The Sunflower Forest

We were among the last couples to arrive at Claire’s party. The band was already playing, and most of the others were dancing. The small room was oppressive with the heat of moving bodies.

Throughout most of the evening Paul and I sat on folding chairs and drank Cokes. He said that he didn’t really like dancing particularly, and I told him that was OK because I didn’t either – which wasn’t precisely true, but I said it anyway. The music was so loud that it was impossible to carry on a conversation. So we just sat and drank. I watched Frog Newton playing his drums. He wasn’t as grotesque as Brianna had made him out to be. His hairstyle was rather unique, but aside from that, I thought he was good to look at. He had a nice body.

A little after eleven Paul suggested we go. The volume of the music was making my insides vibrate, and I was hoarse from shouting over it, so I agreed.

Coming outside was a shock. After all the noise and humid, sweaty heat, the January cold ripped my breath away. Shivering violently, I tried to zip up my jacket.

‘You want to go for a drive or something?’ Paul asked, as he unlocked the car door for me.

I glanced at my watch. I was supposed to be home by midnight, which Paul knew, and it was already 11.15. I showed him the time. ‘A short one, maybe.’

We drove down the street that led to the highway. Paul turned west and we sped out beyond the reaches of the town lights. It’s very flat in that part of Kansas. All Kansas is more or less flat, but out there in the western reaches, I reckon you could see the headlights of a car in Colorado, if you tried.

‘That’s not really my scene,’ Paul said as he drove. ‘That back there. Claire’s brother told me I had to go. It was all right, I guess, but it’s not for me. I hardly ever go to parties.’

I didn’t answer. I was wondering if Claire’s brother had also told him to invite me.

Leaning back on the headrest, I closed my eyes. Paul had turned the heater to its highest setting, and the car grew very warm. It also smelled incredibly of dog.

It was a nice feeling, speeding silently along the highway in the darkness. For a split second I let myself slip into dreams, imagining that this warm, shadowy quiet was my life to come, that Paul was my husband and we were off across the country, speeding to some secret destination in the west. It wasn’t that I wanted to be married to Paul or even that I wanted to be married at all. It wasn’t that specific. Just that the sudden feeling of well-being I had at that moment made me wish I could keep it. I wanted to prolong that instant of dark, drifting laxity for ever.

‘You don’t talk much,’ Paul said, shattering the silence.

‘I don’t have much to say,’ I replied.

He smiled at me. ‘You want to stop? I know this place. On Ladder Creek. My brothers and I used to go there to hunt rats.’

‘Yuck.’

He laughed. ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s pretty there. The water bends around and there’re these little willow trees. I saw a deer there once.’

This is it, I thought. It. He was taking me to make out. With sudden sharpness I became alert to the fact that we were a mighty long way from anywhere, and I wasn’t very sure precisely where we were. He had taken off on a series of tiny country roads until we were far out on the plains without a light to be seen anywhere.

Paul pulled the car off the road as we neared the creek. Turning off the engine, he sat a moment, and I waited for him to make a pass. I ran my tongue around my teeth to dislodge any bits of potato chips and wondered if my breath smelled of Coke. Cautiously, I glanced sideways to see what was going to happen next.

Nothing.

Pulling the keys from the ignition, Paul opened the door on his side. ‘Come on. I’ll take you down and show you where Gary and Aaron and I used to get the rats.’

Great.

It couldn’t have been more than fifteen degrees outside. I had my jacket zipped up to my nose as I followed him down along the creek bed. It was dry then, in January, without even a glassy trickle in the bottom.

‘I used to pretend I was Luke Skywalker,’ he was saying as he forged ahead of me. ‘You know, from Star Wars. See, here was the Death Star, and Aaron and I would pretend we were flying our fighter planes and trying to hit the place that’d blow the Death Star up. That’s what we pretended the rat holes were.’

This is a date? I was thinking.

In the east the moon was rising. It hung on the horizon, not quite full, but big as a house. Overhead were scattered a billion stars honed to brilliance in the cold night air. Prairie grass crackled with frost as we walked through it.

Near a clump of leafless willows, Paul paused. He put his arm around my shoulder with clumsy affection. It tightened my muffler. He paused from his story about rats and Star Wars.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ he asked. ‘I think this is the most beautiful place in the whole world. You can have your mountains and oceans and cities. Give me this any time.’

I stared out from the creek bed. It was so flat. In every direction, as far as you could see, the horizon came right down even with our feet. There were no lights to be seen, no trees except for the four or five willows beside us. Nothing but sky and stars and darkness. It struck me as novel to think of somebody actually loving Kansas.

I shivered. ‘It’s cold though.’

His face brightened. ‘Yup. But I’ve thought of that. See here?’ He held out matches. ‘I thought we could gather up sticks. I’ll make us a fire. And see, I brought apples. You put them on sticks and roast them over the fire.’ He had a peculiar expression that reminded me of Megan when she desperately wanted to do something but was afraid of being laughed at for it.

‘I’m supposed to be back by midnight,’ I said. It was already ten to twelve. We looked at one another and both knew I wouldn’t be.

Paul built a small fire on the dry stones of the creek bed. Clearly, he had done this sort of thing often. Hands in my jacket, chin buried in my muffler, I watched him as he cut willow sticks, peeled them back, stuck them through the apples and put them over the fire. I had never heard of doing that to apples but I didn’t say anything. They gave off a wonderful smell, like autumn and old barns. When they were done, they were charred and crackly on the outside but the inside was steamy, smooth and slurpy. We ate in silence, hunkered down beside the small fire. Paul was gazing at me across the flames, and it struck me then how differently the night was turning out from what I had expected. I had expected a date. One of those pick-you-up, go-to-the-party, make-a-pass, take-you-home sort of evenings. The kind of thing I could tell Brianna about on Monday. And I would have liked that. What I was getting was more of a communion.

‘I haven’t ever brought anyone out here before,’ Paul said as he banked the fire. ‘But you know, I’ve been sitting in history class watching you. All term. You seem different from other girls.’

‘Oh?’ I said, flattered. ‘How’s that?’

He shrugged and reached an arm out around my shoulder. We went walking down the empty waterway. We didn’t speak again. We walked about a quarter of a mile in the moonlight until we came across a trickle of water under thick panes of ice. Paul crunched the ice with his shoe and we followed the water until it disappeared into a culvert running under a farm road. He stopped a moment to bend down and watch the water. Then we turned and walked back.

Paul stabbed the fire to life again. He threw small, dry branches on it. Sparks rose up into the air, and he stood back, watching them.

I thought how I wouldn’t mind at all if he did make a pass. A kiss from him would be nice. He had a sensual mouth, full lips. I wondered if I dared to start something.

Paul tipped his head back and stared up to the sky. The fire cast grotesque shadows on his throat. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘whenever I’m out here at night and looking up at the stars, I always wonder. I mean, I feel like such a small thing compared to all that up there. I think that I’m just one little person and there’re billions of people and this is just one little planet and there’re billions of planets.’ He looked over. ‘Do you ever think about stuff like that?’

‘Sometimes.’

There was silence. The fire crackled.

‘And yet,’ he said, his eyes on the stars again, ‘every one of us still has dreams.’

We stayed out very late. Paul and I talked for so long that the fire fell into embers and the cold held us rigid in its grasp. I had never come across anyone like Paul before, who found places like these bare plains beautiful and who thought about things like the stars. When we finally gave in and drove home, heater and dog stench going full blast, it was after three in the morning.

‘What are you carrying in there?’ he asked as we neared my block. ‘I saw you get in with it.’ He indicated a brown grocery sack.

‘It’s a gift I got,’ I said and opened the bag to show him.

He touched it. ‘It’s soft, isn’t it?’

I nodded and took the turquoise shawl out, laying it across my jeans.

I had become frightened on the way home, thinking that my father might be waiting up for me. I dreaded to think of the state he would be in because I had stayed out so late. And I was so tired that I didn’t feel able to cope with anyone’s anger just then. So, when we reached my house, it was with great relief that I saw all the lights were out except the porch lamp.

As noiselessly as possible, I let myself into the house and tiptoed up the stairs. My eyes had long since grown accustomed to darkness. I undressed and prepared for bed without bothering to turn on any lights. The room seemed unnaturally warm to me after being out so long in the winter night.

Carefully, I took the turquoise shawl out and draped it across my chair so that if Mama came in early in the morning, she would think I’d worn it. Then I went to the window and pulled back the curtain. The moon was high. It had lost its hugeness and now threw out a cold, lifeless light. The wind had picked up and drew debris from the street into noisy eddies below the window. I watched intently, still half lost in the dreamy strangeness of the evening. I was tired, but for some curious reason, I was not sleepy.

Then the door opened. I started violently. It was just a whisper of a sound but my heart popped into my mouth, and I jumped enough to hit my head on the upper edge of the window sash.

It was Megan.

She closed the door quietly but deliberately behind her, so that the latch sounded in the silence. Then she turned and looked at me but came no closer.

‘What are you doing up?’ I whispered.

‘I heard you come in.’

We stared at one another across the expanse of the room. It was almost too dark to distinguish her when I let the curtain drop back down.

‘Why aren’t you in bed?’ she asked.

‘Why aren’t you?’

Again, no words. Megan reached up and pushed back her hair.

‘Is something the matter?’ I asked. ‘Why are you awake?’

She continued to try and keep her hair back from her face.

‘Come over here,’ I said.

She came, hesitantly, stopping just before she was within my reach.

‘Did you have a bad dream or something?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I wet the bed.’

‘Oh. Oh well, Meggie, don’t worry about it. Do you want some help getting it changed?’

‘No. I did it already.’ She scratched her nose. Her long hair was wild about her, like a secondary garment. She looked up again. ‘No, I was just sitting there and I heard you come in.’

‘Well, you better get back to bed then. It’s really late.’

A pause. ‘Can I sleep with you?’

‘Are you having bad dreams or something?’

She shrugged. ‘No, I’m just sort of lonely.’

‘It’s like the old days,’ Megan whispered after we had gotten into bed. She had the quilt right up to her nose and it muffled her words.

I had my eyes closed.

‘Remember how I used to come in and sleep with you when I was little? When we lived in Yakima. Remember that, Lessie? I came in all the time.’

‘No lie.’

‘It was because of those dreams. Those nightmares I got. Remember them? And I’d wake everybody up? Remember?’

‘Yes, I certainly do.’

Megan shifted. We didn’t fit together in my single bed like we used to. I had almost outgrown it myself. And Megan was no longer tiny. I lay with my cheek resting against the top of her head.

‘Did I ever tell you what I believed then?’ she asked.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, you know how Mama was in the war? And she couldn’t go home to her family?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Well, when I was little and in the school in Yakima, I thought maybe they were going to do that to me. That teacher, remember, she used to always keep me after school. Mrs Hoolihan. Because I kept doing those worksheets wrong. And I thought it was going to be like it was with Mama. That pretty soon she wasn’t going to let me go home at all.’

‘That would never have happened, you know,’ I said. ‘You should have told somebody you felt like that, because we could have told you. It wouldn’t really happen.’

‘But it happened to Mama, Lessie. And it was when she was at school. She told us that. She was there and she couldn’t go home.’

‘Yes, but that was different. There was a war on. And she was at the university, not in grade school. Besides, that was in Germany a long time ago. Not America. It wouldn’t happen here.’

‘Well, yes, I know that. I’m telling you what I believed then. Remember, I was just little.’

‘Yes.’

‘And I mean, you can understand it. They did keep Mama there and not let her go home. So I thought they might do that to me too. Especially when Mrs Hoolihan made me stay after school and wouldn’t let me leave until I did those papers right. It really wasn’t such a stupid notion.’

I put my arms around Megan.

‘It was you guys I was scared about most,’ she said. ‘That they’d keep me there and I’d never see you or Mama or Daddy again. That’s what happened to Mama, and I think I’d just die if the same thing happened to me. I would. Even now. So, I kept dreaming about it. Over and over and over.’

‘Was that tonight too?’ I asked.

‘No. I just wet the bed, that’s all. Then I got up and changed the sheets and I was just sitting around. It made me feel lonesome.’

Silence settled over us. It was horribly late.

‘Did you have a nice time?’ Megan asked.

‘You mean tonight? Yeah, I did.’

‘Is he OK?’

‘Yes, he’s OK.’

‘Did he kiss you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you like it?’

‘You know, Megs, it kind of wrecks a thing like this when you have to come home and discuss it with your little sister.’

Megan shifted. ‘I don’t see why.’

The darkness closed in around us, and Megan grew so quiet that I assumed she had fallen asleep finally. I was very sleepy myself. Closing my eyes, I dozed.

‘Les?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘I’m getting awfully tired, Meggie. I want to go to sleep.’

‘But can I ask you something first? Before you go to sleep?’

‘You will anyway.’

‘Well, you know about the war?’

‘Mmm-hmm.’

‘Well, we’re studying about it at school. And you know, my teacher was telling us about some of the things the Nazis did to people. To the Jews, you know? She had some pictures. They were in a book.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Have you ever seen those pictures, Lessie?’

‘What book is it?’

‘Well, I can’t remember its name. But have you ever seen pictures like that? Of what they did to the Jews?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I have.’

Megan was silent. I was wide awake again.

‘Is it true? Did they really, really do things like that to people?’

‘I guess they did.’

‘Mama never makes the war sound very bad. She makes it sound like, well …I don’t know. You hear her stories. Like about Jadwiga. About how silly she was and stuff.’

Again silence.

‘Well …’ and then she stopped. I could feel her breath against my arm as she exhaled. ‘Well, Les, do you think they ever did things like that to Mama, things like in those pictures?’

‘Is that what’s bothering you? Are you worried about that?’

‘But did they, Lesley?’

‘Megs, Mama wasn’t a Jew, was she? Those were Jews in those pictures.’

‘But how come she never went home when the war started?’

‘I don’t know. She was working or something. I don’t know. But it was different than with the Jews, Meggie. I know that for certain. They liked Mama. See, they thought Mama was really beautiful. Because she was so blonde and stuff. You know. She’s told us about that. About how the Nazis liked people to have blonde hair and blue eyes. Aryan. That was their name for it. They liked people to be Aryans. And Mama was.’

‘But Mama had a hard time in the war. You know it. Like she’s got all those little scars and stuff. You know that’s from the war. Daddy said.’

‘Well, who knows. It was a difficult time there then. People got in trouble pretty easy. And you know Mama and her opinions. She’d get in trouble anywhere.’

No response from Megan.

‘But it wasn’t anything like what happened to the Jews. The Nazis hated the Jews. They planned to kill them all.’

‘But what was it like where Mama was?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then how can you say it was different from the places the Jews were? For all you know, maybe it wasn’t.’

I sighed. ‘I’m too tired for this, Megan. It’s the middle of the night. Cripes, it’s practically morning. I want to sleep.’

Megan squirmed around. She was well past the cuddly stage. Instead, she was mostly knees and elbows. She had her shoulder jammed against my breasts.

‘But what was it like for Mama, Lesley? I got to know. I keep thinking about those pictures and I got to know.’

‘But I don’t know. Listen, just forget about it. It happened a long, long time ago before you were born or I was born, before a whole lot of people were born. A long time ago.’

‘If it was so long ago, how come it still bothers Mama?’

‘Megan, go to sleep.’

‘But I need to know. I just keep seeing those pictures in that book. I shut my eyes and that’s what I see. In this one picture there was this little boy with his hands above his head. And they shot him. I keep seeing him in my mind. I keep seeing the way he was looking out of the picture. He was littler than me.’

‘Well, stop seeing him. Don’t think about it, because it’s over and done with. And Mama’s circumstances were not like the Jews’. I do know that much. Mama would have told us if it had been like what happened to the Jews. But she hasn’t, has she? So stop worrying and don’t think about it.’

Megan sighed. ‘You sound like Daddy.’

Again, another long silence. But this time I didn’t grow sleepy. I lay staring at the wall.

‘Les?’

‘What is it now?’

‘You know Mama?’

‘Of course I know Mama, Megan.’

‘No. Stoppit. Be serious. You know about Mama. The way she is. That’s because of the war, isn’t it?’

‘Megan, I mean it. Stop worrying about it. If you don’t shut up right now, I’m going to make you go back to your own bed.’

‘I’m not worrying. I’m just wondering.’

‘Well, then stop wondering.’

She sighed again. Then she wiggled to make herself more comfortable against me. She sighed one more time, heavily.

‘Your teacher shouldn’t be talking to you kids about stuff like that. You’re too little. She’s just scaring you. And I think that’s wrong. I think in the morning we ought to tell Daddy what she’s doing.’

Megan didn’t answer.

‘So just forget about it and we’ll take care of it in the morning, OK?’

Megan squirmed and then relaxed. She expelled a long breath of air and then closed her eyes. ‘Doesn’t matter really,’ she said quietly. ‘I already knew about it anyway.’

Chapter Six

Both Megan and I slept late. It was after ten o’clock when I woke up. Megan was still in bed with me, still asleep. I had a painful crick in my neck from not having been able to move easily during the night, and it hurt like heck to turn my head. So I sat up cautiously and then tried to climb over my sister without waking her. Quietly, I dressed and brushed my hair. Megan remained dead to the world.

Downstairs in the kitchen, my mother and father were still sitting at the table and drinking coffee. On days when my father didn’t have to work, my parents enjoyed long, leisurely breakfasts. Often they spent as much as three hours at the table, talking, eating, reading the newspaper, discussing world events, listening to the radio and drinking the strong, dark coffee my mother made in a special pot. When I came down I could tell they had eaten their main breakfast quite a while earlier, but by the way things were spread out, it was apparent they were still a long way from finishing.

Warily, I glanced at my father to see if he was angry about my late return. But after greeting me, he returned to his coffee and newspaper. Mama was browsing through the want ads. She looked up.

‘Did you have a nice time?’

‘Yes, Mama, I did.’

She lit a cigarette and leaned back in her chair. ‘This boy, did you like him?’

‘Yes, Mama.’ I smiled at her as I went to the refrigerator to take out the eggs. ‘I like him a lot. He’s different.’

Lifting down a bowl, I broke a couple of eggs into it and scrambled them. Mama had turned in her chair to watch me. Her hair was loose. Apparently she had washed it earlier and had not gone to tie it back yet. Like Megan, she had extraordinarily straight hair, and it lay across her shoulders, reflecting the glow of the kitchen light. Putting her cigarette into the ashtray, she pulled out one strand of hair and twisted it around her finger.

‘Guess what, Mama. Paul liked the turquoise shawl. He said how soft it was. He thought it was beautiful.’

Pleased, she smiled.

‘And guess what else? They have dogs. Two of them. Labradors. Named Fortnum and Mason. His mama lets them ride around in the backseat of her car when she goes to do the shopping.’

My mother laughed. She adored dogs. We’d had one once, a great hulking brute of a dog, a cross between a Dalmatian and a Newfoundland retriever. Mama had named him Piffi, which was a very unlikely name for that dog. He should have been called Brutus or Killer, or at the very least Rover. But in spite of his appearance, he had been gentle and good tempered. Megs used to ride on him, and I dressed him up in doll bonnets or tied yarn to his tail to make him look more like the pony I was longing for then. However, Piffi’s real allegiance had always been to Mama.

All the while I talked, I kept an eye on my father. I was concerned that if I let the conversation between Mama and me flag, he would pounce on me for having stayed out too late. I stalled as best I could, talking faster and faster, elaborating way beyond what I actually knew about Fortnum and Mason. But Dad said nothing. He sat with his newspaper and his coffee and a piece of toast Mama had gotten up and made for him while I was talking. When I couldn’t detect a flicker of life from behind the newspaper, I gave up and ate my breakfast.

I knew he knew I had come in late. Because it was my first date alone with a boy, Dad had sat me down for a thorough talk the night before. Unlike Mama, my father wasn’t the least concerned about Paul’s virginity. He made me Scotch tape a dime inside my shoe so that if I needed to call him to come get me, I’d be prepared. I knew it mattered to him and my lateness wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. Besides, he seldom went to bed before midnight anyway.

But my father said nothing. I could tell he was listening to my conversation with Mama, but he never came out from behind the sports section. My mother saved me. Delighted with all this talk of dogs, she began reminiscing about Piffi. We exchanged little memories about him, and Mama was laughing and illustrating her stories with animated gestures. Dad, I suspect, was reluctant to spoil her happy mood by getting mad at me.