Then I leapt toward her, hooting self-conscious, and danced around her, pointing. 'Look!' I shouted. 'You've got two schillings in your bra.'
Because that's just what her nipples looked like, size - and color-wise - a lovely off-brass color, just glorious. Two schillings, for sure.
So she stared at herself and then spun away from me. I thought: Please laugh, Gallen - even at your own parts. A little humor is essential, I'm convinced.
'Do you have a shirt I could wear?' said Gallen, seriously worried. 'My blouse would wet through, and I didn't pack any towels.'
And when I brought her my fabulous red-and-white striped soccer jersey, she was hiding her schillings with her hands - but smiling wide, with a slash of hair in the corner of her mouth, stuck wet against her cheek; she pushed it away with her tongue.
'Breakfast?' I said. 'If you can make a fire, I can ride to Singerin for eggs and coffee.'
'I can,' she said, - laughing at something funny to her now, 'if you can help me with this first,' and I came around behind her to help unhook her bra, under the soccer shirt. She wiggled, sliding the wet thing down to her waist; behind her, I just came up with my hands for a moment - around her wet, cold, hard breasts. She was like a statue just hosed down.
'Let me brush my hair,' she said, but she didn't try to get away. She leaned back into me.
The river rose; it seemed to wash over us. But it was only a wind that came up and moved the fog our way. I saw deer in the forest, docile as sheep. Except the forest was hemmed in by something. Rivers on all sides, maybe, or even a fence. And standing off to one side of the deer, like a shepherd - though he didn't have a staff - Siggy was saying, 'Sit tight, my deer. I'll have you out of here, don't you worry.'
Then Gallen said, 'You're hurting me, Graff - just a little.' I'd bitten a ring-shaped, fire-bright spot on her neck, through a strand of her hair. And when she saw me looking guilty again, she thought it was just because I'd bitten her.
'Well, I'm all right,' she said. 'Graff, I'm not so delicate, really.'
I went along with it, letting her think I wore my odd look for her sake. She brushed her dark wet hair, bringing the red back into it. So I ducked into the woods to change out of my impossible wet hangies.
Then I drove to Singerin for eggs and coffee. And when I came back, she had a fire going, with too much wood to cook on. But she'd also spread open the sleeping bag and dragged it back up into the woods, way above the water. Embarrassed, I saw she'd hung my hangies on a stick - a spear stuck in the ground and the hangies waving, as if the wearer lay buried under this crude marker.
We ate a lot. I found a very old loaf of bread too - in the rucksack, where it must have been stashed a week or so ago. But it toasted very well in the grease in Freina's pan. Because I make it a policy never to really clean the pan. That way you remember all the good meals you've had.
Gallen still dried her hair. She brushed it down over her face, then she gave a puff and blew a strand of it away from her - baring just her mouth and nose. Her hair danced alive by itself; she played with it across from me, and I gave several fake moans and crawled up in the woods, plopping down on the bag. Bigger than any bedspread, set better than any tablecloth - with trees all around it, and pine needles packed under it. Soft as water; you sank in it.
But Gallen went futzing around with the fire, and washing her hands in the river. She'd changed back in her corduroys again, and hadn't been so bold as to fly her huggies in the same way she'd chosen to immortalize me.
I faked some more exhausted grunts from my great bed in the woods. Then I shouted down to her, 'Aren't you sleepy, Gallen? I could sleep all day, myself.'
'But you wouldn't,' she said, 'if I came up there with you.'
Well, such conceit seemed to demand some firm resolve on my part, so I bolted out of the woods and charged her on the riverbank. She raced into the field. But I never knew a girl who could really run. It's their structure, I'm convinced; they're hippy, whether there's much flesh or not, and that structuring forces their legs to swivel out sideways when they move.
Besides, I'm tireless in short bursts. I caught her when she tried to double back to the woods to hide. She said, all out of breath and as if she'd been thinking deeply on it all along, 'Where do you think we should go next? Where do you want to go?' But I wasn't to be that easily thrown off. I carried her back to the sleeping bag; she tied me up in her hair again, even before I set her down. But I noticed how she genuinely winced when I rolled over her.
'Gallen, are you sore?' I said. She looked away from me, of course.
'Well, a little,' she said. 'It's not anything wrong with me, is it?'
'Oh no,' I said. 'I'm sorry.'
'Oh, I don't hurt a lot, anyway,' she said. Meaning it, because she didn't untangle her hair from around my neck.
Lord, in the daylight, I thought - embarrassed, myself. But she surprised me.
'You don't have any hangies on under,' she said.
'I've just got one pair,' I said, sheepish.
'Graff, you can wear mine, you know,' said Gallen. 'They stretch.'
'These are blue!' I said.
And Gallen said, 'I have a green pair, a blue pair and a red pair.'
But she only had that one bra, I knew - having seen some of the packing.
'You can have my soccer shirt,' I told her.
And seeing the shirt off to the side of our spread, I remembered a loon of a boy who was on my old soccer team in high school. He hated the game as much as I did, I'm sure, but he had this special knack in that awful situation when you're running to kick the ball and the other man is running toward you, to get the ball first. You don't know who'll get to kick it, but if he does he'll probably kick it in your face or you'll catch his toe in your throat. But this loon I knew would always start yelling when he got in that situation. He wouldn't shy off, he'd dig hard for the ball, very serious - but yelling as he ran, 'Yaaii! Yaaaiii!' He'd scream right in the face of the fellow opposite. He terrified everyone, just by showing them how scared he was.
He was a very good player because of it, I'm convinced. He beat everyone to the ball. It sort of took your edge off to have him blubbering like that, as if he were charging a machine-gunner's nest.
And I thought: That's true. We should all be loudly afraid when we are - just so no one confuses the hero with the loon. It's the loon who makes you laugh, and makes you think he's crazy. But it's the hero who's stupid. He's full up with platitudes and vague notions, and he doesn't really care if he gets to the ball first. Now take me - I'm the loon, I thought.
And Gallen said, 'Graff?' Probably embarrassed that I wasn't looking at her, having prepared herself to have me see.
She was no statue; she was soft, despite the bones around. Someone shouted, above the river:
Bless the green stem before the flower!
It must have been Siggy, speaking prone - droning in the candlelight by the Grand Prix racer, '39.
'Why do you have hair there?' said Gallen.
There's always a swamp where you least expect it, I thought. And I lay my head down quickly between her high, small breasts. This time, I wanted no distractions. No frotting deer by the winter river, or tended to by a shepherd-like Siggy. I thought - and surprisingly, not until now - I might be going mad. Or just bizarre.
It frightened me so, I wouldn't close my eyes. I looked down her long waist; I saw where her pelvis moved, if that's a pelvis. I looked up her neck - saw the pulse beating at the thin-skinned spot, but didn't dare to feel it. Her mouth opened and her eyes looked down at me - still surprised, no doubt, at where I had hair and where I didn't.
Then I was over her mouth and so close to her eyes I could count all her lashes; saw her squeeze water down over them, but not crying, really.
And I didn't have any inappropriate visions - only her face and her flooding hair. The hands over me were absolutely the hands of Gallen von St Leonhard; there were no distractions. No sound effects, either, except what I caug
ht of Gallen's breathing.
Her eyes closed; I nipped a tear off her cheek. She covered my ears in her fashion again. My head rang, but I knew precisely what caused it.
I had sneezed. This time she had too. Because her eyes opened very frightened. She said, 'Graff?' I thought: No, that wasn't anything wrong. That was perfectly proper. But she said, 'Graff, did you feel that? Did I hurt myself?'
'No, you just sneezed,' I said, making light. 'That's good,' I said, like a frotting doctor. But this time I heard her every word and breath, and I knew I hadn't traveled beyond the bag. I was sane: I knew Gallen and I were alone there together, and everyone or everything else was either dead or not with us. For that moment.
'It was something that fell out of me, though,' she said. 'Graff? It was, I think.'
'You simply sneezed,' I said. 'And nothing fell out that won't be back.'
I thought: A sense of humor is essential, Gallen. This is so important. Please smile now.
But Gallen said - still nervous, and I hadn't left her - 'Graff, do you think of other things when you do this? Do you ever?'
'How could I?' I said. And I didn't dare to take my eyes off her, or dare to close my eyes, either - because I knew that the woods around us were full of deer and oryxes and shepherds, just waiting to catch my mind. Frot them.
Gallen smiled; she even laughed a little, under me. 'I don't think of anything, either,' she said. 'I can't even get anything on my mind right now.'
Well, you're a very healthy girl, I thought. But you'd better watch out for me. Hannes Graff is known for his loose, straying ends.
Noah's Ark
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Gallen said, 'Do you think it's come back yet? It still feels gone.'
'What does?' I said, and because she was talking, I dared to close my eyes.
'What I thought fell out of me,' said Gallen. 'You know.'
She was a little too glum about it, I thought.
'Look,' I said. 'Some girls never sneeze all their life. You're lucky.'
'Will I ever again?' she said. 'Is what I mean.'
'Of course you will,' I said.
'When?' said Gallen, more brightly - even playful. With her one wet bra still drying, she certainly tossed my soccer shirt around when she moved.
'Hannes Graff needs time to recover,' I said.
And that's true enough, I thought - my eyes still closed. I could move my head back and forth - into a spot where the sun hit my face and changed my darkness from black to red. Then back to black, with the frame of my darkness edged in red and white stripes, like the soccer shirt.
Keep talking to me, please, Gallen, I thought.
But she must have been imagining the degrees of my recovery - a silent wonder, I've often thought myself.
My eyes still closed, I moved my head, black to red, red to black - a simple trick, with lighting effects - but the core of my darkness was opening like the shutter-eye of a camera. It was really premeditated; I could have stopped it by just opening my eyes wide and talking fast to Gallen. But I compromised, to test myself. Eyes still shut, I said, 'About where we'll go. Have you given it any thought yourself?'
'Well, I've been thinking,' said Gallen.
But my shutter-eye opened wider now, on the frotting winter river - like a movie beginning, with no titles and no characters yet onstage. Please think out loud, Gallen, I thought. But she didn't say a word, or if she did, it was too late for me to hear her - for the speed of my traveling.
This river went everywhere; it passed every place in the world. But I was just a camera-eye, not in the picture. In spots, there were crowds on the banks, all with their suitcases. And there were animals too - on the ark, that is. I neglected to mention it: a rather poorly put-together raft. Someone ran a collection service; he wore an eagle-suit and was in charge of the ship - or he ran about, breaking up squabbles on board, thrusting an oar between cats and wombats, separating the bears and shrieking birds. People tried to swim out and board the ark. They tried to hold their suitcases above water; their children were sinking.
The ark and the river went through a city. The man in the eagle-suit welcomed strange animals aboard. Cows huffed alongside - escaped from the slaughterhouses. A taxi drove into the river.
Siggy said to the cows, 'I'm terribly sorry, but we already have two of you. This is an arbitrary business.'
The taxi was still afloat. An impossible number of passengers unloaded, treading water in place. Someone tipped the driver, and he sank with his cab.
And then I was watching myself, making my way through the water with my suitcase overhead; my fellow-passengers from the cab were chatting.
One said, 'There's no proof at all that the driver was actually Zahn Glanz.'
'Whoever he was, you overtipped him,' said a woman, and everyone laughed.
When I came alongside the ark, Siggy said, 'I'm sorry, but I believe we already have two of you.'
I said, 'For God's sake, Sig, a sense of humor is essential.'
'If you're really with us, Graff, you may board,' said Siggy. But a vicious Oriental bear was protesting. 'I mean really, Graff,' Siggy said. 'We can't give up the ship.'
Then Gallen put her arm around my waist dragging me under. 'I've been thinking where we should go Graff,' she said.
'All right! I'm with you!' I screamed, and bolted upright off the sleeping bag, into her arms and the movable soccer shirt.
'Graff?' she said. 'Graff, I just said I thought about where we could go.'
'Well, I've been thinking too,' I told her, and clung to her.
I had my eyes open as wide as they'd go. I counted the stripes on the soccer shirt. They were nice, broad stripes - two white and one red, from the collar to where her breasts began and unstraightened the striping; five red and four white, from her breasts to the hem on her thigh. I lay my head on her hem.
These stripes were more restful than counting sheep.
'Or walruses, Graff,' said Siggy, somewhere. 'Wallowing, frolicsome walruses.'
'All right, that's enough. I'm with you,' I said.
'Well, of course you are, Graff,' said Gallen.
Plans
JUST BEFORE NIGHTFALL, I reenergized myself and took a long walk upstream to a good fishing spot, where I could wade out within easy casting range of the rocky pools on the far bank. I pulled them in very handily there, while Gallen rode to Singerin for beer.
Before she was back, I had a fire going and six trout cleaned for Freina's super-flavored pan.
My head was clear. It's always good to have a few money plans forced on your mind; it keeps you from having notions of other, vaguer plans.
We'd talked over where we should go next, and Gallen thought that Vienna might be best - because I knew my way around the job spots there; but mainly, I think, since her glimpse of Mariazell, Gallen had her eyes on the city life - as she imagined it. I was worried it might make her stickish, but I had to admit that Vienna did seem the likeliest place for either of us to get a job. Now, what I'd argued with her, though, was this: you'd also spend more money in Vienna than anywhere else around us, while you were looking for a frotting awful job. And what would keep us fed and well slept for two weeks in the country wouldn't hold us for five or six days in Vienna - if we wanted to eat. We could still drive out past the suburbs each night and camp in the vineyards - if we weren't eaten by watchdogs. But you couldn't catch your meals in Vienna, for sure.
On the other hand, in the wilderness we were in, there were too many places for things to hide - and be popping out at me. There's less daydreaming in a city, all right, and Hannes Graff could stand to have less of that.
So Sunday evening, after we'd eaten, we sat with our beers and talked it over again.
'I've been thinking,' said Gallen.
Well, thinking's good for you, I thought - at least, this fussy kind. Also, this business at hand seemed to have taken her mind off her first sneeze. And no one should ponder on that subject for very long, I'm convinced.
'The trouble is, Graff,' she said, officiously, '--as I seem to understand it - we need more money than we have now, if we're to give ourselves enough job-hunting time in the city. Until the first pay check.'
'That's precisely what the trouble is,' I agreed. 'I think you've got it.'
'Well then, it's solved,' she said, and brought her long auburn braid over her shoulder - holding it out to me, the way a vendor shows you his vegetables and fruit.
'Very nice hair.' I said, puzzled.
'Well, I'll sell it,' said Gallen. 'There's good money in selling your hair for wigs.'
'Sell it?' I said. It struck me as a perverse sort of whoring.
'We'll just find some classy friseur in the suburbs,' said Gallen.
'How do you know about wig makers?' I said.
'Keff told me,' said Gallen.
'Frotting Keff?' I said. 'And just what does he know about it?'
'He was in Paris for the war,' she told me. 'He said it was big business, even then - ladies selling their hair.'
'In Paris for the war?' I said. 'I understood they were snatching hair, not buying it.'
'Well, some maybe,' said Gallen. 'But it's a very classy business now. And real hair makes the best wigs.'
'Keff told you he was in Paris?'
'Yes,' said Gallen. 'It came up when we were talking about my hair.'
'Oh, were you?' I said, and tried to imagine Keff in Paris. It wasn't a pretty picture. I saw a very young swaggering, bullish Keff - in the ladies' hair business, or somehow connected with hair. In his off-duty hours.
'Well, we were talking about money too,' said Gallen. 'That's when he mentioned my hair.'
'Did he want to buy it?' I said.
'Of course not,' said Gallen. 'He just said I'd get a good price for it, if we were short.' And she stroked her hair, as if she were petting a cat.
'Gallen, I love your hair,' I said.
'You wouldn't love me without it?' she said, and snatched it up above her head, showing off her ears and the long back of her neck. She made her face sleeker, and her shoulders more slight; she seemed even more fragile. I thought: Frot Hannes Graff - the girl would cut off her hair for him.
'I'd love you without any hair,' I said, but I was sure I wouldn't. I saw her bald, gleaming at me; she had her own helmet, spotted with speed-struck insects, pitted as a peach stone. I took Gallen's braid in my hands.