Labrador

by Kathryn Davis

  “This is impossible,” Rogni said, and I blinked. The old woman was gone, although I couldn’t get rid of the image of the loose skin of her ankles, hanging down over the tops of her red high-heeled shoes like dewlaps. He went over and stood near the door, listening. “In the hierarchy of angels, Kathleen,” he said, “nine in number, I am the lowest. The lowest. What are they doing in there?”

  “Dancing,” I said.

  “Is that all?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “If you’re an angel,” I said, “why do you need me to tell you what they’re doing?”

  “Because I can’t see through the door,” he said. He sounded angry. “I need something of Willie’s,” he said. “Are you going to help me or not?” And then he sat down on the sofa, hunched up, his hands over his eyes, like the see-no-evil monkey that perched on the end table out of which the red box had come. “When they paint their holy icons,” he said under his breath, “men rarely look between the legs.”

  “Why do you need something of Willie’s?” I asked.

  “It’s all right, Kathleen,” he said, “maybe you should just go back to the party.”

  “No,” I said. And then I had an idea. “There’s a ring,” I said. I dragged a chair over to the highboy and climbed up onto it, but I couldn’t reach the top drawer. “It’s in here,” I said.

  I watched as Rogni stuck his arm way into the drawer; watched as he drew forth the ring, which emitted a green and aqueous twinkle. “This?” he asked, and when I nodded my head he looked at me sternly: this was the first time I recognized on his face a typical adult expression. “You’re sure it’s hers?” he asked.

  I looked away. “Uh huh,” I said.

  Rogni slipped the ring into his shirt pocket, where it made a tiny bulge down near the seam. “It’s very important, Kathleen. I have to get the story right. If I don’t, something very bad might happen.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know yet. And I could be wrong.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t take it,” I said. “Maybe we should put it back.” I thought about how, once upon a time, I fell in love with you, Willie, and I stole your blue mittens, which I hid under my pillow to fondle at night. You remember this, of course, because you were the one who found them there and took them to Mama, who made me give them back to you. In consequence of this I knew that it was bad to steal and that my greatest punishment had been your scorn.

  “I could be wrong,” Rogni repeated. “She’s like a funnel of wind and this stone is so hard.” He touched it, tentatively, through his pocket.

  “What if somebody looks for it? What if they see it’s missing?” Fear was turning around and around in me, trying to find a comfortable place to lie down.

  “That’s a chance we’ll just have to take,” Rogni said.

  Chairs scraped against the dining-room floor and I heard Mama say, “Where’s Kitty? Has anyone seen Kitty?” I guessed that it was time for the party to move to the barn, to where the pony hung his doleful head, his forelock adorned with a large red bow. “She’s probably upstairs eating gruel,” I heard you say; it was the first time you betrayed our secret and I knew we’d never be orphans together again. From that day forward we always had our parents to care for us, and I realize now that in giving ourselves over to the care of others we invited in the whole world, that sphere of green and blue stuck through like a pomander ball with weapons.

  A herd of feet moved across the pantry floor and out the back door; I could hear voices rising into the cold air, inflated and bright. “Kitty?” Mama called from the foot of the stairs. “Kitty, are you up there?” She began climbing, and Rogni looked at me beseechingly.

  “I’ve got to go now,” he said. “Before she comes back down.”

  “No no no no no no!” I wailed. “Don’t go. Not today. Oh, please don’t go.” I was hysterical, and I could feel each sob as it formed inside me. “If you wait till tomorrow, I’ll help you find something better. Maybe one of Willie’s ballet shoes?”

  “I’m not a thief, Kathleen,” Rogni said. “I’ve got what I need. And I’ll bring it back soon. I promise.”

  “Who cares?” My hysteria sputtered and died, leaving me sullen. “I don’t want the dumb ring, anyway.”

  “I’m sorry, Kathleen.” Rogni walked to the door, the one we never used, with its fanlight of wavery old glass. “Goodbye,” he said, pulling it open, letting in wind filled with big flakes of snow that settled like stars everywhere. For a moment I was all alone, and then I felt her brush against me—the seething bulk of her; the tumultuous cabbage roses—tearing the room apart. Or was it only the wind and snow? And had it been Nana who, one day before she got sent to the nursing home, pulled open the drawer and showed me the ring?

  “I hate you!” I yelled. The door swung shut, and when I ran over to the window all I could see was the meadow, from which every color had been removed except white. The sky was hung with fibrous sheets of cloud. “I hate you,” I said again, softly. This time I meant you, Willie. Then I put on my coat and boots and went out to the barn, where your guests were taking turns feeding hay to the pony.

  You stood off to one side, talking to Peter, who stood with one arm stretched out, his fingers stroking and stroking the pony’s withers. “Hey, Willie, look at me!” yelled one of the boys from where he perched high above our heads on a rafter. You didn’t even bat an eye.

  “Get down from there before you kill yourself,” Daddy said, but he didn’t sound like he cared. He was staring at you as if you were a member of Mrs. McGuire’s ghostly tribe, come to rest in our midst, portentous and fleeting.

  “Easy,” Peter said. “Easy, boy.” The pony was shaking its mane and stamping its hooves. “Keep it down in here.”

  I can’t remember how long it was before you noticed me, but when you did you left Peter’s side and walked up to the pony. “Want a ride, Kitty?” you asked.

  I shook my head, and Daddy suggested that the pony had probably had enough excitement for one day.

  “I want Kitty to have a ride,” you insisted. “I’ll just lead them around.” You stared at Daddy coldly. “It’s my birthday,” you said.

  And so I let myself be lifted up onto that warm and breathing back; I let you lead me out of the barn to where I felt myself tangle in a cloak of weather, so that I couldn’t see a thing. The pony’s hooves made no noise in the snow, and the only way that I knew we were moving was through the bunching and unbunching of its muscles under me.

  “Why’d you leave the party?” you asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. The pony snorted and began to trot, making me bounce around.

  “That’s a lie, Kitty,” you said. “That’s a big fat lie.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I said.

  You laughed. “You know what happens to liars, Kitty? Liars get punished.” You laughed again, and then I understood from the gathering of strength under me that I’d been released. “Hang on!” you shouted, and I heard the flat of your hand smack against the pony’s flank; at the same time the full force of the wind smacked against my face and we sprang forward. I knew that we were moving very fast, even though I could see nothing. I felt as if I were clamped onto one of those mechanical horses stationed in supermarkets and shopping centers—those horses that rock and buck with the insertion of a coin. Only now the mechanism had gone crazy, overcharged with current, and your invisible hand fed in dime after dime, as if the resources of retribution were infinite. I buried my face in the pony’s mane and hung on; in this way I knew that I was still alive—I could smell sweat.

  The pony was galloping towards the pines at the foot of the meadow. I only realized this later: at the time I had no idea of direction, although I did know that the open space through which we bounded was hemmed in on all sides by trees. Of course, the trees were very old and were spaced far enough apart that even an out-of-control pony might slip through safely—slip through to find itself falling down the steep declivity on the other side and into the st
reambed below.

  We would have died, Willie—your new pony and I would have gotten up from that wreckage as two differently shaped and surprised ghosts—but we didn’t, because suddenly a voice exploded through the swirling of wind and snow:

  This—is—NOT—GOING—TO—HAPPEN!

  I raised my head and saw the angel standing there: the dark pinions extended as if for flight, the rigid and prismatic robes, the heart’s fury made visible, burning through the chest, its heat so intense that everywhere around it the snow disintegrated, leaving the air empty and black, the ground on fire. The pony stopped dead in its tracks and I could feel its rib cage opening and closing, opening and closing, under me.

  “Kathleen,” the angel said, “you have to breathe now.”

  And then I saw that we were in the rocky place at the bottom of the hill and that there spread out around our feet the shadow of an accident. I began to scream, because I could see the sharp edge of a bone poking through the pony’s hide; the way my neck bent back, like an envelope opening to receive a message. I screamed and the shadow seeped into the earth, leaving a dampness on the small round stones so that they glistened brightly. Then the angel covered his face with his hands and wept. “Kathleen,” he said, “the damage is done. How old you’ll grow to be! And she—she will be my sweetmeat and my affliction.” In the hollow where we stood, above which the pines rose up like accusing fingers, it grew cold and the snow fell, once again, everywhere, landing on the sleeves of my coat, on the pony’s back, on Rogni’s dark hair as he stood there shivering.

  “What I did was wrong,” he said. “I wasn’t supposed to interfere like that.”

  “I’m sorry I said I hated you,” I said. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “But I’m hateful, Kathleen. When I entered this body I was your guest and I stole from you. When I entered your house I was your burden: I let you do my work so my hands would be free.” He stared down at them—gloveless, the fingers extended like white snakes, lacking joints, too too long. “I’ve gotten involved,” he said.

  And I thought, Now I’m being punished. Although, if he couldn’t see through a wooden door, how could he see into my heart? “It was a lie,” I said.

  “Kathleen, come here.” I walked over to him and he reached out, the soft tips of his fingers brushing my hair back out of my eyes. I was crying. “What was?” he asked. “Shhh. Shhh.”

  That was when he told me his name. He told it to me twice and asked me to repeat it after him, and as I did I heard Daddy yelling, “Kitty! Kitty!” and I heard you say, “It wasn’t my fault. She must’ve kicked him or something.”

  Rogni put his finger to his lips. “Listen,” he said. “There isn’t much time. Soon they’ll be here and you’ll have to tell them how the pony jumped down the bank and how you held on for dear life. By the time they get here, I’ll be gone.”

  “Where’ll you go?” I asked. “Will you ever come back?”

  “You’ll see me again,” Rogni said. “I promise.”

  I could hear the dull sound of feet pressing through new snow, and then something the size of a mote, out of which light radiated in shafts, passed through me, leaving a thin tunnel. I was alone in the hollow, watching Daddy stumble down the embankment, his face white and frightened, his glasses askew. You followed, picking your way gracefully from hummock to hummock.

  I might have lied to protect you, Willie, but I didn’t. Now I think I know why; now I understand why I chose to avoid the power assumed by the protector. One lie had been enough.

  It was like a shipwreck, the end of that day, with our family marooned in our own house, trying to find out which of the foods were edible, what liquid fit to drink. Meanwhile, you sat in your accustomed posture of bored royalty, eating a scrambled egg. “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” you said, after I described for the hundredth time the way you hit the pony’s rump. “She’s making it up.”

  “But, Willie,” Daddy said wearily, “why would Kitty make something like that up?”

  “I don’t know,” you said. “Why don’t you ask her?”

  Mama held me on her lap and I was wrapped in a quilt, because I couldn’t stop shaking, because the path of the angel’s flight felt as if it had been threaded through with a noose of ice, by which I might be lifted up to dangle like an ornament, like the salvaged artifact I was, far far above our parents’ outstretched arms. I didn’t think I could stand so much attention; it was bad enough having to insist on my innocence.

  “I’m awfully tired,” you said. “I’d really like to go to bed now.”

  Our parents exchanged one of those looks by which children are made to understand their position as foreigners in the dark principality of a marriage. Our mama assumed her usual role of petitioner, widening her eyes: she wanted Daddy to believe, you see, that you were just a child; she wanted him to participate in her belief that children are not capable of malice. You were her own daughter, Willie—how could she have been so stupid?

  “All right,” Daddy said, swiping at his lips with a paper napkin, although he’d eaten nothing. “Maybe we should all go to bed. Maybe we all need to get some sleep.”

  You got up from your chair and hurled yourself into his lap. “Oh, Daddy, I love you so much!” you said. It was like a handkerchief waved from the deck of an ocean liner: a violent gesture filled with the foreknowledge of separation.

  “I love you too, Willie,” Daddy said.

  Then you unwound yourself from his arms and came right over to receive Mama’s good-night kiss, looking me straight in the eye as you did so. “Aren’t you going to wish me a happy birthday?” you asked. I felt caught off guard, just as I would while walking in the woods, when a tree would let loose a branchload of snow to land, with a sudden chill, on my head. “This birthday of all birthdays?” you pleaded.

  “Happy birthday, Willie,” I whispered.

  The snow fell faster and faster outside, encasing us all. In Labrador, Willie, the snow sometimes rises in drifts so high that a person can walk up to the bell in the church steeple and set it ringing with their hand. In Labrador there is always too much of something or none of it at all. Jacques Cartier called it “the land God gave to Cain.” For my part, I think of it as your kingdom—the kingdom of the queenly Willie, whose neck I would have broken gladly, had it not been so fragile.

  “There was,” Rogni said, “at the turn of the last century, a young American woman who traveled alone to the island of Skiathos, off the Greek mainland. The passage was rough but she was content enough, taking pleasure in the way the whole world seemed to shift beneath her feet. ‘It’s like a dog turning over in its sleep,’ she told the captain, when she ate with him at his table. He thought she was charming but proud, and so he made her a gift of a small bottle in which he’d erected the model of a ship. ‘A trifle,’ he said, ‘something to occupy my lonely hours after people such as yourself are fast asleep.’ Then he put his hand over her hand, but just for a moment, and the other passengers at the table were embarrassed, and looked down into their bowls of tripe.

  “It was the young woman’s good fortune, upon arriving at her destination, to locate a small villa on the island’s southern coast. The villa was made of white stone and sat high on a hill crisscrossed by goat paths. In the mornings the young woman watched old women in black dresses climbing up and down these paths, picking up pieces of wood to start their fires.

  “Her name was Clara Loomis and her father was the Dwight Loomis who invented a small valve indispensable to the working of a machine used in smelting ore. So, you see, she was very rich. But she was also a mystic, having fallen, as a girl, under the spell of her pietistic great-aunt, who took her along on her pilgrimages to the cave of the visionary Johann Kelpius. This early fascination led her, one turbulent summer night, into the salon of Wilhelm Steumphig, a mesmerist of no small ability. A thunderstorm, as if on cue, provided the appropriate background noises for his pronouncement. ‘You must go to Skiathos, my dear!’ he said. ‘Th
e light there, alone, is of a purity unsurpassed anywhere in the world. And it is there that you will find your spiritual twin.’ Clara wrote the island’s name on a piece of paper ceremoniously handed to her by Steumphig’s servant, a Leni-Lenape Indian. ‘I’ll go,’ she said.

  “By this time Steumphig was a little in love with her, and might have regretted her decision, had he not been aware, like the captain, of her pride. He thought he’d have an easier time of it wooing her upon her return. It was Steumphig’s belief, you see, that mystical encounters had a humbling effect. This was because he’d never had one himself.

  “Clara walked, every day, all over the island. The goat paths led everywhere: up the steep hills where the olive trees grew, down into the grassy bowls where peasants lived in small cottages called kalyvas. She ate oranges and figs and dates. Her legs became very strong. Up hill and down she walked, looking for her spiritual twin, but all she found were the hardworking and matter-of-fact peasants. At night Clara would sit looking out the window of her villa, which faced the sea. Then she would notice, as the sun went down, individual islands springing into focus, and each time this happened she would think, Perhaps I’m in the wrong place. Perhaps I should be over there.

  “The captain’s gift sat on the table, almost touching the tip of her elbow where she rested it, as she looked out to sea. This was an unusual version of the customary ship-in-a-bottle, in that the bottle was filled with a blue liquid within which the ship floated, more like a shipwreck-in-a-bottle. It made Clara uneasy, yet she couldn’t bring herself to throw the thing away. Sometimes she picked it up and shook it boldly, to watch the masts jiggling from side to side.