Besides which, she needed him. Needed him as much—though he did not see it yet—as he needed her. It would break her heart to see him go.
"Is that all?" he asked, sensing she had more to say.
She answered him quietly, looking away past him as she spoke. "No. It's more than that. I worry about you. All this business with morphs and mimicry. I fear where it will take you."
"Ah . . ." He smiled and looked down, plucking a tall stem of grass and putting it to his mouth. "You know, Meg, in the past there was a school of thought that associated the artist with Satan. They argued that all art was blasphemy, an abrogation of the role of the Creator. They claimed that all artists set themselves up in place of God, making their tiny satanic palaces—their Pandemoniums—in mimicry of God's eternal City. They were wrong, of course, but in a sense it's true. All art is a kind of mimicry, an attempt to get closer to the meaning of things.
"Some so-called artists are less interested in understanding why things are as they are than in providing a showcase for their own egotism, but in general true art—art of the kind that sears you—is created from a desire to understand, not to replace. Mimicry, at that level, is a form of worship."
She laughed softly. "I thought you didn't believe in God."
"I don't. But I believe in the reality of all this that surrounds us. I believe in natural processes. In the death of stars and the cycle of the seasons. In the firing of the synapses and the inexorable decay of the flesh. In the dark and the light."
"And in the City, too?"
He smiled. "That, too, is a process; part of the natural flow of things, however 'unnatural' it might seem. The City is an expression of human intelligence, which, after all, is a natural thing. It's too easy to dismiss its artificiality as an antithesis to nature, when it really is an attempt to simplify and thus begin to understand the complexity of natural processes."
"And to control those processes."
"Yes, but there are levels of control. For instance, what controls us that makes us want to control other things? Is it all just genetics? And even if it is, what reason is there for that? We've been asking ourselves that question since DNA was first isolated, and we're still no closer to an answer."
She looked away sharply, as if suddenly tired of the conversation. "I don't know, Ben. It all seems suddenly so bleak. So dark."
Again he misread her comment, mistook its surface content for its deeper meaning. "Yes," he said, staring out across the water. "But what is darkness? Is it only a space waiting to be filled? Or has it a purpose? Something other than simple contrast?" "Ben . . ." He looked back at her, surprised by the brittle tone she had used. She was looking at him strangely. "Yes?"
"What about us? How do we fit in with all these processes?"
"We're a focus, a filter . . ."
But she was shaking her head. "No. I didn't mean that. I meant us. You and me. Is that just process? Just a function of the universe? Is what I feel for you just another fact to be slotted into the great picture? Or is there more to it than that? Are there parts of it that just don't fit?"
Again the bitterness in her voice surprised him. He had thought it was resolved between them, but now he understood: it would never be resolved until he was gone from here.
"Three years," he said. "That's all I'll need. You'll be, what, seventeen—my age now—when I come back. It's not long, Meg. Really it isn't."
She stood, moving away, then stood at the edge of the trees, above him, her back turned.
"You talk of dying if you stay. But I'll die if you go. Don't you understand that, Ben? Without you here it'll be like I'm dead." She turned to him, her eyes wide with hurt and anger. "You're my eyes, my ears, the animating force behind each moment of my day. Without you, I don't exist!"
He gave a short laugh, surprised by her intensity. "But that's silly, Meg. Of course you exist. Besides, there's Mother . . ."
"Gods! You really don't understand, do you?"
There was that same strange, unreadable movement in her face; then, abruptly, she turned away, beginning to climb the slope.
Ben got up awkwardly and began to follow her, making his way between the trees, careful not to knock his useless arm; but she was running now, her whole body leaning into the slope as she struggled to get away from him.
At the edge of the trees he stopped, wincing from the sudden pain in his hand, then called out to her. "Meg! Stop! Please stop!"
She slowed and stood there, just below the bam, her back to him, her head lowered, waiting.
Coming to her, he moved around her, then lifted her face with his good hand. She was crying.
"Meg. . ." he said softly, torn by what he saw. "Please don't cry. There's no reason to cry. Really there isn't."
She swallowed, then looked aside, for a moment like a hurt four-year-old. Then, more defiantly, she met his eyes again, bringing up a hand to wipe the tears away.
"I love you," he said gently. "You know that."
"Then make love to me again." •
He laughed, but his eyes were serious. "What, here?" - . ;
She stared back at him challengingly. "Why not?"
He turned her slightly. From where they stood they could see the cottage clearly down below.
She turned back, her eyes watching him closely, studying his face. "All right. Up there, then. In the bam."
He turned and looked, then nodded, a shiver passing down his spine.
She reached down, taking his good hand, then led him up the slope. At the bam door she turned, drawing him close, her arms about his neck. It was a long passionate kiss, and when she pulled away from him her eyes were different. Older than he remembered them, more knowing. A stranger's eyes.
She turned and led him through. Inside, the barn was filled with shadows. Bars of sunlight, some broad, some narrow, slanted down from gaps between the planks that formed the sides of the barn, creating broken veils of light from left to right.
"Quick," she said, leading him further in, "before Mother calls us in for lunch."
He smiled and let himself be led, thrilled by the simple pressure of her hand against his own.
"Here," she said, looking about her. A barrier of wooden slats formed a stall in the far left-hand comer, a space the size of a small storeroom, filled waist-high with old hay. The warm, musty smell of the hay was strong but pleasant. Light, intruding from two knotholes higher up, laced the shadows with twin threads of gold. Meg turned and smiled at him. "Lie down. I'll lie on top of you."
He sat, easing himself down onto the hay, feeling it yield beneath him, then let his head fall back, taking care not to jolt his hand. Lying there, looking up at her, his left arm still cradled in its sling, he felt like laughing.
"Are you sure this is such a good idea?"
Her smile, strange, enigmatic at first, widened as she slowly undid the buttons at the front of her dress, then pulled it up over her shoulders. Beneath the dress she was naked.
Ben felt his breath catch in his throat. "Meg . . ."
She bent over him and eased the sling from his arm, then straddled him, the soft, warm weight of her pressed down against him as she began to unbutton his shirt.
Meg's face lay but a short space from his face, her lips slightly parted, the tip of her tongue peeping through, her eyes concentrating on her busy fingers. But Ben's eyes were drawn to her breasts, to the hard, provocative shapes of her nipples.
He reached up and cupped her left breast in his hand, feeling its smooth warmness, then eased forward until his lips brushed against the budlike nipple.
Meg shuddered, her fingers faltering a moment. Ben drew back slightly, looking up into her face once more. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted more fully, reminding him fleetingly of one of those ancient paintings of religious ecstasy. He shivered, then leaned forward again, drawing the breast back to his mouth, his tongue wetly tracing the stiff brown berry of the nipple, teasing it with his teeth and lips and tongue, conscious of Meg pressing herself down into him with each small motion.