The Ruins (36 page)

 Amy
opened her eyes, stared at her, but didn't speak. Neither did
Eric. There was a cooking smell in the clearing, a dark circle of soot
where Mathias had built his fire, and Stacy
thought,
They
made lunch.
Then she remembered the reason for the fire, and
she half-glanced toward Pablo, half-saw him lying there beneath his
lean-to (his sunken eyes, the glistening pink-and-black stubs of his
legs…), before she recoiled, turning toward the tent,
fleeing. The flap was hanging open, and she ducked quickly past it,
leaving her sunshade lying on the ground outside.

 The
light was dimmer here; it took a moment for Stacy's eyes to
adjust. Mathias was lying on one of the sleeping bags, curled onto his
side. His eyes were closed, but Stacy could sense, somehow, that he
wasn't asleep. She crept to the rear of the tent, passing
right by him, and crouched to pick up the jug of water. She twisted off
its cap, took a long swallow, wiped her mouth with the back of her
hand. It wasn't enough, of course—the entire jug
wouldn't have been enough—and she toyed briefly
with the idea of taking another sip. She knew it would be wrong,
though, and felt guilty merely at the thought of the transgression, so
she capped the bottle. When she turned to leave, she found Mathias
peering toward her, with that typically unreadable expression of his.

 "Jeff
told me I could," she said. She was worried he might think
she was stealing the water.

 Mathias
nodded. He remained silent, staring.

 "Is
he okay?" Stacy whispered, gesturing out toward Pablo.

 Mathias
hesitated long enough for it to begin to seem as if he wasn't
going to answer her. Then he gave a slow shake of his head.

 Stacy
couldn't think of anything more to say. She took another step
toward the open flap, then stopped again. "Are
you?" she asked.

 Mathias's
face shifted, edging toward a smile that didn't happen. For
an instant, she thought he might even laugh, but that didn't
happen, either. "Are you?" he asked.

 She
shook her head. "No."

 And
then, nothing: he just kept staring at her with that look, which was
one small notch beyond blank, hinting at a weary sort of amusement
without actually expressing it. Finally, she realized he was waiting
for her to leave. So that was what she did; she stooped back out into
the sunlight, zipping the flap shut behind her.

 Eric
was still pacing. Stacy noticed that his leg was bleeding again, and
she thought about asking him why, but then she realized she
didn't want to know. She wished he'd go into the
tent with Mathias and lie down, and would've forced him to do
it, too, if she could've only thought of a way. They all
ought to be in the tent, probably; that would be what Jeff would want.
In the shade, resting, conserving their strength. But it felt like a
trap inside. You were closed in; you couldn't see what was
happening, what might be coming. Stacy didn't want to be in
there, and she assumed the others felt the same way. She
didn't understand how Mathias could bear it.

 She
retrieved her sunshade, sat in the dirt a few feet to Amy's
right. Eric continued to pace, the blood leaking slowly down his leg;
his shoe squeaked with it every time he took a step. Stacy wanted him
to stop, wanted him to find some sort of calm for himself, and she
spent a while willing this to
happen.
Sit
down, Eric,
she
thought.
Please
sit down.
It didn't work, of course; even if
she'd spoken the words, shouted them, it wouldn't
have worked.

 The
worst part of being out in the clearing wasn't the sun, or
the heat. It was the sound of Pablo's breathing, which was
loud, ragged, oddly irregular. Sometimes it would stop for a stretch of
seconds—just fall silent—and, despite herself,
Stacy would always end up glancing toward the little lean-to, thinking
the same two
words:
He
died.
But then, with a rattling gasping rasp that always made
her flinch, the Greek's breathing would resume once more,
though not before she'd been forced to look at him again, to
see those glistening, blistered stumps, those eyes that refused to
open, that thin thread of dark brown liquid seeping from the corner of
his mouth.

 There
was the vine, too, of course; they were surrounded by it. Green, green,
green—no matter which direction Stacy turned, it lay waiting
in her line of vision. She kept trying to tell herself that it was just
a plant, only a plant, nothing more than a plant. This was what it
looked like now, after all; it wasn't moving,
wasn't making that dreadful laughing sound. It was simply a
pretty tangle of vegetation, with its tiny red flowers and its flat,
hand-shaped leaves—soaking up the sunlight, harmlessly inert.
This was what plants did; they didn't move, didn't
laugh,
couldn't
move,
couldn't
laugh. But Stacy wasn't equal to the fantasy. It was like
clenching an ice cube in her hand and willing it not to melt; the
longer she held to it, the less she had. She'd seen the vine
move, seen it burrowing into Eric's leg, seen it reach out to
suck dry Amy's vomit, and she'd heard it, too,
heard it laughing—the whole hillside laughing. She
couldn't help but sense it watching now, observing them,
planning its next sally.

 She
shifted closer to Amy, positioning her flimsy umbrella so that it
covered them both in shade. When she took Amy's hand, she was
startled by how damp it
felt.
Scared
,
she thought. And then she asked that question again, the same one
she'd offered Mathias in the tent: "You
okay?"

 Amy
shook her head, started to cry, gripping Stacy's hand.

 "
Shh
,"
Stacy whispered,
trying to soothe her. "
Shh
."
She put her arm around Amy's shoulders, felt her weeping
deepen, her body starting to jump with it, to
hicccup
. "What is it, sweetie?" she said. "What's the matter?"

 Amy
pulled her hand free, wiped her face with it. She began to shake her
head, then couldn't seem to stop.

 Eric
was still pacing, lost in his own world, not even looking at them.
Stacy watched him as he moved back and forth, back and forth, across
the little clearing.

 Finally,
Amy managed to speak. "I'm just tired,"
she said, whispering the words. "That's all.
I'm so tired." Then she started to cry again.

 Stacy
sat with her, waiting for it to pass. But it didn't. Finally,
Stacy couldn't bear it any longer. She stood up, strode to
the far side of the clearing. Pablo's pack was lying there;
she reached into it, pulled out one of the remaining bottles of
tequila. She carried it back toward Amy, breaking its seal—it
was the only thing she could think to do. She sat again beneath the
umbrella, took a long, burning swallow of the liquor, then held out the
bottle. Amy stared down at it, still crying, blinking through her
tears, wiping at them with her hand. Stacy could sense her debating,
could feel her almost deciding against it, then surrendering. She took
the bottle, put it to her lips, threw her head back, the tequila
sloshing forward into her mouth, down her throat. She surfaced with a
gasping sound—part cough, part sob.

 Eric
was sitting beside them suddenly, holding out his hand.

 Amy
gave him the bottle.

 And
so this was how they moved forward into the afternoon as the sun slowly
began to
wester
. They
huddled close together in that little clearing—surrounded by
the massed and coiled vine, its green leaves, its red
flowers—and passed the gradually emptying bottle back and
forth among themselves.

I
t didn't take long
for Amy to become drunk.

 They
started slowly, but it didn't matter. Her stomach was so
empty that the tequila seemed to burn its way straight to her core. At
first, she simply grew flushed, almost giggly with it, a little dizzy,
too. Next came the slurred quality—to her words, her
thoughts—and then, finally, the weariness. Eric had already
drifted into sleep at her side, the trio of wounds on his leg
continuing to leak their thin strings of blood down his shin. Stacy was
awake—talking, even—but she'd somehow
begun to seem increasingly far away; it was difficult to follow her
words. Amy shut her eyes for a moment and began to think about nothing
at all, which felt blissful: exactly the right way to be.

 When
she opened her eyes again, feeling stiff—wretched,
actually—the sun was much lower in the sky. Eric was still
asleep; Stacy was still talking.

 "That's
the thing, of course," she was saying. "Whether or
not there was another train to catch. It shouldn't make a
difference, but I'm sure it does to her; I'm sure
she thinks about it all the time. Because if it was the last train of
the day, if she would've had to spend the night in this
strange city where she didn't even really know the language
yet—well, that makes it a little better, doesn't
it?"

 Amy
had no idea what Stacy was talking about, but she nodded anyway; it
seemed like the right response. The tequila bottle was resting in front
of Stacy, capped, lying on its side, half-full. Amy knew she should
stop, that she'd been stupid to drink what she already had,
that it would only dehydrate her, making everything that much more
difficult to bear here, that night was coming and they ought to be
sober to meet it, but none of this held any sway over her. She thought
it all through, acknowledged its wisdom, then held out her hand for the
bottle. Stacy passed it to her, still talking.

 "I
think so, too," she said. "If it's the
last train, you run for it; you jump. And she was an athlete,
remember—a good one. So she probably didn't even
consider the possibility of falling, probably didn't even
hesitate. Just ran, leapt. I didn't know her, really, so I
can't say how it happened. I'm just speculating. I
did see her once after she got back, though. Maybe a year
later—which is pretty quick, when you consider everything.
And she was playing basketball. Not with the team anymore, of course.
But out on the playground. And she seemed, you know—she
seemed okay. She was wearing sweatpants, so I couldn't see
what they looked like. But I saw her run up and down the court, and it
was almost normal. Not normal, exactly, but almost."

 Amy
took two quick swigs of the tequila. It was warm from sitting in the
sun, and somehow this made it go down a little more easily than usual.
They were big swallows, but she didn't cough. Stacy held her
hand out for the bottle and Amy passed it back to her. She took a tiny
sip, very ladylike, then capped the bottle and set it in her lap.

 "She
seemed happy—that's what I'm trying to
say. She seemed all right. She was smiling; she was out there doing
what she liked to do, even if, you know…" Stacy
trailed off here, looking sad.

 Amy
was drunk and half-asleep, and she still had no idea what Stacy was
talking about. "Even if?"

 Stacy
nodded gravely. "Exactly."

 After
that they sat for a stretch in silence. Amy was about to ask for the
bottle again, when Stacy brightened suddenly.

 "Want
to see?" she asked.

 "See?"

 "How
she ran?"

 Amy
nodded, and Stacy handed her the umbrella, the bottle. Then she stood
up, started quickly across the little clearing, pretending to play
basketball: dribbling, passing, feinting. After a jump shot, she jogged
back, her hands high in the air, playing defense. Then, once more, she
darted quickly to the other side, a fast break, a little leap for the
layup
. She ran with an odd hitch
to her stride, almost a limp, and seemed slightly off balance, like
some sort of long-legged wading bird. Amy took a long swallow from the
bottle, watching, perplexed.

 "You
see?" Stacy said, breathing hard, still immersed in her
imaginary game. "They saved the
knees—that's the important thing. So she could
still run pretty good. Just a little awkward. But like I said, this was
only after a year or so. She might be even better now."

 They
saved the
knees.
Amy
understood now: sprinting for a train, jumping,
falling.
They
saved the knees.
She took another swig of tequila, ventured a
glance toward Pablo. His breathing had quieted somewhat, grown softer,
slower, though that unsettling rasp—wet sounding,
phlegm-filled—remained an essential part of it. He looked
terrible, of course. How could he not? He had a broken back, and two
seared stubs for legs. He'd lost a lot of blood, was
dehydrated, unconscious, probably dying. And he stank, too—of
shit and urine and charred flesh. The vine had begun to sprout on the
sleeping bag, which had become sodden with the various fluids seeping
off of him. They should do something about this, Amy realized, probably
get rid of the sleeping bag altogether, lift Pablo clear of his
backboard, yank the fetid thing out from under him. She understood that
this would be the right thing to do, that it was what Jeff would
probably have them attempt if he were here, but she made no move to
undertake it. All she could think of was the previous
evening—she and Eric at the bottom of the shaft, heaving
Pablo toward the swaying backboard. She knew she wasn't going
to try to pick the Greek up again, not now, not ever.

 "Without
the knees," Stacy was saying, "you have to swing
them. Like this."

 Amy
turned to watch as Stacy moved around the edge of the clearing,
stiff-legged, swaying, her face focused, concentrating. She was good at
this sort of thing; she always had been, was a natural mimic. She
looked like Captain Ahab, pacing the deck on his peg-leg. Amy laughed;
she couldn't help it.