Five

Two or three more years passed, with Thomas going gradually down and down a hill without realizing it, not considering what might be at the foot.

He kept assuring himself that he was being very careful, but as time went on, he was taking fewer and fewer precautions, since no one said anything. Occasionally, Samuel would look at him in a suspicious or angry way, and Thomas would resolve to take less of the magic liquid the next day.

It never occurred to him to stop altogether, however, until Philip one day made another of his conversation-killing remarks. A propos of nothing, he looked over at Thomas as he and Nathanael were conversing, and blurted, "You know, Thomas, you look half drunk all the time lately."

Thomas immediately turned away and went home, his face flushed with guilt and anger; and as he left, he heard Nathanael say, "Really, Philip!"

"Well, he does!" Philip replied.

Nathanael began to explain that if Thomas did not drink, there was nothing he could do about his appearance, and it was cruel to make him think he looked like a drunk, and if he did . . ." but by that time Thomas had walked out of earshot, and never found out why Nathanael thought that if he was a drunk (as Nathanael knew better, perhaps than he himself did), he should not be confronted with the fact.

Obviously, things had gone too far. Thomas would have to stop drinking.

If he could.

The next day, he drank nothing, declined wine at the evening meal (which raised Samuel's eyebrows) and merely had a cup of water). This gave him a raging headache, which made life miserable for him and for Samuel, who noticed the change, but could not fathom just what was wrong.

He had his usual wine the next evening, and it was some relief; but it turned out that he needed more, much more to keep going, because the magic liquid was so much more powerful, and he had found that he needed more and more of it to achieve the same feeling.

The result was, as this went on for two or three more days, that he was getting worse instead of better. Thomas did not feel physically quite so horrible at the end of it, but he was nervous as a cat on hot stones, ready to pick a quarrel over nothing with anyone who happened to be in his way--which of course mainly meant Samuel. When Nathanael felt his wrath, he simply told him that the conversation was over until he "became a human being again," and went off up the hill to his house. Of course, since his remarks took the form of sarcasm, they went right over Philip's head.

Hoping that the agony would wear off, and aware that he was annoying everyone he came in contact with, Thomas made a manful effort to restrain himself until he could recover his equilibrium; but after several more days, Samuel finally told him, "I know not what has happened to you recently, Thomas, but if it is something you are doing, it would be well if you would undo it. You are impossible to be with."

This was all Thomas needed. The magic liquid had been calling louder and louder to him from the little bladder that he did not have the courage to leave behind, and now he had an excuse for sampling it--but very very carefully.

And the old Thomas returned. He resolved to take no more than half of what he had been taking, and so was much more rational than he had been before he gave up drinking altogether; and when Philip remarked, "Ah! This is the Thomas I remember!" (Eliciting a sharp look from Nathanael), he felt that his new program was successful, and continued, merely keeping himself a bit relaxed and--yes, happy.

And so passed another year or two, Thomas learning more and more from his reading, and chafing more and more from what he increasingly regarded as the "chains" that bound him to the fishing boat--and to Samuel, that second self who was not at self at all, except in looks and superficial behavior. He wondered how Samuel could love a life of such boredom, when there was a whole world out there to explore--but, of course, Samuel knew nothing of it unless it involved fish and how to catch them. When Thomas tried to describe some of the wonders he read about, Samuel would merely yawn. Thomas suspected that this was partly jealousy, but it was also true that Samuel was totally absorbed in his occupation--something that was beyond Thomas's comprehension.

But Thomas, without realizing it, had still been going farther and farther down the hill he had been descending earlier--though at a more gentle slope, and though he told himself constantly that he was walking on level ground. Slope there was, however, and every day the bottom was growing a bit closer--that bottom he did not even realize existed, in spite of a fear in him that made him not look in that direction.

Samuel and he had become increasingly estranged, speaking almost exclusively of what was necessary to keep the fishing business going. They never joined in hostilities, because each knew where the forbidden territory was, until one fateful day when they were about to launch on a routine fishing trip.

Thomas, who was, as usual, in the bow, happened to glance back and, without quite realizing it, saw Nathanael at his usual perch under the fig-tree by the shore, watching them idly. He felt a twinge of what might be called friendly contempt (which, truth be told, was what put Nathanael and him on equal terms in his mind, and kept him a friend), but it passed almost without his adverting to it, and he returned his attention to the lake.

Suddenly, however, while they were still close to shore, Samuel shipped the oars, making Thomas turn to see what was the matter. Samuel turned around in his seat to face him (as he rowed, of course, he was facing the stern), and said, "Thomas, it has gone too far. This must stop."

Thomas, whose guilt made him guess what was coming said, "What must stop?"

"You know perfectly well what must stop. It must stop."

"I know not what you are speaking of."

"Thomas, Thomas, could you possibly believe that I could be with you all day in this boat for years and years and be unaware what you are doing when you think my back is turned? I have said nothing, because I know that you tried once a couple of years ago to stop, and I know what a demon it made of you, and when you returned to your former self, it was such a relief that I merely hoped you could control it. But you cannot, Thomas; it has been getting worse and worse, and you are wrecking your life. You are wrecking your life--and mine and Abba's and Eema's."

"You have told them?"

"I have said nothing. I did not have to tell them. If they know not, they are blind, but you are an adult now, and what can they do? But I see their faces as they look at you. They are sick with worry. We all are. We love you, Thomas, and we cannot bear to see you thus."

"To see me thus? What do you mean?"

"Thomas, do you not realize--no, perhaps you do not realize--how you appear? At times it is hard to understand you, because your speech is slurred and not clear. You are clumsy where you used to be skilled--"

"Are you calling me a drunk?"

"You know you used to be a better fisherman even than Abba, but lately your catch has not been even half of his."

"What of that? We have had bad luck, and he has had good luck; praise the Master for him."

"We have not had bad luck. I watch you as you cast the net; there are times when even I could do it better."

"Very well, then, if you are so good at it, then you cast the net, and I will row."

"I am not saying that I am better than you. Perhaps I am better than you now, but you are far better at it by nature than I."

"And so you think that now, since I am a drunk, I have become worse than you. Is that it?"

"That is not it, and you know it. I care not for whether you are better at something than I; in fact, I rejoice that you are better."

"Just as you rejoice that I can read and you cannot."

"You may not believe this, but there is a sense that that is largely true."

"Oh, of a certainty! I have heard your praise of me often and often!"

"Do you not realize--? No, but this is beside the point. The point is that, whatever it is that you are drinking, and however much of it you are drinking, it is destroying you--and everything about you, and everyone about you--and you must stop before it destroys you completely."

Samuel had just laid bare the fact that at the bottom of the hill Thomas was descending, there was not level ground, but a pit that had no bottom, and which looked, Thomas realized with a shock, like the Valley of Hinnom in Jerusalem, where the city burned its garbage.

In the pause during which Thomas stared at the sky in dawning awareness of what he was doing to himself, Samuel stood up in the boat and suddenly reached into Thomas's cloak, grasping the bladder he knew Thomas had hid there.

Thomas suddenly came awake and turned into a fury. He seized Samuel's arm, but too late; he had the bladder in his hand and ripped it from where it was fastened to the cloak. Thomas grasped at it, but Samuel held it out of his reach.

They struggled, and the boat rocked perilously. Thomas, with the strength of desperation (as twins, both of whom engaged in strenuous labor, they were ordinarily perfectly matched), almost wrested the bladder from Samuel, who saw what was coming and with a great effort, flung it away from him into the sea.

Thomas screamed--the first sound either had uttered since Samuel had made his grab at the bladder--and dove overboard after his precious magic liquid. The bladder, which was less than half full, was floating nearby and Thomas swam to it in a few strong strokes, after taking a second or two to duck out of his cloak, which sank slowly to the bottom.

When he had the bladder in hand, he was of two minds whether to swim back to the boat and have it out with Samuel, or to swim directly to the shore, which was not very far off, and wait to confront Samuel later when both had cooled off. There was no point in a physical battle; Samuel now knew that this was not the way to persuade Thomas of anything.

On the other hand, he should reconcile now, because he was really at fault. He turned to swim back to the boat, and found that as he had jumped overboard, he had capsized it. There it was, floating idly upside down, with the oars drifting slowly away.

But where was Samuel? On the other side of the boat, doubtless, out of his sight.

He called.

No answer.

A sudden chill came over Thomas. No, it was not possible. Samuel could swim too well. He swam over to the boat and grasped it, circling it (being careful not to lose his precious bladder) and looking everywhere over the lake, calling Samuel's name and hearing nothing. He was not on the other side of the boat.

And he had not time to reach the shore. Where was he?

Mechanically, without thinking--he could not think--Thomas swam over and retrieved the oars, and then back to the boat--to the boat! Of course! He had to be under it! But why had he not answered?

He dove down, and there, trapped under the boat, was Samuel, lying face down in the water, with blood pouring out of the back of his head. When the boat overturned, the gunwale must have hit him and knocked him unconscious.

Thomas struggled to pull him out from there and turn him over so that he could breathe. He had to get him to shore. The boat could wait; it would not drift far. He grasped his--body--under the chin and swam with it, the bladder still in his hand flopping on the inert chest as he towed him in, stroke by painfully slow stroke, to the nearest place where the rocks were small enough to form a kind of beach, and finally got him on land, supine and staring at the sky, his blood staining the rocks.

Thomas frantically tore Samuel's cloak and tried to bandage the huge wound in the back of his head. He looked up the bank for help, but Nathanael was not at his post by the fig tree. Had he not been there earlier? Thomas thought, but could not remember, everything was so frenzied and confused.

He had to make him breathe! He had to! He pressed on his chest, and water came out of the mouth, but there was no other response. He bent over, hoping to share his living breath with Samuel, and blew into his mouth. His chest expanded from the air Thomas blew in, but nothing else happened.

After what seemed hours of this, Thomas finally gave up. The man was dead. And Thomas had killed him.

Samuel, whom he had wished to be rid of, was dead.

And he had killed him.

"Are you satisfied?" he screamed at himself. "You now have what you have always wanted! Are you finally satisfied?"

He sat dumbly on the shore, beside what had been Samuel, whose head was still bleeding through the bandage into the rocks, watching the boat, which, like a dog seeking its master, was making its desultory way toward the very place Thomas was sitting. Even the oars, he thought dimly.

When the boat was only a couple of boat lengths from shore, Thomas, without realizing what he was doing, rose and waded in, bringing it to shore and righting it on the beach beside his dead twin.

His dead twin.

He could not look at him. He waded in and retrieved the oars, and placed them in the boat--the boat that would be used now for fishing, how? Who could replace Samuel?

There was no Samuel. Thomas was alone.

And suddenly realized that he was only half himself. It was unthinkable that Samuel was--nothing. That thing on the shore (which Thomas still could not look at) was not Samuel; it was not even a poor statue of Samuel. It was a mockery.

For a long time, Thomas, who could not shed tears or even make a sound, was unconscious even though his eyes were open, apparently focused on the far shore. Finally, as he sat there, naked, near the partially clothed--thing--that lay silently and not to be looked at or thought of, he gazed down at his hands, and there, still in his right hand, was the bladder that had caused the trouble.

Thomas stood up, and was about to fling the bladder far out into the "sea," but when it came to the point of action, he could not do it. He gave himself no reason, just as he had given no reason for attempting to rid himself of it; he had no reason at the moment. There was a fog of nothing before him.

He sat back down, and unaware of what he was doing, he uncapped the bladder and took a large drink, which burned down to his very toes. And then he took another. And another.

They found him unconscious on the shore, when his father, worried that they had not returned, came to look for them, and thought they were both dead, but realized that Thomas was merely dead drunk.

The father and the men from his boat then carried the two, who might just as well both be corpses, back to the house.