Saul and Patsy by Charles Baxter Page A

last deer, one he hadn’t seen before, behind the others, slightly smaller, as if reduced somehow. It was an albino. In the darkness and rain it moved in a haze of whiteness. Seeing it, Saul thought: Oh my God, I’m about to die. The deer had stopped, momentarily frozen in the light. The albino’s eyes—it was a doe—were pink, and its fur was as white as linen. The animal flicked its tail, nervously hypnotized. Its terrible pink eyes, blank as neutron stars, stared at him. Saul turned off the engine and the headlight. Now in the dark two brown deer bounded toward the west, but the albino stood still, staring in Saul’s direction, a purposeful stare. He gripped the handlebars so hard that his forearms began to knot into a cramp. The animal was a sign of some kind, he was sure. Only a fool would think otherwise. He felt a moment of dread pass through his body as the deer now turned her eyes away from his and began to walk off into the night. He saw her disappear behind a maple tree in his backyard, but he couldn’t follow her beyond that. He was trembling now. Shivering spasms began at his wet shoulders and passed down into his chest toward his legs. The dread he had felt before was turning rapidly into pure spiritual fright. Alternating waves of chill and heat rushed up and down his body. He remembered to get off the road. He pushed the motorcycle into the garage, kicking down its stand. He crossed the yard and reached the back door. The rain picked up again and sprayed into him as the wind carried it. In his mind’s eye he saw the deer looking back at him. He had been judged, and the judgment was that he, Saul, was only and always himself, now and onward into infinity. His boots were wet. They stank of wet leather. Outside the back door on the lawn he took the boots off, then his wet shirt and his jeans. It occurred to him to stand there naked. With no clothes on he stood in the rain and the dark before he fell to his knees. He wasn’t praying. He didn’t know what he was doing. Something was filling him up. It felt like the spirit, but the spirit of what, he didn’t know. He lay down on the grass. One sob tore through him, and then it was over.
    He felt like getting up and running out into the field in back of the house, but he knew he couldn’t break through the wall of his self-consciousness enough to do that. In the rain, which no longer felt cold, he sensed that he was entering a condition that had nothing to do with happiness because it was so far beyond it. All he was sure about was that he was empty before and now was filled, filled with both fullness and emptiness. These emotions didn’t quite make sense, but he didn’t care. The emptiness was sweet. He could live with it. He hurried into the house and dried off his hair in the dark downstairs bathroom. Quickly he toweled himself down and then rushed up the stairs. There was a secret, after all. In fact there were probably a lot of secrets, but there was one he now knew.
    He entered their bedroom. Rain fingernailed against the window glass. Patsy lay in bed in almost complete darkness, wearing one of Saul’s T-shirts. Her arms were up above her head. He could see that she was watching him.
    “Where were you?”
    “I went out for a ride on your motorcycle. I couldn’t sleep.”
    “Saul, it’s
raining.
Why are you naked?”
    “It’s raining now. Not when I started.”
    “Why are you standing there? You don’t have any clothes on.”
    “I saw something. I can’t tell you. I think I’m not supposed to tell you what I saw. It was an animal. It was a private animal. Patsy, I took off my clothes and lay down on the lawn in the rain, and it didn’t feel weird, it felt like just what I should do.”
    “Saul, what is this about? I need some idea right now.”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Try. Try to say.”
    “I think I’m pregnant.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “I think it means that whoever I am, I’m not alone with myself.”
    “I don’t