by Alan Chin
But it was an empty promise. I remained imprisoned in my chair. I noticed the Baroness scrutinizing me and felt myself blush.
“You are caught up in the world’s most hideous lie,” she said out of the blue. Her face wore an expression of mockery, and I wondered if she were pulling my leg.
“And what would that be?”
“Simply this: that at a certain point in each person’s life, he loses control of what is happening to him, and he becomes controlled by fate. It’s so easy to believe. It takes all the responsibility away from us, and we like that. But it is only a lie, a truly insidious lie.”
Chapter 28
THAT first week, every day carbon-copied the previous one. We spent most of our day in the sea, swimming: in the mornings before and after our tennis practice, when the water was pale as champagne, and again in the afternoons before tea-time, when the water seemed as sluggish as chowder, and at night before a late dinner, when the water was dark and satiny. We swam on sunny days and during showers, high tides and low. Our tawny bodies grew dark while resting on the sugar-fine sand just beyond the water’s reach.
My skin, pallid from lack of sun after the shooting, turned a brownish yellow, lion-colored, except for the spider’s webs of untannable scars decorating my side and back—the scowling mouths of bullet wounds and thin surgical incisions to repair the nerve damage.
Without the power of my legs, I could not keep up with the others in our many swimming races, but what I lacked in speed and gracefulness, I made up for in stamina. I loved frolicking in that liquid environment, and I always stayed out until Jared finally hauled me to the beach over my protests.
After a long swim, I had nothing left—no energy, no warmth, no joy remained—making me realize that I must take life in small, measured doses, like the pain medications I took six times daily. But the sun, the saltwater, and exercise also had a healing quality, and it seemed that if I could only stay there long enough, I might wean myself away from all those medications. I imagined being drug- and pain-free. How grand life would be. I amazed myself with how my priorities changed from one week to the next.
Roy and J.D. never came to the beach. Both retired to the conservatory after breakfast, where they read the papers, first page to last, meticulously scanning every article. Alma brought two papers from town each morning: the International New York Times and Barcelona’s English paper, The Sun. They finished reading sometime before lunch, and during the siesta hours, Roy withdrew to his room until teatime, while J.D. spent his afternoons playing high-stakes gin rummy with the Baroness.
Connor jokingly suggested that Roy spent the afternoons writing his memoirs, how he became the impetus behind creating a tennis star. I reminded Connor that Roy was a driving force behind his success and that Roy did indeed deserve a great deal of credit.
I would sometimes join Roy and J.D. on my way to or from the beach. Whenever Roy and I talked, it was always about neutral subjects: the weather, the food, the Middle East crises, or Washington’s latest embarrassment. He refused to discuss my work with Connor or anything having to do with tennis.
After five days, both Roy and J.D. had had enough downtime, and J.D. claimed he couldn’t afford to lose anymore at cards. They decided to leave us to our leisure and fly to the Madrid Open in order to hobnob with clothing representatives and sponsors.
The Sunday beginning our second week at the Villa Baraka, we braved the afternoon heat to have a picnic at the beach. If it got too hot, we reasoned, we would simply lie in the cool surf. Jared and I, Harman and Spencer, and Connor and Shar followed Alma two by two out past the tennis courts and onto the sand.
That afternoon, a huge cloud of seabirds gathered in the sky, looking like a malignant tumor festering over the steely-blue sea. They hovered and swooped over the water, making me think that a monstrous school of fish were knifing just below the surface. Those birds, raven black with swan-like necks, fell from the sky, beak first, plunging into the water.
Beyond them, a schooner with blood-red sails smudged the horizon, heading toward the town where fishing boats moored in the shallows, their masts tilted and their sails lashed down.
We had invited the Baroness to join our picnic, but she coughed gently into her handkerchief and informed us that she never went out and repeated, for emphasis, “Never.”
The afternoon turned blustery. We took shelter in the recesses between some dunes and brought out an impressive array of accessories: folding chairs, beach towels, a soccer ball, and a picnic hamper the size of a steamer trunk.
Alma had packed and carried the hamper himself, and he struggled with its weight while staggering across the powdery sand. He spread a candy-striped canvas tarpaulin over the sand, opened the hamper, and began to unload its contents: bottles of chilled white wine, containers of egg salad sandwiches, tubes of salami, bowls of olives, and bright yellow pears. He clamped a wine bottle under his arm, inserted the corkscrew, gave a quick, sharp pull, and poured wine into crystal glasses. No plastic at the Villa Baraka.
Jared carried me on his back and sat me on a corner of the tarpaulin. I lay braced on one arm with my legs sprawled awkwardly to one side. The others spread out our bright blue towels, stripped down to Speedos, and applied sunscreen to their reddish-brown skin. By now, we were all used to swimming together in the buff on that deserted beach, and the boys donned Speedos that day solely for Alma’s benefit.
Shar didn’t wear a swimsuit but rather a sheer, silky wraparound skirt that covered her hips but left her breasts exposed. Her skirt tied low around her waist and billowed open with each gust of breeze, revealing her athletic legs all the way to her crotch. After a week of tanning, her skin glowed as lustrous as sealskin.
Alma ignored her, but that she would expose herself in front of a straight man turned Connor’s face beet red.
She set a folding chair close to Alma and began to read a book, but after a moment, she pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and held out her arm, taking a glass of wine from Alma. She tasted it, grimaced, and said something to Alma that I didn’t hear, but I saw him shrug and smile, showing a full set of even teeth. Across from Shar, Connor buried his legs in the hot sand. He pounded the mound with his palms, giving it a good spanking.
“It’s getting hot,” Connor said. “Let’s play some ball in the surf.”
“You go ahead,” Shar said. “I’m going to stay here and enjoy the heat, my book, and the wine.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other, dangling her flip-flops in the breeze. Connor slapped the sand again but made no move toward the water.
“The sun’s intense,” he told her. “You should cover yourself.” When she ignored his suggestion, he took a full glass of wine and drank it like water.
The sun grew stronger, and the sand radiated its heat, glimmering like snow and giving off an intense scorched smell. Jared had fallen asleep, and I saw that the ridges and planes of his chest and stomach had turned dangerously red. I grabbed the tube of sunscreen and woke him by applying a generous amount to my hands and smoothing it onto his skin.
A voice called from somewhere down the beach; a dog barked. The wind dropped, and everything became still. The whole universe seemed to tilt sideways. A cooler wind rushed off the water, and the shadows of fast-moving clouds sped over us.
Alma served lunch and opened two more bottles of wine. We tried to get him to drink, but he smiled and shook his head. While we munched on sandwiches and olives, he drew a little square carpet from the hamper and laid it over the sand several feet from the tarp. He faced southeast, folded to his knees on the carpet, and bowed three times while chanting a prayer. We all watched with interest, but Shar seemed utterly fascinated.
Alma finished his prayers, rolled up his carpet, and poured us more wine. Connor sipped at his fourth glass.
Shar leaned closer to Alma and asked, “Tell me about Islam. What are you praying for?”
“Miss, the Prophet gave all people the Koran and gave the faithful f
ive obligations to satisfy during their lives. The most important is to believe only in the one true God. The others are to pray five times each day, fast during Ramadan, be charitable to the poor, and once in a person’s lifetime, they must make a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca.”
“You’ve been to Mecca?” she asked.
“No, Miss. I am going this year. I have the money saved and am waiting for Ramadan.”
Shar’s smoky voice dropped lower. “Wouldn’t it be exciting to experience Mecca during their holy festival?” she said to the rest of us.
Connor jumped to his feet, spraying sand everywhere. “Damn you. Is it necessary to embarrass me like this?” He slurred his words only slightly.
Alma looked away and began to pack the hamper.
Shar’s eyes grew hard, and her voice chilled. “What crawled up your ass?”
“You flashing your tits like some Bangkok bar slut and flirting with the fucking hired help.”
“Maybe I like the ‘fucking hired help,’ as you call him, because he’s not as crass as you are.”
“If I’m so crass, why are you with me?”
“I’m wondering the same thing myself, darling.”
“I’ll tell you why. You’re using me.”
“Using you! You couldn’t wait to sniff my panties. You begged for it like a dog.”
“Of course I wanted you. I still do, but I don’t like sharing. You flirt with every swinging dick that struts by. I know you were seeing someone in Rome. How do you think that makes me feel?”
“I never said this was monogamous. Most men prefer it that way.”
“You’re using me to make a name for yourself. I’m the star. I’m the one people pay money to see. You’re a leech, a bloodsucking leech making a name for yourself on my talent.”
“Bloodsucking leech?”
“Would you rather I said dicksucking whore?”
There was a moment of silence as Shar lifted herself out of her chair and cocked her arm. She swung her hand in a quick arc, delivering a no doubt stinging slap to Connor’s face.
Connor stood in a silent rage. For an instant, I thought he would smack her back. We sat motionless, averting our eyes. Shar took a step back, studying Connor’s reaction, and suddenly laughed, a brutal, humiliating bark of laughter. “You’re such a child, darling.” She snatched her clothes and her book, holding them tightly in the crook of her arm. She wheeled around and marched back to the villa. Alma trudged behind her, balancing the hamper on his shoulder while struggling through the soft sand.
Connor stalked the other way and plopped down at the water’s edge with his back to us, staring out to sea.
We glanced from one to another with that oh-shit-what-to-do-now look on everybody’s face.
Spencer stood and rambled after him. He sat beside his friend and drew an arm across Connor’s shoulder; their heads came together. Silent and unmoving, they sat locked together with their backs to the world.
Finally, they rose and waded into the breakers. When the water climbed waist-deep, they leaned forward in unison and began to swim out past the boiling surf to the calm swells in the deeper water. Jared, Harman and I watched, casting uncertain glances after them as their bodies cleaved the water like dolphins. They swam further and further out until we couldn’t see them. Long minutes stretched into half an hour. I became increasingly nervous.
“I think we should go after them,” Harman said, “but I can’t swim very far.”
Harman and I turned to Jared, who climbed to the top of a dune. Shielding his eyes with his hands, he scanned the sea. I experienced a dozen agonizing seconds until Jared said, “I see them. They’re way the hell out there, but they’re coming back in.”
While we waited, it clouded over and began to drizzle, lightly at first but steadily growing heavier. By the time they reached shore, a steady rain fell. Harman high-stepped through the surf and took Spencer into his arms while Jared plunged into the breakers to pull Connor to the beach.
I threw Jared a towel, and he draped it over Connor’s shoulders. Connor’s lips were a pale shade of lavender, and his body shook in spasms. Jared wrapped his arms around him, trying to transfer his body heat. Connor pulled away, snarling that he didn’t need our help, that he could walk back to the villa on his own, which he did. He stumbled along on shaky legs, but he managed to stagger up the beach, past the tennis courts, and into the villa.
The air remained warm regardless of the rain. Jared sat at my side and held me close. Connor’s stunt had affected him deeply; I saw it in his eyes. The thought of death had him thinking about the shooting again. I glanced over at Harman and Spencer. They lay on the sand with their bodies intertwined, kissing. I wanted to do the same with Jared, and I was about to suggest leaving them alone, but Jared had already come to that conclusion. He crawled to his knees and pulled me onto his back.
He carried me piggyback along the shore for a half-mile, our bodies streaming with rain. The storm’s intensity grew, and Jared began to stagger like a drunkard. We toppled onto the sand and laughed like lunatics, mostly from relief that the boys had made it back unharmed.
We were halfway to town along a deserted section of beach with nothing but sand, sea, rain, and each other.
Jared leaned into me and pressed his lips to mine, opening my mouth with his tongue. His lips, his whole body, had the clean, pure taste of rain. Even my body smelled rainwater fresh. The odor of painkillers oozing out my pores had washed away. For the first time since the shooting, I was able to totally forget that it had happened—no pain, no drug smell, no need of legs—just me and Jared and the cleansing rain.
He peeled my trunks down over my ankles, and his muscled body covered me like a living quilt. He impaled me. With the rain slashing at Jared’s back, he pressed me into the sand. I held him, feeling safer and happier than at any other time in my life. He began to moan, and I bit his shoulder, trying to divert his attention so the moment would last as long as possible; a lifetime would have been too short. The bite only spurred him on, and he bucked with force. His mouth covered mine. I struggled to breathe. He pulled back and began to laugh, a deep and contagious laugh.
Shifting his weight to his knees, he lifted me in his arms and ran for the surf. A moment later, a wave bowled us over, depositing us far up the beach, plastered with sand and seaweed, chilled to the bone, wrestling like schoolboys but still laughing. I pulled myself onto his back. He bent to pick up our wet clothes before carrying me back to the villa.
We indulged in a hot bath, dry clothes, and bean soup with crusty rye bread in the kitchen—graciously served by Sara Domingo Sanchez, because Alma had vanished. It was not long before Harman joined us, letting us know that Alma had driven Shar to a guesthouse on the town’s square and that Spencer was upstairs tending to Connor, who had raided the liquor cabinet as soon as he got back to the villa.
“For someone who doesn’t drink, he sure put away a lot of expensive brandy,” Harman said. “He’s dead drunk now.”
“Did he say anything?” I asked.
“Most of it incomprehensible, but I caught ‘fuck her’ several times before he passed out. We carried him upstairs and plopped him into bed.”
Later, while Jared and I lay in bed with the French doors open to the storm, I heard Connor on his balcony, bent over the railing, being raucously sick into the garden below while the rain bombarded him from above. I thought of sending Jared to his aid, but I was certain that Spencer was still there, helping as best he could.
Chapter 29
THE storm raged through the next two days. Most of that time I sat in our room, staring at the wind-driven sea as brilliant bolts of lightning danced over the darkened water. Living in California, I had never experienced such extraordinary displays of lightning and booming cords of thunder. The villa trembled with each thunderclap. That magnificent violence challenged my senses, and I relished every minute of it.
I felt the rest did both my boys some good, and it granted Connor tim
e to recuperate from an obviously painful hangover.
On that second stormy day, Roy returned without J.D. Lambert. Connor’s pitiful condition drove Roy into a frenzy until Harman explained the circumstances, after which he seemed quite relieved, perhaps even grateful. He strolled about whistling a lively tune until he found that there were no papers to read.
Alma, who normally brought the morning papers, had not returned since taking Shar into town. That not only had a humiliating effect on Connor, but the Baroness took to her bed and stayed there, which left all the cooking, cleaning, and serving to Sara Domingo Sanchez.
The storm broke the morning of the third day, and by noon, the sky became a radiant, unbroken blue. We decided to ease Sara’s workload by driving into town for dinner. Following our afternoon swim, we piled into the van and drove to Palamos.
Although many of the town’s buildings had been built within the last fifty years, the old section surrounding the original plaza had stood unchanged for two centuries. The plaza itself was a beautifully manicured park the size of a city block, and at its center stood an ornate fountain. Tall elms and poplars shaded the square, and in the pockets of sunshine roses grew with voluptuous red blooms. A stone church dominated the north side of the square overlooking the plaza, the town, and the sea beyond.
To the south stood the Hotel Excelsior, two elegant stories with wide, sweeping balconies on both levels. The square’s east and west sides were lined with sidewalk cafés where patrons ate under multi-colored umbrellas. There was a barbershop as well, two formal restaurants, five saloons, and several less-prestigious guesthouses.