A Live Coal in the Sea

by Madeleine L'engle

  She nodded, watching him pour milk into his tea. Suddenly he smiled. ‘You know, that first night we met, you were doing some real grieving about your mother and your professor, and I wasn’t a bit embarrassed.’

  ‘I was,’ she said.

  ‘You needn’t be embarrassed with me. Not ever.’

  And she wasn’t. That was the amazing wonder of it. She wasn’t even embarrassed that she’d told him about her mother and Grange. She felt freer with Mac than she had in a long time, and she was passionate about keeping their friendship strictly private, which largely meant keeping it from Luisa. Luisa sometimes clumsily tried to find dates for Camilla. ‘You know, you don’t have to compete with your mother.’

  Camilla shrugged. ‘Good. Since I obviously can’t.’

  ‘Are you jealous?’

  ‘Of Mother? Of course not.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes!’ But was she? She answered, slowly, ‘If my mother was happy, I might be wildly jealous. But she’s not happy. And a lot of the time I am.’

  ‘You can’t be happy all alone.’

  ‘I have lots of friends.’

  ‘But you haven’t had a boyfriend since my parents split and Dad took Frank off to Cleveland. You’re not still carrying the torch for my brother, are you?’

  ‘No.’ Camilla shook her head. ‘After all, I haven’t seen or heard from him in years.’

  ‘But you were pretty close, back when we were fifteen.’

  ‘That was a long time ago, Luisa.’

  ‘Camilla, you have hormones just like the rest of us, and sooner or later they’re going to erupt and play havoc.’

  Were they erupting in her growing friendship with Mac? When she was not actively studying she was thinking about Mac, waiting for the next time she would be with him, waiting for the touch of his fingers, his cheek pressed against hers, his lips …

  Telling no one. When he picked her up after class to go out for coffee and conversation, she made sure that she was back in the dorm in plenty of time to do her job of setting the tables or serving.

  She lied, which was contrary to her nature, about spending Sunday evenings with Mac and his kids at the Church House. She told Luisa that she was doing some studying in the library for a paper on electron waves. Since she often worked in the library in order to avoid the noise of the dorm, this was acceptable. And she was careful to return to the dorm at exactly five minutes past library closing time.

  She didn’t notice that she was no longer even tempted to fantasize about Professor Grange. It was not just that her mother had smirched it, but that Mac was everything in her life that Grange had not been. She was in love with Mac, and she believed that it was reciprocal, and she wanted to keep it for the two of them alone. She was amazed at how sweet it was.

  Mac bought her an album of Dvořák’s “Dumky” Trio. ‘It’s our music,’ he said. ‘An unbirthday present. Whenever you play it, wherever I am, we’ll be together.’

  She did not think of her parents, even though she made a duty call to them once a week, during which they hardly touched each other in any way. She did not want them or anybody else to know what she was feeling. There was nobody she could talk to, though sometimes she wanted to shout out loud her love of Mac.

  But the thought of Luisa’s response kept her mouth closed. Luisa would hoot at the idea that Camilla was helping an Episcopal priest with a batch of adolescent kids in a church youth group. She would laugh even louder at the idea that Camilla enjoyed it, that she was coming to care for the kids. Some of them sought her out to talk to her, to ask advice, or to air grievances, knowing that Camilla would listen, fully focused on whatever the problem was, and that she would care, but not condemn.

  She was joyful, actively joyful for the first time in several years.

  Nan Neville remarked that Camilla seemed extraordinarily happy. She smiled at Camilla and did not ask why. Then she said, ‘Hey, I love that Dvořák Trio you keep playing. I’d like to work on it someday myself.’

  ‘I love it. I’d love to hear you play it.’

  ‘Where’d you discover it?’

  Camilla equivocated. ‘Oh, you know, I just came across it.’ Nan, bless her, did not push.

  Camilla knew she could not keep Mac to herself forever. But she would, for as long as she could.

  One Sunday evening she and Mac were doing the final clearing up. They were comfortably, companionably tired, ready to sit down and relax over a cup of coffee (Camilla was almost beginning to like Mac’s coffee). He finished swabbing down the wooden top of one of the tables, put the sponge in the sink, then turned, as had become their pattern, and took Camilla in his arms. Her arms went around him. They stood, holding each other, closer, closer, Mac’s mouth searching hers …

  A bang on the door startled them. Still holding each other, they turned. Luisa burst in.

  TWO

  Camilla should have known there was no way she could keep Mac a secret. She should have known that ultimately Luisa would track her down.

  ‘Cam, you in here?’ Then, ‘My God, Macarios Xanthakos, what are you doing here?’

  ‘I might ask the same, Luisa Rowan.’

  ‘I go to college here, for cripes’ sakes.’

  Camilla, separated from Mac, her back pressed against the wall, feeling like a moth pinned to blotting paper, asked in a thin voice, ‘You two know each other?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’ Luisa hitched herself up onto the table Mac had just wiped down, which was still damp. ‘He’s not one of my many ex-boyfriends, in case you’re worried. Or, to be more accurate, I’m not one of his many ex-girlfriends.’

  Mac put a bottle of catsup in a cupboard and slammed the door.

  ‘Well, well, Camilla Dickinson,’ Luisa ran on. ‘Still waters run deep. I went to the library looking for you, and someone said they thought you were here. I couldn’t believe it, but I thought I’d better check it out. So you’ve been cuddling up with Macarios Xanthakos.’ She slid the Greek names easily off her tongue. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Mac wrung out a wet towel as though he were wringing Luisa’s neck. ‘You are not in charge of the universe, Luisa. What makes you think you have the right to check on everyone Camilla sees?’

  ‘Camilla’s my oldest friend.’ Luisa was defensive. ‘Why haven’t I seen you around campus?’

  ‘This is my first year here. This is a large campus and your interests don’t take you to church. If they did, you could have seen me any Sunday.’ Tension crackled between them.

  Camilla tried to break it. She felt as though a cold wind had blown through the room. ‘How on earth do you two know each other?’

  ‘Frank and Mac—’ Luisa started.

  Mac said in a dull voice, ‘Frank is Luisa’s brother.’

  ‘I know,’ Camilla whispered.

  ‘Camilla knows who Frank is. Frank and Mac—’ Luisa started again.

  Mac cut across her words. ‘Frank and I were classmates in seminary.’ His voice had a flattened-out timbre, as though Luisa had steamrolled over him.

  Frank in seminary? Camilla asked, ‘Frank’s ordained?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mac’s voice was sharp.

  ‘I don’t know why I’m surprised,’ Camilla said.

  Luisa swung her legs. She had on long green stockings and brown-and-white saddle shoes. ‘Frank was Camilla’s first real boyfriend. Did they ever have a hot thing going!’

  Camilla said, ‘I don’t know why I was surprised at Frank’s being ordained. He was the first person who ever talked to me about God in a way that made sense.’

  Luisa bent down and scratched one ankle. ‘Frank and Mac met in Korea.’

  Mac took plates from the drying rack and slammed them into a cupboard. ‘In case you weren’t noticing, Luisa, Camilla and I were having a private conversation.’

  ‘Sure, sure, I’m leaving. Frank and Camilla had a real storybook romance.’ She made a face. ‘Like most romances, it got smashed. Our parents split
, and Frank went to Cleveland with our dad, and I stayed in New York with our mom.’

  ‘It was a very long time ago,’ Camilla said. Not so long chronologically, perhaps, but long in her understanding of her life.

  ‘Frank’s changed. Gone from reason to religion.’

  ‘Luisa.’ Mac’s voice was stony.

  ‘See you in the dorm, Cam. If you can tear yourself away from Xanthakos, come have a cup of cocoa with Nan and me.’ And Luisa breezed out. Or hurricaned out.

  Mac, still in that flattened voice, said, ‘I knew perfectly well Luisa was on this campus. Frank told me. I just managed to block it out.’

  ‘Well,’ Camilla’s voice, too, was flat. ‘Small world.’

  ‘Too small for Luisa and me.’

  ‘You rub each other the wrong way?’ There was something dead about Mac’s voice beyond a normal reaction to Luisa.

  Mac rewashed some glasses Camilla had already put in the dish drainer. ‘I just thought we were unlikely to bump into each other. There are several thousand students around, and Luisa’s a pretty belligerent atheist.’

  ‘At least she cares.’ Camilla tried not to look at Mac too closely, tried to understand the vehemence of his reaction.

  ‘Are you roommates?’ Mac demanded.

  Camilla laughed. ‘We have too much sense for that. We’d kill each other in a week. But—as she said—we’ve been friends for a long time.’ She paused. ‘So Frank’s ordained.’

  ‘I suppose Luisa keeps that a deep dark secret. You and Frank haven’t kept up?’

  No. No, they hadn’t. Luisa had been jealous of Camilla’s friendship with her older brother, and seldom mentioned him. ‘Frank came into my life just when I had to accept that my mother …’ She paused. Swallowed. ‘It was very wonderful, the timing, when I had to let my parents go, be themselves, and Frank helped me see that I was myself, too. His and Luisa’s parents used to have screaming fights, and I realized mine weren’t the only ones with problems. And then—geography split us far apart. Frank was in Cleveland and I was in Italy and we might as well have been on different planets.’ Her voice was low, her head down; she looked at a worn place on the old rug.

  ‘When did you last see Frank?’

  She looked up, surprised by the intensity of the question. ‘I haven’t seen him since that winter when I was fifteen. Luisa kept in touch. She always wrote at Christmas.’

  Mac nodded. ‘She does odd things, for an atheist.’

  ‘I saw her on our occasional trips to New York. Luisa’s a tenacious friend; that’s one of her nicest qualities. All I know about Frank is that he’s off somewhere, in Turkey, I think.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He opened and closed his fists, as though trying to ease tension.

  Silence hung between them like a heavy cloud. Breaking across it, Camilla said, ‘Luisa says his big thing is literacy, bringing literature and literacy to underdeveloped countries. That’s something she understands.’

  ‘It’s something that means a lot to me, too.’

  ‘But here you are, running a youth program, across from a college known for its academic excellence.’

  ‘You can’t take academic excellence to Turkey, or El Salvador, if you haven’t experienced it. Anyhow, you’ve helped me with the kids enough to know they’re illiterate in their own way.’

  Camilla tried to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Sure, charity begins at home.’

  ‘True. But I also spent a year in Kenya, and I’ve worked several summers in Egypt, and one in Ecuador.’

  ‘And you and Frank met in Korea?’

  He slammed more dishes onto the shelf. ‘Yes.’

  The Korean War had more or less passed Camilla by. She had been aware of it, a little frightened that it might escalate and lead to nuclear warfare. But nobody she knew had been involved in it, and her mind had been on her studies. She lived, she thought ruefully, in a very small world.

  Mac’s face was turned away, but she could see the twitching of a small muscle in his cheek. Tentatively she asked, ‘Was it bad?’

  ‘Bad. If it hadn’t been for Frank—’ He dropped a glass, and it shattered. He swore.

  ‘I’ll clean it up.’ She went to the corner for broom and dustpan. Mac had already picked up most of the larger pieces, and Camilla swept up the smaller shards, not understanding, frightened by what seemed a violent overreaction to Luisa. Yes, Luisa was abrasive, but she was intensely loyal and she had a brilliant mind. Mac must have known that.

  ‘Well.’ There was a studied casualness in Mac’s tone. ‘The next time Frank’s back in the States, you two will have to get together. Or would that bug Luisa?’

  He certainly knew Luisa’s weak points. ‘She can be possessive.’

  ‘God, how different siblings can be,’ Mac said. ‘Frank is good for the world, actively good, and the best most of us can say is that we don’t do it any harm.’ He shut the cupboard doors. ‘I’ll walk you back to the dorm.’

  He held her hand while they walked, but his hand was cold, and he did not talk. And he did not kiss her good night.

  Luisa’s precipitous arrival had been like a smashed plate, leaving broken shards.

  Luisa, Dr. Rowan.

  She had helped, Raffi thought. The Luisa that Raffi knew had changed, grown, was very different from the college student who had so irritated the grandfather Raffi had never met.

  Dr. Rowan. As old as her grandmother, with skin much more wrinkled and weathered, but with tousled hair still holding touches of red. Dr. Rowan was a redhead, too. That was part of what had drawn Raffi to her.

  Dr. Rowan had been loath to take her on as a patient. ‘I know your parents, Raffi. Your grandmother has been my friend for years. I’m too close.’

  Raffi had been persistent. ‘That’ll make it easier for both of us. Please, please, Dr. Rowan, I need somebody and I don’t want to go to anybody else.’

  ‘Do your parents know about this?’

  ‘God no! I’ve saved money, I can pay for you myself.’

  ‘I’m rather expensive for a high school student.’

  ‘I know that. I’ve talked to your secretary. I’ve figured it all out. I’ve saved all my baby-sitting money. I’ve done computer stuff for some of the kids at school. I’m not coping with my parents, and because you know them you’ll be able to tell where I’m seeing things on a slant.’

  ‘What kinds of things?’

  ‘Are you going to take me on?’

  ‘We’ll give it a try. We won’t start today. Next week at the same time. How are you going to get home?’

  ‘From here? I’ll take the subway and then walk. You’re only a few blocks from my school. It’s easy.’

  She left Dr. Rowan’s office and headed west to the subway. As she neared the entrance a young man came out of the shadows and grabbed at her backpack. She jerked away. Screamed. She thought she saw a knife. A policeman came running up the subway steps and the young man turned and ran.

  It all happened quickly. The policeman explained that the thief had probably been going to cut her backpack straps. He was not an expert. Clumsy.

  She told the policeman that she could not identify her assailant. He looked like any young man out to get money for drugs. But she was shuddering with terror. She felt violated. The policeman used his walkie-talkie and a squad car pulled up and she was driven home, the siren shrieking at her request.

  Her parents had come out at the sound, thanked the cops. Her mother sobbed with relief. ‘Oh, thank God, thank God. You’re safe. You’re all right.’ They led her up the brown stone steps.

  Taxi gave her a quick hug as they went into the living room. ‘Interesting. We’re doing a mugging scene on my show tomorrow. I, of course, stop the mugger.’ He grinned wryly. ‘I’m the soap-opera version of Superman. I don’t know why people fall for it.’

  ‘Daddy, this wasn’t TV. It happened to me.’

  ‘But nothing happened, did it?’ Taxi asked her. ‘New York’s Finest actually came through with a r
escue act.’

  ‘But, Daddy—’

  ‘He didn’t touch you, did he?’

  ‘No, not exactly, but—’

  ‘But me no buts. You’re a street-wise kid, Raffi. You’ve grown up in New York. Don’t go all soft.’

  ‘Do you have homework?’ her mother asked.

  ‘Some.’

  Her father said, ‘Then go do it.’

  They were dismissing her and what had happened, and it hurt, even though she knew they were involved with themselves and their own problems.

  She needed Dr. Rowan.

  Luisa was there when Camilla climbed the dorm stairs. There were things she wanted to find out from Luisa. She walked down the hall and knocked on Luisa and Nan’s door. The sounds of a Brahms Intermezzo floated up the stairs. Nan was down at the piano, so Camilla would be able to speak to Luisa alone.

  ‘Well, Camilla Dickinson.’

  ‘Well, what? I’ve come for that cocoa you offered.’

  ‘All right, all right already, you’ll get it. Why didn’t you tell me about Mac Xanthakos?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘He’s Frank’s best friend.’

  ‘So I discovered tonight.’ Camilla sat on Nan’s bed, pulled a stuffed lion onto her lap.

  ‘So what did you and Mac do?’

  ‘We work with the kids, feed them and talk with them.’

  ‘Talk is not what I’m talking about. How much did you two make out? How far did you go?’

  Camilla’s cheeks burned. ‘It is none of your business.’ Her words were sharp and separate.

  ‘I know you’ve been brought up to believe that nice girls don’t—though how, with your mother’s example—’

  ‘Luisa, shut up!’

  ‘Oh, Christ, sorry, I went too far, but I’m worried about you, I love you, and I don’t want you hurt.’

  ‘I can take care of myself.’

  ‘Can you? I suppose those nuns taught you all about virginity, but this is not the nineteenth century.’

  ‘I know what century it is’—Camilla was fierce—‘and I can promise you that my standards are my own, and not my mother’s or the nuns’. Don’t you have any faith in my intelligence?’