The Arm of the Starfish

by Madeleine L'engle

  His eyelids started to droop.

  Typhon Cutter rose. “Take him to the car, Kali. The child is already there.”

  “Am I to go with them, daddy?”

  “No. Molèc will take care of it. Goodbye, Adam. Remember what I have told you. We will be in touch with you soon.”

  “Yes, sir,” Adam said. “Goodbye.”

  As he and Kali reached the front door she stopped and turned to him, putting one hand lightly on his arm. “Adam—” Then her arms were around him, her face tilted upward, her lips against his.

  Kali was not the first girl he had kissed, but now he was no longer a schoolboy; he was a man. His arms tightened around Kali’s slender body.

  She turned her face away. “We have to go now, Adam.” Holding his hand, she took him out of the house, and up the steps to where the limousine was waiting for them. The chauffeur murmured something to Kali, who turned to Adam, saying, “You are to sit in front with Molèc. The O’Keefe child mustn’t know you’re in the car until you’re let out.” She paused, and then whispered, “Adam, oh, Adam darling, you must not move or speak or in any way let her know you’re in the car. Molèc will silence you if you do, and Adam, you wouldn’t like it.”

  The chauffeur opened the front door of the car and shut it on Adam with efficient quietness, climbed in behind the wheel, looked darkly at the boy, and put his finger in warning against his lips.

  Kali echoed the gesture, then turned her hand and put the tips of her fingers against her lips.

  There was a grinding of gears and the car moved off.

  Molèc drove swiftly, skillfully, turning, winding, so that Adam was convinced that no matter how complex the pattern of Lisbon’s streets might be Molèc was deliberately making them more confusing, so that the boy would never be able to retrace his steps.

  As they moved deeper into the awakening city there were more people abroad and Adam heard the hawking of lottery tickets. Molèc swerved around a cumbersome, double-decker bus, down a dark alley lightened only by high-flapping laundry. As Adam turned to make sure that Poly was truly in the back seat the side of Molèc’s hand came down with a sharp thwack on his knee. The pain took him by surprise but he managed not to cry out, though tears rushed uncontrollably to his eyes and he blinked in fury, gritting his teeth. He tried to listen for any sound from behind him, but could hear nothing. He became certain that Poly was not in the car. Out of the corner of his eye he glanced at Molèc. The face under the visored chauffeur’s cap was set and sullen; the hands on the steering wheel were enormous and covered with curling black hair. Perhaps Molèc was a useful person to have working for one, but he gave Adam no sense of confidence in the present situation. He had a feeling that it would not displease Molèc to bring that massive hand down in a clip on the back of his neck, that causing pain would incite rather than deter the chauffeur. Adam determined not to move or make a sound no matter what happened.

  “Ritz,” Molèc grunted suddenly, and pulled the car over to the curb in a quick stop. As Adam saw the great modern bulk of a luxury hotel ahead of him the chauffeur leaped from the front seat with the powerful swiftness of a Doberman Pinscher and opened the door to the back. Adam turned to see him snatching a blindfold and gag from Poly and thrusting her out of the car and onto the street, where she gave a strange, strangled moan.

  “Go,” Molèc said between his teeth.

  Adam did not need urging. He pushed the handle of the door down and out, and, as he slammed it, Molèc shot off down the street. Adam caught Poly as she started to fall.

  “Adam,” she cried in a choked gasp. “Adam.”

  He held her firmly, disregarding the stares of people walking down the narrow mosaic sidewalk and having to step around them into the street in order to pass. “Are you all right? Poly, are you all right?”

  The child gave a great, shuddering sob and managed to stand on her own feet, though Adam continued to support her with his arm. “It’s all right, Poly, you’re all right now,” he kept saying.

  Poly continued the great, choking sobbing breaths, and her hand clutched Adam’s frantically, although he could see that she was making a great effort at self-control. Her set, white face was disturbingly reminiscent of her father’s.

  “Poly,” he said, “I’ll get a taxi and we’ll go to the Avenida Palace.”

  Poly shook her head, and managed to say through shudders, “Not a taxi, it isn’t safe. We’re right at the Ritz. Take me in. I know the concierge.”

  “But your father’s at the Avenida Palace.”

  “We can’t go there alone. They might … Please, Adam, take me into the Ritz.”

  In order to calm her Adam nodded in assent and, with his arm still holding her, for he was not at all certain that she was able to walk alone, led her down the hill the short distance to the hotel.

  “Good, it’s Joaquim,” Poly said, as they came up to the doorman. Her voice came stronger, and she said, sounding almost cheerful, what Adam recognized as “Good morning” in Portuguese. In the great lobby she turned left to the concierge’s desk. Behind it sat a man reading a newspaper.

  “Arcangelo!” Poly cried, her voice rising in a note of hysteria.

  The man looked at her, said something in Portuguese, said “Wait,” in English, and picked up his phone, breaking into Portuguese again. In a moment another uniformed man came into the concierge’s booth, and Arcangelo left, without a word, to join Adam and Poly. “Upstairs,” he said, and walked ahead of them to one of the elevators.

  “But we shouldn’t—” Adam started, as the elevator doors shut on them.

  “Wait,” the concierge said again.

  There was no point now in telling Poly that they should be going, whether by taxi or on foot, to the Avenida Palace. There was no point in telling Poly that they might be walking into some kind of trap. There was no point in doing anything but keeping his mouth closed and seeing what happened next. Never before in Adam’s life had situations constantly been taken out of his hands as they had ever since he had left the known safety of Woods Hole. Never had his personal decision seemed to mean less, his intelligence and his will shoved so to one side. Indeed the only decision he seemed to have made in this entire adventure was to open the door of the hotel room at the Avenida Palace to Kali, and whether this was the best or the worst thing he had done he still had no way of knowing.

  The concierge led them down a wide hall and unlocked the door to one of the rooms, holding it open for them. Poly entered, taking Adam perforce along with her. They were in one of the most luxurious and beautiful rooms he had ever seen, but very different from the ancient grandeur of the Avenida Palace. Here everything was modern and costly; a great window wall of glass looked over the park, but the concierge quickly swept the gold brocade curtains across, then turned on the lights, which, again in contrast to the Avenida Palace, were soft but powerful.

  Arcangelo shut out the light of day at the Ritz with gold brocade. In the Avenida Palace Dr. O’Keefe was barricaded with white shutters and dark green damask. Only Typhon Cutter, standing at the window that overlooked the harbor, seemed to have no fear of being seen. Or was that the entire explanation?

  The beds were covered with the same rich material as the curtains; there was a chaise longue padded with pale green velvet, and pale green velvet easy chairs at the round table in a small alcove. The floor was carpeted in what seemed to Adam to be gold velvet; modern paintings hung on the walls; the telephones, one for each bed, were lemon yellow.

  Poly let go his hand, flung herself at the concierge, shouting, “Arcangelo!” and burst into loud sobbing. He held her closely, not speaking, rubbing gently between her shoulder blades, kissing the top of her head, waiting until the sobs had spent themselves. At last she looked up at him, saying, “We must speak English because of Adam. Or Spanish, if you like. He’s fine with Spanish.”

  “Not Spanish,” Arcangelo said absently, still soothing her.

  “French might do,” Poly babbled. “I thi
nk Adam’s all right with French.”

  “English will do, meu bem,” Arcangelo said gently. “Hush, now, Polyzinha, hush.” He cupped her chin in his hand and looked at her, at the red marks showing where the blindfold and the gag had been. “What have they done to you? What has happened?”

  “Hold me, Arcangelo,” Poly said. “Tell him, Adam.”

  Arcangelo sat down on one of the pale green velvet chairs and pulled Poly up onto his lap; her long legs dangled to the floor but she leaned against him as though she were a very small child. He looked inquiringly at Adam, and now Adam was able to look back at the concierge, at a dark, powerful man, perhaps in his fifties, though it was difficult to tell, with a nose that looked as though it had been broken.

  The story Typhon Cutter had prepared was for Dr. O’Keefe; it did not work here in this luxurious room at the Ritz for a Portuguese concierge whom Poly treated as though he were a beloved uncle.

  “Tell him, Adam,” she said again.

  “It was on the plane from Madrid to Lisbon. Poly went into the washroom and didn’t come out, and when the steward opened the door she wasn’t there.” He looked at Poly. “What happened?”

  She shuddered again, and reached frantically for Arcangelo’s hand.

  “Not if you don’t want to,” he said gently.

  She shook her head against the blue of his uniform. “No. It’s all right. He came in and grabbed me. The steward. He put his hand over my mouth before I could yell. He had some kind of canvas sack with air holes in it, and he put me into it. The washroom was so small that I couldn’t fight or kick and he was strong, and he stuck something sweet and sickly-smelling on my nose and it made me all sleepy. He gagged me, too, did I tell you? And it was all dark and horrible and I was too much asleep to try to wriggle or anything and I think I was just dumped on top of the luggage. And then I was in a car and then in somebody’s house, I don’t know where, because the curtains were drawn. They took off the gag and gave me something to drink and it put me all the way to sleep and then I woke up and I tried to get out but the door was locked and I started to cry. And then that man, the one who drove us, Adam, came in and told me to be quiet and I wouldn’t get hurt and I knew he meant business so I was quiet, and he just sat there and watched me, and I sat there and watched him, and I had a headache, and he wouldn’t talk or tell me where I was or anything, and then he put the gag back on, and blindfolded me, and told me not to move or I’d get hurt, so I didn’t move even when I felt the car start. Arcangelo, please call the Embassy for me.” She climbed down off the concierge’s lap and went and sat on one of the beds near the phone. “Get them, ’Gelo, and ask for Joshua Archer. I don’t want the switchboard people here to hear my voice.”

  Adam felt that he ought to assert himself, now that Poly’s tears were spent and her hysteria gone. “Polyhymnia,” he started firmly, but she interrupted him.

  “You promised never to call me that.”

  Adam sighed. “Poly. I don’t know why you want to call the Embassy, but I think the thing for us to do is to get back to the Avenida Palace to your father. Or, if you want to use the telephone, call the hotel and ask to speak to him.”

  Poly looked at him as though she were a teacher trying to explain something to an unexpectedly stupid student who fails to understand a very simple problem. “Adam, daddy won’t go back to the Avenida Palace without me. He might be at the Embassy. If he isn’t, Josh will know how to get hold of him and what to do. We can’t go back to the Avenida Palace alone anyhow, and Arcangelo can’t get away to take us. Please call, ’Gelo.”

  Sighing again, Adam waited while the concierge asked for the American Embassy, then for Mr. Archer, then, several times over, evidently to different people, for Mr. Joshua Archer. Finally he held the phone out to Poly.

  “Josh,” she said. “Yes, it’s me. I’m at the Ritz … . Yes, he’s here … well, he was in the car with me when we were dumped here … . I was blindfolded, I don’t know … .” She looked accusingly at Adam. “Were you at the Avenida Palace with daddy?”

  “Yes,” Adam said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You’ve hardly let me finish a sentence, you know,” Adam reproved her.

  Poly scowled at him. “If you were at the Avenida Palace with daddy why did you leave?”

  “I can’t tell you now,” Adam said. “Poly, I’m half dead with sleep.” This was not only clever evasion. It was hot now that the sun was higher in the sky, and the air-conditioning unit in the room was not turned on; the heat pressing down on Adam seemed to be pulling on his eyelids. “I haven’t had any sleep for three nights,” he said.

  Poly turned back to the phone. “Where’s daddy? … Can you get to him to tell him I’m all right? … Okay … . Okay, Josh … . Yes, Arcangelo’ll answer … . Okay, Josh, ’bye.” She hung up, turned back to Adam, demanding, “Why haven’t you had any sleep?”

  Adam spoke with heavy patience. “The last night I was in Woods Hole there was a party that lasted until the kids put me on the plane for New York. Then we didn’t sleep much on the plane to Madrid. That’s two nights. Then last night I’d just gone to sleep when I was waked up.”

  “How were you waked up? How did you get in that car with me?”

  Adam looked around the luxurious room. “I can’t talk to you now. I have to sleep. I have to think.”

  “Do you want some coffee?”

  “I’ve had coffee. Coffee can’t keep me awake any longer.”

  “Do you want a shower or something?”

  “I’ve had a shower. All I want to do is go to sleep.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Polyhymn——Poly—all I want to do is sleep.”

  Poly looked at Arcangelo. “Can he sleep here?”

  Arcangelo nodded.

  “We have to wait until Josh calls back. He could sleep for a while, anyhow.”

  Arcangelo rose and pulled the golden coverlet down off one of the beds. In a fog of sleep Adam flopped down, not feeling the softness of the mattress, not even aware of his cheek touching the fine linen of the pillow. Through a haze of sleep he seemed to hear the phone ringing, to hear voices, but he could not rouse enough to listen. He was engulfed in a black sea of slumber.

  8

  He woke up slowly, not because anybody was knocking at the door or in any way trying to disturb his rest but because he had at last, finally, had enough sleep. For a moment, remembering nothing, he stretched, his eyes closed, his body languid, his mind soothed by his body’s comfort. Then the events of the past three days came sliding back into his relaxed and unsuspecting brain, so that his body stiffened with the shock of recollection, and his eyes flew open.

  He was still in the golden room at the Ritz. Poly and Arcangelo were nowhere to be seen, but a fair young man was sitting on a green velvet chair, reading. As Adam moved, the young man’s gaze flicked alertly toward the bed.

  “So you’re awake,” he said.

  Adam sat up, every muscle tense and wary. “Who are you?”

  “Joshua Archer, of the American Embassy, at your service.”

  “Are you the Ambassador?”

  The young man laughed, easy, spontaneous laughter. “I’m not sure the Ambassador would appreciate that. Hardly. I’m the lowest of the low.”

  Still lulled with sleep Adam thought that Joshua Archer must be a friend of Kali’s and Mr. Cutter’s, one of their Embassy crowd. Then he remembered the call Poly had made Arcangelo put through to the Embassy. How was it possible that both Kali and Poly should assume the protection of the Embassy? He looked warily at the young man. “You’re the one Poly called?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is she?”

  “On Gaea with her parents. They phoned the Embassy when they reached the island, and the Embassy in turn was kind enough to call me here.”

  “It seems to me,” Adam said slowly, “that I heard the phone ring several times.”

  “You might have.” The young man l
eaned back in his chair and smiled pleasantly at Adam. Adam stared back and waited. Joshua Archer was a nicely made young man with a lean face, but nothing in any way conspicuous about him. All Adam saw was light brown hair, greyish eyes, a Brooks Brothers—style suit, a young man who looked like any nice, normal American. Adam’s scowl and stare deepened; the only thing he felt might single Joshua out from anyone just through college and starting to make his own way in the world was a look of sadness lurking in the eyes, and this Adam did not consciously identify; all he knew was that there was something about the young man’s steady gaze that invited confidence, and this very fact put him on his guard.

  “Well?” the young man said, still smiling.

  “Well?” Adam asked back.

  “Would you like something to eat?”

  “Yes. I suppose so. Thank you.”

  The young man came over to the lemon-yellow phone by the second bed, and called, speaking in Portuguese, so that Adam did not have any idea what was being ordered, or even, indeed, if the young man were really calling room service. Perhaps he was reporting that the dumb kid, Adam Eddington, was finally awake; perhaps he was getting something else awful lined up for Adam’s further confusion. If the boy had not had such a full and uninterrupted sleep he would probably have felt very sorry for himself. As it was, he simply tensed up so that he would be ready for whatever happened next.

  Joshua Archer went back to his chair and continued to smile questioningly at Adam. Adam became more and more uncomfortable. Finally he said, “What time is it?”

  Joshua Archer looked around the room. The golden draperies were still pulled across the windows and no light filtered through. “Around nine in the evening. You went to sleep yesterday morning, so you’ve had about thirty-six hours. Feeling better?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “The bathroom is there,” Joshua said. When Adam returned he continued, “Now the problem is what to do with you. You are rather a problem, Adam.”

  “Sorry.”

  “The Ambassador was all for sending you back to Woods Hole immediately.”