The next morning, I woke up around six. I decided I didn’t want any more confrontations. My bag was still packed. I slung it over my shoulder and went outside.
When my dad used to pick us up at the bus station, he always came in The Camper. Sometime after Eden took off, he finally got a new car. But he never sold The Camper. It stood in the carport my father had cobbled together out of a falling-down old barn. He only parked The Camper under it, never a car, and when the structure finally collapsed, he would probably leave it there, entombed.
I unlocked the driver’s door and climbed in. The seat was almost the size of an armchair. I had to slide it all the way forward to reach the pedals. The stick shift stood at attention and looked like it would take two hands to move. I stooped into the main area of The Camper and shoved open all the curtains. There were two butterscotch vinyl couches that faced each other like a booth in a diner. A table between them hinged up and stabilized with a single pole leg. That was where Eden and I sat and played games or did homework on long rides. Next to the sliding side door was a sink that never worked and a small refrigerator that was basically a built-in cooler. I climbed over the second couch into the way-back, the area that would be my bed, and tied up the curtains so I could see out the rear window.
My father opened the side door as I crawled back over the couch. “How’s inspection going?” he asked. “Fine,” I said. He took a sip from his coffee mug. I pulled aside the last curtain, next to the passenger seat, and sat behind the wheel. “I don’t know what kind of gear is still in here,” he said. “You can use whatever you find. Might be a raincoat or something in there. Do you need a tent?” “No,” I said. He looked down into his coffee. “Is there a sleeping bag in there for you?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. He put his free hand on the edge of the nonworking sink and hoisted himself inside. He knelt on the couch and peered in the back. “Yeah, there is. We used to use two, but I guess you can use just one. Can’t say how clean it is.” He backed off the couch and squatted on the floor. He set aside his coffee mug and opened a storage compartment underneath the couch. He got down on his hands and knees to search inside. I looked at him in the rearview mirror. He was wearing a washed-out denim shirt and an old pair of jeans. He pulled out a couple of plastic tubes. Then he dragged out a long green sack with metal poles clanking together inside. He stood up with his find. “I think this is a chair,” he said. “If you need it.” He tossed it on the couch. He reached down, swiped his coffee mug off the floor, and walked up to the front. He sat in the passenger seat and balanced the mug on his lap.
“Kind of strange,” he said after a quiet minute. He pointed at me. “I’m used to being in that seat.” He opened the black plastic glove compartment and sorted through the papers inside. “Oh, this’ll be useful,” he said, flapping an owner’s manual from the seventies at me. “In case you break down. Some younger mechanics probably won’t know what to do.” He smushed the papers back inside. “Everything’s there,” he said.
I put the key in the ignition and tried to start it up. It wheezed a bit and didn’t do much. My father laughed. “I warned you,” he said. It did the same thing a second time. “Got it in neutral?” he asked. “Yes, I have it in neutral,” I said. “I know how to drive.” “Well, it’s stick. When’s the last time you drove stick?” I didn’t say anything. “Maybe the engine’s dry and it needs a little gas. Just pump it a few times before you start it again, but don’t flood it.”
It finally started. The gearshift was so hard to move I thought it might snap off. I got it into reverse and started to back out. My father said, “Hang on,” jumped out, and pulled the sliding door shut. He came back around to the passenger door and put his hand on the seat, as if he was going to climb aboard and go along with me on a father-daughter road-trip adventure. Then he realized he had walked into a fantasy and took a step back, leaning his weight away from The Camper, stretching his arms out between the door and the frame, not wanting to let go of his prized motor vehicle, or maybe not wanting to let go of me, whether I was prized or not. The engine percolated beneath me. The monster van vibrated violently. The Camper didn’t like standing still; it felt like it would cut out at any moment. You were either coming along or you weren’t, but The Camper wasn’t going to wait. My father let his eyes fall to the dusty black floor under the glove compartment. Then he looked up at me and said, “Okay” and shut the door. He kept a hand on the outside and then gave it a few pats and let go. I backed the van out the rest of the way and turned it to face the driveway. My father followed my path with slow steps, never drifting far from the passenger window. I shifted into first and it stalled. My father dropped his head and laughed to himself.
“Try it again,” he said. It started right away, huffing and bubbling like a dune buggy. My father walked slowly around the front to my side. I rolled down the window. “Do you have any idea where I can find Suriya?” I asked. “Do you still keep in touch with her?” He smiled. “I see Suriya now and then,” he said. “You might find her over at Piney Cove. It’s sort of a farm retreat. A lot of artists. It’s a couple hours from here. Sometimes she camps out there before she leaves for India. But usually”—he grinned and looked down at his cup—“Suriya finds you. I was out in the yard one day, and when I turned around, there was Suriya. The first time Beth stayed over, Suriya knocked on the door in the middle of the night. Scared Beth half to death.”
The Camper cut out again. I shifted and restarted the engine.
“I hope it’s okay to drive,” he said. “Guess you’ll find out.” “Guess so,” I said. He took his wallet out of his back pocket and held his coffee mug against his body with one arm. He pulled out his AAA card and gave it to me. “Always good to have, just in case,” he said. “Thanks,” I said. He slipped his wallet back into his jeans pocket. He reached through the open window and put his hand on my shoulder, sort of clamping it. He shook my shoulder a few times and then released me with a few pats, the way, I imagined, fathers said goodbye to sons. He turned around and walked back toward the house. In the rearview mirror I saw him dump out the rest of his coffee on the driveway gravel.
8
I would have missed the turn for Suriya’s compound had there not been a bouquet of deflated balloons drifting off a signpost. It marked a teasingly paved road that ended in dirt as soon as you couldn’t see the way out anymore. The road bumped you downhill and around a bend, then opened up to a large dirt patch next to a meadow. On one side stood a modern house with solar panels and a gated driveway with a stern NO TRESPASSING sign. On the other was a sprawling clapboard house with many additions and trim painted a mismatched rainbow of colors. There were cars parked in two clusters on either end of the muddy lot, as if the two parties wanted nothing to do with each other. I headed toward the ramshackle property, which seemed more like Suriya’s kind of place.
An old dead tree in the yard had several hooks hammered into it. Large pots and pans sprouted as stainless steel branches and leaves that shined in the sun.
I walked around and opened a door and popped my head inside. “Hello?” I called at an uncommitted volume. I always felt self-conscious walking into an empty house that wasn’t mine. People in the country do this all the time. My father did this too, leaving notes on someone’s kitchen counter when he stopped by. I asked him why he did that. He said, “Wouldn’t you want to know if someone had been in your house? It’s polite,” he said, though politesse didn’t concern him in most other situations. I stepped inside and called out again, “Hello?” No answer.
I circled the outside of the house and found a path. I walked by a wrecked, wintered-over vegetable garden, a field of dead grass, a few droopy tents. The path took me into the woods. I passed some barrels for collecting rainwater or concocting home brews. There were sheds professing to be workshops, with the cutesy-cozy hand lettering you see at coffee shops.
The path delivered me to a flooded quarry. THE EMERALD CITY, a sign proclaimed, which also said, SWIM AT YOUR O
WN RISK. There was a shed near the embankment, and I thought I heard voices coming from inside. It oozed smoke. Or steam. It fogged from its cracks like a giant ice cube made of rapidly defrosting wood. Another hand-lettered sign said, IF YOU LIVED IN THE MERRY OLD LAND OF OZ, YOU’D BE HOME BY NOW.
I went up to knock, but before my knuckles landed on the door, it swung open, nearly knocking me over. A naked guy leaped out, his furry body hair slicked down with sweat. He ran toward the quarry followed by a handful of people whooping and sweating, odoriferous and cooked slightly pink. Steam was sucked out of the hut. I wasn’t sure if anyone had seen me, and if they did, I doubt my presence was alarming. They were jumping and skipping to the ice-cold quarry pond. High on high temperatures. All naked. All different body types. At the back of the pack I saw Suriya’s short, round form scurrying to keep up, her long, rough hair streaked gray in irregular patterns, not quite long enough to cover her bare ass.
“Suriya,” I called out, and I couldn’t help laughing, finding her like this. She turned around, naked except for the necklaces she always wore. She let out a little yelp, hopped over, and slapped me on the shoulder. Then she turned back around and caught up with her mates. She ran out on a wooden plank diving board and cannonballed into the water.
Everyone hooted and howled. Exhilarated. In awe of nature. Of the sensations of having a body. They cawed at the afternoon setting sun. At the emerald-green pine trees that must give this place its name. One guy swam to shore and pulled himself out. I couldn’t help looking at his penis, which was considerably shrunken by the cold. He saw me looking and smiled, like it was so funny that it could be so small. He ran toward the main building, his wet feet padding against the dirt path. The rest of the gang reached a consensus that they should get out too. “Dip’s over,” someone said. “Don’t let yourself cramp up.” And they all came ashore. They hurried over to the side of the shed, wrapped themselves in blankets, and picked clothing from leafless bushes. Suriya squeezed the water out of her long hair. She coiled a sweatshirt around her head as a turban and threw a blanket over her shoulders. “Hope,” she said, appearing rather regal in her getup. “Come.”
The group walked toward the house. A bonfire was lit in the yard. Suriya led me over to sit on a log. “This is Hope,” she said to the group. “One of my daughters,” she added, rubbing my back. “Hi, Hope,” the group sang in response, like a trippy, outdoorsy AA meeting. More people gathered around, not just the ones who had gone skinny-dipping. Clothed, dry people. A young, tall guy with bushy, grown-out hair had a big laugh. An older guy doffed his blanket and put on a cap, air-drying the rest of his naked body in the fire’s warmth. Someone lit up a joint.
“Okay,” Suriya said, stepping over the log and sitting down. “I ask you all the usual questions. How are you? How are things? How’s your mom? How’s your dad? How’s New York? How’s love and life? And you say back, ‘Fine.’”
I opened my mouth, unsure of what to say. Suriya looked at me out of the corner of her eye as if I had not gotten the joke. She elbowed me in jest. “You know, my mom just passed away,” I said.
Suriya squinted at me. “The cancer,” she said. “Nasty business. I’ll miss her.” She looked back at the fire. “When your time’s up, your time’s up. Her spirit’s here, though. Heh, probably telling me not to believe in spirits. She was a bossy one, your mom. I was going to go see her out there next summer. Good soul. She fought the good fight.” Suriya put an arm around my shoulders and hugged me to her. “You still got me,” she said and laughed. “You came all the way here to tell me that?”
“I need to find Eden,” I said.
Suriya closed her eyes for a moment and thought on the matter. “I don’t know where she is. Wish I did. No.” She scrunched her brow, eyes still shut. “That was reflexive,” she said. “I don’t need to know where she is. I’m guessing she doesn’t want me to know. I hope she’s happy and well and all good. That’s my wishing.” She opened her eyes and turned to face me, proud of her rationale. “What good would it do me or her, knowing where she is? What would be different?”
“It would be easier for me at the moment,” I said, trying to make a joke.
Suriya smiled. Maybe a little disappointed with me for not going deeper. “It’s hard being a parent. Most kids these days don’t know left from right,” she said. “Can’t take a shit without it being scheduled and don’t know how to wipe their own behind. As you can hear, I worked in a school recently.” She gave me a strict look, warning me never to take up this occupation. “Just all so desperate, those moms and dads. And for what? To get into some college. To cheat on a test. To have a chance. That’s what they all said to me. All the parents. ‘I just want him to have a chance. The best chance.’ Can you imagine? They had no idea who their kids were. I tried to say, You know, kids are like flowers. You water them a little and watch them grow. A flower knows intrinsically, internally, instinctively how to grow. You see what happens. See if the plant can figure it out. Find the sun. Of course they would be horrified to learn what my kids are up to.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said.
Suriya laughed. “I’m gossiping,” she said. “That’s not good. Anyway, I’m not doing that job now. I didn’t do it for very long.”
There was a slight breeze and the flames licked toward us. The smoke started blowing our way. Suriya waved it back with a blanketed arm. Eden always flaunted that she was part Native American on Suriya’s side, and Suriya looked more that way as she had aged. Or maybe it was this setup. Sitting around a fire.
“It reminded me too much of being a mother,” Suriya said. I must’ve looked confused because she added, “That job.” Suriya unwound the sweatshirt from her head and slipped it on, reaching her arms through the long sleeves and pulling it down over her naked breasts. She resituated the blanket as a toga skirt around her hips and shook out her damp hair. “That was a big decision for me. When I took off and left your dad. I didn’t want to be a wife or mother anymore. I went on the road. And when I say on the road, I mean on the road. Hitchhiking. Riding the rails. Digging for food. Trying to stay safe, looking for like-minded people. Trying to find a temple of enlightenment, which is hard to do in this country. That’s why, when someone said, Try India, I went on over. Collected a lot of recycling cans and bought a ticket.”
Suriya laughed.
“I can’t say there was more enlightenment in India, but if you wanted to find it, there was more of a structure to help you out. Which has its goods and its bads. Beautiful there, though. Beautiful people. Lots of poverty. So much more than you can imagine. You come back from there with an awareness of privilege. Even when you think you have such a hardscrabble life here, there it’s something else. It’s strange. So many beautiful colors there, though. That’s what I always try to take back with me. All the colors.
“Maybe Eden’s like me.” Suriya shook her head and touched her forehead lightly with her hand. “You try so hard not to be a mother. To just let your kids come through you and not stamp your identity on top of them. But part of you always claims them. And someone out there can claim you. Frightening, isn’t it?” She looked at me. I didn’t say anything. “Some people like it that way. They feel less alone. I didn’t care so much about being alone or not, I just wanted to feel like me. I didn’t want anyone to have to depend on me, and I didn’t want to depend on anyone. That was what I was out to accomplish. You know”—she gestured toward the fire with an arm—“maybe Eden’s trying to free herself from all that.”
Suriya picked up some dirt and tossed it into the fire. “Events can be like families. Places can be that way too. Everything can be a person trying to claim you. I think Eden had a revelation similar to mine. I didn’t want to be a wife and mother. And Eden didn’t want to be Eden, the girl who all that happened to.”
“You want to try?” A young woman with wet hair in strings stuck to her face slid between me and Suriya with a stack of earthenware cups and crouched down. Suriya took one. “
Try it,” the woman said to me. Her eyes were very wide. She gave me an empty cup. “It’s wine. He made it.” She stood back up and walked around the circle. The tall, bushy-haired guy came around with a pitcher. He poured us each a glass, then bowed like a waiter and ducked out. I got the feeling he didn’t speak English.
The wine was very fruity. Way too sweet. I wanted to tell Suriya about the other kidnapping case, with the girl who died, but then I thought, She doesn’t want to know. That’s the way Suriya wanted it. That was her freedom.
Someone lit a torch from the bonfire. A small group scurried out into the meadow. They ran past the torch holder, disappeared into the darkness, and reappeared carrying giant papier-mâché hands on sticks. They swayed the puppet hands left and right and twirled around. Someone near the fire started banging on bongos. An older woman, around Suriya’s age, played a recorder. She got up to dance along as she played, picking up her feet and pointing them balletically in different directions, prancing a few steps like a faun. One of the giant puppet hands got a little too close to the torch. “Oh! Watch out!” a girl said and brought her hands to both of her cheeks. She laughed and gasped and clasped her hands in front of her chest. I think she was high.
The puppeteers organized themselves into a semicircle. The group faced the house, shook their giant papier-mâché hands, and chanted. A young woman emerged from the doorway and someone swooped in and picked her up. She shrieked. She was carried by three or four people working to keep her aloft as she surfed above the crowd. The puppet hands followed her around the meadow, peeling out of their line in a massive version of the Virginia reel. Someone said, “Hello, home!” Everyone around the fire got up and walked into the field, repeating, “Hello, home!” Suriya kissed the top of my head and joined them. She waved at me to follow her. I wandered into the revelry that swayed and chanted and hopped up and down. The group lurched toward the main building. When the front of the pack reached the doorstep, the bongos guy yelled out, “Welcome home!” and everyone plunged inside. The current carried me indoors. People were jumping around me, touching me, hugging me happily as they dashed around the house, not going anywhere in particular, but only interested in touching doors and windows and ceilings if they could reach them. As if the group itself was a gust of fresh air blowing through the communal dwelling. Maybe that was the point of it all.
Eden Page 9