“Of course he wasn’t always a demon,” Jimmy went on. “I think originally he was a she: Mammetun, the mother of desires. She’s Sumer-Babylonian. And with a name like that she probably had a lot of breasts. It’s the same root as mammary. And Mama, of course.” All this he said in an uninflected voice, almost as though he were talking to himself. “Don’t mind me,” he said.
“No, it’s interesting,” she said.
“I was a student of comparative religion in my younger days.”
“What made you study that?”
“Oh . . . I don’t know. Mysteries, I suppose. Things I couldn’t explain. There’s a lot of that here.”
Rachel glanced again at the clouded mountains. “Maybe that’s why it’s so beautiful,” she said.
“Oh, I like that,” Jimmy murmured. “No beauty without mystery. I hadn’t really thought about it that way before, but that’s nice. Elegant.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The thought,” he said. “It’s elegant.”
They drove on in silence for a time, while Rachel pondered the notion that a thought, of all things, could be elegant. It was a new idea for her. People were sometimes elegant, clothes could of course be elegant, even an age; but a thought? Her musings were interrupted by Jimmy.
“You see the cliff straight ahead of us? The house is half a mile from there.”
“Margie said it was right on the beach.”
“Fifty yards from the ocean, if that. You can practically fish from your bedroom window.”
Despite this promise the road now took them out of sight of the water, descending by a winding route to a bridge. They were now in the shadow of the crag which Jimmy had pointed out earlier, the origins of the river which the bridge spanned, a torrent of water that cascaded down the rock face above.
“Hang on,” Jimmy said, once they were over the bridge, “we’re going on to that lousy road I was telling you about.”
Moments later they made a hard right, and just as Jimmy had warned, the road deteriorated rapidly, the hard asphalt of the highway replaced by a pitted, puddled track that wound back and forth between trees that had obviously not been trimmed for many years, their lower branches, heavy with blossom and foliage, brushing the top of Jimmy’s vehicle.
“Watch out for the dog!” Rachel yelled over the din of the revved engine.
“I see him,” Jimmy said, and leaning out of the window, yelled at the yellow mutt, who continued to sit in the middle of the track until the last possible moment, when it lazily raised its flea-bitten rump and sauntered to safety.
There was other animal traffic on the track: a fine-looking cockerel strutted about while his wives pecked in the ruts of the road. This time Jimmy didn’t need to yell. They were up in a flurry of aborted little flights, and into the dense foliage of what had once perhaps been hedgerows. Here and there, when there was a break in the greenery, she saw signs of habitation. A small house, in an advanced state of disrepair, a piece of farm machinery, rusted beyond reclamation, in a field that had mutinied many seasons before.
“Are there people living around here?”
“Very few,” he said. “There was a flood about four years ago. Terrible rains; disastrous. In maybe two or three hours the river washed out the bridge we crossed, and washed a lot of houses away at the same time. A few people came back to rebuild. But a lot more decided to go somewhere less risky.”
“Was anybody hurt?”
“Three people drowned, including a little kiddie. But the waters never came as far as the Geary house. So you’re quite safe.”
During this conversation the track had deteriorated yet further, if that were possible, the thicket to the left and right so fecund it threatened to obliterate the track completely. Now the birds that rose before the vehicle were not wild chickens but species Rachel had never seen before, winged flashes of scarlet and iridescent blue.
“Almost there,” Jimmy promised, as the track threw the vehicle back and forth. “I hope you didn’t pack any fine china.” There was one last kink in the rutted track, which Jimmy took a little too fast. The vehicle tipped sideways, and for a few moments it seemed they’d overturn. Rachel let out a little shout of alarm.
“Sorry,” Jimmy said. The vehicle righted itself with a thump and a squeak. He applied the brakes, and brought them to a halt perhaps ten or twelve yards from a pair of large wooden gates. “We’re here,” he announced.
He turned off the engine, and there was a sudden flood of music from the birds in the trees and thicket, and from somewhere out of sight, the thump and draw of the ocean.
“Do you want to go in alone, or shall I show you around?”
“I wouldn’t mind just a couple of minutes on my own,” she said.
“Of course,” he said. “Take your time. I’ll just unload the baggage, and have a cigarette.”
She got out of the vehicle.
“I wouldn’t mind one of those,” she said, as Jimmy lit up.
He proffered the packet. “I’m sorry, I should have offered. So few folks smoke these days.”
“I don’t usually. But it’s a special occasion.”
She took a cigarette. He lit it for her. She drew a lungful of tobacco smoke. It was the first cigarette she’d had in a while, and the rush made her feel pleasantly light-headed: a perfect state, in fact, to enter the house.
She went to the gate, stepping gingerly between the frogs squatting in the long, damp grass, and lifted the latch. The gate opened without her needing to push it. She glanced back at Hornbeck. He was sitting with his back to her, staring up at the sky. Comforted that he was as good as his word, and would not be interrupting her, she stepped through the gate and into the presence of the house.
XI
i
It was not magnificent; not by any stretch of the imagination. It was a modest structure, built in the plantation style, a veranda running around it, shuttered windows and pale pink walls. For perhaps two-thirds of its length it was a single story, but at one end a second floor had been added, giving the whole structure a lopsided look. The tiles on this portion of the roof were ocher rather than reddish brown, as they were elsewhere, and the windows were mismatched, but none of this robbed the place of its charm. Quite the reverse. She was so used to environments that had been designed by protofascists, polished and grandiose, that it was a relief to discover the house was so quirky.
All of this would have been beguiling enough had it stood in isolation, but it did not. The house was entirely swathed in greenery and blossom. Giddy palms swayed languidly over its roof and vines crept over its veranda and along the eaves.
She lingered at the gate for a minute or so to take all this in. Then she took a last drag of the cigarette, put it out beneath her heel, and wandered up the front path to the door. Vivid green geckos darted ahead of her like a nervous welcoming committee, ushering her to the threshold.
She opened the front door. Before her was an extraordinary sight. The interior doors stood open, and by some conceit of the architect were so aligned that standing on the doorstep a visitor might see through the house and out the other side, as far as the glittering ocean. The rooms themselves were dark—especially by contrast with the sunny pathway—so for a few enchanted moments it seemed she was staring into a dark maze in which a sliver of sky and sea had been caught.
She paused there on the threshold to admire the illusion, then stepped inside. The impression she’d had from the exterior—that this was by no means as luxurious a property as the rest the Gearys owned—was quickly confirmed. The place smelt pleasantly musty; not the must of neglect, perhaps, but rather of walls dampened by the sea air, or by the humidity of the island. She wandered from room to room to get some general sense of the layout of the place. The house was furnished eclectically, almost as though it had been at some time a repository of items that had some sentimental attachment. None of it matched. Around the dining table—which was itself scored and nicked and stained—were five dist
inctively different wooden chairs, and one pair. In the sizable kitchen the pots and pans that hung overhead were refugees from a dozen mismatched sets. The cushions that were heaped in hedonistic excess on the sofa were similarly unlike. Only the pictures on the walls showed any sign of homogeny. By contrast with the austere modernist pieces Mitchell had chosen for Rachel’s apartment, or the vast American West paintings Cadmus collected (he owned a Bierstadt the size of a wall), there were modest little watercolors and pencil sketches hung everywhere—all renderings of the island: bays and boats; studies of blossoms or of butterflies. On the stairs was a series of drawings of the house, which though unsigned and undated had obviously been made many years before: the paper was yellowed, the pencil marks fading.
The furniture upstairs was every bit as odd as that below. One of the beds looked spartan enough for a barracks, but shared its room with a chaise lounge that would not have shamed a boudoir, while the master bedroom contained furniture which had been carved and painted with bowers of strange flora, in the midst of which naked men and women lay in blissful sleep. The paint had been worn to flecks of color over the years, and the carving itself was crude, but the presence of these pieces rendered the room strangely magical.
She thought again of what Margie had said about the place. It was proving to be true. She’d been on the island perhaps two hours and already she had felt its enchantment at work.
She went to the window. From it she had a view across the small unkempt lawn to a patch of low-lying scrub, on the other side of which lay the beach, its sand bright in the sunlight; and a little way beyond that the glittering turquoise water.
There was no doubt which bedroom she was going to use, she thought, throwing herself back on the bed like a ten-year-old. “Oh God—” she said, throwing her eyes up to the ceiling, “—thank you for this. Thank you so much.”
ii
By the time she came back downstairs Jimmy had her bags on the doorstep, and was dutifully standing among them, lighting up another cigarette.
“Bring them in,” she told him. He went to toss the cigarette aside. “No, you can smoke inside the house, Jimmy.”
“Are you sure?”
“I will be,” she said. “I’ll be smoking and drinking and—” She halted there: what else would she be doing? “And eating everything I shouldn’t.”
“Speaking of which . . . ,” Jimmy said, “the cook’s name is Heidi, and she lives a couple of miles from here. Her sister comes in to clean four times a week, but you can have her come in every day if you’d prefer, to change the bed—”
“No, that’s fine.”
“I took the liberty of stocking up the fridge and the freezer with food. Oh, and there’s a few bottles of wine and so forth in one of the kitchen cabinets. Just send Heidi’ into Kapa’a for whatever else you need. I presume you’re taking the larger bedroom?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’ll take the luggage up.”
He went to his task, leaving Rachel to finish her exploration of the house. She wandered to the French windows through which she’d first glimpsed the beach, unlocked them and stepped out into the veranda. There were some weather-beaten chairs and a small wrought iron table out here; along with more vines, more blossoms, more geckos and butterflies. The wind had deposited an enormous desiccated palm frond on the stairs. She stepped over it and went down to the lawn, her sights set on the beach itself The water looked wonderfully inviting, the waves breaking like soft, creamy thunder.
“Mrs. Geary?”
Jimmy was calling, but it wasn’t until he’d done so three times that she snapped out of her mesmerized state and remembered that she was the Mrs. Geary he was calling to. She turned back toward the house. It was even more beautiful from this direction than from the front. The wind and rain coming off the sea had battered it a little more fiercely on this side; and the vegetation, as though to compensate for its wounds, cradled it more lushly. I could live here forever, she thought.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you, Mrs. Geary—”
“Please call me Rachel.”
“Thank you. Rachel it’ll be. I put your bags up in your room, and I’ve left a list with my telephone number and Heidi’s number, on the kitchen counter. Oh by the way—I almost forgot—there’s a jeep in the garage. If you want something fancier I’ll rent something for you. I’m sorry I’ve got to rush away, but I have a church meeting . . .”
“No, that’s fine,” Rachel said. “You’ve done more than enough.”
“I’ll be off then,” he said, heading back into the house. “If there’s anything you need . . . anything at all.”
“Thank you. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Then I’ll see you soon,” he said, waving as he departed for the front door.
She heard it slam, then listened for the sound of the vehicle as he drove away. At last, it faded completely, leaving her with birdsong and sea.
“Perfect,” she said to herself, imitating Jimmy’s slightly clipped English pronunciation. It wasn’t a word she would have thought of using until she’d heard it on Jimmy’s lips; but was there any place on earth, or any time in her life, when it had seemed more appropriate?
No; this was perfect, perfect.
XII
i
She decided, now that Jimmy was gone and she had the house to herself, to delay her visit to the beach and instead shower and make herself a drink. He’d stocked the kitchen with wonderful thoroughness. When she’d cleaned up and changed out of her traveling clothes into a light summer dress, she went in search of the makings of a Bloody Mary and to her delight found all she needed. A bottle of vodka, tomato juice, Tabasco sauce, a little horseradish; even celery. Drink in hand she made one telephone call to Margie, to tell her that she’d arrived safely. Margie wasn’t home, so she left a message, and then headed out to the beach.
The balmy afternoon had mellowed into a lovely evening; the last of the sun catching the heads of the palms, and gilding the clouds as they sailed on south. A couple of hundred yards from her a trio of local boys were surfing, shouting to one another as they plowed up and over the waves to catch a ride. Otherwise, the vast crescent of the beach was deserted. She set her glass in the sand and walked down to the water, venturing in until she was calf-deep. The shallows were warm, passing over sand heated by a day of sun. She let the waves break against her legs, the spray splashing her torso, her neck, her face.
The trio of surfers had meanwhile given up their sport for the night and had built a small fire at the top of the beach, which they were feeding with driftwood. Rachel was starting to feel somewhat chilly, so she left the water and went back up the sand to fetch her drink. It was less than twenty minutes since she’d stepped out of the house, but the short, tropical dusk was already almost over. The clouds and palms had lost their gold, and there were eager stars overhead.
She drained the spicy dregs of her Bloody Mary, and went back to the house. In her haste to be out on the beach she’d neglected to turn any lights on, and once she got onto the path that wound through the scrub she was stumbling in near darkness. But the house, even in this murk, looked beautiful, its pale walls and white paintwork all bluish in the deepening night. She’d forgotten what it was like to be in a place where there were no street lights nor car lights; not even a distant city glow to taint the sky. It made her aware of the world in a new way; or rather, a very old way that she was suddenly rediscovering. She heard nuances in the air around her she would normally have missed, in the voices of frogs and nightbirds, in the subtle shifting of palm and bough; smelled a dozen different scents: up out of the dewy earth beneath her feet, and from blooms the night was hiding.
Eventually she got back to the house, and after some fumbling around switched on a couple of lamps. Then she went upstairs to change out of her damp clothes. As she did so she caught sight of herself in the long dressing mirror in the bedroom. What she saw made her laugh out loud: in the space of a few minutes the combined
effects of wind and sea-spray had made a wild woman of her: tangled her hair and reddened her cheeks; undone any pretensions to chicness she might have entertained. No matter, she liked what she saw. Perhaps she hadn’t been entirely tamed by sorrow and the Gearys. Perhaps the Rachel she’d been in the easy years before Daddy’s death, before the disappointment of Cincinnati and all that came after, was still alive in her. Yes, there! There! Smiling at her out of the mirror the unrepentant wildling of her youth, the scourge of schoolmistress and sheriffs, the girl who’d loved nothing more than to make mischief; there she was.
“Where the hell have you been?” she said to herself.
I never left, that smile seemed to say. I was just waiting until the time was right to show myself again.
ii
She made herself a light supper of cold cuts and cheese, and opened a bottle of wine—red, not white, for a change; something with a bit of body to it. Then she curled up on the sofa, and ate. There was a small television in the living room, but she had no desire to watch it. If the stock market had crashed, or the White House gone up in flames, so what? The rest of the world and its problems could go to hell, at least for now.
Halfway through her leisurely meal, the phone rang. She was sorely tempted to let it ring out, but thinking it was probably Jimmy Hornbeck checking to see that she was comfortable she picked up. It wasn’t Hornbeck, it was Margie, returning her call. She sounded weary.
“What time is it in New York?”
“I don’t know: two, two-thirty,” Margie said. “Are you all settled in?”
“I’m perfect,” Rachel said. “It’s even better than you said it would be.”
“It’s just beginning, honey,” Margie said. “You’ll be amazed what happens when you get into the rhythm of the place. Did you take the big bedroom?”
“With all of the carved furniture . . .”
“Isn’t that place amazing?”
“The whole house is amazing,” Rachel replied. “I felt right at home as soon as I stepped inside.”