Woman on the Edge of Time

by Marge Piercy

  “Good. At last your grief come down.” Erzulia signaled to the people who had served the coffee, and they began carrying around jugs of wine and glasses and picking up the coffee mugs. This time they served everyone else first, to let the pitch of emotion ease among the close ones.

  The wine was strong, fiery, with a heady perfume of grape. The jugs were gallons marked “Egenblick of Cayuga Fortified After Dinner Wine,” and they passed around plenty of jugs. Enough to get everyone well drunk, she thought, noticing there were many other jugs waiting. In fact, the tension did seem to be lightening. People were chatting quietly, blowing noses, wiping tears, and putting handkerchiefs away, hugging and talking more. Bolivar sat down and cried in short but lessening spasms. His spine had relaxed. His face was crinkled. His head lay on the thigh of Crazy Horse.

  Erzulia said something to the three musicians with Diana, and they began playing a different kind of tune, bittersweet, sweet and sour, it ran. Erzulia and Diana sang together, their voices turning and crossing in the air like swallows. Diana’s voice was deeper, Erzulia’s sweeter and more piercing. They twined and separated in easy counterpoint in the song Connie remembered from the nursery:

  “Nobody knows

  how it flows

  as it goes.

  Nobody goes

  where it rose

  as it flows.”

  That lullaby. Everybody began to sing it, they all seemed to know it. It made a slow wave of soft singing over which the voices of Erzulia and Diana rose and dipped.

  “Nobody knows

  how it chose

  how it grows … .”

  The children joined in, swaying back and forth as they sang words that seemed familiar to all, from babyhood, from mothering and caring for the young. The flute skipped off in a dance of its own high over the voices, and Erzulia and Diana fell back to listen. Other instruments joined in here and there in the hall. The improvising rose in intensity, trailed off, seemed to stop, and then began again in a guitar or recorder.

  Finally the song dwindled. Barbarossa spoke thoughtfully. “The holi Jackrabbit made that warmed me most was the one for green equinox, with all the speeded-up plant growth. For days after I kept remembering the little sprouts wriggling out of the seeds, the tulips unfolding, shutting, opening, shutting. It was funny and beautiful at once. Those images kept coming back when I was working and I’d smile. It gave me a good connected feeling.”

  “The smile on the faces of kores, the youth and maidens, the archaic smile. Jackrabbit was … moved by that smile,” Bolivar mused. He had stopped crying. His face was soft. He leaned on Bee, his head lolling like a sleepy child. “Was my sabbatical and Jackrabbit had not yet settled down. We went to Greece for threemonth. Person was fifteen, more like a cricket than a rabbit. Skinny. Person could eat and eat and nothing would show. Was spring—end of March. Wildflowers everyplace. Crete was velvet to us. We worked on reforesting, we stayed with shepherds, and Jackrabbit was sketching everybody and giving the drawings away. I remember vermilion poppies under gray-green olives, young and black kids that wanted their foreheads rubbed where the horns were going to come through. Dittany growing wild. The pigment factory where we stayed a week, doing odd jobs. We were in love with Minoan wall paintings. An outbuilding at Minos had ridiculous imaginative birds on the murals. Marvelous. Pure velvet. We decided we too would invent unlikely creatures in holies we were even then starting to plan … We decided to build a house, such a house as that one at Minos. A distance away from the others and with a view of the mountains and vineyards. Painted all over and open to the sun.”

  Bolivar smiled weakly. “A few days later we were traveling by donkey up near Dicty, when we saw those birds. They’re called hoopoes in English. There they were, exactly the birds in the Minoan guesthouse. A pinkish brown with black and white striped wings and tail like flying zebras, just flashing at you as they undulate ever so slowly, fluttering across clearings. On their heads an Indian-chief headdress of brown-and black-tipped feathers stands straight up when they want it to. We laughed so hard we fell off the donkeys. And they fluttered away slowly and tantalizingly, rebuking us for not having believed in them. Pooh! Pooh! they cried at us. Ah, the imagination of those ancient Cretans, Jackrabbit said, and for years that was a catch phrase between us … .”

  He sighed, shrugging. “We saw the work of a holist in Agios Nicolaus who fluttered us. Something … fluid about per work. A top spectacler with eight students studying there. I could see Jackrabbit was tempted. That obsessed me jealous, for I viewed myself as Jackrabbit’s teacher as well as lover. I bound more jealous yet when Jackrabbit coupled with per. I had believed, I’d wished, that Jackrabbit would also be drawn only to the male body—so that we’d be alike … . I remember those months so vividly, day by day. We were never closer. Yet the differences stuck out. Always I wanted Jackrabbit to be more like me than person was … . That must have been a strength of your friending, Luciente, that you didn’t want per to be like you. That was almost unique for Jackrabbit.”

  “Ah, Bolivar!” Luciente stirred as if shaking herself. “We each loved Jackrabbit and had great richness and great pleasure and now how we ring with pain. What more could we have asked? Except that it last! But what we had …”

  The wine went round, the makings of joints began to be passed, marijuana and several other weeds they smoked, the trays with delicate papers and carved pipes. One of the healers was playing the flute again and Diana sang. Luciente was leaned propped sideways against Diana, humming with them. The pressure of her grief was gradually softening. Connie could feel Luciente’s pain flowing like a stream rather than a waterfall smashing on her.

  Some of the children had fallen asleep. Occasionally an adult or an older child would carry out a sleeper or lead one stumbling home. More than a few adults had dozed off where they sat, stretched out on the floor unashamed. From time to time a song would start, someone would say a poem, someone would rise with a memory.

  “I remember one feast day—maybe it was Haymarket Martyrs or Halloween? Jackrabbit helped me design a flimsy that was all dream. I was a luna moth, pale green with yellow veins and a margin of lavender, with plumy antennae … .” Luxembourg spoke.

  “Up among the grapevines

  someone is playing the flute

  and the song

  calls my name.

  Among clusters of grapes

  half hidden by leaves

  like palms beckoning,

  someone waits whose mouth

  is sweet as ripe grapes,

  whose touch makes me bleed

  like ripe purple grapes

  in the press.

  I am in bed with somebody else.

  I was too jumpy.

  I’m caught with the wrong person,

  the whole night to crawl through

  long as a tunnel to France.

  All over the hillside lovers couple.

  Here I am stuck

  with the wrong one

  while up among the grapevines

  you call my name.”

  The songs, the poems were more cheerful: love songs, drinking songs, work songs, poems about sailing and fanning, political sallies, topical songs she could not follow. Little cakes were passed. More people fell asleep and some went home. Erzulia and Been were singing in another language, accompanied by drums and the laughter of those who understood the words.

  When silence settled again, Luciente spoke gently. “I met Jackrabbit through Diana. Jackrabbit had retreated to the madhouse at Treefrog. I came to visit Diana, who kept teasing me and wouldn’t sleep with me. Although Jackrabbit was staying in our village, I hadn’t got to know per well. All I had noticed was that person kept changing names, and that bumped me a little. Jackrabbit had gone down but by the time I came visiting, was integrated again … . Diana had a moon dance, on the grass there. It was green moon, the moon after the green equinox, and at first I was comping jealous, Diana was fused with per mems and only watching me. An
d then I wasn’t jealous.”

  “Was not like the first time person went mad,” Diana said in her beautiful husky voice, stroking Luciente’s hair off her forehead. “Not a complete going down. Basically Jackrabbit had come to feel taken over by Bolivar. Wanted to work with you,” Diana said to Bolivar, “but also to work alone. To be freer to grow as a person. You knew so much, you have traveled so much, you had worked out your own style, made a reputation. Jackrabbit felt as if per own work and visions were disappearing into yours—perhaps what was happening at Agios Nicolaus too. Jackrabbit lacked a center. Instead was an enormous uprush of vision and great hunger for experience. Balancing came from others. Needed someone to balance you. I also felt Luciente had been wholly sensible too long.” She tugged Luciente’s hair.

  “Yet we both saw through your plotting,” Luciente said with sulky dignity.

  “What good did it do you? My plotting was healing, old friend.”

  Luciente leaned her cheek into Diana’s shoulder. “It would have happened anyhow, when Jackrabbit came back to the village, but then it would have been shorter … . Person died well. That’s a good death, a useful one. Just … too soon!”

  A bass voice was singing softly:

  “I am dreaming of a baby

  floating among others

  like a trout in a stream.

  I am dreaming of a baby

  whose huge eyes

  close over secret promises.

  I am dreaming of a baby

  who drifts in the throbbing

  heart of the brooder

  growing every day

  more beautiful,

  closer to me.”

  “Sun up,” Erzulia said, and signaled for the doors to be flung open. “We have to give our loved friend to the earth. The day here now. This wake over.”

  Slowly the hall stirred like a dog rousing, shaking. People wakened each other. The cups, the glasses, the jugs, empty and partly empty and still full, were carried off.

  “Whoever wants a membrance from Jackrabbit, come and take one. Family and sweet friends first,” Erzulia called. Quietly they gathered over the small circle of objects. Luciente took a worn book. “Jackrabbit used to say these. Every poem reminds me of times and times gone.”

  Bolivar took the ring with the yellow stone. “I had a crafter make this when Jackrabbit turned fifteen.”

  Everything was carried away except the letters and personal papers, which were placed under the blanket by Erzulia. Then Bee, Bolivar, Barbarossa, and Luciente got ready to carry the body. People were going off to work if they could keep awake, or to sleep if they couldn’t. About thirty people fell into the procession to the grave.

  The bell was tolling again over Mattapoisett. They walked slowly through the paths of the village, with Diana’s friends playing a death march. The leaves were just beginning to turn, the maples reddening and one young sapling already vermilion as if dipped in bright blood. It would be a clear day. The air was chilly. Dew wet the stones, making Connie’s feet slip. Chrysanthemums and asters glowed along the walks. Frost had not come here yet Red and green tomatoes still weighed down the tall vines. Pumpkins planted along the edge of gardens grew out into the grass or climbed the corn. Sojourner fell in beside her, asking if she might lean on her arm, as she was weary from the long night. Slowly they ambled well back in the procession.

  A deep and narrow grave gaped on the edge of the woods. They gathered around it and used ropes to lower Jackrabbit, with his papers and blanket, down into the hole. As they made to lower him, Erzulia adjusted the blanket to cover the face. The body reached bottom with a soft thud that sent a shiver through Connie. A few, Luciente, Bolivar, Crazy Horse, began to weep again softly, but Connie could sense they were about wept out.

  “Friends, we mourn for our comrade Jackrabbit, who died defending us. ‘Only in us do the dead live. Water flows downhill through us. The sun cools in our bones. We are joined with all living in one singing web of energy. In us live the dead who made us. In us live the children unborn. Breathing each other’s air, drinking each other’s water, eating each other’s flesh, we grow like a tree from the earth.’ Cast in the dirt and go. We must work on till we give our bodies back. Goodbye, Jackrabbit.” Erzulia took up a shovel and cast in a load of dirt. Then she passed the shovel to Bee.

  Each in turn said goodbye and cast in the dirt, then walked back toward the village. Standing with its root ball in burlap, a young sassafras tree waited to go into the grave. After the others had finished the ritual casting of soil, Erzulia remained with two volunteers to finish the grave. Luciente, who had waited to one side for Connie, slipped her arm through hers, leaning on her as they walked.

  “Now we go to the brooder,” she said. Connie could feel the slack of her grief. It remained. A pain that would wear itself down slowly. But the first refusal was over. She would live with the pain and live her life. Connie too felt loosened, weary but released, lighter than air but heavy through all her limbs with fatigue. She felt as if she had cried out years of grief.

  Bee, Barbarossa, Otter, Sojourner, Hawk, and Bolivar too were waiting already outside the brooder. Then they all entered in groups of four through the double sets of doors. Sacco-Vanzetti was waiting for them.

  “We come to ask that a new baby be begun, to replace Jackrabbit, who is dead and buried,” Bee said.

  “I have news for you.” Sacco-Vanzetti sputtered excitement, trying to speak with dignity. “I have great news. That is, grasp, the council met. Decided to honor Jackrabbit. That genetic chance will be born again.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Luciente spoke. “We thank the council. Though we will never know where or who, we know some part of Jackrabbit lives.”

  After they had returned to the sun slanting bright over the fields, the huts, the yellow hump of the brooder, she asked Luciente, “What was that? I don’t understand.”

  “What? … Oh, the decision.” Luciente swayed slightly. “Very rarely that is done. When somebody dies young who was unusually talented, as a kind of living memorial their exact genetic mix is given to a new baby. You never know where. Nobody knows. Records are not kept. We know nurture counts more heavily than genetics once you’ve weeded out the negative genes, but still it is a memorial. It eases the mind strangely to know that a baby Jackrabbit will again be born somewhere, nine months from now.”

  “I suppose …”

  “I am too weary to send more, Connie, my sweetness. I must sleep. So must you.” Luciente embraced her. “Let go.”

  She felt herself slowly sinking into her bed. A nurse was sitting beside her and as soon as her eyelids fluttered, the nurse called out. “She’s coming around. Quick, tell Dr. Morgan. He’s sleeping down the hall.”

  Her ability to stay in the future amazed her. They had been trying to rouse her since the evening before. This time, locked into Luciente, she had not even felt them. She watched the fuss through narrowed eyes. They were scared. She could feel Dr. Morgan’s fear whining like a saw blade cutting wood. What they had stuffed into her head was experimental and they did not want a death.

  Morgan and Redding muttered long, and Argent, when he dropped by late in the morning, looked glum and edgy. He eyed her, questioned the nurses briskly, frowned and frowned. Redding paced and muttered and then went in with a hypodermic and a local anaesthetic and changed the medication the dialysis bag was leaking into her.

  “That ought to settle it,” Redding said cheerfully, but he frowned at her skull as if he would like to take it all apart.

  A new watchfulness surrounded her. She was sorry to see that Tina and Sybil were genuinely frightened. Tina nagged her to eat and buzzed between window and door like an angry fly. When Tina was in the day room, Connie tried to give Sybil reassurance.

  “All right! You were unconscious for twelve hours! How can that be all right?”

  “Sybil, don’t worry! Please. The only thing wrong with me is what they got stuck in my head. And I’m doing what I can to get
it out Believe me.”

  “They’re frightened.” Sybil’s eyes were somber. “They put off the implants scheduled for Monday, until they figure out what’s happening to you.”

  “Good! That’s my first victory. Tina was scheduled for Monday.” With Luciente’s help, she might be able to scare them again. What else could she do? It was the only way she could see to struggle.

  SEVENTEEN

  Every day for a week she tried to summon Luciente, but without success. Once she felt herself slipping into that other future, till she drew back with horror. Why couldn’t she call Luciente? Since they had implanted the dialytrode, she had not been able to reach over on her own, not to the right future, the one she wanted.

  She was more lightly doped and time blurred by less dimly. Tina was caught trying to slip out of the ward in a laundry cart, and put into seclusion for two days. When Tina was let out, dizzy and twitching with drugs, Connie rose shakily and touched her shoulder. “Too bad you didn’t make it,” she whispered. “Try again.”

  “I only got four days. I’m scheduled for Monday.”

  In the orange and beige patient lounge, Alice sat in front of the TV, smiling in a slack way. She watched whatever moved in front of her. Connie thought that if she crept up to shut the set off, Alice would go on watching the blank screen with that same blank smile. The staff kept telling Alice she would be released soon, but they were cautious because of Skip. Alice ate a lot. She would not start eating until the attendant got her started, but then she methodically ate everything. She was gaining weight.

  The next Monday, after they had wheeled out Captain Cream and Tina to be implanted, she cast herself on her bed and flung herself toward Luciente, she did not care how. The going over was rocky. For a time the ward dimmed and yet she did not arrive in the future. She passed out. It was more like fainting than falling asleep. But at last she stood with Luciente’s hands on her shoulders in a small clearing. Outcroppings of gray-green stone. Pine needles lay everywhere, drifted against the rocks. Luciente wore a brown and green jumpsuit uniform.