Dancing on Coral

by Glenda Adams

  Pinky Boucher threw herself onto a bar stool—she always moved in a sudden impulsive way—and folded her legs under her, so that sitting cross-legged on the bar stool, she looked like some kind of flower on a stem, sprouting from the floor of the café car.

  “I’m twenty-eight and I’ve been married two times,” Pinky said to Lark. “I’ve lived in fifteen different cities, went to seven different schools, I was born in South Bend, Indiana, and we moved to Washington, D.C., then California, then Los Alamos when I was seven. My father was a physicist working on the bomb.” She raised her beer as if toasting either her father or the bomb. “What a scene. We should have stayed in South Bend. My baby brother was born in Los Alamos and died when he was two months old. They took away his body, and to this day we don’t know where he is buried. They won’t tell us. They didn’t want anyone to examine the body or talk to the people on the project. Then we moved outside of Princeton.” She drank her beer. “Where we met everybody who was anybody. When your father brings Einstein, Delmore Schwartz, and von Neumann home to supper, you are in awe of no one, ever. Look at my marriages. The first time it was a Princeton undergraduate, the second time I ran off to the Midwest with someone I just met, and now I’m thinking of marrying my R.A.” She sighed. “But I can’t bear children. What about you?”

  “Children? I don’t know.” Lark had been thinking that Americans gave the essentials, did not indulge in the episode. Which was Solomon Blank’s specialty.

  “I mean everything.”

  Lark thought for a moment of parceling up her life for this stranger, telling it the way Aristotle summarized Ulysses’ story. But “I’m going to New York,” she said to Pinky Boucher. “Probably to get married.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to take this opportunity to inform you that we will be stopping in Niles, Michigan, in approximately four minutes. For those of you traveling farther east we will be changing to Eastern Standard Time at Niles. It is now eleven thirteen, exactly. Please take this opportunity to check the area under your seats and on the racks above you. Make sure to take all your personal property with you. Good day.”

  “Well, good luck,” said Pinky Boucher. “Marriage is a tough business. If anyone knows that, I do.”

  When Lark got back to her seat she wrote to Henry Watter: “These are the stops on the railway line from Chicago to Detroit: Hammond-Whiting, Michigan City, Niles, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Jackson, Ann Arbor. Dearborn, but we do not pass through South Bend. Your brain stretcher was wrong. The architect is Parker, from Chicago; the chemist is Boucher, from South Bend; the attorney is Herbert, from Detroit; the guard is Przylucki, also from Detroit; the conductor is Dash, from South Bend; the waiter is Washington, from Chicago. This is what some call empirical education.”

  Lark dozed all night on the train from Detroit to New York. She opened her eyes at dawn to see a fleet of black ships on the Hudson, outlined against the pale sky. There appeared to be hundreds of them, massed ready to attack her, the sisters of the Avis Maris come to avenge her.

  “The mothball fleet,” said the conductor, whose name was now Flagg. “Old commercial vessels waiting on the Hudson in case there is a war and we need ships to be outfitted in a hurry. You never know these days, with the Russians and crazy things happening all the time. And the bomb. Remember the Germans.”

  Lark remained awake as the train sped down the east bank, with the water only a few feet away, past the Palisades, then along the Harlem River, and into Manhattan and the tunnel that brought the train to Grand Central. Lark was aware that this was the most significant day of her life, that she was about to ascend to the surface of Manhattan and begin a new life, although Manhattan was not exactly the island she had had in mind when she packed her bag and planned her escape as a child in that house on the cliff in Park Avenue in that beach suburb of Sydney.

  Tom was actually waiting at the exit from the platform. Lark recognized his shape, his waving arm as soon as she stepped off the train. She had telephoned him from Detroit, but she had not expected to see him, imagining him to be too busy to take a morning off to meet her.

  “You look great,” he said. “So tan. Like a Californian kid.” He put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze.

  “Don’t call me a kid, please.”

  “Kid, kid, kid,” said Tom.

  While the taxi driver loaded her luggage into the trunk of his cab and onto the seat next to him, Lark looked away from Tom. As they drove she looked anxiously out the window.

  “You look as if you’re sick or something,” said Tom.

  “That Captain was mad,” said Lark. “He made us walk on the coral in the middle of the ocean. He stopped at this tiny little island just to take on board this box, which he said was a coffin, but it matched exactly a box that had been loaded in...”

  “Riverside Drive,” said Tom, sweeping his hand across the window of the taxi, displaying the park and the Hudson as if he were a real-estate salesman. “Walking on coral. You lucky devil.”

  Lark paused, looking at the scene. Two thoughts came to her. She was away from home and words like “lucky devil” could be uttered without her mother saying, “No language.” And Donna Bird had indeed pointed out that the coral walk would make a good anecdote for Tom. “It was great,” Lark said. “We just stood in the middle of the ocean. It was like walking on water. It was wonderful. A once-in-a-lifetime chance. Such an adventure. I’ll show you my espadrilles, all cut up, and the piece of coral I kept as a souvenir.”

  Tom was looking out the window. “That’s called really getting your feet wet.”

  “The island was wonderful, too.”

  “Get it?” said Tom. “Feet wet.”

  Lark gave a smile. “I get it. On the island the people were so interesting—the children were putting on a production of Our Town, and we went to a church service that lasted an hour and a half.” She gave him a quick look to gauge her effect. “There was so much more to them than meets the eye of us jaded Westerners.”

  “Stop here,” Tom cried to the driver through the partition. Then, “You should write it down.” He handed the money to the driver, who held it in his hand for a moment, staring at it, then he looked back at Tom.

  “Two bits?”

  “Two bits,” said Tom, and got out.

  “Two bits?” said Lark, scrambling out behind Tom.

  “Two bits,” said Tom.

  Lark waited for him to explain what it meant. Finally she asked, “What are two bits?”

  “A quarter. Twenty-five cents.”

  The driver was leaning across the front seat, holding the coin out to Tom. “Here, take it. I don’t need to take two bits from anyone.”

  “Okay,” said Tom, and walked over to the window and took the money back.

  Lark stood on the sidewalk, again waiting for Tom to explain. He pocketed the money and said nothing. “What was that all about?”

  “That? Oh, he thought I should give him a bigger tip.” He picked up the bags. “But I work hard for my money.”

  Tom threw open the door to the apartment and led Lark down the hallway to the living room. “Your quarters, mademoiselle.” He threw open the French doors that led onto a little balcony overlooking the street and the university where he taught. He beckoned Lark to him and put his arm around her. “Welcome to Manhattan.”

  Lark nestled against Tom, shivering in the cold, and looked at the layers of buildings—red brick against stone and glass, gray cement against a gray sky, where airplanes seemed to duck in and out, now visible, now hidden by the tall buildings. Next door, where a new building was going up, a crane was poised like a giant bird on its giant leg.

  Tom waved his free arm. “To the left New Jersey, to the right Harlem. And inside those buildings directly in front of you are three different libraries.”

  Through the bare branches of the trees growing out of the sidewalk, she could see the students bent over their books in one of the libraries. Lark vowed to spend as many hour
s as she could in those libraries, emulating those clever students, studying to become a worthy companion for Tom.

  Opposite was a dormitory, where students lay on their beds or sat at their typewriters. She could actually hear their typing. In the faculty house, next to the dorm, a gathering of academics toasted their guest speaker. And from the terrace of the restaurant on the roof of a building above and beyond the applauding academics the diners looked down at the city, past Lark’s apartment, at all this stone and brick and asphalt.

  On her doorstep, Tom told her, among the children playing hopscotch and roller-skating and the drivers searching for parking spaces, could be a South American Communist who had been tortured for years in his homeland, or a lawyer who had prosecuted at Nuremberg, or a future National Security Adviser. “And if you watch long enough,” Tom said, “you’ll see a bag snatcher making a dash for the park. I give you the world, at your doorstep.”

  “Where is your apartment?”

  “What’s the matter, don’t you like this place?”

  “It’s lovely,” and indeed it was. So much light and space. “I just wanted to know where you would be.”

  “My place is small and filled with my junk, over by the river. Not roomy like this. I have needed to be alone.” Lark nodded, disappointed. “I’ll help you furnish this place.” Lark was about to say she had very little money. “We’ll do it for under a hundred dollars, you’ll see. And I’m quite a handyman. I like working with wood.”

  “Is there anything you can’t do?” Tom Brown seemed perfect. And this was now her life, near him. Perhaps this was her island, after all. Yet she felt gloomy. If only Donna Bird did not show up, evidence of her bad deed.

  “Of course, there’s my furniture you can use.”

  “You have extra furniture?”

  “I thought I’d move in here with you.”

  Lark thought she must have misunderstood. “What?”

  “If you don’t mind me for a roommate, of course.”

  “No, no, that’s wonderful.”

  “There are two bedrooms—I need to be alone, of course.”

  So, they were going to live together, after all. He had planned that all along. “But we’ll share things? We’ll talk?”

  Tom laughed. “If you’re good, maybe more than that. Look.” Tom pointed at a white-haired man scurrying by. “That might be a Nobel Prize winner. That woman with the dog might be a famous novelist. And that,” he pointed at a blond woman in lace-up boots, “might be a terrorist making bombs in her basement.”

  The mention of bombs made Lark ask again about the Avis Maris, reluctant as she was to change the subject from the idea of Tom’s moving in with her. “Do you think there could have been a bomb in those boxes?”

  Tom laughed his wonderful, hearty laugh, forcing Lark to smile, then laugh along with him. “Show me those shoes you said were cut up by the coral. Let’s talk walking on coral first.” Tom held her tighter. “You must be cold.” He drew her inside and closed the glass doors.

  Lark rummaged through her suitcase and held the espadrilles aloft. She turned the soles up. “You see, those loose ends of rope, cut by the coral?”

  “You could have done that with a knife.” Tom was still laughing, enjoying teasing her.

  “Wait,” she said, scrambling away from him. She searched for the piece of coral in the pockets of her various shorts and shirts. “There.” She handed it to him.

  “You could have bought this in some souvenir shop in Sydney, or Tacoma, for that matter.” He tossed the coral in the air, butted it with his forehead like a soccer player, then kicked it with his heel and caught it.

  Lark sat on the floor. “Now about bombs. Seriously.”

  “Seriously,” said Tom, “anything is possible. If you can even think of it, then it can be done.” And he laughed again, falling down on the bare floor. Lark lay down beside him. “And if you’re good,” he said, sitting up, “I’ll give you your mail now.” He pulled a light-blue airmail letter out of his pocket. Lark grabbed it and sat up.

  “I do believe,” Mrs. Watter wrote, “that this is the first time I have ever used an aerogramme in my entire life.” The folded letter had been addressed to Lark, care of Tom. “I thought I had lost your father the other day. He went around the rocks. I had gone into town early to shop, since we had had about a fortnight of constant rain, but it stayed fine for that day. I like to go into town, especially to some of those current affairs talks they have in the evenings. I generally do not stay in that late. I have to make sure I am on the bus and on the way home, because your father frets if I’m not there, and he needs his dinner on time. When I got home he wasn’t there. I could tell he hadn’t been in all day—no telltale sand on the floor from the beach. I ran around the rocks, thinking he had been taken by the blowhole. And there he was, at the edge of the blowhole, just staring. So I brought him home. He says to tell you that Sydney time is ten hours ahead of Greenwich mean time. He is still building in the basement, so that is a good sign. He fixed a lock on the box the other day, but he did it wrong. He fixed it so that the thing locks only from the inside. But I didn’t say anything to him. He’s so sensitive to criticism and interference, and so alone. Too, I think he misses you. As we all do, of course.’’

  “What are these?’’ Tom was examining the metal lamp and the fly whisk that Lark had taken from Donna Bird’s cabin. He held the whisk and whirled it around his head, making a figure eight. “A Polynesian pompom?”

  “Those,’’ Lark said, “are, I suppose, artifacts. From the island.’’ She paused. “Actually, they’re Donna Bird’s. I didn’t want them to get lost.’’ Another pause. “She seemed to value them.’’

  “That’s very thoughtful of you.” Tom got up from the floor and pulled Lark to her feet. “Let’s take a turn around the block. We can take these things to Manfred.”

  “Now? Couldn’t it wait?”

  “It’s only around the block. I want to show you my turf. He’ll want to hear about Donna. Come on.”

  Tom was so energetic, dazzling. And they were going to live together in this dazzling, energetic city, center of the universe. “I’m glad you’re going to be my roommate, and not Donna Bird.”

  “You need someone to show you the ropes,” Tom said. “Otherwise you might get into trouble.”

  Lark and Tom forced their way down the windy hill to the river. Tom was carrying the fly whisk and the lamp in a plastic shopping bag that ballooned in the wind.

  Lark held onto Tom’s arm and leant her head against him.

  “It’s ten degrees colder down here by the river than where we are,” said Tom cheerfully, swinging the shopping bag.

  We. Lark loved the word, now that it was uttered by Tom and embraced her. We. Tom and Lark. And the prospect of facing Donna Bird’s father, the legendary Manfred Bird, did not seem such a terrible ordeal, after all.

  They heard no sound after they rang the doorbell.

  “They must be out,” said Lark, hoping for a reprieve. “We can come another time.”

  “Don’t be silly. They buzzed us in downstairs. They’re definitely home. It always takes them a long time to get to the door.”

  Then, with no preliminary sound or footsteps, the door opened a little way and a woman’s round, placid face appeared in the opening. Her gray hair was braided and tied in blue ribbons, on which her name, Portia, was stenciled in red. Her face was smooth, young, but her manner and expression seemed much older, so that Lark could not tell if she was twenty or fifty. Portia pulled the door open a little more.

  “Can you get in? Menfred has piled stuff in the hallway and I can’t get the door open any further.” Portia’s mouth hardly moved when she spoke. She seemed reluctant to let the words escape and fly away. At rest, the lips came together into a little rose, giving the impression that talking, uttering words and sounds, was vulgar and altogether to be done as discreetly as possible. “He’s awaiting a new shipment of really good stuff, so he’s pecked up some
old stuff and he’s going to donate a lot of it to museums. Then we’ll be able to move around a bit.”

  Lark squeezed through the opening and into a dark hallway, which, she saw after her eyes adjusted to the gloom, was completely filled with boxes and crates. It looked like a warehouse, an ill-kept stockroom.

  “Just walk straight through to the living room,” said Portia.

  Walking was hardly possible. Among the boxes was a narrow path, like a track through the jungle, barely wide enough for a body to pass, and every now and then, where a box protruded beyond the others, Lark had to turn sideways.

  Tom was crashing along behind her. “How’s the old man?” he asked Portia over his shoulder.

  “He’s livid today,” said Portia. “Fit to be tied. I’m gled you’re here. You can distrect him. He just got beck some proofs and they’re botched.” At times the vowels were like prisoners, crowding forward in her mouth, awaiting their chance, even if it meant twisting forth in a distorted form.

  Lark stood at the entrance of the room to which the jungle path had led her. Tom bumped into her. “Hey,” he said.

  On the wall directly opposite Lark was a long wooden rack, elaborately carved, with masks that looked like decorated human skulls in every opening.

  From behind Tom, Portia called, “Go on in. Find somewhere to sit.”

  Lark shuffled her way into the room. The floor was completely covered with stacks of newspapers and journals. Every horizontal surface was similarly obscured—the radiator, the table, the file cabinet. A path led through the papers to the kitchen and to several of the chairs, which like the floor were all stacked with papers. Lark had seen disorder and disarray before, but not to this degree. But above the debris, which formed a knee-high layer on the floor, was an extraordinary order. Fixed to the walls were shelves and glass cases and hooks, as in a museum, where objects that Lark guessed Manfred Bird had collected on his travels were displayed. His “stuff.”

  Running the length of the wall, beneath the rack of masks, which dominated the room, were several brackets on which rested a long pole carved in the shape of a crocodile, with carved turtles and cicada-like insects, possibly praying mantises, infesting its back. In the corner, the height of a tall man, was a hollow log, with a carved head at the top and a hole like the slit of a money box along its length. In a glass case completely covering the adjoining wall were fans, bowls, clubs, paddles, masks.