Hey, she squinted, a scarecrow! Great, that means there’s people around, right? People … train station’s what I mean. Is that a field there? Hey, city boy, can you even tell rye from wheat?
She was a little puzzled why I was so ardendy and affectionately hugging and kissing her, but then again not that much … occasionally we expressed tenderness and fondness for each other, and if I forgot to mention that most of the way we held hands, I don’t know why.
It was corn. We stuffed ourselves.
Look, Černá, they’re like scalps! Tearing off the husks, I gathered them into a barbarous clump …
Ever had pickled corn, roasted or stewed or shucked? I’d make some if I had a pot. Back home sometimes the scarecrows had pots on their heads, not this one … my grandma’d say we’re in poor country …
Hm.
We skirted the field, the road led upward, back uphill, and there, at the very top, stood a tall, solitary tree … we made a beeline for it, raindrops came down … warm and balmy, and then the first lightning bolt shot through the sky … Wow, look, Černá, it’s gorgeous, that scar is smiling! … hurry, run, it’s unsafe to be out in the open … yeah, let’s take cover … flashes of light painted the sky, thunderclaps shook it … Sister laughed … I tore off my clothes and ran out in the rain … she sat under the tree, in spasms of laughter … I howled too, somehow I guess we were cleansing ourselves … I rolled in the grass, yelling and shrieking … Sister stripped too, pounced on me, we skidded down the slick hillside, squawking … light exploding overhead, thunder pounding mightily. She tried something out with her voice, and her purring and meowling grew into a cloud above our heads … soon her voice was whipping through the air like energy, maybe a little like radiation … I bellowed: Hah, you Bog you, take us both, you Murderer of Young, you Old Fuck … and I shouted: Why’re we here, Up yours, Maniac, and then it occurred to me that maybe maniac came from Manitou, and I kind of liked that idea … I tore up blades of grass, quietly, Sister crawling under my knees, it rained, drops lashing down like endless ropes, I chopped them in flight with the edge of my hand, dancing and skipping, and Sister tried to do a headstand, found an indentation, head in the ground, long white legs swaying, I caught on and held her … and then … a fireball hissed past my elbow, Sister fell, I had to let go, the pulsing orb shot through her legs as they swished to the ground, I was worried the tail had singed her ankles … the lightning ball shot all around us, I stood still, Sister lay there, watching … and then the thing began hopping around the plain, high in the air and back down to the ground, and vanished … Think it’ll come back, I asked, actually I shouted, over the rain … No, said Sister, now on her feet … we both had goose bumps, and just to be safe we hugged.
Under the tree, it was still friendly … not so much rain came through its dense leafage, we put on our clothes … the rain began to die off … the cornfield was somewhere below us, damn, should’ve ripped some up for reserves … but what about the other side, surely there must be a village … I think, though, my dearest, that tonight we’ll be outside again. It’s not that cold … maybe we can find a haystack or somethin … I don’t care, said Sister, I’m startin to like it, an besides … maybe, you know, after what happened … it’s not a bad thing if we’re not home right away. Think they’re after us? It’s always better to act like they’re after you, I recited to her the words of the teaching. You held my legs up real nice. So you weren’t cold last night? C’mon, I told ja … I slept with that girl … how could I be cold. An tonight I’m sleepin with you. Yeah you are. An I’m thinkin even, you always wanna go to the sea, hey … maybe it really would be better to take off. You think … cause of. It’s easily possible, though, that if the Viets found him they cleaned him up an everything is cool … or else … Drop it, please. You’re right, Černá, it’s like a dark cloud. It’s a lot better now though, huh. Yeah, oh yeah, I said. Got a smoke? How’re you for cash? I combed through my boots and all my pockets … I’d say two tickets to the Pearl an a couple drinks an meals, could be. You’re makin me hungry! All I have’s a couple thou too, got that smoke? Aright aright, here … she lit up. I watched the glowing ash. Shifted my vision slightly, and there they were … those unforgettable lashes, each and every one a living continuation of her soft eyelids’ tenderness, she moved them, gazing out into the landscape, emitting rapid searching looks … targeted flashes … I stretched out to hide any targets on me. I stretched out to touch. We were close. The storm was over.
It was totally dark when we came to the hut. The roof was made of sticks with waterproof fabric stretched over them. Inside, a hole lined with blankets. And there was a firepit.
Potatoes! Cried Sister. An a … whatchamacallit … a rutabaga!
I found a bottle. That was all there was. Remember, Sister … those deserters … but I was already building a fire. We’d better get lost, said Sister, but she was already opening the bottle … aright, we’ll stay an see where it lands us … making love in that hole, we had the feeling, which we shared with each other, that it must’ve been something like this back in the cave days … in all likelihood, I told Sister the anthropology, based on the drawings of the time … kneeling and from behind, cause with your back on the rocks, ick, my sis filled in with a grimace, the potatoes meanwhile burned. We put in a new batch.
We drank ourselves silly. My dear … stop me mercilessly if I start goin off again … but my heart … a couple times I sat down on a stump when you were walking ahead of me an we weren’t holding hands … an I took it out an I wanna tell you, my heart in spots is black an stabbed an burdened, maybe that’s why I’m always ravin on about the sea an the islands … I donno what that girl who held you last night told you … but my heart is heavy … an I oughta tell you that on my way … see, in the former time my heart …
You, said Černá, moving closer … always rattlin on about your heart … what about my feet … they hurt!
Sister sat by the fire, waiting for her things to dry, I gaped in amazement at her skin, golden and soft in the flickering glow … I examined the bony outline of her ribs, jutting out beneath the skin, holding fast the sweet paradise of her innards, her, the eden of her body, her raven-black hair merging with the dark and the paleness of her face reflecting each time she dodged the blaze’s tongue or tossed her head … then, sitting back on her heels and resting her hands on her thighs … she turned around and the flames’ reflection flickered on the skin of her back, her slender neck, I’d never seen her through fire before, through a frolicking wall of flames, shimmering with the air’s motion … we both turned, toward the sound … the guy was gigantic, one eye agog, across the other a black patch, I was crouched at his feet, hidden in shadow … his lace-up boots, green pants, the deserters, my mind raced … but if he didn’t notice me, he saw Černá very well, just let out a groan, for a moment he seemed petrified … it isn’t often a guy comes home to find his fantasies come true, a warm fire and a naked woman … when I looked at Černá, I froze too … she’d scooped up her clothes, but … she smiled at the giant invitingly, running her hands over her breasts … I thought she’d lost her mind … that guy could squash me like a bug if he wanted … the second it hit him that a naked woman was really there and smiling at him, he let out a gasp, threw open his arms, and charged at her … moving faster than I could think … I knocked his feet out from under him, as he fell I grabbed a branch from the fire and conked him, as he raised himself on his elbows I bashed him over the head and stabbed the branch into his face, both of us were roaring … Černá snagged me by the elbow and dragged me out of the hut, running and stumbling … we didn’t stop till far away, still trembling … why’d you do it, why, said Černá, shaking me … Huh? You’re askin me … you’re the one that did it, an c’mon, there’s probly more of em out here. More who? Sheepherders? What sheepherders, that was a deserter, we saw those guys. Now you’re really mixed up, he had long hair an a beard, that was just some oaf, a local! What about the uniform? I saw his boots … He was in rags, that was a sheepherder, army boots’re what people wear in the country … We could’ve made a deal. You slut! Don’t gimme that crap, you were strokin your tits, leadin him on! What’re you babblin … idiot … I covered my chest cause he was starin at me is all … an why’d you jump him, anyway? I mean you got the gun, shit! I mean we coulda tried nice, an then if somethin went wrong you coulda … threatened him with the pistol. An don’t call me slut! Flying into a rage, she hurled herself at me, fingers curled, we tumbled through the grass, her biting, me holding her off with my hands, and I don’t know why … I guess the whole thing … I started laughing, she fell still on top of my hands and whispered: Look. Take a look.