The Beginning Place (9 page)
Read The Beginning Place Online
Authors: Ursula K. Le Guin
“What did he say?”
“Just how he was, and he asked about everybody here, you and everybody. He’s got a car, too.”
“Why doesn’t he drive it over to see us?”
“He’s working very hard,” said the mother, turning away to close the doors of the dish cupboard.
So he’s working hard, Irene thought, he could come see his mother once a year. But telephoning’s a big enough favor for Big Mister Man to do. And Mister Man’s mother laps it up and says thanks … .
I can’t take it, I really can’t take it any more. Now I just hurt mama saying that about why doesn’t he drive over to see us. Everybody I know just hurts each other. All the time. I have got to get out. I can’t keep coming home. Next time Victor tries to cop a feel or even touches me or treats her like shit I’m going to blow, I can’t shut up any more, and that’ll just make it worse and hurt her more, and I can’t do anything, and I can’t take it. Love! What good is love? I love her. I love Michael, just like she does. So what? God help me, I’ll never fall in love, never be in love, never love anybody. Love is just a fancy word for how to hurt somebody worse. I want to get out. Clear out, clear out, clear out.
That night when she left her mother she did not go down the road to Chelsea Gardens, but turned left from the house, walking up the gravel road till she was out of the glare of Victor’s floodlight and then cutting off left again across the fields. It was unpleasant walking in the dark, for the ground
was hard and uneven under the tangled grass, and she carried no flashlight for fear of attracting the attention of a bunch of leatherjackets or the suburban weirdo gang that sometimes hung around near the factory. The same stupid fear that spoiled all walks alone since her school friend Doris had been raped by a gang in a half-built house in Chelsea Gardens, the stupid fear that left no free place except the sweet desolation of the ain country.
was hard and uneven under the tangled grass, and she carried no flashlight for fear of attracting the attention of a bunch of leatherjackets or the suburban weirdo gang that sometimes hung around near the factory. The same stupid fear that spoiled all walks alone since her school friend Doris had been raped by a gang in a half-built house in Chelsea Gardens, the stupid fear that left no free place except the sweet desolation of the ain country.
But in the woods the path did not lead down between the laurels and the pine into the clear, eternal evening. It was warm, dark; crickets sang loud and soft, near and far; under that singing was a heavy, continual sound or vibration, cars on the highway perhaps or the sound of the whole city, whose glow in the heavy night sky made it possible to walk even here in the woods. But there was no sound of water running. She walked a few steps past where the threshold should have been, and then turned back. There was no way.
She remembered then how she had watched him go through the gate, across the threshold, the heavy stranger, how he had walked on and the twilight had flowed on before him like a wave. That had been frightening; she did not like to think of it. It had been his fault. It had happened to him, not to her. She could always get back. She had brought him back. It was from this side that she could not always cross.
Could he? Was he there now, where she could not come?
Dogged, she came back to Pincus’s woods the next afternoon after work, and every two or three days for a week, two weeks, as if it were a contest that must be won by willpower,
by refusal to give up. At the end of the second week she began to drive every afternoon after work first to the paint factory parking lot, leave the car there, and cross the fields to the wood. She found she was beating a path in the dry August grass and changed her route, going round about one way or another each time, so as to leave no track for others, that other, to follow. But there was nothing to hide. The woods; blackberry thickets; a path; a culvert; after a while a barbed-wire fence straggling across the foot of a hill among the trees. A couple of sparrows chirping, the faint drum of the cars on the highway, and the sound of the city like the breathing of an animal thirty miles long, so big you couldn’t hear it. The hot, late sunshine and the soft, bluish air. Usually she stood a minute where the path came down, where the threshold should have been, then turned around, plodded back across the fields to her car, drove to the apartment, a few blocks west of Chelsea Gardens Avenue.
by refusal to give up. At the end of the second week she began to drive every afternoon after work first to the paint factory parking lot, leave the car there, and cross the fields to the wood. She found she was beating a path in the dry August grass and changed her route, going round about one way or another each time, so as to leave no track for others, that other, to follow. But there was nothing to hide. The woods; blackberry thickets; a path; a culvert; after a while a barbed-wire fence straggling across the foot of a hill among the trees. A couple of sparrows chirping, the faint drum of the cars on the highway, and the sound of the city like the breathing of an animal thirty miles long, so big you couldn’t hear it. The hot, late sunshine and the soft, bluish air. Usually she stood a minute where the path came down, where the threshold should have been, then turned around, plodded back across the fields to her car, drove to the apartment, a few blocks west of Chelsea Gardens Avenue.
Patsi and Rick had been having a hectic sexual reconciliation, the last flare-up. On a Saturday night after a visit with her mother she got back in the middle of the biggest fight yet. She could not get out of it. She was part of the family. When Patsi accused Rick of sleeping with Irene she had to defend him and herself; when Rick accused Patsi of not sharing fair on the money she had to stand up for Patsi, who then turned on her for pushing everybody around. After hours and hours of it she realised that the only thing to do, and she should have done it hours ago, was to pack up, pay up, and get out.
Patsi and Rick were sullen, shellshocked. Patsi made an
elaborately fair division of the raspberry preserves they had put up together last month, insisting that Irene take exactly half the jars; she kept crying, tears rolling slowly down her cheeks, but she did not say goodbye. Rick helped Irene carry her stuff down to the car and kept saying, “Ah, shit. Well, shit.” It was after eight on Sunday morning when Irene got away. She drove her car, loaded with her worldly goods in two grocery cartons and a handleless suitcase, down Chelsea Gardens Avenue and Chelsea Gardens Place across the road to the farm. The three little dogs began to yap and the Doberman to bellow at the sound of the car in the Sunday-morning silence. Except for the dogs, the farmhouse, surrounded by gutted automobile carcases, looked derelict. She backed out of the yard, turned right on the gravel road, drove to the parking lot below the paint factory, and parked there. She locked the car and set off once more across the weedy fields already simmering in the heat of what was going to be a fierce day. If the way’s closed I’ll wait there, she thought. I’ll sit down and wait there till it opens. I don’t care if it takes a month … . She was crazy-headed from the endless night of quarreling, arguing, explaining, recriminating, excusing. She had had no breakfast, though between four and five A.M. she had eaten a box of pretzel sticks and drunk a quart of milk while Rick was telling Patsi how she played power games and she was telling him that he was a male chauvinist … I’ll go to sleep there in front of the threshold, and wake up every now and then and see if it’s open yet, Irene told herself. Open, open, open, the word jolted in her
head as her steps jolted her body. Hot daylight glared in her eyes. Open, eyes. Open, door. There’s the woods, there’s the way into the woods. There’s the ditch, there’s the ivy patch. There’s the big thicket, there’s the path down, the pine with the red trunk, the gateway and the gate, the opened door, the way into my country, my own country, my heart’s home.
elaborately fair division of the raspberry preserves they had put up together last month, insisting that Irene take exactly half the jars; she kept crying, tears rolling slowly down her cheeks, but she did not say goodbye. Rick helped Irene carry her stuff down to the car and kept saying, “Ah, shit. Well, shit.” It was after eight on Sunday morning when Irene got away. She drove her car, loaded with her worldly goods in two grocery cartons and a handleless suitcase, down Chelsea Gardens Avenue and Chelsea Gardens Place across the road to the farm. The three little dogs began to yap and the Doberman to bellow at the sound of the car in the Sunday-morning silence. Except for the dogs, the farmhouse, surrounded by gutted automobile carcases, looked derelict. She backed out of the yard, turned right on the gravel road, drove to the parking lot below the paint factory, and parked there. She locked the car and set off once more across the weedy fields already simmering in the heat of what was going to be a fierce day. If the way’s closed I’ll wait there, she thought. I’ll sit down and wait there till it opens. I don’t care if it takes a month … . She was crazy-headed from the endless night of quarreling, arguing, explaining, recriminating, excusing. She had had no breakfast, though between four and five A.M. she had eaten a box of pretzel sticks and drunk a quart of milk while Rick was telling Patsi how she played power games and she was telling him that he was a male chauvinist … I’ll go to sleep there in front of the threshold, and wake up every now and then and see if it’s open yet, Irene told herself. Open, open, open, the word jolted in her
head as her steps jolted her body. Hot daylight glared in her eyes. Open, eyes. Open, door. There’s the woods, there’s the way into the woods. There’s the ditch, there’s the ivy patch. There’s the big thicket, there’s the path down, the pine with the red trunk, the gateway and the gate, the opened door, the way into my country, my own country, my heart’s home.
She entered into the twilight. She drank from the stream, then crossed and went a little way upriver to a nook sheltered by two big elder bushes where, years ago, she had used to sleep. She lay down there, and made a little moaning sob in pure weariness and the bewilderment of a wish fulfilled; and slept.
Sleep in the ain country was so deep it had no dreams. I am the dream, she thought drowsily, the dream am I. I am the mare but there’s no night. What’s that?—and she was awake sitting bolt upright and her heart pounding, for it had been a noise that waked her, a high gobbling scream far off in the woods—had there been a noise?
Nothing but the sound of water running and the sighing of wind high up in the trees. The sky was quiet. Nothing moved in the forest.
After a while she stood up cautiously, looking about her for any sign of change, of danger. It’s his fault, she thought, that fat face, that slug. He’s changed everything. It’s not the
same any more. She was glad to give her uneasiness a cause, and a detestable cause. But as she looked about for traces of the intruder, his hearthplace, his pack, and saw nothing, she was in no way relieved of fear. Her heart went on pounding, her breath came short. What am I afraid of? she demanded, outraged. Here, here of all places? It’s the same as ever, the safe place. I must have had a dream, a bad dream. I want to go to Tembreabrezi. I wish I was there now, indoors, in the inn. I’m hungry. That’s what’s wrong with me, I’m hungry.
same any more. She was glad to give her uneasiness a cause, and a detestable cause. But as she looked about for traces of the intruder, his hearthplace, his pack, and saw nothing, she was in no way relieved of fear. Her heart went on pounding, her breath came short. What am I afraid of? she demanded, outraged. Here, here of all places? It’s the same as ever, the safe place. I must have had a dream, a bad dream. I want to go to Tembreabrezi. I wish I was there now, indoors, in the inn. I’m hungry. That’s what’s wrong with me, I’m hungry.
She drank again long and deep to fill her stomach, and picked stalks of mint to chew as she went, and set off on the way to Mountain Town. She went lightfoot as always, lighter and faster than ever, for hunger drove her, and fear drove her, and she could not afford to stop and think about either one, for if she did they became unbearable. So long as she kept going she need not think, and the dusk forest flowed past her like the water of the streams; so light, so fast she went that nothing would hear her steps, nothing would notice her, nothing would rise up before her on the path closing the way to her with white, wrinkled arms.
There were candles in the windows of the inn, as if they were expecting her. No one was in the street. It must be late, suppertime or past. At the thought of supper, of soup, bread, stew, porridge, anything, anything at all to eat, she felt her head spin; and when Sofir opened the inn door to her and there was warmth and light and the smell of cooking and the sound of his deep voice, she found it difficult to keep standing up. “Oh, Sofir,” she said, “I am so hungry!”
At the sound of her voice Palizot came, and though she was a woman not lavish of gesture, she kissed Irene and held her for a moment.
“We have been afraid for you,” Sofir said. He steered her in to sit by the fire. It was late indeed: the company of the inn had all gone home, the fire had sunk down. Sofir and Palizot bustled about getting water for her to wash in, food for her to eat, talking away. “And you know he’s come!” Palizot said, and Irene said, “Who has come?”
The two well-known, well-loved faces turned to her in the jubilant firelight; Palizot looked to Sofir smiling, giving him the word for them both. “It’s him,” Sofir said, “he’s here now. Things will go better now!”—with such warmth of pleasure and such certainty of Irene’s sharing in that pleasure that she was unable to say anything. “There now, it’s hot,” said Palizot, serving up a plate for her, at sight of which Irene ceased to care about anything else whatever. Lapped in present bliss, food, rest, firelight, friendship, she ate; and then Sofir had her room ready for her, the room that looked out over the dark drop and reach of the forests to the eastern ridge.
Sofir was out and Palizot occupied, so she breakfasted alone. There was not much to breakfast on: a little thin milk, a pot of cheese, and a loaf so hard and small, compared to the round brown splendors of Sofir’s baking in other days, that she hardly had the heart to cut a slice off the poor wizened thing. Clearly, no wheat had come up the mountain from the merchants of the King’s City.
She had thought as she woke that when Sofir and Palizot said “he,” last night, “he has come,” they meant the King. A little wider awake, she had thought they had not meant the King himself, but a messenger from the King, somebody sent with the power to open the roads. Awake, she knew they had meant nothing of the kind.
“You’ll be going up to the Master’s house,” said Palizot, coming through the kitchen with an armload of clothing from the wash lines. “I freshened up your red dress a bit; it gets so creased lying in the chest. Have you got clean stockings? Look, how do you like these?”
“I suppose he’s there,” Irene said. Since “he” was not staying at the inn, he must have been invited, as she had never been, to stay at the Master’s house. Her pain, a sore one however petty its cause, and her determination not to show it, so preoccupied her that for a minute she did not absorb Palizot’s reply: “He? Oh, no, he’s at the manor. But the Master asked us a long time ago to tell you to come to him as soon as you could, whenever you came again.”
That was balm. “He” could stay at the manor all he pleased.
“They’re beautiful,” she said, admiring the fine-striped stockings Palizot was exhibiting atop the load of clothes. “You just knitted them?”
“From the good wool in four old pairs I unraveled,” Palizot said with the satisfaction of the canny artisan. “Wear them today, levadja. They’re for you.”
In the handsome stockings and the red dress Irene went
out into the twilight of the street, and climbed the hiccuping steps to the Master’s house. The geese in the pen by the south wall, big creatures, their white necks and bodies vague and as if luminous, shifted and hissed; one beat its wings for an instant. She had always been a little afraid of the geese. She knocked at the twelve-paneled door and Fimol, calm as always, admitted her and took her across the hall, between the mournful stare of the ancestress and the scowl of the one-armed ancestor, to the door of the Master’s office. “Irena has come,” Fimol said in her clear, subdued voice. He turned from his desk, holding out his hands with open gladness: “Irena, Irenadja! Welcome! We have longed for you!”
out into the twilight of the street, and climbed the hiccuping steps to the Master’s house. The geese in the pen by the south wall, big creatures, their white necks and bodies vague and as if luminous, shifted and hissed; one beat its wings for an instant. She had always been a little afraid of the geese. She knocked at the twelve-paneled door and Fimol, calm as always, admitted her and took her across the hall, between the mournful stare of the ancestress and the scowl of the one-armed ancestor, to the door of the Master’s office. “Irena has come,” Fimol said in her clear, subdued voice. He turned from his desk, holding out his hands with open gladness: “Irena, Irenadja! Welcome! We have longed for you!”
I have longed for you, she wanted to say, but could not. Her tongue never would obey her, in the Master’s presence. It obeyed him.
“Come and sit down,” he said. His smile made him look young. His voice was kind. “Tell me, how was it for you coming here? Was the way clear? Was it hard for you?” His dark gaze was directly on her now. “I’ve been afraid you would not be able to come,” he said, speaking lower and hurriedly, and looked away.
“The gate was closed—until last night. I wanted—I tried to come!”
He nodded, grave and gentle.
She tried to get the right words. “I saw nothing, when the way opened—nothing was different. But I felt—There was a noise, maybe I didn’t hear it. There was something that I know I didn’t see—”
As she spoke, now, in this quiet room, the terror she had not allowed herself to feel yesterday coming through the forests on the mountainside came running through her body in one long, cold shockwave: she crouched and shuddered in her chair. Her voice went thin and dry. “I was never afraid in the forest before!”
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