Green Eyes

  At times like these I realize how much my work has distanced me from friends and family. Still, I find that the patients in their compressed, excited states are far more interesting than any of my acquaintances, and I believe that even relative failures such as Mr Juskit would - had they lived a full span at this accelerated pace - have accomplished a great deal more than they have related. Their repellent aspects, in my opinion, are outweighed by the intensity of their expression. For this reason I wish to withdraw my resignation tendered yesterday, October 24, 1986.

  Therapist’s Signature: Jocundra Verret

  Staff Evaluation: Let’s assign Verret to a slow-burner as soon as possible, but not just the first one that comes along. I’d like to see a photograph and data sheet on each new slow-burner, and from that material I’ll make an appropriate selection.

  A. Edman

  Chapter 3

  February 10, 1987

  The road to Shadows was unmarked, or rather the marker - an old metal Grapette sign - had been overgrown by a crepe myrtle, and a live oak branch, its bark flecked with blue-green scale, had cracked off the trunk and fallen across the bush, veiling it in leaf spray and hanks of Spanish moss. But Jocundra caught a glint of metal as she passed and slammed on the brakes. The van fish tailed and slewed onto the shoulder, and the man beside her was thrown forward against the safety harness. His head bounced on the back of the seat, then he let it loll toward her and frowned.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘These brakes are awful. Are you all right?’ She touched his leg in sympathy and felt the muscles jump.

  The silence between them sang with tension. Crickets sawed, a jay screamed, the thickets seethed and hissed in a sudden breeze, and all the sharp sounds of life seemed to be registering the process of his hostility toward her. His frown softened to a reproving gaze and he turned away, staring out at the clouds of white dust settling around the van.

  ‘We should be there in another half hour,’ she said. ‘And then I’ll fix us some lunch.’

  He sighed but didn’t comment.

  Heat rippled off the tops of the bushes, and every surface Jocundra touched was slippery with her sweat. A mosquito whined in her ear; peevish, she slapped at it and blew a strand of hair from her eyes. She backed up, setting his head bouncing again, and headed down a gravel track whose entrance was so choked with vegetation that vines trailed across the windshield, and twigs bearing clusters of yellow-tipped leaves tattered at the side vent and swatted her elbow. Rows of live oaks arched overhead and the road was in deep shade, bridged by irregular patches of sunlight falling through rents in the canopy. Once it had been a grand concourse traveled by gleaming carriages, fine ladies and fancy gentlemen, but now it was potholed, ferns grew in the wheel ruts, and the anonymous blue vans of the project were its sole traffic.

  The potholes forced her to drive slowly, but she could hardly wait to reach Shadows and hand him over to the orderlies. Maybe an hour or so of being alone would make him more amiable. She leaned forward, plucking her dress away from her damp skin, and glanced at him. He just stared out the window, his fingers twitching in his lap. The brown suit they had issued him at Tulane was too short in the arms, exposing knobbly wrists, and when she had first seen him wearing it she had thought of the teenage boys from her home town dressed in their ill-fitting Sunday best, waiting for the army bus to carry them off to no good future. He was much older, nearly thirty, but he had the witchy look that bayou men often presented: hollow-cheeked, long-nosed, sharp-chinned, with lank black hair hanging ragged over his collar. Not handsome, but not ugly either. Large hazel eyes acted to plane down his features and gave him a sad, ardent look such as you might find in an Old Master’s rendering of a saint about to die of wounds gotten for the love of Christ. His irises were not yet showing a trace of green.

  ‘You know, I was born about forty miles from here,’ she said, embarrassed by the artificial sunniness in her voice. ‘Over on Bayou Teche. It’s beautiful there. Herons and cypresses and old plantation homes like Shadows…’

  ‘I don’t want to talk.’ His voice was weak but full of venom; he kept his eyes turned toward the window.

  ‘Why are you so angry?’ She put her hand on his arm, probing the hollow of his elbow. ‘I’m just trying to be friendly.’