Viator

Over the next few weeks, Wilander devoted considerable thought and energy toward the woman in the linden tree, putting aside his maps (they were more or less complete) and his concerns relating to the white lights and the noises and the increasingly active, albeit still-invisible population of the forest. Since a normal woman could never withstand such cold, and since her behavior suggested an animal intelligence, he was persuaded that she must be a whistler, and he set himself to capture her, leaving food out to lure her down from the tree, hoping to habituate her to the process and eventually trap her in the mess; but the next night, watching from hiding as she secured the block of cheese he had provided, he became aroused by the play of muscles in her thighs and abdomen, by facial features whose delicacy seemed evidence of a sensitivity belied by her primitive actions. It troubled him that he could feel desire for anyone other than Arlene, whom he loved despite the breach between them. The whistler was unquestionably a beautiful creature, but first and foremost she was a creature; it dismayed him to suspect that he might be engaged in so prurient a self-deception, but what purpose apart from the sexual would trapping her serve? The phrase with which Halmus had insulted him, the husband of the linden tree: It returned to Wilander now and he wondered if—given Mortensen’s theories—he had summoned the whistler from the uncreate to fulfill the odd promise of that phrase. He decided that he would befriend her, not attempt a capture, and he placed food at the end of the table nearest the outer door and sat at the opposite end, waiting to see what would happen. For three successive nights, he heard her tread on the deck, yet she declined to enter. On the fourth night, however, she slipped into the mess, snatched the food and, as she darted away, in a panic, she smacked into the edge of the door, causing it to slam shut, trapping her. She whirled about, pursed her lips; he felt a pinprick of pain behind his forehead, but it faded, amounting to nothing. He made soothing noises, urging her to calm, and stood, intending to close the interior door (he didn’t want her loose in the ship) and then open the outer door, allowing her to escape; but as he moved to accomplish this, she dropped to her hands and knees, presenting him her hindquarters, plainly a sexual offering. A second later, he smelled a sweetly complex scent, reminiscent of the sachets his mother had strewn about their home, seeking to mask odors that only she detected (the taint of a failing marriage, the residue of his father’s affairs) with tiny cloth bundles containing dried flowers, and he was struck by the thought that although he and his parents had never gotten along, though they had not even liked each other, it was weird how infrequently they sprang to mind…The scent, more cloying than those remembered scents, dizzied him. He gazed at the whistler’s pale buttocks. What would be wrong, he asked himself, if he were to fuck this consenting animal childwoman, this fantasy figure who he had dialed up from his subconscious? What possible significance could morality and conscience have when everything he imagined was coming true? Sufficient, it seemed, to restrain him. Still dizzy, he sat down again. The whistler got to one knee, staring at him, her torso partly concealed beneath tangles of hair. Wilander gestured at the door. You opened it before, he said. Go. She came slowly into a half-crouch, reached behind her, groping for the door, keeping her eyes on him. He told her once more to go, his tone peremptory, and, with a lunge, shouldering the door as she wrestled with the bar, she flung herself out onto the deck and, judging by the furious rustling that ensued, scrambled high into the linden tree.