Left at the Mango Tree (8 page)

In the meantime, Raoul’s patience had worn as thin as the favorite blue shirt he had been forced to leave at home that morning. He emphasized every syllable of his response: “Then – who – was – it?”

“I – don’t – know.”

“Damn it, Vilder!” Raoul pounded his fist on the desk and the tea tray clattered. “You expect me to believe that you have no idea where all that fruit ended up, nor how it got there? What kind of fool do you take me for? You as near as confessed to me before the crime was ever committed! You think I forgot about your little proposition?”

“Proposition? Crime?” Gustave repeated blankly, and with a hint of satisfaction. “Now, now, Officer Orlean. You read the paper. You must have seen the story in the
Crier
yesterday.” Gustave produced a copy of the newspaper from the day before, though where it came from Raoul couldn’t see just then, and tossed it on the desk. “Mr. Puymute seems to be the victim of...a curse...magic...the wizardry that we all take for granted around here—that is, until we wake up one morning to two empty pineapple patches and realize that we ought to pay it a bit more mind.”

“I know all about the story, Vilder. It’s as phony as you are. You tipped off the paper and fed them
your
version of the facts. You and I both know exactly where those pineapples went.”

Now it was Gustave’s turn to be angry. “I know I’m to blame for most of the things that go wrong on this floating little shard of Oh, but sometimes there simply isn’t an explanation. Looking for one might only bring more trouble.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Raoul remembered Pedro’s strange farewell.

“Only that whatever mystical force is at play here might not take kindly to being questioned too much. Or doubted. No telling what it might do if that were the case.” Gustave was standing now, his palms flat on the desk, his fiery eyes looking down on Raoul in his chair. “No telling.”

The conversation ended there, at least in the conventional sense. For although it was cut short by Raoul’s sudden and silent departure (Gustave had so angered him he’d gone momentarily mute and left), each continued talking to himself in mumbled threats and half-whispers.

“I – will – get – him. I will prove what he’s got up to. Somehow. And he – will – pay,” spat Raoul. “Babies? Pineapples? Who does he think he is?”

“He can’t prove a thing!” countered Gustave. “No one can prove anything on this island! Things happen all by themselves and then everyone looks at
me
.”

“A curse! Magic! I should have known a Vilder would stoop to something like this. Scaring up the whole bloody island. He’s nothing but a liar and a thief.”

“Why not a curse at Puymute’s? Or anywhere else for that matter? Should I be the only one bent by the powers of this place?”

There’s no telling how long the conversation would have gone on had it not been for Nat, who pulled alongside Raoul as he was walking back to town and offered him a lift. They drove in silence, Raoul still thinking about what he and Gustave hadn’t said to each other. The truth is that, though they ostensibly talked about taxes, both men had much more on their minds: that “proposition” for one (which you’ll hear about next), and me. It was mostly
me
they
had on the brain. Pineapples are a dime a dozen on Oh, but a rare and red-eyed almond? That’s worth fighting over, and definitely worth figuring out.

Finally back at the library, seated at his table in the corner, Raoul felt relieved. Despite the daunting research that lay before him, he was comfortable for the first time that day, a pearl nestled in the oyster of all those shelves lined with books. He breathed in, relishing the scent of the library air in his nose, a mélange of paper stock, lead pencil, and Miss Partridge’s honey-flavored eau de toilette. He closed his eyes, but soon the crinkles of his worried forehead tugged upward on his brow. Somewhere behind it, a bluebottle buzzed. Raoul opened his eyes and listened a minute. Then he sighed a honey dew onto his reading glasses, polished them up, and got to work.

5

P
romises aren’t contracts to be entered into lightly. Not anywhere. And especially not on Oh. They imply a pledge, which in turn implies some measure of honor, and an expectation, some rightful return on an investment of trust. Promises on Oh, like in many places, are the currency on which the economy was built. Once, you could promise your day’s catch of mahi mahi to the widow Corinna and she would wash and iron your three shirts. A bushel of spinach could get you hair tonic and a bobbin of thread, and a boon of butter would buy you a nice scrap of leather or a wooden chair for your little one. A chair of your own would cost you some cream and cake as well.

But unlike in many places, where currencies of gold and silver, or rainbow notes with profiled presidents or kings, replaced the devalued promise, on Oh it’s still legal tender—just about, for there never seem to be quite enough of those rainbow bills to go around. Many of the islanders, when they do get their hands on one, prefer to save it for a rainy day. So a promise on Oh is always taken very seriously—by the islanders blessed with all the rainbow bills they need, by those without, and by the characters in our story, most of whom fall somewhere in between—even when the promise is for promise’s sake, and for nothing in return.

So far, Raoul has promised to find an explanation for missing pineapples (and for anything else that smells of magic); Pedro and Gustave have promised possible trouble if he tries; Wilbur has pledged his heart to Edda; Edda has pledged hers to a red-eyed, cheek-stained baby girl; Bang, his lucky harmonica to Raoul; and I, I have said you would hear the story of Raoul’s first meeting with Gustave, the one that inspired the ad in the
Morning Crier
.

It happened about a week before Puymute’s pineapples disappeared. I was just a few days old and had yet to venture outside the house where I was born, but the steady stream of visitors continued. They came with jams and jellies and bedcovers, and they left with theories and verdicts, and some nice, juicy fat to chew while they strung up their washing and peeled their potatoes. It was clear to everyone but my mother (“blind little dumpling,” the islanders said) that I was a Vilder. It was also common knowledge that up to then Gustave was the only Vilder left on Oh, and thus the only one who could be my father. But the science behind my mother’s pregnancy was a matter that divided the islanders into two factions.

Some accepted Edda’s denials (Why
did
they keep asking her who had shared her bed?) and admitted to an indefinable magic, some trickery on the part of Gustave. Among these were my father Wilbur (“poor little dumpling, too”), who wasn’t so bothered as long as his wife was happy, and Gustave himself. Gustave was as certain that he hadn’t fathered me as he was uncertain about his own magic powers. He had mustered enough to kill his mother, that’s true, and Miss Peacock had unleashed something inside him, that was true, too. But magic-wise he hadn’t really accomplished much since then.

Had he?

Others denied Edda’s acceptance (Did she
really
expect them to believe she didn’t see the truth?) and admitted to only the unmentionable (though they mentioned little else), some trickery on the part of Edda. Among these were Bang, Cougar, and Nat, believe it or not. They believed in Gustave’s magic, too, they certainly did; but they knew Edda, they practically raised her after all, and suspected that in this case their little dumpling might be hiding some spice between the folds. They would never have fessed up to such feelings in front of Raoul, of course. As far as he knew, they were staunch supporters of the magic faction and defenders of his little dumpling’s honor.

Raoul’s sympathies lay somewhere in between. He didn’t for a minute doubt his daughter’s word. But magic? Raoul couldn’t stomach such a shady truth as that. He wanted an answer that was as clear as a nose on a face. And when he looked
this
matter square in the face, nothing was clear at all. I was his grandchild, and I was an Orlean, there was no doubting that. Raoul had watched my mother swell and bloat and pucker in the months preceding my arrival, and Abigail, the island’s most practiced midwife, had herself delivered me—Miss Almondine Orlean (I was given my mother’s family name, which she kept after marriage, Oh not being completely devoid of modern tendencies). Yet when Raoul looked into my eyes, his own didn’t stare back at him the way they did when he looked into Edda’s. In place of Raoul’s dark, black Orlean eyes, I (“pale little creature”) had red Vilder globes.

The first time Raoul peered into my face, he forgot where he was and what he was doing, like the first thick seconds that cloud a still-sleepy mind as the body awakes from a nap. When his mind caught up with his limbs and tried to verify the surroundings, the bedroom window’s darned curtain and the mint-green coverlet on
the mattress, it recognized nothing at all. My face should have been a mirror to Raoul’s heart, but in it his reflection was haunted, at once familiar and foreign—an abrupt and glowing consciousness that we are more, or less, than we think we are.

So Raoul decided then and there that, if no answers were to be found in my face, then perhaps one as clear as a nose could be gleaned or gotten from Gustave’s. Gustave had twice left word for Raoul in the week before my birth that the two men needed to talk. Once at the airport and once at the Belly. But Raoul, who had little regard for Gustave Vilder, had been too busy to bother with either message. Gustave must have wanted to come clean all along! So days after I came into the world, Raoul finally left for Gustave’s dwelling, and a chat.

Gustave lived on the westernmost shore of the island, on the land where the comfortable shack with the daffodil curtains and his heart-poking mother once stood. A small, simple villa stood there now, for thanks to Miss Peacock and the girls of the seedy port bar, Gustave had found the power to make something more of himself than the slouch-shouldered family legacy had dictated he should be. He had gotten himself hired by Puymute, who paid well, and finagled himself a loan from the bank, where the manager feared him too much to refuse. And he had built himself a house with indoor plumbing.

A house, but not quite a home. For it lacked a woman’s touch, or at least the touch of someone other than Gustave Vilder. Despite its bright colors, its wispy fabrics, and the sun that pounded it most of the day, the small, simple villa was a thick and shaded place, where even the welcoming froth of the sugared coffee proffered in the most expensive cups to be had at the market was disagreeable.

When Raoul reached the jagged fence of thick twigs that wrapped itself around the house, he could barely hear for all the noise in his head.

Flies.

The whole way there he had pondered what Gustave would say to him, what explanation Gustave would give, and every hypothesis was a buzz in his brain. They mingled in there and clashed and hummed. Had he tricked her in her sleep? Did he creep into the house while Wilbur delivered the mail (that’s what my father does on Oh) and Edda lay napping? Did he hide in her bed one night while Wilbur dozed in the breezy hammock on the porch? (He does that sometimes, too.) Did he sneak up on her from behind and slink away before Edda realized he wasn’t her husband? All troubling theories, these, but less troubling than magic-talk, Raoul said to himself, and far less troubling than a mystery.

Though the common buzz of all those flies fired and bounced in his head, the thought that it would soon be silenced, that the riddle would soon be solved, was enough to make the commotion not only tolerable, but enticing. Raoul was almost giggling by the time he knocked at Gustave’s door.

Inside the house, Gustave sat with his feet up, sipping pineapple wine. He was soon to embark on what would likely be a lucrative business venture and he was celebrating. There was still much to do, dozens of details to be ironed out, but Gustave had a heavy hand and felt sure he was up to the task. He was cheerily ticking the details off in his head when Raoul’s knock cracked his satisfied smile. “Oy! Vilder! Are you in there?”

Gustave looked at the closed door as if it might identify this unknown, familiar voice.

“I say, are you in there? It’s Raoul Orlean. You wanted to talk to me.”

Gustave smiled again, ticked off yet one more detail, and invited Raoul to come in. “Why, just the man I wanted to see!”

“I should think so. You have something to say for yourself, Vilder?”

“Yes, sir, I do! But call me Gustave. Sit down. I was just sampling Puymute’s finest.”

Raoul sat and accepted a glass. His giddiness had faded, supplanted by a mixture of puzzlement and unease. How was it so dark and hot in this place? The windows were open but the island gusts seemed to pass them right by, as did the light of the sun. Its heat, on the other hand, was focused squarely on the roof (it must have been), for inside, the villa was a brightly-colored, wispy-fabricked stove. Raoul stuffed into his pocket the handkerchief now wet from his brow and looked up to find Gustave with awaiting eyes, his glass perched in the air.

How is it that this fool is so hospitable? Raoul wondered, his puzzlement poised on the verge of offense. He looked Gustave close up and square in the nose. Their glasses clinked. “Now say your piece.”