Valley of the Moon (4 page)

Benno's eyes gleamed. I was on the verge of tears.

“Stop it,” Rhonda whispered. “He's happy. Don't screw this up.” She pulled her camera out of her pocketbook. “Let's get a Polaroid of the two of you before you go.”

Five minutes later Benno was gone.

We walked out of the airport silently. Rhonda waved the Polaroid back and forth, drying it. When we got to the car, she handed me the photo.

I'd forgotten to wash Benno's face. His mouth was still rimmed with orange.

Later, back at our apartment, Rhonda poured me a shot of Jack. Then she looked at my face and poured me a double. “It's only two weeks,” she said.

I pounded the whiskey in one swallow. “What was I thinking? He's a baby.”

“He's an old soul. He's a forty-year-old in a five-year-old body. He'll be fine. Give me that glass.”

I slid it across the table and she poured herself a splash.

“I forbid you to go in his room and sniff his clothes,” she said.

“I would never do that,” I said.

“Hmm.” She took a dainty sip of the whiskey.

Elegant
was the word that best described Rhonda Washington. Long-necked, long-legged. An Oakland native, Rhonda had five siblings. All of them had
R
names: Rhonda, Rita, Raelee, Richie, Russell, and Rodney. Rhonda's mother said it was easier that way. All she had to do was stick her head out the window and yell “Ruh” and all the kids would come running.

“Now, what's your plan? You aren't just going to sit around the house moping,” she said.

“I've got this week off, then I'm working double shifts all next week.” I waitressed at Seven Hills, an Irish pub in North Beach.

“So what are you going to do this week?”

“I'm going camping.”

“Camping?” said Rhonda. “Like, car camping? With a bathroom and showers?”

“No, middle-of-nowhere camping, with a flashlight and beef jerky.”

I'd given a lot of thought as to how I was going to spend my first week of freedom in five years. I let myself fantasize. What if I could do whatever I wanted, no matter the cost? Where would I go? How about Paris? No, too snooty. Australia, then; Aussies were supposed to be friendly. Oh, but I'd always dreamed of seeing the Great Wall. And what about the Greek islands? Stonehenge? The Taj Mahal? Pompeii? I pored through old
National Geographic
s—I rarely let myself dream anymore. My list quickly grew to over fifty places.

In the end I decided on camping right near home. Yes, it was all I could afford, but I wasn't settling; before I'd had Benno it had been my escape of choice. I'd been to Yosemite, Big Sur, and Carmel. Closer to home, I'd camped on Mount Tam, at Point Reyes, and in the Marin Headlands. If I was depressed, angry, or worried, I headed for the hills. If I didn't get a regular dose of nature (a walk in Golden Gate Park didn't count), I wasn't right. I needed to get away from the city. Sit by myself under a tree for hours. Fall asleep to the sounds of an owl hooting rather than the heavy footfalls of my upstairs neighbors. I was competent in the wilderness. Nothing frightened me. I wanted to feel that part of myself again.

Rhonda tossed her head. “Okay, nature girl.”

“What? I
am
a nature girl.”

“Using Herbal Essence does not make you a nature girl, Lux. When's the last time you went camping?”

“A few months before Benno was born.”

“Do you still remember how?”

“You don't forget how to sleep in a tent, Rhonda.”

“This just seems impulsive. Is it safe to go alone?”

“Yes, Rhonda, it is. I can take care of myself. I know how to do this.” My father was an Eagle Scout. He taught me everything he knew.

“Fine. Why don't we make a list of what you'll need.”

“I already have a list.”

I knew what Rhonda was thinking.
Here goes Lux again, just throwing things together and hoping for the best.
That was how I lived my daily life, from hour to hour, paycheck to paycheck. This was the only Lux she knew. I wanted to show her another side of me.

“I've been planning this for months, you know,” I said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Well—good,” she said. “Good for you.”

I walked around the table and threw my arms around her. “Admit it. You love me.”

“No.”

“Yes. You love me. Silly, flighty me.”

Rhonda tried to squirm out of my grasp, but she grinned. “Don't ask me to come rescue you if you get lost.”

“I won't.”

“And don't take my peanut butter. Buy your own.”

“Okay.”

I'd already packed her peanut butter.

I did go into Benno's room at midnight. I did lie down on his bed and bury my face in his pillow and inhale his sweet boy scent. I fell asleep in five minutes.

Rose Bennedeti and Doro Balakian were my landlords, the owners of 428 Elizabeth Street, a shabby (“in need of some attention but a grand old lady,” said the ad I'd answered in the classifieds) four-unit Victorian in Noe Valley. A lesbian couple in their seventies, they occupied the top-floor flat. We lived on the second floor, the Patel family (Raj, Sunite, and their daughter, Anjuli) lived on the first, and Tommy Catsos, a middle-aged bookstore clerk, lived in the basement.

I loved Rose and Doro. Every Saturday morning, I'd go to the Golden Gate Bakery to get a treat for them. When I rang their bell, the telltale white box in my hands, Rose would open the door and feign surprise.

“Oh, Lux,” she'd say, hand over her heart. “A mooncake?”

“And a Chinese egg tart,” I'd answer.

“Just what I was in the mood for! How did you know?”

This Saturday was no different, except for the fact that the two women wore glaringly white Adidas sneakers and were dressed in primary colors, like kindergartners. They were in their protesting clothes.

“We're going to City Hall. Harvey's”—Doro meant the activist Harvey Milk; they were on a first-name basis with him—“holding a rally, and then there's to be some sort of a parade down Van Ness. Come with us, Lux.”

“We shall be out all day, I would think,” said Rose.

Rose and Doro were highly political, tolerant, extremely smart (Doro had been a chemist, Rose an engineer), and believers in everything: abortion rights
,
interracial marriage, and the ERA.
Why not?
was their creed.

“You'll join us, of course,” said Doro.

I frequently gave up my weekends to march, picket, or protest, dragging Benno along with me. I believed in everything, too.

I put the bakery box on the counter. “I can't. I'm going on a camping trip.”

“Oh, how wonderful!” said Doro. “Good for you, Lux. A Waldenesque sojourn into nature.”

“Would you like to bring a little…?” asked Rose. She put her thumb and index finger to her mouth and mimed inhaling.

“You smoke?”

“No, dear, we don't partake, but we like to have it for our guests. Shall I get some for you?”

I wasn't a big pot smoker.

“Just one joint,” said Doro. “You never know.”

Only in San Francisco would an old woman be pushing pot instead of a cookie and a nice cup of tea on you.

“All right,” I agreed.

“Marvelous!” they both chimed, as if I'd told them they'd just won the lottery.

I'd purchased five Snoopy cards from the Hallmark store to send to Benno in Newport. I didn't want to overwhelm him or make him homesick. I just wanted him to know I was there. Filling them out was a surprisingly difficult task. I was going for breezy, with an undertone of
Mommy loves you so much but she did not sleep in your bed last night.
Here's what I came up with:

I asked Rhonda to mail a card each great day I was gone.

I wanted to camp somewhere I hadn't been before. I chose Sonoma, about forty miles from San Francisco. Wine country. Also referred to as the Valley of the Moon. When I read about it in my guidebook, I knew this was where I would go. Who could resist a place called
Valley of the Moon
? It was an incantation. A clarion call. Just saying it gave me goosebumps.

It was the Miwok and Pomo tribes who came up with the name
Sonoma
. There was some dispute as to whether it meant “valley of the moon” or “many moons” (some people claimed the moon seemed to rise there several times in one night), but that wasn't important. What was important was that the Valley of the Moon was supposed to be enchanting: rushing creeks and madrones, old orchards and wildflowers. The perfect place to lose myself. Or find myself. If I was lucky, a little of both.

By the time I'd finished packing, it was just after noon and 428 Elizabeth Street was empty. Rose and Doro were still at the rally, Tommy was working, Rhonda had taken the bus across the bay to visit with her family, and the Patels had gone off for a picnic in the park. I threw my pack in the trunk of my car and hit the road.

An hour and a half later, I pulled into the parking lot of Jack London State Park.

I relied on instinct out in the woods; I depended on my gut. I could have made camp in a few places, but none of them was just right. Finally I found the perfect spot.

The scent of laurel and bay leaves led me to a creek. I trekked up the bank to a small redwood grove. Sweat dripped between my shoulder blades. I was in my element; I could have gone another ten miles if needed. I dropped my pack. Yes, this was it. The air smelled of pine needles and cedar. The clearing felt holy, like a cathedral. I punched my arms in the air and hooted.

I experienced the absence of Benno (not having to hold him as a fact in my mind every minute) as a continual dissonance. I had to remind myself:
He's not here. He's okay. He's with Mom
. I hoped the shock would lessen as the days went on and that I'd not only acclimate to the solitude, but relish it. Nobody needed me. Nobody was judging me. I could do or act or feel however I wanted.

I peeled off my sweaty tank top. I stood there for a moment, bare-chested. It was warm now, but once it got dark the temperature would drop. I draped the tank top over a bush to dry and put on a clean T-shirt.

I pitched my tent. Beside my sleeping bag went
The Hobbit,
a pocket-size transistor radio, Doro's joint, a book of matches, and a flashlight.

For dinner I ate two Slim Jims and some peanut butter. By this time the woods were purpling with dusk. I crawled into my sleeping bag. In the pages of
The Hobbit
I'd tucked the Polaroid of Benno and me. I kissed my fingers and pressed them on his image.
Good night, sweet boy
.

I thought about reading. I thought about taking a puff of the joint. I did neither. I put my head down on the folded-up sweater that served as my pillow and instantly fell asleep.

I awoke in the middle of the night. It was freezing; I could see my breath. I slid on my jeans. I had to pee badly.

I unzipped the tent and stepped outside. Fog had enveloped the campsite, a fog so thick I couldn't see three feet in front of me. I gingerly walked a few yards from the tent, pulled down my jeans, squatted, and peed. The fog cleared for a moment and a glorious full moon bobbed above me in a star-studded sky. Seconds later the fog descended and my stomach clenched. I felt trapped.

I saw a light off in the near distance. It blinked once and disappeared. I stared steadily at it. It blinked again. Somebody must have a cabin out here.

Suddenly I was desperate not to be alone.

It seemed like only minutes, but it must have taken me hours to find that light, because when I broke through the fog, it was day and the sun shone brightly.

I stood at the edge of a meadow. This was no cabin; it was a large, barnlike structure, wood-shingled with red trim. Through the open doors, I could see dozens of people sitting at long tables. Silverware clinked. The smell of bacon wafted through the air.

A pang of loneliness struck me, seeing them all there, dining together. I frequently felt this way when I came upon groups, at the beach, at Seven Hills—the worst was the Christmas Eve service at Grace Cathedral. As if everybody but me had people. I guess I had people: Benno and, sometimes, Rhonda (on the rare nights she was home—she had quite a social life), but what I really wanted was a tribe.

I don't know how long I stood there, spying on them, wishing somebody would see me and invite me over. Finally I screwed up my courage and began walking across the meadow. I had nothing to lose. They'd either welcome me or send me on my way.

A
young woman stood at the threshold of the dining hall. A stranger. One moment we were eating breakfast, the next moment she was standing there. There was an air of impermanence about her. Was she an apparition?

“Um, hello,” she said, blinking.

“Finally!” cried Fancy, jumping up from the bench. “You're here! I never doubted you'd come. I never gave up hope!”

Before I could stop my sister, she ran to the woman and embraced her. “Are there others? Is it just you? Why did it take you so long?”

Four months had passed since the fog had encircled us. In public I was always careful to use the word
encircled
rather than
trapped
. It left the door cracked open a bit. And through this open door had come—

“I think you've mistaken me for somebody else,” the woman said, her cheeks flushed. “I mean, I'd like to be the one you expected. But I don't think I am.”

No, she was not the one I expected; I never could have dreamed her up. Why was she dressed so strangely? Was she going to some sort of a costume party? Unlike the Greengage women, who wore their hair neatly pinned back, hers was loose, with a fringe so long it nearly covered her eyes. Instead of a skirt, she had on dungarees that clung to her pelvis and thighs. She wore a shirt that said
KING'S ALE
—
SMILE IF YOU HAD IT LAST NIGHT
.

“Look, Joseph,” said Fancy, beaming, as if she herself were responsible for the woman's appearance. “Look!”

I walked over to them, fighting a vertiginous sensation. I felt exactly as I had just after the earthquake, when Martha and I discovered everything and everybody in Greengage was intact. Utter disorientation. As if my cells were being forcibly rearranged.

“I'm Joseph Bell,” I said, introducing myself.

“Lux Lysander,” she said, shaking my hand firmly.

Her eyes darted around the room, taking us all in. She had the same bewildered look on her face that I'm sure I had on mine.

“Are you shooting a film?”

Shooting
a film? “How did you find us?” I asked.

“I saw your light through the fog.”

“You came through the fog?”

She rubbed her upper arms and shivered. “It was so thick.”

“So you weren't looking for us?” asked Fancy. “You just stumbled through the fog? And stumbled upon us here?”

Lux raised her shoulders somewhat apologetically.

“Did the fog make you feel ill?” I asked.

“Ill how?”

“Shortness of breath? Heart palpitations?”

“I felt a little claustrophobic, so my heart was probably racing, but no, I didn't feel ill.” She looked around the room as 278 pairs of puzzled eyes stared back at her.

“I think I should leave,” she said. “Obviously I'm interrupting something.”

She backed out of the room, turned quickly, and started walking across the meadow.

“No, wait!” I shouted. I caught up with her, grabbed her elbow, and spun her around. “Please indulge me. Allow me to ask you a few more questions about the fog.”

She looked alarmed. “Why? What's the big deal about the fog?”

“As you said, it's an unusually thick fog. And it's been here for a long time.”

A group had gathered around us, desperate for information. I'd hoped to be able to question the stranger privately, but I could see that would not be an option.

“Please. May I ask you a few more questions?”

“Okay. I guess so,” said Lux slowly.

“Thank you. Can you estimate how large an area is fogged in?”

“I'm bad at estimating distances.”

“All right. How long did it take you to come through the fog?”

“Well, that was strange. It felt like just minutes, but it must have taken me much longer, because it was midnight when I left my campsite, but then when I got here it was morning.”

Again that stomach-dropping feeling.

“You walked through the fog for a few miles?”

“Um—probably.”

“You were camping? Where?”

“In the Valley of the Moon. Jack London State Park.”

Jack London had his own state park? I knew he was doing well (he'd just spent thousands procuring a neighboring parcel of land), but I didn't know he was doing
that
well. A park named after himself? He'd always been a bit of a narcissist.

“Was the fog there when you arrived?”

“No, it was a beautiful clear night. I didn't get fogged in until after midnight, as I already told you.” She was getting irritated at my line of questioning.

I was about to ask her about the earthquake—How had Glen Ellen and Santa Rosa fared? And what about San Francisco?—when Magnusson came up behind me and whispered in my ear, “Test the fog.”

Yes. Whatever the woman said would be moot if we could now travel through the fog freely as she just had.

“Nardo!” I yelled.

A young man with a head of thick black hair made his way up to me. Our resident pig-keeper.

“We need a piglet,” I said.

“Berkshire or Gloucestershire?”

“Gloucestershire. Get a runt.”

I smiled at Lux, trying to put her at ease, and she shifted her weight from her left to her right foot nervously. “Are we done here?”

“Almost,” I said.

Nardo disappeared and a few minutes later returned with a piglet, pink with black spots, tucked under his arm.

Lux lit up at the sight of the pig. “Oh, he's adorable.”

“Give the pig to her,” I said.

Nardo handed him over. “He's scared. Hold him close. Let him feel your heart beating.”

“Will you do me one last favor?” I asked Lux. “Before you go.”

But she was preoccupied with the piglet. “You need a name. I'm going to name you Wilbur,” she said, stroking its silky ear. “You know, from
Charlotte's Web
.”

I nodded impatiently. “Will you step into the fog for a moment? With the pig?”

“Why do you want me to do that?”

“I need to test a hypothesis.”

“What hypothesis?”

I'd have to tell her the truth—a partial truth anyway. “The fog makes us sick. But it didn't make you sick.”

“Why does the fog make you sick?”

I couldn't think of a lie quickly enough. “I have no idea,” I said.

Her face softened. “Oh. Okay. So you're wondering if something's changed. That's why you're all looking at me this way. Because I came through and I'm fine and now you're wondering if you'll be fine, too?”

“Exactly.”

“You want me to test it out for you. With the pig?”

“If you wouldn't mind.”

Everybody had left the dining hall now and was standing just a few feet behind us, listening carefully to our conversation.

“Please,” said Fancy.

“All right. But then I really have to go,” she said.

I pulled out my pocket watch. “Sixty seconds. I'll let you know when it's time to come out.”

“You're not worried I'll run away with your prized pig?” she joked.

That was the least of my worries.

She entered the fog. A minute later I called to her and she stepped back into the sun. The pig lay still in her arms.

“You—it's dead,” she stammered. She glared at me. “It's your fault. You did this. You made me kill it. Why did you do that?” she cried.

“I'm sorry. Listen, it's only a pig,” I said, thinking at least it wasn't one of us.

She shook her head, angry. “I have to leave right now. I've got to go home.” Clearly rattled by the pig's death, she blathered on. “It's almost time for my son to start school. I haven't even bought his school supplies.”

“But it's only August,” I said.

As I said it, I was struck by a foreboding which I realized I'd been trying to fend off from the moment she arrived. But now it overtook me, filling me with trepidation.

“Mid-August,” she said, “practically late August. The sixteenth. Nineteen seventy-five—in case you've forgotten,” she added, looking me up and down. My trousers and suspenders. My boots and linen shirt.

I could sense everybody behind me stunned into silence, holding their breath. I finally said, “Well.”

Well
was a workhorse of a word that could mean so many things.
Well, nice to have met you. Well, this certainly has been an illuminating conversation. Well, a madwoman had found her way through the fog to Greengage.

“I don't feel so good,” said Lux.

“What's wrong?” asked Martha. She was using her clinical voice, firm and calming. It made you want to tell her everything.

“I'm dizzy,” said Lux. “I think I'm going to puke.”

She swayed and slid to the ground, the pig falling out of her arms. Then she went very still. Martha sank to her knees and pressed her fingers to the side of her neck, seeking out her pulse.

Dear God! Had I done this by forcing her back into the fog? Had I killed her?

“She just fainted,” said Martha, sitting back on her heels. “She'll be fine. No thanks to you, Joseph. Asking her all those questions. Scaring her half to death. What were you thinking?”

Fancy, dumbstruck, said, “Nineteen seventy-five?”

Fancy's comment triggered the crowd and everybody started speaking at once.

Martha ignored the hysterics.

“Let's get her home,” she said to me.

I bent and lifted her into my arms. Lux. This stranger.

Her name meant
light
.

We were halfway to the house when Martha said, “It was a full moon yesterday, wasn't it?”

During the four months we'd been trapped, it seemed that full moon days passed differently than all the rest of the days of the month. Just after midnight on the day of the full moon, time began to race by. Like a record on a gramophone played at ten times the normal speed, we sped up, too. Hours seemed to go by in minutes. The sensation lasted for twenty-four hours. It was only on the morning after the full moon that time resumed its natural pace.

“The earthquake happened on the day of the full moon,” she reminded me.

“What are you implying?”

She made the irritated face she always made when she hadn't quite figured something out.

“Obviously she's mentally unstable,” I said.

“That's just it. She doesn't seem unstable to me. Joseph—” She stopped. “What if she's perfectly sane?”

“Put her in the wing. The back bedroom,” said Martha.

I laid Lux on the bed and she did not wake. Since she was unconscious, the two of us took the opportunity to survey her openly.

“What is the meaning of her shirt?” asked Martha.

“Something…sexual?” I guessed.

“Maybe. But why does she wear it?”

“Perhaps she likes drawing attention to herself.”

“How can she breathe in those trousers? That can't be good for her reproductive organs. I wonder if she has any identification on her? I'm going to check her pockets,” Martha announced.

She approached the bed and slid her hand into Lux's left dungaree pocket. Nothing. From her right pocket she pulled out a wrinkled-up sweets wrapper.
Jolly Rancher
. She smelled it.

“Cherry,” she said. “Admit it, Joseph.”

“What?”

“You've never seen any woman dressed like this.”

“Yes, because I do not make a habit of cavorting with the insane.”

“Oh, stop it. Something about her isn't right, but it isn't that she's crazy. There is no mercantile on earth that sells clothes like this in 1906.”

“You're saying she's telling the truth?”

“I'm saying you have to open your mind. The unexplainable has already happened. We've been trapped by a fifty-foot wall of fog for four months. If we try to walk through it, we die. We must consider other”—she whispered, as if it hurt her to say it—“possibilities.”