'It will pass in a moment.'
'Tell me your poem now.'
An idea hit me.
'Wait a minute,' I said; 'I may have something better.'
I got up and rummaged through my notebooks, then I returned and sat beside her.
'These are the first three chapters of the Book of Ecclesiastes,' I explained. 'It is very similar to your own sacred books.'
I started reading.
I got through eleven verses before she cried out, 'Please don't read that! Tell me one of yours!'
I stopped and tossed the notebook onto a nearby table. She was shaking, not as she had quivered that day she danced as the wind, but with the jitter of unshed tears.
She held her cigarette awkwardly, like a pencil. Clumsily, I put my arm about her shoulders.
'He is so sad,' she said, 'like all the others.'
So I twisted my mind like a bright ribbon, folded it, and tied the crazy Christinas knots I love so well. From German to Martian, with love, I did an impromptu paraphrasal of a poem about a Spanish dancer. I thought it would please her. I was right.
'Ooh,' she said again. 'Did you write that?'
'No, it's by a better man than I.'
'I don't believe you. You wrote it.'
'No, a man named Rilke did.'
'But you brought it across to my language. Light another match, so I can see how she danced.
I did.
'The fires of forever,' she mused, 'and she stamped them out, 'with small, firm feet.' I wish I could dance like that.'
'You're better than any Gypsy,' I laughed, blowing it out.
'No, I'm not. I couldn't do that.'
Her cigarette was burning down, so I removed it from her fingers and put it out, along with my own.
'Do you want me to dance for you?'
'No,' I said. 'Go to bed.'
She smiled, and before I realized it, had unclasped the fold of red at her shoulder.
And everything fell away.
And I swallowed, with some difficulty.
'All right,' she said.
So I kissed her, as the breath of fallen cloth extinguished the lamp.
III
The days were like Shelley's leaves: yellow, red, brown, whipped in bright gusts by the west wind. They swirled past me with the rattle of microfilm. Almost all the books were recorded now. It would take scholars years to get through them, to properly assess their value. Mars was locked in my desk.
Ecclesiastes, abandoned and returned to a dozen times, was almost ready to speak in the High Tongue.
I whistled when I wasn't in the Temple. I wrote reams of poetry I would have been ashamed of before. Evenings I would walk with Braxa, across the dunes or up into the mountains. Sometimes she would dance for me; and I would read something long, and in dactylic hexameter. She still thought I was Rilke, and I almost kidded myself into believing it. Here I was, staying at the Castle Duino, writing his Elegies.
... It is strange to inhabit the Earth no more, to use no longer customs scarce acquired, nor interpret roses...
No! Never interpret roses! Don't. Smell them (sniff, Kane!), pick them, enjoy them. Live in the moment. Hold to it tightly. But charge not the gods to explain. So fast the leaves go by, are blown...
And no one ever noticed us. Or cared.
Laura. Laura and Braxa. They rhyme, you know, with a bit of a clash. Tall, cool, and blonde was she (I hate blondes!), and Daddy had turned me inside out, like a pocket, and I thought she could fill me again. But the big, beat word-slinger, with Judas-beard and dog-trust in his eyes, oh, he had been a fine decoration at her parties.
And that was all.
How the machine cursed me in the Temple! It blasphemed Malann and Gallinger.
And the wild west wind went by and something was not far behind.
The last days were upon us.
A day went by and I did not see Braxa, and a night.
And a second. A third.
I was half-mad. I hadn't realized how close we had become, how important she had been. With the dumb assurance of presence, I had fought against questioning roses.
I had to ask. I didn't want to, but I had no choice.
'Where is she, M'Cwyie? Where is Braxa?'
'She is gone,' she said.
'Where?'
'I do not know.'
I looked at those devil-bird eyes. Anathema maranatha rose to my lips.
'I must know.'
She looked through me.
'She has left us. She is gone. Up into the hills, I suppose. Or the desert. It does not matter. What does anything matter? The dance draws to a close. The Temple will soon be empty.'
'Why? Why did she leave?'
'I do not know.'
'I must see her again. We lift off in a matter of days.'
'I am sorry, Gallinger.'
'So am I,' I said, and slammed shut a book without saying 'm'narra.'
I stood up.
'I will find her.'
I left the Temple. M'Cwyie was a seated statue. My boots were still where I had left them.
All day I roared up and down the dunes, going nowhere. To the crew of the Aspic I must have looked like a sandstorm, all by myself. Finally, I had to return for more fuel.
Emory came stalking out.
'Okay, make it good. You look like the abominable dust man. Why the rodeo?'
'Why, I, uh, lost something.'
'In the middle of the desert? Was it one of your sonnets? They're the only thing I can think of that you'd make such a fuss over.'
'No, dammit! It was something personal.'
George had finished filling the tank. I started to mount the jeepster again.
'Hold on there!' he grabbed my arm.
'You're not going back until you tell me what this is all about.'
I could have broken his grip, but then he could order me dragged back by the heels, and quite a few people would enjoy doing the dragging. So I forced myself to speak slowly, softly:
'It's simply that I lost my watch. My modier gave it to me and it's a family heirloom. I want to find it before we leave.'
'You sure it's not in your cabin, or down in Tirellian?'
'I've already checked.'
'Maybe somebody hid it to irritate you. You know you're not the most popular guy around.'
I shook my head.
'I thought of that. But I always carry it in my right pocket. I think it might have bounced out going over the dunes.'
