The Gilda Stories (32 page)

“So what are you suggesting?” Gilda said, forgetting all the words it had taken for Effie to convince her to come north.

“All is relative, ain't that what Sorel says? Long is only long if you think it's long. I say fold your tent. Get in the wind. Forward all your calls.”

Gilda remained silent.

“Listen, you're the one who taught me that safety, stasis, ain't the natural way of living things. You could do anything. How about joining Bird? She's working in Central America on land reclamation. Or how about Iowa?” Julius continued. “Who was that old dude you used to quote, about the tightrope?”

“Papa Wallenda. ‘Life exists only on the high wire. Everything else is just waiting.' “

“Right on!”

Gilda almost spoke, then stopped. Julius was silent for a while and simply watched the thoughts shifting like shadows across her dark face. Gilda tried to grab hold of the images in her mind. Bird, who had traveled relentlessly for decades, was rarely happy until the next journey was on the horizon. And she herself had loved learning each new town, seeing how black people were manifest around the world. Why was it here, in this small enclave, that they found themselves rooted? Potbound, Julius might say.

Gilda rang off and retreated to the small sitting room to build a fire. She laid each log carefully, letting her mind be absorbed by the task. Absently she held a match to the twigs at the bottom and sat back to enjoy the flames as they blossomed and began to consume. Sitting in the old chair she was comforted by the feel of the knots in the quilt at her back. The heat and light of the fire were so much like the rays of the sun that she closed her eyes and thought of the wondrous visit with Eleanor to Mt. Tamalpais. Part of her regretted not ever returning to that spot and looking out at the setting sun. She wondered if such a spot still existed, or if it was all impossibly overgrown, or worse—paved over, rat infested. She had heard on several news shows that California had suffered very badly in the past decade. Overpopulation had created economic collapse. She had not been back there since leaving Sorel's salon, and it was difficult to imagine it any way other than what she'd known. Gilda had drifted deeply into the snapshots of the past when the ringing of the videophone startled her.

She bolted from the chair but stood paralyzed by the phone unable to pick it up, fearing it might be a reporter. Gilda waited, and the ringing stopped as the recorder started. As soon as she heard Effie's voice she pressed the interrupt and full-view buttons. Effie stood before her in a phone facility with a look of concern on her face.

“Ah, wonderful, you're there,” Effie said, relieved that Gilda was still at the house. “I hate leaving messages on these things. I can see that you've heard about the show.”

“I've heard, I've seen.”

“And?” Effie asked, expecting Gilda to have distilled some plan by now.

“Julius suggests I disappear for a while. But there's so much I care about here. I'm afraid that if Abby Bird begins running she'll never be able to stop. And I've been happy here.”

“If you've been happy in Hampton Falls you can be happy somewhere else.”

“But this is the home you've made—”

“Made and can remake. Remember when you first came to the cottage? You looked at the hillside and the building and the trees and said, ‘How perfectly ordinary!' You had the delight of a child, for something there represented the life you wanted. Well, Hampton Falls can't do that anymore. And it is, after all, only a representation of the life. The nation around it is dissolving. I think you should see it through your own eyes, not just others'.”

“But I haven't had the chance to really know this place, the ocean, the trees, you.”

“You, Bird, all of us are part of a network that is naturally outside the daily workings of this universe. Finding the balance between participation and withdrawal—how to sing and not be a superstar, how to write and not become a public figure—is difficult. You've understood that balance for some time. Don't forget what you already know. Sorel and Anthony have made many homes. This was my first on this continent; I've certainly always expected to have others.”

They were both quiet, trying to really see each other past the electronic gadgetry that linked them.

Gilda knew how much Effie disliked speaking on video so felt uncomfortable with her own indecision and stubbornness. “Perhaps I might visit…Missouri, or Julius is in Iowa—”

“Those are fine ideas.” Effie stopped as she saw the clouds clear from Gilda's face, replaced by a broad smile. Her dark skin was glowing again.

“Listen, Effie, I have to go. There are a million things to do now. There'll be a message.”

She faded the screen out and set about getting organized. It all seemed so simple suddenly.

She worked furiously for two days, preparing her papers and shipping away things for storage she might want in the future. Once again she opened the old trunk she'd had since Woodard's and let her gaze caress some of the objects. Folded inside was a newspaper clipping that barely held together. Gilda didn't unfold it. She simply looked at it, knowing the words inside. It was an obituary for Aurelia Freeman of Rosebud, Missouri, who had warranted a lengthy encomium because of her respected position in the black communities of many surrounding towns.

Her work with the poor and the uneducated had been noted and rewarded by numerous citizens and civil rights organizations before her death in 1966. Gilda sat down for a moment to feel the hard beating of her heart at these memories. Over the years she had listened for Aurelia many times, enjoying her successes vicariously. By slipping into her thoughts she was able to sense Aurelia's inner peace and the small part of herself she maintained should Gilda ever return. Only once did Gilda make contact. Through a dream she had tried to communicate the joy she felt at the goodness that filled both of their lives. She had also listened for the lives of Aurelia's daughter and granddaughter, from wherever her travels had taken her. It was not until she received the first letter from Nadine that Gilda actually communicated. It was as if she had willed the girl to write to her.

Gilda folded her colorful quilt on top of her things and closed the trunk with a new leather strap in preparation for shipping. She pulled a file from the back of her desk drawer that held a short letter to her agent and publisher and a large check for the foundling home in town. She made quick adjustments on her will and had it authorized by video after looking up the address for the main offices of the GrassRoots Coalition. She made certain that Abby Bird's other legal papers were in a prominent place in the house. She finally sifted through the few letters she kept, reading many of Nadine's to herself before feeding them into the woodburning stove. She opened one of the last envelopes to glance briefly at the pages before tossing it, when a paragraph Nadine had written about a year before caught her eye:

They think because I'm deaf, I'm stupid. They think they love me because they don't make fun of my deafness. They don't see that this is not enough to be called love. Doing nothing can never be called love. My mother said her gran'ma taught her that. Did I ever tell you every one of us got Nadine in our name somewhere? She said gran'ma named her for a special gift someone had given her years ago….

The letter went on with other stories. Gilda folded the pages and slipped them into the small pack she would take with her.

Carrying a few items, she went outside. She deposited the letters in the postbox at the end of her lane and walked down the road against a brisk wind toward the cliffs that dropped down behind their land into the Atlantic. She folded a shirt, a pair of slacks, and socks into a neat pile on a precipice overlooking the tumultuous water below. Its constant motion tugged at her, as the many rivers she'd known had done, yet the sound of surf against rocks was a comforting roar. It seemed a fitting demise for the legendary Abby Bird. Gilda's pulse quickened at the idea of moving about the world again. She took an easy stroll in the deepening dusk through the woods near her house. She tried not to go over her lists of things to do, wanting simply to listen to the sound of the ocean and the trees. She enjoyed the leaves crunching under her boots and the feel of branches slapping her back as she made her way toward what was no longer her home.

Once inside the dark cottage, Gilda sensed danger. She walked steadily to her bedroom without turning on the living room light and unlocked one of the two bolts that held her sleeping room safe. Then she moved toward the kitchen, measuring her casual stride with deliberation.

As soon as she turned her back, the man who was hidden in the shadows tried to slip into her bedroom. Gilda leapt silently for him, seizing his collar and lifting him from the floor. She held him pinned against the door and looked over her shoulder toward the light switch. The lamp lit itself, revealing a young man dangling like a marionette from her left hand, a camera at his feet. Her voice spit words that burned. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“I want the story on Abby Bird. They're paying me for the story!” The young man realized he had risked his life for an obscure byline, but it was too late. The cynical young reporter believed in a cliché for the first time: his life, in fact, did pass before his eyes.

“There is no story to be told,” Gilda hissed.

The young man struggled not to kick his heels against the wall. He felt foolish enough already. He'd always thought it a stupid idea—skulking around some pop writer's house looking for love letters or whatever else editors thought bought viewers. Especially silly as other real news darkened around them. He tried to maintain a look of staunch professionalism from his precarious position while he estimated his chances of survival and breathed at the same time.

“But then, again, perhaps there is a story,” Gilda said, loosening her grip so that his feet reached the floor. She smiled pleasantly, as if Abby Bird had just offered him tea, then hummed a soft, lulling tune. Her eyes held his while she moved into his mind, edging it into unconsciousness. She sliced neatly into his vein with a much-practiced gesture and drank the blood quickly. Gilda drew from him only enough to sustain herself, and in exchange for the life he shared with her she left him his story.

Abby Bird, noted novelist and respected naturalist, died today by her own hand in protest against the destruction of the environment by ordinary people. She left her entire estate, including projected royalties and her extensive mailing list, to GrassRoots, an internationally known activist Organization.

Gilda smiled at the epitaph she had composed for the illustrious Abby Bird. She felt as proud of that as she did of the books the author had penned. She sealed the wound gently and held his pulse until it returned to a more normal rate. She easily carried the man outside. Moving through the woods, she found his car parked two miles from the house. He would awaken shortly with the satisfaction of having scooped a top-of-the-show story for his network. She hurried back to her house and pushed the shutters closed, securing them from inside. She turned on the video monitor one last time and switched to the general message board.
Welcome Home,
she typed, and it appeared in big letters on the screen. Gilda locked the message in, then coded outgoing messages to family members to be stored until they tried to contact her.

She walked around the house as she had done with every home she'd abandoned over the years. She looked at things being left behind, touched surfaces as if memories might be absorbed through her fingertips. She would miss the wonderfully huge wood stove and the sound of Sorel's laughter when they sat around it sipping champagne. Something about the way the snow lay in winter on the hill sloping down from the house reminded her of the old farm on the road out of New Orleans past Woodard's. Bird had noticed that, too. When she came to visit she spent much time seated atop the hill simply staring out as if she could see Louisiana.

And there was a pristine, purposeful quality about the whole place that made her think of Bernice. She let all the memories find their way to the top of her thoughts. Although the loss made her wistful, there was little sadness this time—having made one home she could make another.

Once more she left her house, this time carrying a pallet filled with Mississippi soil, a backpack, and a small ribbon-tied bundle of letters. She looked down the road remembering what it had been like to travel alone from place to place, listening to people in person rather than electronically. In the back of her mind the dangers of that first journey sat in hulking shadows. She had to peer at them closely to make herself remember that each journey was different; the fears she'd had so long ago needn't beset her now.

Gilda hesitated a moment to decide on her direction—north toward what had once been called Canada, or south? She turned southward thinking Arkansas might be nice this time of year. She moved slowly, afraid of her destination. What would such a meeting hold? She would not be able to explain who she was to Nadine. Yet seeing Aurelia's great-granddaughter filled Gilda with excitement and impatience. Touching this part of her past, even briefly, would help her go forward. She was eager to hear more of the GrassRoots Movement, to know what she and the others might do. Feeling discontent but doing nothing was no longer enough.

She began to pick up her speed, passing from the highway into the wooded margins that surrounded the many towns now close to collapse or abandoned entirely. Gilda was eager to meet the girl whose name meant Hope. Her tent was folded, the wind was high, and all calls had been forwarded.

Gilda stood barely breathing, her gaze resting on the green-and-purple glow of the grotto that opened beyond the entrance to her cavern. Its warming phosphorescence reminded her of the blinking lights circling the sign that marked the town limits of the sad little place where she had found Nadine. By the time Gilda arrived, those lights were all that was left working, and Nadine faithfully replaced bulbs and checked the electrical line. The pulsing, theatrical bulbs were Nadine's joy, the symbol she had taken as a reason for pushing the town to hang on. Gilda saw, during her stay with Nadine, that almost everyone else had given up, abandoning hope of food, work, relief of any kind. Townspeople scoffed at Nadine and other members of GrassRoots who persisted in their demands that people turn around the way they lived. Nadine signed furiously to everyone and laughed in her muffled chortle when they refused to understand her. Then she began again, certain that they would catch up. As Nadine toiled over handbills instructing people how to live without comforts but not feel degraded, Gilda saw the bend of Aurelia's head and the strength of Aurelia's resolve in every motion. The lights were the one luxury Nadine felt they all needed.

Gilda took the same route out of town when she left for the last time just so she could see Nadine's sign once more. Each time she returned to this cavern, the memory of Nadine and Aurelia returned with her.

Soon the guards would be in place and she could retreat behind the bolted door of her chamber far from the light of day and from the Hunters. She would be able to lay down to rest. Gilda had little faith in her highly paid guards, not at the prices the Hunters were offering, so once behind that door she would let herself out of a hidden panel and into the maze of rock-strewn corridors that surrounded her underground adytum. She would then wander randomly until she found a niche that felt safe, undo her canvas bedroll soft with Mississippi soil, lay her lean body down, and wait for night. The caverns and mine shafts of the Southwest were numerous, convoluted, and still intriguing to her, but their air was oppressive and made her feel as much a prisoner as any cell. The grotto's dampness caused all of her clothes to mildew; everything had to be scrubbed daily to make existence bearable. She yearned for the peace and comforts of her coastal cottage, now gone.

If she stayed much longer she was certain the Hunters would find her and bribe one of the guards. Sometimes, wandering the dank, rough corridors, she thought it might be worth it to give herself up to them. There were many rumors: the life being offered was service, not servitude or destruction. It was said that only those who resisted sharing their blood were dealt with harshly. Gilda knew better. In light of the ruthless way the decline of the planet had been shepherded, she listened to no rumors—only the bits of information that Julius passed on to her and the others.

Thoughts of the Hunters, armed with drugs and other weapons to ensnare her and her family, caused Gilda to shiver with the memory of her escape from the plantation. In unsuspecting moments she felt the bounty hunter's hand on her childishly thin ankle as he dragged her from beneath the hay. Those who came now were more silent, more expert, but essentially the same. Their approach filled her with a familiar terror.

Living along the tree-thick coast of the Atlantic, it had been easy to miss the air of disposability that threatened all living things–trees, oceans, people. It was on her journey to visit Nadine that Gilda saw the wasteland the country had become and understood how far back it had been thrown by the fever of desperation and solipsism infecting so many. There was little pleasure in remembering.

The things she held sacred became fewer: her mother's broad Fulani face; the sound of Anthony's and Sorel's voices as they argued over wine; Bird's voice inside her head; the ease with which she had learned to live with Effie; and sharing the blood with Julius. It had been life freely given, not the travesty being demanded of them now. This horror was slavery come again.

The psychological impact of having no distant future to contemplate was staggering. People had grown restless and impatient with themselves, then surly and ruthless. Finally, they had discovered the existence of the Vampire. They began to believe in the myths they had heard with chilled pleasure as children and to put their faith in the creatures with infinite regenerative powers.

Gilda and her family had retreated from society, taking less blood than they needed, creating fewer like themselves. Even the most flagrant terrorists among them, those who thrived on the fear of their victims, ceased their killing in the attempt to escape discovery. The full transfusion of their blood gave eternal life to the hungry rich, who now sent out the Hunters to capture them. Once transformed, however, the wealthy broke the one commandment held by her kind: never kill one's creator. In her lifetime she had seen that recklessness in only one other—Samuel.

Gilda finally settled into a rocky alcove on her cool pallet, hoping that Julius or Effie would answer the call she sent out before she slept. She closed her eyes and felt no one but knew they would answer. Soon she'd be assured of their safety and able to make her way to them.

When Gilda awoke her body told her it was dusk in the world above. She started sharply when she saw Houston, one of her guards, standing in front of the entrance to the place where she hid. His broad back and narrow hips were unmistakable, as was the blond hair he wore tied with a scarf as long and bright as the hair itself. She did not move but watched as he shifted uneasily under her gaze on his back.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

He didn't turn but spoke looking straight ahead. “I came upon you as I made my rounds. I know that you sometimes slip away from us but this place is too exposed.”

“You understand that to know my sleeping place means death?”

“Yes.”

“Then why have you stayed?”

“I've watched you sleep before. I couldn't leave you here for someone else to discover.”

Houston's back gave no clue to his thoughts. Gilda was sure she could take him easily; she need only hold him with her gaze and he would fall before her. Then she would not have to go out to gather life from anyone tonight. Perhaps that is why he is keeping his back turned, Gilda thought.

“Face me.”

Houston turned to her, his large body a contrast to the simple lines of his face, smooth brow, hairless skin, and full lips held firm across his teeth. He looked Gilda in the eye, something none of the other guards did.

“Have you become a Hunter? Do you hunt me?”

“No.”

“Then you seek my life for yourself?” Gilda asked, knowing as she spoke it was not true. There was no callousness about him. Unlike the wealthy who had inherited the earth he was curious, uncertain. It was this that made him a good guard, a strong ally.

“Answer, please.”

“No.”

“What then? I have little patience at this moment!”

“Your guard, as always.”

Gilda stared steadily into his eyes searching for the edge that was sure to appear if he was lying. She looked behind his thoughts and found the curiosity that had become familiar to her, blended with the gut animal smell many men carried when around a woman. She laughed thinly and saw the puzzlement on his face.

“I'll have the nightly reports in my chamber,” Gilda said. She walked away brusquely, taking care not to touch him as she passed.

She entered her room and lit the candles that she preferred to the omnipresent fluorescents. She pulled a stiff brush through her bristly, close-cut hair. The past attempted to flood in on her. It pushed at the wall curtains and against her breasts, trying to sweep her before it, to engulf her in weariness and fear, but Gilda snapped her eyes open and forced her concentration onto something in the present: the half-full decanter of red wine glistening in the light. She wound herself around the facets of the bottle and slipped inside the smoothness of the vintage wine, feeling its soothing coolness. She wanted to remember which one of the wines this was so she could let Sorel know how pleasing it had been. The light playing on the glass brought his booming laughter to her. She stood entranced until the sound of movement forced her back.

Houston entered with the two others she employed to watch her cavern compound. One was a thin, older man, not yet fifty, whose eyes and body appeared to be perpetually on the edge of starvation. But he was alert and fast; perhaps knowing he was in the final stages of his life made him so. The second was a young woman of about seventeen, plump and clever. She seemed to never sleep and was always everywhere with a smile. Gilda knew she snuck off some afternoons to see someone, a lover or her family, but she never shirked her duty. Gilda paid them fairly, was even generous when she could be, but kept herself at a distance except during these accounts on the security of the cave and the surrounding landscape.

They reported what went on above in the half-abandoned cities several kilometers to the north and east, trying to speak casually, as if they were not sitting in a cave beneath the earth with a woman who could live for eternity, or might just as easily kill them. She had offered the one thing she knew would bind them to her: sharing of her blood, which she promised to do just as she left them for the last time. The old man had refused. His lungs were already gone, as well as all of his friends. The young woman said yes, maybe. As yet she had not declared herself. She worked tirelessly to help her family but said she feared the hunted life. She seemed content with the money to be made as a bodyguard. Houston had said nothing, only took his pay and hovered nearby at all times.

Gilda listened impatiently, hungry to be outside in the freedom of darkness walking the dry bed of the Rio Bravo. She tried to remember what night had felt like long ago—full of promise, the shadows inviting. Evenings arm in arm with Effie, walking until they were both full from the sights they'd seen. Discovering new cities and people, then hiding themselves away from the sun until night came again for them. They had not done so in almost a decade.

She had seen Julius more recently. The challenge of eluding the Hunters ignited a sense of adventure that sporadically led him to her side. He spent their reunions telling tales of the others and playing recordings of newly created folk music he had collected from around the country as proof that the human spirit was still thriving. Then night concealed his departure.

Sitting here with her guards, the only personal contact she dared to make, the night no longer held the meaning it had in the past. There was no freedom above. The Hunters were everywhere, using telepathy, sonar body tracers, and decoy tricks to find the sleeping places. Unable to wait any longer Gilda abruptly dismissed the group in the middle of Houston's report. She changed quickly into the dark green one-piece she favored and a short jacket. Her boots were silent on the rocks as she climbed the gradual incline to the mouth of the cave.

There were no city lights in either direction. The desert was silent except for the slight rustling of the camouflage tarp that hid a small hovercraft. There was no moon. The contaminated atmosphere rarely allowed it to break through the earth's grey blanket.

Gilda turned eastward in the darkness and began to run at a speed that soon made her invisible, covering the distance of a hundred kilometers in a quarter of the time it took the hovercraft. She felt conspicuous as she came into town. Almost everyone on the street was in pairs or groups of three and four. Few ventured out unaccompanied.

She wandered, watching and listening before she went to take her share of the blood. She slid easily into an apartment window and took from a sleeping man, who experienced a slight disturbance of his dream. When she heard a key at the front door Gilda slipped a pleasing idea into the greyness of his dreams and fled.

The night had cooled, and there were few people on the street when she emerged. Many of the apartment buildings were abandoned, making the city's darkness almost complete. Two high-rise luxury towers at the northern edge stood empty in blackness, solemn obelisks serving as tombstones for the entire city.

Before she turned down the boulevard that led to the edge of town she felt a presence behind her. She slowed her pace and listened. Light, reflected from a shop window, cast a dull glow, but most of the street was dark. It was the unmistakable stealth of a Hunter. The reflex stimulants they used, making them faster and stronger than the weakened population, was evidenced in the very silence of his steps.

He kept pace with Gilda but held his distance, hoping, she assumed, to track her to her sleeping place and then overcome her. Gilda turned into a narrow alley of smaller buildings and low stoops, ran for a few steps, then backed into a doorway and threw an empty ash can down the alley. It clanged in echoes through the street for just long enough; the Hunter came around the corner, running. Gilda reached out and grabbed him by the throat, cutting off his wind and voice. He made a small choking sound but couldn't move or Gilda's fingers would have ripped out his vocal chords. He swung his hand up in a swift chop to dislodge her grip. His strength was considerable, but Gilda's was greater.

She pushed him away before he could strike her again. He hit the opposite wall and bounced forward like a toy. In the darkness it was impossible to tell anything about the Hunter except that he was of narrow build, wiry, and vicious.

As he crouched low to use the ancient martial arts, Gilda spoke in a soft voice. “Leave me. I have no wish to kill you.”

There was no visible reaction to her words as he continued toward her. Gilda turned to run, certain she could disappear before he had a hint of her direction. He grabbed her arm as swiftly as one of her own kind. His grip and the counterforce stretched her arm away from its socket. The pain shot from her shoulder to the back of Gilda's head. Her mouth opened, but only breath escaped.