Gift of the Golden Mountain (37 page)

     "Three weeks," Karin interrupted, dismayed. "How can you possibly manage? You have to finish that research project you've been working on at Cal, and Kit said she needs at least a week of your time to get all sorts of business details worked out—and we have to put the house in order."

     "I'm glad you said 'we'—because I'm going to need lots of help. They're already working out my visas for a first sweep of the South American countries involved, so I can meet the staff in each and get some notion of who they are and check out their qualifications.
Obregon is worried that some brothers-in-law or nephews might show up on the roster—I'm supposed to nip nepotism in the bud, he says. Even after the program is in place, I'll be making regular trips to the field—and of course, whenever a volcano erupts I'll have to be on the first plane out."

     "Sounds exciting."

     "It is. I still can't believe my good luck. The timing was perfect—to be able to work with Dr. Obregon on a project that almost certainly will have a profound impact, far far into the future."

     "Saving lives, you mean?"

     "That is primary—and important, when you think of it over many years' time. HVO was started by a New England geologist who was horrified by the death toll of Saint Pierre on Martinique. He was there right after it blew in 1902 when the whole town was wiped out—twenty-eight thousand people. So prediction is the main thing, but it will also mean gathering all kinds of new information on how volcanoes work, deep down. By feeding it to computers we may be able to learn something about interactions. It's like moving into a whole new realm!"

     "And you're going to be at the epicenter."

     May laughed: "Exactly. Hanging on tight to Dr. Obregon's very large coattails."

     "And Esme's."

     "And Esme's, true."

They were on the freeway before May brought up the subject both had been avoiding. "What about Sam?"

     Karin nibbled on a fingernail. "I only saw him for a few minutes before he left. He brought over the wedding pictures, which are wonderful—though I think he went a little overboard with pictures of you and Hayes looking pleased with each other. There must be half a dozen of those." She paused, shot May a glance.
"But aside from the pictures, he gave me a lot of instructions on where to send the stuff he left in the cottage, in case you should be leaving the house before he comes back."

     "When will that be?"

     "He has no idea, but he was pretty sure he would be gone at least three months."

     "How was he?" May asked.

     "How was he?" Karin repeated, as if it were an exam question she couldn't quite grasp. "I don't know. Angry, I think, but that's nothing new. Mainly he was just very single-minded about going to Vietnam to do photos. He is certain it is his big break. Ambition seems to have crowded out most of Sam's other qualities—especially the ones I liked best."

     "Maybe it wasn't ambition," May said carefully as Karin wound her way onto the Bay Bridge. She felt pit-of-the-stomach tired after the night flight, and the fog shrouding San Francisco Bay did not lighten her mood. "Maybe it had something to do with me."

     Karin shot her a questioning glance.

     May felt too tired to explain, but she knew she had to try. "I disappointed him. Turns out he wanted to be more than friends. It was bad enough, I guess, that I didn't feel that way about him. But Hayes made it worse . . . you know how he feels about Hayes's family, all the resentments. God, it's all so complicated . . . Sam has been such a good friend, he made me understand things about myself that I hadn't understood before . . ."

     "The Asian mystique," Karin said, more caustically than she had intended.

     "Yes," May came back sharply, "if you want to call it that."

     "I'm sorry, May, I really am, but I think Sam used it to take advantage. Also, did you notice that Sam's romantic interest in you seemed to develop at about the same time he learned that you and Hayes were getting together?"

     Puzzled, May asked, "What are you saying?"

     "I suppose I'm suggesting that just possibly, Sam is more interested
in hurting the Diehl family than he is about getting romantic with you."

     May frowned in disapproval. "Sam has been a good friend to both of us, K. I don't quite understand why you're so down on him, but let's not talk about it now. Tell me about Philip and the kids— how is marriage?"

     University Avenue was filled now with morning commuters, and it was not until they turned onto Shattuck that Karin could manage an easy tone. "Marriage is great. It's such a luxury, no papers to write, no tables to wait on . . . I feel spoiled—I have this dream where a very large woman calls me into an office with only an enormous desk, and she tells me that it is all a mistake and I have to report for work at eight the next morning. Philip said he'd have a time clock installed in the front hall if it would make me feel better. Unfortunately, he said it in front of Dan, who refuses to recognize his father's humor."

     "Bad scene?"

     "Very bad. It's the only cloud on my horizon. Thea is wonderful and so is Dan, but he and Philip are not good together. I sometimes wonder how we are going to get through the summer. Right now Dan is doing a 'we shouldn't be in Vietnam if we aren't there to win' number. With anybody else Philip would be the very soul of patience and reason, but Dan gets to him. I try to mediate, and that seems to make Philip angry with me. I think it's just another way for Dan to hit out at his father, but part of it is this ex-marine instructor of his at school. Dan thinks the guy has all the right answers, and to make matters worse, he's even talking about joining the marines as soon as he is eighteen."

     "What does Philip say?"

     "Can't you guess?"

     "Something like 'over my dead body'?"

     "Something like." Karin sighed. "It's still almost two years away. Pray the war is over by then."

     "Sometimes I wonder if this war will ever be over," May sighed.
"It was just really getting under way when we came to Berkeley, remember? Five years ago—it's been raging all this time."

     The fog swirled around them as they climbed into the hills. Karin shivered. "Sometimes it seems as if I can actually hear it—a kind of dull thunder that's always in the back of the mind."

     Karin pulled up to the house, turned off the engine, but made no move to get out of the car. "Before we go in," she said, "I need to prepare you for something." She began to bite a fingernail. May caught her hand and held it.

     "Just tell me," she said.

     "Sam's story is that he let some kids stay in the cottage while he was away, and that somehow they found the keys to the house and went inside. He said he didn't know if they threw a party or what, but when he came back, he said, the house was a mess and some damage had been done to the upstairs bathroom."

     "Is anything missing?"

     "Nothing," Karin answered. "Your topaz set was lying right out in the open, and a Cartier watch. Nothing was broken either, or even damaged. Sam said he cleaned up, except for the bathroom. He wanted me to have it painted before you got back. He said he figured we'd have to paint over all his pictures anyway before we left."

"Are you ready for this?" Karin said, and opened the door to the bathroom.

     May stared: Scrawled on the ceiling, over the angel pictures of the two of them, spray-painted in large, ugly black letters was the word "Bitch." Slowly, May scanned the walls, defaced now with epithets: Whore. Cunt. Fuck. Obscenities repeated, round and round on the walls until they became a litany, choking out all the innocent pink and blue beauty of the birthday paintings.

     May clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a cry. Karin pulled her away, led her to the bedroom.

     "I don't understand," May whispered.

     "Neither do I," Karin said, holding her tightly by the shoulders.

     "Why would someone who didn't even know us do that?"

     "That's a very good question."

     May wiped her eyes and looked at her. "You think Sam did it."

     "I think that's a logical conclusion. I also think it's a little sick. What I've been trying to figure out is if he really wanted me to have it painted over before you got here, or if he knew I'd show it to you first."

     May lay back on her bed, her arm flung over her eyes. "He wanted me to see it," she said.

It took four calls for Eli to find May at Kit's office.

     "Eli," she said, happy to hear his voice, "I've been trying to reach you . . ."

     "Listen hard, lady," he interrupted, his voice tight, "I can only talk a minute. Hayes has just taken some bad news, very bad. His brother Andy caught it—in Vietnam."

     "Andy? Dead?"

     "Stepped on a land mine, blown apart." His voice was urgent, he hadn't time to go easy. "Hayes called me about an hour ago and he's all broken up. Andy was a screw-up, but Hayes loved him righteously. Listen to me May, now, I haven't got much time and I've got to make this very plain. Hayes's calling me means he wants somebody with him, but I can't go. Don't ask me why, just believe it. The only two people in the world he would tolerate right now are me and you. That means it's got to be you. Now. Right now."

     "Eli," she broke in, "how can you be so sure?"

     "I am sure," he whispered hard into the phone, in a way that made her think he would be shouting at her if he could, "Don't you think I want to be there? Damn it May, I'm not giving you any
choice. He's at his folks' beach house over at Stinson. You got a pencil? I'll give you directions."

She left her car just outside the gate, as Eli had directed, and walked down the beach to the house at the end of the spit, the one with a Monterey pine bent by the wind so that it arched protectively over the roof. Fog blew in gusts so that the house seemed to appear and disappear. The rough dune grass pulled at her skirt and she sank into the sand up to her ankles as she made her way up the dune. She reached the top and could see into the house, through the wide windows that looked out to sea. There was no sign of Hayes.