Desert of the Heart: A Novel Page 18

  “Shall we go to the same place?” Evelyn asked.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Does anyone else go there?”

  “I’ve never seen anyone else, and it’s a weekday anyway. There won’t be anyone else on the lake at all until suppertime.”

  “Good,” Evelyn said. “We can swim without suits.”

  “You are getting reckless.”

  “I feel reckless all the time. This afternoon I want to be reckless.”

  Evelyn drove toward each rise of ground, expecting the water; but, when they came upon it, it was as if she had never seen it before, a great reach of sky that had fallen suddenly and quietly upon the land. She did not pull over to the side of the road; she let the car drop over the crest and down to the lake shore.

  “I like the way you drive,” Ann said.

  “Do you? How do I drive?”

  “I’d have to show you. It’s the next turn off.”

  The sun was hot, the sand fiery under foot, but a cool, dry wind came off the lake that gave a freshness to the air. Evelyn stopped for a moment before she walked dawn to the beach. The long, clean line of the horizon was broken only occasionally by an outcropping of rock, clearly defined against the heat-washed sky, and the massive shadow reflections of the land trembled on the wind surface of the water.

  “See the islands out there? They gave the lake its name,” Ann said. “I’ve never been out to them, but the story is that they’re a treasure hoard of Indian arrowheads … also alive with rattlesnakes. I wonder if it’s true.”

  The mention of rattlesnakes made Evelyn look around her quickly. She had before been so absorbed in the psychic dangers of the desert that it had not occurred to her to consider its simple, natural dangers.

  “Don’t worry,” Ann said. “You don’t often see them this close to the water.”

  “But, if they’re on islands. …” Evelyn said and then hesitated. “I don’t really care. I’m not afraid of them.”

  She walked down to the water, to the waves of white shells along the shore. She stooped down for a handful of them, curious to discover them again. Their tiny perfection, infinitely repeated, seemed the more miraculous because of the huge, simple size of the landscape. It was no wonder that a Christian God had not been at home here. It would take the many animistic gods of men less confident of their own dominant spirit to describe the powers of this world. Evelyn thought of the Catholic Church in Virginia City. Faiths transplanted changed their nature or died in climates alien to them. Like the redwoods of California. She had heard that in Australia they had grown with dangerous speed for sixty years and then had died. She felt no terror in the idea, only a shifting of focus. Perhaps people also changed. Evelyn looked up into Ann’s watching eyes.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I was wondering if people changed when they moved from place to place.”

  “The word is ‘adjust,’ I think. People change, standing in one place.”

  “Or don’t adjust and don’t change.”

  “Why do you still wear your wedding ring?”

  “I can’t take it off,” Evelyn said. “I’ve tried.”

  Ann knelt down beside her and took her left hand. Slowly, but without hesitation, she eased it off Evelyn’s finger, held the empty gold ring in her hand for a moment, and then gave it to Evelyn.

  “How did you do it?” Evelyn asked, bewildered.

  “I worked one summer at a jeweler’s.”

  Evelyn looked down at the ring and at the white band of skin that remained around her ring finger. “I wonder what I’ll do with it.”

  “It’s a tradition in Reno for people to throw them into the Truckee. Then old men fish for them and sell them cheap to the kids who come from California to get married.”

  “So that’s why they were shouting at me.”

  “Who?”

  “The old men below the bridge. They were panning for gold.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t think I want to do that,” Evelyn said. “I wonder if there’s anything you can do with a wedding ring that isn’t embarrassingly symbolic.”

  Ann made no suggestion.

  “Well,” Evelyn said, “thanks,” and she dropped the ring into her jacket pocket, its weight immediately reminding her that this was only a temporary and not at all satisfactory solution.

  “I’m good at buttons, too,” Ann said, a gentleness in her teasing. “And zippers … and hooks.”

  “Ever work in a corset shop for the summer?”

  “No,” Ann said. “I’m an honest amateur.”

  “Are we really safe?”

  “I don’t know about me,” Ann said. “You’re certainly not.”

  “Oh, neither are you, my love.”

  She reached for Ann, but Ann turned out of her arms quickly and waded into the water. A dozen yards away, but still in the shallows, she turned back to Evelyn. For a moment Evelyn did not move. The candor of Ann’s absolute nakedness, not caught in unselfconsciousness like a young nude in a romantic painting, but fully aware of her erotic power, roused in Evelyn an arrogance of body, a lust that burned through her nerves like the fire of the sun they both stood in. This was the freedom she wanted, an animal freedom exposed to the emptiness of sky and land and water. As she stepped forward, Ann flipped into the water and was gone. “I know why you’re called Little Fish,” she said softly, and the power of her body, as she swam, was an aggressive power. She was a stronger swimmer than Ann, confident in the chase. Not thirty yards from shore, Evelyn reached out with her left arm and caught Ann’s thigh. Ann rolled over on her back, and they came together, turning, weightless in the water.

  “In the sun, too,” Ann said. “On land.”

  And it was Ann, then, who dominated and controlled their bodies. Her free, inventive wildness, the physical intimacies she demanded, aroused every vague, animal desire in Evelyn that had been left unnamed, her body growing as demanding as Ann’s until Ann’s ecstatic cry broke the world silence like the cry of some mythical water bird. They lay still then, exhausted and peaceful.

  “Is that what it’s like with Silver?” Evelyn asked.

  “No,” Ann said. “Not like that.”

  “With anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “My God, I feel possessive of you. It frightens me a little. If I think of anyone else making love with you, I want to go at them with a meat ax.”

  “That is a little excessive,” Ann said. She was idly tracing Evelyn’s backbone with her lips. “I hate to cover you, but I’m afraid you’ll get burned.”

  She got up and walked over to where they had left their clothes. Evelyn watched her, still unaccustomed to her independent nakedness.

  “You’d better put these on,” Ann said. “Do you want to wash off first? I’m going to. We’re just a bit sandy.”

  “I haven’t the energy,” Evelyn said, grinning. “I’ll just brush off and take a swim later.”

  She sat up and dusted her shoulders and breasts with her shirt before she put it on. Then she stood up reluctantly to pull on her underwear and trousers, watching Ann, who had swum out about a hundred yards from shore. Just as she was about to sit down again, Evelyn became aware of the sound of a distant motor. She listened. It was not a car. It must be a speed boat. She looked down the lake, but the curve of cliff blocked her view.

  “Ann?”

  Ann waved.

  “Can you see a boat?” Evelyn shouted, but the sound of the motor was now so loud that she knew Ann could not have heard her.

  She squinted at the stretch of water where she expected the boat to appear. There must be at least two of them. She wished Ann were out of the water and dressed. Damn the boats! Then suddenly, not around the cliff but over it, came a helicopter, no more than a hundred feet off the ground. Evelyn could see the two men in it quite clearly. They were in uniform. It was an army plane. The men saw her, grinned and waved. She did not wave back. The plane dropped fifty feet
and hovered right over her head. Then it shied off, leaving her in a storm of sand, and went out over the water. They had seen Ann. Through an open window, they were shouting and waving, the plane not twenty-five feet above the water, hanging there like an obscene, giant insect.

  “Get away!” Evelyn shouted. “Get away from her!”

  Her ridiculous, ineffectual fury was lost in the racket of the motor. What were they doing here? What right had they here? The plane dipped away from Ann and came back over the beach. The settling sand rose up again.

  “Damn you!” Evelyn shouted. “Get out of here!”

  She saw their good-natured faces again as they waved. The plane rose up and moved off along the eastern shore.

  “How did you like that?” Ann called as she came in to the beach, staying under water until she could reach the towel Evelyn waded out to give her.

  “I didn’t. What on earth are they doing here?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose every now and then they do a routine inspection. Lucky, weren’t we?”

  “You don’t really mind, do you?” Evelyn asked.

  “No. I thought it was funny, didn’t you?”

  “I should have,” Evelyn said, “but I didn’t. I was furious.”

  “Why?”

  “I want you to myself, I suppose.”

  “Ah, darling,” Ann said, laughing. “I’m not a fish. They’d have to get closer than that to do any real damage.”

  “I’m sure they were flying lower than they’re supposed to.”

  “No doubt about that. Evelyn?”

  Evelyn grinned reluctantly. “There’s sand all over the picnic basket.”

  “Never mind,” Ann said. “I’ll take you into town and buy you a steak, how’s that?”

  “That’s fine.” Evelyn heard the plane engine getting louder again. “But let’s get out of here quickly.”

  Ann pulled on a shirt and trousers, and they grabbed their belongings and started up the cliff. They needn’t have hurried so, however. The helicopter stayed a sedate distance up and out from shore, the men nodding and saluting with exaggerated politeness. It was not until they had driven some way that Evelyn thought of her ring. She reached into her jacket pocket, knowing that it was gone. She said nothing about it to Ann. Losing it was probably the best thing she could do with it. She looked down at her hand. It would take longer to lose the mark it had left.

  Though Ann did not actually refuse to take Evelyn to the Club, she was vague about setting a time; and, since Evelyn had asked to go, Ann was monosyllabic about her evenings at the Club. Perhaps the stories she had told and the explanations she had given created a Frank’s Club that existed only in her own mind, an image which she did not want destroyed by Evelyn’s independent view; but the Club was too important to Ann for Evelyn to be able to ignore it. When a specific invitation was not forthcoming, Evelyn decided on a time of her own. Silver had said that Saturday night was the night to see the Club, but Ann had protested. A Friday night seemed to Evelyn the right compromise. She wondered when, during the evening, she should go. Her own nervousness about the town made her consider going before dark; but, because she was determined to explore all of Ann’s world without fear, she chose instead the early hours of the morning. After all, Ann moved about the public streets unescorted at three and four o’clock every morning. There was no reason to be afraid.

  There was a problem about getting down to the Club. Evelyn could not ask for Ann’s car, and she did not want to ask for Walter’s. He would offer to go with her, and, because his company would be a great comfort to her, she did not want it. A cab at that hour of the night, ordered for Frank’s Club, was an impropriety Evelyn was reluctant to commit. She smiled at herself. She could come to Reno for a divorce. She could lie naked in the public day making love to another woman, but she could not call a cab at midnight to go to a gambling casino. She chose, instead, to walk.

  The quiet, residential streets, dark with carefully planted trees opening occasionally to the clarity of desert sky, were not at all unpleasant, and Evelyn felt an exhilaration to be on her way at a time when the hours usually dragged with her waiting for Ann. She met no one until she turned north on University Avenue, walking past the darkened Public Library and the Post Office to the bridge that crossed the Truckee. There were not many people, but there was no furtiveness even in the single loiterers who stood along the bridge, quite unselfconsciously enjoying the coolness of the night. Evelyn had only one moment of uncertainty as she passed the courthouse on the north shore. There were half a dozen old men sitting on its shadowed steps, perhaps the same old men who spent their days on the banks of the river, waiting for the unwanted gold people tossed to them like stale bread to the ducks. Evelyn was glad she wore no ring and glad in the dark that no one could see how recently she had taken it off. When she turned to walk toward Virginia Street, she saw ahead of her a bright neon day and crowds of people. It was exactly the same scene she had encountered at nine o’clock that first morning, but at this time of night it seemed more natural, like a carnival or country fair. The crowds were friendly. People shouted to each other from across the street, sang, shook hands with exasperated motorists stalled in the pedestrian traffic, joined together, handed each other money, set out for another casino sure of winning again or winning back what they had just lost. There were drunks, but they were not isolated. People jollied them along, helped them when they stumbled, leaned them up against walls or offered to buy them another drink. And the rhythm of the machines gave a rhythm to the noise until it seemed to Evelyn that they were all part of a huge, exuberant jazz symphony. There were even couples dancing to it here and there along the sidewalk.

  At the open doors of Frank’s Club, Evelyn did not even hesitate. She moved in with a crowd and was not aware of the change of atmosphere until she was well into the building. Then the cold air and the suddenly magnified noise struck her into a more defensive alertness. She was enclosed in the crowd. There was still gaiety in the eddies of movement between slot machine clusters and gaming tables, but the dominant tone had shifted to a stagnant sea of people intent upon maintaining the positions they had achieved. Evelyn let herself be carried uncertainly from the edge of one group to another until she was caught in a cul-de-sac behind the escalators. To her left an exaggerated Judy Garland, dressed in clothes like Ann’s, barked the comic results of the game she dealt to a roaring, delighted crowd. Evelyn was held there by her performance, unable to understand the game or to hear most of what she said, but aware of the skill she used in her certain entertainment. She was marvelous. Then Evelyn saw a change girl to her right, who seemed raised several feet above the ground on the waving hands of the crowd. She, too, had a kind of command of the chaos she was there to serve. Evelyn looked all around over the crowd to the change stations, but she could not see Ann anywhere. She could not imagine that she would ever really find her. She worked her way toward a cashier’s cage and stood in what seemed to be a line. If she could get to a cashier, she could ask for change for the opportunity of asking where Ann might be. The line did not move. Evelyn saw people feeding in from the sides of the cage and so worked her way again to a position which would inevitably carry her past the cage.

  “Nickels please,” she shouted. The cashier did not even look up. “Excuse me. Could you tell me where I could find Ann Childs?”

  “Who?”

  “Ann Childs. She works here. A change girl.”

  “Sorry,” the cashier said, shaking her head.

  “Or Silver?”

  “Silver? What kind do you want?”

  “No, a person named Silver. I’m looking for a person named Silver.”

  “Oh. Silver Kay?”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “I think she’s up in the Corral.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Second floor. Off the escalator, turn left.”

  “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure, love.”

  It was not easy to get
on the escalator and terrifying to get off, but, having achieved both successfully, Evelyn felt a relieved confidence. If she could find Silver, Silver would know where she could find Ann. And even in this crowd, Silver might be noticeable. Evelyn turned left, as she had been directed, and found herself in a room the size of a ballroom, crowded with slot machines and people, who moved about apparently quite unconcerned about the huge stage coaches that were suspended from the ceiling.

  “Well, Our Lady of the Lake,” someone said behind her, “You’ve kept your promise after all.”

  “Silver,” Evelyn said, more pleased than she could have imagined to see Ann’s friend. “I never thought I’d find you in this crowd.”

  “Having a good time?”

  “Well, not yet. I’m still trying to find my way around. Where does Ann work?”

  “Right over there where I can keep an eye on her.”

  “There she is!” Evelyn said, in her voice an unguarded surprise and delight.

  “Doesn’t she know you’re here?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You’d better go over and let her know. I think she’s just about ready for her long break. She can show you around.”

  “May I come back and see you later?”

  “I’ll be right here, love, unless they pack me to the basement for overhauling.”

  Evelyn did not go right to Ann’s ramp; she stood a little distance away, where Ann would not be apt to see her, and watched Ann work. She was incredibly quick and graceful; and, though Evelyn could not hear what was said to her or what she answered, she could read in the swiftly changing expressions of Ann’s face the fragments of concern, amusement, doubt, and authority that her job required. On the ramp, a little above and apart from the crowd, she was perfectly at home. Evelyn saw her reach for a microphone that hung just above her head, and then she heard Ann’s voice, magnified, call off the numbers of a jackpot from across the room. If Evelyn had once thought Ann’s job somehow degrading to her, she thought it no longer. She had a quite childish desire to say to the people standing near her, “Do you see that girl? I know her,” for everyone in the insignificant crowd must be a little in awe of the people who actually worked here, who understood and controlled the multicolored magic of the machines. Evelyn found her way into the crowd and finally took a place by a nickel slot machine at the end of Ann’s ramp. She opened the roll of nickels she had brought from the cashier and put one in. She pulled the arm and watched the wheels spin. Nothing happened. She put in another, then another. On the fourth nickel, she thought she heard a bell ring, and a great number of nickels spilled into the cup.