Z for Zachariah

Chapter Seventeen

June 30th

I am living in the cave again, and I am glad now that I never told Mr Loomis about it or where it was. I moved up here two days ago, not because I wanted to, but because of what happened. I will try to write it down in order. That may help me to think clearly and decide what I must do.

On the night after the “pass”, the hand-holding, I went to bed as usual with Faro beside me. I was still extremely nervous and could not get to sleep until about three a.m. When I woke it was bright daylight—later than usual for me—and I had the worried feeling that everything had changed. At first I could not think why; then I remembered, and again I tried to convince myself that it was not so important. I had my work to do and I would try to do it as before.

So I got up, gathered the eggs (noting that one of the hens had hatched out eight baby chicks—all alive—and two others were sitting), milked the cow, went into the kitchen and got breakfast ready. And it was all as before except for my own feelings. I ate breakfast in the kitchen—I had been doing that each morning, since he did not wake as early as I did—and then, after cleaning things up a bit, took his tray into his room. I felt strained and tense but if he had any such feeling he did not show it at all. He took his tray, started eating his breakfast, and, as had grown customary, talked about what I would do that day. I had planned to fertilize the corn and the soy beans and pea-beans, which were now up. Also the garden if there was time.

He asked: “Fertilize with what?”

“The corn and beans with chemical fertilizer.”

“From the store.”

“Yes.”

“How much is there?”

“I don’t know exactly.” The fertilizer, in fifty-pound bags, was kept in a shed behind the store, next to a loading platform. The shed was full, with bags stacked to the ceiling—Mr Klein had been ready for the spring planting by the Amish. “There must be 500 bags.”

“Still it will run out.”

“But not for years.”

“It must last until we can switch to manure.”

“I know.”

I felt better down in the cornfield, driving the tractor and the spreader through the rows of new corn. It was doing well, several inches high already, the young stalks shining bright green and looking healthy. I tried to imitate my father and get the wheel—and thus the fertilizer—as close to the rows as I could without packing them down. The day was bright and still; in fact, for the first time it was a bit too warm for comfort in the sun, and Faro, after following me for a couple of rows, went to the edge of the field and watched from the shade of the apple tree. All in all, I felt normalcy returning and then, turning at the end of a row, I glanced up at the house. There on the porch sat Mr Loomis in his chair, leaning slightly forward. Because he was in the shade I could not see his face, but I could feel that he was watching me.

That made me feel nervous again; I could not tell exactly why. I tried to overcome it by not looking in his direction again, not even a glance, but pretending (mostly to myself) that I did not know he was there. I concentrated on the tows, and watched the spreader and the grey fertilizer sifting down from the hopper on to the soil. When I turned off the tractor at noon and walked up to the house he had gone in again. I did not see him go so I could not tell when.

Lunch was about as usual, and then I went out again. In the late afternoon I fertilized the vegetable garden, this time using manure. I hauled it in the old wooden hand-cart, some from the pile outside the barn, some from the henhouse. I used manure not because of anything Mr Loomis had said but because we always did; it makes the garden grow better than the chemical fertilizer. We used a mix of three parts cow to one part chicken, the chicken being much stronger.

All in all a fairly routine day until dinner time, and even what happened then was not really startling.

It was six-thirty, I was in the kitchen, and had almost finished cooking; in fact I was putting knives and forks on the tray when I heard the sound of his cane and the thump of his footsteps (somewhat brisker than before) coming out of the bedroom. I thought he must be going to the porch; I listened, standing quiet, and instead heard him turn in the opposite direction—towards the back of the house, towards me. I thought: was he coming to the kitchen? I heard a chair scrape, a thump, and when I looked out he had seated himself at the dining room table. He saw me in the doorway.

“I don’t need to eat in bed any more,” he said. “I am still weak, but not sick.”

I put away the tray and set the table instead. We ate together, he at one end of the table, I at the other. He even tried to create conversation.

“I saw you driving the tractor. I was on the porch.”

I said: “Oh?”

“Was it hot in the sun?”

“A little. Not very.”

“Some tractors have sunshades for the driver.”

“You can buy them. My father never did. He liked to work in the sun. When it got too strong he wore a straw hat.”

There was a pause; we ate in silence. Then he said:

“I thought the corn looked good.” He was paying me a compliment.

I said: “It’s okay. So are the beans.”

“And the vegetable garden.”

We were, in fact, eating spinach from the garden for dinner, and in a few more days would have peas.

He kept this up, a sort of inconsequential chatter, and I joined in as well as I could. I even told him about the eight new chickens. And I did feel a little more relaxed as a result, which I suppose was what he intended.

After dinner I washed the dishes as usual, and swept the floor. I was yawning, feeling quite tired, having worked hard all day and scarcely slept the night before. When I came out of the kitchen I saw that he had not gone back to the bedroom; he had decided that he was no longer sick, so he had sat in a chair in the living room, the big chair my father used to sit in in the evenings. He had even lighted two lamps, though it was not really dark out, but still dusk.

He said: “Do you remember when I was sick—something you did?”

I was immediately alarmed, thinking he was coming back to the hand-holding.

“What do you mean?”

“You read to me. At least once, for quite a long time.”

I was relieved. I did not mind discussing reading. “I remember.”

“Could you do it again?”

“You mean now?”

“Yes.”

“Read what?” I was not very eager to do it, only partly because I was tired. It seemed strange and unnatural. I thought, why should he want me to read to him when he knew how to read himself? Still, I knew of families who did read to one another as a regular pastime; perhaps it was not so strange.

“Whatever you like,” he said. “Maybe what you read before?”

“That was poetry.”

“I don’t mind. I’d like to hear it. Or anything else you want to read.”

I did not want to read anything, but the fact is I did not know how to refuse, which I suppose he knew.

So I ended up reading to him for more than an hour. I read Gray’s “Elegy” again, and when I finished that he asked me not to stop, so I read the beginning of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. (I could almost have recited that by heart.)

As I said, it was not such a startling thing, but one part of it bothered me, and also puzzled me. After the first half hour or so I realized that he was not listening at all. I discovered this while reading Jane Austen. I was so tired by that time that I accidentally turned two pages at once, skipping from page seventeen to page twenty. I read on for half a page before I realized that I had left out the whole episode telling about Mr Bonaventure and his money, so that what I was reading made no sense. I started to explain and go back to page eighteen when it came to me that he had not even noticed. So I just read on.

But why should he ask me to read to him if he did not want to listen?

The more I thought about it the more the feeling grew in me that it was wrong; it was as if he were playing some kind of a trick on me. And that idea made me feel more nervous than ever—in fact, afraid. Then I got quite angry with myself for feeling that way. I told myself I was making up problems. There was no reason to believe that he did not really want to be read to, even though he did not pay close attention. The sound of a voice can be soothing; he had been mortally ill, and perhaps was still restless; surely he must be bored all through the day. I reminded myself that that, at least, was sure to get better as he was able to walk farther and do more. Meanwhile if I could help him I should.