In full regalia then (barefoot with camera and binoculars around his neck), Raoul hiked up his trousers and stepped from the sea’s edge, about to turn away from it, and stopped. Something in the sand just below the water’s surface caught his eye. An arithmetic error? The solution’s next logical step? Raoul moved closer. He bent to meet the sand, nearly dunking his paraphernalia into the tide. Just in time he clasped the lanyards in his left hand, and with his right he fished around in the shallow water. The tide ebbed and flowed, invading and retreating, its foamy edges distorting Raoul’s view and drowning his boon. His fingers dug deeper. When they finally closed themselves around the object Raoul hoped he was seeking, he pulled his hand from the water. The rising sun played tricks on his eyes. His fingers appeared to hold a rainbow tinged in blood.
Raoul closed his right eye and looked with his left, then he tried it the other way round. Finally he turned his back on the morning rays and in the shade of his body the vision was clearer. Not a rainbow, exactly, but a prism of sorts. Had Raoul happened upon a crystal washed up from the bottom of the sea, or carried to Oh from some distant land, a gift of splendor and light from a mermaid or a muse? As Raoul examined his hand more closely, he realized he was cut. His blood drizzled over the sharp edge of what was in fact nothing more than a broken chunk of glass whose bevels split the sun into a painter’s palette. He saw that now. He saw it very clearly.
“Bloody…!” Raoul cursed. Still holding the glass, he rinsed his hand quickly in the stinging water and held the dripping piece up to the sun. With every tilt it spilled another rainbow into the sea. “Fantastic,” he whispered, dazed that an object of such beauty could cause him so much pain. Raoul stuffed the wet prism into his pocket, delighting in his ache, and squeezed his fingers into his palm to stop the bleeding.
Before long, he was back at our house, hollering testily as he climbed the front steps.
“Hello! Good morning!” Though Raoul had been awake since sun-up, pacing and reasoning on the beach, the household was still rubbing the remnants of sleep from its eyes. “Good morning!” He was a walking ruckus, shouting and stumbling into one of the lounging chairs on the porch, his dangling equipment ringing out like a windchime fashioned of plastic and metal. “Helloo!”
“What’s all this fuss?” Abigail shouted back. She appeared behind the screen door just as Raoul pulled on it and went inside.
“Morning,” Raoul replied sheepishly, embarrassed to find that his rough tone had fallen on Abigail’s ears. But his sore hand was beginning to make him cranky.
“Morning to you,” Abigail answered. “What brings you by so early, and making so much noise?”
Raoul might have asked Abigail the same question (to which she would have answered that a delivery of still-warm pineapple-upside-down cake for breakfast brought her to see “the children,” as she referred to the three of us, Edda, Wilbur, and me), but instead he simply told her that he had come from a walk on the beach, where he managed to cut himself on some glass in the sand. Edda’s house was closer than his own, and he needed a bandage and some alcohol.
“Looks like alcohol is the last thing you need, not that it’s any business of mine,” she told him. (You have to forgive Abigail her harshness: Raoul did look to be in quite a state. He was still wandering shoeless, with all his equipment in tow, and he had spent the night shivering in the grass, much of which still clung to the back of his trousers.)
“Wilbur’s washing up and Edda’s dressing Almondine,” she said. “Let’s see if there’s some antiseptic in here.” Raoul followed Abigail to the kitchen where she sat him down at the table and with some water from a bowl began to cleanse his hand. “How’s the official investigation going?” she asked.
“The what?”
“The official investigation? The heavy artillery?” With a nod of her chin she indicated the tools that hung from his neck.
“Oh, that. Fine. Fine. Just fine,” Raoul answered, wincing less from pain than in an effort to change the subject of the conversation.
As Abigail worked on his hand, she studied him. She was satisfied that he continued his antics, his new island drama that drew attention away from Edda, but she was suspicious, too, that he might have spent the night up to no good. A mad father was one thing, a debauched one something else altogether.
“Shouldn’t you be spruced up a bit more for an official investigation?” she ventured. “You look like you slept under a tree.”
“I did, now you mention it.”
“Where’s that?” She dabbed alcohol on Raoul’s cut.
“Sinner’s Cove.” Sinner’s Cove was the map’s name for what in the Orlean family we have always (at least as long as I can remember) referred to as Edda’s beach, because it wasn’t thinkable that my sainted mother should spend her every free moment in a place with such a sinful name. Exactly which sins prompted the unfortunate designation that time made official, no one seems to be able to tell me for sure. Maybe the seedy port girls from the seedy port bar (a locale not far from the Cove) were responsible for the name, or maybe it was the indecent name that still lured the girls there on occasion.
Abigail, in her professional capacity, knew all about the seedy port girls. She knew about their tight jeans and complicated strappy sandals, and about the trouble they got themselves into. She didn’t like the idea that Raoul might be frequenting them, though she could imagine no other reason for which he might have spent the night under a tree at Sinner’s Cove (nor why, on this morning, he wouldn’t have called it “Edda’s beach”).
“Why on earth would you do that, spend the night there?” she asked.
“No reason,” Raoul replied. “I went for a look around last night and got tired, I guess.” He knew that his behavior must have seemed odd to Abigail, but if the rest of the island was still to think him a bit mad, then she might as well do the same. Raoul couldn’t be bothered to apprise her of his quest and his recent discovery, of the hopes and difficulties that remained. Her questions, he was convinced, were prompted only by want of gossip, not by any real interest in his work, his reputation, or his well-being.
But Raoul misjudged Abigail’s motives. What prompted her questions was not a craving for tales to tell in the market square. On the contrary, she knew how the seedy port girls liked to talk, and she feared that where Raoul was concerned, they might do a little too much of it.
“You see anybody else on the beach?” Abigail asked, as she dried Raoul’s wound and started to bandage his hand. “I’m told it’s busy there at night sometimes.”
Abigail’s veiled reference to the seedy port girls and their nighttime cavorting eluded Raoul, who merely replied with a puzzled “no.” Which only convinced Abigail further that he had something to hide, that she had caught him, literally, red-handed. Heaven knows how he got that cut! she thought to herself. But no use pressing on a fruit that wasn’t ripe. If Raoul wouldn’t talk, others would, others who Abigail knew well.
With a satisfied sigh she stood up and waved her hands at Raoul as if to dismiss him. “It wasn’t much of a cut. I don’t know why you came in hollering and pitching such a fit before.” She cleared away the bowl and the bottle of alcohol, then said her goodbyes to Wilbur, who had just then entered the kitchen. “There’s warm cake for you. Tell Edda I’ll look for her later.” And Abigail was off. She had things to attend to.
“Good morning, Raoul.” Wilbur tried not to look surprised by Raoul’s ruffled appearance. “This is an early pleasure.”
Raoul explained again that he had come from a walk on the beach, where he managed to cut himself on some glass in the sand, that Edda’s house was closer than his own, and that he had needed a bandage and some alcohol.
“You look like you’ve been out all night,” Wilbur said. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Fine. Just fine,” Raoul answered. “I went to the beach last night like you suggested. I guess I fell asleep.”
Wilbur stifled a smirk. He envisioned Raoul, bivouacked under a
palm tree, hugging his binoculars as if they were a stuffed toy. “I wouldn’t have suggested it if I knew you’d stay all night.”
“Well, I didn’t plan to, but I was tired,” Raoul said. “It worked out for the best. It was a good idea to go.”
Wilbur didn’t know what Raoul meant by that and he was afraid to ask. For a second he too entertained the notion of a seedy port girl, then just as quickly he dismissed it. It was far more likely that Raoul referred to some development in his official investigation, of which Wilbur wanted no part. Better to change the subject, he decided. Which is what he did, or so he thought. “How did you hurt your hand?” he asked.
“On this.” Raoul pulled the jagged prism from his pocket. He hadn’t examined it or pondered it further because of the cut in his hand, which now looked—and felt—almost as if it had never been injured. Abigail really was adept at covering things up nice and even, wasn’t she?
“What is it?”
“I thought it was a crystal of some kind, but it’s just a piece of broken glass.”
Wilbur took it and turned it over in his hands. “Pretty fancy glass. Looks like the stuff in those big doors at Puymute’s. You know the tall ones they always keep open? Where the curtains are?” Wilbur didn’t know about the islanders’ light sockets or about their indoor plumbing, but thanks to his daily mail route, he did know about their front doors. Even as the words left his mouth, he was sorry he had mentioned this particular one.
A fly awoke behind Raoul’s eyes.
Wilbur changed the subject again, or so again he thought: “Fresh pineapple cake! You picked a good day to come by so early.” And he put on the kettle for tea.
But it was too late. Raoul had already made the connection between Puymute’s doors and Gustave. With a satisfied sigh he stood up and waved his hands at Wilbur as if to dismiss him. “Enjoy your cake. Tell Edda I’ll look for her later.” And Raoul was off. He had things to attend to.
The Raoul of a few days earlier would have meticulously studied the newfound variable, examined the broken chunk of glass from every angle. He would have measured it, polished it, photographed it, and ultimately catalogued it useless. But the Raoul of this perfect day saw the bigger picture. Not just a piece of glass, then, but glass just like that which adorned the door of the manor house on Puymute’s plantation, where Gustave worked every day, and where island phantoms were swiping acres of island pineapple, to the detriment of the Customs and Excise coffers.
At the thought of Customs and Excise, Raoul remembered the airport, looked at his watch, and quickened his step. His flies hurried their pace as well. Was the glass really from Puymute’s? And how had it gotten broken? Was there an unreported burglary? A kerfuffle on the premises? Wilbur hadn’t mentioned a busted door. Had Gustave had it secretly repaired? How had that one piece ended up on Sinner’s Cove? Had Gustave inadvertently dropped it there? Why carry a chunk of broken glass? And why on Edda’s beach?
Despite the progress of the previous night, Raoul realized that many questions remained, more questions than answers by far. His geometry was muddled, his perspective distorted. Gustave and the glass were dots on a graph. Now Raoul must draw the line to connect them. Which is how Fred Nettles fit into the ever-spreading bigger picture. If anyone knew about the glass from a door on Oh, it was he. In this instance Fred would be of more help to Raoul than even Stan Kalpi himself.
Though Raoul longed to speak with Fred Nettles that very minute, to learn the significance of this latest variable and move the story forward, it was late and there wasn’t time. Raoul sighed. He would have to wait and see Fred before work tomorrow (Fred went to bed too early for Raoul to visit him at night).
Right now, the morning’s passengers were about to arrive. About to make their way through the zigs and the zags and the grit of Oh’s airport floor, to Raoul’s frustrated huffing and the dizzying pineapple perfume.
STILL WANTED: information concerning circumstances surrounding recent pregnancy of Edda Orlean. If you were party to/witness to/privy to details/events/evidence explaining origin of daughter of Edda Orlean you are STRONGLY urged come forward. Please. Call evenings 45468.
Not many little girls—black, white, or otherwise—can say they made their local paper twice before they were two months old. This dubious honor is yet another I discovered on my own road of holes and humps into the past.
I’m far more like Raoul than he could ever dream, far more Orlean than Vilder, despite my pale-white skin and his convictions to the contrary. Somehow that night on Edda’s beach, when the Almondine seed was planted, the moon gave me a few Stan Kalpi tendencies of my own. I heard songs on the wind, too; I must have, or my unfinished mosaic would have suited me just fine. I had a mother and father and grandfather who had nurtured me better than any could have. And a grandmother who wasn’t a grandmother, but a magical, faraway snow-fairy who may or may not have existed. She is the one I’m really like, what with my escapist tendencies.
Yet in spite of the latter, I went back to Oh, and still go back again from time to time. First, I went to find my missing variables, or as I like to think of them, my missing tiles, a colorful indulgence I hope the mathematical Mr. Stan wouldn’t mind. Once all the pieces were stuck in place, I realized that mothers and fathers and grandmothers were as changing as the moon, and now I suppose I go back to show where my love and my loyalties lie.
As to my genes, the marrow and blood that make up my own, I’m pretty sure there is no trace left to be found on Oh. Raoul had a hand in that, it seems, and even now I struggle to forgive him his involvement. But he was well-intentioned; that’s what you have to remember. And as luck would have it, Oh is Oh, so the traces that can’t be found, they aren’t really gone. They’re written on the moon, if you know how to read them, and sometimes the leaves talk of little else; others, the wind has whispered in my ear. So I stuck them on my mosaic and every day I put them in my paintings, where they take whatever shade and depth I fancy.
When I’m not struggling to forgive Raoul his well-intentioned folly, I worry about him. Not the everyday Raoul, just fine now in the arms of one honey-dewed librarian who lets him out at night to drink at the Belly. No, I worry about the plain-as-noses-on-faces Raoul, who still has the odd nightmare of unsolved riddles wrapped in snow. As unlike him as I am in complexion—as unlike all of them, my mother, my father, the neighbors—I belong to the island as perhaps no one does. Certainly more than my dear grandfather ever could. If for that, Oh hasn’t told him the secrets it’s told to me, is it my place to ignore the island’s whims?
You’ll see for yourself. My Stan Kalpi mosaic is almost finished, the last secrets almost out. From that tree in the soft, green brush a stone’s throw from the edge of the sea, the last mango is almost ready to fall.
16
The Government Mail Boat stopped at Oh once a week. It came from nearby Killig and was piloted by a man named Jack. The islanders all called him by name, though they suspected he deserved some loftier title, but whether “captain” or something more postal, nobody knew. Jack’s craft, though official, was unassuming, which confounded the matter even more.
Whether in any given week Jack arrived on a Monday, a Wednesday, or at all, depended on what he ate for breakfast. If his wife gave him pancakes with butter, he took her back to bed, their stomachs heavy with sleep. If she made him toast with jam, he took her back to bed the same, their inclinations sweeter and stickier. If, though, she fed him farina, he climbed atop his bicycle and pedaled straight to the Post. There the sacks of mail awaited, for delivery to Oh and Walou and Esterina, Killig’s tiny island neighbors. With the help of the Postmaster, Jack dragged the sacks to the dock nearby, and in his burdened government vessel set off on his rounds.
Oh was always Jack’s first stop. When he arrived, two men from the Island Post pulled the sacks meant for Oh from the Government Mail Boat, while Jack bought coffee from a bar that was a window in the side of a house. He dribbled two coins into the palm of the man
seated inside and two capfuls of Killig rum into his coffee (Jack never set sail without his flask). Then while he proceeded to his remaining peregrinations, the contents of the sacks began their own. Letters were divided by village, and packages were sent to the office of Customs and Excise, which in turn dispatched notices to the lucky addressees.
With your Customs notice in hand, you could claim your package, open it for inspection, pay what duty was due and carry home your prize. So you see how a bowl of farina was needed to produce your new shortwave radio or pair of shoes.
It was according to some similar faulty logic that Raoul decided to place again the advert about my mother’s pregnancy. The ad would remind the islanders of Raoul’s feigned feeble mental state (by virtue of which he could behave as oddly as his investigation required), and, more importantly, he was sure it would produce a pineapple smuggler: his phony madness, he hoped, would stir pity in at least one of his cheating chums, who would be moved to confess his betrayal, to open his guilty heart to the inspection of Customs and Excise Officer Raoul, like a package with shiny new loafers inside.
Left at the Mango Tree Page 18