Mortals

He thought he was understanding things better. A god that was not only gratifying but actual fun to obey was what everybody wanted, maybe. He didn’t know. Or maybe he did know. Maybe she was looking for a god in Morel, the atheist. He had never been that for her, himself. Ah well, he thought.

Morel was disgruntled, Ray could tell. He had returned to his corner. He was muttering to himself. Ray picked up the phrase Obedience is paradise.

“We’ll talk about this another time,” Ray said.

Morel said nothing.

“It’ll be something to look forward to,” Ray said.

Ray returned to his corner and hunched down. Morel was going to be Ray’s first vignette. He had decided that. But it was important to get him right.

Morel looked glum. Iris was good at cheering people up. She could be funny. He remembered her recounting a dead serious argument among her preteenage girlfriends over whether it would be more embarrassing when the time came to disclose one’s breasts to a man or one’s genitals. The position arrived at had been that it would be less embarrassing to unveil genitals because female genitals were all more or less alike, whereas breasts differed a lot and so were more personal, and also they were on a scale of judgment that genitals weren’t, more might be expected. And it was funny when she talked about changing her raiment before they went out to eat. It was strange that he could think of so many amusing things she had said to him but virtually nothing amusing he had said to her unless you counted throwaways like his saying to her, You are like Power because you abhor a vacuum… cleaner and then he had used the phrase “multiplying like coat hangers,” but he couldn’t remember what it had been applied to. And she had laughed when he had taken to declaring horniness by saying, It’s sex o’clock. But then after he had done it a couple or three times too many she had asked him to give it a rest.

The sounds of battle were closer and louder. Voices were part of the mixture. The notion of what it would be like if he managed to get himself killed saving Morel’s life in some mayhem yet to unfold was something not to pursue. It would be an ironical gift for her. This was regression. It was ridiculous, wishing he could see her face when she found out what had happened. He was in a sundering process in his life and he had to embrace it and not end up like the British painter who kept writing letters to his first wife for nine years after her death, Stanley Spencer, an interesting painter, too. Ray had appreciated being shepherded by Iris to exhibitions in cities they’d visited. She had seen it as her responsibility. Now he would have to figure out on his own what to go and see when he was in venues where there were museums or galleries. He was going to be somewhere. He wasn’t sure where that would be. He would be consumed doing something that consumed him. That was all he knew.

Ray thought he could hear the sounds of running feet. The sound died.

A deafening, confounding blast, the worst yet, jarred them. The air was full of white dust. Something nearby had been pulverized. Dust had puffed in through the vents.

Morel stood up, coughing, brushing at himself. His hair was white with dust. He had been caught directly beneath one of the vents. Ray thought, I’m getting to see how he’ll look when they’re old.

Morel was pointing, jabbing furiously with one hand and holding a finger to his lips with the other.

Ray saw what it was. The north wall was showing real damage. A ragged crack ran upward for a foot or so from the floor near one end of the wall and curved over and ran to the proximate corner and down the crease and back to the floor, which, in that area, was sunken, canting down. Plainly it had been partially undermined. The wedge of masonry outlined by the crack was roughly the size of a duffel bag.

Ray crouched down to get a closer look at the damage, his heart racing. He tried to insert his fingers into the crack. He couldn’t, but it was close. Air was feeding in through the crack, whose bottom edge was inset a little. There was a definite separation between the base of the wedge and the plank flooring touching it. He pushed at the wedge. It wouldn’t budge. If it could be driven out there would be an exit that a man, men, could fit through. He wanted to say to the wedge, You are yearning to be a door, so be one, swing open.

Morel was elated. But he was conducting himself ridiculously, in Ray’s opinion. He was gesturing frantically to the effect that they shouldn’t say anything, that they should be quiet, avoid attracting attention. Ray understood Morel’s impulse, but he was going on too long with it. They had to get to work to see if this crack could be made, ultimately, to let them out. They had no tools.

They knelt together at the crack.

Morel was shaking. He tried, himself, to work his fingers into the crack, but with more force than Ray had used, which struck Ray as dangerous and premature. The wall might shift in the event of another blast and Morel’s fingers could be crushed. Or the wall could shift on its own. There were other fractures in it, higher up.

“This is just cheap cement block,” Morel whispered.

“Get your fingers out of there.”

“Don’t shout at me. We have to be quiet.”

“I didn’t shout. I just don’t think it’s going to be helpful if you get your hands stuck.”

“This cement is cheap shit. It’s crumbling.”

Morel had thrust the fingers of both hands well into the crack. It was reckless. Ray thought he could see blood. He was considering pulling Morel forcibly away from the wall. He didn’t think that what Morel was trying to do could be done. Unaided brute force had its limits. They needed to think together, think how to combine their strengths. He thought Morel should stop acting Herculean. Or probably he himself should join Morel in futility just to be friendly. He had to come to a conclusion. He had no role, just standing around observing.

Morel was being primal. Maybe it was good that somebody could get into that mode. And maybe it was something to do that felt better than wallowing in the impossibilities in a situation. For example there had been all that debate about what they should do as the battle got closer, whether they should keep mum and stay where they were, play dead, or whether they should move heaven and earth to find a way to break out and then run and hide in a donga until the battle was over, or whether they should barge out and get into the fight. It looked like Morel had resolved everything unilaterally. They were not going to stay in their dungeon if at all possible. He was going to create an exit barehanded singlehanded. There really wasn’t time to discuss any of this again. Their deliberations had taken place when it hadn’t been clear that the battle was ever going to reach them. Now it was not a question. There was such a thing as slipping out into a scene of confusion and finding a place to hide while everyone was distracted with killing. Maybe they could still do that, if they got loose.

Morel was determined. There was blood showing on the back of one hand. He was ignoring it.

“I don’t recommend this,” was all Ray could think of to say.

He knew what Morel was attempting. He was trying to get his fingers in as far as the void at the core of the cement block so that he could get a solid grip on the fragment and really wrench away at it, pull it hard. He was endangering his hands. Fortunately he wasn’t a surgeon, but still, he had to touch people in his practice. His diagnostic procedure involved a lot of touching. That was what holistic medicine was, apparently.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Ray said. He couldn’t see how Morel had gotten his fingers so far into the crack, but he had.

He had to try to help. Morel was being a machine. The fucking chunk of wall seemed to be actually moving, tilting. Morel’s shirt back was dark with sweat.

“We need a crowbar,” Ray said, provoking a hiss of exasperation from Morel.

Ray hastened to assist. The crack was tighter where he was, to Morel’s right. But by brute force he was now getting his fingertips in up to the first joint. He had to do better. He had to get them in far enough to bend them down into a hollow space so he could grip and pull, like Morel.

Morel was extremely strong. Ray could feel the effect of his force in the definite rocking movement being produced in the fragment. Morel was pretending the abrasions on the backs of his hands weren’t happening. I have to help, Ray thought. He drove his fingers in and found the void in his segment of the chunk and grasped hard.

Ray said, “I think we should push. We should stop rocking this thing. It hurts when it rocks back in. I think we need to just push out.” There were ridges of scraped-off skin midway between his second and third knuckles, on every finger. Morel seemed not to be listening to him. Ray’s hands were in agony and the kneeling position he was in was hell on his bad knee.

Morel was still insisting on whispering. He was saying that they were not coordinating. They paused. Morel put his ear to the wall. Ray couldn’t imagine what the point of doing that was. Morel seemed satisfied, though, and resumed his efforts, pushing, only, now. The floor was drooping under them, but not alarmingly.