House Made of Dawn (12 page)

 

Abel's face was cut and broken, and there was a burning at his eyes, a terrible irritation at the corners of his eyes, and he wanted to bring his hands to them. The pain jarred him wide awake. One of his eyes opened a little, and through the slit he could see his hands; they were twisted and mangled, the thumbs splayed back and broken at the joints. He could remember that each of his thumbs had been slowly, almost gently, twisted inward to the palms until the bone above the first knuckle was screwed tight into the joint and at last the ball of the bone was sprung from the socket with a loud popping sound. His hands were black with blood and huge with swelling, like rubber gloves. The fog thickened about him until he could no longer see even his hands. He had the sense that his whole body was shaking violently, tossing and whipping, flopping like a fish. Then he realized that beyond the pain of his broken body he was cold, colder than he had ever been before. He tried to cry out, but only a hoarse rattle and wheezing came from his throat.

 

Sometimes he would go to fat Josie after his mother died, and fat Josie would speak kindly to him or give him sweet things to eat. And when no one else was there she would make faces and carry on like an idiot, trying to make him laugh. He was a child who did not laugh, and fat Josie had no children of her own, only the daughter who was grown and lived away in the city. Francisco clicked his tongue and said that his grandsons ought to be left alone, but fat Josie just lifted her leg and broke wind, sneering the old man away. And the children huddled against her and laid their heads on her great brown arms. And the week after Vidal was buried, Abel went to her for the last time as a child, and Francisco never knew. She crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue and danced around the kitchen on her huge bare feet, snorting and breaking wind like a horse. She carried her enormous breasts in her hands, and they spilled over and bobbed and swung about like water bags, and her great haunches quivered and heaved, straining against her ancient, greasy dress, and her broad shining face was cracked in a wonderfully stupid, fourteeth-missing grin, and all the while tears were streaming from her eyes.

 

Milly?

He was afraid. He heard the sea breaking, saw shadowy shapes in the swirling fog, and he was afraid. He had always been afraid. Forever at the margin of his mind there was something to be afraid of, something to fear. He did not know what it was, but it was always there, real, imminent, unimaginable.

 

“He was not afraid, no, sir,” Bowker said. Abel was listening to him, self-conscious, growing angry and confused that this white man should talk about him, account for him, as if he were not there.

“Mitch—I mean Corporal Rate—and me were dug in on the side of thirteen, and we could see south along the ridge. The
shelling had stopped a little while before and Corporal Rate and Private Marshall and me were the only ones to get out—except for
him
, I mean—and, hell, we didn't even know he was still alive. He must have been knocked out. Well, sir, Marshall, he got ahead of Mitch and me. He went on over the top of thirteen, and Mitch—Corporal Rate—and me dug in when we heard the tank coming up. We could see both sides of the ridge, sir. That tank was just zigzagging up to the ridge slow and easy, just cleaning up, sir. Reconnaissance. I had the glasses on it. Well, I was studying that mother pretty hard, and pretty soon Mitch, he punched me and pointed down the hill. It was him, sir, the chief, and he was moving around. He had raised up and was looking at the ridge, looking for that tank, sir. Jesus, that's the first we knew of him being alive. Everybody else was dead, see, and that tank was just cleaning up, making sure. Anyway, he was just coming to, I guess, and that tank was at the ridge. Jesus, sir. Well, he put his head down at the last minute and played dead. We didn't know if they had seen him or not, and, Jesus, that tank hitched over and it was coming right down on him, it looked like. But they
hadn't
seen him, and it went on by, about as close as it could without running over him.
Jesus!
Mitch—Corporal Rate—he swore and I was holding my breath. And that's when the chief here got up, sir. Oh Jesus, he just all of a sudden got up and started jumping around and
yelling
at that goddam tank, and it was maybe thirty, forty yards is all down the hill. Oh Jesus, sir. He was giving it the finger and whooping it up and doing a goddam
war dance
, sir. Me and Mitch, we just groaned. We couldn't
believe
what was going on. And here
he
was, hopping around with his finger up in the air and giving it to that tank in Sioux or Algonquin or something, for crissake. And he didn't have no weapon or helmet even. And, sir, that goddam tank all of a sudden crunched down and bounced—yes, sir,
bounced
, actually bounced to a stop—and they all started shooting at him,
pop, pop, ping, ping, pow!
Jesus, we could see the leaves kicking up all around him, and him whooping it up like a—like a—I don't know what, sir. Yes, sir, clapping
whoops from his mouth just like in the movies—and all the time that finger was up theirs, sir. Then finally he took off through the trees kind of crazy and casual like,
dancing!
He would kind of dodge around, then let out a whoop and do a goddam two-step or something and light out again, giving it to them behind and underhand, and them goddam bullets going
pop, pop, ping, ping, pow
. Oh Jesus, sir.
Jesus
!”

 

Milly?

Oh God, his hands hurt.

There was a black hole in the fog, and for a moment the light above the loading dock receded and became a point, sharp and minute and far away; and then the swirling fog closed over it again and it drew close like the moon and began to throb.

 

And they were getting close to the river, and a cloud drew across the face of the moon and the center of the cloud was lead gray and full of dark patches like smoke and they also moved across the moon, and the edge of the cloud was silver and sharp and billowing even as it moved across the throbbing November moon. And other, elongated clouds hung out against the sky, the near ones moving like drift on the water, and the dunes were glowing faintly, almost vibrating with low light. He crept along behind his brother, bending low and weaving after him through the brush-covered dunes, going silently on the cold ripples of sand. And Vidal took smaller, higher steps as they approached the water and held the gleaming shotgun ready, perfectly balanced and slightly away from his body. Downriver, in an angle of the black land, Abel could see the moonlight glistening on the broad curve of the river and hear beyond the rise of the dunes the lapping of the water. Then Vidal, without looking around, motioned for him to be still; he crouched and waited. They were at the base of a long drift, the opposite side of which sloped gently down to the riverbank. Vidal got down on his stomach and crawled on his elbows and knees to the top of the drift. He
motioned again, and Abel followed. From the top of the drift they could see a good stretch of the river; at the far reaches it gleamed and glittered like crumpled foil, but directly below it was black and invisible, for there was a long thicket of willows and tamarack on the opposite bank. There were narrows upstream, where the river branched around a bar of rocks and reeds. And just beyond, where the streams converged, there was the faintest quiver on the moonlit water, a dance of lights against the black hills in the distance. Then Abel held his breath. The gleam of metal caught his eye, and he saw Vidal taking aim into the darkness. He flinched in anticipation of the shot and searched the river below. He could see nothing at first. But even before the gun roared, the black water shattered and crawled. The gray geese, twenty-four of them, broke from the river, lowly, steadily on the rise of sound, straining to take hold on the air. Their effort was so great that they seemed for a time to hang beating in the willows, helplessly huge and frantic. But one after another they rose southward on their great thrashing wings, trailing bright beads of water in their wake. Then they were away, and he had seen how they craned their long slender necks to the moon, ascending slowly into the far reaches of the winter night. They made a dark angle of the sky, acute, perfect; and for one moment they lay out like an omen on the bright fringe of a cloud.

Did you see? Oh, they were beautiful! Oh Vidal, Oh my brother, did you see?

An awful stillness returned on the water, and without looking away Vidal pointed. Abel could barely see it then, the dark shape floating away in the blackness. And when he waded after it, the current was slow and steady and there was no sound on the river. The bird held still in the cold black water, watching him. He was afraid, but the bird made no move, no sound. He took it up in his hands and it was heavy and warm and the feathers about its keel were hot and sticky with blood. He carried it out into the moonlight, and its bright black eyes, in which no
terror was, were wide of him, wide of the river and the land, level and hard upon the ring of the moon in the southern sky.

Milly?

The moon and the water bird.

Milly?

What, honey? What is it?

Oh Milly oh God the pain my hands my hands are broken
.

He tried to open the other eye, both eyes wide, but he could not. He stared into the blackness that pressed upon and within him. The backs of his eyelids were black and murky like the fog; microscopic shapes, motes and bits of living thread floated obliquely down, were buoyed up again, and vanished in the great gulf of his blindness. He did not know how to tell of his pain; it was beyond his power to name and assimilate.

Oh Milly the water birds were beautiful I wish you could have seen them I wanted my brother to see them they were flying high and far away in the night sky and there was a full white moon and a ring around the moon and the clouds were long and bright and moving fast and my brother was alive and the water birds were so far away in the south and I wanted him to see them they were beautiful and please I said please did you see them how they pointed with their heads to the moon and flew through the ring of the moon
….

“Milly?”

“Yes, honey.”

“Did you like it, Milly? It was good again, wasn't it, Milly?”

“Oh honey, I liked it.”

“I'm going out tomorrow, Milly. I'm going to look for a job.”

“You bet. You'll find a good job if you keep looking. Sometimes it's hard.”

“I'm going to find one tomorrow, Milly. You'll see.”

“I know it, honey.”

“Listen, I'm going to get a good job, and Saturday or Sunday you and me and Ben, let's go to the beach, O.K.?”

“Oh yes, I hope so.”

“It was good again, Milly.”

“It was lovely. I love you.”

They made love in the afternoons when she came home early from work. Sometimes he wasn't there when she came in, and she knew that he was drunk again, sick, in trouble maybe. Then she kept still and waited for the night, and when it came she listened to music or ironed clothes or went to the movies. And afterward she undressed and got into bed and lay very still in the dark, listening. And at such times she was very lonely and afraid, and she wanted to cry. But she did not cry.

And somewhere beyond the cold and the fog and the pain there was the black and infinite sea, bending to the moon, and there was the cold white track of the moon on the water. And far out in the night where nothing else was, the fishes lay out in the black waters, holding still against all the force and motion of the sea; or close to the surface, darting and rolling and spinning like lures, they played in the track of the moon. And far away inland there were great gray migrant geese riding under the moon
.

She had been in Los Angeles four years, and in all that time she had not talked to anyone. There were people all around; she knew them, worked with them—sometimes they would not leave her alone—but she did not talk to them, tell them anything that mattered in the least. She greeted them and joked with them and wished them well, and then she withdrew and lived her life. No one knew what she thought or felt or who she was.

And one day he was there by her door, waiting for her. It was a hot, humid afternoon and the streets were full of people when she walked home. And he was waiting for her. They had not known each other very long, and he was still full of shyness. He was waiting for her, glad just to see her, and she knew it. He was saying something, trying to tell her why he had come; and suddenly she realized how lonely they both were, how unspeakably lonely. She began to shake her head and bite her lip, and the tears rolled down her cheeks and she made no sound except that now and then she had to catch her breath, crying as an old person
cries. And through her tears she saw all his confusion and alarm, how pitifully funny he was, and she had to let go of all the sobbing laughter that was in her—and later on, when their desire was spent, a little of the pain.

I was a dirty child with yellow hair and thin little arms and legs that were big at the joints. I didn't wear shoes, and the soles of my feet were hard and cracked and black with dirt. I could run like a rabbit. Once, when Daddy was fencing off a lot behind the barn, I ran into a strand of barbed wire and cut myself deep across the chest. Here, give me your hand. These are the scars, almost invisible now—the skin is shinier and a little lighter in color, that's all—and if you lift or squeeze me there so that the skin is relaxed, tiny ridges form in the scars. There are little blue and purple veins beneath the scars, blue mostly. Isn't it funny how the veins go here and there, back and forth, all over, all over?

The earth where we lived was hard and dry and brick red, and Daddy plowed and planted and watered the land, but in the end there was only a little yield. And it was the same year after year after year; it was always the same, and at last Daddy began to hate the land, began to think of it as some kind of enemy, his own very personal and deadly enemy. I remember he came in from the fields at evening, having been beaten by the land, and he said nothing. He never said anything; he just sat down and thought about his enemy. And sometimes his eyes grew wide and his mouth fell open in disbelief, as if all at once he knew, knew that he had tried everything and failed, and there was nothing left to do but sit there in wonder of his enemy's strength. And every day before dawn he went to the fields without hope, and I watched him, sometimes saw him at sunrise, far away in the empty land, very small on the skyline, turning to stone even as he moved up and down the rows
.