The Fifth Sacred Thing (56 page)

“Tell me about this group,” she said at last. “What is it you are trying to do together?”

The women fell silent, looking at each other, reluctant to speak. Finally Sara answered.

“We want to improve life for women. But we don’t know how. The Millennialists are very powerful. So we meet, to learn and discuss and think.”

“Which is an improvement in and of itself,” Beth said. “Despite all our disagreements, before this group began I was perishing for lack of stimulating conversation.”

“Do you have any contact with the Web?” Madrone asked.

A shocked silence filled the room. Beth’s face closed, as if she were protecting something.

“They’re not exactly our sort of people,” Judith explained. She giggled, a little nervously. “Can you see us running around with rifles, covered with dirt?”

Madrone caught Beth’s eye. The older woman’s lips curved in the barest suggestion of a sarcastic smile.

“You could learn from them,” Madrone said. “They could learn from you. Maybe I could help get you together.”

Sara looked at her watch and stood up.

“I’m sorry to say this, ladies, but we need to end. It’s after three, and I know many of you have to go.”

They thanked Madrone profusely, some with tears in their eyes. The woman with the piled hair came over and kissed her cheek, but Madrone could feel the effort she made not to shrink back from contact with her flesh.

This is racism! Madrone realized, with a slight sense of triumph, as if she had run across a rare herb she had heard of but never seen before. They are actually afraid to touch me! And she made a point of shaking hands with each of them. Only Beth clasped her hand with real warmth.

“I would so love to talk with you, for days and days and days,” she said. “You remind me of a better time. I live right near the university—I run a sorority house of nursing students. It’s on Gayley Avenue, right near the old main gate. A big pink building, you can’t miss it. Come and see me if you ever can, or if you need a refuge, or just a few days of rest.…”

“Thanks,” Madrone said. She reached out and hugged the older woman, wishing suddenly that she could go with her and sate herself with conversation as much as with food and water.

The women were gone. Madrone sat, refreshed by an hour’s nap, nestled into the couch in Sara’s room, facing a broad expanse of glass that looked out over the city. The sky turned from a cold pale blue to indigo. Lights began to appear, defining the contours of the hills. Sara pulled the filmy white curtains open a little wider, then curled up on the couch next to Madrone. The room was very white around them: walls painted in a soft white-on-white glaze, the giant four-poster bed behind them, draped in antique white linens, heavy as an accusation.

Madrone had wanted to talk about the idea of a meeting between the Web and Sara’s group of women. But each time she broached the subject, Sara shifted it away. Now she was telling Madrone the full story of her wayward younger sister. They were drinking wine, something white and fruity that pleased Madrone’s bee mind even as it deepened the languor in her limbs.

“Sometimes I almost envy Lisa,” Sara said, with a sigh and a long look at Madrone. She dropped her lashes. “At least she knew what it was to love, or believed she did.”

There’s a cue here, Madrone thought. What am I supposed to say? “Haven’t you ever known love?”

“Lust is as close as I’ve come. And you? Who do you love?”

Sandy of the gull-wing eyes and black waterfall hair, sweet Nita who understands me so well, Sage, Holybear, Bird, poor broken Bird with his brave song. “Many,” Madrone replied. “Love is easy for me.”

“Then love me,” Sara whispered, setting down her wineglass and catching Madrone’s hand and pressing it first to her heart, then to her breast, then down across her belly to the mound between her legs. “I’ve never met anyone like you. Teach me what love is.”

Madrone wasn’t sure if she were being seduced, cajoled, or commanded. Before she could either move closer or pull away, Sara slid into her arms and pressed against her body. Their breasts touched, rubbed. The dregs of Madrone’s wine spilled behind her; she let the empty glass slide out of her hands. A heartbeat thrummed in the center of her vulva. Sara’s slender forefinger traced the line of Madrone’s lips, as if outlining a target. Then Sara kissed her. All Madrone’s suppressed hungers awoke at once. She is playing with me, Madrone thought. I am her dark and dangerous toy. But the thought could not reach her body or deter its response.

When she opened to Sara, she felt all the woman’s attention and skill and intelligence bent on pleasing her, on sensing each response to the most subtle movement of hand or hips or tongue, and intensifying until Madrone felt weak, unable to resist. Madrone felt handled and yet she could not complain, in fact she almost wanted to beg for more, more pleasure, more water, more soft silken sheets and delicate, calculated caresses.
Diosa
, it had been too long since she had been touched, fed.

“Did I please you?” Sara whispered.

“Yes, of course. And you?”

“It gives me pleasure to give pleasure. It’s what I’m good at.”

Madrone felt she should protest, respond, but her lids were closing, her arms heavy as lead. Forget about introducing her to Hijohn, Madrone thought sleepily. Those women aren’t willing to face real danger. No, it’s Isis that Sara should meet. They are very much alike. Then she was asleep, a shadow in the all-white room.

Madrone had Sara drive her to a canyon farther west where she could pick up a fire road and return to the ridge trail. It was the middle of the night; a late moon was rising. She shouldered a pack replenished with water and food.

“Will you come back?” Sara whispered.

“I’ll try,” Madrone said. “If I don’t, it’s not because I don’t want to.”

“I’ll worry about you.”

“Que te vaya bien,” Madrone whispered
.

“What does that mean?”

“May it go well with you.”

By the time she staggered into camp, dawn was breaking and the old moon was moving down toward the western horizon. Baptist challenged her and, when she answered, threw down his gun and hugged her.

“Madrone! We were afraid they’d got you this time.”

“No, I got away. What about Begood and Littlejohn?”

“Begood came in earlier, told us what happened. Littlejohn just made it back about an hour ago.”

“Thank the Goddess.”

“Hijohn wants to hear what happened. But he’s asleep.”

“Let him rest. I’ll tell him in the morning. I napped today but I could use some more rest myself.”

She found a flat patch underneath a chamise bush, pulled her blanket around her, and closed her eyes. Everything’s all right, she told herself. Nobody was killed, nobody was captured, and here I am, clean and well fed and otherwise satisfied too. But in her uneasy dreams, flowers were trampled under heavy-booted marching feet.

20

M
aya was always feeding Bird, presenting bowls of washed fruit to him as midnight snacks, waking him with omelets and home-baked bread. She squandered eggs recklessly and sacrificed the older chickens for soup. She depleted their honey stores for cookies and cakes.

“Thanks, Maya, but I’m full,” Bird would say gently.

She’d shake her head insistently. “Eat. You need to build up your strength.”

“Maya, even to placate the long line of Jewish mothers from which you and I are descended, I cannot eat another bite.”

Maya could see the strain he was under, but she couldn’t talk to him about it because she knew she would break down crying and lamenting. That wouldn’t be fair to him, to burden him with her grief when she wanted to support him with her love.

More and more, he spent his time out of the house. There were meetings to attend, trainings to organize, strategies to decide.

“On the left, you are soldiers of the Stewardship,” Sister Marie said, addressing two long lines of people gathered for training. “You’re armed, and you’ve been told to go into people’s homes and cut off their water. The line on the right, you are City people, and it is your homes the soldiers are entering. Go!”

Chaos ensued, as fifty people approached their partners and began talking, gesturing, and shouting all at once. Bird and Marie watched, as did small clumps of bystanders enjoying the sun in the park. The grass was green and the ancient cedars stood watch unconcerned. It was hard to believe, Bird thought, that anything bad could really happen.

“Do you think we’ve given them enough time?” Marie asked.

“Let them run a few minutes more,” Bird said. “Remind me, what role play are we doing next?”

“The holding pen,” Marie said. “For the people caught stealing water.”

“Good. That’s a good one.”

“You don’t think we’re overstressing water in the training?”

“We can’t stress it too much. Water is life. It’s the first thing they’ll try to gain control over.”

“I think it’s time,” Marie said. Suddenly her face contorted with pain. Bird took her arm and supported her. With a few deep breaths, she steadied herself. “I’m sorry. I think the cancer’s gone into my back.”

“You’re working too hard. You should be resting, trying to heal.”

“I want to be useful, as long as I can. It’s going to take all of us pushing ourselves pretty hard to get everyone in the city through one of these trainings in the next two weeks.”

“We’ve got to train other trainers,” Bird said.

“We start tonight,” Marie said, “now that we’ve worked out some material and have a little experience ourselves. Hey, this group has gone way over time.” She blew a clay whistle that hung from a thong around her neck. “Time! Stop! Now, think for a moment, everybody, about how you feel, what worked and what didn’t work. Soldiers, how did it feel to be in your position?”

“I was surprised at how nervous I felt, going into a strange home. I was afraid, even though I had a gun,” a woman said.

“I felt very powerful, like everybody should be scared of me and obey me. But the woman who confronted me—she was so calm and seemed so sure of herself, I didn’t know what to do,” said the man next to her, and they continued responding, down the line.