The Arm of the Starfish

by Madeleine L'engle

  “It’s not. Most of my lab isn’t in a building at all. What’s done in here is only the beginning, the going back and working out reasons and proofs. It’s the other things, the things that are not here, that are really important. Did you see Macrina when you went swimming?”

  “The dolphin? Yes, sir.”

  “She’ll almost always come for Poly. Poly’s greatest talent is for loving. She loves in an extraordinary way for a twelve-year-old, a simple, pure outpouring, with no looking for anything in return. What she is too young to have learned yet is that love is too mighty a gift for some people to accept.”

  “Does she—does she love everybody?” Adam asked, rather desperately.

  The doctor laughed. “As you may have noticed at the table Poly is quite capable of dislike, reasonable or no. Being judgmental is something she knows she has to fight against. But when Poly loves, it simply happens. She loves her family, all of us. She loves Tom Tallis. She loves Joshua. And she loves you, Adam.”

  At last the boy looked directly at the older man. “Sir. I love Poly, too.”

  Dr. O’Keefe returned the gaze. “Do you, Adam?”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t quite know why. And I don’t—I don’t have any idea why she would love me. She was—she was in my care when she was kidnapped. I was responsible for her.”

  “We don’t blame you for what happened. Tom says he didn’t warn you properly.”

  “But I was responsible,” Adam said. “And I failed. This is why—”

  “Why what, Adam?”

  Adam looked down and spoke in a low voice. “Why I didn’t obey you when you told me not to open the door. Sir. I am very confused.”

  Dr. O’Keefe put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “All right, Adam. I think you’ll do.”

  “Do for what, sir?”

  “Let’s just say that I don’t think you’ll ever betray Poly.”

  “Dr. O’Keefe, if you ever needed to trust me with her again—if you ever would—I wouldn’t fail again.”

  Dr. O’Keefe nodded. “Yes. I believe you. But you know that I can’t trust you with her now, don’t you?”

  “Why, sir?”

  “You must know why, Adam.”

  “Sir,” Adam said, “just let me have a few days to sort things out. If I can just work here quietly in the lab for a while—if nothing here is really secret then I can’t hurt Poly or you or anybody else, can I? If I can just get a few things straightened out in my own mind …”

  “All right. We’ll have to let it go at that.”

  Again the boy looked directly at the older man. “This Carolyn Cutter—”

  “What about her?”

  “She wants me to have dinner with her at the hotel tomorrow, since I said I couldn’t tonight. She’s going to have her father call you or Mrs. O’Keefe about it. But if you’d rather I didn’t I’d be glad not to.”

  Dr. O’Keefe shook his head. “No, Adam. If you want to make up your own mind, you’ll have to make it up, won’t you?”

  12

  Adam stayed in the laboratory the rest of the afternoon. He worked with happy concentration on tank and file: here was work he knew; here was safety. He was loath to leave when Dennys, changed to clean shorts and shirt, came to call him.

  After dinner the two babies were put to bed. The rest gathered in the living room, Sandy, Dennys, and Peggy in their night things. Poly and Charles were staying up to see Joshua off.

  “May we sing until time for Josh to go?” Poly asked.

  “It’s a must,” Joshua said, his arm lightly about Poly’s waist. “What first?”

  “The Tallis Canon, of course, so Father’ll know we’re thinking of him. You start, Mother.”

  Mrs. O’Keefe leading, they sang it in canon, one voice coming in after another.

  All praise to thee, my God, this night

  For all the blessings of the light.

  Keep me, O keep me, king of kings

  Beneath thine own almighty wings.

  Poly’s voice finished alone, light and clear, and full of trust. Adam remembered, unwillingly, the empty washroom on the plane, and thought of Poly drugged, gagged, dumped roughly onto a pile of luggage. He was grateful when Mrs. O’Keefe started the gay “Arkansas Traveller.” From this they went into a conglomeration of familiar hymns, madrigals, folk songs, even Bach chorales. Adam had played the guitar at school parties and he knew the bass to much of the music. Joshua and Dr. O’Keefe were both tenors, so he was a welcome addition.

  “You’re absolutely wonderful, Adam,” Mrs. O’Keefe said. “I’m sick and tired of singing bass an octive high. If Old Doc had only told us you could sing it wouldn’t have mattered whether you could work in the lab or not. How about ’Come Unto These Yellow Sands’?”

  During the singing Peggy, nightgown trailing, came and sat in Adam’s lap, at first a little rigid, as though not quite certain of her welcome, then relaxing softly against him, her head on his chest, her breath coming more and more slowly until Adam realized she was sound asleep. He put his arm around the small, warm body, almost afraid to sing lest he disturb her, then relaxing and singing fully. Across the room Joshua, sitting with Poly, smiled at him.

  Just as Adam began to feel that he must shift his position, and knew that he didn’t want to move, despite his discomfort, for fear of waking Peggy, Mrs. O’Keefe rose and came over to him, saying, “Will you carry her to bed for me, please, Adam? Come on, boys, time for bed.”

  Adam stood up with the sleeping child. He realized that all evening he had been happy, he had forgotten about Kali, he had felt only pleasure in the children and in the music. He did not want the peace of the evening to end. He did not want Joshua to fly back to Lisbon.

  But when the boy returned to the living room Joshua said, “You’re coming to see me off, aren’t you, Adam?”

  “Well, sure.”

  “I put some riding clothes in your room. Same source as the bathing suits.”

  Dr. O’Keefe laughed. “It’s really not as bad as it sounds. We do make every effort to get the things back to their rightful owners. We’ll be waiting for you outside.”

  Mrs. O’Keefe stayed home with the younger children. Adam set off with the doctor and Joshua, who were both riding stocky, golden-brown horses which Joshua told Adam were an island breed. Poly was on an elderly bay who seemed enormous for her, but was obviously gentle and reliable; Charles rode a shaggy pony, and Adam himself was given a large, white, matronly looking beast, apparently first cousin in disposition to Poly’s bay.

  The night was bright with a three-quarter moon, and the horses moved softly along the damp sand at the edge of the water, their hoofbeats almost silenced by the slow, steady sound of the sea. Against the dunes fireflies glittered. Poly rode beside Adam. In the moonlight the brilliance of her hair was turned to silver. She sat, tall and erect, her height making her seem more than her twelve years. Ahead of them rode the doctor and Joshua; Charles led the procession, a solitary, small figure. The two men were talking and their voices, though not their words, were blown back on the wind.

  “Daddy wants to talk to Josh,” Poly said, “and I can see he’d rather I didn’t listen. And Charles is in one of his hermit moods. I want to talk to you anyhow. Josh and I went for a long walk this afternoon while you were in the lab working, and he didn’t tell me one single thing.”

  “About what?”

  “About anything. Adam, I know children are not supposed to be curious, but life isn’t as simple as that any more, and I am twelve, and after all, I was kidnapped.”

  Adam’s sense of relaxation vanished; he felt himself stiffen in the saddle. “Yes, Poly, you were.”

  “Well, then, don’t I have a right to ask a few questions? I don’t think Joshua thought I did. Had the right. I mean, it was okay for me to ask him questions, even if he wouldn’t answer any of them, but I got the idea that he didn’t think it was all right for me to ask you questions. Why?”

  Adam looked not at Poly but at
the moonlight dazzling the surface of the ocean. “I’m not quite sure,” he said at last.

  “Then is it all right if I do ask you some questions?”

  “You can ask me anything you want to,” Adam said, “though I may be like Josh and not be very good at answering. But how about letting me start off by asking you a few things first?”

  “Of course.” She was so willing, the face she turned to him in the moonlight was so open, that Adam winced.

  “Poly, on the plane, when you went into the washroom, you were afraid, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Father Tom had told me it wasn’t safe for him to keep me with him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the pa——” she stopped herself. “Because they’d know I was daddy’s daughter. And they know I know about what daddy’s doing.”

  “About starfish regenerating their arms?”

  “Yes.”

  “But that’s not a secret, Poly. Your father said himself that he was sure other scientists were doing the same experiments.”

  Poly leaned over her horse with a caressing gesture, putting her head down on its neck. After a moment she sat up straight in the saddle again. “But it’s more than that.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Didn’t daddy tell you?”

  “He doesn’t trust me,” Adam said starkly.

  “But Adam—”

  Adam’s voice was savage. “He has every right not to trust me.”

  “I trust you,” Poly said.

  It was all Adam could do not to kick his heels into his horse’s ribs, to gallop away. He growled, “You’re much too trusting for your own good.”

  “Oh, I don’t go around trusting everybody, the way Peggy does. I’m not that much of a child. I know there are people in the world you can trust, and people you can’t.”

  “How do you decide which is which?”

  “You know with people, or you don’t. I don’t trust that Kali. I wish you weren’t going out to dinner with her.”

  “So do I.”

  “Do you have to?”

  “Yes, I think I do.”

  Back in the brush an owl screeched, a shrill, terrifying cry. Poly shuddered. “And I didn’t trust the steward on that plane. He was weasely.”

  “When you went to the washroom—were you afraid of being kidnapped?”

  “Not exactly. I didn’t really know what I was afraid of. After all, I’d never been kidnapped before. But I guess it was really sort of in the back of my mind.”

  “You’re sure it was the steward who put you in the canvas bag?”

  “Adam, if you’re kidnapped you don’t forget the person who kidnaps you.”

  “But did you really see him?”

  “Yes. I was washing my hands, and I heard the knob of the door turn, but I’d locked it, so I didn’t expect it to open. But when it did I saw him in the mirror. He put his hand over my mouth before I could scream. He was so much stronger than I am, in spite of being weasely, that I couldn’t even make a noise fighting. And then he put that stuff over my nose and got the gag on me and got me in the sack.” She began to tremble.

  “I’m sorry,” Adam said. “I’m truly sorry to have to remind you of it. Will you let me ask you just a couple more questions?”

  “If you need to.”

  “I do need to. I wouldn’t do it to you otherwise, I promise.”

  Poly gave an oddly grown-up laugh. “Don’t sound so agonized, Adam. It’s all right.”

  “Well, what about the steward,” Adam asked, almost savagely. “Is he just floating around loose? I mean, he might try to come here or something.”

  “Really, Adam.” Poly sounded impatient. “You must think daddy’s very careless or something. Interpol went right after him.”

  “Have they got him?”

  “Yes. Last night. Father Tom called from Madrid.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it. It’s all over.” Tension tightened her voice again.

  Adam sighed. “I’m sorry. Just one more thing. When you got to the house, they took you right out of the sack?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who took you out?”

  “I don’t know, Adam. Don’t think Josh and daddy haven’t asked me this one over and over again, too. I was still groggy and it was so dark in the room all I could tell was that it was a man, and I couldn’t really tell about him, because at first I thought he was terribly fat, and then I felt one of his arms, and it was skinny.”

  It was Adam’s turn to shiver. The moon rode placidly in a cloudless sky, the stars dimmed by the brightness. The sea, too, was calm, the waves rolling in gently, rhythmically. Up on the dunes the grasses and the great wings of the palms were almost still, though the fronds made their incessant scratchy whispering. The air was warm and they rode without sweaters or jackets. But Adam shivered.

  Poly looked over at him. “He gave me something to drink. I told you that. And it put me back to sleep. And then, later on, whenever it was, when I was awake and it was all dark and horrible and I was frightened and the door was locked and I started to cry, that man came in—”

  “Which man?”

  “You know, Adam, I told you at the Ritz, the man who drove us, that beast. And then he blindfolded and gagged me and put me in the car and I knew he’d hurt me if I tried to cry or do anything. And then there I was in front of the Ritz, and you were there, too, and you held me, and I knew it was all going to be all right.”

  In front of them Adam could see Dr. O’Keefe and Joshua talking quietly, their horses close. Charles was still in the lead, sitting up very straight, a stocky shadow on his little pony. A firefly flew across the beach from the dunes, lit for a moment on Charles’s shoulder, then disappeared into the moonlight.

  “Adam,” Poly said, “why haven’t daddy or Josh told me anything about you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did you happen to be there on the sidewalk? Were you in the car, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you kidnapped, too?”

  Suddenly, almost without his volition, Adam’s heels kicked and his horse broke into a trot. He kicked again. The horse started to canter.

  As he came up beside Joshua he called out, half choking, “It was Carolyn Cutter I opened the door to!”

  He pulled the horse up. Joshua dropped behind, then came up on Adam’s other side, so that the boy was riding between the two men. Dr. O’Keefe, at the water’s edge, was looking straight ahead, not at Adam, not even at the small figure of Charles placidly riding along a few yards in front. Adam turned toward Joshua who smiled at him brilliantly but did not speak.

  Behind them there was a thudding, and Poly’s bay came ambling along with what was obviously all the speed it considered suitable. “Hey!” Poly called.

  “I’m sorry,” Adam said. “I have to talk to your father.”

  “Poly,” Dr. O’Keefe said, “go ride with Charles, please.”

  “But Charles wants to—”

  “You don’t need to talk to him. Just go ride beside him.”

  In the moonlight Adam could see Poly glower. But she responded obediently, “Yes, daddy,” and trotted the large, disapproving bay so close to the water’s edge that an incoming wave rippled against its protesting hooves. Charles turned to her and spoke, at which Poly flung her arms up in the air in an abused fashion and trotted the bay around the pony so that the little boy could be next to the water.

  “All right, Adam,” Dr. O’Keefe said quietly. “And then she took you to her father.”

  “You know?”

  “Yes. But you had to tell us yourself.”

  Joshua turned to Adam. “Had you ever seen Carolyn Cutter before you met her in the airport in New York?”

  “No.”

  “How did you happen to speak to her there?”

  “I suppose,” Adam said slowly, �
��you might say she picked me up. But it all seemed perfectly natural. What with the fog and everything and planes being canceled and flights deferred, all kinds of people were talking who wouldn’t have if everything had been perfectly ordinary.”

  Dr. O’Keefe asked, “Was it just casual chitchat between you?”

  “No. She warned me about—about Canon Tallis. And about you, sir.”

  “Warned you about what?”

  “Well—not anything particular. Just a warning in a vacuum. I don’t think I really took it very seriously at first. It all just seemed kind of exciting and an adventure.”

  “And you thought she was attractive?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Joshua reached over and patted the neck of Adam’s horse, as though in this way he could communicate comfort directly to Adam. “And so she is. So when she knocked on the door …”

  “She told me she’d help me find Poly.”

  “You believed her?”

  “Well, Josh, I did find Poly. She was there, at the Cutters’ house.”

  The older men exchanged glances, and Dr. O’Keefe said, “Yes, Poly’s description of the man in the dark room could hardly have been of anyone but Typhon Cutter. But we had to be sure. Now, Adam, will you go back to the moment you opened the door and tell us in as much detail as you can everything that happened until you and Poly were put out of the car in front of the Ritz?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll try. But I was terribly tired, so I may not get it exactly right. I’ll do my best.” He looked out over the ocean. The moon made a wide, shining path from water’s edge to horizon. Carefully he tried to tell the two men the events of that night that seemed far more than three nights behind him. In spite of the fatigue that had kept him from thinking clearly or acting reasonably his accurate memory again helped him, bringing the events and words of that night up from his subconscious. He looked at the bright swathe of moonlight on water and recalled small details he hadn’t even known he remembered, or that, up to this moment, he hadn’t remembered. He saw again with his mind’s eye the black-and-white room, saw the obesity of Typhon Cutter’s body in such repellent contrast to the thinness of arms and legs; he saw again the extraordinary beauty of the young man in the portrait, the young man who had grown into a middle-aged spider.