Galilee (39 page)

“Like what?” Rachel said. She didn't remember Jimmy mentioning this man, and despite his open expression and his easy manner, she'd brought her New York suspicion of strangers with her.

“The lawn,” he said, nodding toward the back of the house. “The plants.”

“Oh . . . you mean outside the house?”

“Yeah.”

“No problem,” she said, stepping aside to let him in.

“I'll go around the side,” he said, looking at her more intensely now. “I just wanted to introduce myself.”

“Well thank you,” she said. There was something about the way he looked at her that made Rachel think maybe there was some subtext to this; but then his body language contradicted the suspicion. He stood a respectful distance from her, his hands behind his back, simply looking. She returned his gaze, fully expecting him to look away, but he didn't. He kept staring, with almost childlike frankness until she said:

“Is there anything else?”

“No,” he said. “It's fine. Everything's fine.” He spoke as though to reassure her.

“Good,” she said. “Then I'll let you go.” With that she turned from him and closed the door.

Later, she heard the drone of the lawnmower, and went to the living room window to glance out at him. He was shirtless now, his back the color of the silted river. If this were one of the trashy novels Margie so adored, Rachel thought, then all she'd have to do was invite him in for a glass of ice water and a minute later she'd be backed up against the door with his tongue down her throat. She smiled to herself, feeling wicked. Maybe she'd try it, in a couple of days; see how reality matched up to the fantasy.

A little later, as she was attempting to get the phonograph to work, she realized the sound of the mower had ceased, and glanced up to see that Niolopua had left off his labors and had wandered down to the bottom of the lawn. There he was standing, staring out to sea, one hand shading his eyes from the blaze of the sky.

There was no doubt as to what he was watching. The boat with the white sail had come closer to shore, close enough for her to see that it had not one sail, but at least two. She watched for a little time as the vessel rose and fell against the dark blue waters. It was mesmeric; like watching the hands of a clock, the motion so subtle it was impossible to catch. Yet there was no doubt that even as she watched the boat, it had come a little closer to the shore.

There was a sudden eruption of squawking in the palms off to the right of the house, which drew her gaze. Several house finches were involved in a bitter dispute among the fronds; feathers drifted down. By the time the argument had been settled, and she again looked toward the lawn, Niolopua had forsaken his watch and returned to his lawnmower. The boat had meanwhile passed out of sight, the wind or the currents or both carrying it down the coast, and she felt mildly disappointed. She'd been looking forward to watching the boat's progress while she sipped her cocktail. No matter, she said to herself. There'd surely be plenty of other vessels plying their way between the islands in the next few days.

The wind rose in strength as the day progressed, shaking the palms around the house and whipping the ocean, which had looked so benign at daybreak, into a white-headed frenzy. It made her uneasy; it always had. Even as a child she'd become fractious when the wind blew; heard voices in it, sometimes, crying and sobbing.
Lost souls,
her grandmother had explained, which had of course done nothing to soothe her unease.

She decided not to stay in the house but to take the jeep and drive along the coast. It turned out to be a fine idea. After driving around for a while she found herself on a narrow spit of land, at the end of which sat a tiny white church, with thirty or so graves around it. The building itself was only partially intact: a victim, perhaps, of the hurricane Jimmy Hornbeck had mentioned. Its roof tiles had been entirely stripped away, as had many of the ceiling timbers. Only three of the four walls were still standing; the seaward wall was missing. So was the altar. All that remained inside were a few plain wooden chairs, which for some reason nobody had claimed.

She wandered among the graves, most of which were at least thirty or forty years old, and some, to judge by their eroded and sunken state, considerably older. A few of those buried here had names she could pronounce—a Robertson, a Montgomery, even a Schmutz—but several were beyond her. How was Kaohelaulii said aloud she wondered; or Hokunohoaupuni?

After spending maybe ten minutes examining the names she started to realize she'd come out underdressed for the elements. Though the sun still appeared now and then between the speeding clouds, the wind was chilling her to the bone. She was reluctant to get back into the jeep and drive home, however, so she took refuge in what remained of the church. The wooden walls creaked whenever a strong gust of wind came along. It would only take one more heavy storm, she thought, and the whole structure would come crashing down. In the meantime it provided her with exactly what she needed; protection from the worst of the bluster, while still offering her a clear view of both sky and sea.

She sat in one of the battered chairs and listened to the changing notes of the wind as it whistled between the boards. Perhaps her grandmother had been right after all. It certainly wasn't hard to imagine, in such a place as this, that the departed were indeed voicing their grief in the wind. Perhaps the souls of men and women buried on this headland—Montgomerys and Kaohelauliis—came back off the sea to the spot where their bones lay. It was a melancholy thought; but it didn't unsettle her. Perhaps they'd see her sitting calmly here, unafraid of their voices, and when they returned to the wastes be comforted by the memory.

She felt a spatter of rain on her face. Getting up out of her chair she stepped back out onto the headland and saw that a great mass of dark cloud was moving toward the island, its gloomy offspring driven ahead to sprinkle a warning shower or two. It was time to go. She pulled up the collar of her blouse and started to pick her way through the graves back to the jeep. The rain was coming quickly; before she was halfway to the vehicle it was coming down hard, and getting harder. It was cold; cold enough to take her breath away.

She got into the car, fumbling for the ignition key. The rain was beating hard on the roof, its din drowning out the noise of the wind. As she put the car into reverse she glanced back at the ocean, and through the rain-smeared windshield saw a white shape in the dark sea. She turned on the windshield wipers, clearing the glass.

There, out in the bay, was the boat she'd seen earlier in the day; the two-masted vessel which had been the object of Niolopua' s scrutiny. It was foolish to get back out of the car to look, but for some reason she felt the need to do so.

Out she got, the rain so heavy it soaked her to the skin in five seconds. But she didn't care. It was worth the soaking to see her boat braving the swell, its sails fat with wind, its bows cutting a white swath through the gray-green water. Satisfied that this was without a doubt the vessel she'd seen earlier, and that its master and crew were in no danger, she ducked back into the car, slammed the door, and started the homeward journey.

Of late when I write I find myself gripping my pen so tightly that I can feel the tick of my pulse in my thumb and forefinger. My grip is more and more an obsessive's grip. I swear if I were to die at this moment, writing these very words, it would take several strong men to part me from my pen.

You'll remember I confessed a few chapters back that I was lost; that I didn't know how all the pieces of the story I have fitted together. In the last few nights of writing that unease is beginning to lift. Perhaps it's self-deception, but it seems to me I can see the connections more clearly than before: the grand scheme of what I'm telling is slowly becoming apparent to me. And as it comes clear I feel myself drawn deeper into the tale I'm telling, the way a worshipper is drawn to the altar steps, and—dare I venture this?—for much the same reason. I am hoping to ascend to a place of revelation.

Meanwhile, I keep the company of my characters as though they were dear friends. I have only to close my eyes, and there they are.

Rachel, for instance? I can see her in my mind's eye right now, sipping her evening's Bloody Mary before she goes to bed; not remotely suspecting that the night of her life lies before her. I can picture Cadmus just as clearly. There he is, sitting in his wheelchair in front of his sixty-inch television, his eyes glazed as he contemplates a scene remote from him in years yet closer than the liver spots on the back of his hand. I can bring Garrison before me—poor, sick Garrison, who has such harm in his heart, and knows it—and Margie, in her cups; and Loretta, plotting successions; and my father's wife, busy with plots of her own; and Luman and Marietta and Galilee.

Oh, my Galilee. I see him more clearly tonight than ever I've seen him in my life, even when he was standing before me in the flesh. Does that sound absurd, that he should appear in my imagination more completely than he ever did before my eyes? However it sounds, it's true. Dreaming of Galilee as I do, conjuring him not as a thing of flesh and personality, but as a creature half gone into myth, I believe I am in the presence of a truer soul than that phantom man whom I lately met.

You may say: what nonsense. We live in flesh and blood, you may say. To which I reply: yes, but we die into spirit. Even divinities like Galilee give up the limitations of the flesh eventually, and unbounded swell into legend. So imagining him in his mythic form—as a wanderer, as a lover, as a brute—am I not closer to the Galilee with whom my soul will spend eternity?

I just made the mistake of proudly reading the preceding paragraphs to Marietta. She snorted at them; called them “pretentious claptrap” (that was the mildest epithet); told me I should strike all such ruminations from my text and get on with doing my job, which is—as far as she's concerned—simply to report what I know about the history of the Barbarossas and the Gearys in as clear and concise a fashion as I can.

So I've decided I'm not going to share anymore of what I'm writing with Marietta. If she wants a book about the rise and fall of the Geary dynasty, then she can damn well write it herself. I'm making something entirely different. It'll be a ragtag thing, no question, sewn together from mismatched parts, but I find that just as beautiful in its way as a small, nicely formed tale. And, by the way, more like life.

Oh, there was two other things Marietta said that day which bear reporting here, if only because they both contain more than a measure of truth. One, she accused me of liking words because of their music. I pleaded guilty to this, which infuriated her. “You put music before meaning!” she said. (This was just spiteful; I don't. But I think meaning is always a latecomer. Beauty and music seduce us first; later, ashamed of our own sensuality, we insist on meaning.)

Which brings me to her second remark: something to the effect that I was no better than a village storyteller. I smiled from ear to ear at this, and told her that nothing would give me more pleasure than to have my book by heart, and to tell it aloud. Then she'd see how much pleasure there was to be had from my bag of tales. You don't like what I'm telling you, sir? Don't worry. It'll change in two minutes. You don't like scandal? I'll tell you something about God. You hate God? I'll recite you a love scene. You're a puritan? Have patience; the lovers will suffer. Lovers always suffer.

Marietta's response to all this was inevitably sour.

“You're no better than a crowd-pleaser then, are you?' Marietta replied. “Pandering to whatever people want to hear. Why don't you just slather the thing in sex and have done with it?”

“Have you quite finished?”

“No.”

“Well I'd really like you to leave. You just came in here to have an argument, and I've got better things to be doing.”

“Ha!” she said, snatching one of the sheets I'd been reading from off my desk. “This is one of your better things?
We live in flesh and blood, you may say—”

I retrieved the page from her hand before she could go any further. “Just . . .
go away,”
I said, very firmly. “You're being a philistine.”

“Oh so now I'm too stupid to appreciate your artistic ambitions, is that it?”

I contemplated this for a moment. “Well, as you put it that way . . .” I said. “Yes.”

“Fine. Then we both know where we stand don't we? I think this work is wretched
crap
and you think I'm stupid.”

“That seems to be a fair summary.”

“No,” she said, as though I was about to change my mind (which I wasn't). “You've said it now. And that's the end of it.”

“I'm agreeing with you, Marietta.”

“I won't be coming back in here,” she warned.

“Good,” I said.

“You'll get no more support from me.”

“I just said:
good.”

She was red-faced with rage by now. “I mean it, Maddox,” she said.

“I know you mean it, Marietta,” I said, quietly. “And believe me, it's tearing me apart. It may not appear that way, but I am in agonies at the prospect.” I pointed to the door. “That's the way out.”

“God,
Maddox,” she said. “Sometimes you can be such a
dickhead.”

That was, as best I remember it, the entire exchange. I haven't seen her since. Of course, she'll come crawling back sooner or later, probably pretending that the conversation never happened. Meanwhile, I'm undisturbed, which suits me fine. I have to write what may be the most important passages of my story so far. The less distraction I have the better I can focus upon it.

There's only one portion of the conversation that I have returned to muse over: and that's the part about being a village storyteller. I realize she meant it as a form of condemnation, but in truth I can see nothing undesirable about being thus employed. Indeed I have imagined myself many, many times sitting beneath an ancient tree in some dusty square—in Samarkand, perhaps; yes! in Samarkand—telling my epic in pieces, for the price of bread and opium. I would have had a fine time doing that: get myself fat and flying by parceling my tale out, day after day. I would have had my audience wrapped around my little finger; coming back every afternoon to visit me in the blue shadows
,
and asking me to sell them another piece of the family saga.