At the edge of the clearing farthest from the cliff was a corral from which Kjell’s pony, unhobbled, watched them come up. Near it, within the trees, was a cabin with wires leading in several directions from its roof. A low business like hum sounded from inside it.
The purpose of the place was a vaulted whitewashed building with a tall bell tower. It was a severe building of simple construction — except for the decorated facade around its entryway, approached by three low worn steps. The facade was small but ingeniously worked; scrolls and biblical scenes appeared beside swastikas and rain patterns. A figure in soutane and biretta looked down on martyrs who carried their own heads in one hand and ceremonial gourds in the other. The serpent tempting Eve bore a set of carefully rendered rattles. The upper most figure was Christ in Judgment, wearing the feathered headdress of a cacique.
Marge looked up from the facade to the bell tower and saw that it supported a set of loudspeakers on either side. She shaded her eyes and shivered in the bright sunlight.
A balding red-faced man walked down the steps from the doorway. The first thing about his face that Marge noticed was the mouth. He was bearded and the dark brown hair of his whiskers and mustache outlined the thickness and pinkness of his lips. A breeze stirred the short hairs on his rosy scalp.
“Look,” the man said, “we’ve found you again.”
Hicks nodded to him with a smile that was affectionate and contemptuous. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here. Just took a flyer.”
“We stayed,” the balding man said, “in case everything might begin all over.” He had a very slight accent, Dutch or German.
“The last time I was here,” Hicks said to him, “I was fishing for steelheads. K-jell just reminded me.” He let the seabag fall.
“You should have stayed with us,” the man said.
Holding the same ironic smile, Hicks bent and touched the top of the man’s Mexican sandal. The man had stooped to intercept his gesture.
“What’s the matter, Dieter? Can’t a man loose your sandal these days?”
“These days a man can do what he likes.”
He turned to look at Marge.
“You’re tired?”
She nodded. His smile, she thought, was the same as his son’s, a bit too serene for her liking.
“Is there something we can get you?”
“Who, me? Not a thing.”
“C’mon,” Hicks said, “we just climbed your goddamn mountain. Give us a beer at least.”
They followed Dieter through the ornate entrance and into a large cool room with an enormous stone fireplace facing the door. There was a single narrow window opening on a shaded garden and when the door was closed it was difficult to see. She made out the letters A.M.D.G. over the lintel.
Near the fireplace was a refrigerator; Dieter opened it to shelves piled with Mexican beer and several pitchers of tea-colored liquid. He opened them each a beer and filled his own glass from one of the pitchers.
Hicks took Dieter’s glass from his hand and sniffed the contents.
“What kind of piss is that?”
“Rose-hip wine,” Dieter said.
“Is that a more enlightening drink?”
“Yes,” Dieter said. “The taste of Zen and the taste of rose-hip wine are the same.”
Across from the straight-backed refectory chair in which Marge sat was an altar on which stood a crucifix hung with Christmas balls and gift-wrapping paper. Behind it was a large reproduction of Ilya Repin’s portrait of the dying Moussorgsky.
“So he drinks about twenty pitchers a day of it,” someone said. It was Kjell, sprawled on a mattress in a confusion of electronic equipment — microphones, headphones, speaker tubes, and a labyrinth of insulated wires. A copy of Treasure Island lay face down across them.
“I make it myself,” Dieter said, “it’s stronger than beer. I’m sure the Jesuits did better but they had more organization.” He turned to Marge, who was fidgeting. “What would you like to do? Freshen up?”
“I guess so,” Marge said.
“It’s a long climb without the lift.” He stood hospitably. “It’s outside. I’ll show you.” Marge was going through her bag nervously. “I know where it is,” Hicks said. “I’ll show her.” He picked up the bag and led her through a curtained doorway at the rear of the altar and down a sunlit passage way that opened to an overgrown garden beside the stream.
“You want the John or this?” he asked, showing her the pack.
“I thought I might as well.”
“You’re going right from dilaudid on to the purest shit in America. I can see you passing the time on a ride but you better use some moderation.”
“What the hell,” Marge said, “I’ve already missed my modern dance class.” She took the pack from him. “It’s the kid, I guess. It bothers me.”
He took the works inside out of the wind and loaded the spike for her.
“Someday,” she said, “I’ll get what Gerald got.”
She held the needle point upward and looked at the sky.
“This might be a good place for it.”
“Now, now,” Hicks said to her.
With her tongue in the corner of her mouth, she jabbed her thigh, lay back, and handed him the needle. He sat watching her until she smiled.
“Feel better?”
“Are you kidding?” she asked him.
He left her nodding over the stream, dragged the seabag with the gun in it to a corner of the corridor, and went back to his beer.
“To suffering sentience,” Dieter said, raising his glass. “May it endure.”
“I think you’re loaded, Dieter.”
Dieter looked at the bag which he had set by his feet.
“More in the bag, is there?”
“There’s a lot more in the bag,” Hicks said. “I want to move it.”
“Is that why you came out here?”
“We’re hot. We’ve got to get loose of it.”
“I thought you might have come to stay awhile.”
“How about it, man?”
Dieter shook his head.
“Not here. Not me.”
Hicks let his eyes settle on Dieter’s.
“No? But Gibbs was just here. K-jell told me.”
Kjell looked up from Treasure Island.
“Gibbs brought mushrooms for the fiesta. That’s the only dope we have around here now.”
“Nobody asked you,” Dieter told his son. “Go tune your guitar.”
Kjell tossed his book aside and went out the front door.
“Gibbs brought mushrooms for the fiesta. That’s the only dope we have around here now.”
“Dieter, man, all you have to do is call some people.”
“I don’t call people anymore.”
“Look,” Hicks said, “I have to take care of it. I really went for this one.”
He told Dieter about Converse and Marge and the things that had happened. Dieter went to the refrigerator and took out another pitcher of wine.
“I envy your energy,” he said. “It was there,” Hicks said. “I went for it. Maybe next year I’ll do it all over again.”
“And then next year, it’ll be the same. Lots of scurrying around and no payoff. You should have stayed with us.”
“Well, the fishing was good,” Hicks said, “no question about that. I could put myself to sleep fishing that stream in my head. Pool by pool. Like Hemingway.” He rubbed his face and stood up. “I’m dead, man. I’ve got to crash.”
“Yes, crash,” Dieter said. “You know where it is.”
In the pool beside which Marge sat, the fish were nearly tame. They nibbled wrists and sailed confidently into cupped hands below the surface, but they could vanish in an instant at the slightest capturing gesture, leaving a tiny sunlit ripple. Marge sat and played with them beneath the vaults of time and silence to which she was becoming accustomed.