Then, through the shock and anger, she saw herself wrench something out of the pit of her stomach and throw it into a body of surging blue water. The briny smell of the water was intense, stinging her nostrils.
Was she starting to dream? She did it again, bundled the thing up and hurled it into the waves, then watched the mysterious lump drift away in the endless stream. Had she just hurled a human into the water like a Topkapi assassin? Or had it been something else that she threw away, an inchoate thing symbolic of some paralyzing fear? What was she afraid of?
When they’d lost Stephen, she seemed to have lost her reason to be with Richard. Without her baby, she’d simply walked away as if a gate had opened through which she had to exit. The real reason for their divorce, perhaps, had been her inability to see her life any other way than the way she’d once fashioned it in her head: she and Richard and their baby. Without the baby, she had seen no reason for reconciling her differences with Richard. She’d thought cutting him out of her life would enable her to set a new course for herself, as if none of the painful past had ever happened.
The nagging question dug into her again. Can love, once lost, ever truly be reborn? Richard claimed that it could, but he’d always been able to compartmentalize, to set his mind to think, accomplish, or feel whatever he wanted to. Whereas she was riddled with bullets of questions and doubts until she finally made up her mind about something, he simply forged on. Was she willing to suspend her skepticism and take the chance he was asking of her? Was she even up to raising this child of his other woman, able to take on that responsibility with an open heart, as if it was something totally normal? She flinched, as though recoiling even from herself, a sharp pull inside that started in her belly and moved up to her lungs, snuffing out her breath. Her eyes began to water, and she felt the warm tears slide down the sides of her face.
Then, slowly, like something emerging through a fog, she saw the child.
Hammamet
RICHARD
23
“We’ve only been here two days, but something must be wrong. Should we try and contact her office—ex-office? Surely somebody there knows where she lives.”
He shook his head, shielding his eyes from the sun as he surveyed the panorama of glittering sea and white domes below them. “She knows we’re here.”
Joy turned to him. “Do you think she changed her mind?”
“No,” he said, although he’d been afflicted the whole morning with this very fear. Had Belinda gotten cold feet? Decided she couldn’t part with the child after all? Surely, she would have at least let them know, especially about something so vitally important to her. However, with Belinda, one could never tell if she might merely pick up and leave, he reminded himself.
He focused his lens. “Move a little more to the right so I can get the minaret in,” he said to Joy, wanting a picture of the angular tower with elaborate brickwork.
She moved to reveal the four or five little white domes behind her. The backdrop was typical of Tunisia, especially of this renowned seaside town, Hammamet, with its whitewashed domes and bright turquoise doors decoratively studded with black nails.
She tilted her head, obviously more concerned about a flattering shot of her face.
He smiled at Joy’s preoccupation with her looks. He clicked the picture. “Do you want one of the rooftops, too?”
“Yes, please,” she said, changing her angle.
“Then move to the left,” he instructed.
He nodded to their Tunisian guide. “Why don’t you stand next to her for this one?”
The young man somewhat reluctantly shuffled over to Joy and stood stiff as a toy soldier beside her. A slight scowl clipped his bronze North African features next to Joy’s pink grin.
“It’s hot,” Joy said, gingerly patting the stone platform next to her. It was one of four identical half pillars set side by side, supposedly the remains of chairs belonging to the four wives of Ismet Pasha, ruler of Hammamet some two hundred years ago. It was the guide who had encouraged Joy to have her picture taken sitting on a pillar, posing as one of those wives.
This flat rooftop of a spice shop, its ceiling-less walls still adorned with blazing arabesque tiles, were the remains of the pasha’s grand sitting room. It overlooked the whitewashed town with its signature turquoise windowpanes and nutmeg seaside casbah, or fort, Hammamet’s one-time stronghold against attacking marauders.
Hammamet’s old town, the medina, had produced the most aggressive shopkeepers of any market they’d been to, obviously regarding tourists as fecund gold mines. When the young mustached man had come up to Richard earlier near the old town gate with his offer to be their guide and fend off the insistent vendors, Richard had gratefully agreed.
Even with an escort, however, it was hard to dodge the hawkers thrusting beaded necklaces, kaftans, or men’s fezzes at them every few feet, but the guide had sternly waved them off, all the while promising his American clients a worthwhile surprise ahead.
The man wasn’t an official guide. He was a waiter at their hotel, he’d told them, reminding Richard that he’d served them breakfast yesterday. He’d insisted on bringing them up to this roof after the long walk through the maze of the medina where, for over an hour, he pointed out important landmarks and offered bits of local lore; and he hadn’t let them down. This rooftop relic of a former palace enchanted Joy, its walls still brandishing mosaics of hunting scenes and vibrant geometrics in azure, turquoise, and yellow.
“Oriental carpets frozen into stone,” she said, dragging her fingertips across the chipped colorful wall of the once-elegant salon.
It was a great vantage point, and they’d taken good pictures, but now Richard was fatigued and hungry. Even their peppy guide looked tired. Richard handed Joy the guidebook and pulled out three twenty-dollar bills from his wallet, assuming that US dollars or euros were coveted in turbulent times. At first the young man put up a polite fuss, but when Richard insisted, he graciously accepted the money.
“Is there a good place for lunch?” Richard asked him.
“There.” The guide pointed to another rooftop terrace across the street with tables and seating under umbrellas. “Good couscous. I take you?”
Richard shook his head. “Thanks, but we’ll sit here a minute. Great tour.”
The guide smiled, pocketing the bills with renewed energy, then walked away and disappeared down the steps leading back into the shop they’d come from.
“I’m glad we found him,” Joy said. “Those pesky peddlers were unrelenting, wanting us to buy everything.”
“It’s the unemployment. You can tell from all the loiterers.”
“They’re supposed to have a relatively high level of education here,” she said.
“There also used to be a high level of government corruption. A revolution doesn’t change things overnight. When people still can’t find jobs and tourism isn’t enough to sustain the economy, it’ll all blow up again.”
She looked surprised. “Things seem pretty calm.”
“Just because there are no mullah brigades in the streets doesn’t mean things are stable, yet.”
Although Richard hadn’t wanted to frighten Joy, he’d felt uneasy since arriving in Tunisia, sensing the palpable seething of a place trying to pull back from the brink of disaster. The glut of Roman and Islamic antiquities and the powdery beaches that lured European vacationers barely camouflaged the sullen under-current of political instability. The frayed vestiges of government control were, to him, blatantly evident.
It had been a surprisingly short rebellion, the first of a series across the Middle East soon coined the “Arab Spring.” Less than three weeks of public protests, sparked by a young vendor setting himself on fire to protest government corruption, had driven Tunisia’s head of state out of the country. The moderate Islamist government subsequently voted into power had managed to maintain peace in the streets so far, which was remarkable considering the destruction other Arab nations were facin
g after a regime was overthrown.
So far, this new leadership hadn’t banned the wineries or threatened to exchange the secular laws for Islamic, Sharia law. Still, he had a gnawing feeling that if the economy didn’t improve fast, it would only be a matter of time before the country was yanked apart.
“I felt these same vibes in Central Asia before it exploded. I don’t want to be around when it happens here,” he said.
“Hopefully, we won’t still be here, then,” Joy replied.
So far, the political upheaval hadn’t seemed to extend to the tourism industry, and Richard assumed that all efforts would be made to ensure that tourism flowed smoothly. The taxi drivers and hotel staff had all been courteous, and the vendors, while overly pushy, were welcoming. But that could change in a heartbeat.
“I just can’t understand why she hasn’t called us, not even left a message,” he said.
“We should give her a few more days. She may be having a tough time of it,” Joy said.
He sighed. “Yeah.”
Richard and Joy had been nearly three years divorced when, breaking her nearly four-year silence, Belinda had sent him a letter.
She was brief, asking how he was, telling him that, although still in Africa, she’d moved from Senegal north to Tunisia. She now worked as a journalist for an English radio show, putting together a weekly feature interviewing local women entrepreneurs. Her letter had offered a further surprise, the picture of a little girl, her daughter, Karma, now three years old.
Once he’d gotten over the shock that Belinda had a child, the next sentence gored him. The little girl, Belinda wrote, was his.
He could still feel the sick spasm of that day upon reading those words. A daughter? His daughter? At first, his mind raced to imagine the kind of trouble Belinda must be in, the possible reasons driving her to this weird fabrication. Was she in some sort of bind, in need of money? He’d sunk down on a chair and gone over the letter numerous times. It couldn’t be. It had been almost four years since they’d been together.
Yet slowly, in a corner of his brain, sprouted the thudding, growing awareness of the possibility of her claim. The dates fit. All at once, an alarming new reality appeared to replace his old one. He was, apparently, a complete stranger now even to himself, someone he would not have recognized in the mirror only moments ago. He was the father of a three-year-old girl.
The reason she had so abruptly left New York, she wrote, was that she’d become pregnant with his child. She’d already known it the last time she’d seen him, but she hadn’t told him for fear it might spur him to make some rash decision that would destroy his life and inflict immeasurable pain on his wife. So, she’d decided she had to leave, had to go to Africa.
He tried to recall their last encounter, the particular hotel room, and how Belinda was not her usual self. He remembered her mention of the Peace Corps guy and his rush of jealousy. She’d already known she was pregnant? Heading to Africa was directly linked to that? All he’d known then was that she was gone, and he had imagined the reason to be the man she mentioned. She’d simply disappeared and wouldn’t return his calls.
Although at the time he’d hated the thought of not seeing her, the hardest part had been that he couldn’t even contact her.
He’d been right. According to the letter, Belinda had gone off with the Peace Corps guy, but she left him several months before her baby’s birth. She’d still resisted informing Richard for fear that he would pressure her to return to New York. Instead, she had moved to Tunisia, found a job at a radio station, and was raising the child there on her own. She said that she was managing well, that Tunisia was a friendly place, and childcare was plentiful. There were good beaches and pretty towns, and the place was a magnet for European tourists and retirees. She informed him she had learned some Arabic but got by on her French, the country’s other main language. She loved being a mother, she wrote. Motherhood had quelled the restless nomad in her, and she didn’t even miss traveling.
Her reason for contacting him now, she went on, was that she did need his help, although not in the way he might think. First, she was adamant that he not feel any need to provide financial assistance for the child, since she herself had a secure job. There was a more urgent reason for this letter. Although he’d intuitively braced himself for another bombshell, he couldn’t have predicted what followed.
A few months ago, she wrote, she’d begun having severe headaches, then some slurring of her speech. Her concerned co-workers had insisted on taking her to the hospital where, after a battery of tests, it was discovered that she had a brain tumor. From a biopsy and further tests, it was found to be malignant.
Fearing the cancer would spread faster if operated on, the doctors were treating her with new medications. The tumor had already shrunk a bit, and her doctors were cautiously optimistic. If the medications worked, she could possibly lick this illness and live a normal life. But her doctors were also realistic. If the cancer had already spread, they told her, she might only have a few months to a year.
Cancer? A few months to a year? His breath had stopped. What the hell? He had read on.
“As you can imagine, I am devastated and frightened,” she had written. “But I have to accept it.”
She would remain in Tunisia where her life was now so rooted and where she was familiar with the doctors and confident in their latest technology, she wrote. She didn’t believe she’d get better medical treatment anywhere else, not in France or even in the US. Her main concern now was for her daughter. She needed a family for Karma if . . . when . . .
She couldn’t bear the idea that her daughter would end up in an orphanage. She wanted Karma to be raised by her own flesh and blood, and Belinda’s parents, her only relatives, were too elderly. That left Richard. More than anything, though, she wanted her child to also have a mother. She knew that Joy would be perfect. If he and Joy accepted this offer, and the responsibility, Karma would be theirs.
His hand had started to shake. He’d sat down and reread the letter again. He stared dumbfounded at the picture of the girl, studied her cheerful smile with the full lips, her small nose and wide brow. He thought he recognized bits of Belinda, even of himself, in her features, but he mostly saw the precocious face of a dark-haired child, a perfect beauty.
Belinda had ended the letter on an absurdly jolly note, sending loving wishes from sunny Tunisia along with assurances that she would write again soon with an update. Her last line was emphatically underlined: “Live, Richard! Live and don’t hold back.”
That’s when it had hit him. “Fuck! She’s dying!” he’d said aloud.
Before he knew it, he was shaking again, crying silent furious sobs. Although he hadn’t seen her in four years, he’d known she was alive somewhere, living, laughing—and painful as it was to admit, screwing. He’d pictured her in front of a microphone in a tiny recording room, gamely interviewing women about their business ventures, drawing them out in that convivial way of hers. He’d imagined her alongside her small daughter, teaching her the things she’d taught at her preschool in Paramus. Although she hadn’t been where he could actually see or interact with her, he knew she existed. That was enough. But hell! That might soon change, he realized.
He had no idea now how long he’d sat crying, his heart hammering, and then how long he’d sat staring at the wall, practically comatose. She wanted him to take her child, their child. She wanted to give the girl to him and Joy.
“Shit!” he’d muttered, dumbfounded. He wasn’t even with Joy anymore.
He hadn’t been sure how to react or what to do, whether to write Belinda back and tell her Joy had left him, send her money, demand to see her, as well as his daughter—all things she’d instructed him not to do. His gut had contracted every few seconds at the idea of her dreadful disease, and at the same time he had been seized by an urgent pull to the photograph. He wanted to see the child in person, hug her, acknowledge her existence, comfort both her and her mother.
He had slowly realized, however, that he could do none of this. At least, not yet.
It was only after a day or two that he’d been able to get some perspective. If the dismal prediction of Belinda’s doctors came to pass, he needed to make sure that the child was safe with him. He had no idea how he was going to manage to take on the role of a parent, but he would do it. But he needed Joy, too, of that he was sure. He had no idea how to raise a girl. Joy had never parented, either, but as a woman she would intuitively know a little girl’s needs far better than he. Prior to this new complication, he had wanted Joy back in his life, but now he desperately needed her. He had to find a way to tell her.
He had, in fact, wanted Joy back since their divorce three years before and had taxed his brain for ways to woo her again, to atone for his infidelity, to beg her to come back. Previously, he had been planning to try, but this news made approaching her both harder and yet more imperative. He needed to see Joy, to ask her to consider reconciling—and sooner rather than later. Although this new scenario had presented a complication, he’d realized that it might also have just handed him the perfect excuse, albeit a terrible one, for her to take him back.
A few days later, he’d learned from a woman in the English department at Hunter and with whom Joy was still in touch that Joy was planning a trip to Turkey. He’d had no time to lose. He had to go to Turkey with her.
Mercifully, she’d agreed to travel with him.
For several weeks after he’d disclosed his predicament, Joy had still been on the fence about taking him back, understandably cautious about committing herself to sharing this unforeseen situation. Yet her heart had been larger than he’d ever imagined, and incredibly enough, she’d agreed.
A Marriage in Four Seasons Page 19