A Hunting Trip to Daghestan and other stories, Page 4

  Part Two: closer to home...

  9. Escape From The South Fork

  Only four cans are left: green beans, Spam, sauerkraut. The last one has lost its label. Looks like Progresso chick peas or beans. We also have two 6-pack of Budweiser and three bottles of Molson Ale. These are for me. Sheila wants to eat everything at once. "No sense starving to death little by little," she insists. "Let's have a feast, then starve all at once. At least we may even feel drunk for a little while."

  The proposal is considered, seriously. It makes sense in a weird kind of way. In our weakened state, even one beer would be enough to make us tipsy. After several hours of inert discussion — what else is there to do?— we decide to postpone eating until at least tomorrow evening. We'll first attempt a scavenging foray. Perhaps by now it is not too risky to go out. Even if it is, we have nothing to loose: we won't feel sick for at least a day or two: time enough to enjoy our last meal-and-drunk if we do not find anything. And if we do, the risk is worth it.

  I have trouble falling asleep. The thought of food keeps me awake. Our decision seems quite logical, yet a part of me wishes we had followed Sheila's lead. All kinds of alternative images assail me, none making any sense. Kaleidoscopic montage, worthy of the most avant-garde products. Yet no outlet.

  Success! Trudi hastens to qualify the word: "Partial success," she says. Still, we can now keep going for a while, unless sickness strikes. We won't know for a day or two, Preston reminds us. Of course, if one of us got really a strong doses, it will show much sooner. It is unlikely, though. It has after all been over six weeks since the Day.

  Stanley disputes my figures. He says we have not been here more than three weeks, that we have lost all sense of time. A general argument erupted, Trudi siding with him as always. Preston, on the contrary, affirms we have been here several months. I still think we have been here six weeks, about.

  A good (?) result of the discussion: we resolve to keep a calendar. But this leads to another discussion: How shall we know night from day in our black hole? Finally we decide to clear a corner of the cellar window. We'll just have to stay away from it to avoid possible contamination. But who'll do the cleaning?

  I must be feeling better. Last night —should I say sleep period? Nobody has yet cleared the window— last night, well, I woke up with a mild erection and a vague memory of erotic dreams. By pre-Day standards, my erection was nothing special, and my erotic dreams ditto: vague, half formulated, tentative images of breasts, mouths, bottoms, yet with a warm relaxed feel. Perhaps there was more to it, but as I try to recreate the event, it fades, elusive. But it is enough that it happened. Must be the food. God knows there was not much, yet it was satisfying, the first time since I don't know when!

  A corner of the window is cleared. Gray daylight comes murkily through. It is almost enough to see our way in our cellar. A strange experience. All of a sudden, everything seems a lot closer than what it had by feel and sound. And smell. Everybody is quite happy about it. To thank me, they voted to allocate me a bottle of beer. It turns out to be a whole quart of Ballantine ale, my favorite!

  Yes, it is I who did the cleanup. I feel good about it, but I still can't believe I volunteered to do it. Must have been the extra food, the added energy. I sure hope all that dirt and dead leaves I moved from the casement was not contaminated, or I'll be in trouble. Of course I took all precautions. I wore layers of clothing, and several layers of cloth around my face, through which I had trouble breathing, let me tell you! I moved the top layer far away, at the end of a long plank, little by little, careful not raise any dust. Only then did I shovel out the rest of the debris and cleared part of the pane.

  Coming back in, with everybody congratulating me, I felt proud of my achievement, yet somewhat apprehensive. What if I had inhaled some contaminated dust? Time will have to tell: we have no Geiger counter, no photographic paper, no way to measure radiation or even to find out if there is any. But we are taking no chance.

  Moira asked me what I was writing. I realize that until the windowpane was cleared, no one had seen me writing. Yes, I was writing in the dark! I must go back and read those darkness-written pages — if I can. I hope they are not hopelessly jumbled.

  Moira seems to be trying to get close. She finds pretexts to talk to me, sit near me, even touch me. I must say I am somewhat flattered by these sudden attentions. Moira is a most beautiful woman, at least in my present eyes. Yet I find it not in me to respond. The half erection and erotic dreams are but a faint memory. I do hope that sort of energy will come back! For Moira to act that way, I suppose she feels better than the rest of us. Next time there is a difficult chore to do, I'll propose her: it would only be just.

  Meantime, once again, I dwell in a sort of half-awake stupor practically all the time. Even though I can now see a little, to write these few lines is all I am capable of. Is it because they are in a similar state that old and sick people do not mind dying? I feel that way too: the why of existence looms weakly unknowable. Better finish with it. Yet I would dearly like to know what tomorrow might bring.

  I have read my notes. Strangely enough, I could decipher most of what I wrote in the dark, despite lines riding over each other at crazy angles. No one else could read them, I don't believe.. I should copy them properly if I want to keep a record. Perhaps I'll do that soon. On the other hand, why bother? Only a life-long habit of writing keeps me going. I doubt anyone will see them.

  The erotic dream came back. Almost in focus, yet elusive. I try to recapture it in the hypnagogic state that precedes full awakening, but as I strive to remember, it disappears. This is for me nothing unusual: I hardly ever remember my dreams, all I remember is a sort of remembrance of having had a dream. I read somewhere that this happens because my system of mental representation is quite different when awake from the one my unconscious uses when asleep, therefore communication between the two is extremely difficult. Those whose representational system is the same or very similar when asleep or awake remember clearly their dreams

  Anyhow, buried in my cave with those gray survivors, I half woke up. Alone, feeling proud of that dream, proud that somehow the mental juices, if not the body ones, had started flowing anew, sickly, but flowing. With a warm glow cocooning me, I thanked that fancy for bringing me back to life, and drifted into a sensuous sleep where vague sexual happenings helped the blood course in my veins. "I really must be feeling better", drifted through my mind …

  Our new supplies are almost exhausted. They lasted 22 days by actual count. We can detect no change in the environment, except that, perhaps, the days are getting longer. Even that is not certain: we have no watch! Rather extraordinary, isn't it? In an age when electronic watches are practically given away, among all of us we have no time piece! If I ever get hold of one, I'll keep it precious. Perhaps, come to think of it, I should find a wind-up clock. They were already exceedingly rare before the Day. But if, as we all think, civilization as we knew it is a thing of the past, it will be impossible soon to find batteries, and all these electronic watches will be useless. Except, perhaps, the solar-powered ones. These might last a long time...

  I said nothing had changed in those 22 days. Well, it is not really true of our group. Moira now insists upon going around naked. She claims her skin became so sensitive that she cannot stand a stitch of clothing to touch her. She keeps flaunting herself in front of every single person, male or female. It becomes really annoying at times. All the rest of us have a psychological privacy curtain which she occasionally succeeds to tear apart. Perhaps she really needs the human contact that we deny each other?

  I now have mildly erotic daydreams a good part of the time. I am however very weak in my responses, psychological and mental. Is impotency like that, a pale yearning sensitized by a faint imagining?

  We are to hold a council of war tonight. Supplies are again very low. We have heard or seen no one, not even on the radio. Of course the little transistor we have cannot pull in stations from far away, but b
efore the Day it could receive probably a dozen broadcasts. Now, nothing. Silence. The batteries are still o.k., we know because we tried them on a flashlight. And the set is ok, we can hear static. By now, we have been here 30 days since we started counting, and at least 6 weeks before that. We'll have to act. No one else will act for us.

  The council of war ended in disarray. Two main opinions seem to hold sway, none of which is to my liking. One is to stay put, forage some more, since surely there is more food and supplies to be found if only we ventured outside a little further afield, and sooner or later we would be found and rescued. The other proposal is to explore a way of getting to the main land, starting with an expedition to the Montauk docks. Surely some boats would still be workable. And by now radioactivity should have abated to an innocuous level. And if not, we would be just as well of dead as living the way we do, even if we don't starve to death.

  My own opinion is different. I am all for escaping from the South Fork, but am convinced Montauk Lake and the docks have been utterly wrecked. After all, that area is that much closer to the submarine base in New London. And I am certain they also nuked the Race, Fisher Island, and Block Island Sound, just in case a sub was on its way there, as I have often seen some. No, I intend rather to check if the Napeague causeway is still open, and work my way toward East Hampton. I suspect though that the isthmus is under water.

  The Napeague causeway is no more. What critics were foreseeing years ago finally came to pass with the cataclysmic events of the past few months... Even I can remember the debates that surrounded the building of the causeway, years ago. For the causeway were, naturally, property owners, shopkeepers, hotel managers, in short all those whose living depended on keeping tourism flowing into Montauk at a pace ever quickened by population pressure, shrinking workweek, and above all the slow rise of the oceans and the shrinkage of seashore real estate. Against the causeway were all conservationists, environmentalists, many private property owners, and all those who deemed it wise to let nature take its course. "Let Montauk again become the island it once was," they argued. "Montauk is not geologically part of Long Island, and a causeway would impede the natural flow of water over the Napeague sill, interfere with the breeding grounds, and, if by chance it would be breached, then the tremendous tide differentials would sweep it away and create an even more serious situation." The commercial interests won, the causeway was built, but now Montauk is indeed an island again. If we are to leave, it sure won't be by road!

  Lisa is the one who brought the news. For some days, she had been complaining of increasingly distressing symptoms: stomach pain, diarrhea, vomiting. She alternated between bouts of manic energy, when we had to restrain her to prevent her from self-injury, and hours or days of lethargically lying around, softly moaning to herself. Until: "I have to go out, I have to go outside, I have to get out of here, I can't stand it, out, out, outside," she suddenly yelled, rushing to the door, which she tried to wrench open, throwing aside the cartons full of clothing and the bags of sand we had stacked there in a perhaps vain attempt to create a radiation barrier.

  Once again we had to subdue her, despite her struggles, we gave her our last two pills of Valium, and she slept-groggy. But this morning: "Please, please let me go outside! I'll become truly crazy if I don't! Don't you want to know what's happening there? If you let me go, I'll come back and tell you, please let me go. I'll take all precautions, but let me go! I am sick as it is, I don't think I'll ever get better, I don't want to die in this hole without seeing again the sky, the earth, the sea. Please let me go out! I don't care if I die a little earlier. What difference will it make to me, to you, to anybody? Please, oh please, I'll be careful, I'll try to come back and tell you, so you can plan ahead.”

  Poor Lisa! She was so pathetic, we were all so touched. And no doubt the selfish desire to know what was happening out there, what were our prospects, played not a little part in our final decision. I know it did for me, even though all the while I felt ashamed of it. So we let her go ...