But unlike in many places, where currencies of gold and silver, or rainbow notes with profiled presidents or kings, replaced the devalued promise, on Oh it’s still legal tender—just about, for there never seem to be quite enough of those rainbow bills to go around. Many of the islanders, when they do get their hands on one, prefer to save it for a rainy day. So a promise on Oh is always taken very seriously—by the islanders blessed with all the rainbow bills they need, by those without, and by the characters in our story, most of whom fall somewhere in between—even when the promise is for promise’s sake, and for nothing in return.
So far, Raoul has promised to find an explanation for missing pineapples (and for anything else that smells of magic); Pedro and Gustave have promised possible trouble if he tries; Wilbur has pledged his heart to Edda; Edda has pledged hers to a red-eyed, cheek-stained baby girl; Bang, his lucky harmonica to Raoul; and I, I have said you would hear the story of Raoul’s first meeting with Gustave, the one that inspired the ad in the Morning Crier.
It happened about a week before Puymute’s pineapples disappeared. I was just a few days old and had yet to venture outside the house where I was born, but the steady stream of visitors continued. They came with jams and jellies and bedcovers, and they left with theories and verdicts, and some nice, juicy fat to chew while they strung up their washing and peeled their potatoes. It was clear to everyone but my mother (“blind little dumpling,” the islanders said) that I was a Vilder. It was also common knowledge that up to then Gustave was the only Vilder left on Oh, and thus the only one who could be my father. But the science behind my mother’s pregnancy was a matter that divided the islanders into two factions.
Some accepted Edda’s denials (Why did they keep asking her who had shared her bed?) and admitted to an indefinable magic, some trickery on the part of Gustave. Among these were my father Wilbur (“poor little dumpling, too”), who wasn’t so bothered as long as his wife was happy, and Gustave himself. Gustave was as certain that he hadn’t fathered me as he was uncertain about his own magic powers. He had mustered enough to kill his mother, that’s true, and Miss Peacock had unleashed something inside him, that was true, too. But magic-wise he hadn’t really accomplished much since then.
Had he?
Others denied Edda’s acceptance (Did she really expect them to believe she didn’t see the truth?) and admitted to only the unmentionable (though they mentioned little else), some trickery on the part of Edda. Among these were Bang, Cougar, and Nat, believe it or not. They believed in Gustave’s magic, too, they certainly did; but they knew Edda, they practically raised her after all, and suspected that in this case their little dumpling might be hiding some spice between the folds. They would never have fessed up to such feelings in front of Raoul, of course. As far as he knew, they were staunch supporters of the magic faction and defenders of his little dumpling’s honor.
Raoul’s sympathies lay somewhere in between. He didn’t for a minute doubt his daughter’s word. But magic? Raoul couldn’t stomach such a shady truth as that. He wanted an answer that was as clear as a nose on a face. And when he looked this matter square in the face, nothing was clear at all. I was his grandchild, and I was an Orlean, there was no doubting that. Raoul had watched my mother swell and bloat and pucker in the months preceding my arrival, and Abigail, the island’s most practiced midwife, had herself delivered me—Miss Almondine Orlean (I was given my mother’s family name, which she kept after marriage, Oh not being completely devoid of modern tendencies). Yet when Raoul looked into my eyes, his own didn’t stare back at him the way they did when he looked into Edda’s. In place of Raoul’s dark, black Orlean eyes, I (“pale little creature”) had red Vilder globes.
The first time Raoul peered into my face, he forgot where he was and what he was doing, like the first thick seconds that cloud a still-sleepy mind as the body awakes from a nap. When his mind caught up with his limbs and tried to verify the surroundings, the bedroom window’s darned curtain and the mint-green coverlet on the mattress, it recognized nothing at all. My face should have been a mirror to Raoul’s heart, but in it his reflection was haunted, at once familiar and foreign—an abrupt and glowing consciousness that we are more, or less, than we think we are.
So Raoul decided then and there that, if no answers were to be found in my face, then perhaps one as clear as a nose could be gleaned or gotten from Gustave’s. Gustave had twice left word for Raoul in the week before my birth that the two men needed to talk. Once at the airport and once at the Belly. But Raoul, who had little regard for Gustave Vilder, had been too busy to bother with either message. Gustave must have wanted to come clean all along! So days after I came into the world, Raoul finally left for Gustave’s dwelling, and a chat.
Gustave lived on the westernmost shore of the island, on the land where the comfortable shack with the daffodil curtains and his heart-poking mother once stood. A small, simple villa stood there now, for thanks to Miss Peacock and the girls of the seedy port bar, Gustave had found the power to make something more of himself than the slouch-shouldered family legacy had dictated he should be. He had gotten himself hired by Puymute, who paid well, and finagled himself a loan from the bank, where the manager feared him too much to refuse. And he had built himself a house with indoor plumbing.
A house, but not quite a home. For it lacked a woman’s touch, or at least the touch of someone other than Gustave Vilder. Despite its bright colors, its wispy fabrics, and the sun that pounded it most of the day, the small, simple villa was a thick and shaded place, where even the welcoming froth of the sugared coffee proffered in the most expensive cups to be had at the market was disagreeable.
When Raoul reached the jagged fence of thick twigs that wrapped itself around the house, he could barely hear for all the noise in his head.
Flies.
The whole way there he had pondered what Gustave would say to him, what explanation Gustave would give, and every hypothesis was a buzz in his brain. They mingled in there and clashed and hummed. Had he tricked her in her sleep? Did he creep into the house while Wilbur delivered the mail (that’s what my father does on Oh) and Edda lay napping? Did he hide in her bed one night while Wilbur dozed in the breezy hammock on the porch? (He does that sometimes, too.) Did he sneak up on her from behind and slink away before Edda realized he wasn’t her husband? All troubling theories, these, but less troubling than magic-talk, Raoul said to himself, and far less troubling than a mystery.
Though the common buzz of all those flies fired and bounced in his head, the thought that it would soon be silenced, that the riddle would soon be solved, was enough to make the commotion not only tolerable, but enticing. Raoul was almost giggling by the time he knocked at Gustave’s door.
Inside the house, Gustave sat with his feet up, sipping pineapple wine. He was soon to embark on what would likely be a lucrative business venture and he was celebrating. There was still much to do, dozens of details to be ironed out, but Gustave had a heavy hand and felt sure he was up to the task. He was cheerily ticking the details off in his head when Raoul’s knock cracked his satisfied smile. “Oy! Vilder! Are you in there?”
Gustave looked at the closed door as if it might identify this unknown, familiar voice.
“I say, are you in there? It’s Raoul Orlean. You wanted to talk to me.”
Gustave smiled again, ticked off yet one more detail, and invited Raoul to come in. “Why, just the man I wanted to see!”
“I should think so. You have something to say for yourself, Vilder?”
“Yes, sir, I do! But call me Gustave. Sit down. I was just sampling Puymute’s finest.”
Raoul sat and accepted a glass. His giddiness had faded, supplanted by a mixture of puzzlement and unease. How was it so dark and hot in this place? The windows were open but the island gusts seemed to pass them right by, as did the light of the sun. Its heat, on the other hand, was focused squarely on the roof (it must have been), for inside, the villa was a brightly-colored, wispy-fabri
cked stove. Raoul stuffed into his pocket the handkerchief now wet from his brow and looked up to find Gustave with awaiting eyes, his glass perched in the air.
How is it that this fool is so hospitable? Raoul wondered, his puzzlement poised on the verge of offense. He looked Gustave close up and square in the nose. Their glasses clinked. “Now say your piece.”
“I have just one word for you, Raoul. May I call you Raoul?” Gustave was practically bursting at the seams, but with delight. Not confession. Raoul’s puzzlement resisted. He wrinkled his forehead and silenced the now not-so-happy hum in his head.
A weak and raspy “Well?” was all he could spit out.
“‘Well’ what?”
“Your one word. What is it?” The hum awoke again with ricocheted suggestions: Sorry. Trickery. Apology. Betrayal. Deceit.
“Mealybugs.”
Raoul rattled his head and smacked one ear with the palm of his hand. He examined the fizzy wine in his glass then set the glass on the table, pushing it away with the tip of his finger. “What’s that you say?”
“Mealybugs.”
Again. How much wine had he drunk? Mealybugs? “What do mealybugs have to bloody do with anything?” he finally managed.
More delight from Gustave. “They have to do with everything!” He refilled his glass and tried to top off Raoul’s but Raoul’s hand lashed out to protect it. “There’s mealybugs on Killig. The island’s overrun and this year’s crop has wilted away to nothing.” (Killig is the island neighbor that Bang’s grandfather sang about, the one with sweet fruits and sweet governors that plugged the hole in the pineapple market during the tax trouble on Oh.)
Gustave continued. “You’ll be getting the official word eventually, soon as the mayor over there talks to the governor and the governor goes to Parliament and Parliament makes a proclamation for the prime minister to put to referendum. Then they have to vote, you know. Shouldn’t take more than three or four months.”
“Referendum?” That certainly wasn’t one of Raoul’s fly-theories, which had all gone instantly quiet at the mention of mealybugs.
“Referendum. They got obligations to meet. Companies all over the world with exclusive contracts for Killig pineapples. And Killig’s got pests. They’ll be coming to desperate little Oh just begging to buy our precious piñas so they can sell ’em off as their own and cut their losses.”
Raoul still didn’t see how any of this had anything to do with me, his baby Almondine. Had Edda swallowed a mealybug with her fruited morning yogurt? “What are you saying, Gustave?”
“I’m saying we wait for mayors, governors, and ministers and sell Oh’s pineapples to Killig minus the big chunk of profits that you excisemen will nibble—worse than those mealybugs you are—or you and I join forces and move now. Put all the profits straight in our own pockets. I’ve been in touch with some growers on Killig, and I got it all worked out for moving the fruit, everything but Customs. That’s where you come in. You type us some phony forms for a fifty-fifty split. Can’t pass up a deal like that. We’d be ready to go in less than a week.”
Raoul was so angry that he went momentarily mute. (Gustave had that effect on him.) He huffed and sputtered and ah-huh-huh-hed until the indignation choking his throat finally leaped out. Or so it seemed to Raoul. In reality the leap was more of a clumsy stumble, a tumbleweed of tongue and retort, for Raoul didn’t know where to begin. He was pretty sure his honor had been insulted, he thought perhaps his wine had been drugged, he wondered if he shouldn’t call the police, and then there were the bugs. Raoul had come expecting apologies and amends, but had been offered insects instead. White, powdery, leaf-wilting insects and hot, pineapple wine.
The flies were really stirring now, and Raoul let them out all at once. How dare Gustave even suggest such an incriminating collaboration? Cheating the governments of Killig and Oh in one fell swoop, pineapple-trafficking with crooked growers, why, Raoul would have nothing to do with such flimflammery and had half a mind to call the police. Phony forms indeed! Who was Gustave to meddle in the affairs of mayors and ministers? To bungle referendums and jeopardize honest excisemen? To barter behind the square-shouldered back of the Customs Office and to benefit from blight while Edda sat tricked, swindled, sneaked up on, and Wilbur, a respected officer of the Island Post, bamboozled in his breezy hammock on the porch? What about poor Edda, whose black eyes couldn’t hear, and baby Almondine, whose red ones said so much, poor baby Almondine with her blotched and haunted face and her dubious genes that awaited explanation and retribution, but mostly explanation, so that Raoul could get a good’s night sleep, without the flies buzzing in his bed? What about that? he said. What about the flies?!
Now it was Gustave’s turn to be puzzled. He was speaking mealybugs and Raoul answered bedbugs and flies. Funny, Gustave had drunk more wine than Raoul, yet Raoul seemed far more drunk.
Mind you, it didn’t come as a complete surprise that Raoul shouldn’t go along. Gustave almost expected as much and had a back-up plan for that—assuming he could reason with this fellow spouting nonsense about sleeping mailmen and eyes that were hard of hearing. Though Gustave had some idea of what genes were, he couldn’t for the life of him imagine them awaiting an explanation, to say nothing of the fact that he didn’t know how or why he should be the person to provide one, nor how, if he did, it might keep the insects out of Raoul’s bed.
In the end, genes and mailmen weren’t really his concern, so Gustave tried to steer Raoul’s racing thoughts back to the matter at hand. “Now, why don’t I just let you mull this over for a few days. You might change your mind when your head’s clearer and you’ve thought things through.”
“Clearer? Clearer?” Raoul sputtered before his indignation leaped again. “Why, you’d have to feed me a barrelful of that swill before my head would be clear enough to be in cahoots with the likes of you.”
“Very well.” Gustave was standing now, pacing in front of Raoul, his hands clasped behind him, his flip-flops smacking the floor’s terracotta tiles in between his slow, deliberate words. “I understand. You’re a respected officer of the law, don’t want to get your hands dirty. Fair enough.”
Back-up plan: “Maybe you’d be interested in dipping your fingers in the pie just long enough to keep your head turned while those pineapples ship off to Killig. I can’t promise you fifty-fifty, in that case, but you turn a blind eye if something should look fishy at Customs and I’ll make it worth your while.”
Raoul went mute again. He was so angered now that even his flies were speechless. He stood and pounded his fist on the table (Gustave had that effect on him, too) so hard that the half-emptied glass of Puymute’s finest toppled over, its contents dripping into a shallow, sticky puddle. Gustave bent to wipe away the mess with a dishcloth that had somehow appeared in his hand. By the time he stood back up, Raoul had found his voice.
“Now you listen here, Vilder. Let it be as clear as the nose on my face that I want nothing to do with this scheme of yours. And I’d advise you to forgo it as well. You can’t likely get away with it now, anyway, can you? Now that you’ve gone and spouted off about it?”
“No. I guess it won’t work now, will it?” But Gustave was bursting at the seams again, again in delight. Not defeat. For he had a back-up plan for the back-up plan, and the back-up’s back-up put all the profits straight in Gustave’s pockets alone. He would have to stir up a little magic, which was perhaps not as easy or proper as proper phony customs forms, but how was Gustave to blame if Officer Orlean refused to cooperate?
Refuse to cooperate, he did, for Raoul was upstanding. His instincts told him to have no part in the plan, and instinctively he had said no. Right then and there, though, as he was refusing, Raoul wasn’t thinking about upstandingness or about his Customs career. He had gone to Gustave’s to find out the truth, to solve a riddle, resolve a mystery. To explain those dubious genes swimming inside the blood he shared with his granddaughter. And no amount of mealybugs or money was going to tell
him who she was.
It was time to ask Gustave flat out about Edda.
In the seconds while Gustave contemplated the magic he’d have to stir and Raoul deliberated dubious genes, the sun set, quieting the humors of both the island and the islanders alike. As if in agreement, the two men calmly sat back down and Raoul uprighted the glass that had tumbled over and spun on its edge.
Calmly, my grandfather began: “Let’s have no more talk of bugs and governors. That’s not what I came here for. I came to find out about Edda.”
Even more certain now of Raoul’s inebriation, for he really was making little sense, Gustave exhaled a cautious, “Edda, your daughter, Edda?”
“That’s right.”
“What about her?”
“Now don’t be funny, Gustave. I think you know something about Almondine.”
“Something like what?” Set sun or no, Gustave was feeling prickly-necked now.
“You must have heard what people are saying.”
“I heard some crazy lie about how this baby looks like me.”
Raoul was feeling a little prickly-necked now, too. “Well how do you explain it?”
“How should I know? A coincidence. How much like me could the child possibly look, if I haven’t ever been within two inches of your daughter?” Gustave was bursting again, with feigned nonchalance, but underneath the casual coating he was worried. He hadn’t said it, the word, but it was there in the room with both of them—“magic”—as loudly as if he had. His whole life Gustave hated the terrible word almost as much as Raoul did, if for different reasons, and never more so than now. On Oh, Gustave wielded magic, he didn’t succumb to it. But he was beginning to have his doubts in that regard.
On the other side of Gustave’s indifferent shell, Raoul heard it too—“magic”—and although he didn’t believe Gustave’s assertion about Edda, although he didn’t understand the exact relationship between Gustave and the terrible word, a hint of Gustave’s doubts reached Raoul’s nose, a faint scent, but terrible enough to send Raoul home in a fog of worried disappointment and pity (was it?), resignedly aware that this particular night had held no answers for him.
Left at the Mango Tree Page 6