Fault Lines (v1.0), page 2
“Don’t tell anyone where I’ve gone, okay? I don’t want company at all.”
“Not even Mr. Kodel?”
I shook my head. Maybe that was the reason I kept putting him off, I thought Dorrie called him Mr. Kodel and he called her Miss Holstead. None of my other friends considered her a maid, or paid companion, or servant, and in fact she was not—she is a partner—but Tony calls her Miss Holstead and is too polite to her, too distant, and she is stiff and formal with him.
“And if era—if Louis comes or sends flowers, don’t accept them. Tell him I’ve developed a terrible allergy or something, that they might kill me. And don’t tell him anything else at all.” He might decide to come looking for me, and I couldn’t bear another scene with him.
And so, instead of facing them, explaining to them my situation, and consequently their situation also, I had ducked out You’re too stubborn, Emily, I told myself sternly; you’re too proud to ask for help and advice, you’ve got to go it alone. Well, you’re alone, I said, as tight in here as the last pickle packed in the jar, and God knows how long it will be before someone comes to rescue you since you purposely didn’t tell anyone you were coming out here except Dorrie, and she is sound asleep. Even then I didn’t believe the earthquake had been a major one. It was in the wrong place, too far from the San Andreas Fault. I tried to draw comfort from visualizing Dorrie sleeping peacefully, my great-nieces, my great-nephew,
Kenneth, Homer, the others who shared my house, all sleeping quietly, freed for the night from whatever problems pursued them by day.
"Leave her be. She's dancing to celebrate life."
Like a shock of ice water, I suddenly hear my father’s voice, which I didn’t hear at the time, saying words that I have never remembered in all these years until now.
My father was a slender tough man. He was only five feet six and looked frail, but he never tired, never complained, never became ill from anything until he died of a sudden massive coronary. I wonder if he had had minor heart ailments for years, and simply paid no attention, or denied them, or pretended that by an act of will he could overcome even a faulty heart action. He was a geologist/teacher. By train, by automobile, by foot we had gone to Oregon, to the volcanic regions west of Bend.
"The wind and rain and snow loosen the rocks," he told me, "and eventually they come tumbling down the mountains and gather in the lowlands, where they keep getting added to year after year. Finally the weight and the friction on the material below.... You know what friction is?" He rubbed my hands together until they became warm. "That’s friction. Same thing happens to the rocks. They keep on getting rubbed together until they get hotter and hotter and all the time more's being added and the load gets heavier, and the pressure adds more heat Finally the basalts start to melt and this molten material is lighter than all the stuff pressing down on it and it tries to rise. When it finds a weak place, it gushes out and we have a volcano."
Words, facts. Many of the facts long since invalidated.
The truth was the semiarid country around Bend, done in grays and browns as far as I could see eastward, the empty sky, and a steady hot wind that burned my face and brought tears to my eyes. We ascended the mountains once more, traveling on a gravel road that permitted two automobiles to pass only if the inside one stopped to hug the mountain long enough for the outside one to edge around it It became cooler after a few minutes of climbing. The mountains smelled of earth and leaf mold, of recently melted snow, of spruce and pine trees and rock dust from the white stream gravel that had been crushed and spread on the roadbed. Father drove and Sandy, one of his students who was always about in those years, sat beside him in front, chewing bis nails and staring out the side window. He wanted to drive and made an uneasy passenger. His name was Sanderling, he had been in France and had been wounded and walked with a limp that later became unnoticeable, but that year, 1915, he limped badly and was very nervous. He set up camp later that afternoon and early the next morning we hiked the rest of the way. I walked behind Sandy and tried to imitate his limp until my father swatted me sharply on the bottom. I wasn't being maliciously cruel. I really wanted to find out what it would be like to walk that way. Adults always assume the worst motives for the actions of children.
There was no demarcation zone. We were in dense woods one moment, then left the trees, and stopped. Spread out before us was a sea of lava. I felt as though the air had been squeezed from my chest and I couldn't draw in another breath. We were on a steep mountainside and lava filled the entire valley, three thousand feet deep, mile after mile, like a gigantic river of black sharp rocks that wound among island hills.
"There's one of the cones," Father said, taking my arm, turning me to face the right direction.
I saw a mountaintop spinning off into the sky, a red plume of fire shooting hundreds of feet into the air, a fountain of glowing red rocks bursting out from it in all directions, filling the air with brilliance, kindling trees, flaring them like torches, then swallowing them in the rush of a red-gold river that raced through the valleys. I caught my breath and there came a release; I spun around and pivoted and threw my arms up and spun again and again.
"Leave her be. She’s dancing to celebrate life.”
I can see her now, a wild little girl, her hair in long pale braids that hadn't been undone and brushed for days, that were straggly and dirty with bits of leaves and twigs here and there; dirt on her face, which was red from sun- and wind-bum; dressed in her brother’s trousers, which were too long and too snug, but better than her own skirts would have been, whirling about in a spontaneous dance that had to be danced.
Sandy watched her warily for a long time after that, certain that she had been temporarily crazed. She might have been, I think, that little girl who knew no other way to express the vastness of the emotions that gripped her that day. Strange, I think now, my father understood even if I never did until this moment. I feel almost as if I can reach out through, or around, time and touch that child, reassure her/me somehow that it is all right to dance, to feel overwhelmed by something that cannot be named or seen or described, but that is experienced as real and enduring forever.
We stayed in the lava fields for several days and then drove south once more and again left the automobile to hike through woods, this time to Crater Lake, where all the mountain except the southern exposure was still covered by icy snow. And that night my father told me a story.
“Thousands of years ago, long before the white men came to this country, the Klamath Indians lived here. They hunted and fished and traded with other Indians and were happy. They had many chiefs they paid homage to. One of them was Liao, chief of the world below. Liao lived under this mountain, Mount Mazama, but in those days there wasn't a lake on the top as there is today. There was just snow, like on all the other peaks. When the weather was clear the Indians could sometimes see Liao come up from his home and stand on Mount Mazama to look around. He was mighty, and black, and looked like a giant shadow against the snow.”
My father paused for me to firm up the picture in my mind, but there was little need. I could see that great black shadow dancing on the snow. He went on.
“Now, farther south, about a hundred miles away on top of Mount Shasta lived another one of the Klamath chiefs. This one was Skell, chief of the world above. It made Skell furious that Liao came out from the world below as often as he did. One day they got into a fight that became a fierce war.”
“Like the war Sandy was in?”
“Much worse than that,” he said. “When men make wars, sometimes they make little craters; in a few years the craters get filled with earth again and you can't even tell where they were, but this lake was made ten thousand years ago, and it's as big now as it was then.”
I nodded and he continued.
“Skell and Liao threw burning rocks at each other, and caused burning rivers to run out of the earth. They burned up the forests, and the earth shook for seven days and nights. There was so much dust and smoke in the air that in the daytime no light showed except the light of the burning forests and rocks and molten rivers. Whole hills were shaken down into plains, whole forests were consumed and the noise was so terrible that many of the Indians were made deaf by it. They tried to run away, but there seemed nowhere to go where the earth was not shaking and the air was not filled with smoke. Then finally Skell threw one last boulder so large and so hot that it burned the top off Mount Mazama and caused it to explode in one final eruption. This eruption was greater than everything that had gone before, and when it was over Liao was defeated. After Liao was banished back to the world below, Skell caused the rains to come to fill in the hole, and this lake is what remains today. There is no bottom that man has ever found.” He paused while Sandy added sticks to the fire. Flares cracked like shots. 'To this day you won't find any Klamath Indians who are willing to come up here,” my father said. “This is sacred ground where Liao's ghost lives, cursed for all time by Skell.”
It had grown very dark while he told his story; the small circle of light seemed to have drawn inward, the blackness beyond to have solidified, to have formed a wall that enclosed us and reflected back our feeble firelight, which didn't penetrate the darkness beyond at all.
“Lies," Sandy muttered. “Lies told by savages.”
“Not lies," my father protested. “Superstitions aren't lies in any sense of the word. They simply didn't know any better and tried to account for the world and this strange happening in the best way they could."
My father went on to lecture about the importance of preserving local myths and legends without at the same time succumbing to the temptation to add any trace of them to the fund of real knowledge men of science were constantly building. I listened, no longer understanding, and stared at the solid wall that separated the blackness from us where we sat close together, sheltered by the circle of flickering light And I thought the Klamath Indians were right: beyond that wall the ghost of chief Liao walked without a sound, leaving no trace that we would ever see.
That was the happiest summer of my life. We roamed in the hills and mountains for weeks, my father working,
Sandy helping, both of them pointing out the world to me, explaining it in terms of pressures, of subterranean forces, sometimes forgetting me for hours at a time, when I was free to wade wild streams, pick up thunder eggs and bits of jade and pyrite, blood-red jasper and agates. I have a piece of water agate on my desk today, saved all these years, handled until it has been worn as smooth as a worked artifact My desk will be cleaned off finally. Dome will have her way and the top will gleam and show all the wood grain. The last time the desk was cleaned off was when we moved back into the house, twenty-nine years ago. I don’t want to think about the house and what I'll have to do about it now.
“Write your memoirs,” Jackie Wonder said to me last week. That isn’t his name, but it fits in a way that his own probably does not I can’t remember his name. Perhaps he doesn’t have a name, just a number, or not even that, just a designation: Mr. Owens’s assistant. “Write your memoirs. I can guarantee that we’ll publish them, in serial form if they’re long enough.”
I tried not to laugh. He couldn’t guarantee his presence at the next coffee break.
Never trust a man who doesn’t shave, who polishes his cheeks to a glossy pink and wears clothes out of the most recent issue of Playboy. Jackie Wonder is possibly twenty-five, fresh out of Harvard Business School with grades that put him in the top third of his class, with ties by marriage, or blood oath, or fraternity rites, to executives of one or two of the largest corporations. This year he is nameless— someone’s assistant—but in ten years he will have his own office and assistant and no one will forget his name. He didn’t choose to tell me; it was a committee decision to be carried out by one of the nameless ones.
“Is Stu Mitchell still here?” I asked.
“Yes, but...”
He didn’t actually touch me in order to stop me, but he wanted to and at the last instant fear withdrew his hand and he followed me through the corridors to Stu’s office. I had worked through Stu since the parent corporation bad bought out the magazine. He was the only one I knew.
Stu Mitchell is in his early thirties and he won’t go much further than he has already. He doesn’t have the drive, or the ready answer, and he was probably ruined by working for a small independent electronics company that was absorbed by the corporation seven years ago. The corporation took him, also, but the ladder has ended here for him. His office doesn’t even have a window, not a good sign.
“Emily, how great you look! Sit down. How are you?” “What’s this about creating a new image?”
“Oh. He's already told you?”
“Why didn’t you tell me I was being fired?”
“Emily, you're not being fired! That’s ridiculous! You've been with the magazine for twenty-nine years, and you're almost seventy years old. It's policy to retire at sixty-five or after twenty-five years of service. Even the highest executives retire. No one has singled you out for any extraordinary treatment. Mr. Owens is planning to have a dinner in your honor, a special issue devoted to you, the works. The company is very proud—”
“Shit! The colonel promised me when he sold the magazine I could retain my position as long as I want it I don’t want to retire 1”
“But policy—”
“I'll see the colonel about policy!” We both knew that was meaningless. The colonel was too preoccupied with dying to care, even if he had retained any control, and he had not.
“Look, Emily, it won’t do any good. The magazine’s been losing money. We had Byerly Research do a demographic survey for us, and the consensus is that we need to revamp the magazine. Fewer sherry drinkers, more Harvey Wallbanger people. Younger people who are spending money for things our advertisers have to offer. You know how that goes. The magazine has always been too specialized, it needs a broader base to appeal to a wider market, a general market If it can't show a profit, there's just no point in continuing it”
“Don’t tell me about that survey. I saw it, remember. Byerly's methods are unreliable, they load their samples to prove whatever they have decided they need to prove. They can’t even defend their own methods! They don’t try!”
“Emily, advertisers have no problems with Byerly. They accept the findings. They need documentation to present to their own people—the officers of the companies, the boards of directors, stockholders ...”
“But the numbers don’t mean anything!”
"I'm afraid you simply don’t understand modern statistical science.”
"I understand that our magazine isn’t losing money. We cut down on the year-end bonuses last year and didn't lose a cent of anyone’s money. We're one of the few publications that haven't. And to hold our own in the middle of a depression is an accomplishment Don’t tell me what I don’t understand.”
“You don't understand the make-up of a corporation, Emily. The decision has been made. The magazine is going to be restyled completely, maybe even be renamed. It needs a new, modern image. And there's no appeal about the decision to retire employees after twenty-five years with the firm if they are over sixty-five.”
I got up and went to the door. Jackie Wonder was still there. I had forgotten about him. "Is he going to be on the staff now?” Stu nodded. “You are right, Stu. I don't understand about corporate actions. I also don't understand all the chemical processes that take place in the decomposition of garbage. But I by God know it when I smell it!”
I didn't wait for an appointment with Mr. Owens. I checked out of my hotel, caught the next plane home, dismissed the taxi at the foot of the hill, and walked the rest of the way in a thin fog that was like sheer moist curtains, screening and softening harsh lines of walls and concrete buildings, diluting the effects of the streetlights, somehow muting the world to a more humane level.
I walked slowly, trying to think how I would tell those people whom I loved, who loved me, who shared my house, my life, shared everything with me. My mind kept veering away from them. There was no way I could tell them. Then I thought about my house.
2
In 1849 Hilliard Krump’s mother and father and two sisters were killed by marauding Indians near Topeka, Kansas. Hilliard, the sole beneficiary of the estate of four hundred acres, sold his holdings to Samuel Larssen, married the youngest Larssen daughter, Geneva, and bought a rig to travel to the gold fields of California. Hilliard was twenty, Geneva sixteen. I have only my father’s stories to guide me now; he had no pictures, nothing but his memory to call on. Hilliard was about his size, five six or so, slightly built, fair complexioned, as was Geneva, who was several inches taller and twenty pounds heavier than her husband.
They lived comfortably enough and he actually found gold within five years, and also in that time they had four children and went broke. Hilliard moved on to Montana, leaving his young family behind, and this time when he returned he had found copper. My father said Hilliard had a nose for minerals, he could smell gold, silver, copper, whatever he was looking for, and there could be something to this. Now Hilliard was wealthy; his copper claim was more extensive than the gold he had come upon earlier. He bought land in and around San Francisco invested in a general store, bought his wife the finest linens, silver, china. But he couldn't make her happy. Geneva was unbearably homesick for the plains of Kansas.
It wasn't that she was a coward. She had proved her bravery several times over: during the trip to the coast through Indian country; when she stayed alone with the children and another on the way; in fact, by leaving her family in the first place when she was only sixteen. I imagine her and Hilliard loving their way West, laughing, playing, at times cowering in fear, clinging to each other while the nights made menacing sounds. If the journey could have continued forever, would she then have been happy? Only to travel toward, never to arrive, never to be disappointed by the destination, would that have satisfied her? My father has talked of their trip with respect and admiration. They were not part of a wagon train. Hilliard was too impatient for that He was familiar with Kansas, from the plains to the foothills of the mountains, and needed no guide, and wanted none.
