A House Like a Lotus

by Madeleine L'engle

  “I’ll take you to your room,” he said.

  “No. Thanks. I’ll go myself.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  I shook my head. “It isn’t you.”

  “You are a wild little animal,” he said. “I’m not a wolf.”

  I stood up. “What time shall we meet tomorrow?”

  “Ten okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll pick you up. What’s your room number?”

  “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

  “Okay, okay, pretty Pol, I suppose you have every right to be suspicious of some guy who’s just picked you up. I’m staying at the Hilton, by the way, because it has a better view. Wait till you see it. Lobby of the King George. Ten a.m. tomorrow.”

  “I look forward to it,” I said. I was glad I’d already signed for my meal, so I could just walk away, without looking back.

  The view from my room at night was as beautiful as it had been in the full sunshine, although the son et lumière show was long over. I looked at the ancient stones and wondered what all those centuries did to our own troubled time—put it in more cosmic perspective perhaps? But even if the Acropolis speaks of the pettiness and brevity of our mortal lives, while our lives are going on they matter.

  The ancient stones seemed lit from within. Sometimes I think the past has its own radiance. I turned from the balcony, switched on the lights, and ordered my breakfast for the next morning, hanging the breakfast chit on the outside of the door. Breakfast in the room was my Uncle Sandy’s suggestion. He and Rhea like to keep their mornings quiet when they’re traveling, and I thought I might like that, too—continental breakfast, café au lait and croissants, and a book. It sounded good to me.

  The bed had been turned down while I was at dinner, and it looked so comfortable that I got undressed right away and climbed in, pushing the pillows up behind me, dutifully writing in the journal for school. Most certainly the day in Athens had not been in the least what I had expected. No Sandy and Rhea; instead, a boy called Zachary. That was not the kind of thing to write down. I thought for a moment, then described the view from my room and mentioned Aristeides, the inflexibly just, to prove that travel is truly educational.

  And then the phone rang.

  I was not entirely surprised to have it be my Uncle Dennys calling from Boston. Sandy and Dennys have the special closeness of twins.

  All Dennys wanted to know was that I was okay, that I wasn’t lonely or frightened. He and Sandy use the long-distance phone as though it were local. They both feel that it’s very important to keep in touch. And I suppose they can both afford it. Nevertheless, it awes me. He asked, “What are your plans for tomorrow?”

  “I’m going sightseeing.”

  “All alone?”

  “No, I met this guy from California who knows a lot about Athens, and he’s going to show me around.”

  “Are you sure he’s okay?”

  “Who can be sure about anyone? I can take care of myself.”

  “Sure you can, Pol, but be careful.”

  “I’ll be careful. Don’t worry.”

  “Sorry Sandy got held up, but maybe it’ll be good for you to have this time on your own.”

  “Don’t tell Mother and Daddy—”

  “Never fear. Sandy’s already made me promise. Strikes me he’s being more protective of them than he is of you.”

  “He just wants me to grow up,” I said.

  “You will. You already are, in many ways.” We said goodbye, and I felt warmed by Dennys’s call. Sandy had promised me that what Max had called him about wouldn’t go any further, he wouldn’t tell anyone, even his twin. And I knew he hadn’t.

  When I put the phone down I looked at my school journal and decided I was too tired to write any more. I slid down in bed and turned out the light. It was cool enough, with the balcony windows open to the night breeze, for me to snuggle under the covers. I plummeted into sleep, and slept deep down dark for a couple of hours, and then woke up and felt myself floating to the surface. At first I thought I was in my familiar bed at home. But I heard street noises instead of the surf rolling and the wind in the palmettos. I was alone in a hotel in Athens. Sandy and Rhea were still in Washington, but Zachary Gray was not far away in the Hilton. Amazing.

  What time was it at home? Never mind. I’d better get body and mind on Greek time. I leaned on my elbow and peered at the travel alarm. Midnight. I lay down. Wrapped the covers about me. Too hot. Pushed them down. Too cold. Slipped into half sleep. Half dream.

  Renny.

  Queron Renier.

  (With a name like Queron, who wouldn’t be called Renny?)

  Like Zachary, Renny was tall, taller than I. Most of the kids at Cowpertown High were shorter. Zachary was sophisticated and exotic. Renny was serious and nice-looking in a completely unspectacular way. His light brown hair bleached in the summer from sun and salt water. His grey-blue eyes peered behind thick lenses in heavy frames. In the dream he was standing beside me on the open verandah at Beau Allaire, wearing his white doctor’s coat, with his stethoscope dangling out of his pocket, looking like a young doctor on TV. He said, ‘An intern’s life is hell,’ the way he had said it to me at least a dozen times, but in a tone of voice that belied his words. Renny loved being an intern. He loved the hospital and everything about it. When I first met him I assumed that he was at the M. A. Horne Hospital because it was the only place he could get. Renny is from Charleston, and there are bigger hospitals in Charleston. There are bigger hospitals in Savannah and Jacksonville. Or Richmond or Baltimore.

  In the dream he sat on the white rail of the verandah. ‘You watch out for this guy who’s picked you up. I don’t trust him.’

  ‘I can handle him,’ I said.

  ‘You’re much too sure of yourself, Polyhymnia O’Keefe. Pride goeth before a fall.’

  ‘I’m not really sure of myself,’ I said. ‘It’s just a front.’ It was. I’m sure of myself as far as my brain is concerned. I’ve got a good one, thanks to my genetic background. But in every other area of life I’m insecure. I can talk easily and comfortably with adults, but not with kids my own age.

  ‘Watch it,’ Renny said, his voice echoing in the dream. ‘Watch it … watch it …’

  His warning woke me and brought me back from Beau Allaire to my bed in the King George. I was hot, so I got up and went out onto the balcony, and the night sky was that extraordinary blue which was deep behind the stars. Greek blue. Blue and gold by day; blue and silver by night. I wondered how much human nature had actually changed in the thousands of years since the Acropolis was built, and if all that had happened to me was so extraordinary after all.

  I’d seen Renny every week or so during the past winter and summer. Going out with him for barbecue or pizza on his rare free evenings, and listening to him talk about tropical medicine, was a good antidote to not being asked to a dance at the Cowpertown High School, but that’s all it meant, until a couple of weeks ago.

  Renny was still an antidote, but for something far more cataclysmic than not being asked to a dance, or watching my cousin Kate go off with a bunch of kids, usually including Xan, while I stayed home. Kate is everything Mother and Daddy would have liked me to be. She’s not short, but she’s shorter than I am, and when she goes to a dance she doesn’t loom over the boys. And she’s beautiful, full and beautiful. I’m no longer the same measurement all round; I have reasonable curves both in front and behind, which is a big improvement over the pole I used to be, but Kate has pheromones which draw boys to her like honey. I wasn’t exactly jealous of Kate; I didn’t even want to change places with her; I was just wistful.

  The light on the Acropolis was different now than it had been earlier, a deeper, darker blue, with many of the city lights extinguished around it, though not all. Cities never go completely to sleep. While they are alive, that is. I stood looking at the pearly light on the stone until I was chilly. Then I went back to bed. Edges of dawn were outlining the windows
as I slid into sleep. I didn’t wake up till there was a knock on the door.

  Breakfast. I was wide awake in an instant. Breakfast in Athens. I grabbed my bathrobe and rushed to open the door. A nice young waiter who looked like pictures of Greek statues carried in a breakfast tray which he took out to the balcony. There was a pot of coffee, a pitcher of hot milk, a dish with croissants and toast, jam, honey, and butter.

  When we lived on Gaea and school was whenever Mother and Daddy decided we should start lessons, breakfast was unhurried, too. We fixed trays and ate in our rooms and emerged into the day when we felt like it, some of us getting up at dawn, some not till seven or even eight. But at Benne Seed we were on a schedule; we had to get to the mainland in time for that school bus. So, though Mother set breakfast out and we were free to get our own and eat it whenever we liked, we couldn’t help bumping into each other. If Mother and Daddy could have gone on teaching us I might have loved Benne Seed as much as I loved Gaea. It was Cowpertown and the high school which depressed me. The island itself was home.

  So breakfast alone in Athens reminded me of breakfast on Gaea, though it was much more elegant. I thanked the waiter in Greek which was, if not flawless, at least understandable, and he beamed at me. “Parakalo,” he said, and then he pointed to the Acropolis with the morning light bringing the stones to life, gabbled at me in Greek, beamed again, and left.

  The telephone rang, jolting me. I went back to the room and answered, and why was I surprised when it was Zachary Gray?

  “I just wanted to make sure we were getting together today.”

  He was worried about me backing out? “Of course.”

  “Have you had breakfast?”

  “I’m having it right now, out on the balcony, enjoying the view.”

  “We’ll have lunch together somewhere, then, though I want you to see the view from my balcony first. Can you be in your lobby at ten sharp?”

  I looked at my watch. It was just after eight. “Sure. See you at ten.”

  The sun was so bright as it slanted across the balcony that I hitched my chair back into the shadows so I could see to read without being half blinded. The croissants were crumbly and delicious, and the café au lait was good, much better than the sweet thick stuff. Instead of reverting to childhood, having breakfast alone in Greece as we used to do in Portugal, I suddenly felt very grownup. Absurd. Why did it take being alone in Athens to make me feel mature enough to look at human nature and feel part of it? Not better. Not worse. Just part.

  I was reading a book Sandy had given me, about Epidaurus, where he was planning to take me. There’s a magnificent theatre there, though we were going to be too late in the season to see any plays. And there were holy precincts in Epidaurus where, back in the high days of Greek civilization, people were brought to be healed, some with physical ailments, some with mental ones. There were really interesting things in the book. The snake pit, for instance. Those snakes in the pit where really sick mental patients were put weren’t just snakes, which would have been enough to send them out of their minds for good; they were snakes with a strong electric charge. So it was, you might say, the first electric-shock treatment, and probably no more inhuman than any kind of electric-shock treatment. I wondered what Renny would think of it.

  The brilliant sun dazzling off the stones of the buildings and onto my stretched-out legs and arms was a shock treatment in its own way. My spirits lifted, and I took the last bit of apricot jam and licked it off the spoon.

  The sun tingled against my legs, which had a good tan from summer. Unlike a lot of redheads, I do tan, as long as I’m careful and do it slowly. I also have long, straight toes, probably because I’ve worn sandals or gone barefoot most of my life. Feet are usually not the prettiest part of the body, but my feet were one of the things I could feel pleased about.

  In Epidaurus, before sick people could go into the sacred precincts for healing, they had to stay outside the gates to pray, to be purged of bad feelings, anger, resentment, lack of forgiveness. Only then could they go in to the priests.

  I looked at the words: anger, resentment, lack of forgiveness, and in the brilliant light the letters seemed to wriggle on the page like little snakes. I needed that purging. Nobody could get rid of all those bad feelings but me, myself. The warmth of the sun on the balcony, and those words leaping off the page at me, had made me see that much. Or maybe it was getting away from everything and everybody so I could see it in perspective.

  ‘You’ll like Krhis Ghose,’ Max had said, showing me a snapshot of a thin man who looked something like Nehru. We were up on the second-floor verandah outside her bedroom, where she had comfortable Chinese wicker furniture, and the breeze from the ocean, plus the ceiling fan, plus mosquito coils, kept the insects to a minimum.

  ‘Is he a Hindu or a Moslem?’

  Max fanned herself slowly with an old-fashioned palm-leaf fan. ‘A Christian. One who actually is one. A person of total integrity. Why we get along so well I’m not sure, but I count him among my closest friends.’

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘In Bombay. Much against my will, I was dragged to a lecture Krhis was giving on the connection between religious intolerance and land boundaries. And instead of being bored, I was fascinated, and we went out with him afterwards and talked all night. He’s come through hell. Saw his wife and child shot. God, they do keep shooting each other in that part of the world. But he’s come out on the other side, somehow or other. Without bitterness.’

  You could not go into the sacred precincts in Epidaurus with bitterness in your soul. Inner and outer illnesses were seen as part of each other, and both patient and priest participated in the healing. The Greeks understood psychosomatic, or holistic, medicine long before they were heard of in the West, where we’ve tended to separate and overspecialize. In Epidaurus, healing was an art, rather than a science.

  Sandy and Dennys say it’s an art for Daddy, too, and that’s why he’s had such remarkable results in his experiments on regeneration.

  Ursula Heschel was fascinated by Daddy’s work, and when she and Max came over for dinner, she and Daddy always spent time together in the lab. Xan and I both helped in the lab, feeding the animals, cleaning the tanks, and I had to wash down the floor with a hose once a day. Max was interested and intelligent, but Ursula was the one who truly understood. She and Daddy really hit it off.

  Once in January, Daddy and Ursula went to Florida to a lab there specializing in the nervous system of the octopus. In February they went together to Baltimore, where Daddy was giving a paper at Johns Hopkins. They had lots in common.

  Xan said once, ‘It’s a good thing Ursula Heschel is much too old for Dad.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘They sure like each other. Kate’s noticed it. But Mother doesn’t seem jealous.’

  ‘They’re just friends. There isn’t any reason to be jealous.’

  And indeed Mother, rather than being jealous, often suggested asking Max and Ursula to dinner.

  But if Urs, as it were, belonged to Daddy, Max belonged to me. And my parents encouraged the friendship. Mother said, ‘I expect too much of you, Polly. The oldest always gets too much responsibility foisted on her. I should know. Of course you can go over to Beau Allaire this afternoon.’

  If the car wasn’t free I’d go to Beau Allaire right from school, taking the bus from Cowpertown to Mulletville and walking over from there, and then later on, Mother would come for me, or Urs would drive me home.

  Max had called and asked me for tea early in January. The uncles had left, Charles had gone back to Boston with Dennys and Lucy, and Kate had stayed with us. The house was back to its normal population. School had started again and was as stultifying as ever, and I was glad to be going over to Beau Allaire, but a little shy, driving over by myself. I’d got my license on my sixteenth birthday. One of the good things about Cowpertown High was the driver’s-ed course, though Mother and Daddy said that driver’s ed and simila
r courses were one reason why the science department was nearly nonexistent, and why no languages were offered.

  As I climbed the steps to the front entrance to Beau Allaire, Max flung open the door and welcomed me in. Nettie and Ovid were setting out tea in the library. I didn’t see Ursula.

  ‘Urs went into Charleston on a consultation,’ Max explained. ‘They don’t have a neurological service at M. A. Horne, more’s the pity. It would keep Urs busy. Dennys introduced her to the chief of neurology at Mercy Hospital and one would have thought Dennys had given him pure gold. In a sense, he did. People flock to New York to see Ursula. They’ll flock to Charleston just for a consult. Maintenant.’ She spoke to me in French. ‘Did you bring your homework with you as I suggested?’

  I replied in Portuguese: ‘It’s here, in my canvas bag.’

  ‘Not Portuguese,’ Max said. ‘That was Portuguese, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, and it’s the language I speak best,’ I answered in German.

  She laughed. ‘I concede. You’re good at languages. Let me see some of your schoolwork.’

  I pulled out my English notebook. On the bus from school to the Cowpertown dock, I’d written a sketch of the natives on Gaea, comparing them with the Indians we’d met when Daddy took Charles and me with him for a month when he was doing research in Venezuela.

  ‘That’s good, Polly,’ Max said, to my surprise. ‘You really give a flavor of the people you’re writing about, but you haven’t fallen for the Noble Savage trap. You look at them with a realistic eye. Where did you get your gift for writing?’

  ‘I didn’t know I had one. Daddy used to write when he was young, and Mother says he should go over his journals and have some of them published. But he’s too busy.’

  ‘If he’s that good, he should make time,’ Max said. She began leafing through my English notebook. ‘You use imagery well. That’s a good snow metaphor, soft flowers that perished before they reached the ground. Where have you seen snow?’