The saskiad, p.30
The Saskiad, page 30
"Both of you! Christ, this is embarrassing! Who is the adult here? I am! Don't you have lives of your own? I feel like I'm drowning in women!" He stalks off the porch.
Saskia watches him go, sparkling and dancing like a sun-mirage. "Boy, you really pissed him off."
"Me?"
"He only gets that way when you're around. I don't know what it is, you just rub him the wrong way somehow."
"Just fuck you, Saskia. OK? Just fuck you!"
When did Jane turn so ugly, so hard and nasty? Her pinched mouth, her calculating eyes. She has no friends at school, she never goes to parties, she wants only to follow Thomas, yes master yes master, grab him and cling to him like a drowning little girl, pull him under with her arms in a vise-like grip around his neck, drowning him, too.
Saskia follows her inside. "This isn't your house!"
Jane slings her knapsack over her shoulder. "I don't want to stay in your fucking house. And Thomas doesn't either. He's sick of this place."
Saskia follows her back out on the porch. "Who says?"
Jane continues off the porch and up the driveway.
"Who says?" Saskia repeats, right behind her. Jane doesn't answer. "Nobody says," she concludes derisively.
"That's right. Nobody," Jane says over her shoulder. "You'll find out."
"Where are you going?"
"To the garden."
"Oh, little nature girl! I suppose the squirrels will come and talk to you!"
Jane stops and turns, heaves a long-suffering sigh. "Saskia, why don't you just leave me alone?"
The horrible thought washes over Saskia that she is being a jerk. Not only a jerk, but a childish jerk. Jane is fourteen, and Saskia is thirteen, and Jane is a woman who has had sex with Thomas and Saskia is a little girl who is scared even to touch you-know-whats.
Jane walks away.
Saskia stares dully down at the house, at the fixed-up porch and new gutters, the lovingly fitted new shingles sprinkled here and there like a cuneiform inscription saying, "Thomas was here." She can see the barn below the house, and the lake below the barn, and Lila leaving the dock. Note how much he takes her out on weekends. Why? Because the weekends are when Jane comes over.
But he takes Lila out on weekdays, too. Out on the lake, Lila tacks. So what does it matter if he has to get away? He is sensitive. He starts to hum too much. He goes out on the water so his crystal won't shatter. Lila tacks and retacks like someone pacing, lost in thought, not to be disturbed.
Saskia makes her way up to the garden. "I'll find out what?"
"I thought you were going to leave me alone."
"Please tell me," she says, with all the reasonableness she can muster.
"We're going away together, OK?"
"Yeah, you said that before and you're still around."
"We've got the money now."
"Dream on!"
"Thanks, I will. Can I be left alone now?"
Saskia wants to hit her, smash her face with a rock, anything to wipe off that smug, sure expression. Instead she goes to find Lauren.
17
She should have told her a long time ago. What was she so worried about? Jane is just a plaything, no more important than the ones Thomas led out of the garden in Wonderland days, and Lauren understood that then, so surely she will understand it now. Saskia was giving Jane far too much credit in imagining that her little fling with Thomas was some deep dark secret.
She finds Lauren in the storage shed, going through the produce crates. "It's you," Lauren says in a friendly enough manner, turning a crate this way and that.
"What are you doing?"
"Thomas thought it would be a good idea to fix up some of the crates."
"Can I help?"
Lauren shrugs. With her crew cut and the baggy khaki pants with the pockets low on the thighs she looks like a soldier. Saskia still isn't used to it. "If you want. You can check those."
They work in silence. All Saskia's crates look fine. In fact, she can see places where Thomas has recently fixed them. She would recognize those three perfectly staggered tacks anywhere. Finally she discerns a small crack. "Is that bad enough to fix?"
Lauren presses a dirty thumb against it. "I'll ask Thomas. Put it in that pile."
"I was just thinking."
"Not again."
"Jane and I were talking just a minute ago, up in the field."
"I thought she was taking a nap."
"Why'd you think that?"
"Because you usually only help me when Jane is taking a nap."
"Really?"
"Mm-hmm." Lauren inspects her crate minutely. "Not that I expect much help out of you even then." She transfers her gaze to Saskia. "Like now. Are you going to help or are you going to just stand there like a dumb bunny?"
"About Jane . . ."
"I'm not interested in talking about Jane."
"Well, about her taking a nap, or whatever."
Lauren cocks an eyebrow. "Yes?"
"I mean, she's not really ..." Oh boy, here we go. "I mean ..." But she just peters out, her face burning.
"Spare yourself the trouble, Saskia. I don't care about that."
"About what?" Saskia can't even look at her.
"Why do you want to tell me now? What's going on? You're trying to get back at Jane for something? You're feeling sorry for your stupid mother?"
"You already know?"
Lauren lets out air. A sigh? A summoning of patience? "Of course I know." Saskia peeks at her doubtfully. "I'm not as stupid as you think I am. If I were possessive about Thomas I would have gone crazy ten years ago."
Funny, this is exactly what Saskia imagined. That Lauren would know and would not care. That she would rise above the fray and take her satisfaction in the knowledge that she was Thomas's true love. But the funny thing is, now that Saskia is faced with exactly what she imagined, it seems all wrong. But what's wrong with it? Isn't it magnanimous? On her part, to share Thomas, and on his, to share himself? "But isn't Jane kind of... young?"
"If she wants to have sex, she's not too young. At least she wants it, she's lucky."
"But she says she's going to go away with him." Lauren looks uncomfortable. "Wherever did she get that idea? The poor thing."
"So Thomas isn't going away, then." "Not with her. I couldn't imagine that." "But he's not going away at all, right?"
"I don't know what you mean. We can't keep him here forever." "When is he going?" She shrugs. "When he wants to." "But what about us?" "Saskia, you can't tie Thomas down."
God, that condescending look is irritating! "If you're so independent, you seemed pretty darned glad I got him to come back."
Lauren smirks. "You?" This is the way she talks to the aphids. You? she says, spraying them with the soap that will dissolve them, what are you doing here? "You didn't get him to come back." "I talked him into it. He didn't want to come." "Don't have such a high opinion of yourself. He told me he was planning to come from the time he first asked us on the trip."
"Gee, that's funny. You said at the time he was really only asking me." Ha! Touche!
"He saw you all summer. So he must have come back to see me, right?" Actually, Saskia can sort of remember thinking that at the time. "Or maybe he came to see Quentin."
"Quentin?"
"What?" Lauren asks mockingly. "You mean you haven't figured it out about Quentin? Saskia, all these years you never noticed? Look at the two of you in the mirror sometime!"
"But — but — but—"
"You sound like a motorboat."
"But Quentin is Jo's!"
On Lauren's face a hateful little smile is curling up.
"Isn't he?"
"You get a gold star."
Being an only child was good enough for me, he said. It's good enough for you, right?
"Don't take my word for it!" Lauren spreads her hands, exasperated. "Why should you, you never do. Ask Jo."
Jo Flynn? Halibut Jo? "Impossible," Saskia says. She pours conviction over the ridiculous idea like wet cement, burying it.
Lauren hisses and turns away. She picks up a crate. "You're just... you're just too stubborn for words."
Saskia stands in the doorway of the shed and stares at the fuzz on Lauren's nape. Lauren goes back to checking the crates, as if Saskia did not exist, as if they hadn't been talking about anything in the slightest bit important. It occurs to Saskia to wonder if she understands Lauren at all. Strange question! She never framed it before. But surely it's natural not to understand adults. Thomas and Lauren are the adults here! And Jo!
And Jane? Is Jane enough of an adult that she understands Lauren? Are your eyes opened the moment you have sex with Thomas? Do they all — Thomas, Lauren, Jane, and Jo — get together and marvel at what a child Saskia still is?
She turns up toward the house, but stops. She starts down toward the lake, but stops again. Jane is in the garden. Thomas is on the lake. Lauren is in the shed. An equilateral triangle. But why stop there? Jo is in her trailer. And Quentin is in the house, in front of a mirror, bemoaning what an ugly runt he is.
Where does Saskia belong? She wanted to leave with him when he left the first time, she followed him up the driveway amid the flashing lights, the howling of the dog. But they pushed her out of the way and closed the door. She runs. Where?
18
But even Marilyn's stall is not safe. Soon Thomas and Jane waltz in and ascend to the loft, without noticing her. She flees down to the dock. She huddles in Lila, holding the tiller until it gets dark and too cold. Trudging at last up to the house, she tries to slip up the stairs but Thomas appears silhouetted in the door of the warm lighted kitchen and steps into the hall. "Aren't you going to have dinner?"
"No."
"What's the matter?"
"I'm not hungry."
He comes forward. They stare at each other for a couple of seconds, Thomas massaging the dishtowel in his hands.
"You're not going to leave us, are you?" A second later she realizes she actually said it this time.
He is frowning. "Why do you ask that?"
"Nothing. No reason." She runs upstairs.
In her room she can hear them at table, the cantus firmus of Thomas's voice, Jane's laugh lilting above, the background static of crew noise. When Jane is here it's fun and games for everyone. Except for Jo, who probably left early, and Lauren, silent as usual, no doubt sitting straight-backed and watching Jane and Thomas eat and laugh with who knows what thoughts. Healthy, probably, and unpos-sessive, pitying Jane for being deluded about Thomas running away with her.
Kitchen noises, cleaning. Lauren's voice now, directing Jane how best to help Thomas. The crew disperses through the house, Mim comes up the stairs and passes Saskia's door to reach her own. What is she doing in her room? Does she ever think about Saskia anymore? Why doesn't Saskia after all these years know anything about Mim, about what she thinks about things, about what she dreams about? Is it because Mim is too pure for Saskia, too innocent? And in the quarters below, Austin and Shannon, wild and alike, noisy and unruly. They make Saskia inwardly cringe and quail, now that she has lost control of them. Does she understand them any better? And finally Quentin, most mysterious of all, his only real friends his dinosaurs, to whom he talks. When did she betray him?
"Story!" Thomas calls from below, and all the ions align themselves and flow down the stairs to him. This is the hardest part, not to hear a Thomas tale. But if she went, she would look at Jane and think of her filthy lucre. Or she would look at Lauren and think of Jane. Or she would look at Quentin and think: high forehead, check; round face, check .. . Lauren only said it to throw her off balance, but it has its own skewed logic. Thomas apparently knew Jo in the Wonderland days and her epitome of anti-Thomasness does seem to intrigue him, in a perverse way. And Saskia and Quentin do look, purely coinciden-tally — now that Saskia thinks about it — not entirely dissimilar.
Sounds of the crew ascending, replete with story, Thomas making the rounds of goodnight kisses. He opens her door. "You still alive?"
"Yeah."
He sits on the edge of her bed, his beautiful hands hidden in his folded arms. "Are you going to tell me what's the matter?"
"Nothing's the matter."
"Is it about you and me last weekend?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
He nods, filing that away. His arms are still folded. "I can't stay forever, you know." Just what Lauren said. They all meet in the barn, to compare notes. What should we tell child Saskia?
"Why not?"
He makes a gesture of obviousness. "My life isn't here."
That hurts so much, she can't think of anything to say.
"There's work I have to do. You understand that."
"Yes," she says humbly.
"I'm nothing here."
"You're everything!"
"No!" He is suddenly angry. "I'm a ghost. I should have died here. But instead I seem to have come back, to haunt the place."
She so much wants him to kiss her. She reaches for him. With a defensive gesture almost of panic he gets up. "Please," she pleads. "Give me another chance. I'll be good!"
He retreats to the door. "The last thing we need is another chance."
He is gone.
She lies awake and listens to movements in the house. Thomas is in the bedroom with Lauren, then on the stairs, then in the bathroom. Then back with Lauren? She is not sure.
Utter quiet. Where is Thomas? She goes to her window, but sees nothing in the field outside. And where is Jane? She never came up to Saskia's room. A plot! Perhaps Lauren is the deluded one, not Jane. Jane knew what she was doing all along. She mixed a potion for him in a golden cup and with evil thoughts in her dark heart she added the drug to it. She lurks in the garage, getting out the ladder that he put away when he was done with the solar panels. She will toss pebbles against his window and he will throw open the sash and they will climb down the ladder together and walk up the road to the car waiting around the first bend. Saskia will follow and catch them just as they reach the getaway car and say, "Thomas, what are you doing outside?" and he will turn to her with eyes spookily blank and answer, "Outside?"
She turns on her lamp. Funny that Saskia, seller, has never rolled a joint before. Does she even have any paper? Rummaging, she finds a few squares she and Jane left behind when they went away for the summer. She rolls something abysmal. She recycles it into something only bad, which burns unevenly. Leaning back on piled pillows, she smokes it down to a confetto. She rolls a second.
What is Saskia doing?
She is preparing for battle, if you must know. She realized a long time ago that the antidote to Circe's bewitching brew, the mysterious moly that Hermes gave to Odysseus, was in fact the Stone, but the eternal question remained: "But the Stone, in fact, is what?" Well, the sages were right: after long searching, you will ultimately discover it right under your nose. "Black at the root, with a milky flower," the Odyssey says. Black ash and its curling bloom of smoke. Safely Stoned, Saskia will toss aside the poisoned cup and rush at Jane, drawing from her side her sharp sword.
To kill her, yes. Alas, she has no choice. Sulfur burns in her lungs and mercury fumes make her eyes water. The other clue was provided by Marco, but not even recognized as such, until now: how many times has he told her about the Sheik of the Mountain and his team of Assassins, or — as they style themselves in the Saracen tongue — the Hashshashin: the eaters of hashish? Mortally feared they were, as they fearlessly closed in on their target, the ecstatic trance on them, their eyes fixed on the Paradise they knew would soon be theirs. When right is on your side, you will surely prevail.
Saskia stubs out the second confetto. The time has come.
She rises from her bed and glides down the stairs. Thomas's door is closed and quiet. She continues down, into deeper and darker realms. The common room is empty. Where are they? Fumbling ani-malistically in some dark corner? She glides ghostlike to the kitchen, the darkest and deepest of realms.
Don't turn on the light, he said. Of course not. From the racks on the walls she extracts jars of powders, unguents, essences. From a cupboard, an agate mortar and pestle. She fires up the athanor and the blue light quivers on the shelves above. She takes down a crucible and places it over the fire.
The secret fire is the slow flame, the generative heat that provides gentle coction for forty days, while the natural fire is the dual salt of aqua fortis and aqua regia. She tips red powder, the dried blood of children, into the bubbling, whose subtle nitre has matured into that peerless salt, Virgin's Milk. Now the action of Mars is desired, and Saskia pounds iron filings in an agate mortar and steeps them in aqua vitae until the resurrected substance — which Adepts call the Knight with the Lance — is added to the Scaly Dragon, piercing it and drawing out the Virgin's Milk. The whole is poured off and coho-bated until the desired consistency is achieved. Thus is created the female element, mercuric and volatile.
Separately, Saskia prepares the male element, fiery and catalytic, composed of philosophic sulfur and the prime substance. She spoons nuggets of Prime Substance out of a glass jar and presses them with her fingers around the sides of the mortar, then pours the sulfur to pool inside, making the Golden Egg, laid by the Philosophic Goose. The Egg is returned to the crucible and incubated through the action of the slow fire until it hatches and the spirit of the Goose is released to fly either northward (daylight, advancing, male) or southward (darkness, retreating, female). The broken Egg is mixed into a paste and then reduced over the fire to a calx. What is thus obtained is a well-calcined gold oxide, to which is added black earth, which sets it to bubbling so that an oil rises to the surface. Saskia skims off this tincture with a pigeon's feather and sets it aside.
Now comes the crucial moment when the two primal elements, male and female, are brought together. Saskia stirs the mixture with a bamboo stake hardened in the eye of the athanor, and the compound commences immediately to bubble. An excellent sign! The compound foams obscenely, popping with small explosions that throw off a foul smell. Success! Saskia has achieved the resolution of two opposing principles! The perfect Synthesis!
