Free The Lava in My Bones by Barry Webster Page B

spooked, he hurried away from the lake.
    He measured distances between outcroppings and wrote numbers in his ledger, but watched himself in the third person. His research, which he once believed necessary for the world’s survival, now seemed peripheral. Again he shouted, “Why the hell should the Earth be saved?”
    Surrounded by woods, Sam remembered his first days in the forest with Franz. Snow had fallen and pine trees reached for the sky. Franz had shown him hidden caves, cedars struck by lightning, his sculpture garden, the fire at the Earth’s centre. He remembered how Franz had been those first weeks—freshly inquisitive, curious, open. That was the true Franz, the best Franz, the Franz forming a diamond; the rest of him—ice cream antics and all those clothes—were the external layers. Could Sam again call forth the rock-eater at his centre? Their relationship was founded in basaltic rock, which takes centuries to erode. He’d never find another merging of compounds with this particularchemical content. Sam remembered things Franz had given him, a triangular photo of a covered bridge, a bouquet of pine needles, artwork, dials with prongs, clay spheres “to use as paperweights,” and all those foods Sam had never eaten before. He’d long remember their first weeks and forget the rest. The problem, he concluded, was they should never have left the forest and gone on city tours and to discotheques. Nature had united them. He should bring Franz to the woods here, to the Matterhorn, or better yet, to Canada.
    In a valley in the Alps there is a volcanic gash where lava that lies below the Earth’s crust periodically bubbles up. The area is off-limits, but Sam called the Canadian embassy and arranged for a research permit. He was now less interested in the Earth’s surface and wanted to understand its centre. The rocks ringing the eternal fire survived temperatures of 700 degrees and never melted. It was there that the mystery lay. He stood at the crack in the ground. The lips of the gash were coated with frazzled weeds. A hot breath brushed against his cheek; was that the smell of sulphur?
    â€œBloody hell!” He hurried from the crack. He would examine the regions below the Earth’s surface, but not now, not this month. At this moment, he wasn’t ready.
    His plane home was due to leave today. He imagined the Swissair Boeing shooting into the sky without him, and felt liberated. On July 31, Sam boarded the train; when he arrived in Zurich, he felt like he’d returned to his first day there. His viewpoint wasn’t scientific, but he recognized that at some point in the past month he’d ceased being a scientist.

    When Sam opened the door of the chalet, Franz was working at the computer. Looking straight ahead, Franz said, “Ah, you’re still here. Thought you’d flown away.”
    â€œI missed my plane.”
    Silence. Both men knew Sam had done that deliberately.
    â€œGoing to get another ticket?”
    â€œI’m having trouble accessing my bank account.”
    Both knew this wasn’t true either.
    â€œYou allowed to stay on?”
    Swiss Immigration. Sam wouldn’t mention that fiasco. He hadn’t known what it was like to have so many secrets. For a moment all these changes in himself seemed more miraculous than snow in summer, edible rocks, and visitations from the living ghosts of family members.
    Franz said, “I thought so.” Looking toward the window, he handed Sam a small box wrapped in floral paper. The perfect Swiss host. Before opening it, Sam knew what was inside.
    â€œYou didn’t have to do this!” The same words he used the first time Franz prepared breakfast.
    â€œThis is pay-back time for the ice cream thing. That still sickens me.”
    Sam removed the paper, opened the box, and eyed the oneway Air Canada ticket to Toronto.
    â€œYou have to go, Sam. We could never live together