Chapter Six
Worn out by his labors, by emotional tumult, George fell asleep in the partially completed new shelter shortly after dark. He was overtired and slept fitfully, now and again waking to a twinge of strained muscles, conscious of scudding dark clouds that obscured all but thin seams of stars, and of wind rattling the palm thatch, raising a susurrus from the surrounding thickets. During such an interlude a shadow slipped inside the shelter and lay next to him, her fingers spidering across his belly and his groin. He intended to tell her that he was too tired, too sore, but while he was still half-asleep, his senses pleasantly muddled, she took him in her mouth, her tongue doing clever things, finishing him quickly, and then she slipped from the shelter and was gone, leaving him with the impression that the wind and the darkness had conspired to produce a lover whose sensuality was the warm, breathing analogue of the rustling thatch and the sighing thickets. Waking late the next morning, he half-believed it had been a dream or a visitation of some sort until he saw Sylvia beside the pool and she flashed a smile that persuaded him the intimacy had neither been imagined nor supernatural in origin.
Peony stood by her on the bank, but on spotting George she stepped behind Sylvia as if anxious. He would not have recognized her in a different context, though the marks of abuse were more prominent now that her skin was clean. Her hair was pulled back from her face, exposing high cheekbones and huge cornflower blue eyes and a mouth too wide for her delicate jaw and pointed chin. It was a face of such otherworldly beauty, George’s initial glimpse of it affected him like a slap and he felt a measure of alarm. Both Peony and Sylvia wore halters fashioned from his shirt and, while they did not much resemble one another, this made them seem like a mother and daughter – he doubted Sylvia was older than twenty-two or twenty-three, yet she possessed a maturity that lent her a maternal aspect when compared with Peony. George found appealing the notion that the three of them might constitute a family.
‘I’m George,’ he said to Peony. ‘Do you remember me?’
Peony had been peering at him over Sylvia’s shoulder, but now she looked away, showing him her left profile.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
She kept her eyes averted. ‘I’m afraid.’
‘You needn’t be afraid. The people who hurt you . . .’
‘It’s not them she’s afraid of,’ Sylvia said. ‘It’s Griaule.’
‘He wants to show me something,’ Peony said. ‘But I won’t look.’
George rubbed at an ache in his shoulder. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘We’ll be fine.’ Sylvia fixed him with a stare, as if daring him to object. ‘Peony will be safe here, won’t she?’
‘Oh, yes. Absolutely.’ He continued to rub his shoulder and asked Peony how she knew Griaule’s mind.
‘It’s not so clear with the scale Sylvia gave me,’ Peony said. ‘Mine was better. But . . .’
George waited for her to go on. She fingered the ends of her hair and did not speak.
‘What’s not so clear?’ he asked.
‘It’s like he’s whispering to me, but there’s no voice.’
‘You hear him talking? He talks to you?’
‘He wants me to look at something awful,’ she said. ‘He wants us all to look.’
‘Do you ever hear him without touching the scale? After I took you from the Snellings, did you hear him then?’
She shot George a quizzical look. ‘Lots of people hear him when he’s angry.’
‘Do you think the Snellings heard him?’
‘I’ve got to get to my fishing. The later the hour, the harder they are to catch.’ Sylvia went to one knee and began rolling up a pants leg. ‘If you two could look after each other, maybe gather some fruit, that would be nice.’
George frowned. ‘I was going to collect some saplings I can use for poles. You know, for the shelter.’
‘Is there a reason you can’t take her with you?’ Sylvia came to her feet and said under her breath, ‘I need time to myself.’ She nodded at Peony and grimaced, as if to imply the girl was a trial, and then, in a normal voice: ‘See if you can bring back some grapes. I’m told there used to be grapevines out here.’
‘Grapes!’ Peony’s giggle seemed edged with dementia.
‘Yes,’ said Sylvia. ‘What about them?’
‘You might as well eat eyes. That’s what Edgar says.’
‘Edgar?’
‘The man living with her parents,’ said George.
‘They don’t taste like eyes,’ Peony said. ‘But they’re squishy like eyes.’
‘How does he know?’ Sylvia asked her. ‘Is Edgar an eye-eater? Does he relish a nice eye on occasion? Does he dip ’em in melted butter and let ’em slide down his gullet?’
Peony appeared to struggle with the question; her expression lost its sharpness and her gaze wandered.
‘I’ll wager he’s an eye-eater,’ Sylvia said. ‘Most men are.’
That conversation, George discovered, was Peony at her most coherent. Much of the time she was unresponsive, even when asked a direct question, and she would hum or sing in her pale voice, fiddling with a leaf or a pebble, whatever fell to hand. Nevertheless he managed to piece together a vision of her life with Edgar and the Snellings. She declined to talk about Sandra – her face tightened each time George broached the subject – but said that Mr Snelling had been in the habit of grabbing her whenever Sandra chose not to perform her wifely duty; he would turn Peony ‘bottoms up’ and beat her for her lack of enthusiasm. Edgar had weaseled his way into her affections, pretending to be a friend, and cajoled her into using her mouth to soothe him after a hard day of eating mangos. His fondness for sexual practices associated with sailors on long voyages had alienated Peony, yet she spoke of him fondly in contrast to her remarks about the Snellings. Having learned all this, George reserved the majority of his loathing for Edgar. Younger and stronger than the Snellings, he might have assisted Peony, but chose instead to gratify his lust, helping transform her into this broken thing.
Thenceforth George cared for Peony from the time he woke until late afternoon, at which point Sylvia took charge. He dragged her along whenever he searched for edibles (feeding three people occupied most of their day and though they went about it with diligence, they lost weight and strength at a startling rate). As a consequence, he and Sylvia were rarely alone together. It was hardly the family life he had envisioned, yet it was not dissimilar to the life he and Rosemary had shared, albeit with greater responsibilities and less frequent sex. Sylvia had not visited him in the new shelter since the night after he had returned with Peony. He believed on that occasion she must have been grateful for his intercession on Peony’s behalf, and he told himself that in order to obtain sexual favors on a regular basis he might have to save other young women from exigent circumstances. He was tempted to coerce her by saying that he needed this consolation, that the strain of days spent worrying and watching out for the dragon was taking its toll (it would not have been an outright lie – his waking hours were marked by depressive fugues). Then seventeen days after Peony had entered their lives, Sylvia visited him again, crawling into the shelter as he was falling asleep.
A three-quarter moon shone into the shelter, gilding their bed of banana leaves, and when Sylvia mounted him she became a silhouette limned in golden light, her hair tossing about like black flames, an impression supported by the thatch crackling in the wind. She was eager and enthusiastic as never before, and George, fancying this increase signaled more than mere animal intensity, responded with enthusiasm. Afterward, however, she broke the post-coital silence by saying, ‘I don’t want you taking this personal. I had an itch I couldn’t scratch, you understand.’
‘Why would I suppose otherwise?’
Moonlight erased the marks of strain on her face and she seemed a younger, less troubled version of herself. ‘Because I know how men get,’ she said.
George scoffed at this. ‘They’re such primitive creatures, aren’t they? Quick
to arouse and to anger. Otherwise they’re like backward children.’
‘About some things they are. Do you think I’m such a ninny, I can’t tell your feelings are hurt? I’m sorry, but I don’t want you to come away with the wrong idea.’
‘Let me assure you, I know exactly where we stand.’
Another silence stretched between them, and then George said, ‘One thing is puzzling. You told me intercourse was out of the question because you didn’t have your “medicines.”’
‘Peony says we won’t be here long. If you get me in a family way, I’ll fix it when we return to Teocinte.’
‘You believe her? You’d take the word of a child who’d stare into the sun all day if we allowed it?’
‘I’ve had to accept greater improbabilities. I’ve accepted that you brought us to this place by rubbing a dragon’s scale. People like Peony are often compensated for their impairment with a gift. But who . . .’
‘Don’t tell me you put any stock in that old business!’
‘Who’d imagine a solid citizen like yourself would be so blessed?’
‘Is that an insult in your view? Calling me a solid citizen?’
‘I didn’t mean it as such, but if that’s how you choose to interpret it.’
‘I suppose “solid citizen” must seem an insult to . . .’ George bit back the last of his sentence.
‘A whore? Is that the word you want?’
‘We’re trapped in this situation. It’s pointless to fight.’
‘Pointless it may be, but I . . .’
‘Stop it!’ he said, wrapping his arms about her and drawing her close, so that they were pressed chest-to-chest. ‘We’ve greater troubles to deal with. And greater enemies.’
‘Let me go!’
She sought to wriggle free, but he held her tightly. She pulled away from him as far as his grip permitted, as if to gain a fresh perspective, and asked, ‘What do you want?’
‘Just that we try to get along.’
‘This . . .’ Although under restraint, she succeeded in conveying that she was speaking of their closeness. ‘This isn’t getting along?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘We share the work, we each do our part in taking care of Peony. What else is there?’
‘You could be pleasant.’
‘Ah! You want me to pretend.’
‘No! I want you to be like you were at the hotel. You remember. When you asked if I liked you when you weren’t pretending to be someone else.’
Amused, she said, ‘You don’t believe I was pretending then?’
He tamped down his anger. ‘I don’t care what you were doing, only that you do more of it. In spite of your faith in Peony’s clairvoyance, it could be months or years before we find our way home. We could be stuck here the rest of our lives. We need to make a better effort at getting along or we’ll drive each other mad.’
‘We don’t have to get along. We’re not married.’
‘Is that right? We bicker constantly, we have sex infrequently, and we’re responsible for a child. That sounds like a marriage to me. Unlike a marriage, however, we can’t escape its context by having a night out. Whatever you were doing, pretending, not pretending, it might be helpful if you started doing it again. Neither of us is a trusting person, but we have to trust one another. We have no idea what’s going on and we may have to depend on each other more than we do now. We need to develop a bond. If we can’t, we have no chance of surviving.’
‘Are you finished?’
‘Yes, I suppose I am.’
‘Let me go.’
With a frustrated noise, he pushed her away and she rolled up to her knees. Curls and flecks of banana leaf were stuck to the sweat on her hip and thigh – they might have been the remnants of script, as if their lovemaking had written a green sentence on her flesh that their argument had mostly erased. He expected her to bolt without further word, but once she regained her footing she stood with her head down, hair hanging in her face, her fingers intertwined at her waist.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
She wiped her nose.
‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he said. ‘I’m merely suggesting we’d be better off if we were honest with one another. If we make a sincere effort at establishing a relationship, a friendship, then who knows what may develop. If a spark is given sufficient tinder . . .’
‘Don’t you ever stop?’ She clasped both hands to her head as though to prevent it from exploding. ‘You get an idea and you go on and fucking on about it! You don’t care what anyone else is going through so long as you hear the sound of your voice.’ She sniffled, wiped her nose again, and squared her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry. I truly am.’
With that, she hurried off into the darkness, leaving George to contemplate the error of his ways, to puzzle over her apology, and to listen to the wind intoning its ceaseless consonant-less sentence, like a mantra invoking an idiot god.
Judging by the way their conversation ended, George did not expect a happy result; but the upshot of the encounter was that Sylvia began coming to him every few nights, and they would make love and discuss practical considerations, most having to do with Peony. They were, he reflected, becoming if not a traditional family, then a functional one. He suspected that Sylvia’s heart was not in the relationship, but her pretence pleased him, nourishing a longstanding fantasy and sustaining him against the two oppressive, unvarying presences that ruled over the plain: the heat and the dragon. At times he was unable to distinguish between them – the dragon patrolling overhead seemed emblematic of the terrible heat, and the heat seemed the enfeebling by-product of the dragon’s mystery and menace. Without Sylvia’s affections and his paternal regard for Peony, he might have succumbed to depression. The days played out with unrelenting sameness: too-bright mornings and oven-like noons giving way to skies with low gray clouds sliding past, their bellies dark with rain that never fell, and a damp closeness turning the air to soup – it was as if they were living in the humid mouth of a vast creature too large to apprehend, one of which they had only unpleasant and unreliable intimations. Of course the dragon was the most salient threat, the one for which there was neither explanation nor remedy. Though he had denigrated Edgar and Snelling for their lack of interest in the question, George soon realized that any attempted analysis relating to the dragon’s purposes would be pure speculation. The most sensible explanation he came up with was that the dragon was using the plain as storehouse for its food supply, but this raised other questions, notably why would Griaule bother to choose its human treats by so indirect a procedure (assuming the others had been transported to the plain by touching or rubbing immature dragon scales). He inquired of Peony again, asking what she knew of Griaule’s designs, but she spoke in generalities, repeating her original statement that he wanted them to witness something, adding to this that they were ‘the lucky ones.’ When he pressed her, she grew tearful and mumbled something about ‘fire.’
George had not entirely accepted that the dragon of the moment was Griaule, or that, as this would imply, Griaule was still alive, and he found Peony’s failure to resolve the question unbearably frustrating. He tried every means of coercion at his disposal, but nothing caused her to elaborate on the subject and he decided that the only thing to do was to table the matter. To occupy his mind, he began teaching Peony about the natural world, lessons she did not appear capable of absorbing. As they wandered the plain in their never-ending search for food, he would point out the various trees and bushes and repeat their names, and he explained processes like the sunrise and rain, often over-explaining them, a tactic that may have annoyed Sylvia but to which Peony raised no objection.
One day while they were exploring the thickets to the west of the stream, they happened upon a kumquat tree that had escaped the attention of the birds, its boughs laden with dusky orange fruit. George sat beneath it and fashioned a makeshift basket out of banana leaves, while Peony nibbled at the fruit, gnawing
away the flesh from around the big brown pits. After she had consumed over a dozen kumquats he told her that if she didn’t stop she might experience stomach trouble. She plucked another kumquat. He repeated his warning to no effect and finally snapped at her, forbidding her to eat more – she dropped the kumquat and refused to look at him. He patted her on the arm, feeling like a bully, and lectured her in detail on the consequences of eating too much fruit.
As the sun approached its zenith, George located a patch of shade large enough to shelter them and stretched out for a nap with Peony beside him. He emerged from an erotic dream to find that Peony had unbuttoned the remnants of his trousers and was fondling him. At first he thought it part of the dream, but then he pushed her away. She made a pleading sound and tried once more to fondle him – he shouted at her to quit and she covered her head with her hands, as if to shield herself from a blow.
‘You mustn’t do that,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to do that anymore. No one will hurt you if you don’t.’
She met his eyes without the least sign of comprehension; a tear cut a track though a spot of grime on her cheek.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at the people who taught you this was how you should please them.’
She gazed at him blankly, her face empty as a fresh-washed bowl embossed with an exotic pattern. She drew a wavy line in the dirt with a fingertip and looked at him again.
‘Do you understand?’ he said. ‘You never have to do this anymore. Not with anyone.’
A worry line creased her brow. ‘I want to make people happy.’
‘Where this is concerned, touching people, allowing them to touch you . . . the important thing is to please yourself.’
She made a clumsy pawing gesture and lowered her eyes; she saw the kumquat she had let fall and reached for it, then pulled back her hand.
‘From now on,’ he said, ‘if you have the urge to make anyone happy that way, if anyone asks you to make them happy, you come to me and ask what to do. Or ask Sylvia. Will you do that?’
The Dragon Griaule Page 31