The saskiad, p.10
The Saskiad, page 10
"I won't smoke in school anymore."
Lauren's eyes move over her face like searchlights. "You promise?"
"Of course I promise."
"Well that's something, anyway." Her eyelids descend to half-mast, her cheeks bunch into hard buns. This is the look that comes over her when she is getting her way. She runs a hand through her hair, suggesting puzzlement at the interrupted brushing. Saskia resumes. "It would be much better if you stopped completely."
Saskia knows Lauren's strategies. That switch back to her normal tone, in which she sounds like she is speaking to you from the fourth dimension, means she's achieved what she really wanted. "I don't see why, if you do it, I can't do it."
"How much do you smoke?"
"Maybe one joint a day? Max."
"Hm." Lauren is quitting the field. Her ensign is argent, a laurel, vert. It shows to best effect when flapping in full retreat. "That's one too many. But I suppose it could be worse. I don't appreciate Jane getting you into it."
"I tried it before Jane did."
"Yes, it's good to protect your friend. I protected my friend, too. Friends are more important at your age than parents, aren't they? No responsibilities, just fun and games."
Just bugle sounds, fading.
18
Saskia is instantly awake, her heart pounding. She turns on the lamp and sits up, holding the covers to her chin. When the sound comes again, she almost jumps out of her skin. Fingers rattling like twigs, tapping on the black square of her window. A murmur, a moan for blood. "Saskia!" She presses herself back against the wall. Oh no oh no. The moan comes again. "Saskia! Open the fucking window!"
Jane? Windows are horrible things at night. You approach, and all you see in them is yourself coming fearfully nearer, your face a smudge, your eyes empty sockets. Will a claw grab your hand as you lift the sash? "Saskia!" Only speed can save you. She runs toward the ghost running toward her in the glass and throws up the sash. "For chrissake I thought you'd never open it!" In the long grass below, Jane is standing in the moonlight. "Get down here, girl!" "What's the matter?" "Just get down here!"
Saskia closes the window. Go out? Into the dark? She puts on her Lieutenant's slippers and robe. She ventures out to the top of the stairs. She goes back to get her spear from the weapon rack behind her door, and sallies down. Jane has come around to the front porch steps. "What's the matter?" Jane beckons. Saskia steps out on the porch. The night air is cool. "Let's go inside."
"No, this way," Jane says. Saskia hesitates. "Saskia, come on!" Saskia closes the front door and goes down the steps. "What's that?" "My spear."
"Oh . . . fine. Keep an eye out." Jane heads up the driveway and Saskia follows. "I thought I was going to wake up the whole fucking house."
"Why didn't you just come in and get me?" "What, aren't the doors locked?" "Why would the doors be locked?" Jane snorts. "I suppose it figures."
The girls head up the dirt road. Trees block out the moonlight. Saskia balances the spear in her hand. "So where are we going?" "Just a short way." "How did you get here?"
"I drove." Past the first switchback they come to a car. "You drove this?"
"Sure." Jane climbs into the back seat and slides over. "Come into my lair, my pretty, heh heh."
Saskia gets in. Jane leans into the front seat and punches in a little doorknobby thing on the dashboard. She slips in a tape and her favorite group comes out of two grilled areas under the back window. Saskia looks around at the burgundy interior, feels the leatherette armrest. "Gee, this isn't so bad —"
"So the fucking school called my fucking mother."
"Oh . . . Yeah, they called Lauren, too —"
Jane punches the seat in front of her. "I'm fucking grounded again! I can't believe it. I'm so ripshit!"
The knob on the dashboard pops, and Jane holds it to the joint in her mouth. "It's a lighter!" Saskia exclaims before she can stop herself. What a rube! Her editor doesn't work well at night.
Jane passes the joint and on a stream of spent smoke says, "It was the fucking Vice Principal."
"That's what Lauren said."
"He dies." Jane says it matter-of-factly, and a thrill trickles down Saskia's neck. Jane brandishes the spear. "He gets this between the shoulder blades. I have to put my foot on his back to rip it out of him. I clean his lungs off it with paper towels."
"Dis-guusting!"
"A lesson to traitors." Jane tokes and smolders, especially beautiful. "Grounded!" she mutters. "I'll show them fucking grounded. I'll drive all the way to Canada if I want to. I'll write them a postcard from Canada saying kiss my ass, signed 'Your grounded daughter.' Ha!"
"How long?"
"Two weeks! It's all so fucking hypocritical! Suddenly it's this big deal, like it's this huge surprise. They're just ripshit because I got caught and it makes them look bad, their daughter the derelict. So what did Lauren say? Let me guess, she said she could relate and you need your space and there's no problem."
"I promised I wouldn't smoke in school again."
"And she believed you?"
"I wont smoke in school again. I gave my parole."
"But that's it?"
"She can't ground me." Saskia giggles at the idea. "I'm here all the time anyway."
"Two fucking weeks! I'll die cooped up that long! You know my mother said something about you and me maybe not spending so much time together."
"I thought she approved of me."
"She does, but she says I'm corrupting you. How's that for loyalty? That nice girl' blah blah blah. My own fucking mother!" "So is she going to keep us apart or something?" "I'd like to see her try. I'll fucking show her you and me. I'll drive here every night for the next two weeks. We'll sneak you into my room. They'll find out we've been fucking living together. Nobody tells me what to do about my friends, nobody."
The joint shrinks to a confetti speck and a second is lit. Jane's face slowly unknots. By the time Saskia asks about the driving, Jane is calm enough to explain. The Sings lived in a row house in Boston and there were cars everywhere. There was no danger of her parents suspecting even if they heard the engine. The Boston drives were just joyrides, when the Moon was up and her parents were being more-than-usual rawholes. Once she drove to Walden Pond and walked barefoot on the shore. She listened to the frogs and trees like old Henry David. Another time she drove to her school and broke a window. In Tyler the garage is only big enough for one car, so the second is parked on the sloping driveway. You put the car in neutral, take off the emergency brake, and roll right into the street, silent as you please.
Saskia is filled with admiration. The two girls are slumped together companionably, passing the second joint back and forth. The pauses between sentences have grown deep. This is the right moment, the right place. "This is so hoogily," she says. "What does 'hoogily' mean, anyway?" "You know."
"I mean what exactly does it mean?"
Saskia ponders. "It means... I don't know, just hoogily. Us being together in here is hoogily. It wouldn't be hoogily if only one of us was here."
"So it's like, um, snug?" "As the proverbial bug." "In the proverbial rug."
"Maybe it comes from the word 'hug.' Hugs are hoogily."
A long silence.
Jane stubs out the speck of the second joint, a quick and nervous movement. She frowns to herself. She turns in the seat and slips her arms around Saskia. "Like this, you mean."
"Um . . . yeah."
"This is hoogily," Jane says, still frowning.
"Yeah." Saskia can hardly speak, she is blushing so madly. She does not move a muscle. Her present is stretching, flowing in both directions toward infinity. Jane kisses her cheek. A sweet, chaste kiss. Her eyelids flutter against Saskia's temples like butterfly wings. "You are . . . so . . . small!" she whispers in her ear.
"I know that," Saskia says ruefully.
"I like that. You're not gawky like me. You're a package." She squeezes Saskia, as if trying to make her even smaller. "We have to swear to be best friends forever."
"Yeah."
"But we have to swear it. We have to swear to have total trust in each other, that we'll never hide anything from each other no matter how personal or embarrassing." Just as Saskia's men know Saskia. But they know everything at once, from the first moment. Who knows what secrets about Saskia might disgust Jane, might ruin everything? But with Jane's arms around her, she says yes, she will swear.
But how to do it? They ponder the problem.
They put their right hands together, palm to palm, and knuckle their bowed foreheads. They swear on everything they hold dear. They swear on the powers of the Moon and stars, of coats of arms and books of wisdom. But Jane says it is not enough. This is the most important moment of their lives. Everything will be different after this night. She opens the door. "We have to go outside."
The girls stand together in the dirt road. No wind. The waxing Moon is somewhere behind the trees, sinking. Saskia can hardly see Jane, though she is only a foot away. Where is her spear? "We have to take off our clothes."
"You think?"
"It's the only way. We have to stand naked before God."
Naked before God ... It sounds wonderfully solemn. But naked before Jane?
Jane is taking off her clothes. "We have to run through the woods naked. We have to let the trees know us."
"It's cold .. ."
"Not if you run. Come on!"
Hesitantly, Saskia parts her robe and shrugs it off. But what to do with it? Jane is dropping her things right in the dirt, even kicking them away. No, not her loyal Lieutenant's robe. Saskia folds it and places it gently on the trunk of the car. Stay there, now. You wait for me. She is cold in her flannel nightgown. This is enough, surely. Saskia does not have to glance away from Jane this time, she cannot even see Jane in the darkness, only a flash of teeth as a hand tugs at her nightgown. Her voice is good-natured: "Come on, scaredy-cat!" Saskia gulps down air. No, no. I won't. She pulls the nightgown up over her head and holds it away from her. Take it. The night air is all over her, lips as big as cushions, mouthing her warmth. She is dissolving into the night air. Jane puts the gown next to the robe. "And the slippers, girl," she says softly. Saskia eases them off. The pebbles of the road are painful against her feet. She is covered in goosebumps. What has she always known? She is not naked, before Jane or God, nothing wonderful or solemn. She is only plucked.
"Let's go!" Jane takes her hand and pulls her down into the ditch lining the road. Saskia bottoms out and lurches up the other side. The woods close in overhead. She stumbles along, her feet smarting on the pine needles and cones. She stubs her toes on something and almost falls. Jane drops her hand. "Wait! Wait!" Saskia cries. She can't see Jane ahead of her, she can hardly see the ground. She has no spear, no hair. She blunders on, terrified. She can hear Jane running ahead through the leaves. "Come on!" Jane calls. "Please wait!" Saskia almost shrieks it. "I'm right here," Jane says, as Saskia runs into her. "Let's go!" She grabs Saskia's hand again and runs off in a new direction. The ground rises and dips, Jane pulls her this way and that between the trees, they scrape through a bush and another, they half fall down a slope into a leafy bowl. There are leaves all over her, paper-thin shells against her skin, crumbs of dirt on her stomach, something touching every part of her as if she fell into the mouth of the world, every inch of her skin howling. Clambering out of the bowl, she puts her free hand on something slimy, and the howl becomes a wail. Yugh, I can't. "Just go, stupido," Marco growls. "Don't let go of her hand." "I'm trying not to —" "Well don't, then. Go!" "I'm going, I'm going!" Through more bushes and leaves. Across a fallen tree. Dirt caked on her thighs, wetness running down her knees. On and on, deeper and deeper into the woods, until they couldn't possibly find their way back. Her skin is drawing in, shrinking to a wizened lump like a dried apple. They are miles in now, beyond all help or hope of discovery. They will lie in the leaves and freeze to death.
A clearing. A steep stony slope rises in front of them and Jane starts up it. She drops Saskia's hand to scrabble in the sand and Saskia chases her frantically up the slope, the sand and pebbles giving way under her feet so liberally it's like trying to run up a down escalator. She pushes with her legs, she grabs with her hands and sinks to her elbows, she flails upward, pebbles and sand cascading around her, tickling, scouring off the dirt, soaking up the wet. She reaches the top feeling as bristly as a porcupine, every quill standing out and vibrating. The flat top is a narrow band. She is back on the road. Jane is a bar of darker dark swinging a pendulum of hair, bobbing away from her. "Come on!" Saskia catches up with her on the far side of a curve. Miraculously, the car is there, and Jane next to it, picking her clothes up out of the dirt.
Now a strange thing happens. During the seconds it takes Saskia to shrug on her nightgown and robe, the terror she felt in the woods drains out of her and filling her to replace it is elation. She is no longer cold. Even the darkness is not dark. Her soles burn, a toe is stinging, she can feel the grit beneath her clothes, the scrapes on her sides swelling hive-like, throbbing, yet she dances around the car, whirling with her arms straight out, the stars visible between the trees overhead spinning around her. Her spear is in her hand. She thought she loved Jane. But she had no idea what love was. Her love is so great now it bursts out of her and floods the woods, the whole nighttime world, with warming cold and darkness visible.
It cannot end here, she realizes. No, not now, not this short of some glorious culmination. Something else must happen to carry her over the top. Something exactly right. She takes Jane's hands in hers and shines her silver light into Jane's midnight eyes. "The last thing," she says. "We have to worship Marilyn."
The barn is always warmer than the night. The girls light their candles. Shadows dip and sway like udders. Marilyn steams like a furnace doused with water. You can hear the gurgle of the green fuel in her chambers. She gives out a grunt and her head lifts, swivels toward the girls and regards them wonderingly with bulging dragon eyes in which the candle flames jiggle. "It's all right," Saskia says.
"Pouhhf" says the coo, blowing veldt air on Saskia and rolling her eyes. The girls pat her on the hip knobs, slide their feet under her flanks and wriggle their toes. With a groan and a long-suffering look, Marilyn lumbers up. Jane and Saskia sit side by side on the milking stool and stroke her toasty udder, tingling with white hairs. Reluctantly, knowing it is not the usual time, Marilyn lets down. The veins bulge, the hoses swell. She looks at the girls apologetically as if to say, "Well, dears, you asked for it." Saskia leans forward and presses her cheek into the bristle as she rollingly squeezes. Jane is sitting behind her, her arms along her arms, holding her hands. "Good girl," Saskia murmurs into the octaves-deep gurgling. The bucket plashes and foams.
Afterward, Marilyn eats her grass with her legs tucked demurely under. She will expect to be milked regularly at 2 A.M. from now on. Coos are consummate ritualists. They are to be worshiped because they fit into their spaces more securely than any other of God's creatures. The girls put the pail of milk on the barn floor and place the candles on either side. They kneel.
"Marilyn," Saskia intones, "we worship thee."
"Marilyn," Jane repeats, "we worship thee."
"We ask you —"
"We ask you —"
"— in the name of the great and holy coo of vast and wise India —"
"— in the name of the great and holy coo of vast and wise India —"
"— to grant us an eternal bond of love —"
"— to grant us an eternal bond of love —"
"— stronger than anything or anybody —"
"— stronger than anything or anybody —"
"— anywhere."
"— anywhere."
Saskia ponders. Marilyn lets out a loud pouff.
"We seal this prayer to you —"
"We seal this prayer to you —"
"— on pain of death and eternal damnation —"
"— on pain of death and eternal damnation —"
"— by drinking of your holy milk."
"— by drinking of your holy milk."
"So promised, and done as promised, on this the Lord's day —"
"So promised, and done as promised, on this the Lord's day —"
"— the third of May, in the year one, anno bovinus Marilyni."
"— the third of May, in the year one, anno bovinus Marilyni."
Marilyn rolls her tongue far out along the trough, reaching for grass. Saskia dips a ladle into the bucket and hands it to Jane, who gazes steadily into her eyes as she drinks. Saskia dips the ladle again and drinks herself. Then she dips it a third time and pours the milk onto the floor. "So is it done," she says. The girls blow out the candles.
They walk up to the house in holy silence and part without a word. Saskia crawls back into bed. She can see herself riding in the car with Jane, laboring up the switchbacks to the county road, arrowing through dark fields, rolling between the rows of uniformed houses standing at attention, cutting the engine and coasting up the driveway, creeping to her room so quietly ankle-deep in troll's hair, slipping into her bed. Saskia is in two places at once. She is flank to flank with Jane. Sleeping together each night, naked before God and each other, they will show Sing Sing that grounding Jane is simply irrelevant.
19
Saskia is in the Captain's room. Beneath her spreads all Ithaca. On the water of the bay rides an open boat, oars tossing up the sea spray. It hits the shore so fast it rides up onto the land. The oarsmen lift out food and casks of red wine, bronze tripods, cauldrons. They lift out something wrapped in a coverlet and set it gently on the sand.
A man, asleep. All that is visible is his curly red hair. The oarsmen drag their boat to the water and row back up the bay. The man lies on his native ground, asleep in the deepest, sweetest sleep, a sleep most like death. Home at last, at long last, home again. He looks defenseless, curled up under the coverlet on the shore of the big bay, and Saskia wants to go down and protect him, she wants to move his tripods and cauldrons behind some trees so no one will rob him while he sleeps.
