The Ruins - Страница 39

"What are we doing?" Jeff asked.

Mathias shrugged, gesturing toward the sloppy, shallow ditch they'd managed to gouge out of the earth. "Digging a latrine."

"And is there any point in that?"

Mathias shook his head. "Not really."

Jeff tossed his stone into the dirt, wiped his hands on his pants. His palms burned-that green fuzz was growing on his jeans again. They all had it-on their clothes, their shoes-he'd seen each of them, at one moment or another, reaching to brush it away as they'd crouched together in the clearing.

"We could use it for the urine," Mathias said. "To distill it." He made a motion with his hands, spreading an imaginary tarp across the hole.

"And is there any point in that?" Jeff asked.

Mathias bridled at this, lifting his head. "You were the one who-"

Jeff nodded, cutting him off. "I know-my idea. But how much water will we get out of it?"

"Not much."

"Enough to make up for whatever we're sweating right now, digging like this?"

"I doubt it."

Jeff sighed. He felt foolish. And-what else? Tired, maybe, but more than this: defeated. Perhaps this was despair, which he knew was the worst thing of all, the opposite of survival. Whatever it was, the feeling was on him now, and he didn't know how to shake it. "If it rains," he said, "we'll have plenty of water. If it doesn't, we'll die of thirst."

Mathias didn't say anything. He was watching him closely, squinting slightly.

"I was trying to make work," Jeff said. "Give us things to do. Keep up our morale." He smiled, mocking himself. "I was even planning to drop back down into the shaft."

"Why?"

"The beeping. The cell phone sound."

"There's no oil for the lamp."

"We could make a torch."

Mathias laughed, incredulous. "A torch?"

"With rags-we could soak them in tequila."

"You see?" Mathias asked. "How German you are?"

"You're saying there's no point?"

"None worth the risk."

"What risk?"

Mathias shrugged, as if it were self-evident. And perhaps it was. "Look at Pablo," he said.

Pablo. The worst thing. Jeff hadn't mentioned his idea yet, his plan to save the Greek, and he hesitated even now, wondering at his motives, how pure they were, how mixed. The possibility that he was simply, yet again, making work for them hovered at the edge of his mind, then was quickly dismissed. They could save him if they tried; he was certain of it. "You think he's going to make it?" he asked.

Mathias frowned. When he spoke, his voice went low, almost inaudibly so. "Not likely."

"But if help came today-"

"Do you believe help is coming today?"

Jeff shook his head, and they were silent for a stretch. Mathias picked at the dirt with his stake. Jeff was working up his courage. Finally, he cleared his throat, said the words. "Maybe we could save him."

Mathias kept probing at the dirt, not even bothering to glance up. "How?"

"We could amputate his legs."

Mathias went still, watching Jeff now, smiling at him, but uncertainly. "You're joking."

Jeff shook his head.

"You want to cut off his legs."

"He'll die if we don't."

"Without anesthesia."

"There wouldn't be any pain. He has no feeling beneath his waist."

"He'd lose too much blood."

"The tourniquets are already in place. We'd cut below them."

"With what? You don't have any surgical instruments, any-"

"The knife."

"You'd need a bone saw-a knife wouldn't do a thing."

"We could break the bones, then cut."

Mathias shook his head, looking appalled. It was the most emotion Jeff had ever seen on his face. "No, Jeff. No way."

"Then he's dead."

Mathias ignored this. "What about infection? Cutting into him with a dirty knife?"

"We could sterilize it."

"We don't have any wood. Or water to boil. Or a pot, for that matter."

"There are things to burn-those notebooks, the backpacks full of clothes. We could heat the knife directly in the flames. It'll cauterize as it cuts."

"You'll kill him."

"Or save him-one or the other. But at least there's a chance. Would you rather sit back and watch him die over the coming days? It's not going to be quick-don't trick yourself into thinking that."

"If help comes-"

"Today, Mathias. It would have to come today. With his legs exposed like that, septicemia's going to set in-maybe it already has. Once it gets going, there'll be nothing anyone can do."

Mathias started picking at the dirt again, hunched into himself. "I'm sorry I brought us here," he said.

Jeff waved this aside; it seemed beside the point. "We chose to come."

Mathias sighed, dropped the tent stake. "I don't think I can do it," he said.

"I'll do it."

"I mean agree to it-I can't agree to it."

Jeff was silent, absorbing this; he hadn't expected it, had thought that Mathias would be the easiest to convince, the one to help him sway the others. "Then we should put him out of his misery," Jeff said. "Get him drunk-pour the tequila down his throat, wait for him to pass out. And, you know…" He made a sharp gesture with his arm, waving it through the air, a blow. It was harder than he would've thought to put the thing into words.

Mathias stared at him; Jeff could tell he didn't understand. Or didn't want to, maybe, was going to force him to say it outright. "What?" he asked.

"End it. Cut his throat. Smother him."

"You can't be serious."

"If he were a dog, wouldn't you-"

"But he's not a dog."

Jeff threw up his hands in frustration. Why had this become so difficult? He was just trying to be practical. Humane. "You know what I mean," he said.

He wasn't going to continue with this. He'd offered his idea; what more could he do? He felt that weight again, that leaden quality. The sun was climbing higher. They ought to be in the tent, in the shade; it was foolish for them to be out in the open like this, sweating. But he made no attempt to move. He was pouting, he realized, punishing Mathias for not embracing his plan. He disliked himself for this, and disliked Mathias for witnessing it; he wished he could stop. But he couldn't.

"Have you spoken to the others?" Mathias asked.

Jeff shook his head.

Mathias brushed some of the green fuzz off his jeans, then wiped his hands in the dirt, thinking it all through. Finally, he stood up. "We should vote," he said. "If the others say yes, then I will, too."

And with that, he started back up the hill toward the tent.

They gathered, once again, in the clearing.

First Mathias reappeared, and then, a few moments later, Jeff. They sat on the ground beside Eric and Stacy, forming a little half circle around the lean-to. Pablo lay there with his eyes shut, and-even as they spoke of his situation-no one seemed willing to look at him. They were avoiding using his name, too; rather than speaking it, they'd say "he," and throw a vague wave toward his broken body. Amy was still down at the base of the hill, watching for the other Greeks, but even after they started talking, when it became clear that there was a purpose to this conversation, that something important-something dreadful-was in the process of being decided, no one mentioned her absence. Stacy thought of her, wondered if she ought to be fetched-Stacy wanted this to happen, to have Amy beside her, holding her hand, the two of them thinking their way through this together-but she couldn't bring herself to speak. She wasn't good in situations like this. Fear made her passive, silent. She tended to cower and wait for bad things to pass her by.

But they wanted her opinion. Wanted both hers and Eric's. If they said yes, then it would happen: Jeff would cut off Pablo's legs. Which was horrible and unimaginable, but also, according to Jeff, the only hope. So, by this logic, if they said no, there'd be no hope. Pablo would die. This was what Jeff told them.

No hope-there was a precursor to these words, a first hope that had to be relinquished in order for the second, also, to be risked. They weren't going to be rescued today: that was what Jeff was telling them. And this was what Stacy found herself focusing on, even though she knew she should've been thinking about Pablo-they were going to have to spend another night here in the orange tent, surrounded by the vine, which could move, which could burrow into Eric's leg, and which-if she were to believe Jeff-wanted them all dead. She didn't see how she could do this.

"How do you know?" she said. She could feel the fear in her voice, and it had a redoubling effect: hearing it frightened her all the more.

"Know what?" Jeff asked.

"That they aren't coming."

"I didn't say that."

"You said-"

"That it didn't seem likely they'll be coming today. "

"But-"

"And if they don't come today, and we don't act, he"-and here there was that vague wave toward the lean-to-"won't make it."

"But how do you know?"

"His bones are exposed. He's going to-"

"No-that they aren't coming."

"It's not about knowing; it's about not knowing. About the risk of waiting rather than acting."

"So they might come."

Jeff gave her an exasperated look, throwing up his hands. "And they might not come. That's the whole point."

They were circling, of course, not saying anything, really, just throwing words at each other; even Stacy could see this. He wasn't going to give her what she wanted-couldn't give it to her, in fact. She wanted the Greeks to come, wanted them to be here already, wanted to be rescued, safe, and all Jeff could say was that it might not happen, not today at least, and that if it didn't, they had to cut off Pablo's legs.