about that. I don’t read very much, but I suppose it’s better than some books. The kind of books I really hate are the kind of books where people just walk around and light cigarettes and say things like ‘good morning.’ They just walk around. When I read a book, I want to read about earthquakes and exploring and tidal waves. I don’t want to read about people walking around and opening doors.”
“Oh, you silly boy,” she said. “You don’t know anything.”
“I’m thirty years old,” said Artemis, “and I know how to drill a well.”
“But you don’t know what I want,” she said.
“You want a well, I guess,” he said. “A hundred gallons a minute. Good drinking water.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean what I want now.”
He slumped a little in the seat and unfastened his trousers. She dipped her head, a singular gesture rather like a bird going after seed or water. “Hey, that’s great,” said Artemis, “that’s really great. You want me to tell you when I’m going to come?” She simply shook her head. “Big load’s on its way,” said Artemis. “Big load’s coming down the line. You want me to hold it?” She shook her head. “Ouch,” yelled Artemis. “Ouch.” One of his limitations as a lover was that, at the most sublime moment, he usually shouted, “Ouch, ouch, ouch.” Maria had often complained about this. “Ouch,” roared Artemis. “Ouch, ouch, ouch,” as he was racked by a large orgasm. “Hey, that was great,” he said, “that was really great but I’ll bet it’s unhealthy. I mean, I’ll bet if you do that all the time, you’d get to be round-shouldered.”
She kissed him tenderly and said, “You’re crazy.” That made two. He gave her one of his sandwiches.
The rig was then down to three hundred feet. The next day, Artemis hauled up the hammer and lowered the cylinder that measured water. The water was muddy but not soapy and he guessed the take to be about twenty gallons a minute. When Mrs. Filler came out of the house, he told her the news. She didn’t seem pleased. Her face was swollen and her eyes were red. “I’ll go down another fifteen or twenty feet,” Artemis said. “I think you’ll have a nice well.”
“And then you’ll go away,” she said, “and never come back.” She began to cry.
“Don’t cry,” said Artemis. “Please don’t cry, Mrs. Filler. I hate to see women crying.”
“I’m in love,” she sobbed loudly.
“Well, I guess a nice woman like you must fall in love pretty often,” Artemis said.
“I’m in love with you,” she sobbed. “It’s never happened to me before. I wake up at five in the morning and start waiting for you to come. Six o’clock, seven o’clock, eight o’clock. It’s agony. I can’t live without you.
“What about your husband?” asked Artemis cheerfully.
“He knows,” she sobbed. “He’s in London. I called him last night. I told him. It didn’t seem fair to have him come home expecting a loving wife when his wife is in love with someone else.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything. He hung up. He’s scheduled to come back tonight. I have to meet the plane at five. I love you. I love you. I love you.”
“Well, have to get back to work, ma’am,” said Artemis at his most rustic. “You go back to the house now and get some rest.” She turned and started for the house. He would have liked to console her?sorrow of any sort distressed him?but he knew that any gesture on his part would be hazardous. He reset the rig and went down another twenty feet, where he estimated the take to be about thirty gallons a minute. At three-thirty, Mrs. Filler left. She scowled at him as she drove past. As soon as she had gone, he moved hastily. He capped the well, got his rig onto the truck, and drove home. About nine that night, the phone rang. He thought of not answering or of asking his mother to take it, but his mother was watching television and he had his responsibilities as a well driller. “You’ve got around thirty-five gallons a minute,” he said. “Haversham will install the pump. I don’t know whether or not you’ll need another storage tank. Ask Haversham. Goodbye.”
The next day, he took his shotgun and a package of sandwiches and walked the woods north of the town. He was not much of a wing shot and there weren’t many birds, but it pleased him to walk through the woods and pastures and climb the stone walls. When he got home, his mother said, “She was here. That lady. She brought you a present.” She passed him a box in which there were three silk shirts and a love letter. Later that evening, when the telephone rang, he asked his mother to say that he was out. It was, of course, Mrs. Filler. Artemis had not taken a vacation in several years and he could see that the time to travel had arrived. In the morning, he went to a travel agency in the village.
The agency was in a dark, narrow room on a dark street, its walls blazing with posters of beaches, cathedrals, and couples in love. The agent was a gray-haired woman. Above her desk was a sign that said: YOU HAVE TO BE CRAZY TO BE A TRAVEL AGENT. She seemed harassed and her voice was cracked with age, whiskey, or tobacco. She chain-smoked. She twice lighted cigarettes when there was a cigarette smoking in the ashtray. Artemis said that he had five hundred to spend and would like to be away for about two weeks. “Well, I suppose you’ve seen Paris, London, and Disneyland,” she said. “Everyone has. There’s Tokyo, of course, but they tell me it’s a very tiring flight. Seventeen hours in a 707, with a utility stop in Fairbanks. My most satisfied customers these days are the ones who go to Russia. There’s a package.” She flashed a folder at him. “For three hundred and twenty-eight dollars, you get economy round-trip air fare to Moscow, twelve days in a first-class hotel with all your meals, free tickets to hockey, ballet, opera, theatre, and a pass to the public swimming pool. Side trips to Leningrad and Kiev are optional.” He asked what else she might suggest. “Well, there’s Ireland,” she said, “but it’s rainy now. A plane hasn’t landed in London for nearly ten days. They stack up at Liverpool and then you take a train down. Rome is cold. So is Paris. It takes three days to get to Egypt. For a two-week trip the Pacific is out, but you could go to the Caribbean, although reservations are very hard to get. I suppose you’ll want to buy souvenirs and there isn’t much to buy in Russia.”
“I don’t want to buy anything,” Artemis said. “I just want to travel.”
“Take my advice,” she said,?“and go to Russia.”
It seemed the maximum distance that he could place between himself and Mr. and Mrs. Filler. His mother was imperturbable. Most women who owned seven American flags would have protested, but she said nothing but “Go where you want, Sonny. You deserve a change.” His visa and passport took a week, and one pleasant evening he boarded the eight-o’clock Aeroflot from Kennedy to Moscow. Most of the other passengers were Japanese and couldn’t speak English and it was a long and a lonely trip.
It was raining in Moscow, so Artemis heard what he liked?the sound of rain. The Japanese spoke Russian and he trailed along behind them across the tarmac to the main building, where they formed a line. The line moved slowly
