Suddenly her temper boiled over. The whole massive block went hurtling to the far wall. The crash made the house shake. Hung paintings came toppling to the glassy floor.
“Think I’ll go for a stroll,” said Sherret, with forced calm. Inwardly, he was shaking. In one of her blind rages, Rosala could as easily smash him against a wall. After the house, the garden was a haven of peace in the subdued green daylight. Rosala never painted by the light of the Three Suns because they were never together in the sky. But in the house she drew their light together by some optical wizardry and fused them into the glaring white light she demanded for her work. Sherret, chewing on a B-stick, roamed along the edge of the pool. Recently he’d noted that the diving plinth was subsiding. He planned a minor engineering job to reset the thing. When he mentioned it to Rosala, she laughed.
“Sherry, it’s so easy!”
She lifted the weighty plinth with a finger, then rearranged its foundations with little more than a wave of the hand.
He applauded, but inside there was an empty feeling. His project had collapsed, his general sense of purpose was weakened. He’d always thought of himself as good with his hands. Now they seemed like clumsy paws. He’d always been able to take care of himself in a brawl. Now a woman could twist him almost literally around her little finger.
He loved her, no doubt of it. But one thing was becoming painfully clear; so long as he continued to live with her he would find it increasingly difficult to live with himself.
He reckoned he wasn’t the only man who’d paced these garden walks feeling this way. He felt a certain sympathy for Lee.
He looked at the distant mountains and wondered how Lee had fared on his quest. He’d had time to reach them—and return. Plenty of time. Why, then, hadn’t he returned?
Dead? Mad? Or hadn’t he really meant to return to Rosala?
Suppose he did return, now, a conqueror? What then? Where would he, Sherret, fit in? Or would he? Rosala. had never forsworn her love for Lee.
“The hell with it—I’d leave them to it!” he exclaimed, aloud. He was surprised by his own vehemence. Am I looking for an excuse to get away? he asked himself. The adventurer being hampered by the clinging woman, Ulysses and Circe? He still wanted Rosala—yet he still wanted to be free to wander on. She was love and security. Also —a trap.
It was the trap fear again. He recalled the trees which put out claws to grab him, the grass that clung about his ankles and tried to pull him down. He loathed their insistent attentions.
Impulsively, he went back indoors, intending to have it out with her. He found her all contrition and tenderness, and his resolve melted. If only he didn’t love her so much…
They became very close again.
And later, more clashes of temperament. His lone walks in the garden became longer. One purple day he found himself standing at the edge of the grove of Melas trees, daring himself like a schoolboy to dart in and out, just out of reach of their branches.
He began to understand why Lee had gone to prove himself. Why wasn’t it enough that Rosala was dependent on them for her very existence?
It should have given them a sense of mastery. So far as he was concerned, it didn’t. There was even a mean sense of resentment; he was being used by a—well, parasite was the word she’d chosen.
Again, he’d grown up under Reparism. Reparism said that the male was the accepted master of the household. Reparism said that there was a place for all persons, and that all must know their place.
Rosala just wouldn’t stay put any place.
To live contentedly with her, he felt that there must be something that he could do which she couldn’t do better. But why should he be forced to prove himself? In Na-Abiza, he could merely step back into his place in the Reparist system, and be respected for what the was.
He turned his back on the Melas trees and walked back to the garden pool. That statuary stood solidly around him. There was more of it now—some of his own design, but fashioned through Rosala’s peculiar power and therefore not wholly satisfying. It was as if teacher had helped him.
Yet he knew that if he were to leave Rosala, that work which had emanated originally from his mind would endure. As had the work of Lee and of other men. But all that which was solely of Rosala’s design, including the house itself, would very gradually fade to nothing as the designer lost belief in her own existence. Could he do that to her? Was Wilde right? Did each man have to kill the thing he loved?
Yet she might not necessarily cease to exist. Many men had come this way before him. More were likely to come after him and give her full life again. But he knew—and now tried desperately not to know —that there was a point of no return. If Rosala did fade to complete non-existence, then it would be as if she had never lived. And then if all the men in her life came back to this garden and called aloud for her, they would be crying for the moon. She had told him that. No, he couldn’t risk doing that to her. Yet by remaining he was condemning himself to at least a partial death. The suffocating sensation came on him again. There was no way out.
After the sickness had passed, he slouched depressedly back to the studio. She flung herself at him. “Sherry, dear! Oh, what a fool I am!”
He held her tightly, knowing that he was more of a fool in saying what he was going to say, because he knew the answer and the attempt was futile. But hope is always irrational.
“Forget it, Rosala. But we can’t go on like this, tearing ourselves to pieces. This place is a kind of prison for both of us. Let’s break out and go to Na-Abiza. There are men like myself there actively learning, exploring, planning, doing a job in life. Let’s join them. We’ll still go on with art, but you must understand that although I believe art is vital it’s still not the whole of existence for me. I have to express myself in my own way, too.”
She went very still in his arms. Then she said, tensely, “But I told you. Each Petran is bom to his or her own area. We are not permitted to leave it. It’s the law.”
“Break it, then. Is it so inflexible? You yourself said inflexible things only get broken here.”
“Sherry, you don’t know what you’re saying. It would mean the end of me.”
“In what way?”
“I can’t tell you. We are forbidden to speak of these things.”
“Did you speak of them to Lee?”
“No. Nor to any man.”
“Supposing Lee came back for you?”
“I still couldn’t go away with him. He would have to remain here.”
“What do you mean by that? What about me?”
“I’m sorry, Sherry, but you would have to go. As I told you, I can live with only one man at a time. Lee was here before you. He would take precedence. It’s the law.”
“Obviously you think more of your precious law and of Lee than you do of me. Well, that settles it. I shan’t stay around just waiting to be thrown out. I’m walking out— now.”
He thrust her aside and walked away.
“Sherry, Sherry, please, you can’t…”
Over his shoulder he said brutally, “Don’t worry—I shan’t leave you to die. I’ll find dear old Lee and send him back to you, and you can live happily ever after—
under your idiotic law. And if Lee turns out to be dead, I’ll find you another sucker and send him along.”
He chose some stout shoes from the many they’d made together. The barefoot life was over. While he gathered his other belongings, she hovered around him like a persistent fly, importuning, poignant. He steeled himself to ignore her. He walked out into the garden for the last time, hard-faced. Yet there was inward shame; he knew he’d forced this particular quarrel and the issue.