Reprisal (42 page)

Then, a few forgotten landscapes later, a yellowed photograph of her mother and father--also very young, looking too young to be married. They were standing together by the lake cabin. His arm was around her waist, and he was smiling. A different man, smiling and young. Her mother had put up her hand to shade her eyes from the sun.

Several bundles held only Rebecca. Her babyhood ... the round, alert little face squinting into the sun. In so many photographs she was wearing her yellow sunsuit, with the shoulder straps.--Did they even make sunsuits now? The sunsuit and a tennis hat much too large for her. Good shade, though. The baby's skin had been white, soft, and tender as fine paper. ...

Then, from a stained brown envelope, some New Mexico pictures. Mountain vistas. ... A pueblo. Photographs she hadn't seen for so many years.

There was one of an older man whose name Joanna had forgotten, a caver who'd been with them in Lechuguilla. Then a picture of the cave's entrance--and after that, three more photographs taken at the same time, views hardly differing. She and Curt Garry, just out of the cave--hands, faces, and coveralls smeared with mud. Even so, a striking couple, grinning, pleased with themselves.

Curt such a golden boy, tall, blond, and slender, his face elegant as an old-fashioned actor's ... and Joanna in dark contrast, with Indian eyes and long black hair--hair just released, she recalled, from a damp and dirty blue bandanna.

Curt, alive and looking out at her from more than twenty years ago. His eyes and mouth so well remembered--and echoed now, in another's face.

Downstairs, Charis was singing at the stove. A show tune ... a song from Paint Your Wagon. "--Out the window go the beans. Out the window go the beans."

Joanna sat on her bed amid photographs--oddly satisfied by catastrophic machinery, polished and perfect, that had slid to its fit at last.

Charis's voice was nothing like her father's. Curt had sung madrigals at Yale.

Her voice, sweet and uncertain, was nothing like his. But her eyes--set at a slant like a cat's--now recalled his eyes, absolutely. The medieval definition of her face was his as well, as he'd stood smiling for the camera so long ago.

... And what had Charis from her mother? Strong long legs and arms, a certain athleticism. Self-concern, talent for language ... and a strict requirement that she be loved.

Joanna lay down among the pictures, felt their pasts like cool fallen leaves beneath her. Now everything was known. Now, even she knew it.

"To begin again, at the beginning," Charis had said. A recipe for happiness that had seemed obscure, and now was not. ... She must have searched for her past, backtracked her poisoned childhood to its beginning--to recommence her life as it should have been, as a little girl kept with her mother, guarded by her mother, and loved absolutely.

... Frank had had no place in that new life--he would have proved it false, expected attention, affection that should be hers. So what seemed a slender boy, in a red baseball cap, had gone sailing with him. ...

Louis, that odd and retiring man, must have decided to search for his lost granddaughter, had finally found her and--an anonymous benefactor-supported her through college. But Charis would not have known, or cared, who had cared for her. Louis Bernard would only have been the second sharer of what could not be shared.

As Rebecca had been the third.

All removed, so Charis--replacing a childhood of horrors--might claim a birthright hers alone.

Joanna lay with her eyes closed. In what course, in what book, had Charis found suggestion to call the classic elements to her service? Water, Fire, Air, and Earth.-And only Earth had betrayed her, and let Tom Lowell live. Two almost silent leave-takings in the night. The first must have been reconnaissance. ... The four classic elements--and in which would her mother find solution, when what must be done was done?

Joanna lay among the pictures for a while ... then got up and gathered them to put away, before she went down to dinner.

... The lamb stew was perfect, needed only a little salt.

Charis served it in soup bowls, with hot whole-wheat rolls and lettuce-and-cucumber salads. Then she poured out wine.

"Charis, it looks wonderful. ... It is wonderful."

"Well, I was worried about the stew."

"No. It's really good."

"Salad dressing is from the bottle. I don't know why I can't make vinaigrette; I just never get it right."

"It helps if you whip it up--and you put in just a pinch of sugar, too."

"Well, next time I'll try it."

Joanna sat eating her dinner, and part of her became another Joanna. Both sat eating dinner. And as they ate, these Joanna's slowly became several--each a little different--sheaving away from a core, like lily leaves. What was happening seemed much stranger to her than rage or sorrow. Stranger than the ever oddness of being alive. ... Much stranger than inevitable death. This was something so new, there were no railings for it. Nothing to prevent flying, or a fall forever.

Joanna, now one of many, sat and buttered a roll--Charis had warmed four--and watched and listened to her daughter. Enjoyed her particular beauty, enjoyed it more now that she knew--such striking beauty, slim, delicate, and strong.

... Frank must have felt that wiry strength. And Rebecca, also. Louis had experienced her intelligence, her cleverness, as the fire flowered. ...

Beautiful, intelligent, and strong.

And had those loved and loving dead a better claim to Joanna Reed than her daughter Charis--discarded as an inconvenience, a baby girl abandoned to a random monster?

Charis asked for the butter, and Joanna passed it. Passed the butter to the only family, the only child she now would ever have.--And no murder to be proved against her. Suspicion, certainly. Possibly an arrest, perhaps even a trial. But no proof, no witnesses. And in the end ... no conviction, no sentence. Unless to an insane asylum for the rest of her life.

"Want more stew?"

"Yes, just a little."

"Okay. Not too much. ..." Charis ladled stew into Joanna's bowl. "Need to leave room for cake."

... But if not that, if not police and punishment, then what? Could there ever be forgiveness for a family murdered? And if so--then forgiveness for Charis, perhaps. For her mother, never. ... What but her youthful cowardice, laziness, and selfishness had created this engine of destruction?

Could that responsibility ever be borne, and those lost voices silenced? ...

Not likely. And even if that became possible--what then? What life hereafter, the two of them together? Charis was not safe to keep. Never certain, never satisfied to share the perfection of her mother's love, she would forge a silver circle around them. And if anyone approached--any man, with love ...

any woman, for friendship's sake--if any came close and touched that dragon's ring, Charis would kill them.

... Failing to answer questions, tired of them, some Joannas had died sitting in the kitchen chair. They had withered and fallen away like flowers. The others still ate and talked with their daughter, and enjoyed her, enjoyed knowing she was theirs ... this bright and lovely girl come back to her after so many years, and when she was all alone.--But every Joanna remaining agreed it was best that Frank and their father and Rebecca were dead, so as not to suffer a sorrow so strange.

Still, Joanna died. And when the second buttered roll was eaten, all had died but one, and she was not quite the Joanna who had come down to dinner. --There was no single part of her so very different. But everything was changed a little. ...

Charis took the dishes to the sink. "Cake time!" she said, and she shone like gold.

... After dinner, Joanna went to the dining room with her notebook, to sit with Charis as she worked. It was better to sit with her, much better than being upstairs alone, with nothing but Charis to think about.

"Joanna, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Maybe a little tired."

"Well ... I decided I'm going to do Longfellow for my poetry paper."

"Oh, dear. ..."

"No, really. I think he had some important things to say."

"Mmm. About what?"

"--About America, the values the voices of wilderness represented to the Native Americans, and still do to all of us. Voices. Joanna, it's all about the voices of nature, addressing man--which, of course, is man addressing himself, speaking through trees and wind and rivers in that odd incantatory meter."

"Charis, you don't even have the poem yet. You haven't gotten the book from the library."

"I know, but I remember enough to know that's what Hiawatha's about. I'll get the book next week."

"I see."

"You don't think it's a good idea."

"I think you may lose some important class credits by irritating Chris Engletree with a Victorian Romantic poet. ... And you will also find the poem itself presents some problems with your "nature's voices" thesis. I believe our hero canoes away at the end, and leaves his people to the mercy of the Jesuits--not precisely lovers of the natural world."

"I'll handle it--after all, he was a man of his time. I'll handle it."

"Well ... if you really decide to do this, and you work from the text carefully, I suppose Engletree might find it interesting enough not to fail you. ... Poor Longfellow is due for a minor resurrection. He's been an object of fun for quite a while."

"Then that's it. I'm going to give it a try. "By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water ...""

Joanna sat watching her daughter, searching that near perfection for the imperfection beneath it, a limestone fault, its river run below to fashion a cave of the heart.

Charis glanced up, saw her watching. "What?"

"Nothing. ..." For something else to say, Joanna almost mentioned the death of Longfellow's wife. Her long dress cloaked in flame, caught fire at the hearth, she had run through their house to him, blazing, and fallen dying into his arms. ... Joanna almost mentioned it, began to mention it--then, remembering her father's death, did not ... she supposed from fear of embarrassing the girl, recalling the murder to her.

What strange delicacy. A killing rage and tenderness turned so tangled in her that she supposed she must have gone mad to bear it.

"What?" The girl's brilliant eyes on her. Elegant dark-gold head cocked to hear. A bright bird, flown out of deep jungle into light, with a jungle spider riding.

"Nothing ... really." She wished so much to say aloud, Sweetheart, in your madness, you have driven me mad.--Why couldn't you have come to me? I would have gone on my knees, I would have begged and begged you to forgive me. Then all of us would have loved and cared for you. Those you killed, they would have cared for you. ...

If she kept thinking those things, she would say them, and that would be insupportable. There was not enough left of her to say those things.

"Is something wrong, Joanna?--Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, sweetheart. Just tired."

"We're doing too much. The gardening was too much."

"No. I love the garden."

"You're crying!"

"No. No, I'm not."

"You are! And it's my fault--all this bullshit about my paper. I'm bothering you about this crap, and you just need to be peaceful, and rest. ..."

"No, no."

"Yes, you do! You need quiet, and I'm going to keep my mouth shut and stop bothering you. I'm so sorry. ..."

What else could Joanna do but reach out and touch her? Charis's flesh, her smooth skin, her commencing tears of distress, were fresh daughters to her mother's flesh and skin and tears. The two of them were one thing, separated.

"--I promise, Joanna. I'll just be quiet."

And if, by right, permitted to touch and comfort her-then whose right greater than a mother's to destroy a dangerous child? A knife from the kitchen, and justice with it. If not for Frank, if not for Louis and Tom Lowell--men, after all, with violence and violent death an ancient heritage --if not for them, then for Rebecca. Rebecca had been gentle, defenseless as a baby bird.

"--ally'll see; I'll just let you rest. It's a promise."

Justice called for--but surely no harm, just for now, in touching. Touching her only daughter. That small pleasure was surely owed and earned--at least the affection due to any young creature, beautiful and doomed. Joanna reached to stroke the girl's cheek ... then couldn't help but cup her face, so warm and smooth, in both hands.

"You've been very good to me, Charis." And that was true. That part of the truth was true.

"I think we should take the coconut cake."

"Charis, it's a lot of cake. We won't eat it over the weekend."

"But supposing we stay over? If we stay a few days, then we'll have it. Here it'll just get stale."

"... Bring the cake."

"And what about the stew?"

"No. Sweetheart, we're not taking the stew with us. The stew will be fine in the refrigerator for a couple of days."

"Okay. ..."

Joanna went upstairs for her small suitcase. They'd gotten up early to pack and have breakfast, which was just as well. Friday, the ferry left at nine in the morning--and her captain had a reputation for taking pleasure in leaving latecomers on the dock.

"Charis--are you ready?"

"I'm ready. ..."

Joanna had forgotten to pack her hairbrush. She put her suitcase back on the bed, opened it, and tucked the hairbrush alongside her notebook. Then she shut the bedroom windows, picked up her suitcase, and went downstairs-surprised how possible it was to live for a little while alongside life, rather than in it.

Very much like walking by a river too savagely turbulent and swift to swim in, wade, or cross.

Charis, in jeans and green T-shirt, was waiting in the kitchen with her small duffel and her book bag. "Do we have the caving stuff?"

"I put the equipment in the trunk last night."

Charis smiled. "Cake box is in the backseat."

"That cake was not small enough. ..."

A while ago, they'd backed away from the last out-island stop. Oteague.

Now, the ferry--crowded with islanders and tourists mixed--was meeting white horses with small shudders of effort, heading into an east wind blowing warm off the mainland. Approaching, the coast was a lumpy line of gray-green, its buildings becoming more visible ... the Coast Guard's white station clearly seen.