Norman Rush - Mortals

Morel pointed his penlight at Ray and turned it on for an instant. He saw something in Ray’s expression that softened him.

“Okay, I’ll let you read it. And you’ll see it’s nothing, it’s about a piece I was writing before I came looking for you.”

Ray was ashamed of himself.

Morel said, “And now I’ll show you the page itself.”

“You don’t have to.”

Of course what Ray really wanted was for Morel to hand the notepad over so that he could read everything in it.

Morel said, “What have you got in your mouth?” Ray kept doggedly chewing, but he was nearing the end of his ability to continue.

“This is snake,” Ray said, spitting out the irreducible wad he had in his mouth.

“Jesus,” Morel said.

“It’s protein. But there’s other stuff to eat.”

“I had something earlier, those little sausages with the red insides and some tea and some applesauce.”

“There’s crispbread. And they have chocolate. And just to be polite you can try the snake.”

“I’ll eat anything they let me.”

Kerekang was standing off by himself, outside the faux cave, like a fireman without a hose, which was Iris’s phrase for people in hapless solitude, or appearing to be.

“We have to work on him, the two of us,” Ray said.

“We also have to get ourselves out of this at the earliest.”

“I know, but first we have to prevail on Kerekang.”

“No, first we have to get our own asses out. I can’t take too much more. I’ve got to get back to Gaborone. I mean it.” Morel spoke with sudden fierceness, an unfamiliar fierceness.

“Well, but—”

“I’m telling you, I have to get back.”

Something was happening with Morel. He was vibrating.

“Let’s go back and sit down. We can talk to Kerekang later,” Ray said. They could go back to Wemberg’s grave and the other graves and he could bring tea and food from the collation. They could eat with their fingers. He hadn’t seen any silverware in the faux cave, any napkins, but they could still have a sort of picnic. He would make it a picnic.

He said to Morel, “Let’s eat something before we do anything. Go back and sit down. I’ll bring us more stuff to eat.”

Morel nodded and moved off in the right direction. Ray was very worried. Morel had been fine. Possibly it was the effect of being out of the immediate zone of danger, in fact it had to be that, all the high-mobilization processes coming down suddenly, in a heap.

He looked over the collation. The Vienna sausages were gone. There was no sign of chocolate. There were peach halves, a couple of them. There was some crispbread left. There was an open can of something that looked like pigeon peas. They were untouched.

Ray drained the last syrup out of the peach can into his tea mug. That would be the main vessel. He lifted up a few strings of snake meat, as a courtesy to Mokopa, who was watching what he was doing. He dropped them onto the peaches. He was dubious about the pigeon peas, but he shook most of them into the peach can. You never know what another person loves, he thought. He had a vague notion that pigeon peas were like black-eyed peas, which were favorites of black people, but not the black people around the fire, it had to be said. And he refilled his cup with the last of the tea.

Morel had gone back to Wemberg’s grave and was sitting where he had been sitting before. Ray shone the torch briefly on him. This time Morel was sitting on his hands. At first Ray was bemused by it, but then he realized Morel was trying to conceal the degree of shaking he was suffering. It was severe.

“What is it?” Ray asked.

“I have to get to Gaborone,” Morel answered.

“Me, too, but what’s going on? Are you cold?”

“No I have to get to Gaborone. That’s it. I have to figure it out.”

He pressed the tea on Morel, who accepted it, but set the cup down on the ground and returned his hand to its prior place under his buttock.

“Do you like pigeon peas?” he asked Morel.

“What are they?”

“Well then I guess you won’t like them. They’re a legume. They’re like black-eyed peas. If you don’t know what they are you won’t like them. They have a strong odor.” He felt it was important to make Morel talk more, keep talking, get off the subject of going back to Gaborone, which was something nothing could be done about.

“I can’t do anything here,” Morel said.

“Sure you can. What do you mean?”

“I have nothing to work with. I have zinc oxide, what can I do with that? I have petroleum jelly. I have a headache. I don’t even have any aspirin.”

“Look, eat something and you’ll feel better. You have low blood sugar. Drink some tea.”

“Don’t tell me what’s wrong with me.”

“No, that’s just, I don’t know, it’s what Iris says to me when I get ragged and crab at her and I eat something and I …”

“It isn’t that. I have to get back to Gaborone.”

“You keep saying that. Why do you have to get back more than I do? Why is it so urgent? We’re in a mess, here.”

Morel murmured an answer.

“I didn’t hear what you said.”

“I have to see Iris,” Morel said loudly and brokenly. Ray felt a rage of emotion, outrage, fury mixed with injury and indignation at the breaking of rules between men. He could hardly breathe.

He trained the light on Morel’s face. It was an aggression. Morel was about to cry. Tears were coming. He was distraught. Ray wished that the beam of the torch could be scorching, hot enough to burn Morel, make him cry out, apologize, apologize, apologize with a scream, a begging scream. He turned the torch off. He was reeling.

Who do you think you are? Ray wanted to say, except that it was so feeble. He wanted to attack Morel. Morel needed to see Iris so much he would do something insane. It was love. He wanted to say that he hated Morel, but he couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Morel said, reaching for the cup of tea.

Ray emptied the cup on the ground. My hand did it, he thought. It had happened without his intending to do it. He was surprised at himself. There was no more tea. More could be heated up, but there was no tea right now, nothing to put in Morel’s trembling, reaching hand, here in the desert.

Ray didn’t want to see Morel’s reaction to his act. He was ashamed.

Both of them said something about being sorry at the same time.

But Ray was in a state of blood-red rage, still. He wanted to say things that were wrong, couldn’t be said. He was wanting to go into the whole stupid whatever oath there was about doctors not screwing their women patients. There had to be something like that.

“I’ll get some more tea,” Ray said. He hoped there was more. There would be. It was possible Morel thought that the tea had been spilled accidentally.

“No, don’t. I have to talk to you,” Morel said.

“What?”

“I’m worried about her.”

It isn’t effrontery, it’s worse, it’s weakness, Ray thought. Effrontery would be better.

“Say what you mean,” Ray said.

“This isn’t the way she wanted it. She’s going to blame herself. She’s going to blame herself for sending me into this. She …”

That was effrontery. It was astounding effrontery. Morel was obsessed with the need to go back and comfort Iris and reassure her that he was fine, he the doctor was fine.

“ Get hold of yourself . You don’t even know what you’re saying. I can’t believe you. Didn’t she send you off to find me, if you recall?”

“She’s not so strong.”

“You don’t even know her.”

“I do. She’s not that strong.”

“You don’t know anything. She’s strong as a horse. Look how long she put up with me.” Get some levity into this, he thought. Because he was feeling violent.