‘You’re embarrassed,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.’
‘I’m not . . . I mean, I . . .’ She laughed. ‘I’m still not accustomed to talking.’
He said nothing, smiling.
‘What is it?’ she said, defensive, feeling that he was making fun of her.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why are you smiling?’
‘I could frown,’ he said, ‘if that would make you comfortable.’
Irritated, she bent to her task, mixing paste in a brass goblet studded with uncut emeralds, then molding it into a pellet.
‘That was a joke,’ he said.
‘I know.’
‘What’s the matter?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to make you uncomfortable . . . I really don’t. What am I doing wrong?’
She sighed, exasperated with herself. ‘It’s not you,’ she said. ‘I just can’t get used to you being here, that’s all.’
From without came the babble of some Feelys lowering on ropes toward the chamber floor.
‘I can understand that,’ he said. ‘I . . .’ He broke off, looked down and fingered the edge of the notebook.
‘What were you going to say?’
He threw back his head, laughed. ‘Do you see how we’re acting? Explaining ourselves constantly . . . as if we could hurt each other by saying the wrong word.’
She glanced over at him, met his eyes, then looked away.
‘What I meant was, we’re not that fragile,’ he said, and then, as if by way of clarification, he hastened to add: ‘We’re not that . . . vulnerable to one another.’
He held her stare for a moment, and this time it was he who looked away and Catherine who smiled.
If she hadn’t known she was in love, she would have suspected as much from the change in her attitude toward the dragon. She seemed to be seeing everything anew. Her wonder at Griaule’s size and strangeness had been restored, and she delighted in displaying his marvelous features to John – the orioles and swallows that never once had flown under the sun, the glowing heart, the cavity where the ghostvine grew (though she would not linger there), and a tiny chamber close to the heart lit not by Griaule’s blood but by thousands of luminous white spiders that shifted and crept across the blackness of the ceiling, like a night sky whose constellations had come to life. It was in this chamber that they engaged in their first intimacy, a kiss from which Catherine – after initially letting herself be swept away – pulled back, disoriented by the powerful sensations flooding her body, sensations both familiar and unnatural in that she hadn’t experienced them for so long, and startled by the suddenness with which her fantasies had become real. Flustered, she ran from the chamber, leaving John, who was still hobbled by his injuries, to limp back to the colony alone.
She hid from him most of that day sitting with her knees drawn up on a patch of peach-colored silk near the hole at the center of the colony’s floor, immersed in the bustle and gabble of the Feelys as they promenaded in their decaying finery. Though for the most part they were absorbed in their own pursuits, some sensed her mood and gathered around her, touching her, making the whimpering noises that among them passed for expressions of tenderness. Their pasty doglike faces ringed her, uniformly sad, and as if sadness were contagious, she started to cry. At first her tears seemed the product of her inability to cope with love, and then it seemed she was crying over the poor thing of her life, the haplessness of her days inside the body of the dragon; but she came to feel that her sadness was one with Griaule’s, that this feeling of gloom and entrapment reflected his essential mood, and that thought stopped her tears. She’d never considered the dragon an object deserving of sympathy, and she did not now consider him such; but perceiving him imprisoned in a web of ancient magic, and the Chinese puzzle of lesser magics and imprisonments that derived from that original event, she felt foolish for having cried. Everything, she realized, even the happiest of occurrences, might be a cause for tears if you failed to see it in terms of the world that you inhabited; however, if you managed to achieve a balanced perspective, you saw that although sadness could result from every human action, that you had to seize the opportunities for effective action which came your way and not question them, no matter how unrealistic or futile they might appear. Just as Griaule had done by finding a way to utilize his power while immobilized. She laughed to think of herself emulating Griaule even in this abstract fashion, and several of the Feelys standing beside her echoed her laughter. One of the males, an old man with tufts of gray hair poking up from his pallid skull, shuffled near, picking at a loose button on his stiff, begrimed coat of silver-embroidered satin.
‘Cat’rine mus’ be easy sweetly, now?’ he said. ‘No mo’ bad t’ing?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No more bad thing.’
On the other side of the hole a pile of naked Feelys were writhing together in the clumsiness of foreplay, men trying to penetrate men, getting angry, slapping one another, then lapsing into giggles when they found a woman and figured out the proper procedure. Once this would have disgusted her, but no more. Judged by the attitudes of a place not their own, perhaps the Feelys were disgusting; but this was their place, and Catherine’s place as well, and accepting that at last, she stood and walked toward the nearest basket. The old man hustled after her, fingering his lapels in a parody of self-importance, and, as if he were the functionary of her mood, he announced to everyone they encountered, ‘No mo’ bad t’ing, no mo’ bad t’ing.’
Riding up in the basket was like passing in front of a hundred tiny stages upon which scenes from the same play were being performed – pale figures slumped on silks, playing with gold and bejeweled baubles – and gazing around her, ignoring the stink, the dilapidation, she felt she was looking out upon an exotic kingdom. Always before she had been impressed by its size and grotesqueness; but now she was struck by its richness, and she wondered whether the Feelys’ style of dress was inadvertent or if Griaule’s subtlety extended to the point of clothing this human refuse in the rags of dead courtiers and kings. She felt exhilarated, joyful; but as the basket lurched near the level on which her rooms were located, she became nervous. It had been so long since she had been with a man, and she was worried that she might not be suited to him . . . then she recalled that she’d been prone to these worries even in the days when she had been with a new man every week.
She lashed the basket to a peg, stepped out onto the walkway outside her rooms, took a deep breath and pushed through the curtains, pulled them shut behind her. John was asleep, the furs pulled up to his chest. In the fading half-light, his face – dirtied by a few days’ growth of beard – looked sweetly mysterious and rapt, like the face of saint at meditation, and she thought it might be best to let him sleep; but that, she realized, was a signal of her nervousness, not of compassion. The only thing to do was to get it over with, to pass through nervousness as quickly as possible and learn what there was to learn. She stripped off her trousers, her shirt, and stood for a second above him, feeling giddy, frail, as if she’d stripped off much more than a few ounces of fabric. Then she eased in beneath the furs, pressing the length of her body to his. He stirred but didn’t wake, and this delighted her; she liked the idea of having him in her clutches, of coming to him in the middle of a dream, and she shivered with the apprehension of gleeful, childish power. He tossed, turned onto his side to face her, still asleep, and she pressed closer, marveling at how ready she was, how open to him. He muttered something, and as she nestled against him, he grew hard, his erection pinned between their bellies. Cautiously, she lifted her right knee atop his hip, guided him between her legs and moved her hips back and forth, rubbing against him, slowly, slowly, teasing herself with little bursts of pleasure. His eyelids twitched, blinked open, and he stared at her, his eyes looking black and wet, his skin stained a murky gold in the dimness. ‘Catherine,’ he said,
and she gave a soft laugh, because her name seemed a power the way he had spoken it. His fingers hooked into the plump meat of her hips as he pushed and prodded at her, trying to find the right angle. Her head fell back, her eyes closed, concentrating on the feeling that centered her dizziness and heat, and then he was inside her, going deep with a single thrust, beginning to make love to her, and she said, ‘Wait, wait,’ holding him immobile, afraid for an instant, feeling too much, a black wave of sensation building, threatening to wash her away.
‘What’s wrong?’ he whispered. ‘Do you want . . .’
‘Just wait . . . just for a bit.’ She rested her forehead against his, trembling, amazed by the difference that he made in her body; one moment she felt buoyant, as if their connection had freed her from the restraints of gravity, and the next moment – whenever he shifted or eased fractionally deeper – she would feel as if all his weight were pouring inside her and she was sinking into the cool silks.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Mmm.’ She opened her eyes, saw his face inches away and was surprised that he didn’t appear unfamiliar.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘I was just thinking.’
‘About what?’
‘I was wondering who you were, and when I looked at you, it was as if I already knew.’ She traced the line of his upper lip with her forefinger. ‘Who are you?’
‘I thought you knew already.’
‘Maybe . . . but I don’t know anything specific. Just that you were a professor.’
‘You want to know specifics?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was an unruly child,’ he said. ‘I refused to eat onion soup, I never washed behind my ears.’
His grasp tightened on her hips, and he thrust inside her, a few slow, delicious movements, kissing her mouth, her eyes.
‘When I was a boy,’ he said, quickening his rhythm, breathing hard between the words, ‘I’d go swimming every morning. Off the rocks at Ayler’s Point . . . it was beautiful. Cerulean water, palms. Chickens and pigs foraging. On the beach.’
‘Oh, God!’ she said, locking her leg behind his thigh, her eyelids fluttering down.
‘My first girlfriend was named Penny . . . she was twelve. Redheaded. I was a year younger. I loved her because she had freckles. I used to believe . . . freckles were . . . a sign of something. I wasn’t sure what. But I love you more than her.’
‘I love you!’ She found his rhythm, adapted to it, trying to take him all inside her. She wanted to see where they joined, and she imagined there was no longer any distinction between them, that their bodies had merged and were sealed together.
‘I cheated in mathematics class, I could never do trigonometry. God . . . Catherine.’
His voice receded, stopped, and the air seemed to grow solid around her, holding her in a rosy suspension. Light was gathering about them, frictive light from a strange heatless burning, and she heard herself crying out, calling his name, saying sweet things, childish things, telling him how wonderful he was, words like the words in a dream, important for their music, their sonority, rather than for any sense they made. She felt again the building of a dark wave in her belly. This time she flowed with it and let it carry her far.
Six
‘Love’s stupid,’ John said to her one day months later as they were sitting in the chamber of the heart, watching the complex eddying of golden light and whorls of shadow on the surface of the organ. ‘I feel like a damn sophomore. I keep finding myself thinking that I should do something noble. Feed the hungry, cure a disease.’ He made a noise of disgust. ‘It’s as if I just woke up to the fact that the world has problems, and because I’m so happily in love, I want everyone else to be happy. But stuck . . .’
‘Sometimes I feel like that myself,’ she said, startled by this outburst. ‘Maybe it’s stupid, but it’s not wrong. And neither is being happy.’
‘Stuck in here,’ he went on, ‘there’s no chance of doing anything for ourselves, let alone saving the world. As for being happy, that’s not going to last . . . not in here, anyway.’
‘It’s lasted six months,’ she said. ‘And if it won’t last here, why should it last anywhere?’
He drew up his knees, rubbed the spot on his ankle where it had been fractured. ‘What’s the matter with you? When I got here, all you could talk about was how much you wanted to escape. You said you’d do anything to get out. It sounds now that you don’t care one way or the other.’
She watched him rubbing the ankle, knowing what was coming. ‘I’d like very much to escape. Now that you’re here, it’s more acceptable to me. I can’t deny that. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t leave if I had the chance. But at least I can think about staying here without despairing.’
‘Well, I can’t! I . . .’ He lowered his head, suddenly drained of animation, still rubbing his ankle. ‘I’m sorry, Catherine. My leg’s hurting again, and I’m in a foul mood.’ He cut his eyes toward her. ‘Have you got that stuff with you?’
‘Yes.’
She made no move to get it for him.
‘I realize I’m taking too much,’ he said. ‘It helps pass the time.’
She bristled at that and wanted to ask if she was the reason for his boredom; but she repressed her anger, knowing that she was partly to blame for his dependency on the brianine, that during his convalescence she had responded to his demands for the drug as a lover and not as a nurse.
An impatient look crossed his face. ‘Can I have it?’
Reluctantly she opened her pack, removed a flask of water and some pellets of brianine wrapped in cloth, and handed them over. He fumbled at the cloth, hurrying to unscrew the cap of the flask, and then – as he was about to swallow two of the pellets – he noticed her watching him. His face tightened with anger, and he appeared ready to snap at her. But his expression softened, and he downed the pellets, held out two more. ‘Take some with me,’ he said. ‘I know I have to stop. And I will. But let’s just relax today, let’s pretend we don’t have any troubles . . . all right?’
That was a ploy he had adopted recently, making her his accomplice in addiction and thus avoiding guilt; she knew she should refuse to join him, but at the moment she didn’t have the strength for an argument. She took the pellets, washed them down with a swallow of water and lay back against the chamber wall. He settled beside her, leaning on one elbow, smiling, his eyes muddled-looking from the drug.
‘You do have to stop, you know,’ she said.
His smile flickered, then steadied, as if his batteries were running low. ‘I suppose.’
‘If we’re going to escape,’ she said, ‘you’ll need a clear head.’
He perked up at this. ‘That’s a change.’
‘I haven’t been thinking about escape for a long time. It didn’t seem possible . . . it didn’t even seem very important, anymore. I guess I’d given up on the idea. I mean just before you arrived, I’d been thinking about it again, but it wasn’t serious . . . only frustration.’
‘And now?’
‘It’s become important again.’
‘Because of me, because I keep nagging about it?’
‘Because of both of us. I’m not sure escape’s possible, but I was wrong to stop trying.’
He rolled onto his back, shielding his eyes with his forearm as if the heart’s glow were too bright.
‘John?’ The name sounded thick and sluggish, and she could feel the drug taking her, making her drifty and slow.
‘This place,’ he said. ‘This goddamn place.’
‘I thought,’ – she was beginning to have difficulty in ordering her words – ‘I thought you were excited by it. You used to talk . . .’
‘Oh, I am excited!’ He laughed dully. ‘It’s a storehouse of marvels. Fantastic! Overwhelming! It’s too overwhelming. The feeling here . . .’ He turned to her. ‘Don’t you feel it?’
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘How could you stand living here for al
l these years? Are you that much stronger than me, or are you just insensitive?’
‘I’m . . .’
‘God!’
He turned away, stared at the heart wall, his face tattooed with a convoluted flow of light and shadow, then flaring gold.
‘You’re so at ease here. Look at that.’ He pointed to the heart. ‘It’s not a heart, it’s a bloody act of magic. Every time I come here I get the feeling it’s going to display a pattern that’ll make me disappear. Or crush me. Or something. And you just sit there looking at it with a thoughtful expression as if you’re planning to put in curtains or repaint the damned thing.’
‘We don’t have to come here anymore.’
‘I can’t stay away,’ he said, and held up a pellet of brianine. ‘It’s like this stuff.’
They didn’t speak for several minutes . . . perhaps a bit less, perhaps a little more. Time had become meaningless, and Catherine felt that she was floating away, her flesh suffused with a rosy warmth like the warmth of lovemaking. Flashes of dream imagery passed through her mind: a clown’s monstrous face; an unfamiliar room with tilted walls and three-legged blue chairs; a painting whose paint was melting, dripping. The flashes lapsed into thoughts of John. He was becoming weaker every day, she realized. Losing his resilience, growing nervous and moody. She had tried to convince herself that sooner or later he would become adjusted to life inside Griaule, but she was beginning to accept the fact that he was not going to be able to survive here. She didn’t understand why, whether it was due – as he had said – to the dragon’s oppressiveness or to some inherent weakness. Or a combination of both. But she could no longer deny it, and the only option left was for them to effect an escape. It was easy to consider escape with the drug in her veins, feeling aloof and calm, possessed of a dreamlike overview; but she knew that once it wore off she would be at a loss as to how to proceed.
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