A House Like a Lotus

by Madeleine L'engle

  “Ahoy!” We heard Frank’s voice outside, and he came in with a flashlight and a handful of stubby candles.

  “Krhis has these for all of us.” He came in, and we saw that Vee and Bashemath were with him. He lit candles for us, placing them on desks and chests of drawers. In a moment Norine came in and Vee beckoned her to join her on the spare bed.

  Millie began to sing, her voice unwavering through the crashing of the thunder. Khris came and stood in the doorway, looking at us with his gentle smile, and Norine pulled him in and Omio offered him one of the desk chairs.

  “All of us sing,” Millie ordered, and we sang until the storm was over, and cool air came in, even through the cracks of the shutters. Bashemath stood up and yawned, and said good night.

  “Yes, it is time,” Krhis said. “Tomorrow will be a busy day.”

  Frank held out his hands to Vee. Omio left with them.

  Krhis stood looking down on me sitting on the bed. “Bless you, Polly. Good night.”

  I felt somehow as though at last I had been allowed past the outer gates of Epidaurus, and into the sacred precincts.

  Millie stood and stretched. “Good night, little one. It’s cooler.”

  “Much. We may even need our blankets.”

  “You’d better not open the shutters, anyhow. Did you light your bug coil?”

  “I will.”

  Millie bent down and kissed me, then went to her room.

  I lit the coil, blew out the candle which remained. The darkness was lifted by the lightness in the air.

  I was suddenly wide awake, because the power had come back on and the lights in my room were bright. I got up and turned them off, pushed the shutters open to a lovely cool breeze. Through the wall I could hear Millie snoring—safe, comfortable snores.

  I slipped outside and the breeze was fresh, not burdened with moisture. I was not attacked by insects. The full moon was low in the sky, streaked by swiftly moving clouds. The storm in Osia Theola was over, but in those troubled lands across from us the electrical storm was still playing.

  “Polly—”

  I looked over the balcony and saw Omio.

  “You’re awake—”

  “I was sound asleep,” I said, “but when the power came on, my lights woke me.”

  “Come and sit on the wall by the fig sycamore for a while.”

  The stones hurt my bare feet, but I made it to the crumbling remnant of wall and sat looking at the moon sliding below the horizon. Omio sat beside me, and when I shivered in the cool breeze he drew me to him to keep me warm.

  Whatever it was I had silently been demanding of Omio I was no longer demanding. I was happy sitting beside him, watching the night sky. I loved him, but I loved him as a friend, as I loved Max as a friend. The clean feeling of love blew through me with the breeze. I sighed with a joyful kind of relief.

  Omio’s arm tightened about me. “Is everything all right with us, Polly?”

  “Everything is fine. I’m sorry I was such an idiot.”

  “It was not Omio,” he said. “It was whoever hurt you.”

  “I was very confused.”

  “And now?”

  “It’s okay,” I said wonderingly. “It’s all right!”

  “We are true, good friends?”

  “True, good friends.”

  He kissed me, gently, on the cheek, and we climbed back up to the balconies, and he waited until I was in the room, drawing the shutters not quite closed.

  I slept and dreamed. I went into the church and Osia Theola’s cave. Inside the cave my littlest brother and sister, Johnny and Rosy, were blowing bubbles, and the bubbles with their iridescent colors illumined the darkness of the cave. Then I saw that each bubble was filled with stars, with galaxies, countless galaxies; each bubble was an island universe.

  The cave was gone, the little ones were gone, and all I could see was the loveliness of the bubbles, universes glowing softly with the life of all creation.

  And then I saw a hand, and all the bubbles were in the hand, which was holding them, tenderly, lovingly.

  And in the dream I understood that this was Blessed Theola’s vision of love.

  I woke up even earlier than usual, feeling rested and refreshed. I dressed and hurried out into the clear air. The sun was warm, not hot; the day sparkled. Nobody was about, not even the old men eternally watering the roses.

  I thought I heard sounds in the direction of the church, and moved across the compound. There was an early-morning service going on, and I stood in the doorway, watching the people standing quietly, their heads covered. I listened to the Byzantine chanting of the priest.

  I felt a presence behind me, and it was Krhis.

  We turned away from the church together. “Krhis, would it be possible for me to make an overseas call?”

  “We can try.” He did not sound surprised.

  We went to the office, and he dialed several times, spoke to three different operators, finally gave the phone to me and left me alone. I gave the operator the number. There was a long, blank pause, and then the sound of distant ringing. And then a voice. “Hello?”

  “Urs—”

  “Yes, who is it?”

  I had no idea what time it was at home. It didn’t matter. “Urs, it’s Polly. Max—may I speak to Max?”

  Ursula’s voice sounded hollow, with an echo following it. “Just a moment, child.” … moment, child. The echo came faintly.

  I waited. Waited.

  And then Max’s voice. “Polly?” … Polly?

  “Max, I love you. I just wanted to call and tell you I love you—” I stopped because I could hear my own voice distantly echoing back what I had said.

  “Oh, Polly, forgive me—”

  “Me, too, forgive me, too—”

  Forgive … forgive echoed back.

  “I’m so glad you called” … you called.

  “I love you, Max, I love you” … love you. “I have so much to tell you—” But before the echo had a chance to repeat my words the connection was cut and the phone went dead.

  It was all right. I had said what I needed to say.

  Krhis was waiting outside. He didn’t ask me who I had needed to phone so suddenly. We walked slowly across the compound to the refectory part of the cloister. The cold place within me that had frozen and constricted my heart was gone. My heart was like a lotus, and in that little space there was room enough for Osia Theola, for all of Cyprus. For all the stars in all of the galaxies. For all those bubbles which were island universes.

  In the cloister everybody was gathering for breakfast.

  “Polly!” Norine called. “We will be very busy today. All the delegates must come into the office, and we will check them off and give them their blue folders and room assignments …”

  She paused for breath and Omio took my hand and pulled me to the chair next to his.

  “Saranam,” he said.

  ALSO BY MADELEINE L’ENGLE

  The Small Rain (1945)

  Ilsa (1946)

  And Both Were Young (1949)

  A Winter’s Love (1957)

  Meet the Austins (1960)

  A Wrinkle in Time (1962)

  The Moon by Night (1963)

  The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas (1964)

  The Arm of the Starfish (1965)

  Camilla (1965)

  The Love Letters (1966)

  The Journey with Jonah (1967)

  The Young Unicorns (1968)

  Dance in the Desert (1969)

  Lines Scribbled on an Envelope (1969)

  The Other Side of the Sun (1971)

  A Circle of Quiet (1972)

  A Wind in the Door (1973)

  The Summer of the Great-grandmother (1974)

  Dragons in the Waters (1976)

  The Irrational Season (1977)

  A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978)

  The Weather of the Heart (1978)

  Ladder of Angels (1979)

  The Anti-Muffins (1980)
r />   A Ring of Endless Light (1980)

  Walking on Water (1980)

  A Severed Wasp (1982)

  The Sphinx at Dawn (1982)

  And It Was Good (1983)

  A House Like a Lotus (1984)

  Many Waters (1986)

  A Stone for a Pillow (1986)

  A Cry Like a Bell (1987)

  Two-Part Invention (1988)

  An Acceptable Time (1989)

  Sold Into Egypt (1989)

  Certain Women (1992)

  The Rock That Is Higher (1993)

  Anytime Prayers (1994)

  Troubling a Star (1994)

  A Full House (1999)

  The Joys of Love (2008)

  It’s the summer of 1946, and Elizabeth has just been

  offered her dream job—to apprentice at a theatre.

  Now she’s one step closer to becoming a real actress.

  But too quickly Elizabeth begins to learn the harsh

  realities of life and love in the theatre.

  The Joys of Love by Madeleine L’Engle

  That day in Mr. Price’s office in New York, Elizabeth thought now, had been the turning point of her whole life. If it had not been for that day last spring, none of the summer—working in the theatre, getting to know Kurt, beginning a completely new life—would have been possible.

  Even then she had been aware of it. Sitting in the anteroom of Mr. Price’s office, she had thought, How strange to know that the whole course of my life can be changed today in this dingy office.

  But it was true. It was so frighteningly true that her hands had felt cold with fear and her heart had beat so fast that for a moment she was afraid that she might faint in the hot stuffiness of the little room. Although it was an unseasonably hot April day, steam hissed in the radiator, and there was no window in the anteroom. Even the office door to the main hallway was closed.

  Because she had not been able to sit still another moment, she went over to the receptionist. “My appointment with Mr. Price was at one o’clock and it’s after two now,” she said.

  “Yeah?” The receptionist looked at her with a hot, annoyed face.

  “I mean—he’s still going to see me, isn’t he?”

  “You’ve got an appointment card, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then, relax. Sit down. Though why you want to see him I don’t know. I’m sure he doesn’t want to see you.”

  Elizabeth sat down again. She felt miserable and young and more than snubbed. She looked at her feet because she was afraid that if she looked at the others waiting in the room she would find scorn in their faces.

  “Don’t let it get to you,” the girl next to her said. “I’ve just been in an office where the receptionist was nice enough to say ‘Thank you for coming in’ after she told me the cast was all set. They’re not all like the sourpuss here. Though with the second-rate theatre Price is running, I don’t know why we’re all hanging around here like a lot of trained seals waiting for him to throw us a fish.”

  The door to the hall opened and a young man entered. The moment he came in, a slight, pleasant smile on his face, Elizabeth saw that there was something different about him, that he was not like anybody else in the room. And then she realized what the difference was: he was the only one who was not nervous.

  He walked over to the receptionist’s desk and said, “Hi, Sadie, how’s my duck today?” He had a slight accent.

  The sour face was surprisingly pretty when it smiled. “Oh, dying of the heat, Mr. Canitz. Otherwise I guess I’ll survive. You want to see Mr. Price?”

  “If he’s not too busy.”

  “Oh, he always has time to see you, Mr. Canitz. Go right in.”

  The young man smiled his pleasant smile at the room full of hot, nervous people, and opened the door to Mr. Price’s of fice. Elizabeth looked in quickly and saw that it was very like the anteroom, except that it had a large open window and a brief, welcome gust of cool air blew in at her. Mr. Price was sitting at his desk talking to a young woman with blond hair, and he waved his hand genially at Mr. Canitz. “Oh, come in, Kurt. I want you to meet this young lady.”

  Then the door shut and heat settled back over the room.

  “If I had any sense,” the girl next to Elizabeth said, “I’d leave this hellhole and go home. And so would you.”

  “Home,” Elizabeth found herself answering, “is the last place I’d go.”

  “Well, then, I guess you have a point in hanging around. Why don’t they at least open the door into the hall?” She appealed to Sadie. “Couldn’t you turn off the heat or something?”

  “No, I can’t,” the receptionist snapped. “The radiator’s broken. And I’m just as hot as you are. Hotter. If you don’t like it here, why don’t you leave? I tell you, he isn’t going to hire anybody else. He’s got the whole season set. You’re wasting your time.”

  The girl turned back to Elizabeth. “That’s the way people get ulcers. People with vile natures always get ulcers. If I stay here much longer, I’ll get ulcers, too.”

  “But is it true?” Elizabeth asked.

  “What?”

  “That he has the whole season set.”

  “Of course it isn’t true. She only said it because she’s in a vile mood. What’s your name? I’m Jane Gardiner.”

  “I’m Elizabeth Jerrold.”

  “Listen, I don’t mean to butt in,” Jane said, “but don’t be nervous. You’re practically making the bench shake. After all, the world isn’t going to end if Price doesn’t give you a job. Nothing’s that important.”

  “But it is,” Elizabeth said. “For me it is.”

  The door to the office opened again and Kurt Canitz and the blond woman came out. Mr. Canitz had his arm protectively about her, and he ushered her gallantly to the door and said goodbye. Then he sat down and smiled at Sadie and looked slowly around the anteroom. His eyes rested on Jane, on Elizabeth, on a little man in a bowler hat. Sadie picked up a stack of cards and called out, “Gardiner.”

  Jane rose. “That’s me. Well, this is only the fifteenth office I’ve been in today. What’ve I got to lose?”

  Elizabeth watched her as she walked swiftly into the office, shutting the door firmly behind her. Yes, Jane was obviously a person who knew her way around theatrical offices. She had a certain nervous excitement, like every actor waiting to hear about a job, but it was controlled, made into an asset; it gave a shine to her brown eyes, a spring to her step. Elizabeth felt that Jane was dressed correctly, too. She wore a pleated navy blue skirt and a little red jacket. Her hair was very fair, a soft ash blond, and on her head she wore a small red beret. Elizabeth felt forlorn in the other girl’s absence, and suddenly foolish. She herself wore a simple blue denim skirt and white blouse, and she felt that she belonged much more on a college campus than she did in a theatrical office on Forty-second Street in New York. If someone as desirable as Jane had been in fifteen offices that day and still did not have a job, then what was Elizabeth thinking of when she was letting everything in the world depend on whether or not Mr. J. P. Price took her into his summer theatre company?

  But Mr. Price was Elizabeth’s only hope after her twenty letters of inquiry to summer-stock companies. Many of the managers had sent back form letters that offered her opportunities to apprentice—but at a two- or three-hundred-dollar tuition fee. Mr. Price had simply sent her a card telling her to be at his office at one o’clock, April 14, and he would see her then.

  Elizabeth looked around at the dingy anteroom; the buff colored walls were cracked and some of the cracks were partially covered with signed photographs of actors and actresses of whom she had never heard. There were no familiar names like Judith Anderson, Katharine Cornell, Eva Le Gallienne, Ethel Barrymore. The air smelled like stale cigar smoke from the little man in the bowler hat who sat stolidly on a folding chair and surrounded himself with a cloud of heavy fumes.

  Elizabeth noticed Kurt Canitz was writing busily in a small noteb
ook. He looked up and stared directly at her for several seconds, then scribbled something else in the notebook, tore off the page and gave it to Sadie with a radiant smile, and left. Elizabeth wondered what his connection with the theatre was. Was he an actor, a director, perhaps a producer? Certainly he was connected with Mr. Price’s summer company.

  Again the door of the office opened and Jane came out. She grinned at Elizabeth.

  “Did you get a job?” Elizabeth asked eagerly.

  “Well, not exactly the job I went in for, but at this point it’ll do. I’m going as an apprentice, which I swore after last summer I’d never do again, but this time at least it’s a scholarship”

  “Oh, I’m so glad!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “That’s wonderful!”

  “Thanks,” Jane said. “Good luck to you, too.”

  Sadie was looking at her cards. “Jerrold,” she called.

  Elizabeth stood up.

  Jane took her hand. “Good luck,” she said again. “Good luck, really. I hope I’ll see you there.”

  “Thanks,” Elizabeth answered, and went into the office.

  “Well, what can I do for you?” Mr. Price asked, looking Elizabeth up and down until she flinched.

  “You can give me a job,” Elizabeth said, and was surprised at how calm her voice sounded.

  “And what kind of a job are you looking for, my dear?”

  “A job in your summer theatre. As an actress.” Elizabeth felt that her voice sounded flat and colorless; anxiety had wiped out its usual resonance.

  “And what experience have you had? What parts have you played?”

  Elizabeth ignored the first part of his question. “I’ve played Lady Macbeth and Ophelia and I’ve played Hilda Wangel in The Master Builder and Sudermann’s Magda, and the Sphinx in Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine.”

  “A bit on the heavy side, wouldn’t you say?” Mr. Price asked her. “And aren’t you rather young for Lady Macbeth or Magda? How about something more—recent—and perhaps a little gayer?”

  “Well—I’ve played Blanche in Streetcar—oh, I know that’s not very gay, but it’s recent—and—and—I’ve done some Chekhov one-acts. They’re not very recent but they’re gay—”