The Other Side of the Sun

by L'Engle, Madeleine;

  Honoria picked up the tea tray as Ron came in for his daily visit. His fingers were gentle on Olivia’s inflamed and swollen joints, but much of her fever was gone, and he was pleased with her progress. He turned to follow Honoria out, but Aunt Olivia called him back, then said, “I forget I’m not your only patient, that you’ve got other people to tend to. Is there somebody you’re hurrying to see now?”

  “I had to amputate a boy’s leg this morning, Miss Olivia.”

  Aunt Olivia shuddered, “Oh, how awful! Was it a shark?”

  “Gangrene from neglected infection.”

  She seemed fascinated, as though by a snake. “Where did you—”

  “On the twins’ kitchen table.”

  “Is he still there—at the twins’?”

  “No, Miss Olivia. You know there’s no room. And it wouldn’t be fair to the twins even if there were.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know I am resented, Miss Olivia.” His voice was low and calm and British. He said goodbye, and left us.

  “Maybe Ron shouldn’t have come home after all,” Aunt Olivia said. “Maybe there’s nothing anybody can do after all.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Don’t I? I’m getting old and tired and I don’t think I can stand seeing any more broken dreams. Or broken men.”

  “Shall I read to you?”

  “Yes. Not Mado’s poems. Something rational and empirical. Read me some Isaac Newton.”

  In the evening I wandered along the ocean’s edge, bathed in the pearly Illyrian light. These evenings were still an amazement and joy to me. After the sun had moved behind the house, the ocean and beach took on an iridescent glow, like mother-of-pearl, and I could not get used to the fact that this light did not fade slowly into twilight and then night, but vanished in an instant. We plunged from the long late-afternoon sky to midnight darkness. On the beach this was brightened by stars and moon. In the scrub it would be sheer terror.

  Thunder, low and distant. And the simultaneous fall of night.

  No, not thunder, but horse’s hoofs, both muffled and carried by the sand. I sensed the sound, felt the vibration, rather than heard with my ears. I froze, hesitating, poised between wading into the ocean or running across the beach to the shelter of the dunes.

  But it was not a group, not the Night Riders, either black or white, but a single horseman, cantering towards me along the water’s edge. It was too dark for me to see the rider clearly, but he was not hooded; my panic retreated. Perhaps it was Ron on the red horse.

  The rider drew up beside me, reined in, and dismounted, a little stiffly, from an old, dappled mare. It was Cousin James. He wore a riding habit, frayed and shiny with age.

  “Ah, Stella, my dear, good. There you are. Dapple and I came from Little Nyssa to meet you.” Dapple: ‘I had a little pony, his name was Dapple Grey.’ Cousin James took my hand in his. Through the strength of his grip I could feel the slight tremor of his palsy.

  “How did you know I’d be on the beach?”

  “It is your evening habit, is it not? A good one, I might add, though Lucille thinks it eccentric of you. Oh, yes, news travels quickly along the beach. There’s not much we don’t know about each other’s comings and goings.” We walked slowly along the water’s edge, the horse splashing contentedly in the little waves which ruffled sleepily into shore. “The ocean has been quiet this summer,” Cousin James said in his soft drawl. “Almost too quiet. Do you ride, Stella?”

  “Yes. Cousin Octavian taught me.”

  “How would you like to get up behind me on Dapple Grey and ride to Little Nyssa for a cup of Saintie’s special herb tea? We’ll bring you back and you won’t have been gone any longer than usual.”

  The old horse held the two of us with ease; I sat sidesaddle behind Cousin James, one arm about his waist to balance myself. Dapple had a gentle canter like a rocking horse, and I enjoyed the pleasant rhythm, and the wind brushing my hair back from my face.

  Little Nyssa was set farther back from the beach than Illyria, and I had not noticed on Sunday the narrow path which led back to the stable. A little colored boy, no more than nine or ten, was waiting to take care of the horse. Cousin James introduced me, and told me that he was one of Saintie’s many grandchildren, and a grandnephew of Clive’s.

  “Let us go and sit in Xenia’s room,” Cousin James said. “Saintie likes to read the Bible of an evening, and to share it with Xenia. But she tires if she reads aloud for too long, so let us go take her place.” He took a brass candelabrum from the entrance hall.

  In Cousin Xenia’s room, Saintie stood by the bed, her big Bible on a reading stand which had holders for two candles. Her voice was high, thin, and piping. “Is not this the fast that I choose; to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? It is not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?” She looked up, her finger marking the place. “That’s the way it was at Nyssa, Mr. James.”

  Cousin James strode to the Bible stand. He put his crop down beside the Bible, and read, “Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.” He closed the Bible. “What happened, then, Saintie?”

  “Why, nothing, Mr. James. Miss Stella’s come to Illyria, and you and I are here at Little Nyssa to care for Miss Xenia. Don’t you fret.”

  He looked at his sister lying motionless on the bed, candlelight flickering over her empty face. “It is a strange end to our dreams.” Then he seemed to straighten up. “We do not need to see all of the pattern, do we, Saintie, in order to believe that there is one? Will you make one of your special tisanes for Miss Stella and me?”

  Saintie carefully snuffed out the candles on either side of the Bible and left us. The light from the big, branched candelabrum fluttered, sending shadows rushing over the walls, across the ceiling. I bent over Cousin Xenia, touching her hands. “Good evening, Cousin Xenia. This is Stella.” Again I was sure that I did not just imagine a tremor of response in her imprisoned fingers. Within that felled body there raged a living fire, bursting to be freed. Did it really appease the flames to have Miss Harris read, to have Cousin James sit and talk?

  He drew up a chair and sat beside me. In the candlelight the bones of his face showed fine and thin; he sat erect, and there was nobility in his bearing. “We had a dream at Nyssa, and for quite a few years the dream lived. Clive and Saintie were born of the dream—but no more so than I, myself.”

  “Cousin James—when did Honoria and Clive marry?”

  “After the war, when Honoria took us in, refugees. You can see that it would simplify matters for Honoria, legally and in every other way, if she were married to Clive. They respected each other from the first; there was honor in their marriage from the beginning. But love grew. I suppose one might say that love was reborn. It had almost been killed in both of them.”

  “To lose their baby—and then Jimmy—”

  The candlelight seemed to stretch and lengthen his face as he turned towards me. “You know about Jimmy?”

  “I know that he was their son, and that he was married to Belle Zenumin. And Ron told me that—told me how he died.” And I knew that Jimmy was Tron’s father, but that he was not Ronnie’s. And I knew that Jimmy had tried to kill Ron’s father, and been lynched for it. There was a great deal more than I wanted to know. I looked down at my ring. “Sometimes I think my curiosity is inordinate.”

  Cousin James turned on me his lovely smile. “Most people whose curiosity is inordinate find all kinds of means to justify it. Ask me anything you like, child.”

  It did not seem fair to ask him, bluntly, Who is Ron’s father: is it you? So I asked a safe question, safe for us both. “After the war, you stayed at Illyria, too?”

  “Ye
s, since I was, in a sense, Honoria’s excuse for sending for us after the destruction of Nyssa. I’d been expected, of course, to return to Charleston and go into partnership with my Cousin Mark, and perhaps it is what I ought to have done. But I did not want to—I could not—leave Mado. After my need at Illyria had been filled, I went to Jefferson and established a practice there. Xenia kept house for me, and we managed to see a great deal of Mado and the children.” He looked towards Cousin Xenia, lying motionless as a figure carved on a tomb.

  “And Cousin Lucille?” I asked.

  “She and William went to live on the Continent after the war. They traveled, and they had a villa in Rome. I don’t know how they managed, and for me to ask questions about William never led to anything but anger. Five years ago when William knew he was dying, they came to Jefferson so that Lucille could be near me. They brought their paintings, and William bought her a pretentious house, which she can ill afford to keep up, and the cottage at the beach.” He paused. “Now, Stella, you have probably surmised that I have not brought you here to fill you in on family history, useful though that may be.”

  Saintie drifted in like a wisp of smoke with a tray of tea and biscuits. The tea smelled unlike Honoria’s, unlike anything I had ever called tea, but it tasted delicious.

  “But what is it, Saintie? It’s lovely.”

  “A little bit of this, and a little bit of that. Herbs we brought from Nyssa. Camomile and cape jessamine and flower of Spanish Bayonette.”

  “Saintie and Honoria have a tisane for every ailment.”

  “This good for sleep, and to give you pleasant dreams,” Saintie said, as Honoria had said, and withdrew.

  Cousin James drank deeply. Then, “I brought you here for two reasons. I will tell you the general one first. I have felt within me a vague concern, as I think you surmised on Sunday.” He paused, spoke in a low voice, asking himself—or perhaps it was Cousin Xenia—“How much am I to say?” Then, in his usual firm voice, “Stella, there are people who are angry, who want revenge. This may have started out as a general anger, the kind of thing that always follows war, but it has focused on Illyria.”

  “You mean the Zenumins?”

  “Yes.”

  “Belle has been kind to me. The Granddam terrifies me.”

  “And well she might. She is full of hate. She wants revenge because Tron speaks more like an Illyrian than a Zenumin—he has what is called the Illyrian taint. She wants revenge because Ronnie was completely taken away from the scrub. And she wants revenge on Ronnie himself because people are turning to him when they are ill instead of to her. She wants revenge, I suppose, for Jimmy. And she hates Honoria.”

  “Why?”

  “She is jealous of her powers. She is jealous of Illyria. There are all kinds of reasons for her jealousy.”

  I moved uneasily. “The less I see of her the happier I’ll be.”

  “But you are tempted, aren’t you, Stella? Granddam Zenumin doesn’t have the answer to any of your questions.”

  “I know. Aunt Irene took me to see her. It was horrible.”

  “Irene is to be pitied.” He looked at Cousin Xenia, continuing to include her in the conversation. “Irene was one of the most beautiful young women I’ve ever seen. One can easily understand Hoadley being drawn to her beauty. But Irene, like the Zenumins, has a streak of resentment in her. If anybody hurts her, she wants to ‘pay him back.’ She wants, I suppose, reparation.”

  “Is that what the Granddam wants?”

  “There are times when I wonder if actions can ever be repaired. What we do to each other isn’t like breaking a leg off a chair or table which can then be mended by a master craftsman. You know, I believe, that I was opposed to slavery. But is it possible to repair the damage which was done because my own family and friends condoned it? Mark had an observation on this subject: there’s a superstition that the white race comes from Abel, the black from Cain. So, Mark said, the Negroes, rather than talking about what we owe them, all have to pay us because they murdered Abel. We do get into a reductio ad absurdum.” He stroked his silvery beard. “We all hurt each other, Stella. And somewhere along the line we have to forgive not only each other; we have to forgive ourselves. I am perhaps going to hurt you now. I had a letter from Terry today.”

  I stood up, almost knocking my chair over.

  “Sit down. You must listen to me very carefully, and you must not mention this to anybody. Not anybody.”

  “But why didn’t Terry write me!”

  “You’re not listening to me, Stella. Sit down. Listen. Terry didn’t write to you because it was not safe to do so.”

  “But I’m his wife!”

  “What have I just been telling you? There are people who want revenge on the Reniers, who would be quite happy to hurt you.”

  “What has that got to do with Terry’s writing me?”

  “If what was in Terry’s letter got into the wrong hands, it would be disastrous.”

  “May I see the letter?”

  “No, Stella. In accordance with his instructions I have burned it. But he sends you his deepest and tenderest love. He is in Kairogi.”

  I tried to be calm, reasonable. “That was one of the likely places—”

  “You knew there were disturbances in Kairogi?”

  “Yes. Cousin Octavian and Terry talked about it. And it was mentioned in the papers.”

  “The unrest in Kairogi touches Illyria.”

  “But that’s ridiculous!”

  “So are most things. You must take this seriously. Terry asks me to tell you that if you should hear of anything which might have the slightest bearing on the unrest in Kairogi, you are to tell me; no one else. I have the name of his immediate superior in Washington.”

  I rose again. “This is absolutely insane.”

  “We live in an insane world, child.”

  “What could I possibly hear?”

  “I don’t know. I do know your husband well enough to know that I wouldn’t have heard from him if there were no reasonable possibility of your learning something. You must be very careful. Do you really understand that you must talk about this to nobody?”

  “I think so.”

  “I can see your balcony from far up the beach. If you need me, hang something white out on it, and I will get to you at once. I can then send a message to the Bureau of Navigation in Washington, and they have means of getting in touch with Terry in Kairogi.”

  My tea was cold.

  Cousin James took me home, letting me off the dappled horse shortly before we got to Illyria. “I’m not going any farther with you, my dear. I do not feel up to light conversation. Good night. Take care of yourself. And of us.” He rode off.

  6

  I went to my room and to Mado’s journals. I needed them to find out everything that I could. But the journals were unsatisfactory as far as information went. However, I had learned enough of Mado to know that when there were long gaps of months or even years when she did not write, it was because events were too terrible to be recorded.

  One year at the St. Cecilia Ball, Therro met Kitty Larkin. Within a month their engagement was announced, and the next season they had what Mado, rather tongue-in-cheek, called the wedding of the year. Therro was offered a place in his Uncle Mark’s firm, or he could have gone into Kitty’s family’s shipping business. But he and Hoadley had already started an office together in Jefferson; Hoadley was already beginning to push Therro politically. I caught the idea that Therro thought he could ‘get away’ with more in Jefferson than in Charleston. Mado was obviously deeply concerned about him. He was too light-hearted—no, that was not the reason for her anxiety, for Mado herself was light of heart. She used the word lightweight once, and said that she was afraid that Kitty would not provide the necessary ballast, but perhaps she was being an overprotective mother. Therro and Kitty bought a house in Jefferson, a big house; Therro would have to work hard to keep it up. Kitty became pregnant. And then Mado stopped writing for a long t
ime, until after Terry, my husband-to-be, was born.

  Finally she wrote, “Dreams: are dreams untrue? I do not think so. Honoria made me understand, long ago, that our waking mind is only the smallest part of us, that the greater part of our being inhabits the dark continent of the self we know only in dreams or sometimes catch sight of out of the corner of the eye. We are all, in a sense, African. In Nyssa some of this dark continent came out into the full light of the sun. And the angels were there. What my angel did not tell me when my husband and my babies were alive was that I was going to have to make the terrible journey through the sun, that only on love’s terrible other side is found the place where lion and lamb abide.

  “Lion and lamb: who are they? White and black? Life and death? Laughter and tears? Joy and grief? Bliss and anguish? Light and dark? I do not know. They all become one: lion is lamb, and lamb turns into roaring lion. The angels, being unshackled by body or passions—though perhaps not by passion—words suddenly become clear in a language one has not been born to—the angels understand. But I do not.”

  And, months later, one sentence only: “We buried what was left of Jimmy today.”

  I put down the journal, feeling a pain I did not understand and could not bear. I went out onto the balcony and watched for the finger of the lightship. Peace did not come. I returned to the journal. I was not sure how long after Jimmy’s death the next entry came, for several pages had been torn out. “… driven our angels away. If I cannot love Hoadley they will never return—though I do not, in my arrogance, think that anything I, Mado, do or feel made them go, or will bring them back. But I can help keep them away. Love is not how one feels; it is how one acts. All I feel for Hoadley is a kind of horrible gratitude that it was he and not Therro who caused—” There was a blot which made the rest of the page illegible. On the next page I read, “—know about Kitty and Hoadley. Honoria goes to Jimmy’s grave almost every day. So does Olivia. I cannot be comforted this way. I take my comfort from Honoria and Clive and the power of their love. They are as kind and courteous to Hoadley as though he had never—but how easy it would be to put the blame on Hoadley, and how stupid! It is far too complicated for that. We are all involved, every single one of us, and we should have grown beyond needing a scapegoat.”