A Green and Ancient Light (19 page)

R —— did his best.

“Good,” said Mr. Girandole. He dropped his own shoes into his pack and hung it on his shoulder. “We'll do all we can to keep them from finding you, R ——. But if they do, you'll say no word about the kind woman or her grandson. I am the only one who helped you.”

R —— nodded. “Thank you,” he said.

Hesitantly, Mr. Girandole offered his hand, and the pilot shook it.

Having floundered up out of the compartment beneath his load, Mr. Girandole slid the stone lid closed. R —— watched bleakly as the slab crossed between us and him and locked shut with a
boom
.

Mr. Girandole hurried to the window, where he stuck his head out. Then he pulled a stopper from the gourd he'd given me. I gasped and covered my nose and mouth. My eyes watered.

“Mixed it up myself,” Mr. Girandole said. “I was beginning to think we wouldn't need it. None of the ingredients individually is as bad as you imagine. But put them together and let them ferment. . . .” He clapped my shoulder. “It smells twenty times worse to a dog.” He turned to the stairway. “A little goes a long way. Sprinkle it around this room and on the stairs as you come down. And all across the terrace, and the ground nearby. Then do the whole garden until you run out—here and there, you know, spread it out. The dogs will tie their leashes in knots and hang the major's men from trees before they'll come near this place.”

I nodded. “But won't it be too obvious? An awful smell in the one place we don't want them to look?”

Mr. Girandole narrowed his eyes. “They'll know
something
happened. They'll look around here again, but I'm hoping they won't suppose there's anywhere to hide. If I can give them an interesting scent to follow in another direction . . .”

“What will you do?”

“I'll make a sweep to the south, crossing their paths before they get to the parachute, and I'll lead them to it. My own scent and R ——'s. Then I'll head away over the mountain. The soldiers have no reason to suspect R —— isn't alone.”

It made good sense to me.

“I have to go,” he said. “I can hear them. You should circle back the way you came—”

“Don't worry about me. Just be careful yourself.” I started sprinkling the vile substance, holding my breath. It looked yellowish in the air but left only wet patches on the stone. I felt sorry for R ——, under the floor. Surely, the odor would reach him there, and he had no hope of fresh air.

Mr. Girandole lingered at the top of the stairs. “You and M —— will have questions to answer. Is she all right?”

“Yes, she's fine. She's having lunch with the major.”

Mr. Girandole gave me such a look that I would have laughed under different circumstances.

“She didn't
want
to,” I added quickly. “She had to go along with him so I could get away.”

He nodded uneasily and was gone.

I finished the room, taking care not to get any of the terrible stuff on me, then worked my way down the stairs. It was hard going, moving backward and with only one hand to grip the steps. I'd already discovered the liquid came out more freely with the second stopper removed; both hung on strings from the gourd's neck, so I didn't have to put them into my pocket.

I dosed the stairway, jumping down the last stretch to escape rivulets of the potion. Then I sprinkled the terrace, being sure to
hit the benches we'd used. I splashed both stairways leading up to it, backtracking so as not to walk through the stench I'd laid down.

By the gourd's heft, I figured just over half the contents remained. Far off behind the whispers of leaves, I thought I could hear the dogs, a chorus of barking on many pitches. I worked through the garden in a clockwise circle, apologizing to each statue as I contaminated its base and the earth before it. I fanned a liberal dose at the grove's entrance nearest the parachute. By the time I got to the mermaid, the gourd was mostly empty. I poured the last few drops onto her inscribed slab.

Then I looked at the empty gourd, thinking hard. It wouldn't do to take it with me. I didn't want any dogs later to have the same reaction to me or to Grandmother's cottage that they had to the garden. The only place this container might be overlooked was here, in the grove that reeked the same way.

Looking around, I decided on the thicket south of the mermaid, behind the tortoise, a tangle of vines and thorny bushes so dense that I doubted even a rabbit could pass through it. The bushes stretched all the way to where Heracles towered above them, the creepers clinging to his waist.

Mr. Girandole hadn't said what he wanted done with the gourd, but I couldn't believe it would ever be usable again. I dashed around the stone wall to the tortoise, pulled back my arm, and threw the gourd deep into the morass, aiming for Heracles. It fell far short of him but plummeted through the leaves into wiry depths from which there could be no returning.

Leaving the grove by the mermaid's clearing, I descended the slopes rapidly, stopping often to listen. I was sure I could hear
dogs on both sides of me now, though both groups seemed to be higher up. I prayed Godspeed for Mr. Girandole. I'd arrived at the grove not a moment too soon.

I met no one. When I came to the meadow above the village, I guessed it could be no later than two o'clock. For the benefit of anyone who might be watching, I did my best to cross the ground aimlessly, as if enjoying the summer day: I went out of my way to follow a trickling stream in a marshy place, then stopped to lie down in the grass and study the clouds.

The exhaustion of my morning's efforts caught up with me. Among the fragrant stems, with grasshoppers using me as a step-stone, I could have fallen asleep with no trouble, but the breeze had picked up, and a mist veiled the sun. I remembered the talk of the morning, how everyone had been predicting rain.

Rain
. What would that do, I wondered, to the trails of scent? I doubted anything short of a flood would wash away the stench from the monsters' grove.

*  *  *  *

I returned to find Grandmother entertaining two ladies in the back garden. Before I stepped into sight, I heard them plying Grandmother with questions about Major P ——. “Was that
all
he said?” one of them asked. “And how were his table manners?”

“It's unnatural,” said the other, “for a man of his age and position to be unmarried.”

“He
was
married, wasn't he?” asked Grandmother. “I believe his wife died about four years ago.”

“Then all the more reason for you to steer well away from him, M ——,” said the first woman, who I now saw through a gap in the
hedge was Mrs. C ——. “Why, if he had propositioned
me
in front of the police office—”

“He didn't
proposition
me, E ——,” said Grandmother patiently. “Unless you read a great deal more than I do into the hotel's mackerel.”

I rustled the grass with my feet and rounded the hedge.

“Why, there he is now!” cried the other, Mrs. D ——. “And just look at the little vagabond! Burrs from head to toe!” But she grinned at me, bunching her plump cheeks, and beckoned me toward the table, pointing at the tray of fresh cookies and crackers spread with liver-paste.

The ladies must have been desperate to hear about the major; the hour or so after lunch was usually nap time if we were home and Grandmother wasn't otherwise busy—it was much too early for tea.

“I don't for the life of me know why you let him roam like that,” said Mrs. C ——, shaking her head.

“Boys will be boys,” said Grandmother, studying me carefully, her gaze taking in the carpet bag. “That's one thing that doesn't change with the generations.”

I gave her a smile which communicated, I hoped, that things for the moment were going as well as they might be. At the sight of the crackers, I noticed how hungry I was.

“Go and wash your hands and face, and comb those seeds out of your hair,” Grandmother said. “Then in the kitchen, you'll find a sandwich waiting for you, from the hotel.”

“Courtesy of the Army!” said Mrs. D —— with a theatrical sweep of her arms.

Mrs. C ——
humph
ed in disgust.

Excusing myself, I obeyed the orders to wash and decided the burrs on my trousers could wait until after I'd eaten. I sat at
the kitchen table, and while I was thinking of it, I took from my pocket the money Grandmother had given me earlier and left it on the tabletop. The sandwich lay wrapped in white paper stained with oil.

I said a quick but heartfelt grace and devoured it, finding delight in the crunchy roll, the meats and cheeses, the crisp lettuce and cucumbers, and the spicy green mustard. The overcast sun through the garden's leaves filled the kitchen with a greenish murk, and I could feel the rain coming. Talk drifted in at the open window—talk of Major P —— and what he might be playing at; then Mrs. D —— and Mrs. C —— discussed news from the war front. Some reports said we were gaining ground, and some said we were losing it.

I wished desperately for a letter from my papa. I thought of my mama, too, and suddenly, unexpectedly, I missed them so intensely that my eyes filled with tears. I was glad I was alone in the kitchen.

*  *  *  *

When the guests had left and Grandmother and I had told each other our stories, Grandmother advised me to make a decoy notebook; very soon, soldiers might be asking to see it. She found me a cheap, age-yellowed one from which many of the pages had been torn. While she took her nap, I set to work copying parts of my notes into it: the inscriptions, but not all of them, and the poem in a garbled form—I freely reworded the lines and composed new ones. Then I updated the real notebook with information on Aldebaran and the Pleiades, using the books from the shelf. When Grandmother reappeared, she put the actual notebook away in her cedar chest, and I left the fake one on my night table.

We picked a few tomatoes, pulled some weeds, and pruned back the purple germander, which grew so fast in the sunny areas that we could practically see it spreading before our eyes. One of the dirt-clods crumbled to reveal an earthworm, gray-pink and writhing at the unexpected touch of sunlight. I scooped a soft bed for him under the hedge and gently covered him up again. Grandmother was gathering a clutch of gaillardia for the kitchen vase when we heard an ominous yipping and baying from the field.

“Here they come,” Grandmother said, straightening her stiff back. “I'd better put the kettle on.” She took the bouquet into the kitchen, and I busied myself with carrying uprooted weeds to our drying-pile. I tried to stay calm as jitters ran through me.

Soon enough, I saw them emerge from among the arbors: four dogs straining at their leashes, noses to the ground, and soldiers with rifles. I dropped the weeds into the pile, brushed seed-tufts off my hands, and shielded my eyes against the sun. I counted nine men. Though I wanted to run inside, I forced myself to walk to the back gate and watch them, like any curious boy would do.

One of the men waved at me, and I waved back. The dogs seemed to catch my scent directly, and they barked with more fervor, nearly pulling their handlers off their feet.

Of course Papa was not among the men, but still I could not help checking each face. I didn't recognize any from the ferry, either.

They all came right up to the gate. I shrank back as the dogs leaped and pawed the fence and pushed snuffling noses against its base. They whined and raced from side to side, colliding with one another and tangling the leashes. A shiny black nose shoved through a knothole just in front of me. The barks were like
gunshots. A soldier was talking to me over the fence, but I couldn't hear a word he was saying.

Finally, the soldier yelled and gesticulated to his companions, and the four dog handlers led the dogs back up the field. Being dragged away did not sit well with the dogs.

Grandmother crossed the yard, leaning on her stick.

The lead soldier tipped his hat. “Madam,” he said, skipping any niceties, “have you or the boy been up in the woods?”

“Well, yes, of course,” said Grandmother, in the same tone as if he'd asked if we'd ever been to the grocery store. “That's where we get firewood, and go berrying, and take walks . . .”

The soldier looked extremely irritated, and two of the men behind him exchanged a look that said,
Can you believe we're here wasting our time
? Up under a tree, I saw one man speaking into the radio telephone that another carried on his back, like I'd seen in the village. The one using it turned a crank, which I knew was to build up an electric charge. My father had explained them to me.

“What is all this?” asked Grandmother, peering uphill.

“Madam . . .” the soldier said, wiping sweat from his face with his shirt sleeve.

Grandmother suddenly looked worried, and she gazed around the garden in alarm. “You don't suppose that —— is somewhere nearby?” (She said the name of R ——'s people.)

“No, madam, I doubt it.”

“Right outside our windows, looking in at us while we're asleep . . .”

“No. It's not likely.”

“The tomatoes!” Grandmother's eyes were getting wider and wider. “He could be raiding our gardens for food!”

“Madam.”

Grandmother hurriedly unlatched the gate. I dodged out of the way as she swung it open and seized the officer by the arm, pulling him forward. “Sir!” she said urgently. “You are one of the major's men?”

“S ——, Madam. Captain S ——.”

“Captain, I beg you—you must have a look in my attic. Won't you? The thought that he might be up there, eating tomatoes—I know I've heard sounds—I'm a widow, you see. Oh, how can we sleep tonight? But if you take a look, I'd be so grateful . . .”