‘No.’
‘So I shouldn’t be surprised if it’s the strongest part of the soul.’
Perhaps, when the ice thawed, the scars on my soul would heal.
But had Max’s? Once again I thought of the portrait of her father, of the smile on his face which gave me chills. Did healed scars ever break open again? Get adhesions? Could one get adhesions on the soul?
I fastened the second sandal strap and went to join Sandy and Rhea on their balcony, where wind from the sea blew the white tablecloth so that it flapped like a sail.
The theatre in Epidaurus was impressive all right, great stone seats built into the mountain. It must have seated tens of thousands. Rhea and I climbed to the top row to test the acoustics, and Sandy stood in the center of the stage and recited “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” We’d thought we were the only people there, till a group of kids rose up from the seats and began applauding. They drifted off, and Rhea and I climbed down and took the stage. She recited a passage from Antigone, in Greek, which made me shiver. I didn’t understand more than a few words, but the Greek rolled out in glorious syllables.
“Your turn, Polly,” she said.
Uncle Sandy called down, “Do one of your speeches from As You Like It.”
“Oh, do,” Rhea urged. “We were so sorry we couldn’t be there for the performance. Only one performance for all that work!”
“It was worth it,” I said. “Okay, here goes.” I stepped to the exact center of the stage, where the acoustics were supposed to be perfect. I chose a speech early in the play, where Rosalind is about to be banished by Celia’s father, who was just about as nasty as Max’s father. But Celia stands up to him, defending Rosalind. She reminds him that after he had taken the dukedom and banished Rosalind’s father
I did not then entreat to have her stay;
It was your pleasure and your own remorse.
I was too young that time to value her;
But now I know her: if she be a traitor,
Why so am I; we still have slept together;
And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable.
Sandy and Rhea applauded, and Rhea said, “That was superb, Polly. If I’m ever in need of a defender, I’ll take you.”
Sandy said, “The Elizabethans understood friendship. This pusillanimous age seems afraid of it. You can have sex with someone without commitment, but not friendship. You were excellent, Pol. Have you thought of acting as a career?”
“I’ve thought of it. Max says I read aloud well, but I doubt if I’d have a dream of making it on Broadway. Or even at the Dock Street.”
“You made friendship real again. Did any of the kids misinterpret?”
“Of course. The Mulletville girls. Miss Zeloski talked about affluence going along with intellectual deprivation. I think she was pretty upset that it was the kids with affluent backgrounds who made the nastiest cracks.” I did not add that the cracks were particularly nasty because of Max, though they never actually mentioned her name.
“In a world where pleasure rules, people tend to be underdeveloped in every other way. Your Miss Zeloski sounds like a good teacher.”
“She is,” I said, “though it took me a while to realize it.”
“Let’s go on to the sacred precincts,” Sandy suggested. “There’s a lesson in compassion.”
“It’s a sort of B.C. Lourdes,” Rhea explained, “dedicated to the god Aesculapius.”
“I gave Polly a book about it.” Sandy galloped down the high marble stairs as agilely as Xan.
When we got to the sacred precincts, we stopped talking. We saw dormitories for sick people, saw the special baths in which they were given healing waters. In the museum we saw ancient surgical instruments, and Sandy remarked that some of them were like those in Dennys’s office.
When we left the museum he said, “They knew a lot about psychology, those old Greeks. One of their medicines for healing was comedy. The patients sat just where we were, and on the stage the best actors of the day played comedies—Euripides, and other less well known playwrights. They were exceedingly bawdy—Shakespeare would have been right at home—and exceedingly funny, and laughter does have healing qualities.”
“Miss Zeloski said that Shakespeare was bawdy, but never dirty.”
“True.” Rhea nodded. “The Greeks were way ahead of the present world in many ways. I’m proud of my ancestry.” I thought I saw Sandy give her a look, a signal. She went on, “I’m rather tired and I think I’ll just sit and rest for half an hour. Then it’ll be time for lunch. You two go on.”
“You all right?” Sandy sounded concerned, so maybe it wasn’t a signal after all.
“I take longer to get over jet lag than you do. I’m fine, and I’ll be famished for lunch.”
“Okay, Pol?” Sandy asked.
“Sure.” We wandered along the path together. I was glad there weren’t many other tourists that morning, because the ancient stones, even the air we breathed, filled me with awe.
We stood near the site of the snake pit. “You read the book on Epidaurus I gave you?” Sandy asked.
“I finished it last night.”
“A patient couldn’t get through the outer gates until all bitterness and self-pity and anger were gone. The belief was that healing wasn’t possible until the spirit was cleansed. I think you’re better, Polly, but not all the way. Am I right?”
I nodded.
“What are you holding on to? What can’t you let go?”
I turned away from him.
He followed me.
“Zachary said I’d put a hard shell around myself.”
“That’s more perspicacious than I’d given him credit for. Hardness doesn’t become you.”
“I know.”
“I’m not asking you to forget, Polly, because you’re never going to forget. What you have to do is remember, with compassion, and forgive.”
My voice trembled. “Uncle Sandy, I don’t like having a piece of ice stuck in my heart. It hurts!”
“Sit here in the sun,” he said, “and let it thaw. I’ll be back for you in a few minutes. I’m going to see how Rhea’s doing.”
He was leaving me for Rhea just as Ursula had left me—
Stop it, Polyhymnia ’‘Keefe. That’s plain self-pity, self-indulgent self-pity. None of that.
I sat where Sandy had left me, on an uncomfortable stone bench. I closed my eyes, and a vision of the dream from the night before came back to me, unbidden. I was in the boat, protecting the baby, and the seagull flew over us.
And the seagull was Max.
Ursula had called Daddy to tell him she was going to Charleston for one last consultation with Dr. Ormsby, and asked if I could go over to Beau Allaire to stay with Max. Nettie and Ovid roomed over the garage, and it was not a good idea for Max to be completely alone. Ursula would be back as early as possible on Saturday.
‘Do you want to go?’ Daddy asked me. We were in the lab, and it was September-hot; sometimes it seems September is the hottest month of all. Daddy wore shorts and a white T-shirt. I had on shorts, too, and a halter top, and I’d just scrubbed down the floor and cleaned my tanks.
‘Max shouldn’t be alone.’ I looked at him. I’d talked with him about Max, and he’d treated me as an intelligent adult. I didn’t want him to treat me as a child now.
He didn’t. ‘I’ve talked with Dr. Netson, and he doesn’t expect any radical problem in the immediate future. But this disease is unpredictable, so if Max should show any kind of alarming symptoms, call him at once. Or call Renny. And of course, call me.’
‘Okay, but you don’t think there will—’
‘No, Pol, I don’t think so. Your mother and I are very fond of Max and Ursula, and I’m glad we can help, even a little. Max has given you a lot, in self-confidence particularly.’
Daddy was sitting in an old leather chair that was too battered, even, for our house. I perched on the sagging arm.
‘Daddy, people are so complicated!’
‘That hasn’t just occurred to you, has it, Pol?’
‘No. But Max and Ursula seem particularly complicated.’
‘In a way, they are. But, you know, I prefer their kind of complication to some of the cocktail-partying, wife-swapping, promiscuous lives of some of the people in Cowpertown.’
‘And Mulletville.’
‘Yes. Many of them are on third or fourth marriages. Love has to be worked at, and that’s not popular nowadays.’
‘I’m glad you and Mother don’t worry about being popular.’
‘We do work at our marriage. And it’s worth it.’
‘And I’m glad you trust me,’ I said.
‘Over the years, you’ve proven yourself to be trustworthy.’
‘I hope I’ll never let you down.’
He pulled me onto his knees. ‘You will,’ he said gently. ‘It’s human nature. We all let each other down. I may be putting too much responsibility on you, in allowing you to go over to Beau Allaire to stay with a very ill woman.’
‘I want to go.’
‘I know you do, and I’m glad you do. Your mother and I have always given you a great deal of responsibility, and you’re a very capable young woman. Just remember, call me if there’s even the slightest sense of emergency.’
‘All right.’
But I didn’t get a chance to call.
On Friday I piloted everybody home in the boat, then packed my overnight bag. Mother was going to drive me to Beau Allaire because Daddy had some kind of meeting to go to and would need the Land-Rover.
‘Just call on Saturday morning when you’re ready, and I’ll be over.’
‘Urs said she might be able to bring me home.’
‘Whichever. Just remember, it’s no trouble for me.’
She dropped me outside the house, waited till Ovid opened the door, waved, and drove off.
Ovid led me through the house and onto the back verandah. The ceiling fans were whirring, but the air was oppressive.
Max held out her hands in greeting. ‘Heavy electrical storms forecast, with possible damaging winds. I lost a great oak in the last storm, and I don’t want to lose any more. Nettie has fixed a cold meal for us and left it in the fridge. She and Ovid feel the heat, and I told them to take the evening off. We’ll leave the dishes in the sink and they’ll take care of them in the morning.’
We watched Ovid retreating toward the kitchen, a slight figure in his dark pants and white coat, and cottony hair. Then I regarded Max and was grateful that the pain lines were not deep.
Ovid came back in to refill the pitcher of lemonade, then said good night to us and left. I wondered if he and Nettie knew how ill Max really was.
She took a long drink and put her glass down. ‘Do you believe in the soul, Polly?’ Max never hesitated to ask cosmic questions out of the blue.
‘Yes.’ I thought maybe she’d turn her scorn on me, but she didn’t.
‘So, what is it, this thing called soul?’
This scarred thing, full of adhesions. ‘It’s—it’s your you and my me.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘It’s what makes us us, different from anybody else in the world.’
‘Like snowflakes? You have seen snow, haven’t you—yes, of course you have. All those trillions of snowflakes, each one different from the other?’
‘More than snowflakes. The soul isn’t—ephemeral.’
‘A separate entity from the body?’
I shook my head. ‘I think it’s part. It’s the part that—well, in your painting of the harbor at Rio, it’s the part which made you know what paint to use, which brush, how to make it alive.’
Max looked at the silver pitcher, sparkling with drops, as though it were a crystal ball. ‘So it’s us, at our highest and least self-conscious.’
‘That’s sort of what I mean.’
‘The amazing thing is that one’s soul, or whatever one calls it, is strongest when one is least aware. That’s when the soul is most aware. We get in our own way, and that diminishes our souls.’ She pushed up from her chair and headed toward the table, which was already set with silver and china. ‘Be an angel and bring the food out to the verandah.’
We ate comfortably together. Max had a book with her and began leafing through it, looking for something. ‘There’s a passage our conversation reminds me of …’
‘What?’
‘In the Upanishads—a series of Sanskrit works which are part of the Veda. Here it is, Pol, listen: In this body, in this town of Spirit, there is a little house shaped like a lotus, and in that house there is a little space. There is as much in that little space within the heart as there is in the whole world outside. Maybe that little space is the reality of your you and my me?’
‘Could I copy that?’ I asked.
‘Of course. I’ve been watching that little space within your heart enlarging all year as more and more ideas are absorbed into it. Some people close their doors and lock them so that nothing can come in, and the space cannot hold anything as long as the heart clutches in self-protection or lust or greed. But if we’re not afraid, that little space can be so large that one could put a whole universe in it and still have room for more.’ She stopped and her hand went up and pressed against her chest, and I could see pain dimming the silver in her eyes.
‘Get me some whiskey. Quickly.’
I ran into the house and into the dining room, turning on the lights. The Waterford chandelier sparkled into bloom. I hurried to the sideboard and got the decanter of bourbon, with its silver label, turned out the light, ran back to the verandah, and poured Max a good tot.
She drank it in a gulp, so quickly that she almost choked, then sighed and put the glass down. ‘It works, and quickly. I’m sorry, Pol, I don’t like you to see me in pain.’
I reached across the glass top of the table and put my hand on hers. It was hot and dry. Mine was cold.
‘Don’t be afraid, little one. I’m all right. These episodes are bad, but they don’t last.’ She reached for the decanter and poured herself some more.
‘You’re sure I shouldn’t call—’
‘Polly. I’m all right. There’s nothing anyone can do. Don’t fret. The pain’s much better.’
I took our plates out to the kitchen, rinsed them, and left them in the sink for Nettie and Ovid. I thought that maybe I should try to call Daddy, and then decided that it would make her angry. When I got back to the verandah, dark was falling. The long evenings of summer were behind us. Night was closing in early, though the shadows of evening still held the humid heat of the day.
Max was leaning back in her chair, and there was just enough light for me to see that the look of pain had eased. She took a sip of bourbon and put her glass down. ‘It leaves me tired,’ she said. ‘Let’s sit here for a while and watch the stars.’
I sat across from her, glancing at the unlit candles in their hurricane globes. ‘Do you want any light?’
‘No. Even candle flame adds to the heat. Look, there’s a star.’
The wind was rising, but it was not a cooling wind. The gentle whirring of the paddle fan, the slow rolling of the waves across the sand, the chirring of locusts, were hot, summer sounds. A seagull screamed.
‘Another star,’ Max said. ‘All the galaxies, the billions of galaxies—the possibility of billions of island universes —floating like bubbles in a great spacious sea—’
‘There’s the Big Dipper,’ I said, relaxing a little.
‘The Great Bear,’ Max said. ‘I talk about the unimportance of size, the microcosm as immense as the macrocosm—but then I think of Beau Allaire sitting on a small island on an insignificant planet—how can God keep track of it all? Do you think God really does count the hairs of our heads?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know why. It’s just what I think.’
‘At least you don’t give me glib answers. If hum
an beings can program computers to count astronomical figures, why should God do less? If there isn’t a God who cares about our living and dying, then it’s all an echoing joke. I don’t want my life to be a bad joke, so I have to believe that God does care. That there is a someone who began everything, and who loves and cares.’ She shivered. ‘Funny, how intense heat can make one break out in gooseflesh, just like cold. Let’s go up to my room. It’s cooler there. Why don’t you get ready for bed, and I will, too.’
We paused on the landing, as always, to look at the statue of the Laughing Christ. The light touched the joyous face, and there was compassion in the eyes.
While I was changing in the green guest room, thunder began to rumble in the distance. The air was so thick with humidity you could squeeze it. The sky flickered faintly with electricity.
Max’s nightgown was ivory satin, so lovely it could have been worn as an evening dress. She sat on the white rug, her hands about her knees. A Chinese screen was in front of the fireplace, gold background with flowers and herons painted on it.
‘You’ve grown over the summer,’ Max said. ‘You’re going to be tall.’
My old seersucker nightgown was too short. ‘Not too tall, I hope.’
‘You come from a tall family, and you carry it well. Don’t ever slump. That just makes one look taller. Hold your head high, like royalty.’
The light from one of the lamps glinted off the decanter of bourbon and onto Max’s glass, half full of amber liquid. I hoped that she knew how much she should drink. Then I noticed a bottle of champagne. ‘I really don’t need anything,’ I said awkwardly. ‘There’s more lemonade if I get thirsty.’
A House Like a Lotus Page 16
