“Give me a hand,” Barbara said.
It was going to be awkward. There was no doubt of that. He could feel the tension in the room. She didn’t like him looking at her. She didn’t even like him around. He got to his feet, pushing his chair slowly against the table. Carl rose, too, and they stood uncertainly.
“Come on,” Barbara said.
“Are we going to wash them?” Carl asked.
“Let them go.” Verne walked over to the window and stood looking out, his hands in his pockets. There was momentary silence.
“All right.” Barbara left; the sink and sat down at the table again. She lit a cigarette. “It’s all right by me.”
Carl hesitated uncertainly. “Maybe I’ll get at the exploring business. I’m eager to begin.”
No one said anything.
“After all, everything is ours. To do with as we see fit. Our possessions. I want to start getting the lids off the packages.” He laughed.
“Just like Christmas,” Verne murmured.
Carl moved toward the door. At the door he stopped, waiting hopefully. “Isn’t anyone coming along?”
“I’ve seen too many Christmases,” Verne said.
Carl smiled at Barbara, appealing to her with his eyes. “It’s a nice day out there. Grass and sky. Places to get into. What do you say?”
“There’s plenty of time,” Barbara said. “Take it easy. We have seven whole days.”
Carl could not decide what to do. He was visibly torn between his desire to begin looking around and his desire to remain with them. If they would go along, the problem would be solved. But neither stirred.
His desire to start looking won out.
“I’ll see you people later, then.” He opened the door. “I really am surprised, though. I can’t see why you want to just sit around and—and smoke.”
“You can have first claim on everything” Verne said. “Consider yourself the worm finder.”
“I’m going to see what’s left in the manager’s house. That’s the first place.”
“All right,” Verne said.
Carl closed the door behind him. They heard him going slowly down the outside steps, onto the walk.
“He’s a nice boy,” Barbara said, after a while.
Verne nodded. He was thinking. Maybe he should leave, go back to the dorm or to the office. Barbara was considering it; he could tell. The last person was the one who got stuck with the psychological short end of the stick, and he didn’t feel much like being that person. It would be better for him to walk out on her than to give her a chance to walk out on him.
He turned away from the window.
“How’ve you been?” Barbara said abruptly. Her voice was harsh and loud; the sound surprised both of them. “How’ve you been making out?”
“It depends on just what you mean,” Verne said guardedly.
“I mean, how have you been?”
“Fine.”
She was silent for a time. “How long has it been?” she said presently. “Three years? Four years?”
“Saw you last week,” Verne said. “Don’t you remember? Saw you last night, in the office.”
“I don’t mean that.”
Of course she didn’t mean that. As if he didn’t know what she meant. “I see you’re smoking, these days. As I recall, you didn’t used to smoke. In the old days.”
It was weird to be talking to a woman who was a formal, remote stranger—and yet who—He smiled. How terribly weird. A kind of mystery of existence. What was identity? Here she was, cold, remote, so formal that he almost found himself saying, “Miss Mahler” to her. But once, a few years before, he and she had spent an intimate time together. Been in bed together. It was a memory, but a very real memory. Was it really of her? Was it always the same person who looked out of two eyes? Perhaps it was a different person; perhaps a new person came each few years.
“No,” Barbara said. “I didn’t used to smoke.”
“No, you didn’t,” Verne said. The old Barbara had not smoked. This Barbara, this Miss Mahler, did. How could it be the same person? No two things were the same ever. No two stones, mice, drops of water, snowflakes. What did they call it? Nominalism. Perhaps it applied to people, to the same person at different times. There was no same person. Miss Mahler sat quietly at the table, polite, hard, detached, remote. A stranger. A person he scarcely knew.
But the same Miss Mahler, or another Miss Mahler, had, four years ago, rushed giggling and laughing, one cold night, leaping into bed beside him, still warm and damp, giggling and burying herself against him, pushing, pressing—
Barbara glanced up at him, and flushed. Could she tell what he was thinking? She probably was thinking the same thing, or something similar. Some other event, some other moment of their time together.
“Let me have a cigarette,” Verne said.
She put her pack on the table. He came over and took a cigarette out.
“Thanks.” He lit it and sat down across from her. She said nothing. “Mind if I sit here?”
“No.”
“All right.” He made himself comfortable on the chair. “Good cigarette. Nice and fresh.”
She said nothing. Wasn’t she going to talk? Was she just going to sit?
Barbara looked up at him. Her eyes were calm and level, but there were two spots of high color in her cheeks. She was going to say something. He set himself, waiting.
“Maybe Carl was right,” she said.
He frowned. “Right? What do you mean?”
“Maybe it is better outside than in here.”
“You thinking about joining him?”
Barbara did not answer. She considered. “No,” she said finally. “I don’t think so. But I ought to.”
Verne thought that over. Did it mean anything? Was it some sort of a carefully-thought out dig, pregnant with implication? He could not tell.
“Maybe so,” he said vaguely, staring around the room. “Well, don’t let me keep you here.”
They were both silent. Neither of them moved. Verne watched her, his eyes half closed. She sat leaning back, indifferent to him, self-contained. But she was on edge, nervous. He could tell. She was very conscious of him. The way she had always been. That hadn’t changed.
No, there was a lot still the same. She had grown up, filled out, got older and harder. But underneath there was the same person, the same girl he had known before.
He studied her critically. She had learned a lot, in four years. It showed. Once, there had been an aggressive fear, a stubborn fright that had made her back away from people like an hysterical child. Men had not been able to come near her—at least, none before him. She scared them away. But had they seen what he had seen they would have realized it was all bluff. A covering of gruffness that hid terror and an almost pathetic fear of being struck down. He had seen that; they had not.
Now she was calm, adult. Certain of herself. Once, she had quavered in fear, fear that she could be made a victim. But that was over with; she was no longer worried about that. Why? Perhaps because she had been made a victim. What she had feared had actually happened to her. How odd that a man does not understand that, at the time. He had not understood it, although now, so much later, he could look back and see it. It had happened; she had lost her treasure. Her jewel. What she had sheltered and protected and crooned over was gone.
Well, there was no use worrying about it. She did not seem to have been too badly ruined. She appeared to be all right. She had survived, even prospered. She no longer cowered in fear. But perhaps that was because she no longer had anything to lose!
Verne smiled. That was absurd. Women didn’t think of it that way, not any more. Or did they? Something had changed her, made her hard. The great moment had passed; now she could stare around calmly. But her fear had been more than just a fear of that, of losing her virginity. It had been a great fear, general, unspecific, a fear of being hurt and humiliated. Everyone had it. He had it himself. And his virginity had been gone
a long time.
In any case, she seemed to have survived everything that had happened. She was older and stronger. What they had done together—what he had done to her—had certainly done no harm. In fact, it seemed to have done her good. It had brought her realism. That was it. Her experience had removed the phantasies, the terrors. She had seen it for what it was: normal, natural, much like any of the processes of life. It had matured her, made her into a woman, not a child any more. She should thank him.
But even he could not take that seriously. Thank him? Verne smiled and rubbed his chin, amused.
“Why are you smiling?” Barbara asked.
“No reason.”
“None?”
“Just my good nature coming out.”
Barbara nodded, serious and wise. She had never seemed to have much of a sense of humor. Life was too grim, too deadly for that. Or perhaps she thought laughing and smiling were for children. A sign of youth, of being too young. Like Carl. His booming humor annoyed her; he knew that instantly. Poor Carl! Well, it was his own fault. He would have to learn not to leap around and laugh all the time. He would have to grow up, too. The way everyone did. It could not be prevented. Carl, Barbara, himself—everybody had to face it, sooner or later. The world. As it really was. Not as one might wish it were. As one hoped to find it.
“Well,” Verne said, “I suppose we should do something today, before the day’s over with.”
“Yes.”
How solemnly she agreed! As a good adult should. She had learned well; she had absorbed her lesson…
“Do you think it’s really too hot to go outside?” she said suddenly, looking up. She had been thinking. “I love the sun. But not when it’s too hot. And dry. I hate it when it gets dry, and you squirm and bake.”
“Hot and dry, hot and damp. It’s all the same.” He watched her. She was about to get up. “Don’t go!” he said quickly. “Stay here.”
“Why?”
“It’s cool in here.”
“Is it?”
“Cooler than out there.”
“All right.” She dropped her cigarette to the floor and ground it out. She lit another, slowly, carefully. Smoke drifted up into the beams of sunlight.
“This is close enough to nature.”
“You know,” Barbara said, “it seems very odd to be sitting here like this, after so many years.”
Verne grunted, watchful. “Does it?”
“Don’t you think so?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“How do you mean, you don’t know?”
His gaze flickered. “I mean, there’s nothing so terribly strange about it. We both work for the same Company. We’ve both been here for a long time.”
“Perhaps I mean strange in a different way than you do.” She did not amplify. “Perhaps that’s it.”
Verne considered, choosing his words carefully. “You don’t think He had anything to do with it, do you?”
“Who?”
Verne pointed up with his finger.
Barbara smiled thinly. “You never can tell. They say He’s everywhere, watching over His flock.”
“Are you of His flock?”
“We all are.”
“Not me,” Verne said. “My soul is as black as sin. I’ve been thrown over the fence long these years.”
Her expression changed. It almost said: I know what you mean. He was sorry he had spoken. It was so damn hard to tell what a woman was thinking. When he tried to figure out a woman’s mind he left out factors and added false factors. It was a hopeless task for a man. Better to forget the mind and concentrate on the rest. But he had made a mistake. He had led with his chin, and much to fast.
“Verne,” Barbara said.
“Yes?”
“Is there going to—to be any—”
“Any what?”
“Any friction.”
“Between us, you mean? Between you and me?”
She nodded.
“I don’t see why,” Verne said.
“I hope not, I don’t want to mix in any trouble. I’d rather just forget the whole thing.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He grinned good-naturedly. “I don’t see why there should be any trouble. I certainly have no ill-feeling toward you. I have a great deal of respect for you. Why should there be any friction? I can speak for my side. I assume you feel the same way.”
There was silence. Barbara considered what he had said. “Well, I suppose you’re right. Only—”
“Only what?”
“Only sometimes we don’t really know our own minds. Sometimes we don’t know until—until a thing actually comes along. Then it just happens.” She went on: “One night I was sitting, reading a book. Through the window a whole lot of god damn moths flew in, between me and the page.”
“So?”
“I killed every one of them. Perhaps fifty of them. All over the floor. Ten minutes before I would say I’d never do a thing like that. Do you see what I mean? Sometimes you don’t know, not in advance. Not until it happens.”
“Not until what happens?”
She shrugged. “Anything.”
Verne hesitated, licking his lips. “You don’t feel any ill-will toward me, do you?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m glad of that.” He let his breath out, sighing with relief. “That should settle the whole matter, shouldn’t it? Where’s the trouble going to come from?”
He got to his feet, holding out his hand.
“Now that we’ve settled that, how about another cigarette?”
“Sure.” She passed the pack.
“Thanks.” He took a cigarette and sat down again. He beamed cheerfully at her.
“Verne, you’re still like I remember you. In many ways. In many, many ways.”
“You remember me?”
“Oh, yes. I remember you, Verne.”
He didn’t know quite how to take that. “Well, I’m glad to hear it,” he murmured, not so cheerfully.
“Are you?”
“Of course.” He lit the cigarette nervously. “No one likes to be forgotten.”
“No. That’s true. No one likes to be forgotten. It’s not a nice feeling.”
Verne felt vaguely displeased. “Why do you say that? Is there some implication I’m supposed to perceive?”
“No.”
He scowled. What was she brooding about? He didn’t like it. He knew when something was being dug into him. He stood up again, pushing his chair back and moving away from the table.
“Where are you going? Outside in the sun?”
“No.” He didn’t know where, but not outside in the sun.
“Where, then?”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
“Stay here. It’s nice and cool, as you said to me a little while ago.”
“How the hell long can you sit at the table after you’ve eaten, just rocking back and forth in your chair? It gets me down, after the first hour.”
“You sound like Carl.”
“Do I?” He moved around the kitchen restlessly.
“What do you propose to do instead? I’m open to suggestion.”
“I don’t know. This is going to be a problem during the next week or so. Let’s hope the yuks get here soon. The sooner the better.”
“You sound angry.”
“I’m not. Just bored. I hate to sit and do nothing at all.”
“That comes of working all your life.”
“I suppose so, but that’s how I feel.”
“We could divide the Company up into three parts and play blackjack. How would that be?”
“No good.”
“You could go help Carl explore.”
Verne laughed. “With a pirate map and a flashlight? No thanks. I’m not interested in buried treasure.”
They both smiled at that. Some of the tension left the room.
“He enjoys it,” Barbara said. “After all, was it so long ago that we would have been glad to g
o racing all around, exploring and getting into things—”
“Sitting behind all the big desks and putting on ail the badges and pins.”
“Carl can be any kind of an official he wants.”
“We all can. We can all be important.”
“Who gets to be manager of the station? I think we should let Carl be manager first.”
“Why?”
“It means more to him. We can take turns after him. But let him start, for the first day or so.”
“I think a big bonfire—” Verne murmured.
“Oh, no. There’s some things we want to keep.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I’ve always wanted to sleep in the manager’s bed,” Barbara said. “I hear the mattress is stuffed with duck feathers.”
“Has that been your ambition?” Verne said, grinning.
Barbara smiled evenly back. “Not any more than yours.”
“Have to get to the top some way.”
“Top for you,” Barbara said with hard humor. “But bottom for me.”
“You have changed since I knew you.”
“That was four years ago. I wasn’t even of age, then.”
“I remember that.”
“I imagine you do.”
“It was an inconvenience.”
“Not so much, though. Was it?”
Verne could think of nothing to say. Barbara had got up from the table and was pushing her chair under. He watched apprehensively as she crossed the kitchen toward the door. “Now what?” he muttered.
She stopped at the door, studying him thoughtfully. “I tell you what,” she said. “I have a proposition.”
“What’s the proposition?”
“Neither of us wants to sit here and rock. I still haven’t got all my stuff uncrated yet. You can help me.”
“Sounds like work.”
“Take it or leave it.” She opened the door.
“I’ll take it,” Verne said.
He followed after her quickly.
The halls of the dormitory building were cool and dark. They smelled of perspiration and baths and cigarettes. The two of them went upstairs to Barbara’s floor. The door to her room was closed and locked. She took her key from her purse and unlocked it.
“Why locked?” Verne said.
“Habit.” They went inside, Barbara leading the way. She had left the shade down and the room was not too warm. She opened all the windows.