Green Eyes Page 0,116

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.

He rested his head on her forearm and was amazed by the peace that the warmth of her skin seemed to transmit, as if he had plunged his head into the arc of a prayer. He rubbed his cheek along her arm. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and he felt drifty. The lamplight shaded the skin of her arm from gold into pale olive, like delicate brushwork.

'Jocundra?'

'Yes?'

He wanted to tell her something, something that would serve as a goodbye in case things didn't do well; but everything he thought of sounded too final, too certain of disaster.

'Nothing,' he said.

She bent her head close to his and let out a shuddery breath. 'It'll be all right,' she whispered.

Her reassurance reminded him of Shadows, how she had comforted him about the brightness of his eyes, his aches and pains; he felt a rush of anger. It had never been all right, and chances were it never would be. He did not know who to blame. Jocundra had made it bearable, and everyone else was either too weak or too riddled with sickness to be held responsible: it seemed that the whole world had that excuse for villainy.

There were footsteps and voices in the hall.

He fumbled with the wire, uncoiled it, thrust it into her hand, making sure she had the grip, and ran to his position near the alcove.

It almost didn't work. She almost waited too long. Simpkins yelled 'Hey!' and came running in, and at first she thought the door had missed him. But then he pitched forward hard, as