No.
Go like a man, for Christ's sake, a Roman, here's your sword.
No.
Very well. Then it will close you out, since you're already impregnated with death, a slight case of sickness in the head making you crazier even than you are, smelling the past, nigger cabins, pin-oak flats, not even knowing where you are, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, without looking out the window to check the mountain, and from here on out nowhere to go but down.
No.
Very well, let it close you out with the drools and the shakes and your mouth fallen open, head nodding away and both hands rolling pills. But you'll never even get that far because you've got my genes and you know better.
Yes.
Then get up and go out to the car and get it and go to the empty corner of grass and fence where nobody's been. We like desert places.
All right.
It was dark.
His head as he turned to rise seemed to shift on its axis like the great world itself.
He rose and dressed in the dark, walked out to the Mercedes, unlocked the trunk, took out the leather case containing the Greener and the holster containing the Luger. It was a cold starry night. The mists of summer and fall had all blown away. He walked down the highway holding the Greener like a businessman with a briefcase. When he reached the overlook the Holiday Inn looked over, he did not even pause but swung the case like a discus, the throw turning him around and heading him back. He did not hear the Greener hit bottom. As an afterthought, he pitched the Luger back over his shoulder and went away without listening.
6
It was light.
“Wake up. What's wrong? What is it?”
“What is what?” Instantly he was awake and unsurprised.
“Who were you talking to? What were you saying about Georgia? Why do you want to go to Georgia? Where did you go?”
“Outside for a walk.”
She must have gotten up. The drapes were open a little. The morning light poured in. The Holsteins were grazing beyond the chain-link fence. There was something pleasant about the unused ungrazed Holiday Inn corner. Her pajamas hung in the alcove.
“Come here,” he said.
“I'm here,” she said. “In the bed. By you.”
“Come here.”
“Well, you'll have to straighten up. You were all bent over, covering your head with your arms like somebody was after you. Were they?”
“No. I don't know. Now.”
“Yes. That's better. Now.”
“Yes, it is.” Her skin was like silk against him.
“There you are,” she said.
“Yes.”
“It's you.”
“Yes.”
“You against me, yet not really opposed.”
“Yes. That is, no.”
“Put your arms around me in addition.”
“They are around you.”
“They sure are.”
When she came against him from the side, it was with the effect of flying up to him from below like a little cave bat and clinging to him with every part of her.
They were lying on their sides facing each other.
“Come here,” he said.
“I'm here.”
“Now.”
“Yes.”
There was an angle but it did not make trouble. Entering her was like turning a corner and coming home.
“Oh my,” she said.
“Yes.”
“That's you for true.”
“Yes.”
“This was not in the book.”
“What book?”
“No books, no running brooks, just you.”
“Yes.”
“I don't believe this,” she said. “I don't, I don't.”
“It's true,” he said.
“Oh my, what is happening? I think I'm going to have a fit.”
“Yes.”
“What is going to happen?”
“You're going to have a fit.”
When he woke up, she was gazing at him. “Were you having a dream?”
“I don't know.”
“You were talking aboutâloving.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Was it love like this?”
“No, not like this. I'll take this.”
“Don't ever let me go,” she said. “Now I know what it is I wanted. Before I only wanted.”
“I won't let you go.”
“Ah, do you want to know what it is?”
“What is it?”
“It is a needfulness that I didn't know until this moment that I needed. What a mystification.”
“Yes, it is a mystification.”
“Don't you think you better get up and close the curtain?”
“Not necessarily. The consequences of not closing the curtain are neither here nor there and in any case not direful.”
“Are you making fun of me?” she said.
“Yes.”
They laughed. It was the first time he had heard her laugh so, a tickled hooting laugh, the way a girl laughs with other girls.
“Oh my,” she said after a while. “Perhaps that was it, after all.”
“It?”
“Yes, you know, it.”
“Yes.”
“Would you have ever believed?” she asked someone, perhaps herself, absently.
“Yes, I would have believed,” he said.
“Oh my,” she said again presently. “It is now evident that whatever was wrong with me is now largely cured. Quel mystery.”
“I have an idea,” he said after a while.
“What?”
“Let's stay together. I do not wish to leave you again.”
“Me neither. I, that is, you.”
“Me too.”
“Well well,” she said later. Her back and legs were strong as a man's. “That was not in the book either.”
“What book?”
“The pine-tree book. Or the picture book.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“I'll tell you what let's do,” he said.
“What?”
“Let's get a house and live in it.”
“Okay. Can we make love like that much of the time?”
“As much as you like.”
“For true?”
“For true. Would you like to marry?”
“Uh, to marry might be to miscarry.”
“Not necessarily. I'll practice law. You grow things in your greenhouse. We can meet after work, have supper. We can walk the Long Trail or go to the beach on your island. Then go to bed irregardless.”
“Perhaps crash in a shelter?”
“What?” he said, laughing. “Crash?”
“Sure.”
“Okay.”
“It is a good regime. Perhaps with you to marry would not miscarry. Is it legal to do this at four o'clock in the afternoon?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Now I know what was wrong with four o'clock in the afternoon.”
“It would be nice to have two children and walk to school with them in the morning.”
“Yes,” she said.
They stayed in bed all day and all night except for meals, loving and laughing, frolicking, exchanging many a kiss and smacks on the ass while carts creaked outside and maids tapped on doors with keys. Frowning, she peered closely at his cheek and squeezed a blackhead. He straddled her thighs and rubbed her back, sore from hoisting, pressed his thumbs in the two dips at the bottom of her spine, marveling at how she was made. Each tended to the other, kneading and poking sore places. She examined him like a mother examining a child, close, stretching skin, her mouth open, grabbing hair to pull his head over to see his neck, her eyes slightly abulge with concentration, checking his cave wounds, picking at scabs. When her eyes happened to meet him, they softened and went deep. Eyes examining are different from eyes meeting eyes. As she would say, a look at a book is not a look into a look. Then she smiled and flew against him again. Her supple bent-back strength and coverage astounded him.
7
She had brought his razor from the greenhouse. It felt good to shave.
After they dressed, they ate a huge breakfast of grits and bacon and scrambled eggs in the Buccaneer Tavern, came back to the room and opened the drapes to the morning and the Smoky Mountains, which humped up like a blue whale in the clear sky. He sat her down across the round black woodlike table.
“Let's get down to business.”
“Oh, look at you in your dark suit.”
“Yes?”
“You look nice around the neck and head.”
“Thank you. You look good all over.”
“Come here,” she said.
“I'm here.”
“You're nice here around the ears, too.”
“Thank you.”
“Let's go to bed.”
“But we're dressed.”
“Undress.”
“Okay.”
Afterwards she said: “Good gosh.”
“Yes.”
Again at the table he said: “Now ahâ”
“The business.”
“Yes. Let us speak of one or two things.”
“Right.”
It had come to pass, for reasons which neither could have said, that he now knew what needed to be done and could say so and she could heed him, head slightly cocked, listening carefully. She looked like a survivor on the mend. Could it be that her thin face was already fuller?
“Here is what I intend to do,” he told her, “and what I hope you will wish to do. If you do not wish to do so, will you tell me?”
“Assuredly.”
“I propose that we marry. Wait. I don't think I am saying this right.”
“No.”
“Perhaps I'd better ask you.”
“Very well.”
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
“It is possible that though marriage in these times seems for some reason to be a troubled, often fatal, arrangement, we might not only survive it but revive it.”
“Yes, we could survive and revive it.”
“I presently have very little income of my own. I'm not counting Marion's estate, which I inherited from Marion but which I won't use. I'm not sure what I'll do with itâfigure out what Marion would wantâsomething. Therefore, I shall be working. You own valuable property. I propose that for the present we rent or buy a garden home. They are somewhat like motels but not unpleasantly so. You need to get out of that greenhouse and eat better. Garden homes are convenient and have pleasant views. We shall need a place to live until we build a house. I'll look up the Associate at Emerald Isles and give him a job making home loans. He'll be sick of isometrics and TV.”
“What's wrong with staying here?”
“Nothing. But we might need more than one room eventually.”
“That's true. Let's come back here every weekend.”
“Okay. Now you might wish to finish your greenhouse and develop your property here or on the islandâperhaps build log cabins on ten- or twelve-acre plots. I have two friends, one a contractor, the other a cabin notcher, who though old and maimed can still do excellent work, I think. It would be a pleasant business.”
“Yes. I think I want to finish my greenhouse and perhaps build others against the same ridge and make use of the same warm cave air.”
“A good idea. It could be an excellent business.”
“If I could find enough men to work for me, any men who are willing, old men. But that's impossible.”
“No, I know some good men. Old men but good.”
“Do you know what a head of lettuce costs at the A & P?” she asked him.
“No.”
“A dollar and fifty cents.”
“Is that a lot?”
She looked at him. “Yes, and three small tomatoes cost a dollar. I could make money.”
“Yes. I also have another friend who is an excellent gardener but has nothing to do but water pine trees.”
“Hire him. I have a friend at Valleyhead I would like to get out. She would be glad to work for someone who can tell her what to do. She needs that. Moreover, she's a good bookkeeper.”
“Can you tell her what to do?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. As for myself, I think I'll resume the practice of law in a small way if my health will permit it. I have an incurable mental condition but it can be controlled as long as my pH is okay.”
“How is your pH now?”
“Fine.”
Actually, his pH was up again. Fewer hydrogen ions were zipping around the heavy alkaline molecules sweet with memory and desire. Perhaps a slight case of Hausmann's Syndrome was better than none at all.
“I am sure of it. There is nothing serious wrong with you.” Frowning, she leaned over and took hold of his flank in her rough holster's hand. It was odd how she was like and unlike Kitty. “Our cases are similar. Nowadays many psychosomatic conditions can be cured. I was reading in the
National Observer
at the A & P about the supremacy of mental attitude over physical conditions.”
“Yes. Whatever it is, I think it is under control. I can feel it going away.”
He did feel good. The twisting in his head now felt like a scar contracting. Did he imagine it, or wasn't his brain lesion shriveling like a crab in acid? There was a feint smell of smoke high in his nostrils and the sinuses in front of his brain.
“Another thing,” he said. “What do you think of our having a child and enrolling him or her in the Linwood elementary school?”
“I think well of that.”
“I could drive him to school every morning and he could ride the school bus home.”
“Or she, as the case may be. I thought you wanted two.”
“Oh yes. I had forgotten. Could it be that now you're doing the remembering?”
“Could be.”
“Now let's go to town and do some shopping. You need some clothes. I have to go to St. Mark's.”
“To get your stuff?”
“Yes. Then we'll find a villa or condo or a garden home. And I need to talk to someone.”
“All right. I'm going back to the greenhouse.”
“Why?”
“I have to get my dog.”
“Very well. I think it's safe. I don't think they will be looking for you now. We've been here for two days, haven't we?”
“Or one long night. Or both. I'm not sure.”