Z for Zachariah

“I thought I heard… somebody in the house. I called you. He was upstairs.”

“Who was upstairs?”

But he was being evasive. “Someone moving.”

“Mr Loomis, there was no one in the house. It’s the fever again. You must stay in bed.” It was terrible—standing outside in pyjamas with a fever of a hundred and five. I took the gun from his hands and put it back in the wagon. He did not resist, but began to shiver violently, and I saw that both he and the plaid pyjamas were soaked with sweat. I got him back into the house and on to the bed. I pulled the blankets over him and went upstairs to get him some dry pyjamas.

In my father and mother’s room I saw where the bullets had gone. Fortunately except for knocking plaster all over the floor they had done no real damage; they had gone through the wall and almost straight up into the ceiling, and hit nothing on the way. I would have to plug the holes up somehow, and sweep the floor.

I got the clean pyjamas and gave them to him to change. He can still do that himself; I suppose if he gets so he cannot I will have to do it. Also I will have to get him a basin to use as a bed pan since he should no longer get up to go to the bathroom.

It was after he had changed pyjamas that I realized that he had still not quite lost his illusion. I went into his room to get the wet pyjamas, to take them to the laundry room. He was lying in bed with his eyes closed, but when he heard me he opened them and said, sounding very tired:

“Is he gone?”

I said: “Is who gone?”

“Edward,” he said.

“You were dreaming again.”

He shook his head, and then he said: “Yes. I forgot. Edward is dead. He couldn’t have come all this way.”

So it was Edward again. But I am worried. If he is dreaming about Edward, who was, I suppose, a friend of his, why does he want to shoot him?

I think I had better sleep in here, on the sofa. He sleeps very restlessly, muttering and groaning.

I forgot all about giving him his tea, but it will still be good in the morning.

Chapter Eleven

June 4th Morning.

This is a terrible day.

I do not know how high his fever has gone, because it has reached a hundred and six, and beyond that the thermometer does not show. I do not think he can live on very long with such a high temperature.

I remembered from my high-school course that alcohol reduces fever; I found a half bottle of rubbing alcohol liniment in the upstairs medicine cupboard. Every hour I soak one of my father’s handkerchiefs with that and rub his back, chest, arms, neck and forehead. He tries to draw away—I suppose it must feel like ice—but I think it does help him.

He still sleeps most of the time, and when he wakes up it is into a dream, a nightmare. Only for a few minutes now and then does he seem to be rational, and to recognize me or even see or hear me. The rest of the time he is delirious, and often he is terrified, always of the same thing—he thinks Edward is here, and is threatening him with something vague and dreadful. At least it is vague to me.

Still I am beginning to realize that something bad happened between Mr Loomis and Edward (I do not know his last name), and that they were not friends at all, but enemies, at least at the end.

Sometimes he acts as if he thinks I am Edward, but more often he stares beyond me, as if I am not there at all; he is looking at someone over my shoulder. It is so real that I turn and look myself, but of course there is no one there. At times he thinks Edward is here in the valley, in the house; other times Mr Loomis is back with him near Ithaca, in the laboratory under the mountain. And he says certain things over and over again.

It began this morning. I knocked and went into his room with a glass of the cold tea and a soft-boiled egg I had stirred up in a cup, hoping I could get him to eat a few bites. He was awake, but when he spoke it was not to me; it was to the doorway behind me. He said:

“Stay back, Edward, stay back. It’s no use.”

I said: “Mr Loomis, it’s me. I’ve brought you some breakfast.”

He rubbed his eyes, and they came into focus. But his voice, when he spoke again, was blurred and tired.

“No breakfast. Too sick.”

“Try,” I said. “I’ve brought you some iced tea.”

I held out the glass, and to my delight he took it and drank thirstily, finishing half of it without pausing. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s good.” He drank the rest, and closed his eyes. I thought it must be reasonably nourishing, with all the sugar.

“I’ll bring more later,” I said. “Now try the egg.”

But when he opened his eyes again he was staring at the door. He tried to call out, but his voice was weak:

“Edward?”

I said: “Mr Loomis, Edward is not here.”

“I know,” he said. “Where did he go?”

“You mustn’t worry about it.”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “He’s a thief. He’ll steal—' He stopped, as if he had remembered something, and then to my dismay he gave a terrible groan and tried to get out of the bed.

I caught his shoulders and held him back. For a minute he fought quite hard; then he lay still, breathing fast and shallow.

“Poor Mr Loomis,” I said. “Try to understand. You’re dreaming. There is no Edward, and nothing to steal.”

“The suit,” he said, his voice hardly above a whisper. “He’ll steal the suit.”

The suit. That is what he was worried about, and still is. The safe-suit: for some reason he thinks Edward is trying to steal it.

I said: “Mr Loomis, the suit is in the wagon. You folded it up and put it there. Can’t you remember?”

“In the wagon,” he said. “Oh my God. That’s where he’s gone.”

It was obviously the wrong thing for me to have said, because now he tried again to get up. I held him down; it was not so hard, because he had used up most of his strength the first time. But I am in dread of his getting out of the bed. I am afraid he will fall and hurt himself; more important, I don’t know how I would ever get him back into it. I am sure he is too weak to walk, and I don’t know if I can lift and carry him. So I must now stay in the room with him, at least until he gets through this nightmare.

The dream is contagious. I suppose it is partly because there are only two of us, and his thoughts affect mine more than they would if I had others to talk to. I sit in the window to write, and I look out and see the wagon still there, next to the tent as it has always been, and I half expect to see someone—Edward? I don’t even know what he looks like!—prowling around it. But there is only Faro lying in the trampled grass by the tent near his dish, waiting to be fed. In a little while I will call him into the house and feed him in here.

No. I have a better idea. When Mr Loomis calms down a little, as he seems to be doing, I will run out, take Faro’s food with me, and get the safe-suit. I will bring it in and put it by the bed where he can see it. I will humour his dream to that extent. It will make him less worried.

Afternoon

I got the suit and brought it in, but a few minutes later that particular nightmare ended, and he was in another, even worse, perhaps brought on by the sight of the suit. He was back in Ithaca having a most desperate