A Gift Upon the Shore (14 page)

No one in this town could answer those pleas. Burned buildings marked out the grid of vacant streets. No vehicles moved, no one walked in those streets, nothing lived in any of the places where people had gathered to seek help and comfort.

There were still some survivors crouching in storm cellars or basements. They had survived cold, disease, and anarchy. But they would not survive hunger—not when the last of their stored or scavenged food was gone, when they looked out of their caves and saw nothing but snow and ice for a thousand miles in every direction.

And Mary saw this town replicated ten-thousandfold around the world. A world enshrouded in death.

No. Perhaps not an entire world. The southern hemisphere might be spared some of the devastation. But no southern nation would survive without catastrophic disruptions in their climate, their food and energy supply systems, their economic and social structures. And would they survive Lassa? Mary remembered a newscaster coolly reporting at least a week before the End that two million people had died of Lassa in Australia and five million in South Africa.

I guess we deserved it. We treated this lovely planet so negligently, we treated each other so cruelly.

We deserved it.

“No,
we
didn't deserve it. There were billions of people who never did anything in their lives to
deserve
what happened to them.”

Rachel's words roused Mary, bewildered her because she didn't realize she'd said anything aloud. She wondered how much of what she'd been thinking she had spoken. She said nothing more now.

Rachel sat hunched in her down jacket, hands spread in front of her to catch the heat. Shadow nuzzled her knee for reassurance, but she had none to offer. She said, “We'll have to move one of the wood stoves into the garage, or we'll lose
all
the rabbits and chickens.”

Mary closed her eyes, and she was surprised that the first sound to emerge from her mouth was an approximation of a laugh.

“Of course, we're going to lose them, Rachel. Sooner or later we're going to lose . . .” Everything. We're going to lose
us
. Sooner or later.

The wind, the voice of the cold, echoed its dirge in the chimney. Eventually Rachel spoke again.

“Strange, isn't it? I left for Shiloh this morning with very little hope. I came home with very little hope. You left with a great deal of hope and came home with none.”

Mary pressed her hands to her eyes, and for a moment she couldn't get enough breath.

“
Why
? Why should I still have any hope? Hope for what? This is what they call nuclear winter, the winter of our ultimate discontent. The
last
winter because it will never end! This is—so why . . . why . . . ?”

I want to cry, she thought as the words poured out like sand from a rusted cup. I want to cry, but I can't even do that. Dry. All dried up and shriveled inside, dead already. Brain dead. Soul dead.

Rachel was watching her. Mary could feel that, but she stared into the fire, and at this moment she felt detached from herself, from Rachel. She looked down, as if from a distance, on the two of them in a beleaguered island of warmth and light in the chill darkness. And Rachel said, “I've been thinking about what separates homo sapiens from its animal cousins.”

Mary didn't attempt a response to that. She listened from far away to the sounds of the words.

Rachel said, “I've been told that animals can't imagine. Yet they dream. Isn't a dream imaginary? I've been told that animals can't imagine their own deaths, so they don't dread death. It's easier to believe that, I suppose, if you have to kill animals. Or if you take pleasure in killing them. But if that were true, the gazelle would just stand quietly while the lion breaks its neck. No, when it comes to death, what separates us from our cousins isn't the capacity to imagine and dread it. The difference is choice.”

Mary looked around at her, returned to herself, willing eyes and mind into focus. Rachel was regarding her with a gaze shadowed with sorrow, but there was no recognition of defeat in it. “Choice is the measure of our humanity, Mary. Death is inevitable, but until it becomes imminent, we still have a choice. We can choose to die, or we can choose to live. I can't give you any reason why you should go on hoping or living, or why I should. The time may come when I'll know, one way or the other. But I'm not ready to surrender yet. And you're wrong about one thing: this winter
will
end. I've read the TTAPS report. I don't know what kind of spring will follow, or whether we can survive until spring comes. But I intend to find out. That's my
choice
.”

She stopped then, as if there were no more to be said, and denial clamored in Mary's mind. She sat mute, trying to shape it into words, to forge her despair into arguments. The wind howled in the waiting darkness, while she shivered with cold.

But the arguments melted like snow in her hands.

Choice.

She became aware of the sensation of a smile, something she'd never expected to feel again. It was a fragile sensation besieged by grief, but she held on to it, called it hope. Her eyes were suddenly blurred, and at last the tears came, and she welcomed them. She reached out, embraced Rachel, and together they wept, together they acknowledged their grief and fear and hope.

How long they wept in each other's arms, Mary didn't know, but finally she drew away, said, “I promise you, Rachel, I won't surrender, either.”

Rachel nodded, then cleared her throat and rose to tend the fire. “If you'll look on the shelves at the foot of the stairs, you'll find a case of bourbon. I think this is the time to open one of those bottles.”

Mary came to her feet stiffly as if she hadn't moved in hours, and perhaps she hadn't. While Rachel added more wood to the fire, Mary searched for the bourbon with a flashlight. At length, they sat facing the renewed fire, each with a mug half-full of smoky-flavored whiskey. Sparky leapt up on the hassock behind them, while Shadow sat again at Rachel's knee, and now Rachel offered her the reassurance of her hand gentle on her head.

Mary sipped at the whiskey, savored the warmth of it. “Rachel, there must be other survivors somewhere.”

“I'm sure there are. Somewhere.”

“And there must be some vestiges of the government left. They'll find us, or we'll find them sooner or later.”

Rachel shook her head. “A government, maybe. Not the old U.S. of A. That government was already foundering. It won't survive this.”

Mary took another swallow of whiskey and grimaced. At the beginning of this day she wouldn't have recognized the truth in that, but she did now. “The Bill of Rights, the Constitution—damn, to lose them, to lose the
ideas
. . .”

“Maybe they won't all be lost. A great deal survived the last dark age. The Renaissance was built on it.”

“But this time . . .” She couldn't yet assimilate the scope of this dark age.

Rachel said dully, “This time will be unimaginably worse—for humankind, for all the species of animals and plants that will be wiped out in this frozen holocaust.” She closed her eyes. “But I can't deal with that now. I can only deal with our survival. Someday maybe I can deal with what's lost and what can be saved. Not yet.”

Mary watched the flow of the flames, listened to the moan of the wind in the chimney. The seeds of a commitment had been planted, but had not yet germinated. She was only sure of two things: they had survived, and they had chosen to continue to survive.

No. They had chosen to
try
to survive.

I
t's only four days short of May, and April seems determined to depart in clouds and rain. But the rain has stopped now—at least, temporarily—leaving only the clouds, and I revel in their soft, gray light, in the rich scents of wet earth and grass. Shadow runs ahead as I walk through the north pasture with my moccasin boots and wool skirt shaking rainwater off the grass, and the pasture is vividly green, powdered with pink clover blossoms, humming with bees.

At this time of day, just after midday meal, all the women are busy in the kitchen, except for Esther. She's at the firepit in the open shed behind the house tending the kettle of fat she's rendering for soap. The fitful wind occasionally brings the stink of it to me. I expected to help with the soap making, as I usually do, but I was told I wasn't needed.

Miriam made that pronouncement, of course.

I wonder if she thinks I believe she was concerned for my advanced years. She's simply trying to isolate me from the family. Since Stephen's whipping, she's done nothing to rock the familial boat, no doubt recognizing that our Elder is still too much my ally. Or, as Miriam would put it, too much under my evil influence. But she has other options open to her.

Yes, I must gird my loins for battle. Rachel used to say, “And the voice of unreason is heard in the land.” That was before the End, when the voice was a roar heard all over the world. Now my world has shrunk to a few square miles, but the voice of unreason is still heard here. I'm getting too old to lose another battle. I've lost too many.

I stop and look up at the Knob, at the vault snugged into its slope. Perhaps I haven't lost all of them.

At length, I turn and continue toward the east fence. The chunk of axes biting into wood comes in an odd, syncopated rhythm from that direction. Just beyond the fence, Jerry, Stephen, and Jonathan are felling trees, which will not only clear a space to enlarge the pasture, but supply us with heat next winter.

Stephen and Jonathan see me and shout hellos, but they pause only briefly. They're chopping at small hemlocks, while Jerry notches a tall spruce. The long, two-man crosscut saw waits nearby, and I frown at that. The spruce is probably three centuries old, its branches as thick as the trunks of the trees the boys are cutting. If Jerry must be rid of it, he'd do better to cut the branches and leave it a snag that would cast no shade, rather than risk breaking the crosscut saw. We have a dozen smaller saws, but no replacement for the big one.

In so many ways we live off the past. Already, Jerry is using a bow and arrows for hunting. There's still some ammunition for the guns, but he's saving that. I'm not sure what for. For the same reason he's saving the dynamite, I suppose.

His arrowheads come from Rachel's collection of Indian artifacts.

Jerry props his ax against the spruce and walks to the fence to meet me; he smells of sweat and damp leather. “How are you, Mary?”

“Better than I have any right to be, probably. I'm sorry I didn't think to bring you some water.”

He wipes his sleeve across his forehead. “Well, it's not that far to the creek. I . . . I'm glad to get a chance to talk to you.”

Shadow lopes up to greet Jerry, but when she starts under the fence to see the boys, I call her back sharply. I don't want her getting in the way of their arcing blades. She sits, reluctantly, at my command.

“What is it you want to talk to me about, Jerry?”

He's not anxious to begin, whatever it is. He leans against the fence post, frowning. “Well, last night, when Miriam was on her way upstairs for a visitation, Jonathan—” Jerry looks around as if to be sure his son can't hear him. “Jonathan asked Miriam if . . . if she was going to
copulate
with me.”

Jerry, who casually discusses the women's visitations, blushes at the word
copulate
, and I find that annoying. I say nothing, waiting for him to go on.

“Anyway, Miriam was upset. She asked him where he'd heard about such things, and he said—he said
you
taught him about . . . sex.”

I'm past annoyance now, nearing anger. “Yes, I talked to him about sex, and I showed him a physiology text. Jerry, he's fourteen years old. He asked me about sex, and I answered him. I always answer the children's questions if I can.”

He sighs. “I think this is one question you shouldn't answer.”

“Then who
will
answer it? Don't make a taboo of sex, Jerry. It's a vital part of life. Besides, the children are fully aware of all aspects of the reproductive cycle. They see it every day in the animals.”

“But that's not the
same
. Anyway, it's up to a boy's father to answer questions like that.”

“What makes you more qualified than I to explain human reproduction to Jonathan? At this point
he
knows more about it than you do.” I pull myself up short. Jerry is insulted and hurt, and that wasn't my intention. Still, I can't refrain from inquiring, “Are you going to explain the menarche to Little Mary and Deborah and Rachel when they're old enough to ask questions about that?”

He says stubbornly, “It's a mother's place to tell her daughters about . . . such things.”

I take time for a deep breath. “Jerry, I just don't like to have
any
subject put out of the children's reach. I don't care what it is.”

“I know, and as far as I'm concerned, it's not that important. But it is important to Miriam, and she said she'd bring it up in the family meeting next Sunday. It'd mean a lot of argument and bad feeling.”

I don't believe his professed lack of concern. Besides, it's the principle here that's important, not the subject of sex—the principle that children should have their questions answered. But he's right about one thing: if Miriam brings this up at the weekly family meeting, it
will
mean argument and bad feelings, and we're too small a group to tolerate dissension.

“It's blackmail, Jerry, and that's a very dangerous game.”

He looks at me blankly. “It's what?”

He doesn't know the word
blackmail
or its implications. “Never mind. All right, I'll give in on this point, but I do it with misgivings. Just don't ask me to limit my curriculum, such as it is, further.”

He grins with relief. “Don't worry, Mary. Thanks. We
have
to keep peace in the family. You understand that.”

“Yes, I understand, Jerry.” And I understand something that wouldn't make sense to him if I pointed it out to him: Miriam is testing him, testing her power. Testing me.

And I realize wearily that I've lost this skirmish.

But there will be others.

“It's time for Stephen's lesson, isn't it?” Jerry glances at Stephen, who is hurling the ax blade into the trunk of a hemlock. “I'll send him to the house when he's finished with that tree.”

Does Jerry think he's throwing me a bone with that? If he hadn't brought up Stephen's lesson, I would have. That's why I came here in the first place.

No, he just thinks he's keeping peace in the family.

The rain has resumed. I'm sitting at the table in the living room, a book of the poems of Emily Dickinson open before me as I look out at the gray sky, gray sea, gray silhouettes of trees. The rain collects on the roof and falls in streams like a glass-beaded curtain. I like the gray of this kind of day, this kind of gentle, nurturing rain, but such days make me think of hourglasses and clepsydras, and how we might build them, because our only clock—other than the Seth Thomas, which can't keep ticking indefinitely—is the sun, and it's hidden today.

But in fact the family gets along very well without knowing exactly what time it is. We count years, months, weeks, and days. We may talk about hours—and I use that term more than the others do—but it's a vague designation. Minutes and seconds have no place in our lives. And I remember once reading about a division of time called an attosecond; when it was written out, the decimal point was followed by seventeen zeros, followed by a one.

“Good day, Mary.”

Stephen is standing beside me, his hands freshly scrubbed. I motion to the chair at the end of the table. “Sit down, Stephen. How are you?”

“I'm fine,” he replies absently, eyeing the open book. “What's that you're reading?”

“Emily Dickinson. We haven't studied any of her poems in school yet, but we will.” I offer him the book. “Would you like a preview?”

“Yes, I'd like that.”

“Take it, then. Oh—I'll need it tomorrow. Mary wanted to know about Emily Dickinson. Maybe you could read it with her in the evening. She needs some extra help with her reading.”

He seems pleased at that. “I'll help her anytime she wants. Why was she interested in this woman?”

“Because of our cat. I hadn't thought about the names of the animals as teaching aids. Now I'm waiting for someone to ask about Falstaff.” Then I add: “But our Emily isn't the first of the pets here named after Emily Dickinson. Rachel and I named Shadow's first pup Emily.”

He leans forward, arms folded on the table, and I am again gratified to see the glint of curiosity in his black eyes. “When did Shadow have her first litter?”

“In November, about two months after the End. She had a litter of five, but only three were bom alive.” The gray of the sky seems to turn melancholy with the memory. “One pup looked perfect, but it was born dead. The other was pitifully malformed—stubs of legs, not even slits over its eyes. I buried them next to Topaz. I took a flashlight and a shovel and went out into a howling night and dug through the snow into the frozen earth. And that wasn't the last grave I dug for the pups. Even our little Emily died that winter. None of the first litter survived.”

“Oh.” He lets his breath out in a sigh. “Can you . . . would you mind telling me about the Long Winter?”

The Long Winter. Luke called it that. I don't think Rachel and I had a name for it, other than nuclear winter. Or simply, with a little emphasis on the article,
the
winter.

I lean back, look out at the beaded curtains of warm, greening rain. “Yes, I'll tell you about it, Stephen. It's part of the Chronicle.” “When are you going to start writing it?”

I touch the small, black portfolio on the table. “I've already begun. At night, while you're sound asleep. Only a few pages so far.” Too few. My time is getting short.

“Can I read it?”

“When I've finished, yes. I'm writing it for you, Stephen.” I don't give him time to question that. “The Long Winter. Well, it was bitterly, miserably cold, a constant twilight in the daytime, starless and moonless black at night, and the air smelled like . . . rotten smoke. It was . . .”

He waits for me to go on, then: “What, Mary?”

“Terrible. Terrifying.” I reach for the diary on the table, but keep it closed for now. “We had to live in the basement. I still don't like to go down there, although Esther and Miriam have made it very pleasant. And we wouldn't have survived without it or without the extra provisions and supplies we'd bought. Or without scavenging. Looting. We went to the houses near us that hadn't been burned, and we looted them of food, tools, clothing, medicine—anything that might be useful. Of course, Rachel always took any books she found.”

“That's not really looting,” Stephen objects. I mean, you weren't stealing from people.”

“No. There was no one to steal from. Not around here.”

“What happened to them?”

“Some were killed in the fires and road gang attacks immediately after the End. Some died of the cold. And some of those who lived through the first weeks joined in groups in the hope that they could better survive together, like at the Greenly farm. It was about five miles up the Coho River. Rachel used to trade rabbits and honey for Aldo Greenly's hay. She said if anyone could survive, it would be Aldo Greenly. He'd made a career of hardy subsistence.”

Stephen asks hesitantly, “But he . . . didn't survive?”

“No.” I shake my head slowly. “Nor his wife, his two sons, and their wives and children. Nor the other two families that had moved in with them. One of them brought Lassa to the farm.”

“It really
was
a plague, wasn't it?”

“Well, it certainly was here. Maybe there were places it hadn't reached before the End. I don't know. I'll
never
know. There's so
much
I'll never know.”

“Maybe someday . . .” But he seems to recognize the unlikelihood of such a someday. “When did you and Rachel go to the Greenly farm?”

“Not until November. I wanted to go before that. I was sure we'd find survivors there, but a trek of ten miles round-trip had become an expedition. The weather was so hellish. The storms that came in off the ocean were vicious, half hurricanes, half blizzards. Some days we couldn't even get to the barn, not until we rigged guide ropes. Between storms, we went scavenging, but even on one of those trips, we nearly got lost when a storm came up suddenly. Both of us had frostbite.”