Glimmer, Glimmer

Rosa Tomczik watched her husband build up the campfire. He dropped on a double handful of sticks and branches, and the flame blazed brighter, sending sparks into the evergreen boughs overhead. As the fire died, Rosa waited for contentment. She waited five minutes. She waited five minutes more, and she realized that she did, after all, feel something, but it wasn't contentment. What she felt was anxious suspense. Rosa had felt that way ever since her husband, Joel, had surprised her with the suggestion that they take this vacation.

Joel hadn't taken a single day off in the 12 years they'd been married; he was a workaholic, a dynamo, the Führer of Seventh Avenue. He had started out as a salesclerk in his father's small dress shop, and now he owned more than 300 fashion outlets in shopping malls across the country. Whenever Rosa had brought up the subject of a vacation, Joel always said that he had his empire to protect. Which made it all the stranger that he had proposed this biking trip around the countryside.

Rosa took a can of insect repellent out of her pack and sprayed her arms, hands and face. She walked around the fire and offered the can to Joel. He sprayed himself and gave it back to her, and she went back to her pack and stowed it. Then she looked across the campfire at her husband. "So tell me," she asked, "is this trip saving our marriage or what?"

In the twilight, she saw him shrug. "It's just too early to tell," he said.

She started to reply, closed her mouth, then lay down in her sleeping bag and turned her face away from him. She didn't fall asleep for a long time; she was too busy thinking.

In the morning, over coffee, bacon and eggs, Joel took out a creased and torn map. "There's a state forest less than a day's ride from here. We'll make the campground by suppertime. We can spend a little while looking at flowers and butterflies and stuff," he said. Rosa was irritated by his condescending assessment of her life's work in biochemical research: "flowers and butterflies and stuff."

Rosa pedaled mightily to keep up with her husband's furious pace while the land altered gradually from farms and empty fields into thick stands of pine and spruce. And then a wooden sign told them the state forest was 15 miles farther. An hour later, they were there: A profound and unbreakable hush wrapped them almost immediately. Rosa stared at Joel's sweat-streaked back and wondered what he, the blousemonger, her off-the-rack-tycoon husband, was thinking about.

She also wondered where Joel was planning to stop for the night. They had already passed several areas set aside for campers and recreational vehicles. Her husband had made it clear that he didn't want to use these campsites; he'd rather go out into the real forest. And Rosa didn't get a vote in the matter.

After another hour, Joel announced, "Let's get off the trail." They dismounted their bikes and, Joel still insisting on leading the way, plowed deeper and deeper into the silent forest. They finally came to a stream, and Joel suddenly decided they had gone far enough. Rosa glanced at him; he seemed strangely elated.

That evening, after supper had been prepared and eaten and the dishes washed, they stared into the flickering flames of their fire. As usual, they had nothing to say. Rosa studied Joel's face; his new intensity troubled her. They had had a bitter confrontation previous to this trip, and Joel--livid at the prospect of losing (concluded on page 170)Glimmer(continued from page 103) half his hard-earned empire in a courtroom--had shouted that he would never, but never, stand for a divorce. Period. Then he had invited her on this trip. Maybe he had something else in mind, she thought.

"Look." Joel finally broke the silence. "Lightning bugs."

"Fireflies."

"Yeah. I love lightning bugs. You're the science expert--what makes them light up?"

"It's a chemical reaction," said Rosa. "Bioluminescence. And they're not bugs. The only insects that are true bugs belong to the order Hemiptera. Fireflies belong to the order Coleoptera."

"So big deal." Joel stared into the darkness. "Look," he said, pointing. "Look how it's shining underneath that bush. I don't believe how bright it is."

"The wingless females. Glowworms, people call them."

"Look how many there are," said Joel. "My God, I've never seen so many."

"You couldn't even describe this to anybody," she said.

"They wouldn't understand how gorgeous it is," he continued. "Everybody's seen fireflies, but not many people have seen them like this."

She stood up, went to her pack and took out a spray can labeled Insect Repellent. "It's getting late, the humidity's gone up and the mosquitoes will be murder," she said gently.

"Hey, Rosa, look over there." Joel walked farther out into the woods.

Rosa looked where he was pointing. "What about it?" she asked.

"I've never seen so many lightning bugs in my life. It looks like there's a shopping center glowing behind those trees." He walked into the blackness far away from the campfire.

"If you're going out there, better spray yourself some more. The mosquitoes are fierce," Rosa yelled after him.

He walked back to her and took the can she offered. He sprayed all his exposed skin, then tossed the repellent back to her. She raised a hand to catch it but missed.

"Aw, come on. Leave the fire for now. Let's enjoy the night together. The weather is perfect and I'm feeling good," Joel said.

Rosa followed her husband a few yards farther into the forest, then stopped. Joel moved ahead of her. The fireflies flashed and flickered all around him, surrounding him. He was literally swarmed by thousands of yellow-green points of light, Rosa observed, riveted.

"There are even more of them here now," Joel called out. "Away from the glare of our fire, it looks like a real swarm or something."

"It's their mating season," said Rosa.

Ten or 20 yards deeper into the woods, the fireflies were flashing brighter and faster. The insects were so luminous they looked like a bonfire. "My God," Joel murmured. He moved slowly toward the tiny lights. "At home, we've got lightning bugs, but I've never, never seen anything like this. It's scary."

As Joel drew closer, the insects flared brighter, melding their billion pin points into a fierce, greenish glow. "Rosa?"

"I'm having a nice cup of tea here by the fire," she called to him, though she wasn't. "I may even save you some." She slapped a mosquito and killed it.

Joel's figure was black against the pulsing greenish light of the fireflies. She heard him laugh, then choke. He spat and gagged. Rosa imagined what it must feel like to have a large insect wriggling in your mouth. She shuddered in revulsion.

Fireflies brushed Joel's face, formed a halo around him. His hands waved as he tried frantically to fling them away. Rosa saw him fall onto his knees. "Rosa!" he cried weakly. She stood up to watch him.

Joel was kneeling on the ground, his arms wrapped tightly around his head. He seemed to Rosa to be clothed in a thick, persistent cloud of throbbing yellow-green. The fireflies covered his face and neck entirely, and his arms and hands. A mass of insects sprawled over his chest. She heard Joel whimper, then retch as he tried to clear his throat. He was choked, smothered. He rolled to the ground and thrashed from side to side, slapping his face with his hands and making queer, pathetic sounds. Rosa saw him crack his head painfully on the trunk of a tree.

"Joel," she called, and moved toward him cautiously. "Joel!" It was the strangest sight she had ever seen. Thousands of insects crawled in a glowing, undulating blanket over Joel's contorted body. Rosa stared, horrified but fascinated. In a few moments, he was unrecognizable in the midst of a vast greenish aura.

Rosa realized that her muscles were cramped and stiff from tension. Her exposed skin was ravaged by mosquito bites. She turned to go back to the fire and took out of her pack the safe can of repellent--the one with the gray lid--and sprayed herself thoroughly. Using a plastic glove, she picked up the other can of repellent--the one with the black lid--from the ground where she had let it fall when Joel had tossed it to her. She dropped this can, filled with firefly sex pheromones, into a plastic bag. She unpeeled the glove, put that in the bag, too, and sealed the bag with a twist tie. She'd dispose of it later. She left all the camping gear behind, just as any terrified and grief-stricken wife would.

"Joel had shouted that he would never, but never, stand for a divorce. Period."