The Self-Enchanted (22 page)

S
he stood at the window watching the snow falling. It had begun an hour ago.

She was alone in the living-room, with a fire in the fireplace casting long flickering shadows across the floor. She had seen the black storm-head pour out of the break in the mountains and had watched it with regret. For a week it had been oddly sunny, with that hard, cold, comfortless sunlight of winter which can burn but not comfort. All nature was scraped clean, ready to receive the snow. But until now there had been no snow: there had only been a whirring in the air.

She rubbed her arms and leaned her forehead against the window. She heard the crackling of the air, and
sliding
open one of the windows, looked out over the edge of the terrace and caught sight of the broken balustrade below. For a moment her father’s figure flashed across her memory and then faded away.

The snow, which had been falling with a purring grace, thickened, dashing edgewise towards the house. Suddenly it was all around her, on her hands, her dress, and her hair, dissolving as it touched her flesh. The flakes were small and pure and white. Reluctantly she turned and went back to the room, pulling the sliding window shut
behind her. The snow had darkened the room. Outside the world was a twisting white blur.

Christopher was sitting propped up beside the fire, and he had dressed. She asked him what he was doing out of bed.

“I felt better. I wanted to watch the snow.”

“You should have called me.”

She went over and sat down beside him, curling up to him, and he put his arms around her. They watched the snow billow up and down, whirling about in space, but always falling, thicker, thinner, faster, slower, dissolving, falling. Behind them a log sank into the fire, in a shower of red sparks.

“You should have a doctor and a nurse,” she said.

“There’s nothing they can do for me.”

“But when you get worse….”

“I won’t get worse. I feel better up here.” He sighed and reached out for a poker to poke up the fire. He jabbed at it with short, vicious stabs.

They sat there for a long time. At about five the snow began to thin out. Slowly, too slowly, the mists drove into one another and suddenly broke, blown two ways by the wind. The mountains towered into the blue sky.

Christopher got up. “Come out on to the terrace,” he said.

She rose and followed him. He pushed back the door and stepped outside. She saw him glance briefly at the broken balustrade, and then he shifted his gaze to the mountains. In that cleared air they seemed breathtakingly close and they were dusted with the winter’s first snow, that clung on their ridges and shelves. Only the
evergreens
provided a bluish-green touch of colour. The rest
of the world was granite, snow, and sky. The mountains looked alive. Christopher stared up at them, almost as though in prayer.

“Is it very difficult to get up there?” he asked.

“It’s not a good idea in winter.”

“But it can be done?”

“There’s an easy trail, but a storm may blow up at any time.”

He sighed wistfully. “I’d like to get up there just once.”

“We could do it in the spring. You can rent packs in the valley,” she said soothingly.

“What is it like?”

“Cold and clear and beautiful. There’s a big lake up there. In the winter the pressure ridges get twenty feet high.”

“Have you seen them?”

“Yes.”

“It must be quite a sight,” he said. He stood
motionless
, still gazing up at them, his face almost luminous. “They make me feel strong,” he muttered. “I shall get up there.” The wind whipped his hair around his face. “Go in if you like. I’d like to stay here for a while.”

“You’ll catch your death of cold.”

“Please,” he said.

She hesitated, and then left him, going inside and
pulling
the door across behind her. She could see him through the glass, almost indistinct against the mountains, except when he moved. He stayed out there for an hour, and when he came in he had taken a chill.

She put him to bed. She gave him some seconal, and he appeared to go to sleep. She stayed in his room, all the
same, until she saw that he really was sleeping. He had developed the cunning of the extremely ill.

She could not rest. She knew that he was planning something. Unable to keep awake, she turned off the light, put up the fire screen, and went to her room. She lay in bed, staring out into the darkness, at the mountains which seemed half-living shapes. Then she snapped on the light and the room leaped into another life, cold, clinical and precise. She went in to take a last look at Christopher.

He was lying sprawled across the bed, the bed-clothes twisted beneath him, but he seemed to be asleep. She kissed him, and going back to her own room, took a bromide and waited for it to take effect. At last she felt her eyelids granulating, and she closed them, too tired to fight against the darkness any longer.

She woke up hearing him scream, and ran into his room. It was dark, and she switched on the light. He reared at her, his face changed and shrunken. The
bed-clothes
slithered to the floor like snakes. He was naked and bathed in sweat and his jaw was locked, as he tried not to make a sound. She was used to this now. She dashed into the bathroom and rooted among the bottles until she found the morphine tablets. She grabbed them, and running the faucet full force, got a glass of water. She could feel him shuddering as he tried to swallow. She put the glass on the table beside his bed, and he lurched across her, bearing her down, digging his hands into the small of her back. She felt herself borne down into darkness, as he held her tighter.

In an hour he seemed a little better.

“I’m sending for a doctor,” she said at last. “I’ll do it anyway, whether you want me to or not.”

He let go of her and turned over on his back, staring up at the ceiling. “Very well,” he said.

“There’s nothing else to do, Christopher.”

“I’ve agreed.”

She felt on the verge of hysterics, but he had shut her out. She went back to her own room.

At seven-thirty she got dressed and went to the kitchen. Mrs. Oland, the cook, was already up, and there was a pot of coffee on the stove. She got a cup and poured
herself
some. Then she went into the library, closing the door after her, and sat for a long time in front of the phone. She picked it up and got the girl to get her long distance, glancing nervously at the closed doors. Then it was done, and guiltily she put down the phone and left the room.

Christopher was sitting facing the library doors. He was wearing a robe, and his legs stuck out from under it absurdly. He was in his bare feet.

“The doctor?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I refuse,” he said. “I told you that.” He looked at her bleakly out of waiting eyes. She could not stand the look in those eyes.

“I’m going for a walk,” she said. She went to her
bedroom
and got a coat. When she looked into the
living-room
on her way out he was still sitting in the chair, but she knew that he knew she was watching him. He was gazing out at the mountains, still mantled in the first winter snow.

“I’ll be back in half an hour,” she said. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

“Quite sure.”

She let herself out the front door and into the snow. She plodded up the hill towards a line of trees, realizing that he had wanted her out of the house. She trudged
upwards
, her legs aching, and entered the trees, brushing against the boughs, which the snow’s moisture had turned as gentle as feathers. Going a little way into the wood she sat down on a stump. A branch sprang up, scattering a flurry of snow into the air. She watched it fall noiselessly to earth.

Then she had the feeling that something was happening at the house. She got up wearily, brushing herself off, and went back through the trees until she could see the blue and purple mountains against the sky. In the clear light they looked cruel and impassive. It was the first of November. She came to a rise of ground, and looked down, not believing her eyes.

Christopher’s black car was standing outside the door. She broke into a run, floundering down the hillside. She saw him come out of the house and get into the car.

“Christopher!” she called desperately, half-falling in the snow, her feet catching in the slush. He paid no
attention
. She heard the motor start up and ran faster. She came up to the car, wrenching the door open. “
Christopher
, what in God’s name are you doing?”

“Get in,” he said.

“You’re in no condition to drive.”

“Get in or I’m going without you.”

She got in and he shoved the car into gear. The wheels caught at the snow, and then turned, and in a flurry of skidding he began to head for the road.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll
see.’

“Let me drive, you’ll kill yourself.”

In answer he only stepped on the gas. Slithering this way and that, they plummeted downhill, narrowly
escaping
the edge of the cliff. Christopher cursed tautly,
swinging
the wheel, until they skidded out on to the valley road at the bottom of the hill. He turned towards the narrow end of the valley. She looked at the road, afraid to look at him. He drove desperately, and swung the car off the road, bumping up a series of ruts half-buried in snow.

“This is Tatum’s,” she said.

“I know. That’s what I wanted.”

“Christopher, you’re not going up the mountain.”

He was silent.

She looked out and saw a pack of mules, saddled and waiting, their breaths visible in the cold air. Tatum and his son stood on the porch, looking anxiously towards the car.

“Nobody goes up in this weather. It will kill you.”

“Do you think I care?” he asked. He threw on the brakes and the car stopped close to the mules. He opened the door and got out, lurching into a drift.

“They won’t take you up. There may be a storm. They’ll refuse.”

“Not for five hundred bucks they won’t, and that’s what I offered them.”

“When?”

“While you were out.”

She followed him through the snow. “You can’t go up there dressed like that.”

“There’re clothes for both of us in the car.”

“Christopher, it will kill you,” she said again.

“I’ve
got to go up there, and I’m going. You can stay or come as you choose.”

She saw that he meant it. He plodded ahead of her towards the steps of the house, and helpless, she followed him.

H
e rode on ahead of her, silent and grim.

He was sitting on the oldest of the mules, intent on getting forward. On up ahead of him, as they wound backwards and forwards on the trail, she saw the Tatum boy and his father. They had reached a sharp “U” bend in the trail, so that she could watch them opposite her. Christopher was out of sight behind a tree.

Tatum and her father had been enemies. Even now Tatum did not like to talk to her and avoided her. Since she had married Christopher she had noticed the way in which the valley people kept out of her way. The mule jogged beneath her, ambling slowly along. They had been climbing for an hour and had yet
to reach that turn-in where the trail, going across a little bridge, zig-zagged up the cliff face. She looked behind her, a thousand feet down to the valley floor. In the distance, small as a box, she could see Tatum’s house. She glanced the other way, at Christopher’s back, uncompromising and inexpressive, as he came out of the copse of trees directly opposite her. From the way he sat she judged that he had never been on a mule before.

The sky was deep blue, cluttered with wispy stationary clouds. She prayed that the weather would hold. Turning
another bend, they came out on a spur of rock shaded by one twisted tree, and saw below them the whole valley and the desert beyond it, sharp, clear, and precise. Across the valley, on its cliff, stood the house. She urged her mule on and caught up with Christopher, who was gazing behind him at the house.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Not so bad. Is it like this all the way up?”

She glanced to the right and saw the cliff face, its trail barely visible. “We go up there,” she said, “and then the worst is over. It’s only another five hundred feet before we come out on the level again.”

“The top?”

“Almost the top. There’s a meadow about ten miles long.” She hesitated. “You won’t turn back?”

“Nothing will happen to me up here,” he said. “But I’m afraid I wasn’t cut out for riding mules.” He nodded forward. “How do you like our guides?”

“I used to know Tatum when I was a child.”

“He thinks I’m mad. I guess he figures anyone can be mad for five hundred bucks. You should have seen his face when I handed him the cheque.” He faced the mule up the trail, and she dropped behind him again, watching his back. He was holding himself suspiciously straight. She could see his breath puff out in the frozen air in short, staccato waves.

They clattered over a half-broken wooden bridge across some falls. There was no water now, only the wet trickle of the damp rock. Then they went to the left, coming out of the trees on to the narrow trail that edged up the cliff itself. The mules slowed down. Far below her Sally could see the spear-shaped tops of the trees. She heard
Christopher
suck in his breath, and told him not to look down.

He did not answer. The mules ahead had reached the first switchback. The cold air smote her face. Looking up, she saw the mules from beneath, feeling out the ground. She saw Christopher, or rather, his legs. He was holding on to the pummel of his saddle with both hands. She could hear her mule breathing and looked at her watch. It was ten-forty-five. Another hour and they would be at the top.

The mules ahead disappeared. She tried not to look down and told herself that this stretch would only go on for half an hour. She came out on a shelf of rock and saw the other mules, moving more rapidly now, crossing the shelf. They had reached the dam at the top of the cliff. The mules clattered over the rock, making for a clump of trees beside the dam. She caught up with the others.

“God,” said Christopher, and his voice resounded, shattering the glassy air. He sat on his mule, staring ahead of him, and he was satisfied. They faced a beachless expanse of black water, perhaps half a mile wide and a little longer, hemmed in by sheer cliffs and rock slides. At the far end was another and larger dam. To the right a trail led up to it across a rough surface of pebbles and small stones. There was snow on the ground. The water looked icy and vicious. A row-boat rode at anchor, tied to a bleached log. On its seat was a thin crust of snow. The air was both singularly still and singularly alive, with a restless, wild movement that was hard to define. There was no vegetation here.

“Up there?” asked Christopher, looking up at the dam.

“Yes.” Sally glanced upward anxiously, but could see no clouds. She breathed a sigh of relief.

Once more they started forward. Christopher rode on ahead, and she saw that he wanted to be alone. He seemed relaxed and silent. Every once in a while he would gaze down into the sheer crypt of the lake they were leaving, and then turn his face upward, to where an edge of blue showed the top of the climb. One of the mules slipped and stumbled, sending a shower of rock down the incline. In a few seconds they heard the stones fall into the water below with a heavy, muffled splash.

It was noon when they reached the top of the second dam, and rounding a corner, saw the whole panorama of the High Sierra encircling them. They were standing on a bluff eighty feet above the second lake. Though the lower lake had been barren of any vegetation, there were stands of timber here.

“I’ve made it,” said Christopher, and stopped, looking eagerly across the mountains. It was almost a shout of vindication and triumph. She drew rein beside him.

Behind the second dam there stretched an unruffled lake perhaps ten or fifteen miles long and widening out until it vanished into sheltered coves. The ice had scarcely formed on it. but the water was black. Beyond its farther shore tiers of rock rose upward to a higher plateau, streams of frozen water running down them, and the spruce, which were tall trees, rose no higher than the crest of the tiers themselves.

Christopher slid from his mule and clambered up the hillside to get a clearer view. Sally followed him. From there she could see a vast mouldering plain in the
distance
, green and yellow against its stone, a frozen river meandering through it; and beyond that, still more peaks, rising one behind the other, and capped with blue snow.
The sky itself seemed to tremble in the clear atmosphere, and was delicately shaded up to the azure dome of air directly above their heads.

“This is what I had to see,” said Christopher, “It’s so still.”

And it was still, a curiously living stillness, a hush of living grass and rock and trees, not the sound of animals or people being quiet. There was no wind. Scarcely a branch stirred. It was a stillness beyond life, and yet it was life.

“What are those?” he asked, pointing. She followed his arm and saw Mount Banner and Mount Ritter cast up into the sky thirty miles away, in a swirl of angry clouds. It was snowing over there.

“Banner and Ritter,” she said. She was afraid of them.

“They look evil.”

“They are. People have been killed climbing them.”

“I shouldn’t mind dying up here,” he said. “Somehow you wouldn’t.”

He was right, she thought. There was a clarity which emptied the mind of worry.

He looked west. “Come on,” he said, “I want to go up there. I want to get to the top.”

There was no way to stop him, and he seemed to be all right. Besides, she knew better than to argue with him.

They were at about nine thousand feet, but the
deepness
of the woods was astonishing. As they wound their way along, losing sight of the lake for a moment, the woods closed in after them, firmly and tightly. They descended to a flat and came to a crystal stream, icy
cold, issuing from beneath an immense black boulder. There were even a few withered flowers. The accumulated
leaf-mould
of centuries lay underfoot, and the pine needles had turned brittle with age. The woods were clear and dark.

They came to a clearing and to a series of small ponds. There was snow under the trees. The ponds themselves were thick with perpetual ice. Picking up a pebble, the Tatum boy skipped it along the surface. It bounced with a metallic echo and then the sound was engulfed in silence. They went on. The afternoon shadows were casting
themselves
across the distances ahead, but the peaks still sparkled in the sun.

Old Man Tatum rode back to Sally. “Can’t you do anything with your husband?” he asked. “We’ve got to stop. We’ve got to eat.” His face was contemptuous. “He’s a fool to come up here in this weather, anyhow.”

“Will it storm?”

“It usually does,” said Tatum. He turned aside,
pushing
the pony towards the head of the caravan. The
procession
went in and out of the trees. She rode up to Christopher.

“Tatum wants to stop,” she told him.

“Why the hell should he?”

“He says he’s hungry.”

Christopher pointed ahead, to the shelves of rock. “The hell he does. We’re going up there.”

“He won’t.”

“Then I’ll speak to him,” said Christopher angrily. He jogged the mule ahead, coming abreast of Tatum, and Sally could see them talking furiously. Then
Christopher
turned back. He was panting and angry, but they did not stop.

All around her she could hear the mountains, like the
shore of some high sea, restlessly pounding. The air smelled of the ocean. She had the sensation of drowning in space. But Christopher was exultant.

At two-thirty they reached the barrier shelf of rock and began to climb it. She looked down, seeing brown ferns and each distinct separate frond with almost frightening clarity. She was exhausted. Christopher ploughed steadily ahead, and not to be outdone, the Tatums followed him. She could see by the way they talked to each other that they were angry.

Then they emerged above the level of the trees and were also above the timberline itself. Below them was the undulating ocean of the forest, creaking in the new wind. In every direction stretched the higher peaks, with in the distance Banner and Ritter, obscured by clouds. The air was in a curious lull, as before a storm. Christopher looked the other way. Before him stretched the long plateau, crusted with bright yellow lichen. Through it meandered the frozen river they had seen from the second lake. Here and there rose the twisted figure of a tree, bleached bone white by the elements.

“It frightens me,” said Sally.

“Why should it? This is what I wanted all my life. You can be part of it, and it can’t harm you.” He broke off, facing the moraine. “What’s that stuff?” he asked.

“Lichen.”

He gazed across the meadow. It ended in a sheer wall of rock which towered another two thousand feet in the air. “What’s up there?” he demanded.

“Lake Mary. It’s frozen over.”

“Can you get up there?”

“Not in your present condition.”

“I want to go.”

“The Tatums won’t go any farther,” she told him.

“Then you’ve got to take me. I’m going up.”

“At least have something to eat.”

“There isn’t time.”

“But why?” she asked. “There isn’t anything to see up there.”

“You’d be at the top,” he said shortly.

She did not answer. The mules had started on again, slithering over the ice of the river, which wobbled, even though it was maybe ten feet thick. It oozed at the edges. They trod over the lichens in the hot afternoon sun. There was nothing between them and the sun up here, and she could see the perspiration running down
Christopher’s
face. The Tatums stopped under one of the skeletal trees. They began to make camp. Christopher told them to stop it.

Tatum looked at him. “Look, mister, you can drive me just so far.”

“What the devil do I care? There’s another hundred in it,” said Christopher.

“I don’t give a damn what there is in it,” snapped Tatum.

Christopher glared at him, and nudged his mule on, starting towards the snow-banked mountain.

“Is he crazy?” asked Tatum.

“You’ve got to help me,” said Sally.

“We’re staying here.”

Sally looked at them in despair. “He wants to climb up to Lake Mary. He’s in no condition to go alone.”

“That’s his own lookout. We’re making camp beneath the ledge. There’ll be some protection there.”

With a glance at his stupid, expressionless face, she headed the mule after Christopher and caught up with him.

“Well,” he asked.

“They’re going to make camp and wait for us.”

“Think we can make it?”

“It’s foolhardy to try. Why won’t you help
yourself
?”

“I’m beyond help,” he said, and grinned at her. “I’ve got to get up there, so I’m going up.”

She looked at the mountain, with its rocks jutting from the snow. She saw Christopher shiver and draw himself taut. He got down from his mule and glanced at his boots. “Are you coming?” he demanded. His voice was scornful. “If I get to the top, I’ve got it licked. I know that. I want to stand on the top just once.”

They climbed tightly. It was not so bad at first. She dug her heels into the snow, feeling her way. Looking back, she saw him below her. He was slipping in the snow. He caught himself on a rock, and when she looked again, his hand was bleeding. They inched their way up across the snow-field, from rock to rock. The air was so thin it made her dizzy. She did not dare to think of its effects on Christopher. He was sobbing with exasperation. He set his teeth and waved her on. The sun burned her eyes. Another fifty feet and she was on the rim of the rock. She turned and helped him up, and he sprawled, gasping, beside her in the snow. Before them was another ridge of rock, and he stared at it, his face white and baffled.

“There’s a passage through it,” she said. “It’s a cone.”

“I’ll have to rest.”

She bent down, warming his hands in her own. He stared at her, half triumphant, and half frightened.

“Let’s go on now,” he said. He repeated it loudly, gasping in the air, struggled to his feet, and leaned against her. He was very heavy. She took his arm and they made their way across the snow. “Have you been here before?” he asked.

“Years ago.”

“If you can make it, I can.”

She floundered ahead over the soft packed snow, and saw the declivity. He dragged on her like a dead weight, but grimly kept up. She went slowly, listening for his breathing. It was slow, faltering, but determined. She plunged into the declivity. On either side of them rose the steep rock, dripping with ice. Around a bend they were within the cone itself. It was ten thousand feet up. Her lungs felt tight.