The Distant Shore (Stone Trilogy)

by Mariam Kobras

  “Andrea,” she asked when she returned to the kitchen, “do you remember that tale about the mermaid and her human lover who went to live below the sea with her?”

  Andrea shook her head in confusion, but then wrinkled her brow and thought about it. “That one I do not recall. But there is the tale of the mermaid who left the sea and her family for her human lover and married him and lived with him in a cottage by the sea. She bore him fine children, and when they were old enough she told her husband she could not stay with him any longer because she was so homesick. So she took her mermaid’s cloak or whatever out of the trunk under the window—I remember that detail very clearly, isn’t that funny?—and dove back into the ocean. He was heartbroken of course, and spent many evenings sitting on the beach, hoping for his love to return. Now, I don’t know if that was the end of it, but if it isn’t, I don’t recall the true ending.”

  It felt like the distant tolling of a bell, a soft resonance somewhere deep within her soul, a deep, melodic sound that welled up in her like the tide but did not recede again. The words came to her on the crest of that wave; unbidden, powerful, they roiled through her mind, clamoring for her to heed them.

  Naomi was speechless as she stared at Andrea, overwhelmed by the flood of words that threatened to inundate her.

  “I need to go,” she said abruptly.

  The door to the apartment stood open, the maids still busy cleaning up. They were chatting while they collected the wilted flowers and dishes, greeting her with smiles and friendly remarks about the lovely ceremony. They left her then, to her own devices.

  Naomi had barely registered them; she nodded briefly and thanked them, but her thoughts were far away. She was used to the fact that inspiration came suddenly to her, instigated by a word, a sound, a smell, or a fleeting image, but very, very rarely had it been as powerful as it was now, like a shout into the stillness of the night. The desk and her laptop beckoned to her, and she could hardly wait until it was up and running, using a notepad and pencil to scribble down the first ideas while she waited. She sketched out the phrases and tantalizing words that were dancing in her thoughts.

  Outside, the wind whipped into the bay from the ocean, curdling the water into a white-topped grey that sucked noisily at the poles of the deck.

  Somewhere deep below the sea lived that mermaid, in eternal dusk. Would she miss the light, the blue sky and the drifting clouds, birdsong and the scent of flowers? The company of a spoken word or the sound of music? Would she be captured by a voice raised in singing, a wonderful, clear baritone? Would it make her leave her abode on the bottom of the ocean and swim to the shore on a midsummer evening when the surf rolled gently on the sand and played in the shallows between the rocks? Would she sit there, hidden, bathing in water that had been warmed by the sun, listening to the song that called to her through the white night? And what would she do? Would she creep closer, to see the singer as he sat on one of the rocks, mending his fishing nets, and marvel at the strange clothes he was wearing, at his ability to stand up on two legs, and wish to know what kind of food he took out of the basket he had with him and what kind of drink he would pour from the green glass bottle? Would the sound of his voice enchant her, wrap itself around her, and make her wish for a different life, one in which she would join him in his song or share his life and be able to see and hear him every day?

  Naomi was startled out of her deep thoughts when Jon said gently, “Love. The family wishes to know if we will join them for dinner or if we would prefer our solitude.”

  She had not heard him enter or noticed that he had come up behind her, peering over her shoulder now at the screen and the words on it.

  “What are you doing?” His hand came to rest on her neck.

  “I’m not sure. But as soon as I know, I’ll tell you. I had this idea…” She hesitated. It seemed so preposterous. “I had this idea about a cycle of songs telling a story, an old fairy tale or myth about a mermaid…” Naomi turned in her chair to look up at him. “About how she falls in love with a human and becomes his wife and lives with him for quite a while until she finds she cannot live outside of the sea after all because she is so homesick…and I felt the plot fall together…and yes, there is a plot…Jon…” She faltered, uncertain of what she wanted to say.

  “A plot?” Jon repeated thoughtfully. “Why then a cycle of songs?”

  Full of amazement, Naomi watched him as his brow drew together in concentration while he read her notes again, so interested in what she was doing, and so serious. He was actually waiting for her to come up with ideas so he could have a part in them.

  “Let’s go and eat with the folks upstairs,” he said suddenly. “Let this rest for the moment.”

  She tried to talk herself out of it, unwilling to let go of her thoughts, but Jon insisted and pulled her up from her chair.

  “Come.” He patted her behind. “It won’t disappear while you eat. I promise we will get back to it soon enough. There’s more to this than meets the eye, and I have a few things of my own I want to show you and discuss. But come now, little beast. We are still celebrating our marriage.”

  Solveigh was missing.

  Russ was sitting with Sal and Harry, but there was not a trace of her anywhere, and when Naomi asked Andrea again she received a blank, silent stare in return and the unsatisfactory answer, “I haven’t the faintest idea. Haven’t seen her today.”

  There was a flutter of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. Naomi stared at her salmon, a sense of disquiet growing in her. She rose and laid her hand on Jon’s shoulder. He began to push the chair back, offering to go with her, but Naomi demurred.

  “Talk to Russ. There’s something wrong. I know there’s something wrong, and I don’t want them to…” She had been on the point of saying “end up like us,” but it didn’t apply anymore.

  It didn’t apply anymore. She still had such a hard time grasping what had happened to her life. It felt as if a great wave had picked her up from the shallows where she had languished and she was now being carried away on its crest, far out into the wide, open ocean, with no horizon in sight. She had no other option but resignation in the hope that it would keep her aloft and carry her safely to a distant shore of which she knew nothing yet, a place of dreams and fantasy.

  “Baby, you’re doing it again.” Jon watched with a mixture of awe and amusement at how she could set herself off with a phrase, or a sound, or an image, and then lose herself in the poetry that formed itself in her mind without her bidding.

  “Go. Go write it down, little beast, before it gets lost. I’ll see to Solveigh. Go.”

  Walking through the lobby, he gestured to Russ to follow him outside.

  It had not been such a good idea, he realized once he stepped out into the dusk, for it was still raining and rather cold, astonishingly so, and blustery enough to make lighting a cigarette a difficult venture.

  “What’s up?” Jon asked after he had finally managed to get it burning. “What’s eating you and your pretty blonde? Where is she?”

  Russ avoided his eyes. “It’s private. And it doesn’t really concern you. Don’t bother yourself with my problems, Jon, least of all today.”

  Jon digested this. He missed his jacket or one of his Norwegian sweaters; the time for silk shirts was definitely over for the year.

  “Russ,” he said gently, “it does concern me. We are like family, this little group of ours, and we take care of each other, and you should know that. You do know it. You are closer to me than my own brother.”

  “She wants to leave me. I have no idea why. Solveigh told me last night we have to break up.” Russ shrugged his shoulders. “And here I had the feeling she really liked life in LA.” And, a little less certain: “And me.”

  Jon tossed his cigarette away. “Yeah. Me too.” It came out a little drier than he had intended, and to soften it, he added, “But she is such a fierce young lady, maybe you got it all wrong.”

  “No.” Russ laughed with a bitt
er undertone. The wind was blowing his fine brown hair and he shivered slightly. “No, she made herself quite clear. Told me her place was here, with Naomi and the hotel, and that she had given a promise to your wife. I have no idea what that all means, but she has informed me she will not be returning to California with me. In my book, that’s breaking up.”

  It was in Jon’s, too, but he wondered where the sudden change of heart had come from. “Okay. Okay, Russ. I’ll go over to her parents’ house and find out what’s wrong. I’ll talk to her.”

  Russ stared at him in disbelief. “You? You, Jon?”

  “Why not me?” Jon shook his head in irritation. “Wait here, I’ll find out whatever there is to find out.”

  “Right.” With a dubious sigh, Russ returned inside.

  He had been to Solveigh’s house only once before and then in passing, but he found it easily, even in the darkness.

  “Open up, Solveigh,” he yelled as he knocked on the door. “I know you’re in there, and we need to talk.”

  She did not look like herself in the simple white t-shirt and jeans, the stark braid, and without her makeup and usual poise. She looked like an unhappy young woman who had retreated to the sanctuary of her parents’ home to suffer.

  Jon did not wait for her to invite him in but stepped past her into the narrow hallway and shut the door behind him.

  Solveigh bowed her head with a sigh, showing him into the sitting room. Clearly she was unsettled by him showing up here, and she fluttered a hand in the direction of the couch to offer him a seat, but he remained in the center of the room, looking around curiously. It had been here that Naomi had put on her wedding dress and made ready to become his bride only yesterday, and Jon tried to recreate the scene, seeing her in her lacy underwear, waiting for her friends and mother to drape her gown, fix her hair. Had she been excited, he wondered now, her heart beating with anticipation and maybe some fear? Had they made some coffee before they left for the ceremony, and who had put the wreath on her head?

  “I’m surprised to see you,” Solveigh said. “I expected Russ to come.”

  Jon tore himself from his reverie. She had been waiting beside him patiently, hands folded in a way that reminded him of Naomi. She went to a cupboard to bring out some brandy. He noted that she did not pour any for herself.

  “Russ is devastated.”

  Solveigh’s shoulders shook a little, but she did not react.

  “He can’t understand what has happened. Will you explain to me what made you say those things to him? Why do you want to leave him now, Solveigh? I had the feeling there was something serious going on.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “Did he send you? You, of all people? You, running his errands?”

  “He’s my friend, Solveigh. He would do no less for me. Don’t try to distract me, girl. It won’t work.”

  He took the glass from her and sat in one of the upholstered chairs.

  “Now, Solveigh. You picked my wedding day to drop Russ and he is heartbroken about it. I want to hear how you came to make that decision. It seems to me—” he grinned evilly—“I’m not the only one good at breaking hearts. So spill.”

  “You are such a conceited bastard.” Solveigh sat down on the couch. “For the life of me I can’t understand what Naomi sees in you.”

  “You do understand.” He wondered whether he would be allowed to smoke in this house.

  “I’m not going to move to Hollywood, okay?” Her fingers toyed with the hem of her shirt. “I promised Naomi I would stay with her. She needs me, right? She needs me to keep her sane with the life you are offering her, and she is very afraid.” Solveigh glared at him. “And I won’t leave her all by herself to your tender mercies.”

  “Tender mercies?” Jon could not decide whether to be irritated or amused. “I don’t know what you could possibly mean. But we are not talking about Naomi or me. Nobody forced her to marry me, and no one forced me to come find her, either. I want to know why you are treating poor Russ the way you are. Especially after the grand time you had in California with him. At the very least he deserves an explanation, and neither he nor I will accept this nonsense about you being Naomi’s keeper. She doesn’t need one. So spill it, Miss Norway.”

  Tears pooled in Solveigh’s glorious blue eyes and dropped down her cheeks, where she wiped them away with an impatient gesture.

  “You, of all people. Why must it be you who sits here now? I didn’t think you would concern yourself with the problems of others.”

  He could not for the life of him figure out why she had that attitude toward him, and it frightened him a little.

  “Solveigh, I’m sitting here because I care about you. I want you to be happy, and if there’s a way for me to help, then I’ll do it.”

  By now she was crying in earnest, her hands covering her face, her shoulders shaking with desolate sobs.

  “Solveigh.” Jon reached for her, caressing her arm, and rose to sit beside her. “Please. Stop crying, love. Look at me. Come here.” He drew her into a comforting embrace and lifted her chin with the tips of his fingers. “Now tell me. What’s so terribly wrong with you and Russ?”

  After a moment’s resistance, she settled against him with a sad sigh and began to worry her shirt again. “I’m pregnant.”

  “Ah.”

  The sharp, sudden stab of envy surprised him, but he quickly clamped it down. “And so? What of it? I had the feeling you and Russ were on a steady course. I’m sure he would like to know. Does he know?”

  But even while he was still digesting the news and mulling over the implications, the realization washed over him, making him feel defeated and very sad. Breathing became hard for a moment.

  “You were making the same decision Naomi made all those years ago, right? You were going to break up with Russ and retreat back into that hotel and raise the child alone, just to be on the safe side. You don’t have the courage, just the way she didn’t, to stick with him and trust in him, no matter how deep the love goes?”

  There was no reply from Solveigh, only the frightened, hopeless look on her face.

  “What is it with you the two of you? Can’t see how much we love you, and that we would rather lie down and die than let you go? We could sit here all night, Solveigh, and I could spin you a great, sad tale about how my life was after Naomi did this to me, and how hard it was, and still is, to come to terms with the fact that I never had the chance to know Joshua as a child. To watch his birth, to witness him growing up.” He balled his hand into a fist in a helpless, angry gesture of loss. “I pined for Naomi. I longed for her more than I can say. It broke my heart to be without her, and nothing could heal the great wound I was dealt when I walked into that house in the pale light of dawn and found she had left me. But when I received Joshua’s letter after all those years, telling me finally, finally where to find her, the greatest shock was that I had a son I had never seen, never even known about.”

  He went to the cupboard and brought out the bottle without waiting for her invitation. The measure he poured himself was rather liberal, but he felt he needed it; this talk was a lot more than he had bargained for and it shook him considerably. He had never spoken of his feelings about Joshua this candidly to anyone before, and it hurt in a way he had not thought possible.

  “When Naomi left me, it broke my heart. But when I learned I had a nearly grown son, it tore out my soul, and it still does, and I fear it will never completely go away. The time I lost with Joshua will never return. With Naomi, now, I have a second chance, and we will make it, I know. But Joshua, his childhood, that is lost forever.” The brandy burned its way through his chest, easing the tightness there somewhat and making breathing easier again.

  “So please, Solveigh, don’t do this to Russ. Don’t take his kid from him, I beg you. Don’t do this. Even if you don’t want him in your life anymore, at least let him have a part in his child’s life.”

  Solveigh had stopped crying and was staring at him.

  Jon tu
rned his back on her and stepped outside onto the small terrace of the house.

  “You love her,” he heard Solveigh’s brittle voice from behind him. “You truly do. You must if you can find it in yourself to forgive her for this and fight so hard to make it right. No wonder you blunder about, making fantastic mistakes that result in such dramatic scenes. It’s because you never gave up in your struggle to win her back.”

  She joined him in the wet night air, hugging herself against the cold.

  “I always thought it was sheer willfulness and arrogance and the conviction that everything and everyone should bend to your wishes, but I was wrong. You love her with a desperation that is almost embarrassing to watch, and you are beside yourself with the fear she might leave you again, even now, even after you are married.”

  “Yes.”

  “You are as vulnerable as the next guy. Or maybe even more so. And here I thought you had the means to get nearly every girl in Hollywood into your bed.”

  Jon gave her a small, tired grin. “I do. But what good is any girl in Hollywood when she’s the only one I want?” He broke off, shamefaced.

  Solveigh was smart and not afraid of speaking up, so he feared the next question, knowing very well it would come.

  “Jon,” Solveigh said slowly. Her hand came to rest on his arm. “Jon. How could you find it in you to forgive Naomi?”

  Yes; there it was, the question.

  “I didn’t need to forgive her. She had reasons for what she did and rest assured, Solveigh, they were grave enough. Really, it was the other way around; I had to ask her forgiveness. She ran from me and my life and hid where I would never find her, and so it is my job to make sure—now that she has consented to be with me again— sure she will never be hurt again.”