Under the trees the light was thin and aqueous. He could smell decay — a fragrant, resiny sharpness, a sweet rottenness. Addictive, perhaps. All his senses seemed to stretch themselves out. He walked on into shadow.
If the sun had been visible through the green above him, he would have been less surprised by the heat. Perhaps the pine needles — so seductively yielding to the feet — trapped the warmth and held it, a natural hothouse for seedlings. He removed his coat, hesitated a moment, then folded it loosely and left it at the foot of a tree. A little further on, he discarded his tie. He unbuttoned his shirt and rolled up the sleeves.
Now there was nothing to distract him from his voices. He heard Kathleen’s: Why is mummy crying? And Therese’s: A woman called long distance. And La Magdalena’s. Hers, dinning inside his skull, was without sound, infinitely sad. A siren’s call. A wounded siren’s call. But all of his voices, all of his women, were wounded.
He walked faster and faster. Always the deeper shadow lured him on, a camouflage for shame. If he could enter the heart of the darkness, where he belonged, he might be able to stand the sight of himself. Perhaps he could discard his life like a stale skin or an extra layer of clothing. Begin again.
But how? When his flesh leaned willy-nilly toward comfort even while he despised himself? When he had a mortgage to pay and First Communion dresses to buy and every time he turned around, so many pairs of sad eyes watching him. When in fact very soon he would have to button his shirt, pick up his tie and coat, reassemble himself, walk back along the track to a road, hitch a ride, find a gas station, rent a tow truck, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And to pay for the gas for this unbudgeted joy ride, to pay for the tow truck, he would have to sell another quick handful of Mister-Donut-sized insurance policies. And if he could just want the Corvette for Therese a little more urgently, he could graduate to a bigger and more elegant treadmill.
So palpable was the sense of pointlessness that it took on form before his eyes: it had the body of a toad and the face of a ghoul. In a kind of horror, he clasped a tree and beat his forehead rhythmically against the trunk. Anything to expunge the view of himself as loathsome and of his life as a bad joke. He wished that a merciful bolt of lightning would strike him. Then at least Therese would collect the insurance, then at least the family would be decently provided for.
Tapping his head did nothing to ease the torment. He had to run from it. He began to jog. His shirt billowed out behind him. He tacked into his despair. The pine woods were endless and there was very little light to give direction. Probably he ran in circles. He ran and ran, hoping for something definitive like a heart attack.
When at last he had to stop because the pain in his lungs was intolerable, he threw himself on the ground and closed his eyes and waited till the dizzying light show inside his head subsided. Perhaps he actually slept for a few minutes, or else simply passed through a brief hiatus in consciousness because of a shortage of oxygen.
At any rate, when he looked around him he was surprised to see that the edge of the pine forest was at least two hundred yards away and that he was halfway up a hillside. Below him and to the east lay a village, and he recognized the church spire. L’Ascension. He had not after all gone so far astray. He concluded that he must be only a couple of miles from Felicity’s cottage and that he might as well walk there before seeing about a tow truck. Probably he would be able to see the cottage from the top of the hill.
Afternoon sun was beating down on his back, fiery. He was ascending through a wall of heat, shading his eyes, trying to see the house and barn and sloping fences that seemed to sit like an elabourate finial on the top of the slope. Shapes danced like phantoms in the blinding light. Nothing was clear.
And then suddenly it was.
Just under the brow of the hill a clump of trees gave him respite from the glare and he could see the barn and a small apple orchard and a large iron-wheeled farm wagon under the trees. Someone was standing in the wagon picking apples. A woman in black.
He began to run again, but as soon as he moved beyond the trees the sun hit him like a blow and the woman was swallowed up in a dazzle of light. When he reached the orchard, the wagon was empty.
But it was La Magdalena, he was sure of it.
He followed the track that led from the apple trees toward the farmhouse. No signs of life. The house was shuttered and still, but certainly not deserted. There were well-tended flower beds, a stack of chopped firewood ready for the winter, a cat on the porch. He peered through the front windows but could see nothing beyond his own reflection. He shaded his eyes and looked down the hill toward the southeast. He thought he could see Felicity’s cottage.
That’s where La Magdalena went, he decided.
He had to take the track back through the orchard. Under foot, fallen apples were turning soft and brown and the air was sharp with their sweet fermentation. It was like walking through a cider press. He became aware that he was very thirsty. Perhaps he should veer toward L’Ascension first, buy a drink, make some phone calls, hire a tow truck.
Then he saw her again and stopped dead, afraid the image would disappear.
She was standing under a tree, transfigured by light, her head tilted back, watching the sky through the leaves. She had her back to him, though he could tell that she held her black skirt gathered up into a pannier in front of her. He imagined it to be full of apples.
He did not move.
There was a ring of light around her head. While he watched, she moved a little and apples fell from her skirt and rolled into the grass. She stretched her arms up into the patch of sun that fell between the leaves and began to stroke herself with her hands, as though she were bathing in the light.
Gus was trembling. He clutched his heart because it was booming like breakers on a reef. Equipped with no tools for articulating to himself a sense of the ineffable, he was simply obscurely aware that nothing would ever be quite the same again.
A squirrel moved.
The woman started and turned, but the light falling on her through the leaves was so strong that his eyes began to water and he could not see her. Nevertheless, he knew that she was looking at him, and that her look was dense with meanings that could not be read in such a glare.
He took a step toward her and stretched out his arms — perhaps in reassurance, perhaps in desire — but he might as well have fired a gun. She was off and running downhill through the trees, her hair streaming like a black pennant.
He knew it was pointless to follow.
He went and stood in her patch of sun and picked up one of the apples that had fallen from her skirt. When he bit into it, he felt as though he had partaken of grace. Exhilarated, he hiked down the hill into L’Ascension and arranged for the tow truck.
20
Do you think I’m not aware of what is happening?
Do you think I don’t know I’m really writing about Felicity at ten years of age, lost in the dark world, trying to make the woman in the photograph turn round?
Do you think I don’t know I’m also writing about myself? That I’m not aware that the woman under the apple tree is really Felicity?
Of course I know.
This is a very common phenomenon. Give a medical article about a new disease to any ten people and they’ll all become alarmed. They’ll all recognize symptoms and warning signs in themselves.
We impose our own lives on the world: the self as template.
I recognize, therefore I grant meaning.
But I am also writing about Gus, who panicked (along with the rest of us) that his life made no sense, that it lacked a core. He was after the burning bush, the sublimely beautiful, the all-compassionate, unconditional lover. (You think I don’t know that my Felicity, my version of her, is suspect? That her photograph is blurred with light? That she has, as it were, her back to you? Look to the beam in your own eye! I read Dante, you read Dante, we’re all of us looking for Beatrice, all in the dark wood together.)
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And remember: I know Gus. I listened to him for long, drunken, maudlin confessional hours. (I’m getting to the part where we met.)
I know what Gus dreamed of.
I know what he saw, or thought he saw, in the orchard.
And I know that other side, the one he was scarcely aware of, the net of illusions that he himself cast. Remember: I am intimate (emotionally, let me stress) with his teenage daughter. And she sees him ringed with light.
21
“Really, Felicity,” Aunt Norwich said. “A man from the FBI? Honestly, my dear. In our street?”
Aunt Ernestine smiled indulgently as she poured the coffee. “Another peach, Felicity?”
A languid and graceful ritual, breakfast with the aunts: omelettes and toast, fine china, fresh fruit. And how could Felicity speak of murder in front of this perfect peach, so demure on its fluted Royal Albert plate? How could she discuss surveillance while slicing it with a pearl-handled fruit knife and fork, the finest of old sterling? She speared a slice and held it in front of her. She rubbed the rose-gold pelt against her lips. She licked at the juice with the tip of her tongue, dreaming of mangoes and of Brisbane and of how the sun used to touch her skin when she fished for tadpoles while her grandparents dozed on deck chairs under the flame trees.
Aunt Ernestine made a small clicking noise of disapproval. Felicity closed her lips around the tines of the fork and savoured the flesh of the peach in private.
She rehearsed telling them again: “That woman I told you about, the one at the border. She’s been murdered.” Perhaps reiteration would convince both her aunts and herself.
The telephone rang, and Felicity had such a visceral vision of murdered and pulpy flesh that she had to dispose of the chewed peach slice into a linen napkin. The aunts stared at the telephone as at an unmannerly intruder. They did not accept callers until after lunch. They waited for its tantrum to finish.
With each shrill syllable, Felicity’s nerves became more jangled. The ringing went on and on. The aunts sipped their coffee with peaceful indifference. Peaches fell into perfect segments at the touch of their pearl-handled knives. Felicity twisted her linen napkin into knots. The ringing went on. It was unendurable.
Felicity pushed back her chair and fled to the hallway.
“Really, Felicity,” Aunt Norwich said in mild surprise. “It only encourages people. If they don’t know any better than to … ” But Felicity was out of hearing.
“Yes?” she said, breathless but curt, expecting the worst.
“You are the art curator who drives the blue Datsun.” It was not a question.
“Yes.”
“You do not know me.” The voice, a female one, enunciated English carefully, as a second language. “I speak on behalf of a group. We wish to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“For the rescue.”
“For the …? Do you mean …?”
“Yes. La Desconocida.”
“La Des …?”
“The unknown one. It is better not to mention her name. But we have received word and we thank you. It was bravely done.”
“But hasn’t she been …? I was shown a picture … she’s been murdered.”
There was a pause, and then a regretful: “Already the nets are out.”
“Pardon?”
“They want other information from you,” the voice replied. “It was someone else who was killed, not she. We have spoken with her this morning.”
“This morning!” It was like waking from a nightmare. “Oh thank God!” Felicity said. “Is she still in my cottage?”
“She is with friends.”
“Ah,” Felicity said. “I knew it. The other car.”
“The other car?”
“It doesn’t matter.” For Felicity there were more pressing riddles. “So it’s true she’s under protection? She’s a government agent?”
There was a short laugh. “Is that what they told you?”
Felicity was nervous. “She works for … someone else?”
Another laugh. Or it could have been a kind of sob of exasperation, bleakly amused. “For whom, for God’s sake? For the hopeless?”
“Who are you?” Felicity demanded, desperate for a sticking-point in the quicksand. “And how did you know where I —”
“Everything is dangerous,” the woman said. “Especially talk. We want to know: Will you help?”
The nightmare settled around Felicity again, like a bird-catcher’s net. “I don’t know,” she faltered.
“We understand. But if you want to know more,” the voice said quietly, “come to Central Square. You know it?”
“Of course,” Felicity said. “Who are you?”
“Come to El Centro Salvadore, 136 Massachusetts Avenue.”
“But …” A nervous tic in Felicity’s lip made it difficult to speak. “The FBI … I’m being watched.”
“Naturally you are being watched. If only it were by the FBI. If you want to do nothing more, we understand. In any case, we thank you. La Desconocida herself thanks you. Goodbye.”
“Wait! If I come to Central Square, whom shall I ask for?”
“Just come to El Centro Salvadore, 136 Mass Ave.”
There was a click.
Felicity stared into the receiver. A miraculous manifestation issuing from it would not have surprised her. Agitated, she flipped through the telephone book to the federal government listings. She called the FBI. Could she please speak to Mr Trog? There was, she was informed after a pause and the sound of riffled pages, no such person at the Boston office. Could she, then, speak to Mr Hunter or leave a message for him? The Boston office had no knowledge of a Mr Hunter.
Felicity returned to the breakfast room, trembling a little, and drank her coffee. She needed it. Twittering about her like cooing doves, the aunts spoke of this and that, but Felicity was not listening. Alive, she was thinking. Dolores Marquez-MagdalenaSalvadora-La Desconocida is alive. And in spite of everything her spirits lifted. But then … if the murder was false, how authentic was the deliverance? If someone who distrusted Trog and Hunter knew so much, knew how to reach her, just how many people were watching her and what were their intentions?
She looked at the aunts moving between the silver coffeepot and the old lace curtains, and they seemed to her as distant as a fishing boat in the Indian Ocean. I will always be alone, she thought. I will never be safe. I am one of those people marked at birth, like my father. The people who need dangerous work done smell us out, the way horses and dogs smell fear on human beings.
She drifted upstairs to the bedroom that had been hers since she was thirteen years old, and looked down into the street. He was still there. Hunter. He was sitting in his car, his thick forearm resting on the window. Even the way his hair fell in oily clumps over his forehead seemed sinister to her now, and she was alarmed that she had ever thought of him as gentle and sympathetic. It revealed some fatal incapacity on her part to assess people correctly.
What could she say to her aunts?
You were right. It appears that the woman I met at the border has not been murdered; and the man in the street is not from the FBI. Nevertheless a man, some man, is out there watching the house and I am afraid of him and I have to get to Central Square without being seen.
Really, Felicity, they would say. You’ve let your coffee get cold.
Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, Felicity thought, and you can protect yourself from a great deal of distress. If only she could acquire the knack.
The gardens on Beacon Hill are beautiful but secret — perfectly scaled triumphs of azaleas and dogwoods in colloquia, of shy statuary and of gluttonous ivy in elegant containment behind high brick walls. Many of the gardens are interconnected, part of a grander scheme of aristocratic cooperation, or cosmic harmony in little. Though the aunts’ garden is not part of this continuous landscaping, a wicket gate behind the lilacs permits access to it. One can pass unseen for the length of the street, there are hid
den doors to laneways and side streets, there is private access to the Common.
Felicity made brief and vague explanations to the aunts, who assumed she was leaving for her gallery. But where is your car? Aunt Norwich asked. Ah well, Felicity said, it was impounded by that man from the FBI. Really, Felicity, they chuckled, as she faded from their morning.
Once she reached the Common she felt safer, though a thought, like a burr, snagged in her mind: Just how many watchers were there? Why was that gardener staring? Why did that child point at her? She rubbed her eyes. She was running full tilt at paranoia.
But really, there were too many people about and the watchers would lose track. The world was in motley. Punk rockers with dangerous hair. Children on roller skates. Dreadlocked black teenagers with ghetto blasters in full voice. Girls blooming with suntans and hope. Everyone was young, except for the gentlemen on benches who turned in their sleep and pulled sheets of newspaper up to their chins for comfort.
At the entrance to the Park Street subway station, she had to pass through a crowd gathered around a sword-swallower. The man was on his knees, his head tilted back so far it was at right angles to his shoulder blades. His Adam’s apple moved convincingly and the sword blade slowly disappeared, inch by inch, down his gullet. Mildly curious, Felicity watched as she fished in her purse for a token. Was the feat anatomically possible? And if not, how was the illusion managed? She found her token. As the sword hilt clicked against the man’s teeth, she moved away and descended to the gritty bowels of the Park Street stop. Miasma. She loved the subway, as steamy and murky and full of the unexpected as a tropical rainforest. Everyone in transit. An underground world of equals, every face pale and phantasmal as the nimbus of a wandering soul. Felicity felt at home in such places.
The Red Line train came snorting into the station, rattling its scales and plates, spewing out hundreds of people, sucking in hundreds more. It snarled and screeched and rushed on into darkness, earthworming below Boston, surfacing to slink across the Charles River, plunging back into the city’s intestine. Past Kendall, where no one ever seemed to get on or off, to Central Square, where the phantoms rose into sunlight like bits of discoloured froth and were blown in a myriad directions.
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