Complete Short Fiction, page 105
“If you like stuff like that, Mark could have set you up better than anyone,” Mria says. “I think he has connections with the guys who run this stuff. You could have your own, I don’t know, ecosystem, whatever.”
“It’s a messy hobby,” Paolo says. “Not like you, Berenika. I didn’t even think Mark should have gotten those blind fish in your basement. What a lot of work! Is that what got you interested?”
“I didn’t want Mark to set me up with anything.”
Her friends can tell they’ve annoyed Berenika. That’s something they don’t want to do.
Mria shifts in her seat. “Let me get this. My turn, really.”
“Good point,” Paolo says.
The cougar slides behind the counter, being a bit perverse now, as they will be. It angles its body up and puts its forepaws up on the counter, knocking some demitasses to the floor. Its claws are a good inch and a half long. It yawns in flehmen, seeking scent information, and, incidentally, shows its canines, white against its black gumline.
Well, it gets what information it can, but cannot overcome the blockages that allow it to survive in the environment it now lives in. It has no idea it’s in a place that serves good Turkish coffee, black as night, sweet as love, hot as hell, a place that makes you wear a ridiculous jacket to serve it. It can’t smell anything human. It can’t see us or hear us. As far as it is concerned, we no longer exist.
It reaches its head forward . . . and pushes its nose against the hot side of the espresso machine.
It makes a tiny yelp, like a kitten, then jumps back, crouches down and hisses.
Everyone in the cafe laughs. Despite the fact that they are invisible to it, that there is no possible threat, they are still afraid of it, and welcome such evidence of its impotence.
Berenika, I notice, doesn’t laugh.
Encounter #2
No Faux Pho
A red-tailed hawk soars overhead in an updraft from the parking lot. It’s been up there a while without success. The deer mice in the high grass between the parking places haven’t been active.
The noodle shop is stuck to the side of the old mall like a piece of gum. The tables are on balconies hanging down, with steep stairs that make it easy to spill pho on a customer. Not that anyone worries about the comfort of the waitstaff.
Mria and Berenika have chosen the lowest table, just above where a small herd of elk browse beneath oaks and maples with leaves just touched with russet and purple by approaching fall. An elk cow lowers her head, grabs a bit of grass, looks around. She can’t see us, or the mall, or the cars that make their way over hardened paths through the lot’s ridges and swales to find spots outside the wildlife zones. She also can’t see the cougar, who sits, seemingly not paying attention to her, in some underbrush a few feet away.
That’s two completely different ways of not seeing. I’m sure there are others.
“You know,” Mria says. “I was just remembering how you and Mark got together.”
“It was fated,” Berenika says. “The stars were aligned and it all happened exactly as was ordained.”
“What?”
Berenika laughs. “Oh, come on, Mria. We met at that party. Chance. You had just left. I was helping Margaret clean up.”
“Duty pays off again.”
“He always said he was ‘putting in an appearance,’ ” Berenika says. “I thought that was pompous, then learned how much of that he actually does.”
“He put in an appearance on Easter Island,” Mria says. “Don’t tell Paolo. He’ll never get over it. Poor Paolo. He kind of got to thinking that he was the one Mark really liked. That they had some kind of relationship.”
“Mark does like Paolo. He said so.”
“Oh! Mark. Like you can believe what he says.”
“You look good,” Berenika says. “Is that a new thing with your hair?”
“Just growing it out a little.” Mria pats her blond curls with a satisfied air. “I’ve got somebody good. I’ll give you her name.”
“Sure. Maybe.”
Berenika’s black hair is thicker and shorter than it was a few months ago, and the clips in it look almost permanent. And she wears an outdoor jacket with a couple of bird shit stains on it that never quite came out.
A second hawk sits on a bough of an oak, just as unsuccessful as the one circling above the parking lot, but not working as hard.
“Really, Berenika. Are you still doing the animal thing?”
Berenika smiles. “I should have done it years ago. Even at a low level, I love it. I have to start at the bottom, of course. Physiology classes, ecology, working support in a clinic. It’s physically hard. I never expected how hard. I fall dead asleep in my bed every night.”
“That desert house of Mark’s had the best beds,” Mria says. “I never dreamed there.”
“Try cleaning up after a sick moose all day. You won’t dream then.”
“No thanks. I prefer a really expensive mattress.”
“Maybe you should have married Mark,” Berenika says.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t stay to help do the dishes. That’ll show me. But he never wanted anyone but you. Why is that?”
“I’m the wrong person to explain. I have no idea.” Berenika watches the cougar. It stalks forward, belly to the ground, astonishingly fluid for something that must have bones in it somewhere.
Mria follows Berenika’s gaze, but I can tell she doesn’t see the cougar either.
“This banh mhi is too dry,” Mria says. “Now, that’s not really a complaint, but you really like that moistness, if you know what I’m saying. . . .”
I replace her banh mhi.
“How is your food, Berenika?” Mria says.
Berenika hasn’t eaten anything. “Fine, I guess.”
“Yeah. Kind of, meh, right? I don’t like the way this one soaks the bread, kind of makes it fall apart. . . .”
She’s not watching as the cougar charges, but Berenika is.
Three or four bounds, and it is on the elk.
But something gives the cow warning: a rustle in the leaves, a finch that switches branches a few seconds before the cat makes its decision, something, but it is already moving when the cougar tries to drop it.
Claws scratch its flank, but it is bounding off across the parking lot, dodging between the cars it sees as trees, and is gone. Cougars aim, not at the weak or the sick, but at the inattentive. When they’ve judged attention wrong, they can find themselves struggling with something fully as strong as they are.
There is no way the cougar can pursue the fleeing elk. Like all cats, its speed is available only in short bursts. Its heart is small for its body mass. Just that effort alone has sucked up all its stored oxygen. It stands on the spot where the elk had been, breathing deeply, replenishing its stores. At moments like this, it is completely vulnerable.
“What happened?” Mria cranes around.
“Nothing,” Berenika says. “Nothing happened.”
“He can’t have let you go so easily,” Mria says. “That’s just not the Mark I know.”
“Maybe the Mark you know isn’t the Mark I know. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“All right.” Mria manages a smile. “So you’re liking what you’re doing?”
“More than anything I’ve ever done. I feel . . . I don’t know. It’s like I was always meant to be out there. Not away from people, exactly. But closer to the foundation of things.”
I hate it when people talk like that. We’re never more human than when we’re manipulating the natural world.
I don’t know why she’s annoying me so much all of a sudden. She’s just doing her best, studying, taking her tests like the teacher’s pet I’m sure she’s always been. I was a problem student. It’s only luck, and Mark’s help, that lets me do what I’m so good at.
Mark wants her to feel herself submerged in the totality of nature. But I’m the one creating that totality, setting up each stage on her progress.
There’s no way she’ll ever know I’m back here.
A raccoon emerges on the restaurant balcony. How it got here is my secret.
Of all the wild creatures, it is perhaps the raccoon that misses human beings most. The others didn’t even notice when humans figured out how to edit themselves out of animal perceptions and return the world to the wild.
Going back to work has been hard on the raccoons. Their mood seems permanently bad.
This one has had it, at least for today. It clambers up onto the table, scattering silverware, and, with grim determination, closes its eyes and goes to sleep. As far as it is concerned, this is a place of concealment, invisible to anyone, and, in fact, nothing out in those woods has a chance of seeing it. A buzzard sweeps close overhead, its eyes questing, but sees nothing but dead leaves and a recovered cougar, now loping off, ready for another go at an elk.
“Is it snoring?” Mria says. “Tell me raccoons don’t snore.”
Encounter #3
Greenslope
The forested slope is really the roof of an indoor gym and mall. Just above the restaurant, the hill crests, and, out of sight, descends in a succession of apartments. At the slope’s base is an open park, its snow trampled by mule deer looking for browse. A small herd of deer stands in a tight group there now, yanking a last bit of grass root out with their teeth.
The big houses on the valley’s other side, beyond the concealed highway, are ugly enough that I wish I had the suppressed perceptions of a wild animal.
I also wish I couldn’t see the Wild West duster they make me wear here. It’s embroidered with lassos and horses.
The spruces and firs overhead hold huge clumps of snow in their needles. A chickadee hangs upside down from a cone and yanks determinedly at a seed. Various other squeaky-voiced small birds jump around the branches, distinguishable as kinglets, nuthatches, and others to those who care to tell them apart. Each has a different diet, and thus different ways of perceiving the world. No one appreciates how hard it is to manage a mixed group like that. Certainly not Paolo, who hasn’t stopped talking since he and Berenika sat down.
But Berenika is looking at the birds. She always looks carefully at animals, as if she actually sees them as meaning something in themselves. She raises a hand, and crooks a finger to summon a waiter. Me.
A kinglet flutters down and perches on it. It’s unexpected, and her green-brown eyes widen. The kinglet, a tiny greenish bird with an orange crown, walks back and forth on her finger. It actually thinks her finger is a twig, and is looking for signs of hibernating insects beneath the bark. Before anything unfortunate happens, it shoots off again.
Berenika watches after it. She has a gift of meaningful stillness. Snow glitters in her dark hair. She is a nature goddess only temporarily among the worlds of men.
The sun is shining but the air is bony and cold. Most animals are in hiding, and those that appear are lean, their intentions focused down to survival. Winter rakes through with sharp teeth, giving the survivors a bigger space to grow in the summer. The pain of survival is most obvious at this season, and the restaurant does a good business when it’s cold.
Giant bluish cubes of ice, fifty feet on a side, thrust out of the trees. Snow clings to flaws in their surfaces. It always seems that you should be able to look all the way through them, but vision disappears into the deep blue interior. These grab the winter’s cold and send it back through heat exchangers in the summer to cool the buildings below, as they melt and cascade down the rocks, disappearing by the time fall brushes the leaves from the trees.
A puff of breeze, and light snow races across the tables. Berenika and Paolo wear folded clothes like elaborate tents, with velvet caps. Warm air puffs from their sleeves when they lean forward, melting the snow into droplets. Paolo has his set so high he’s sweating. He’s picked this place to please Berenika. He prefers things to be a little more comfortable.
“So, Berenika,” he says. “How have you been doing?”
Right now, Berenika is doing what she is supposed to be doing. She is looking for the cougar. Her brief hesitation before answering the question creases Paolo’s wide face. He’s laid some kind of plan, but is having trouble putting it into operation.
“Oh, Paolo! Sorry. I’m doing good. I can’t believe I waited so long to do what I wanted to. It’s hard work. But I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”
“But you haven’t heard from. . . .”
“No. Nothing from Mark. I kind of wish everyone—”
“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry. Mria was wondering, and you know how she is. She’d be all over me if I didn’t ask. I’m glad you could find the time to come out here with me. I thought maybe you would like it.”
“I do, Paolo, I do. I’ve always heard of it.”
“It seemed like your kind of place.”
Both of them are uncomfortable. Neither expected to ever be in this situation.
“I’ve been doing well too,” Paolo says.
“Really? What have you been up to?”
“You know, the usual. But well, you know.” Paolo starts again. “Do you have any, like, wider plans? For your life outside of nature?”
“Not really. I’ve been pretty focused.”
Paolo sighs. A gust at the same moment makes it seem that his inability to move her has shaken the snow from the trees.
“Does he still live in the desert?” Paolo asks.
Berenika has sensed movement in the trees along the meadow’s edge. “What?”
“Does Mark still live in that desert place? I liked those parties he had out there.”
Berenika manages to tear her attention from the signs of the cougar’s presence. She leans forward and puts her hand over Paolo’s. Both are gloved, so it’s not as intimate as it might be.
“Give him a call if you want, Paolo. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.”
“Really?”
“Really. He always said . . .” She’s moved too fast, and now has to come up with something Mark always said. “He said you were good company. And he liked it when you mixed the drinks.”
“Yeah, well. I always liked him too. I mean, I understand why it had to end and all, but . . .”
Unlike the elk, the mule deer don’t get a reprieve. One is momentarily distracted, trying to yank a particularly sweet grass tuft. There’s a puff of snow as the cougar leaps, and then the lead buck is down. It kicks its legs once, but the cougar’s teeth sink in and crush its windpipe. That may be unnecessary. It looks like its head’s impact with the frozen ground has been enough to take it out.
The cougar breathes hard for a few moments, then lowers its head and starts to feed.
It looks easy. Without a knowledge of what is going on, it all looks easy. The deer weighs as much as the cougar, and carries a multipointed rack that can stab a lung or a gut. Even a small injury can be fatal, if it impairs the ability to hunt. The cougar has to average over a dozen pounds of meat a day to survive a winter. Any interruption in the flow of calories and protein is death. The cougar has been watching for the past two hours, patiently waiting for the exact moment that carried the highest odds.
A waiter just has to stand attentively, but gets relatively less for the effort. And he has to wear a stupid outfit.
The cougar raises its head. Something about the open space of the meadow is bothering it. The mule deer think they have moved off to another high valley, as they do when a predator appears, but there is actually no room for that here. They will circle the dining area and reemerge exactly where they were before. Pika move in their long runs under the snow-covered grass, and, a hundred yards away, a porcupine grunts along a freshly fallen log, tearing bark away to get at the still-fresh living layer beneath. Everything else is silent.
What else does the cougar sense?
It sinks teeth into the carcass, and, with a couple of powerful bounds, hauls it straight up the cliff.
It drops it near the table, right next to Berenika, then resumes its meal. Steam rises from the entrails of the dead elk.
Unlike the others, Berenika does not watch it. Instead, she scans everyone else in the restaurant, a gaze she usually devotes only to the animals. No one is feeding with quite the gusto of the cougar. Berenika has snow in her eyelashes. Sometimes the cougar has that same look. It is a solitary, as private as possible, used to sliding past perception without affecting it. Knowing it is in full view all the time would leave it with the feline equivalent of despair. It could not live that way.
“Is he here?” Paolo hunches forward miserably.
“Who?” Berenika says.
“Mark! He’s got to be here. Somewhere.”
She looks almost frightened. “Why do you say that?”
“Because he can’t just let you go. I can’t stand it that he let you go.”
The cougar curves around a couple of times, then lies down on the mule deer carcass and goes to sleep. There’s plenty of meat left on it, and its own body heat is the only way it’s going to keep it from freezing solid overnight. The deer’s head gazes blankly at us, its bloody tongue hanging out of its mouth.
Encounter #4
Plaza Econtoro
The plaza outside the Cafe Kulfi is a piece of marsh most of the way to becoming a meadow, with a thick patch of oaks at the edge. The squirrels and birds in the branches sense deeper forest behind them, not a brick wall. There’s still some open water, so there are muskrats, never the most popular animal to watch, but an important part of the system. They serve as food for the mink pair that nest under the cheese shop.
It’s a nice spring day, and quite a few people are out.
My hot dog cart’s umbrella conceals a rainforest canopy microenvironment. Bromeliads and orchids dangle from its ribs. Mist drifts down over the relish tray.
Berenika walks slowly through the plaza. She’s graceful, every part of her long body involved, and her feet seem to barely touch the ground. She’s cut her thick hair even shorter and now wears it unclipped. Her jacket ends at her waist. Her trousers are made of some flowy material.
She’s hunting for something. She doesn’t peer around, but it’s clear from the way she looks off into some invisible distance that she’s letting all of her senses open all the way, so that even the slightest hint will make itself known. I thought she was waiting for Paolo or Mria before going up into the Cafe Kulfi, where I worked on her world for the first time, but neither have shown and it’s starting to look like she’s on her own today.
