Part 23 (2/2)
That was all I knew. I lay down on the sand, suddenly weak, and she grew alarmed, tried to pull me up, but hadn't the strength.
”No, Eri,” I whispered. ”No, I'm all right, it's only this. . .”
”Hal. Say something! Say something!”
”What should I say. . . Eri. . .”
My voice calmed her a little. She ran off somewhere and returned with a flat pan, again poured water on my face -- bitter, the water of the Pacific. I had intended to drink much more of it, flashed a thought, senseless; I blinked. I came to. Sat up and touched my head.
There was not even a cut; my hair had cus.h.i.+oned the impact, so I had only a lump the size of an orange, a few abrasions, still I a ringing in my ears, but I was all right. At least, as long as I sat. I tried to stand up, but my legs didn't seem cooperative.
She knelt in front of me, watching, her arms at her sides.
”It's you? Really?” I asked. Only now did I understand; I turned and saw, through the nauseating vertigo brought on by that movement, two tangled black shapes in the moonlight, a dozen or so meters away at the edge of the road. My voice failed j me when I returned my eyes to her.
”Hal. . .”
”Yes.”
”Try to get up. I'll help you.”
”Get up?”
Apparently my head was still not clear. I understood what had happened, and I didn't understand. Had that been Eri in the gleeder? Impossible.
”Where is Olaf?” I asked.
”Olaf? I don't know.”
”You mean he wasn't here?”
”No.”
”You alone?”
She nodded.
And suddenly an awful, inhuman fear gripped me.
”How were you able? How?”
Her face trembled, her lips quivered, she couldn't say the words.
”I ha-a-ad to. . .”
Again she wept. Then quieted, grew calm. Touched my face. My forehead. With light fingers felt my skull. I repeated breathlessly: ”Eri. . . it's you?”
Raving. Later, slowly, I stood up, she supported me as best she could; we walked to the road. Only there did I see what shape the car was in; the hood, the entire front, everything was folded like an accordion. The gleeder, on the other hand, was hardly damaged -- now I appreciated its superiority -- only a small dent in the side, where it had taken the main impact. Eri helped me get in, backed away the gleeder until the wreck of my car fell over on its side with a long clattering of metal, then took off. We were going back. I was silent, the lights swam by. My head wobbled, still large and heavy. We got out in front of the cottage. The windows were still lit up, as if we had left only for a moment. She helped me inside. I lay down on the bed. She went to the table, walked around it, walked to the door. I sat up: ”You're leaving!”
She ran to me, knelt by the side of the bed, and shook her head in denial.
”No?”
”No.”
”And you'll never leave me?”
”Never.”
I embraced her. She put her cheek to my face, and everything was drained from me -- the burning embers of my obstinacy and anger, the madness of the last few hours, the fear, the despair; I lay there empty, like one dead, and only pressed her to me more tightly, as if my strength had returned, and there was silence, the light gleamed on the golden wallpaper of the room, and somewhere far away, as in another world, outside the open windows, the Pacific roared.
It may seem strange, but we said nothing that evening, or that night. Not a single word. Not until late the following day did I learn how it had been. As soon as I had driven off, she'd guessed the reason and panicked, didn't know what to do. First she thought to summon the white robot, but realized that it could not help; and he -- she referred to him in no other way -- he could not help, either. Olaf, perhaps. Olaf, certainly, but she did not know where to find him, and anyway there wasn't time. So she took the house gleeder and drove after me. She quickly caught up with me, then kept behind me for as long as there was a chance that I was only returning to the cottage.
204.
”Would you have got out then?” I asked. She hesitated.
”I don't know. I think I would have. I think so now, but I don't know.”
Then, when she saw that I did not stop but kept driving, she got even more frightened. The rest I knew.
”No. I don't understand it,” I said. ”This is the part I don't understand. How were you able to do it?”
”I told myself that. . . that nothing would happen.”
”You knew what I wanted to do? And where?”
”Yes.”
”How?”
After a long pause: ”I don't know. Perhaps because by now I know you a little.”
I was silent. I still had many things to ask but didn't dare. We stood by the window. With my eyes closed, feeling the great open s.p.a.ce of the ocean, I said: ”All right, Eri, but what now? What is going to happen?”
”I told you already.”
”But I don't want it this way,” I whispered.
”It can't be any other way,” she replied after a long pause. ”Besides. . .”
”Besides?”
”Never mind.”
That very day, in the evening, things got worse, again. Our trouble returned and progressed, and then retreated. Why? I do not know. She probably did not know, either. As if it was only in the face of extremity that we became close, and only then that we were able to understand each other. And a night. And another day.
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