False Dawn (27 page)

“What about the animals?” Thea asked as she sorted out boxes of canned goods. The regular meals for the last month had taken away the tight hollows of her body; the bones that had pushed angrily at her skin were changed to sweet, angular curves that erased the brittle look she had worn for so long.

“Too near Tahoe, probably, and too many people like us, looking for a safe place to stay,” Evan answered. He was busy cleaning a couple of small traps he had found in another house. With luck he thought he might catch something on the western ridge of the valley. He, too, had put on flesh, having now something of the indomitable solidity that had marked him once as the most respected of the classical music world’s younger general directors, shuffling the bookings of six opera companies and fifteen symphonies all over the world. He had done his job well, then, and cleaned his traps with much the same care that he had used in contract negotiations. “We can try, though. There’s been bobcat tracks by the upper creek once or twice. They’re predators, and they must be living on something.”

“Not bobcat.” She said it with finality, seeing again the bobcat at Buck’s Lake as it sank under the ice.

“All right. No bobcat. What about badgers?”

She considered this, recalling all the strange meats she had eaten to stay alive; rats, when there was nothing else, and rattlesnakes. “Evan, there’s enough food to keep us going for a while, isn’t there?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Then let’s wait for a bit. Don’t put traps out yet.”

He glanced up at her in surprise. “Thea? I thought you were the one who didn’t want to take all this for granted. You said we shouldn’t get used to living like this.”

Half-frowning now, she made a complicated gesture. “I don’t know. It’s just that there are so few of them left. We don’t need them yet. We don’t have to kill them, do we? Not yet?”

“No, we don’t have to. Not yet.” He gave her a gentle smile and felt himself ache for her.

“Then put the traps away, okay, Evan?” she pleaded.

“Okay. Until we really need them,” he promised.

Over the next few days the smoke in the sky grew darker and occasionally the air would echo eerily with the distant sound of the volcano, the air would shudder and the ground quiver. The light grew hazily colorful, even at midday, and turned violently bright at sunset, as if the fire in the earth were reflected in the sky.

“Why did it happen?” Thea asked as they trudged toward their house in the glow of a spectacular early-May sunset.

“Who knows? Volcanoes have always been a puzzle. Lassen was threatening sometimes, and Shasta was a potential hazard. It was bound to happen someday. It was now rather than another time.”

Thea looked at the vivid display in the west. “I don’t think I’d like to be any farther north. Lassen and Shasta are north of here, aren’t they? We should stay away from them.”

Evan remembered once stopping in Iceland, when the volcanoes there were unusually active. He had seen a lava snout poke its way into a village and watched as the buildings burned like matches. “No. I wouldn’t want to be any farther north.”

At night, seated by the fire, Evan would read to her, picking the books at random to entertain her and himself with a great variety of stories. By tacit agreement, they confined themselves to fiction, as if they had enough of reality during the day, and could find no relief from reports of actual events.

“What’s this one about?” she would ask, handing him another book, then sit back to listen while he read. Occasionally he would have to explain some detail, for Thea knew very little history, and her knowledge of geography and politics was sketchy at best. Because much of what was in the books was strange to her, she shied away from reading aloud herself, hut was always delighted to hear him read.

He was in the middle of
Pride and Prejudice
when she stopped him after one of Elizabeth’s more cutting observations, asking with a clouded face, “Did people really live like that? Spending all their time wondering about money and marriage and clothes and parties?”

“Well,” he answered, holding his place in the book with his finger, “I guess they did, yes. This is a satire, so Austen emphasizes it, but it is pretty much the things people at that level of society worried about. It was somewhat different for the titled and landed and the wealthy, like Mr. Darcy. The poor were the way the poor always have been, and that’s outside the scope of this book. But for women like Elizabeth and her sisters, yes, their lives were fairly limited. Remember, this was two hundred years ago. And then, marriage was the most important thing in their lives, and acceptable husbands were very hard to find”

“But all of those words and all that plotting just to have two people end up together.” She shook her head in disbelief.

He stifled a laugh. “Yes.” To a large degree it had still been that way he was young. Some few determined and talented women had broken away from the pattern, and the resurgence of feminism had forced a few reforms in law, but even then, for most women, marriage and family were the framework for their lives. “It didn’t change a lot, and not at all in many parts of the world,” he said a moment later. “People used to get married, you know. I did.”

She scowled at him. “Is it that important?”

“What? Marriage?”

“No,” she snapped. “Sex and children. Do people really care so deeply? Does it make that much of a difference?”

There was a look in his eyes that made her turn away, wishing she could take back her questions. When he had gathered his thoughts, he answered her. “Yes, when there is time, it is that important.” Clumsily he opened the book and began to read again, but his attention had wandered from the story and he soon found an excuse to stop.

But that night, as he lay in bed, staring at the darkness, he became angry. It had been one thing to keep to himself all those months in the cold and danger, when he could not afford to think about wanting Thea. Now that they were safe, things were different. Now, he thought bitterly, because we have time and opportunity, because we’re not starving or shot at or hunted, it is important. It is important. “It is important to me,” he muttered into his pillow. He was so preoccupied that he did not hear her come into his room: her light touch on his arm startled him and he sat up abruptly.

“Evan?” said her small, still voice. “Is it that important to you?”

He waited a moment, afraid she had heard him speak, wondering if he had understood her question. “Is wanting you that important? Is that what you’re asking?”

She made a little sound and a nod, which he more sensed that saw or heard.

He took a chance. “Yes. It is.”

Although her hand shook and grew cold, she resolutely kept it on his arm. “I don’t know if I can. But I’ll try.”

“Try?”

“To do what you want.”

“I’d like that very much, but I don’t want a sacrifice, Thea,” he said, hating himself for giving her a reason to leave him again. He thought he might still be asleep, and this was his dream. He flexed his toes and felt the sheet move.

“I’m not trying to sacrifice myself. I just thought that maybe it was right, or it could be right, after all.” She started to draw her hand away, but he caught it in his. Gently, kindly, he touched her arm. “All right. We can try. If you want. It’ll only be okay if you want—”

“But what do I do?” she whispered.

“You let me touch you; you let me know when you feel pleasure,” he told her as he untied the belt of the robe she wore. Her body felt stiff as he pulled the robe away, and the urgency that had risen in him calmed, so that his hands were slow and careful. He drew back the covers, moving to give her room. “Come here, Thea. It’s warmer here.”

She dived gratefully into the bed, wrapping the covers around her like bandages or blindfolds. She felt her nerve fail now that he was beside her, warm and hairy. She set her teeth and forced her hands to her sides. “Go on,” she said.

“Oh, no, Thea,” he said between laughter and sorrow. “Not that way.” He took one of her small fists in his hand. He kissed the fingers one by one, then the palm, opening her hand like a flower.

“Why did you do that?” Some of her tension was lost to curiosity.

“Because it is the beginning of what I want to do. Because it’s pleasant. Because you’re dear to me. Because it’s better if you enjoy this as well.”

She pulled one of his hands to her lips. “Like this?”

“Well, not quite. I’m not a sandwich.” He kissed her hand again, remembering how much he had enjoyed tantalizing his wife with all manner of kisses. “Like that.” He rolled closer to her and waited while she conquered her fear. Then he turned her face to his, smoothing the wayward strands of dark hair back from her face. He kissed her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks, and finally her mouth.

She stiffened, pushing against his shoulders, trying to get away from him. “Don’t. No. No.”

He stopped immediately. “God, Thea. I don’t want to frighten you. I won’t hurt you. Let me try again. If you don’t like it, I won’t do it again.” He knew he was going too fast, that his body’s insistence was too strong. If only her body were not so sweet, if he were not so hungry for her.

“You scare me.”

“Me?” He held back from her. “Do I frighten you?”

“Some,” she admitted.

“It is kind of scary the first time,” he said, forcing his hands to move easily, softly.

“This isn’t the first time!” She said it with such fury that he felt the weight of her fear.

“Yes, Thea, it is,” he said, pulling her toward him, wrapping her in his arms, holding her tenderly, as lie would a child. “Rape isn’t like this, Thea. It’s nothing like this. But you don’t know that yet. Please, please let me try.”

She set her jaw. “All right. Go ahead.”

It wasn’t very promising, lie thought as he stroked her with his big hands. He eased her legs open slowly, and found she was not ready for him. And when lie touched her labia with moistened fingers, she turned her face away. Her distress confused him, and he felt a spark of anger; anger at himself for doing this to her, anger with her for making him feel guilty for loving her. Most of all he felt anger at Lastly for poisoning something that might give them the solace of closeness they had missed. “Thea, I don’t want to hurt you. But I might. If I do, tell me.”

She nodded, unable to speak as she struggled to keep from paying too much attention to what he was doing. She fought her revulsion as he held himself poised over her, willed her hands not to strike out as he eased his body into hers. He did not rush her, moving slowly inside her, trying not to startle her as his passion mounted. But then he moved faster, and his breath became panting and he held her fiercely. Then he cried out hoarsely and she felt his warm moisture overflow between her thighs.

Is that all there is she thought as he moved off her falling close beside her There had been discomfort but no real pain He had kept his word. She held her lower lip between her teeth until the urge to weep was past.

“Thea,” he said thickly. “Next time will be better for you. The second time is always better.”

“The second time?” She was ready to leave the bed, to return to the narrow bunk in her room, knowing that he was satisfied now, and that she could endure his touch if she had to accommodate him again..

But his hands were on her again. “Stay, Thea, please.” He put his hand over her breast and felt where the nipple had been. “At least let me try to give you pleasure: you have given so much to me.”

“It’s all right,” she said stiffly, turning from him.

“No, it’s not.” He began to knead the muscles of her back, massaging the rigidness out of her; he did not say much beyond asking her if there was something she wanted him to do. He worked thoroughly, taking plenty of time letting her body learn his hands without hurry, and without coercion. After a while a gentle languor came over her, and she turned to him of her own volition. “That’s been nice,” she said as if admitting to a real failing. “It will be better,” he promised, hoping his optimism was well-founded. “If I go too fast, tell me.” He stroked her arms as a beginning. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do before I do it. I’m going to massage you but not the way I did before.” He caressed her, soothing her, drawing her out of the frightful armor her body had become.

“Can I touch you? Would you mind?” she whispered half afraid of his answer.

He smiled in the dark. “I would like that.” He lay still while her strong hands explored him, discovering his flesh like a foreign land. Somewhat later, she said, “Will you try again? I mean, in me?”

“Yes.” And because this time he loved her with patient understanding, and because he had freed her from the prison of herself, that part of her she had never known opened to him, and she no longer dreaded his passion. She clung to him while she cried for joy, aware that she was going to be free from her anguish. The specter of Lastly retreated in her mind as Evan’s nearness, his warmth, began to heal her.

Smoke from the volcano hung over the mountains for a long time and the days did not warm as they should. By late spring, although the snow was largely gone, afternoons were cool and the nights still shone with frost. There were sounds of animals in the woods now, but those they saw were strange, starved things, looking more like specters than animals.

“Is it the volcano?” Thea asked, watching the sky before resuming stacking the freshly cut wood.

“Partly. There’s been a lot of pollutants poured into the upper atmosphere and it’s filtering down in the rain. The junk from the Valley didn’t reach this far a couple of years ago, but now… “She sighed. “We have to find some way to deal with it now, don’t we?” He shrugged. “It’s going to get worse, too.”

“Isn’t there any way to change it?” She had set up the rest of her split logs and was getting ready to load them onto their improvised sledge.

“Not now. The time to change it was before you, or even I, were his born. The volcano is only drawing our attention to what’s already done.” He put the last of the wood onto the sled, waiting as Thea me trimmed back the loose hark with her hatchet. “That’s enough for the time being. It should keep us for the rest of the week.”