Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (34 page)

"Keep me
here, Meg, and it'll die in me. It'll turn inward and fester. You
know it will. And I'll blame you for that. Deep down I'll come to
hate you for keeping me here. And I never want to hate you. Never."

She met his
eyes, her own moist with unshed tears. Then she turned and came to
him, holding him, careful not to hurt his damaged arm, her head laid
warmly, softly, on his right shoulder.

"Well?"
he said after a while. "Will you support me against Father?"

He noticed the
slight change in her breathing. Then she moved back away from him,
looking at him intently, as if reading something in his face. "You
think he'll try to stop you?"

Ben nodded.
"He'll make excuses. The uncertainty of the times. My age."

"But what
if he's right, Ben. What if it is too dangerous? What if you
are
too young?"

"Too young?
I'm seventeen, Meg. Seventeen! And apart from that one visit to
Tongjiang, I've never seen anything other than this; never been
anywhere but here."

"And is
that so bad?"

"Yes.
Because there's more to life than this. Much more. There's a whole
new world in there. One I've no real knowledge of. And I need to
experience it. Not at secondhand, through a screen, but close up."

She looked down.
"What you were saying, Ben, about me chaining you. I'd never do
that. You know I wouldn't. And I
can
free you. But not in
there. Not in the City." She raised her eyes. "This is our
place. Right here, in the Domain. It's what we've been made for. Like
the missing pieces of a puzzle." She paused, then, more
earnestly: "We're not like them, Ben. We're different. Different
in
kind.
Like aliens. You'll find that out."

"All part
of Amos's great experiment, eh?"

"Maybe . .
." But it wasn't what she had meant. She was thinking less of
genetic charts than of something deeper in their natures, some sense
of connection with the earth that they had, and that others—cut
off" by the walls and levels of the City—lacked. It was as
if they were at the same time both more and less advanced as human
beings: more primitive and yet more exalted spiritually. They were
the bridge between heaven and earth, the link between the distant
past and the far future. For them, therefore, the City was an
irrelevancy—a wrong direction Man had taken—and for Ben
to embrace it was simply foolish, a waste of his precious .time and
talents.

Besides which,
she needed him. Needed him as much—though he did not see it
yet—as he needed her. It would break her heart to see him go.

"Is that
all?" he asked, sensing she had more to say.

She answered him
quietly, looking away past him as she spoke. "No. It's more than
that. I worry about you. All this business with morphs and mimicry. I
fear where it will take you."

"Ah . . ."
He smiled and looked down, plucking a tall stem of grass and putting
it to his mouth. "You know, Meg, in the past there was a school
of thought that associated the artist with Satan. They argued that
all art was blasphemy, an abrogation of the role of the Creator. They
claimed that all artists set themselves up in place of God, making
their tiny satanic palaces—their Pandemoniums—in mimicry
of God's eternal City. They were wrong, of course, but in a sense
it's true. All art is a kind of mimicry, an attempt to get closer to
the meaning of things.

"Some
so-called artists are less interested in understanding why things are
as they are than in providing a showcase for their own egotism, but
in general true art—art of the kind that sears you—is
created from a desire to understand, not to replace. Mimicry, at that
level, is a form of worship."

She laughed
softly. "I thought you didn't believe in God."

"I don't.
But I believe in the reality of all this that surrounds us. I believe
in natural processes. In the death of stars and the cycle of the
seasons. In the firing of the synapses and the inexorable decay of
the flesh. In the dark and the light."

"And in the
City, too?"

He smiled.
"That, too, is a process; part of the natural flow of things,
however 'unnatural' it might seem. The City is an expression of human
intelligence, which, after all, is a natural thing. It's too easy to
dismiss its artificiality as an antithesis to nature, when it really
is an attempt to simplify and thus begin to understand the complexity
of natural processes."

"And to
control those processes."

"Yes, but
there are levels of control. For instance, what controls us that
makes us want to control other things? Is it all just genetics? And
even if it is, what reason is there for that? We've been asking
ourselves that question since DNA was first isolated, and we're still
no closer to an answer."

She looked away
sharply, as if suddenly tired of the conversation. "I don't
know, Ben. It all seems suddenly so bleak. So dark."

Again he misread
her comment, mistook its surface content for its deeper meaning.
"Yes," he said, staring out across the water. "But
what is darkness? Is it only a space waiting to be filled? Or has it
a purpose? Something other than simple contrast?"

"Ben . . ."
He looked back at her, surprised by the brittle tone she had used.
She was looking at him strangely. "Yes?"

"What about
us? How do we fit in with all these processes?"

"We're a
focus, a filter . . ."

But she was
shaking her head. "No. I didn't mean that. I meant
us.
You
and me. Is that just process? Just a function of the universe? Is
what I feel for you just another fact to be slotted into the great
picture? Or is there more to it than that? Are there parts of it that
just don't fit?"

Again the
bitterness in her voice surprised him. He had thought it was resolved
between them, but now he understood: it would never be resolved until
he was gone from here.

"Three
years," he said. "That's all I'll need. You'll be, what,
seventeen—my age now—when I come back. It's not long,
Meg. Really it isn't."

She stood,
moving away, then stood at the edge of the trees, above him, her back
turned.

"You talk
of dying if you stay. But I'll die if you go. Don't you understand
that, Ben? Without you here it'll be like I'm dead." She turned
to him, her eyes wide with hurt and anger. "You're my eyes, my
ears, the animating force behind each moment of my day. Without you,
I don't exist!"

He gave a short
laugh, surprised by her intensity. "But that's silly, Meg. Of
course you exist. Besides, there's Mother . . ."

"Gods! You
really don't understand, do you?"

There was that
same strange, unreadable movement in her face; then, abruptly, she
turned away, beginning to climb the slope.

Ben got up
awkwardly and began to follow her, making his way between the trees,
careful not to knock his useless arm; but she was running now, her
whole body leaning into the slope as she struggled to get away from
him.

At the edge of
the trees he stopped, wincing from the sudden pain in his hand, then
called out to her. "Meg! Stop! Please stop!"

She slowed and
stood there, just below the bam, her back to him, her head lowered,
waiting.

Coming to her,
he moved around her, then lifted her face with his good hand. She was
crying.

"Meg. . ."
he said softly, torn by what he saw. "Please don't cry. There's
no reason to cry. Really there isn't."

She swallowed,
then looked aside, for a moment like a hurt four-year-old. Then, more
defiantly, she met his eyes again, bringing up a hand to wipe the
tears away.

"I love
you," he said gently. "You know that."

"Then make
love to me again."

He laughed, but
his eyes were serious. "What, here?"

She stared back
at him challengingly. "Why not?"

He turned her
slightly. From where they stood they could see the cottage clearly
down below.

She turned back,
her eyes watching him closely, studying his face. "All right. Up
there, then. In the bam."

He turned and
looked, then nodded, a shiver passing down his spine.

She reached
down, taking his good hand, then led him up the slope. At the bam
door she turned, drawing him close, her arms about his neck. It was a
long passionate kiss, and when she pulled away from him her eyes were
different. Older than he remembered them, more knowing. A stranger's
eyes.

She turned and
led him through. Inside, the barn was filled with shadows. Bars of
sunlight, some broad, some narrow, slanted down from gaps between the
planks that formed the sides of the barn, creating broken veils of
light from left to right.

"Quick,"
she said, leading him further in, "before Mother calls us in for
lunch."

He smiled and
let himself be led, thrilled by the simple pressure of her hand
against his own.

"Here,"
she said, looking about her. A barrier of wooden slats formed a stall
in the far left-hand comer, a space the size of a small storeroom,
filled waist-high with old hay. The warm, musty smell of the hay was
strong but pleasant. Light, intruding from two knotholes higher up,
laced the shadows with twin threads of gold. Meg turned and smiled at
him. "Lie down. I'll lie on top of you."

He sat, easing
himself down onto the hay, feeling it yield beneath him, then let his
head fall back, taking care not to jolt his hand. Lying there,
looking up at her, his left arm still cradled in its sling, he felt
like laughing.

"Are you
sure this is such a good idea?"

Her smile,
strange, enigmatic at first, widened as she slowly undid the buttons
at the front of her dress, then pulled it up over her shoulders.
Beneath the dress she was naked.

Ben felt his
breath catch in his throat. "Meg . . ."

She bent over
him and eased the sling from his arm, then straddled him, the soft,
warm weight of her pressed down against him as she began to unbutton
his shirt.

Meg's face lay
but a short space from his face, her lips slightly parted, the tip of
her tongue peeping through, her eyes concentrating on her busy
fingers. But Ben's eyes were drawn to her breasts, to the hard,
provocative shapes of her nipples.

He reached up
and cupped her left breast in his hand, feeling its smooth warmness,
then eased forward until his lips brushed against the budlike nipple.

Meg shuddered,
her fingers faltering a moment. Ben drew back slightly, looking up
into her face once more. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted more
fully, reminding him fleetingly of one of those ancient paintings of
religious ecstasy. He shivered, then leaned forward again, drawing
the breast back to his mouth, his tongue wetly tracing the stiff
brown berry of the nipple, teasing it with his teeth and lips and
tongue, conscious of Meg pressing herself down into him with each
small motion.

He lay back
again, ignoring the dull pain of the reawakened pulse in his hand,
watching as her eyes slowly opened, smiling back at him.

For a while he
lay there, letting her undress him. Then she climbed above him again,
the smooth warmth of her flesh against his own making him shiver with
anticipation.

"Close your
eyes . . ."

He lay there,
letting her make love to him, slowly at first, then, as the ancient
rhythm took her, wildly, urgently; her hands gripping his shoulders
tightly, her face changed, unrecognizable, her teeth clenched
fiercely, her eyes staring wildly down at him. In it he saw a
reflection of the agony he was suffering from his damaged hand. That
lay beside him, quivering, the fingers clenched tight, trapped in a
prolonged spasm that was as painful as her lovemaking was delightful.
Faster and more furious she moved, until, with a shudder that brought
on his own orgasm, she arched her back and cried out, forcing herself
against him as if to breach him: as if to press through the flesh
that separated them and
become
him.

Afterward he lay
still, the pain in his hand ebbing slowly. Meg lay across him,
sleeping, her dark hair fanned across his chest. Two small bands of
light lay across their shadowed bodies like golden ribbons joining
their flesh, striping them at chest and hip, tracing the contours of
their expired lust.

Ben looked down
the length of their bodies, studying the play of shadow within
shadow, noting where flesh seemed to merge with flesh. The scent of
their lovemaking filled the tiny space, mingling with the smell of
old hay. It seemed part of the shadows, the dust-specked bands of
light.

He closed his
eyes, thinking. What had she meant by this? To show her love for him?
Her need? Perhaps. But needs were of different kinds. She had been
wrong earlier. Though she thought so now, she would not die for
missing him. She would wait, as she always waited, knowing he would
be back. But he—he
had
to go. He would go mad—literally,
mad—if he did not leave this place. Each day now it grew worse.
Each day the feeling grew in him, feeding his restlessness, stoking
the fire of dissatisfaction that raged in his belly.

Out. He had to
get out. Or "in" as she preferred to call it. Whichever, he
had to get away. Far away from here. Even from those he loved.

"Ben . . .
! Meg . . . !"

The calls were
muted, distant, from the slope below the barn. Meg stirred and lifted
her head slowly, turning to face him.

"What's
that?"

He smiled and
leaned forward, kissing her nose. "It's all right. It's only
Mother calling us in. It must be lunchtime."

"Ah . . ."
She started to relax again, then pushed herself up abruptly, suddenly
awake. "Only Mother!"

"Mind—"
he said, wincing at the pain that shot up his arm where she had
bumped into his hand.