Five
Though the temperature never changed, though neither rain nor snow fell, though the fluctuations of the golden light remained consistent in their rhythms, the seasons were registered inside the dragon by migrations of birds, the weaving of cocoons, the birth of millions of insects at once; and it was by these signs that Catherine – nine years after entering Griaule’s mouth – knew it to be autumn when she fell in love. The three years prior to this had been characterized by a slackening of her zeal, a gradual wearing down of her enthusiasm for scientific knowledge, and this tendency became marked after the death of Captain Mauldry from natural causes; without him to serve as a buffer between her and the Feelys, she was overwhelmed by their inanity, their woeful aspect. In truth, there was not much left to learn. Her maps were complete, her specimens and notes filled several rooms, and while she continued her visits to the dragon’s heart, she no longer sought to interpret the dreams, using them instead to pass the boring hours. Again she grew restless and began to consider escape. Her life was being wasted, she believed, and she wanted to return to the world, to engage more vital opportunities than those available to her in Griaule’s many-chambered prison. It was not that she was ungrateful for the experience. Had she managed to escape shortly after her arrival, she would have returned to a life of meaningless frivolity; but now, armed with knowledge, aware of her strengths and weaknesses, possessed of ambition and a heightened sense of morality, she thought she would be able to accomplish something of importance. But before she could determine whether or not escape was possible, there was a new arrival at the colony, a man whom a group of Feelys – while gathering berries near the mouth – had found lying unconscious and had borne to safety.
The man’s name was John Colmacos, and he was in his early thirties, a botanist from the university at Port Chantay who had been abandoned by his guides when he insisted on entering the mouth and had subsequently been mauled by apes that had taken up residence in the mouth. He was lean, rawboned, with powerful, thick-fingered hands and fine brown hair that would never stay combed. His long-jawed, horsey face struck a bargain between homely and distinctive, and was stamped with a perpetually inquiring expression as if he were a bit perplexed by everything he saw, and his blue eyes were large and intricate, the irises flecked with green and hazel, appearing surprisingly delicate in contrast to the rest of him.
Catherine, happy to have rational company, especially that of a professional in her vocation, took charge of nursing him back to health – he had suffered fractures of the arm and ankle, and was badly cut about the face; and in the course of this she began to have fantasies about him as a lover. She had never met a man with his gentleness of manner, his lack of pretense, and she found it most surprising that he wasn’t concerned with trying to impress her. Her conception of men had been limited to the soldiers of Teocinte, the thugs of Hangtown, and everything about John fascinated her. For awhile she tried to deny her feelings, telling herself that she would have fallen in love with almost anyone under the circumstances, afraid that by loving she would only increase her dissatisfaction with her prison; and, too, there was the realization that this was doubtless another of Griaule’s manipulations, his attempt to make her content with her lot, to replace Mauldry with a lover. But she couldn’t deny that under any circumstance she would have been attracted to John Colmacos for many reasons, not the least of which was his respect for her work with Griaule, for how she had handled adversity. Nor could she deny that the attraction was mutual. That was clear. Although there were awkward moments, there was no mooniness between them; they were both watching what was happening.
‘This is amazing,’ he said one day, while going through one of her notebooks, lying on a pile of furs in her apartment. ‘It’s hard to believe you haven’t had training.’
A flush spread over her cheeks. ‘Anyone in my shoes, with all that time, nothing else to do, they would have done no less.’
He set down the notebook and measured her with a stare that caused her to lower her eyes. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘Most people would have fallen apart. I can’t think of anybody else who could have managed all this. You’re remarkable.’
She felt oddly incompetent in the light of this judgment, as if she had accorded him ultimate authority and were receiving the sort of praise that a wise adult might bestow upon an inept child who had done well for once. She wanted to explain to him that everything she had done had been a kind of therapy, a hobby to stave off despair; but she didn’t know how to put this into words without sounding awkward and falsely modest, and so she merely said, ‘Oh,’ and busied herself with preparing a dose of brianine to take away the pain in his ankle.
‘You’re embarrassed,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.’
‘I’m not . . . I mean, I . . .’ She laughed. ‘I’m still not accustomed to talking.’
He said nothing, smiling.
‘What is it?’ she said, defensive, feeling that he was making fun of her.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why are you smiling?’
‘I could frown,’ he said, ‘if that would make you comfortable.’
Irritated, she bent to her task, mixing paste in a brass goblet studded with uncut emeralds, then molding it into a pellet.
‘That was a joke,’ he said.
‘I know.’
‘What’s the matter?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to make you uncomfortable . . . I really don’t. What am I doing wrong?’
She sighed, exasperated with herself. ‘It’s not you,’ she said. ‘I just can’t get used to you being here, that’s all.’
From without came the babble of some Feelys lowering on ropes toward the chamber floor.
‘I can understand that,’ he said. ‘I . . .’ He broke off, looked down and fingered the edge of the notebook.
‘What were you going to say?’
He threw back his head, laughed. ‘Do you see how we’re acting? Explaining ourselves constantly . . . as if we could hurt each other by saying the wrong word.’
She glanced over at him, met his eyes, then looked away.
‘What I meant was, we’re not that fragile,’ he said, and then, as if by way of clarification, he hastened to add: ‘We’re not that . . . vulnerable to one another.’
He held her stare for a moment, and this time it was he who looked away and Catherine who smiled.
If she hadn’t known she was in love, she would have suspected as much from the change in her attitude toward the dragon. She seemed to be seeing everything anew. Her wonder at Griaule’s size and strangeness had been restored, and she delighted in displaying his marvelous features to John – the orioles and swallows that never once had flown under the sun, the glowing heart, the cavity where the ghostvine grew (though she would not linger there), and a tiny chamber close to the heart lit not by Griaule’s blood but by thousands of luminous white spiders that shifted and crept across the blackness of the ceiling, like a night sky whose constellations had come to life. It was in this chamber that they engaged in their first intimacy, a kiss from which Catherine – after initially letting herself be swept away – pulled back, disoriented by the powerful sensations flooding her body, sensations both familiar and unnatural in that she hadn’t experienced them for so long, and startled by the suddenness with which her fantasies had become real. Flustered, she ran from the chamber, leaving John, who was still hobbled by his injuries, to limp back to the colony alone.