A House Like a Lotus

by Madeleine L'engle

  “But you can’t take a page out of your book!” I protested.

  “I will paste in another after I am home. I want you to have this so that you will always remember me.”

  “I would always remember you, no matter what.”

  “Lo, we need something we can touch or see,” Omio said.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about the painting of the Laughing Christ. Omio had no way of knowing that it could remind me of anybody except himself. I looked at it, and saw a double image, the face of sheer joy and Max carrying the statue, her face distorted with whiskey and fear.

  “What is it?” Omio asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “I have hurt you.”

  “No—no—it’s not you at all.”

  “That young man, that Zachary?”

  I shook my head. “Not Zachary. Omio—if I take this, I need to give you something, and I don’t have anything.”

  “A picture of yourself? A snapshot?”

  “I don’t go around carrying pictures of myself. Well —I do have my school ID card, but it’s an awful picture like most ID cards.”

  “But I may have it?”

  “Sure, if you want it.” Actually, it wasn’t that bad a picture, or I wouldn’t have dreamed of giving it to him. I got up and went to the desk and took it from my school notebook. I handed the picture to him.

  He smiled. “Yes. That’s my Polly.” He opened his wallet. “You won’t need it when you get back to school?”

  “I can get another.” It was all I had to give to Omio, and I wanted him to have something of me.

  “Good, then, I will put it here, next to—” And he indicated a snapshot of a blond, fair-skinned girl with curly golden hair. On her lap was a dark-skinned baby boy, with a surprising mop of that fair hair.

  “Who are they?” I asked curiously.

  He looked surprised. “My wife and baby. When I married a girl who was born in England, I knew that I had truly forgiven, all the way deep in my heart, what had been done to my father.”

  My lips felt the way they do when the dentist has pumped them full of novocaine. “I didn’t know you were married.”

  His eyes widened. “But, my Polly, I showed you my pictures that first night.”

  “No.”

  “How could I not? I showed them to Krhis, I know. Our little one was born since I last saw Krhis, and is named after him.”

  I got up and took the picture of the Laughing Christ to my desk and propped it up. But now I saw no laughter in the face, no joy. “Norine will be wanting me,” I said. “I’ve got to get dressed.”

  “Polly, you really did not know that I have a wife?” I shook my head.

  “Why does it make such a difference?”

  I shrugged. “It doesn’t.”

  He put one hand lightly on my shoulder. “I am married to one wife, and I will be true to her. But that does not mean that no one else can touch my soul.”

  “No,” I said. “Please go, Omio. I have to dress.”

  He dropped his hand. “To deny friendship is unlove.” And he left.

  Why was I making such a big deal out of Omio’s not telling me he was married? He thought I knew. He wasn’t trying to keep anything from me. He truly thought I knew. And why should it matter, anyhow? We’d be together for three weeks, and then Omio would go back to Baki, and I’d go back to Benne Seed, and maybe we’d write a couple of times, and that would be that.

  But Omio had kissed my eyelids under the fig-sycamore tree. Omio had pulled me out of the sea. Yet, despite my own imaginings of his kisses, his touch, I knew that Omio had never kissed me as Renny had kissed me in the boat on the way back to Benne Seed. Omio knew restraints.

  We were in Osia Theola. Theola’s love, and her perception of truth, were restraints. Krhis was a restraint.

  I worked in the office with Norine for the rest of the afternoon. If I seemed preoccupied or upset, she put it down to the accident with Zachary. She kept me busy with the ancient mimeograph machine, and I did my best to run off stencils without getting completely covered with purple ink in the process.

  “I hope Frank is not getting too fond of Vee.” She frowned.

  “Does he know? About her husband?”

  “She does not make it a secret. Neither does she talk about it.”

  “Well—at least they can be friends.” As I could be friends with Omio. To deny friendship is unlove, he had said.

  Norine’s hands slowed down as she was feeding paper into the machine. “Without friends, we would not survive.”

  And I knew nothing about what had hurt Norine.

  The phone rang, and she answered it in her usual brisk manner. “I’ll see,” I heard her say. “She may not wish to speak with you.” She turned to me, her hand over the mouthpiece. “It is that young man who has caused so much trouble. You don’t have to speak to him.” She shook her head.

  But I moved toward the phone. “I think I’d better. He’s got to be feeling terrible.”

  Maybe my concern over Zachary’s feeling was, under all the circumstances, inconsistent of me.

  He was, indeed, contrite, and I had it in me to be sorry for him, and agreed to meet him in Athens between flights.

  Norine had left me alone, saying that she had to speak to Sophonisba and Tullia.

  “Hey, Pol, you know I’m really sorry, don’t you?” he asked. “I mean, I know it was my fault we went in the soup, not yours.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, and that was all I could think of to say to Zachary. The funny thing was, it was okay. I could let Zachary be the way he was and it didn’t really bother me.

  Was it because I didn’t really care about him that much? He’d been terrific while I was in Athens; I’d had fun with him; he’d done marvels for my ego. But despite his talk about our chemistry being so great, it really wasn’t. He didn’t do things to my pheromones the way Renny did. Or Omio. I was going to be able to say a casual goodbye to Zachary, whether on Cyprus or in Athens airport; it wasn’t going to make a ragged scar in my life.

  I liked him, but I didn’t love him. And that was very confusing, because I certainly hadn’t sorted out what love is.

  “Hey, are you there?” he asked. The phone was crackling as though we were talking long-distance.

  “I’m right here. But I have work to do, Zach.”

  “But is everything okay with us? I haven’t ruined it all?”

  “No,” I said. “It was an accident.”

  “So you don’t mind if I meet your plane in Athens?”

  “No, I don’t mind a bit. It will be fun.”

  “Can you sound a little more enthusiastic?”

  “Sure, Zach, I’m still kind of tired.”

  “I’m just grateful that you’re not dumping me,” he said. “See you in Athens.”

  I hung up and went back to the recalcitrant mimeograph machine, getting even more ink on myself. I didn’t notice when Krhis came into the office until he spoke.

  “Polly?”

  I looked up from the machine and wiped my inky fingers on a rag. “Oh, Krhis. Hello.”

  “You are doing a good job, Polly, being very helpful.”

  “Thank you. I’m loving every minute of it.”

  “Despite your accident with the kayak?”

  “Thanks to Omio—and Vee and Frank—nothing terrible happened.”

  “Norine is afraid we’re working you too hard.”

  “Oh, no! I was afraid I wasn’t working hard enough!”

  “I am glad indeed that Max arranged for you to come to us.”

  I fiddled with the machine, spilling more ink.

  “Polly, whenever I mention Max, you withdraw. Is something wrong?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but since Max didn’t tell you—”

  “What is it? Would you be betraying a confidence by telling me?”

  I blurted out, “Max is dying. Maybe I am betraying a confidence, but oh, Krhis, she’s afraid, and maybe you could pray for her—”r />
  I could see a shadow of grief cross his face. “I will pray.”

  “She has an awful South American disease, transmitted by an insect bite. It affects the heart, and it’s slow and painful. And lethal.” I managed to keep my voice level.

  He accepted without question what I said. “I’m glad you told me.” He took my hands and looked into my eyes. “I think Maxa would be glad, too.”

  “I’m glad you know,” I said. “Oh, Krhis, I’m very glad you know.”

  He squeezed my hands gently. “You are covered with ink. Go back to the dormitory, where there is warm water to wash it off.”

  I nodded. Left.

  Krhis’s prayers would not save Max’s life. But they were nevertheless very important.

  Omio came up to me as I walked along the path with the roses.

  “I’m inky.” I held out my purple hands. “Don’t touch me.”

  “My Polly, you have been beaten, and you are still bleeding, and, lo, I have rubbed salt in your wounds.”

  I shook my head. Tears rushed to my eyes. “I’m being very silly.”

  “Is it that Zachary? Has it something to do with him?”

  “No!”

  “But you have been hurt. When I gave you my picture of the Laughing Christ, I hurt you. If you do not want to keep it, I will not be offended.”

  “No. Please. I want to keep it.”

  “Lo, I am glad then, of that. Before you came to Cyprus, someone hurt you?”

  “Yes. But I’m not thinking straight about that, either.”

  “Are we still friends?”

  “Of course.” I closed my eyes, and the slanting rays of the sun made dancing dots behind my eyelids. “I don’t know what’s the matter. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “Doesn’t it? That does not make me happy.” His fingers lightly touched mine. “We of Baki are still close to the old ways. It was always understood that it was possible to love more than one person at a time, without dishonor.”

  I nodded, looking at our shadows, which were lengthening on the hot ground.

  “And,” he said, “Jesus was more forgiving to those who made mistakes in love than to those who judged each other harshly and were cold of heart.”

  “Your picture”—I tried to speak over the lump in my throat—“of the Laughing Christ will not let me forget that. Omio, I do have to go wash off all this ink.”

  “And then we will meet Vee under our fig-sycamore tree. She is ready to go swimming.”

  I got most of the ink off before going to the tree, where Omio and Vee waited.

  “Sure you’re up to it?” Vee asked me.

  “Sure. I had a good nap this afternoon.” And my foot no longer hurt me.

  When the water came in view, Omio stopped us. “Look!” he exclaimed. The moon rose above the water, waxing full and beneficent, while on the other horizon the great orb of golden sun slid down into the darkness behind the sea’s horizon. I had never before seen the end of day and the beginning of night greet each other. We were caught in the loveliness between the two.

  “Oh—joy!” Vee breathed.

  Above us the sky was a tent of blues and violets and greens, with just a touch of rose, and we were enclosed in it. We walked slowly until we got to the path Omio and I had made through the encircling ring of stones.

  “What a splendid job,” Vee said. She bent down to the stones and searched until she had found four small round white ones. She put them in the pocket of her terry robe. “One for each of us. And one for Frank. Whenever there is a full moon we will hold our moon stones and think of Osia Theola, and the rising of the moon and the setting of the sun. Now, children, you go ahead and race.”

  “Just one quick one,” I said. We swam parallel to the shore, and I could tell that Omio was constantly checking me.

  “I’m a good swimmer, Omio, you don’t have to worry.”

  He swam beside me. “If you were not a good swimmer, lo, you would by now be washed up on some strange shore, and that—young man with you.” He used a Bakian word I did not understand, but I knew it was not complimentary. He went on. “I do not want him meeting you in the airport. I, too, have time between planes. I will stay with you to take care of you. If you will let me.”

  I did not answer that. I tried to turn it into a joke. “He can’t take me kayaking in Athens airport.”

  “He is not good for you,” Omio said. “He wants too much. He is someone who takes. He does not give.”

  Those words were an echo of something, but at that moment I could not remember what.

  “We’d better swim back to Vee,” I said, and we turned toward shore.

  When we got back to her, Omio asked, “Will we be able to have our afternoon swim tomorrow, when the delegates are all here?”

  “We’ll manage,” Vee said. “We need the exercise. Don’t worry about it now. We have today to rejoice in, and this moment of sheer loveliness.”

  “Don’t you have a saying?” Omio asked. “That we should live every day as though we were going to die tomorrow and as though we were going to live forever?”

  “It’s an old adage,” Vee said, “but a good one. Let’s have another swim.”

  The water was caressing as I swam, this time with Vee. The sunset was deepening, and Omio called out and pointed, and we saw great bursts of lightning zagging behind clouds which were all the way across the Mediterranean.

  “Shouldn’t we get out?” I asked. “Isn’t it dangerous?”

  Vee reassured me. “It’s all right. The storm is over in Lebanon and Syria, so far off we can’t even hear the thunder.”

  But we swam for only a few minutes longer, then turned into shore. Vee put on her robe and pulled two of the stones out of the pocket, giving one to Omio, one to me. Moon stones.

  We walked slowly through the steamy evening, up the sand and stones of the hill, pausing to say good night to the little goats. Omio leaned over the fence, and one of the goats came and nibbled on his fingers, and he stroked the soft ears. Then we walked on. Omio did not take my hand.

  After dinner we stayed in the cloister. Krhis said that a bus would meet the first load of delegates in the early morning. There would be delegates coming in on three different planes. And our lives would change radically as we were joined by thirty or more different people from all over the world except behind the Iron Curtain.

  “But you will be amazed at how quickly you come to know them,” Krhis said, “how soon they will seem like family, as we are family around this table.”

  “But there will be four or more tables,” Norine said, wiping her face. The breeze was hot, the air so heavy it was tangible.

  “This heat has got to break soon,” Krhis said, “and then I will insist on swimming at the scheduled time, Vee, please, in the middle of the day.”

  Vee put her hands together, bowing. “Yes, master.”

  Then we sang for a while, ending with Saranam.

  For those who’ve gone, for those who stay,

  For those to come, following the Way,

  Be guest and guide both night and day,

  Saranam, saranam, saranam.

  Omio walked with me back to the dormitory and down the length of the long hall to my room. My room alone for this one last night. As I turned to open the door, he took my hands. “Would you want never to have had these days together, before everybody comes, never to have become friends?”

  “Of course not. It’s been marvelous.”

  “Isn’t it still marvelous? It will go on being marvelous when lo, we are a large instead of a small family.”

  Omio had never promised me anything except friendship, and that was still his offering to me. The intensity of the experience with the kayak was part of that friendship. I had been greedy, grasping. Everything Renny had warned me of I had fallen for, if not actually, at least potentially. I felt small and chastened.

  Chaste. Chastened.

  Omio looked at me questioningly.

  �
�It’s still marvelous,” I said.

  Would I want never to have met Max? Never to have had my horizons expanded? Would I truly want to eradicate all of the good times because of one terrible time? Yes, it was terrible, Max insane with alcohol and pain and fear. But would I wipe out all the rest of it for that moment of dementia?

  If I wanted Max as goddess, as idol, then, yes, I would have to destroy it. But not if I wanted Max as a human being, a vibrant, perceptive human being, who saw potential in me that I hardly dared dream of. Not if I wanted Max as she was, brilliant but flawed. Perhaps the greater the brilliance, the darker the flaw.

  And what about Ursula? Surely Ursula had given me the best, with open generosity, not threatened by Max’s love of me.

  Why was I able to feel compassion for Zachary, who was selfish, who belonged to a world of power and corruption, and who had nearly killed me? Why didn’t I want to wipe Zachary out?

  And now I knew that I no longer wanted to wipe Max out. To wipe Max out was to wipe out part of myself.

  “Good night, my Polly,” Omio said.

  I got ready for bed and worked on my school journal. I was in the middle of a sentence when there was a great flash of lightning, coming through the slats in the shutters, followed immediately by thunder, and the heat-breaking storm struck.

  I closed my notebook. This was not the kind of violence one could write through.

  There was a knock on my door and Millie came in. “You all right, Polly?”

  “Yah, fine. This is going to break the heat.”

  “You’re not afraid?”

  “No.”

  “Would you like me to stay with you for a few minutes, till the worst is over? These storms never last long.” Millie was nervous over man-made power failure, but not of a storm caused by nature. She had come to me, not because she was afraid, but because she thought I might be. “Yes, please, Millie,” I said.

  The lights went out.

  Millie reached over and took my hand.