Adam & Eve (27 page)

As we hurried over the grasses, Adam told me about the food he wanted to gather. There was a warmth in his communication, a series of sudden smiles
when he looked down at me, more directness in his affect. Not far away I could smell a herd of gazelles grazing.

“You’re feeling better, aren’t you?” I said to Adam. Even the way he put down his bare feet seemed to suggest he felt himself substantial, defined.

“You think so, don’t you?” he remarked.

When I nodded, he simply added, “I do, too.”

Why should we discuss Riley or speculate on what his presence implied? Why should I ever mention to Riley that Adam was sometimes visited by delusions? Adam had become competent now—kind, practical, decisive.

At noon, as we walked through the orchard, I stopped at a fig tree. I tore off two of the large, lobed leaves. Remembering Riley’s deliberate survey of my body, his eyes looking slowly up and down my torso and legs, I held a fig leaf over each breast and asked Adam if he knew a way to make them stick to my skin.

“Sure.” What refreshing enthusiasm he packed into that single syllable. He went on, “Fresh rosin will do it. I’ll just nick one of the little pines over there.” He went about the task immediately, selecting a place where sap had already oozed out a sticky white crust. I thought of my days with the viola, when I used a dried, hardened cake of this same substance to rosin my bow. Applying the stickiness with one finger, Adam stroked gooey patches on my chest just above each breast. As he finger-painted, he asked in a matter-of-fact way if I’d like a skirt, too. “I could make one, sort of Hawaiian style, out of long grass.”

“Would you? Later, when we have time.”

“You’ll want to be careful around the fire.”

He plopped a dollop of goo on my belly below my navel just above my pubic hair and stuck the largest fig leaf there. We both laughed out loud. I was a parody of every modest medieval or Renaissance painting of Eve. Adam maintained his unself-conscious dignity, naked. He smiled down at me, some combination of good humor—which he’d learned already from Riley’s manner—and handsome, shy lout, like the comic-book Superman. I liked his combination of sweetness and power; I felt about fourteen instead of forty-odd.

When Riley saw me approaching in my new covering, he made binoculars
of his hands and placed them around his eyes. As we walked into the shady redwood grove, he said loudly through his bound-closed jaw, “Shit!” but he shrugged, too, as though to say, “Whatever.” We all laughed.

As we cooked fish on the makeshift skillet, we heard thunder revving up in the distance. The goat came by to offer milk again, and I made a cherry sauce for the fish, along with a fricassee of squash. While Adam and I prepared our meal, Riley held out his hand for an apple, and twice again; then he began to juggle the apples higher and higher for our entertainment as we cooked. He made one apple land so that it bounced off the top of Adam’s head. Remembering how Adam squirted milk at me, I chuckled to see him get some of his own.

“What did you do, back home?” Adam asked.

“Farm,” he answered, and when I asked if that was in Virginia, Riley nodded yes.

“Cows?” Adam asked, and Riley nodded yes.

“Do you have a family in Virginia?” I asked, and again he nodded yes.

“Children?” I inquired.

“Sisters,” he said distinctly with only the movements of his lips and little kisses at the beginning and end of the word.

“How many?” I asked.

Riley held up his hand with all five fingers spread.

No wonder, I thought, full of ease and fun, the darling goof-off brother. Till the draft probably prompted him to join the air force. I imagined his sisters, some of them with dark red hair and eyes to match. I was too old to be even the oldest of the Riley siblings.

Riley made a V with his fingers, then drew a line straight down from its point, then lifted his arm on the same side of his body as his broken foot; he placed the V’ed fingers under his armpit.

“Crutch,” I said. “You’d like us to make you a crutch.”

Riley bent from the waist and touched the orange bindings around the sticks we had prepared for his splint. He made a wrapping-round motion.

“A
padded
crutch,” I amended, and he nodded.

As I leaned forward to pass the vegetables to Adam, the fig leaf detached from my right breast and fluttered down onto the rounds of squash.

“Lucy,” Riley said to get my attention.

Embarrassed, I glanced at him, but he was not embarrassed. He quickly pointed to the cloth around his jaw, then gestured with both hands across his own shirt as though to form a bandeau.

“Of course,” I replied. I took the knife and went to the folded parachute cloth to cut off a proper strip.

Riley made another gesture around his waist and said, “Sarong.”

Each night the three of us lay down together, side by side, in the lean-to. The redwood branches and lacy sprays of needles continued to break up the torrential rains that came in the late afternoon and lasted well into the dark of night. Most of the rain was sieved into mist by the time it reached our level on the ground. An occasional plop of water crashed its way down more or less intact as it struck the broad leaves that roofed our lean-to.

The smaller shelter Adam had built over the fire kept it from going out, but occasionally we heard the fire hiss in the darkness when a spear of rain penetrated its covering. Despite the campfire, we were chilled by the moist air, but the layers of parachute fabric spread over the three of us helped to hold in the warmth of our bodies. When daylight came, we were all grateful for our sunny mornings and for the heat of the day that would collect itself by noon.

Over the next few days Riley became adept on his crutch. He could keep up with Adam on excursions, and he went exploring on his own across the grasslands with the grazing herds and through the orchard into the flower and vegetable gardens. Riley discovered the remnants of the mat roofs in the apple tree where Adam and I had our beds before the hard rains came. Because of the rains, our world grew more and more green. Both Adam and I found our world enriched by Riley’s enthusiasm.

After a few weeks, Riley was strong enough to hobble with the crutch all the way from the redwoods to the cliff dwelling. He swung himself along up the rocky path with aplomb, though I noted that Adam had apparently come before and cleared the way of loose stones.

When Riley suggested we move from the redwoods to the rocky overhang where we’d be warmer and drier, I found myself hesitating. It was a special place: Adam’s retreat, his castle. Vaguely I felt Adam and I had unfinished business at the shelter in the rocks, though we’d only spent one night there together before Riley fell into our lives. Riley quickly registered our hesitation and added in the jerky way his bound jaw dictated, “I mean—if it’s—okay. I don’t—want—to intrude.”

Together both Adam and I said, “It’s fine.” We would be warmer and drier housed under the great rocky overhang.

“Clan,” Riley said, and drew a circle in the air that included all of us.

“We ought to be wearing fur instead of orange nylon,” I said.

Adam said anxiously, “We don’t kill animals except for fish.”

“No,” I answered soberly. Would things change if we did? Would things change in any case? Then I added, “You need to wear something orange, Adam. To match Riley and me.”

To my own amazement, I untied my bandeau. After all, they’d both seen my breasts before. “Think Tahiti,” I said. “Gauguin.” I handed the cloth to Adam. “Tear off a strip,” I instructed. “It’s got too much fabric in it anyhow. I’ll make you a headband.”

Adam ripped the cloth with a sound like a jet parting the sky, and I neatly folded the fabric so no raw edges showed. When he bent his head down for me to tie the orange strip around it, I commanded, “Kneel.” He obediently dropped to one knee. I liked the effect of the slick orange against his dark hair. After I tied the knot at the back of his head, I arranged a few of his black curls to fall over the headband. “The Matriarch of the Clan,” I pronounced, “hereby officially names you—”

“Adam,” he said, bowing his head again. “My name really is Adam.”

When he lifted his head, both the men exchanged a rather sober glance. I wondered if they disapproved of my little ceremony or the title I playfully had given myself. I didn’t care. Maybe they thought I was losing my grip on reality.

That night the rain did not come till we were already beneath the shelter and cooking over the fire a large salmon Riley had caught. I luxuriated in the reflection
of the undulating flames on the rocks. The stone reflecting the heat made our room in the cliff face almost too warm, but when the rain began, we would be glad for the stored warmth in the massive rocks.

Looking at the neat pile of throwing stones, Riley observed to Adam that he practically had a fort. “Here’s your arsenal,” Riley said. “The nuclear stockpile.”

The term
nuclear
was like a stone striking my forehead. I think Adam felt the same way. We’d asked for no news of the world, but here were the words of war.

“I guess nobody’s gone atomic yet,” Adam said slowly. “Out there.” He lifted his eyes to the horizon.

“At least not by the time I bailed out,” Riley answered cheerfully. He picked up a rock from the pile and hurled it forcefully out into the distance. The air shifted with the aftershock of distant thunder.

“What year is it?” Adam asked.

“Twenty-twenty.”

“It was 2020 when I took off from Cairo,” I said. It amazed me to think that I had known Adam perhaps for only a few months. My hair had grown out now, and I never thought of the scarred skin between my shoulder blades. We had entered a peaceful and timeless dreamworld. Even the rumbles of thunder sounded benign, and the torrents of rain, another of which would soon erupt, were obviously a needed part of sustaining life for the flora and fauna of Eden.

“Did we create this,” I asked them, “or did it create us?”

Riley announced, “I want—to take off—my jaw bindings.”

“Feels ready?” Adam asked.

Riley nodded and began to untie his jaw.

“Don’t open wide,” I cautioned. “Be really careful.”

With urgent fingers, Riley untied the knots on top of his head and let the streamers fall to the ground. “Free—at—last,” he said slowly and obediently as though his jaw were still bound. Suddenly emotional, Riley swallowed and turned away from us to regain his composure. It was his endearing style to take things in stride, to be jovial and upbeat.

A gust of wind blew in a sprinkling of rain, and then the sky split with a torrential rainfall. Adam got up to put dry logs on the fire.

“I wished for salmon,” Riley said. “It was in a dream, but now it’s happened.”

Though Riley seemed a bit spooked by the satisfaction of his wish, Adam and I had come to take the fulfillment of our wishes for granted. What we wanted here, we could have. Or maybe it was that here we only wanted what we could very likely have. Now I knew I wanted Adam, and it seemed very likely that I could have him.

I wished that I had some milk to follow the salmon and squash. My eyes fell on the globe of a red tomato, and I considered biting into it for its juice. Having milk would be almost as good as ice cream, I thought. Vanilla, anyway.

Suddenly Adam was standing in front of me with a clay jug in his hands. “Look,” he said, “I made it out of river clay and fired it hard. Days ago.” The jug was a round globe with a very wide neck. “You can get your hand down in it to swab it out.” His vessel was practical as well as beautiful. The clay had been fired a purplish black, and its color and shape suggested an artful version of an eggplant. I remembered Adam had spoken of wanting to draw.

“You even made a lid,” I said. I thought the piece was really quite lovely. The lid had a knob on it for easy grasping. “You could make a whole set,” I said, “if you wanted to.” Then I asked, “What’s in it?”

“Milk. I thought we might all enjoy some goat milk.”

I smiled. So it was my destiny to have what I wanted. At least in Eden.

By the time we finished eating and drinking, a curtain of rain hung all across the opening, and we watched the reflected firelight flash gold and silver and bronze across it. The water curtain fell straight and hard for over an hour, then in rivulets and trickles from the runoffs down the rocky slope above us. It was good to have all the warm, dry space around us instead of the close quarters of the damp lean-to. As the night storm passed, Adam occasionally added more wood to the fire, and our talk, too, flared up and then died down in fits and starts.

When I had spent nights with Janet and Margarita Stimson, or with my friend Nancy, it had been like this. Anyone could speak, but gradually, in the
most natural way, the restful silences began. A few last water droplets clung to the rock lintel and dropped singly, elongating as they fell. The only curtain across the large open side of the overhang was the soft darkness.

I could easily imagine the landscape now obscured by the night, how in the morning the sunshine would flood the valley. In the far distance, we would see the green spires of the redwood grove we had formerly inhabited. How strange that step by step we had been able to come from there to here, leaving something of ourselves behind.

But there was Riley now, in front of me. His hair had grown out—dark red, as I’d expected, made mahogany by the fire glow. His face was almost free of bruises and swelling.

“I forgot to tell you, Lucy,” he said. “I crutched myself down to the beach.”

“It must have been hard,” I answered, “with the crutch sinking in the sand.”

“Not too hard,” he replied. “I wanted to see what was left of your plane.”

“Not much,” I said.

“That plane had sort of a little glove compartment,” he went on. “I pried it open with one of the broken struts.”

“And?”

“A piece of needlepoint. My sisters used to do needlepoint and crewel, cross-stitch—that sort of thing. There were needles, yarn, and thread.”

“Really?” I pictured the somewhat frail circle of an embroidery hoop, its ends connected with a metal screw. I thought of holding a loose, floppy skein of six-ply embroidery thread, how one could pull the plies apart into two sections of three threads each. My grandmother had done that, stitching and telling Bible stories all at once. I recalled Arielle Saad—perhaps crewel or cross-stitch had been a hobby for her.