Gift of the Golden Mountain (49 page)

     Noelani looked at Clarence, full of uncertainty. The boy stood there for a long moment, confusion and pain flashing across his face. He wanted desperately to say something, you could see that, but he could not find the words to break May's cold anger. Finally
he turned and, with Noelani by the hand, walked away.

     I watched them go, and ached for them.

     May waited until she heard their truck rumble down the road, and then she exploded.

     "Christ!" she said, flinging the report across the lanai, "He wants to get married! He comes whimpering in here, pulling that child behind him . . . throwing it all away . . ." All the fury that had been bottled inside her came bursting out. She stalked around the house, ranting and throwing things. Israel heard her and came in double time across the lawn. I waved him off.

     When she had exhausted herself, she went into the room where I was staying and curled up on the bed. I followed, with one hand I smoothed the hair back from her wet face and with the other, I grasped her hand. She was crying; soft, wet sobs came choking out of her.

     "I've lost him," she managed to say, her voice shaking so hard I had to strain to understand, "I waited too long and I've lost him."

     I frowned. Whatever could she mean, "lost"? Then it came to me. Marie-Claire. Hayes. It was Hayes she had lost.

     "Listen to me now," I said. "Listen carefully, my darling May. Clarence came here because he needs your permission . . . no, listen, I know you are not talking about Clarence, but I am. That's right, Clarence. Permission and approval, if possible. He needs to hear you say that it is all right to get on with his life, the way he chooses to lead it. You are important to him, and that means you have a certain power over him. What Clarence needs from you is what you need from your mother: a release."

     She turned on the bed and looked at me, her eyes widening with the realization. After a few minutes she pulled herself to the edge of the bed and sat there, her face in her hands. And then, having reached a decision, she did not take time to wash her face, even, but climbed in the truck and roared off.

     She found Clarence near the Volcano Observatory. He was alone, staring into the crater of Kilauea, his back a study in misery.

     "I am sorry about what happened," she began, sitting next to him and looping her arm in his. "Clarence, I was angry when you came today, but not with you. I was angry with myself, for being stupid about something else—something that has nothing at all to do with you. If what you want is to marry Noelani, then I will be happy for both of you. Truly."

     He looked at her, studied her face, and saw what he wanted to see. She put her arms around him, then, and he touched his face to her shoulder, so she would know the depth of his relief.

March 27. Everything has happened so fast. The phone call, saying that Sam was in town and would be coming out for the weekend with a couple of his friends. Their arrival: three of them, Sam and a misshapen Laotian man with no hair at all on his head, and a woman from Italy introduced as a war correspondent.

     "Nicky's English isn't so good," he said, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her around. She had a sharp, hard little face and eyes that scanned us with obvious disinterest.

     "Hi," she said, automatically.

     Sam made a great show of greeting me. Perhaps he was glad to see me, I can't tell any more about Sam. When he joined me on the lanai and I tried to get him to talk about taking photographs at the front, he was strangely glib. But I am wrong to criticize. I can only believe that what he has seen is too painful to talk about, and of course his photographs speak for themselves.

     Making conversation at dinner was laborious. Neither the Laotian nor the Italian woman made any effort to answer questions, nor did they volunteer. They concentrated on eating and drinking, and left May and Sam and me to carry on a desultory conversation. I excused myself as soon as I could.

     The murmur of talk drifted along the lanai late into the night. I supposed the liquor had loosened their tongues, and was glad I
had escaped to bed.

     When I got up the next morning the living room was strewn with detailed maps of Burma, Thailand, and Laos, with empty glasses and the two bottles of scotch Sam had brought along, also empty. A thick, pungent odor lingered in the room. When I opened the door leading to the lanai I found May, dozing on a chaise lounge, fully dressed, a beach towel pulled over her for warmth.

     The others didn't leave their beds until after noon and then they left quickly to catch a plane. Sam, I noticed, shared a room with the Italian woman. They are gone now, and I have tried to find out what is going on but May is being evasive. When I asked her what she thinks of Sam, she had to think for a while. "He's changed," she said. "Maybe Nicky has something to do with that. I gather they work together . . . I'm glad he has found someone, but I'm not sure that she is . . ." She broke off, started again with another, more positive thought. "I'm impressed at how much Sam knows about Asia. He's been all through Thailand and Laos, he has contacts among the hill tribes, it really is fascinating to hear him talk about it . . ."

     "He didn't have much to say at dinner," I interjected, rather too tartly.

     "No, he didn't," she grinned. "I have a feeling the booze and the pot got him going . . . those folks live hard lives, judging by their consumption."

March 30. May called from Honolulu to say she has to go to Japan and that she isn't certain how long she will be gone. She wanted to know if I would be all right. I told her I thought it more appropriate for me to ask that question of her. This is not, I am almost certain, a routine trip. She was evasive. I considered asking Israel to fly over to Honolulu to talk to her, to try at least to find out what she is up to, but then I decided no, it wouldn't
work. She is going to do what she is going to do, and I am afraid for her.

Three weeks later, we had what as a kid I used to call a "cloudburst." It almost never-rains on the Kona coast, but the afternoon Hayes called the heavens opened and long silver sheets of rain poured down and beat so hard on the roof that I had to strain to hear. "I'm in Hong Kong," Hayes shouted, his voice familiar even through the bluster of the rainstorm. "May wired me from Thailand to meet her here. She was supposed to arrive yesterday—do you know where she is?"

SHE CHEWED GENTLY on the inside of her cheek and listed the things she was not going to think about. Hayes, and Marie-Claire. Faith, who would be wondering and worrying. Mad Obregon, God. He had flown into a fury when she told him she needed to be away for a couple of weeks, and wouldn't tell him why. Her mother, what would happen when . . . and Sam, she wasn't going to let herself think about whether or not he could do what he said he could do. She stood at the window of her hotel room watching a long-tailed boat make its way up the Chao Phraya, leaving a wake of brown water that lapped against the barge moored by the hotel's dock. She had been here two days, had been waiting two days, and it was too long.
Damn you Sam
, she thought, in spite of her pledge,
You had better not leave me hanging.

     She climbed into the shower, let the water stream over her, and went over the plan again. She was to take a room at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok and wait to be contacted by someone who would direct her to the people who would take her into China through Burma. Here she was, waiting, afraid to leave the room for fear she
would miss the contact, feeling trapped. Anger rising, she got out of the shower, twisted her wet hair on top of her head, and pulled on her bikini. Sam's people had better move their asses or she was going to turn around . . .

     And do what? she asked herself as she strode through the corridor. Go back to the status quo with Obregon? Ignore Marie-Claire? Forget about her mother? She stepped through the double doors and ran point-blank into a wall of heat but it didn't even slow her down. She dumped her towel and keys on an empty chaise, kicked off her sandals, and, almost without breaking stride, dived into the pool. The water pressing against her felt good, moving felt good. She swam the length of the pool underwater, surfaced for a gulp of air, swam back again. She did this twice more before climbing back out of the pool, her lungs aching.

     When she reached for her towel, her keys clattered onto the tiles. Her vision was blurred, but she could see a note folded tightly and tied to the chain. With wet hands that would not work as fast as she wanted, she opened the paper and read: "You will be glad to go to Grand Palace this day at 3, see Jade Buddha. Sam says."

     She buried her face in the towel, pretending to dry it, and when she looked up again a tall, blond man was standing in front of her, a drink in his hand.

     "You swim well," he said in accented English. She dried her hair slowly, and wondered how he knew to speak English.

     He repeated the remark in French. She did not smile, but she did not frown either. Her tone was careful: "Is there a reason I should be talking to you?"

     "Ah, you do speak English. I thought you might like a drink. Dreadfully hot, this country, for an Austrian like me."

     She managed a short, perfunctory laugh. Just a pickup, she thought, a standard line, it had happened to her enough times, she should have known. This thing with Sam was making her paranoid.

     "Thank you no," she said, "I'm meeting someone."

She sat on the carpet in front of the Jade Buddha, her legs tucked under her so her feet were pointing at no one—an important point of courtesy to the Thai, who were seated all around her. She had positioned herself in front of a fan, so the heat was not oppressive. The Jade Buddha sat, high above her, a small green figure in a glass case. Amazing, she thought, the power of religion here, as the man to her right bowed to the Buddha and rose to leave, smiling at her and whispering, "Samsas." She looked at him blankly, not knowing if he was speaking to her or to someone else, or if it were some kind of prayer. Confused, she looked away. "Samsas," he repeated, and she got it: Sam says.