Robert Crews: A Novel

by Thomas Berger

  Since his utter failure in recovering the bodies, he avoided thinking of his late companions with particularity, especially of Dick Spurgeon, the best friend a human being could ever have, for whom in return he himself had been the unworthi-est. The tackle case and rod had belonged to somebody now lost at the bottom of the lake, perhaps Comstock, whose daughter wanted to study art, or Beckman, of whom Crews inexcusably knew next to nothing. Maybe there would be some point to his miserable existence if he survived for no better reason than assuring the families left behind that their men had died as heroes. Dick now had a different wife from the one with whom Crews had had the short-lived liaison that was so loveless for either. It was hardest of all to think of Spurgeon’s two children. In three marriages of his own, Crews had come closest to being a father only with Michelle’s abortion, and surely the world was better for that negative fact, though no doubt he was worse.

  He was in no position to surrender to shame. He attached the new fly, with what he meant to be a nonslipping knot, and cast it upon the water. This time, and for a number of repetitions, he had no taker for his bait. Maybe there had been but one trout extant today, and it had painfully learned its lesson. After countless casts, the fly was getting bedraggled, its fuzzier parts soaked, and soon was more in than on the stream. At last he pulled it out and substituted another of the same general type but not quite so colorful.

  It was taken immediately. He had no reason to make a sport of it, and quickly jerked the line to set the hook, then with brutal speed, using both hands on the line, yanked the fish from the water with such force that it flew over his head and landed on the boulders behind. The impact was such that the fish was killed. That had not been Crews’s intention, but that it happened was convenient. He brought in the next catch more carefully, which meant he had to kill it or let it pantingly drown in air. The minnows had not bothered him much, simply because they were so small. There was a morality for you, one founded on inches and ounces. But you had to admit it was only human to stride nonchalantly over a colony of ants while deploring the vivisection of mammals. Spraying fur coats with red paint while they were being worn: though she had not yet done it herself, his third wife approved of the practice. They never quarreled about such things, though he had not shared her zeal and when not in her company heedlessly ate meat. Molly stuck to her principles. She turned down more than one job on discovering that the prospective clients wore mink, and then there were the woman who asked her to upholster a chair in unborn calf and the man who wanted the walls of his study covered with zebra skin.

  Crews kept fishing until he had a half-dozen of the lovely speckled fish that were presumably trout, though of another breed than he could remember eating in restaurants. His immediate hunger could no longer be denied. He had tucked the magnifying mirror into the tackle case before starting out. He removed it now and, having collected tinder and heartier fuel among the desiccated driftwood flung up onto the rocks by bygone floods, quickly made a fire during the brief period the sun moved between two high, feather-pillowy clouds. He was getting good at the trick.

  The variegated, iridescent beauty of the trout as they had come from the water was fading in death. With his new knife he slit one from gills to tail and cleaned out the innards. Then he strung it lengthwise on a long green stick. He slowly turned it over the flames. The stick quickly dried and caught fire from time to time, and despite his care in turning the spit, the fish was charred in one place and almost raw in others, for the flames were too high and he was impatient. But when eaten the trout was no less than glorious. He burned his fingers and tongue during the meal but checked his impulse to gulp without chewing.

  He was able to limit himself to only two fish. These examples were six or seven inches long and, smoked, would have served only as appetizers back in civilization. But however ravenous, he could not afford again to abuse his system as he had by bolting down the minnows. Smoking would seem the best means to deal with the remaining fish. There was a generous choice of stones along the banks of the stream. He was able to find just what he needed for a frame around the fire, now reduced to embers much hotter than the preceding flames on which he had impatiently burned his meal.

  He went downstream to a point at which the cliff declined to a grade which he could conveniently climb to reach green foliage. He brought back an armload of fresh pine boughs. These went onto the hot coals within the circle of rocks, across which he placed the four cleaned fish, spitted on green twigs. Soon they were bathed in dense smoke. He hoped that while preserving the trout he was also sending into the sky an unmistakable signal that a human being was in the forest below. But the brisk currents of air that flowed down the stone face of the cliff dissipated his hopes along with the smoke.

  Leaving the trout in their fragrant fumes, Crews explored upstream, proceeding gingerly because only rocks were underfoot here, some with sharp edges against his unprotected soles. He came to a place at which the cliff had been divided as if with a giant wedge. Between the halves was a notch, stony but with enough vegetation to make a climb possible, and he undertook the ascent, which once underway proved much more demanding than it had looked from below. When he finally toiled onto the summit he found himself within the grove of tall pines that had been visible all the while but which he had failed to evaluate. To see beyond, he would have to climb one of them. He had not been in a tree as an adult. The task was not only physically taxing but so scary in the upper reaches of the ascent that subsequently coming down would be unthinkable. Therefore he did not think, and so managed to reach the topmost branch thick enough to bear his weight, and from which he saw a universe of unbroken green, except for the visible portion of the blue lake, from where he was to the horizon on a circuit of 360 degrees.

  He successfully came down from the tree, a task not so forbidding as the anticipation of it had been, and then descended the cliff, of which the reverse was true, and finally returned downstream to the fire, which was no longer smoking. The trout had turned to brittle leather—but in fact when tasted were exquisitely tender inside the crackling carapace. Not only was it tastier than the fish he had cooked so badly at lunch, but with their smoke the boughs had supplied additional flavor, in which even the welcome illusion of salt was included.

  He placed the three remaining smoked fish in plastic bags from which he had emptied the previous contents and stowed them in the tackle case, slinging it across his chest on the strap. Crossing that was the strap of the cylinder that carried the disassembled rod. All was neatly packaged on his person, and he was refreshed by the meal, though hardly stuffed. He looked forward to getting home, eating the rest of his food, and working either on a pair of shoes in which to hike out of the wilderness or on the improvement of the lean-to.

  Now he knew where fish could be caught. Next time he would arrive earlier and stay longer, catching enough trout for the smoking of a portable supply of nourishment that could sustain him on a long walk to civilization. He had already learned how difficult it was to live off the land. He would pack enough smoked fish to live on even if he found nothing else to eat en route. Any fresh food he did find he would use immediately, reserving what he carried for emergencies.

  He hiked back home through the failing light, and while once again the distance traveled seemed greater than the route out, it was a breezily clear evening, and having his neat shelter to look forward to, with the remaining smoked trout as either bedtime snack or a breakfast to anticipate, he felt, of all things, an impulse to whistle. For an instant he was shocked by this urge, which seemed almost rude. He was an intruder here. He who had made a social career of being offensive now worried about behaving improperly in a milieu of plants and animals. That was good for a laugh, but not having laughed in so long a time, he found an example hard to produce. What emerged was rather a croak, appropriate enough on nearing the pond, where the night before the sounds of the resident frogs had contributed to the din that, with the mosquito attacks, had kept him awake. In answer n
ow he heard a couple of plops, the first evidence of the beavers since he had moved onto their turf. The animals had been lying low throughout his lean-to building, minnow seining, and other activities, but felt free to get back to normal when he was gone all day.

  It was great to get home. Simply to see and touch the few of his possessions he had not worn or carried on the fishing trip was reassuring. He unslung the rod and tackle cases and stowed them in their places at one end of the structure. At the other end, as pillow, he put the duffel bag that contained such clothes as he was not wearing.

  He was not quite ready to retire, but neither had he sufficient remaining energy to deal with the bed of boughs that had been so uncomfortable the night before. He sat down on one of the nearby stumps and ate a smoked trout, slowly, savoring every morsel, including the now brittle brush of tail, and when he was done, he proceeded to eat the other two fish as well, though not with unalloyed satisfaction: thinking of the bear, he believed he was safest when he kept no food on hand to attract the animal. This consideration added a problem to the matter of accumulating enough smoked trout to sustain him on the projected hike out of the wilderness. He was too tired to think further on that subject or any other. He put on an extra shirt against the expected chill of the night and lay down in the lean-to, on the boughs, and immediately went to sleep, disregarding the possibility of a renewed attack by mosquitoes.

  Whether or not any marauder visited him during the night, four-footed or winged, he woke in the morning without evidence of having been molested. No doubt the breeze had kept the mosquitoes away. It had chilled him somewhat, as he could remember as if from a dream, but not so painfully as to have brought him to full consciousness. He had nothing on which to breakfast, but he was learning to accept an animal-like way of life in which you ate when you could and kept going until you found the next meal.

  Yet he must resist a similar state of mind regarding his predicament in general. There could be no further postponement in drawing up a comprehensive plan of action that would take account of his needs and his aims, along with the possibilities of successfully addressing both. The needs took precedence, but he had made a good start with food and shelter. No doubt he could better his previous performances in both areas, especially if he decided to stay in place until he was found. He had not been effective in signaling to aircraft, but not for want of trying. It was hard to say what else could be done. Keeping a fire burning at all times, so that at the first sound of an engine damp wood could be hurled onto the flames, would be impracticable. Touching off a forest fire would presumably bring attention but with a sudden change of wind the fire might eliminate the need for rescue by burning him alive.

  He had to be frank with himself: he did not believe he would ever be rescued if he remained where he was. At the same time, and despite the discouraging panorama of unrelieved forest from the top of the pine, he was convinced that, with protection for his feet—or even, if they continued to toughen up, without—he could walk back to human society.

  He was therefore startled when he asked himself which he really wanted to do, stay or go, and could not for an instant give a hearty or even an honest answer. But the moment was soon gone, and he began seriously to plan for the hike.

  For the smoking of a supply of fish, he found a number of robust stones and from them built a larger and sturdier version of the simple arrangement he had used alongside the trout stream, and gathered the dry makings for the fire to come. He cut green twigs for the spits and fresh boughs from which to make smoke. He traveled upstream to the place where he had caught the trout the day before and, after having no success now with several of the gaudier flies, tried the drabbest, and caught one fish after another.

  He had a good day, returning with ten trout. He had taken care to clean them on the spot and not back at the pond, where the offal might attract unwelcome visitors. After the preliminaries, he put the fish on to smoke and attended to the business of making sandals. The knife on the newly discovered tool made an easy job of cutting the birch bark to size, and the little auger head on another of the blades effectively pierced holes around the margins of the soles, for the thread that would lash them to the socks. As thread he had a choice of those spools of synthetic line from the tackle case. He took the finest, which still was stiff enough not to require a needle.

  He had weighted down the bark under heavy stones for more than a day, but since it nevertheless retained a stubborn tendency to curl, he heated water again in a container made of the same material and straightened the soles-to-be in the steam therefrom. He sewed them onto a pair of socks. The result was close to what he had projected. He could walk in or on what he made, and even more comfortably if wearing them over a second pair of socks. How long the bark would stand up to the wear and tear of a long hike was another matter. Therefore he cut out and perforated two pairs of replacements that could quickly be stitched on if needed, without stopping at the nearest birch.

  To sustain him in his labors, he ate two of the trout after they were cooked through but not yet fully smoked. This food tasted even more delicious than it had the day before, and he was again warmed with that rarest of feelings for him: a well-being not simply physical but moral as well. Food, when he could get it, was now his sole indulgence. It did for his spirit what, way back before alcohol became a way of life, the first drink of the evening had done. At first, the latter had been beer, usually taken at the college-town tavern with the scarred tables and fellow students who waited on them with more apparent care and less efficiency than the professionals of cities.

  He was suddenly too hungry to restrain himself from eating another of the trout and another after that, which left only six on which to make the hike. On the other hand, he might reach civilization much sooner than it would seem from the pine-top view. How far could one see from such a height, anyway? Even if as much as twenty miles, he could surely walk that in less than a day. He dismissed the consideration that twenty miles would not necessarily bring him to civilization, and he ate still another of the fish, reducing his supply by half: he was well aware of that fact, but he was hungrier now than when he had eaten the third. He made a heroic effort to stop at that point, more than he had done with the drinking. The fact was that he had always been at a loss with women when cold sober. He had noticed this girl, a waitress, before Spurgeon had. It was he who had brought her to Spurgeon’s attention: that’s what hurt.

  “You don’t mean the little redhead? I hope you know she’s married to a campus cop.”

  Crews grimaced. “Of course I don’t mean Ewie. This one’s new. She’s kinda short and round. I don’t mean fat. I should have said a round, sweet face, long dark hair, round eyes.”

  “Doesn’t everybody but Orientals have round eyes?”

  “No. For example, Evvie doesn’t. Hers are flattened ovals.”

  “I don’t look at her that much,” said Spurgeon. “I don’t like real pale skin with freckles, or old women, or ones married to local guys.”

  Spurgeon’s way was always to resist whatever he was told, even when it was totally banal—Rainy? What does “rainy” mean exactly: raining? About to rain? Just got done? How much more tiresome he was then, if the subject at hand was the opposite sex.

  “Evvie’s no more than twenty-five or -six, for God’s sake, your sister’s age.”

  “You want my sister,” Spurgeon said gleefully, extending a hand and rubbing two fingertips together, “you got to go through me, and it won’t be cheap.”

  Crews shrugged but was actually offended by that sort of joking. Spurgeon’s sister, Dee, was a motherly sort of young woman who had seemed older than she was until, paradoxically, she became pregnant. She was married to a man with a small office-supply business that Dick predicted would go nowhere. Already, as a college sophomore, he considered himself an authority on commerce, and in fact time had not long afterward proved him right. It was no doubt due to the same sort of ego that he was fearless with girls.

  “Has
she got a name?”

  “Look,” Crews told him, “don’t make too much of it. I just noticed she was new. I just wondered if you had seen her.”

  Spurgeon tossed his head, his signal for an assertion of moral superiority. “I can’t afford to hang out that much at the Hole.” He was at college on a scholarship from some fraternal organization to which his father, a municipal employee in a middle-sized city, belonged, and Dick worked at full-time jobs every summer. He was not exactly poor, though it was true he did not have Crews’s allowance. Nevertheless it was snide of him never to miss an opportunity to remind the latter of the financial difference between them.

  … Crews could see no advantage in this reminiscence. He was beset by practical problems, and reliving old experiences that would only make him feel more inadequate could serve no purpose. As it happened, he had eaten more of the smoked fish while so distracted. Now his supply had dwindled to three: obviously he could not travel far on those. Also he was beginning to worry that he had overeaten again. He was so worried, indeed, that to calm himself he ate one of the remaining trout.

  Dick Spurgeon could not afford to hang out at Cal Cutter’s, immemorially known as the Black Hole, yet he went there immediately on hearing of his roommate’s interest in the new waitress and not only struck up a conversation with her, but proceeded to date her “incessantly,” he claimed, for a week. He even professed to have fallen in love, piously assuring Crews, “And you know, I don’t say that lightly.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” said Crews. “Why do I have to listen to this?”