She could paint this. Paint the shack and rocks and the lichen that would have grown here when Darwin walked on beaches like this. She’d felt almost drunk on the colours and the salty air. But best of all was a midden on the crescent of land just behind the beach, a grass-covered mound that must have been left by native people years ago. She’d never seen a midden before, but from Todd and her long-ago courses she knew what it was, and when she’d dug into the mound with a driftwood stick, she’d found the broken mussel shells and pieces of charred wood she’d known would be there. Maybe Darwin had been here, and maybe Fuegia Basket had once feasted on mussels from the broken shells which Holly now held in her palm.
Fuegia’s people lived further west, at the Pacific end of the Beagle Channel in what was now southern Chile. But Fuegia seemed to have travelled widely even after Captain FitzRoy brought her home. In 1873, she visited a missionary named Thomas Bridges in Ushuaia, when he was the only white man there. Fuegia arrived in a convoy of canoes. By then, she was in her fifties and the mother of at least two adult children born during her marriage to York Minster. York had been dead for years, killed in revenge for murdering a rival, and when Fuegia met Bridges, she was newly married to an 18-year-old man.
Tânia, Holly thought, picturing a young man buoyed by the forceful words of an older woman. Fuegia spoke to the missionary in both Yámana and Alacaluf, and forty years after she’d last seen Darwin, she still remembered a bit of English. She was strong and happy, paddling away after a week in her canoe with its carefully tended fire at the centre. Yet her story ended sadly, as too many real-life stories did. By the time Bridges met Fuegia again ten years later, during a trip he made to the western islands, she was sickly and feared that her relatives would kill her. Tabacana: the Yámana she lived with practised mercy killing of the old.
“Are they coming after me next?” Tânia said.
Holly brought out her paints to catch the colour of the lichens as Jay read. She drew grey-black rocks and mustard-coloured encrustations in repeated whorls. There wasn’t a pattern in the repetition. She couldn’t see a pattern. All she saw was one whorl after another, at once alike and different. Home and here. Tânia and Fuegia. Darwin walking a beach much like this, yet seeing what Holly did not. He wrote of fetid Rio as the land of renewal, and clean-swept Tierra del Fuego as the home of moral rot.
The drove inland their second and third days, crossing the mountains into grasslands, pampas that was the southern extension of Patagonia, where Darwin had once ridden with the gauchos, hunting new species. For some reason Holly found nothing to paint there, although she copied swatches of colour for crafts. Maybe she needed people in her art, and the pampas felt so empty. Dry grass was blown flat by heedless scudding winds. The few distant houses looked so lost. She needed to paint from a different perspective, a greater closeness.
Jay, she thought.
By the fourth day, she felt lethargic as she lay on the grass. Too little sleep, too little focus. She didn’t even bother trying to paint, although she’d insisted once again that they drive out after breakfast. West, this time, to the deserted park. What she really liked was driving with Jay. He seldom talked, and they could listen to the same music on the tape deck. She didn’t have much to say herself, although she’d taken to carrying a dictionary she’d found, reading him snatches when something caught her eye. It was a blue paperback, badly scuffed, with square gold letters on the cover: Yamana-English Dictionary, by Rev. Th. Bridges. Thomas Bridges, the missionary whom Fuegia had once sought out.
Actually, her name was Yokcushlu. FitzRoy had written it down, just as Bridges had written down one of the languages she spoke, preserving a lost subtlety that Darwin never suspected. Darwin insisted that people who greeted him in Tierra del Fuego shouted only “yammerschooner” in mad and maddening repetition. But Holly read out their insights: that aian meant a dry wood fit for fuel, firewood, and with a prefix became cancer. Makaiiual-apai meant two or more children together, and with a suffix it turned into anything to do with the English. Amagon-a was the womb, and especially its contents. Ova, embryo, buds of leaves or flowers. It could mean budding, in bud, pregnant, or — how beautiful! — to enter into quiet waters between islands.
Ateakhaina, the dictionary said. With the suffix kipa or tuku it meant to be married, to be joined to a wife. Also to be caught as tree catches a kite, or a net is caught on a bush.
She didn’t read Jay that one.
“Yokcushlu,” Holly whispered, lying on the grass. She hadn’t meant Jay to hear, but for all his tranquillity, he never missed a breath she took. He sat up and hooked his arms around his legs, waiting for her to continue.
“There was one incident near here,” she said, levering herself up on her elbows. “Darwin was out in a smaller boat quite far from the Beagle. They beached the boat and were heading inland when he suddenly ran back and pulled the boat further onto the beach. A few minutes later, a glacier calved an iceberg into the sound, and if he hadn’t moved the boat, it would have been smashed by waves.
“Imagine being sharp enough to see the crack. I think it was out of sheer terror. If he’d been shipwrecked, he would have had to live like the Yámanas. He kept emphasizing how different they were from Englishmen, but he also must have suspected they weren’t. Amazing how you can hold two ideas in your mind at the same time.”
“Only two?” Jay asked.
“So he came up with his theory that species adapt to local circumstances. But he never claimed this meant progress. There are those species of fish that lost their eyesight in caves. Where’s the progress in that? Regressing into the future, you said.”
Holly sat fully upright, hugging her knees, feeling the guilt encroach again with memories of Rio. But Jay only smiled.
“Myself, I was thinking how long it’s been since I just lay on the grass. When I was a kid, I used to lie in the back yard for hours poking around after four-leaf clover.”
Holly smiled back, distracted. “And did you ever find one?”
“I probably did. I’m sure I did. But what I mainly remember is tearing the middle leaf in half and trying to convince my mother it was the real thing.”
Holly smiled more vaguely, and as she drew back into her thoughts, Jay said, “She never even pretended to believe me.”
A picnic in the park, he thought. Elegant, with Holly. She was such fine china, expecting to be cherished, and never pausing to think how easy it was to get broken.
Lying back on the turf, Jay considered once again his invented Zen koan. How did you get inside china without cracking it, destroying its value? You became like water flowing and took the cup’s shape. But he was never as fluid as he wanted to be. Despite his best efforts, he still suffered from angularities of temperament. He was rough around the edges. Clumsy, too — he’d broken what he valued before. And knowing this left him half paralyzed with desire. How do you move? What moves to make?
He’d enjoyed these past days driving her around. He liked the driving more than the scenery, with music going loud on the tape deck, although something appealed in the grasslands north of the mountains. He would have thought she’d like it too. Golden grass and sapphire sky, teal-coloured lakes and hills in the distance that were always purple. But he was the one who liked it there; the isolated Argentine and Chilean border posts separated by a long stretch of no-man’s-land. It was on the Chilean side near a deserted place called Useless Bay that he’d seen pink flamingos in an alkaline lake. Damn lawn ornaments in the middle of Tierra del Fuego. And three German trekkers in black greatcoats rising at a crossroads to look down at him like gloomy death.
He’d blown a tire on the gravel roads. There was only one spare, and after changing it, he’d driven carefully up the local version of the Rockies. By the time they got partway down, Holly was showing a tender bruised fatigue around the eyes, so they put in for the night at a hunting lodge and she disappeared to bed, while
he had his Spanish omelette and his glass of wine, then went out at 11 o’clock at night on the trail leading back into the forest.
The sun was still shining from below the horizon, casting the trees in a golden light that drifted down to the spongy ground. There was a damp smell of humus. He walked up a hill, jumping one rotting log and finding some old machine parts. Wheels, spindly things where Sleeping Beauty must have pricked her finger. He couldn’t sleep as easily as Holly; he needed this walk. And had as companions two sassy little birds that followed him, hopping from bush to bush. Their song was just chatter, and he hadn’t heard anyone speak of indigenous Fuegian music. There was nothing for him here, but Brazil was going well, and they’d tour the following winter. He had hopes for the Brazil project; enough to feed his idea of relocation. He had it all pictured, including the house in Connecticut with the big rooms Holly could fix up. Her kids would like it there. They could have more kids; he liked children. Perhaps only in theory, but he suspected most people started out that way. She could also have some sort of studio out back to pursue her art while he was on the road. The studio idea was a bit fuzzy, but the general set-up was something he’d wanted for a while. Meeting Holly had simply made it possible. The shock of her beauty in that tasteful house. I could do this, he’d thought.
As could she. His problem was to prompt her over the edge. To make her see she wanted it, too. She wanted a change, but people never really wanted a big change. They thought they did, but they really only wanted an improved version of what they had — in her case the house, the kids, the intermittent husband, the artistic career. She was too fond of having things her way to want a husband with the time and inclination to interfere in her department. But she was also tired of the one she had, the Puritan Father. She wanted to let loose, have a little fun. Not that her tastes were lavish; he wasn’t going to disappoint her with his earning power the way he’d disappointed his former wife. Mainly Holly wanted to be appreciated, which wasn’t too hard. She would hold up certain standards, but Jay was conscious of needing this. A scaffolding. A cup to flow into.
How did you put it?
Out above the hunting lodge, the dusk grew moist. It wasn’t raining. The moisture had no weight or temperature, so gentle it wasn’t even a drizzle. Dew falling: he’d heard of this. It beaded in the hair on his wrists, glistening there, so leaned back his head and extended his arms praying, Clean me.
“This turf is a little like an English park,” he said. “A manor park out in the country.”
“I think it’s probably the result of the rabbits,” Holly answered. “Which were introduced later. Darwin wouldn’t have seen anything like it.”
“He would have seen the rain. It’s going to rain. You ready to leave?”
“I think so,” she answered. “I think I will, Jay. Yes.”
He rolled over quickly to see her face. Avoiding his eyes, Holly reached down to unzip his fly, finding him limp and doughy inside, although he quickly hardened.
“You mean New York?” he asked.
But Holly only bit his lip and massaged until he groaned, pumping into the damp moss. Afterwards, he realized the rain had started. He knelt to zip himself, ready to leave. Yet Holly surprised him by kicking off her shoes.
“We start out naked,” she said, and pulled off her sweater. Methodically she worked down the buttons of her blouse, throwing it off, the brassiere on top, her pants, ignoring him as the cold rain drove harder. Finally she stood unfettered as a Yámana woman, Yokcushlo home from the enslaved morro, greeting the sky with arms spread wide. He could only watch. He could have watched her forever. Rain slicked her smooth skin, her open mouth, her tossed hair, falling down the lean line of her neck, her shoulders, arms, coursing off her puckered nipples like twin cascades of milk and pearls.
“I love this place,” she yelled, ready to leap toward freedom.
Back in their hotel room, late at night, the telephone rang to break their satiated silence. Holly answered, having phoned her maid in Rio with the number. Otherwise, Jay knew it could only be his business manager, who was not unused to finding women in his room.
Hearing whatever voice, Holly looked annoyed at first, then puzzled, and then she froze. Jay got up, but she waved him off angrily. Then she stumbled backwards, sank onto the bed and moaned.
22
It started with Cida opening the gate that night. Not quite started: she’d been waiting for them to come and escort Doutor Todd to a necessary meeting, having been asked to cooperate by telephone that morning.
“He isn’t home yet,” she said. “Would you like to come inside and wait?”
“Shut up,” one hissed, hurting Cida’s feelings. Having agreed to cooperate, she’d thought out her part, and meant for anyone eavesdropping to assume that Doutor Todd was expecting these men and had told her to make them comfortable until he arrived.
Three of them. Three malandros, the oldest one almost handsome in his black leather jacket, which must have hidden the gun. He’d been in houses like this before, and took a professional look around before throwing himself in the doutor’s favourite armchair and mumbling into his cell phone. The younger two were brothers, one tall, one shorter. The tall one sat on the edge of his seat, stiff as a puppet, while the other ranged around the room, trailing his hand along the backs of the sofas and running his fingers over the edges of bookshelves. He picked up a mango from the bowl and smelled it; reached for a picture frame and rubbed it between his fingers like a coin.
“That work is by an artist whose paintings hang in the Museum of Modern Art,” Cida said, adding even more pointedly, “Tânia Gusinde de Ramsay,” so the malandro snatched his hand from the frame as if it bit.
Doutor Todd seemed to be running late. How typical of him to cause other people problems. Cida had been prepared to admire Doutor Todd when she first came to work in this house. He was so handsome and always polite, pausing to thank her for bringing his coffee before taking the first sip. But he never noticed her, never saw her, not even once. This bothered Cida, and she’d started answering him in a childish, cheerful, satirical voice. He hadn’t noticed that, either, although Dona Holly had, and failed to speak to her about it. That was the way things were in this house, and at first Cida put it down to the fact of Doutor Todd being rich and famous and the dona very beautiful; an arrangement often seen on television which meant the man was babied and put up with and worked around as much as possible by his resourceful wife.
Then it turned out the doutor wasn’t famous, which also called the riches into question. It began to seem as if Dona Holly had the money —an even more interesting scenario. She’d been desperately in love with the doutor when he was younger, and his blond good looks had betrayed her into marriage with a man cold at heart. It was well known blondes were beautiful but icy, which Cida should have remembered before expecting him to wink at her. Nor could she blame Dona Holly for the musician. The musician had a much warmer temperament, flirting agreeably when he came to the house, yet never crossing the line to imply Cida was cheap. He was also planning to move to New York, which he’d mentioned when waiting for the senhora during his most recent visit. Cida had been restored from her despair by the musician’s brief lesson in geography, during which she’d come to understand that New York could prove to be a far more attractive destination than Canada; Canada being an unimaginable place, as cold as the doutor’s bloodless heart.
Not that this was the reason she’d let the men inside. They’d been here for more than an hour now, and were getting restless, especially the one who had fidgeted right from the start. He was still on his feet and pacing the room while punching one fist into the other. Even the stone-faced brother had started clasping and unclasping his hands, while the gunman tapped his foot irrhythmically on the floor. Despite the leather jacket, he wasn’t really all that handsome. He’d snorted at Cida’s offer of coffee, and she wished they would leave. But she’d
agreed to let them in after understanding the direction the request was coming from. Or rather, having understood the direction, she knew she didn’t have any choice. Doutor Todd needed a talking to. He’d been meddling in Brazilian affairs — as she could well imagine. Still, Cida had made them promise that he wouldn’t get hurt, and congratulated herself for making the effort. Not that she believed them. But being a foreigner, he wasn’t going to get himself killed, either. Neither killed nor pretty; he wasn’t going to be left pretty. But Cida preferred not to split hairs, and only wanted to hear the doutor’s key rattling in the lock.
As soon as it did, the gunman was going to point his pistol at her head to make it look as if they’d forced their way in. Her suggestion. The thrilling idea of steel on her temple; of struggling, not too much.
“Caralho!” said the gunman. “What’s keeping him?”
“It’s not my fault,” Cida said. “His meetings aren’t usually that long.”
The nervous one rapped his knuckles sharply on the wall.
“You want to wake up the kids?” she asked. He jumped back, jamming his fists into his pockets. This one she could handle. He kept looking at her. And one was really all you needed, especially when the second was a brother, probably older, presumably indulgent.
Unquestionably stoned. Both brothers were high on something, though not the gunman, who kept talking into his cellular.
“Caralho!”
If he was going to tap his tennis shoes, he could at least try for some rhythm.
“Imported,” she said. “Those must have cost you.”
“Big eyes.”
It was late and humid. The gunman was sweating now in his unseasonable jacket. She was getting impatient for them to leave.
“What happens if he doesn’t get home?” she asked. “He knows I’m with the children. What if he stays somewhere else tonight?”
The gunman turned to her quickly. “He does that?”
Drink the Sky Page 24