by Pat Murphy
He washed his hands in cold water, but he could still feel the warmth of her touch, where his fingers had brushed hers when he handed her the Coke. He stood in the doorway to the garage, looking out into the street. The sun was setting, and the lampposts cast long shadows.
In the twilight, he felt that something was going to happen. The air was blue and cool and pure and the street seemed to be waiting for a signal of some kind. He waited with it, but all that happened was the sunset.
CHAPTER 14
BOOKS WAS SURPRISED AND PLEASED when Jax came to visit him in the library. He offered her mint tea and Danish sugar cookies from a metal tin. “They’re a bit stale, but otherwise they’ve kept remarkably well,” he said. “I’ve salvaged dozens of tins from the gourmet department of Macy’s. Help yourself.”
Jax accepted a cookie and nibbled a corner of it, perching uneasily on a wooden chair.
“I had hoped you would stop by,” he said.
Jax nodded. “The city brought me here,” she said. “I just started walking and ended up by the library steps. I thought I should come in.”
“Whatever brought you, that’s fine with me. Have you been enjoying your time in the city so far?”
She looked noncommittal. “I keep meeting new people.”
“Nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“I guess not. They all want to talk and ask questions.”
“I think you’ll find most of the people around here are pretty friendly,” Books said.
Jax looked thoughtful. “I wouldn’t know much about that, I suppose. I’ve never had any friends. My mother and I lived alone.” Her voice held no trace of self-pity. She was stating a fact, nothing more.
“You and your mother must have been friends,” Books said.
He found her quiet acceptance of a solitary life faintly disturbing.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. She took care of me, but we never talked much. It may take me a while to get the hang of this friends business.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Books studied her. Ms. Migsdale was right—the woman had a feral quality: a little shy, a little dangerous. “Being friends is simple enough. Friends do things like this—sitting around and drinking tea and talking.”
“Yeah?” She took a sip of tea and regarded him steadily across the table. “Does this mean we’re friends?”
Books rubbed his beard, considering his answer carefully. “I guess it means that we could eventually be friends. I don’t think we’re there yet. But you don’t have your hand on your knife all the time, so we’re much closer.”
She glanced down at her knife. When she looked back up he thought he saw a hint of embarrassment in her expression. “I guess so.” She took another sip of tea. “Danny-boy told me that you could tell me a lot about the city.”
“That’s true. I’ve been working on a book that gives the history of the city since the Plague. So I suppose I know a fair amount.” He watched her glance toward the window. On the ledge outside, a pair of monkeys were grooming each other.
“What can you tell me about the monkeys?” she asked, jerking her head toward the window. “They follow me around sometimes.” She watched the animals, an uneasy expression on her face. “Sometimes they try to talk to me. But I don’t know what they’re saying.” “Oh, yes, I can probably tell you more than you want to know about the monkeys. They figure in my history of the Plague. They brought it to the city, you see.”
Jax was watching him intently. “Tell me about that.”
Once a week, Books held classes for the children who lived in the city. After teaching reading or math, he always told a story, something about the city. He had told the story of the monkeys before and he slipped into it easily.
“Back before the Plague, the monkeys lived in a country called Nepal. It’s far away from here—across the ocean and half a continent. High in the mountains of Nepal there’s a monastery, a place where holy men live. For hundreds of years the holy men have lived in the monastery, and for hundreds of years the monkeys have lived with them.”
Books took a sip of tea. Jax was leaning forward, her eyes on his face.
“The monastery was a peaceful place, even in times of war,” Books continued. “And the people in Nepal had a legend that the monkeys were what made the monastery so peaceful. According to the legend, peace would come to the world when the monkeys left the monastery. Back before the Plague, the world was not a peaceful place.”
Books hesitated, wondering whether to try explaining the Cold War to Jax. The posturing of nations, the threats and counter-threats, the nuclear deterrents and summit talks—they all seemed so distant, like a book he had read as a child. He remembered the constant fear, the awareness of death. But he could not begin to describe the reasons for it and he generally left it out of the story. “Everyone was afraid that we would all die in a war,” he said at last. “And many people banded together to try to do something about it. An international peace effort grew up—a coalition of dozens of groups from dozens of countries. Somewhere along the way, the monkeys became a symbol of peace. The Coalition for Peace wanted to bring the monkeys from Nepal, and every zoo in the world wanted to have a pair. Schoolchildren donated their milk money to help build monkey enclosures at the zoos; rock-and-roll producers arranged benefit concerts. It seemed like the whole world was ready for peace.
“The monkeys came to San Francisco, to Washington, D. C., to Moscow, to Tokyo, to Beijing, to Paris, to London. All over the world, people welcomed them as harbingers of peace. At the San Francisco Zoo, hundreds of thousands lined up to see them. The mayor declared a city holiday.”
Books fell silent for a moment, remembering the feelings of hope and joy that had attended the monkeys’ arrival. He had taken the day off from work and joined the crowd that waited to see the monkeys. Though he had known that importing a few monkeys could not bring peace, he had wished it were otherwise. He wanted to believe in the monkeys.
“What happened?” Jax’s question brought him back to the story. She was listening closely, her teacup cradled in her hands.
“The monkeys brought peace,” Books said. “But not the way we expected. Everywhere they were, the Plague broke out. People died. Hundreds of thousands of people died. The disease spread from the cities into the countryside, and more died.” He discovered that his hands had clenched into fists, and he tried to relax them. He did not like remembering those days. At first, the dead were buried with proper funeral services. But by the end, overwhelmed with the number of bodies, public health officials had resorted to burning the dead. The smoke had mingled with the city fog and drifted through the streets. “They figured out quickly enough that the monkeys were the source and that fleas were the carriers. But it was already too late. In humans, the disease could be passed by an airborne virus, like a common cold. The Plague resisted all efforts to contain it. And after the Plague, there was peace. There had to be—no one was left to fight.”
Books looked up. Jax was staring out the window, watching the monkeys. She glanced at him. “But why are the monkeys in the city?”
Books shrugged. “I suppose someone let them out of the zoo. After all, it wasn’t their fault. They brought peace, just as the legend said they would. It just wasn’t the sort of peace we expected.”
Jax nodded, still looking out the window. “I wonder why they follow me around.”
“They’re curious beasts. They probably just want to know what you’re up to.”
“Maybe so,” she said. “Maybe you’re right.”
After talking with Books, Jax returned to the hotel and waited for Danny-boy to come home. She sat in the easy chair by the hotel door. The sun was going down, and the streets near the hotel were already in twilight, shadowed by the skyscrapers of downtown. To the east, the sky was a luminous blue; a crescent moon was just rising. The air was filled with anticipation of the coming night.
Not far away, two monkeys were playing in an abandoned car. The w
indows had been broken long ago, and the animals chased each other in and out through the openings. Then the larger of the two stopped to bang on the hood with a stick, while the other clung to the steering wheel, making faces at its reflection in the rearview mirror.
Jax watched them idly. Books’ explanation had not helped her understand the animals any better. They watched her and they followed her. It seemed sometimes like they knew something that she should know, but they wouldn’t talk.
In her lap, Jax held the glass globe that contained the miniature city of San Francisco. Every now and then, she shook it and watched the golden flecks dance.
On her way back from the library, she had visited Tiger. He had finally removed the figure-eight bandage and declared that her shoulder was as good as new. She was relieved to be free of the constraining bandage at last, but its removal made her aware of how long she had been in the city. For weeks she had been exploring the city’s streets, meeting its inhabitants.
She studied the city in the globe. The miniature had helped bring her to the city, but it was not enough to hold her there. The city itself did that. She could not run away. She felt that she was a part of this place, and that feeling surprised her.
She leaned back in the chair, looking out at the tall buildings around her. When she heard Danny-boy’s bicycle bell in the distance, she set the globe down on the curb and stepped into the street to look for him. She waved at him as he approached.
She heard a monkey chattering behind her and looked back to the chair in time to see the animal rush up and snatch the glass globe from the curb.
“Hey! Put that down!” She started to run toward the monkey, but it dashed away. As the animal leapt for the safety of the hotel awning, it dropped the globe.
The glass shattered on the cement sidewalk. The water splashed in all directions to make a dark starburst on the cement. The monkey shrieked at her from its high perch.
Jax picked the tiny city from the shards of glass. The buildings were molded plastic with painted windows. A few bits of glitter were caught in cracks and irregularities in the plastic. The city was much smaller than it had looked through the glass. It wasn’t what she had expected. It wasn’t what she had expected at all.
CHAPTER 15
THE NEXT MORNING IT RAINED FLOWERS. Tiny stemless golden blossoms, each about as big as the nail of Jax’s smallest finger. She woke to the gentle sound of flowers tapping against the window. They formed small drifts on the sill.
She opened the window, stuck her head out, and twisted her neck so that she could look at the sky overhead. Bright motes of yellow fell from the featureless gray, dancing as they descended.
Danny-boy stood in the street below her, knee-deep in flowers. Tommy and his sister were having a flower-fight just down the street, throwing great handfuls of blossoms at each other. Jax called out, and Danny-boy looked up to see her in the window. “Come on down,” he called to her.
She brushed the flowers from the windowsill and watched them flutter down to land on Danny-boy’s head. “I’m going up to the roof,” she shouted back, and she ran through the halls and up the stairs.
Flowers filled the hibachi and blanketed the gravel. The sun was breaking through the clouds, but the flowers kept falling, spiraling like snowflakes on a windless day. Jax peered over the edge of the roof. Specks of gold filled the gaps between the rows of bean plants. A dusting of yellow capped each building, each car, each lamppost.
She craned her neck to watch the flowers fall, then lay down among the blossoms. They smelled sweet and green, like new-cut grass. When she heard Danny-boy’s step on the stairs, she called to him, and when he came she gestured urgently toward the sky. “Look at how they catch the light,” she said.
He lay beside her, looking up at the flowers that fell from the sky. “If we lie here long enough, do you think they’ll cover us completely?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. She felt the warmth of his body beside hers, felt the warmth of the sun on her face. His hand found hers among the flowers and when he touched her, she did not pull away. The flowers touched her face like kisses, each one leaving a pollen mark and the smell of spring. Danny-boy brushed the blossoms from her face. Where his hand passed, warmth seemed to linger. Gently, his hand swept petals from her neck, her breasts, her belly. He stroked her neck, tracing the line of muscles that led down to the collar bone, tracing the edge of the collar bone.
The flowers fall from the sun, she thought. The sunlight and the flowers and Danny-boy’s hands on her body were all part of the same moment. She responded to the sunlight and the flowers and Danny-boy’s hands. In this moment, there was none of the tension that had once made her stiffen when he took her hand or watched her too intently.
He unbuttoned her flannel shirt and caressed her breasts. The sunlight was touched with urgency and the warmth came from within her, as well as from the sun. They fumbled with clothes and at last they were naked in the mound of flowers. Danny-boy’s bare skin was dusted with pollen and stray blossoms were tangled in his hair.
He was looking down at her, and for a moment, he hesitated. “Am I hurting you?” he asked, touching her shoulder. She shook her head and pulled him down to kiss her. He kissed her mouth, her breasts, her belly, her crotch. He lingered there until the warmth that came from within her pulsed and glowed with a dangerous heat. She cried out in a small, high-pitched, broken-sounding voice that rose and fell.
He pressed his body against hers. She felt each touch so intensely that the sensation was near pain: the flowers falling on her face, the warm rooftop against her back, Danny-boy’s hands on her breasts, his body moving against her. He entered her, and she cried out. The warmth moved in waves, surrounding her, enveloping her. He cried out too, a choked sigh that was scarcely louder than his breathing.
They lay together in the flowers. She could feel the beat of a pulse between her legs. She closed her eyes and watched the patterns that the sunlight made on the inside of her eyelids. She could feel the city around her, like an extension of her own body. The beat of her heart was the pulse of the city. The wind flowed through the city streets like the breath flowing into her lungs. Her nerves reached beyond her skin and into the rooftop, the streets, the buildings around her. The sun warmed the pavement and she felt safe and content.
Half asleep, she heard a sound, like the rush of water in a river. As she listened, she realized it was the rustle of wings, and she was frightened. By the sound, she knew that the angel was swooping low over her. She wanted to run but she could not move. The city had captured her: the network of streets twined around her legs; the concrete weighed her down. She could not breathe. Panicked, she opened her eyes to look for the angel.
The flowers had stopped falling. The sky was blue and clear and empty. She lay with Danny-boy beneath a blanket of yellow blossoms that were already starting to wither and brown at the edges. Danny-boy slept, one arm serving as a pillow beneath his head, the other arm flung across her waist. She slipped away from him and stood. For a moment, she watched him. He was smiling in his sleep.
She could still feel the city around her, but it was more distant now. She wanted to lie back down beside Danny-boy. She wanted to stroke his arm and waken him, so that he would pull her close to him. She knew that if she lay back down, she would stay beside him until he awoke. She knew that if he woke up and looked at her and asked her to stay with him, she would. And for some reason, that knowledge frightened her.
She gathered her clothes and pulled them on. As Danny-boy slept, she hurried down the stairs into the street. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew that she had to go somewhere, had to do something. She took her bicycle from the hotel lobby and rode toward the Civic Center Plaza.
Books was sitting on the library steps, examining a single blossom with a magnifying lens. He hailed her as she passed, and she stopped beside him. A book was propped open on his knees and several more were on the steps beside him. “Can’t find them in any of the
books,” he said, waving the flower that he held. “Could be a completely new species. I wonder where they came from. Here, have a look.”
She propped up her bicycle with the kickstand and sat beside him on the steps. Through the lens, the flower was enormous. She could see darker gold veins in the delicate golden petals; the grains of pollen were the size of boulders. Her fingers were blobs of pink, marked with ridges.
“Where are you off to?” Books asked her.
She shrugged, wishing that he hadn’t asked. She kept looking at the flower though she knew that he was looking at her. Why wouldn’t these people just leave her alone? She didn’t know what to say. She crushed the blossom between her fingers and dropped it onto the steps.
“You’re worried about something,” he said, peering into her face. “What is it?”
She shrugged.
“You know, Danny-boy has been afraid since the day that he found you that you’d vanish any day. But you’re still here. That’s good. I hope you stick around.”
“The city gave me a name,” she said. “I never had a name before.”
He nodded, as if he were waiting for more. She stood abruptly and handed him the magnifying lens. “I’ve got to get going,” she said.
She rode away on her bicycle and did not look back. She headed up Fell Street, toward the ocean. Her bicycle wheel scattered drifts of flowers. Outside the downtown area, the flower fall had been lighter, just a few blossoms here and there.
She rode to Ocean Beach and sat on the seawall, watching the waves crash against the beach. She took off her shoes and strolled by the water’s edge. The waves rushed in, then returned to the sea, hurried back, then retreated again in eternal indecision. The cold water lapped around her ankles. When the waves retreated, they sucked sand from beneath her feet.