A House Like a Lotus

by Madeleine L'engle

  I changed in the green guest room, which was beginning to be ‘Polly’s room,’ and went back to the verandah. Urs was in the kitchen, ‘doing something elegant with chicken and fresh dill,’ Max told me.

  I picked up another African sketchbook, this one filled with people rather than animals, pencil drawings of Africans doing tribal dances. Pygmies. Bushmen. Matabeles.

  Another sketchbook. From Asia. More odd dances, people wearing masks, leaping about fires. ‘What’s it about?’ I asked.

  ‘Aggression,’ Max said. ‘Getting rid of it legitimately. We don’t, nowadays, we sophisticated peoples. As society evolved, we began to repress the destructive, aggressive instincts we needed to acquire back when we were living in caves and trees and had to protect ourselves from wild animals—or wild people. What do you do about your own anger?’

  ‘I chop wood,’ I said. ‘That’s the good old-fashioned way of getting it out of your system, but it works.’

  Max pointed to a pen-and-ink sketch of naked people dancing. They had long legs, and long slender necks, and Max had given them a wild rhythm. ‘They’re acting out their feral feelings in a way which doesn’t endanger society. Kids in inner cities, or even places like Cowpertown, don’t have any legitimate way of working out their aggressions. Not too many of them—in the South, at least—chop wood.’

  ‘Benne Seed gets mighty cold, and we use a lot of wood. I can split a cord as well as Xan.’

  ‘Even the old scapegoat’—Max riffled through the pages —‘was a useful device whereby people could dump their sins onto the animal, and not be crushed under a burden of neurotic guilt.’ She put down the sketchbook, picked up a pad, and began sketching me. ‘If I had it to do again, I’d be an anthropologist. Who is it who said the proper study of mankind is man?’ I didn’t know the answer, and she went on, ‘We all have our own burdens of neurotic guilt. Sketching helps me get rid of mine.’

  I reached for another sketchbook. It was filled with watercolor paintings of brilliant, jungly-looking birds, flashing color in deep-green forests, and then more people, wearing masks and dancing.

  To my surprise, Max grabbed the sketchbook. ‘I don’t like those paintings.’

  ‘Where were you when you did them?’ I asked, not understanding why she was so vehement.

  ‘Ecuador.’

  Ecuador. In South America. ‘Were you in the jungle?’

  ‘For a while.’ She pulled out another sketchbook. ‘Now look at these sketches, Polly. It’s from my last China trip.’

  ‘When were you in Ecuador?’ I persisted.

  ‘Last year. Look, here’s the Great Wall of China. It’s almost unbelievable, even when you’re looking right at it.’

  I looked, not at Max’s drawings of the Wall, but at Max herself, her pallor, her thinness. And the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fitted together. This was why Max had come home to Beau Allaire, why Ursula was on leave of absence from her hospital in New York.

  If I’d seen Urs alone, I’d have asked her if my guess was right, but there wasn’t a moment. Once Urs called to us that dinner was ready, the three of us were together the whole time, and then they both waved me off when I left for home. I wished the Land-Rover hadn’t been available, so I could have asked Urs to drive me.

  As soon as I got back, I checked in, and then went out to the lab and called from the phone there, called the hospital in Cowpertown and left a message for Renny to call me. I’d never done that before.

  I took the hose and sluiced down the cement floor of the lab, so I’d be there to grab the phone when it rang. I was cleaning one of the tanks when he called.

  ‘What’s up, Polly?’

  I perched on one of the high stools; the telephone was on the wall above a shelf full of beakers and jars and a lot of lab paraphernalia. ‘Max was in Ecuador last year. Has she got one of your awful parasites?’

  A pause. Then, ‘Thousands of Americans go to South America every year.’

  ‘Max was in the jungle, not on a cruise ship.’

  Renny was silent.

  ‘Listen, I know all about doctors’ confidentiality, but you’ve talked to me a lot about your field, and unless you tell me I’m wrong, I’m going to assume that Max got infected while she was in South America, and this thing is going to kill her. Is killing her.’

  Renny said, ‘Polly.’ And then, ‘Look, I can’t talk on the phone. Where are you?’

  ‘In the lab. There’s no one around.’

  ‘Pol, I can’t talk about it at all. You know that.’

  ‘Then it’s true. Okay, I know I’m not next of kin, I have no legal right to ask. But Max is my friend. She matters to me.’

  Renny sounded very far away. ‘If Mrs. Tomassi wanted you to know, she’d tell you.’

  ‘That’s telling me. Thanks.’

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘Nothing. You’re right. If Max wanted me to know, she’d tell me herself. But I want to talk to you, please. Not about Max. You’ve talked to me plenty about vectors, and parasites circulating in the blood of the host in Trypanosomal form.’

  ‘You know too much about too many things,’ Renny said.

  ‘You don’t have to talk to me about Max. Just talk to me about Netson and his research.’

  ‘I suppose I owe you that much. It’s all my fault that you guessed. I’m not on call tomorrow evening.’

  He’d borrowed a boat, so we went to Petros’ as usual. Renny had brought an article by his boss in the New England Journal of Medicine, and I skimmed it, then went back to read more slowly. Clinically, the patient experiences a recurrent fever. The Trypanosomal organisms go through some kind of change, but eventually they get back in the bloodstream and invade the heart. In the case of people like Max (though we never mentioned her name) who have no immunities whatsoever, severe heart disease develops. Even with people who have lived for generations in areas where the disease is endemic, about ten percent of the population end up with congestive heart failure, and sudden cardiac arrest is common.

  ‘How did Max find out she had Netson’s?’ I handed him back the New England Journal. Renny began leafing through it, not answering.

  I felt angry and frustrated, and at the same time I respected his attitude. I spoke slowly, quietly. ‘You don’t have to tell me. I can figure it out. Max is no fool, and Ursula is a doctor, even if tropical medicine isn’t her field. But she must have heard of these diseases, and Max is an omnivorous reader. If she had a bite on the eyelid, followed by conjunctivitis while she was in Ecuador, she’d have suspected. One of the foremost specialists in tropical diseases is her cousin, on the staff of M. A. Horne, which was started with her father’s money. Ironic, isn’t it?’

  Renny looked at me over the magazine, but said nothing.

  I went on. ‘So it would be a logical thing for her to come home to confirm a diagnosis she and Ursula already suspected, and to stay here, because Dr. Netson’s in Cowpertown, and Beau Allaire is home. And Ursula’s on leave of absence, to be with Max until—’ My voice broke, and I looked at Renny. He did not contradict me, so I knew I was right, if not specifically, at least generally. For a moment a wave of nausea broke over me. I fought it back. ‘Isn’t there any treatment?’

  ‘Nothing satisfactory.’ Renny spoke reluctantly. ‘We’re trying primaquine in the dosage suitable for malaria. And there’s a nitrofurazone derivative that shows promise. But if there’s organ damage, it’s irreversible, at least at present.’

  ‘What about a heart transplant?’ I suggested.

  ‘They’re chancy, at best, and contraindicated in Netson’s. Polly, I’ve told you more than I should.’

  ‘You haven’t said a word about Max. You’ve just talked to me about a disease in which you’re particularly interested. If Max weren’t involved, you could have said everything you’ve said to me, and it wouldn’t have hurt. That’s the difference.’

  His voice was heavy. ‘She’s a special lady. A real lady, and there aren’t m
any around nowadays. I truly admire her. I wish there were something I could do for her. You’re lucky to have her for a friend.’

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  We didn’t finish our pizza. Petros came and asked us if anything was wrong with it, and we assured him it was fine, but he wanted to make us another, on the house, and finally I convinced him I didn’t feel well.

  Renny asked him for the check. ‘Polly, sweet. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘For all the breaks we’ve been getting in medicine, there’s still a lot we can’t do anything about.’

  My voice was brittle. ‘Nobody ever promised us life was going to be safe. Everybody dies, sooner or later.’

  ‘Would you want not to?’ Renny asked. ‘To go on in a body growing older and older, forever? Even if we could keep the body in reasonable shape, would you want to live forever?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and then, ‘No. Forever would be crippling. One would never have to do anything, because one could always do it tomorrow.’ One could—I’d picked that up from Max, as so much else. ‘But not extinction. I can’t imagine Max being annihilated.’

  Renny didn’t say anything, and I didn’t want him to, because he’s an intern, and I knew what he’d say. At least I’m older than Renny in that way. He can take on faith that there are mitochondria and farandolae, and that there are quarks and quanta, even though they can’t be seen. Well, so can I. My parents are scientists, after all. But I can also take on faith that Max is too alive to be extinguished by anything as—as banal as death.

  Renny paid for the pizza. ‘Polly—’

  I looked at him.

  ‘Can you keep … what you’ve guessed … to yourself?’

  ‘I’ll try. If I don’t see Max for a couple of days, maybe I’ll get it all into some kind of perspective. I’m not very good about hiding things from people I care about.’ Max had guessed immediately that I’d heard gossip about her and Urs. But this was different. I’d have to keep her from knowing that I knew.

  We drove to the dock and jumped into the small motorboat. Halfway to Benne Seed, Renny cut the motor as usual, but instead of kissing we looked up at the stars.

  ‘In the life span of a star,’ I said, ‘our lives are less than a flicker, whether we live for ten years or a hundred.’

  ‘In the life span of the universe,’ Renny said, ‘that life of a star is less than a flicker.’ And then he kissed me. And I wanted him to. Just as it was beginning to build, he broke off. ‘Time to take you home.’

  Heavy with unwanted knowledge, I went to my room, saying that I had a lot of reading to do for school. Which was true. Exams were coming up, and I had to do well.

  And my room was full of Max. The little crystal bird she’d given me for the opening of As You Like It was on my desk, by the window, where it caught and refracted the light sparkling off the ocean. Over my desk chair was flung a Fair Isle sweater Max had loaned me one early spring night when it had grown unexpectedly chilly, and then told me to keep because she didn’t need it anymore. On my bed table were books she’d taken down from the library shelves at Beau Allaire and given me to read.

  Now that I knew all that I knew, I couldn’t understand why it had taken me so long to realize just why it was that Max had come home to Beau Allaire.

  But I learned that I was capable of keeping a secret.

  Max and Ursula did not know that I knew.

  In the King George Hotel in Athens I woke up with tears on my cheeks, and the sound of the redbird in the chinaberry tree in my ears. The sound faded into the night noises of a city, and I knew that I had been crying about Max. Suddenly I heard a soft rain spattering on the balcony floor, and a cool breeze came in. And I went back to sleep.

  In the morning the sky was even more brilliantly blue and gold than it had been, with no heat haze, and a cool breeze.

  Zachary called while I was having breakfast, the Fair Isle cardigan over my shoulders. He explained that we’d need to make an early start if I wanted to be back in time for dinner with Sandy and Rhea. “Can you be in the lobby at nine?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “Leave a message for your uncle and aunt, that you may not be back when they arrive. When are they getting in, by the way?”

  “I’m not sure. Uncle Sandy just said in plenty of time for dinner.”

  “Okay, then, he doesn’t expect you to hang around. I’ll have you back at the King George in good time to bathe and change. Just leave them a message.”

  “Will do.” Sandy would certainly not want me to hang around.

  “That was quite a downpour we had during the night,” Zachary said. “Did it wake you?”

  “I heard it.” It was mixed up in my mind with the redbird in the chinaberry tree and my conversation with Renny. “But now we’ve got the most glorious day of all.” I had carried my coffee cup from the balcony to the telephone in the bedroom, and took a swallow. It was cooling off. “See you at nine.”

  The air was dry and warm when we started off in the VW Bug, which was beginning to seem like a familiar friend. Zachary’d brought another picnic basket, not from the Hilton this time, he said, but very Greek: cold spinach pie, feta cheese, wrinkly dark olives, taramasalata, cucumber dip.

  “And I got them to make me some fresh lemonade at the Hilton. I don’t suppose you want to greet your uncle and aunt with wine on your breath.”

  “I’m not much of a drinker,” I told him.

  “There’s a difference between having an occasional glass of wine and being an alcoholic.”

  “Of course. But I’m still a minor, in case you’ve forgotten, and I’ve seen enough of the results of the abuse of alcohol to be very wary of it.”

  He looked at me with open curiosity. “Not your parents?”

  “Heavens—no!”

  “Who?”

  I didn’t say Max. It was a while before I realized that sometimes she drank too much. She frequently switched from wine to bourbon. ‘It’s good for elderly hearts,’ she said.

  I asked Renny if it was all right for her to drink bourbon, and he said that to an extent Max was right, that a moderate amount of whiskey actually dilated the arteries. And he added that it was a painkiller. He gave me another of Netson’s articles to read, this one way over my head, but I gathered that in the last months of the disease there is a good deal of acute pain, and the damaged heart muscle will not tolerate ordinary painkillers.

  One evening when Max and I were alone at Beau Allaire she talked to me about her husband. We were sitting at the table out on the verandah, and she was sipping bourbon. Only the slight flush to her cheeks made me realize that she was drinking more than usual, but there was nothing ugly about it.

  ‘I married Davin Tomassi in good faith,’ she said. ‘I wanted family life, wanted children, and I thought Davin and I could make it. He was the gentlest man I have ever known, and occasionally he could get through all my blocks and inhibitions, but not often. God knows it wasn’t Davin’s fault there was no miracle. He was infinitely patient. And when I got pregnant—oh. God, how we rejoiced. But the baby was born with the Allaire weak heart, and lived only a few days. After that—it was apparent things weren’t going to work out for us as husband and wife. That was my worst time, after I left Davin. I fell apart in the ugliest possible way. Then I met Urs. And was able to be friends with Davin again. I will always love Davin, in my fashion, and be grateful to him.’ She put her hands to her cheeks, and her fingers trembled. ‘I think I want you to go home now, Polly. I’m tired.’

  I left. It had been almost as hard for Max to tell me about her marriage as it had been for her to tell me about her father and M.A. I wondered when she was going to tell me that she was dying.

  The next time I was at Beau Allaire, Ursula was there, and I managed a few minutes with her in the kitchen (Max didn’t give us much time alone, basically because Max didn’t want to be alone). ‘Urs, I don’t mean to pry, and I know Max doesn’t want to talk about it, and n
obody told me, I mean Renny didn’t say anything, but I guessed—’

  Ursula turned from the stone sink. ‘Did you? I thought you might have. How much do you know?’

  ‘That Max has Netson’s disease, and that there’s no cure.’

  Ursula wiped her hands carefully. ‘Oh, Polly child, this is a lot for you to handle, and you’re in too deep now for you to turn your back on Max and withdraw.’

  Withdrawing had not occurred to me. ‘Can’t anything be done to help her?’ I knew the answer, but Ursula was older and more experienced than Renny.

  ‘Not much. When Bart Netson confirmed the diagnosis I don’t think she realized how much she was going to have to endure. With some people it’s just a slow wearing down of energy, and then quick heart failure. It’s being much slower with Max; she’s very strong. The pain is bad, and getting worse. I’m grateful to you, child, for all you do to help Max. You’re both friend and daughter to her. Did she tell you that she and Davin had a little girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That was a devastating blow to Maxa, seeing what appeared to be a perfect infant, and then watching it wilt and die. You’re Max’s child, Polly, the child she couldn’t have, and that’s an enormous burden to put on a sixteen-year-old. What have we done to you, Max and I?’

  ‘You’ve made me alive,’ I said quickly.

  ‘I worry about you.’ She turned back to the stone sink. ‘I hope we’re not—I hope we’re not destructive to you.’

  ‘Constructive,’ I said quickly. ‘Sandy brought me to Beau Allaire to meet you, just me, remember? He wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t known I needed you and Max.’

  ‘Bless you.’ Ursula refilled the kettle and put it back on the stove. ‘Bless Sandy. Dennys, too. They’re good friends.’

  Mother went to Charleston with Ursula, at last, to go to the Spoleto festival in the afternoon while Urs was consulting at Mercy Hospital, and then go out to dinner, and back to the festival in the evening. She came back glowing.