Gift of the Golden Mountain (53 page)

For three days they lived in their own rhythms. They rose at first light, and walked. The first day a fine mist hung over Hong Kong harbor, a single ferry moved across the bay, leaving a sharply defined wake. They walked, and watched the city come to life along with the practitioners of tai chi in the small green parkways along the waterfront, their ritual movements scarcely stirring the warm morning air. They sat watching the freighters and container ships and cruise liners and, skittering in between, the sampans and walla-wallas that filled Hong Kong harbor. They walked to the Star Ferry terminal and climbed aboard one of the little green and white ferries and crossed over to Hong Kong Island and back again, on the second-class deck of the
Meridian Star
, the
Celestial Star
, the
Night Star.
They walked the narrow back streets of the old part of the city, pausing at shops that sold rhinoceros horn and hundred-year-old eggs and birds in cages. That day large, dark clouds hovered over the city, and the promise of rain was strong but still they walked. When it came lashing down on them, they dashed for cover into a temple called Man Mo and had their fortunes told as they breathed in the thick incense. The priest gave them a piece of yellow paper filled with Chinese characters. May translated:
"It is a time to plant new trees, which will put down new roots, and bear fruit."

     The rain stopped and the steam of the afternoon heat sent them back to the cool of the hotel, where they made love and slept, and made love again, and talked.

He told her about his search for the Vietnamese woman Le Tien An, and her child—Andy's child, who would be almost two years old by now. How he had gone to Saigon, and had been turned away by her family, but had learned that the child had been born. A son, he said, Andy has a son.

     She told him how it had been, when the Thai troops had surrounded them at the border. She explained how they had found the heroin on her, how Sam had used her. How he had promised to be in Bangkok when she returned—she realized, now, to pick up the heroin. He must have planned it all along, must have known she wouldn't be able to get into China . . . "I was so stupid," she said, "I wanted to believe, and Sam seemed so sure of himself. I thought it was my last chance, that if I didn't see her and get it settled . . . you, we . . . would never . . ." She caught herself, took a deep breath. "From the beginning I knew there was a chance that I might fail to get into China through Burma, the terrain is difficult and there are all sorts of unknowns—but I felt certain Sam would never betray me . . ."

     Hayes paced the room, anger flashing on his face. "The bastard," he spat out, "the filthy bastard."

     "I guess I worked a lot of my anger out while I was sitting in that prison cell, watching insects crawling around the walls. I have no feeling left for him, none at all, except maybe disgust."

     They talked about Sam for a time, about his anger at the Diehls, his anger at the world, and how it had consumed him.

     Hayes told her about his work at the headquarters of the OECD in the Chateau de la Muette in the western part of Paris, and rattled off all the acronyms as he might a child's ABCs: DAC and NIC, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, The Development Assistance Committee, and the Newly Industrialized Countries. His own work was with DAC, his special field of study Sub-Saharan Africa, an area with problems so vast, he said, it is going to require an enormous effort in the coming decade on the part of the rich nations of the world.

     And when she asked, Hayes answered: "Yes, it feels right. I know now what I can do, and what I can't, and both of those things were important for me to find out."

     They rode the tram to Victorian Peak to watch the lights come on over Hong Kong harbor, and ate long noodles and
lo han
vegetables at the
dai pai dong
, or street stalls, and drank Iron Buddha tea.

     They lived in the present, and only talked selectively about the past. He told her that Eli was in Libya, that he had married a Palestinian woman who was in the university there, an act which had complicated both their lives but which seemed to have preserved Eli's sanity.

     Late in the afternoon of the third day, they lay in bed together, with all that had not been said pushing hard between them. Hayes sat up. May ran her hand lightly along the spine of his back. She forced herself to say, "There is so little time left."

     He ran his hands through his hair. "My flight is at eleven, we should be moving."

     She took a deep breath: "I have to know. Please, Hayes. Now."

     He turned, and she saw that he couldn't trust himself to speak.

     So May said it: "I have to know about Marie-Claire. I know she loves you. I have to know if you love her."

     "What you have to know," he said, almost angrily, "is that I love you, more than anyone. Anyone."

     "But she thinks . . ."

     "She knows," he said, his mouth tight, "I called her the day you came, while you were sleeping, and she already knew. I didn't have to say it."

     "Then say it to me," May pushed, "what you would have said to her, if she hadn't already known."

     He got out of bed, pulled on his pants, poured a drink for himself, and did not look at her.

     "That I was sorry, that I had never wanted to cause her any pain, that . . . I was sorry."

     May pulled the sheets around her, and huddled in the depression
that was descending upon her. Hayes was leaving, was returning to France. She wouldn't see him for how long, how long . . . he was returning and he would not say he didn't love Marie-Claire, would not say what it was he felt for her. A kind of panic moved into her throat, "I need to know, Hayes," she began in a pleading voice.

     He turned now and said very calmly, "I don't want to talk about Marie-Claire, and there's no need. Please try to understand, May. I could never marry anyone else, not when I feel this way about you."

     "Marry?" she blurted. "I didn't know you wanted to be married, I didn't think you were ready . . ." She burst into tears, and let them stream down her face.

     "May, listen to me . . . can you do that? Listen?" He spoke in a slow, measured way. "There are things about you, about your life, that are complicating . . . the way you work, for one thing. Your ambition, and you are ambitious. I've never been sure that I'd be able to hold you. On top of that there's the bloody Hunt fortune . . . I know what an albatross that kind of money can be. My father became a banker so he could manage my mother's family money, and that's a fraction of what you are worth."

     "It isn't that much of a problem . . ." she began, but he stopped her.

     "Wake up, May. You haven't had to deal with it because Kit is doing it for you. Kit knows very well what you are refusing to see— that money is power, whether you want it or not. Kit hasn't been afraid to use that power, but I don't know what's going to happen when you're faced with it—what I do know is that I don't want to be in the position of taking over from Kit."

     She smiled, she couldn't help it. "And I had you figured for a fortune-hunter," she said, wryly.

     He brought her a robe, held it out for her, and, when she lifted her hair, he could not resist bending to kiss her on the neck. "I only need to think about you and the juices start flowing," he said. "You
are the most exciting woman I've ever known, and I don't think I can live without you. I've just got to get used to the idea that it isn't going to be any kind of an ordinary life."

     "Is ordinary what you want?" she asked. "No, wait, don't answer that. Instead, tell me what you mean by ordinary?"

     He grinned, reached for her hand. "Going to bed in the same bed together at night, waking up together in the morning, having breakfast in a kitchen that belongs to a place we share, making love, having children, fixing peanut butter sandwiches . . ."

     She looked at him, wide-eyed. "And you don't think I want that too?"

     It was his turn to look serious. "There are so many complications, May. This thing about your mother needs to be resolved before we can begin to be together, we both know that. And it scares the hell out of me to think you might try another crazy scheme. If I'm the reason that you went off half-cocked into Thailand, then I'll tell you this, I'll wait for you forever, if I have to . . . but I want you to promise me you won't try to go into China illegally again."

     "Wait. Before I make any promises, let's get back to my question. What makes you think my career would be more important than my husband, and where did you get the idea that I wouldn't want a family? I just don't understand. You never asked me, remember—you were the one who went off to France to find out how you fit into this world, after all the turmoil in Africa and the South and Berkeley. I didn't try to stop you because I had some questions to answer of my own. But there was never any question in my mind, I always knew I wanted to spend my life with you. I never subjected you to the kind of cold scrutiny you seem to have subjected me to . . ." She didn't finish the sentence, but started on another tack, "Did you think Marie-Claire would make a better wife? That life with her would be less complicated, is that it?"

     His face went cold; he began, methodically, to dress. May went into the bathroom, showered, and when she came out he was packing.

     She put on a beige silk suit she had bought that morning, slipped into sandals, brushed her hair, and all the while the silence grew, swelling, filling the room, pressing against her rib cage. She could feel time pulling against them; rushing to empty. She looked at his back and wanted to touch him, but she could not.

     "Where should we have dinner?" he asked in a stranger's voice.

     
"It doesn't matter,"
she heard herself say,
"I don't care."
The words exploded inside of her. She felt herself disintegrating, tiny black spots moved across her field of vision. "Oh my God, Hayes," she cried, "I do care. I care terribly. I was so frightened when I thought I'd lost you, when I thought you wouldn't be here, but you were. You came and you waited for me and I love you, oh God Hayes, I love you . . . I should not have . . ."

     He held her quietly, rubbing her back thoughtfully. "We'll work it out," he said. "Somehow, we will make it work."

Fall 1972

A
SPLINTER OF sunlight pierced the thin layer of my eyelid and lodged there, sending sharp, insistent messages into the dark center of my brain, needling me awake. Resisting, I moved my head on the pillow but the sunlight tracked me. It was no good; I was not to be allowed to rise easily to wakefulness. I opened my eyes and saw the problem—a rip in the old green window shade. It had always been temperamental and the girls—two of Annie's school pals who stayed in the cottage while I was away—were too young to be patient with this crochety old place. I suppose one must have given the shade too hard a tug and tore it. Why haven't I noticed it before? Of course! The sun had to move into place. It was the first good thought of the morning, the idea of the sun working its way around the heavens to get at me. I will have to add the shade to my list of things for Israel to fix.

     "This old place is too idiosyncratic to loan out," Israel said to me after the first round of repairs. (He is studying the dictionary
again, building his vocabulary.) I told him that as far as I was concerned, he was the resident expert on eccentricities. He wasn't about to be sidetracked into semantics, and grumbled, "Why didn't you just leave those rambunctious young ladies a list of things not to do?"

     "Because," I explained, "the list would have been so long they would have thought me an intolerably fastidious old fussbudget, besides which you can't say on a list just exactly how to jiggle the handle on the toilet to keep it from running all day, or precisely how to lift the screen door and push it out ever so gently so it opens easily."

     Still he fusses and fumes. His lumbago has returned, he complains that the fog makes his joints ache. He complains. The problem with Israel is he didn't want to come home.

     It is no good lying here thinking; Karin and Thea will be along in no time. They promised to stop by before Thea's lesson. The family has been traveling so I've seen them only twice over the summer. Greece, Italy, Spain. I should say Philip, Karin, and Thea have been traveling. Dan did not go with them, he went to summer school. I suspect that Karin's coming here today has something to do with Dan.