Tending Alex Thomas brought Laura and me closer together than we had been for a while. He was our guilty secret, and also our virtuous project-one we could finally share. We were two good little Samaritans, lifting out of the ditch the man fallen among thieves. We were Mary and Martha, ministering to-well, not Jesus, even Laura did not go that far, but it was obvious which of us she had cast in these roles. I was to be Martha, keeping busy with household chores in the background; she was to be Mary, laying pure devotion at Alex's feet. (Which does a man prefer? Bacon and eggs, or worship? Sometimes one, sometimes the other, depending how hungry he is.)
Laura carried the food scraps up the attic stairs as if they were a temple offering. She carried the chamber pot down as if it were a reliquary, or a precious candle on the verge of flickering out.
At night, after Alex Thomas had been fed and watered, we would talk him over-how he'd looked that day, whether he was too thin, whether he'd coughed-we didn't want him to get sick. What he might need, what we should try to steal for him the next day. Then we would climb into our respective beds. I don't know about Laura, but I would picture him up there in the attic, directly above me. He too would be trying to sleep, tossing and turning in his bed of musty quilts. Then he would be sleeping. Then he would be dreaming, long dreams of war and fire, and of disintegrating villages, their fragments strewn about.
I don't know at what point these dreams of his changed to dreams of pursuit and escape; I don't know at what point I joined him in these dreams, fleeing with him hand in hand, at dusk, away from a burning building, across the furrowed December fields, the stubbled earth in which the frost was now beginning to set in, towards the dark line of the distant woods.
But it wasn't his dream really, I did know that. It was my own. It was Avilion that was burning, its broken pieces that were scattered over the ground-the good china, the S ¨vers bowl with rose petals, the silver cigarette box from the top of the piano. The piano itself, the stained-glass windows from the dining room-the blood-red cup, Iseult's cracked harp-everything I'd been longing to get away from, true, but not through destruction. I'd wanted to leave home, but have it stay in place, waiting for me, unchanged, so I could step back into it at will.
One day, when Laura was out-it was no longer dangerous for her, the men in overcoats had gone away and the Mounties as well, the streets were orderly again-I decided to make a solo trip to the attic. I had an offering to make-a pocketful of currants and dried figs, snatched from the makings for the Christmas pudding. I scouted-Reenie was safely occupied with Mrs. Hillcoate, in the kitchen-then went to the attic door and knocked. We had a special knock by then, one knock followed by three more in quick succession. Then I tiptoed up the narrow attic stairs.
Alex Thomas was crouched beside the small oval window, trying to take advantage of what daylight there was. Evidently he hadn't heard my knock: his back was turned towards me, and he had one of the quilts around his shoulders. He seemed to be writing. I could smell cigarette smoke-yes, he was smoking, there was his hand with the cigarette in it. I didn't think he should be doing this so near a quilt.
I did not quite know how to announce my presence. "I'm here," I said.
He jumped, and dropped the cigarette. It fell onto the quilt. I gasped, and dropped to my knees to put it out-I had the now-familiar vision of Avilion going up in flames. "It's all right," he said. He was kneeling too, both of us searching for any remaining sparks. Then the next thing I knew we were on the floor, and he had hold of me and was kissing me on the mouth.
I hadn't expected this.
Had I expected this? Was it so sudden, or were there preliminaries: a touch, a gaze? Did I do anything to provoke him? Nothing I can recall, but is what I remember the same thing as what actually happened?
It is now: I am the only survivor.
In any case, it was just as Reenie had said, about the men in movie theatres, except that what I felt was not outrage. But the rest of it was true enough: I was transfixed, I could not move, I had no recourse. My bones had turned to melting wax. He got almost all of my buttons undone before I was able to rouse myself, to pull myself away, to flee.
I did this wordlessly. As I scrambled down the attic stairs, pushing back my hair, tucking in my blouse, I had the impression that-behind my back-he was laughing at me.
I didn't know exactly what might occur if I let such a thing happen again, but whatever it was would be dangerous, at least for me. I would be asking for it, I would get what was coming to me, I would be an accident waiting to happen. I couldn't afford to be alone in the attic with Alex Thomas again, nor could I confide in Laura the reason why. It would be too hurtful to her: she would never be able to understand it. (There was another possibility-he might have been doing a similar kind of thing with Laura. But no, I couldn't believe that. She never would have allowed it. Would she?)
"We have to get him out of town," I said to Laura. "We can't keep this up. They're sure to notice."
"Not yet," said Laura. "They're still watching the train tracks." She was in a position to know this, as she was still doing her work with the church soup kitchen.
"Well, somewhere else in town then," I said.
"Where? There isn't anywhere else. And this is the best place-this is the one place they'd never think to look."
Alex Thomas said he didn't want to get snowed in. He said a winter in the attic would drive him buggy. He said he was going stir-crazy. He said he would walk a couple of miles down the tracks, and hop a freight-there was a high bank there that made it easier. He said that if only he could get as far as Toronto, he could hide out-he had friends there, and they had friends. Then he'd get across to the States, one way or another, where he'd be safer. From what he'd read in the papers, the authorities suspected he might be there already. They certainly weren't still looking for him in Port Ticonderoga.
By the first week in January, we decided it was safe enough for him to leave. We filched an old coat of Father's from the back corner of the cloak room for him, and packed him a lunch-bread and cheese, an apple-and sent him away on his travels. (Father later missed the coat and Laura said she'd given it to a tramp, which was a partial truth. As this act was entirely in character for her it wasn't questioned, only grumbled about.)
On the night of his departure we let Alex out the back door. He said he owed a lot to us; he said he wouldn't forget it. He gave each of us a hug, a brotherly hug of equal duration for each. It was obvious he wanted to be quit of us. Apart from the fact that it was night, it was oddly as if he were going off to school. Afterwards we cried, like mothers. It was also the relief-that he'd gone away, that he was off our hands-but that is like mothers too.
He left behind one of the cheap exercise books we'd given him. Of course we opened it immediately to see if he'd written anything in it. What were we hoping for? A farewell note, expressing undying gratitude? Kind sentiments about ourselves? Something of that sort.
This is what we found: anchoryne nacrod berel onyxor carchineal porphyrial diamite quartzephyr ebonort rhint fulgor sapphyrion glutz tristok hortz ulinth iridis vorver jocynth wotanite kalkil xenor lazaris yorula malachont zycron "Precious stones?" said Laura. "No. They don't sound right," I said. "Is it a foreign language?"
I didn't know. I thought this list looked suspiciously like a code. Perhaps Alex Thomas was (after all) what other people accused him of being: a spy of some kind.
"I think we should get rid of this," I said.
"I will," said Laura quickly. "I'll burn it in my fireplace." She folded it up, and slid it into her pocket.
A week after Alex Thomas's departure, Laura came to my room. "I think you should have this," she said. It was a print of the photograph of the three of us, the one Elwood Murray had taken at the picnic. But she'd cut herself out of it-only her hand remained. She couldn't have got rid of this hand without making a wobbly margin. She hadn't coloured this picture at all, except for her own cut-off hand. This had been tinted a very pale yellow.