Sleeping in Flame (18 page)

They came running.

I found a stick of driftwood a few feet away and brought it over.

"That's a good one. Now, Walker, what I want you to do is make a sand castle right here. You know, the kind kids build near the water where it's wet?"

I looked down at the bone-dry khaki sand where we stood and thought he was joking. Pushing it with a foot, I watched it slide apart, parched and twinkling from the heat and sun.

"Come on, Venasque. It's too dry. It won't stick together."

"I don't want to hear that! Do what I tell you. There's a way. If I tell you to do it then there's a way. Watch me."

Taken aback by his tone and growing rudeness, I watched silently while he went down on his knees facing me. The animals were at his side and remained there without moving or making noise. His silent guards.

The old man closed his eyes and suddenly stuck his arms straight out in front of him, like a sleepwalker.

His hands started to drip water. It came down in fat fast plops, as if his fingers were open water faucets. It didn't stop. He looked at me without saying anything.

Reaching down, he slid the shining wet hands under the sand and left them there some time. The spot began to darken into brown and spread in all directions. Something below was making everything wet. Dripping fingers.

In a while he pulled them out again and began to mold and shape the wet muck into walls and squared sections, then turrets and what looked like a moat.

When _his_ sand castle began to take definite shape, he stood up with a groan and told the animals to finish it. And like hairy architects or giant worker ants, they dug and pushed and pawed things further into shape. I

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watched while they did these wondrous things. Looking up once, I saw Venasque standing nearby looking out to sea and finishing my sandwich. He wasn't interested in what they were doing.

When it was done, their castle looked very much like the one at the entrance to Fantasyland at Disneyland. They stepped back and looked it over, then walked down to the water to clean themselves.

"You _can_ make a castle here, Walker."

"I'm not you, Venasque. I can't make water flow out of my fingers. Or get a dog and a pig to put up walls for me."

"No, but you gotta brain to think of something else. My way is different from yours, sure. But you gotta learn there _is_ a way for you too. Even when it's doing something as small and dumb as this. Give me a castle out of dry sand, okay?

"I'm going to take a walk down the beach. We'll be back in an hour or two, so work on it till then. Remember, I only want you to use that stick you found. Don't bring up any water from the ocean because that's the easy way.

_And_ I'll know if you've done it."

"How?"

"How will I know? Do it and you'll see. Think up something else, Walker.

You can do it. If you caused all that magic to happen around you back in Vienna, you can start taking it from inside and using it for yourself."

He whistled again shrilly, and the animals rushed up from the surf to join him. They took off together down the beach, Connie leaning against his right leg. He looked back once and gave a big wave. "Don't use water!"

I waved back, frowning. When he was far enough away, I jammed the stick into the sand and left it standing there while trying to decide how to go about this chore.

Brilliant ideas, like using spit or even piss (_they_ weren't sea water!), had me momentarily excited. Yet how many times would you have to spit

(or pee) before you had enough sand . . . How much wood would a woodchuck chuck . . .

It was a beautiful day, and I kept wishing Maris had been there to share it. If she had, she'd have come up with a solution. _Maris_ was the architect in our relationship, she was the builder. I thought of Howard Roark in _The

Fountainhead_. He'd have known what to do, too. Unfortunately, neither Maris nor Howard was around, so it was only me and my stick and a beach full of dry sand that didn't feel like sticking together unless it was wet.

The first inspiration struck. Perhaps if I dug down deep enough, the sand would be wetter and more formable there. I spent the first fifteen minutes digging like a neurotic cocker spaniel in the hot sand. To no avail, naturally. The more sand I pushed away, the more slid, slunk, slipped back into my futile hole. The more it slid and slunk, the more pissed off I got.

The more pissed off I got, the more (and faster) I tried to shovel the stuff out. Good luck doing that! Talk about Sisyphus trying to push his rock up the hill. At least the gods let him move it a little before he lost.

About the time my anger was beginning to redline, a man came up and stood there watching me work. I was too frustrated and hot to be embarrassed by what I was doing. All the same, I felt like telling him to mind his own business and take off.

"Not having much luck with that hole, are you?"

I wanted to hit him on the head. His voice carried the annoying tone of a dope who is sure he's on to something profound.

"That's very true! I'm not!"

"Are you doing it for fun, or what?"

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I stopped digging and, lips pursed, watched another mini-avalanche of sand slide slowly and sensuously back into my crater.

"Look, can I help you, pal? I mean, is there anything I can do for you?"

"Not a thing. I'm just standin' here watching."

"I noticed."

"But I don't think you're going to get anywhere, digging like that."

"Thank you. Do you have any suggestions?"

"Nope."

A good way to feel stupid is to be doing something stupid and having someone watch you. He wouldn't go away, either. I turned my back on him and started my spaniel bit again. Then I turned so more of my rear end was facing him, and I started tossing huge spumes of sand at him.

"Hey, watch it! Are you crazy?"

I stopped and did nothing. Maybe he was Venasque in disguise, come back to try my patience. I turned and looked at him. He smiled triumphantly and crossed his arms.

The last of my cool blew out to sea. "Get out of here, will you?"

"I'll do what I want! This is a free country!"

"I haven't heard that line since I was in fifth grade." I got up and walked away. I had to get out of his range or else.

I walked down the beach awhile, then turned and went back. Luckily, my audience had taken off.

I got back down on my knees and looked once again at my friend, the sand.

And was still looking an hour later when Venasque returned with the animals, and the man, in tow.

"How far did you get?"

"I didn't." I shrugged.

"I asked him what he was doing there and he threw sand in my face. He's crazy, you ask me."

Venasque patted him on the back. "We two made a bet that he couldn't make a sand castle here."

"Sand castle? You can't build no sand castle where the sand's dry like this! You gotta go down near the water where it's wet."

"No ideas at all, Walker?"

"I wanted to use spit or even piss to get it wet. But you'd have to get too much of both. I didn't drink enough at lunch."

The other man made a face as if something smelled bad.

Venasque thought it was funny. He laughed with his mouth wide open --

_HA-HA-HA_.

"That's good thinking, but you're not allowed to use them either. No water. Not the ocean _or_

yours. _HA-HA_."

"_You_ used it!" It came out sounding like a bratty, whining child. How was I ever going to learn from him? How can you know magic when you can't even control your own voice or emotions?

"I'm sorry for talking like that, Venasque. I want to do it, but I don't see how yet."

"That's okay. Take more time and think it through. We don't have to be in the mountains for a while." He turned to the other man. "Come on, Leo, let's go get a Coke."

I didn't see him again till later that night.

Working all afternoon, I tried different approaches to the problem, but none of them worked.

After a few hours I didn't think about Venasque or when he would return because I knew it would either be when I had figured things out or given up altogether.

Sometimes people came by and said hello, but for the most part I was alone. It was better that way because I wasn't feeling very friendly.

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If you take the word "car" or "dog" and say it over and over a few hundred times, it no longer means or sounds like anything. The same was true with this puzzle. I thought about it so much, and poked at it from so many different angles, that by the time the sun was going down my brain was empty.

The sunset was all smeared brown and orange, and punched-up thunderclouds that looked like pillows on a mussed-up bed.

I watched it and waited for it to tell me something, but it didn't. If only God would speak to us at moments like that. Appear as a snow-white cockatoo on our shoulder and explain the correct way. Or take up the whole sky with a Ronald Colman face and a few choice, brilliant words that make everything resoundingly clear.

I watched the sunset until the light was almost gone and the colors dried into evening.

Unconsciously, I tapped the stick on the sand in front of me. When I became aware of doing it, the solution dawned on me. The moment was disconcerting because the answer was so simple.

Jabbing the stick over my head, I started whistling the theme song to _Zorba the Greek_. "Teach me to dance . . . Venasque!" That made me laugh. It felt so good to figure things out. I danced and kicked up my feet, feeling a foot taller . . . or smarter.

The stick touched the sand a sliding scratch. I drew it a long way to the left, then up and over.

No real plan in mind, I let my hand do its own moving and design. It was eager to work. When I'd been at it awhile, I jumped when someone put his hand on my shoulder.

"Walker, you got it! Good man. Let's see."

I'd _drawn_ a castle, but that was only part of it. It sat at the edge of a group of other buildings.

It was so dark on the beach by then we could barely make out what else I'd drawn.

"You did a whole town, huh?"

"My hand did what it wanted. It sort of got carried away."

"I'll say! I can't see everything, but it's terrific. You got a simple answer to a tough question.

That's the right way to begin. Sand castles don't all have to be up in the air. Come on, let's get going."

No more than that. I hesitated a moment, sad to be leaving my brainstorm so soon after having done it. Venasque was already a long way up the beach, walking toward the parking lot.

Without turning, he yelled over his shoulder, "Leave it, Walker. That's nothing. Wait'll you see some of the other things you'll be able to do."

"Will you teach me to dance, Venasque?"

I didn't even know he'd heard me until he snapped his fingers over his head and spun around to face me. "'Will you teach me to dance, Zorba?' 'Dance?

Did you say _dance_, Boss? Come on, my boy!' _Zorba the Greek_. Directed by Michael Cacoyannis. Starring Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates, and Lila Kedrova, who won the Oscar that year for her performance as Bouboulina. A great film. I saw it the other day on cable."

"Walker, I miss you. Where are you?"

"The Sleepy Arms Motel."

"You're kidding. Where's that?"

"Outside Santa Barbara. We spent most of the day at the beach."

"That doesn't sound too magical."

I leaned against the headboard of the bed and told Maris the story of my sand castle. Venasque was sitting on the other bed, looking at _TV Guide_ and scratching Big Top with his foot. He leaned over and pointed out that a film called _Nude Druids_ was playing on the porno cable channel. I rolled my eyes.

He shrugged.

"Have you had anything to eat?"

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"Yes, we had some sandwiches for lunch and we're going out later.

There's supposed to be a pretty good restaurant near here."

"Please eat, Walker. I don't want you coming back ten pounds lighter."

"Okay. How're things there?"

"I went to the radio station with Ingram today and listened to him do his show. There was a woman on who teaches people how to scream."

"That sounds hard. She charges for it?"

Maris laughed. "She wore an army helmet, too. There was a bumper sticker on it that said

'Screaming has Meaning.'"

"I'll try to remember that."

"I'm going to stay at Ingram's place for a couple of days, so call me there, okay? I miss you like crazy."

"Me, too! A thousand times."

"Is Venasque there with you?"

"Yes."

"Tell him to take care of you."

"I will."

"And remember the man who ate all the cake."

"And you remember the man who drank the coffee through the straw. I'll call you tomorrow, Maris. I love you."

"Good night, _mein Liebster_."

"Good night."

I put the receiver down and sighed. It was the first time we'd been apart at night since arriving in California. I didn't look forward to spending it without her.

"Were you ever married, Venasque?"

"Twenty-seven years I was married."

"What happened to her?"

"She died. You ready to go out?" He stood up and straightened his pants.

I took my sweatshirt off the bed and followed him out of the room. The parking lot was a pale coppery-orange from the lighting overhead.

"Is it okay to leave the animals in the room?"

"Sure. They'll sleep like rocks after running around all day. Sorry I snapped at you. It's hard talking about my wife. I'll tell you more about it at dinner, after we've gotten some food in us. I hear this restaurant's got great king crab, and it's my treat tonight. Our celebration for your sand castle."

There was no reason for Maris to worry about my not eating. The two of us tucked into enough crab that night to make the waiter give us strange looks. We finished with hot fudge sundaes big as catchers' mitts.

"I lived almost thirty years with a woman I loved, but could never figure out. We were happy, but there were too many times we'd look at each other and wonder 'Who's that? Do I know them?'