"I was mumbling things to myself. Don't pay any attention to what I say."
"What about Beverly?"
"A woman I knew in the past. The hyacinth woman."
He watched as Megan's body went rigid.
"Beverly, the hyacinth woman. But you said"
"It's in the past, Megan. I told you that relationship is long over. She went off with her lover. Here I am with mine." He walked to her and hugged an unresponding Megan. "What's wrong with you, my love?'' He hoped she wasn't going to give him a hard time about having sex before dinner or before dark or whatever other silly excuse she could think up.
"What was your mother's name, Carl?"
"My mother's name. Why would you care? I told you both my parents are deceased."
"She had a name. What was it?"
"I don't like to talk about my family."
"Not even to mention their names? Does this have anything to do with the superstition among the Amazonian tribe?"
"What?"
"You know. There was a tribe you visited that wouldn't speak the name of a dead relative. The person's name was retired, kind of like the number on a football jersey. It was in the journal I just read."
Carl bristled at the analogy, but thought it best to let the subject pass.
"My past isn't what's on my mind right now. No, all I'm thinking about now is seducing you. I've thought about it all day, Megan. Seeing you under me, tasting that mouth." The pads of his fingertips glided lightly across her lips.
Megan's eyes were a drab umber in the dimly lit kitchen. There was no sparkle, no laughter, no desire. He wasn't giving up; the final pass on the drawing would be made that night, not at Megan's leisure.
Carl cupped her cheeks in his palms. Her muscles were straining against her emotions.
Was she fighting her desire, or something else? It didn't matter to Carl, because he would win. He leaned forward to place a kiss on her forehead. Her head tried to pull back, out of his grasp. His hold was firm. When his lips touched her skin, her hands immediately flattened against his chest, pushing. Not shoving; she exerted no great pressure. But she pushed.
He didn't want to ask what was the matter. He didn't want to waste the time. Instead, Carl's lips passed down across Megan's eyelids, he slid his tongue down the bridge of her nose, then he nipped at her upper lip. As she tried to speak, Carl thrust his tongue deep inside her mouth, feeling the muffled sounds hit the nerves of his tongue.
When her hands dropped from his chest, Carl dared to drop his own hands to her body. She didn't pull away. Her arms hung at her sides. Her tongue tried to block his invasion. He looked at her face and saw her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Lines spread out from the viselike closure of the lids. His wandering hands found the two little fists pressed into the outside of her thighs.
His arms enclosed her straight body.
"Relax, Megan," he said. "I'll answer all the questions you want to ask later. I've missed you all day and need to feel close to you. Sometimes you're so distant."
"Me!" she responded, but Carl placed a finger atop her full lips.
"Please, Megan. This house echoes with the loneliness I've experienced. Please, give yourself to me. I need to be warmed by you, even if we just lie together on the bed. Take away my pain for the short time you're here. Please, Megan." He breathed her name into her ear, blowing aside a stray curl. The flesh of his arms vibrated with the shiver that shook her body. She pulled her head back, then laid it on his shoulder as they passed through the doorway on their way to the bedroom.
37 - Discovery
Lie with her. All the man wanted to do was get laid. Once that was done, he rushed back to the study to finish more work. What the hell was he working on, his own version of War and Peace? Megan asked herself. She had no answers, only questions.
Ah, yes! He promised to answer any and all that she presented to him, but how could she even ask him what was for dinner without banging on that blasted door?
Megan rolled over onto her stomach and began to kick the mattress, using her fists to jab rights and lefts into the pillow usually used by Carl. Her limbs suddenly relaxed, and her body exploded into silent sobs. Tears wet the sheet while her nose stuffed up, forcing her to regain her self-control. She rolled over and looked around the room for a tissue. Finding none, Megan spitefully blew as hard as she could into the edge of the pillowcase on which her head rested.
"Stupid, perverse man," she gritted out.
She had been happy that afternoon. Before leaving Beverly's, whoever the damn woman was, Megan had been able to place the final draft of the drawing of Carl on the floor of the bedroom. She hadn't wanted to disturb Beverly. Possibly she was resting. Besides, she had seemed rather cranky that day. What if the drawing hadn't been up to snuff? Better to let Beverly find it later, after Megan had left. Beverly could complain later, if she wanted, but Megan's real hope was that the woman would be delighted and spend a comforted night staring at her son's image. If he was her son. Certainly Beverly didn't look like anyone Carl had dated or knew in the biblical sense, although he had proclaimed Beverly the hyacinth woman. That couldn't be. She was confused. Perhaps he loved Beverly, if she was his mother. Or, at least, Megan wanted to believe he loved her. But she couldn't forget the stench that emanated from that house. Megan almost retreated several times before her arm's-length reach could drop the drawing onto the wood floor of the bedroom. Was it the woman's disease, she wondered, or plain old filth? Carl wasn't the best housekeeper; he wasn't even in the running for a passable housekeeper, but there weren't any highly offensive odors trapped in dead air in his house.
That's what the air was, dead, Megan recalled. Exactly. It was as if the woman were keeping her own private morgue, with bodies lying about unrefrigerated. Megan twitched her nose, recalling the dense smell.
"Maybe I could clean the house up for her or help her bathe," Megan whispered. No, she wasn't the domestic type, nor the nursing type. She'd keep her good deeds confined to the garden. "And who the hell is Beverly, anyway?" This was said in a louder voice. Megan didn't care whether Carl heard her. Evidently he hadn't, she figured after several minutes, since there was no response.
She glanced over at the shut window. Carl had fixed the windowpane the day he brought the replacement glass home. For a man who had gotten used to the smell of hyacinth, it was strange how he still kept that window shut and locked.
Megan bounded out of bed, heading straight for the window. She snapped the lock, then pulled the frame open. A gush of hyacinth sprang into the room. It was almost as if the flower had been pressing up against the glass, waiting for any opportunity to enter the bedroom.
Standing tall, Megan sucked the sweet fragrance up through her nostrils, filling her lungs, then exhaled it with a refreshed sigh.
She wasn't going to worry about his weird idiosyncrasies anymore. It was time he did a bit of catering to her.
After pulling a gray, short-sleeved sweatshirt over her head, she picked her jeans up off the floor and slipped into them. She got on her hands and knees and crawled under the bed, brushing dust bunnies away with flicks of her hands until she located her moccasins. They were a bit bent and out of shape, but they were the most comfortable things she could think of sticking her feet into at the moment.
Megan stood, marched to the bedroom door, and flung it open. Carl had gently closed it about forty-five minutes earlier. He had obviously believed that she was going to fall asleep.
When she reached the door to Carl's study, she turned to face it squarely. Her mouth was a straight line, the skin on her face tight, the brows low over her eyelids. Megan raised her right fist and hit the door.
"Yes?" Carl answered calmly.
Megan repeated the blow.
"What is it, Megan?"
Again she pounded the door, except this time she repeated the effort twice.
The lock turned. Carl opened the door two inches.
"Did you want something?" He appeared in no way perturbed
.
Megan screamed, then grabbed the doorknob. She slammed the door shut in her own face, and screamed again. Megan heard the lock slip back into place.
"Idiot," she yelled.
Her feet traveled the wooden floor with heavy thuds. By the time she reached the living room, she was pouty and her eyes were clouding with tears.
"I don't understand you, Carl. I don't understand you," she softly whimpered.
Through the watery glaze of her eyes, she managed to make out the form of the journal she had wanted to return to Carl. The one she had found in the shed. It was lying on the sofa, where she had left it after she had returned from Beverly's.
She retrieved a flashlight from the hall closet, lifted the journal from the sofa, and went out onto the front porch. There she found an old chair whose wicker seat was becoming unraveled. There was nothing else to sit on except the splintery front steps before her. Deciding the river would have more atmosphere, she descended the steps and intended to continue down the path to the river, but midway the hyacinths lured her into the tall grass.
The dried mound seemed to shimmer under the moonlight. A worm was busy burying itself into the highest peak. In the dark it looked so much like a grave, thought Megan. She switched on the flashlight, and the worm disappeared completely. Megan fanned the light in a semicircle around her. She thought she saw the leaves of a bush shiver, but saw nothing else move. There wasn't anything there but dry earth and blossomless plants starving for attention, just like her. This was comfortable, she decided, and settled her behind on a cleared piece of earth beside the mound. She rested the flashlight just below shoulder level on a rock on her other side. Atop her slightly bent knees she laid the battered journal, giving her the best advantage of the battery-powered light.
The cover of the journal fell back as she opened it, almost pulling completely free from the gluing of the threadlike spine.
"Maybe this will give me insight into how your mind works," she whispered. However, she had already run through three of his earlier journals and had come away with nothing but objective facts. "It's worth another try."
The first page offered the date, the time, descriptions of the flora, and pertinent information about the fishing. Pollution from the mercury used by gold miners had caused a severe population decrease of the pirarucu fish, which he had annotated was once an Amazonian staple. A sad note on what civilization can bring, but Megan wanted information about the man writing these words. Did he care about the environment? Or was he just recording facts for a possible book when he returned to his own intrusive world?
Megan flipped through several more pages, searching for a personal observation, or an emotion, that might have escaped through the tip of his pen.
She was practically near the end of the journal when the pages became blurred. Ink streaked from letters, and words dripped down across the tidy blue lines. Pages carried the creases of rough fingertips. The corners of several of the pages had been turned down, marking them as significant. Megan turned back to the beginning of that section and began to read each word aloud.
38 - The Amazon
September 15
Since I've learned the Indians' language and have been able to dispense with the awkward grunts, grimaces, and gesticulations. I have gathered a good deal of information about the beliefs of this tribal people. They do not hoard; instead, they share everything, from space in one of their sleeping hammocks to the food and beverage, which sometimes runs low. If they must move on to find additional prey for food, it is simple for them to pack up their belongings and chop down the poles that support the great palm fronds that offer them shelter.
Currently, I am living in the headman's hut and sleeping regularly with two of his daughters. Although the Indians appear to be mainly monogamous, they occasionally allow an honored person to bed more than one woman. Since they are grateful for the cheap trinkets I have brought with me, I fall into the category of an honored guest.
The headman's mother died this morning, and I have been told by one of my paramours that there will be a big feast tonight to send the old woman off in style. She had been a rather grumpy, scrawny woman with a withered leg, and I personally will not miss her. I would have expected a number of the young hunters to have left the village to search for food, but it seems no one has bothered. Perhaps, in the tradition of most religions, we will fast in atonement for her caustic personality.
I am still not used to the number of insects that come out following the afternoon rain showers. The mosquitoes and the chicharra are a special problem for me. Often I must dig out the eggs of some of these insects from under my skin to prevent a deeper parasitic invasion.
I have just remembered that I should seek out my friend and guide Tutirahi before the festivity begins. He has promised to teach me the use of the twenty-five-foot blowgun I admired the other day.
September 16
Fortunately, before the ceremony my women introduced me to ebene, a narcotic snuff, which we blew into one another's nostrils; otherwise, I don't believe I could have made it through the so-called meal. Yesterday, in the early evening, I smelled meat roasting. Thinking that they had captured some game while I was getting high, I happily eschewed a before-dinner bite of pulverized fish. However, when I looked at the night's meal, it looked sadly familiar with its foreshortened limb.
In the six months that I have been here, there have been no other deaths. I began to think that mine would be the first to bring about the mourning chants until the headman's mother sickened and quickly deteriorated. That was who had been placed before us for dinner, roasted and oddly silent, considering who it was. I quickly shook my head when my women offered me the choice bits, which included a slice of the pinkish heart. I had gotten used to the fact that most of the prepared meat was semi-raw, but this I could not stomach. The only missing part was the head, which I was told was being set aside until it filled up with maggots. Then it would be spiced with herbs before eating.
The headman, who was decked out with his ceremonial leg ligatures and the red paint from annatto seeds, attempted to sway me into partaking with my fellow brothers. This experience would qualify me as a full-fledged member of the tribe, he assured me. As much as I have tried to be accepted, I could not go that far. It was bad enough to eat another human being's flesh, but to add the fact that it was the tedious bitch who had made so many lives miserable . . .
His eldest daughter brought me some fish that had been heated over hot coals for storage for the rainy season when game was scarce. I attempted to chew on the fish to show how grateful I was for her effort, but it constantly caught in the back of my throat.
Later, while the Indians danced. I was able to withdraw to a quiet section of the forest where there were only the sounds of my own breathing and the hoarse call of the bullfrogs.
September 19
I have not written in several days. My illness has gotten worse, and I am afraid that soon it will start to affect my neurological system; then I will be unable to hold a pen steady in my hand. If only the headman's daughters had taken my efforts to teach them my language more seriously, then they could have continued this journal up until the day of my death. But who will there be to read it, anyway? Will I, too, be gobbled up by my friends, or will they consider me too much of an outsider to taint their bodies? I am afraid to ask, just as I am afraid to admit my illness to anyone here.
Perhaps I should speak with the headman. I do not want my friends in the tribe to fear me once the disease takes hold. I must explain it completely to the headman this night.
September 20
Can I believe him? The headman insists that he would have been dead many years ago, except for the ritual he follows when he feels his own strength being sapped away.
He had received a wound that had become infected, and most thought he would die. However, a prominent shaman shared his own secret with the valued headman. First, the headman must capture a victim from an enemy village. Second, he must with
his own hands carve an exact replica of that captured person. Third, he must bury it deep in the soil. No words need be spoken, no hocus-pocus of ritualistic dancing or hand waving. All that was needed was intent and a strong will to transfer his own death to another.
I asked why he had not saved his mother this way. He smiled at me, his teeth strong and white, and said that he had no desire to save the crone. The privilege was reserved for an elite few. Think what the population would be, he thought with a chuckled, if everyone had the knowledge.
He was right, but how could this information save me? I asked. For one thing, wood carving was not a strong point with me. He interrupted to clarify that it need not be a carved statue; a drawing could serve the same purpose. Accuracy was the important ingredient.
I nodded and acknowledged that I had studied art back home, butHe cut me off and reminded me that another important aspect was my desire to perform the impartation.
Mary Ann Mitchell - Drawn to the Grave.html Page 18
