"Meaning we,might live."
She seemed unconscious of his sarcasm. "Yeah." She slid through the opening and disappeared, and Paul followed her, his tanks scraping on the granite edge. You could get caught on something in such close quarters. Things could go wrong.
Inside was a second chamber, smaller. Lia waited on a sloping shelf of rock, her forehead light illuminating a tapering funnel that ended abruptly in a sheet of utterly black, motionless water.
Paul stared at it, appalled. "On one condition, damn it. We—you— do not push the envelope. You do not extend your dive time. You do not explore anything that's not on the map."
She met his gaze and clearly caught the look in his eyes. "Okay," she said softly.
They waited a moment. Lia was spiraling in on her fear, finding whatever it was that she so needed. Paul tried to do the same, trying to become transparent to the anxiety, to let the tics and urges boil through and pass out of him.
"I think," Lia said at last, "I think it has to do with surrender. There's a paradox here—when you surrender to it, to the moment, to the fear, to your mortality, that's when you have the greatest power." She looked at him again, and he could see she meant it, deeply. And he could see how much it mattered to her that he see it.
This has got to be love, Paul thought. He pulled down his mask and respirator. He slid into the black water before Lia had moved, a way of saying he'd understood her. This is love, and it will take you to the strangest places, and you'll go willingly.
None of the diving he'd done before prepared him for this. Those few days had been in the sunlit, shallow waters off Key West, other divers all around, boats above. The water had been alive with fish, the play of sunlight, the metallic whine of distant propellers. This was just a yawning throat, disappearing into darkness, green-black rock walls at arm's length on all sides. The massive granite weight of the Green Mountains, the hiss of intake and the bubble of exhalation, the subliminal drum of his heartbeat. Above, Lia descended gracefully into the column of his bubbles, her light gyrating as she moved in eerie slow motion. A soft mist began to obscure the water around them, eons' worth of slowly accumulating superfine silt, swept from the walls by their movements. Cold, pressure, darkness. Fear.
After a vertical drop of fifty feet, the chute widened and canted, gradually becoming nearly horizontal. The horizontal stretch was worse: no up or down. With neutral buoyancy, and without a surface above, without an external source of light, he couldn't always tell how to orient. It made his nerves shriek. Which way was up?
Paul rode the crest of his panic, controlled his breathing, which had gotten quick and shallow. Bubbles rose—that was up. His exhaled air hit the ceiling and scuttled away over the rough surface like living drops of mercury, He paused to stabilize himself and let Lia reach him, and together they clumsily unfolded the map. Lia traced a route with one finger, then led the way through one of several openings.
This tube had a different structure, rounded and molded of yellowish igneous rock that sparkled in their lights. Humps and globs and folds of rock, like hardened wax, stretched away ahead. A bile duct. A cholesterolclogged artery, a small intestine.
The route Lia had traced led to a large chamber, marked on the map as an irregular oval, the biggest of the cave's spaces. As she'd explained earlier, the chamber had originally been above water and still trapped a bubble of air, which meant they could emerge there and rest for a time before heading back. The air would be breathable: Wherever there was water, there'd be oxygen.
Paul took the lead as they negotiated the final passage leading to the chamber. Obviously, this tube had once been above the water level too: Stalactite's and stalagmites hung from the ceiling and sprouted from the floor, jagged teeth. Some filaments of accumulated mineral were as thin as soda straws, tapering to needle points. Paul navigated with care, occasionally gripping the rock and using it to propel himself. The irregular tunnel was a shifting shadowland in his forehead light, distances became difficult to gauge. The panic he'd controlled earlier began to rise again.
Ahead, the tunnel began to widen, the beginning of the big room. Paul felt a moment of relief until he noticed that the light around him had changed. He turned to see Lia's forehead light panning wildly in the hanging forest of rock structures forty feet behind him. Something was wrong. Abruptly the light flashed through a swirl of bubbles, outlining a dark, struggling shape.
Paul catapulted himself off the base of a stalagmite and dove back through the maze of tapering rock, grappled and swam toward Lia. She was twisting and arching, reaching up behind her with her arms, repeating the same convulsive movement again and again. A hideous dance. Bubbles poured up from her tanks, scattering on the ceiling in a silvery tornado.
The pattern of it registered: Lia had caught some part of her apparatus on a spine of rock, her air tube had broken or dislodged, she couldn't
turn to free herself. Again and again, the reflexes of her body made her try to reach and turn. An animal in a trap. If she'd already inhaled water, death throes.
Paul dove for the side of the tunnel, dodging Lia's flailing limbs, then came around behind her. In the flurry of bubbles it was hard to see what had caught, but he brought his shoulder against the pillar of rock and heaved. On the second try, it broke with a sharp clack! and he was able to twist it free of her regulator housing and air tube. Lia came around again, felt her freedom to turn, found Paul's arms with her clutching hands.
He yanked her mouthpiece out and gave her his extra regulator, then reached up to cut off her air flow. The cacophony of hissing and bubbling air abruptly stopped. Lia calmed slightly, taking air, then got her own spare reg into operation.
After an agonizing few minutes they broke the surface in the big chamber. Paul paddled, treading water and turning to cast his beam around him. They were in a high-vaulted room, perhaps a hundred feet long. Against one wall, a massive formation resembling a cluster of organ pipes rose to the ceiling, its base melting into a shelf that extended into the water like a small beach. Paul pushed Lia ahead of him, then boosted her onto the shelf. They both collapsed, flinging off the masks, breathing the air of the cave.
No thoughts, no talk. Just air, some space overhead.
After a time Paul sat up and looked at Lia. What was she feeling?
Relief, remorse, shame, gratitude? Was she at some level savoring this?
She was clearly focused inward, inspecting whatever had been revealed. Or maybe just in shock. She'd pulled off her hood, and her wet hair lay tangled around her. He wished she weren't so beautiful:
He wanted to stay angry with her. He'd be damned if he'd let her off easy this time.
"You know what I was thinking the whole time?" she said at last.
Her voice was hoarse. "I mean, not that I was actually 'thinking,' but there was one sort of idea that came to me."
"Has it ever occurred to you there might be other ways to get at these great ideas? I don't want to listen to any of the revelations this earned you. Whatever they are, they're not worth it."
She ignored him. "The thought was, / want to have a baby with Paul.
I've got to get unstuck so lean live and make a baby with Paul. I know it's nuts.
But there it is."
Paul didn't answer. Some big, nameless feeling was rushing to fill the aftermath. A good feeling, strong. He scowled at it.
She didn't push her luck, just looked around the room with him.
Their lights set fire to the rocks, a rainbow of pastels, luminous. Still gently disturbed by their swimming, the water reflected and fragmented the ceiling colors, scattered the beams of their lights. An enormous, lustrous opal.
"There's a word for the way it looks," Lia said. "Chatoyant. It's in the dictionary. It means 'of changeable luster.' Isn't that a beautiful word?"
He didn't answer, didn't look at her. He kept seeing her caught and convulsing like a gaffed fish.
"Thank you for helping me," she said. "For saving me. I never
saw anyone move so fast. I don't know how you broke that stalactite."
"How much air did you lose, Lia?"
"There's enough to make it out again."
Lia worked on her gear, small hands deft and certain. Paul looked away again. They'd lived. With any luck they'd make it out alive too. He couldn't stay mad at her forever. She was right about too many things. The Big Nameless filled him, almost euphoric. He felt completely empty of tics, centered, simplified. He almost wanted to fake a twitch or two, just to spite her. God damn her for being crazy, and for being right. Terror therapy for Tourette's—the latest cure. After his unthinking effort to save her, he felt oddly sensual, aware of the blood circulating in his veins and the well-used feeling in his muscles. He could feel Lia's body heat next to him, the electrical energy of her. The hall they were in was astonishing, the throne room of some underworld king. He'd never seen anything so beautiful.
It slipped out of him before he could stop it: "So maybe fear is a barrier," he said. "Beyond which is wonder."
She looked at him. "If I'd said that now, you'd get mad."
Paul lay back again, staring at the ceiling. Surrender, just surrender. It was hopeless. He knew from experience that after her near escape she'd be charged with sexual energy. And he felt it too. Maybe there was truth to the theory that an organism's procreative urge was strongest during mortal threat, an ancient instinct to assure survival. Paul didn't go looking for it the way she did, but he wasn't immune to it either.
After a time he gave up and reached for her, slid open the long zipper of her wet suit. They stood and undressed each other. Beneath her clothes, her skin was taut, soft curves taking some of the opal light. He was achingly erect, swollen, ready to burst, needing to bury himself in her. The cave felt supremely private, intimate. He spread their suits on the rock and laid her back down on them. She guided his face to her breasts, and he took one nipple in his mouth, drawing on her. Still suckling, he slid up between her thighs and drew exquisite circles in her wet folds until she pulled against his buttocks and slid him full into her. She was a cave, she was the mountain, the earth. She arched until he had reached the limit, socketed into her. Her body rippled, impossibly supple, as she drew upon her recent panic, her own mortal fear. And then all the pressures rose and converged and he became a volcano, bursting explosively into her as she writhed in her own orgasm, arching up to receive him. The tectonic plates shifting. Earthquake.
When he spiraled back, she was crying softly. Some deep part of her, upwelling and becoming tears. Delayed reaction to her close call? Remorse? Some deep sorrow? Sheer wonder? Sheer surrender, maybe. How amazing that you could feel so supremely close and yet understand nothing. The limits of intimacy: You could only get so naked, so revealed. Ultimately you were alone inside your own skin, your own skull.
Maybe she'd kill herself one of these times. Maybe that's what she wanted. Eros, Thanatos. And yet he had no choice but to go with her there too if that's where she had to go. Or maybe he'd find some key, some healing magic. He held her until she was done crying, alarmed at the mystery of her, knowing that he would remember this vividly for years, just as she'd said, and yet probably never understand.
11
"A UNT VIVIEN, I HAVE bad news, I'm afraid," Paul said. He JTx. straightened the notes he'd prepared for this conversation.
Having devoted Thursday to the dive with Lia, he had spent all day Friday developing photos, making dozens of calls to the Lewisboro area—electricians, building supply outfits, dry cleaners, tool rental houses, heating specialists—and taking exhaustive notes. Looking down at his materials now, he found himself incredulous, despite having seen it with his own eyes.
His hand flew to his nose, mustache, and eyebrows, quick smoothing motions. "I have photos and a preliminary estimate for you. Bottom line, your house is a wreck. I don't know how to convey what it's Uke there. Structurally, it's not too bad, but inside it's as if a tornado hit it. There are holes in the interior walls big enough to walk through. The floor is two or three feet deep with your belongings, your clothes are everywhere, there's rodent and water damage. There are broken pieces of furniture on the ground around the house. Your papers are blowing around the house."
He heard her inhale. "My personal papers?"
"Yes. There are literally heaps and drifts of papers."
She didn't respond, and he waited, listening to the ghosts of other conversations on the satellite line.
At last he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry." He made himself go on: the furniture, the windows, the plumbing, the furnaces, the wiring, continuing the recitation of destruction until he ran out of things to say.
"Well," she said. "Well. And where does that leave us? What do you recommend?" She sounded stunned.
"First, you'll need to close off the house against further intrusion and the weather."
"Yes."
"Then you'll need to get electricity and some kind of heat source—the furnaces, preferably. Whoever is going to sift through your things will need a long time, and it's cold up there. The driveway won't be passable if it snows, so we may need plowing. And before we can bring the heat up inside, you'll need to see to the plumbing. At the very least, you should drain the remaining water in the pipes."
"It will have to be you," she said quietly. "Just you."
"I'm not really a plumber, Vivien, I—"
"No. I meant going through my things. It will have to be you."
Vivien's tone stiffened, a touch of the hauteur returning. "I can't have some local tradesman in there, looking over my papers, my belongings.
I'm not going to hire some . . . some chatterbox Kelly Girl. It's completely out of the question. You can have Mr. Becker in, from the village, for the pipes. He's done our repairs before. And Mr. Cohen for the wiring."
"Okay." Paul made a quick note.
"I'll want you to stay with them, of course. These people from town—I assure you they would not think twice about putting something they took a fancy to into their little pockets."
"All right." Her mistrust and contempt for her neighbors, he decided, were not endearing traits.
Paul took several minutes to outline his strategy for repairs. "Vivien," he concluded, "before I can pin down a final estimate, I need to ask you what your long-term plans are. If you plan to live in the house again, it'll have to be restored fully, which will take longer and cost more. If you plan to sell the house, you don't need to fix every last piece of furniture or get the kitchen operating and so on. We can just close it up, clean it out, make structural repairs."
"My long-term plans?" Her bitter laughter rang over the line. "I haven't made any. I hadn't planned on my house being torn to pieces. It will take me a little while to include this trifling fact in my plans. It won't make any difference in your work, will it? For the first two weeks or so?"
"Not immediately, no."
"Then let me wait to decide. Perhaps you can do me the favor of preparing two estimates, one long-term, the other short-term. We'll review the possibilities when I see you."
"I'm sorry?"
"We'll need to meet, of course. I haven't seen you in thirty years. I'm certainly not going to arrange anything as important as this without a face-to-face meeting. Our familial connection notwithstanding, I've learned the hard way not to trust people unless I've had the opportunity to take their measure first. And I simply don't negotiate over the telephone. I'd like you to fly out here. I'll pay for the flight, of course."
"Wouldn't it be better for you to come here? You could take a look at the house yourself. You could help sort things—"
"Good Christ, no," she said without hesitation. "I don't think I could bear it. Not with the house as you describe it." She sighed and went on in a dry, desolate voice. "I'm sixty-two, Paulie. At my age you begin to wonder about your life—whether it meant anything. Whether it was worth it. The best you hope for is a maybe, a delicate balance. Seeing my house, my things, every last keepsake—for God's sakel" She sobb
ed the last two words, as if choking on the indignity of it.
"I understand," he said gently.
"Now, we need to determine when you can catch a flight to San Francisco. As you pointed out, the sooner the better."
"It's very short notice—"
"I'll pay for your tickets and a fee for your time."
"I'll have to look at my calendar. We've got Thanksgiving plans for next week."
"Then perhaps this week. Today is Friday. You may still be able to get tickets for this weekend."
"Maybe, if there are seats available—"
"There are always first-class seats available." A little jab, reminding him of an important difference between them: money. Paul had never flown first class in his life. "What else, Paulie? This discussion has exhausted me."
There were still plenty of questions he could ask, but probably those were best left for later. "I guess that's all," he said.
"Then you'll let me know your flight schedule." The timbre of her voice changed as she spoke, becoming harsh, strident. "And Paulie—in the future you needn't waste your breath telling me how difficult winter is at Highwood. How cold the house is, how hard it will be to get vehicles up and down the driveway. These are topics I am very familiar with. As I'm sure you can imagine."
She hung up before he could reply.
12
PAUL TRIED TO suppress his tics as the jet tilted and slid into its final descent. Since talking to Vivien on Friday, he'd been in constant motion, arranging his schedule, preparing his estimates, working on the MG. He'd been skeptical of finding tickets for any flight this close to Thanksgiving, but Vivien had been right—there were first-class seats available on a flight out on Saturday and, miraculously, a return flight Sunday.
Through the window, he saw the wing flaps extend. Beyond the wing, the water of the bay glinted, the clustered hills of San Francisco took dimension. Farther to the west, the sun threw a blinding slash of silver on the Pacific. Saturday afternoon, still two hours from sunset.