The Martians(36)

5. Helping Him

Then many years after that, when Maya was beginning to have trouble with her extended déjà vus and other “mental events,” as Michel called them, Desmond dropped by late at night, after the timeslip when no one else would have thought to visit.

Michel was already asleep, and Maya up reading. She gave Desmond a hug and brought him into the kitchen and sat him down while she got water on the stove for tea. He had been trembling when she hugged him. “What's wrong?” she asked.

He flinched. “Oh, Maya.”

“What is it!”

He shrugged. “I visited Sax in Da Vinci, and Nirgal was there staying with him. His place up in the hills was covered by dust, did you hear?”

“Yes. Too bad.”

“Yeah. But anyway they started talking about Hiroko. As if she was still alive. Sax even claimed to have seen her once, out in a storm. And I—I got so angry, Maya! I could have killed them!”

“Why?” she said.

“Because she's dead. Because she's dead and they refuse to face it. Just because they never saw the bodies, they make up all these stories.”

“They're not the only ones.”

“No. But they believe the stories, just because they want to. As if believing makes it true.”

“And doesn't it?” she said, pouring out the water into cups.

“No. It doesn't. She's dead. The whole farm crew. All of them were killed.” And he put his head down on the kitchen table and began to weep.

Surprised, Maya moved around to his side of the table, sat beside him. She put a hand on his back. Again he was trembling, but it wasn't the same. She reached out and pulled her teacup across the table, closer to her. She sipped from it. His spasming ribs calmed down.

“It's cruel,” she said. “The, the disappearing. When you never see the bodies, you don't know what to think. You're stuck in limbo.”

He straightened up, nodded. He sipped his tea.

“You never saw Frank's body,” he said. “But you don't go around telling people you think he might still be alive.”

“No,” she said, and waved a hand. “But that flood . . .”

He nodded.

“The farm crew, though. You can see why people indulge themselves. They could have escaped, after all. Theoretically.”

He nodded. “But they were behind me in the maze. I only just got out in time. And then I hung around for days, and they didn't come out. They didn't make it.” He shuddered convulsively. A great deal of nervous energy, she thought, in that wiry little body. “No. They were caught and killed. If they had gotten out, I would have seen them. Or she would have contacted me. She was cruel, but not that cruel. She would have let me know by now.” His face was twisted: grief, anger. He was still angry at her, she saw. It reminded her of Frank. She had been angry at him for years after his death. Wondering if he had killed John. Desmond had talked to her about that, many years before. She recalled: Desmond had been trying to figure out how to comfort her, that night. He had been lying, perhaps. If he knew a different truth, if he had seen Frank put a knife in John, would he have told her, that night? No.

Now she tried to figure out what would help him to think about Hiroko. She sipped her tea in the timeslip silence, and he did too.

“She loved you,” she said.

He looked at her, surprised. Finally he nodded.

“She would have let you know if she was still around, like you say.”

“I think so.”

“So probably she is dead. But Nirgal and Sax—Michel too, for that matter—”

“Michel too?”

“Half the time, anyway. Half the time he thinks it is just compensation, a myth that helps them. The other half he's convinced they're out there. But if it helps them, you know . . .”

He sighed. “I suppose.”

She thought some more. “You love her still.”

“I do.”

“Well. That's life too. Of a sort. Movement of, you know—Hiroko structures. In your mind. Quantum jumps, as Michel says. Which is all we ever are anyway. Right?”

Desmond regarded the scarred and wrinkled back of his hand. “I don't know. I think we are maybe more than that.”

“Well. Whatever. It's life that matters, isn't that what you told me one time?”

“Did I?”

“I think so. It seems like you did. A good working principle, anyway, whoever said it.”

He nodded. They sipped tea, their reflections transparent in the black windows. A bird in the sycamore outside broke the night silence.

“I worry that another bad time may be coming,” Maya said, to change the subject. “I don't think Earth will let us get away with the immigration controls much longer. They'll break them and Free Mars will protest, and we'll be at war before you know it.”