A House Like a Lotus

by Madeleine L'engle

  ‘He’s Max’s doctor, peripherally. He assists Netson.’ That would hold water if she checked it out.

  ‘But you’re upset about something other than your foot.’

  Usually I could tell anything to Mother. I told her when that gross kid exposed himself to me while we were standing in line at the school cafeteria. Something smooth and slightly damp touched my hand and I turned, and there he was, sticking himself out at me. It was nasty, and I felt dirty, but it didn’t really have anything to do with me, or even that stupid boy. And Mother could tell me that the same thing had happened to her, and she had felt like me, dirty, and wanting to take a bath.

  But this wasn’t something outside me that essentially didn’t have anything to do with me. And I couldn’t say a word.

  Mother didn’t try to use a can opener on me the way some mothers might. She just sat by me, stroking my hair, waiting. But I didn’t speak. I closed my eyes. When she thought I was asleep, she left.

  Renny, in a way, provided a smoke screen.

  He called first thing in the morning, saying that he was coming over to Benne Seed to check my foot. Daddy could perfectly well have checked my foot. Mother could have checked my foot. It didn’t need a doctor. But Renny came, midmorning, and Mother brought him into the living room, where I was sitting in the comfortable leather chair with my foot up on the footstool. The rest of the kids were swimming, and they’d evidently been told not to bug me, because they’d pretty well left me alone, even Xan and Kate.

  Mother brought Renny and me some iced tea, then left us, saying she was in the middle of baking bread. Unlike Ursula, Mother did not bake bread often, and it was usually a sign that she was disturbed.

  As soon as she had gone, Renny wanted to know where I was in my menstrual cycle, and was relieved when I told him I was just over my period. Then he was full of rather incoherent apologies. He rebandaged my foot, saying that it was healing nicely. ‘Nell sends her best—’ He sounded awkward.

  ‘What about Nell?’ I asked.

  ‘Nell’s a good friend.’ He sounded surprised. ‘She’s engaged to one of the male nurses, and they’re both friends of mine.’

  Why did that make me feel better about Nell? And a little ashamed about having asked Renny.

  He put my foot down on the stool. ‘Did you think I was sleeping with Nell?’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘What with the general promiscuity in Cowpertown —and other places—I can hardly be surprised that it crossed your mind. However, Polly, if I had been, I wouldn’t have taken you there. I don’t sleep around. I’m a Renier. My relationship with Jacinta was not celibate. But I’m a lot older than you. Sweet Polly, what happened between us mustn’t happen again. It mustn’t happen with you at all, not with me, not with anybody, until you’re older and ready to make a real commitment.’

  ‘I’m not planning to sleep around, either,’ I said stiffly.

  He studied my bandaged foot. ‘It’s hard to remember you’re only sixteen, you seem so much older in so many ways—’ He let his breath out gustily. ‘Polly, you’re very attractive. Don’t you know I’ve plain lusted after you all summer? And yesterday it got the better of me, because—’

  ‘You didn’t seduce me, Renny. I wanted it.’—And no, I had no idea you lusted after me. No idea at all.

  ‘I wanted it, too. But I shouldn’t have.’

  I looked down at his hand, lying on the stool near my foot, and shoulds and shouldn’ts meant nothing at all.

  Renny took our empty glasses and put them on the table. He was being very Renier.

  ‘Renny. Stop. I’m glad what happened happened with you. But I’m—’ I choked up.

  ‘Oh, Polly honey, I’m sorry. I know you’re hurting. I’m sorry.’

  Max was there between us, but neither of us mentioned her name.

  Daddy came in to me that evening after I was ready for bed. ‘Foot feeling better?’

  ‘It’s fine. Renny checked it this morning.’

  ‘Mother told me. Polly, is something wrong between you and Renny?’

  ‘No. Renny’s a good friend.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘What about you and Max?’

  ‘What about me and Max?’

  ‘Mother said Max called today and you wouldn’t come to the phone.’

  ‘Renny said I shouldn’t walk on my foot.’

  ‘Was that the only reason?’

  ‘Daddy, I was getting too dependent on Max.’

  ‘What made you realize it?’

  ‘Renny …’

  ‘Max is a dying woman. You can’t just drop her like a hot coal.’

  ‘Daddy, I was like a kid, idolizing Max. It wasn’t good.’

  ‘No, Polly, idolatry’s never good. But Max and Ursula have been a good influence on you. You’ve been doing admirably in school, and you’ve been particularly pleasant to have around the house. I wish Xan did his jobs in the lab as diligently as you do yours. Did anything happen to make you decide you were too dependent on Max?’ He was looking at me, not his daddy-look, but diagnostically, trying to see through what I was saying to what was really wrong. But he didn’t see.

  ‘It was just time.’

  ‘Did anything happen to upset you when you stayed at Beau Allaire?’

  ‘Max drank too much.’

  ‘Was she in pain?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘I don’t know—’

  ‘People with too much alcohol in them are always unpleasant, though to a certain extent it’s understandable with Max. How much too much did she have?’

  ‘Daddy, she was drunk.’

  ‘It’s not good to idolize people, Pol, you’re right. I don’t condone Max’s drinking, but you have to allow even the people you most admire to be complex and contradictory like everybody else. The more interesting somebody is, the more complex.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You don’t have to like it, honey, but you do have to understand it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Daddy stood up. ‘All right, Polly. I’m sorry Max showed you her clay feet. If you want to talk about it further, remember, Mother and I are right here.’

  ‘Yes. I’m glad. Thanks.’

  He left, and in a few minutes I heard a knock on my door. Xan’s knock.

  I didn’t want to talk to him. So I just let him knock.

  The soft knocking on my door roused me. I got out of bed and opened the door onto darkness.

  “It’s Millie,” came her gentle voice, with a slight tremor. “My fan’s off—I think the power’s out—”

  She followed me into the room, holding my arm, and then sat on the first bed. “Do you think something’s wrong?”

  Millie was obviously afraid, so I said, reassuringly, “It’s just a power failure.”

  “You don’t think it’s some kind of emergency?”

  “No, Millie, I think it’s okay.” Suddenly I realized that while a power outage was to me a sign of poor electricity, to Millie it could mean that a power plant had been bombed, it could mean a military coup, an attack on civilians—“I’ll go check.” I got up and slipped out onto the balcony. Nothing but normal night sounds. But Cyprus was an island of many emergencies, of being overrun by Italians, Turks, British, and, within the memory of everybody there, the Turks again. Millie came from a world of emergencies, of small countries fighting to get out from under the domination of foreign powers. I understood why she would be so afraid that she would fumble through the darkness to make contact with someone in the next room.

  I went back in. “Everything’s okay. All quiet. I’m sure it’s just the power going off because it’s so hot and everybody’s got fans on, and probably air-conditioners at the hotel.”

  “Thanks, Polly dear. Thanks. I’ll go back to bed now.”

  I lit a match and helped her back to her room, standing in the doorway until I heard her bed creak and she c
alled good night. I went back to bed, but there was no sound from Millie’s room, no comfortable snoring. I wondered what she was remembering.

  I got up early enough to finish making the beds, and then I still had time to go into the church for a few minutes before breakfast. I went deep into the interior, to the dark entrance of the cave.

  A shadow moved, and I turned to see Vee coming toward me. “I always drop in when the doors are open,” she said. “It’s a very special place.” I nodded. “Osia Theola is indeed kind in what she lets us know about ourselves. She tells me that I am stronger than I think I am. I’ve bought a little icon of her to take home. There are some nice ones in that little shop up the hill.” We were silent for a while. Then Vee asked gently, “What does Theola tell you?”

  “She warms the cold place in my heart,” I said. “She’s helping the ice to thaw.”

  “But you have a loving heart, Polly, that’s one of the first things I noticed about you. I’m glad Theola’s making you realize it.” She laughed a little wistfully. “Some people would call this the rankest superstition. But is it? What happens in a place does leave its imprint. Even today the sites of the concentration camps have a bone-chilling cold, no matter how hot the day. Osia Theola left love here, and we can catch it from her.”

  The ancient sacristan came up to us then, with two tiny bouquets. He, too, must have picked up the largeness of love from Blessed Theola, because he warmed us with it.

  We left the candlelit church and went to breakfast.

  I had been right about the power failure. Krhis announced that the power had gone off largely because of the air-conditioning at the hotel and that the power company promised to have it back on by noon.

  Tullia served us fresh, hot bread, her toothless smile lavished on us as though we were her honored guests. Sophonisba brought us eggs, smiling so that her front gold tooth reflected the light.

  I was sitting with my back to the monastery grounds, facing the sea, so I did not see anyone coming until I noticed people’s heads turning, and I turned, too, and there was Zachary.

  “Found you at last, Polly,” he said, coming up the steps. He smiled at the tableful of what must have seemed to him very strange people. “I’m Zachary Gray, a friend of Polly’s,” he said. “I got here last night, just in time for the blackout at the hotel. I wonder if I could steal Polly for lunch today?”

  “Oh, no, Zach—” I protested. “I have work to do.”

  Krhis looked at Norine, who looked at me, then said, “I’ll need Polly in the office for a while this morning, but there’s no reason she can’t be free by eleven. And we won’t need her again till two.”

  “That’s fine,” Zachary said. “I’ll be back for you at eleven.”

  “Won’t you stay and have a cup of coffee?” Krhis suggested.

  “No, thanks. I’ve some things to do back at the hotel. I’m off to Mykonos tomorrow, so this is my only chance to see Polly till I meet her plane in Athens.”

  At that, Omio gave Zachary a sharp look. I did not think they would get on. Zachary represented a good many things Omio was fighting, and while somebody like Sandy could see this clearly and still get along courteously with Zachary, I was not sure about Omio.

  “I’ll rent a sailboat or a kayak for us,” Zachary called as he jumped down the steps. “Nice to have seen all of you.”

  “Very good-looking,” Millie said.

  “He is the young man who has kept calling?” Norine accused rather than asked.

  “Yes.” And who sent me flowers. And made me feel special. I was excited to see him, and yet he seemed a slightly discordant note in this place and with these people. But I didn’t wish he hadn’t come.

  “An old friend?” Norine asked.

  “No, I met him while I was in Athens.”

  “You want to go out with him?” Bashemath asked.

  “Well—he was very kind to me in Athens.”

  “It’ll be a kind of culture shock,” Vee said, “leaving the monastery and going to—oh, another world, with the beach full of topless bathers, and people sitting around the pool drinking and ignoring the real, unchlorinated water.”

  “If he takes you swimming,” Omio said severely, “don’t go out too far. And don’t be late.”

  “I won’t be,” I said. “I’ll have to be back at two to help Norine.”

  “And then, later, we’ll have our swim,” Vee said.

  Zachary picked me up promptly at eleven, in a rented car.

  “Do you have your bathing suit?”

  “I can get it.”

  “Do, and hurry. I’ve made our reservations for lunch at one, and I thought we’d have a swim and a sail first.”

  He’d rented a cabana for me to dress in and suggested that we swim in the pool.

  “No, thanks. I don’t like chlorine and I do like salt water.”

  “All those rough waves—” But we went in the ocean. Zachary swam moderately well. He did the strokes correctly, but he had no stamina. After a few minutes he splashed into shore. I followed him, and started to tell him a little about the conference staff, but it was obvious that he wasn’t interested in the people or the worlds they came from.

  “Do your parents know this mixed kind of group you’re with?”

  “Of course.”

  He headed toward the pier. “I’ve rented us a kayak. All the sailboats were taken, okay?”

  “Sure, a kayak’s fine.” Anything would have been fine with me, even a rowboat. I could still hardly believe that Zachary had come all this way to see me.

  The kayak was waiting at the little landing dock. Zachary and the attendant helped me in, and Zachary sat behind, holding the double paddle used for this little play boat. The attendant said something in Greek that I could not quite understand, but I think he was warning us to be careful not to go beyond the white ropes strung from red buoys which enclosed a sizable section of water.

  “You’re a help to me, Polly,” Zachary said. “You help me think clearly. I’d predicated my life on being a corporate lawyer. If I don’t want that, what do I want? I couldn’t be a doctor, I faint at the sight of blood. Listen, Red—” He splashed with the paddle instead of feathering. “I talked with my pop on the phone, and he knows your aunt and uncle.”

  “He does!”

  Zachary nodded. “Not personally. Reputation. He says they’re dangerous.”

  “They’re not—”

  “Hey, hold it, don’t rock the boat, you’ll have us in the soup.”

  “Sorry.” My jerky movement had set the little craft rocking, but it stabilized quickly. “Sandy and Rhea—”

  “Don’t you see, Pop has to think that way? Megabucks is the only game he knows, and people who care about people get in his way. If you want to put a highway through a village, you can’t be concerned about the people in the village whose homes are going to be destroyed.”

  “Is that your world?” I asked. “Do you really want that?”

  “No, Polly, I don’t. That’s why I wanted to be with you today. I’m glad Dragon Lady gave you at least three hours off.” He put the paddle across the thwarts and we drifted gently. “I wanted to tell you that I’ve decided to stop puddling around Europe. I’m flying home—after we’ve had our reunion in Athens airport—and I’m going back to college.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Then I looked around us at the softly slapping water. “We’re outside the white ropes.”

  “That’s okay. I went way out this morning. And the sailboats all go out.” He pointed to half a dozen colorful sails. “I’ll paddle us back in a minute. Right now I need to talk. The problem is, Polly, I’m going back to college, but I’m not sure I still want to be a lawyer and take over Pop’s world.”

  “Sandy and Rhea are lawyers,” I reminded him.

  “I’m not sure I’d have the guts to do what they’re doing. I’m learning that I do have limitations.”

  “Sure,” I said, “we all do, but given the chance, we can go beyond our
limitations.”

  “Do I want to? At least, do I want to put my life on the line? People like your uncle and aunt are in danger, do you realize that? People like my pop, particularly those with even more money and power than my pop, are pretty ruthless about wiping out people who get in the way. They look down on lawyers who care about human life as stupid sentimentalists.”

  “Rhea and Sandy aren’t sentimental!” I didn’t like this conversation. I looked around and all I could see was water and a couple of sailboats in the distance. The tide, I thought, was going out, and we’d drifted rapidly. “Zachary,” I said, “I don’t see the hotel.”

  He looked around. “Okay, we’ll go back.” He picked up the paddle. “The thing is, Polly, you’ve really made a difference in the way I think about things. I’ve never been close to my pop, never loved him, but I thought his way of life was a realistic one and that I had every right to inherit power and prestige. But here he is, middle-aged, with ulcers, not happy, and not knowing how to do anything but make bigger and bigger deals. I don’t think that’s what I want to look forward to.”

  “I’m glad, Zach, very glad.” I didn’t think I could take much credit for his decision. It must have been under the surface all the time, waiting to break through. But I was glad it had.

  He went on. “I want to thank you, Polly. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with my life, but you’ve turned it completely around.” He rested the paddle again and bent forward to kiss me. It stopped being just a kiss and began to be more, and suddenly I wasn’t sure how much I believed of all he’d just said. He drew back slightly, breathed, “Oh, Polly, come—” He put his hand behind my head to draw me closer.

  “No, Zach—” The boat started rocking violently.

  “Watch it!” And suddenly we were in the water. We came up sputtering. I grabbed at the kayak as it began to slip away from us.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” he shouted.

  I didn’t answer. He was thrashing about, tiring himself. “Here!” I called. “Here! Hold on!”