Gift of the Golden Mountain (67 page)

     He poured the last of the split of wine they had shared into her glass. "He said he was . . . through that little machine he uses that translates from Morse code. Here, let me show you." He fished in his wallet and took out a piece of typing paper which had been carefully folded. On it was written: "I was wrong and you were right. You make a helluva Marine."

     Karin pressed the paper to her lips and closed her eyes. "Oh Danny," was all she could think to say. She knew that Philip didn't believe he had been wrong, but he could say it for his son. Thank you, Philip, she thought.

     "I've been wondering about Mrs. McCord," Dan said, "I mean, why is she doing all this for Dad? I know she's mongo rich, and I know she's a really good friend of you and May. But it seems, well . . . strange."

     "You're right, it would seem strange, I guess, if you didn't know Kit. Partly she's doing it for me. She's been like a fairy godmother to me, I respect her and care for her as much as if she were my . . . well, my 'real' mother."

     "I can relate to that," he answered.

     A wave of warmth washed over her. "Good," she said, "I'm glad."

     "Mrs. McCord said you were coming back for a visit pretty soon."

     "As soon as May returns from Japan, to stay with Thea. Then we'll be going back for good in September, when Thea goes off to college."

     Dan finished the last of his steak, pushed back his chair, and pulled a small cigar out of his pocket, making a show of lighting it, and took a long puff. "I don't know," he said, leaning back in his chair. "If I was you, I think I'd just hang out here on this beach for the rest of my life."

     "Tell you what, fella," she came back, "when you come back from Vietnam, no matter where I am, I'll meet you here at sunset, for dinner."

     "You got yourself a date, lady," he answered, holding her chair out for her.

Alex's car was in the driveway when they came back, that was the first thing that was wrong. Thea was supposed to have been at an honors banquet, and Alex was not invited. The carport lights were out, that was the second thing. Thea was expecting them, she should have turned the lights on.

     "Something's wrong," she said, holding tightly to Dan's arm as they hurried down the steep drive. "Listen."

     It was a strange sound, muffled, bleating. A warm wind blew against her face. She shivered. Then a scream broke the surface calm, long and sustained. Dan broke loose, slammed through the back door, running toward the scream. Karin stumbled, something tore at her leg, she pulled herself up, arrived inside in time to see Dan struggling to pull Thea off the railing, onto the lanai. Alex was clinging to her legs, his head down as if to ward off her blows. She was biting and kicking and screaming at them, her eyes wild.

     "It's me, Thea," Dan shouted at her. "Look, I'm here, it's okay, it's me, Daniel." He had her now, clamped safely in his arms. "Let go," he told Alex, but Alex seemed not to hear. "I said let her go,"
Dan repeated.

     "Daniel?" Thea said in a thin, high voice. "Daniel?"

     "I'm here," he told her, "Karin's here. You're safe now."

     Karin pulled her into her arms while Dan tried to extricate Alex. "Let go of her," he shouted into his ear. "We've got her now, we'll take care of her."

     Alex tightened his grip.

     "You son of a bitch let go or I'm going to rip your goddamned arm off," Dan said. A loud, brittle crack sounded, and a wail. "Goddamn you," Dan said, kicking him away, "I'm going to break every fucking bone in your fucking body . . ."

     Thea stiffened, screamed one long, thin note that seemed to shatter the darkness and then she slumped in Karin's arms.

     "Dan," Karin ordered sharply, "bring her here, inside. Sit here with her, on the sofa."

     He did as she told him, holding his sister firmly and stroking her arm, talking quietly to her to calm her, while Karin knelt beside Alex.

     He was rolled into a ball in a corner of the lanai, clutching his arm and whimpering.

     "What did you give her?" Karin demanded, her voice urgent. "I want to know exactly what you gave her."

     He tried to look at her but his eyes wouldn't focus. "Hurts," was all he could say, "arm . . . hurts."

     "Acid," Dan said, not varying the tone of his voice so he would not set Thea off again. "He's loaded on something else, but I'm pretty sure he's given her LSD. She freaked."

     Karin didn't ask him how he knew, it was all she could do to keep her hands steady so she could dial Paul Hollowell's number.

THE COTTAGE IS filled with ribbons and shredded bits of packing material and tissue paper—we are awash in a sea of tissue paper, pink and white and silver, packed in and about all of the wedding gifts that we are to take with us. Annie has packed our dresses, even, in tissue paper, so they won't wrinkle. My blue lace, her "slinky green" as she calls it, a brazen, backless creation that will doubtless set her poor mother to grinding her teeth. Annie has moved in with me, for "the duration," as she puts it.

     May and Hayes are to be married this coming Saturday, in a weather-worn little green and white church that sits all done above the sea not far from May's place, and looks as if it might have been plucked off the coast of Maine, steeple and all. It is a New England church, built by sailing men out of Gloucester and New Bedford and Nantucket, high and narrow and straight, with polished pews made of koa wood and tall gothic windows tilted open to catch the sea breeze. Nowhere else in the Islands can you see the historical juxtaposition so clearly as in the churches built by the stem, New England missionaries and attended by the soft,
lyric Hawaiians. It is Abigail's church. One of her myriad nephews built a ramp so I could go to services with her. After the ceremony there will be a luau at the compound, on the grassy enclosure next to the beach.

Yesterday, I read again May's journal from China. "It is over now," she wrote from Hong Kong. "With the help of my two extraordinary aunts—Rose in China, Kit in America—I have learned who I am.

     "I am Wing Mei-jin, I am May Reade, and soon I will be May Reade Diehl. One person, American and Chinese, at peace with herself.

     "That is what is so wonderful—this great calmness that has invaded my body, as if suddenly I am possessed. Hayes says that he can tell the difference. He says that if someone could X-ray my soul, the dark spots would be gone.

     "It was not just discovering that the woman who gave me life is very human, and very good, and never meant me harm. It was meeting Rose, and being drawn into her magnetic circle, it was traveling through China with Xue Lian, who told me when she left that she will always be my friend, even if we should never meet again. And it was seeing Hayes standing there, waiting outside the Barrier Gate in Macao when I came out of China. I knew then, when I saw him towering above everybody else, squinting to try to get a glimpse of me, and not recognizing me at all, sitting in the Family's cart. No barriers are left for me, I know where I belong—with Hayes, with my family back home. And someday soon, I hope, Rose will be part of that family.

     "I am not certain that Liao Ch'ing-Ling ever will be, I think that seeing me again might be too painful for her. She has spent so many years forcing her life into narrow channels, I think she will not allow herself to open up again. It does not hurt me to say that.
All the mystery is gone, I know what she looks like and how she lives and something of how she thinks. All the blanks are filled in. She leads such a simple life in her little village, her only pleasures are her books.

     "It was so strange, hearing her version of what happened all those years ago. She was not at all easy on herself, there was no trace of self-pity. I think that is what affected me so, that still lovely woman reciting hardships that were beyond belief, yet not expecting any sympathy. Her life has been so sad, so filled with failed choices. She made me understand that she did not leave me by choice, but by necessity. Poor woman, poor mother. And once I felt that surge of sorrow—for her, not for myself—I knew it was settled in me.

     "Before I left that morning she made gruel and tea for us and said, 'We will take it in the garden.' In the back of her little clinic was a small walled garden, and in it was a mimosa tree. I could not believe my eyes when I saw it, I have dreamed so often of my mother sitting under a mimosa that I actually wondered if I might be hallucinating. To prove it really was there I broke off some leaves and put them in my pocket, and now I am tucking them in the pages of this journal."

I touched the small spray of dried mimosa leaves and smiled to myself, thinking of May. We leave day after tomorrow for her wedding, "we" being Annie and me, Kit, Phinney, Emilie and Amos, the Diehls, Mrs. Nakamura. And Israel. May remembered that Israel is an ordained minister, and asked him to perform the ceremony, bless her. These past months Israel has been what he calls "poorly," he has lost a great deal of weight but his voice can still rise to great lofty, ringing-from-the-rafters heights. He tells me he is going to tie that righteous knot so everlastingly tight they will never be able to undo it, and I believe him, I do. Annie is at his place righ
now, helping him pack. She is the only one he will accept help from . . . Em couldn't believe it, when I told her. But then, Emilie was convinced it wouldn't work—my asking Annie to come live with me for a while, to help out.

     Kit has chartered a plane, a good idea in view of the sheer quantity of
things
we are taking.

     The sweet, celebratory scent of carnations and roses and star jasmine is in the air—my garden is bountiful this year—and I have this peculiar sense that the curtain is about to rise, the show is about to begin.

     That is foolish, of course. The show has been going on fulltilt for several months, it's just that all the action has been off my stage. I've been sitting here, in my old sunlit cottage, petting the cat and hearing about all the momentous events secondhand.

     Kit spends most of her time across town at Children's Hospital, where Philip has been moved to give him better access to the rehabilitation teams at the University of California medical school. Kit and Karin decided that Philip should not know about Thea's setback two months ago, when she had to spend several days in the hospital after a misadventure with drugs. The child seems to be fine now, but she hasn't wanted Karin to leave her, not even for a short visit to the mainland.

     My last conversation with Karin was notable not so much for what she said, as for an echoing kind of sadness I could hear in her voice. I could not tell her that Kit had confided to me that Philip was relieved she would not be coming to the mainland, that he is filled with a kind of self-recrimination about Karin. He knows how miserable his accident has made her life, he says, but he hasn't the energy to try to sort out what he should do about it. He acknowledges, too, that he needs her to care for Thea and to maintain touch with Dan.

     Philip is in a wheelchair and he is beginning to make sounds that approximate words. When Annie finally talked Israel into letting
her take the van and me out solo, our first outing was to the hospital to see Philip.