The Secret City (9 page)

W
E’LL HAVE TO SPEND THE NIGHT ON THE LEDGE
. It’s going to be a dark, cloudy night. Too dangerous for two of us to walk this rocky trail single-file with just my tiny flashlight.

He’s cold even after I wrap him in Mollish’s bedroll. And he’s frightened. When he looks at me, it’s wide-eyed—like a scared baby animal looking at the mother for help. I thought maybe it would be dangerous sleeping with him next to me after I’d knocked him out, but I can see on his face that I’m his only hope.

I make him put on my long underwear over his shorts. I zip him into Mollish’s sleeping bag, I squeeze his shoulder. I say, “Sleep now.” As I say it, I use two fingers and shut his eyes for him. “Sleep. Sleep.” (He might as well start learning the language.) Of course his eyes pop open again right away.

I lie down. We’re head to head, both of us in the only place we can be, stretched out right in the middle of the trail. I turn out the flashlight. No stars, no moon. I wonder what he thinks of night on this world. Jet black. Scary. Maybe tomorrow night he’ll get to see stars. I hope so. With their two moons always in the way, my kind can’t ever have seen a sky full of stars.

If he comes down with me in the morning, I’ll have to do something about that pompadour and that crazy shirt. Shorts for heaven’s sake!

I
HAVE A HARD TIME SLEEPING
. I
MISS ALLUSHA
. We always slept next to each other, looking up at the stars and the moon—whispering after Mollish had gone to sleep. Mollish knew the stars as much as Ruth did. Sometimes she pointed out the constellations, too. Now both she and Ruth are dead and all my fault.

And there’s a big problem, I don’t know the way. Neither towards town nor back to the city. If towards town, all I know is east and (I hope) south enough to avoid the town where I was in jail. But going east should be enough. We’ll hit Route 395 somewhere. No way to miss it. It goes north and south between two mountain ranges for hundreds of miles.

And Youpas will be following us, waiting for a chance to kill me. When he finds out Allush got snatched and I didn’t stop her he’ll be after me more than ever. Should I turn back even so? Take this man to the Secret City to hide out there with the beacons and wait for rescue? Try to find it again, that is. But I don’t want to have a showdown with Youpas. I’ll take him to the Down. Give him a chance to learn a few things about this world. Maybe he can go back and tell our people to stop snatching us without asking. I wonder if it would do any good. Maybe there’s a reason they want us back. Could be as simple as that we’re dangerous to our own people here. What if we’re found out by the natives? Who knows what will happen then. Homo sapiens sapiens off, yet again, to wipe out Neanderthals.

I
N THE MORNING WE WAKE TO HAIL AND THUNDER
. This ledge is a bad place to be in lightning. Here, there’s no shelter whatsoever. I have a decent hat, but he doesn’t even have one of those baseball caps the old ones always wore. I put my hat on his head. He says, “Ayyaa, ayyaa,” but I say, “Yes.” Then he ducks his head as, thanks.

I pack up, give him Mollish’s backpack and we hurry on—down and east. I’m not thinking which way to go. I just want to get us back into the tree line to someplace more sheltered.
Then
I’ll think. Also, on this rough ground, I need a cane but there won’t be any possible sticks until we get into the trees. Thinking cane makes me think of Ruth again. Hers must still be up behind the pink wall where I got shot.

Rain or no, the man stops every now and then and looks around. His stopping makes me stop and look, too. I try to imagine what he’s thinking—maybe that everything is ugly compared to his world, just like Mother said it was. Even so, whatever he’s thinking, I appreciate the view even more than I normally do. I think:
my
snowy peaks,
my
silvery waterfalls on the mountain across from us,
my, my, my
beautiful world.

While we’re still fairly high, the rain stops. Shortly after it does we watch a turkey vulture soar out from the cliff, just above us. Later, in the trees below, we walk through fireweed as high as our heads. In this sheltered side of the mountain, it’s still in bloom. A magpie flies across our path and I hear the man gasp. I guess no magpies back on our home world. I’d rather not be where there aren’t any magpies.

We don’t stop to eat until we’re well into the valley. We sit on a rock and I chew that stringy jerky from some ratlike rodent. He’s hungry enough now to eat some without gagging. We both drink Mollish’s tea.

I point to myself and say Lorpas, and he points to himself and says Narlpas.

I say, “I’m going to have to do something with your hair.” I gesture. “Hair,” I say. I keep talking. “Your hair won’t do. It’s a little late in the season, but we might meet natives any time even so. I’ve seen men attacked for less. Well, not very often.”

Then I point to him. I say, “From now on you’re not Narlpas. Narlpas, ayyaa. You’re Jack.” I point to me. “And I’m not Lorpas. Ayyaa Lorpas. I’m Norman.”

I take a good look at his barrel chest and heavy eyebrow ridges, at that coarse black hair. To the natives, we all look as if from the same family. I say, “We’re brothers, and you, my friend, have a speech defect, and though you’re most likely just as smart as I am, I’m going to be telling everyone you’re a little dim-witted.”

After we eat, I rinse his hair in the icy stream to take out the stiffener and tie it back in a ponytail.

First he thought I was going to drown him. Or maybe freeze him. I couldn’t make him understand. I said, “Ayyaa. OK, OK.” Finally I had to gesture as if to hit him again and he gave up and let me rinse his hair.

Afterwards he smiled. Relieved. Knowing he’d made a mistake about me. He said, “OK, OK,” and we both laughed. After that things are different between us. He’s still scared—more than scared … terrified … but at least not of me.

I wish I had scissors. Neither of us will be very presentable. Especially with him in my long underwear (now under the shorts). I still have Ruth’s pink razors. When we get closer to a town we’ll shave and bathe. After sweating out here in the wild for a couple of weeks, I’m pretty stinky.

I find myself a cane, just the piece of a dead branch, but I’ll go a lot faster.

The trail has been following a stream ever since we got into the trees. That afternoon, I stop and catch a fish, make a fire and fry it. Jack refuses to eat it. He prefers another piece of dried rodent. Odd that he manages to eat that without too much of a problem. That doesn’t give me much respect for the food back on the homeworld. I think of Allush. I wonder if she likes the food. Nothing worse than alien food. I wonder if there are any good trees for her to climb. I wonder if her clothes and messy hair are as ridiculous there as this man’s are here. Well, they are. Even here on this world she’d have had to get a haircut and cleaned up.

I’m tired and depressed. It’s not late but I stop. I find a level spot away from the trail and roll out the bedrolls. I like seeing my beautiful world new and fresh as if through Jack’s eyes, but I’d much prefer bedding down with Allush and Mollish beside me.

Jack, on hands and knees, examines dirt and pebbles. Plucks at plants. At first he’s afraid to touch them but I pull some out to show him it’s all right. I say, “Plants,” and, “These aren’t poison. Not to eat, though, but there’s others that are. We’ll eat some as soon as I see some good ones.” I think it’s good for me to keep talking so as to give him a feel for the language.

I wonder if he thinks this whole world is nothing but mountains and forests and hardly any people. I wonder if he thinks wandering around and sleeping on the ground is the usual way.

It’s dusk. Animals start coming out. A doe walks right in on us. We sit like stones and watch. I say, “Deer.” When I say it, the doe does a double take and runs.

A jackrabbit and a gray fox, come together, stay not three yards apart and don’t pay any attention to each other or to us. The jackrabbit is as big as the fox. I say, “Fox and Jackrabbit.” And off they go.

He says, “Jack.” I say, “Ayy
yaa
. Jack
rabbit.”
He says, “OK, OK.” I guess we’re talking.

He’s getting used to being Jack and he calls me Norman. Well, he can’t say Rs. The old ones had the same problem. He calls me No man. There’s some truth in that.

I show him how to work the flashlight. I put it by his bedroll. Again I say, “Sleep.” And he tries to repeat it.

“Not Shleep. Sleep.” A logical mistake. Our language is so full of “Sh” sounds. I think: Allush, Allusha, and Mollish.

“OK, OK.”

“You know there
is
another word for OK.”

I suppose he’d say, Yesh.

“OK, OK.”

Does he think it has be said twice to count?

Down here there’ll be all sorts of night noises. I hope he isn’t frightened … or any more scared than he already is.

I
WAKE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
. B
EYOND OUR
sheltering tree, I can see the starlit sky and Jack, silhouetted against the dazzle of it, looking up. I watch him watching. I think what he must be thinking, never having seen stars. Odd, I’m feeling so proud of this world, so proud of this sky, though what have I got to do with any of it?

I
N THE MORNING WE HAVE A SPECTACULAR SUNRISE
. I teach him, “Beautiful.” He says it, though for all I know, he thinks it means garish. (It
is
a little overdone.) Or maybe he even thinks it means ugly. Or maybe just means sunrise or colorful or sun. I say, “Sun.” I point. I gesture. I draw a circle in the dust. I make a solar system. “Earth. Sun.”

Small gray birds flit back and forth with wonderfully complicated calls. I whistle but I can’t imitate them. Jack tries, too. We laugh. “Birds,” I say. “Bird, bird
ss
. One bird, two birds, three birds, four….”

“OK, OK. Bird. Bird sss.”

“You got it.”

I
’VE TAUGHT HIM “SLEEP,” “COME,” “ONE TWO
three four five,” “let’s go,” “thank you,” and… (and I couldn’t help it) I taught him, Yay and Wow. Those were by mistake. Wow is what I said whenever I suddenly came across a spectacular view. Yay is what I say when we see the first houses.

We come to a dirt road, hike a mile down it, and there they are. These are those of the fancy summer people, scattered high in the foothills. This time of year they’re empty. Shuttered. Everything turned off. No water, no heat, no electricity.

Jack has been wearing my long underwear under his shorts. He looks too weird for coming into town.

I hate to break into a house and steal—yet again—but I’m already wanted for much more than that. Besides, I’m just going to take a pair of pants and maybe a shirt. Under my sweater my shirt—Ruth’s husband’s shirt—is little more than rags. It wasn’t that good even before they cut the sleeve off to get at my wound.

I have to break into three houses before I find clothes big enough for us. I pry off one shutter and break one window in each house. I teach him, “stay” and the hand signal as if for a dog. I hide him each time behind an arborvitae—almost all the houses have them. I only help him climb in, after I find a house with clothes the right size. I hope he doesn’t think this is how we go into houses all the time.

I say, “You may not think so, but there are such things as doors.”

Because of the shutters, there’s not much light except near the shutter I broke. When I check for clothes, I find a big flashlight. I hand it to Jack. He flashes it around the rooms.

There are big paintings of these very same mountains on the walls. He examines them as if he’s never seen such art before. I know our people had carvings because of all those up in the Secret City and then Mother drew pictures for us. How could we not have had paintings? Or maybe they wouldn’t have had them of the exact same mountains which are right outside the shutters. That does seem a little odd.

There are lots of photos of the natives … on the mantle, desk, tops of bookcases. He brings them to the opened shutter and studies them. All those sharp, smooth faces—so much finer than ours. There are both blonds and brunettes … much more variety, even in this one family, than we have among our people.

There are two telephones, two TV sets, radios and CD players but the electricity is off. I don’t dare turn it on. Light would shine out from the shutters.

I show him the bedrooms. He bounces on the beds. Lies down. Smiles a big smile as if a good bed is the best thing he’s seen on this world so far.

I take the flashlight and leave him on the bed. I find him polypropylene underwear, blue jeans, a sweater…. There’s a pair of scissors. I’ll chop off his hair.

And here are dresses and some loose silky slacks … shoes that look … at least to me … as if for dancing. Jack makes me happy because I see everything with new eyes, but, on the other hand, everything is dulled down because Allush isn’t here to see it with me. I’d have taken a dress for her or these loose silky slacks. I wonder what she’d look like in a nice dress and with her hair cut and combed. I wonder what her legs are like not all covered up with leather. And Mollish…. I’d have stolen her some polypropylene underwear. Maybe she’d have liked a dress, too, though the way she strode around I doubt it.

When I check on Jack, he’s sound asleep, sprawled on the king-sized bed. I leave him be.

There’s food in the house. Rice, pasta, flour … coffee and tea … left in the cupboards from the summer.

I find where the water’s turned off and turn it on. The gas is off but I find a little camp stove. I start cooking pasta.

There are no cans or jars of tomatoes, they would freeze, nothing to put on the pasta except some Parmesan.

There’s a battery radio. You can only get one station up here in the mountains. I was hoping for news but it’s country music.

When the spaghetti is done I wake Jack. Hard to do. For once he’s really sound asleep. Probably for the first time since he’s been here. I’d let him sleep, but the pasta will be gummy if it sits too long. Not that he’d know the difference.

By now he’s hungry enough to eat some of anything though I can see the stringy spaghetti bothers him. I wish I could explain what it’s not.