Paul Theroux - O-Zone

"My marriage was awful then," Moura said. "All I remember was that."

"They were putting nuclear waste in caves! Just stuffing it in and hoping for the best! No one knew!"

"Lots of people knew," Moura said. "I thought the whole country was destroyed. And then I realized it was just a corner of Missouri, and they were putting a fence around it and giving it a new name. I had other things on my mind."

She turned to face the darkness, to ease her memory, to say more. But the past was a darkened forest like this; she remembered and was discouraged. What did the world matter if you were lonely and sad? Cylinders of nuclear waste coming apart and bursting through the mouths of caves and seeping into creeks and rivers — that did not seem such a catastrophe. It was a local matter. You decided not to go there — as if anyone wanted to! They chose those caves because no one really cared. But even if it had been different and much worse — the world splitting into fragments — you didn't think of the world, you thought of yourself and your own life and grew lonelier and sadder, because there was no one else.

Rinka saw that she had stumbled into a private area of Moura's life. It was so odd to find someone who didn't have an opinion about O-Zone and how it had got that way!

"You always think a place like this is going to be exciting until you get here, and then it's usually either boring or dangerous. This is both! How is that possible?"

Moura was listening to her with a fixed expression — these were the times when she was glad to be wearing a mask; you just made encouraging noises into your mike and let people go on talking. But Rinka was asking another question.

"Did you?" she was saying. "Did you really want to come here?"

"No," Moura said.

She was thinking of the nightfall. She had watched it and worried. It was as if they had been swallowed by an animal and were inside, in the darkness of the beast.

"Who's that?" Moura said, seeing a big shadow move away from the building.

"It's Fizzy."

He looked so strange — she wanted to say so. But how could she say anything about Fizzy without making it a comment on herself? She went inside with Rinka, to avoid having to talk to her son.

Fisher too felt lost in the darkness. This night made him feel weak and naked. He complained, saying he was hungry — the complaint easing his fear somewhat; but still he was afraid, and he limped, dragging one boot — it was timidity, he was not hurt. He shouted, much too loudly, "I whacked my heel!" He stayed under the lights, and meant to attach himself to anyone who came near.

He saw Hooper and struggled over to him, and then he saw the others, just around the corner of the building, at the perimeter beam, standing like people in a foundering ship, searching the dark ocean for a light or a glimpse of a narrow beach.

Fisher wanted a friend now — Hooper or anyone, even Murdick, whom he disliked: even Murdick would do. He was drowning here in this darkness. He wanted reassurance, he attempted conversation. But he was clumsy. He did not know how to begin.

He gasped at Hooper and began in the worst way, saying, "Why don't you have a woman?"

Hooper thought of Fisher as a supermoron, for his brains and his bad manners. But he knew the reason for the boy's awkwardness now, in this place: he was afraid, he needed human company, he had intended a friendly question.

Hooper said, "You can help me find one."

The boy blinked. He had not expected that. He tried again, bumping against Hooper and kicking his uncle in the shins.

"What's your problem?"

He was still trying to be friendly!

"I lack inexperience," Hooper said, and laughed at the boy's bafflement. "I don't want anything!"

There was a sudden screech of fabric as Fisher turned, working his arms against his noisy suit, and pulled his too-heavy boot aside.

"Fizzy, that's a big problem!"

And Hooper was thinking that there was something so pathetic in the boy's being overdressed — all those clothes were so sad. Just then there was a flash — another creature caught and killed on the beam.

"It's a mutant," Fisher said. "Yellow stripes. . and what a smell! It's actually getting into my air!"

"It's a skunk/' Hooper said. Fizzy had never seen one. Never smelled one. And he called out, "Another party guest!"

Hooper looked around the terrace, hoping that someone else had heard and would find it funny. But the rest of the travelers were inside — it had gone dark. The heavy black sky had slipped down against the orange bar of sunset and narrowed it to a red line and squeezed it into the far-off hills. Then he was alone with the boy, each of them pretending he was not frightened.

Even with the lights on it seemed dark to them in

the second-floor unit that Hooper had sealed for the party. Perhaps it was too big for their lamp fixtures — it was a pair of long rooms with a balcony (one of those galleries shaped like pulled-out drawers). A hundred bright bristly insects sucked and fluttered at the windows.

Hooper was attracted to the large windows. He glided over like a fish in a glass tank and put his mask against it.

"Look," he said, because his brother had followed him. "People rave about visiting orbital stations and leasing time in space vehicles. This is much better."

"The weather's hurt this place."

"You can do something about that," Hooper said. "You're the landscaper."

Hardy hated Hooper joking about his job at Asfalt, especially as he had made it rain in a dozen countries. And it was a potential contract at Asfalt that allowed him this Access Pass to O-Zone. But this was a party; he didn't want to spoil the mood by contradicting his brother — anyway, Hooper would accuse him of being oversensitive.

"I don't think I see the same things as you, Hoop."

The dark helped, Hooper thought. He saw great soft hills and hidden places, and he imagined being among them, possessing them and burying himself there. It was not the hard lighted place that New York had become. This was a murmuring darkness. It gave him hope until he remembered he would be alone here.

"I could be happy here," Hooper said somewhat defiantly.

"You used to say that you could be happy in space."

"You have to return from space."

Hardy said nothing more. His brother was so impulsive— saying something one day with utter conviction, and regretting it the next, feeling condemned by it, and hating all his moods as soon as they left him. He yelled in fury when he remembered his contradictions, and he was bitterly hurt when he was reminded of them. It was in the end so embarrassing to be that fickle. What did he really want?

It was as if at these black windows they were flying blind through space. They were falling but could not tell how fast. It excited and frightened them — it was total eclipse. And the paradox was the noise. They had naively expected the darkness to be silent. The insects and the surfy noise of trees woke old memories in them — longings and fears and the hopes of early childhood. Hooper thought of the happiness he had always wanted, and Hardy the happiness he had never believed in — he knew that Hooper had not really grown up, or at least had not stopped hoping, which meant the same thing. How was it that Hooper, so much more battered, could still be so hopeful?

"I'd like to buy this place," Hooper said at last.

"This condo — Firehills?"

"No" — and Hooper's teeth flashed at the suckhole Mur-dick had fitted to his mask. He seemed to be addressing the black territory that lay behind the balcony. "I want to buy O-Zone."

"You're one of the few people I know who could probably raise the cash," Hardy said. "But it's not for sale. It's all Federal property now, and I think the Feds have other plans."