Martin Marten (9781466843691)

by Doyle, Brian

  You did this morning when I left.

  Did you tell me you love me?

  Once this morning and twice last night. Let’s eat.

  * * *

  I think I love you, says Emma Jackson to the morning waitress, but I don’t think it’s working out, and I don’t think I want to be together anymore, because I don’t feel like we fit, although I think I love you. I’m so sorry. I feel awful. But I love you, and I want to be honest and straight. So to speak. I’m so sorry.

  They are sitting on the edge of Emma Jackson’s bed. Her bed is narrow. There is a faded blue blanket on it. The blanket was woven by her grandmother. There is a small desk by her bed. On the desk are photographs of her parents and her grandparents and her brother who was a sailor before he. Emma and her family never finish that sentence anymore. On the walls there are three paintings by the morning waitress. The morning waitress loves to play with shape and color and considers most works of art to be too nervously representational and not willing to simply play with shape and color in ways that perhaps make the viewer reconsider the shape and color of the things we think we know, like desks and beds and morning waitresses.

  I love you too, says the morning waitress. I think we do fit. I think we fit great. I’d like to see how we could fit even better. I’d like to try to fit with a house and children and work. I’d like to try to fit in other places like Wales or Nicaragua. Somewhere by the sea. I think you came to the mountain because you should be by the sea and yet you are running away from it because of your brother. I think you and I fit, but you don’t fit here. That’s what I think.

  They sit silently for a few minutes. Emma Jackson reaches for the morning waitress’s hand to hold hands, but the morning waitress smiles and lifts her hand and cups Emma Jackson’s face and says, listen, I would wait years for you if I thought we had a chance, but I think you have a long road before you fit with you. That’s what I think. I love you, and I’ll always want to know if you are happy. You stay in touch, okay? Just send me a card here and there with one sentence. Write a poem in one sentence, and I will translate the poem to see if you are getting close to fitting you to you. Will you do that?

  Yes, whispers Emma Jackson.

  Maybe what will happen is that you will actually meet Billy Beaton. Or Miss Billie Beaton.

  Maybe.

  But it’s not someone else, you know.

  I know.

  You’ll get there.

  I don’t know.

  I think you will.

  I’m so sorry.

  I love you too, Emma.

  Will you be my date at the wedding?

  Unwedding. Yes. Of course. A not-date at a not-wedding. How apt.

  I’m so sorry.

  Me too.

  And they sit there for another four or five moments, inside love and pain and love. If you were a painter, you could paint the lean slump of their bodies, the stilled birds of their hands, the bright shapeless paintings behind them, the drift of dust motes, the faraway thrum of cars leaving, the thrill of thrushes, the seethe of the wind. If you were a painter, you could try to paint the way people who love each other can be untogether. You could try to paint that. It would be hard to paint, but you could try if you just used shape and color. You could have two shapes of two different colors almost touching but not quite, not anymore.

  * * *

  Cosmas is not on his bicycle for a change. He is in his orange jumpsuit kneeling on Mrs. Robinson’s grave. Hers is on the right. He has already worked Mr. Robinson’s grave this morning. Mr. Robinson is on the left. That is how the Robinsons moved through the world together when they were alive, and that is how they sleep together now that they are in another form. Cosmas is wearing an orange bandanna. He is thinking that Mr. and Mrs. Robinson have produced a stunning crop of tomatoes. It’s hard to get good tomatoes this high on the mountain, what with the dusty ashy soil and the cool nights and the way the sun sears through the thin air sometimes on wild hot days, but the Robinsons, by god, have done it with verve and panache. You could do better with the basil next year, says Cosmas very gently, but your garlic production is superb, and the tomatoes are just crazy good. I am going to eat two tomatoes for dinner tonight in your honor and save the rest for the wedding. Yes, wedding. That’s what I came to tell you this morning. Yes, Miss Moss and Dickie Douglas. Finally. She asked him finally in the river. He says she only asked him finally because she was weary of him asking her twice a day. He says he would have asked her twice a day for the rest of his life if necessary. He says you can hear no any given number of times as long as there’s a chance someday of having yes in your startled ear. She says it’s not a wedding and not a marriage, and there’s no marriage license and no joint tax filing and no joint checking account. Yes, she has a bee in her bonnet about all that, but they are actually plighting troth on Friday. Dickie says the day was chosen because it’s Joel Palmer’s birthday and Maria gets to wear the sneakers found in the glacier, but Ginny says Friday is the one day of the week named for a woman, and that’s the day for her. She says Friday is named for a woman who lived on a snowcapped mountain and could see through time. Yes, they asked me to be the celebrant. No, I am not to use the words preside or wed or join or marry or pronounce or anything like that. Ginny says she and Dickie are coming to an agreement with their friends and neighbors, and we are all there to celebrate together, and no one is in charge of the moment, not even she and Dickie, but because I am the tallest of all of us, I can stand with them and be master of ceremonies, sort of. She says their only request of me is to wear my jumpsuit and not some flowing billowing robe or gown or cloak or whatever. She says orange is the color of October and that will be apt and suitable. She says Dickie wanted Edwin to be master of ceremonies but Edwin declined, which is a good thing, because where would we find an orange jumpsuit big enough for a horse? She says she wishes more than anything in the world that you two were there and that she will certainly weep bitterly that you are not standing there next to her beaming as she too takes the leap you took toward each other, because that’s why she is leaping toward Dickie, because you leapt toward each other every hour of every day, and she saw that and admired that and watched your gentle patience and affection and respect and reverence for each other in every little aspect of your lives, which were of course not little at all, which she says is the greatest lesson she ever learned and what she wants to try to reach with Dickie. She says if she and Dickie can be anything like you two, then she will account their lives a roaring success even if the generator in the store keeps wheezing and dying and the milk keeps going bad a day too early and Dickie brings in one too many raccoon pelts, a woman can only take so many raccoon pelts hanging in the shed to dry before she goes stark-raving mad and starts wearing orange jumpsuits and growing vegetables in cemeteries and talking to the graves of friends. I’ll come tomorrow to collect the garlic, okay? And then Friday morning for the tomatoes. You keep working on the tomatoes until then. I’m thinking we could try turnips and parsnips after that. I think we can get one more crop in before snowfall. You want to try kale? Think about it. I’ll be back tomorrow for the garlic. I miss you awfully too. I miss you terribly. I wish I could hear your voices. I wish I could hear you laugh. I bet you are laughing right now, right through the tomatoes. These are unbelievable tomatoes. I miss you. Sleep well. I’ll be here in the morning.

  62

  THE DOG WHO HAD DECIDED to live with Mr. Shapiro, the one who had survived his first year in the deepest wildest forests in North America, generally arose with Mr. Shapiro in the morning and companionably ate breakfast with him, and then, when Mr. Shapiro went off to work, the dog explored generally, soaking up information and scent, studying the style and story of his new place. For the first few days his explorations were of the cabin and yard and neighborhood, trying to make sense of ostensible boundaries. The other dogs nearby, after some initial disagreements and debates, agreed to allow him free passage through their territories. The human bein
gs nearby, as a rule, did not care overmuch about a trotting dog, although the golf course manager was rude and intemperate in his language and twice tried to hit him with low flat drives with a five iron. The two adult coyotes who lived not far from the right-field fence at the high school were afraid of him and went to ground at his approach; and it was only one testy raven who ever harassed him on a regular basis. The dog thought more than once that he might catch and eat that damned raven, more on principle than from hunger, but the conflict was resolved one morning when the dog actually did catch the raven, who had come an inch too close, and pinned it to the ground with both of his front paws and communicated in clear and relatively patient fashion that he had no particular problem with ravens individually or collectively or as a species, and any raven that had a problem with him was mistaken in that belief and imprisoned in a misguided concept, and that further harassment was a poor idea from every conceivable angle and that henceforth he would expect, as the raven could expect, not quite friendship as much as something like a truce or a polite neutrality or an agreement not to disagree. The raven understood and expressed something like an apology. As the dog thought later, the raven’s apology could not be said to have been delivered with anything like what you would call grace, but it had been genuine, insofar as he could tell, and certainly the raven did not afterwards dive upon or otherwise harass or badger the dog or fly off to recruit his or her companions for a confrontation in numbers.

  So it was that the dog began to fit into his new community, and by subsequently avoiding the greens on the golf course, he found himself for the first time in his life not subject to attack; a refreshing state of affairs. As Mr. Shapiro said later, the first condition for substantive and nutritious relationships is the safety and security of all parties concerned, after which denser webs may be woven—and the denser the webs among beings, said Mr. Shapiro to the dog, the less likely a breach of the peace, could that be the case? The thicker the threads, the less likely their sundering? The dog, curled on his chair, considered all the cases he knew of sudden violence between and among mates and partners and tribes and packs, but he refrained from comment, aware that his experience was not comprehensive of all possibilities. He very much liked hearing Mr. Shapiro propose and speculate, ponder and wonder, consider and offer conjecture; a warm and affectionate voice being the one thing the dog had never heard in his whole life and to him something very much like fresh water when you are desperately thirsty.

  * * *

  Cadence weighed herself one morning, and she had lost eight pounds. The vice president of the senior class asked her out that afternoon after seeing her at the store. She said yes. Dave said no when she told him. She said she would make her own decisions about whom to date or not date thank you very much. Dave said that he was under the impression that they had a special relationship. Cadence said that yes they did but that did not mean that she could not date whomever she liked. Dave said that the only reason the vice president had asked her out was that she was skinnier. Cadence said that might well be the case, but she would find out his motivations and character for herself, and was he calling her fat? Dave said well, that pretty much meant the end of their running together, didn’t it, and he was not calling her fat. Cadence said that would be a mean thing to do to quit running with her because he was jealous. Dave said he wasn’t trying to be jealous or possessive, but he didn’t think it would be much fun for him, at least, if they went running together while she was dating another guy. Cadence said she understood how he felt, but she could not behave according to someone else’s dictates or rules. Dave said he understood, but part of the problem maybe was that he had been about to ask her out but had not done so because he was not sure what she would say and because they had a special relationship that he really liked and because he didn’t want to ruin that, but now he is kicking himself because he should have asked her out. Cadence said she understood but that even if he had asked her out, she would have accepted the invitation from the vice president, because she was not ready to be dating only one person at the present time. Dave said actually he was ready to be dating only one person at the present time, and he had rather hoped it would be her. Cadence did not say anything, but Dave could hear what he thought was crying on the telephone, and then Cadence said I have to go now, and maybe we should take a few days off before we talk again, okay? Dave said he understood, and he turned off his phone and felt a stagger in his stomach. His mom and dad and Maria were out, and he packed two sandwiches and two bottles of water and left a note on the table that he was in the woods and would be back for dinner, and he stepped outside and walked upriver and vanished into the woods.

  * * *

  Martin spent the morning hunting and the afternoon ranging restlessly again. He could feel the imminent change in seasons, he could smell it, he saw it everywhere he looked: vine maple past its brilliant autumnal color, the last berries shriveled on browning bushes, geese and cranes croaking overhead, the elk finishing the rut and settling into their winter clans and companies; school buses on the highway, the ebbing of summer tourists; soon the weasels and hares would turn white, and the bears would lumber into their winter bunks and barracks, and the snow would fall—a flurry or two at first and then the first steady snows and then the deluge.

  Up and up he went, drawn by some inchoate urge to be above the forest in the last brilliant bit of summer. He skirted the lodge cautiously—even with fewer tourists, there were always human animals in the woods and trails near it, pressing their faces or bodies together, holding bottles and cans to their mouths, sleeping, reading, chanting aloud, clanking and clambering along the trails, raising waist-high dust clouds, trampling the little asters in clearings and sunny spots. But they were easily avoided, and none of the human animals near the lodge appeared to have weapons or traps that he could see. Even so, he was never less than cautious near the lodge, even when he occasionally used the back wall along the outdoor swimming pool as a shortcut toward his pillar stone—he could leap from the pool wall into a line of towering pines and so save a long detour around the ski lift, a contraption he did not like and avoided whenever possible.

  He used the pool wall this time, waiting patiently until the two women in the pool had retreated into the lodge, and he leapt up into the pines, energized by their sharp rude smell. He ran happily through the familiar trails in their canopies; the pines were close enough together in their procession that he easily slipped from one to the next. One person saw him flowing through the trees, quicker than a cat, more surefooted than a squirrel, utterly comfortable in his body and his milieu and the moment: the third chef, who happened to look out a window at just the instant Martin casually leapt from one tree to another, a chasm of about eight feet. A single instant in the unimaginably long history of the mountain and of marten and of men, but not one the chef ever forgot—and not because it was the one glimpse of a marten he would ever have in his relatively short life but because of the sheer confident wild soaring grace of the animal, the way it absolutely knew where it was and where it was going, the way it belonged there in a way no man or state or country claiming possession ever quite could. That imprinted itself mightily on the chef’s mind, and curiously it was an image that came back to him often, especially when he was half-awake in the morning, not sure if he was dreaming. He would see the creature again suspended in the air, a splash of golden brown against the bright green pines and startling blue air and gleaming snowfield. Once or twice he even tried to paint what he had seen, but there was something missing, some verve and zest and almost humor—and besides, his mother made fun of his attempts, laughing in that awful wheezing cackle so that she could hardly get her cigarette going, laughing at him so bitterly that he crumpled up the paper and stuffed it in his pocket and slammed the door of the trailer behind him as he left.

  63

  MR. SHAPIRO, THIS TIME SUBBING for a teacher who was in the National Guard and had been suddenly sent abroad, is addressing his class. We have now s
pent a good deal of time on natural history, and I hope that one of the things you are discovering is that the very term natural history is essentially specious; all history is natural history, even what we would reasonably call unnatural; even the human pathology that results in massacre is in a sense natural as an aspect of the human animal, correct?

  Unfortunately, said a student.

  But that’s our next month’s work, the analysis of murder, excuses for murder, pathologies like religion and racism that lead to murder, possible correctives and therapies for such pathologies, said Mr. Shapiro. Today, I want to finish our natural history section by coming home, as it were—thinking about this place, this side of the mountain, this mountain, and all the ways we could consider the natural history of this place. Start with the orthodox.

  Joel Palmer, logging, native history, said a student.

  Native?

  Native Americans.

  Poor term. Specify. Most of us in this room are native.

  American Indians.

  Columbus’s erroneous label, said Mr. Shapiro.

  First Peoples.

  Better. Klickitat, Molalla, Chinookan. Still labels, but.

  Founding of the Zag.

  Good.

  Building of the lodge, visit by President Roosevelt.

  Good.

  Fish, mammals, insects, amphibians, reptiles, said a student.

  Good, said Mr. Shapiro. Interesting, though, that it took us this long to get to what are undeniably the majority of the population in this place, by a factor of millions.

  Trees, plants, bacteria, said a student.

  Good. Also nematodes, microbes, fungi, and other life beneath the surface of the ground. A third of all life-forms are in soil.

  Photons, rock, ice, water, quiescent lava, said a student.

  More like incipient or patient lava, probably, said Mr. Shapiro. Very good. Note that it also took us this long to get to aspects of natural history that are not living beings. Do we have a species predilection or bias to living beings? Do we unconsciously rank them higher and consider them more important than other forms and aspects of the place we share? Is that just or fair? Or is that an evolutionary filter that developed because we have for so long ranked existence by what moves quickly and might be food? Worth thinking about. Anything else?