“I am.”
“Okay, then. I trust you.”
“And I love you. Remember that always.
“I will. I’d like to sleep now. I’ve been waiting for you. You’re back, now. I’d like to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-eight
LEAVING: DECEMBER 1, EVENING
Rachel closed the book she’d been reading and looked up at Paul. “Did you say something?”
He was standing at the back window, had pulled the curtain aside. “No,” he said tentatively. Rachel waited. After a ;moment, he continued, “Could you turn that light off for a moment?” He glanced around and nodded at the lamp on her writing desk.
“Turn it off?” she said.
“Yes. Just for a moment.”
She reached over the desk and did as he’d asked.
“Thanks,” he said, and gazed quietly out the window for a long moment.
“Do you see something, Paul?”
He harrumphed.
“Paul?”
“You can turn the light on, now.”
“Did you see something?” she asked again, set her book on the floor and prepared to stand.
He waved at her to stay seated. “It’s okay. No. I didn’t see anything. Just the lamp reflected in the window.”
She switched the lamp on, picked her book up. “How long are you going to stand there like that, Paul? You’re awfully jumpy.”
“Jumpy?”
“Yes, very. And there’s no reason for it that I can see.”
He closed the curtain, went over to the fireplace. “Sorry,” he said, stopped over and spread the grating. “It’s getting cold in here. What do you think—should we put some more wood on the fire?” And without waiting for answer, he went to the left of the fireplace, got two logs from a small pile, and shoved them into the fireplace. He watched as the logs caught and started to burn. He smiled. “Yes,” he said, “that’s better.”
He went back to the window.
Rachel said, “Would you like me to bring the heater in here?”
He caught the sarcasm in her voice and sighed. “I was cold, that’s all.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“Don’t you think it’s cold in here?”
“Not anymore, certainly.”
“Well, then—“
“Okay, okay. Forget it. I guess I just didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”
“Realize what?” He turned his head toward her.
“I guess I didn’t realize how sensitive you were to the cold, that’s all.”
He turned back to the window. “Well, now you know.”
“Now I know,” she said, and returned to her book.
DECEMBER 2
Rachel held the screen door open as Paul stumbled past her, a heavy load of firewood in his arms. “Jesus,” he complained, “it’s going to be quite a night.” He nodded at the firewood. “Take a few of these, Rachel.”
She let the screen door close, took several logs off the top of the load and followed him into the living room. They set the logs down next to the fireplace.
“Do you think it’s going to snow, Paul?”
He settled into his wing-backed chair. “No. The sky’s clear. Lots of stars. It’s just going to be goddamned cold.”
She pointed at the base of the north wall. Paul looked. “Well,” she said, “I got the heater going. It should help.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Paul said.
The cat, Mr. Higgins, trotted in from the kitchen, padded over to Paul and leaped into his lap.
“Oh, Jesus,” Paul muttered, and watched, clearly annoyed, as the cat circled a few times, trying for the most comfortable spot. “I don’t know why this cat finds me so damned attractive, Rachel.”
Rachel, grimacing a little, lifted the cat gently off his lap, held it, stroked it. “I guess he just knows your true nature,” she said.
“Uh-huh. Well, I wish you keep it outside.”
“He doesn’t like the cold any more than you, do, Paul.”
Paul stood abruptly, shoved his hands into his pockets, glanced quickly to his right, at the fireplace, to his left, at the heater.
“What is the matter?” Rachel asked.
He began to pace the room. “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably too much coffee. I don’t know.” He stopped in the middle of the room, turned suddenly, went into the kitchen. Rachel stayed in the living room, cat still in her arms, and waited. In a moment, she knew, Paul would come back into the living room, pace some more, then, as if exhausted, plop into his chair. That had been his nightly routine for a week now—the pacing, the preoccupation with staying warm, the hour or so at the back window. That hour would start anytime, now, after he’d rested a few minutes.
He reappeared from the kitchen, paused in the doorway: “Put him down, would you?” he said, referring to the cat, and immediately went to his chair. He looked up at her. “I asked you to put him down, Rachel.”
“I’d rather not,” she said, and took the cat to her wicker chair. “When are you going to calm down, Paul?” She sat in the chair.
He chuckled derisively. “Calm down? You mean like you’ve calmed down?”
“Yes. At least I’ve made the effort.”
“You most certainly have done that, haven’t you? My God, have you no conscience at all?”
“That’s not fair, Paul. It’s cruel. You know what I’ve been through here.”
“Yes, I do. And any sane woman…for Christ’s sake, any sane woman would have, would have…”
“Gone over the edge?”
“Precisely.”
“Is that what you want me to do?”
He stood, hesitated.
Rachel repeated, “Is that what you want me to do, Paul?”
“Of course not!” he snapped.
“I try not to think about it. And when I do think about it, I think about the good, only the good.”
He smirked at her. “I’ll bet you do.”
“What in the hell does that mean?”
His grin vanished suddenly. “Nothing. It means nothing. Forget it.” He went to the back window.
Rachel put Mr. Higgins down, stood. “Paul, I…” She joined him at the window.
“Yes?” he said. He was holding the curtain aside with his left hand. Rachel put her hand on his: “Tell me, Paul.”
He glanced questioningly at her, then out the window again. “Tell you what?”
“What you’ve been keeping from me all these weeks. I want to know. I need to know.”
“I haven’t been keeping anything from you. What happened to you—it was something that happened to both of us. We got…carried away.”
Magic!
“No, Paul. It’s more than that. I know it is. You and I getting carried away doesn’t explain a thing, not—“
“Quiet!” he told her; she felt his hand tighten.
“What is it?”
“Quiet! Turn that damned light out.”
“Do you see something? What—“
“Do as I say, Rachel. Now!”
She crossed the room, turned the lamp off, went back to the window, tried to nudge him aside. “Wait!” he ordered.
“What do you see, Paul?”
He stayed quiet for a moment.
“Paul?”
“I don’t know. A light. Something. A light. Venus, maybe.” He took a step to his right. “You look. Tell me what you see.”
Rachel looked. The thin covering of snow seemed vaguely luminous, as if the ground beneath were dully phosphorescent; it was a phenomenon Rachel had noted many times, even before coming to the house, and had wondered about. Had the snow always seemed to glow like that?
Above the western horizon, to the south and north, and extending to where the window cut her view off overhead, the stars were of a hundred magnitudes: Familiar groupings—the Big Dipper to the northwest, Orion to the south—seemed crowded, seemed made into whole new constellations by lesser stars.
On the western horizon, the forest—fe
atureless and black, now—inserted itself between the earth and sky.
Rachel squinted.
At the forest’s center, she could see a faint, randomly pulsating, reddish light, as if, she thought, the forest had suddenly become monolithic, a great dark mass, someone had punched a very small hole in it, and the last rays of the sun were trying to push through.
Rachel found that the light was easier to see if she focused a little to its right or left, just as one keeps a very faint star in view.
She closed her eyes, shook her head. She opened her eyes, studied the light again, briefly. “It’s a star,” she said. “Mars is read, isn’t it? It’s Mars.”
He coaxed her away from the window. “No,” he said. “Mars is over the eastern horizon this time of year.”
The light vanished suddenly, as if a curtain had been drawn over it. “It’s gone, Rachel.”
She went to the desk, switched the lamp on, sat in her chair. “It was nothing, Paul. Just Venus, as you said. Sit down, I’ll read to you.”
He continued to look out the window. “Read to me?” he said.
“Yes. Maybe it’ll calm you down.”
“I don’t want to be calmed down.”
“Well, I want to calm you down. Now, please…”
“No. If you want to read to me, that’s fine. But I’m not going to move from this window.”
“Okay, then.” She picked up the book she’d been reading, opened it: “The people in this city are everywhere this morning,” she read. “Thousands of them moving through the streets like a river, flowing here and flowing there, in pink and brown and gray, in and out of the townhouses, in and out of the row-houses.
“And so quiet. I open the window and I can’t hear a thing. Such a great moving mass should at least produce a breeze. They’re like blood flowing.”
DECEMBER 3
“It’s there again,” Paul said, and gestured for Rachel to join him at the window.
“What’s there?” Rachel asked, and looked up at him.
“That light. The one we saw yesterday.”
“Oh. That.”
“Come take a look, Rachel.”
She sighed. “I thought we’d decided it was just a star, Paul.”
“Rachel, please.”
“For God’s sake—“
“Rachel, do as I say.”
“Chauvinist!”
“This is not the time for jokes, Rachel. I need your help here.”
“Who’s joking, Paul?” She stood. “I hope that when we get back to New York”—she crossed the room—“you’ll mellow a bit.”
He nodded. “What do you think?”
She looked. “I see only a star,” she said, obviously unconcerned. She turned, started for her chair. Paul caught her by the shoulder. “Look again!”
“You’re hurting me, Paul.”
He loosened his grip. “Sorry.”
She turned back to the window, glanced at him. I’ve been hurt enough here, Paul, her eyes told him.
She looked quietly out the window, again.
“Well?” Paul coaxed.
“It’s brighter, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yes,” Paul said. “I noticed that.”
“If I didn’t know better, Paul, I’d say it’s some kind of fire. A campfire, maybe.”
“That’s what I thought.”
She studied the light for a full minute, then said, “Do you remember those hunters I told you about?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe it’s them.”
“But that was a month ago, Rachel.”
“It could be some other hunters.”
“I suppose.”
Rachel stepped away from the window. “Well, then,” she began, “we’re agreed. It’s just some hunters.” She went back to her chair. “Some stupid dimwit hunters who have nothing better to do with their time than freeze their foolish asses off. And if they do, they deserve it, that’s all I can say.” She opened her book. “Now sit down, Paul. I’ll read to you some more.”
DECEMBER 4—AFTERNOON
Dear Mother,
This will be my last letter before we see you again. We’ll be leaving in two days. I’d like to explain everything to you here and now, sort of get it all of my chest. But, to be truthful, I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to explain it. I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to understand it, let alone explain it.
Are we running? Yes. That’s a fair assessment, I’d say. I can’t tell you precisely what we’re running from. Paul’s word for it is “ghosts,” and I don’t think I could do any better than that.
The important thing, the necessary thing for both of us, is that we are running. This is going to sound terribly melodramatic, Mother, and you’re going to ask me about it, when I see you, and I’m going to have to plead ignorance, but, if we don’t run now, we won’t be able to run later. I’m sure of that. This is a matter of survival.
I want to ask you a favor. When we get back, when you see us again, please don’t ask any pointed questions. You’ll be burning to ask, but, well, both of us, Paul and I, have a lot of questions to answer between ourselves first, and we’ve got a lot of time to make up for, a lot of things to put behind us.
For now, let me assure you that we are both well, though a little tired—emotionally—and that unless something unexpected happens we should see you within the week.
Paul sends his love, and so do I.
Rachel
EVENING
“It is a fire,” Paul said. “And it’s closer.”
Rachel called from the kitchen. “What did you say, Paul? Your coffee’s almost ready.”
“I said come here,” Paul called back. He waited. Presently, Rachel appeared at his side.
“What is it?” she said, and handed him a cup of coffee. He took it and stepped away from the window. “Look there,” he said, and held the curtain aside. Rachel stepped up to the window.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s snowing, isn’t it?”
“That’s not what I call you in here for, Rachel.”
“Yes,” she said. “I know. I can see the fire.”
“It’s closer,” Paul said.
“Is it?” She squinted into the darkness.
Paul went into the kitchen. Rachel followed him with her eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ve got to be sure,” he called. “I’ve got to be sure.”
She listened as he put on his boots and coat.
“Sure of what, Paul?”
“I’ll be back soon.” He paused. “Where’s that kerosene lamp?”
“Sure of what, Paul?”
“Did you put it in the closet?”
She heard the closet door open. She went into the kitchen. “Sure of what?” she said.
“What are you talking about? Where’s the lamp?”
“I don’t know. Don’t we have a flashlight or something?”
“No, just that stupid amp.” He slammed the closet door. “Dammit, I can’t go out there without it.”
“Why do you want to go out there at all?”
He went to the back door and pulled it open. “Lock this after me,” he said, and he was gone.
*****
He couldn’t understand the frenzy within him. He had known, he knew—the almost mystical knowledge that had overcome him a week before had told him: Winter had done what winters always did here. It had killed. It had released Rachel and him from a torment, a nightmare from which they had been unable to release themselves.
He found that he was walking with the aid of memory—the memory of a thousand walks down this path, that, in the near-total darkness, he was automatically avoiding obstacles he’d avoided a thousand times in daylight.
He tried to study the thing that had driven him from the house, tried to take it apart. There was anger in it, he knew—a passionate, wordless anger, the anger that springs from frustration. And there was pity, too. Pity for himself, and for Rachel. And for the children. For he
had no doubt now that it was they who had built the fire, they who sustained it, they who wants its light to tell him of their presence.
He glanced at the house, saw Rachel looking out the window at him. He thought briefly of waving, but realized she couldn’t see him.
Their marriage, he felt certain, was at an end. There were too many unanswered questions, too much pain to reflect on. Now, while they remained at the house, they could cling to one another, depend on one another; they had to. But when the city surrounded them again, it would be time to answer the questions, time to reflect upon the pain. And their love, as strong it was, wouldn’t be able to hold them together. She would always be a stranger to him. He would always be a stranger to her. And to himself.
His foot connected with something metallic. He stopped, bent over. It was the lamp. He picked it up, remembered. This was the spot where he had found Rachel the week before, the place she had fallen, had succumbed, had given herself to…
“Damn you!” It was a high, piercing scream. Its pitch, from his throat, shocked him. He threw the lantern to the ground. The globe shattered tinnily. The effort displeased him. His scream had displeased him.
“Goddamn you! I’ll kill you all! I’ll kill you all!”
And he ran. Hard.
He stopped. He could hear the stream just ahead—because it was fast-flowing, it wouldn’t freeze until midwinter.
He smelled wood burning, looked to his left. The upper branches of the archway were bathed in a flickering orange light.
Goddamn you! But the curse went unuttered.
Curses, he realized at once, and anger, were alien to them, something beyond their comprehension.
He moved south, off the path, and into his fields.
He stopped again and watched quietly. Reverently. He owed them that much. His curses, his anger, had no place here, in their midst. This was their cathedral.
And, as he watched, and saw their faces turn occasionally, saw the eyes, expressionless, look in his direction, watched the firelight play on the smooth dark skin, watched hands touch hands and arms and bellies—as if giving warmth and receiving it; as if re-experiencing and reveling in what they were—he knew that they were doing him a kindness. That he was privileged, somehow. That few men, if any, had been allowed to see what he was seeing.
Their slow and graceful deaths.
Strange Seed Page 18
