Return from the Stars (26 page)

She smiled.

"You put it too strongly."

"Yes. I'm sorry. Well, Eri, may I talk to him?"

"About what?"

My jaw fell. Here we go again, I thought.

"Well, what do you, for Christ's…" I bit my tongue. "About us."

"But that just isn't done."

"It isn't? Ah. Well, all right. And what is done?"

"One goes through the separation procedure. But, Mr. Bregg, really … I … can't do it this way."

"And in what way can you?"

She gave a helpless shrug.

"Does this mean we are back where we began yesterday evening?" I asked. "Don't be angry with me, Eri, for speaking like this, I am doubly handicapped, you see. I'm not familiar with all the formalities, customs, with what should be done and what shouldn't, even on a daily basis, so when it comes to things like…"

"No, I know. I know. But he and I … I … Seon…"

"I understand," I said. "Look here. Let's sit down."

"I think better when I stand."

"Please. Listen, Eri. I know what I should do. I should take you, as I said, and go away somewhere—and I don't know how I have this certainty. Perhaps it only comes from my boundless stupidity. But it seems to me that eventually you could be happy with me. Yes. At the same time I—observe—am the type who … well, in a word, I don't want to do that. To force you. Thus the whole responsibility for my decision—let's call it that—falls on you. In other words, to make me be a swine not from the right side, but only from the left. Yes. I see that clearly. Very clearly. So now tell me just one thing—what do you prefer?"

"The right."

"What?"

"The right side of the swine."

I began to laugh. Perhaps a little hysterically.

"My God. Yes. Good. Then I can talk to him? Afterward. That is, I would come back here alone…"

"No."

"It isn't done like that? Perhaps not, but I feel I ought to, Eri."

"No. I … please, please. Really. No!"

Suddenly tears fell from her eyes. I put my arms around her.

"Eri! No. It's no, then. I'll do whatever you want, but don't cry. I beg you. Because … don't cry. Stop, all right? But then … cry if you … I don't…"

"I didn't know that it could be … so…" she sobbed.

I carried her around the room.

"Don't cry, Eri… You know what? We will go away for … a month. How about that? Then later, if you want, you can return."

"Please," she said, "please."

I put her down.

"Not like that? I don't know anything. I thought…"

"Oh, the way you are! Should do, shouldn't do. I don't want this! I don't!"

"The right side grows larger all the time," I said with an unexpected coldness. "Very well, then, Eri. I won't consult you any more. Get dressed. We'll eat breakfast and go."

She looked at me with her tear-streaked face. Was strangely intent. Frowned. I had the impression that she wanted to say something and that it would not be flattering to me. But she only sighed and went out without a word. I sat at the table. This sudden decision of mine—like something out of a romance about pirates—had been a thing of the moment. In fact I was as resolute as a weather vane. I felt like a heel. How could I? How could I? I asked myself. Oh, what a mess!

In the half-open doorway stood Olaf.

"Old man," he said, "I am very sorry. It is the height of indiscretion, but I heard. Couldn't help hearing. You should close your door, and besides, you have such a healthy voice. Hal—you surpass yourself. What do you want from the girl, that she should throw herself into your arms because once you went down into that hole on…?"

"Olaf!" I snarled.

"Only calm can save us. So the archeologist has found a nice site. A hundred and sixty years, that's already antiquity, isn't it?"

"Your sense of humor…"

"Doesn't appeal to you. I know. Nor does it to me. But where would I be, old man, if I couldn't see through you? At your funeral, that's where. Hal, Hal…"

"I know my name."

"What is it you want? Come, Chaplain, fall in. Let's eat and take off."

"I don't even know where to go."

"By chance, I do. Along the shore there are still some small cabins to rent. You two take the car…"

"What do you mean—you take the car…?"

"What else? You prefer the Holy Trinity? Chaplain…"

"Olaf, if you don't stop it…"

"All right. I know. You'd like to make everybody happy: me, her, that Seol or Seon—no, it won't work. Hal, we'll leave together. You can drop me off at Houl. I'll take an ulder from there."

"Well," I said, "a nice vacation I'm giving you!"

"I'm not complaining, so don't you. Perhaps something will come of it. But enough for now. Come on."

Breakfast took place in a strange atmosphere. Olaf spoke more than usual, but into the air. Eri and I hardly said a word. Afterward, the white robot brought the gleeder, and Olaf took it to Clavestra to get the car. The idea came to him at the last minute. An hour later the car was in the garden, I loaded it with my belongings, Eri also brought her things—not all her things, it seemed to me, but I didn't ask; we did not, in fact, converse at all. And so, on a sunny day that grew very hot, we drove first to Houl—a little out of our way—and Olaf got out there; it was only in the car that he told me he had rented a cottage for us.

There was no farewell as such.

"Listen," I said, "if I let you know … you'll come?"

"Sure. I'll send you my address."

"Write to the post office at Houl," I said.

He gave me his firm hand. How many hands like that were left on Earth? I held it so hard that my fingers cracked, then, not looking back, I got behind the wheel. We drove for less than an hour. Olaf had told me where to find the little house. It was small—four rooms, no pool—but at the beach, right on the sea. Passing rows of brightly colored cottages scattered across the hills, we saw the ocean from the road. Even before it appeared, we heard its muffled, distant thunder.

From time to time I glanced at Eri. She was silent, stiff, only rarely did she look out at the changing landscape. The house—our house—was supposed to be blue, with an orange roof. Touching my lips with my tongue, I could taste salt. The road turned and ran parallel to the sandy shoreline. The ocean, its waves seemingly motionless because of the distance, joined its voice to the roar of the straining engine.

The cottage was one of the last along the road. A tiny garden, its bushes gray from the salt spray, bore the traces of a recent storm. The waves must have come right up to the low fence: here and there lay empty shells. The slanting roof jutted out in front, like the fancifully folded brim of a flat hat, and gave a great deal of shade. Behind a large, grassy dune the neighboring cottage could be seen, some six hundred paces away. Below, on the half-moon beach, were the tiny shapes of people.

I opened the car door.

"Eri."

She got out without a word. If only I knew what was going on behind that furrowed forehead. She walked beside me to the door.

"No, not like that," I said. "You're not supposed to walk across the threshold."

"Why?"

I lifted her up.

"Open…" I asked her. She touched the plate with her fingers and the door opened.

I carried her in and put her down.

"It's a custom. For luck."

She went first to look at the rooms. The kitchen was in the rear, automatic and with one robot, not really a robot, only an electrical imbecile to do the housework. It could set the table. It carried out instructions but spoke only a few words.

"Eri," I said, "would you like to go to the beach?"

She shook her head. We were standing in the middle of the largest room, white and gold.

"Then what would you like, maybe…"

Before I could finish, again the same movement.

I could see now what was in store. But the die was cast and the game had to be played out.

"I'll bring our things," I said. I waited for her to reply, but she sat on a chair as green as grass and I realized that she would not speak. That first day was terrible. Eri did nothing obvious, did not go out of her way to avoid me, and after lunch she even tried to study a little—I asked her then if I could stay in her room, to look at her. Promising that I would not utter a word and would not disturb her. But after fifteen minutes (how quick of me!) I realized that my presence was a tremendous burden to her; the line of her back betrayed this, her small, cautious movements, their hidden effort; so, covered with sweat, I beat a hasty retreat and began to pace back and forth in my own room. I did not know her yet. I could see, however, that the girl was not stupid, far from stupid. Which, in the present situation, was both good and bad. Good, because even if she did not understand, she could at least guess what I was and would not see in me some barbarous monster or wild man. Bad, because in that case the advice that Olaf had given me at the last moment was worthless. He had quoted to me an aphorism that I knew, from Hon: "If the woman is to be like fire, then the man must be like ice." In other words, he felt that my only chance was at night, not during the day. I did not want this, and for that reason had been wearing myself out, but I understood that in the short time I had I could not hope to get through to her with words, that anything I said would remain on the outside—for in no way would it weaken her rectitude, her well-justified anger, which had shown itself only once, in a short outburst, when she began to shout, "I don't! I don't!" And the fact that she had then controlled herself so quickly I also took to be a bad sign.

In the evening she began to be afraid. I tried to keep low, step softly, like Voov, that small pilot who managed—the perfect man of few words—to say and do everything he wanted without speaking.

After dinner—she ate nothing, which alarmed me—I felt anger growing inside me; at times I almost hated her for my own torment, and the great injustice of this feeling only served to intensify it.

Our first real night together: when she fell asleep in my arms, still all hot, and her ragged breath began, in single, ever-weaker sighs, to pass into oblivion, I was certain that I had won. Throughout she had struggled, not with me but with her own body, which I came to know, the delicate nails, the slender fingers, the palms, the feet, whose every part and curve I unlocked and brought to life, as it were, with my kisses, my breath, stealing my way into her—against her—with infinite patience and slowness, so that the transitions were imperceptible, and whenever I felt a growing resistance, like death, I would retreat, would begin to whisper to her mad, senseless, childish words, and again I would be silent and only caress her, and I besieged her with my touch, for hours, and felt her open and her stiffness give way to the trembling of a last defense, and then she trembled differently, conquered now, but still I waited and, saying nothing, for this was beyond words, drew from the darkness her slender arms, and breasts, the left breast, for there beat the heart, faster and faster, and her breath grew more violent, more desperate, despairing, and the thing took place; this was not even pleasure, but the mercy of annihilation and dissolving, a storming of the last wall of our bodies, so that in violence they could be one for a few seconds, our battling breaths, our fervor passed into mindlessness, she cried out once, weakly, in the high voice of a child, and clutched me. And then her hands slid away from me, furtively, as if in great shame and sadness, as if suddenly she understood how horribly I had tricked her. And I began everything again, the kisses placed in the bends of the fingers, the mute appeals, the whole tender and cruel progression. And everything was repeated, as in a hot black dream, and at one point I felt her hand, buried in my hair, press my face to her naked shoulder with a strength I had not expected in her. And later, exhausted, breathing rapidly, as if to expel from herself the accumulated heat and sudden fear, she fell asleep. And I lay motionless, like one dead, taut, trying to figure out whether what had happened meant everything or nothing. Just before I fell asleep it seemed to me that we were saved, and only then came peace, a great peace, as great as that on Kereneia, when I lay on the hot sheets of cracked lava with Arder, whose mouth I could see breathing behind the glass of his suit although he was unconscious, and I knew that it had not been in vain, yet I hadn't the strength then even to open the valve of his reserve cylinder; I lay paralyzed, with the feeling that the greatest thing of my life was behind me now and that if I were to die right there, nothing would change, and my immobility was like the unutterable silence of triumph.

But in the morning everything began again. In the early hours she was still ashamed, or perhaps it was contempt, I do not know whether it was directed at me or whether it was herself she despised for what had taken place. Around lunchtime I succeeded in persuading her to take a short drive. We rode along the huge beaches, with the Pacific stretched before us in the sun, a roaring colossus furrowed by crescents of white-and-gold foam, filled to the horizon with the tiny colored sheets of sailboats. I stopped the car where the beaches ended, ended in an unexpected wall of rock. The road made a sharp turn here, and, standing a meter from the edge, one could look straight down upon the violent surf. We returned for lunch. It was as on the previous day, and everything in me cringed at the thought of the night, because I did not want it. Not like that. When I was not looking at her, I felt her eyes on me. I was puzzled by her renewed frowns, her sudden stares, and then—how or why I do not know—just before dinner, as we sat at the table, suddenly, as though someone had opened my skull with a single blow, I understood everything. I wanted to punch myself in the head—what a self-centered fool I had been, what a self-deceiving bastard—I sat, stunned, motionless, a storm within me, beads of sweat on my forehead. I felt extremely weak.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"Eri," I croaked, "I … only now. I swear! Only now do I understand, only now, that you went with me because you were afraid, afraid that I … yes?"

Her eyes widened with surprise, she looked at me carefully, as if suspecting a trick, a joke.