Outside, he could hear the river’s hiss, the distant grumblings of howlers announcing the coming of evening. No squatter clamour jarred the ears, no rancheras, no barking dogs. He had bought peace. Why should he not find, here at the Darkside, at least a close counterfeit of happiness?
He unlatched the fence gate and swung it open, crossed the road, and began to trudge up his narrow switchback trail, under the canopy. An evening breeze blew the mists away and the sun broke free, sending spikes of light through the trees.
An hour and a half of sweaty climbing brought him to a rocky buttress hanging over a scree, an old slide, and almost without warning the view opened up before him. He saw the Río Naranjo slithering through the jungle, saw his little clearing, mist purling around his new home, his forest gleaming green and gold. Beyond, the trees thinned to farmland and town, he could see the hills of Manuel Antonio, the ocean glinting under the lowering sun. A convoy of egrets passed below, stark white against the darkening green forest.
Here was what was left of beauty, a glut of it, an extravagance he longed to share. But that would not be, and he felt empty and forsaken as he watched the sky flame out with a bright emerald spark, the green flash that only lovers see.
Dear Rocky,
Now, with these enclosed final pages I complete the terms of our profane contract.
You will note the hero has won the day but not the woman, making for the kind of bittersweet finale that is the hallmark of a Harry Wilder thriller. I can only pray that the discriminating reader will not mock the closing image: Harry sitting alone on the sand of an endless beach, watching a night-heron take wing toward a setting sun that dies with a green spark. We are left contemplating the meaning of love, of life itself.
Who needs blood when you can have bloodless prose? Sorry, Rock, but I told you, I can’t kill any more. I’m sorry also if I screwed the project up – I had no choice, a poet retains artistic integrity only through failure, I have my pride. If nothing else, it kept me off booze long enough to complete the cure. It was a catharsis, a dump, a disembowelling.
I leave to the reader to discern Harry’s mood as he tries to decipher the ephemeral green message of the dying sun. Is he triumphant? (He foiled Dr. Zork.) Lamenting? (Species are being erased from life’s registry faster than anyone can count them.) Or is he enraptured by the slender long-necked chocuaco, the night-heron flying into that golden sky? (There’s still beauty in the world.) They taunted her in childhood, called her a flamingo. But she is the chocuaco who flew away.
Pura vida, anyway.
Jacques.
RETURN TO THE HOUSE OF HEARTBREAK
– 1 –
Maggie was begrimed and sweaty from her long drive from San José, and the sun had set by the time she pulled up at the Darkside. She expected Jacques would hear her long before he saw her — the muffler of her rented Lada had loosened on the rocky road from Londres.
She was surprised to see the gate open – Frank Sierra had told her Slack was discouraging visitors. She was to have met Frank today in Quepos — an appointment hastily made long-distance from Saskatoon – but as chance would have it, bumped into him at a gas station, along with Hamilton Bakerfield and his driver. They were on their way back from seeing Jacques. Yes, they confessed, he is staying at the Darkside. Jacques had purchased it!
She had arrived in Costa Rica with no idea how to locate him; Frank Sierra had been reluctant to talk on the phone. Earlier, she had dialled Slack’s cell-phone number only to find he had sold his phone.
As she pulled into the grounds, she was welcomed by the rich aroma of angels’ trumpets, the flowers that bloom in the night. Memories came like shock waves: picking oranges while astride Halcón’s shoulders, Glo dancing on the patio to Buho’s sad strumming, the trail to the Naranjo and its scenes of love and tears and of bold flight down its rapids.
An old Land Rover was parked by the pila. Not a house light was on, and the door was wide open – then she remembered that Frank had told her Slack had yet to replace it. She was nervous about intruding unannounced: Frank had cautioned that Slack was thriving artistically in isolation. “He said he is repining. It is when he writes the best.”
She doubted he could be asleep, not with the throaty growling of engine outside his unshuttered windows. She turned off the ignition and lights and waited in the darkness – there came no sign of stirring from within. Nor was response elicited when she knocked over a chair on her way to the door, or when she called out, “Jacques, it’s me. Maggie.”
She clicked on the front light. The house was clean but cluttered. The walls were white; Star Trek posters had been traded for art, prints by Mamaya, an original oil by the same artist. She strolled about the living room, picking up newspapers, books, straightening papers. On a table were engineering designs, charts with figures, elevations, a sketch of a tower with guy wires.
The bed was gone from the downstairs bedroom, replaced by a wide desk featuring an old upright typewriter. She felt somehow dismayed at seeing the hill of balled-up foolscap overflowing from the wastebasket. She unfolded one, a single line: “Love is the flower that unfurls unseen in the tropical night.” She smoothed out another, a draft, words crossed out, pencilled interlinings. The breeze had tossed other, cleaner pages to the floor. She picked one up:
There is in us a need
for silence. Look at the woman
who is heron in her mind.
She has made of life a silence.
There was more than a tinge of loneliness to this, a surrendering to silence. He was repining, Frank said, depressed. She had a horrible, though momentary, vision of him hanging from a ceiling fixture upstairs. That was laughable: he was a round-the-clock worrier, but he was hardly suicidal.
She rushed upstairs anyway. No body in either bedroom. His clothes were in the front-facing one; she wondered if she could persuade him to move — this was her room. Now that she was here, he might appreciate the other, with its bigger bed.
In the bathroom, on a stand by the toilet, was an open magazine, a Greenpeace publication: how to raise whole-earth consciousness. That did not fit with the notion of a man in complete despair, nor did the fact he was involved in complex outdoors project. He was probably out in the weather with a flashlight, or he had walked to town, visited a friend.
Maggie lugged in her two suitcases, flight bag, and laptop, then showered, wrapped herself in a robe, and nestled herself into the deep belly of her favourite hammock. She read for a while, the newspaper, a novel. It began to rain, a thrumming increasing in intensity, a powerful pour before it slackened and beat a gentle rhythm on the roof. Maggie’s book dropped open on her lap as her eyes closed.
– 2 –
It was about midnight when a bellowing voice awakened her: “Am I never to be left in peace?”
Maggie pulled the side of the hammock down, peered over it, saw the six-foot-five frame of Jacques Cardinal filling the doorway, scowling, water dripping from his face. Recognizing his guest, he gaped at her, lost for words.
“Loosen up, I’m a friendly. Where were you, Jacques? You’re soaked to the skin.”
“Forgot my … my flashlight.”
He was such a sorry sight that she could not suppress laughter. “Wait, I’ll bring some towels.”
When she returned with them, he was on the stoop hauling off his boots. “Sorry, Maggie, I had no idea – I saw the rented car; I thought it was a reporter.”
“What were you doing out there?”
“Catching a sunset. Thought for a while it was going to be my last – I went the wrong way down the mountain.” He was looking at her two suitcases and the laptop. “I thought you were locking yourself in a room and throwing away the key.”
“Writer’s block. I’ll make something hot.” Canned soup in a pinch.
They ate at the kitchen counter, sitting side by side on stools. Slack had showered and shaved, too hurriedly from the nick on his chin. She explained how she had tracked him down.
/> “I get it. You were Frank’s important client. He could have warned me.”
“I told him I wanted to talk to him first, find out how you were doing.”
“And what did he say?”
“Creative, gloomy, and sober.”
He seemed to relax; finally there came his face-puckering smile. “As it happens, I’m in the throes of composing something for you.”
“I’m honoured.” She did not want to tell him she had snooped. She has made of life a silence. She was prepared to argue that he was the one who had been silent, cutting himself off this way, not even a postcard.
But now both were silent, attacking their soup and tortillas. Slack finally laid down his spoon, turned to her. “What’s going on here, Maggie? Enlighten me.”
“You didn’t get my letter? It was a long one, some magazine articles and photos.”
“Fifty per cent of fat envelopes might make it through the post office.”
“Oh, God. That was my speech. You’re not prepared for me.”
Another smile, and a change of subject: “You didn’t happen to see the sunset tonight?”
“I was driving; I could only glance at it. Why?”
A shrug – he seemed disappointed. “Just wondering. Do I dare ask how long you’re planning to stay?”
“As long as it takes.”
“To do what?”
She wasn’t sure. As long as it takes to write, to heal, to love? “I’d like to finish my manuscript here, assuming that’s humanly possible. I was coming unravelled with guilt – I never truly thanked you. I didn’t respond when you … I mean, I … I really wish you’d got my letter.”
“Where would you like to set up?”
“Any chance of getting my old room back?”
“Hundred per cent chance.”
“Dull razor?” She lightly caressed the cut and he jumped slightly at her touch. “How did you get title to this place?”
“Made Elmer Jericho an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
She took his hand, led him to the living room, began unpacking bulky items: printer, hiking boots, her bird guide. Slack withdrew, stood by a window, watching the rain gurgle down a drainpipe chain. “I’m still trying to come to grips with this,” he said.
“Let’s just see what … you know, what works out. I didn’t make a return reservation.”
He seemed unable to react to that for several moments, then caught her yawning. “Maybe neither of us are used to being up this late. We can fix up the other bedroom for you for now.” Something began to loosen in him, he was starting to talk: she enjoyed his anxious way of jabbering. “Not sure if I’ll be able to sleep, though; maybe I’ll finish that poem. Dedicated to you; it’s about a bird lover, the woman who is a heron in her mind … That’s how I see you.”
“How appropriate – I’ve lost my fear of flying.”
“That never made sense to me. Maybe you just had a fear of flying out of control, of not being grounded.” He paused, seemed to be judging his words. “And maybe you took the cure with a heavy dose of Halcón.”
A fear of being in love: of not being grounded, a fear of crashing afterwards – Maggie wondered if that was what it all came down to? La Brava Schneider, obsessed with the intricacies of human affection: for all her mature life she had stood petrified at the edge of the cliff. She was finally beginning to realize that the machinery of love was beyond understanding: how it can engulf you at one moment, or sneak upon you across time and distance. Love is a flower that unfurls unseen in the tropical night.
“That the first time you were ever in love?”
“Yes. Still recovering.” She smiled. “Cold turkey.”
“Give it time.”
She stood. “Come here, Jacques.”
He took a few tentative steps toward her. She put her arms around his neck, studied those deep, sad green eyes. “Jacques — I do like that name.” She stroked his hair; he had kept it short, salt-and-red-pepper, slightly curly. As tall as she was, she still had to raise herself on her toes to kiss him; it was a novel experience.
– 3 –
We search the hours for solitude,
the quiet of herons in their sleep,
a fisher on the wing who falls
into the waves in search of silver
or a woman making her way through mist
in early morning, delicate as water.
We search for this, a small stone
in the tide, a broken shell, a crab
so still we think it prays, its claws
raised to our hands as if
what we wait for is return.
What do we do with our hours?
We reach for what comes to us
in quiet. There is in us a need
for silence. Look at the woman
who is heron in her mind.
She has made of life a silence.
See how she holds all her life
in her eyes. She walks among stones.
Far from her in the tidal reach
birds rise into the light.
Who goes to her but herself?
What she has held is hers and hers
alone: to watch the quiet of herons,
a kingfisher falling from all the sky
there is upon this quiet
she gives only to herself, a beach
whose medicine is hers and hers alone.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I owe an incalculable debt to Mario Carazo, lawyer, lover of literature, and buen amigo, for scanning the manuscript so thoroughly for linguistic error. My long-time Quepos friends, Roger Connors and Milo and Tey Bekins, offered advice and inspiration. Modesto and Fran Watson toured me through the Tortuguero waterways and refreshed my memory ofthat beautiful and fragile area of Costa Rica. Melvin Bejarano served as my kayak guide down the Whitewaters of the Savegre and Naranjo rivers, and guided me as well through common Ticoisms of the lingua franca. The late Donald Melton, a Quepos archaeologist, was a wealth of historical information.
In a more general sense, I am in debt to all my friends in Costa Rica, Tico and gringo, for having inspired much of the story and many of the characters who inhabit these pages. As well, I am obliged to Brian Brett and Ann Ireland for their comments and to Tekla Deverell for her tireless in-house editing.
The poem is by Patrick Lane, and will not be found in his many award-winning collections of verse. As a matter of literary and ecological interest, its inclusion came about this way: several years ago, Patrick pledged to dedicate a poem to the winner of an auction to raise funds for a critical marshland area on Pender Island, known as Medicine Beach. My winning bid was presented to Tekla as a gift. Patrick (his image of her was as a heron) completed its composition at our home, on the very keyboard upon which I am, finally, typing the last period.
Copyright © 2001 by William Deverell
Cloth edition published 2001
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Deverell, William, 1937-The laughing falcon / William Deverell.
eISBN: 978-1-55199-403-1
I. Title.
PS8557.E8775L38 2002 c813’.54 C2002-904061-2
PR9199.3.D474L38 2002
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
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