Read The Beginning Place Online
Authors: Ursula K. Le Guin
The Beginning Place (3 page)
“I guess you might be heavy for your age. You look fine to me,” Donna said, looking him up and down. Hugh was profoundly pleased.
“I’m fat,” he said, slapping his belly.
“A little podge, maybe. But look at all the bone you got to carry it on. Where do you get it? Your mom is such a little tiny thing, she’s so thin I can’t believe it, when she comes shopping here. Your dad must of been big, huh, you got your size from him.”
“Yeah,” Hugh said, turning aside to put on his apron.
“Is he dead, Hugh?” Donna asked, and there was a maternal authority to the question which he could not ignore or evade but was unable to answer adequately. He shook his head.
“Divorced,” Donna said, speaking the word as an ordinary one and an option certainly preferable to death; Hugh, to whose mother the word was an obscenity, unspeakable, would have agreed with relief but had to shake his head again. “Went off,” he said. “I got to help Bill with the crates.” And he went off. Went off, ran away, hid. Among the
crates, among the imitation bacon bits and the green shifting and wink of the cash registers, anywhere, you could hide anywhere, and no place was any better than any other place.
crates, among the imitation bacon bits and the green shifting and wink of the cash registers, anywhere, you could hide anywhere, and no place was any better than any other place.
But from time to time during the day’s work he thought of the water of the creek in his mouth and on his lips. He craved to drink that water again.
He took the idea Donna had given him home with him.
“Thought I’d get up early in the morning and jog,” he said at dinner. They ate on TV trays in front of the TV. “That’s why I got up early this morning. To try it. Only earlier would work better, I think. Five or six, maybe. When there’s no cars on the streets. And it’s cool. And that way I won’t bother you getting ready for work.” She was beginning to glance at him warily. “If you don’t mind me leaving before you do. I feel sort of out of shape. Standing around at the checkstand isn’t very good exercise, I guess.”
“More than you’d get sitting behind some desk all day,” she said, which surprised him as a flank attack; he had not mentioned library school or anything about library work for months, since before they left the last town. Maybe she just meant office work like her own. The knife’s edge was not in her voice, though it was sharp enough.
“Would it bother you if I got up and went out for a couple of hours real early? I can be back when you leave, and get my breakfast after you’ve gone to work.”
“Why should it bother me?” she said, glancing down at her thin shoulders to arrange the straps of her summer dress. She lighted a cigarette and looked at the television screen,
where a reporter was describing an airplane crash. “You’re perfectly free to come and go, you’re twenty, nearly twenty-one years old, after all. You don’t have to consult me about every little thing you want to do. I can’t decide everything for you. The only thing I do insist on is not leaving the house empty at night, I did have a terrible shock night before last when I drove in and there were no lights on. It’s just purely a matter of common sense and consideration for others. It has just got to the point where a person can’t be safe in their own home even.” She had begun to speak tightly and to flip the filter end of her cigarette repeatedly with her thumbnail. Hugh was tense, dreading the next step towards the edge; but she said no more, watching the television intently. He did not dare pursue the subject. When he went to bed nothing further had been said. Ordinarily he would have heeded the threat of hysteria and not done whatever it was he wanted to do; but in this matter he was driven. It was thirst, he must drink. He woke at five, and was standing by his bed pulling his shirt on before he was fully awake.
where a reporter was describing an airplane crash. “You’re perfectly free to come and go, you’re twenty, nearly twenty-one years old, after all. You don’t have to consult me about every little thing you want to do. I can’t decide everything for you. The only thing I do insist on is not leaving the house empty at night, I did have a terrible shock night before last when I drove in and there were no lights on. It’s just purely a matter of common sense and consideration for others. It has just got to the point where a person can’t be safe in their own home even.” She had begun to speak tightly and to flip the filter end of her cigarette repeatedly with her thumbnail. Hugh was tense, dreading the next step towards the edge; but she said no more, watching the television intently. He did not dare pursue the subject. When he went to bed nothing further had been said. Ordinarily he would have heeded the threat of hysteria and not done whatever it was he wanted to do; but in this matter he was driven. It was thirst, he must drink. He woke at five, and was standing by his bed pulling his shirt on before he was fully awake.
The apartment looked unfamiliar seen in this new light, the twilight of dawn. He did not put on his shoes till he was out on the front steps. The sun’s rays ran level down the side streets from behind the apartment houses. Oak Valley Road lay in fresh blue shadow. He had no jacket, and shivered. In his haste he knotted his shoelace wrong and had to fight with the knot, like a little kid late to school; then he was off. At a jogtrot. He did not like to lie. He had said he was going jogging, so he jogged.
It took him a little less than an hour, jogging, and walking when he got out of breath, and forcing himself with increasing difficulty to jog again, to reach the woods on the far side of the waste fields. Pausing there under the eaves of the wood he checked his wristwatch. It was ten minutes to six.
Though the trees did not grow very close together the wood was a place entirely different from the open, as different as indoors from outdoors. Within a few yards the hot, bright, early sunlight was shut out except for scattered drifts and flecks of light on leaves and ground. Since leaving the suburban streets he had not seen anyone. There were no fences maintained as boundaries, though at the edge of the woods there was a straggle of rotten posts and tangled wire. More than one vague path branched off among the trees and underbrush, but he followed his way without hesitation. He noticed a fleck of tinfoil under the clawed sprays of blackberry near the path, but no beer tabs, no soft-drink cans, condoms, Kleenex, candy wrappers. Nobody came here much. The way turned left. He looked for the tall pine with the reddish, scaly trunk, and saw its upper branches dark against the sky. The path narrowed and led downward, darkening, the ground softening underfoot. He came between the pine and the high bushes, the gateway to the creek place, and there it was, the glades on the near and the far side of the water, the motion and singing of the water, and the cool air, the cool, sweet, clear twilight of late evening.
He stood on the threshold, the dark trees over him. If I
look back, he thought, I’ll see the sunlight through the trees. He did not look back. He went forward, walking slowly.
look back, he thought, I’ll see the sunlight through the trees. He did not look back. He went forward, walking slowly.
At the water’s edge he paused to unstrap his watch. The sweep hand was not moving, the watch was stuck at two minutes to six. He shook it, then shoved it into his jeans pocket, rolled his shirt sleeves above the elbow, and knelt down on both knees. Deliberately and slowly he stooped forward, bowing down his head, setting his hands deep in the muddy sand of the verge, and drank of the running water.
A couple of yards upstream a flat boulder shelved out over the creek. He went and sat on it, leaning forward presently to put his hands in the water. Several times he ran his wet hands over his face and hair. His skin was fair, the water cold; he noticed with pleasure that his wrists and hands in the water got as red as canned salmon. The water itself was dark but clear, like smoky crystal. In sandy shallows in the lee of the boulder lay shoals of pebbles, their colors and markings intensified by the water. He watched them and the transparent curling run of the current over them, then sat up again on the shelving rock and gazed up at the colorless sky. There nothing moved. Near the black, sharp tip of a pine on the ridge across the creek he kept thinking he saw a star, from the corner of his eye, but when he looked directly for it it was not visible. For a long time he sat still, his arms clasped round his knees, over the rush and music of the water.
The chill of the breeze that crept above the creek penetrated as he sat still. He got up at last, hugging his ribs, and sauntered downstream, keeping to the bank just above the
sandy edge of the stream. He looked at everything with idle, easy alertness, just tinged with caution, studying the ground, rocks, bushes and trees, the darker woods across the water. The ground was less moist and mulchy in the downstream part of the glade, where thick, coarse grass grew amongst bushes three or four feet high. The bushes were spaced apart so that the grassy areas between them were like small gardens, or roofless rooms. You could camp in one of them, Hugh thought. If you got a tent—but do you need a tent in summer? A sleeping bag would be enough. And something to cook in. And some matches. The fireplace could be down in the sand here, on the beach under the rocky dropoff of the bank. Would it be all right to light a fire here? You wouldn’t actually need one unless you wanted to cook, but it would give a kind of center, a warmth … and then you could sleep, spend the whole night out under the sky beside the sound of the water … . He wandered on, making a long circuit of the clearing, stopping often to look at things and to ponder. The movements of his body here were large, slow, and free, always with that slight and rather enjoyable element of caution, because it was strange ground, the wild. Coming back at last to the shelving rock he knelt once more to drink, then stood up, went resolute to the gateway between the high bushes and the pine, glanced back once, and left the place.
sandy edge of the stream. He looked at everything with idle, easy alertness, just tinged with caution, studying the ground, rocks, bushes and trees, the darker woods across the water. The ground was less moist and mulchy in the downstream part of the glade, where thick, coarse grass grew amongst bushes three or four feet high. The bushes were spaced apart so that the grassy areas between them were like small gardens, or roofless rooms. You could camp in one of them, Hugh thought. If you got a tent—but do you need a tent in summer? A sleeping bag would be enough. And something to cook in. And some matches. The fireplace could be down in the sand here, on the beach under the rocky dropoff of the bank. Would it be all right to light a fire here? You wouldn’t actually need one unless you wanted to cook, but it would give a kind of center, a warmth … and then you could sleep, spend the whole night out under the sky beside the sound of the water … . He wandered on, making a long circuit of the clearing, stopping often to look at things and to ponder. The movements of his body here were large, slow, and free, always with that slight and rather enjoyable element of caution, because it was strange ground, the wild. Coming back at last to the shelving rock he knelt once more to drink, then stood up, went resolute to the gateway between the high bushes and the pine, glanced back once, and left the place.
The path was steep, dim, hard to follow. Branches lashed his face; he must turn his head aside, shut his eyes. He turned wrong somewhere at the top and went through a patch of woods he had not seen, a sunken, weedy region where the
thin trees grew in clumps. He came out at the fields’ edge by a deeper part of the ditch filled up with rubbish and dead stalks, facing the dazzle of the eastern sun, the bright spears of daylight. He rubbed his forehead, which stung where a blackberry trailer had caught it, and dug into his pocket for his watch. It was running again, and said the time was 6:08. It was later than that, of course, because it had not been running all the time he was by the creek, but still he could probably get home by eight. He set off, not jogging, for he was in no mood for pumping and gasping, but at a swift, steady walk. His mind was still in the quietness of the creek place, empty of anxieties and explanations. Alert and content, he strode along across the waste fields, up the rise, between the dreary farmhouses on the gravel road, past the tree farm to the corner of Chelsea Gardens Place and from street to street to 14067
1/2
-C Oak Valley Road. He let himself in, and there was his mother in her chintz wrapper, staring; she had just got up. The kitchen clock said it was five minutes to seven. His watch said it was four minutes to seven.
thin trees grew in clumps. He came out at the fields’ edge by a deeper part of the ditch filled up with rubbish and dead stalks, facing the dazzle of the eastern sun, the bright spears of daylight. He rubbed his forehead, which stung where a blackberry trailer had caught it, and dug into his pocket for his watch. It was running again, and said the time was 6:08. It was later than that, of course, because it had not been running all the time he was by the creek, but still he could probably get home by eight. He set off, not jogging, for he was in no mood for pumping and gasping, but at a swift, steady walk. His mind was still in the quietness of the creek place, empty of anxieties and explanations. Alert and content, he strode along across the waste fields, up the rise, between the dreary farmhouses on the gravel road, past the tree farm to the corner of Chelsea Gardens Place and from street to street to 14067
1/2
-C Oak Valley Road. He let himself in, and there was his mother in her chintz wrapper, staring; she had just got up. The kitchen clock said it was five minutes to seven. His watch said it was four minutes to seven.
He sat down at the dinette table with a large bowl of cornflakes and two nectarines and ate, because he was hungry; the last twenty blocks he had thought mainly about breakfast. As he ate, however, his thoughts were not on breakfast. How had he spent an hour going to the creek place and an hour there and an hour coming back, between five o’clock and seven o’clock? And it was—
His mind balked. He hunched his shoulders, drew his head down, felt his chest tighten in resistance, but drove himself
ahead at the words: It was evening, there, by the creek. Late evening, twilight. The stars coming out. He had got there at six in the morning in sunlight and come out at six in the morning in sunlight, and while he had been there it had been late evening. The evening of what day?
ahead at the words: It was evening, there, by the creek. Late evening, twilight. The stars coming out. He had got there at six in the morning in sunlight and come out at six in the morning in sunlight, and while he had been there it had been late evening. The evening of what day?
“You want a cup of coffee?” his mother asked. Her voice was creaky with sleep, but not sharp.
“Sure,” Hugh said, still pondering.
He refilled his bowl with cornflakes, not wanting to cook while his mother was there, not wanting to bother with cooking anyhow. He sat, spoon in hand, brooding.
His mother set a willow-ware mug of coffee down in front of him with a little flourish. “There, your majesty!”
“Hunks,” he said, breakfast-tablese for Thanks, and went on eating and staring.
“When did you go out?” She sat down across the Formica table from him with her cup of coffee.
“About five.”
“You jogged all that time, two hours?”
“I don’t know. Sat around some.”
“You shouldn’t overdo any kind of exercise in the beginning. Start slow and build it up. Two hours, that’s too much to begin with. You could do things to your heart. Like when people shovel snow in the winter the first time it snows and hundreds of them drop dead in the driveway every year. You have to start slow.”
“All in the same driveway?” Hugh murmured, with a vague look of awakening.
“Where did you run, anyhow? Just around and around? It must look funny.”
“Oh, sort of around. Lot of empty streets.” He stood up. “I’m going to make my bed and stuff,” he said. He yawned hugely. “Not used to getting up so early.” He looked down at his mother. She was so small and thin, so tense and fierce, he wished he could pat her shoulder or kiss her hair, but she hated to be touched, and he always did it wrong anyhow.
“You haven’t touched your coffee.”
He looked down at the full mug; obediently drank it off in a couple of long gulps; and mooched off towards his room. “Have a good day,” he said.
He would not have gone back but for the taste of the water. That water he must drink; no other quenched his thirst. Otherwise, he told himself, he would have stayed away, because there was something crazy going on. His watch would not run there. Either he was crazy or there was something unexplainable going on, some kind of monkeying with time, the kind of thing his mother and her occultist friend were interested in and he was not interested in and had no use for. Ordinary things were weird enough without getting messed up any farther, and life didn’t need any more complications than it had already. But the fact was, the one place where his life did not seem complicated was the place by the creek,
and he had to go back there to be quiet and think and be alone; to drink the water, to swim in the water.
and he had to go back there to be quiet and think and be alone; to drink the water, to swim in the water.
On his third visit there he decided to wade. He took off his shoes. The creek looked pretty shallow. He stepped into a deep bit and got wet to mid-thigh; splashed ashore, took off jeans, shirt, shorts, returned naked to the cold, noisy water. At its deepest it came no higher than his ribs, but there was one place where he could swim a few strokes. He went under, the strong currents pushing him, his hair floating loose around his face in the strange dark clarity of the underwater. He swam, scraped his knees on hidden rocks, set his hands and feet down on soft unseen surfaces, fought the shouting white water between boulders where the current raced. He came out of the water like a buffalo charging, shaking and stamping with cold and energy, and rubbed himself dry with his shirt. After that he always swam when he went there.
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