The Other Side of the Sun

by Madeleine L'engle

  Holding my young, cold hand in her old, grubby one, she said, ‘The Guardians always watch over the Star Changers. But there will be others who will try to catch you in their web. Beware of spiders. Beware of fire. I see—I see that you will play with fire and that you will be burned. Fire. I see fire, and a young man dead, a young man you love. You will change the stars, but this I still see, the young man dead—’

  Honoria’s voice slapped across my fear. “What is it, Miss Stella?”

  I told her only that Cousin Augusta had taken me to a fortune teller and that it had frightened me. My terror had been so irrational that I had run out of the house, past the waiting carriage, down dark and unfamiliar streets, not even caring that I was lost, knowing only that I must run before I heard anything more.

  “All alone,” Honoria said. “You poor little thing.”

  “My father and Cousin Octavian were furious with Cousin Augusta, and Cousin Augusta was furious with me; she said that I had behaved like a little ninny, that there was nothing to be frightened about. Maybe there wasn’t. One does not always get frightened for logical reasons. Of course it was the end of Cousin Augusta’s occult period. It was a long time before she forgave me.”

  Ron had been silent. Now he asked, “And your father? What did he have to say?”

  “Funny. He said a lot of what Honoria’s just said. And he told me how primitive people used to worship gods who fought among themselves, and really didn’t care for the people whose gods they were, so they had to be sacrificed to.”

  Honoria nodded. “Yes, Miss Stella. That is how it is where I come from. We made sacrifices to still the anger of the gods.”

  I looked at her in astonishment. All that my father had told me seemed to be about the dim past, about civilizations long buried. I thought of it in terms of Cousin Octavian’s archaeological diggings, his piecing together of artifacts found in ancient tombs and temples. So now I did not stop to think that what I was saying might be offensive—or even apply—to Honoria. If you were a savage, my father had said, you could try to go over the heads of the gods. If your god didn’t do what you wanted him to do, you could get mad at him, or you could appeal to Fate—a blind, impersonal, unconcerned fate, a fate more powerful than the god.

  “When Miss Mado and I became friends, I tried to forget the old gods. Miss Mado teached me to give up my gods and to believe in God.”

  Ron’s laugh was savage. “I don’t have the—the spiritual sophistication to believe in a God of love. I’m a scientist, and I see no evidence of one.”

  Honoria spoke slowly, a reminiscent echo of the Mado-sound in her voice. “When I come to believe that the gods is God, then I understand that I may not read the cards. Or go looking to the stars. I had to stop asking over God’s head. It not easy to stop doing something you can do. I can go over God’s head and ask. I can find things out that way. God will not stop me.”

  “If you can do it, why not?” Ron shrugged.

  “You’re not sure I can. I can. If I want to know ahead, I can ask the cards, and the cards will tell me. And this is grief.”

  “It’s superstition, Grandmother. That’s all it is. And coincidence. If you could really know everything ahead of time, then you wouldn’t have any free will.”

  “If I understand what you talking about, son, that’s just what I been trying to tell you. If I asks the cards, then I be trying to see the future before it happen. And if I see it, then what I done is to close the future so it can’t change.”

  Ron was leaning forward, his hands dropped loosely between his knees, wholly attentive. “So this is final, then? You set the pattern of your future and it can’t be changed?”

  Suddenly I understood. “It’s only final if you believe it. But who goes to a fortune teller with complete skepticism? People wouldn’t go if they didn’t believe—at least a little. And that’s enough.” I took a deep breath. “Honoria, listen: I don’t know what you saw in the cards. So nothing has to be set.”

  Clive stood up. “Miss Stella, you is right. The stars obey they Lord. Honoria, old woman, it is in your prayers you has to ask things. Not the cards, not the stars. Now you has to go to God and repent.”

  “God will not always undo what we have done,” Honoria said.

  I heard again the terrible echo of the old English gypsy’s voice telling me that a young man I loved would die.

  Ron looked at me sharply, a doctor’s probing look. “Mrs. Renier—”

  I pulled my handkerchief out of my pocket and wiped my face, dried my wet palms.

  Instead of asking me, as I expected, if I felt all right, Ron said, “Do you believe in God?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t know. Do you?”

  He shrugged. “Why would I?”

  Clive looked coldly at the young man. “Is this what all your fine English education fitted you for? I expect more of you than this, son.”

  Ron moved the pump handle up and down so that water ran into the already rinsed glasses. “Faith—superstition: I can’t see much difference between Mado’s angels and Tron wanting Grandmother to run the cards.”

  Clive slapped his thin hand against his thigh. “Then you cannot be a true doctor. Healing be more than book learning. It be what Dr. Theron had in his hands. Dr. Theron could look at a sick or hurt man and put his hand on him, and his hand would tell him what be right to do and what be wrong. Other people had the same learning as Dr. Theron, but it were he who got called to come to Jefferson to start Mercy Hospital. It were he who got called all over the country when there were yellow fever. Healing be a gift over and beyond anything you ever could learn in all those fancy schools of yours. You watch out, son, or all your learning will get in the way of healing. Miracles aren’t made in medical schools.”

  “Who’s looking for miracles?” Ron asked.

  “What’s a Star Changer, Honoria?” I asked.

  Honoria did not answer. Her lips moved soundlessly. I thought she was praying.

  Ron licked his lips as though they were dry. “If you have three apples and you multiply them by nothing, how many do you have?”

  I fled.

  11

  Upstairs in my room I fell onto my bed and dove into sleep as I dove into the slough in the morning. I could not have slept long when I was wakened by a knocking on the door and Aunt Irene’s voice. “Stella, honey, there’s cold meat and salad waiting downstairs. Did I disturb you? I thought you’d be through your nap.”

  “I am.” I sat up. The bed felt damp from my body; my hair was moist around the temples: I would have to get used to the constant dampness of perspiration, of heavy, humid air. The sun seemed only to sizzle the moisture, not to dry it. My bathing dress felt clammy in the mornings, though Honoria put it out in the sun to dry.

  Aunt Irene sat on the bench to my dressing table, looking at herself in the sea-specked mirror. She made a puckering face and pushed at the little lines on either side of her mouth and at the corners of her eyes; then she began fingering my things which Honoria had laid out on the dressing table; I had my mother’s silver set, comb, brush, mirror, powder jars, oval tray; but I didn’t have much in the way of paints, pomades, or powders.

  “You have such a beautiful complexion, honey,” she said. “You really don’t need to do anything to it at all. I suppose the color in your cheeks is natural?”

  “All mine.”

  “It’s such a struggle to find a satisfactory rouge. They all seem to turn orange.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed, my hot bare feet on the floor, and felt for my slippers.

  Aunt Irene removed a long chestnut hair from the tortoiseshell teeth of my comb. “You don’t know anything about the Renier men, do you?”

  “All the Therons are nearsighted.”

  “Very. How well do you know your Theron?”

  “Well enough to have married him.”

  Aunt Irene sighed and smiled, traced the monogram of the back of my hairbrush with one finger. “You’re
very young, my dear. Did you know many other men?”

  “I was brought up in an Oxford college.”

  “That’s not quite what I meant. You did live a very protected life, didn’t you?”

  “In a way, I suppose—yes.” I knew about Thermopylae, but I didn’t know about Bull Run. I knew about evolution, but not the American Revolution. I had read Thucydides and Tacitus and Gibbon but she was right: I didn’t know much about young men.

  “Honey, please don’t misunderstand me, but I think it may help you a little if I tell you something about the Reniers—Renier men, that is. They’ve been distinguished, that’s for sure. I used to think people had to be good to be distinguished: I learned the hard way. Renier men have been judges and governors and bishops. They’ve served this country well, there’s no denying it. When you married Terry you didn’t marry someone no-count. The best entree into Charleston society is to have Renier connections.”

  She laughed her little social trill, and I thought that she had not come upstairs to tell me what a distinguished family I had married into.

  “I wonder would it have made a difference if Hoadley and I had had children of our own? Hoadley takes such a great interest in young people.” She paused. I waited. “Of course Hoadley doesn’t like it talked about—he’s so modest—but he’s responsible for young Ronnie James’s education.”

  “Yes. I heard.”

  “And what else did you hear, honey?”

  “Why—nothing. I think it was splendid of Uncle Hoadley. The Dowlers help a number of young men get their education.”

  “And what kind of thanks do they get?” She was winding a hair from my comb around her finger. The long hair broke. “Of course it was fine for Hoadley to do what he did. He needn’t have done anything about it at all. It would have been more discreet. Sometimes Hoadley’s more like his Uncle Theron than his own father, and of course Uncle Theron always had Mado pushing at him. What right did she, a foreigner, have telling him what was right and what was wrong?”

  I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the golden snakes circling my finger; their ruby eyes glinted in the evening sun. Terry didn’t need me to tell him what was right and what was wrong; we’d agree, anyhow.

  “And James! I know more about Cousin James than most people do. And Therro—Terry’s father, my husband’s dear, darling, beloved friend—Therro had his reputation, too. That was the whole trouble between Therro and Kitty, that’s what broke up their marriage.”

  “What?”

  Her voice was sly. “Therro wasn’t above liking his piece of poon-tang,” she said.

  Honoria’s voice crashed from the doorway. “Miss Utteley!”

  “I’m Mrs. Renier, thank you, Honoria.”

  “No Renier talk like that.”

  Aunt Irene stood up furiously. “What do you mean by coming in without knocking?”

  “I knocked, Miss Irene. You didn’t hear me.” Honoria went over to Aunt Irene, looked briefly across my dressing table, then down at Aunt Irene’s hands. She reached out and took the broken strands of my hair from Aunt Irene’s fingers. “Miss Stella sure got pretty hair,” she said calmly. “But you used to have the prettiest hair that ever was, Miss Irene.”

  Aunt Irene peered into the mirror. “All the red’s gone out of it. Pink-brown, that’s what it is now, pinky brown, and dull, not lustrous, like Stella’s—though that kind of brown hair turns grey early. I’m losing my looks, Honoria.”

  “You’re still a handsome woman,” Honoria said.

  Aunt Irene fluttered her hands in front of her face, as though she could change the image in the mirror. “Come on, Stella. Time we went downstairs. They’ll be wondering what’s become of us.”

  After the tensions of the day, dinner was relatively uneventful. Aunt Olivia had been reading one of my father’s books, and was in a philosophizing mood.

  “The Egyptians,” she announced, “never separated astronomy from astrology, so they never separated philosophy from the myths of their religion. There are times when I wonder if your father was right to separate them, Stella? Perhaps they can’t be separated.”

  Uncle Hoadley said, “But they must be separated, Auntie. Stella’s father is entirely correct.”

  “I think,” Aunt Olivia said, “that what happens if we separate philosophy from myth is that we separate our minds from our hearts, that we’re saying, in effect, that there isn’t any truth in storytelling and games and fun.”

  “Livia, you’re showing off again,” Aunt Des said.

  “I’m not! I’m thinking.”

  “That is a mistake.”

  “Let me not think on’t, then: frailty, thy name is woman!”

  “That’s Hamlet, of course,” Aunt Des said. “Point for me. What’s Hamlet got to do with anything?”

  “That’s just it!” Aunt Olivia was triumphant. “If you separate philosophy and myth, then you have to say Hamlet isn’t true. Or Twelfth Night, or The Tempest. Or at least half the Bible.”

  “Olivia!” There was genuine anguish in Aunt Des’s shock.

  “Auntie,” Uncle Hoadley reproved, “please do not be foolish.”

  “But I’m not, Hoadley. This is life and death.”

  “Then don’t jest about it.”

  “I’m not jesting. I don’t think that accepting the entire Bible as not personally directed by God from a cloud is any worse than Irene opening it and sticking a pin in for a message. Or consulting the stars. What did your paper say about Capricorn today, Irene? You’ve been edgy ever since you read it. And badgering Honoria.”

  Aunt Irene pushed her chair away from the table. “Hoadley. I have to talk to you. Alone.”

  “After dinner, my dear.”

  “Now.”

  “That is hardly courteous.”

  “Hoadley. Please.”

  He put down his napkin in resignation. “Very well, Irene. Ladies, we’ll see you out on the veranda for coffee in a few minutes.”

  When we had heard the screen door open and close, Aunt Des said, “Well! What was that about?”

  Aunt Olivia said, “For mine own part, it was Greek to me.”

  “Julius Caesar.”

  “Right. Point for you. Thank you, Des. Let’s play, oh, let’s play. When we stop playing games then everything will be over, everything!”

  “Livia,” Aunt Des said, “perhaps you’re a little feverish tonight.”

  “Perhaps I am. I hope it’s that. Let’s go out now and see what’s up.”

  Uncle Hoadley was in his usual place on the bamboo settee, smoking. Aunt Irene was not there. We asked no questions. Aunt Des sat beside Uncle Hoadley and poured the coffee. Aunt Olivia beckoned to me and we took our cups and went to lean on the porch rail and watch the moon rise.

  Aunt Olivia balanced her cup on the old and splintery wood. “I’ve been sitting too much today and my back hurts. I’ll be better if I stand for a while. Here comes the moon: look!” Lopsided and red, inordinately large, it sprang from the sea. Aunt Olivia reached for my hand. Hers was hot and very dry; I thought she probably did have fever. “The moon looks so old. Even older than I am. It’s like a moonrise at the end of the world when all human beings are dead and only a few post-historic beasts are left to watch.” She shivered. “How silly to frighten myself with my own fancies.”

  We went back to our chairs and Aunt Olivia took a swallow of her coffee and made a face. “My God, that coffee is enough to gag a maggot. What on earth did Honoria do to it tonight?”

  It was, I thought, no worse than the usual after-dinner coffee made with sulphur water. I rose and slipped away from them, tiptoeing down the steps of the veranda. I could sense that Finbarr was following me, and then he was pressing against me. I put my hand on the comforting roughness of his head. We ran down the ramp and into a cloud of insects buzzing around us, hot, swarming, stinging. I tried ineffectually to brush them off with my hands, running blindly across the loose wooden boards. I jumped down onto the sand and hurried to the wa
ter’s edge. Finbarr splashed into the frothy spume, then loped on up the beach ahead of me, occasionally looking back in his protective manner to make sure that I was following.

  We came to the forlorn remains of the old dock. I climbed up and sat, waiting for the swinging arm of the lightship to break across the darkness.

  “Mrs. Renier.”

  It was Ron. I realized that he spoke my name in order not to frighten me, in order that I would not think he was spying on me. And perhaps the old dock was for him, too, a place to sit and think and find perspective and proportion. Finbarr came loping across the beach to be caressed by him. Ron stood, leaning against a barnacled piling, looking not at me but out over the quiet sea, until finally I asked, “What was this afternoon in the kitchen all about?” He did not answer. I sighed, kicking my heels against the barnacles; through the leather of my shoes I could feel the sharp little shells; they would cut the heels of my slippers. I stopped. “Tron—it’s odd, his name sounding so much like Theron.”

  “It was my mother’s way of getting back at the Reniers. Or maybe it was her idea of a joke. Stay away from my mother, Mrs. Renier. And don’t ask about my father. Honoria and Clive are my mother and father. After Jimmy was lynched I became their son. They are my parents. You ask too many questions, Mrs. Renier. For a woman coming into the Renier family this is not a good idea.”

  “Why not? Why isn’t it perfectly natural?”

  “Questions again.”

  And so I asked another. “Ron, what are you doing in Illyria?”

  “Nothing much. I’m not earning my keep, that’s for sure. But I still think maybe I can be of use here. People are beginning to come to my little surgery in the twins’ cottage, to send for me back in the scrub. Mostly they can’t pay me anything. And mostly they want miracles. They aren’t used to doctors. There aren’t any around today who’ll bother with blacks, the way old Dr. Theron used to. So they go to a Zenumin. Then if the witch doctor doesn’t work, they come to me. Talk about superstition, Mrs. Renier, how do I break through it? They probably wouldn’t come to me at all if I weren’t half Zenumin.”