The third, a woman, would not recant. She stared out above the roiling crowd at something beyond it. When the kindling was lit and the fire began to lick upward through her clothing, burning it away along with her flesh, she never screamed, never grimaced, never even acknowledged her suffering. Whatever her god, she’d accepted her death and went willingly. Her story ended in heroism.
The crowd was disappointed. They’d come for anguish. But I was proud of that woman. Of course I could say nothing; yet I have ever revered her. I recall her now when I think of the witch. She is much like that woman. She will not succumb to our culture. She sees something beyond.
Yet she is a savage. If she has no soul, as the Church seems to think, then she is animal. Animals do not have a conscience. I wonder what she could possibly mean when she says she has enemies.
I admit, I do not understand her; this woman without a name.
12
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day ...
—SHAKESPEARE
Autumn — The Present
The weeks pass, one into the other, unfolding gently. In the mornings Ross runs then joins Emily for breakfast in the Florida room, a windowed space which invites in the sunlight. They read the morning paper and glance up occasionally to glimpse the slow habitual stirrings of life in Happy Hills.
The first to pass their place each day is Mrs. Olive Livingstone, a spry old bird with blue hair who strides by purposefully in a pink track suit and matching sneakers accompanied by her companion of years, an ageing grey schnauzer badly misnamed with the appellation of ‘King’. King’s stubby limbs work furiously keeping up with the swinging strides of his mistress. He bounces along courageously thinking dog thoughts, no doubt, of the food bowl awaiting him at the end of his daily trial.
Afterward comes the gaggle of women Jimmy White calls the “shuffle demons”. They have gathered gradually: first one, then the next calling at each porch until there are five or six of them. They stroll slowly down the middle of the road gossiping; pointing out to each other things of interest on their route: new lawn ornaments, curtains in windows, garden hoses left out overnight, whose grass is not cut. They point toward Ross and Emily’s home and whisper as they pass. They cannot see inside, the morning sun’s glare on the windows prevents them. A car comes down the roadway. The women shuffle out of its way, averse to having their promenade interrupted by its effrontery. As it passes they give the driver hard looks then fill up the roadway again in its wake.
A little later the men appear; those who have not already left to play golf. If Ross is outside working on something, he can depend on their advice. They saunter along the sidewalk stopping often to talk in carports. They cross and re-cross the street in search of conversation. They wear straw hats and white shoes.
In the afternoons when the sun is hot the streets are empty. While their neighbours collect at the pool, Ross and Emily remain mostly at home. They sit in lawn chairs relishing the quiet, sipping iced tea, allowing the day its slow, lazy passage. Ross is well stocked now with local history. He has read more on the Calusa and found a brief biography of Juan Ponce de Leon. He wonders what kind of man the Spaniard might actually have been. Though he’d possessed a reputation and significance in his time, he is but a footnote in history, and an odd one indeed.
In search of the fountain of youth.
Myth and history are such intimates.
Jimmy White often visits. Maggie takes her afternoon nap and he casts about for something to do. He and Emily get on well. Jimmy tells her stories. They sit in the shade of the orange tree. The soft peals of Emily’s laughter make Ross glance up from his book. She is so much better now. The sunshine and rest and Jimmy have each taken turns to rejuvenate her. So Ross’ fears have faded. Not gone, never gone, they weigh like pebbles in his sack of hope which will never completely empty.
He recalls a time, like myth and history, both joyful and yet bewildering to him. It was when they’d brought baby Robbie home from the hospital. Emily was glowing. Ross was strangely jealous. He felt himself an intruder upon her joy with this interloper suckled to her while he ... waited ... looking over her shoulder, apart; yet a part. The baby was the foreign one yet Ross felt redundant. Then Emily had handed him the child. Suddenly, in his arms in that instant he had found enchantment. From envy to love in a breath. It had crossed to him through their son. Their son.
I was such a boy then.
If he had the chance to live his life again, he thought, he would somehow try to slow it all down, discover more of its significant moments as he had with baby Robbie. He’d hurried through life, he thought. He’d been so busy planning his future, not just his own but his son’s, his students’, his colleagues’, his Emily’s ... He had not really lived it to the full.
It comes to him now in its pieces. He remembers moments which represent years. He knows the history of mankind better than his own history. He can call upon facts, recognise movements, comprehend rises and falls of nations, and yet cannot clearly recall his life. Once he’d taught the past to the future, as a teacher to his students. Perhaps he should have concentrated on the present. He knows Emily does that now. She gathers each day to herself as a gift. She lives every precious moment as she did once with Robbie.
And just then he sees what he is doing to her. He is the one interceding to steal away her each day. He is the one with his drawn face and patronization which must remind her of her disease. He realizes he must be more like Jimmy. He knows why she likes him. Emily says he is full of life.
The days pass into evenings. They go to bed and Ross listens to the silence. Ross tries to sleep but sleep evades him; yet when he does fall asleep it turns on him. The dreaded dream slithers in, reptilian, hissing: the car, the dank track of trees with limbs that reach through the window caressing his arm, leaving scratches, the voice beside him, behind, all around.
“Don’t go in there, Ross, you’ll be alone don’t go in there, Ross, don’t go in.”
Pushing through moss and into the tunnel. There are flowers amid the twisting green stems, though they seem to move, seem to disappear when they shouldn’t then reappear somewhere else. Sometimes they look like melting flowers, sometimes tongues, human tongues ... then the muck. Umbrous rivulets trickle like blood. There is the flat stink of snakes.
Snakes?
His eyes snap open. Moonlight silhouettes the branches of the orange tree outside their window. A breeze moves the branches. They begin to writhe.
Enough.
“Where are you going?” Emily mumbles as he gets out of bed.
“Can’t sleep.”
“You’re not well?”
“It’s just, it’s three in the morning and I can’t sleep. I’ve been tossing and turning.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong! I just can’t sleep. I’ll make some tea.”
“I’ll get up with you.”
“Maybe I should sleep in the other bedroom for a while,” he mutters.
“Tonight, you mean.”
“No. Until I adjust. I don’t want to keep disturbing you, Em. It’s not fair.”
“All the years we’ve been married we’ve never slept in separate beds.”
“I just can’t sleep!” Hollow, helpless voice.
The dream drifts away. He turns on the light. She does not know what writhes inside him. She is sharp with him. She knows nothing of his dreams.
“You’re not active enough,” she says.
“I’m running every day,” he answers, dispersing shadows.
“You need something more. It’s time you met some people here.”
“They’re old, for Chrissake!”
“Did you know there’s a group that plays tennis every morning?”
“No. How could I?”
“There’s a notice posted on the board in the hall. They’re looking for partners.”
“How did you find out?”
“I went
up and looked. I asked you to come but you were buried in your book.” Her voice has gone flat; she is angry. “There’s a bridge league. I’d like to join.”
“You know I don’t like cards.”
“Alone.” The retort was sharp.
“Why haven’t you then?”
“Because I’m living with a martyr. Have you any idea how that makes me feel?”
“That’s not fair,” he says, knowing it is true.
“At home we didn’t spend this much time together. For heaven’s sake, Ross, if we keep this up we’ll have nothing left to say to each other. I know why you’re doing it. I love you for it. But you have to find time for yourself.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Unless you want to keep waking up every night.”
“That’s not all there is to it!”
“I know that. But we have to live, Ross. If we dwell on my cancer all the time, I might as well be dead now.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It has to be said.”
“Just tell me what you want,” he says.
“You make me feel selfish. I don’t want to feel that way. Not now.”
He can feel she is close to tears. He has done this to her. He forces some calm on himself. It is not easy. Suddenly he finds himself rigid in his attempts to answer.
“I see,” he says.
“I hope so. I hope you don’t think me ungrateful.”
“No.”
“Talk to me, Ross.”
So he lies with the truth. He says she has helped him. He speaks like an automaton and knows she knows it. There is no other way to reveal his fears. He must have no fears in her presence. He stops talking knowing how each word affects her. He turns off the light and rolls over, eyes open, wondering what in the world he will do without her.
The next day he joins the men’s tennis league. They meet every weekday at nine. There are seven. Ross makes a welcomed eighth. He replaces someone named Dan whom all the men liked and who died of a stroke just a few weeks before. At first Ross is uncomfortable with this but the men seem pleased he has joined them. They speak warmly, but not often, of Dan. It is as if Dan has simply moved on.
Al Watson greets him at the court gate, a big, bluff man who smiles openly and often. He is the volunteer convenor of the group. He introduces Ross to the others, in particular to Colin Lofthouse who will be Ross’ partner in doubles. Instantly Ross likes him. Colin is a soft spoken man who looks down after shaking hands. This lick of shyness attracts Ross to him. He is balding, round-faced and wears horn-rimmed glasses. His hands are thick, their backs covered with greying hair that runs like fur up his forearms disappearing into the sleeves of his T-shirt. Ross thinks of him as bear-like: stocky, taciturn and in tennis surprisingly quick on his feet.
Some of the men are actually only little older than Ross and he is pressed hard to play at their level. One particular fellow whom the others refer to as ‘dad’ plays with such expertise he nearly runs Ross ragged. Ross discovers later his name is Art Hedges. He is seventy-seven and he likes a beer after playing.
They play without the competitiveness which affects younger men. At one point in their match they hear cheering when Ross makes a point. Looking over, Ross sees Darlene from the office. She wears her usual skimpy clothing and is accompanied by another, very thin girl who accentuates Darlene’s voluptuousness. Colin comes to his side.
“Seems you’ve got a fan club,” he says. “This hasn’t happened before.”
“What do you mean?” Ross asks quietly.
“Just watch out for that girl. Got a bit of a reputation and her father, you know, is the park manager and chief inquisitor for the committee.”
“I’ve done nothing to encourage this,” Ross says.
“It’s not about you. It’s her. Be careful, that’s all.”
When they finish they walk to the club house for lemonade and Art has a beer. They rehash their morning’s game and jibe at each other with easy humour. They ask where Ross comes from, any kids, what he did in what they call ‘real life’ and in turn tell about themselves. Nothing remarkable. Nothing intense. Just the easy glow of men talking. Ross discovers himself relaxing within their straightforward camaraderie despite his new reservations regarding Darlene.
Ross arrives home to find Emily departing for bridge. She is bustling and cheerful and throws him a kiss as she leaves. Her hands gesture in that carefree manner he hasn’t seen for a year. He takes a shower and has some lunch. He sits in the backyard under the orange tree reading a little of Juan Ponce de Leon. Strange, he thinks. Myth or history. An explorer and a professional soldier. This was a man who had given Florida its name. He had deduced the existence of the Gulf Stream, a nautical wonder. He had been a governor of colonists and a captain-general of conquistadors. He was grouped with those infamous men like Pizarro, Cortez and Balboa; a list of conquerors searching out new lands then despoiling them. Ross wonders what forces gathered to create men like that?
Did they ever think of time passing?
A butterfly flutters above the book. It lands on the spine, curtailing his thoughts with its beauty. It is golden and warm like the day. A cardinal whistles a melodic song just above him. Glancing up he glimpses a scarlet flash in the foliage of the orange tree. He turns again to the book, closes it, shuts his eyes and lies back on the lawn chair.
In his mind a fireplace is crackling within their old, warm living room up home. Little Robbie sleeps on the rug by the fire and, curled up beside him, the cat is licking the boy’s fingers. Candlelight brushes the room in a coppery glow. It gives Emily’s face a soft radiance. It makes of Robbie and his calico friend a painting. Ross breathes the aroma of maple smoke and contentment.
All days should be like this one.
Myth and history.
13
We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are ...
—TENNYSON
Spring — The Past
In two days repairs were made but again the weather conspired against them. The wind lost its constancy and came now in gusts which would snap luffing sails into fullness then dissipate just as quickly. The wind was like temptation. And when the wind breathed, the decks of the ships would swarm with activity: shouted orders, running sailors, helmsmen straining to hold their course and then curses as the gusts died, the ships’ prows burying themselves once again in the water; heavy now, graceless, rolling in the swells. This impetuous wind was their master. It treated them with disdain. And this weather enraged their captain-general.
Somehow, he thought, something supernatural schemed against his reaching his goal. For a brief instant the witch came to mind; then he put thoughts of her aside just as quickly. For all of her claims to sorcery, she could not control weather. But then was it fate? God? Should he even consider altering the providential flow of life by ingesting the sacred water? But God had made all things, so he was told, thus the sacred water was God’s artifice. It had simply not yet been discovered as had so many novel things in this strange New World. Still, time continued, each day he became one day older. Time flowed through the sand glass and each grain meant another instant of age. He wanted so much to find the water, to restore himself and return to his former character and regain his former powers. Juan Ponce paced the deck muttering. His anger infected the crew. They grew sullen. They could only wait for the next gasp of wind. They could only worry over the storm which was rising within their captain-general.
After a while Sotil approached his superior, wary of his mood. He gestured toward the taff rail, away from the helmsman on duty. Juan Ponce reluctantly joined the pilot.
“Captain-general,” Sotil said stiffly, “I am finding it difficult to work the ship ...”
“I’ve noticed ...”
“The crew is frightened of your displeasure and frightened men aren’t efficient.”
“What you are saying is I am in your way,” the older man said. For
a long moment they stood face to face in a dangerous silence. The frightful glare of his captain-general bore down on the pilot and in that moment Sotil recognized the peril of one who’d displeased a conquistador. It was a terrifying sensation. Sotil readied himself for the storm, knowing too well what that power could do. Then the tension broke. Juan Ponce looked past him at a sky puffed with billowing clouds, faces of the fickle wind, and sighed.
“Yes. You are a good pilot, Sotil. I, of all, should know better.”
“You are frustrated, Don Juan,” the young man said, relaxing. “It’s understandable.”
“I should catch up my log at any rate,” Juan Ponce mumbled. “Do your best, time is wearing.” Then he left the deck, climbing down out of sight of his men.
The woman was not in the cabin. Juan Ponce recalled briefly seeing her at the bow with friar Bartolome once again. He knew what she was playing at: listening to the monk’s persuasions in the guise of being converted. Las Casas would be pleased to hear himself talk. She would answer occasionally and thus attain freedom of the deck. Juan Ponce chuckled softly, shaking his head. At times her intrigues amused him; their simplicity was so transparent and yet so many fell for them. Just a few moments previous he had almost convinced himself of her sorcery.
For a while he worked on the ship’s log and as he did he could feel his vessel tilt each time a breeze came up and he would stiffen and will the wind on. But it would inevitably die. After a while he found himself pacing. He considered returning to the deck but discarded the notion. Sotil had been right. He must not make a show of his frustration. But the weather rankled; this interminable travel upon a recalcitrant sea. He turned again to his only solace: withdrawing the journal from his sea chest, placing it open on the narrow table, he took quill in hand and thought for a moment, then began to write.
Immortal Water Page 12