An Obvious Enchantment

by Tucker Malarkey

  Ingrid turned to leave.

  “Listen. I am speaking seriously. You need to remember your divinity, your strength and goodness. Not me. You don’t need me.” He held her arm. The tension of his grip shot up and down. “You cannot become my responsibility simply because you have forgotten yourself.”

  Ingrid spoke into his chest because she refused to bend or twist to look into his eyes. “I thought we were alike,” she said. “I thought you felt alone like me. You are lucky to have such clarity in your life.”

  “Lucky,” Finn repeated. The word unlocked his grip from her arm and he spoke harshly now. “I can live nowhere but here. This island. I see no one but those who choose to come here. Those who choose to come here live a life of ghaflah and they infect the island with it. My home, my island is dying. It’s because of my father and now it’s because of me. There’s nothing I can do but watch. This is my luck.”

  It was over. He was her enemy again. “So you drink,” she said. “You watch and you drink.”

  “I am also trying to forget.”

  “Templeton saw that in you, didn’t he?”

  “Your professor saw too much. I am glad he’s gone.”

  After Ingrid left, Finn sat very still. Jackson replaced his beer. Lighting a cigarette, he waited for the silence to erase the sound of her voice. When he had finished the beer he felt better. Halfway into the next he thought of how it would be to kiss her, really kiss her. Even drunk he couldn’t see what would come after, where the end point with a woman like that would be.

  Wicks passed through on his way to the office. “The telephone is still not working, Mr. Wicks,” Jackson reported.

  “Damn! Things are falling apart around here.”

  “Someone was just in here looking for you,” Finn said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “I’ve forgotten. Maybe Jackson remembers.”

  “It was Miss Ingrid,” Jackson said. “Miss Ingrid was looking for you.”

  “Just left,” Finn added.

  “Did she?” Wicks said hopefully. “Maybe I can catch her.” And he was gone.

  “You see, Jackson,” Finn said. “When you know what the fish is hungry for, you can control him. The less I see of that fish, the better.”

  Finn stayed until he was drunk enough to think about the white men he would like to see go home. Wicks first, then Templeton. They were the same to Finn, both with obstinate heads full of grand ideas. Recently, Fatima had forced him to listen to Templeton rave about what had to be done in the face of Wicks’ hotel. Like Salama, it would bleed far beyond its property corners, infecting everything around it. Something had to be done, and Finn had to help. Fatima agreed, smiling to herself as she poked the fire and listened to the bearded white man, melting a square of chocolate against the roof of her mouth. Finn wanted nothing to do with any of it.

  Templeton had for years pressured Finn to shut down Salama—as if that were possible. Last on the list of Templeton’s concerns were the lives and the livelihoods of the hotel workers, the young men who knew nothing but the hotel and would be lost without it. Too many years of his pigheaded instruction had left Finn deaf to talk of change. It was Finn’s downfall, Templeton said, this belief that the world took care of itself without the effort of those who understood it. Finn had shrugged and remained silent until the professor left. “He’s a preacher,” he told Fatima then. “Worse even than you.”

  “He is right and don’t be so stupid. How have you gotten so stupid?”

  “It’s you who’ve changed, Fatima. You’ve gotten crazy.”

  “Don’t change the subject. You are a part of this island. You understand this. I see you see it so forget your bloody fish and do something useful for us humans.”

  How much Ingrid knew about her professor, Finn didn’t know. She was both too strong and too weak; just being close to her confused him.

  CHAPTER

  23

  The Sloppy Art of Seduction

  By the time Ingrid felt brave enough to return to the hotel, Finn had gone to sea again. She stood in the bar and bit the inside of her lip until it bled. Danny watched her from his stool. “Have a drink, Miss Muffet.” His smile was lazy. “You’re looking particularly lost. Is your work going smoothly? Have you discovered anything?”

  “I have discovered that the women on this island create their own lovers and husbands. I’m beginning to understand why.”

  “Isn’t it wonderful to understand?” Danny crooned. “I love understanding, though I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Ingrid sat at the bar while Danny went behind it to the phonograph. “I think we should celebrate your prolonged stay on the island.” He was flipping through the records with a cigarette between his teeth, the smoke unfurling in front of his face like a cobra. “The funny thing about Finn is that he loves Sinatra. Songs for Swinging Lovers, here it is. Don’t you find that odd? He’s hardly the romantic type. Still, there are the rules he breaks so unexpectedly. He’s a strong, smart fish, isn’t he, Ingrid? And now he’s sounded on you. You’ve lost sight of him. He’s somewhere under the boat. You don’t think you’ve lost him because there’s still tension on the line, but he could have wrapped the line around something. It could be tangled in the propeller. There’s no way of knowing.” Danny rested the needle on the heat-warped disk. The record crackled over the speakers. “Maybe one person you meet in life surprises you. Not just once, but often. There may not be anything quite as exciting. And you haven’t been surprised much, have you, Miss Muffet? I think you may be worrying that you’ll never be surprised again and it terrifies you because you like it, don’t you. You like the possibility of being outsmarted.”

  “What do you do with yourself, Danny, when you’re not here?”

  “You see, I’ve made a direct hit. Bleed a little, Ingrid. It’s good for you.” Danny poured himself another whiskey. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Another thing that scares you is that I’m the only one here you can talk to, the only one who understands your little problem. It’s a bind, Ingrid. You’re in a bind.”

  “You’re wasting your intelligence on me.”

  “I disagree.” He smiled. “Stay a while longer.”

  A few off-season hotel guests trickled in for their predinner cocktails. The bar felt empty, like an actorless stage.

  “Where is everybody?” she asked. “Onka and Lady Emily and the rest.”

  “Off to Nairobi.”

  “How did they get there, for God’s sake? When did they go?”

  “They got out in time.”

  “God, I feel trapped.”

  “Oh, sad day. I was pretending you were enjoying my company.”

  Ingrid did not see Finn until she got up to go to the bathroom. He was standing by the door with an older woman, a hotel guest, a tall, thin brunette with a coral necklace and a strapless dress splashed with bright color. Ingrid watched from across the room as Finn bent his head while she spoke into his ear. There was no expression in his face as he listened. The woman pressed something into his hand and folded his fingers over it. Her polished nails glinted on his skin.

  Ingrid returned to her seat next to Danny and watched Finn leave the bar. A few moments later, the woman with the strapless dress followed him. “Finn is back,” she told Danny.

  “Is he, now?”

  “But he’s gone off again.” Ingrid stood up and gathered her shawl around her shoulders.

  “Going to chase him, are you?”

  “I need to speak to him,” Ingrid added. “The last time we spoke I was rude.”

  “Yes, well, diplomacy has saved the modern world. Best of luck on your mission. If it fails, you know where I’ll be.”

  Ali was at his evening post at the outdoor bar, drinking beer with his brother. Ingrid asked him to show her the way to Finn’s house. He did it reluctantly and they wound through the village in silence. “Leave me,” she told him at the door. “I can find my way home.”

  The front doo
r was ajar. Ingrid stepped into the dark house, quiet save for the sound of surf from the open veranda above the beach. Then a woman’s laughter from inside. Ingrid squatted by the door and peered in. At the foot of the bed, the woman was on her knees in front of Finn. Her bright dress was in a heap next to her. Finn stood with his hands on her head while it moved up and down. “You’re salty,” she said to him. He looked down at her and then away. The woman’s hands pushed up to his chest, closing on his nipples. She rose like a vulture and pressed her lips to one and then the other nipple, stepping out of her panties and moving her lips to his neck. She took Finn’s index finger and urged it back and forth between her legs. Ingrid stepped back as the woman turned around and pressed her buttocks into his crotch. He gripped her waist while she bent over and placed her hands on the bed, bracing herself as he moved into her. “Oh yes,” she groaned. “How I’ve missed that.” His thrusting was long and slow at first and then it shortened. He told the woman to be quiet. “Hold me,” she said, clasping his hands to her breasts. He moved them slowly in circles. When he came there was no sound, just a heaving that was hard and final.

  “Finn has a lover,” she told Danny back at the bar. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “Have a weentsy drink, Ingrid.”

  “She’s staying at the hotel.”

  “Is she? Well, bully for her.”

  “Who is she?”

  “You haven’t been listening to me, Miss Muffet. Listen closely, Finn has lots of lovers. They pay him for sex. Charging for it is Finn’s way of being honest. He likes it, but without any of the accoutrements.” Danny twirled his hand in the air. “Attachments and that sort of thing.”

  “Does he need the money?”

  “Good God no. Really, he’s just like the beach boys, just a different flavor. More lemony, like a cleaning agent. If it was sex you were wanting with him, that little tidbit might help you out.”

  Ingrid stood up and walked away, holding her stomach with her arms. She went to the terrace and stared at the ocean. The night was moonless, the water black. Ingrid took the image of Finn and his woman and plunged them into the black water. When she sat back down next to Danny she counted the bottles of liquor behind the bar by twos. “I know,” Danny said. “It’s abominable.”

  “It isn’t. It makes perfect sense.”

  “Perhaps that’s why you haven’t performed the carnal act with him yet. It’s possible you couldn’t afford him, being a poor academic. The fact that he hasn’t told you is interesting, however. That could mean any number of things.”

  “Maybe he has an ounce of compassion.”

  “I’ve seen mothers pay him to deflower their infatuated daughters. Better to know the devil than to guess. And Finn is safe and clean. Did you know he’s Swedish nobility? It’s a good selling point for our boy.”

  “I have to go, Danny.”

  “Yes, of course, you have work to do. Come to my house for dinner tomorrow. I’ll have Hamilton cook some fish stew. You’re getting too thin, you know.”

  Ingrid paused at the door. “Is there anyone you love more than him?”

  Danny smiled and then winked. “It’s doubtful. Don’t tell him, though. He despises being loved.”

  On her way back to the guesthouse, Ingrid sliced her foot on something in the sand, a piece of glass or a broken shell. It was a deep cut that abruptly changed her direction, a stab of pain that blocked out thought.

  She tracked blood into Finn’s house. He was sitting on the veranda, bare-chested, smoking, making small white clouds against the flat, black plane of ocean in front of him. The room was lit by a single hurricane lamp. Her shadow was long. Even from as far as the door, it touched him.

  “I just wanted to tell you I understand.” She could feel the blood, the sand sticking to her foot. “I know you don’t care, but I thought you should know.”

  “Come, sit. Tell me what you understand.”

  “I watched you in here with that woman, that guest.”

  “Now that surprises me a little.”

  “I thought I had something for you. And you had something for me—something I needed. But everyone thinks that about you. That woman. Other women. Danny, even. I’m no different from them.” Ingrid stood on her good foot. A sleepy kitten jumped off a chair and came unsteadily toward her. “You don’t like people. They all want something from you but they have nothing to offer in exchange. Nothing you’re interested in. It drives people crazy. It has been driving me crazy, but now I understand. Maybe you want a little revenge. Otherwise you want to be left alone.”

  Finn flicked his cigarette off the veranda. “And here you are.”

  “For the last time. I can take care of myself now.” Ingrid lowered her other foot and stepped backward until her shadow left him.

  She stood outside for a moment and watched through the window as Finn moved the kitten from the place she had been standing and put his hand over the wetness on the floor where she had been, pressing his palm to his cheek afterward and then setting the kitten on his chest and lying down on the cold stone surface.

  The next evening Ingrid went back to Salama, her foot bandaged. By the time she sat down the throbbing had started. “Even here you won’t be able to keep the sand out,” Danny told her. “Soak it in Detol when you get home.”

  “It’s small but it hurts like hell.”

  “Bacteria breeds in this humidity. If the red spreads up your leg, get off the island. We’re not equipped here for infection. Incidentally, I’m sorry about last night.”

  “Sorry why?”

  “I don’t remember exactly. What a nuisance this memory business is. You see, mine is fading, like a photograph in the equatorial sun. I could forgive anything of that sun, and maybe I have. Yes, I think I have.” He spoke so quietly that Ingrid had to lean to hear him. Their heads were almost touching. “Do you think you could love me?” he whispered.

  Ingrid pulled away and placed a finger on the rim of his glass. “Pour me some of that, will you, Jackson?”

  Danny smiled. “There are some who consider me before Finn. Rarely the best.”

  “I considered you.”

  “Oh, Ingrid, you’re slaying me.”

  “When I first met you I thought it was possible to know you.” Ingrid swallowed half her whiskey and leaned close to him. “What do you think about, Danny?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I was sure it was obvious. I think about bonking women. I’m quite decent, you should give me a try. It might be just what the doctor ordered. When was the last time you had a good bonk, princess? Look at you, you’re blushing. What a fragile flower you are. I had no idea.”

  Ingrid swallowed the rest of her whiskey and closed her eyes to the burn. With enough liquor, she could forget about her foot. “Why didn’t you finish your degree at Oxford?”

  “Oh, well, now.” Danny laughed. “Things happened.”

  “What things?”

  “I learned the fine art of cooking, for one. In prison, I’ll have you know. So I’m a tough bastard.”

  “Why were you in prison?”

  “One of my favorite stories. A wretched Italian girl stashed her dope in my bag on an international flight. I had gone back to finish school like the good boy I used to be. Just like you, Miss Muffet, I used to love school. Used to love eye-tyes too.”

  “Was she your girlfriend?”

  “Shameful, isn’t it? Nasty woman left me high and dry. Marched right through customs and didn’t once look back. My heralded return to Oxford stopped at Heathrow security. Here’s a lesson from old Danny: life can turn very quickly in the wrong direction.” Danny flicked his lighter and produced an enormous flame.

  “Jesus, Danny.”

  Danny winked. “You know what they say about a man’s flame.”

  Ingrid moved his hair away from his drooping cigarette as he searched for it with the flame. After torching the end of the cigarette, he puffed happily. “But all was not lost. I went to prison and became an exception
al cook. So you must join me for dinner sometime.”

  “I’d love to.”

  Danny belched. “Does this mean you want to get bonked? Because that’s really what I’m interested in.”

  Ingrid smiled. “Why do you do that?”

  “Because it’s the truth. And all women really want is to get bonked. We’ll have a lovely time. We’ll get to know each other over dinner and then bonk all night.”

  “I take it you don’t want me to come for dinner at all.”

  “Objection!” Danny pounded the bar with his fist. “May I inform the court I was merely engaged in the fine and sometimes sloppy art of seduction. If my subtleties were lost on the lady, I can only plead innocent—and if you find me guilty let my punishment be the nearly unbearable knowledge that I have failed.” He rested his head on his arm. “Only a few really good ones in a year and what do I do in my excitement? Self-immolate. It’s the hideous self-loathing of a lonely drunk. Don’t leave, Ingrid, sweet Ingrid. Stay with me. Take me home.”

  Danny leaned on Ingrid as they walked away from the lights of the hotel. He was taller than she had realized. His house was only a few hundred yards from Salama and when they got to the front door, he paused in the dark entryway and cursed quietly. Inside were scratching, mewing, crackling sounds. The floor was alive with patches of color. There were cats everywhere. Danny lurched toward the kitchen and returned with his spidery arms raised. A large plate came crashing down on the floor, and then another shattered into a feline scream. A single cat lay motionless while the rest scattered through open windows. Danny snatched its tail and flung it into the night. “Bloody felines. They got into my curry.” On the way back in, he tripped on the doorway and landed hard on his elbows. His hair hung in his face. He made no move to get up. Ingrid was on her knees. “Let me help you.”

  Danny leaned on Ingrid as she led him up the stairs. Halfway up he folded into a spasm of choking sounds that could have been weeping. He grinned, vomit down his shirtfront. “Oh yes, fine mess. Hamilton!” he bellowed. “Where’s my sweet slave when I really need him?”