She had done it for herself.
Not out of hope, for there had never been any real hope of success, and not to impress God or an unseen Stearns, or even to defy Señor Castigar, but for herself.
Something deep inside of Melissa stirred and trembled. She realized that in this cell she had lost everything—hope, despair, anger, illusion, personality, the past, and the future—yet she had lost nothing because in spite of being stripped of all these she remained, still, herself. Everything that she had depended upon for existence had been peeled from her layer by layer and yet she survived intact—she could feel this survival, she could feel the shining core that had never been touched by loss or by illusion or by time, she could feel within her the unknown that had terrified her the most of all—herself—and at this core she met and felt at last the pure steadying knowledge of what and who she was.
“I am,” she whispered in astonishment, feeling the pieces of self interlocked and whole.
“I am,” she repeated softly, feeling the rootedness of it, the separateness of it, the aloneness of it, the richness and joy of it, and she understood that she was touching reality at last, and that it was within her, not outside of her in the world or in anything that could ever happen to her in that world. Reality was here, in this moment, and she realized with a sense of wonder that the moment was all that she had ever possessed. There had never been anything else. There never could be. Each moment was a microcosm of life, containing in it the future as well as the past—it was the moment, not the future, that trembled with possibilities, with marvels of richness and depths that only a few dared to plumb. There had never been a future—except as illusion—there was only Now. And into this moment, into this now, she could still pour everything that she was and celebrate both herself and the life that remained in her, for if beyond this hour lay death then what was death except another Now, another place to enter, another Copenhagen or Paris to meet and make known. Once rooted like this she saw that the whole pattern of life changed, that the meager emotions to which she had been conditioned—excitement, disappointment, anticipation—held no possible meaning at all. For what could excite when everything—even to the falling of a leaf—was a tender experience, and what external circumstances could disappoint if one looked for nothing, having all within? It changed life from a series of unanchored and chaotic events into a mosaic where each experience—of varying depth and value—proved of equal proportion in the creation of a harmonious whole.
Why ask what life is, she whispered. It is.
Why ask what I am? I am.
Humbly, calmly, she rose to her feet and began to mount the plywood again, as she would continue to do for so long as she remained capable but not out of need or desperation or hope but because she was alive, and to be alive was to act, think, affirm, move, and create. Calmly she measured distances with the eye and performed her intricate choreography of life: up the board, jump, rest, kneel—but this time there was neither haste nor urgency for there was no longer anything to lose or to gain. She pivoted, jumped, arched her body through space and struck the opposite wall, clutched at the sill and held it again for just an instant with bleeding fingers before she fell heavily to the floor again, crying out in pain. But the next time she would do better, and perhaps before she died she might do even better: life could still be experienced when it was filled with intention. Again she dragged herself to her feet and went to the plywood and mounted it, jumped and held the rim of the shelf with her hands, pulled herself up, rested, pulled again, briefly knelt, and in the act of standing, spun and leaped—
…and to her astonishment clutched the sill and hung there, gasping at the pain in her hands, and then put aside her astonishment and with tired, sobbing slowness dragged up her body until her elbows met this sill, and then with only one more effort she rolled her body into the deep enclosure of the window.
She was in the window. She had reached the window.
And was to remain alive…The thought pleased her yet held within it no sense of great relief or of escape but rather it felt like a gift given her to be held lightly for new miracles, new possibilities. Slowly, persistently she drove her shoulder gently against the glass of the window, and as it broke she thrust her hand through the opening in time to catch the glass before it shattered on the sunlit flagstones beyond. For just a moment, poised on the verge of escape she looked back and down into the cell which she had occupied, seeing its smallness, its narrowness and its darkness like a skin that she was leaving behind. Then her head followed her hands and she looked out upon a long, fenced-in alleyway. The sun was brilliant—it was midday—and from a distance she heard sounds of traffic but listening heard no voices. Stealthily she crept through the jagged glass of the window and stood up and tiptoed down the alley and through a half-open gate at the far end. She found herself in a long garden facing another gate, with the house behind her. As if in a deep and tranquil dream she opened this gate, too, and walked into a street.
Sunlight glittered across pastel cement walls; flowers bloomed with unbelievable color and fragrance against white walls and at the end of the street a delivery van turned around and drove away. She moved toward that end of the street, to a boulevard filled with passing cars. At the edge of the avenue she paused, drinking in the air, the sunshine, the feeling of life. Once, long ago, when she had assumed escape was possible, she recalled—still as if in a dream—that she had placed pesetas, as well as Stearns’ book, in her pockets. They were still there. It seemed that she was destined, after all, to deliver Stearns’ book and this knowledge brought a rush of gratitude. When an empty taxi passed she lifted her arm.
“Buenos días!” gasped the driver when he saw her, and wrenched his cab to the curb.
Melissa looked down at her bleeding hands, torn skirt, and bruised legs. She said softly, “I have money. What time is it, please?”
He held up his wrist, tapping the dial of his watch with a finger and she saw that it was twenty-five minutes before one o’clock. She nodded. “I wish to go to the Anglo-Majorcan Export Company, please, at number eleven, Plaza Veri Rosario.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Not to a doctor? Not to a hospital?”
She shook her head and climbed into the seat behind him. “No, to number eleven Veri Rosario, please—and I think you had better hurry.”
Suddenly she laughed. “I have been trying to get there for a long, long time—perhaps for all of my life,” she told him, “but today I think I will arrive there.”
“It is a drive of less than fifteen minutes,” the man said reprovingly as he pulled out into traffic, honking his horn.
Melissa only smiled. There were some distances, she thought, that could never be measured by earthly means, and there were some journeys never to be found in any guidebook….
To Patricia Schartle,
Agent Extraordinaire
By Dorothy Gilman
Published by Fawcett Books:
UNCERTAIN VOYAGE
A NUN IN THE CLOSET
THE CLAIRVOYANT COUNTESS
THE TIGHTROPE WALKER
INCIDENT AT BADAMY
CARAVAN
THE BELLS OF FREEDOM
THE MAZE IN THE HEART OF THE CASTLE
GIRL IN BUCKSKIN
THALE’S FOLLY
KALEIDOSCOPE
The Mrs. Pollifax series
THE UNEXPECTED MRS. POLLIFAX
THE AMAZING MRS. POLLIFAX
THE ELUSIVE MRS. POLLIFAX
A PALM FOR MRS. POLLIFAX
MRS. POLLIFAX ON SAFARI
MRS. POLLIFAX ON THE CHINA STATION
MRS. POLLIFAX AND THE HONG KONG BUDDHA
MRS. POLLIFAX AND THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE
MRS. POLLIFAX AND THE WHIRLING DERVISH
MRS. POLLIFAX AND THE SECOND THIEF
MRS. POLLIFAX PURSUED
MRS. PO
LLIFAX AND THE LION KILLER
MRS. POLLIFAX, INNOCENT TOURIST
MRS. POLLIFAX UNVEILED
Nonfiction
A NEW KIND OF COUNTRY
Dorothy Gilman wrote books for adults and children. She was the author of thirteen Mrs. Pollifax novels, including Mrs. Pollifax Innocent Tourist, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle, Mrs. Pollifax on Safari, and The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax—as well as eight other novels.
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