“Okay.”
Her face was squarish, small, not gorgeous at all, and it was nice too.
“That sounds accurate.”
The humor left it and there was only surprise. “You believe me? You’re a doll!” She kissed him, suddenly, on the nose, didn’t look embarrassed, exactly; rather as though she were timing some important gesture.
Which was to pick up her harmonica and hail notes in his face. They both laughed (he was astonished beneath the laughter and suspected it showed) while she said: “Let’s walk.”
“Your blanket…?”
“Leave it here.”
He carried the notebook. They flailed through the leaves, jogging. At the path he stopped and looked down at his hip. “Uh…?”
She looked over.
“Do you,” he asked slowly, “remember my picking up the orchid and putting it on my belt here?”
“I put it on there.” She thumbed some blemish on the harmonica. “You were going to leave it behind, so I stuck a blade through your belt loop. Really. It can be dangerous around here.”
Mouth slightly open, he nodded as, side by side, they gained the shadowless paths.
He said: “You stuck it there.” Somewhere a breeze, without force, made its easy way in the green. He was aware of the smoky odor about them for two breaths before it faded with inattention. “All by yourself, you just found those people in the park?”
She gave him a You-must-be-out-of your-mind look. “I came in with quite a party, actually. Fun; but after a couple of days they were getting in the way. I mean it’s nice to have a car. But if you’re rendered helpless by lack of gasoline…” She shrugged. “Before we got here, Phil and I were taking bets whether this place really existed or not.” Her sudden and surprising smile was all eyes and very little mouth. “I won. I stayed with the group I came in with awhile. Then I cut them loose. A few nights with Milly John, and the rest. Then I’ve been off having adventures—until a few nights ago, when I came back.”
Thinking: Oh—“You had some money when you got here?”—Phil.
“Group I came with did. A lot of good it did them. I mean how long would you wander around a city like this looking for a hotel? No, I had to let them go. They were happy to be rid of me.”
“They left?”
She looked at her sneaker and laughed, mock ominous.
“People leave here,” he said. “The people who gave me the orchid, they were leaving when I came.”
“Some people leave.” She laughed again. It was a quiet and self-assured and intriguing and disturbing laugh.
He asked: “What kind of adventures did you have?”
“I watched some scorpion fights. That was weird. Nightmare’s trip isn’t my bag, but this place is so small you can’t be that selective. I spent a few days by myself in a lovely home in the Heights: which finally sent me up the wall. I like living outdoors. Then there was Calkins for a while.”
“The guy who publishes the newspaper?”
She nodded. “I spent a few days at his place. Roger’s set up this permanent country weekend, only inside city limits. He keeps some interesting people around.”
“Were you one of the interesting people?”
“I think Roger just considered me decorative, actually. To amuse the interesting ones. His loss.”
She was pretty in a sort of rough way—maybe closer to “cute.”
He nodded.
“The brush with civilization did me good, though. Then I wandered out on my own again. Have you been to the monastery, out by Holland?”
“Huh?”
“I’ve never been there either, but I’ve heard some very sincere people have set up a sort of religious retreat. I still can’t figure out if they got started before this whole thing happened, or whether they moved in and took over afterward. But it still sounds impressive. At least what one hears.”
“John and Mildred are pretty sincere.”
“Touché!” She puffed a chord, then looked at him curiously, laughed, and hit at the high stems. He looked; and her eyes, waiting for him to speak, were greener than the haze allowed any leaf around.
“It’s like a small town,” he said. “Is there anything else to do but gossip?”
“Not really.” She hit the stems again. “Which is a relief, if you look at it that way.”
“Where does Calkins live?”
“Oh, you like to gossip! I was scared for a moment.” She stopped knocking the stalks. “His newspaper office is awful! He took some of us there, right to where they print it. Grey and gloomy and dismal and echoing.” She screwed up her face and her shoulders and her hands. “Ahhhh! But his house—” Everything unscrewed. “Just fine. Right above the Heights. Lots of grounds. You can see the whole city. I imagine it must have been quite a sight when all the street lights were on at night.” A small screwing, now. “I was trying to figure out whether he’s always lived there, or if he just moved in and took it over too. But you don’t ask questions like that.”
He turned and she followed.
“Where is his house?”
“I think the actual address is on Brisbain South.”
“How’d you get to meet him?”
“They were having a party. I was wandering by. Someone I knew invited me in. Phil, actually.”
“That sounds easy.”
“Ah, it was very difficult. You want to go up there and meet Calkins?”
“Well, everything looks pretty scroungy down around here. I could wander up and see if somebody would invite me in.” He paused. “Of course, you’re a girl. You’d have an easier time, wouldn’t you? To be…decorative?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Not necessarily.”
He glanced at her in time to catch her glancing back. The idea struck him as amusing.
“You see that path behind the soccer posts?”
“Yeah.”
“It exits right on to Brisbain North. Which turns into Brisbain South after a while.”
“Hey!” He grinned at her, then let his head fall to the side. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m sad you’re going. I was all set for a dangerous, exciting afternoon, wandering about with you, playing my harmonica for you.”
“Why don’t you come?”
Her look held both embarrassment and collusion. “I’ve been.”
Hammering sounded behind them.
To his frown, she explained: “One of John’s work projects. They’ve gotten back from lunch. I know there’s food left. The guy who does most of their cooking, Jommy, is a friend of mine; do you want to eat?”
“Naw.” He shook his head. “Besides, I haven’t decided if I want—”
“Yes, you have. But I’ll see you when you get back. Take this.” She held out the notebook. “It’ll give you something to read on the way.”
For a moment he let his face acknowledge that she wanted him to stay. “Thanks…all right.”
“That’s one nice thing about this place,” she answered the acknowledgement; “when you come back, I will see you.” She raised her harmonica to her mouth. “You can’t lose anybody here.” In the metal, her eyes and nostrils were immense darknesses, set in silvered flesh, cut through, without lid or lash or limit, by green and green. She blew a discord, and walked away.
As he left the eyeless lions, it occurred to him: You can’t make that discord on a harmonica.
Not on any harmonica he’d ever had.
2
He’d walked three blocks when he saw, in the middle of the fourth, the church.
Visible were two (of presumably four) clocks around the steeple. Nearing, he saw the hands were gone.
He scrubbed at his forehead with the back of his wrist. Grit rolled between skin and skin. All this soot…
The thought occurred: I’m in fine shape to get myself invited into a house party!
Organ music came from the church door. He remembered Lanya had said something about a monastery…Wondering if curiosity showed on his face, he stepped carefully—notebook firmly under his arm—into the tiled foyer.
Through a second door, in an office, two of the four spools on the aluminum face of an upright tape recorder revolved. There were no lights on.
It only really registered as he turned away (and, once registered, he had no idea what to do with the image): Thumb-tacked above the office bulletin-board was the central poster from Loufer’s walclass="underline" the black man in cap, jacket, and boots.