The Fifth Sacred Thing (57 page)

“And on the other side?” Marie asked. “How did it feel to be invaded?”

“I was terrified. I had to stop and ground and listen for my heartbeat. And then somehow I became very calm, and I could face this person and speak calmly and not lose myself,” said Sachiko from the Musicians’ Guild.

“I lost it! I just couldn’t believe that some guy thought he could come into my house and push me around! I started screaming!” said the woman next to her.

“And how did that feel to you, soldier?”

“I was comfortable with it. It was what I expected. I knew how to handle it,” her partner said.

“Let’s go on,” Marie suggested.

A group of children led by Rosa crossed the grass and came over to them.

“Can we join the training?” Rosa asked.

Marie and Bird exchanged glances.

“I hate to think of children involved in these things,” Marie said.

“But if war really comes, they will be,” Bird said.

“I know. Yes, Rosa, certainly you can join.”

They marked out an area of the grass for the pen, and the trainees waited while Bird and Marie conferred. Then, wearing soldiers’ caps and carrying clubs made from bundled papers, Bird and Marie entered through imaginary
gates, grabbed hold of one of the larger and more vocal men, and began to drag him out. The group, well prepared, surrounded them, singing and chanting and placing their bodies between the guards and the gates.

Bird and Marie pulled on their victim and were on the verge of dragging him free when Rosa and her friends hurled themselves onto his chest and clung like monkeys, singing all the while. Bird beat on them with his paper club, cursing and swearing, while the group broke into shouts and yells. When Marie finally blew her whistle to call time, everyone was wet with sweat and quite a few bruises were distributed around.

“Rosa!” Bird said. “When somebody beats on you like that, let go, for Goddess’ sake! If this had been a real club, you’d have a broken arm, a broken head, a broken back.”

“But I thought the idea was not to let go, no matter what they do to you,” Rosa said.

“The idea is survival, not martyrdom,” Marie said.

“But why, Bird?” Rosa asked. Her eyes were lifted up to his face, but they slid down involuntarily to glance at his hands. “That wasn’t what you did. You didn’t give in to them, even though they hurt you.”

“They just didn’t hurt me enough,” Bird said. “In time, I would have. Anybody would have. Besides, that was different.”

“What was different about it?”

“For one thing, I was grown up. You’re still a kid.”

“You told me you were nineteen. That’s not so grown up. And I’m thirteen already.”

“Let’s not argue about this,” Marie said. “The point is, for everybody, that we’re not in an endurance contest. You may be called upon to make great sacrifices, we all may be. But part of successful struggle is also knowing when to retreat.”

By the time they finished the role plays and the discussions afterward, the sun had traveled a long arc over the grass and Bird now shivered in the shadow cast by the buildings across the street.

“That’s enough for today,” he said. “Marie and I have work tonight, but we’ll be back in the park tomorrow. Tell your friends.”

Marie sat on a bench as the group broke up, stopping in little knots to chat. Rosa stood, looking somewhat shyly at Bird, but before she could approach him Sachiko came over.

“I don’t suppose, in your busy schedule, you’d have time to come by and lend us your ear for an hour or two. We’re working on the music for May Day, and it’s not coming right.”

“That’s optimistic,” Bird said. “You think we’ll have a May Day?”

“The day will certainly come, whatever else does. And we want to be ready for it.”

Bird sighed. Marie was sitting, exhausted, on a bench, her lips gray. He really ought to make her rest tonight, train the new trainers himself.

“I just can’t think about it now,” he said to Sachiko. “When this is all over, maybe.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t push me, Sacha. I said no!” Bird’s voice came out more harshly than he had intended, and he turned away from the hurt he saw in Sachiko’s dark eyes. I’m being an asshole, he told himself. I should turn back, apologize. But his rudeness had the desired effect. She went away.

“Is it nonviolence or psychological warfare?” Bird asked Lily, who had left the seclusion of the island and spent most of her time now in the central city, watching the training, talking to people, wandering through the orchards and the gardens.

She and Bird were sitting in the back yard of Black Dragon House. He was sweaty from his day in the park, and sore from being tackled by an overly enthusiastic soldier in one of the role plays. Marie was lying down, and he was glad in his hour or two of free time to sit. Lately he found himself so restless that he could only relax when his body had been worked to exhaustion.

“It’s a question that’s come up in the training. Is our goal to convert the enemy, turn them loving and peaceful and kind, or just to keep them continuously off balance?”

“Our strategy,” Lily said, “is to refuse to participate in the patterns that perpetuate violence. If we succeed, it is likely that we will do both—knock our opponents off balance and convert some of them.”

Bird looked at her. She seemed so calm, so sure of her beliefs, so cool and clean in a white silk shirt. While he had dirt under his nails from pulling a few weeds, and his mind was equally encrusted with doubts.

“Lily, I want to believe we can win this way, but it takes an act of faith on my part, I have to tell you. Even though I spoke for it in Council, and what I said is true: I don’t want to kill. But I’ve been down there, I know what we’ll be facing. Every day I wake up tempted to go beg the Council to reconsider fortifying the San Bruno mountains and mining Highway 101.”

“That temptation will always be with us. Force seems so clear, so simple and direct. When I was young, one of my brother’s friends had a van with a bumper sticker on it that said,
FORCE, IT WORKS!
And nobody can deny that it does. But meeting force with force produces nothing but what is already known and planned for and expected. It’s what has already been done, over and over, for thousands of years.”

“Because it
does
work,” Bird said.

Lily brushed a fly off the sleeve of her jacket. “There used to be a saying, ‘Insanity is repeating the same acts and expecting different results.’ ”

“Yeah, but insanity is also hoping for results that are extremely unlikely from the particular acts you take.”

Lily stood, smoothed her skirt, and looked down at Bird where he sprawled on the grass.

“Bird, you are absolutely entitled to your doubts and fears. We all have them. But if we proceed with our plans, not to repeat the same acts but to do something different, a different outcome will happen.”

“We don’t know what that will be.”

“Suffering, undoubtedly. Miracles, maybe. Change.”

While Bird had little appetite for food, he craved sex. The big bed in the ritual room was in use every night. He lay nestled among Sage and Nita and Holybear, soaking up touch. Although he never spoke about fear, they could feel it leak from his skin. He wanted things he had never allowed before: hands on his scars, fingers kneading the strained muscles around his old wounds.

Downstairs, Maya slept with Doctor Sam. He had appeared late one night and asked to come in. A fresh batch of cookies was in the oven that she had made for Bird, knowing full well he might eat, at most, one of them. Sam devoured a plateful while they sat looking at each other for a long time. His face drooped like a man burdened with too many years, and the lines around his gray eyes were deep and thick. His eyebrows, bushy white sprouts that shot up and furrowed deep when he concentrated, still reminded her of her father. Not a handsome man, but not unattractive.

He sighed.

“Hard day?” she inquired.

“A hell of a day. We’re getting refugees from down the peninsula. Casualties. I’d give a lot to have Madrone back right now.”

“We all would. Sam, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you here?”

“You need me, Maya. I’m a grandfather, I know how you feel in a way the young ones can’t. And I need you.”

“I’m nearly old enough to be your mother,” she said, nibbling delicately at the edge of a cookie.

He smiled at her. “At our age, that hardly matters.”

“Sam, I’m practically moribund! Are you some sort of necrophiliac?”

He reached across the table, took the cookie out of her hand, and held it. “Maya, you are a beautiful, powerful, attractive woman. The lines on your face are the calligraphy of your history.” His thumbs caressed her palms and she began to feel the old pulse in her vulva waken, her breasts as hungry for petting as cats. “Of course, maybe you don’t want an ugly old geezer like me.”

“You’re not ugly, Sam. I would call you—distinguished.”

“Ruggedly handsome?”

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Well, rugged, anyway. And I’ve always admired your eyebrows.” She felt an urge to touch them, actually, to pet the wiry and unruly hairs that adorned his eyes, and, having nothing to lose, she removed one hand from his grip and stroked his face. He closed his eyes, basking in her touch.

“I like that. You’re a very sensual woman.”

“You don’t know the half of it yet.”

“I’m eager to learn.” He smiled, opening his eyes and looking into hers with such warmth and friendliness that her better judgment began to melt away.

“I thought all that was over for me,” Maya said. “Anyway, I’m not sure I remember how.”

“I remember. I’ll remind you of any salient points you forget.”

“But I don’t love you, Sam.”

“You will. Before this is over, Maya, we will need each other so desperately that we will fall in love by default.” He reached out and touched her cheek. His hand was rough, but his moves delicate, sure: a surgeon’s hand, she thought. In some ways he reminded her of Rio in his old age, grizzled but still cocky. How sweet it had been, just to wake in the morning curled up next to him, his back nestled against hers, to turn and hold him and smell his skin and feel his warmth. Yes, it might be nice to have that comfort again.

“Your skin is soft as flour,” he said.

“What kind of flower?”

“No, flour, like baking flour.”

“What kind of simile is that?”

“Can you think of anything softer or more sensual than dipping your hands into a mound of fresh white flour?”

“Maybe one or two things.” She ran her hands over the fringe of hair on the sides of his head and over his bald scalp.

“Why do you sigh?” he asked her.

“After such a long wild life, to think I’d end up with a Jewish doctor.”

“You’ve had worse,” he said. “May I kiss you?”

“Give it a try.”

He walked around the table, and she rose to meet him as he slid his hands over her back, pressing his lips to hers. Yes, her body was humming and singing in a way she thought was over long ago.

“I’ve had worse,” she admitted.

“Come on, let’s go to bed.”

Bird didn’t talk about fear, but he could smell it in his own sweat. He had to shit, it seemed, ten times a day. When he met with Defense Council, or with
Marie and Lan and Roberto, he spoke reassuringly, in a low, calm voice. When he tended Sister Marie during one of her bad nights, his presence was comforting, grounded, soothing.