Drop City

“Sess,” she said, and she unfastened the brassiere and dropped it to the floor too, “Sess, look at me.”
    He turned round then, her husband, and in his hand the thing he was fumbling with, shiny foil, the skin-like droop of plastic. “I was just--” he said, and she watched his face, watched his eyes, as he warmed to this new vision of her standing there in nothing but the thinnest pearly evanescent flap of Oswalt's silk. “I couldn't--I mean, I tore the thing getting it out of the package . . .”
    She wanted to laugh. “You don't need that thing,” she said, spreading her arms wide, “you'll never need it, ever again. Don't you realize? I'm your wife.”
    They were up early, both of them, bags packed, the canoe loaded to the gunwales with wedding gifts, and they breakfasted on whatever came to hand (Sess had a ham, Swiss and caribou-tongue sandwich on half a loaf of the French bread her sister had brought with her from Anchorage; she had a plate of leftover three-bean salad, marinated artichoke hearts, a wedge of iceberg lettuce and a scoop of potato salad to round it off). She hadn't slept--or she had, off and on, but in a way that was more like a waking dream than any sleep she'd ever experienced, and she couldn't stop reaching out for him, running a hand down the slope of his arm or over the mysterious topography of the shoulder that lay pressed to hers. She was an explorer, that was what she was, learning the lay of the land, creating it anew all over again, and then again.
    He'd made love to her twice under the influence of the tireless copper sun that refused to set on her wedding day, the sun that irradiated the squared-off edges of the shades and painted the foot of the bed as if it existed for them alone, and he was nothing like Fred Stines or Eric Kresten or the straining intent hot-faced college boys whose idea of love was a purely mechanical thing, a kind of exercise, like squat thrusts or push-ups. No. He was patient. Loving. Grateful. He made her feel more than just wanted--he made her feel as if she were the center of the universe. She watched him sleep as the sun dipped behind the hills and the shades went gray with the dusk that wanted to be night, and then she woke him when it came back up and he made love to her again.
    But now it was seven A.M. and they straightened up the cabin, made the bed, stowed the leftovers in Richard's icebox and went out hand in hand to the canoe. The sun flooded the trees, the river was a cauldron of light. Birds nattered. A pair of geese shot up off the water and Sess pointed to the black burr of a porcupine caught in the crown of a birch up the shore. And then they were paddling, in concert, the easy rhythmic accommodation of man and wife, paddling as if they'd been a team forever.
    Everything looked new to her, every leaf, every turning, the river that resisted her paddle and re-created itself moment by moment. Her brain was flooded with endorphins. She was lighter than air. They talked in a hush, their soft, unhurried voices carrying out over the water, and they talked of practical things, of building a fish wheel, expanding the cabin, putting up a greenhouse for the tomatoes, of scattering seed for zinnias, marigolds, pansies and snapdragons. And the dogs. “The first thing I'm going to do is teach you to mush,” he told her, “so you can run the trapline with me, be my partner. You always wanted to be my partner, didn't you? Right from the start?”
    Her answer was a smile, delivered over her right shoulder as the paddle slid back from the stroke. Sure she was his partner--she'd chosen him, hadn't she? Wasn't that what this was all about? She'd feed the dogs, she'd mush them, she'd stretch and tan hides, repair the rags of his clothes, feed him, keep him warm at night, and he'd hold her and take care of her in turn. That was her life, spinning out into the future, and it was as fixed and certain as anything on this earth ever can be.
    After a time the churning milk of the Yukon gave way to the pellucid Thirtymile, and the cabin--their home--came into view like the last outpost of civilization in a world gone over to nature. The canoe cut across the current and the cabin loomed larger. Everything was still. Still and lush. She wanted to feel the silence, wanted to relax into it, but suddenly Sess was digging at the paddle in a kind of frenzy, out of sync with her for the first time, fighting it, ramming the canoe forward as if the river had