Abel's Island

by William Steig

  “You could carry a rope across for me,” Abel said, and he outlined his original plan for a rope bridge.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said Gower. “Do you realize how far down the river I’ll be when I hit the other side? That rope would have to be thousands of lily pads long. Having it attached to me, maybe catching on things and all, could give me a heart attack. I’m no tadpole, you know!”

  “But you will come back with rescuers, won’t you?” Abel asked.

  “Sure as shooting,” said Gower. “That’ll be the first order of business.”

  “And you will get in touch with my wife, won’t you? I’ll give you her address.”

  “Wife?” said Gower.

  “I’ve told you about her many times,” said Abel. “That’s her statue.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Gower. “Of course. I remember.” He was always forgetting things.

  One day Abel started on a statue of his new friend. As he shaped the clay, they conversed. Abel learned that Gower played bass fiddle in a small orchestra whose specialty was country music, had great-grandchildren by the dozen, all of whom were musical, and was happy with his old wife, though they often quarreled and spent whole days sitting around in a huff, trying to remember what they were angry about.

  Once Gower asked Abel what his trade or profession was. “I haven’t found my vocation yet,” Abel answered. “The only real work I’ve ever done has been here on this island.”

  “Holy bloater! What did you live on?” Gower wanted to know.

  “My mother has provided for me,” Abel answered. “I’m quite well off.”

  Gower grinned. “You sure don’t look it,” he commented, surveying Abel’s frayed trousers and stained, tattered shirt.

  “I usually dress better than this,” said Abel, laughing. For a moment he was embarrassed, but then he wiped the clay off his paws with the tail of his shirt.

  Abel talked about Amanda, about her poetry, her grace, her tendency to dream. He speculated on why her movements, her gestures, her voice, her way of dressing, were so much more charming and heart-winning than those of any other female mouse he had ever known, including his own dear mother and favorite sister. It puzzled him.

  “It’s the magic of love,” burped Gower.

  “Could you raise your chin a bit higher?” Abel asked.

  Gower did not move. He was in one of his reptilian torpors again. There he crouched with heavy-lidded, unseeing eyes, not asleep, not awake, not dead, not alive, still as a stone, gyrating with the world.

  Abel watched in wonder. Gower’s eyelids lifted slightly and his tongue suddenly shot forward and nailed a fly, which he swallowed. This feat always impressed Abel, and disgusted him too.

  “Could you raise your head a trifle?” he asked again.

  It took a week to complete the statue. It was the best Abel had ever done, a perfect representation of stupefied repose. Every wart was lovingly modeled; the eyes bulged properly, the full throat with the delicate wrinkles of age was definitely Gower’s. The fulsome belly, the haunches and feet, rested firmly on the ground. There was a vague smile on the broad mouth and in the lines of the closed eyelids that made the frog appear to be meditating on a homey universe.

  Abel was so proud of his accomplishment he wished he could show it to Amanda that minute. “Well, what do you think of it?” he asked Gower.

  “It’s me all right,” Gower said. “It’s more me than what I see in the mirror. It’s what I see when I imagine how I look. It’s a work of art, that’s what it is!”

  Abel allowed the compliment to stand. Looking at his own opus, he saw no reason to pretend modesty.

  “I think you’ve found your vocation,” opined Gower.

  Abel swallowed, then blushed. He had never thought along these lines.

  16

  Early one morning in the middle of June, Abel heard a knocking on his log and stepped outside. It was Gower, who’d been sleeping by the river. His manner seemed less than casual.

  “What’s up?” Abel inquired.

  “I’ve been watching the water,” said the frog. “It’s not as rushy as it was.” Actually, the river had returned to normal a week earlier, but Gower had been unusually meditative lately. “I think I can make it to the other side.”

  “Why so soon?” Abel asked, full of sudden foreboding. “We’re just getting to know one another. Aren’t you happy here? Have I offended you in any way?”

  “I’m happy, all right,” Gower glumped. “But I’m worried. I’ve been thinking of Gammer, my wife, and all the children, and their children and their children’s children. They can’t be getting on too well without me.”

  “How I hate to see you go,” sighed Abel.

  “I hate to go,” allowed Gower.

  “Then don’t,” said Abel.

  “My family,” said Gower.

  “I’m your family,” said Abel.

  Gower’s eyes bulged. “You’re a mouse,” he said.

  “How about some breakfast?” asked Abel.

  “No, thanks,” said Gower. “I’ve been eating flies all morning. They’re at their best today.”

  “You won’t forget to come back with help, will you?” Abel pleaded. “And you will get in touch with Amanda? 89 Bank Street, Mossville.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Gower.

  “Don’t forget,” said Abel.

  “How could I?” said Gower. “It’s the first thing I’ll do after I get home and see my family.” Then he went into his trance; his eyes rolled up under the lids as if he were storing a memory there for future use.

  When his absent mind returned, they walked down to the water, both sad to be parting. “Knowing you, dear Gower, has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,” said Abel.

  “Ditto,” said Gower. “Shucks, why grieve? It’s only temporary. That’s a great statue you made of me. It will be in a museum someday, I’ll bet.”

  “Thank you,” said Abel.

  “I’ll have to play my bull fiddle for you when we meet again.”

  “We will meet again, won’t we?” said Abel. “You won’t forget?”

  “You bet,” said Gower. He was standing on the bank of the river with bowed legs. “Farewell, my friend.” He put a cold hand on Abel’s shoulder.

  “Farewell, good Gower,” said Abel in a husky voice.

  Gower dived. He disappeared under the water and in a while his head bobbed up, far out and downstream. He waved back with his webbed hand. Abel waved. And then Gower was off and swimming, a strong breast stroke, making lateral headway but also being carried downstream, until he disappeared, at least from sight.

  Abel was certain the frog would make the other bank. He wished he could swim as well. He watched the empty river for a while, then walked back to his log in tears. He sat on a stone, looking with wet eyes at a blurred world at the statues, Amanda, Gower, and the others, at the daisies beyond the statues, at the tall, silent trees. He could not stand his own sorrow.

  The watch ticked away without feeling. Abel got up, went to the cherry birch, and climbed up to his roost. He sat there all day, not thinking, numb.

  At night his star appeared. “I’m lonesome,” Abel said when he saw it.

  “So am I,” the star seemed to answer.

  17

  Summer progressed. While waiting for Gower Glackens’s rescue crew, Abel kept busy, providing for himself, working at his art, doing whatever he could to be steadily occupied. He ate dandelion greens, birch bark, pigweed, wild onions, mushrooms, grass seed, watercress. He found he liked burdock root very much, and when the strawberries turned red, he had them on his breath all day.

  He began to make sculptures of plants, and the more elaborate he made them, the more it distracted his mind. He took to drawing, with bits of charcoal, in the empty spaces on the pages of his bear novel, and he discovered he could color his drawings by rubbing them with flower petals.

  He swam. He went on long, rambling walks. He kept his watch ti
cking. But all the time he never forgot he was waiting, waiting for his rescuers. Either Gower would bring them, or Amanda, or both. He waited for weeks. No one came.

  Finally, he was achingly certain that Gower had forgotten him. He had surely succeeded in crossing the river, but somewhere along the watery way his memory of a mouse named Abel had leached out.

  Abel looked at Gower’s statue and had new insight into the mystical expression on his face. He realized that if Gower was not drilled into remembering the everyday world, it became a dream that faded from mind as he dwelled on the ultimate reality beyond it. If he remembered his family, that was because a family is the one thing nobody can ever forget. Abel built fires to make smoke signals again and sent messages down the river on scraps from his book.

  In the hugging heat of July he was struck with a new, most exciting possibility. For weeks it hadn’t rained and the river looked a bit slower, a mite shallower. Could he, could he possibly, hope that the short dry spell would continue into a drawn-out drought? That the river would get low enough for him to risk swimming across? He would hope it, but he warned himself not to be too devastated if it didn’t happen.

  He climbed his cherry birch. He was still wearing Amanda’s scarf. It was the only thing he wore that was not in shreds. He had had to discard his shoes and socks sometime ago. His necktie had been used to help hold up his hammock. He removed the scarf from his neck and let the birch feel its wispy softness. Then he fell to kissing it.

  He had avoided dwelling too much on Amanda, even while waiting for rescuers. Now she occupied his mind constantly. He could see her beautiful black eyes vividly. Dreaminess and vivacity, what a wonderful combination of qualities! How much her brisk, graceful bustling had enlivened his idle days! How often, when he’d been lying on the sofa at home, wondering what to make of his life, her mere passing through the room had cheered him up. Even her scoldings he remembered with pleasure. She had only meant him well. His whole being ached to be with her.

  He was glad the sun was so fierce and burning. He slept on the ground outside his log and was happy to wake every morning to a bright, torrid day. The first thing he did on waking was to look at the river. Its flow was clearly diminished. A few sand bars had become visible, and dry rocks showed that had previously been under water.

  The island was still green in spite of the drought, and it was green on the opposite shores of the river. But, beyond, the green looked tarnished and the tops of the distant wooded hills were turning brown. That dying vegetation gladdened Abel’s heart.

  He woke one morning in August to find the sky dark with clouds. A few drops of rain had fallen and been quickly absorbed by the dry ground. Abel ran to the river and looked up and down its length. It’s now or never, he decided.

  He raced back to his yard and, addressing himself to Amanda’s statue, declared, “I’m coming home!” Then, entering his log, he looked around as if to etch forever in his memory this piece of dead tree that had been his haven. He lovingly caressed each of his sculptures. The ticking watch urged him not to tarry. He ran to the birch and pressed his face to its bark. The birch stood erect and encouraging.

  He hurried to the river, to the tip of a small peninsula. For one moment he turned to stare back and was filled with sudden anguish. The island had been his home for a full year. It had given him sustenance, guidance, warmth, like a parent. Something important had happened there. How could he help loving it!

  “Goodbye,” he said. “I’ll be back.” And he waded into the water.

  18

  When the water was neck-high, Abel flung himself forward and started swimming. He was carried downstream, but he made progress across too. It was still, for him, a strong current, but not like before. He swam with great resolve. He didn’t mind the water engulfing him now and then, filling and hurting his nostrils. He snorted bravely when it did. He was at last actually doing what for weeks he had been doing only in his imagination.

  Fortunately, he was able to climb a rock after a while and rest there until his panting had subsided. He was a quarter of the way over! Now he confronted the most challenging, the deepest, part of the stream. He had to believe he would be able to reach another rock to rest on. Having come so far, he felt his confidence swell. He was wiry-strong after his rugged year in the wilds. The Abel who was leaving was in better fettle, in all ways, than the Abel who had arrived in a hurricane, desperately clinging to a nail.

  He sucked his lungs full of air and threw himself into the water. Again he was carried downstream and again made crossways progress, stroking and kicking with power. He felt a minnow brush his leg and he exulted to be doing so well in the minnow’s own medium. He kept swimming. But soon he was overwhelmed by the water’s swiftness. It tore and tumbled and he was swung around like someone dragged against his will into a reckless dance.

  He stopped swimming, lay with his arms and legs outstretched, face to the heavens, and let himself be carried along for a while. With a sodden thump, he again found a rock. Blessed rock. He mounted it and rested on his back, his body heaving. It was very much as he had imagined it would be—difficult. But he was mastering the river, and he felt he was being guided. Hallelujah! Light rain began to fall. It didn’t matter. Abel knew he was equal to the rest of his task. He dived once more. A dozen strokes and his feet were touching bottom! He was on a gravelly welt of raised river bed. He walked across it and, without hesitating, made his final, easy swim.

  When at last he came out of the water and touched the shore he had been yearning toward for the whole round of a passing year, he experienced a burst of astounding joy. He lay on the longed-for ground, flooded with ecstatic feelings of triumph and well-being. Then he broke into uncontrollable laughter. He was a free mouse!

  In a while he started upstream, walking along the bank, where no tall grass obstructed the way. His thoughts were full of the future, but they were also full of the past. He was imagining ahead to Amanda, and beyond her to his family, his friends, and a renewed life in society that would include productive work, his art; but he was also remembering his year on the island, a unique and separate segment of his life that he was now glad he had gone through, though he was also glad it was over.

  As to what was to come, he began to be disturbed by vague apprehensions. What was he really walking toward? Would Amanda be home? Had things changed during his year of exile? What if, believing him dead, she had married another? Many mice had been in love with her. Was she even alive? He had been in touch with her, but had he really been in touch? Or had he only imagined it?

  After much walking, he arrived at a spot opposite his island. He saw it for the first time from a far perspective, embracing its wholeness. No wonder he loved it; it was beautiful. Through the rain he saw his beloved birch and all the trees around it. These images would be his forever.

  Having no wish to dally, he continued steadily northward. When he climbed the steep hill alongside the waterfall, he was amazed that he had traveled over this cataract when it was much mightier, and had survived. He had been through great ordeals, but here he was. Life surely meant him well. He kept walking.

  If only the rain would end, if only for an hour. He felt the need to be dry. Eventually, he found shelter in a natural vault of jutting rock, lay down, and was instantly asleep.

  When he woke, the moon was out and a cat was staring him in the face.

  19

  For a moment Abel was stiff with terror, then he scrambled to his feet, but before he could get away he was in the cat’s mouth. He could feel her sharp teeth holding him firmly by the skin of his back

  Now he was being trotted off somewhere in a very businesslike way, and there was no question about the nature of the business. His thoughts remained remarkably clear. Was this the culmination of all his plans, all his yearning, all his work, all his waiting, for a long, long year? Would he not see Amanda again? His family? Not be at home again? Not be? Could life be so cruel?

  The cat dropped him on the ground.
He darted off like an arrow. The cat pounced, held him under a paw, and in another moment let go. Abel did nothing. He couldn’t tell whether it was fear that held him, or sudden loss of hope, or whether he was playing dead out of long-forgotten instinct. It amounted to the same thing. He was motionless. The cat was motionless. They waited.

  Then, swipe! She struck him, tossing him into the air with a cuff of her paw. At that, Abel was off and running, the cat after him. Again she snagged him in her teeth and again she let him go. Abel crouched, only his eyes moving. He was bleeding, yet he felt strangely detached now, curious about what the cat, or he himself, would do next.

  The cat watched. She blinked. Was she bored? Abel felt she was being much too casual about his imminent end, as though it were only one of many she had contrived. He saw a tree a short way off and scampered wildly toward it. The cat allowed him a head start, perhaps to add interest to the chase. Abel fled up the tree in sudden streaks, going this way, that, under and over branches, around the trunk. The cat stayed close, but slipped once, while Abel kept going.

  He made his wild way to the very top, to the slenderest branch that would support his weight. The cat couldn’t follow that far. They rested. They could see each other clearly in the moon’s mellow light. Looking down from the safety of his position, Abel realized that the cat had to do what she did. She was being a cat. It was up to him to be the mouse.

  And he was playing his part very well. A little smugness crept into his attitude. He seemed to be saying, “It’s your move.” Whether in response to this, or merely because she was tired of waiting, the cat leaped. Abel gripped his twig. It bent like a bow when she struck it, swung back, swayed, and shook in his grasp, and he could hear the cat drop, hitting branches as she fell, yowling and screaming in pain and amazement. He heard the thud as she struck the ground, and her crazy caterwauling as she shot off in utter confusion. The unruffled moon continued to shine.