Galilee

  “We started to expand our territories, state by state. We went north into Virginia, we went into Tennessee and Missouri, we worked our way through as far as Oklahoma, then down into Texas. Wherever we went, Geary bought up land, most of the time with money he didn’t have, but by now he had a name and a reputation; he was this new guy out of Charleston who had a vision and a fast tongue and a way of getting what he wanted, and anyone who said no to him regretted it, so fewer and fewer people did. Fewer and fewer wanted to. They wanted to be in business with him: he was the face of the future, and he always acted as though he had so much money that you’d get rich just by shaking hands with him.” His voice was gathering strength again. “The thing was, a lot of people did get rich off him. He was a natural; he had a nose for wealth. I think he even surprised himself.

  “In a little over three years he was a millionaire, and he decided it was time to start a family. He married a rich woman out of Georgia, who’d taken all her money up north before the war. Her name was Bedelia Townsend, and she seemed to be the perfect match for him. She was beautiful, she was ambitious, and she wanted the world right there, in the palm of her hand. There was only one problem. He didn’t take care of her in the bedroom as she would have liked. So I kept her company.”

  “Did she have children by you?”

  “No. They were all his. I was very careful about that. Pleasuring her was one thing, giving her a Barbarossa was another.”

  “Weren’t you tempted?”

  “To make a half-breed with her? Oh yes, I was tempted. But I was afraid that would spoil what was between us. I loved being with her. Nothing made me happier.”

  “And what did Geary think about all this?”

  “He didn’t care. He was out empire-building. As long as Bedelia produced children, and I was there to play the bully-boy if somebody crossed him, he didn’t concern himself with what we did together. It was a busy time for a cook who wanted to be a king. And to be fair to him, he worked, night and day. The seeds of everything the Geary family became were sown in that decade after the end of the war.”

  “So there must have come a time when you’d paid your debt to him.”

  “Oh there did. But if I’d walked away from him, where would I have gone? I couldn’t go back to L’Enfant. I had no other life besides the Gearys.”

  “You could have gone away to sea.”

  “That’s what happened, eventually.” He paused, thinking on this moment. “But I didn’t go alone.”

  “You took Bedelia?” Rachel said softly.

  “Yes. I took Bedeia. She was the first woman to step on The Samarkand and you were the second. We sailed off, without telling Geary we were going. She left a letter, I think, explaining her feelings; telling him she wanted more than he’d given her.”

  “How could she do that? How could she leave her children?”

  He leaned a little closer to her. “You wouldn’t have done that for me?” he said.

  “Yes,” she murmured, “of course I would.”

  “That’s your answer then.”

  “Did she ever see them again?”

  “Oh yes. Later. But she also had another child . . .”

  “You had your half-breed?”

  “ ‘Yes . . .”

  “Niolopua . . . ?”

  “Yes. My Niolopua. I made sure he understood from the beginning that he had Barbarossian blood. That way he could escape at least some of the claims of time. My father had told me that some of his bastards—the ones who lived in ignorance of who they were—lived ordinary, human lives. Seventy years and they were gone. It was only the children who knew their real nature who could outlive their Biblical span.”

  “I don’t understand,” Rachel said. “If you’ve got Barbarossian blood what does it matter whether you know it or not?”

  “It’s not a matter of blood. It’s a matter of knowing who you are. It’s knowledge, not chemistry that makes us Barbarossas.”

  “And if you’d never told him?”

  “He’d be a long time dead by now.”

  “So you and Bedelia go out to sea on The Samarkand, and eventually you find your way here?”

  “Yes. We came here by chance; the winds brought us here and it seemed like paradise. There was nobody at this end of the island back then. It was like the beginning of the world. We weren’t the first visitors, of course. There was a mission in Poi’pu. That’s where she had Niolopua. And while she was recovering, I finished work on the house.” He looked past her, along the beach. “It hasn’t changed much,” he said. “The air still smells as sweet as when I was here with her.”

  She thought of Niolopua as he spoke: of the many times she’d seen unreadable expressions cross his face, and wondered what mysteries lay buried in him. Now she knew. He’d been the dutiful son, watching over the house built for his mother all those long years ago, watching the horizon and waiting for a sail, the sail of his father’s boat, to come into view. She wanted to weep, for the loss of him. Not that she’d known him well; but he had been a connection to the past, and to the woman whose love had made so much of what had happened to Rachel possible. Without Bedelia, there would have been no house here in Eden.

  “Have you heard enough?” Galilee said to her.

  In a sense, she’d heard more than enough. It would take her days to comb through what he’d told her, and put the pieces together with what she already knew: the tales she’d read in Charles Holt’s journal, the oblique exchanges she’d had with Niolopua and with Loretta; that last, bitter confrontation between Cesaria and Cadmus. All of it was illuminated by what she now knew; and yet paradoxically was all the darker for that. The pain and the grief, the allegiances and the betrayals, they were so much deeper than she’d imagined. All of which would have been extraordinary enough had it simply been some story she’d heard. But it was so much more than that. It was the life of the man she loved. And she was a part of it; she was living it, even now.

  “Can I ask you one last question?” she said. “Then we’ll leave it for another time.”

  He reached out and caught hold of her hand. “So, then, it’s not over?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Between us.”

  “Oh God, my sweet . . .” she said, reaching up to touch his face. He was burning hot; as though in the grip of a fever. “Of course it’s not over. I love you. I said I wasn’t afraid of what you had to tell me, and I meant it. Nothing would make me let go of you now.” He was trying to smile, but his eyes were full of tears.

  She stroked his brow. “What you’ve told me helps me make sense of everything,” she said. “And that’s all I’ve wanted, since the beginning. I’ve wanted to understand.”

  “You’re extraordinary. Did I ever tell you that? You’re an amazing woman. I only wish I’d found you earlier.”

  “I wouldn’t have been ready for you,” Rachel said. “I would have run away. It would all have been too much . . .”

  “You had another question,” Galilee said.

  “Yes. What happened to Bedelia? Did she stay here on the island?”

  “No, she missed the social life of the big city, so she went back after three and a half years. Picked up where she’d left off.”

  “And Niolopua?”

  “He went with me for a few years. Out to see the world. But he didn’t like the sea very much. So I brought him back when he was twelve, and left him here, where he wanted to be.”

  One question answered, and another demanded to be asked. “Did you ever see Bedelia again?”

  “Not until the very end of her life. Some instinct—I don’t know what it was—made me sail back to New York, and when I got to the mansion she was on her deathbed. I knew when I saw her she’d been holding on, waiting for me to comeback. She was dying of pneumonia; and Lord, to see her there . . . so weak. It broke my heart. But she told me she wasn’t ready to die until she’d seen Geary and me make peace. God knows why that was so important to her, but it was. She order
ed him to come up to the bedroom—”

  “The big room overlooking the street?” Rachel said. “Yes.”

  “That’s where Cadmus died.”

  “A lot of Gearys have been born and died in that room.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “First she made us shake hands. Then she told us she had one last wish. She wanted me always to be there for the Geary women, to comfort them the way she’d been comforted. To love them the way she’d been loved. And that would be the only service I’d do for the Gearys after her death. No more murder. No more torture. Just this promise of comfort and love.”

  “What did you say to that?”

  “What could I say? I had loved this woman with all my heart. I couldn’t deny her this; it was the last thing she was ever going to ask for. So Geary and I agreed. We made a solemn oath, right there at the bottom of her bed. He agreed to protect the house in Kaua’i from any of the male members of his family: to dedicate it to the Geary women. And I agreed to go there when the women wanted me, to keep them company. Bedelia didn’t die for another two days. She clung on, while we waited and watched—Geary on one side of her, me on the other. But she never said another word after that; I swear she made us wait so that we’d think about what we’d promised. When she died we grieved together, and it was almost like the old times; like it had been at the beginning, before everything went wrong between us. I didn’t go to see her buried. I wouldn’t have been welcome in the elevated company which Nub now kept—the Astors, the Rothschilds, the Carnegies. And he didn’t want me standing beside his wife’s grave, with everyone asking questions. So I sailed away. The day Bedelia was put in the ground I caught the morning tide. I never saw Nub again. But we wrote to one another, making formal arrangements for what we’d agreed to do. It was strange, how it all ended up. I’d been the King of Charleston when he met me; he’d been a wanderer. Our roles were reversed.”

  “Did you care? That you had nothing, I mean.”

  Galilee shook his head. “I didn’t want anything that he had. Except Bedelia. I would have liked to have taken her with me. Buried her here, on the island. She didn’t belong in some fancy mausoleum. She belonged where she could hear the sea . . .”

  Rachel thought of the church that she’d visited when she’d first come to the island, and of the small ring of graves around it.

  “But her spirit’s here, sometimes.”

  “So she was one of the women in the house?”

  Galilee nodded. “Yes she was. Though I don’t know if I dreamt them or not.”

  “I saw them clearly.”

  “That doesn’t mean I didn’t dream them,” Galilee said.

  “So she wasn’t her ghost?”

  “Ghost. Memory. Echo. I don’t know. It was some part of who she was. But the better part of her soul has gone, hasn’t it? She’s out in the stars somewhere. All you saw was something I kept, for company. A dream of a memory of Bedelia. And Kitty. And Margie.” He sighed. “I was their comfort when they were alive. And now they’re dead, a little piece of them is mine. You see how things always come around?” He put his hands to his face. “I’m all talked out,” he said. “And we should make our plans to leave. Somebody’s going to come looking for your husband sooner or later.”

  “One last thing,” Rachel said.

  “Yes?”

  “Is that how I’m going to be one day? Like the women in the house? I’ll die, and you’ll just dream me up when you’re lonely?”

  “No. It’s going to be different for us.”

  “How?”

  “I’m going to bring you into the Barbarossa family, Rachel. I’m going to make you one of us, so death won’t take you from me. I don’t know how I’m going to do that yet—I don’t even know that I can—but that’s my intention. And if I can’t . . .” he reached for her, took her hands in his, “If I can’t live with you, as a Barbarossa, then I’ll die with you.” He kissed her. “That’s my promise. From now on, we’re together, whether it’s to the grave or the end of time.”

  III

  i

  I stayed up through the night writing Galilee’s confession. It was in some ways the happiest of labors: I was finally able to unburden myself of portions of this story I’ve waited a long time to set down; and it was pleasing to interleave my voice with Galilee’s in the telling. But it was also the first of many acts of closure that the next few days will bring, and toward the end of the night a distinct sense of melancholy crept upon me. You might think this strange, given how painful many of the demands of this book have been, but for all my complaints, I have been moved and changed by the journey I’ve taken, and I don’t look forward to its being over, as I thought I would. In truth, I’m a little afraid of being finished. Afraid that when I get to the end, and set my pen down, I will have spilled so much of myself onto the page that what remains inside me, to fill the vessel of my being, will be inadequate. That I’ll be empty, or nearly so.

  My mood lightened somewhat when the dawn chorus started up; and by the time I crawled into bed I was feeling a little happier with my lot. At least I had something to show for my labors, I thought to myself: if I were to die in my sleep, there would be something left behind, besides the hairs in the sink, and the spit stains on my pillow. Something which had come from my hand and head; evidence, if you will, of my desire to make order of chaos.

  Speaking of chaos, I realized as I fell asleep that I’d missed Marietta’s wedding celebrations. Not that I would have ventured out to attend them; even if the book had not been demanding my attention I would have made some excuse not to go. When I finally travel beyond the perimeters of L’Enfant it won’t be to go on a drunken rampage with a bar full of Marietta’s lesbian buddies. On the other hand I couldn’t help but think that her wedding—assuming it took place—was yet further evidence of how things were changing; and how I, who’d witnessed all these changes, and been their loyal transcriber, was now left behind. A self-pitying thought, no doubt; but sometimes self-pity works better than any lullaby. Bathing in a stew of martyrdom, I fell asleep.

  I dreamed again; and this time I didn’t dream of the sea, or of the gray wastes of a city, but of a bright burnished sky, and a wilderness of desert. A little way off from me, there was a caravan of men and camels, its passage raising clouds of ocher dust. I could hear the camel drivers yelling to their animals, and the sharp snap of their sticks against the creatures’ flanks. I could smell them too, even though they were a quarter of a mile from me: the pungent aroma of dirt and hide. I had no great desire to join their company, but when I looked around I saw that the landscape was otherwise empty in every direction.

  I’m inside myself I thought; dust and emptiness in every direction; that’s what I’m left with, now I’ve finished writing.

  The caravan was steadily moving away from me. I knew if I lingered too long it would disappear from sight. Then what would I do? Die of loneliness or desiccation; one or the other. Unhappy though I was, I wasn’t ready for that. I started toward the caravan, my walk quickening into a trot, and the trot into a run, as my fear of losing it grew.

  Then, suddenly, I was there among the travelers; in the midst of their din and their stench. I felt the rhythmical motion of a camel beneath me, and looked down to see that I was indeed perched high on the back of one of the animals. The landscape—that aching void of baked earth—was now concealed from me by the dust cloud raised by the travelers in whose midst I rode. I could see the backside of the animal in front, and the head of the animal behind; the rest was out of sight.

  Somebody in the caravan now began to sing, raising a voice more confident than it was melodic above the general din. It was, I suppose you’d say, a dream song, wholly incoherent yet oddly familiar. What was it? I listened more carefully, trying to make sense of the syllables, certain that if I concentrated hard enough I’d discover what I was hearing. Still the song resisted; though at times the sense of it was tantalizingly close.

  Frustrat
ed, I was about to give up on the endeavor, when something about the rhythm of the song gave me a clue. I listened again, and the words, which had seemed nonsensical just moments before, came clear.

  It wasn’t a traveler’s song I was listening to; it wasn’t some exotic paean raised to the desert sky: it was a ditty from my childhood. The song I’d sung in the plum tree, all those many, many years ago.

  It seems I am,

  It seems I was,

  It seems I will

  Be born, because

  It seems I am—

  Hearing it now, I let my voice join in the rendition, and as soon as I did so, other voices were raised around me, all singing the same song. Round and round the words went, like the wheel of the stars; born and being and being born again.

  I felt a surge of remembered contentment. I was not empty, despite the tears I’d taken to bed with me. The memories were still there in me, sweet and pungent, like the plums on the branches of that tree. There to be plucked when I needed sustenance. Yes, there were stones at their heart—hard, bitter stones—but the meat around those stones was moist and nourishing. I wouldn’t go empty after all.

  The singing continued, but the voices of my unseen companions were becoming more remote. I looked back. The camel behind me had disappeared; so had the beast I was following. My fellow travelers, it seemed, had fallen by the wayside. Now I was traveling alone, singing alone, matching the pace of my song to the steady tread of my mount.

  It seems I am,

  I sang.

  It seems I was—

  The dust was clearing, now that there were no animals other than my own to stir it up. Something was glittering ahead of me.

  It seems I will

  Be born, because—

  A river; I was coming to a broad river, the waters of which had brought forth lush swards of flower-speckled grass and stands of heavy-headed trees. And beyond this verdant place, the walls of a city, warmed by the setting sun.