“Ah, my Ulysses, you said you never wanted to look at it again. But it fascinates you, doesn’t it? Art is stronger than our fears or desires. Didn’t I always tell you that?”
He disengaged himself and turned to look into Rosala’s smiling eyes. They were his favorite shade of blue. She was an ash blonde; he had a weakness for the Scandinavian type.
He said in an undertone, “How could anyone so lovely as you create anything so horrible as that?”
She pouted childishly. “Create? I didn’t create it. An artist only receives and records impressions.”
“Art is selection, Rosala. You could have selected worthier impressions than these. This picture is stark, gloating sadism. You must be a cruel woman.”
She stared at him strangely. “You can believe that?”
“Well, I don’t know. I only know I loathe this painting.”
She took a deep breath. “Very well, you loathe my work,” she said, in a hard voice startling different from her former tone. She thrust past him and punched at the canvas with both fists. There was strength in those slim, smooth arms. They smashed the painting to a torn ruin.
She turned on him with an angrily flushed face.
“Perhaps you—” she began, but quite impulsively he seized her, hugged her, and smothered her with kisses. She didn’t resist. She returned his kisses with passion. He observed, belatedly and with wry amusement, that she was quite naked. From the assured and easy way he fondled her, it was apparent that this embrace had happened many times, that his muscles and nervous system remembered what he did not.
“Ulysses,” she murmured, now tender and full of love.
“Why do you call me Ulysses?”
She stood back, holding him at arm’s length, and looked searchingly at him.
“Darling, you are talking strangely. Something has happened. What is it? Have the bad dreams come back?”
“Bad dreams?”
“That painting which you called sadistic didn’t come from my mind, you know. Nor from reality. It originated in your imagination. But it was our picture—your conception, my execution. Together we were exorcising your bad dreams of the Melas tree. Once expressed externally, in paint, in art, we hoped they would cease to haunt you. You don’t remember that?”
“No, Rosala, I don’t remember. I don’t know what’s been happening to me for some time past—at least, not clearly. You’ll have to help me to fill in the gaps, the blotted out parts. Perhaps I’d better tell you what I can remember.”
She looked at him for a moment, then nodded, and pulled him gently to a nearby couch. They settled among cushions.
She watched him wonderingly while he told of the trek, the events which had led to it, the things seen through a glass darkly since he started wading ashore from the raft.
When he finished, she said, “As for me… It’s strange to have to tell you these things again. I’m Rosala —yes, that’s my real name. When I asked your name, you did not say ‘Sherret’” (she pronounced it “Sherry”) “but ‘Ulysses.’ And at first you called me ‘Circe,’ I don’t know why. But later, ‘Rosala.’
“One day I was walking sadly in my house, knowing that neither it nor I had much longer to live. I was wondering how much time was left to me, whether it would be worth starting another painting. Or if, in fact, I could ever paint again. Then I looked out of the window and saw you being trapped by the Melas tree.
“Then you fell and lost your senses. So I went out and brought you here. I felt sorry for you. And sorry for the Melas tree, too, because I was depriving it of further companions. Still, it had done very well for itself from you. I was glad of that. The Melas tree and we Petrans have a bond of sympathy, something in common which distinguishes us from all other living creatures on Amara.”
Sherret raised an eyebrow, and she paused.
“However,” she resumed, “Melas trees can live together in a community. The one beyond my garden, by the river, was unfortunate. It was isolated. Now it isn’t any more. It’s become a community because by chance you came. But we Petrans can’t live with each other for long. We have nothing to give one another. We must live alone, and die alone, unless—”
She broke off, and stroked his arm gently. Almost possessively, Sherret thought, with a vague alarm.
“There aren’t many of us. We live near the river. And the Melas trees grow only by the river, too. Most Amarans are afraid to come near us. Lee wasn’t afraid. He was a real man, although sometimes he lost confidence in himself.”
“Lee? Who was Lee?”
“He was the man who lived with me before you came.”
Sherret disengaged his arm and sat up straight. He frowned down at her. Her beautiful white body lay at careless ease upon the bright cushions. Her profile, partly his creation, with its high brow, straight nose, and firm little chin, was upturned as she gazed at the lofty and domed ceiling. Obviously, she was remembering Lee with affection.
Or perhaps with more than affection.
“You were lovers?” Sherret was surprised at the condemnatory note which rang through the last word. He’d never thought of himself as a puritan. Perhaps he had inherited a Calvinistic streak from his Scottish ancestors.
“But of course. I have loved all of the men who have lived with me.”
“Well, I’ll be damned! You promiscuous little baggage!”
Unfortunately, that phrase didn’t translate well into Amaran. The result implied cold, calculating infidelity.
She sat up abruptly and stared at him with wide, horrified eyes. Then she clawed at his face with both hands. The beard partly saved him but she scored two bad scratches under his eyes. The blood welled and dripped.
He swore, jumping to his feet and flinging her back on the couch. He dabbed at the wounds with the back of one hand.
“You’re a bad-tempered cat, aren’t you? You could make a man’s life a hell, I reckon. Is that why none of your men stayed around here with you? Or did you kill
’em all?”
Her eyes shone like blue fire.
She lifted an arm rigidly and pointed at him. Then it was as though a cannonball had hit him in the chest. He went flying onto his back on the glacial floor and slid for some feet over the slowly writhing shapes beneath it.
He lay still for some moments, whooping for breath. Then he sat up slowly, hands pressed to his sore breastbone. From the couch she regarded him, the fire of hate gone. She looked like a petulant, disappointed child. The strikingly blue eyes looked big and sad.
“You win,” said Sherret with a gasp. “Technical knockout. I didn’t… see it coming.” He managed a grin.
At once she ran over to him, knelt, held his head tightly agtinst her warm body, rocking him gently. The blood from his cheek smeared her breasts. “Sherry, I’m really sorry. Oh, Sherry—”
“Forget it, pet. I said the wrong thing the wrong way.” She said, softly, “Only wicked Petrans live with more than one man at a time. I always had only the one. So I couldn’t be unfaithful.” Between kisses, she went on, “I loved them all… but only some of them loved me. Perhaps none of them did—for they all left me in the end. I think Lee loved me—and will come back to me— when he has proven himself.”
Sherret felt a stab of jealousy about Lee. He stood up, picked her up—she was surprisingly light—and carried her back to the couch.
He. said, “You’re getting me in a whirl. I just don’t understand your way of life. I was angry with you because I love you, and I was jealous of those other men. Now you talk of Lee coming back. Is it him you want—or me?”
She made no answer. Instead, she ripped a piece of cloth from a cushion, licked it wet, and tenderly cleaned up his face. She ignored the daubs on her own flesh. He was amused by her method and touched by her concern. Even though he knew she would have done as much for Lee—and perhaps had done, if they had fought in the same way.