Victoria Falls

by James Hornor

  “What did he write?”

  “His best-known novel is Endymion.”

  Once again I noticed, as I had earlier, that Melissa was able to speak certain words and phrases with a clarity that made them more emphatic and compelling. I hadn’t read Endymion, but the way she pronounced the title made it seem as if Disraeli had written a novel for the ages.

  “Endymion from Greek mythology was the same Endymion from the Keats poem—the shepherd king who was so remarkably beautiful that the moon, Selene, fell in love with him. She asked Zeus to make Endymion forever young, so Zeus granted him eternal sleep and gave Selene permission to visit him every night. Endymion is both deathless and ageless. Disraeli’s novel is more social and political, whereas Keats’ fascination was with Endymion’s beauty and his eternal state of sleep. We share that with him, of course—sleeping into eternity.”

  As we climbed back up the path together I realized that Melissa had a moral imagination that she was able to call upon in any circumstance. There was an intuitive wisdom about her that was completely disarming, and the effect on me was nothing less than spellbinding. Reaching the shadows of the hotel, I did not want the night to end. Realizing that Teresa and Richard would likely be in the lobby or in the bar, I boldly suggested to Melissa that we decamp to my room.

  “Lead the way, James.”

  The tone of her voice was one of quiet confidence—even serenity. Could it be possible that her intuitive understanding of the human condition included the ability to quickly perceive individual character and motivation? Shortly after arriving in my room, Melissa climbed onto my bed fully clothed and fell asleep. I carefully draped the mosquito netting around the perimeter, then poured a whiskey and simply watched her as she slept. This was the nightly vigil that Selene had with Endymion—only now we had switched genders and I was the one sitting in quiet adoration of Melissa. The mythological parallel was striking, and for the first time in years I felt a part of something greater than myself. It was her mystery that held me in captivity, and like Selene I was drawn to that dreamlike reverie where beauty is both ageless and timeless. I have known the disappointing fragility of love and how it can evaporate without warning. So this state of eternal contemplation without consummation is the one place where love can thrive with a fervor that is never abated, with a passion that is forever vibrant and transcendent.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “ANYONE HOME?”

  The sound of his own voice in the stillness of the Canadian dawn seemed alone and distant.

  “Anyone here?”

  Charlie knocked slightly at the large oak door and to his surprise it opened a crack just enough for him to see a sliver of light, possibly coming from the back of the house.

  He paused, still clutching the small piece of paper that had James Monroe’s address in Lake Louise, and now his marathon drive from Chicago began to seem even more ridiculous if he had driven thirty hours only to arrive at an empty house. A woman’s voice (he would never have heard her if the door had been completely shut) could now be heard from the second floor.

  “Be down in a minute.”

  After several minutes he began to think he had only imagined that someone was actually there.

  “I’m Jenny Monroe.”

  “Charlie Benjamin.”

  He had been expecting to see his real father for the first time, but instead he was greeted by a strikingly beautiful woman who must have been in her late forties or early fifties, wearing an exotic Asian silk robe decorated with colorful scenes of a Chinese princess. All this Charlie noticed in the split second between their greeting and his quickly formulated explanation of why he was there.

  “Is this the home of James Monroe?”

  “James Monroe is my father; I’m his daughter, Jenny. Papa isn’t home right now, but I would be happy to let him know that you stopped by to see him.”

  Charlie now realized that he was speaking to his half sister, but he quickly revised his explanation of why he was there.

  “My mother and your father were once very close friends. My mother died recently, and one of her last requests was that I would visit your father to tell him in person how much she cared for him. It is so presumptive of me to show up here unannounced. My mother gave me this address before she died—actually, I found it in her purse the morning of her death. I thought that the very least I could do was to honor one of her last wishes.”

  “How very sweet.”

  As she invited Charlie into the small downstairs hallway, she was racking her brain, searching for how her father (who never remarried after his divorce) might have known this man’s mother in such a profound way.

  “What was your mother’s name?”

  “Teresa Benjamin. She passed away just six months ago. I think they met in Africa, but that’s all I really know.”

  The smell of coffee and freshly baked rolls filled the hallway and the adjoining parlor, and the warmth of the fireplace reminded Charlie of summers that he had spent in northern Michigan at a lake camp owned by his grandparents.

  Leaving him standing in the parlor (she had already offered him a chair) Jenny returned to the kitchen. Charlie couldn’t tell if the tone in her voice was one of incredulity or simple curiosity. While she went back to the kitchen to bring them coffee, he surveyed the room and noticed pictures of his father with a much younger Jenny. One of the photographs was of the two of them standing in front of the opening of a cave. His father had both of his hands on her shoulders and she was looking at him with a gaze of adoration.

  On the opposite wall were several photos from what appeared to be Africa. There was his father standing with a small group of people on a riverbank with mist and spray in the background. His father was standing next to a woman—at first he thought it was his mother—but the woman was taller than Teresa and more athletic looking.

  Jenny appeared with a tray of coffee and fresh rolls and Charlie finally sat down, keenly aware of the awkwardness of having breakfast with his half sister while she regarded him as a complete stranger.

  “You’re being very kind to someone you just met a few minutes ago.”

  “It’s odd; the moment you walked in I had a quick flash that we had met before.”

  As Jenny sat across from him, Charlie was again taken with her beauty. In her haste to get dressed she had pulled back her long black hair and secured it with a porcelain clip that matched the Chinese pattern in her robe. She even looked oriental with her high cheekbones and dark green eyes, and there was an openness and a sincerity about her that helped him to feel more at ease. He remembered his intuition as he raced across Minnesota that his arrival would be well received.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your mother.”

  They both paused for a moment, almost as a tribute to Teresa’s life.

  It was the first of three or four opportunities during Charlie’s two-day stay when he was tempted to tell Jenny the truth. They both had the same father. They were both children of divorce. And despite Charlie being married, he had the same angst of unfinished business that he was beginning to sense in Jenny.

  “Jenny, tell me about your mother.”

  The question hung in the air for a moment and Charlie hoped he had not been too intrusive.

  “After my parents’ divorce, I only saw my mother three or four times a year—mostly on major holidays. It was always awkward since my mother eventually married my father’s best friend. He didn’t have his own children, so there was this charade that we were somehow a little family. He always kissed me on my forehead at the end of my visits as if to suggest there was some latent affection there, but I resented him. He tried to act in a way that he imagined my father might act, but he was nothing like my father. I lived with my father from age ten until I left for college, and I am as close to him as a father and daughter could possibly be. Mother died six years ago. Papa went to the funeral, but I couldn’t bring myself to attend. I knew my stepfather would be offering platitudes that would be phony an
d insincere.”

  Charlie’s cell phone went off and he realized it was probably Heather wanting to know if he had safely arrived. For reasons that he couldn’t immediately identify, he didn’t want to talk to Heather with Jenny sitting right there. Jenny already represented a new world that he was related to by paternity. He was the only one living who knew the secret, but he already knew that he would find a way to tell Jenny the truth while he was in Lake Louise. He didn’t know how he would ever fully share the same truth with Heather. It might be met with disdain—or even worse—indifference. He had this odd idea that sharing his real identity with Jenny would create a bond that would be forever mysterious and slightly forbidden. Teresa had carried the secret of his real father for almost forty years. He wanted to respect the integrity of a reality that she had carefully guarded for a lifetime.

  “You must be exhausted. Thirty hours of driving must have taken its toll. Why don’t you take a nap in Papa’s room? He often gives up his bed for unexpected visitors, and I’m sure he won’t mind. I’ll wake you up for dinner.”

  One disadvantage of living in the high peaks of the Canadian Rockies is the light that is lost in the late afternoon as the mountains block out the sun. Lake Louise is no exception, and even in early March it begins to get dark by four o’clock. Charlie climbed the small flight of wooden stairs and entered his father’s bedroom. Over the bed was a wooden cross and in the corner were snowshoes and cross-country skis. The entire room had an austerity about it that suggested asceticism. There was a lamp and a writing desk and over the desk hung a brightly colored sash that looked like it belonged to a sari. Remembering Heather’s call, he sent a text to her that immediately bounced back with a “No Service” message. Normally he would have explored the house searching for a signal, but instead he collapsed on the bed, not even removing his shoes, and fell fast asleep.

  Charlie awakened in complete darkness to the smell of pot roast and potatoes. At first he thought he was in his own bedroom at home. He glanced at his phone. Three missed calls. He had to call Heather before she called the Canadian Mounted Police. Charlie wandered downstairs holding his phone, hoping to find at least one bar. He slipped on his coat and walked toward his car. Two bars. He navigated to call history and selected his home phone.

  “Thank God, you’re alive.” It was the way Heather answered calls from Charlie when he neglected to call her from work.

  “I’m in Lake Louise. I got here this morning, but I’ve had phone issues.” Charlie suddenly remembered that it was six at home because of the time difference. “Did Ryan have indoor soccer?”

  “Of course he had indoor soccer; it’s Thursday.”

  From the sound of her voice he could tell that she was already resenting his absence, especially because of the additional parent duties when he was away.

  “But how are you doing? Is everything OK?”

  Charlie braced himself for her response, knowing that she would reel off a litany of all the ways that she had been inconvenienced since he left. He patiently listened.

  “Sounds like you’ve had your hands full.” Heather paused to make her reply even more emphatic.

  “Is that all you’ve got to say? How about ‘I know you must be struggling and I’ll make it up to you when I get home’?”

  Heather had cornered him like this so many times recently that he knew that any response would be met with criticism.

  “Look, I know that parenting is difficult when I’m not there, and I will make it up to you.”

  They were both silent for almost a minute. Charlie just wanted to end it and get off the phone. He could see Jenny through the window, still wearing her Chinese robe and arranging wine glasses and hors d’oeuvres on the small table where they had talked that morning.

  “Did you find your father?” Heather said it in such a perfunctory way that she might have been talking about Charlie finding a pair of lost glasses.

  “Amazingly, I did.” He was formulating a lie, knowing that Heather would be incensed if he were staying a few days in the wilds of Canada with a single woman and not his father. “Even though I’m exhausted, we spent most of the day in front of the fire trying to piece back together all that has happened since he and my mother met in Africa.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  “I think we may do some cross-country skiing or snowshoeing tomorrow. I’ll probably head for home at some point tomorrow.”

  “If you could be home by Sunday at noon that would solve so many problems for me. Otherwise, I’ll have to find a babysitter to take Ryan to soccer.”

  Their calls recently had ended this way, with Heather extracting some extra commitment from Charlie to help her feel she was in control.

  “Sounds good,” Charlie muttered. “Can’t wait to see you and Ryan.”

  “Call me around this time tomorrow.”

  As Charlie hung up he noticed that he had five voicemails, all from his office. He thought about listening to them but then noticed the magnificent Alberta sky. The stars were piercing the darkness above the mountains with a radiance that was breathtaking. It was cold—probably only fifteen degrees—and the sight of Jenny preparing dinner and the smoke pouring from the chimney awakened a myriad of emotions. He wanted to tell her this evening that she was not an only child, that they had the same father, that he had never had a sister—especially one who seemed so similar in temperament to himself.

  “How was your nap?” Before Charlie could respond, Jenny continued. “Papa loves to take naps in the late afternoons—especially when he has returned from a long week in Vancouver.”

  Charlie noticed that Jenny had added mauve silk pants to complement her Chinese robe, and despite the stone floor, her feet were bare. There was a casual elegance about her that seemed to reflect the decor of the room.

  “What does your father do in Vancouver?”

  “He and his friend, Rob, run a halfway house for homeless people. It’s exhausting because it’s basically just the two of them. It’s the turnover that’s so work intensive. They limit their guests to one-week stays.”

  “What happens after a week?”

  “There are longer-term facilities in Vancouver. Papa and Rob’s place is for people in crisis, but they do help people transition to other facilities. I was there last summer for almost six weeks; I helped with cooking and housekeeping. The stuff you see is eye-opening.”

  Charlie thought of the homeless shelter that he passed two or three times a week on his way to Ryan’s soccer practice. In the summer there were always middle-aged men sitting out front smoking. Their eyes were vacant, their hair long and greasy. Charlie wondered what life events had brought them to that point. But now, sitting there with Jenny, he wanted to think about something else. As if aware of Charlie’s silent request, Jenny headed back towards the kitchen. The smell of pot roast and other spices filled the downstairs, becoming an aperitif to the senses.

  “How about a glass of red? I have a lovely Cab from British Columbia.”

  He watched her as she carefully uncorked the bottle in the kitchen. She took down two oversized wine glasses that sparkled in her hand. As she handed a glass to Charlie, he noticed how her hands were shaped by usefulness, her nails filed fairly close and without polish.

  “Cheers.”

  “To new friends.”

  As they both took a first sip, Charlie knew that this evening would be the time to tell her their true relationship, but throughout dinner they discussed Charlie’s work, Ryan’s growing interest in soccer, and the local politics of Lake Louise. It wasn’t until Jenny poured him a cognac in lieu of dessert that Charlie mustered up the courage to finally broach the topic.

  “Jenny, there must be something I could do for you. You are showing incredible kindness to a stranger who just showed up at your door.”

  “Papa and I are used to providing for strangers. In fact, that is what he is doing as we speak. Besides, we aren’t strangers; Papa and your mother must have been great friends
.”

  It was the perfect segue. Charlie looked at his nearly empty cognac and searched for his next sentence. But before he could speak, Jenny began to get up from the table.

  “Actually I do have a small request. I’m going upstairs to take a quick bath. If it isn’t too much to ask, I could use some help with the dishes.”

  She didn’t wait for his response, and taking her cognac, she headed up the stairs. Charlie drained his glass and sat for a moment. There was an openness about Jenny that was reminiscent of the way Heather had been in the early years of their marriage. Like Teresa, Heather had always assumed the best about people, and it was her disarming breezy demeanor that allowed her to navigate life by accepting all its vagaries without judgment. Being with her in those nonjudgmental years had provided him a sense of freedom, and he longed for its return. He was willing to accept the changes in Heather that had probably been the result of postpartum depression. What he wasn’t able to accept were the changes that Heather’s transformation had now imposed on his own worldview. He was becoming a person who he did not want to be: shortsighted, secretive, and plagued by judgment of others as well as himself. In Jenny he immediately sensed a return to freedom, a stay from judgment, and as he cleared the table and began to wash the dishes, a sense of joy welled up within him. For a moment he allowed himself to believe that he lived in western Canada, that his existence in Winnetka was only a dream, and that he was finally closing in on his true identity.

  “Can you look on the kitchen counter? I need my phone in case Papa calls.”

  Jenny was calling him through the open bathroom door. Charlie found her phone, and as he headed up the stairs the smell of lavender and bath oil permeated the small hallway. Jenny was in the clawfoot tub, and as he opened the door a little more he could see the pinpricks of stars in the skylight and the traces of steam on the mirror. He felt like he was entering a sanctuary. Jenny, still immersed in the water, turned slightly and extended her left arm to get the phone. Her long dark hair was still pulled up and clasped with the porcelain clip. As she took the phone with one hand, she unclasped the clip with the other and her hair cascaded around her shoulders.