Off-Island

by Marlene Hauser

  She sensed Ilsa curling around her cold body and let go. She rocked a little. What were the first things she always noticed about Ilsa? Her Lily-of-the-Valley scent for one. The soft folds in her dewy white skin. And her hands, strong and deft. Hands that could paint anything, and grow a garden that was second to none.

  What else could she recall? Lying on her tummy in the garden. The smell of grass. Dark earth. Ladybirds. Cold toes and Ilsa humming while she raked. The bells that jingled on the garden gate.

  And love. I recall love.

  The memories rolled by one after the other, from bubble baths using her grandmother’s prized French bottle to orchids for the prom. When had Ilsa not been there for her? Krista rolled over and pulled the neck of her jersey up to her chin. God, I loved her so much. What didn’t she teach me about bad stuff? What would she do now?

  She would get up. She would count her blessings, Krista told herself. Blessings? What blessings? No career, no husband, no father, no mother for all practical purposes, no child, no sisters, no brothers, nowhere to live except Grandfather’s home.

  “But I had a grandmother,” she said aloud. “I once had a grandmother.”

  “You have a grandmother,” she thought she heard someone whisper. “I might be dead, but I am here with you always. Didn’t I tell you: forever and always? Love is forever and always. Eternal. Yes, from beyond the grave. Now let’s begin somewhere. Remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “Okay then, let’s go.”

  “Ten fingers, ten toes.”

  “Ten fingers, ten toes.”

  “A nose. I can smell.”

  “Eyes. I can see.”

  “Beautiful eyes. Unlike any others.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And hands.”

  “And hands, with which to pray.”

  “And gratitude.”

  “And gratitude. I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Now count the things you’re grateful for.”

  “Nothing beyond you, Grandmother.”

  “Think harder, darling. Thank harder.”

  “There’s nothing.” Krista drew a blank. She rubbed her hands together and cupped her knees. “Father?”

  “Yes,” she supposed Ilsa would say. “Yes, you have a father.”

  “A dead one.”

  “A dead one, who was once alive.”

  “Who was once alive.” Krista tried to recall his face and could not, but she could feel him. Curly hair, she recalled. Tobacco. Warmth. She felt her own toes. My father. Without whom I would not be.

  “Without whom you would not be. You miss him as much as I did.”

  “No. I never knew him.”

  “You knew him.”

  “How could I? He died before I was three.”

  “Krista, what do you miss?”

  “The idea of him, of what I might have had.”

  “Krista, what do you miss?”

  “Him, Ilsa, him.”

  “Krista.”

  “Love, Ilsa. I miss love, and him, and you.”

  “So now we are counting. Fingers, toes, your father.”

  “You, and love.”

  “There is always love, Krista.”

  “But what’s the point? You’re dead, he’s dead.”

  “Helen is still alive.”

  “My mother?” Krista nearly shrieked.

  “Your mother.”

  Krista went numb again. The voice faded away. Mother, she repeated herself. Mother. The anger and pain were so great.

  “I hate my mother,” she shouted out loud, “put that on your list.”

  The house grew cold again. The wind picked up. Fear crept over her when she thought she heard someone downstairs, heard the basement door open and close. Maybe it was a loose shutter.

  “Fingers and toes, fingers and toes,” she whispered.

  “That’s better,” the voice soothed her.

  “I still hate Mother.”

  “Okay. Is there anything you like about her?”

  “No.”

  “So, die.”

  “I want to.”

  “Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Then live.”

  “How?”

  “By being grateful.”

  “For what?”

  “Everything, Krista. Everything. Including your mother.”

  “She’s done nothing for me. This abortion was her fault. She believes in all that stuff – the right to choose.”

  “Love her for giving you life.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  “It was an accident. I was an accident. As she never tires of telling me.”

  “Maybe, but she brought you into this life. If nothing else, be grateful for that.”

  Life. I could be grateful for that.

  Krista fell into a deep sleep, and did not awake until the street lamp outside shone through the crack in the curtains and on to her bed. Her first waking thought was of the painting over the mantle in the parlor below. What season was it? She felt a small tug, almost as if Ilsa were urging her out of bed, the way she had when Krista was a child.

  “Get up! Wake up, sleepyhead.”

  Chapter Eight

  Krista pulled back the drapes, snapped up the blind and opened the window. Shocked by the cold air, she was no less astonished to find that it was not twilight outside, not even sunrise. It was no street lamp that had woken her. It was about ten o’clock in a clear, bright mid-morning. She had slept the day away yesterday, which made it… What day? And then she remembered – September 21st. A rush of joy swept through her at the official beginning of fall, her favorite time of year. Overhead gulls squawked. Feeling the pull of the equinox, the tide churned against the shore beyond the back pasture, the meadow at the hem of the marsh.

  Below her in the overgrown yard she counted twenty-seven apples; no fruit remained on the boughs. One branch had split away from the trunk and lay touching the ground. Far out on the horizon a ship’s funnel reflected the sun. Ilsa’s house. Krista could not imagine a better view.

  She turned from the window. The bloodstain centered on the white tufted bedspread frightened her for an instant, until the past few days’ events came back, one by one. She touched her belly, finding it tight with hunger. And, oddly, when she thought of the life that had been growing there so recently, she felt a great relief that it was there no longer. Her lethargy and sense of disconnection had disappeared. She pulled the spread from the bed, thinking to launder it. Dust rose from the dresser and nightstand, and she brushed against the prayer tacked to the wall. Smiling, she remembered evenings kneeling at the side of this four-poster bed, saying prayers with Ilsa, blessing everyone, everything, delaying bedtime by one detail after the next. On the dresser was a balsa-wood whale. The blue jay feather she had stuck in its blowhole years ago – so many years that the whale would hardly appear the same without it – waved in the breeze through the open window. And there was the shell, the white scallop shell, her father’s legacy to her that she had kept for him all these years.

  Looking in the mirror, she shook her head at her reflection. A mess. Her hair seemed to be matted, resisting all attempts to comb it with her fingers, Michael’s shirt, bloodied, hung from below her sweater, and her jeans were hard-crusted with blood. She stripped herself and bundled the clothes together to dispose of. Shivering, she ran to the bathroom, lifting Ilsa’s musty old wool robe from the back of the door. Water flowed brown at first from the faucet, then thankfully clear.

  Before taking her bath, she turned on the kitchen stove, leaving the door open so as to warm the room. It seemed too cold for September but the house had been closed up for so long – no light, no air. Fall, the first day – it had been a month since her last dance
class. She recalled Madame Chevalier’s ultimatum. “Not until you can bring me life. A full extension,” she mimicked, rising upon both feet in relevé, going into plié, lifting her leg in arabesque. “A full extension yourself,” she said, prancing back up the steps to the back room. Krista rolled her head, rolled her shoulders, and bent each vertebra in her spine until she was touching her palms to the floor.

  She let the water run in the kitchen sink until the rust had cleared, rummaging in the closets meanwhile for something she might wear. None of her old things fit so she stole into her grandmother’s studio where she found a pair of jeans, so old the denim felt like flannel. She found a work shirt covered with splatters of dry paint, mostly white and yellow. After digging in a few more drawers, she decided to go without underwear. The bathtub was full, almost overflowing. From the linen closet she took a washcloth smelling of mothballs. An old box of tampons was inadvertently knocked to the floor and Krista retrieved it, amazed. How long had these been around? The carton looked like an old ad for war bonds.

  The water closed over her, up to her chin in the deep old tub. She squeezed water over her arms, rinsed her face, and dipped her head back into the water, wringing her hair over her shoulder. She pinned it up with Ilsa’s combs, always left by the side of the tub, to the top of her head. The dried blood on her thighs loosened and dissolved. Everything seemed to have a new significance. Even the soap – a two-year-old bar of Ivory, half worn down – seemed precious. Krista scrubbed between her toes, stretching the backs of her thighs. She attributed her joy to not being pregnant and to being back in her grandmother’s house.

  Or to life maybe.

  She pumiced her knees, the backs of her elbows, her heels, and the calluses on the soles of her feet.

  “Never,” she said aloud, “never, never, never. I will never dance again.” She cracked the joints of each toe and then wondered what she might do instead. She didn’t know. She poured water over each shoulder.

  What would she do? She refused to go back to New York, or even to think about Michael. The heated water lulled her until she recalled the voice yesterday. Ilsa’s voice. Was it a dream? Something or someone had urged her to look at the painting over the mantle, and had they suggested she remain in the summer house? It’s a great idea. I will stay here. I will reopen the summer place, she decided.

  Filled with an unfamiliar zest and vigor, Krista knew exactly what she would do next. She would become an Islander. She would live the way her grandmother had lived; emulate the woman she loved more than any other. She would wake up every morning to bathe with Ivory soap, put on a pair of old flannel jeans, then paint or write. Or maybe she’d just ride horses. She would have this house to herself. Daddy Bourne would be thrilled to see it reopened, especially by Krista. On my own. I would love to be on my own.

  “As for Michael,” she said aloud, shrugging her shoulders then toweling them dry, “I ended that.”

  Krista pulled on Ilsa’s side-buttoned jeans and promenaded before the mirror. How long ago had these been in vogue? If they ever had been at all. She rolled her shirt cuffs to the elbow and turned the collar up, leaving the tails to hang. Just like Ilsa did. She slipped into an old pair of Dr. Scholl sandals, rinsed the tub, the sink, and pushed back the pink half-curtains before sliding open the window. Again, the chill outside surprised her.

  The air was fresh and opening all the windows became Krista’s first step in her new plan to become an Islander. In front of the stove she changed her mind, however. She was hungry. The windows could wait until the afternoon. Famished, she turned towards the refrigerator only to be disappointed. The door stood ajar, the light out and the shelves empty, except for a sad-looking box of baking soda. The cupboards held not much more: stale cereal, outdated envelopes of spices, rusted cans of beans, ravioli and palm hearts. Nothing appetizing. Then from behind an old box of cake frosting well past its sell-by date, Krista noticed a familiar green wrapper. Semi-sweet German chocolate. How many times did I practically get on my knees for this?

  Krista laughed as she found the use-by date. Two years old. She broke the seal on the wrapper and opened the package. Could I die from eating two-year-old chocolate? The candy tasted delicious. Krista took it into the dining room where she opened the shutters and closed the piano lid, only to notice the dust. Perhaps I should start with dusting.

  From the shopping bag behind the cellar door, Krista took a dust rag and wiped the piano, then the old hi-fi components. She lightly brushed over the collection of LPs and then the table, tossing the dry flowers into the kitchen sink. She dusted the buffet and remembered the chandeliers. In the dining-room closet she found the silver, the china and the vacuum cleaner.

  In the study she tossed old magazines and newspapers into a pile. She munched on the chocolate from time to time, stashing it in her shirt pocket. The stereo blared and she danced to hits from her grandparents’ era as she dusted and generally straightened things up. In the living room she pulled the muslin drapes from the furniture and snapped open the blinds. She sat down in Ilsa’s reading chair at last, feeling tired but happy. She had already made a small difference.

  Krista pressed the spines of the books evenly into place on the bookshelves with the palm of her hand. On the side table she shifted two glass tigers and rang a 1976 Liberty Bell. Impulsively, she rolled a newspaper and placed it in the fireplace, lit kindling, and put the one remaining log in the basket against the back of the grate. The fire caught easily and she knelt back on her heels, recalling for an instant burning her mother’s books in the apartment. It seemed ages ago. When would they show up? Soon, but not right now. Again she rang the small bell and replaced it on the table, picking up the diary that lay there. It was a simple journal, one of the many dotted around the house, containing roughs, ideas and the odd note regarding maintenance, repair and ferry schedules. Sometimes they included the odd poem-like sketch.

  Turning the pages Krista heard Ilsa, just two summers ago, saying, “Be organized, Darling, be organized, but not too much. We really don’t know much more than what happens in one day, never mind forever. Love for now. Love for this twenty-four hours. Live for this twenty-four hours. That’s enough.” Krista was not thinking about being organized now or forever; loving now or forever. She flipped through the journal, recalling the way her grandmother read aloud, as if the voice came not from her lips but directly from her heart. Krista hugged the small journal to her chest, listened to the crackling of the log on the fire, and told her grandmother as if it had been her suggestion, “You’re right, I’ll stay here. I’ll stay right here. I’ll be an Islander. Like you.”

  Returning to Ilsa’s daily planner, a full schedule, an agenda Krista never really knew existed, Krista imagined Ilsa’s days. The fire sputtered. She found a long, hastily scribbled, poem-like outline erased here and crossed out there, written on a Saturday. It appeared to be Ilsa’s love affair with Morning, Noon and Night. For an instant, Krista heard something upstairs and felt frightened, only to realize the wind had whipped the curtains against the wall in the bathroom and her bedroom. The hall door slammed. Krista recalled her dream from the previous evening. She heard Ilsa’s voice say: “You will not kill yourself.”

  She clutched the cloth-bound volume to her chest and listened. The wind filled the house as breath might fill a body. Continuing to read, Krista visualized Ilsa somewhere, sometime, between running errands, swimming, paying bills, painting, taking time, perhaps right here in this very chair to jot down a bit of beauty, an idle thought. Ilsa was like that, brimming with good, innocence. Krista savored the words between the smudges and erasures.

  “Sunrise, meet Day, who has come to stay,

  I won’t say for always.”

  Even if Morning feels that way.

  Minutes tick slowly.

  More time.

  I create.

  Despite that, Love and Day rush by.

  Into birdson
g, eternal.

  Morning turns forever into Noon and into Night.

  Noon, a better bedfellow, bold and bright.

  What will I ever tell Night?

  While Noon, my hearty companion, lingers;

  Eventually, all three loves slip away.

  Love and Life and Loss.

  Morning, Noon and Night.

  The clock ticks, the hands turn.

  Birdsong.

  “Not forever,” Night chides.

  “Only one day at a time,” he explains.

  Morning, Noon and Night.

  Nothing lasts forever,

  Except this one, Sweet Moment.

  This Shasta Daisy, this Montblanc fountain pen, this rake in my hand, the falling McIntosh fruit…

  Krista closed her eyes. She kept one finger inserted in the diary to hold her page.

  “Nothing lasts forever, except this one, Sweet Moment… only… the Shasta Daisy, the falling McIntosh fruit.”

  She repeated the lines as she watched her small fire die. She rested her chin on the book. Except this one, Sweet Moment. She recalled the twenty-seven McIntosh apples on the ground beneath the ancient tree, the one limb hanging down. A cool draft blew an ember from the fire, which Krista quickly kicked back into the hearth.

  Picking up Ilsa’s diary again she fumbled to find the page she had been reading. What was Ilsa saying? Krista thought of her sweet grandmother who always took the ordinary and raised it up to something special, sweet and redeeming. So innocent. As she flipped through the diary she discovered instead an extra page, not like the others, wedged between the bound ones. The edges were tattered and the paper lightweight. She pulled it out. Two sheets of notebook paper were folded in half and four times across. They bore Ilsa’s handwriting. In some places the ink ran. There were two circular water stains, one in the center of the dark script. Other than that the lettering was steady, consistent, the marks evenly pressed except for the crossing of the Ts.