Jim Crace - Genesis

The man who asked Lix to raise his hands did not proceed with his interrogation for very long. Nor was their car searched. Nor were they required to unlock the tailgate. This, then, this rescue bid, thought Mouetta, would be a simple matter, though alarming in ways that she found inexplicably stirring. Her heart was jumping like a pan-fried pea. Yes, she was stimulated by the thought of having a young man about the house, a young man needing to be saved. This would be her contribution to the night, her solidarity — to steal a “wild and innocent” suspect, “known to the authorities,” from underneath the very snobbish, starstruck noses of the police.

Indeed, her husband had been recognized. She could tell by the way he stood, by the laughter, by the parting handshake, by the way a route was being cleared for them. There was no danger, then. They’d not be caught. They could simply drive into the parking lot underneath the academy, take the elevator to the seventh floor where Freda’s office was, and do their good deed for the night. She could imagine the young man — painfully idealistic, sweet to look at, awkward, grateful, very scared. They could curl him up beneath the car rugs in the back and drive home through all the blocks and barricades, untouched and undelayed, because her Lix, her acting man, would have the passport of a famous face, would have the visa of a celebrated birthmark stamped on his cheek.

Then, when they were home, in their quiet cul-de-sac with its unprying neighbors, she’d make a fuss over that young man. Find towels, a spare toothbrush, some underwear. She’d cook for him at night, while Lix was at the theater. She’d let him have the run of the house. She had to smile. The very thought of it. She could provide a sanctuary for both of them.

Mouetta was hospitable and motherly, two undervalued attributes these days. Taking care of people was her public gift. One day, please God, she’d have a child. At thirty-nine she wanted very much to have a child. She’d soon be passing through the Great Stone Gate of forty, beyond which were towns and villages without babies. Stepmothering was not enough for her. Though she was very fond of George and Lix’s children from his first marriage and the “intervening” four-year-old (she loved all but one of them, in fact), they were not hers, not flesh and blood and bone. As anyone with half an eye could tell. Neither was the student hers, of course. But then he wasn’t Lix’s either, and that made a difference. She’d drive this student mad with care as soon as her husband returned to the car and they were summoned to proceed.

So she was baffled and surprised when Lix slid back into his driver’s seat and said, “There’s no way through. We have to turn around.”

“They wouldn’t let you through?”

“No. So it seems.”

“Not even you?”

“Those numskys don’t know me. You think they’re theatergoers? We have to turn around.”

“Not recognized?”

“Not on this occasion. Evidently.”

“So what do we do about Freda’s student?”

“What can we do? Nothing! It’s not my fault. I don’t think it would be sensible to argue with those guys. You want to try?”

Already he was turning the car into the space they had cleared for him and was nosing through a crowd of appalled, thrilled students standing in the rain with nowhere to spend the night except the streetcar shelters and underneath the bushes in the park. What awful fun.

“Why don’t you tell them who you are?”

“I promise you it wouldn’t count.”

“What now?” Her turn to ask.

“Back home.” A home without houseguests! He stretched a hand across and rested it, palm up, in her lap. Still damp.

“You’re trembling,” she said.

They’d not get home that night. There’d be no copulating on the stairs. The Circular was still cordoned off and already flooding, anyway, on the uptown highway, and all the other routes out to the hilltop suburbs where Lix and Mouetta and many of the rich and famous had their houses were blocked. There’d been a rumor that these houses where the guilty bankers and civic bosses lived would be targeted if things got out of hand down in the city. There were incendiarists about and anarchists, expert in breaching cordons. So the police protection of their home would stop Lix and Mouetta from getting home. Safety at the price of freedom? Another awkward, ancient choice. Besides, here was an unexpected bonus for the uniformed defenders of the city. They could turn the rich and famous into the homeless for the night.

Lix and Mouetta had traveled twice across the two bridges of Navigation Island, annoyed and arguing, before they decided what to do. Past one o’clock already. It was a little too late and far too early to wake friends and ask for refuge, too late to phone a lawyer for Freda, naive to think they’d find a hotel still with beds to spare. They had the keys to Freda’s flat as well as her office, but that was on the campus, too, and almost certainly unreachable. And possibly unsafe. And there were cats inside and awful litter smells which only Freda had grown used to. They could, of course, return to the theater and rouse the janitor. Lix had done exactly that one New Year’s Eve, at this same theater. They could, in a pinch, sleep in Lix’s dressing room or even onstage. The Molière demanded three chaise longues. But the chances of the janitor still being awake himself at that hour, let alone responding to someone hammering at the doors on this of all nights, were pretty thin. They did what many other people had been forced to do. They drove the car again onto the island and took the first gate into Deliverance Park, looking for a parking space or turnout. Or Lix looked at least; Mouetta, disappointed, tired, had fallen asleep already, suddenly, her body falling, as he drove, against the webbing of the seat belt.

There were no parking spaces in the park or room for their long Panache in the already overcrowded turnouts. The park had turned into a dormitory of cars. So Lix bumped up onto the grass, careful not to wake his wife. He could have parked right there, just on the corner of the lawns, next to the road, illuminated by the headlights and the streetlamps. Safe. But he had other plans for their anniversary. He headed for the clump of ornamental pines, the darkest planted corner of the park, a place he had spotted as a possibility many times before but never used.

At first the grass, immersed by the rain, was soft and muddy. He had to drive slowly, in the lowest gear. He churned up ruts and wakes of earth and water. He damaged tended grass. Soon the formal grasses gave way to raised picnic squares and cindered ball fields which were hard and gravelly. He switched the headlights off and bumped forward toward the shielding canopy of trees with the help only of his side lamps. And then — heroically — he switched the side lamps off. The gray Panache had disappeared from view. He knew that he was breaking Rules. That he’d be fined if caught. Imagine what the gossip columnists would say. He also knew that he was taking greater risks. The river had been known to swell and break its banks. In 1989, as he could testify, Navigation Island had been entirely submerged. No resident mammal had survived. But he was determined not to waste the opportunity. The sudden looming darkness and the frieze of foliage and the possibility of floods were thrilling. He’d found a spot where, even if the storm abated and there was moonlight, they’d be completely hidden from the road. Here was another chance to fix that oversight he had failed to fix just an hour earlier: they had not had sex in the car for months, not since their Sunday drive down to the lakes that spring when Mouetta — midcycle and ovulating, according to her charts and her thermometer — had tried to stop him from using any contraception and what had started out as love had ended up as argument. He would not take the risk of having one more mouth to feed (even on alternate weekends). He’d pulled the comic condom on and Mouetta had reluctantly allowed him to continue. To be so fertile was a curse.