“You have no business talking to those rough men!” Gideon scolded. “You’re not to go there again.”
“They speak French! You told me I must learn French,” Aleph said, sniffling. Sophy was amused that he knew his father so well.
The lighthouse is farther up the road they live on, but might as well be on an island, moored as it is on a tongue of land jutting out from a pasture. Once High Street ends, it’s a long, solitary walk to get there, with only a couple of bleak farmhouses along the way. The place has a particular romance for Aleph; he says the beacon lights up his dreams. Micah took him there earlier in the summer and Aleph talked about the excursion for days: how the keeper lived all by himself in a round room at the top of a winding staircase, and manned his great lamp day and night. He had all sorts of questions. When did the man sleep? Did the gulls bring him food?
“I’d like to do that,” he said, adding, like a little philosopher, “It would be a good life.”
“Oh, I think you’d be lonely,” Sophy said quickly. “All by yourself up there, staring at the ocean day after day and no one to talk to.”
“I’d get a wife! She could read to me and cook for me. Micah says keepers can have wives.” He walked away then, as if the matter was settled.
A few days later, she arrived home from Blue Hill to find Gideon pacing back and forth, agitated. He had tutored Aleph in the morning, as usual, and after making them something to eat had dozed for a while. When he woke, the boy had disappeared. “I went to town, to the wharves, the yard. Micah hasn’t seen him. Nobody has seen him. For all I know, he could be stowed away in the hold of some ship. I warned him about those sailors . . .” He broke off, coughing. Sophy made tea to calm him, chiding him for walking so far. She knew where Aleph had gone.
Although the day was warm, she walked rapidly, quickened by a gnawing worry that had little to do with a small boy turning off a lonely road and following cart tracks through tall grass. Her son had started life with disadvantages that turned his childish fancy into a prophet’s warning. He mustn’t end up in an isolated room, staring at the horizon and communing with his thoughts. He mustn’t fall back into silence. She had not rescued him for that.
Shading her eyes, she saw Aleph coming toward her, his gait lopsided, favoring his left leg. Sophy lifted her skirt and ran, calling his name. He picked up his pace and hobbled straight into her arms. His face was streaked with dirt and tears, and the knee of one trouser leg was torn, but he was full of the wonderful thing that had happened. The lighthouse keeper had waved at him from a window! Smiled at him like the man in the moon!
That night, after Aleph was in bed, she said to Gideon, “He is ready to go to the village school.”
“Ready? He’d be so far advanced, the teacher wouldn’t know what to make of him. A boy who speaks Hebrew and Latin, who is gifted at numbers—you’d trust his mind to a country schoolmistress? I’ve heard tales about the lady. One of those narrow souls who’d break a boy’s spirit for his own good. She wields a mean switch, they say.”
“If she touches my boy, she’ll have me to contend with. You’ll always be his teacher, Gideon, I promise you that. But there are things we can’t give him. He needs to be with other children now. It’s time.”
He seemed to be considering, but the light was already fading from his eyes. “If you think it best,” he said quietly.
One more thing she had taken from him. His only remaining purpose, all that was left of his vision: the education of his son. The shame Sophy had held back earlier washed over her. Gideon was her husband, however altered. Shouldn’t her first loyalty be to him? As she’d watched Aleph walking toward her, a thought had entered her mind, stifled as soon as it formed: He mustn’t become his father. Above all, not that.
AUTUMN COMES EARLY to Maine. It is Sophy’s favorite season in Castine, its beauties so abundant that she calls it her season of justification. Gideon was uncommonly cheerful this morning; the crisp air has restored some of his energy. He left early with Aleph to visit the school and cultivate the good graces of the fearsome Miss Dilworth, who’ll rule over the boy from next week on. Afterward they’ll walk down to the yard to see Micah and stop at the baker’s for a treat—“to celebrate your last days as a free man,” Gideon said, sounding like a boy himself.
As he was getting ready to leave, she dared to ask him the question that was always in her mind, but never voiced. “Gideon, are you happy?”
His brow clouded. “I suppose I’m as content as a useless person can be. Why do you ask?”
“You are stronger now. You could do a little tutoring. Judge Ward has a son, and I know others who’d be interested.” She hesitated. “You could write a book.”
He looked at her. “What on earth would I write about?”
Aleph burst in then, with his jacket crookedly buttoned and his neck-tie flapping around his collar, and she was saved from answering.
A day as lovely as this one makes Sophy defiant. She pleads her case point by point. The air bright and clear, with a salty tang that thrills the blood. Was it more invigorating to breathe in your Paradise? The pure blue of the sky reflected in the waters of the Bay; the patches of coppery seaweed, the islands set like jewels in a silver sea. The colors you saw, that green you made so much of—were they more vivid than these? Against this sky, the whitewashed houses, the Indian paint of the foliage, the brass weather vane atop the church spire gleaming in the sun. The new world you walked through—were its edges sharper there? Were its contrasts more surprising to the eye, its harmonies more subtly blended?
She wants to wave the evidence in Gideon’s face, prove to him that this life they’ve made is rich and full, tolerable in its imperfections, lovable for its quiet joys. But Paradise is a worm that eats at the brain. At moments of earthly happiness there is always a nagging tug of doubt. If she’d had the courage to take his hand that day in the sickroom, where might they be residing now? What kind of man might Gideon have become if left to pursue his vision? She will never know if she has chosen the best of all worlds, or only Portsmouth, not good enough.
WHILE HER FAMILY is gone, Sophy plans to spend a few hours in the room she set aside for a studio. Until now she’s used it mostly for finishing work and storage; she is an artist-for-hire, and the real labor of painting is done in her patron’s houses. But Micah is weary of the shipyard and has been talking of expanding the space, adding a shed where he can make furniture again. They’ll have an atelier; she will paint and he will carve, and folks will come to them.
The room is south-facing, the sunniest in the house, home to chests and broken chairs that Aleph can hide behind, or erect as battlements in the epic war he’s conducting between his tin soldiers and the chessmen Micah made for him. Sophy steps carefully to avoid upsetting the armies; a week ago she knocked over a whole line of troops, and the General made a great fuss. A truce this morning, the floor is clear.
She isn’t sure if she’ll paint today, but it is pleasant to contemplate a clean workspace of her own. She could have a couch for patrons, make a painted backdrop for posing, even hire a model. She could stack her prepared canvases against this wall—and here she finds the armies, lined up neatly on either side of a bulky package bound in twine. Aleph has balanced a soldier and a chessman on top, staring at each other across a plaid divide. Spies? she wonders nonsensically. One-to-one combat?
Five years, and she hasn’t opened it. Long enough to render it invisible, another dusty relic that she’ll attend to one of these days. If the contents are harmless, what is she afraid of? The vapors of the past rising up to envelop her as soon as she cuts the twine, spreading through the house, polluting the family’s hard-won tranquility? More likely, she’ll find a few faded images, cracked and flaking from neglect.
She returns the soldiers to their allies, and goes to find her scissors.
Folding back the blanket, she lifts the paintings out one by one and arranges them in a semicircle on the floor. They’re in better shape th
an she expected, but so few, really; a pittance, compared to what she’s done these last few years. A couple of early landscapes—why had she bothered to keep them? The only one worth saving is The Naming of the Animals; her Adam is a flesh-colored blotch, though the baboon has an innocent charm. The double-sided portraits of herself and Gideon make her blush, not for the original reason. Can she ever have painted so crudely? The paint looks as if it were slapped on like clay, obscuring Gideon’s fine features. Her angelic philosopher is as florid and full-cheeked as a butcher’s boy! As for the callow young woman—she’s no better than she ought to be, as Mama used to say. She passes quickly over her childish picture of the study—one of Gideon’s favorites, but tainted by the memory of what they did that day. Some things don’t bear revisiting.
The stark winter scene, her state of mind reflected in the begging branches. But on the back is the couple in the bell jar, a painting she can be proud of. The flying serpent is beautifully done. Leander to the life. Sophy has never doubted that he is somewhere in this world, inhabiting another name, another set of clothes, a different profession. His wings still shadow her. His eyes graze each picture she paints. His voice, with its haughty flick of German, its amused precision, is still in her head.
Among themselves, they never speak of him. It is as if, in regard to the man they knew as Leander Solloway, the compact of silence prevails. Sophy wonders if he haunts the others as he haunts her. When Gideon withdraws into himself, brooding, his eyes far away, she imagines that he is pining for his old friend, mourning for what might have been. Micah is younger and more apt to put away the past. Perhaps, in his view, he has gone farther than Moses ever did—entered the Promised Land after all.
Though, in the course of her busy days she has no time for Leander, he invades her dreams at night, ever a man of insinuation, coming at her sidewise, burrowing into her need. He enjoys her, simply and silently, exploring her with his hands and mouth, waking her sleeping parts, and for a moment she is alive in her body as she used to be when she danced, and when it is over . . . it is over. Leander is gone, and she has no regrets.
She had called the painting Annunciation, but for all its polish, it isn’t finished. The words she meant to inscribe on the serpent’s wings have never revealed themselves. It would be easy enough to copy some Hebrew characters from Gideon’s books, but this seems like cheating. What good are letters that don’t spell a message?
Sophy closes her eyes. “I suppose you fancy yourself my muse. If you have something to tell me, Mr. Solloway, say it now. Plain English will do, thank you.”
The sound of her own breathing. Noises from the street drift in, muted, as if the world had held back as long as it could so as not to spoil her hopes. The silence is eloquent. The paintings are the only message she will ever have from this most talkative of men. He has done his part. The rest he leaves to her.
HER EASEL is by the window, the chair at an angle, beckoning her. She brings the only drawing she’d saved, a hasty sketch of her strange dream on the night Aleph was born. She had asked for her sketchbook while she was still confined to bed, fearful that the details would slip away. The mountain of a man; the woman peering out of his middle, contemplating the world outside through bars of bone. She always meant to make a painting of the Pregnant Adam, but never had time, and now she isn’t sure she has the capacity. Portraits are a great discipline, but working from life fences in the imagination. The subject is always there, before her, demanding, Make the best of me. She can infuse; she no longer invents. How to recover that playfulness? Shake off her hard-won skills and romp in Eden?
Sophy sets the sketch aside. One day, perhaps. The image is old, part of the past; it doesn’t stir her now. There is a moment she would rather capture, though whether it can be rendered in paint is doubtful. What does the woman see in that first instant—before she is Eve, before she is anyone—when she is delivered from her long hibernation into the world of light? Oil is too heavy and plodding, she would have to use watercolor and bring it off like a magic trick, instant translation, her hand as quick as her eye. Lacking new eyes herself, she would have to sink so deep into Eve that she saw through hers. An impossible feat. She’s a humble picture-maker, no magician. But even as she takes refuge in this thought, images are coming to her. Pastels. A mix of colors raining down, the sky like a turbulent sea. In the foreground, a small, huddled figure, a mermaid out of her element, marooned on the forest floor.
She pins a fresh sheet of paper to the easel and confronts the white.
AFTER SUPPER THEY gather in the parlor for the evening reading. Sophy has been working her way through Sir Walter Scott; she is well into Ivanhoe, and Aleph and Micah are hanging on her every word. She has just opened the book when Aleph stands and clasps his hands behind his back. He has an air of fierce seriousness, as if called upon to recite in class.
“I have something to tell you,” he says. “I have a new name.”
Gideon snaps to attention. “You don’t like your name? It belongs to you. No one else has one like it.”
“It won’t do for school.”
Aleph has been told the story of his name many times. He is well acquainted with the ox and the Beginning before the Beginning. But they’re all aware that the name has been a trouble to him. People can’t get their mouths around it; they trim it to fit what is familiar. He’s been called Alva, Adolph, Alfred, even, when he was still in skirts, Olive. Worst of all is Alf. Aleph is a stoical boy, but he can’t abide Alf.
“You have a perfect right to choose your name,” Gideon says, leaning forward. “Will you . . . will you tell us what it is?”
They look at one another, Sophy and Gideon and Micah. There isn’t a sound in the room. Breath is suspended, the flame in the hearth stops dancing, the hands of the clock freeze, for who knows what power time will wield in a new world?
“Tom.”
The quiet syllable, flat on the air.
Gideon rubs the dent in his nose where his spectacles rest. He puts his knuckles to his eyes and rubs with such vigor that Sophy thinks he must be stanching tears, but when he takes his hands away, his eyes are dry. He smiles, a slow smile, and opens his arms to his son. “Tom! Now that is a very fine name.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I AM INDEBTED TO THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS for vital support during the making of this book and to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference for a fellowship.
I’m grateful to all who read portions of the novel, but I owe abiding thanks to two faithful readers who read chapters as I wrote them and offered abundant wisdom along the way. Kate Blackwell’s acute insights and sensitive perceptions always instructed and inspired; our conversations about our work have leavened the solitude of the desk. Sandy Cohen has given me the benefit of her painter’s eye and sharp mind, and has proved to be as adept in the editorial realm as in matters of the law. When the draft was done, Lynn Auld Schwartz interrupted her busy writing life to read the whole thing and give helpful analysis. Chris Hale’s comments on early chapters helped to set the course, and Victoria Hobson’s meticulous close reading unearthed details I might have overlooked. I am thankful for members of our small writing community, Ann Jensen, Vicki Meade, Paula Novash, Laura Oliver, Lynn Schwartz, Christe Spiers, and Heather Wolf, who have given encouragement and support, and greatly enriched my life in Annapolis.
The sober volumes of advice for young ladies that Sophy contemplates reading in Chapter 4 are lined up on my desk thanks to Ann Jensen, who plundered her family archive for primary sources and her bookshelves for research material. I’ve enjoyed our talks about the challenges of writing historical fiction.
Several years ago, on a visit to the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, I saw an early-nineteenth-century landscape of the village of Blue Hill, each of its sparse buildings lovingly rendered, and in the lower right corner a man in a tall hat waving a stick at a serpent, chasing the Devil out of town. The artist was the Rev. Jonathan Fisher, a polymath parson who k
new several languages and had invented his own coded alphabet. Fisher was the inspiration for the Rev. Samuel Hedge, another stern Calvinist besotted with language. Although Rev. Hedge is a fictional character, I’ve endowed him with Fisher’s love of Hebrew and borrowed Fisher’s Alphabetical Bestiary and his reversible engraving table to furnish his study.
The definition of “baboon” that provokes Gideon’s contempt in the prologue is an actual quote from a book I found on a secondhand shelf years ago, A Dictionary of English Etymology, by Hensleigh Wedgwood, published in 1878.
Leander Solloway’s comments on Moses’s stuttering in the chapter “Alliteration” were inspired by ideas in Joel Rosenberg’s fascinating essay, “A Treatise on the Making of Hebrew Letters,” in The Jewish Catalog, edited by Siegel, Strassfeld, and Strassfeld, 1973.
Information for Gideon’s thesis about the historical quest for the first language was found in The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language, by Christine Kenneally, 2007, and World of Words: The Personalities of Language, by Gary Jennings, 1984.
I am deeply grateful to my editor, Amy Cherry, for her valuable feedback, sound guidance, and skillful nurturing of the book in all its stages. If patience is a kind of faith, hers carried me through. My longtime agent, Wendy Weil, passed away suddenly two years ago. Two emails that she wrote me the week before she died remain on my desk, tokens of her presence.
There is no way to adequately thank my husband Stewart for his constant love and support. The characters in this book have inhabited his life as well, and we’ve had some lovely moments discussing them over a glass of wine. My daughter Sara is my tech guru, and I thank her for connecting her Luddite mom to the modern world and only occasionally rolling her eyes.
Finally, I would like to remember with love Ed and Jean Ryden, cousins who made art all their lives, who long ago sent me a small check and told me to keep writing.
The Language of Paradise: A Novel Page 39