Chapter Twenty
"A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is."
C.S. Lewis
Sayid hadn't seen the marsh beneath them, and although it was cold, he certainly didn't think it was cold enough for water to freeze. But he didn't have time to consider the peculiarity of it all. He threw his pack and rifle back to dry land, and then he kneeled and reached through the water, searching for Nadia's hand. He heard her struggling below and assumed she must be ridding herself of her gear. When she surfaced, she did not do so at the original hole, but he heard her hand strike against the ice to the left of him. She disappeared for a moment and came up again against the ice to the right of him. She could not find the hole.
The next time he saw the outline of her hand between the grasses and against the ice, he pulled back his fist and smashed through. Blood sprung from his knuckles, but he grasped her hand. The hole wasn't big enough, so he hoped she would know to wait for him there. She did, and when he had broken a large enough surface, he pulled her out and dragged her backwards to solid ground, just as the ice began to split all around them.
Nadia was shivering uncontrollably. She had been too long under the frigid water, and it was clear her core temperature had plummeted. Sayid grabbed his pack and rifle with one hand, draped her over his shoulder with the other, and carried her back into the field. Setting her down on dry ground, he asked, "Can you move at all? Can you feel anything?"
She nodded.
"Then take off your wet clothes. I will start a fire."
Quickly he ran back to the edge of the jungle to gather sticks, and hastily he returned and ignited the flame. By then, her clothes were discarded, and she was sitting on the ground, her knees drawn up against her nakedness. He grabbed the sleeping bag from off his pack, unzipped it, and laid it on the ground a few feet from the fire. He began to take off his shoes.
"Nadia," he said, "I have to warm you, or you may die from hypothermia." He jerked his shirt off over his head, and then he began to untie the drawstring of his pants. "You understand that I have to be naked to do this?"
She only nodded.
"You trust me?"
She nodded again.
He slid off the rest of his clothes, picked up her shivering body and laid her at the outside edge of the bag. He lay down beside her, zipping the sleeping bag up all the way around them and drawing her back against his chest.
"I feel warm already," she said. "I feel perfectly warm."
"It is a false sensation," he said. "It is the second symptom. Your body temperature is still low. It will take time." After awhile, she began to sense the cold again, which was good. It meant she was beyond the numbing. Gradually, her shivering began to abate.
He did not know how long they lay there, naked against one another, but it seemed a long time. His past feelings for her, which he had once willingly released after his flight from Danielle, had begun to resurface weeks ago, but those emotions could have been easily managed, he thought, were it not for this strange twist of fate. He tried to think of something…anything…to dampen his growing desire. He thought of torturing Sawyer, of being tortured by Rousseau. But none of it was any use. He shifted his hips back slightly, so that Nadia would not discover the evidence of his arousal.
She was warm enough, he thought, and it was time to get out of the bag and dress. It was not that he feared becoming a victim of hypothermia himself if he remained too long beside her; he was fairly sure both their temperatures were now steady, but he feared he could not endure her nearness. As he was about to tell her he was crawling out, she shifted back against him, and he knew she knew.
"Forgive me," he mumbled.
"Do not be embarrassed, Sayid," she said. "I expect you to be trustworthy. I do not expect you to be stone."
He issued a sigh of relief. "I should get out now. Your temperature is fine."
"Please stay," she asked. "It is cold."
He agreed to remain, but he dislodged his arms from around her, and he turned so his back was to her back. He willed his pulse to slow, but it only beat faster. So he concentrated on his breathing and strove to regulate it.
He thought he had almost gained control of his senses when she turned, slipped an arm around his chest, and snuggled close against him, pressing against his back. "It is warmer this way," she said.
He swallowed hard. He wondered what she was thinking. Was she considering Nasser's betrayal and therefore plotting her own? He did not think Nadia would use him in that way. Was her temperature lower than he thought, and had the hypothermia induced irrational thinking? No, it could not be; she was no longer shivering, and she felt warm enough to him. Was she perhaps struggling with very real desires, the same kind that now made his breathing grow slow and shallow again? Or had she really turned to him merely for warmth?
He felt his breath draw in sharply as she began to caress the muscles of his chest. At first, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the sensation of her fingers against his flesh, but when she began to trail them down across his stomach, downward, he grabbed her wrist roughly, and he pulled her hand away. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"What I know you want me to do."
He did not deny that he wanted it, but he said, "It is a sin."
"It will not be the worst sin either of us has committed."
"It will be the worst since my repentance." He was thinking of his prayer, the outpouring of his heart after discovering the Koran, when he had finally been broken enough to turn to Allah and to ask for mercy. He had been given the strength to press on, and that was mercy enough.
He felt Nadia turn away from him. The sleeping bag was tight, and she could not turn far, but she managed to keep her body an inch from his, so that it did not touch him.
He wanted her, but he was also disappointed in her—disappointed that she, who had been the first to urge him onto a path of redemption, would now be the one to subject him to temptation. "Do you not love your husband?" he asked.
"I love the man he was," said Nadia. "But I also love the man you have become. Do you think it is impossible to love two people at once?"
He thought of how he had been able to love Shannon just weeks after his only thought had been of Nadia. He thought of what he was feeling for Nadia now, even now, when his feelings for Shannon had far from faded. "Perhaps," he said, "it is not impossible to love two people at once. But it is certainly impossible to be faithful to both. So choose the one to whom you have made the vow."
She said nothing. Sayid wrestled against himself as he felt the yearning course through his body. His flesh seemed to whisper, Turn, and you may have her. Only turn. His conscience cried, Do not turn. And then again the flesh, abetted by the heart, Turn, turn, turn…
Suddenly she spoke. "I know it is a sin. I know it is wrong. But if you turn, I will not refuse you. Does that make me weak?"
Sayid closed his eyes; he closed the door against his need. "Yes," he answered.
He felt her pull away, as far as she could, stretching the cloth of the sleeping bag. The field seemed so still; where had all the noises of the evening gone? He could only hear the sound of her breathing, the rhythm of which he did not understand: it came in short, gasping chokes. Gradually, he realized why.
He had once thrown her into solitary confinement; for over thirty days she had been imprisoned there, alone in a dank cell, with very little food and frequent threats of violence. Yet in all that time, not once—not once—had he made her cry. But she was crying now.