have survived the middle years of the twentieth century. So has David. Jake types again, and I look out the window. David is out there, staring off inside of himself. Where does his mind take him? Probably away from this foreign place. I have heard him toss in his sleep, moaning as if he had lost his soul. Now he glances at the window, sensing my thoughts perhaps, as he often seems to do. I nod. He returns the gesture. “I was talking about my character, Jake," I say. “Not David.” Without looking up, Jake smiles assent. ' Jake and David play go on the living room floor. Jake is a good teacher, and David listens well. I stretch out on the couch, reading. I only read Spanish-lan- guage literature now. David and I often talk about writing. He was a student at the university in El Salvador before they closed it and branded all the students communists. One day David brought me Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig. After accepting the gift graciously, I laughed at the title. “You'll see; you like old movies,” David told me. “You will like this. It is...tender.” Now I glance up from One day David bought me Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig. "You will like this. It is...tender." the book, my second time through, and look at David. When he is not close enough, I long to touch him; it is an ache that does not always end when my fingers touch his sleeve or shoulder. It only eases when I find his skin. Sometimes I close my eyes, and he is behind my eyes, too, and I trace the contours of his face with my thoughts. Often I look at David and see beyond him to his country, and I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness and guilt. Jake does not feel the same guilt that I do, or the urges that accompany blind anger. Perhaps it is because he is Canadian. He does not have the staggering load of sins to atone for. David looks up at me. I wish I could see beyond his eyes. I want to help him, save him. He looks at me sometimes as if I were completely unfathomable. Perhaps I am. “You are different in the day,” David says. We sit on the back porch, listening to the ocean and watching the clouds change color as the sun goes down. “You change as the clouds do,” he says, gesturing toward them. I lean against him. His cheek brushes my hair, and my stomach lurches. “I become a child at night,” I answer, hesitating. My fears cannot equal his own; my terrors petty in comparison. “The night can bring many things,” he agrees. “It can bring protection, too. Sometimes evil cannot see at night, just as we cannot.” “I never thought of evil as being something that could see,” I say. “You are right,” he says. “Evil is blind.” “David,” I say. “I don’t want you to leave, ever. Stay here with us.” I do not understand what I feel for David. Sometimes I think it is what a parent feels for a child. I have never had children, so I do not know. I have had lovers and what I feel for David is not lust couched in love. It is not the same as what Jake and I have. Jake knows me so well that sometimes it is as if we are connected and always have been. No, it is different. When David touches me—and it is not often—I feel a peculiar humanity stir throughout the world. As if after all he has been through, he is still human. “Sometimes the night brings back memories,” David says, “but so does-the day.” “He can stay here as long as he wants, Sister Mary. He’s safe,” I say into the phone. Jake and David are outside and I will them to remain there. “You and Jake were very kind to open up your home. We have so many refugees.” She sounds tired as she says the word refugees: they are not legal refugees because the U.S. government supports the military government they flee from. “But your town is small. He will be easily found once they start looking for him.” “He is safe here,” I say again, tears shaking my voice. “He has seen his father tortured and finally killed, and his grandmother shot. His brother has disappeared and he watched his mother die from fear and a broken heart.” I shake my head, knowing it all. “Doesn't he deserve to be safe?” she continues; her weariness has turned to anger. “If they send him back, Immigration hands his name over to the military who in turn gives it to the death squads. He is a dead man.” “No,” I whisper. “He is not a dead man. If you think he would be safer with your people, I will tell him. I’ll call later to arrange it.” I drop the phone onto its hook. As I watch David and Jake out the living room window, I remember a night with moonlight stretched across the lawn and David next to me as Jake slept in the other room. My nightmare had disappeared, and I felt enveloped in safety and affection. Jake calls from his part-time job to say the presses have broken down and he will be gone all night. I take a blanket from the bed and curl up on the living room couch, hoping the dreams will not catch me this night alone. I pull out of the nightmare gasping. Someone is saying my name. I lay crying silently, not because of the dream, but because of David, who will be gone from my life in two days. His voice gentles me into awareness. I open my eyes. David is kneeling at my side, peering closely at my face. “I heard you,” he whispers, his breath warm on my cheek. The butterflies have moved off the wallpaper in my bedroom and now seem to fly all around David. “You said my name.” His hand reaches up to my face. He moves hair off my cheeks and forehead without touching my skin. “You dream about me?” he asks. “Sometimes I tell them I am your wife and I am going to have your child, so they let you go.” He smiles and lays his hand against my cheek. I turn my face to his palm and kiss it. “It would make no difference.” “I know,” I say, crying again. We both know what they do to women with “future guerillas” in their wombs. “I dreamed, too,” he says. “I was an old man living in the Salvadoran countryside and you came and brushed my hair and told me stories.” I smile in the darkness. “Perhaps it is a sign of the future?” he says, sounding unsure. He is frightened of what is coming, too. We look at one another, and my body aches, as if something is being pulled from me when I think of him leaving. “Come sit with me,” I whisper, holding the covers open. He sits next to me, and as we touch, the pain eases away. He puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me toward him. I lay my head in the curve between his shoulder and breast. It is the most comfortable spot I have ever been in. I listen to his heart and feel the warmth of his body through his clothes. For an instant, everything is still as we hold one another tightly. In these moments, I know we will never let each other go. He kisses my hair, and we relax, hugging each other gently again. My fingers find an opening in his pajama top, and there they rest. David breathes deeply and then sighs. I close my eyes to sleep, knowing we will be safe through the night in each other’s arms. In the morning, the butterflies have flown and the room is bright with light as Jake leans over the couch and kisses us each awake. Kim Antieau is a writer living on the Oregon coast. This is her first story in the CSQ. Fay Jones is an artist living in Seattle. Saturdays by! 3725 SE DIVISION 238-1470 simple suppers tuesday-friday salad basket, entree, dessert $9.50 & up 5:30-9:00 preservation east Indian feast M-Th 4-10:30 Fri 4-12.30 Sat 12-12:30 Sun 12-10:30 ITALIAN GELATO ESPRESSO BAR • DESSERTS FRESH FRUIT ICES ITALIAN SODAS (503)231-0901 _I________ :______________ Vintage Clothier for Men and Women 5522 5.E. 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