A Green and Ancient Light (10 page)

Untying all the bandages, Grandmother dabbed carefully at the wounds and smeared them with something dark and oily from a bottle in her pocket. Then she made new bandages from more of the rags, bound them in place, and poured liquid from another bottle into R ——'s mouth.

He spluttered, gagged, and said something in his language but did not regain consciousness. I thought he looked marginally better after the bathing, but Grandmother wasn't happy.

“He should be in the hospital,” she said.

“Unquestionably,” said Mr. Girandole.

“But we did what he wanted,” I reminded her. “He didn't want a doctor.”

She sighed, wringing out the rag. “What will be will be.” Leaving one of the bottles with Mr. Girandole, she lined up the food and milk we'd brought and gave him more instructions than I could follow, let alone remember. But Mr. Girandole listened with solemn intensity and nodded when she'd finished.

“We'll go home now,” she said to me. To Mr. Girandole, she added that we'd bring cloth soon to make some better bandages, and that if he needed help or advice, he should come to the cottage anyway. She also looked with concern at Mr. Girandole and asked if he was remembering to eat and sleep.

“As much as ever,” he told her.

“That's not very reassuring. You don't do enough of either.” Grandmother pressed his hand between hers, as I'd seen her do
before. “This is good of you, Girandole. You have the hardest work.”

“What else have I got to do, M ——? Leave it to me.” The corners of his eyes crinkled, and a look of great fondness passed between him and my grandmother.

She left the lantern and some matches, and we took the brush knife to bundle with our hatchet and firewood.

It was quite a chore for Grandmother to descend the stairway, but at last we safely reached the level ground and sat again on the terrace until our heads cleared. “If that poor fevered man lives to see another day,” she said, “it will only be because this house makes Death too sick to collect him.”

We retraced our steps out of the grove of monsters, leaving the upper glade for me to see the next time. My gaze lingered again on the statues we passed—even the slender women with their water jars.

“You like them?” Grandmother asked, hooking a thumb at the women.

My face burned again. I attempted a casual shrug and said, “Yes,” in an offhand way.

“Boys!” she said, chuckling.

To change the subject, I asked her what Mr. Girandole ate.

“He's quite a gardener and a hunter. The forest keeps his larder full.”

“Does he
need
to eat?”

“Perhaps not to live, but he feels better when he does. He becomes morose when he's tired or hungry.”

We picked up enough sticks to make a proper load, but we encountered no one. When we'd tottered at last through the back
gate, Grandmother went straight to her room for a nap, and I sank onto the garden bench in the hot, drowsy, westering light.

I found myself imagining what the hour of dusk would look like back in the grove, with shadows deepening, the last light red through the leaves, fireflies winking like fairy lamps, and curtains of soft night falling everywhere. I remembered my dream of the monsters beginning to move when I turned away from them. If ever they came to life, it would be in the twilight. I thought of Mr. Girandole keeping his vigil there, watching alone over a man who hovered between life and death.

It had been only two days since R —— had fallen from the sky—two days, but I'd seen so much since then. The world for me had grown bigger and older and wilder; like the sacred grove, it held secrets buried within its tangles.

*  *  *  *

Grandmother woke me early the next morning and announced that we were going to Wool Island. Of course, there were good reasons: Grandmother had run low on yarn for knitting, a trip to the island made a pleasant day's outing, and I hadn't been there yet. But Grandmother also had it in her head that this was the best way to dispose of R ——'s gun once and for all. I didn't quite follow her reasoning: it seemed to me Mr. Girandole's idea had been better—to take the gun somewhere into the mountain forests and bury it. But I also knew that, in her thinking, Grandmother was usually at least ten steps ahead of me.

After breakfast, she set the gun carefully onto the kitchen table, kept the barrel turned away from us, stayed well clear of the trigger, and worked with it until she found out how to remove the
magazine. She put this clip and the gun separately into a cloth bag with a drawstring, closed the neck, wrapped it in a large rag, and nestled this bundle in the bottom of her carpet bag. Then we loaded the bag with crackers, sardines, a dented silvery water bottle with the cap screwed on tightly, and eight or nine bright-skinned tangerines. Grandmother remembered little cups for the water. Finally, we each tucked in the books we were reading: hers was a novel and mine was
Arabian Nights
. Just as we were leaving, I thought I might need my sketching kit and tossed it in, too. There was still plenty of room for the wool yarn Grandmother would buy, but the bag was heavy, so I carried it again.

We passed along the main street, Grandmother stopping at her favorite resting places. These were usually beside particularly well-tended gardens she could admire. She would sit for a few minutes on an iron bench or a low wall and study the fruit trees, the rows of sprouts, or the rose bushes. To me, none of the gardens seemed quite as complete or as satisfying as Grandmother's, with its balances of color and shady depth, splendor and secrecy.

Soldiers still made patrols, and the town continued to buzz with speculation about the enemy fugitive. Mrs. O ——, who was out watering her tomatoes, delivered her opinion (quite loudly, because she didn't hear well) that the missing pilot had gone over the mountain and was headed inland. But another lady with thick eyebrows theorized that he'd stowed away in a cannery truck and was even now traveling down the coast behind tins of tuna and salmon. Mrs. D ——, not one to let the tension dissipate, suggested that the pilot might be hiding in a cellar or in one of the sea-caves, and that he prowled through the village at night, ransacking the garbage for food.

“It wouldn't be easy to elude the patrols,” Grandmother said.

“Easy enough for
him
!” Mrs. D —— insisted. “In that country, they live by trapping and shooting wild animals. They're like wolves!”

I didn't think wolves either trapped or shot their prey, but Mrs. D —— seemed fond of the idea of an enemy who could see in the dark and evade our soldiers like a puff of night mist.

As soon as she could, Grandmother hurried us onward.

The Army launch was gone from the harbor. Through the window of the lunch kitchen, we saw three soldiers sitting at the counter, drinking coffee. None of them was my father, of course—I couldn't move on until I was sure, though I knew he wasn't in our country.

“Give them another day or two,” Grandmother said, “and they'll decide they have better things to do elsewhere.”

The early ferry had left for Wool Island at six a.m. We were taking the second one, scheduled for ten. Though we'd left the house in plenty of time, after so much resting and visiting along the way, we were only just in time. We hurried up the gravel walk to the ticket office, a white building with a row of decorative cabbages along its foundation and a flag dancing above it.

Grandmother was intent on reaching the entrance—already the ferry's engine chugged, and its horn blasted a long, coppery note. But something caught my gaze, and I turned in the doorway. On a second narrow street that joined the first at a sharp angle, an Army truck stood parked against the curb, its canvas sides flapping in the breeze; and just behind it was the staff car we'd seen outside the hotel. I wondered which of the shops or tall boathouses the soldiers might be in. Dashing into the ticket office behind
Grandmother, I opened my mouth to tell her about the vehicles—but stopped short when I saw that the waiting room was full of soldiers.

Chattering, puffing on cigarettes, they slung their rifles over their shoulders and filed out the boarding door. They were all going to Wool Island, too.

I'm sure my face turned a shade paler. My instinct was to back out the door. All I could think of was the carpet bag on my arm and of the gun hidden inside it. When I turned in horror to find Grandmother, I saw an Army officer smiling at her, tipping his hat.

I disliked this portly man immediately. His smile was wide and toothy, his slick hair as shiny as his boots. Ornamental pins glinted on his chest and collar. “Take your time, Madam,” he said to Grandmother. “I'll see that we don't leave without you.”

Calling a polite thank-you, Grandmother found my shoulder with a reassuring pat that became something of a death grip, and steered me to the ticket window.

I started to express my disbelief that we were still going to buy tickets, but she obliterated my words with a bright “Come along, now.”

With a steady cheerfulness, she picked the exact change from her coin purse and slid it across to the gray-haired man at the window, who tore two tickets from a roll and handed them over. “Comes back at one and five,” he told her through his prodigious mustache, his scowl and tone saying that he thought we were the sort who typically missed ferry departures.

I looked at Grandmother in panic. Her eyes glittered, but she said, “Calm down. Good behavior,” and guided me ahead of her out the door after the last soldier.

We turned left, climbed down three steps, and moved along a wooden pier that clunked beneath the soldiers' boots. A few of the men out at the dock's end were singing as they jostled each other. One of the song's lines made me raise my head in disbelief and try to hear more—but another soldier jabbed those men and yelled at them to shut up, gesturing toward us. Grandmother was concentrating on her footing. The smells of sea-brine and engine exhaust washed over us. I eased past a coiled rope as big around as my arm, thinking it looked like a giant snake. Another man took our tickets and helped Grandmother down a short metal stairway into the ferry.

As I clambered over the boat's side, a soldier offered a sun-browned, callused hand. “That bag's as big as you,” he said. I grinned back, wishing I were anywhere but there.

The ferry's horn blared again, right over my head, and I winced. Looking up, I saw a plane whine past, flying low—one of ours.

“Flyboys,” said one of the soldiers scornfully, and his friend laughed.

The ferry had two levels, its interior much like that of a bus or train, with a central aisle and bench seats along both sides, all facing forward. Its pilot occupied an enclosed cabin at the front of the lower level. We were taking the smaller passenger ferry; Grandmother had told me of a larger one that could carry cars and trucks, but it made only one trip per day.

At least ten soldiers spread themselves around, wandering the aisle and finding places they liked, some sitting sideways with their legs up and arms on the seat backs, shouting to one another over the revving engine. Some clattered up the stairs to the top deck. All the windows were open, letting in the fresh salt breeze. Perhaps
half a dozen people from the village were scattered throughout the cabin.

The soldier nearest me, with pale eyes and a shaved head, twirled his cap on a finger and stared at me without grinning. I froze, terri­fied of taking another step. I glanced toward Grandmother, who was peering up the front stairwell, shading her eyes. The soldier tipped his head sideways, still intent on me. I imagined it was how he would look at an enemy prisoner.

He leaned toward me, his face no more than a foot from mine. I could see a fresh shaving cut on his chin and an old scar that interrupted his right eyebrow. Still I could not move.

His companion gave him a shove.

Both soldiers laughed then, and the one with the pale eyes clapped my arm. “It's all right, C ——!” He called me by the name of the cinema star.

Grandmother shuffled back to me. “Want to go upstairs? You can see more from up there.”

I wanted to be wherever the soldiers weren't. I couldn't tell yet where most of them would settle, so I nodded. Telling me to go ahead of her, Grandmother took her time, gripping the handrail and her stick. Outside, the ticket-taker undid two more of the fat snake-ropes from huge cleats and threw them aboard. Again, the horn blasted.

The engine changed pitch, and we churned away from the dock. There were only three soldiers on the top level—so far—and another handful of civilians. I didn't see any that I knew to be Grandmother's friends. I watched the harbor slipping by, the boats and the wharves, the rocks and the houses. Sunlight sparkled on the water. Two fishermen waved from a boat's deck; most of the people
and soldiers waved back. A seagull landed right on the ­ferry's rail and balanced there looking about, enjoying the ride.

We'd no more than gotten settled on a bench near the front, to the right of the aisle, when a gaggle of soldiers tromped up the stairs. The first one “crawled” with his hands clutching the seat backs, right and left. The men all looked at us, some wishing us a good day, some tipping hats to Grandmother, a few serious. Grandmother nodded back, austere and dignified. The one with the pale, staring eyes didn't come up, and I was glad.

I couldn't help turning in my seat to look at the men. Did any of them know my father? Had some perhaps trained with him or marched with him? Had they fought the enemy together? Most of these looked young, even to me then, more like my friends' older brothers than like our fathers. They might have been a boatload of schoolboys horsing around, noisy and carefree. One groomed his slick hair with a comb, two others messed it up, and a fake fight ensued. My gaze drifted to the rifles leaning beside each man, the metal parts dark and gleaming in the bright light.