The Dragon Griaule

The man’s name was John Colmacos, and he was in his early thirties, a botanist from the university at Port Chantay who had been abandoned by his guides when he insisted on entering the mouth and had subsequently been mauled by apes that had taken up residence in the mouth. He was lean, rawboned, with powerful, thick-fingered hands and fine brown hair that would never stay combed. His long-jawed, horsey face struck a bargain between homely and distinctive, and was stamped with a perpetually inquiring expression as if he were a bit perplexed by everything he saw, and his blue eyes were large and intricate, the irises flecked with green and hazel, appearing surprisingly delicate in contrast to the rest of him.

Catherine, happy to have rational company, especially that of a professional in her vocation, took charge of nursing him back to health – he had suffered fractures of the arm and ankle, and was badly cut about the face; and in the course of this she began to have fantasies about him as a lover. She had never met a man with his gentleness of manner, his lack of pretense, and she found it most surprising that he wasn’t concerned with trying to impress her. Her conception of men had been limited to the soldiers of Teocinte, the thugs of Hangtown, and everything about John fascinated her. For awhile she tried to deny her feelings, telling herself that she would have fallen in love with almost anyone under the circumstances, afraid that by loving she would only increase her dissatisfaction with her prison; and, too, there was the realization that this was doubtless another of Griaule’s manipulations, his attempt to make her content with her lot, to replace Mauldry with a lover. But she couldn’t deny that under any circumstance she would have been attracted to John Colmacos for many reasons, not the least of which was his respect for her work with Griaule, for how she had handled adversity. Nor could she deny that the attraction was mutual. That was clear. Although there were awkward moments, there was no mooniness between them; they were both watching what was happening.

‘This is amazing,’ he said one day, while going through one of her notebooks, lying on a pile of furs in her apartment. ‘It’s hard to believe you haven’t had training.’

A flush spread over her cheeks. ‘Anyone in my shoes, with all that time, nothing else to do, they would have done no less.’

He set down the notebook and measured her with a stare that caused her to lower her eyes. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘Most people would have fallen apart. I can’t think of anybody else who could have managed all this. You’re remarkable.’

She felt oddly incompetent in the light of this judgment, as if she had accorded him ultimate authority and were receiving the sort of praise that a wise adult might bestow upon an inept child who had done well for once. She wanted to explain to him that everything she had done had been a kind of therapy, a hobby to stave off despair; but she didn’t know how to put this into words without sounding awkward and falsely modest, and so she merely said, ‘Oh,’ and busied herself with preparing a dose of brianine to take away the pain in his ankle.

‘You’re embarrassed,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.’

‘I’m not . . . I mean, I . . .’ She laughed. ‘I’m still not accustomed to talking.’

He said nothing, smiling.

‘What is it?’ she said, defensive, feeling that he was making fun of her.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why are you smiling?’

‘I could frown,’ he said, ‘if that would make you comfortable.’

Irritated, she bent to her task, mixing paste in a brass goblet studded with uncut emeralds, then molding it into a pellet.

‘That was a joke,’ he said.

‘I know.’

‘What’s the matter?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to make you uncomfortable . . . I really don’t. What am I doing wrong?’

She sighed, exasperated with herself. ‘It’s not you,’ she said. ‘I just can’t get used to you being here, that’s all.’

From without came the babble of some Feelys lowering on ropes toward the chamber floor.

‘I can understand that,’ he said. ‘I . . .’ He broke off, looked down and fingered the edge of the notebook.

‘What were you going to say?’

He threw back his head, laughed. ‘Do you see how we’re acting? Explaining ourselves constantly . . . as if we could hurt each other by saying the wrong word.’

She glanced over at him, met his eyes, then looked away.

‘What I meant was, we’re not that fragile,’ he said, and then, as if by way of clarification, he hastened to add: ‘We’re not that . . . vulnerable to one another.’

He held her stare for a moment, and this time it was he who looked away and Catherine who smiled.