Adam & Eve (26 page)

“Why, for God’s sake, did you ever let her carry the case out of Egypt?” Gabriel asked. “And why haven’t you gone after her before now, if you knew where she was?”

“We did not expect it would be entrusted to her. Monsieur Pierre Saad was barely acquainted with Mrs. Lucy Bergmann.” The rabbi cleared his throat. “And to your second question—the area where her plane went down is a doughnut hole. A little oasis of peace, but totally surrounded by the most vicious warfare the world has ever seen. A little Armageddon, a Christian might say.”

Gabriel realized that should he fail to cooperate, two stories about him might be circulated: committed suicide or murdered. He maintained his seat and tried to take comfort in the ordinary nature of his surroundings. “And you want to send me there?”

“Things have quieted down. You and I and an American businessman will visit Eden. I’m having an airport constructed in the wilderness not far from Baghdad.”

Gabriel wondered what value had been placed on the life of Lucy Bergmann.

As though he knew Gabriel’s thoughts, the rabbi said, “It is not the person of Mrs. Bergmann that interests us, but the things she carries. However, at some point you may need to consider, Professor Plum, whose life you value more—hers or your own.”

Gabriel stood up. “How do you know what you know?”

“Eyes. Eyes and ears. Sometimes they ride on donkeys let loose in Egypt; sometimes in the broom handle of a maid; sometimes in the black spot on the back of a tiger’s ear in India. There is no place where we of Perpetuity do not watch and listen. We have watched you, friend and rival of Thom Bergmann, many years and anticipated your sympathy to our cause. You did well to inform our office that Mrs. Bergmann had gone missing with a flash drive full of information on perfected spectroscopic methods and extraterrestrial life.”

“Why do you call me Thom’s rival?” Gabriel knew it was unlikely that he’d ever be permitted to ask such questions again.

“You never wanted his search for extraterrestrial life to succeed. You rejoiced over each sterile planet. You wanted science to affirm that we are special, unique in the universe.”

“Are we?”

“In a word? No.”

A
T THE MOMENT
when F. Riley opened his eyes, I was looking at his face. I was not contemplating his closed lids but the set of his jaw, bound shut with strips of orange fabric from the parachute. He had a jutting chin, a fortuitous happenstance because its size had made the binding easier to secure. I worried, though, that the back edge of the binding might be pressing too closely against the patient’s larynx. Just as I was about to test the tightness of the bandage with the tip of my finger, I noticed the slow, theatrical rising of his eyelids.

Trying to draw him to consciousness, I shifted my eyes to look steadily into his unfocused gaze. When I smiled a little, he made a quick, surprised sound, like a yelp.

“You’ll be all right,” I soothed, repeating my litany of reassurance. I reached for one of his hands and held it in both of mine. It was a large and knobby hand. “You’ll be all right.” Dulled by the fragrance of redwoods, was I hypnotically crooning to myself or to the patient? I took his hand to my lips and kissed the back of it, noticing the red-gold hairs curling sparsely from its paleness. While holding his gaze, I registered the color of his eyes for the first time—a striking reddish brown. Yes, I had occasionally seen such eyes of people with dark red hair.

The soldier gave his little yelp again, but this time it resembled the question Why? and so I quietly explained that my friend Adam and I had seen his plane go down, and his parachute open. Adam had climbed up through the trees and brought him down.

“Your jaw was dislocated and broken, too, so we’ve immobilized it.” I watched him watching my lips forming the words. Without thinking, I brushed my own lips with my fingertips, and then I reached out and touched his lips. His eyes now seemed focused, comprehending. “Your ankle was broken, too.”

Tightening his muscles, he lifted his neck and his foot to inspect the splint. Without doubt, he understood my words and their import. Carefully, he lowered his head and closed his eyes for a moment as though the effort had caused him pain.

I said gently, “You’re bruised, of course. Probably better just to lie still.”

He made a sound in his throat that sounded affirmative. As he drew in rapid breaths, I watched the stenciled name on his shirt pocket—“F. Riley”— rise and fall. Gradually he resumed breathing in a more normal fashion. Slowly he opened his eyes again, and I saw the question in them.

“This
is
real,” I said. “You’re not dreaming.” An unspoken explanation was gathering in my own mind:
This place is where we come for peace and healing. Pieces of the past are here—gardens and trees. We call it Eden.
Instead, sensible words passed from me to him. “You’re going to be all right, but you’re hurt.”

His gaze shifted to my naked breasts.

Instead of replying, I withdrew my hand from his and crossed both arms modestly over my nakedness. “We’ll take care of you—my friend and I. I promise.”

When Adam brought back saplings and a bouquet of huge leaves for our hut among the redwoods, he also carried a stalk of sugarcane and two oranges clamped between his upper arms and his ribs. Before he began to construct the shelter, he cut off a joint of the sugarcane stalk and, with the tip of his knife, hollowed out the pith to make a narrow cup. I remembered my grandfather, how he had carved away the hard casing and cut off rounds of sugarcane
with his jackknife for Grandmother and me. At one end of the segment of cane, Adam left the pith undisturbed to form a plug.

He used the pilot’s sharp knife again to cut the oranges into sections and with one hand squeezed their juice into the cup while I held it upright. Pulling F. Riley’s lower lip out to make a small pouch, I poured less than a teaspoon of orange juice into the lip-well. “Close your lips tightly and see if you can swallow. Don’t try to open your jaw.”

When he succeeded, his lips made a small smile. With surprising energy, he gave the thumbs-up signal with both hands. I poured more sips of orange juice into his lip pouch, then waited as he swallowed the juice around his clamped teeth. It was a slow process.

After Adam had constructed a lean-to wide enough to accommodate the three of us lying close together, rain began to fill the air. I folded the parachute and laid it over the pilot. Adam suggested he and I lie down under the shelter on our sides with our backs to Riley. “Human heaters,” he said softly. When we were in place, I lay still, staring into the hastily constructed weave of poles and large leaves that made up the side of the lean-to.

In my mind’s eye, I also saw us from a detached viewpoint: the soaring tree trunks surrounding a dwarfish hut huddled close to the ground. I pictured the air filled with mist formed by the shattering of raindrops as they fell through the high redwood foliage. Yes, that was the explanation for the moist veil we breathed: the high branches of the redwoods had sieved the rain into the fine mist that blurred vision and made us want to lie still. The mist gentled the scene.

Dampness and new chill impinged on my unprotected skin every time I moved. At that moment, the pilot used his hands to open and spread the parachute on both sides so that Adam and I in our nakedness were covered also by the silky orange fabric.

“Thank you,” Adam whispered.

Adam’s voice is beautiful, I thought. I heard myself saying back to Adam—to this man who had taken care of me, as well as the pilot—“Thank
you.
He would thank you, too, if he could.” I recalled some of the mental patients at
the hospital, capable of real kindness and understanding despite their impairment. When I spoke, I had tried to give my own tone the same gentle timbre modeled by Adam. With both hands the pilot reached out to give each of us two quick, comradely pats.

As I grew drowsy, I thought of F. Riley’s broken ankle and realized that it would be weeks before we could consider walking out of Eden. Adam would be pleased. Was I? A blip of new thought occurred: perhaps the air force knew F. Riley had ejected; perhaps they would send troops to find him.

As fatigue and sleepiness set in, I mused on how the low roof and sides of the hut kept us somewhat dry, but the open end was letting in enough diffused rain to dampen our feet. In the morning, it would be necessary to unsplint Riley’s ankle, dry the bindings or make new ones and tie it up again. We needed to make a mat, I mused sleepily, like a door we could close, once we three were inside for the night.

High overhead, even through the sound of rain, I fancied I could hear the whine of a jet plane.

In the morning, Adam and I were awakened by the startling sound of the man’s clenched voice.

“I can talk—just moving—my lips,” F. Riley said, “if that’s all right?”

I gasped. Already I had assigned him the role of silence.

“What does the ‘F’ in your name stand for, buddy?” Adam asked, sitting up.

“Freddie. My name is—Freddie Riley.” He propped himself up on his elbows.

“Adam Black, from Idaho.” Adam reached across his body to shake hands. “And this is Lucy.” Without hesitation, my true name came clicking out of Adam’s mouth.

“Lucy Bergmann,” I added, not moving but opening my eyes to stare again at the weave of branches and wide tropical leaves less than a foot in front of my eyes. Through the cracks in the side of the hut, I could see sunlight slanting from a great height through the redwoods into the grove.

“Lucy, I don’t believe I knew your last name,” Adam said softly.

Normal, I thought. Adam wants to pass for normal. Now that we are three, he wants to be a part, not alone with God and his delusions. At this point, sometimes patients resisted the gathering strength of the outer world; they insisted on their visions, their unique individuality. Good for Adam, I thought.

“Are you Jewish?” Adam asked.

“My husband was,” I answered.

“Was?” Adam asked.

“He’s dead.”

Through set teeth, Freddie Riley asked, “How long—y’all—been here?”

I heard the Virginia Tidewater in his speech.

“Several months,” Adam answered. “I think it’s been several months. She came from the sky, too—”

Quickly I cut him off. “How do you feel today, Freddie?” I sat up and glanced at his face—swollen and discolored purple.

“Hungry.”

“Breakfast! You stay still,” I said to our patient. “Freddie, try to say only what’s absolutely necessary for a few days.”

“Gotta, latrine.”

Adam extended his hand to Riley (who spent a few words to tell us he preferred to be called by his last name) to help him rise. With his arm around Adam’s shoulder for support, Riley hobbled from the grove.

To my delight, the milk goat presented herself in the redwoods. When Riley and Adam returned, Riley indicated he wanted to sit with his back propped against the largest tree trunk in the grove. While I carefully held the cane-tube cup in place under one of the goat’s teats, Adam quickly and accurately milked her.

“Calcium for your broken bones,” I said cheerfully, and knelt down to help my patient drink small sips of the milk. Riley reached out and took the cup from me, eyes a-twinkle. With his other hand, he pulled out his lower lip. Already, I saw, he wanted to be self-sufficient.

After Adam and I mashed fruit on a flat rock, Riley used his finger to place the juicy pulp behind his lower lip. Sometimes he used his finger to push the mash back along his teeth on the unbroken side. Once he got choked, but despite his bound jaw he coughed successfully and continued eating.

Adam explained he would fetch fire from the cliff shelter; then he intended to fish, then cook. To my surprise, he added, “If you two can stand it, save the talk till I get back. I don’t want to miss anything.”

“Sure.” To Riley I said, “It’ll be better for your jaw to have as little movement in the area as possible.”

His eyes glowing, Riley inched his thumb and index finger together and made the motion of writing; he raised his eyebrows in questioning. His index finger was wet with bits of apple.

“We don’t have anything to write with. In fact we don’t have anything much at all.”

Riley applauded, his eyes making a quick glance up and down my body.

Looking back over his shoulder, Adam said cheerfully, “I’ll be back soon.”

When Adam returned, he was speeding over the grasslands in full sunshine carrying a blazing pine knot. Close to our sleeping shed, he placed a circle of protective stones, then built a tall, open-sided peaked roof to shelter the flame. Throughout the morning Adam came and went, always hurrying to beat the storm clouds building from the western horizon. When Riley made running motions with two fingers, I explained the need for hurry—rain would likely come again in the late afternoon and on through the night.

Riley let his other hand make a second pair of hurrying legs, and then he flicked the back of his hand to shoo me away so I could help fetch and carry. Surveying my patient, I saw he was pale and in discomfort, but he had no need for constant monitoring. His face was full of life and bounce. I rose and ran after Adam, calling to him to wait. I explained we had a considerate patient, one who had sent me to help.