Green Eyes

  They worked half the night at prying off the molding, both of them breaking fingernails in the process; they disconnected the release mechanism and undid the springs of their bed, straightening and knotting them together to attach to the mechanism; they jiggled loose two bed legs to use as clubs, shoring up the bed with books, and refined their plan.

  ‘You’ll be at the table,’ said Donnell, ‘and I’ll be about here.’ He took a position halfway between the alcove and the table. ‘When the guy sets down the trays, I’ll go for him. You drop the door as soon as Simpkins starts to move. Then you hit the other guy. The worst case will be two against two, and even if Simpkins does get through, maybe we can finish the other one off first.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘When I hit Papa on the boat it was all reflexes. Fear. I don’t know if I can plan to do it.’

  ‘I think you’ll be sufficiently afraid,’ he said. ‘I know I will.’ He hefted his club. ‘Afterward, I’ll head to the veve and see if I can get control of it.’

  While the wind was blowing the next morning, they ran a test of the door. Donnell stood on the table beneath it and caught it after it had fallen a couple of inches.

  ‘Let’s do it tonight,’ he said. ‘He’s getting stronger all the time, but I still have a physical advantage. You keep away from the veve until it’s over. Find some car keys, grab some of the videotapes. Maybe we can use them. But keep away from the veve.’

  Jocundra promised, and while he wound the bedsprings around the leg of the table beside her, she tried to prepare herself for swinging the club. It was carved into whorls on the bottom but the business end was cut square and had an iron bolt sticking out from the side. The thought of what it could do to a face chilled her. She let it lie across her lap for a long time, because when she went to touch it her fingers felt nerveless, and she did not want to drop it and show her fear. Finally she set it against the wall and ran over the exact things she would have to do. Let go the wire, pick up the club, and swing it at the chubby man. The list acquired a singsong, lilting rhythm like a child’s rhyme, drowning out her other thoughts, taunting her. Let go the wire, pick up the club, and swing it at the chubby man. She saw herself taking a swing, connecting, and him boinging away cartoon style, a goofy grin on his face, red stars and OUCHES and KAPOWS exploding above his head. Then she thought how it really would be, and she just didn’t know if she could do it.

  Donnell had never been more drawn to her than now, and though he was afraid, his fear was not as strong as his desire to be with her, to ease her fear. She was very nervous. She kept reaching down to check if her club was still leaning against the wall, rubbing her knuckles with the heel of her palm. Tension sharpened her features; her eyes were enormous and dark; she looked breakable. He couldn’t think how to take her mind off things, but at last, near twilight, he brought a notebook out from his bureau drawer and handed it to her.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked.

  ‘Pictures,’ he said; and then, choosing his tense carefully, because his tendency was to think of everything he had planned in the imperfect past, he added, ‘I might do something with them one of these days.’

  She turned the pages. ‘They’re all about me!’ she said; she smiled. ‘They’re pretty, but they’re so short.’

  He knelt down, reading along with her. ‘Most are meant to be fragments, short pieces - still they’re not finished. Like this one.’ He pointed.

  The gray rain hangs a curtain from the eaves
  Behind her, as she tosses
  The mildewed flowers to plop in the trash,
  Tips the leaf-flocked vase water
  Out the window, as she leans
  Forward looking at the splash,
  As she pours up from the ankle up to slim waist
  And white breast and shawl of brown hair,
  Every curve seems the process
  Of an inexhaustible pouring,
  Like the curves of a lotus.

  ‘Just cleverness,’ he said. ‘I didn’t do what I wanted to do. But all together, and with some work, they might be something.’

  She turned another page. ‘They’re not,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My legs.’ She quoted:’”… the legs of a ghost woman, elongated by centuries of walking through the walls.” They’re not that long.’ She spanked his hand playfully, then held up a folded piece of paper, one on which he had written down ‘The Song of Returning.’ He had forgotten about it. ‘What’s this?’ she asked.

  ‘Just some old stuff,’ he said.

  She read it, refolded the paper, but said nothing.