Turning Back the Sun(44)

A few minutes later, where a cairn of stones marked the way, the old man said, “Now we go footwalking.”

They clambered out into a sudden hush. On one side the foothills showed stark; on the other was wilderness. The air shrilled with cicadas and the sky was awash with stars. They stood awkwardly together. Rayner did not know how to say goodbye. He might have clasped the girl”s hand, but her arms circled the quilt and water bottles, and she was already gazing along the hills where they would go.

The old man lingered by the car door, but his body seemed less a burden to him now. His breathing filled it. He was fumbling inside his shirt, and at last pulled out a necklace of mussel shells which he thrust against Rayner”s chest. In the dark of his face and of the night, Rayner saw his smile gleam. He realized that he would miss him. He even experienced the unaccountable sensation that the savage had always been with him, but was now going away. The mussel shells glimmered in his hands. He had nothing left to say. But he reached out and took the old man in his arms.

As the natives moved out of sight, following the lea of the foothills, Rayner wondered how far they would have to go. They seemed to be walking into nothingness. Their slow, private dignity no longer struck him as strength, but as a kind of melancholy, and the two dark shapes merging with the plain looked suddenly vulnerable.





CHAPTER

19

Rayner had anticipated his aunt”s letter for so long that when he returned from work next evening and found it, he was seized by apprehension that it would not contain what he had hoped.

Written in a faltering parody of her old hand, her words dropped to him out of another realm. The arrangements for transferring her house to him were almost complete, she wrote, and she hoped he could meet her lawyers soon. His temporary residence permit was enclosed. She did not know how he regarded his future, but her friend Dr. Morena was seeking a junior partner, and she had made bold to mention Rayner”s name. She thought the partnership a pleasant one, and the indefinite extension of his permit would only be a formality. She imagined that Rayner would not lightly give up his present, thriving practice, but perhaps he would write to her? She had less than six months to live.

He read the letter again then folded it into his shirt pocket. This old woman, whom he scarcely remembered, had in his eyes acquired magical status. A frail, dying lady in bombazine and a toque hat—yet one push of her bony hand, and the wall of government control had gaped open. How had it happened so simply? Perhaps the network of state repression was loosening at last, and he had not known.

He walked light-headed in the garden. The torrid summer had hammered it into a rectangle of brown. Even the hibiscus hung prematurely withered. But October was near, and perhaps the autumn rains, and in the darkening air a gasp of breeze sprang up and died. Outside the back door, the natives” departure had left a crescent of crushed grass. Inside, Zo? had cleared away the cinders from a charred circle in the rug, and a column of soot still radiated to the ceiling.

It was Zo? who concerned him now. The sun had set, and in an hour she would return. He went into the kitchen, found some bread and fruit, and waited for her. His elation contracted inside him. He suddenly resented his own passion for her. For years he had dreamed of his return, and now it was darkened by this violent, wayward love for a woman who had abandoned any wish to return herself. And he dreaded his own pity, his regret. She”d known from the start that he intended to leave; but he”d told her one thing with his mind, and another with his body. They had never talked of marriage, yet despite everything it had hovered in his thoughts. He had the idea that if he”d known her in another place, perhaps as a young girl in the capital, then they might have made a future. But now, in her earthiness and stormy disenchantments, she belonged here.

He could not take her back with him.

Then he became alarmed by his own fear of loss. It welled up inside him like nausea. He tried not to think of her. He hated his own weakness, if that is what it was. He realized, even in the kitchen, how his surroundings had become hers: the choice of food, the herbs, the fruit baskets, the capricious cat. He kept his eyes on his meal. He tried to avoid his own sorrow by thinking of her future. He could not envisage it. She was only twenty-eight; yet often people were overawed by her. Her exuberance and naturalness attracted them, but there was something else—mercurial and perversely independent—which fended them off.

As the door opened, he could not anticipate her mood. It always played on her face, and was governed by the reactions of that coarse audience to her dancing. But tonight her eyes were on him. “You”ve had good news.”

“How did you know?”

“You”re looking guilty.”

Then he told her. He told her about his aunt”s illness and that he”d soon return to see her; and yes, he would accept the medical partnership, and the house. The opportunity would never come again.

As he spoke, his tone grew harsh against its own apology, and his gaze lifted from the table to her. But she had slowly turned away from him and was facing the blackwood dresser hung with crockery. She said, “I ought to be glad that you”ll be happy.” But the dresser clinked faintly, as if trembling under her hands.

“I don”t know about happiness.” He sounded strained and suddenly futile.

Then her gaze was on him. “So you”d desert the town and your practice for that place?”

He tried to retrieve his own harshness. “The town doesn”t need me. The October rains will be here soon, and then all this madness will fade away. If I could cure the disease, I”d stay. But I think it will cure itself.” He felt his voice falter and reached out to her, but she had turned her back again. “I think it”s benign.”