By the Light of My Father's Smile (8 page)

But it was paradise.

Of course I speak English, said Irene, puffing on a harsh-smelling Gauloise cigarette. Cartons of Camels, Kools, Lucky Strikes were stacked against the back wall of her room. I speak German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, as well. Also Latin, but there's nobody left to speak it to.

Susannah was glad that, on principle, she rarely listened to men. Rarely believed, really, a word they said. No matter how much she might love them.

My husband thought you … she began—but how to finish the sentence? It hung there between them. In fact, she realized now, Petros had probably thought Irene couldn't speak at all, since no one was allowed to speak to her.

Husbands, said Irene, with a shrug. I see very little of them. It is usually their wives, women like you, she said, with a slight nod, who are curious.

But why are we curious? thought Susannah, as Irene continued to talk, the Gauloise hanging from full burgundy-colored lips, her brow furrowed as she worked on a piece of embroidery that looked like a tablecloth and covered both her knees.

They used to stone women, here, said Irene into the silence, not so very long ago. Did your husband tell you that? That is what the men tell each other, you know, and whisper into the ears of foreign men, when they get the chance to talk together. Ah, women think they want to know what men talk about! Irene scoffed. You can be sure they stoned a great many, before they got their vaunted “democracy” in these parts. From my window I can see one of the stoning pillars. They say that even a hundred years ago, the base of it was still pink from blood.

Susannah rose from her cushion by the door and looked in the direction Irene pointed. There, way in the distance, toward the sea, and glinting bone white against the royal blue, yes, there was a post of some sort.

It goes on today, more than most Westerners would ever guess, said Susannah, sighing. And in some cultures they have written in their religious books the size and shape of the stones to be used. Some are of a special size and shape to break the woman's nose, others to crack her skull. There had been many recent stonings in Saudi Arabia and Iran; a few brave women and men had risked their lives to tell the world about them.

Irene made a face. She was sitting on a cushion also. Hers was maroon. Susannah's green. It was an amazing room. Every inch of it, walls, ceiling, floor, covered with embroidery or needlepoint. One had the feeling of being small, the size of a fly perhaps, and of lying against the bodice of a very colorful, old-fashioned Greek wedding dress.

I am impressed, said Susannah, that you know so many languages.

I am nearly seventy, said Irene. I never leave this place. What is there to do but to know everything that goes on in the world? To know everything, I had only to learn other people's languages, and, with television, learn to read their weary faces.

Susannah glanced at the large television set in the corner of the room. Is it by satellite? she asked.

Of course, said Irene. From here I can see everything, even into the heart of the modern Diana. She made a face. Princess Di. I can see what a mess she's made of her life, but also how she tries very hard to rise to the meaning of her own name. Her name is a life raft, if she would only grab it. Irene shrugged. What would the goddess for whom she is named think of her? She pulled a thread that stuck up from her embroidery and snapped it between her teeth. She laughed, abruptly. Almost a bark.

To be a princess must have seemed like being a goddess, though, said Susannah, thoughtfully. She had a fondness for Diana, whose stricken or glowing face always confronted one, in North America, from the covers of tabloids, at the checkout counters of supermarkets, anywhere you went.

At the time of the courtship, yes, said Irene. She was so young. And after all, he was, her husband-to-be, a prince.

Hmm, said Susannah. I remember when I got it about saints and goddesses. The difference, I mean. Saints are too good to be true, and goddesses insist on being both magical and real. It is because they're good and bad and because with them, anything can happen, that they're goddesses.

Diana was a huntress, mused Irene. She knew everything about getting what she wanted; but as goddess she maintained the freedom to toss back what didn't please her. A mere princess has trouble doing that. She grunted, and tugged the section of cloth she was working on so that it more snugly fit its frame.

The evening was coming on; the afternoon had been hot and dry. Irene served tea festooned with fresh mint leaves and poured over slivered ice.

Susannah sat limply on her green cushion, which she'd dragged away from the door; her back was now against Irene's small wooden bed.

There are also wonderful tapes, said Irene. But best of all are the soap operas. In every nationality they are the best way to learn a language.

No kidding? said Susannah, sipping her tea.

No kidding, said Irene, mocking Susannah's tone, but with her own amusing, to Susannah, accent.

But why do women come to you? asked Susannah. And, more important, why do you receive them?

Myself, said the dwarf, pointing to her rounded chest, I think they are drawn by my red curtains.

I certainly was, said Susannah, smiling.

Why does it surprise you that I, even I, should have a thirst for life? said Irene. A woman living alone. A small woman. A very small woman. In a room in back of a white church. A very white church, because I whitewash it every year. In a room with red curtains.

The very description is intriguing, you have to admit! said Susannah, laughing.

And yet Petros had not been intrigued. Nor even interested.

She's a dwarf, she lives alone. She's made her peace with it. Leave her alone. He had been saddened by Irene's fate, Susannah thought now, without really knowing it.

Why don't you ever leave? she asked.

In the old days, when I was young, it was forbidden. I was beaten if I left. Dragged back. There was no place to go, either. My mother was dead. Nobody wanted me.

It is difficult to sit across from anyone and to imagine that they were not wanted. The truth of what Irene said, proved by the life
she led, pained Susannah, who still could not quite fathom it. She had been born into a family that wanted her, loved her. But she had somehow discovered a rejecting power in herself, even in childhood, and had used it to shut her father out.

As Irene smoked, and worked on her embroidery, which was a tablecloth that would be sold to tourists, Susannah's mind drifted. She saw her father coming toward her, smiling, and holding out a handful of green-apple jellybeans. He'd carefully removed all the other flavors, because he knew green apple was her favorite. There the candy lay, glossy and fresh, in his large tan palm. They had stopped at a country store as they drove across Texas on their way home from Mexico. He must have bought the candy then.

She felt her hand begin reaching for the candy, and felt her eyes responding to his smile. And then, just then, before she actually reached, she heard June, Mad Dog, Magdalena, clear her throat. She heard her say, though their father had not yet asked her: I do not care for any. And Susannah's hand had remained in her lap, and her eyes had lowered themselves. She heard her father's disappointed Okay, then. And heard him turn away, go around the front of the car, and get in. She'd longed for the taste of those jellybeans! Yet June's cough had made it impossible for her to accept them. Once again she was drawn back to the keyhole. Once again she saw her father turn into a man she did not know.

From the backseat, while her mother and June slept, she had studied the back of her father's head. The way his hair waved, just above his neck, even though it was cut very short. The way his ears stuck out. Theirs had always been a relationship that thrived on touching. In the old days, before she saw him punish June, she would have reached up and run her fingers across the wavy ridges
of his hair, and played with the comical stuck-out ears. Now she felt unable to lift her hand. Even though he sat just in front of her, it felt as if he were far away. Only now, as a middle-aged woman, sipping tea with an elderly Greek dwarf during a warm evening on a small island in the middle of a maroon sea, did she wonder what her father must have thought.

That night, in bed with Petros, Susannah tossed and turned. Petros thought her restlessness could be calmed by lovemaking, but she did not desire him. The next day she asked if he would accompany her on a stroll that would bring them to the cliffs overlooking the beach. Agreeable, as he almost always was, he said yes instantly. They set out as the air was cooling, and soon reached the stoning pillar that Irene could see from her room. It was made of marble, and leaned to one side. A large metal sign advertising Coca-Cola was propped against its base. There was Greek graffiti scrawled the length of one side.

They used to stone women here, she said to Petros.

I'm sure they did not! he said, looking at her with alarm. Whatever makes you say such a thing?

Women are stoned, you know. Even today. She said this calmly, though she felt herself distancing from the reality of what she described.

Her husband's face had darkened. She felt him draw away from her. Why must you always think of things like that? he said to her.
And is this what you brought me all this way to see? He was angry, not because he disbelieved Susannah, but because he knew there would be no sex now for at least a couple of nights, maybe none for the rest of their stay. And he so liked making love to her in his childhood bed. The child that he had been seemed to still be there in the room, somehow. Looking down upon them making love, a fantasy come true.

She did not tell him that Irene had told her about the stoning post. She did not tell him anything that transpired between Irene and herself. Each day she simply walked to the church, went around to the back, and knocked on Irene's black door.

The next day, as she approached the church, she wondered if Irene had missed her. She thought she probably had not: Irene would be used to tourists showing up, perhaps for several days or even a week or more, but then abruptly disappearing as their boat or plane pulled out. The door was slightly ajar to admit a tiny breeze, sucked in by an electric fan that rotated slowly, and as if searching the corners of the room.

Come in, said Irene.

She was sitting on the green cushion, studying the cards she'd laid out on the floor. Susannah stood over her for a moment, looking down at the spread. It was a tarot deck unknown to her. All red and blue and white.

The colors of our flag, she said, as she settled onto the maroon cushion across from Irene.

Yes, said Irene. Odd, isn't it? It was given to me by a woman from Turkey, who picked it up I believe she said in Spain. It's a Gypsy deck. I don't imagine the cards were so plain in the old days. She slapped down a card whose image was a woman frowning and carrying two huge swords. Oops, she said, time to cut the illusions.

Is that what you think it means? asked Susannah, with the eagerness of her childhood. She loved anything mysterious, not figured out, not yet nailed to the wall.

Irene looked across at her and smiled as she fumbled behind her to grab a package of Camels.

That's what it always means, she said flatly. I will do a spread for you, if you like.

Oh, good, said Susannah, drawing her cushion closer as Irene shuffled the cards. This was awkward for her because the cards were large, and her hands quite small. Still, from years of shuffling them she was expert. They were soon spread in a pattern that resembled a cross. The “time to cut the illusions” card was prominently dead center.

You are on a journey to your own body, said Irene. Not so much your own mind, at least not at the moment; or your heart. But to your own skin, the way it shines, the way it glows, smells, absorbs the light. It is now as if you are embracing a vapor, a cloud, a mist. You are actually someone who left her body long ago, when you were quite young; that is why you walk with such grace and stateliness. You are a statue, really.

Oh, God, said Susannah, who'd always been praised for her walk. You don't stoop over like most tall girls, she'd been told. You walk like a queen.

Irene took up a card with a woman and a man entering an ancient carriage. The man's hand under the woman's elbow. She placed the card alongside her nose and closed her eyes, it seemed to Susannah, carefully. She rested a moment, deep in thought.

Do you know why there is this concept of “ladies first”? asked Irene. It is because, in the early days, if we were permitted to walk behind the man, we would run away. If we were kept in front,
they could keep an eye on us. Later on, as we became more tame, they hated to think a woman they desired would only think of running away, and so they invented chivalry. Gallantry. The lifting over puddles, the handing into carriages.

Yes, said Susannah, but what does the card mean aside from that?

There is a man inside you, your own inner man, so to speak, and he is dedicated to helping you. He is lifting you into the carriage of your own body, in which you can begin to take charge of your own life.

Who could that be? thought Susannah. Not Petros?

It is not someone of whom you would think, said Irene, as if overhearing her thoughts. Besides, it is an inner man. Part of yourself. But there is an outer man as well, who calls this inner helper forth.

No kidding, said Susannah.

No kidding, said Irene, mocking her.

I see here, said Irene, holding a card of a woman riding the moon, that you have been far away. You have been lost, really. You have enjoyed being lost, in a way. Being lost means no one knows where to find you. If no one knows where to find you, then you are safe from expectations. In a word, free. That is what being lost sometimes means. But now, it is as if you are calling to yourself. Susannah, Susannah, come back; come home. Irene chuckled. And a little child-woman, far away, sitting I think in a large tree, hears the calling and thinks: Maybe it is time to go back.