A Green and Ancient Light (12 page)

By the time we'd gone through four or five crackers, I was enjoying myself so much that Grandmother's next words caught me completely by surprise.

“Now look behind us,” she said quietly. “Is anyone watching?”

At once I knew what she intended, and it was as if my blood had been replaced with ice water. Mouth going dry, I turned and peered in through the doorway. I saw mostly the backs of heads. The soldiers who were sitting sideways seemed engaged in conversation. A few were dozing. None were looking our way.

“No one's looking,” I murmured back to her. “But some might see us out of the corners of their eyes.”

“This is about as far from land as we get,” Grandmother said, tossing another piece of cracker. “I'll block the view. You'd better throw it. You can get it farther out there.” She took the bag from my shoulder. “It's supposed to be unloaded, but a bullet could be in the chamber or whatever they call it. Don't touch the trigger, and point the barrel away.”

Trying to swallow, I nodded.

Fishing in the bag, she came up with the gun's magazine, the metal clip loaded with bullets. With a quick motion, she tossed it overboard. A seagull winged close but didn't like its looks, and the magazine spun into the sea.

Grandmother nodded in satisfaction. Handing me another chunk of cracker, she said, “Check one more time.”

I wandered into the doorway again. Just as I did so, one of the
sideways soldiers looked right at me. He touched two fingers to his forehead in salute, then made his hand into the shape of a gun and pretended to shoot me. I gave him what I hoped was a grin, but I probably looked like I was about to throw up.

Going back out to Grandmother, I flung the cracker piece to a gull.

“Are they looking?”

“Yes. One was.”

“But no one's coming?”

“No.”

“All right. Then stand right in front of me.”

I did so, facing her.

She'd taken the gun out of the little cloth bag. With our stomachs almost touching, she laid the weapon into my hands. This was the first time I'd touched it. Though I'd held a handgun of my father's before, I was startled anew at how heavy such things were.

“Quickly,” she said. “Straight out.”

I turned toward the sea and stooped, putting my hands down between my knees, bunching myself for the throw.

Just then, bootsteps clanged on the metal stairs beside us.

“Now,” Grandmother whispered.

Whoever was on the stairs would be facing forward until he got to the landing halfway up; then he'd be looking out over the stern. I had maybe two seconds to throw.

I hurled the gun outward into the sunlight. It flew with agonizing slowness, black and unmistakable. I imagined it getting stuck in the sky, as if the world were a drawing, showing me with my arms raised toward the enormous gun that had replaced the sun. A gull darted toward it and careened away. A second bird collided
with it—I was sure I heard the thump over the engine's growl—but the gull stayed airborne, and the gun was falling again. For a long time after that, I half-believed the gull had gotten the pistol unstuck from the sky, that a shining bird had saved us.

Grandmother patted my back. We gazed down the ferry's wake as if down a road to another world, a magical land across the water, and our village and our mountain far away became that green world beyond time. The sun was burning the sea, turning everything to molten gold and silver. Birds came streaking and crying out of the blue and the fire.

With the sun in my eyes, I barely saw the splash when the gun finally met the sea, somewhere out in the wake.

Then two soldiers topped the stairs, rifles on their backs, and the first looked down at me. It was the one with the shaved head, the wide eyes.

I shrank against Grandmother, trying to get enough air into my lungs.

Leaning down as he passed me, the soldier touched the center of my chest with his pointer finger. He lingered again, staring at me. In a husky whisper, he said, “It all ends in fire.”

Then he ducked through the cabin door behind the other man.

“What did he say?” asked Grandmother.

I shook my head, too afraid to answer. The words reminded me vaguely of something, some old fear or dream. I didn't understand what he meant, but it felt as if I'd heard a voice from a burning bush. To repeat it might bring knowledge too terrible. I watched the soldiers go, hand-crawling between the benches, to join their comrades. No one was looking at us.

Grandmother wore a mild expression, but I noticed she had a
firm grip on both her walking-stick and the rail. Glancing around to see who might be within earshot, she let out a long breath. “I should have told you not to throw it
quite
that far. But anyway, well done. We've taken an enemy gun out of the fighting permanently. If that's not doing some good for the war effort, then I don't know what is.”

*  *  *  *

We could easily have spent the entire day on Wool Island. Beaches of clean white sand wandered away in both directions from where the ferry docked. Shops along the boardwalk sold fruit and hats, pans and dishes, figurines, paintings, wood-carvings, stoneware, pinwheels and noisemakers, noodles and fried breads and an array of other foods with enticing smells—and most of all, wool: yarn dyed in every color imaginable, and yarn knitted into caps, shawls, sweaters, socks, and blankets. People bought these warm things, even in the summer.

Sheep covered the green mountainsides so thickly that they seemed to be growing there, a ubiquitous woolly shrub.

To make the best use of our time, Grandmother sent me to wade in the surf while she browsed among the stalls, choosing her yarn. I played tag with the waves, following the ones that retreated, then reversing my course and scrambling to safety as reinforcements arrived. Though I'd left my shoes and socks high up the beach, my pants were soon drenched past the knees.

The smooth, wet sand ground deliciously under my feet. I picked up shells of amazing shapes and colors, washing them in the swells, turning them in the light. Several of the best I dropped into my pockets.

Farther along the coast, I saw a group of the soldiers at the water's edge, their boots and rifles abandoned. They laughed and shouted and pushed each other, splashing. Seagulls glided as they fished.

I ran back now and then to check on Grandmother. When she had the carpet bag stuffed with yarn and two full shopping bags besides, we bought noodles and sat at a boardwalk table under a fringed umbrella. To lighten the load, we ate as many tangerines as we could and drank the crock of milk. After we sat for a while, Grandmother waded, too. Her feet were like things grown in her garden under the soil, bulbous with shiny bunions.

I had calmed down enough to repeat what the soldier had whispered to me.

Grandmother didn't seem alarmed by the words at all, which relieved me.

“What do you think he was talking about?” I asked.

She shrugged, stooping to let a wave crash over her arms. “The end of the world, maybe. Soldiers think about such things.”

“Does the world end in fire?”

“Yes, next time. Water the first time, fire the next.”

I watched the foam sluice landward around my feet, then retreat, trailing silt—in and out, the sea always roaring. Out beyond the breakwater, the water was deep blue, and the scattered white caps on waves were like shreds of the clouds.

Neither of us wanted to leave, but we thought it best to take the one o'clock ferry back. For one thing, the soldiers and Major P —— would likely stay until the five o'clock departure; and for another, I think Grandmother felt as guilty as I did for playing on the beach when R —— lay in his condition in the leaning house,
and Mr. Girandole had the whole job of watching over him. We wanted to be back home where Mr. Girandole could find us, at least.

There wasn't a single soldier in the ticket office or on board, which relieved us. The ferry itself was a different boat but designed the same: this must be the one that had left the mainland in the early morning. The only drawback was that Mrs. C —— waved to us from the middle of the cabin, and there was no escape. She talked without stopping, showing us everything she'd bought and then explaining how she'd come over on the six a.m. ferry, which strictly speaking was a violation of the curfew, but she lived near enough to the ferry dock that she'd decided to brave the short walk through the streets in the gray light. And a tense journey it had been: she'd heard footsteps crunching behind the garden hedge where Mr. and Mrs. A —— lived, moving along in ­parallel to her as she hurried down the street. Since she knew neither of the A ——s were early risers, the sounds alarmed her greatly, especially when—looking back from the corner—she saw the dark figure of a man watching her from between the rose bushes. She'd run the last few steps to the ferry and counted herself lucky to have made it with her life. Then her talk ranged on through a radio show she'd heard and a visit she'd had with Mrs. D ——.

In time, Grandmother's polite replies became mere grunts, and she closed her eyes for longer and longer intervals as she listened. Even I abandoned her, taking a turn through the upper deck and out onto the back platform, where I watched the gulls and the waves. I wondered if the mer-folk down in the quiet emerald depths had found R ——'s gun, and what they might do with it. I imagined their king feeding it to the greatest of the giant clams,
and that someday, the gun would lie at the center of a huge pearl.

Back in the village at a little past three o'clock, we noticed a pair of soldiers trudging up the main street and a couple more patrolling a field. I thought it was unfair that not all of them had gotten to go to Wool Island.

At home, I put the seashells into the drawer of the table beside my bed, then picked up the photo in its frame and studied my parents' faces. Grandmother had said that soldiers thought about the end of the world; I wondered if my papa did as he sat in his tent or watched the waves or the night sky. I touched the four of us with my fingertips, wishing we were all together.

Grandmother went straight to her room, exhausted. But she suggested that if I had the energy, I might want to hike up to the sacred woods and see how things were going there. The idea thrilled me—Grandmother was asking me to do something important in her stead. “Do you remember the way?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Well, you can't get really lost,” she said. “
Up
leads to the mountain, and
down
will bring you back to the village.” She determined I should take nothing with me. “If anyone asks, you're just exploring the woods. See if Girandole needs anything. Get back before dark.” Having an afterthought, she asked, “You're not afraid to go up there alone, are you?”

“No.” But I agreed with the notion of leaving the garden well before dark.

She nodded. “You don't have to go, you know. If you don't, I expect Girandole will come here tonight.”

I told her I wanted to visit the grove again.

“Be careful,” she added.

*  *  *  *

As we'd done the day before, I looked carefully around from the shelter of the arbors, but again I saw no one patrolling or watching. It was the hottest part of the day. The sun pounded the steaming grasses in that delightful, unrestrained way it has at the height of summer. Everything in the meadow was still, save for a few buzzing insects, a sprinkling of white-winged butterflies. A pale puff of smoke from the cannery's chimney hung stationary like the splash from a bucket of white paint, rinse-water swirled in the bucket and flung against the sky.

I moved quickly up into the green light of the woods. The shade felt good. Even so, my shirt was sticking to me by the time I'd reached the parachute. I had no trouble finding my way. There was a weary, trampled look to the underbrush; it had seen a lot of traffic. In another few minutes I faced the dragon again, forever roaring at the harassing dogs.

I hurried beneath the archway, passed Neptune and the boar, then crossed the open sward between the pool of the four women and the elephant. I moved cautiously now, listening, as I approached the leaning house.

As I set foot on the left-hand stairway that climbed to the terrace, Mr. Girandole appeared above me. His expression was so distressed that I froze, staring up at him, unable to voice the terrible question.

Mr. Girandole must have seen my shock. At once, he forced a smile and said, “Oh, no. Forgive me. He is alive, but—where is M ——? Is she all right?”

I started breathing again and nodded. Trotting up the steps to the platform, I explained about our trip to Wool Island, but that
we'd hurried home, and that Grandmother was taking a nap. When I was close enough to him to whisper, I added, “We threw the gun overboard into the sea. That's why we went.”

He nodded distractedly, as if he weren't quite sure what I meant—or as if he had greater concerns on his mind. “I'm glad you've come. We'll all have to speak together as soon as possible.”

“What is it?” I asked. “What's the matter?”

Mr. Girandole wasn't wearing his hat, and his hair was in disarray. As he ushered me ahead of him up the steep stairs in the stone house, he said, “The man wakes up sometimes . . . and then he dreams again. He
dreams
. They. . . . We must all speak together.”

I understood then that he had something important to tell us, but it was Grandmother he most wanted to tell. I was curious but not offended; whatever the problem was, I'd be in no place to give advice.

R —— lay on his pallet, but now his head moved from side to side with the throes of delirium. He looked wretched in the bandages and tattered clothing, one sleeve and one pant leg cut off—like someone adrift in a lifeboat or chained in a dungeon. His face twitched expressively, reminding me of virtuoso musicians when they performed. Now and then he uttered a phrase between breaths—something in his own language.