touch or the information in her genes? She forced herself to extend her hand, to let him take a cell sample from the skin. When his fingers touched her hand the electric charge of anxiety changed polarity to calmness. He, too, seemed less agitated. He produced a small folding knife and scraped the back of her hand. He wiped the blade on the inside of a clear plastic pouch. He pocketed the knife, sealed the pouch, and put the pouch in another pocket.
"It's been rather dry in the valley lately."
That was me speaking! Fidelity realized. She spoke the strange phrase and she would have denied doing it except that, in the next second Pan made a reply that she also wanted to deny hearing.
"Not as dry... as it... will be," Pan responded, not quite able to stop his words from escaping. "Why did you say that?" he asked. "Why did I respond? What does it mean?"
She put a hand over her mouth. It was a gesture of disbelief that she would say such a thing. It was a gesture of disbelief that she knew his reply was correct. She could only shake her head and gesture weakly with one hand, to tell him she was as troubled and as mystified as he was. Now Fidelity knew it validated their relationship, whatever that relationship had been. But it didn't seem to fit the musical Harry-and-Ruby concept. She didn't want to explore it any further. Mystery upon mystery, she thought. Where will it end?
Struggling to recover, Pan regarded her almost with relief, as he was able to change the subject that neither of them wanted to pursue and point instead to the garment she wore. "The yellow dress. You're wearing the yellow dress."
Fidelity was so distracted all morning that she didn't recognize one of the most famous articles of clothing in art history: the yellow dress. She had only thought to wonder if her bare shoulders were too muscular for such a feminine sun dress. Am I supposed to be feminine? She was an admiral. She was grateful for the few moments her thoughts were pushed away from the threatening mysteries of a life she may have lost.
= = =
Rafael de LaGuardia watched Pan and Fidelity approach through the yard. He was surprised that he thought he could see something in the way they acted that indicated a relationship existed between them - perhaps an important relationship. Fidelity watched Pan with troubled intensity, even as she appeared comfortable in his presence. Pan treated the admiral with great courtesy while being careful not to touch her. That was apparent: that they would come so close to each other but not touch: a strange tension, a special relationship, an unusual meeting of two unusual people. They greeted Samson and spoke with him at length. Gator jumped up on his hind legs to put his big paws on Pan's chest: a bad habit Pan always allowed the dog. Finally Pan and Fidelity came up the steps and into the screened porch. Samson and Gator remained outside, happy to be new friends, playing in the green grass of the yard.
"Sit here, sit right here," Rafael demanded of Fidelity. He indicated the rattan chair with its tall, fan-shaped back, positioned in the corner of the porch where the morning light would flow in and gently raise the contrast. Fidelity stared at the chair, looked down at the yellow dress, gave Rafael a look of surprise with her large dark eyes. He nodded to her, pointed again to the chair.
/
Pan stood before the easel and looked at the oil painting Rafael had begun. It showed the rattan chair and the rough strokes of the outline of a figure. Rafael was painting again! The realization almost made him shout his happy approval. "You are about to paint the admiral!"
/
"Damn you, Pan!" Rafael complained without hiding his eagerness to begin. "You knew this young lady would drive me into the art business again!"
Rafael squeezed colors onto a palette in a near frenzy, his wrinkled hands shaking with the effort. He made a motion with his palette knife that Pan should look inside the house. He wanted him to see the sketches he made last night. "In there! On the table!" Rafael had never in his long life experienced such a moment as when the woman and the boy appeared in his yard in the night. A moment of magic that was obviously artfully planned by Pan.
Pan walked into the house and some moments later came out with a pad of sketches, which he took over to the swing. He sat in the swing, his weight making it creak. As he studied the sketches he stopped swinging. Rafael watched the dark woman who called herself Fidelity. He saw her watch Pan with such interest that he was forced to try to see what she saw. He was startled to realize Pan was somehow different, not the person he'd always known. He couldn't define the difference, nor did he have time for that task. He had to paint!
He studied his subject. He saw too many things he didn't understand about her. He knew she was a Navy admiral. He knew she was a mother. He knew she was troubled, even haunted. Sometimes he saw a dead person in her face. When the dead person came alive she made him glad he had lived long enough to meet such a person. Despite his concern and compassion for Samson, Fidelity consumed his attention. Even her voice confounded his analysis of her. It was a lovely voice, even a vaguely familiar voice, but that was impossible. He had to paint her, he had to do at least that before he died. How could he paint her voice? Rafael mixed the darker oils vigorously, keeping an eye on his subject, observing the play of light across the color and shapes and textures of her face, while also fascinated with how Fidelity regarded his friend, as Pan studied the sketches.
Pan looked up at Rafael with pain and wonder in his dark eyes, then turned to Fidelity. "I'm so sorry, Admiral! I was terribly insensitive! Seeing these images makes me realize how badly I treated you and Samson. I apologize profoundly. These make me see you and the child in a very different way!"
Fidelity seemed to have no response.
"You got me started again, Pan!" Rafael smiled. "That was your plan, wasn't it? Now I'm worried I don't have enough time left!" Rafael wondered what was wrong with Pan that he would do such things and act this way. The answer was sitting in his rattan chair. If this mysterious woman could motivate Rafael to do what he never planned to do again - create art, stop time, and capture the meaning of life - then she could also cause Pan to change.
"All because I couldn't remember Ruby Reed," Pan said. "Have you seen these, Admiral?"
She shook her head. He brought the sketches to her. She opened the loosely-bound stack of penciled images.
"Ruby Reed!" Rafael declared. "Of course! Fidelity has her voice! After she sang the lullaby, her voice began to gnaw at my memory."
He saw Fidelity's look of surprise and her further complex reaction. What did it mean?
"She sang?" Pan's query seemed urgent beyond Rafael imagining its meaning.
"Like an angel," Rafael confirmed, frowning at the tremendous change in his oldest friend, his best friend. Had he regained his passion for his art at the expense of losing Pan? Rafael sat back on his stool with a sigh which sounded impatient but wasn't - not exactly. The urge to paint was tearing at him but he was not sure what to paint, or who to paint. How could he paint with such doubt? How could he paint Fidelity when she wouldn't remain who he thought she was? Was she now the singer whose recordings Pan gave him so many years ago?
As he watched Fidelity look at the drawings, Rafael saw many things he needed to see. He wondered if he would have the precision in his trembling old hands to put those feelings and nuances on canvas. It was such a difficult and primitive medium.
"She loves him," Rafael said as a way of commenting to Pan on the drawings Fidelity studied. "She loves the boy."
"I can see that in your sketches," Pan agreed. "Navy people, it seems, are real people."
/
Fidelity Demba closed the sketchbook and held it to her chest. The images possessed fairy tale magic in their truth. They made her aware that she could love and that she did love. She turned her head to look through the porch screen at Samson, to see the boy as someone she needed and loved. She would never give him up, not unless his real parents took him away from her. The boy stopped playing with the dog to stare back at her as he lay on the green grass of the natural yard. Had he heard Rafael's words? Did he understand Standard? Did
he want her to love him? How could she entertain hopeless ideas? For a brief moment she internally turned back to the Navy uniformity of her life, where the mere idea of love seemed foreign and against regulations. Then she returned to the impossible present and looked up at the dark stranger named Pan, then at the aged artist with his wispy mane of white hair.
A door in her mind burst open.
"Babu! Babu, will you stay with me? Please, don't leave me!"
She sat on the first step of so many steps leading up through the green grass to the front door of a stranger's house. She sat there and refused to go any farther. The old man bent over her and lifted her face to his with a trembling finger under her chin.
"Child, my time with you has come to an end. I'm old and can't keep you safe in the country. You must now live with your aunt and get your education and become what you will be. Always beware of your father, but I believe his sister will be fair to you."
"No! I won't go! I want to be with you, Babu!"
"We'll be with each other forever in your memories. That's the only forever anyone can have."
"No, no, NO! I won't!"
The old man sighed, hooked his hands under her arms, and picked her up. She clung to him tightly. She smelled his sweat and the dirt of Africa in his clothing. She felt the beat of his heart in his thin body.