An Obvious Enchantment

by Tucker Malarkey

  Ingrid put her hand on Templeton’s arm. He was fast asleep. “Dear girl,” he mumbled, when she spoke softly. She put her mouth to his ear. “I saw the stars,” she said.

  “It would make a lovely story, wouldn’t it?” he said, his voice still thick with sleep. “Maybe you should tell it. Go back and tell them about this place.”

  “Finn is taking me to Malindi,” she said. “Where I can catch a plane to Nairobi and find a hospital. You need one more than I do. Come with us.”

  “No, no,” he said, turning away from her, back onto his side. “I’ve had expert care. I’m home, you see. Someone will come soon to take care of me.”

  “Who?”

  “I have friends here.”

  Ingrid sat down. “I’m not ready to leave you. I’ve come too far.”

  “You have to leave,” Templeton said. “Finn is ready to take you and you have a course to teach—you have a life to lead. This is where I belong.”

  “And what about your king?” she asked.

  “The world hears from those on their way to understanding, not from those who have reached it.” Templeton coughed violently and held up his hand to prevent assistance. “My life is more here than there. It doesn’t matter to me anymore what they understand. They will not believe the story if it comes from me—they will say it is nothing but fantasy. But you can tell them—they might listen to you. And it is just possible that you will convince them to believe you.”

  He paused, reaching for his water. “I’m tired of all these battles and I can do more here. Now that Mohammad is gone and Wicks has lost his hand there will be questioning. They will need someone to represent them. They need protection and guidance.”

  Ingrid could feel him slipping away from her. He was in front of her but he had already begun to transport himself to some other place where she couldn’t follow him. “Don’t be hurt,” he said, watching her with tenderness.

  “We have to go,” Finn interrupted, “if we’re going to catch Fatima.”

  “Fatima?” Ingrid asked.

  “She will have heard about Mohammad by now and will want to make her way to this side of the island. We need to see her first.”

  “Yes,” Templeton said. “You can’t leave before visiting Fatima. Finn can show you everything you need to see. He understands it all now. Now go,” he urged. “Go.”

  “If it’s all right with you, I don’t think I’ll say good-bye,” she said.

  “No, that would be silly. We haven’t said a proper hello. You must write, tell me what happens. I’ll be curious to hear how the story unravels. You will be fearless with the department, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” Ingrid said, having no idea what she had to be fearless about.

  “I will be thinking of you there,” Templeton said, taking her hand. Ingrid studied her hand against his. She pressed lightly on his veins and wondered if he was strong enough to recover. “Where will you live?” she asked. “I would like to picture it.”

  “In a house with no walls, in a silent village. I will be happy,” he said. “Your life will proceed just fine without me.”

  Unable to picture any of this, Ingrid touched her lips to his cheek and turned to go. The questions he had answered had been replaced with new ones. He was home, he had said. She mouthed the word to herself. There was someone who would take care of him, someone who loved him, maybe as much as she did. Her ache at leaving him was mitigated by the strange conviction that he had reached the end of his journey.

  The channel was choppy with wind, and the prow of the little skiff was bashed by oncoming waves. Ingrid clung to her seat and squinted against the spray. Finn raised his voice above the wind. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Ingrid nodded, her face sprayed with seawater. “What happened to Mohammad?”

  “Mohammad is dead.”

  Ingrid wiped her eyes and looked at Finn through the sting of salt. His gaze left hers for the horizon and froze there. He stood up in the skiff. Ingrid turned around. Across the island, the skyline was flushed with scarlet. Black smoke surged upward, scorching the blue sky.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Wicks’ hotel. They are burning it.” They watched as flames leapt to the treetops as palm fronds were ignited and quickly vanished into smoke.

  They found Fatima preparing a bag, packing items she had set out on her table: a short stack of neatly folded clothes, a bottle of rosewater, the Koran and two bars of chocolate. She was, uncharacteristically, in traditional dress.

  After letting them in, she hardly registered their presence. She did not seem surprised or even interested by their arrival.

  “Fatima,” Finn said. “Where are you going?”

  “They are burning the second hotel. It will be Mohammad’s pyre. We are all of us going. The two villages united at last. Mohammad’s greatest wish”—Fatima scowled—“and this is what it takes.”

  “We saw the smoke from the water,” Finn said. “I will go too.”

  “You will stay,” Fatima instructed. “You did not have to be there for the first pilgrimage. You do not have to be there now.” She motioned to Ingrid. “And you have this one now. It seems to be what you have decided. Do not look at me that way, I am not sorry. What I see is two of the same people. It is right for you to be together.”

  For a moment, Finn was speechless. “I am only taking her to Malindi, where she can get a plane to Nairobi.”

  “Good for you that you are finally helping others. You do not have to explain to me what you are doing or not doing, it’s no longer any of my affair. Now I must go.”

  “Fatima, before you go, I have a favor to ask of you,” Finn said.

  “I have no time for favors.”

  “It won’t take time. May we see your necklace?”

  Fatima paused and dropped her bag to the ground. “For what reason?” she asked warily. Fatima looked from one of them to the other. “It is mine. You cannot have it.”

  “We only want to see it, Fatima,” Finn assured her.

  Fatima plunged her hand below her shirt into the cavern between her heavy breasts. She held out a metal disk the size of a large coin. It was covered with worn markings. “It belonged to my sister and before her to another mganga,” she explained, rubbing its surface with her thumb. “It is very old.”

  Ingrid held her hand out and could see that it was trembling. “May I see it?” she asked quietly.

  “I remember the day the professor saw it,” Fatima said with a smile. “A day I will always remember. How he tried to get it from me, to borrow it. Later he told me he thought it belonged to a king. Of course it belonged to a king! I said. This is not news.”

  Ingrid took the pendant to the light of the open door. There were inscriptions in two languages, one of them Arabic. On one side was the map she had seen in Templeton’s notes. She ran her finger over the wavy lines. She turned the amulet over and smiled. “Do you know what this is?” she asked.

  “Would I wear it if I didn’t? I know it was worn by a king who understood two worlds and brought them together in greater peace and understanding of God.”

  Ingrid smiled. “Yes.” She offered the amulet to Finn. “It’s a map. A way to find water from the stars.”

  “For reasons you may not understand,” Fatima said, holding her hand out for the amulet to be returned. “I was saving it for Finn. I was going to give it to him when the time was right.”

  “And when exactly would that be?” Finn asked, studying the disk. “When I was the king of this island and everyone was happy and worshiped the same god?”

  “I was wrong,” Fatima muttered grumpily. “I’m going to keep the amulet for myself.”

  “Well,” Finn said. “I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

  “It is a responsibility, you understand. It is not just jewelry.”

  “I understand perfectly,” Finn said.

  “I don’t believe you’re ready to wear it,” Fatima said. She was still holding out her hand. “You
are asking for her, aren’t you?”

  “No,” Finn said, returning the necklace. “I’m asking for me.”

  “Because you are the same, you two.”

  “We are not the same. I’m asking for me.”

  “If we were the same,” Ingrid interjected, “would you tell me the truth?”

  Fatima refastened the necklace around her neck. “This one plays games with words,” she said.

  “Did you take my sandal?” Ingrid asked, gesturing to her foot. “Do I have you to thank for this?”

  “I see you haven’t learned much,” Fatima said dismissively.

  “Just tell me.”

  “I will tell you this. The answer is not so easy. This island”—Fatima wove her fingers together—“is like this. And anyway”—she turned to Ingrid—“a wound like that can be a gift.”

  “Fatima, I am part of this island,” Finn said. “So tell me.”

  “You have changed,” Fatima said. “I don’t know what you are a part of anymore.”

  “I haven’t changed, Fatima.”

  “Everything has changed. This is a different island. Even I know it now.”

  Finn did something he had never done. He crossed the room to Fatima and put his arms around her. She let him hold her, relaxing for a moment against him, and looked suddenly smaller, like an old woman who had lost too much. Then, in an instant, she puffed herself up and pushed him away. Wiping her eyes, she turned away from them. Her hands buried themselves in the nape of her neck as she searched for the clasp.

  Finn carried Ingrid back to the boat. “I can walk,” she protested.

  “We don’t have the time,” he said. “I have to go to Abdul’s to get your things.”

  Ingrid spoke from inside his arms. “Have you ever thought that maybe your home won’t be in a place or a god? Maybe it will be in a person.”

  Finn waited until they were at the skiff to respond. “A person is not a house. A person cannot protect you from rain and bad weather. A person is not enough.” Finn laid her down next to the skiff and placed a water bottle in her lap. “Wait here for me. We will take Uma to Malindi, and there you will catch the plane. It will take us five hours or so to get there if this weather holds. Until then, you will drink the water in that container.”

  Ingrid was unexpectedly glad to see her belongings again. After securing her passport and wallet, she picked through her bag for something to wear. Her clothes were clean and folded. “Sari must have done this. Did you see her?”

  “She had your bag in her room. I think she was hiding it from Abdul.”

  “How is she?”

  “She seems fine. She said to tell you good-bye, that you will be in her prayers.”

  Ingrid went back to her bag and rifled to the bottom of it, where her toiletries were. “I would like to brush my teeth.”

  After boarding Uma, Finn went to the steering wheel and cleaned the gauges with his sleeve. “Good,” he murmured. “We have enough gas.”

  Ingrid sat down with her chosen outfit folded neatly in her lap. She looked like a child waiting to go to school. “I’ll go below so you can change your clothes,” Finn said. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Down in the galley, Finn put on water for tea. He sat down and rubbed his face, his jaw rough with stubble. It was strange not to have Jonah there. He lay down and rested until the kettle shrieked, and then he poured the steaming water into two mugs.

  He found a clean shirt and a good white kikoi under the couch. In the bathroom, he washed his face and his armpits. Before picking up the tea, he took a cup of water and toothpaste with him.

  Ingrid had changed her clothes. She wore a flowered skirt and a yellow blouse. On her good foot was a sandal. She was sitting in the fishing seat looking straight back up the channel. Except for her hair and the missing sandal, she looked again like a mzungu woman. He brought her the cup and toothpaste.

  Ingrid glanced at his kikoi. “That fancy kind comes from Somalia, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I noticed you like to wear the Somalian ones to the bar. Do women prefer the white?”

  “My father had a rule that island men could only wear their good kikois to the bar at night. It is still a rule.”

  Finn returned to the wheel and started the engine and wondered about her clothes and how they had changed her. Was this what she wore in America? What did she wear in the snow? He looked back at her, sitting there at the side of the boat, brushing her teeth. He felt far from her again, restored to his life, and she to hers. While there was some comfort in this restoration, it made conversation difficult.

  When Finn put Uma in gear, Ingrid hopped up to sit in the passenger seat. She propped her foot up on the dash and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. They did not talk. Finn took the amulet from his shirt pocket and held it in his hand. They sat next to each other with the comfortable rumble of the engine and stared at different patches of ocean. Ingrid looked for fish because she had a feeling that if she looked hard enough, she would find one and forget for a moment that her life was moving on, it was moving back, without her.

  Finn watched the water but saw nothing but its blue-black color. The amulet had grown warm in the palm of his hand. He glanced at Ingrid but her face was turned away. Turning around, he saw dark clouds of smoke hung over the island, an injury to the otherwise flawless sky. Out of the clouds came a small white plane.

  Finn turned back to his steering and for a moment thought about nothing. Then the images seeped in. Black smoke, lifeless water, Wicks . . . Finn touched Ingrid’s shoulder. When she turned around he held out the amulet.

  “What?” she called over the noise of the engine.

  “Take it back with you.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I would only take it if you came with me,” she shouted. “And you wouldn’t like it there. It’s cold.”

  “Like Sweden.”

  “Maybe worse.”

  Finn did not look at her. He counted white-caps to ten, then twenty. “Then you will stay.”

  Ingrid stared at him and then out to sea. Then I will stay. Is this how life went? Someone said something, said four impossibly brief words and the whole construct changed. Ingrid stared dumbly at her feet. Every detail of every choice she had made up to this point led in one direction. He knew it. It was in her skirt, her blouse, her one sandal, her one good foot. It was in everything about her. There was no movement in this new direction, no doing. She had glimpsed its path dancing in the mosque, in the height of her fever, in Finn’s face, but she could not yet trust it. Looking at him now, she knew Finn didn’t trust it either. She had been wrong about him. He was brave.

  How brave was she? She could pretend she hadn’t heard him. They were just words. Four short words, from a man who did not trust them.

  Because she knew silence didn’t scare him, she took her time before answering. When she spoke at last, it was to say only three words, as brief as his, wrapped up like a package. “For a while,” she said.

  Finn tried to see her without turning from the sea. “You will live with me then, for that while.”

  She did not answer, though this was not so much a question as a statement of fact. She counted the words in her mind. More than twice as many now, words enough to lie down on. When he finally looked over, her face was tilted to the sky, where the seaplane droned toward them. Without meeting his eyes, she smiled. A small smile. For Wicks? Then her eyes fell quickly enough to catch his and she nodded, a nod as small as her smile.

  If Stanley Wicks had been looking out of the plane flying overhead, he would have seen Finn’s boat turn around, leaving a wake like a question mark in the blue-green water.

  Reader’s Guide

  1. What is the significance of the title? What light, if any, does it shed on the book’s themes?

  2. Discuss the theme of faith in the novel and the various realms in which it is expl
ored (i.e. spiritual, personal, romantic, parental).

  3. What is Ingrid after and how does it change during the course of the book? What does she actually want?

  4. What does Templeton represent to Ingrid? What does he represent to Finn?

  5. Discuss Finn’s relationship to his past, present, and future; why, as Fatima says, is it so hard for him to act?

  6. We find both Finn and Ingrid at turning points in their lives; can you describe what those turning points are and why they’ve come about? Why is Ingrid drawn to Finn—and what reasons does Finn have for resisting/avoiding Ingrid? What, if anything, do they have to offer each other?

  7. Is Templeton’s act of violence toward Stanley Wicks justifiable? Is Stanley Wicks an evil character? Is he in any way sympathetic?

  8. Discuss the oppression and/or freedom of the women in the novel. How are women viewed and treated on the island, and how does this impact life on Pelat? What role does imagination play in the lives of these women?

  9. Is Danny innocent or evil? What does he provide for the story in general and for Finn and Ingrid in particular?

  To print out copies of this or other Random House Reader’s Guides, visit us at www.atrandom.com/rgg.

  Suggested Reading

  Sebastian Faulks, Charlotte Gray

  Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

  Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

  Norman Rush, Mating

  A. S. Byatt, Possession

  Kuki Gallmann, I Dreamed of Africa

  Jennifer Egan, The Invisible Circus

  Michael Ondaatje, Anil’s Ghost

  Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter

  Francesca Marciano, Rules of the Wild

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank the Michener Foundation for helping me to get started on this book, and the Hedgebrook Foundation for helping me to finish it. Thanks to Ed Stackler, whose editorial direction helped me turn a crucial corner, and to Janet McIntosh for her invaluable anthropological input and her expertise in Swahili culture. I owe to John Middleton’s The World of Swahili any understanding I have of the complexities and beauty of that culture. And thanks to Thomas Cleary, whose poetic translation of the Koran shed new light, and gave me my title.