A Live Coal in the Sea

by Madeleine L'engle

  ‘What do you mean by punishment?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Hurt. I want them hurt for what they did.’

  ‘That’s not punishment, Taxi. That’s retribution, and it only hurts you.’

  Taxi’s eyes filled with tears, and he flung himself at his father. ‘Love me, Daddy! Love me!’

  Did they love enough? What’s enough love?

  “He still wants love and more love, Dr. Rowan. Not just Mom and me. All his fans. All that adoring. He’d never have made it as a banker. People don’t adore bankers.”

  Luisa said, “His acting was one way of coping with all that happened. A very successful way.”

  “So why now? Why did he pull out that idiot record and keep singing that idiot song? Why would he want to get at Mom and make me ask questions now?”

  Luisa asked, “Has anything happened to upset him?”

  Raffi pondered, then said, “He thought he was going to get a Tony for sure last year. He feels he’s owed it. And he didn’t get it. He’s sort of sulked ever since.”

  Luisa asked, “Anything else?”

  “Well—I mean, I think this should have thrilled him, but I don’t think it did. It’s weird. But you were at that bash for Grandmother, for her Maria Mitchell Medal. Mom evidently had to push Dad into being there.”

  “Did this disturb you?”

  “It confused me. The medal was announced in the Times the same day Dad got a lousy review for a play he’d really counted on. And he was good in it, he’s a good actor.”

  “An excellent actor, a real star,” Luisa agreed. “But stardom—that kind—has never interested your grandmother.”

  Raffi laughed. “Her interest in stars is in another direction, eh?” Then she sobered. “I don’t think I want to be a star. Just an actor, because it’s the one thing I know I’m good at. What happens to people when they become stars scares me.”

  Luisa nodded. “Did your grandmother get down to New York to see your dad’s show?”

  “Of course. She always does. She was as upset by the bad reviews as he was.”

  “However, if your father wanted to hurt your grandmother, this would be a most effective way, wouldn’t it?”

  “You mean”—Raffi drew out the words slowly—“he’s angry, so she’s not his mother?”

  “It’s pretty classic, isn’t it? How many kids get mad at their parents and decide they’re changelings, switched in the hospital?”

  “That’s little kids.”

  “Is it?”

  “So he still wants to punish everybody for the lousy deal the universe gave him?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Lots of people get lousy deals without getting all mucked up.”

  “And lots of people get mucked up, Raffi. Your father isn’t an isolated example.”

  “Dr. Rowan, I love my grandmother.”

  “I know you do.”

  “Hurting her isn’t going to do anything to make my dad feel any better about himself.”

  “What you have to worry about right now is what it’s doing to you. Is it going to affect the way you love your grandmother?”

  “No.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She’s had a lousy deal, too, but she doesn’t go around taking potshots at people. Sometimes I think she’s crazy to stick with Dad, but she loves the bastard. That’s what he is, isn’t he? A bastard. Born out of wedlock to a woman who was a classy whore.”

  “Hold it, Raffi. I knew the lady. It’s not as easy as that.”

  “No? From all I can gather, she was so beautiful she thought it gave her an excuse to do anything she wanted to do, and what she wanted was sex.”

  “Surely your grandmother did not give you this impression.”

  Raffi said reluctantly, “No.”

  “Who, then?”

  “Oh, you can guess.”

  “We’re all a marvelous mix, you know that, Raffi. Perhaps your father has a need to believe what he believes. But how about a little mercy?”

  “Mercy? You mean, no matter what anybody does, we have to have mercy?”

  “Mercy and permissiveness are not the same thing.”

  Raffi got up and walked restlessly about the office. “This woman who was my grandmother’s mother was also my father’s mother …”

  “Yes.”

  “Weird.”

  “You might call it that.”

  “You knew her?”

  “When I was young, yes. She had great charm.”

  “Like my dad. Did she take potshots at people?”

  “No.”

  “This Red Grange. Did you know him, too?”

  “Slightly. I didn’t take any of his classes. But your grandmother did.”

  “God, the generations are all mixed up, aren’t they?”

  “Yes. It used to be less uncommon when people had large families, ten or twelve children.”

  “Why didn’t Grandmother have any more children of her own?”

  When Camilla suspected that she was pregnant again she said nothing, not even to Mac, not until she had been to the doctor to have the pregnancy confirmed, not until she was past the first trimester.

  Mac was ecstatic. Asked, “Shall we tell the children?”

  “We’ll have to, sooner or later. Let’s wait till I begin to show.”

  Taxi and Frankie were nearly thirteen. Life had settled into a reasonable routine. Mac’s book had been published and well received in the academic world, and he was working on another. Camilla continued to teach, wrote a book on astronomy for children, which Frankie illustrated in a charming, childish way, and which was a surprise success. Taxi was still restless, but took some of his energy out in running, was on the junior track team at school, and continued to be the lead soloist in the choir. He still demanded what, in another child, would have been inordinate displays of affection, of reassurance.

  When they told the children about the new baby they were met with even more than the expected delight. Both Frankie and Taxi leapt from the dinner table, flung their arms about each other, and danced wildly around the dining room, leaping and squealing with joy, until finally Mac told them to sit back down and finish their dinner.

  But at bedtime Taxi asked, ‘Mom, do we really need a baby? Aren’t Frankie and I enough?’

  ‘Of course you’re enough, darling. That isn’t what it’s about. We thought you and Frankie would enjoy a little brother or sister.’

  ‘I s’pose. It’ll be like a doll for Frankie. Girls like dolls.’

  ‘And boys? I’ll be counting on you to protect the baby.’

  ‘Well, of course. I guess you want this baby, Mom?’

  ‘Yes, Taxi, we all do.’

  When she went to Frankie’s room to say good night, Frankie had her sketchbook out and was making pencil drawings of babies. ‘I suppose Taxi and I looked like that once upon a time?’

  ‘And not so long ago,’ Camilla said.

  ‘Will Taxi and I get to see it born?’

  ‘Not the actual birth, but certainly right after.’

  ‘I thought families used to be all around when babies were born, and now it’s coming back again.’

  ‘Even in the olden days,’ Camilla said, ‘the mother needed to be alone with the midwife during the birth, and then the family came in after.’

  ‘And everybody boiled water,’ Frankie said. ‘What was the water for?’

  Camilla laughed. ‘Probably to keep people busy and out of the way.’

  She called Luisa.

  ‘That’s terrific. You’re still plenty young enough.’

  ‘Plenty.’

  ‘Just don’t overdo, especially in the first months.’

  ‘Lu, I’m already into my fifth month. I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure this babe was settled in.’

  ‘You feel okay?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Just don’t lug heavy loads.’

  ‘Lu, stop hovering. I’m not going to carry a
nything heavier than laundry.’

  The laundry machines were in the basement of their building, and the easiest way to get to them from their apartment was out the front door, down a short flight of stone steps, and then into the basement. She said goodbye to Luisa and picked up a load of sheets, stepped on one of Taxi’s roller skates, and fell down the stairs.

  Olivia flew up from Florida, arriving shortly after Mac brought Camilla home from the hospital. Taxi was white and silent. Frankie took her watercolors and painted a dark, stormy landscape with small, fleeing figures. It was a long time since she had painted that way.

  ‘Why was Taxi’s skate there?’ Mac asked angrily.

  Olivia sat beside them on the bed. ‘It was an accident. Careless and stupid, but then, most teenagers are careless and stupid.’

  Noelle called, one of her chatty reachings-out to Camilla. She had not heard of the miscarriage. Her mind was on little Ferris, one of the twins, and his jealousy of his baby sister. ‘Amy seems fine about it. She’d play dolly with the baby all day if I let her. Little Ferris asked me what would happen if I stopped nursing the baby,’ Noelle said, ‘and I told him she’d get hungry and start crying and I’d have to nurse her again. Then he asked me what would happen if I stopped nursing her entirely, if she just didn’t get fed. I told him she’d cry and be hungry and starve. Starve to death? he asked. And I said, Probably. And he said, Mom, stop nursing her. I suppose it’s a classic case of sibling rivalry, but it turned my blood cold.’

  “You didn’t have any siblings either, did you, Grandmother?” Raffi asked. “You were an only, like me, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Camilla said, without realizing that this was not entirely true until the word was out of her mouth.

  “When Dad and Aunt Frankie were little, did they get along?”

  Camilla replied, “They were like puppies. Enchanting. Later, when they were moving into puberty, your father was busy with choir. In the spring he was on the track team. And Frankie had a bevy of little girlfriends, when she wasn’t drawing or painting. She and Taxi got along well together, but they weren’t inseparable as they were when they were little, and that was as it should be, each of them finding separate ways. Then, when they were thirteen, Papa died. He had pancreatic cancer and it was mercifully quick. Less than a month before he died, we went down to the beach to spend a week with them, and it was beautiful.”

  “Beautiful? When Papa was dying of pancreatic cancer? It’s one of the worst.” Raffi looked and sounded disbelieving.

  “Beautiful,” Camilla repeated. “Papa was beautiful and loving in saying goodbye. We never knew how much pain he hid from us, but I saw nothing but serenity in his face and eyes. He and Mac had long, quiet times together. Taxi and Frankie each had their time alone with him. When it was my turn I simply sat by the bed and held his hand and told him how much I loved and honored him, and he called me his beloved daughter, and told me that death could not take away our love, and that he would be with me always.” For a moment her voice trembled. “Then we went back to New York and he and Mama had their last weeks together.”

  “Beautiful—” Raffi’s voice still questioned.

  “Yes, it was beautiful, Raffi. Terrible, but beautiful. Papa had lived a long, full life, and he had come to terms with more than most people can begin to imagine. He was able to be merciful to himself, and to teach us to be merciful, too. He believed that God’s redeeming love can come into the most terrible things, and while I do not have the kind of radiant faith that Papa had, I believed him.”

  They were all in the Cathedral in Jacksonville for the funeral. The great space was crowded. Extra chairs were brought in. People stood outside on the steps. Love and grief filled the air. Camilla might have been able to hold back her tears had it not been for the people around her, wiping their eyes, blowing their noses. She felt the sobs rolling through her body like the waves on the beach, sobs of grief, and of gratitude for all that Art had given her.

  Taxi was clinging to Camilla’s hand. Frankie stood solemnly beside Olivia, the two of them stiff, dry-eyed, containing their anguish deep inside them.

  After the service and the interment they would go to the beach house, where Art and Olivia had been living year round.

  Camilla looked at Mac in his vestments, his face disciplined, unreadable, his voice calm. She was thinking, pleading:—Mac don’t go now, don’t retreat from this, don’t flee. It would be too much for the children. For Taxi. Stay with us. Stay. Mama isn’t strong enough to hold you right now. She needs you.

  The words continued, as close to prayer as she could get in her grief and fear.

  Mac wanted Olivia to come back to New York with them.

  ‘No, my darling. I do not wish to be a guest in anybody’s house.’

  ‘Mama! You wouldn’t be a guest!’

  ‘I need my own home, Mac, and I couldn’t take the cold weather. I’ll come visit you. You will come visit me. But I need to be here, where Art and I have been deeply happy.’

  The night after they returned to the seminary Taxi confronted Camilla and Mac in their bedroom after he knew Frankie was asleep. ‘You are my parents. I don’t want you to mention anything else to anybody else. Ever.’

  Mac said, ‘Taxi, there’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘I’m not ashamed,’ Taxi shouted. ‘Somebody told Frankie she was going to miss her grandfather. Then he said to me, You’ll miss him, too, as though I didn’t belong. Frankie said, We’ll both miss our grandfather, and the man just gave us a silly sort of smile.’

  ‘He didn’t mean to be unkind,’ Mac started.

  Taxi broke in. ‘I’m named after Papa. After my grandfather. I’m Artaxias Xanthakos, that’s who I am. I’m Taxi Xanthakos. Aren’t I?’

  Camilla assured, ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘And you’re my mom.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Not that Harriet, who made me call her Mommy.’

  ‘Taxi, she wanted you to love her.’

  ‘But she didn’t love me. She wasn’t my mother. And neither was that old woman I never knew.’

  Camilla said, ‘Taxi, if your mother hadn’t died—’

  ‘Not my mother! Not my mother!’

  Camilla continued, her voice steady, gentle. ‘If she hadn’t died, she would have loved you with all her heart.’

  ‘But she didn’t. She died, and she didn’t.’

  (Luisa had said, ‘To a child, death is a terrible betrayal.’)

  ‘And suppose—suppose—’

  ‘What, Taxi?’

  ‘If she hadn’t died, what about Red? That’s what he wanted me to call him. Red. Not Daddy. Red. He wasn’t my father. He was only Red. If she—that old woman—that Rose—if she hadn’t died, would he ever have known?’

  Mac said, ‘Probably not.’

  ‘But she did die!’ Taxi said. ‘Don’t talk about her! Don’t ever talk about her again!’

  ‘Taxi, darling,’ Camilla said. ‘She was our mother.’

  Taxi’s voice rose in a high wail. ‘No, Mommy, no! You are my mother, my own mommy mother!’

  Mac said, ‘Calm down, Taxi, it’s all right.’

  What’s all right?

  Luisa asked, “Are you all right, Raffi?”

  Raffi blew her nose, tossed the tissue into the basket. “I’m not sure about all right, but I think I know why Dad’s in such a tiz and hitting out at everybody.”

  Luisa waited while Raffi blew her nose again.

  “One of the women in Dad’s show called Mom. It seems there’s a rumor that Dad’s contract is not going to be renewed.”

  “Surely that’s no more than a rumor! He’s immensely popular.”

  “Too popular, maybe? It seems that the producer’s girlfriend, or maybe his boyfriend, I forget which, is in a bit part and is jealous of Taxi, and has the producer’s ear.”

  “Sounds like nasty gossip to me.”

  “In the theatre, nasty gossip is often true.”

  �
�Has your father said anything about this?”

  “No. He just looks like a thundercloud and nothing anybody does pleases him. It makes sense, Dr. Rowan. He’s used to being a star and making pots of money, and if that should evaporate—”

  “He has a good agent, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think an agent can get his contract renewed if the producer doesn’t want to renew it. Dad’s used to living high. Our apartment’s expensive. Mom certainly couldn’t go back to dancing at this point.”

  “Don’t borrow trouble, Raffi.”

  “Okay, maybe to some extent I’m doing that. But it would explain a lot, wouldn’t it? Why he played that silly record, why he’s hurting the people he loves most, even if he hurts himself at the same time.”

  “Yes.” Luisa rolled a pencil slowly between her fingers. “It would explain a lot. Let’s hope the rumor is unfounded.”

  “On the other hand,” Raffi said, reaching for another tissue, “I’m learning things I think I should have known about long ago.”

  “Mom.”

  Camilla was upstairs, in bed, reading, when the phone rang. She let the book drop, open, on the blanket beside her, realizing that she was half asleep and had no idea what she’d read for the last few pages.

  It was Thessaly. Voice tight.

  “Thess, what’s up?”

  “Oh, Mom, Taxi’s made enemies on his show, and that isn’t like him. No matter how uncontrolled he sometimes gets at home, he’s always professional in his work.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing, yet. But I had a call from one of the writers, who asked me if I knew why Taxi’s being dropped from the show.”

  “Oh, Thessaly, surely not.” She picked up the book with her free hand, put it back down.

  “The woman’s a gossipy bitch and I don’t know how seriously to take her, but Taxi’s been very up and down lately, and the downs have been very down.”

  “Taxi’s downs always are. He’s a good actor, Thessaly, and, as you said, he’s always been completely professional.”

  “I know there’s usually nasty gossip around the studio, but somehow Taxi’s stayed clear.”

  “Let’s hope it’s no more than gossip.”

  “Oh, Mom, I didn’t want to upset you, but I needed to have you tell me it isn’t true.”