor. She sat and whined until Bernard lifted her onto the quilt, where she snuggled in happily between them. Soon all three of them were sound asleep, although (as Maya had often remarked testily to Bernard) only the dog snored.

  The next morning Bernard and Maya awoke to the heavenly smell of fresh coffee wafting through the cabin. Maya got out of bed, shivering in her pink flannel nightgown. She went to the window and pushed aside the green gingham curtains. It was a bright sunlit day; the sky was a perfect translucent blue. The road leading up to the cabin, which had seemed so dark and threatening the night before, now appeared to curve away gently through the trees. The forest, which last night had leaned in menacingly around them, tall shapes looming through the darkness, now looked sylvan and welcoming with the sunlight slanting through the bare branches. She sniffed the air. “I smell bacon.”

  “And coffee,” said Bernard, throwing back the covers.

  “And eggs.”

  “And toast.”

  “Breakfast!” cried Snooky, appearing like a vision in his ratty blue bathrobe at their door. “Nippy, isn’t it? I’ve started the fire. You two sleep much too late. It’s nearly eight o’clock. I’ve been up for hours.”

  “Stop bragging,” said Maya. “It isn’t becoming.”

  “Go take showers or whatever. I’ll have breakfast ready when you get out.” He vanished with a wave of a spatula.

  “It’s amazing,” Maya said to her husband in a whisper. “I never thought Snooky would take to the wilderness this way.”

  “I never thought Snooky could survive more than fifty feet away from a TV,” said Bernard. “He used to hang onto our remote control like a life raft, if I remember correctly.”

  After breakfast, which consisted of perfect scrambled eggs, bacon, coffee, toast, raspberry jam, and hot buttery croissants, as well as (for Bernard only) a thick slice of the cherry pie left over from the evening before, Snooky said, “Now for a walk in the woods. I insist you go out and smell the fungus, both of you. My day will not be complete otherwise.”

  Maya was interested in smelling the fungus (“Maybe I could get an article out of it”), but Bernard refused point-blank.

  “Forget it,” he said, sitting down on one of the sofas and stretching out his hands toward the fire. “I have to get some work done.”

  There was much cajoling and whining on Snooky’s part, but Bernard held firm. It was decided that only Snooky and Maya would go.

  “Of course we’ll take Misty,” said Snooky, reaching down to pat the fluffy red back. “You don’t mind going, do you, Misty? You’re not a stick-in-the-mud like Bernard. You have a sense of adventure. You know, Maya, maybe we should put a bell on her or something. I’d never forgive myself if somebody took a shot at her.”

  “I’m not putting a bell on her,” said Bernard sourly. “And what if somebody takes a shot at either of you?”

  Snooky shook his head. “They seem to be able to tell human beings from mice or rabbits or whatever it is they’re trying to kill. I guess their own survival rate wouldn’t be too high if they couldn’t tell the difference. Misty just looks so—so woodlike, if you know what I mean.”

  “I’ll put her leash on,” suggested Maya wisely, “and keep her right by me. Good-bye, darling. Good luck with your work.”

  “Good-bye.”

  “He’s not going to work,” said Snooky, once they were safely out in the woods. He picked his way along a narrow dirt path that twisted and bent between the trees. “He’s going to sit there for a while, and then he’s going to go get another cup of coffee and the rest of that cherry pie. I know him.”

  Misty, trembling with excitement, strained eagerly at the leash, then stopped dead in her tracks to examine something in the bracken. “Come on, Misty. Come on,” said Maya, tugging at the leash.

  “Here’s the fungus,” said Snooky. “Give a whiff.”

  Maya leaned down and inhaled deeply. The faint, earthy, woodsy, brown smell wafted up from the large golden globes that were clustered at the base of an oak tree. It smelled of autumn, of moist crumbly dirt and burrowing insects and red leaves crackling underfoot. “Delicious!”

  Snooky was delighted. “I knew you’d say that. Bernard will be sorry he missed this. There’s a view over here.”

  He led her over to a place where the trees thinned out. Pine-covered mountains hung serenely in the distance, undulating against the pale blue sky. Maya was impressed. “Very nice, Snookers. That’s a ski slope over there?”

  Snooky squinted against the morning sunlight. “Yes. I think so. I don’t know. I’m not much of a skier myself. You know how William feels about that, My. All those expensive skiing lessons in vain.”

  William, who was an expert skiier (he and his family spent part of every winter holiday season in Gstaad, skiing the Swiss Alps), had wasted vast amounts of money, time and emotional energy trying to teach Snooky to ski. William, who was Maya’s elder by a decade, had taken her and Snooky as young children out to an easy slope in the Poconos and then proceeded to tear his hair out as he watched Snooky wobbling his way downhill. Maya had mastered the essentials fairly quickly, although she never became more than merely proficient; but the six-year-old Snooky, who was a gifted athlete in nearly every sport he tried—Snooky, who was long-limbed and coordinated and rarely moved with a wasted motion—had somehow never gotten beyond the basics, ploughing determinedly downhill with his skis pointed inward toward each other, and falling down in every snowdrift he passed. William would sweep downhill, pick him out of the snowdrift, and set him on his feet again, but to no avail. Later the personalized family lessons gave way to exorbitantly priced professional ski instruction, but with the same result. Maya knew perfectly well that Snooky was refusing to learn simply because he knew it annoyed William. William, w
ho was no fool, knew it also, but he could not help being annoyed. They went on like this for several winter seasons, until one day William threw up his hands in despair. “I give up. Take up bowling, or jai alai, or pick-up-sticks, or what you will. I wash my hands of you. You will never ski the Swiss Alps.”

  Maya was startled out of her thoughts by Misty, who lunged forward suddenly and began to bark. Snooky was laughing. “It’s a woodchuck. Practically the same size as Misty. She wouldn’t stand a chance. I never knew she had such a bloodlust in her.”

  The woodchuck gave them one disdainful glance and then scuttled away through the underbrush, a small brown furry shape moving with unexpected speed. Misty stood panting and disappointed. Maya gathered up the leash and said, “Time to head back, Snookers. Bernard must be convinced we’ve left him alone to die in the woods.”

  “Bernard is making his third cup of coffee, and is perfectly happy,” said Snooky, but he obediently turned around and started back along the path.

  When they reached the cabin, they found Bernard hunched forward on the sofa, typing away determinedly. He had found an old wooden crate out back, near the wood pile, and had lugged it in and placed it between the sofa and the fire. He had balanced his electric typewriter on top of it, dragged over one of the floor lamps, and was working away, the very picture of concentration. On a small table at Bernard’s elbow was an empty plate, smeared with the moist red innards of the cherry pie, and a steaming cup of coffee.

  “Why is the typewriter on top of the unsteady crate, while the coffee cup is on the table?” asked Snooky.

  “The crate is taller,” said Bernard, not taking his eyes from the page.

  “I could find you a better table if you want.”

  “Fine.”

  Maya gave her husband a kiss. “Everything all right? Anything happen here while we were gone?”

  Bernard took a large red pencil and made an undecipherable mark on the page. “Somebody called.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. I wrote it down. Over there.” He motioned vaguely toward the telephone, which was on the floor. By the phone was a torn scrap of paper.