She had been too quick to approach it. She had made a mistake. She had not understood it correctly. It was dangerous to misunderstand. She had to be more careful. Much more careful. The next time she would know what she was giving herself to; she would not rush heedlessly forward, to be devoured and destroyed.
The next time she would be sure. The next one who took her would not destroy her; she would make certain of that. It had happened too many times. It would not happen again.
Barbara looked back at the lake and the dark soil around the flowers and grass. She had come from such things, billions of years before. She had slid forth from the water and the sun and the ground as a microscopic jelly, and each generation she had been recreated from the microscopic jelly. But once having come into existence she could not go back.
This world, the machines, the chimneys, the heaps of slag, the hearths, the furnaces, the towers, the concrete buildings, the smell of molten metal, this world could not be escaped. She was part of it, and whether she liked it or not she had to remain with it. She could not go back.
If this world had been abandoned, if it were of no value or significance any longer, if it had been deserted to rust and rot, to be picked over by the new owners, then she must go along with it and rust and rot, too. And lie out among the other piles of useless and discarded objects, to be ridden over and crushed under by what was to come later, what ever it might be.
Barbara turned to go, away from the grass and the flowers and the great pie pan. But suddenly she stopped. She put her hand quickly up, shielding her eyes. Something had moved, something among the trees at the far side of the lake. A brief flicker. She continued to watch, feeling her wet hair dripping cold thick water down the back of her neck, inside her blouse. Had she been mistaken?
No. There it was again, a flash of white among the trees. As if a person had stepped for a moment out into the sun. As if the sun had shrunk his shirt.
Barbara walked carefully along the grass, circling the lake. The grass ended after a while and she entered the grove of fir trees. The ground was dry and hard, covered by a thin layer of leaves and cones and needles. She felt the leaves crunch under her sandals as she tip-toed quietly from tree to tree, holding her breath, trying not to make any noise.
A person was standing ahead of her, between two of the great trees, standing with his hands on his hips, gazing off across the lake. She knew who it was before she saw his face. That morning he had passed her window in the same white shirt, skipping and whistling along.
“What are you doing?” Barbara said sharply.
Carl turned slowly toward her. “Hello.”
“For God’s sake! What are you doing?”
Carl studied her evenly. “Was that you out in the water? I see you got to shore all right. I thought for a little while you were in some sort of trouble.”
He did not seem embarrassed at all. Barbara felt confused. She shook her head, trying to clear it. “If I had drowned would you have pulled me out? Or would you just have stood here, watching?” Her voice was low. She was shaking all over. Carl had been watching all the time! It was impossible. And now he stood quite calmly, not at all embarrassed.
“I would have pulled you out,” Carl said. He folded his arms. His sleeves were rolled up. His arms were big and bare, furred with reddish fur.
“I don’t understand. What are you doing here?” She was nettled and puzzled. Her head ached. Down the back of her neck the slimy water still dripped. “Why were you watching me? What’s the matter with you?”
Early that morning the sun had wakened Carl out of his usual deep sleep. He opened his eyes, blinking at the sunlight pouring through the window. He reached up and pulled the shade back. Sunlight burst into the room, streaming over everything, across his bed, across the floor, onto the dresser and the chair with Verne’s clothes piled on it.
Verne stirred in his bed, opening his eyes. “For God’s sake. Let the shade down.” He turned over, pulling the covers up around him.
Carl was sitting up in bed, gazing out the window. He could see buildings and machinery, and gravel paths running here and there, back and forth between the buildings. Beyond the buildings were the hills, and the woods. And beyond that were the mountains, blue and cold.
“Will you let the shade down?” Verne muttered from under the covers.
“Sorry.” Carl let the shade back in place. He slid out of the bed and onto the floor. The floor was warm where the sunlight had touched it. He began to dress, climbing into his clothes, whistling under his breath.
“What’s going on?” Verne raised his head, peering out from under the covers. He felt around on the floor and found his glasses. “What the hell time is it?” He put his glasses on and examined the clock. “Seven-thirty! My God.”
“It’s a wonderful day.”
Verne grunted, turning toward the wall.
“If you’re going back to sleep you should take off your glasses,” Carl said. “Otherwise they might break.”
Verne did not answer.
Carl held out his hand. “Give them to me and I’ll put them under the bed for you.”
Presently Verne’s hand came out, holding onto the glasses. Carl took them and laid them carefully on the floor.
“They’re right by the bed. Just reach over when you want them. I’m going out for a stroll. I’ll see you later.”
He finished dressing and then trotted down the hall to the bathroom. He washed and cleaned vigorously, combing his blond hair back in place. Then he stood before the mirror, looking at his reflection.
“Well, Carl Fitter!” he said. “What do you have on your mind today?”
His image, blond and blue-eyed, stared back at him. It was the face of a boy, young and strong and full of great enthusiasm. But still a boy. Carl sighed. When would he look in the mirror and see a man’s face? How long would it be? He rubbed his chin. What was lacking? Something was lacking. He had begun to shave; he had been shaving now for several years. His voice had deepened. It was even lower than Verne’s. Verne’s voice was squeaky.
Yet he was still a boy. For all his big shoulders, his good-natured smile, his booming voice. Carl’s happiness faded. He gazed at his reflection forlornly, drooping sadly.
But after a while some of his spirits returned. He straightened up. Someday it would change. Someday it would be different. There would be a flash of fire, a burst of white flame from heaven, and there he would be, a man.
Carl walked down the stairs to the ground floor and outside onto the porch. He leaped from the porch onto the gravel path, scattering gravel into the grass and bushes that grew around the side of the building.
In the early morning sunlight the grass was still wet with tiny beads of moisture. They glinted up at him, like globes of crystal. Or perhaps they were drops of perspiration, sweated up from the ground during the night. But why should the ground labor during the dark hours? What kind of activity was in progress, when the sun had gone and the long shadows were over everything?
The activity of growth, of course. The beginnings of life, the first stirrings down in the soil. Tiny things pushing their way up. All this began in the darkness of the night, and when the sun came the plants were ready to break through the skin of the earth to come out into the heat and warmth. That was the way it was: life came into being in the dim darkness of night, and the ground perspired from the labor of it.
Carl walked gingerly along the gravel walk, feeling the small stones breaking under his shoes. Everything seemed wonderful on a day like this. The world was full of wild and exciting objects. What he crushed under his feet might be rough diamonds, diamonds that had not been stolen from the stone yet, diamonds that were still dark and coated with the dirt and grime in which they had lain for centuries.
A road of breaking diamonds, shattering under his shoes! He increased his pace, kicking the gravel as he went, sending waves of stones flying up into the air. There was mica in the gravel, and the sun caught the bits of mica and mad
e them sparkle. Carl laughed in excited wonder. Maybe he was right. Maybe there were precious stones under him.
He entered the commissary. It was cool and deserted. No one had been there since dinner the night before. There was no sound except the tap-tapping of the water as it dripped in the sink. He opened the window above the table and gusts of fresh air came sweeping in, blowing the curtains back and forth. Carl took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
He began to assemble a meal. What did he want? He looked in the refrigerators. There were so many things to choose from. What would it be? He considered. If he were going to do a lot of things he would need a big meal. What was he going to be doing?
Today he would wander around. He would go off and walk by himself, as far as he could, until he was too tired to walk any farther. He would be alone. Everyone was still sound asleep in bed. There was no time more exciting, no time more strange and wonderful than the early morning, when people were silent and asleep, and he had the great bright world all to himself. This time of morning, before the dew on the lawns dried up, before the bees began to come out, when his footsteps echoed among the buildings—this was his favorite time. Then, the world was entirely his personal property. There was no one to dispute his ownership, to try to inhabit it or take it away from him. Everyone was turned to stone, the people quiet and immobile in their beds, enchanted by magic. He only, could walk about and inspect the world, his land, his buildings, his silent stone people.
Thinking of this, Carl turned the fire on under the frying pan and began to lay strips of bacon into it. He got eggs and milk from the refrigerator, humming to himself as he worked.
When he had finished eating he carried the dishes to the sink and carefully stacked them up. Then he left the building, going back out of doors again. The day was still bright, but it was not so cool, now. Time had passed. It was later. Subtle changes were already coming over the day.
Carl started up the road, his hands in his pockets, whistling to himself. Presently he began to sing, not loudly, but in a deep low voice, like a concert baritone. It all had a strange effect on him, the warm motionless day, the unmoving buildings and trees and bushes. It made him foolish. But he did not care. He could be as foolish as he wanted. No one could stop him. And after all, it was his morning, his day, his world. Everything belonged to him. He glanced up at the women’s dorm as he passed by it. The shades were all down. He smiled to himself. Barbara was asleep. Verne and Barbara. Sound asleep in their beds. And down below them, in the warm sunlight, he moved happily through his great warm world, completely alone.
He left the buildings behind him, whistling and skipping along. It was just as he was passing the last of the slag piles that he came across—it. He stopped, frozen. His whistle died on his lips. At first he did not know what it was. Was it something a person had dropped? It looked like a little bag, or a wallet, or something wrapped up.
He bent down. It was a bird, a red-breasted robin. The robin was lying on its side, its feet sticking out. It was stiff and rigid. Dead. And already, a line of busy ants were moving back and forth from it to the weeds.
Carl stood for a long time, staring down. The bird had died during the night. Sometime in the night, when the ground was generating new life, the already living had passed away, without any sound, without attracting any attention.
The bird might have been flying over the road. It must have sunk lower and lower, until at last it was hobbling across the ground, flying a few feet, then running and falling, until at last it had fluttered against the gravel in a bouncing heap. After a few feeble thrashings and struggles it had become inert, staring with its beady eyes, its chest rising and falling. And in the first hours of sunrise the bright eyes had dimmed over. The bird had died, quietly, by itself, with no one around to see.
This was what happened to all the things that came out of the wet earth, out of the filthy slime and mould. All things that lived, big and little. They appeared, struggling out of the sticky wetness. And then, after a time, they died.
Carl looked up at the day again, at the sunlight and the hills. It did not look the same, now, as it had looked a few moments before. Perhaps he saw it more clearly than he had, a moment ago. The sky, blue and pure, stretched out as far as the eye could see. But blood and feathers came from the sky. The sky was beautiful when he stood a long way off from it. But when he saw too closely, it was not pretty. It was ugly and bitter.
The sky was held together with tacks and gum and sticky tape. It cracked and was mended, cracked and was mended again. It crumbled and sagged, rotted and swayed in the wind, and like the sky in the children’s story, part of it fell to earth.
Carl walked on slowly. He stepped off the road and climbed a narrow dirt ridge. Soon he was going up the side of a grassy slope, breathing deeply and taking big steps. He stopped for a moment, turning to look back.
Already the Company and its property had become small, down below him. Shrunk, dwindling away. Carl sat down on a rock. The world was quiet and still around him. Nothing stirred. His world. His silent, personal world.
But he did not understand it. So how could it be his world? He had come out to smile at the flowers and grass. But he had found something more, something that he could not smile at. Something that was not pleasant at all. Something that he did not like nor understand nor want.
So it was not his world. If it were his world he would have made it differently. It had been put together wrong. Very much wrong. Put together in ways that he could not approve of.
The silent bird, lying in the road. It reminded him of something. His thoughts wandered. What did it remind him of? A strange feeling drifted through him. This had happened before. This very thing. He had gone out and found something terrible. Something that did not make sense. Something he could not explain or understand.
After a while he remembered. The cat. The dying old cat, with its broken ears, one eye gone, its body thin and dry with patches of loose hair. The cat and the bird. Other things. Flies buzzing around. Streams of ants. Things dying, disappearing silently, drifting away. With no one to watch or care.
He had never understood it, this thing that he found, in the great warm world. It had no meaning. No sense. Was there some purpose? Some reason?
When he understood the cat was dead he had gone back inside the house, walking slowly, deep in thought. Back inside, to his room, his things. His microscope. His stamps and maps and drawings and books. They had meaning. Purpose. Their existence had reason to it. He could look at them and understand them.
Carl sat on the hillside, thinking about his childhood. It was not so long ago. Not so very many years in the past. He could feel the memories rising up around him, seeping up on all sides of him. Sights, smells. Tastes. His past was very much with him. It was close, just below the surface. Waiting to come up. His room. His microscope. The drawings he had made.
He sat and remembered about them.
15
“CARL!” THE WOMAN called sharply.
And the little boy Carl ran into the room.
“Carl, I’m going to work. You might at least empty the garbage sometime today. You’ll have all day to do it.”
“I will,” Carl said. He waited, hoping she would not ask him to do anything else.
“And don’t you think you should work on some of your school work? When you do go back you’ll be so behind you’ll never catch up.”
“All right,” Carl said.
The woman put on her coat and hat. She took her sandwich, wrapped up in a paper bag with a rubber band around it. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
He watched her go up the front walk, up the concrete path, onto the sidewalk. Then she was gone. Carl ran into the kitchen. He pulled the little doors under the sink open, bending down to pick up the sack of garbage. He carried the dripping sack through the house, out the back door, onto the porch, carefully pushing the door open with his foot.
The day was warm and bright. He blinked in th
e sun, looking around him, taking deep breaths. A joy passed through him.
He had the whole day to do as he pleased. And there were many things he wanted to begin.
Carl took the garbage down the back steps, along the walk by the great lily plants, their leaves wet and green, spiders crawling over them. He dropped the sack into the garbage can. Then he ran back inside the house and slammed the door behind him.
He stood in the center of his room. His gaze took in the entire room and all the things around him. What should he begin first? There was the electric motor he was building out of paper clips and wire. But that could wait. On the desk among the litter of papers and books and pencils was his stamp album, and a teacup of stamps, soaking. He passed them by. They could wait, too.
Carl crossed to the desk. He pushed the magazines and books aside and pulled out a picture. It had been torn from a magazine, the picture of a girl, breasts and legs and red fingernails, smiling up at him in unnatural invitation. Carl stared at the picture, trapped. This. He would begin with this.
He reached into the top drawer of the desk and got out a piece of drawing paper and a heavy black pencil. He sat down carefully on the edge of the bed, holding the picture and paper and pencil in his hands. Sitting on the bed, with the sun shining on him through the burlap drapes, he began to copy the picture, his body hunched forward in absorbed interest, his eyes only a few inches from the paper. The pencil left greasy, smeared lines, and every few moments he rubbed feverishly at the lines, so that the drawing began to take on an ominous, cloudy appearance, almost as if it were coming out of some angry storm cloud.
At last Carl gave a groan of despair and crumpled up the paper. He threw it against the far wall. The ball of paper fell into the litter on the floor. Carl put the picture of the girl back on the desk, and the drawing pencil back into the dresser.