A Green and Ancient Light (18 page)

“And how is the young soldier?” asked Major P ——, shaking my hand. His grip was hard, warm, and slightly damp, and he smelled of cologne. “Is he following orders well?”

“Commendably so,” said Grandmother. For the life of me, I didn't know how she could sound so calm. “He has his orders right now, in fact.” She opened her pocketbook. “While he's here, I'm taking
full advantage of an extra pair of hands. This is our marketing day, Major.” She handed me two folded bills and counted out some coins.

“Oh, but I was hoping,” said the major, “that since fate has once more granted us a fortuitous meeting, I might thank you for the pleasant time the other day.”

“Well,” said Grandmother, glancing down at the shopping baskets.

“Please,” said the major. “I will be wounded if you do not accept. We can drive to your house, and you can put these things away. Then join me for lunch in the hotel restaurant. I recall that they serve a particularly good mackerel.”

No famous actress could have bested Grandmother. She actually appeared to blush as she averted her eyes, hesitating. It also struck me that she had an effect on people, as if she were a lantern in a dark room. People noticed her; what few strangers we met that summer in the village would take a step or two closer, perhaps without realizing it, to get a better look at her. The major might have focused his attentions on some woman thirty or forty years younger—there were many in the street around us. Probably, I thought, he would do just that before the day was over; but for now, he seemed to want Grandmother as a lunch companion.

“Very well, then,” said Grandmother. “I certainly can't
wound
a defender of our country.”

“Splendid!”

“But I think,” Grandmother said, “we should let the ‘young soldier' do his errands as planned. He is so often subjected to the gossip of old busybodies—I speak of my friends, Major, not you!”

The major laughed, displaying his teeth. “How about it, my good man? Aren't you tempted by a ride in an Army car?”

Camouflage,
I told myself. “Yes, sir. But I . . . I'm writing a book.”
I don't know why I blurted that, or what sort of excuse it was supposed to provide, but that's what came out of my mouth.

“A book?” said the major. He pointed at me suddenly, remembering what I'd told him on the ferry. “You like to draw pictures! The artist is writing a book?”

“Well, and illustrating it,” I said weakly.

“I would love to see this opus!”

“Thank you, sir. I'm . . . getting my ideas together.”

“And what is this book about?”

Behind the major, the men and dogs were moving out, following the street in different directions, working in teams. I guessed they would leave the village by separate paths and converge on the parachute. I had no time to waste.

“The sea . . . voyage,” I answered, grasping after words.

“Eh?”

“Sea voyages—and battles,” I added, expecting the major would like that.

“Ah. Well, then. I suppose we must leave the artist to his contem­plation. The coast, they say, is inspiring to the creative mind. The painters and poets all want to move here, to villages just like this.”

“And you wonder, Major, why I've never moved away.” To me, Grandmother said, “Off with you!”

I needed no further prompting. Leaving the basket where it lay, I stuffed the money into my pocket and dashed along the street, away from our house. I would have to take an indirect route, but once I was outside the village, I could make straight for the grove; the dogs would not, so I should still arrive ahead of them. But it was risky: I'd never followed any path but the usual one to the garden. I hoped I could find it.

And once I got there—what then? The secret compartment would do us no good. The dogs would smell us inside, and we'd be trapped.

Trust Girandole,
Grandmother had said. I could only hope he would know what to do.

*  *  *  *

I raced along the street, weaving among people, sidewalk displays, vegetable carts, and parked bicycles. At the corner with Harbor Street, I turned away from the waterfront and headed up the steep hill. Already I was painfully aware of the day's heat. My drenched shirt stuck to me, and light glared off the white houses, where bedding and laundry hung on steamy balconies. Flowers in window garden-boxes made dizzying splashes of color and filled the air with a lushness of scent. Old people eyed me with the general disapproval shown toward all things disruptive. No one should be running on such a day.

Pausing at another corner to wipe sweat from my eyes, I could hear dogs baying in the distance. A cramp knifed in my side, but I had no time to rest. The streets were not at right angles.
Don't get lost,
I ordered myself, trying to decide which lane would take me up to the woods. Some internal bell rang at the cannery, much nearer at hand than I was used to. In a yard trimmed with yellow and orange flowers, a woman shaking out a rug cautioned me to slow down or I'd get the prickly heat. When the street forked, I followed the lane on the right between two-story houses and hedged gardens. It became a stairway, which I dashed up, taking two steps at a time, afraid that it might dead-end in a walled park or loop back down. But finally, at the cobbled pavement's end, I could see a meadow, and beyond it, the forest.

I broke from the village into the belt of arbors and orchards. A fat-bellied cargo plane droned across the sky, escorted by three of our country's fighters—aircraft that looked decrepit and old-­fashioned compared to the warplanes of our stronger allies. Far off to my left, two soldiers with dogs also crossed the meadow—so far away they were mere specks in the shimmering green. Whether anyone saw me or not, I had no choice but to keep going.

Before passing into the wood, I tried to gauge the terrain above me. If I misjudged the direction and got lost even for a matter of minutes, I would arrive too late. I leaned against an umbrella pine to catch my breath, then ran on.

The shade brought relief from the sun, washing over me with the aroma of bark and ferns. Birds sang. I looked around, realizing that I didn't even think about the way any more when I went by our usual path. Here, the moss was undisturbed, crisscrossed by fallen logs. Boulders reared up like grazing creatures whose heads were buried in the brush. Groves of saplings clustered in the shadow of their giant elders. At first, I wondered if the forest would let me in at all. Following the natural courses of ravines and ridges, I labored up the mountain, pausing often, listening for familiar sounds in the village to check my bearings: the bell at the harbor mouth, the huffing machines at the cannery. I wasn't certain if I actually heard dogs barking behind the wind or if those sounds were phantom echoes in my head.

When I thought I should be getting close to the grove, I found a tall tree on a rise and hoisted myself into it, scrambling up from limb to limb. High enough at last to peer out over the crowns of the other trees, I searched the forest to the northwest. I saw only treetops whispering and rolling, a boundless sea of leaves
beneath the sky. My heart sank. Somewhere, the dogs were drawing ever closer to the garden, their noses to the ground, but I had no path to follow, nothing to guide me. I'd been foolish to think I could get there quickly by a way I'd never used before. From this vantage, I realized how hopeless that was.

Here, but for the occasional murmur from the village, it was easy to believe I was alone in the world, the only human being. This was the kingdom of trees, a place of shifting light and ­rustling music old almost as the mountains themselves. I had the sensation that I'd passed beyond time itself, that I'd been running up the slopes for years upon years, like a character in a fairy tale—a half hour for me, perhaps, but the village I heard behind me was no longer the same village, and everyone I'd known—Grandmother, my parents, my sister, my friends—was long dead.

I took gasping breaths, overwhelmed with frustration. Burrs clung to my pant legs, and my wet shirt made me shiver. My hands smarted from the rough bark. The major's men would catch R ——. They'd probably shoot Mr. Girandole, with his goatish legs and hoofs; they'd think him a monster or the devil. And what would become of Grandmother? They'd find her things in the leaning house—carpet bag, lantern, medicines, bucket, and pan; the men would force R —— to tell them who'd helped him. And the major knew the carpet bag well; he'd held it in his hands on the ferry.

Feeling worse by the moment, I prayed to God for help.

I'd never before had a prayer instantly answered, but how could I suppose what happened next to be anything but an answer to prayer? Turning to gaze south, wondering if I could make out anything of the village or the sea, I glimpsed—half-hidden by interposing trees—what seemed to be an open hilltop. And on the bare
knoll between trunks was a straight, vertical line. I stared at it, wondering what it could be. A phrase of Grandmother's played in my mind:
Nature abhors a straight line
.

All at once, I recognized the corner of the many-pillared temple! I was looking at the hill above the garden's ravine—the structure to which the stairway led, where the inscription proclaimed,
I am a gate
.

Breathing my incredulous thanks, I fixed the direction in my mind and returned swiftly to the ground, then dashed off at an angle that would have seemed entirely wrong to me. I'd overshot the grove; if I'd gone just another twenty paces before climbing a tree, the glimpse of the temple would have been lost among the foliage.

The last obstacle was a deep crevice in the ground, a crack with rock walls, its bottom a depository of broken stones and dead leaves. This trench lay across my path, too wide to jump over. But not far away, a fallen tree bridged it.

Clambering through thorns and vines, I reached the trunk. It was hardened and bleached, a great bone of the forest. Having tested it for strength, I eased across on hands and knees, gripping the stubs of shattered limbs. Then I was on the far side and running again, downhill and uphill.

I slid from a bank into a glade where the trees and brush thinned . . . and no more than a good stone's throw to my right was the back of the mermaid. Tears of relief stung my eyes. Blinking them away, I hurried forward, moving quietly, remembering to stay alert for soldiers.

I passed through the archway into the lower garden and moved back westward, toward the stone house. But once again, Mr. Girandole surprised me by springing from behind the pedestal of the missing
statue. He seemed to spend most of his time outdoors, where he could listen to the forest and breathe its scents. And I was sure he didn't fancy sitting beside R —— for hours on end.

Mr. Girandole trotted toward me, his gaze dark with worry.

“They've got dogs!” I blurted. “The major's men are all back with dogs, and they're headed this way!”

His eyes flashed, and slowly he nodded. “Come on,” he said, motioning me toward the leaning house. “I knew by the wood's voices that something was afoot.”

“What can we do?” At his heels I pelted up the stairs, my legs rubbery from my long run.

“We have some advantages. One, I expected dogs from the first day.”

So, he knew about dogs and what they could do. His voice echoed around me as I mounted the dangerous steps inside, their jumbled numbers staring me in the face.

“Two, they don't know what R —— smells like. They'll have to start at the parachute, and there have been men tramping all over the ground there and here and everywhere else. Soldiers . . . and the three of us.”

“Us—that's not good, is it?”

“It's not that bad. You and M —— don't have to hide the fact that
you've
been in the garden.” He reached the chamber and jumped down into the well, drawing a cry of surprise from R ——. When I got to the edge, I saw Mr. Girandole stepping back and forth over the patient to rummage through the paraphernalia on the floor. He emptied out the carpet bag and tossed it up to me.

“What is happen?” demanded R ——, who looked improved enough to be alarmed.

“And three,” said Mr. Girandole, “I know from bitter experience
how dogs react to me. They'll go mad when they catch a whiff of faun.”

“Dogs?” asked R ——, his eyes widening.

“Yes.” Mr. Girandole held a finger sharply before the pilot's face. “We'll shut you in here, and you will be absolutely quiet if you want to live. You've got food, clean water, and the pan. The space isn't airtight. I'll take the lantern—someone might recognize it. You'll be in the dark, so take a good look now at where everything is.”

R ——'s lips twitched. He asked a question in his own language.

“I don't know how long,” Mr. Girandole said. “I'll have to lead the dogs quite a ways, and they probably won't all follow me—some will come here.”

I touched the compartment's rim. “They'll smell him through the floor, won't they?”

“Yes, they normally would.” Mr. Girandole held up a large yellow gourd on a shoulder strap—a dried gourd shaped like a bottle. “But we have this. Here; don't drop it—it's heavy.” He handed the gourd up to me. From the way it sloshed, I realized it was full of liquid. Two wooden stoppers blocked holes near the top.

“What's in here?” I asked.

“Don't open it yet.” Mr. Girandole was not above the annoying adult tendency to answer a question with an order, but I didn't care. He had a plan, and I was relieved. He stuffed the lantern, the medicine bottles, his own cookware, and Grandmother's stray dishes into a knapsack of his own. Finally, he used the shears to clip a long strip off the edge of the sheet from R ——'s pallet. He looped it through an arm hole of the flak vest and laid the vest across R ——. “Hug this,” Mr. Girandole told him. “Wipe your face on it. Rub it against yourself.”