Rafe didn’t return her smile.
“I’m not your mother, Lisl, and I’m not giving you a line to make you finish your greens. I’m talking about a real continent. I’m talking about real people, really starving—eat ants, Lisl—really dying.”
Lisl felt her own smile fade. “Come on, Rafe…”
He pulled into a municipal lot just as someone was backing out of a space.
“He must have known I was coming,” Rafe said. He pulled into the slot and turned to Lisl again. “What about the endless genocide in Zaire? What about the daily brutalization of the female half of the populace in any fundamentalist Muslim country?”
“Rafe, you’re talking about the other side of the world!”
“I didn’t know brotherhood was limited by distance.”
“It’s not. But you simply don’t dwell on those things day in and day out. They’re so far away. And the numbers are so staggering they don’t seem real. Like it’s not happening to real people.”
“Exactly. You’ve never seen them, never visited their lands, and what happens to them does not affect your life.” He gently poked her shoulder with his index finger. “That puts you on an island, Lisl. A big island, maybe, but still an island.”
“I don’t accept that. I feel for them.”
“Only when someone reminds you—and even then only briefly.” He gripped her hand. “I’m not putting you down, Lisl. I’m the same way. And we’re no different from anyone else. We all need a certain amount of insulation from what our fellow humans do to each other.”
Lisl stared out the window. He was right, dammit.
They locked up the car and headed for Nordstrom. Rafe put his arm around her shoulder.
“Okay now. Let’s move closer to home. Look around you at these houses, these apartment buildings. They look peaceful, but we know from statistics that there’s a certain amount of violence and brutality going on behind those walls. Wives being beaten, children being sodomized.”
“But I can’t feel anything for statistics.”
“What about that three-month old in the paper this morning? Scalded to death by his mother. I believe his name was Freddy Clayton. He’s more than a statistic. Think how that child felt as the person he depended on for everything forced him down into that steaming water and held him there. Think of his agony as—”
“Enough, Rafe! Please! I can’t! I think I’d go mad if I even tried.”
His smile was slow. “The water around your little island just got wider and deeper.”
Lisl was suddenly depressed.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“I’m only trying to open your eyes to the truth. There’s nothing wrong with being an island. Especially if you’re a Prime. We Primes can be self-sufficient on our islands, but the rest of them can’t be. Thus the ‘No man is an island’ lie. We are the wellspring of human progress. They need us to get by. What’s wrong is to allow yourself to be deceived into believing you need them.”
“But I like the idea of brotherhood. There’s no deception in that.”
“Of course there is. You’ve been culturally conditioned to believe in it. The leeches, the Consumers, they want everyone—especially us Primes—to swallow the Brotherhood-of-Man myth. It makes it so much easier for them to suck off our juices. Why should they bother stealing from us if we’re gullible enough to let them convince us to give of ourselves willingly in the name of Brotherhood?”
Lisl stared at Rafe. “Are you listening to yourself? Do you realize how you sound?”
He sighed and lowered his eyes to the sidewalk as they approached Nordstrom.
“I can imagine: paranoid. But Lisl, I’m not crazy. And I’m not saying we’re the victims of an overt plot. It’s not that simple. I think it’s more of a subconscious thing that has developed down the millennia of human civilization. It’s persistent and pervasive for a very simple reason: It works. It keeps us producing so they can milk us.”
“There you go again.”
He held up his hands. “Okay. Maybe I’m crazy. But then again, maybe I’m not. One thing I’m sure of is that you and I aren’t like them. I want my island to fuse with your island. I want an unbreakable bond between us. Look at these people, Lisl. Your so-called Brothers. Is there one of them you can count on? Really count on? No. But you can count on me. No matter what, no matter where, no matter when, you can count on me.”
Lisl looked at Rafe and saw the intensity in his eyes. She believed him. And that lifted her spirits. Suddenly she felt like shopping again.
They wandered the crowded aisles, finally stopping at the jewelry counter. The three saleswomen were busy with other customers. Lisl squinted at a wide, twenty-inch eighteen-karat gold necklace out of reach behind the counter. The herringbone pattern appealed to her.
“You like that?” Rafe said.
“It’s beautiful.”
He reached one of his long arms across and plucked it off its peg. He undid the clasp.
“Here. Try it on.”
He reclasped it around her neck then guided her to the mirror. The gold gleamed as it hung between her breasts, all but obscuring the slim chain and the cowry.
“I love it.”
“Shiny metal makes you happy, does it? Well then, let’s get you some more.”
He reached out again and picked out a pair of gold earrings with onyx centers. Lisl pulled off the little studs she had worn today and allowed him to fasten the new ones onto her earlobes.
“Perfect. And now the final touch.”
A moment later, he was slipping an eighteen-karat gold filigree bracelet over her right wrist.
“There! The picture is complete.” He gripped her elbow and gently propelled her away from the jewelry department. “Let’s go.”
“Where are we—?”
“Out.”
“But we haven’t paid.”
“We don’t have to. We’re Primes.”
“Oh, God, Rafe!”
Lisl tried to turn back toward the counter but Rafe had a firm grip on her arm.
“Trust me on this, Lisl,” he said in her ear. “Follow my lead. I’m the only one you can really trust.”
She held her breath and let him guide her toward the exit, sure that at any minute the store detectives would appear and escort them to a back office where they’d be grilled and then arrested. But no one stopped them.
Until the exit. A uniformed doorman stepped in front of them at the glass door that led to the street; his gloved hand gripped the handle.
“Find everything you need?” he said with a smile.
Lisl felt her knees begin to wobble. Shoplifting! And with what this jewelry was worth, she’d be charged with grand larceny instead of petty theft. She saw her reputation, her whole academic career heading for the sewer.
“Just looking today,” Rafe said.
“Fine!” He pulled open the door. “Come back any time.”
“We’ll be sure to do that,” Rafe said as he guided Lisl ahead of him.
Relief flooded through her as they joined the pedestrians outside and walked up Conway Street. When they were half a block from the store, Lisl snatched her arm away from him.
“Are you insane?”
She was furious. She wanted to run away, break it off, never see him again.
Rafe’s expression was one of shock, but the hint of a smile played about his lips.
“What’s wrong? I thought you liked gold jewelry.”
“I do! But I don’t steal things!”
“That wasn’t stealing. That was merely getting your due.”
“I have money! I can afford to buy my jewelry!”
“So can I. I could buy out that whole department in there and cover you with gold. But that’s not the point. That’s not why I did it.”
“Then what is the point?”
“That there’s Us, and there’s Them. We don’t have to answer to them. They deserve anything we do to them. They owe us anything we take
from them. They’ve been dumping on you all your life. It’s high time you got something back.”
“But I don’t want anything from anybody unless I earn it.”
His smile was sad. “Don’t you see? You have earned it. Just by being a Prime. We carry them on our backs. It’s our minds, our dreams, our ambitions that fuel the machinery of progress and give them direction. Without us they’d still be boiling tubers over dung fires outside their miserable little huts.”
Lisl reached back and unclasped the necklace from around her neck. She removed the earrings and pulled off the bracelet.
“All that may be true, but I’m taking these back. I can’t wear them.”
And I can’t stay with you.
Rafe held out his hand. “Allow me.”
Lisl hesitated, then handed him the gold jewelry. Rafe turned and gave it all to the first woman who passed by.
“Merry Christmas, ma’am,” he said as he thrust all of it into one of her hands.
The gesture shocked Lisl. This wasn’t petty thievery. Rafe was trying to make a point. When he took her hand, she didn’t pull away.
They walked on and Lisl glanced back. The woman was staring after them as if they were crazy. She glanced at the jewelry in her hand, then dropped it all in a nearby litter basket.
Lisl stopped and tugged on Rafe’s arm.
“That’s eighteen-karat gold!”
Rafe pulled her along. “She thinks it’s junk jewelry. Either way, it’s shiny metal. That’s all.”
Lisl turned her back on the woman and the litter basket.
“This is all so crazy!”
“But exciting too.”
“Not exciting—terrifying.”
“Come now. Admit that there’s a kind of exhilaration buzzing through you right now.”
Lisl felt the adrenalized tingling of her limbs, the racing thump of her heart. As much as she hated to admit it, it had been exciting.
“But I feel guilty.”
“That will pass. You’re a Prime. Guilt and remorse—they have no place in your life. If you do something that causes guilt, you must do it again. And again. Ten, twenty, thirty times if need be, until the guilt and remorse are gone.”
“And then what?”
“And then you go farther. You crank it up a notch. You’ll see.”
Lisl felt a chill.
“I will?”
“Sure. You’ll see that it’s easier the next time.”
“I don’t want a next time, Rafe.”
He stopped and stared at her. They were at a corner. People were streaming by but Lisl barely noticed them. The disappointment in Rafe’s eyes nearly overwhelmed all other perceptions.
“This isn’t for me, Lisl. This is for you. I’m trying to cut you loose, to free you to fly and reach the heights of your potential. You can’t fly if you won’t kick off the shackles they’ve used to hobble you all your life. Do you want to kick free or not?”
“Of course I do, but—”
“No buts. Are you going to stay chained down here or are you going to fly with me? The choice is yours.”
Lisl saw how serious he was, and realized in that moment that she could lose this man. He was so radical and intense, but dammit, she could not remember ever feeling this good about herself, about life in general. She felt like a complete woman, an intellectual and sexual being for whom there were no limits. She felt a certain greatness beckoning; all she had to do was follow the call.
And it was all due to Rafe. Without him she’d still be just another math nerd.
Nerd. God, she hated the word. But she’d always been a nerd. She knew it and was brave enough to admit it: She was a nerd to the bone and she was tired of it. She didn’t want to be who she was, and here was Rafe offering her a chance to be somebody new. And if she didn’t take that chance, what would he do? Would he turn his back and walk away? Give up on her as a lost cause?
She couldn’t stand that.
But it wouldn’t happen. She was through being a nerd. The new Lisl Whitman was going to take control of her life. She was going to squeeze the last drop of juice from it.
But she didn’t want to steal. No matter what Rafe said about other people owing her, the idea of stealing stuck in her craw. And no matter how many times she did it, she knew she’d still feel guilty.
She could pretend to go along, though. Pretend that she’d overcome any guilt or remorse about it and then they could quit that and move on to quieter, saner pastimes. A little time and she knew she could mellow him.
She smiled at him.
“All right. I’m ready when you are. When’s the next caper?”
He laughed and hugged her. “It’s now. It’s right up the street. Let’s go!”
“Great!” she said, reaching into her bag to hide the sinking feeling inside. She pulled out a stack of envelopes.
“What are those?”
“The Christmas party invitations. I finished addressing them this morning.”
She dropped them in the mailbox and sent up a silent prayer that she wouldn’t be in jail for her party.
EIGHT
1
Everett Sanders stepped off the bus from the campus at his usual stop and walked the three and a half blocks home. Along the way he picked up his five white, short-sleeved shirts—boxed, no starch—from the cleaners. He owned ten such work shirts, kept five at home and five at the cleaner at all times. He made his usual stop before the front window of Raftery’s Tavern and peered inside at the people gathered there in the darkness to drink away the afternoon and the rest of the evening. He watched for exactly one minute, then continued on to the Kensington Arms, a five-story brick apartment house that had been built in the twenties and somehow had managed to survive the Sun Belt’s explosion of new construction.
He had the day’s mail arranged in proper order by the time he reached his apartment on the third floor: the magazines and mail-order catalogs on the bottom, then the second- and third-class mail, then the first-class envelopes. Always the first-class mail on top. That was the way it was done. He just wished the mailman would put it into his box that way.
Ev placed the mail in a neat pile where he always placed it—on the table next to his La-Z-Boy lounger—then made his way to the kitchenette. The apartment was small but he saw no sense in a bigger place. What would he do with the extra room? It would only mean more to clean. He never had company, so what would be the point? This efficiency was fine for him.
He spotted a smudge of dust on the glossy surface of the tiny dining table as he passed and pulled out his handkerchief to buff it away. He glanced around the living area. Everything was in order, everything clean and exactly where it should be. The television was over by the sofa and lounger in the living room; the computer terminal was dark and dumb on the desk in the dining area. The plaster walls were bare. He kept telling himself he should get something to hang on them, but every time he went to look at paintings he couldn’t find anything that appealed to him. The only picture he had was an old photograph of his ex-wife which he kept on the night table.
In the kitchenette Ev measured out exactly half a cup of unsalted, dry-roasted peanuts into a paper cup. He returned with this to the lounger. This week’s novel was Hawaii, a fat one. He’d have to get to today’s quota of pages immediately after dinner. He nibbled on the peanuts one at a time as he began opening the mail. First class first, of course.
The invitation to Lisl’s party surprised him, and pleased him to no end. What a sweet woman she was to include him in her plans. He was touched. He had a warm feeling for Lisl, and although her intention to prepare a paper for the Palo Alto conference was a direct challenge to his own bid for tenure, it did not alter his feelings for her. She had every right to go for it. And after what he’d overcome in the past, Everett was hardly afraid of a challenge, especially from a respected colleague like Lisl.
But he’d have to turn down her invitation. A party of that sort was out of the question.
He noted that the address was not Lisl’s but a place in that exclusive new development, Parkview. Probably belonged to that Rafe Losmara she had been seeing.
Poor Lisl. She no doubt thought she was being so discreet and low key, but her affair with that rich graduate student was the talk of the department.
Ev wondered what Rafe Losmara saw in her. He too was reputed to possess a brilliant mind, perhaps the equal of Lisl’s. Rich and good-looking, he could have any of dozens of willing women on campus. Why was he pursuing Lisl? She couldn’t help him academically—she was in a different department than he. So what was his game?
None of my business, he told himself.
And perhaps he wasn’t being fair to Lisl. She was an attractive woman—at least Ev had always found her so—and even more attractive now that she was slimming down. He saw no reason why she shouldn’t have many men chasing after her.
Which made the pool among the other members of the Math department all the more offensive. When they’d approached him to see if he wanted to place a wager on how long Lisl’s romance would last, he’d coldly dismissed them. He should have given them hell, should have gone to Lisl with it, but he lacked the nerve, and hadn’t the heart to bring her such hurtful news.
He hoped Lisl and this Losmara fellow stayed together for a long time, just to show up the fools in the department.
But what of that groundskeeper? Ev still saw Lisl taking lunch with him. He wondered how he felt about her relationship with Losmara.
2
Will Ryerson put off opening the envelope. He knew what it was. He dropped it on the kitchen counter and wandered the main room of his rented house. The tiny ranch was old and damp; built on a concrete slab, but that hadn’t stopped the termites from establishing themselves in the walls. He swore that some nights he could lay awake in the dark and hear them chewing. The house was situated on a large wooded lot in the center of a dense stand of oaks. He wouldn’t have to go outside to know when fall arrived—the acorns raining on his roof heralded the return of cool weather.
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