A Live Coal in the Sea

by Madeleine L'engle

  Camilla leaned against the pillows. “It probably isn’t true, though I can’t promise you. The best thing I can say is that it’s never good to pay attention to gossip. It’s usually malicious and distorted even if it’s partly true. When is Taxi’s contract up for renewal?”

  “Next month.”

  “I try to catch his show at least a couple of times a week,” Camilla said. “He seems to me to have been particularly good lately, and done well with some difficult lines.”

  “Yes,” Thessaly agreed. “I thought so, too. But it would explain some things, wouldn’t it? His upsetting Raffi with that horrid record—”

  When Taxi and Frankie were fourteen, Frank Rowan came for one of his periodic home leaves. His wife and children stayed with her parents, who had returned to the States, and Frank came to the seminary for a visit with Mac and Camilla.

  One day Camilla, checking the children’s rooms to see what degree of untidiness they had reached, heard Taxi’s voice from the kitchen, where Mac was having a cup of coffee.

  ‘When is Uncle Frank going away?’

  ‘He’s here for another week.’

  ‘Will he take Mommy with him?’ Taxi’s voice was anxious.

  ‘Why would he do that, Taxi?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, Daddy, I just get worried. He and Mommy spend a lot of time together while you’re teaching.’

  ‘Uncle Frank’s our guest. It’s perfectly natural.’

  ‘Well, Dad, I was just afraid maybe it was more than that.’

  ‘Taxi, what on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘One of the kids in my class asked me who was the big handsome guy Mom was with. He saw them walking down the street together. He thought they were holding hands. So I was just afraid.’

  Camilla came into the kitchen. ‘What are you saying, Taxi?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, Mommy.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound like nothing.’ She looked at the boy, who was leaning against the fridge, slender in his school uniform, grey trousers, white shirt, navy blazer. He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

  Mac said, ‘I think you’d better forget about all this, Taxi. Mom and Uncle Frank and I have always been especially good friends, and we’re very grateful for all that Uncle Frank has done for us.’

  Camilla kept her voice steady. ‘Taxi, I was looking for you to tell you your room is a total mess. Please go and tidy it. Okay?’ She left the kitchen and went into her study and stood leaning against her desk as though to support her weight, which had become intolerable. Mac followed, coffee cup in hand. Shut the door.

  Camilla asked, ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘Taxi was asking some very ugly questions.’

  ‘Why? Why is he so destructive?’

  Mac’s voice was tight. ‘I think he was genuinely troubled, Camilla. Is there anything to it?’

  ‘Mac! My God, Mac, no! How could you?’

  ‘Taxi can be very plausible.’

  ‘Frank’s a good friend. Your best friend.’

  ‘But once you and he—’

  ‘When we were teenagers. Frank is happily married. I am happily married. Mac, you can’t let Taxi do this to us.’

  Then his arms were around her.

  She phoned Olivia, who said, ‘I don’t know why he’s striking out at you and Mac. But, classically, you’re the ones he has to punish. In his poor, battered psyche, you are to blame for letting him go to Grange and Harriet.’

  ‘Oh, Mama, the thing is, Taxi might have seen and misinterpreted—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was in the kitchen this morning, making Frank a cup of tea, and we were talking, sharing, the good things and the bad in our lives. And when I put the tea in front of Frank, I bent down and kissed the top of his head, and he reached up and took my hand and pressed it against his cheek. It was affection, Mama, nothing else. Our history goes a long way back. But if Taxi had seen—’

  ‘Yes, he could easily have misunderstood. But you’ll never know, my love. Can you let it go? Can Mac?’

  ‘I think so. Mac knows I love him, utterly.’

  ‘And he’s learned staying power; that’s something I wasn’t sure was ever going to happen.’

  After Art’s death Camilla called Olivia daily, usually in the morning, before she roused the children. Not children anymore. Teenagers. She had talked with Olivia about the great unfilled hole of love in Rose. Had Taxi simply inherited that from his mother, a dose doubled by Grange and Harriet, so that his need for love was insatiable? Would he have remained a happy, secure child if Rose had never written that letter to Grange? If Grange had heeded Rose’s request? If Grange and Harriet had not had clever lawyers? If they had not been killed?

  ‘Where have we failed?’ Camilla asked Olivia.

  ‘My darling, you have not failed. You have loved, with strength, not sentimentality. Just as there are some wounds the greatest physicians cannot heal, so there are wounds of the soul that no human being can heal.’

  ‘Oh, Mama,’ Camilla said. ‘How would I manage without you?’

  Olivia gave a small laugh. ‘One day you will have to. That is the nature of things.’

  And one day when Camilla called Olivia in the morning there was no answer. Fighting down panic, she called a neighbor, who also checked daily on the old woman.

  Olivia had died quietly in her sleep.

  Camilla’s grief was contained only by her need to help Taxi and Frankie with theirs. Frankie, who seldom cried, wept silently through the funeral. Taxi held Camilla’s arm so tight that it was bruised. Mac, his voice low but steady, was the officiant, looking and sounding heartrendingly like his father as he spoke the ancient, affirmative words of the funeral service.

  Afterwards there was a reception in the large meeting room in Diocesan House, above which were the offices of bishops and canons, and below which were archives. Camilla and Mac tried to smile, to be courteous. Frankie held her father’s hand, still unable to control her tears.

  ‘Where’s Taxi?’ she asked.

  Camilla looked around. There was no sign of Taxi. Where had he gone, and why? She tried to control her anxiety. They stayed longer than they had expected to, until finally Taxi came into the hall.

  ‘Where were you?’ Frankie demanded.

  ‘I needed to be alone. Let’s go.’

  One of the canons drove them to the airport, and they flew back to New York.

  The next day when Camilla got home from her class at NYU she went into her study to leave her books and papers, and noticed a manila folder on her desk. In it was a document from the diocesan office in Jacksonville, an order of inhibition. In the document Artaxias Xanthakos was relieved of his priestly functions for six months because of an accusation of sodomy which had been neither proved nor disproved. Because of his fine record in his diocese and his Cathedral, the inhibition would last for only six months.

  Camilla felt a wave of nausea sweep through her, and put a hand to her mouth as though holding in her rage. She knew about the document. Olivia had called her. ‘It’s outrageous. It’s vicious, lying gossip. There’s no truth in it. The Presiding Bishop has assured Art that he has absolute confidence in him. It comes from the diocese where the—’ There was a choking pause.

  ‘The organist?’ Camilla asked.

  ‘Yes. His hatred of Art is a sickness, but I feel no mercy toward him, only rage. I am far angrier than Art is.’

  ‘Oh, Mama, Mama, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I still fail to understand this kind of sickness that wants to destroy.’

  ‘It won’t.’

  ‘No. It won’t destroy Art, because it is not true, but truth has not always kept lies from destroying. The church is a small world, but tentacles reach out—and in. I was afraid you and Mac might hear something.’

  They had not. A few days later Olivia called to say that the accusation had been withdrawn, and Art reinstated. Few people knew that anything had happened. Why was the document still in existence for
someone to find and—

  She looked at the damaging, damning folder.

  Who had put it on her desk?

  Taxi. She shuddered. Why had she immediately thought of Taxi?

  Where had he disappeared after Olivia’s funeral? Into the diocesan offices above the reception hall, or below it, to the archives?

  There was a small fireplace in Camilla’s study which she used occasionally. She put the folder in it with some crushed newspaper and burned it.

  Then she went to Taxi’s room.

  Frankie’s accusation was just: Camilla hated confrontation. But she could not refuse to confront Taxi about this.

  ‘Yes, I took it.’ He looked up from his desk, where he was doing homework. ‘I didn’t want it there. I wanted to get rid of it.’

  ‘I have burned it,’ Camilla said. ‘It is a vicious lie. The accusation was withdrawn.’

  ‘Of course it’s a lie,’ Taxi said. ‘That’s why I took it. For Mama’s and Papa’s sake. To get rid of it.’

  ‘But, Taxi, you had no right to be wherever you were when you found this.’

  ‘I was looking for the bathroom,’ Taxi said, ‘and I opened this door and there were a lot of file cabinets and I pulled one drawer to see if it would open. I don’t know why, I just pulled, but it was locked. Most of them were, but this one drawer pulled out. I think it had a weak lock. Mom, I’m glad I found this. I don’t want anybody else to see it.’ Suddenly there were tears in his eyes. ‘Why would anybody accuse my Papa this way?’

  Camilla sat on the side of his bed. ‘Papa was very much loved. Where there is great love, there is often jealousy and hate.’

  ‘Did Mama know about this?’ his voice quavered.

  ‘Yes. Mama and Papa did not keep things from each other. They bore their hurts together.’

  ‘This hurt them?’

  ‘Of course it hurt, Taxi, it hurt terribly.’

  ‘I don’t want them to be dead!’ Taxi shouted.

  ‘Neither do I, Taxi, neither do I.’ She put her arm about him. ‘But, Taxi, you must not go snooping into private places. This document was not meant to be seen. I had no right to burn it.’

  ‘Yes, you did!’ Taxi burst into sobs. ‘It was the right thing to do. It was, it was! They can’t say that about Papa! Not Papa!’

  ‘You’re right,’ Mac said, ‘you shouldn’t have burned it. On the other hand, since Taxi lifted it, burning was probably the best thing to do. You couldn’t very well return it to the diocese.’

  ‘Mac, Taxi was totally shaken. He was in tears. It must have seemed to him just another betrayal.’

  ‘By whom?’ Mac’s voice was sharp. ‘Papa?’

  ‘No, no, not Papa! By whoever made the accusation, whoever filed that document.’

  Mac said, slowly, ‘Darling, that document didn’t just pop into Taxi’s hand. He had to have been prying. What was he after?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. With Taxi I’m never sure.’

  In a strange and dark way Taxi solved the problem for them. Camilla, late one afternoon, took some folded laundry into Taxi’s room, where she assumed he was doing homework. He was not there. She walked along to Frankie’s room, and there they were on Frankie’s bed, Taxi on top of Frankie.

  It wasn’t as bad as it had seemed. Nothing had happened. Nothing had, according to Frankie, preceded it. Taxi had laughed. ‘Come on, Mom, don’t make such a big thing of it.’

  Luisa said, ‘It’s time you sent Taxi to boarding school.’ She had come to them after work, after Taxi and Frankie were in bed, and normally Camilla and Mac would have retired, too. They sat in Camilla’s study, which was the room farthest from the sleeping quarters. Mac had used some of their precious hoard of wood to light a fire.

  He turned to Luisa. ‘Will he see that as rejection?’

  Luisa said calmly, ‘I know you believe what they tell you, that nothing happened. But what about next time?’

  Camilla asked, ‘Would there be a next time?’

  Luisa said, ‘No telling. Taxi’s unpredictable as well as damaged.’

  Mac sat in the battered brown leather chair that had come with them from Corinth. ‘Sending him away—it seems like failure.’

  Luisa said, ‘It’s an honorable thing to fail, Mac. This seems the right time for many reasons. Isn’t Taxi’s therapist moving to San Francisco?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Another betrayal. Another loss.

  ‘Talk to Liz Wickoff. She seems to have a better rapport with Taxi than anybody else.’

  Dr. Wickoff said, ‘Taxi clings to past wounds. God knows he has plenty. What we will never understand is why one child can survive incredible trauma and manage to get along fairly normally, and another has wounds which never heal. Taxi’s variable. Sometimes he seems like an extremely bright lad with all the ordinary problems that go along with brightness. Sometimes, and I can see no predictable pattern, his light flickers and dims.’

  —Like the Cepheids, Camilla thought.—Papa’s analogy.

  Dr. Wickoff continued, ‘I know a good boarding school in Massachusetts where he will be challenged, and where there is an excellent psychiatrist in the next town, which may be better for Taxi than having to go to someone new here.’

  Camilla spoke in a dull voice. ‘It will be a relief to have him out of the house.’

  Andrew came into his wife’s office, squatted down in front of Camilla. ‘Do not b-blame yourself for your feelings.’

  ‘Or lack of them,’ Camilla said.

  ‘Whatever. Do not get hung up on the hook of false guilt.’

  Camilla tried to smile. ‘I come close to falling into Taxi’s trap of wanting to blame someone, of wanting someone punished.’

  ‘You’ll get over that,’ Dr. Wickoff said. ‘It’s a perfectly normal reaction.’

  Noelle called. ‘I spoke to Andrew. He says you’re sending Taxi to boarding school. He thinks it’s a good idea.’

  ‘Yes,’ Camilla said. ‘It’s probably time.’ Andrew would not have told Noelle the reason.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ Noelle said, ‘because we’re thinking about boarding school for young Ferris. He’s my problem kid. He’s been really disruptive lately. How do you feel about it, Camilla? Sending Taxi away?’

  ‘Boarding schools still exist,’ Camilla said, ‘because some kids need the discipline, and a little separation from the parents can be a good thing.’

  ‘Some people send their kids away to get rid of them.’

  ‘Maybe. But not all parents, and the school Liz and Andrew suggested is known to be one where parents truly want the best for their kids.’

  ‘Let me know how Taxi does. That’s the school we’re considering for Ferris.’

  In a way Noelle’s call was comforting. Other parents had disruptive children, too.

  Noelle continued, ‘I’m going back to school to get a master’s. My brain has turned to mush with all this domesticity. I need a challenge. You’re marvelous, the way you’ve managed to get on with your own work and yet not neglect your kids.’

  ‘I hope I didn’t. But I do know things worked better when I was teaching and doing research than when I had only the family on my mind.’

  ‘That was true of Mom, too,’ Noelle said. ‘Andrew and I never felt neglected or unloved. Mom was pretty consistent with us. Dad tended to be erratic. Anyhow, when he married Harriet, we lost him. Harriet didn’t want any living reminders that he’d ever had another life with another woman who’d had the kids she couldn’t have. As far as I’m concerned, Harriet killed my father.’

  “Everybody seems to have made Harriet the scapegoat,” Raffi said. “Was she as bad as all that?”

  Dr. Rowan said, “She was rich and selfish. I didn’t care for her, but nobody’s as bad as all that. She was desperate to have the child she couldn’t have, and was used to getting her own way. You’re right when you say she was the scapegoat. Everybody else’s mistakes were conveniently put onto Harriet. Even Grange’s. If he h
adn’t married Harriet, none of the horrors would have happened. However, he did marry Harriet, and that gives him a certain responsibility. He liked Harriet’s money. He liked not having to work within the inevitable stresses of the academic world.”

  “Did he like my dad? His son? Did he love him?”

  “Grange and Rose both loved being loved.”

  “But did they love?”

  “Maybe they loved the idea of love, of being in love,” Dr. Rowan suggested. “I don’t know how to put limits on love, Raffi. People love differently. Some ways of love we recognize because they’re at least reasonably close to the way we, ourselves, love. Some of it is quite different. When it stops being love I am not sure.”

  “We’ve been reading Anna Karenina in class. Seems to me Tolstoy saw most families as being unhappy. His certainly was.”

  “What’s happy, Raffi? Speaking of which, any news about your father and his contract?”

  “I haven’t been home. I don’t think there’s any news, or Mom would have told me. Why did Tolstoy write about unhappy families rather than happy ones?”

  “Isn’t the new term dysfunctional vs. functional?”

  “That’s the present jargon.”

  “What strikes me, Raffi, is that your grandparents, despite everything, managed to have an amazingly functional family.”

  “But they’re not my grandparents.”

  “Oh, yes, they are. Emotionally they are your grandparents, and that’s been a blessing to you, hasn’t it?”

  “Well, yes. Grandmother. I never knew Grandfather, remember? Aunt Frankie seems to have done pretty well.”

  “Frankie’s an amazing combination of love and forbearance and self-protection.”

  “She got away, didn’t she? Far, far away, by marrying someone from Seattle.”

  “And also through her work. She’s an excellent illustrator. Not a great artist, perhaps, but her work in the children’s book world is highly regarded, and she has more jobs than she can accept. Frankie was born strong and loving, and somehow she’s managed to hang on to that.”

  “Good genes?”

  “Good genes help, but we do have to live our own lives and make our own decisions and abide by the consequences. Some pretty horrendous characters started out with good genes, and others, who had bad starts, have managed to do splendid things with their lives. Consider your father, Raffi. According to the world’s standards, he’s amazingly successful.”