Sentimental Journey (31 page)

He was cracking off tree branches. She finished off the candy, listening to the rustle of the leaves and the dull thud when he tossed branches on the ground. His footsteps moved away until they disappeared altogether.

She was alone. Completely alone. She locked her hands around her knees. She was cold, but extremely lucky she wasn’t colder.

As in dead cold—a thought that was pretty grounding. One mere step could change your life; one misstep could end it.

“Hey, Kincaid!” Cassidy came walking back over the rise.

She looked up.

“We’re all set.” He dropped the wood on the ground in front of her. “These branches are green, but there’s enough dry brush a few hundred yards out there. Give me a minute, and you’ll have your fire.”

“Good.” She heard a click and snap. A lighter. She could smell the butane and then the cloud of smoke from green leaves and branches. The brush crackled. “It’s really cold.”

“It won’t be for long.” His voice came from a lower angle. He was squatting on the other side of the fire.

She heard the crackle of the brush and the sharp snapping of green wood as the fire caught. The air turned warmer.

After a few minutes he came over and sat next to her. “Better?”

“Much. Thank you.”

He put his arm around her and pulled against his side. “You’ll be warmer this way.”

They sat there, alone in the quiet. It had been a long, long time since a man had put his arm around her. Her brothers did it all the time—something she had just taken for granted, until she was in a foreign country where you were crushed together like ants in the marketplaces, but no one ever touched you with affection. The fire snapped and popped and flared.

“There’s not much of a moon tonight,” he said.

“I know.”

She could feel him looking at her.

“How do you know?”

“Gee, Captain, that question just brought you up a notch in my respect.”

“Why? Because I was so low on the scale before? Nowhere to go but up?”

She laughed with him. “No. You find a different truth in human nature when you aren’t like everyone else. People don’t want to know about something that frightens them. They avoid it—and you, if you’re blind. They don’t know how to deal with you. They don’t know what to say, so they say nothing. Some refer to you in the third person. Some shout at you, as if your loss of sight means you can’t hear either.”

“Like the American in
Paris
who can’t speak French. They just yell their English louder.”

“Exactly. The worst ones are those who treat you as if you’ve lost your brain instead of the ability to see clearly.”

“You’re a smart cookie. That was what I first noticed about you back at the Kasbah. You didn’t panic. You didn’t get hysterical. You used your head.”

“Well, I suppose you have to factor in that I couldn’t see the drop below, so hanging on that rope was probably easier for me than for a woman with full vision.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, sweetheart.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“About what I can see?”

“Yeah.”

“Not just a solid wall of black like people think. Me, for instance. I have macular problems. They aren’t sure why. There are diseases that affect vision, like diabetes and Stargardt’s. But they’ve ruled those out. My father believes it has something to do with the fact that I was born prematurely, a month early, but really, no one knows what happened, only that it happened.

“I see colors, shades and shadows, a smeared landscape; it’s as if someone put Vaseline on my eyes. I can look into the sky and see the light and vague shapes. I’m lucky, really. I know what the moon looks like, because I could see until I was thirteen.”

“Thirteen? You were just a kid. That must have been tough.”

“It made me tough.”

“I suppose it would.”

She looked up at him. “Right now, when it’s dark and the only light is from the fire, I can’t see your face, only a fuzzy silhouette. I know it’s there. In the daylight, I can see more. For example, I already know a lot about your physical traits. Just from the last twenty-four hours.”

“Okay, go ahead. Spill the details.”

“You’re over six feet tall. Probably one ninety-five, give or take five pounds. Thirty-four inseam. Thirty-two waist. Size eleven shoe. Shirt size . . . sixteen and a half, thirty-four.”

She could feel his reaction. “Surprised you, didn’t I? What I can’t see with my eyes, I see with my hands, with my ears, nose, and mouth, paying attention to things in ways sighted people don’t need to.”

“You’re damned close there, sweetheart. Six-two. Thirty-three inseam and thirty-four waist. Two hundred and four, but I’ve probably lost five pounds in the last twenty-four hours.”

She was laughing. “Life is so unfair. I couldn’t lose five pounds if I stopped eating for a week.”

“You’re not supposed to. Women should be round and soft.”

“Keep it up, Cassidy. You’re moving up the scale.”

“Men like something to hang on to.”

“Oops, you dropped a half a notch.”

“I was paying you a compliment.”

“You were thinking about sex.”

“There’s nothing wrong with sex. Hell, that’s why we’re here. At least that’s why I’m here.”

She laughed. “I bet it is, and that all the women fall all over you in your dress uniform.”

“I do okay.” He shifted, drawing his legs up, then stood. She felt the cool air almost instantly, like when you first open the icebox door.

“I’ve got to put more wood on the fire. For light, so I can take a good look at those maps.” He took a few steps, then hesitated. “You okay?”

She nodded. “Sure.”

“Get some sleep. We’ll start out before sunrise tomorrow.”

She scooted closer to the fire and lay down on her side, curled into a tight ball; then she adjusted her skirt. She slid her arm under her head.

A moment later she heard him open the maps.

Right then, she wanted to go home in the worst way. Home felt so very far away. She rested her head on her bent arm and stared at the fire. The foggy light from the flames undulated across a field of night darkness.

She closed her eyes and she was thirteen again, the time when her sight had deteriorated so quickly. She was standing at the top of the staircase, staring out at a smudged world of colors with no edges or outlines to define what she was seeing. She took that first step and misjudged it, then moments later lay at the bottom of the stairs on the hardwood floor, bones ringing, stunned, then ashamed and angry. She hadn’t known her head was bleeding all over the floorboards and would need stitches.

There was no air in her lungs. She couldn’t even yell or cry. Her throat and chest were a vacuum. Her brothers stood above her, shouting at each other and her all at once, their voices panicked and louder than normal—which was somewhere in the decibel range of a train wreck.

But the worst part hadn’t been her cracked head or her sore body. It hadn’t been the humiliation or the fear in her brothers’ arguing voices. The worst part was that she couldn’t see their faces. There was nothing before her but a misty, flesh-toned blur with small spots of shadows she supposed were eyes and noses, the moving shadows mouths. Her blindness was suddenly real. It was the first time she had felt truly helpless.

“
SUNRISE
SERENADE”

Last night, if anyone had told Kitty she would be grateful for the cold, she’d have told them they were nuts. Now, however, she would have loved to be cold again. Cassidy got her up before dawn, when the air was still chilly. But they were quickly on the move, so she wasn’t uncomfortable then at all.

They’d left the shelter of the treed foothills and moved across some low, rolling hills covered in thorny bushes and scattered rocks. At least two hours into the other side, Cassidy found some ripened dates on a palm near a small well, where they rested and drank water that tasted so metallic it almost came back up on the first swallow.

She thought they should stay there, and said as much, but Cassidy told her he had other plans. She didn’t argue after she’d thought about it. A well in this lone area of the pre-Sahara didn’t necessarily ensure that someone would find them. Or if they did, that that same someone wouldn’t be big trouble for them. Yes, if they stayed at the well, they would have food and water, but no papers if the
Vichy
were to find them. And how would Cassidy explain his being there at all?

Now they had been walking for what felt like hours. She was soaked with sweat and limping. The sun was up and shining so intensely it felt to her as if it had grown ten times its size.

Her skin stung. He told her she was red as a
Maine
lobster and tried to give her his undershirt, but she told him to use it himself and took off her slip instead, then tied it around her head and the left side of her face. She stuffed her stockings into her pocket. Her girdle was miles behind her.

“You’ve been awfully quiet, Kincaid. Watch your step. There’s a rock at
nine o’clock
.”

“I was just thinking.”

“I thought I heard a loud clunk back there.”

“Funny.”

“Yeah. It was.”

She slowed down and felt his hand on the small of her back as he guided her in a slightly different direction.

“This way.” He took a few more steps, then grasped her arm. “Stop for a minute.”

“Why?”

“Here, take this.” He grabbed her hand. “It’s another salt pill. Here’s the canteen.”

She swallowed the pill with only a small sip of water. “Are you taking these tablets, too?”

“It wouldn’t do us much good if I pass out. Sit here for a second. There’s a large rock at
six o’clock
.”

“You don’t have to keep stopping for me. I’m okay.”

“You’re limping, and I need to look at the maps again.”

She moved to the rock, which was hot, so she leaned against it and untied the slip, then rubbed her wet hair. “You’re staring at me.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No. You’re being quiet again.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Throws me off when you’re not hammering me with questions.”

“If you think that’s going to get a rise out of me, you’re wrong. I’m stronger than you think. I’m not going to wilt like some fragile flower.”

He just laughed quietly.

“What’s so funny?”

“Never once have I thought of you as wilting, Kincaid.”

“Thank you.” She didn’t say anything for a few minutes, before she admitted, “I was being quiet because I was thinking about college. I went to Stanford.”