A Gift Upon the Shore (7 page)

The dogs had concluded their explorations. Topaz lay down at Rachel's feet to wait with steadfast patience, while Shadow leapt up on the bench beside Mary and nudged her elbow for attention. Mary met the demand with gentle scratching behind Shadow's ears.

“Rachel, I don't have any evangelizing urges, and I don't really qualify as a Christian—literalist or otherwise.”

“How
do
you qualify yourself?”

“Oh, I suppose as an agnostic. That's my father's influence.”

“And your mother's influence?”

Mary winced, remembering her last long, futile phone call to her mother. She had been so painfully anxious, but for all the wrong reasons. “Mother was always a professed Christian, but she wasn't really serious about it, not until Dad died. That changed her. I think she got deeper into religion after that because . . . well, she
has
to believe that someday she'll be reunited with Dad. She has to believe he still exists somehow.”

“Yes,” Rachel said, the word a sigh. “That's the real source of religions. Grief. And fear of death. Most people find their mortality so terrifying, the only way they can deal with it is to deny it.”

Mary asked quietly, “But you've accepted your mortality?”

“Well, I can't see any rational alternative to acceptance.”

“No immortal soul?”

“No. Nor heaven or hell or the bureaucratic convolutions of purgatory or nirvana or whatever. They're all human inventions designed to avoid facing reality. I will not voluntarily blind myself.”

Mary stared into the tunnel of shadow at the base of the tree and felt a lump of dull pain in her leg. “But reality is hard to look at sometimes.”

“Yes. At least, the reality humankind has created for itself. It's hard to look at and hard to survive. But no living organism is guaranteed an easy life. Or death. And there's a reality beyond what we've created.” She paused, studied Mary for what seemed a long time. “I'm not talking about any version of a god. The idea of a god doesn't answer any questions for me. I'm talking about what I call the real world. We're a very small part of it, but we're capable of comprehending it at least enough to know that it's magnificent. What else can a human being ask? And yes, you can assume from all this that I'm an atheist.”

Rachel didn't seem to expect Mary to be shocked at that revelation, and if she was surprised, it was simply because she realized she'd have been more surprised to find Rachel professing any religion.

Nor did Rachel seem to expect a response. She leaned down to stroke Topaz's head. “I never talk about religion—or my lack of it. But I think you should know where I stand.” She smiled wryly. “What you believe is your business, and I may not like what you say, but I'll defend to the death my right to disagree with you.”

Mary laughed. “I don't think we'll find much to disagree about.” A bird, invisible in the patterned ranks of foliage, piped a song that ended with a plaintive trill. Mary looked up, seeking the singer. “You know, there's a paradox about you I don't understand, Rachel.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“You said human beings are such a small part of the real world, yet you've devoted yourself to a particularly human endeavor.”

“I am what I am,” Rachel replied with a shrug. “I'm a human being, and I paint because that's an expression of my humanity. I build each painting to last for centuries. And yet . . . well, sometimes I wonder if there'll be anyone around to enjoy those paintings in the future. But I have to hope, Mary. I have to hope people won't be ignorant and arrogant enough to throw away thousands of years' worth of civilization.”

The bird piped its plaintive song again, and Mary thought of the city she'd left, of the foul air where that bird would soon die, where too much had already been thrown away.

Then Rachel stretched and came to her feet. “We'd better start home. Connie told me not to let you get too tired, and her word is law around here. By the way, she and Jim are coming for dinner, and she's bringing her guitar. She says she's sure you're a passable soprano. Topaz, Shadow, come on.” Topaz stood up and shook herself, scattering spruce needles. Shadow was already off the bench, circling in anticipation.

Mary rose stiffly, leaning on her cane, and looked up into the green reaches of the tree's crown. “I hate to leave it.”

Rachel nodded, her gaze sweeping up the massive trunk. “It's a microcosm, really. An archetype. To know everything there is to know about this tree, you'd have to know everything there is to know about the universe.” Then she shrugged self-consciously. “Well, you can always come back. You know the way now.”

Mary held those words in her mind as she would a hummingbird in her hand: gently, because it was fragile. And uncommonly beautiful.

Yes, she thought, I know the way.

—THOMAS ROBERT MALTHUS,
ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION
(1798)

T
he tide is low. From the deck, I look down through the V of the ravine and the tall spars of spruce trees to the beach, note the color of the sand, and know that if I were walking there, I'd see the herringbone patterns of deep green and purple black on tan made by the waves as their ebb and flow sorts the heavier, dark sands, laden with microscopic crystals of magnetite and olivine, from the lighter, paler silica sands.

Shadow and I will walk those sands later this afternoon, but now I'm waiting for Stephen, and Shadow is sunning herself beside me on the deck. And while I wait, I sit with a wooden crate upended in front of me to serve as a chopping block. The cedar-root basket next to the box is nearly full of sliced bull kelp, and coiled in the grass below the deck with their bulbous heads hung over the railing, letting down their hair of shining ribbon leaves, are snakes of kelp ready for my knife. The high tide deposited them on the beach this morning, largess from the sea. Kelp makes good fertilizer and provides vital nutrients for the goats and pigs.

I see a movement on the beach and pause, knife poised for the next cut. Despite my failing eyes, I can identify the two people. I recognize Miriam's long, bright hair, and the bearded man can only be Jerry. They both have buckets, heavy, from the way they carry them. They've been to the tide pools at the foot of the Knob to gather mussels. I watch them, remembering a day of my youth, and it seems in keeping with my thoughts when they stop to talk, free hands clasped, when Miriam stands on tiptoe to kiss Jerry.

A chaste kiss, no doubt. At least, Jerry will think it that.

They are half-siblings. Luke was their father, but they had different mothers. I wonder what Miriam would've been like if they'd had the same mother, if they'd both grown up in Luke's household.

I watch them walking toward the bank until I can no longer see them. The house is set too far back from the ravine for me to see the foot of the path. I return to my chopping.

Jerry is, in a sense, Miriam's lover. But then he's also Esther's lover, as he was Rebecca's before she died. I don't suppose I'll ever forgive him for his part in her death. I know she wanted to try again to have a baby, but she'd had two miscarriages already.

But Jerry still has his two lovers. That is, he has sexual intercourse with Miriam and Esther at intervals determined by their menstrual calendars and the days they are most likely to conceive. That calculated approach to coitus is unavoidable. Jerry is the only adult male here, Miriam and Esther the only fertile adult females. Even the risks inherent in inbreeding between half-siblings must be accepted if new generations are to survive. There are six children now, but that's not enough, especially since Isaac may not live to produce any offspring.

My knife slips, missing my finger only by good luck.

Yes, it all sounds so calculating, like breeding livestock, but these people grew up with that kind of calculation. And in fact, Jerry does love both Miriam and Esther, but in the same sense that he loves the children, he loves the crones, he loves me. He doesn't know what it means to be
in
love, but he loves, deeply and steadfastly.

And Miriam? If what she feels for Jerry can be termed love, it is a jealous love, as her god is a jealous god. No doubt she feels maternal love for her children. Or is that possessiveness? Or am I coloring her with my fear? All I know is that she seldom laughs, and I've never seen her weep.

I fear that absence of laughter and tears. It doesn't indicate a lack of passion, but rather the opposite: a passion that is too volatile for its vessel.

By the time Miriam and Jerry reach the top of the beach path, I've filled the basket. I rise, grunting at the aching stiffness that occupied my knees while I sat. Jerry waves at me, strides across the grass, while Miriam approaches more slowly, watching Jerry, watching me.

I see Luke in Jerry always. He's tall and thin like his father, but that thinness is deceptive. He is all muscle, flat and hard, his hands strong and armored with calluses. Shadow runs to him, and Jerry feints playfully with her until he has her galloping in wild circles, then he calms her with a few words. When he reaches the deck, he offers me an ebullient, “Good day, Mary!”

“Good day to you, Jeremiah. It looks like you and Miriam had good luck in the tide pools. Good day, Miriam.”

She smiles, although it doesn't reach her eyes, but before she can speak, Jerry says, “Miriam, you'd better go take care of the mussels.”

That rudeness is typical and particularly annoying because he is always blithely unaware of it. I see resentment congeal in Miriam's eyes, but it isn't directed at Jerry. I get the brunt of it, deep and laced with jealousy. She picks up his bucket and hers, mounts the deck steps, but at the door pauses to say, “Jeremiah, we need some wood split for the stove.”

I restrain a smile. She's restoring the real chain of command as it pertains to household tasks. Such things are her domain.

But Jerry only nods. He doesn't recognize the subtle reprimand in that reminder. When the door closes behind Miriam, he says, “Mary, we saw some whale spouts today.”

That's something else I've lost with my failing sight: the brief puffs of mist that mark the passage of the gray whales on their migrations from Alaska to Baja in the spring and back again in the fall.

“Did you? Well, that's always reassuring.”

“Yes, I guess it is, but I keep hoping one of them will get beached close by where we can get at it. I know how much you love them, but we could use the oil.”

I laugh at that, then lean down to pick up the basket of kelp. “I'd better get this to the compost.”

“No, Mary,
I'll
take it,” he insists, reaching for the basket.

But I refuse to relinquish it. “Jerry, I'm quite capable of carrying it. I may be slow, but—”

“You can't carry it with your cane.”

“I
can
walk without my cane if I'm careful.”

He smiles, placating now. “I know, but I'm going out to the garden anyway.”

With a sigh I surrender to his kindness. Besides, Stephen is coming around the corner of the house with Isaac tagging along behind him. “All right, Jerry. Thanks.”

He departs, pausing on his way to talk to the boys, and I go into the house to wash the kelp slick off my hands. When I return, I find Stephen occupying one of the chairs, while Isaac sits cross-legged on the deck beside Shadow, and she patiently tolerates his unintentionally rough petting. Stephen watches him with the protective eye of an older brother, although Isaac is not his brother. Not genetically.

Stephen looks up at me. “Isaac isn't feeling good today. Bernadette said he shouldn't work in the garden. Is it all right if he stays with us?”

Isaac grins at me, blue eyes clear as the sky, his copper red hair shining in the sunlight. Freckles are powdered dark against his pale skin, and he is too thin, too small for his ten years. He constantly coughs and wheezes and doesn't seem to notice it, nor does he seem to notice the malformed foot that makes him limp when he walks, stumble when he runs. He is Miriam's child by an Arkite, and she's the only one here who doesn't dote on him.

Miriam mistrusts imperfection. Perhaps she fears it. But she probably won't have to deal with it much longer in the form of her asthmatic, crippled son. He won't survive another winter if it brings another onslaught of pneumonia.

She calls him god-marked.

I lean down and press my hand to Isaac's forehead. It seems cool, rather than hot with fever. He says, “I'm all right now, Mary. Bernadette gave me some tea.”

“Well, if she says you're not to work, you won't. Not today.” I go to the chair next to Stephen's, reach for the diary in my pocket. “Isaac, did Stephen tell you what we've been doing?”

He shakes his head, and Stephen answers, “No, I didn't tell him. I haven't told anybody.”

I'm a little surprised at that. And a little relieved.

I nod without comment. “Stephen and I have been studying some history, Isaac. Mine and Rachel's.”

“Is that history?”

“On a smaller scale, it's as much history as the fall of the Roman Empire.”

“But that was a
long
time ago.”

Stephen puts in quietly, “Just listen, Isaac. Don't argue with Mary.”

Isaac draws his knees up, wraps his arms around them, and looks up at me expectantly. I open the diary. It's more a prop for me than a necessity. I read it last night, polished each shard of memory. “All right, Stephen, where were we?”

“When Rachel asked you to stay at Amarna. But you didn't give her an answer then.”

“No. I couldn't. I think I knew my answer, but I had to wait until I felt stronger physically and emotionally. A week later I wrote to my boss at IDA. She telephoned me within a few days and offered me a promotion if I'd come back to Portland.” I laugh, remembering that small, but vital triumph. “That's when I told Rachel I'd like to stay, to make Amarna my home. And then . . .” I turn a page. “Then spring came to Amarna.”

Isaac objects, “Spring
always
comes to Amarna.”

“I remember a winter when we weren't sure of that. But my first spring at Amarna was a revelation. I discovered what seasons meant. You two don't know what it's like to live in a city where changing seasons really don't mean anything. Here I watched trees flower and leaf, daffodils bloom, and cow parsnips unfold those huge, soft leaves, their stalks reaching up—well, they were higher than my head by summer. And horsetails. You know them, Isaac. They look like green bottle brushes.”

Stephen nods and says, “
Equisetum
.”

Isaac wrinkles his nose. “What does that mean?”

“That's their proper name,” Stephen explains.

And I add—ever the teacher; I can't seem to help myself: “They're descendants of a plant called
calamites
that lived about three hundred million years ago and grew to be thirty feet high.”

Isaac's eyes widen. “Was there dinosaurs then?” But as soon as the question is out, he looks apprehensively toward the house as if he's afraid someone might hear him. His mother, no doubt.

“No, Isaac, there were no dinosaurs yet. Anyway, in that first spring I learned about farming—preparing the soil, planting the seeds, watching them grow, and all the while battling weeds and moles and bugs and slugs. I saw a litter of rabbits and a kid born. I saw chicks hatch. That was a new project of Rachel's that year, raising chickens from scratch, so to speak. I learned to extract honey from the combs—no, that was later, in the summer. I learned about fishing and mussel collecting and clam digging from Jim Acres. I learned folk songs from Connie. She'd play her guitar and sing harmony to my lead. From Rachel I learned about the sea. She showed me the way wind and current and tide work together, the patterns of the sand, the creatures that leave their tracks on it. She called it calligraphy, and every animal has its own signature. She showed me the birds that call the sea home, the plants and animals that live in the tide pools. I even did some writing—Jim loaned me his old word processor—and I sold a few articles. And I saw quite a lot of Captain Harry Berden. Yes, that was the most beautiful spring of my life. But old people always say that about the springtimes of their youth, don't they, Isaac?”

He laughs uncertainly. “I don't know.” Stephen only smiles and waits for me to go on.

“I lived in a microcosm, a lovely little island. Beyond Amarna the world was falling apart. Almost literally, when you think about the California quake. Rachel said the planet was simply adjusting its skin a bit, but what a price the insignificant creatures living on the Earth's skin paid.”

Stephen frowns thoughtfully. “Miriam talked about that earthquake in one of her morning sermons. She said it was a prophecy of Armageddon.”

“It wasn't a prophecy of anything,” I reply irritably. “The San Andreas fault finally gave way. The epicenter was south of San Francisco. I remember seeing skyscrapers swaying like grass in a wind, and the dust rising where buildings collapsed, and the Bay patterned with intersecting waves like a huge moiré pattern.”

Isaac's mouth sags open. “Were you
there
, Mary?”

I laugh at that. “No, I wasn't there, or I probably wouldn't be here. I saw all that on television.” That garners only a blank look from him. I've explained television to the children—even shown them our old set—but they can't really understand it. Or believe it.

I go on. “Two million people died in that quake and the tsunamis that hit the coast towns and the orgies of looting that followed. The government sent in an army of Apies and National Guard troops. Food and clothing and medicine flooded in from all over the world, and refugees flooded out. And in the midst of that appalling wreckage, Lassa fever turned epidemic.”