L'Engle, Madeleine - A Ring of Endless Light (11 page)

In a short time I had a little plate loaded with tidbits, and when I had finished my Coke, which I drank too quickly because such elegance made me nervous, it was immediately and silently replaced. Then we were summoned into the dining room, which was as large and elegant as the huge salon. There were crystal chandeliers, which Zachary said were Waterford, and candles in silver holders, and flowers, and round, white-napped tables. My chair was drawn out for me and I sat down, rather clumsily, and helped the waiter hitch me in. I'm not accustomed to this kind of service, though I think I could quite easily get used to it, given the opportunity. 141 The menu was enormous, a leather folder with pages of appetizers and fish and entrees and salads and desserts. There weren't any prices. "Have whatever your little heart desires." Zachary smiled his very nicest smile. "Once in a while you deserve to be treated like the princess you are. How about lobster?" Lobster is something we can have quite often on the Island, buying the lobster right off the fishing boats as they come into shore in the late afternoon. "I think I'd like something really exotic." "How about pheasant under a glass bell?" I looked under the poultry section of the menu, and there it was. "Why is it put under a glass bell?" "Got me. But they make it with an excellent sauce here. I advise it." "Fine-except-is pheasant an endangered species?" Zachary groaned. "Maybe in the wild. These are grown on a pheasant farm, especially for the purpose of being put under glass bells. Relax and enjoy." "Okay. Pheasant under a glass bell." -Because, I reminded myself, -as Adam said, all life does live at the expense of other life. "What's on your mind?" I wasn't about to tell him it was Adam. I looked at the menu. "For dessert I'm wavering between Baked Alaska and crepes suzette." The pheasant actually came under a glass bell, though I couldn't figure out what use it served except maybe to keep the pheasant warm. Zachary talked about going to law school and how it would help him to be in control of his life and not taken advantage of by the rest of the world, 142 which seemed in his mind to consist largely of other lawyers, out to get people. For dessert we had peach Melba because it was quicker than Baked Alaska or crepes suzette and our time was getting short and I certainly didn't want Zachary to speed in that open, unprotected car. And then we were in the little red Alfa Romeo on our way to the concert. We drove past the airport, and one of the huge jets came in for a landing, flying so low over us that I ducked. Zachary patted me. "Take it easy, Vicky-O. That plane's a lot higher over us than it seems. This is a really nice little international airport--not big enough for Concordes, of course, but it can handle pretty much anything else." "I've never been on a plane," I said. Zachary turned and looked at me in astonishment. "What!" "Look at the road, not at me. I want to get to that concert, please. I said I've never been up in a plane." "What a little country mouse you are, despite your year in New York. Next week, would you like to go up?" Ever stupid, I asked, "In a plane?" "What else? I can't preempt a jet for you, but there are plenty of little charter flights, the equivalent of your pal Leo's boat. We can fly over the Island and buzz your family and then come back and have dinner at the club. Would you like that?" I gazed at another plane over our heads, its underbelly looking like a strange air fish. "Oh, Zachary, I'd adore it, but I'll-" "I know. You'll have to ask your parents. But you can 143 reassure them that I won't be doing the flying-at least not till I get a pilot's license. I've started flying lessons so I won't go out of my mind with boredom. Art-he's my teacher-has his own little charter plane, and he'll fly us." "Oh, Zach-it sounds marvelous." "Pop says that if I get through my first year of college without any problems-and he really means without anyproblems-he'll buy me my own plane. I love flying, and Art says I'm a natural. It's much better than driving a car. So it's worth avoiding problems to have my own plane. So, how's about we go flying on Saturday, next week? There's a dinner dance at the club." "Saturday'll be fine." �*� The concert was held at an estate which had become some kind of foundation for the arts. There were chairs scattered about a vast green lawn, shining with golden light from the setting sun. Japanese lanterns were hung from the trees, great oaks and maples, and even some elms, and there aren't many of the old elms left; these must have had a lot of attention. The house was whitely visible between the trees, a great stone building with many gables and chimneys and wings. Between the house and the chairs was a platform holding a grand piano. The seats were arranged in clumps, and our tickets took us to the clump just to the left of the piano, where we'd have a perfect view of the keyboard; Zachary was really doing me proud. I looked at the program and it was everything I like-Bach's Fifth French Suite and a Mozart sonata and some Poulenc and Ginastera-a nice mix. 144 There was a little breeze and I put Mother's lacy shawl over my shoulders and watched while some girls in long swirly dresses came out with tapers and lit the lanterns. Zachary slipped one arm across my shoulders. I should have felt comfortable enough to lean against it and I was furious at myself for automatically stiffening. "Relax, Vicky-O." His long fingers moved gently across the hair at the nape of my neck. I tried to sound sophisticated and experienced. "Okay, but I want to listen to the music." At that moment there was a burst of applause and a woman climbed the steps to the platform, bowed to the audience, and sat down at the piano. She was small and slight, with dark hair piled high on her head, showing a beautiful neck. When she raised her hands over the keyboard I had a sense of total authority, and also a sense of terrific love, as though the piano were not an inanimate object but a dearly beloved person. And when she started to play, it was as though she and the piano were playing together. Music has always been part of my life, taken for granted like the air I breathe. At home, Mother has the record player going most of the time; she says she'd never do any housework without the help of music: for cleaning she puts on something loud, like a Brahms or Beethoven symphony, which can be heard over the vacuum cleaner. For cooking, which she enjoys, it's more likely to be Bach or Scarlatti or Mozart, or chamber music of some kind. So, sitting there in the gathering twilight, I was lifted up on the music, soaring with almost the same freedom and joy as Basil leaping into the sky. 145 The notes of the Bach hit against the air as clear as stars on a cold night. The audience shifted and stirred and then, caught in the music, stilled and listened. The wind blew softly and the heat of the day fled away. The lanterns moved in the breeze and the shadows rippled to the music like dancers. The long, lingering mid-July day slowly faded to streaks of rose and mauve, forecasting another clear, hot day. And then the color was gone and the stars began to come out, seeming to tangle with the Japanese lanterns. It was magic. I put my head down on Zachary's shoulder and closed my eyes and let the music wash over me like the ocean. �*� When the concert was over, the applause was long and sustained. "We've got to go, Vicky." Zachary patted my arm gently. "It's nearly eleven now, and Leo'll be waiting." Reluctantly I rose, leaving the music. "Oh, Zachary, that was superb." "Vigneras's got a good reputation," he said shortly. "Come on, Vic." "It's so beautiful it's hard to leave." "Glad you liked it. That kind of music doesn't do much for me." I turned to him, amazed. "Then why did we come?" He bent toward me and with one finger drew the lines of my eyebrows, and a slow shiver of pleasure went through me. "I knew it was your kind of thing." And, as I continued to look surprised, he added, "If I remember correctly from last summer, don't you have an aunt in California who's a concert pianist?" 146 For Zachary to remember, for Zachary to care . . . "Thanks-thanks, Zachary, thanks." We were walking toward the parking lot. "Don't you know I'd do a lot to make you happy, Vicky-O?" "Thanks," was all I could repeat, inadequately. For Zachary to spend an entire evening doing something he didn't like was not what I would have expected of him. But then, I should have learned not to have preconceptions. Not only had I never been up in a plane, I'd never ridden in an open car before today. After the heat of the day it was so cool that I had to put Mother's shawl up over my head, and Zachary spread a rug over my knees. "It's too pretty to put the hood up." It was. The sky was purply black, with the galaxies clustered above us and a lopsided moon just rising. If music means a lot to me, so do stars, and I missed them desperately in the city, where the street lights and neon signs take away from the stars so that only the most brilliant ones are visible. If I'm confused, or upset, or angry, if I can go out and look at the stars I'll almost always get back a sense of proportion. It's not that they make me feel insignificant; it's the very opposite; they make me feel that everything matters, be it ever so small, and that there's meaning to life even when it seems most meaningless. Zachary must have felt the beauty, too, because he didn't press his toot down on the gas pedal. "I don't want this evening to end," he said as we approached the dock. Leo was there, sitting on a keg, opposite an old-salt-type man with a long beard and a woolen cap. They had a chessboard between them, also on a keg, and were playing 147 by the light of a street lamp. We stood and watched until the old sailor checkmated Leo, who groaned and hit his hand against his forehead. "I'll get you one of these days, Cor, so help me." And the old man cackled with pleasure and began putting the chessmen away, touching each one lovingly, and I saw that they were hand-carved, and figured that probably he'd carved them himself. Leo insisted on helping me into the launch. The ocean was swelling gently and I relaxed into the rocking boat like a baby in a cradle. Leo was concentrating on piloting us back to Seven Bay Island, and Zachary sat silhouetted against the night sky, looking like an enchanted prince out of a fairy tale. At the Island dock Zachary's hearse was waiting darkly. We said good night to Leo, and then drove the winding way up to the stable. We went around to the porch and just before we got to the screen door Zachary stopped and kissed me. Well, I'd expected him to. I wanted him to and I didn't want him to. He'd kissed me before and I'd liked it. I'd liked it very much. I still liked it. I liked it in a lovely warm tingle all through my body. After a moment Zachary drew back and made a funny, groaning sound. "I won't push you too quickly, hon." He kissed me again, gently. "Don't you know you're all that's between me and chaos?" And then he broke away and said, "I'll be calling you," and ran around the stable and I could hear the door to the station wagon close with a slam. �*� It's amazing how quickly you can get into a routine. And how quickly you can get used to things you never 148 thought you could possibly get used to, like Grandfather more and more often calling me Victoria and confusing me with Mother when she was my age, and wondering where Caro was. Caro. Our grandmother, Caroline. I didn't like it. I hated it. But I got used to it, and I stopped trying to make him know who I was, and let him see me as whoever he wanted me to be. The best parts of the routine were breakfasts on the porch; Grandfather usually got up for these and his mind was clearest in the early morning. And then there was the reading aloud at night, which usually ended with all of us singing. And it was good knowing that Adam would likely be with us for dinner several times a week, because John was rescuing him from the cafeteria. Zachary dropped by to ask Mother and Daddy about taking me flying. After he'd left, Suzy said, "Why does Zachary keep on saying zuggy?" I hadn't even noticed. "Oh, it's just his word." "Some word," she said. "What's wrong with it? He says all the other words simply reveal a paucity of vocabulary and a lack of imagination and he's tired of them." Suzy said, "I wish he'd use his imagination then; he was saying zuggylast summer. Has he graduated from high school yet?" "Yes," I said stiffly. "I don't get what you see in that moron." "You're just jealous," I replied automatically, and then thought that maybe she really was. Jacky Rodney was the one who looked like his father, not Leo, so it was okay for 149 Leo to like me. But Suzy was not used to having people prefer me over her. We dropped the subject. �*� After breakfast I read to Grandfather. A lot of what I read was over my head, because, somewhat unexpectedly, he asked me to read the works of scientists, mostly cellular biologists or astrophysicists. "Grandfather, I didn't know you were interested in science." "I'm interested in everything," he said gently, "but I want the scientists right now because they are the modern mystics, much more than the theologians." So we read about mitochondria, and we read about black holes, those weird phenomena which follow the death of a giant star. I found myself nearly as fascinated as Grandfather obviously was. When a giant star dies, there's what one article called a "catastrophic gravitational collapse." The extraordinary thing is that the star collapses so totally that it actually collapses itself out of existence and becomes what mathematicians call a "singularity." How can you take an enormous mass and shrink it down to nothing? But this nothing isn't really nothing. Its gravity is so great that nothing can escape it, and if you went through a black hole you might find yourself in a completely different time, or even a different universe. And this isn't science fiction. I began to see what Grandfather meant about the scientists being mystics. Grandfather's span of concentration was about an hour, but it was very dense stuff we were reading, and my own span of concentration wouldn't have been much longer. 150 Sometimes at dinner I discussed our reading with John. "You've got a lot more sense of science than I thought you had," he said. "Science is a lot more like poetry than I thought it was," I replied. Rob, who had been listening, said, "Maybe when you die, it's like going through a black hole." Suzy opened her mouth, but Daddy stopped her, saying quietly, "We won't any of us know till it happens." And John said, "You know what, I'd like a good thick milk shake right now, after those skim-milk and water ones we get at work. I'll make one for dessert if everybody'd like." �*� Grandfather had
another nosebleed, but not a bad one. Daddy got it stopped quite quickly. But he decided that Grandfather should have weekly transfusions, and that Mrs. Rodney could give them, as she suggested, right at home, without having to put Grandfather through the hard trip to the mainland hospital. This was Monday and I didn't know about it till it was all over because Monday was my day with Leo. It was a quiet day. We didn't get cosmic about anything. We swam, and had a picnic, and walked along the beach and swam again, and had another picnic and went to the movies. Nothing exciting, and yet there was a warm, summery beauty about it. I didn't have to worry about what Leo was going to do or say next. We talked about Columbia and New York. And I told him about reading to Grandfather, and black holes, and he asked, "How does anybody's individual death fit into that enormous picture?" His eyes were bleak and I thought of Commander 151 Rodney, and the empty space in the world his death had made. "If a star's dying matters, so does a person's." "To you and me. But to the universe?" "I don't think size matters. Every death is a singularity," I said slowly. "Think of all the tiny organisms living within us. I somehow think every mitochondrion and farandola has to be just as important as a giant star." "Well-" Leo sounded both hopeful and doubtful, and characteristically changed the subject. "I was going to major in something practical, like accounting, but I don't think I could spend my life behind a desk. I think I have to do something that will keep me by the sea." "Marine biology, like Adam?" "Something to do with ships, I think." "Building them?" "Designing, maybe. But mostly sailing them." And then he kissed me. I knew he was going to. I sort of patted him like a brother and turned away. "Why, Vicky?" "Why what?" "Why won't you let me kiss you?" Zachary's kiss touched every part of my body. It made me quavery with excitement. Leo's kiss didn't do any of that. It didn't do anything. And yet I found myself liking Leo more and more. "I don't think we're ready for kissing yet." "I am." "I'm not." "Okay." He drew away. "But I don't disgust you or anything?" 152 Not any more. "No, Leo. I like you. You're my friend." He looked out over the ocean, but the sky was cloudy. There weren't any stars, and the air was almost chilly. "I guess I'll have to settle for that. For now." �*� Wednesday was still cloudy, though warm. I thought Adam seemed a little preoccupied when I met him at the lab, but he said quickly, "Let's go see Basil, first thing." I changed to my bathing suit behind the big rock, and we swam out, past the breakers, swam for a good ten minutes, steadily. This time Adam didn't have to call for more than a few seconds before Basil came leaping to greet us. And this time my heart was beating with anticipation and excitement, not fear. Adam put his arms about Basil's great silvery bulk. Then Basil leapt up into the air, dislodging Adam, and dove down and surfaced by me, butting at me. "He wants to play. He's apt to be a bit rough," Adam warned, "but he won't hurt you." I knew he wouldn't. I began to scratch Basil's chest. He closed his eyes with pleasure. Then he went under the water and came up again, between my legs, lifting me, so that I was sitting astride him. He was slippery and I almost slid off him, but he wriggled his body in such a way that I stayed on while he swam in a slow circle around Adam. Then he went underwater again, leaving me, and I watched, treading water, as he turned toward Adam, his great body wriggling playfully. Adam seized the dorsal fin, and Basil leapt up into the air, with Adam holding on and shouting. Down Basil dove, not too deep, just deep enough so that Adam was gasping for air when they sur- 153 faced. Fascinated, I watched them play. I couldn't possibly have held on as Adam did, and the game was evidently to see how quickly Basil could dislodge him. Finally the dolphin dove down and Adam surfaced while Basil flashed up into the sunlight, giving every evidence of laughing because he'd won the game. In a funny way he reminded me of the old sailor beating Leo at chess. Then he dove again, and I was looking for him in the direction of the horizon, when suddenly he popped up out of the water behind me, making a loud noise which startled me so that I went under and choked on a mouthful of salt water. Basil was as pleased as a child coming out from behind a tree and shouting "Boo!" He butted at me and asked me to play. I grasped the dorsal fin in both hands the way Adam had done, and held on for dear life. Basil swam swiftly toward the horizon, towing me with him, then turned with such speed that he almost, but not quite, dislodged me, and returned to where Adam was waiting for us. Then Basil submerged and did his Boo! trick for Adam, and I knew as clearly as though Basil had spoken to me that he was trying to make us laugh because something was wrong. What could be wrong? Basil butted very gently at Adam, who reached out for the dolphin and leaned his cheek against the great grey flank. Somehow or other Basil knew that something was wrong, knew without words far more about whatever was troubling Adam than I knew. Adam leaned against the dolphin, his eyes closed, the lines from nose to mouth etched with pain. He leaned there till Basil submerged, and reappeared far from us, 154 leaping against the horizon. And then another dolphin was leaping with Basil, in unison, the two together in perfect rhythm, like ballet dancers. Adam turned to me in surprise. "That's another of the pod." He stopped, watching in awe as the two dolphins came toward us in flashing curves, rising from the sea, gleaming through the air and seeming to brighten the cloudy sky, then diving down again, until they surfaced just in front of us, standing on their great flukes, their bodies almost entirely out of the water, smiling benignly down at us. Then they flopped down, splashing us so mightily that once again I swallowed a mouthful of sea water and choked, sputtering, which they seemed to find extremely funny. And it was as though I heard Basil telling me: A good laugh heals a lot of hurts.And I thought of Grandfather's gravity and levity. Then the two of them swam, one on each side of Adam, as though holding him against whatever it was that was hurting him. It couldn't have been for more than a few seconds, though it seemed longer, like time out of time. Then they left us and were gone like a flash, to reappear near the horizion and vanish from our sight. "How did Basil know?" Adam asked the vast, cloudy sky. "That something's wrong?" "You know, too?" "Only that something's upsetting you." "Have I been that obvious?" "No. I don't think so." "Then how--" I trod water, looking down at the surface of the sea and 155 away from Adam. "It sounds nuts, but I think I knew because Basil knew. Adam, what's wrong?" "Ynid's baby is not going to live." "Oh-Adam. Why not?" "Jeb says the heart's not right. That's why I didn't take you to the dolphin pens. Jeb wants to be alone with Ynid and the baby and the midwives." "Oh, Adam, Adam, I'm so sorry. Can't anything be done?" "Jeb says not. The heart isn't pumping enough blood and the baby's dying for lack of oxygen." "Couldn't he operate?" "No. He says the heart's too badly damaged." I felt as though a wave had broken over me. "Let's go in," Adam said. "Maybe Jeb might need me. If he does-" "I'll evaporate. Don't worry." We swam in and dressed without waiting to dry; it would have taken too long, anyhow. The cloudy sky held the dampness of the day down on us, as though we were in an inverted bowl. We walked through air so saturated with moisture you could almost have put out your hand and squeezed it. We walked without speaking until we came to Ynid's pen. There were no cartwheels today. Adam walked as though gravity pulled him down. Dr. Nutteley was standing, slumped, looking down into the pen, and if he saw us he gave no indication of it. Walking softly, not to disturb him, we approached the pen. Ynid was swimming in slow circles, carrying a tiny, motionless dolphin on her back. The two midwives swam be- 156 side her, pressing close against her as the two dolphins had swum with Adam. I did not need to be told that Ynid's baby was dead. Or that Ynid, swimming with the perfect little dead body on her back, was hoping against hope that the stilled heart would start to beat again. And then she must have had a stab of hopelessness, the realization that her baby was dead, because suddenly she streaked ahead of the two midwives and began beating her body wildly against the side of the tank. "No, Ynid!" It was Jeb who, with a great cry, plunged into the water and swam to the distraught dolphin, trying to put his arms about her without dislodging the dead baby, trying to keep her from beating herself against the side of the pen, in complete disregard of his own safety, putting himself between Ynid and the side of the pen. He was calling out to her and tears were streaming down his face. And Ynid, perhaps because she would not hurt Jeb, stopped her wild beating. It seemed that Jeb was shedding for her the tears that she could not shed, a wild sobbing such as I had never heard from a grown man. I slipped away and got my bike from the rack and went back to the stable. �*� John brought Adam home for dinner. It had rained in the afternoon, but by late afternoon the rain had stopped completely. The wind was moving from the southeast to the northwest, and the heaviness was gone from the air. As the breeze lifted, the weight that had been tightly clamped about my heart loosened just slightly. Grandfather didn't come out for dinner. I took him his 157 tray, and he was propped up in the hospital bed, his Bible by him, but he wasn't reading. I thought he probably knew most of it by heart. He jerked slightly as I knocked and came in. "Here's your dinner, Grandfather. I'm sorry if I woke you." "You didn't wake me. I was meditating." Mrs. Rodney had brought over a hospital table, which I swung over the bed for the tray. "What were you meditating about?" I asked, unfolding his napkin for him. "You don't meditate about."His nicest smile twinkled at me. "You just meditate. It is, you might say, practice in dying, but it's a practice to be begun as early in life as possible." "Sort of losing yourself?" I asked. "It's much more finding than losing." I wanted to stay and talk, because his mind seemed completely clear, but I knew I had to get back to the dining table. "Vicky," Grandfather said as I turned to go, "I'll come out to the porch for the reading." �*� Mother'd finished Twelfth Nightand we'd started on Joseph Andrews,a really funny book by Henry Fielding, who also wrote Tom Jones,but Joseph Andrewsis lots shorter and, according to Grandfather, funnier, and wouldn't take us all summer. After Mother'd rea'd, we sang, and then she sent Rob up to bed, and Daddy went with Grandfather to help him get ready for the night. Suzy scrambled up from the floor, yawning. I still felt that the day was somehow unfinished. 158 Adam looked across the porch at me. "Want to go for a walk?" For answer I nodded and stood up. Mother looked at her watch. "Don't be too long." Adam also checked his watch. "We won't be. But Vicky and I have things we need to talk about." He had talked about Ynid and the dead baby at dinner, and Suzy had demanded to know if the baby would have died if it had been born at sea rather than in captivity. And Adam had replied that there was no way of knowing, but that congenital birth defects did occasionally happen in the wild. He had not said anything about Jeb and his bitter grief. "Better put on a sweater, Vicky," he advised. After the heat of the past days it was hard to believe that I'd need a sweater, but I went up to the loft, where Rob was sound asleep and Suzy was getting ready for bed, and grabbed a bulky fisherman's sweater that would have fitted any of us, and pulled it over my head. It was still warm in the loft so I opened the windows wide before going down the ladder. Mr. Rochester was waiting, his thin tail whipping back and forth in anticipation, so we took him with us. The steep path directly down to Grandfather's cove is too difficult for Rochester, in his arthritic old age, so we walked along the road toward the lighthouse, and then turned oceanward. Not looking at me, Adam said, "I didn't stay this morning, either. Jeb didn't need me. He didn't need anyone except Ynid. I'm not sure he even knew we were there. Not that he'd have minded. He's probably one of the most free and open people I've ever known." I 159 I thought of Jeb wiping his eyes at Commander Rodney's funeral when almost everybody else was being stoic. Then I asked, "Is Ynid all right?" "She's going to be. She let Jeb take the baby. And she's stopped trying to beat herself to death against the side of the pen. She wouldn't eat, but that's to be expected for a day or so." "And Jeb?" We had reached the beach, a cove or so up from Grandfather's, past the dead elm, and were walking close to the water's edge, Rochester prancing along ahead, looking for the moment like a young dog. "Jeb lost his wife and baby in a car accident." "When?" "A couple of years ago. But he still isn't over it. He was driving, and that has to make it all the harder, though it wasn't his fault. The car had defective brakes." We walked a little farther, both looking down at the faint whiteness of the lacy edge of the wavelets as they lapped against the night beach. Then Adam said, "In the end I think Ynid comforted Jeb as much as the other way round, and maybe that was the best thing he could give to Ynid, his own pain." Adam turned in from the sea and headed for a low dune which leaned against the cliff. He brushed away the damp sand on the surface, till he had cleared enough space for the two of us and Rochester to sit on warm, dry sand. The sky was covered with clouds which were moving in the wind. The cloud cover was still so thick that the only hint of starlight was a faintly luminous quality to the night, and a delicate tracery of light as the waves moved and turned. The breeze was cool and I was grateful for the warmth of the big, bulky sweater. 160 Mr. Rochester sat on his haunches beside me, peered intently into my face, and gave me a gentle kiss on the nose. Then he flopped down and put his heavy head on my knees. Adam sat on my other side, picking up sand and letting it trickle slowly through his fingers. "Like an hourglass," I said. "What?" I indicated the softly falling sand. Sand sifting down through the hourglass of life, time irrevocably passing, passing swiftly, too swiftly ... "Vicky-" I turned toward him. He was looking at the sand slipping through his fingers, not at me. It was as though he were somehow thinking my thoughts. "You're upset because Ynid lost her baby." "Of course. Probably not as upset as you are, but sure,