A Live Coal in the Sea

by Madeleine L'engle

“I am beyond judgment,” Camilla said. “Surely the real Red Grange, the old football player, would shudder at what has happened in his name. This is enough for tonight, Raffi. I’m sorry. Absorb what I’ve told you. It’s more than enough.” Gently she moved away from the girl. The strands of past memories were so closely interwoven that it was impossible to separate them. Why, when in the past Taxi had been so adamant that he was Taxi Xanthakos, did he put questions in Raffi’s mind now? Was it the old need to hurt, to punish the universe, out of control again? To punish Red Grange and, failing that, since Red was dead, to punish Camilla, even if he hurt Raffi in so doing? “Raffi, darling, I’ve hurt you.”

  “Being surrounded by stuff I can’t understand hurts me.”

  “You may never understand it all. I don’t. I wish Mac was here.”

  “You miss him, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “He died before I was born. So I can’t miss him the way you do.”

  “It’s fine, Raffi. Missing Mac. I mean. We’d gone through our garbage.”

  “Was there a lot?”

  “Plenty. But we’d reached a place of—of mercy. I don’t think I can tell you a great deal more until I have more mercy in my heart than I do at this moment.”

  “How long is that going to take?”

  “Not too long. I don’t want to leave you with painful questions any longer than I have to. But some of them don’t have any answers.”

  “Okay, Grandmother. Let’s put on some music and relax.”

  She pulled a disc from the bottom shelf of the bookcase, and the strains of Dvořák’s “Dumky” filled the room. Camilla closed her eyes to hide the tears.

  When Raffi left she did not go straight back to her dormitory. She went instead to one of her favorite hiding places, the great greenhouse which during the day was filled with biology and botany students. Now it was empty, sweet-smelling, warm. There was a dry ground cloth on the floor at the back, and she lay down on it, on her side, curled up, too battered by what she was hearing from her grandmother even to cry. She slid into a place beyond thought, a place of dark, silent emptiness. But the strains of Dvořák’s piano trio broke across her mind’s ear. She pulled her knees up, her head down.

  The “Dumky” Trio was one of Taxi’s favorite records. Camilla and Mac often played music in the evening to help put the children to sleep, and Taxi would shout out, ‘Dumky! Dumky!’

  The children, sensing the tension in the air after Mrs. Lee’s announcement of President Kennedy’s death, were slow to quiet down that evening, after Grange and Harriet left, muted by the news. The phone kept ringing, with people wanting to talk about a service for the President. In between calls, Camilla and Mac talked again to Mama and Papa in Jacksonville, seeking some kind of reason within the irrationality which surrounded them.

  Frankie called for Hansel and Gretel, and Taxi shouted over her, ‘Dumky!’ It took both records before the children were at last asleep. Camilla went down to the kitchen and saw Noelle’s unopened letter on the table. She opened it and read:

  Oh, God, Camilla,

  What hell. I’m having twins, and that’s not the hell, Ferris and I are delighted. It’s Dad. I can’t believe what he’s done, leaving Mom when she’s having a mastectomy. It’s a terrible thing, psychologically, for a woman. The only male equivalent would be losing his balls, and Dad’s lost his all right. No matter how much Mom says he has every right to be angry with her, he doesn’t have a right to take up with this rich bitch. As far as she’s concerned, Mom’s no more than a piece of junk dropped on the floor. She gives Dad horrible presents, like a bright red open Thunderbird. We hate her. She’s no older than Andrew and she’s superficial and selfish and she can’t stand it that Dad has kids and is about to be a grandfather. Maybe he deserves deballing …

  As Camilla finished reading, the phone rang. It was the bishop. He had been talking with his lawyer friends, who said it was a great pity they had not legally adopted Taxi. They were going to put into motion the adoption process, which would make it harder for anyone to take Taxi away. They hoped it was not locking the door of the stable after the horse is gone.

  ‘I’m driving up in the morning,’ Olivia said. ‘Art and I feel that one of us should be with you.’

  ‘Please, Mama,’ Mac said.

  ‘I have no magic wands. I just want to be with you.’

  Overnight the weather turned cooler and it was raining, the whole country in mourning. Azaleas dropped their petals.

  Grange and Harriet arrived right after breakfast, subdued, grave. Harriet asked to see Taxi. Camilla had sent the children out to play with Pinky, and called to the girl to bring them in. This time Camilla did not need Dr. Edison to translate what their intentions were. Harriet looked longingly at Taxi, ignored Frankie.

  Pinky, unaware of any problem, offered tea.

  Harriet shuddered and said that it was hot, but maybe a glass of sherry …

  ‘No, my love,’ Grange said. ‘We must leave. We have an appointment in Atlanta.’

  Harriet nodded. ‘We will be in touch.’

  The children were, in a sense, protected by Pinky’s presence, by parishioners coming in and out, wanting to draw together not only by the horror of the assassination, but by the latest scandal to rock Corinth. Herb Morrison and Alberta Byrd were married, but Gordon Byrd had no plans to marry Lydia Morrison after all. He was moving from the bank in Corinth to a much larger one in Atlanta, and he was renting an apartment with another banker, a man. This rocked Corinth far more than the death of the President.

  The events of Corinth and of the wider world masked Camilla’s and Mac’s inner turmoil. Pinky stayed to get away from her own troubles, playing with the children. Wiz and Freddy came to join her, while Camilla, Mac, and Dr. Edison sat at the kitchen table, drinking tea and talking in muted voices. It was a relief when Olivia arrived after lunch.

  The children, responding to the multiple tensions, were whiny, and after Pinky had fed them and left with her brother and Freddy, Camilla put Frankie and Taxi to bed.

  ‘The lawyers were appalled at our naïveté,’ Olivia said as they sat at the dinner table. She had made her okra-and-tomato casserole, remembered to light the candles, to hold on to some kind of normality. ‘They told us we should have expected something like this and taken steps to protect ourselves and Taxi long ago. I blame myself. I swallowed that Frenchman as father because it was easy.’

  ‘Don’t blame yourself, Mama,’ Mac said. ‘We were all naïve.’

  ‘Have you talked to a lawyer yet?’

  ‘Herb Morrison. You’ve met him, Mama. He’s Pinky and Wiz’s father, and I gather he’s pretty tough.’

  Olivia sighed. ‘I didn’t want you to take Taxi, you know that, but now—’

  Mac lifted his fork, put it back down. ‘I guess I thought if nobody spoke up in the first few months, nobody would. And the idea that a legal adoption might be a protection never occurred to me. We’ve been living in our own little cocoon, stupid beyond belief. It’s time we left here.’ His voice was harsh.

  ‘Peace, Mac,’ his mother said.

  ‘We were stupid. I don’t understand how we could have been so stupid.’

  “Dr. Rowan, I don’t understand,” Raffi said blankly, slumped in the small enclosure of the dormitory phone booth.

  “Raffi, dear, I’m on my way to the airport. I’ve got to go to San Francisco to give a paper. I’ll be back in a few days.”

  “I need you now.”

  “Do you want me to refer you to someone else?” Dr. Rowan asked.

  “No, dammit! I want you.”

  “Sunday.”

  “You don’t have office hours on Sunday.”

  “I get back from San Francisco Saturday night. Come in Sunday morning.”

  “You do care.”

  “Of course I care, Raffi. Too much. I’ll see you Sunday.”

  Raffi left the phone booth and walked slowly past the living room to the stairs. “Hey, Raffi,
you look sad.”

  Raffi shrugged. “Oh, PMS. It always makes me gloomy.”

  “Hey, Raf,” one of her friends called out, “did you see your dad’s show today?”

  “It conflicts with my biology class.” She had made sure that she had to be in class during the time of Taxi’s show.

  “He was terrific, truly, the way he handled that terrible lawyer.”

  “Thanks, Dorry.”

  Someone else asked, “When he walks down the street, do people recognize him?”

  She made a face. “All the time.”

  “Like who?”

  “People like you, policemen, pimps, politicians.”

  “How does he take it?”

  “Oh, he’s gracious, he’s really nice to them.”

  Dorry, the adoring fan, said, “Of course.”

  “And your mom?” someone asked. “Does she get recognized?”

  Raffi scowled, tried to turn it into a smile. “One day someone stopped my mom on the street to speak to her. We all looked surprised. Mom, Dad, and I. But this old gent remembered Mom from when she was dancing, and it was obvious he knew nothing about TV. Dad thought it was hilarious, Mom being recognized instead of him.” She stopped abruptly. She had been talking to cover up her feelings. Had her father really been amused? He had been at his most charming, but had he just been acting for the benefit of the passersby on the street? That night he had been in a down mood, snapping at her mother for putting too much salt in the salad …

  One of the girls who majored in economics said, “I suppose soap-opera actors get well paid?”

  “Very,” Raffi replied.

  “Do you want to act, too?”

  Raffi shrugged.

  “Are you going to try out for the spring play? They’re doing a new play one of the seniors wrote, about the Brontës. Emily’s the role you ought to try for. She’s the most interesting one in the family.”

  Raffi kept her voice casual. “When are the tryouts?”

  “They’re having preliminary ones in a few weeks.”

  “Well, maybe,” Raffi said.

  “If you’re in it, do you think maybe your dad might come up to see it?”

  “Who knows. It would depend on his schedule.”

  “Or if he could even come to a rehearsal—it would be a terrific help.”

  “God, he’s gorgeous.”

  “You’re so lucky.”

  ‘Do you believe in luck?’ Noelle asked when she called. ‘I know this is awful timing, and I’m sorry, but Andrew has to come to Atlanta for a conference at Grady, so the timing seems meant. I want him to come by and see you all.’

  ‘But, Noelle—’—Are you crazy? This is one piece of unreason I can’t cope with—

  ‘Hey, I’m not crazy.’ (Had Noelle read her thoughts?) ‘Or unfeeling or any of those things. We’ve heard what that Harriet has up her sleeve, about taking Taxi, she’s a fiend, and if Andrew sees you and the kids, and how good everything is, that will give him some clout when he speaks to Dad, and Dad does listen to him sometimes.’

  ‘Let me speak to her.’ Olivia held out her hand for the phone. Camilla gave it to her. They were in the kitchen, cooking hamburgers for the children’s lunch, at Taxi’s request. The children were in the yard. Frankie had Quantum in her doll carriage, a baby hat tied askew on the cat’s head.

  ‘Calm down, Noelle, and speak coherently. Tell me what you have in mind.’ Olivia listened, and Camilla occasionally heard a few words as Noelle raised her voice. ‘Mom is … as though Dad needs more kids … Harriet is a grasping, rich …’ Finally Olivia said, ‘It does make sense, Noelle. Tell Andrew we’ll be glad to see him. Have him come to dinner, that’s the best way for him to see what the family is like … Thanks, Noelle … Take care of yourself. Let us know when the twins arrive.’ She put the phone down, turned to Camilla. ‘It can’t hurt. It may help.’

  Andrew came, on a rainy spring evening. The children had a picture puzzle spread out on the living-room rug. Good smells came from the kitchen. Olivia was making one of her Greek dishes, which she could mostly prepare ahead of time. They sat in the living room, and Mac poured them a glass of wine.

  Taxi, deep in the puzzle, said, ‘You give me all the blue pieces, Frankie. That’s the sky, okay?’

  ‘I want to do the green. The grass.’

  ‘Okay, but let’s get the sky in first, then the rest of it will be easier.’

  Andrew said, ‘That looks like a fairly complicated puzzle for those little ones.’

  ‘It’s not as hard as it looks,’ Mac said. ‘They’ve done it half a dozen times before. It does serve to keep them moderately quiet.’

  Andrew pulled a small camera out of his jacket pocket. ‘Okay if I take a few pictures? This d-doesn’t need a flash.’

  ‘Sure,’ Mac said. ‘The kids are used to having their pictures taken by parents and grandparents and assorted friends.’

  Olivia rose, and Camilla stood up, too. ‘No,’ Olivia said, ‘you stay where you are. Everything’s done. I just have to bring in the main dish and the salad.’ She looked at Andrew. ‘The children help set the table, and since they knew we were having a guest tonight, it may be a little unusual. Taxi wanted to have a lizard in a jar at your place, but we persuaded him that wasn’t a great idea.’

  Andrew snapped a few pictures, then followed Olivia to the kitchen, returned bearing a heavy earthenware dish with steam rising fragrantly. Olivia carried the salad.

  Taxi looked up. ‘C’n I light the candles?’

  Mac said, ‘You’re not quite old enough yet, Taxi. You and Frankie can each blow one out after dinner. Pick up your puzzle.’

  ‘C’n we finish it after dinner?’

  Mac paused. Then, ‘Why not? But don’t forget it later on.’

  ‘I won’t, Daddy. Promise.’

  After they were seated and had sung the blessing, Taxi said, ‘The TV and radio keep playing sad music.’

  Camilla murmured, ‘Beethoven’s funeral march. Every time we turn the radio on, that’s what we hear.’

  Taxi looked at Andrew. ‘We’re very unhappy because the President died.’

  Frankie said, ‘Mommy says the whole world is sad.’

  Taxi continued. ‘He was killed. It was very bad.’

  ‘Yes, Taxi. It was a terrible thing.’

  ‘Pictures,’ Taxi said. ‘On the TV and in the papers. Why does the camera see upside down? Mommy says it does.’

  Camilla replied, ‘Because our eyes see upside down, and then our brains turn everything right side up again.’

  Taxi asked, ‘It’s an upside-down thing, isn’t it, for people to kill other people.’

  Andrew replied, ‘V-very.’

  Taxi looked at him. ‘You took some pictures of us.’

  Andrew smiled at him. ‘And I hope they’ll be right side up.’

  Frankie held up her hand to get attention. ‘Can everything be made right side up again?’

  Andrew said, ‘That isn’t always possible.’

  Frankie slid down from her youth chair and went to Andrew, climbing up on his lap. ‘I want it to be.’

  Mac’s voice was gentle. ‘Frankie, go back to your chair. You can sit in Andrew’s lap after dinner—after you help Taxi pick up the puzzle.’

  ‘Okay.’ She slid down and went obediently back to her place.

  Taxi said, ‘Pinky—she baby-sits for us—says we’re too young to understand.’

  Andrew answered, ‘There are lots of things grownups don’t understand, either, Taxi.’

  Taxi looked at him. ‘Daddy says if we understood everything we’d be God. And we aren’t.’

  ‘Your daddy’s right.’

  With a small gesture Mac indicated to the children it was time for some grownup talk. He asked Andrew about Grady, about his practice in New York.

  ‘And we’ll be in New York soon,’ Camilla said. ‘I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it. It’s home for me.’

  ‘I’m liking it
more than I thought I would. Liz drags me to p-plays and I take her to the opera, so we’re both happy. And our practice is already as full as we can m-manage.’

  When they had finished eating, Olivia suggested putting the children to bed, but Mac said, ‘Let them stay up fifteen more minutes. They need to put their puzzle away.’

  The puzzle was quickly tidied up. Frankie went to one of the lower bookshelves and pulled out a book, which she took over to Andrew, looking up at him questioningly, then climbed back up into his lap. Taxi came and sat on the edge of the chair.

  ‘That’s a long one,’ Camilla warned.

  ‘One chapter,’ Andrew said.

  ‘Fine,’ Olivia agreed. ‘Then I’ll take them up and finish it.’

  ‘All of it?’ Taxi demanded.

  ‘Until my voice gives out.’

  When Olivia had gone upstairs with the children, Andrew said, ‘I thought this idea of Noelle’s was c-crazy, but having been with you for an evening, I can see what she had in m-mind. It would be criminal to disrupt this little family. Taxi is obviously content and healthy. Both children are delights. But Taxi doesn’t l-look l-like R-r-r-ose.’ Suddenly his stutter interfered.

  ‘No,’ Camilla said. ‘He looks like me.’

  ‘But you look like your f-father.’

  ‘Two of my mother’s sisters were dark, and there’s a picture of one of them when she was young that could be a picture of me. Genetic patterns can be surprising.’

  Andrew nodded. ‘I w-will do whatever I can. Noelle credits me with more influence on our father than I have, but I will t-try. It’s too bad H-harriet can’t have children of her own, but this is surely not the s-solution.’

  Mac said, tiredly, ‘She told us she believes this comes from God.’

  Andrew made an irritated gesture.

  Luisa called. ‘My God, Cam, what’s going on? Andrew’s office is just around the corner from mine and I bumped into him at his bus stop.’

  ‘He told you.’ Camilla’s voice was flat, with no timbre.

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  Camilla spoke through a long sigh. ‘Oh, Lu, it’s all been so sudden. I was going to call. I’m glad you saw Andrew.’

  ‘Maybe he can help, maybe not,’ Luisa said. ‘I’ll certainly testify. I may not be a child psychiatrist, but I still may have some clout. No judge in his right mind would take Taxi away from you.’