“Built from the top down, not my kind of thing. But I do admit the man has imagination.”
“Sounds like that place in Arizona.”
“Actually the fellow I was talking with, Boce, he mentioned that. Don’t confuse Terramac with that failed Biosphere project, he said. Terramac isn’t going to be hermetically sealed, not tight in the way that place was. They’re not growing their own food or trees or keeping animals, that was all nonsense he said. Their vegetation’ll be like those high oxygen-producing flowering vines, those did prove successful in Arizona. No experiments with different ecosystems either. All the advantages, orderly and sanitary, electronically controlled and with easy transport to the lesser world outside. That was his phrase, the lesser world.”
“For us lesser folk.”
“Yeah, I know. But I will say, I’ve seen some pretty screwy places. And some damn destructive ones. From what I can tell, this Terramac isn’t the worst, by far not.”
“He impressed you.”
“That’s too strong.” Carney smiled. “Said he knew my work. Which meant he’d heard of but not read A Ton. Actually there wasn’t much to see, with all the snow. Streets are in place, some frames going up. The big push comes this summer.”
“In what used to be forest land, I read.”
Carney shrugged. “He’s not exactly clear-cutting. Mostly it was logged over long ago. Scrub. Look”—as Bobbie’s right eyebrow rose—“I’d prefer he left it like it was. But they’ve done their impact studies and they’re probably on solid ground.”
“How solid?”
Carney considered this, again now. Leaving the Terramac site he realized nothing of Mot, his friendly seventh sense. Friend Mot, since the dream about Julie, had been helpful: something wrong here, something dangerous and unjust about to happen there. He usually had come to heed Mot. Sometimes he felt Mot tapping away in the belly, or behind the eyes. Should peril or villainy lie around the corner, Mot cries: Avoid! But while speaking with Boce about Terramac, Mot hadn’t insinuated himself. “Adequately solid.”
“And you said all this to your client.”
Carney laughed. “Not the report Theresa Magnussen wanted, bet on it. But I can’t see a way of stopping Terramac.” He shook his head. “I disappointed her. She didn’t like me saying there’s lots of way worse places around.”
Bobbie poured them the last of the Burgundy. “Hope she paid you well.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t charge her. It was a kind of relief, for once being able to say a project didn’t look like a disaster in the making.”
Bobbie realized she felt content being here with Carney, not at home reading her book. He’d smothered her loneliness. For now. “And the freebie appeased Dr. Magnussen?”
“Nope. She blasted a hellfire sermon at me. I was an ecological Benedict Arnold. Did Cochan buy me off with so much I could refuse her money? Ten minutes’ worth. I asked if she had any proof of something truly evil or destructive going on out there. If she did I’d come back and re-evaluate. Evil’s her way of thinking, she even used the word. She was still furious when I left.” Despite all that, Carney realized, he’d enjoyed Dr. Magnussen’s sense of her place in the world.
“So that’s over and done, is it?”
“Yep.” Except, he admitted, an itch back in his mind. Should’ve spoken with Cochan personally, Carney.
•
“Hey!” Lola jumped up, all vigor and verve. “What’re you doing!”
She’s glorious when animated. “I beg your pardon?”
“Carney. You prompting him?”
“I? Never.” A weird accusation. “He does what he wants.”
“I heard you.” She sat beside me. “You’re steering him.”
“He’s just looking at what’s out there. Exploring, right?”
“You’re making him think—think in other ways.” She knelt at my feet. “Maybe that’s okay.” She thought. “Is it?”
“Hardly, Lola.”
After a moment she shifted. “I like Bobbie.”
“Good.”
“And she’s your sister-in-law.”
I rarely think of her that way. She’s my wife’s younger sister and, more important, the woman who raised my son. My gratitude to her is eternal. But I never knew her well. She’d always seemed distant, or maybe just shy, when we were together. “Yes,” I said.
She slanted her head. “Did you approve of Ricardo?”
“She took up with him long after I AAed.”
“You didn’t watch her?”
She was teasing me, I knew. But making me edgy. “I don’t spy. Not even Carney. Haven’t for years. I only know what I know because you wanted me to find a story for you.”
Lola smiled, soft as a dream. “But when you watch, you steer.” She lay her forearm on my thigh and set her chin on it. She looked up at me, so serious. “Can I learn to do that?”
“What?” Such splendid lips—
“Steer.”
I brought my face to hers. I touched her hair. I let myself speak dangerous words. “It may look as if I play a tiny role, but I never would. If in the down below there’s one prepared to hear, he might come to understand things better.”
“Yeah?”
“He could, say, find new insight, or ask a question. What gets done with it—” I shrugged.
“Insight.” She considered this. “Like perspective?”
“Mortal hubris calls it wisdom.”
“And we’re the ones can make this happen?”
Careful not to sound paternal, I smiled. “They do it to themselves, Lola. Some have the talent. It’s often long and keenly honed. For a man or a woman to be pierced with insight from so far away— I once could do that in the down below.” I paused. “It may be how I got here.”
“Yeah? And me?”
Again that question. “Lola. You touched their lives. With your beauty, and how you made them laugh. As well, you let them see you vulnerable.”
“Vulnerable?” She chuckled. “You mean, exposed? Like my bazoomas?”
I took her hand. “In lots of ways, Lola. You were one with them. They loved you. You gave them hope.”
“And that’s all over now.”
“Lola, you’re a God.” I shook my head. I stroked her hair. Perfection. “We’re separated off from there.”
“But you’re still toying with them.”
“Lola. Listen to me. I watch, describe, I tell you stories. But steering, as you call it, that’s impossible, and against all rules. And if it were possible it’d be extremely dangerous. A little steering from up here— I can’t imagine the consequences.” I let my words hang.
She raised her eyes and searched my face, as mortals might. Her head shook, a delicate sway, silent.
I leaned to her, let my fingers lie against her cheek.
She bent, held my head, brought her radiant face to mine. She kissed my lips.
I shivered deep inside, like the luckiest of living men. How could this happen? The rules we each accept without a thought are clear enough: up here the flesh and all its foolishness is gone. But what do I know of rules? Or for that matter, of what Immortals can and cannot feel?
From far off, a call: “Lola! Sweet Lola!”
I pulled away.
She said, “It’s Edsel.”
I scampered up to re-aright my mind. I grabbed the top sheet in my Roberta Feyerlicht file—“Water”—and handed it to Lola. “Here. One of Bobbie’s new poems. Make like I’ve been telling you about them for the last hour. Read fast.”
In the near distance we saw the God Edsel, glowing so brightly he looked like he’d been super-simonized. Lola read quickly:
WATER
Water into rock. Deep channels, narrow.
Cold, cutting, relentless.
Harsh water. New sediment. A strange chemistry.
The stuff of other worlds, their wounds.
Sepsis.
A trickle, a flash, a maelstrom.
De
cades, centuries. Why now?
Water.
A lost friend.
Spread. Flood.
Roberta Feyerlicht
(January 21–23/03)
“Hello HELLO!” Edsel boomed. “Darling Lola!”
His retinue followed, Gods more powerful or popular where they’d come from in life than Edsel ever was. But up here they were admirers, the God Helen, the God Ludwig, the God Christopher, the God George. How to understand the delight they took in their present sycophancy? I didn’t care. Except for Lola’s sake.
“Hello,” said Lola.
He beamed his joy at her. “You disappear so frequently, my dear!”
“I’ve been taking my pleasure in a whole lot of places.” Beside him she radiated.
“But not enough of it with us!” How jolly he sounded, how pleased to be telling her how naughty she’d been.
“Oh, enough.” The pleasure of not knowing what awaited her trilled from her voice.
“By actual count”—and with elation Edsel drew from his great dazzling deep-green cloak a piece of flattened misty parchment—“in present time and space just under forty-five percent!”
The God Helen took Lola by her right elbow. “We love the pleasure of your company!”
The God Christopher took Lola by her left elbow. “We love the pleasure of your form!”
“Come ’long! Come ’long!” sang Edsel. He didn’t mean me. And the retinue swept Lola away. She turned once, and her glance was full of, what? the delight of fear?
PART II
THE PRESENT
2003
Seven
THE GRANGE AND THE STREAM
Damn! Pieces of the story at last coming together and Lola’s not here.
•
1.
On a grim bare day in mid-May, Carney and Co.’s Number Three team was in the process of containing an oil storage tank fire in south-western Oklahoma. Carney, masked and swathed, in charge this time, didn’t feel Mot tell him the naphtha tank beside him was about to blow. He was working the five-three cannon, sending extinguishing foam into the conflagration, when the impact of the blast sent him flying. Despite the protective clothing he could feel points of steel stabbing into flesh and skin. He moved himself back from the job. Way back, home to the farmhouse. First time in the field in six weeks, and he’d blown it.
So, after fifty why do you risk the second half of your life by inhaling clouds of filthy oil-smoke? Can’t you quit crossing swords with catastrophe? He said aloud, “Grow up, Carney.”
From the bench on his rear deck he gazed over the little valley to the hill across, birches tinted thick green with late spring leaves. He watched reeds in wind-choreographed sway, two crows glide along an air-stream, five butterflies flitter down by the lilies. Four brown ants carried a dead honeybee off along a plank. He felt tied by invisible wires to huge and tiny worlds.
Early in the afternoon he played his cello. Clumsy, his bound leg hurting, the bow drew across the strings, and melody drifted up to the beams. Pain retreated. A sense of cheer filled his arms and chest, his privacy as embracing as that rare thing, the best of human contact. Even with mistakes, the melodies satisfied him.
When Bobbie arrived she found Carney staring across the lush field. “I worry about you.”
Carney said, “No worry needed.”
“You’re not out there making a better world, you’re not writing another book, you aren’t even getting laid.”
Carney laughed. Lynn in their time together had been a rarity, lithe of mind and golden-smooth. So too Marcie. And the rest? All games. “You know a woman sweet as my cello?”
“Have you tried to get in contact with Julie?”
Carney glanced at her, smiled, shook his head once, said nothing.
“You’re lost,” Bobbie said.
No, not lost. No, Carney hadn’t actually tried to contact Julie. Yes, he felt pretty sure he’d find her. Soon.
•
Lola hasn’t returned. The cloud floss at my side is empty as a well-made bed. Down below, new events, and she’d be intrigued. What if she never comes back?
•
Carney in the Jaguar, top closed this morning against the cool May air, headed onto the Interstate, cruised through Vermont into New Hampshire, then chose a local road down to Manchester. Just after Hooksett he stopped along a wide shoulder. He got out and stretched. He’d spent several days tracing Julie, starting with where Charlie had left off. No driver’s license for Julie Robertson, the New Hampshire Department of Motor Vehicles had told him, no phone in or around Manchester listed in her name, no home address either. She had to be in an institution, constant care. No phone in her name, just the place itself, with extension numbers. Through the Internet he found addresses of six significant treatment centers; she might be in a smaller institution, he’d try those after, start with the bigger places. The first three told him they couldn’t connect him, he had to call the room directly as all patients had their own phones. So unless she’d designated her number as unlisted, she wasn’t there. The fourth had a central phone but no extension for a Julie Robertson. The fifth: “Just a moment, I’ll see if I can put you through.” Carney broke the connection.
He lowered the Jag’s top. Maybe he’d take her for a long drive and they could talk. Or maybe just walk. If she could walk. If she had a wheelchair he’d push her along. He wouldn’t apologize. They could share good memories. He’d cheer her up. If she was depressed. Charlie hadn’t been clear about much. He didn’t need Charlie’s context. He’d have his own soon enough.
Into the northern outskirts of Manchester. East, past the Derryfield Country Club, there it was, a two-story converted schoolhouse, Winchester Center. He parked, walked into a lobby. A small woman with graying hair behind a desk glanced up at him. He asked to see Julie Robertson. He identified himself as C. Carney.
“She doesn’t usually accept visitors.”
“Please. Tell her who I am. It’s very important.”
She scowled. “I can tell her. But she makes her own decisions.” She got up. “Have a seat.” She walked down the hall.
Carney sat. Why didn’t the woman just call through to Julie? Carney watched as the woman opened a door, stepped inside.
Half a minute later she came out. “I’m sorry, Mr. Carney, she won’t see you.”
Carney got up. “She said that?”
“She did.”
He sat again. “I’m staying until I see her.” One thing to say don’t call, don’t write. But after he’d driven all this way? “Maybe in half an hour she’ll change her mind.”
Carney waited the half hour, sent the warden in again, again came back with Julie’s refusal. He read a magazine, waited an hour, two more magazines, another half hour. He said to the woman, “Do you have a washroom I could use?”
Ms. Wilkoski stared at him for several seconds. “First door on your left down the hall.”
“Thank you.” He walked slowly. He found the door, opened it, closed it again and moved, silent as possible, toward the far door the woman had opened several times. No name outside. He opened quietly, stepped inside, closed up again. Dim light. A bed dominated the space. Beyond it, a wheelchair by the window. Two small sitting-room chairs. A door to what could have been a bathroom; Carney thought he saw the glint of white porcelain. Lying in, rather than on, the bed was a small figure. Carney said, “Julie?”
The figure remained still.
Carney stepped closer. “Hello, Julie.”
“…no …”
“I had to see you again, Julie, I had to.”
“…nothing to see …”
“Charlie told me you didn’t want visitors but I—”
“…see me …like this …”
“It’s so dark in here, Julie, I can’t see you like anything at all.” He had meant to be light but the words hung heavily in the air.
“…too late …you’ve seen …seen me …”
He stepped closer to the b
ed. He did see her, a tiny body under the blanket, above it a face and arms only, shrunken except swollen at her jaw joint, the skin on her arms tight on bones except at the elbow, the wrist, swollen and red-looking, near to no flesh beneath the skin. He said, “Charlie told me. Julie, this is awful, what can I do? Is there anything anybody can do?”
“…let me …die …”
“Anything—anything but that.”
She gave Carney a desiccated whisper.
“I didn’t get—”
“…you shouldn’t …be here …”
“I had to—”
“…taken away …the last of it …”
“I’m sorry?”
“…you have …what I …lost …”
“Julie? What?”
A rattly cough from her. “…had …had …what I lost …gone now …”
“Can you tell me?”
“…no …”
A long silence.
“…yes …gone …”
Carney waited. How godawful terrible.
“…gone …”
“What’s gone, Julie?”
More silence. Finally: “…lived in …your memory …nineteen …long ago …”
“Yes. You do.”
“…did …gone …only place …only place …in world …”
“The only place—?”
“…only place …place in world …still nineteen …beautiful …someone thought of …me …beautiful …”
“You were beautiful, so wonderfully beautiful—”
“…gone …now …not possible …now …memory gone …”
“Julie, it’s still there, it’ll always be there.”
“…no …replaced by …me …now …”
“I—I’ll always—”
“…selfish …C.C…. too late …”
He reached out, took her hand. Cool little sticks between swollen knuckles, but no heat from the swelling. He wanted to warm her fingers with his hand. Slowly her fingers cooled his. Would her toes, her pretty toes, look, feel like this? For a minute, two, he didn’t move, or speak. Nor did she.
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