Reuben had rolled the paper from his notebook into a cigarette and stuffed it with dried grass. I could make out a few words: all no good, spiralling around in blue ink. With matches he lit the brown filaments which stuck out of the end; they flared and the paper caught. He held the cigarette out toward me, holding his breath. “Want some?”
I shook my head, overwhelmed with loss, watching the words he had never allowed me to read glow and change to ash as he blew the smoke out through his nostrils.
“Everything looks perfect from far away, doesn’t it?” Reuben said.
My father, bending down every now and again, could have been picking meadowsweet for the table.
“He’s kept me safe for a long time. He’s very good at chopping wood and skinning rabbits.”
“What does he want destroying angels for?”
“And squirrels. He can skin a squirrel in two seconds flat.”
“Wants to end it all, does he?” Reuben sucked on his cigarette and it burned fiercely.
His beard and moustache had become yellow on one side. He flicked the stub off his thumbnail and we both watched it land in the grass. A minute later, a thin column of smoke rose into the still air and I prayed my father would look up from his work and come running. But he was examining something; he held it close to his eyes and placed it into the reed basket strapped to his waist.
“He’s looked after me for a long time,” I said.
“I’d be careful about eating what he gives you for dinner,” Reuben said, and laughed. I swung my legs, but the feeling of not having anything solid under my feet made me feel sick and I stopped after a couple of kicks.
“He’s a good cook.”
“Amanita virosa stew, with corncockle salad. A deadly combination. Is he going to eat it too?”
“He says he’s seen them there before.”
Reuben raised an eyebrow and stroked his beard. It made the sound of dry leaves.
“Is that so?”
“He says we have to go together.”
“Go where? What does that mean?”
“He says I couldn’t survive here without him.”
“You seem to manage pretty well—for a girl.” Reuben winked at me.
“He says it’s not right for the last person in the world to be on their own.”
“Tell him there are three people left.”
“I can’t do that,” I said quietly.
“But you’re not going to go through with it, are you?” he said, surprised.
I shut my eyes, but I felt I was falling backward, so opened them again. A trickle of sweat or an insect crawled across the small of my back, but I couldn’t let go of the branch to scratch.
“I promised him.”
“What? You promised him you would die with him?”
“Yes.”
“Promises can be broken. Punzel?” Reuben’s face was even paler than normal, his eyebrows raised, as though he had only now realized I wasn’t joking. “Just because some old man wants to top himself, it doesn’t mean you have to join him in his crazy suicide pact.” Reuben sounded outraged.
“We’ve agreed—as soon as he finds the mushrooms.” I said it matter-of-factly, but while I watched my father walking up the hill toward die Hütte, my body trembled at the thought of what lay in his basket, and a chill spread across my back as the shadow of the mountain reached us.
“He says we’ve survived a lot longer than most of the world, but now it’s time to go.”
“Tell the fucker he can go if he wants, but you’re staying.”
“I promised,” I said again.
“This is ridiculous.”
Reuben grabbed hold of my wrist; the grass and rocks below me shifted in response and I thought I might throw up.
“I have to go home now,” I said, although it wasn’t clear to me how I would get back down the tree. I made a movement along the branch and the forest spun around me.
“Punzel, promise me you won’t eat those mushrooms.” He paused, and we both stared at his fingers around my wrist. They reminded me of my father’s. “I don’t . . .” He paused again and didn’t finish; instead he let go of me and I continued my shuffle back toward the trunk. Reuben stayed where he was, looking out over the landscape.
I had wanted us to say goodbye properly. I had wanted him to kiss me again. It was even harder climbing back down than going up; I couldn’t look below me, so I pressed my cheek into the bark and prodded for where to put my feet. I jumped the last part, landing on the side of my ankle.
When I was under the branch, Reuben called, “Promises can be broken.”
From my position on the ground I saw his incisors, large and pointed like a cat’s, and I wondered how I hadn’t noticed them before. I walked from the shade into the sun, imagining Reuben’s eyes on me. I kept my back straight and my head up, but when I reached die Hütte I couldn’t resist turning for one last look. I half raised my arm to wave, but the branch was already empty.
In die Hütte, my father was chopping the carrots I had picked and washed that morning. On the floor beside the table was his basket.
“Did you find any?” I asked.
“A few. Enough,” he said, still chopping.
“Are you sure that’s what they are?”
“As sure as I can be. I thought we would have them for breakfast. One final dinner tonight,” my father said, smiling. “Stew and acorn dumplings, baked potatoes and honey cake. Nice?” He sounded so sane.
“Will it hurt?”
“Oh, Punzel. I wouldn’t ever let anything hurt you. No, I think we’ll just fall asleep and not wake up.” He put the knife down and stroked my hair. He tilted my chin. “You know this is right.” It wasn’t a question, but I nodded.
After dinner we went straight to bed. For once, my father didn’t talk; I supposed there was nothing left to say. I heard him crying, but I didn’t have the energy for reassurance. A while later he got out of his bed and padded across to mine.
“Ute, let me in,” he whispered, and tugged at the fur cover.
I pretended to be asleep.
“Ute, please,” he whined.
I pinned the cover down with my knees and gripped it with my hands.
“It’s our last night,” he said, and yanked on the covers so that they came free from under my body and he was able to climb in beside me.
I lay still with my arms straight down and my eyes shut, and thought about the view I had seen from the tree, how the land curved gracefully down to the river and up the other side. How the wintereyes and beech across the water did look perfect from far away, like the dark green heads of curly kale that I grew in the garden, complex and convoluted. And I thought about how all the bad things—the snake that ate the bird’s egg, the eagle that ripped the mouse into bloody shreds, the ants in the honey—were the necessary details in a world that would still be here after we were gone. After a time my father went back to his own bed and I heard his breathing change as he fell asleep. I lay awake in the dark for a long while, climbing the tree again, but without difficulty this time, and standing on the branch with my arms out. I dived off and a warm breeze caught me, and like the eagle I flew over the mountain ledges, the gribble, the butterfly heather, and the wintereyes.
“Punzel.” Reuben hissed my name in the dark. “Punzel!” his voice came again beside my ear.
I opened my eyes. I was still in my bed, there was the first dull light of dawn, and Reuben was bending over me. He had on a blue woollen hat I hadn’t seen before, his hair tucked up inside it so that in the half-light he might have been bald.
“Come on.” He pushed the covers off me and pulled me upright. He took my hand in his and together we crept out of the cabin. The first mist of late summer washed across the bottom of the valley.
“My shoes! I have to get my shoes,” I said, as soon as we were outside and I could feel stones digging into the soles of my feet.
“There’s no time,” he said, and he ran uphill across the clear
ing, drawing me along behind him.
“Wait, slow down. It hurts,” I said.
“Quick!” Reuben’s eyes were shining, excited. Drops of water hung in his beard as if the dew had caught there.
“Where are we going?”
But he was already pulling me off into the forest. We ran to the nest, me on tiptoes, trying to keep my feet in the centre of the worn paths to avoid the worst of the twigs and stones. In the grey light, I saw that the outside of the nest had been newly woven with ferns and, once we were inside, I realized the ground had been laid with fresh moss.
“What now?” I asked when I’d got my breath back.
Reuben and I crouched side by side like two seeds in a green pod.
“Your father can eat his own stupid mushrooms,” he said, pressing his palms against the roof a few inches above his head.
“Take his own medicine,” I said, and we laughed. “No, really, what now?” I asked, worried, but Reuben leaned forward to kiss me. His beard and moustache prickled my cheeks and chin and made me laugh again. “It tickles.”
Reuben pulled away. “I’ve been thinking about cutting it off,” he said, stroking his beard.
“No, don’t do that. I like it.”
I pushed my fingers into it, making hollows, and pulled his face toward me and kissed him back. He opened his mouth and I put my tongue inside. He tasted salty and I wondered what he had been eating. He reached out his fingers and touched my breast through my nightshirt. It had been my father’s shirt, a faded green that came halfway down my thighs. It was ripped and stained in places, and I worried that I should have put a dress on. I tugged at the bottom of the shirt, trying to cover my legs. It flattened over my breasts and Reuben moved his fingers over one of my nipples, which rose under his touch. The shirt was missing all but two buttons and Reuben slipped his hand inside and cupped my breast in his palm; it was cold against my skin. He undid one button and bent to take my nipple in his mouth, and between my legs I felt a sensation like the moments before a thunderstorm begins. His hair tickled me again, and made me want to scratch and giggle, but I stayed silent. He kissed my other nipple and then my mouth. The full length of our bodies came together and I tried to undo his shirt, but his had all its buttons and the nest was too small; our legs tangled together and by accident I kicked his ankle so that he yelped. Eventually I lay still while Reuben contorted himself to undress, taking off his hat, pushing his boots and clothes to the end of the nest with his feet. His pale body was almost luminous in the restricted space, like an exotic deep-sea creature. I tried to focus on the moss and twigs caught in the hair on his chest, so that I saw his upright thing which stuck up from its own nest only out of the corner of my eye. Reuben helped me take off the shirt and I covered myself with my hands.
“I don’t have any knickers,” I said.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, and pulled my hands away and, taking one of them, wrapped it around him.
I felt his hardness and his heat and wondered if that was why his hands were so cold. After I had held him for a while, Reuben began to move his body, so that he slid backward and forward inside my hand, until I learned to copy the movement. He breathed into me and pressed his face down onto mine so that our teeth clashed and his tongue was in my mouth. The sharp edges of stones in the dirt floor under the moss pressed into my back, as he traced the shape of my waist and bony hip with his hand, the undulation of my thigh, and down to the graze on my knee, then up again between my legs. His fingers explored me and circled around the bit of me that I didn’t have a name for. He made me forget to kiss him, forget to keep my hand moving. He shifted his body over mine and opened my thighs with his. His thing nudged me, and for a second I felt his full weight. Leaning on one elbow, he used his other hand to push inside my body. A cry, almost of pain, escaped from me and there was a low answering echo from him. He propped himself up on his elbows and we looked at each other. Daylight was coming in through the opening of the nest, and I watched a smile grow on his face.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” he said.
He took my hand, guiding it between our bodies, and moved his hips up and forward. Slow at first, then faster, and all the time my fingers kept rhythm with him. He buried his face into my hair and moaned. His nose to mine, he pushed into me harder, his face changing, his eyes losing focus, and I went with him, breathing heavier and faster, until that moment when a kind of fire spread up from between my legs and I convulsed and I heard Reuben’s deep, animal noise. And from a long way off, perhaps down by the river, I heard my name being called.
“Punzel!”
Reuben’s body tensed again and he rolled off me, onto all fours, and stuck his head out into the day. I wriggled to the bottom of the space, found my nightshirt, and put it on.
“Punzel!” my father’s voice came again. Urgent, closer.
“I have to go,” I said, pulling on Reuben’s arm so I could get past him to the opening.
“What?” he said, turning his head to stare at me, incredulous. “No. This isn’t going to happen. Not now.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“We’ll hide,” Reuben said. His thing hung between his legs, still wet, but soft now. He dragged his clothes up toward him with his feet and put them on.
“He’ll find me.”
“We’ll cross the river,” he said, feeding buttons into the wrong holes on his shirt.
I stared at my hands, calloused, already old.
“OK, not the river. We’ll climb the mountain.”
“I didn’t bring my shoes.”
“Christ! You want to die with him, don’t you?” He was almost shouting. “Fight back, damn it.” He held me by the shoulders and shook me, and I just wobbled with him, feeling the tears welling. He gave me a despairing push.
“Punzel,” came the call, once more from the forest. Drawn out; a howl.
Reuben and I sat in the nest, our knees touching, not talking, until at last he said, “I don’t want you to die,” and I let him take me by the hand to lead me out into the morning.
We went left toward the gill, but slowly; I couldn’t run, I had to pick my way along the paths, but still my legs and feet were stabbed and scratched by stones and brambles. The liquid that Reuben had put inside me trickled down my thigh, congealing on my skin while I walked.
“We’ll work our way round, back to die Hütte, and get your shoes.”
“Your hat,” I said, pulling back on his hand. “You left your hat.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
When we reached the gill, I glanced behind me and was sure something moved between the trees, following us through the forest. The gill was damp and mossy as always, but easier to navigate than the forest floor. All thoughts of the water which tumbled beneath us disappeared as I followed Reuben down, hopping barefoot from one slippery boulder to the next, catching my balance at the last minute with clawing fingers. I slid on my bottom, grazing my skin, jarring my elbows, the nightshirt becoming a darker shade of green. The scab on my knee reopened and blood trickled down my shin.
Reuben was always a few steps ahead, looking around to say, “Hurry, hurry up.”
When we had ducked under the log bridge, he scrambled up the bank and I turned to look back the way we had come. My father stood at the top of the green tunnel, his feet planted on adjacent boulders. He stared down at me; then Reuben was grabbing my hand and pulling me up into the trees.
We traversed a wide loop through the forest, almost down to the river, and without me saying that I had seen my father following us, we crouched low under the ferns, crawling on hands and knees over rotten logs and through bushes which pulled at our hair and tore at our cheeks as if the forest, too, wanted me to stay. When we reached the trees at the edge of the clearing, we paused to catch our breath. I couldn’t see anyone behind us, but I was sure my father was there. Die Hütte stood in a pool of sunshine. It was perfect: logs stacked in rows against an end wall, the purple s
tems of chard standing at attention in the vegetable garden—but the door was ajar and the interior dark.
“Perhaps I should go in alone,” I said.
“No, I’m coming with you.”
The grass was high around die Hütte, waiting for my father to come with the scythe and slice it to stubble. We strolled through it, although my heart was hammering. When Reuben reached the doorway, we looked behind us, as if checking that the owner of the little house was not somewhere close by. With one hand he pushed at the door. It resisted. He put his shoulder to it and something heavy on the other side scraped along the floor, and then he ducked his head under the lintel. Inside, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom—nothing was where it should have been. Everything had been turned over, smashed and scattered. The stove tilted on two legs, its door open, spilling cinders. The shelves were empty; my bedcover had been thrown off, as if my father had thought I might have been hiding underneath it. And the base of my beautiful bed was cracked in two. My father’s bed had been ripped off the wall, and the contents of the chest—the food, the clothes, the tools, nails, and seeds—had been flung around the room. I picked up my balaclava, sticky with honey. And when I turned to the window, I cried out at the sight of the piano. The keys were in disarray, like broken teeth, the pebble weights strewn across the floor, catching under my bare feet. The table was cleaved almost in half, and the axe was wedged in the gap.
Reuben took the handle and tried to lever it free, but it wouldn’t shift. I nudged a couple of the broken things with my toes and righted a stool. I had my hand on one of my shoes when the door was pushed wide. My father stood there, a black shape against the white morning.
“You promised,” he said coldly.
I glanced at Reuben behind the open door. My father stepped inside and I saw he held the spyglass in his left hand. The sunlight caught something in the other, and I realized, without surprise, that he also carried the knife.
“I’m sorry, Papa,” I said. “I can’t do it.”
From the corner of my eye I could see Reuben pulling at the axe handle. My father moved closer, holding both his hands out as if asking me to choose between the two objects he gripped. I still clutched the balaclava, but I lurched forward without any clear intention. At the same time, my father’s right hand sliced upward. The knife slashed across the side of my head, and although I didn’t feel any pain, when I looked down, the petals of a dark bud were growing and flowering with immense speed across the shoulder of my nightshirt. I put my hand up to the side of my face and it came back slippery with blood. I swayed, closed my eyes, heard a dull thump and thought I must have fallen, but when I opened them again, I was standing over my father, who lay on the floor, his body turned sideways and his head resting on the rug.
Our Endless Numbered Days: A Novel Page 20