Roadside Picnic (21 page)

“Phoo-oo-ey.” He shook his head, scattering dirty drops of water. “What was that, Mr. Schuhart?”

“That was death,” Redrick murmured and coughed. He felt his face. It hurt. His nose was swollen, but his brows and lashes, strangely enough, were in place. And the skin on his hands remained intact, but red.

Arthur was also gingerly touching his face. Now that the horrible mask had been washed away, his face – also contrary to expectation – turned out to be all right. There were a few scratches, a bump on his forehead, and his lower lip was split. But all in all, okay.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Arthur said looking back. Redrick looked back too. There were many tracks on the gray ashy grass, and Redrick was amazed to see how short his terrible, endless path had been, when he crawled to save them from doom. It was only twenty or thirty yards from one edge of the burnt-out grass to the other, but in his blindness and fear he had crawled in some wild zigzag, like a roach on a hot skillet, and thank God he had at least crawled in the right direction. He could have gotten into the mosquito mange on the left, or he could have gotten turned around completely. No, that would not have happened to him, he was no greenhorn. And if it had not been for that fool, then nothing at all would have happened, he would have gotten blisters on his feet – and that would have been it as far as injuries.

He looked at Arthur. Arthur was washing up, moaning as he touched the sore spots. Redrick stood up, and wincing from the pain of his clothes on his burnt skin, walked to a dry spot and examined the backpack. The pack had really taken a beating. The top buckles had melted and the vials in the first-aid kit had burst to hell, and a damp spot reeked of antiseptic. Redrick opened the pack and started picking out the slivers of glass and plastic, when he heard Arthur’s voice.

“Thank you, Mr. Schuhart! You saved my life!”

Redrick said nothing. Thanks! You fell apart, and I had to rescue you.

“It was my own fault. I heard your order to lie there, but I was really scared, and when it got so hot – I lost my head. I’m very much afraid of pain, Mr. Schuhart.”

“Why don’t you get up?” Redrick said without turning around toward him. “That was just a sample. Get up, what are you loafing around for?”

Wincing from the pain of the pack on his burned shoulders, he put his arms through the straps. It felt as though the skin on the burned places had wrinkled up. He was afraid of pain, was he? Shove you and your pain! He looked around. It was all right, they hadn’t left the path. Now for the hills with the corpses. The damn hills, just stood there, the lousy mothers, sticking out like the devil’s horns, and that damn depression between them. He sniffed the air. You damn depression, that’s the really lousy part. The toad.

“See that depression between the hills?” he asked.

“I see it.”

“Head straight for it. March!”

Arthur wiped his face with the back of his hand and moved on, splashing through the puddles. He was limping and did not look as straight and well-proportioned as he had before. He was bent over and was walking very carefully. There’s another one I pulled out, thought Redrick. What does that make? Five? Six? And now I wonder why? He’s no relation. I’m not responsible for him. Listen, Red, why did you save him? You almost got it yourself because of him. Now that my head is clear, I know why. It was right to save him, I can’t manage without him, he’s my hostage for Monkey. I didn’t save a human being, I saved my minesweeper. My master key. Back there in the heat, I never gave it a second thought. I pulled him out like he was my flesh and blood, and didn’t even think about abandoning him. Even though I had forgotten everything – the master key and Monkey. What does that mean? It means that I really am a good guy, after all. That’s what Guta insists, and Kirill used to say, and what Richard is always babbling about. Some good guy they found! Drop it, he told himself. You have to think first, and then use your arms and legs. Got that straight? Mr. Nice Guy. I have to save him for the meatgrinder, he thought coldly and clearly. We can get past everything except the grinder.

“Stop!”

The depression lay before them, and Arthur was already standing there, looking at Redrick for orders. The floor of the depression was covered with a rotten green slime that glinted oilily in the sun. A light steam rose above it, getting thicker between the hills, and nothing was visible beyond thirty feet. And it stank. “It’ll really stink in there, but don’t you chicken out.”

Arthur made a noise in the back of his throat and backed away. Redrick shook himself back to action, pulled from his pocket a wad of cotton soaked in deodorant, stuffed up his nostrils, and offered some to Arthur.

“Thanks, Mr. Schuhart. Isn’t there a land route we could take?” Arthur asked in a weak voice.

Redrick silently took him by the hair and turned his head in the direction of the bundle of rags on the stony hillside.

“That was Four-eyes,” he said. “And on the left hill, you can’t see from here, lies Poodle. In the same condition. Do you understand? Forward.”

The slime was warm and sticky. At first they walked erect, waist-deep in the slime. Luckily the bottom was rocky and rather even. But soon Redrick heard the familiar rumble from both sides. There was nothing on the left hill except the intense sunlight, but on the right slope, in the shade, pale purple lights were fluttering.

“Bend low!” he whispered and bent over himself. “Lower, stupid!”

Arthur bent over in fright, and a clap of thunder shattered the air. Right over their heads an intricate lightning bolt danced furiously, barely visible against the bright sky. Arthur sat down, shoulder deep in the slime. Redrick, ears clogged by the noise, turned and saw a bright red spot quickly melting in the shade among the pebbles and rocks, and there was another thunderclap.

“Forward! Forward!” he shouted, unable to hear himself.

Now they were moving in a crouch, Indian file, only their heads exposed. At every peal Redrick watched Arthur’s long hair stand on end and could feel a thousand needles puncturing his face. “Forward!” he kept repeating. “Forward!” He could not hear a thing any more. Once he saw Arthur’s profile, and he saw his terror-stricken eyes bulging out and his white bouncing lips and his green-smeared sweaty cheek. Then the lightning began striking so low that they had to duck their heads. The green slime gummed his mouth, making it hard to breathe. Gulping for air, Redrick tore the cotton out of his nose and discovered that the reek was gone, that the air was filled with the fresh, piercing odor of ozone, and that the steam was getting thicker, or maybe he was blacking out, and he could no longer see either of the two hills. All he could see was Arthur’s head sticky with green slime and the billowing clouds of yellow steam.

I’ll get through, I’ll get through, Redrick thought; this is nothing new. My whole life is like this. I’m stuck in filth and there’s lightning over my head. It’s never been any other way. Where is all this gunk coming from? You could go crazy from this much gunk in one place! Buzzard Burbridge did this: he walked through and left this behind. Four-eyes lay on the right, Poodle on the left, and all so that Buzzard could walk between them and leave all his filth behind. That’s what you deserve, he told himself. Whoever walks behind Buzzard walks up to his neck in filth. You didn’t know that? There are too many buzzards, that’s why there isn’t a single clean place left.

Noonan’s a fool: Redrick, Red, you violate the balance, you destroy the order, you’re unhappy, Red, under any order, any system. You’re not happy under a bad one, you’re not happy under a good one. It’s people like you who keep us from having the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. What do you know, fatso? Where have you seen a good system? When have you ever seen me under a good system?

He slipped on a stone that turned under his foot, and fell in. He surfaced and saw Arthur’s terrified face right next to his. For a second he felt a chill: he thought that he had lost his way. But he had not gotten lost. He realized immediately that they had to go that way, where the black top of the rock stuck out of the slime; he realized that even though there was nothing else visible in the yellow fog.

“Stop!” he shouted. “Keep right! To the right of the rock!”

He could not hear his own voice. He caught up with Arthur, grabbed his shoulder, and pointed: keep right of the rock and keep your head down. You’ll pay for this, he thought. Arthur dove under at the rock, just as a lightning bolt hit it, smashing it to smithereens. You’ll pay for this, he repeated, as he ducked under and worked furiously with his arms and legs. He could hear another peal of thunder. I’ll shake your souls out of you for this! He had a fleeting thought: who do I mean? I don’t know. But somebody has to pay for this, and somebody will! Just wait, just let me get to the ball, when I get to the ball, I’m no Buzzard, I’ll get what I want from you.

When they finally scrambled out onto dry land that was covered by sun-heated pebbles, they were half-deaf, turned inside out, and staggering and holding on to each other. Redrick saw the peeling pick-up truck, sagging on its axles, and he remembered that they could rest in the shade of the truck. They crawled into the shade. Arthur lay on his back and began unbuttoning his jacket with limp fingers, and Redrick leaned his backpack against the side of the truck, wiped his hands against the small rocks, and reached inside his jacket.

“And me, too.” Arthur said. “Me too.”

Redrick was surprised by the loudness of the boy’s voice. He took a sip, shut his eyes, and handed the flask to Arthur. That’s it, he thought weakly. We got through. We got through even this. And now, accounts payable upon demand. Do you think that I forgot? No way, I remember it all. Do you think I’ll thank you for letting me live and not drowning me? You get zilch from me. This is the end for all of you, get it? I’m not leaving any of this. From now on, I make all the decisions. I, Redrick Schuhart, being of sound mind and body, will make all the decisions for everybody. And as for all of you, buzzards, toads, Visitors, Boneses, Quarterblads, bloodsuckers, green-backers, Throaties, in your suits and ties, clean and fresh, with your briefcases and speeches and good deeds and employment opportunities, and your eternal batteries and eternal engines and mosquito manges and false promises – I’ve had enough, you’ve led me by the nose long enough. All my life you’ve led me by the nose, and I thought and bragged that I was living the way I wanted to, fool, and all the time you were egging me on and winking among yourselves, and leading me by the nose, dragging me, hauling me through jails and bars. I’ve had it! He unsnapped the straps of the pack and took the flask from Arthur.

“I never thought ... ” Arthur was saying with meek disbelief in his voice. “I couldn’t even imagine. I knew about death and fire and all, of course, but something like that! How are we going to get back?”

Redrick was not listening. What that thing was saying no longer had any meaning. It had no meaning before, either, but before it was a person at least. And now, it was like a talking key, a key to open the way to the Golden Ball. Let it talk.

“If we get some water,” Arthur said. “At least wash our faces.”

Redrick looked at him distractedly, saw the disheveled and glued-together hair, the face smeared with drying slime with finger marks in it, and all of him covered with a crust of oozing slime, and he felt no pity, no irritation, nothing. A talking key. He turned away. A dreary expanse, like an abandoned construction site, yawned before them. It was covered with broken brick, sprinkled with white dust, and highlighted by the blinding sun, which was unbearably white, hot, angry, and dead. The far end of the quarry was visible from there – also blindingly white and at that distance seemingly perfectly smooth and perpendicular. The near end was marked by large breaks and boulders, and there was the path down into the quarry, where the excavator’s cabin stood out like a red splotch against the white rock. That was the only landmark. They had to head for it, depending on dumb luck to guide them.

Arthur propped himself up, stuck his arm under the truck, and pulled out a rusty tin can.

“Look at that, Mr. Schuhart,” he said, livening up. “Father must have left this. There’s more under there.”

Redrick didn’t reply. That’s a mistake, he thought, dispassionately. Better not think about your father now, you’d be better off not saying anything. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter. Getting up, he winced: his clothes had stuck to his body, to his burned skin, and now something was tearing inside, like a dried bandage pulling from a wound. Arthur also groaned as he got up; he gave Redrick a martyred look. It was clear that he wanted to complain but that he didn’t dare. He only said in a strangled voice:

“Do you think I might have another sip, Mr. Schuhart?”

Redrick put the flask that he had been holding back under his shirt.

“Do you see that red between the rocks?”

“I see it,” Arthur said and shuddered.

“Straight for it. Let’s go.”

Arthur stretched his arms, straightened his shoulders, grimaced, and said looking around:

“I wish I could wash up. Everything’s sticking.”

Redrick waited silently. Arthur looked at him hopelessly, nodded, and was about to start when he stopped suddenly.

“The backpack. You forgot the backpack, Mr. Schuhart.”

“March!” Redrick ordered.

He did not want to explain or to lie, and there was no need. He would go anyway. He had nowhere else to go. He’d go. And Arthur went. He wandered on, hunched over, dragging his feet, trying to pick off the baked slime from his face, looking small, scrawny, and forlorn, like a wet stray kitten. Redrick walked behind him, and as soon as he stepped out of the shade, the sun seared and blinded him, and he shaded his eyes with his hand and was sorry that he had not taken his sunglasses.

Every step raised a cloud of white dust, and the dust settled on his shoes and gave off an unbearable stench. Or rather, it came from Arthur, it was impossible to walk behind him. It took him a while to understand that the stench was coming from himself. The odor was disgusting, but somehow familiar – that was the smell that filled the city on the days that the north wind carried the smoke from the plant. And his father smelled that way, too, when he came home, hungry, gloomy, with red wild eyes. And Redrick would hurry to hide in some faraway corner and watch in fear as his father tore off his work clothes and tossed them to his mother, pulled off his huge, worn shoes and shoved them on the floor of the closet, and stalked off to the shower in his stocking feet, leaving sticky footprints. He would stay in the shower, grunting and slapping his body, for a long time, splashing water and muttering under his breath, until he shouted so that the house shook: “Maria! Are you asleep?” He had to wait until his father had washed and seated himself at the table, where a pint bottle, a” bowl with thick soup, and bottle of catsup were ready for him. Wait until he had slurped up all the soup and started on the pork and beans, and then he could creep out into the light, climb up on his lap, and ask which shop steward and which engineer he had drowned in vitriol that day.