“The design on the door?”
“Yes.”
“Does it remind you of anything?”
She walked toward it. Galilee followed, his hands still laid on her shoulders. “I’ll give you a clue,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “The grass looks very comfortable . . .”
“The grass?”
She stopped a yard or so from the door, and looked at the patterns in the wood. There were arrangements of dark shapes toward the top of the door; and a sliver of pale wood running horizontally, broken in places, and some more forms she could make no sense of arbitrarily laid here and there. But where was the grass? And why was it so comfortable?
“I’m not getting it,” she said.
“Just look for the virgin,” Galilee said.
“The virgin?” she said. “What virgin?” He drew breath to give her another clue, but before he could speak she said: “You mean Jerusha?”
He put his smiling lips against the nape of her neck and kept his silence.
She kept looking, and piece by piece the picture began to emerge. The grass—that comfortable bed on which Jerusha had lain down—was there in the middle of the door, a patch of lightly speckled wood. Above it were those dark massy shapes she’d first puzzled over: the heavy summer foliage of ancient trees. And that bright horizontal sliver running across the door? It was the river, glimpsed from a distance.
Now it was she who smiled, as the mystery came clear in front of her. She had only one question: “Where are the people?”
“You have to put those in for yourself,” he said. “Unless . . .” He stepped past her and put his finger on a narrow, almost spindly shape in the grain of one of the pieces of wood. “Could this be the riverman?”
“No. He was better looking than that.”
Galilee laughed. “So maybe it isn’t Jerusha’s forest after all,” he said. “I’ll have to invent a new story.”
“You like telling stories?”
“I like what it does to people,” he said, smiling a little guiltily. “It makes them feel safe.”
“Going to your country? Where the rich were kind and the poor had God—”
“I suppose that is my country. I hadn’t thought about it that way before.” The notion seemed to trouble him somewhat. He grew pensive for a moment; just a moment. Then he looked up from his thoughts and said: “Are you hungry?”
“Yes, I am a little.”
“Good. Then I’ll cook,” he said. “It’ll take a couple of hours. Can you wait that long?”
“A couple of hours?” she said, “What are you going to cook?”
“Oh it’s not the cooking that takes the time,” he said. “It’s the catching.”
ii
There was no trace of the day remaining when The Samarkand left the jetty; nor was there a moon. Only the stars, in brilliant array. Rachel sat on deck while the boat glided away from the island. The heavens got brighter the further they sailed, or such was her impression. She’d never seen so many stars, nor seen the Milky Way so clearly; a wide, irregular band of studded sky.
“What are you thinking about?” Galilee asked her.
“I used to work in a jewelry store in Boston,” she said. “And we had this necklace that was called the Milky Way. It was supposed to look like that.” She pointed to the sky. “I think it was eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You never saw so many diamonds.”
“Did you want to steal it?” Galilee said.
“I’m not a thief.”
“But did you?”
She grinned sheepishly. “I did try it on when nobody was looking. And it was very pretty. But the real thing’s prettier.”
“I would have stolen it for you,” Galilee said. “No problem. All you needed to say was—I want that—and it would have been yours.”
“Suppose you’d got caught?”
“I never get caught.”
“So what have you stolen?”
“Oh my Lord . . .” he said. “Where do I start?”
“Is that a joke?”
“No. I take theft very seriously.”
“It is a joke.”
“I stole this boat.”
“You did not.”
“How else was I going to get it?”
“Buy it?”
“You know how much vessels like this cost?” he said reasonably. She still wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not. “I either stole the money to buy the boat, or stole the boat itself. It seemed simpler to steal the boat. That cut out the middleman.” Rachel laughed. “Besides, the guy who had the boat didn’t care about her. He left her tied up most of the time. I took her out, showed her the world.”
“You make it sound like you married her.”
“I’m not that crazy,” Galilee replied. “I like sailing, but I like fucking better.” An expression of surprise must have crossed her face, because he hurriedly said: “Sorry. That was crude. I mean—”
“No, if that’s what you meant you should say it.”
He looked sideways at her, his eyes gleaming by the light of the lamp. Despite his claim not to be crazy, that was exactly how he looked at that moment: sublimely, exquisitely crazy.
“You realize what you’re inviting?” he said.
“No.”
“Giving me permission to say what I mean? That’s a dangerous invitation.”
“I’ll take the risk.”
“All right,” he said with a shrug. “But you remember . . .”
“ . . . I invited it.”
He kept looking at her: that same gleaming gaze.
“I brought you on this boat because I want to make love to you.,,
“Make love is it now?”
“No, fuck. I want to fuck you.”
“Is that your usual method?” she asked him. “Get the girl out to the sea where she hasn’t got any choice?”
“You could swim,” he said. He wasn’t smiling.
“I suppose I could.”
“But as they say on the islands: Uliuli kai holo ka mano.”
“Which means what?”
“Where the sea is dark, sharks swim.”
“Oh that’s very reassuring,” she said, glancing down at the waters slopping against the hull of The Samarkand. They were indeed dark.
“So that may not be the wisest option. You’re safer here. With me. Getting what you want.”
“I haven’t said—”
“You don’t need to tell me. You just need to be near me. I can smell what you want.”
If Mitchell had ever said anything like that as a sexual overture he would have killed his chances stone dead. But she’d invited this man to say what was in his head. It was too late to play the Puritan. Besides, coming from him, right now, the idea was curiously beguiling. He could smell her. Her breath, her sweat; God knows what else. She was near him and he could smell her; she was wasting his time and hers protesting and denying . . .
So she said: “I thought we were going to fish?”
He grinned at her. “You want a lover who keeps his promises, huh?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll get a fish,” he said, and standing up he stripped off his T-shirt, unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his pants; all this so swiftly she didn’t comprehend what he was intending to do until he threw himself overboard. It wasn’t an elegant dive, it was a ragged plunge, and the splash soaked her. But that wasn’t what got her up and shouting at him. It was what he’d said about sharks and dark water.
“Don’t do this!” she yelled. She could barely see him. “Come out of there!”
“I’m not going to be long.”
“Galilee. You said there were sharks.”
“And the longer I talk to you the more likely they’ll come and eat my ass, so can I please go fish?”
“I’m not hungry any more.”
“You will be,” he said. She could hear the smile in his voice, then saw him throw his arms above his head and dive out of sight.
/>
“You sonofabitch,” she said to herself, her mind filling with unwelcome questions. How long could he hold his breath for? When should she start to be concerned for his safety? And what if she saw a shark: what was she to do then? Lean over the side and beat on the hull of the boat to divert its attention? Not a very pleasant idea, with the water so concealing. The thing would be on her before she knew it; taking off her hand, her arm, dragging her overboard.
There was no doubt in her mind: when he got back on board she was going to tell him to take her straight back to the jetty; the sonofabitch, the sonofabitch, leaving her here staring down into the darkness with her heart in her mouth—
She heard a splashing sound on the other side of the boat.
“Is that you?” she called out. There was no reply. She crossed the deck, stumbling over something in the dark. “Galilee, damn you! Answer me!”
The splashing came again. She scanned the water, looking for some sign of life. Praying it was a man not a fin.
“Oh God, don’t let anything happen to him,” she found herself saying, “Please God, please, don’t hurt him.”
“You sound like a native.”
She looked in the direction of the voice. There was something that looked like a black ball bobbing in the water. And around it, fish were leaping, their backs silvery in the starlight.
“Okay,” she said, determined not to sound concerned for fear she encouraged his cavortings. “You got the fish? That’s great.”
“There was a shark god at Puhi, called Kaholia-Kane—”
“I don’t want to hear it!” she yelled.
“But I heard you praying—”
“No—”
“Please God, you were saying.”
“I wasn’t praying to the fucking shark!” she yelled, her fury and fear getting the better of her.
“Well you should. They listen. At least this one did. The women used to call to him, whenever somebody was lost at sea—”
“Galilee?”
“Yes?”
“It’s not funny anymore. I want you back on board.”
“I’m coming,” he said. “Let me just—” She saw his arm shoot out of the water and catch one of the leaping fish. “Gotcha! Okay. I’m on my way.” He began to plow through the water toward the boat. She scanned the surface in every direction, superstitiously fearful that the fin would appear just as Galilee came in striking distance of the boat. But he made it to the side without incident.
“Here,” he said, passing the fish up to her. It was large, and still very much intending to return to its native element, thrashing so violently that she had to use both hands to keep hold of it.
By the time she’d set the fish down where it couldn’t dance its way back over the side Galilee had hoisted himself up out of the water and was standing, dripping wet, just a step or two behind her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, before she could start to tell him how angry she was. “I didn’t realize I was upsetting you. I thought you knew it was all a joke.”
“You mean there aren’t any sharks?”
“Oh no. There are sharks out there. And the islanders do say Uliuli kai holo ka mano. But I don’t think they’re talking about real sharks when they say that.”
“What are they talking about?”
“Men.”
“Oh I see,” Rachel said. “When it gets dark, the men come out—”
“—looking for something to eat.” He nodded.
“But you could still have got attacked,” she said, “If there are real sharks out there.”
“They wouldn’t have touched me.”
“And why’s that? Too tough?”
He reached out and took hold of her hand, escorting it back toward him, and laying her palm against the middle of his massive chest. His heart was thumping furiously. He felt as though there was just a single layer of skin between hand and heart; as though if she wanted to she could have reached into his chest and taken hold of it. And now it was she who could smell him. His skin like smoke and burnt coffee; his breath salty.
“There’s a lot of tales about sharks, men and gods,” he said.
“More of your true stories?”
“Absolutely true,” he replied. “I swear.”
“Such as?”
“Well, they come in four varieties. Legends about men who are really shape-changing sharks; that’s the first. These creatures walk the beaches at night, taking souls; sometimes taking children.”
Rachel made a face. “Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.”
“Then there are stories about men who decided to go into the sea and become sharks.”
“Why would they do that?”
“For the same reason I got myself a boat and sailed away: they were fed up with pretending. They wanted to be in the water, always moving. Sharks die if they don’t keep moving, did you know that?”
“No . . .”.
“Well they do.”
“So that’s number two.”
“Then there’s the one you already know. Kaholia-Kane and his brothers and sisters.”
“Shark gods.”
“Protectors of sailors and ships. There’s one in Pearl Harbor, watching over the dead. Her name’s Ka’ahupahau. And the greatest of them is called Kuhaimuana. He’s thirty fathoms long . . .”
Rachel shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t like any of these stories,” she said.
“That leaves us with just one category.”
“Men who are gods?” Rachel said. Galilee nodded. “No, I’m not buying that either,” she told him.
“Don’t be so quick to judge,” Galilee said. “Maybe you just haven’t met the right man.”
She laughed. “And maybe it’s all just stories,” she replied. “Look, I’m quite happy to talk about sharks and religion tomorrow. But tonight let’s just be ordinary people.”
“You make it sound easy,” he said.
“It is,” she told him. She moved closer to him, her hand still pressed against his chest. His heart seemed to beat more powerfully still. “I don’t understand what’s going on between us,” she said, their faces so close she could feel the heat of his breath. “And to be honest I don’t really care any more.” She kissed him. He was staring at her, unblinking, and continued to stare as he returned her kiss.
“What do you want to do?” he said, very quietly.
She slid her other hand down over the hard shallow dome of his stomach, to his sex. “Whatever you want,” she said, unhooding him. He shuddered.
“There’s so much I need to tell you,” he said.
“Later.”
“Things you have to know about me.”
“Later.”
“Don’t say I didn’t try,” he said, staring at her with no little severity.
“I won’t.”
“Then let’s go downstairs and be ordinary for a while.”
She led the way. But before he followed her he walked back across the deck to where the fish lay, and going down on his haunches, picked it up. She watched his body by the lamplight; the muscles of his back and buttocks, the bunching of his thighs as he squatted down, the dark, laden sac hanging between his legs. He was glorious, she thought; perhaps the most glorious man she’d ever seen.
He stood up again—apparently unaware that she was watching him—and seemed to murmur a few words to the dead fish before tossing it overboard.
“What was that about?” she asked him.
“An offering,” he explained. “To the shark god.”
VII
i
My half brother Galilee was always impatient with other people; it doesn’t surprise me that he became “tired of pretending,” as he explained to Rachel. What does surprise me is that he didn’t assume that sooner or later he’d find himself playing that same game with her, and tire of her too.
Then again, perhaps he did. Perhaps even at the beginning, now I look at what he said to her more closely, there were contradictions there. On
the one hand he seemed to be infatuated with her—all that sentimental talk about staring at the sea when he should have been watching for her—on the other quite capable of condescension. Samarkand, he dryly explains, is a long way from Ohio, as though she were too parochial to have any knowledge of what lay beyond her immediate experience. It’s a wonder she didn’t kick him off the jetty.
But then I think that from the beginning she understood him—contradictions and all—better than I ever have. And of course she was susceptible to his charms in away that I’ll never be, and perhaps therefore more forgiving of his flaws. I’m doing my best to evoke a measure of his allure for you. I think I caught his voice, and the physical details are right. But it’s difficult to go into the sexual business. Describing an act of coitus involving your own sibling feels like a form of literary incest, though I’m certain that my reticence does him an injustice. I haven’t, for instance, told you how finely he was made between the legs. But for the record, very finely indeed.
So on. For the sake of my blushes, on.
ii
There is, as I promised, much more calamity within the Geary family to report, but before I start into that I want to tell you about a little drama here in the Barbarossa household.
It happened last night, just as I was midway through describing Rachel and Galilee’s encounter on The Samarkand. There was a great din at the other end of the house (and I really mean a cacophony: shouting and thundering enough to shake down a few of the smaller books off my shelves). I couldn’t work, of course. I was far too curious. I ventured out into the hallway, and tried to make some sense of the noise. It wasn’t difficult. Marietta was one portion of it: when she gets angry she becomes so shrill it makes your head ring, and she was shouting up a storm. Accompanying her complaints—which I could make no real sense of—was the sound of slamming doors, as she apparently raged her way from room to room. But these weren’t the only elements in the noise. There was something far more disturbing: a clamor that was like the din of some benighted jungle; a lunatic mingling of chatters and howls.