“What is it?” Verne said.
“I’ll wait until you’re gone.” Barbara stood with her fingers against the cord of her jacket, waiting.
“You don’t have to make such a god damn big thing out of it!”
“I’m tired. Good night, Verne. I’ll see you.”
“You really mean it, then.”
“Mean it?”
“About all this. About Carl. And me.”
“It’s the best thing.”
Verne twisted. “But damn it— We’ve known each other a long time. This sort of thing never works. These New Year’s Day resolutions. After a little while the old leaf slips back,”
Barbara nodded.
“It’s true,” Verne murmured. He gazed across the room at the bed. “You don’t think—just for old time’s sake—”
“No.”
Verne sagged. “All right.” He opened the door and moved out into the hall. “Well, I’ll see you.”
“Good night.”
Verne went slowly down the hall. Barbara waited a minute. Then she closed the door. She stood listening. She could hear him walking slowly downstairs, onto the front porch, then down the front steps onto the gravel path. The sounds died away. Everything was quiet.
She looked at her wristwatch, winding it thoughtfully. “That was more than fifteen minutes,” she said half-aloud.
She unfastened her jacket and got ready for bed.
Fourteen
The morning was warm and bright. But not too bright. And there was enough of a breeze to keep the heat down. The sky was clear of fog. It stretched out, blue and uniform, on and on. Forever. Without end.
Barbara walked aimlessly along the path, between the great towers and buildings of the Company. She walked with her hands behind her back, gazing around her. Today she had put on short pants, short corduroy pants, deep red in color. Sandals were on her feet. A bright scarf was around her neck, a swath of color above her gray blouse and wide leather belt.
She was all by herself. Carl had gone by her window, before she had even got up, whistling and skipping along. Headed off down the road, vanishing between the buildings, his whistle dying away in the distance. She had lifted the shade and watched him until he was out of sight. Then she had jumped out of bed and dressed quickly. She hurried down to the commissary as soon as she was finished. No one was there. Both Verne and Carl had eaten and gone. In the sink were dirty dishes, and bits of Verne’s pipe ashes.
Barbara carefully washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. That was all the chores she could think of. Her room was clean and swept. She had even picked some new flowers and thrown the little roses out.
Now she walked happily along, going nowhere in particular, taking deep breaths of the warm air, filling her lungs with the smell of the clean new day. The sun danced around her, from bits of mica in the path. From the roofs of buildings. From windows half-boarded up. From all sides sunlight danced and streamed.
She felt good. She increased her pace.
Presently, as she walked along, she realized that she was coming to the Company park. The park was in the center of the grounds. Here a wide lawn had been planted, paths laid, trees arranged, so that the appearance of nature was given among all the machinery, the excavations, all the refining and smelting processes that had gone on day and night. Barbara came to the lawn and stopped, gazing across it. It was a perfect lawn. No weeds grew in it, and at the far border flowers had been carefully planted in low rows, endless bright streamers of color, red and blue and orange and every other color there was.
She paused for a moment, hesitating. Then she hopped up onto the lawn and walked quickly across it. Some mounds of clover grew here and there. Bees buzzed around the clover, getting at the moisture inside.
Barbara skirted around the mounds of clover, avoiding them. She came to the low rows of flowers and stepped over them. Beyond the flowers was a narrow path.
And beyond the path was the Company lake.
The lake was a basin of concrete, huge and round, set like a gigantic pie pan among the flowers, laid down and filled with warm water. The water sparkled blue in the sun, shimmering and dancing. Barbara crossed the narrow path to the very edge of the lake. She stepped up on the concrete rim, her hands on her hips, gazing across the lake to the other side. On the other side were trees, a grove of immense fir trees, planted in a careful straight line, each one of them trimmed exactly like the next.
It was nice, very nice. Even though it was somewhat artificial. Everything was so—so perfect. The lake was round, exactly round. The trees were in exact formation. Even the flowers had been planted with care, according to innate geometrical concepts. Clover had got into the grass, but except for that—
Yet, it was better than clanking machines and the smell of molten metals and slag. All day long the factories had clanked and whirred. The roar of the blast furnaces, the unnatural charring heat. Furnaces withered life. Machinery devoured and destroyed, scooped up and burned away everything. The little oasis was much better than that.
Barbara stood for a long time, gazing across the lake. A slight wind blew, bringing a fine mist from the water, up into the air. The wind increased, and the mist moved across the water in a great sheet. It touched her, the sheet of fine mist, and she found it cool and exciting. She looked around to see if anyone were watching. How foolish! She was alone. She was as completely alone as the first person in the world. And she had this tiny bit of the Garden of Eden to herself. In front of her was the dancing lake, the surface moving with the wind. Above her was the sun and sky. Behind her the flowers and grass. She was surrounded by the garden. Cut off. Isolated completely from the rest of the world, if such existed.
Here she was free to do what she wished. There was no one to watch her, frowning and noticing. No one to scowl and be offended. To sneer and make fun of her. To know and remember what she had done. She could run. She could dance, the way Carl had danced, along the path in front of her. She had been ashamed to join him, then. But she could dance now. There was no one to see.
Barbara turned, gazing all around her, her heart beating with excitement. She could leap and run. She could destroy, if she wanted. She could dig up plants, trample the grass. She could push over the trees, break the flowers, scoop out the water, pick up the great pie plate and empty all the water out onto the ground. There was nothing she could not do. Nothing at all.
Barbara sat down on the concrete rim of the lake. The concrete was hot, baked by the sun. She could feel it through her clothes. She untied her sandals rapidly, her hands shaking. She placed the sandals carefully on the rim beside her and then dangled her feet, down into the blue water. The water was cold, much colder than she had thought it would be. She gave a little cry, shuddering and pulling back. But it was good.
Presently she slid off the rim and waded out into the water, kicking water high in the air. The water came back down in great drops, heavy and cool, splashing around her, into her hair, onto her blouse. It made her tremble from head to foot. She began to shake with an intense fever. The icy drops rolled down her bare arms. The water lapped against her legs. Where the water touched it was like the touch of chilly fire.
She splashed back to shore. Standing back on the concrete rim she gazed up at the sun and across the water. Before, she had imagined herself as a sun goddess, giving her heart to the sun. Here she could do even more than that. She could give her whole self, her entire self, not merely her heart. She could give all of herself to the sun, to the sun and the water and the black ground around her.
She could be absorbed into the ground, back into the soil, like the rain that collects in puddles and finally drains away, sucked down into the earth. She could dissolve herself. Part of her would turn into the trees. Part of her would enter the lake. Part the sky, the sun, the grass—