The Prince of Tides

by Pat Conroy

  Renata Halpern lives in Brooklyn, New York, and works in the library of Brooklyn College. The poem in this issue is her first published poem. Her children’s book, The Southern Way, was published by Random House last year. She is currently at work on a collection of poems.

  When the salesman handed me the book in the children’s section of the Scribner Book Store, I trembled only slightly. There was no photograph of the author on the back jacket, and the illustration on the front pictured three young girls on a dock, feeding seagulls. Behind the three girls, far off against a horizon of trees, was a small white house identical to the one in which I grew up. Even the placement of the barn was the same and the odd number of windows across the front of the house.

  I opened the book, read the first page, and knew, beyond any doubt, that the prose was written by Savannah.

  That I had stumbled on something invaluable and essential I had no doubt, but the discovery left me far more baffled than enlightened. Savannah’s merger with Renata seemed to be another form of evasion to me, one more way to circumnavigate the island instead of gathering the materials for a landing craft to storm ashore. I went directly to Eddie Detreville’s apartment and knocked loudly at the door.

  When Eddie answered he said, “Dinner’s at eight, sweetheart. You’re only four hours early. But do come in.”

  “Okay, Eddie,” I said as I entered his apartment and fell heavily on his Victorian couch. “You’ve been holding back on me.”

  “Indeed,” he said sardonically. “Let me fix you a drink and then you can tell me the secrets Uncle Eddie is withholding. How about a martini?”

  “Who is Renata, Eddie?” I asked as he made the drink at the bar. “And why haven’t you told me about her before?”

  “There’s a very good reason why I haven’t told you about her before,” he answered with maddening equanimity. “I have never heard of any creature named Renata.”

  “You’re lying, Eddie. She’s a friend of Savannah’s whose name Savannah feels free to use in signing her own work.”

  “Then please introduce her to me. I’d love to meet her. Here’s your drink, Tom. I suggest you take a good hard swallow, let the alcohol enter the bloodstream, then explain why you’re so mad at me.”

  “Because there’s no way you could not know Renata. I mean, she must have come up to visit Savannah. They must hang out together a lot and I’m sure Savannah would have told you about this wonderful new friend of hers. She wouldn’t take on a new name without there being some powerful connection.”

  “Savannah and I find it unnecessary to visit each other’s boudoirs, Tom. For reasons that even you can understand.”

  I opened the Seth Low memory book to the photograph of Renata and asked, “Have you ever seen this woman, Eddie? At the mailbox, or waiting for the elevator?”

  He studied the photograph for a few minutes, then shook his head and said, “No, I’ve never seen her before in my life. Cute, though. A shame she’s female.”

  “This photo was taken over twenty years ago. Think hard, Eddie. The face would be older now. Maybe she has gray hair by now. Wrinkles.”

  “I’ve never seen anyone who looks like that, Tom.”

  “What about this book?” I said, handing him the children’s book. “I think Savannah wrote this book. Has Savannah ever showed you this book?”

  “I don’t read many children’s books, Tom,” he said. “You may not have noticed, but I’m forty-two years old. I must look younger in this dim light. Thank the Lord for rheostats.”

  “So you’re claiming that your best friend, Savannah, did not ever show you this book?”

  “Yes, Sherlock. That’s what I’m claiming.”

  “I don’t believe you, Eddie. I simply don’t believe you.”

  “And I’m not the least bit interested whether you believe me or not. Why would I lie to you, Tom?”

  “To protect my sister.”

  “Protect her from what, darling?”

  “You know, maybe she’s having a lesbian relationship with Renata and you think I couldn’t handle that kind of information.”

  “Tom,” he said, “I would be charmed, perfectly charmed, if she was having a lesbian relationship, and I wouldn’t care one bit if you could handle that information or not. But please do me the honor of believing me when I tell you I know nothing of Renata or this book.”

  “I don’t know. I just thought you could explain this whole weird thing to me. I’m so used to Savannah being fucked up, Eddie, that it scares the hell out of me when I get some inkling that she might be even more fucked up than I ever thought possible.”

  “These last years have been horrible for her. She hasn’t even wanted to see me much in that time, Tom. Frankly, we haven’t had that much to do with each other. Only when my fickle lover took off in search of younger bodies. Then she was a princess. She’s always wonderful when a friend is in a crisis.”

  “So are you, Eddie. I’ll be back at eight. What’s for dinner?”

  “There are two lobsters shivering and depressed in my refrigerator. I will be forced to murder them; then, I will force you to eat what I have slain.”

  “Bless you, Eddie. And I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  “It added piquancy to an otherwise boring day,” he said.

  In Savannah’s apartment, I picked up the receiver of the phone and dialed information. When the operator answered, I said, “I would like the number of a Halpern family who resides, or used to, at Twenty-four-oh-three Sixty-fifth Street in Brooklyn.”

  “You got a first name?” the operator asked.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t. This is an old grade school friend. I don’t even know if she still lives there.”

  “I have a Sigmund Halpern at that address. The number is 2-3-2-7-3-2-1.”

  I dialed the number. On the fourth ring, a woman answered.

  “Hello. Is this Mrs. Halpern?”

  “It could be. Then again, it couldn’t be,” she answered in a suspicious Eastern European accent. “So, who’s calling?”

  “Mrs. Halpern, this is Sidney Rosen. I don’t know if you remember me, but I was president of Renata’s junior high school class.”

  “Of course, I remember you, Sidney. Renata used to talk about nothing but Sidney Rosen. She had quite a thing about you, but, as you know, she was so shy.”

  “I’m calling to ask how Renata is, Mrs. Halpern. I’m looking up some of the old gang in the neighborhood and I always was curious about what happened to Renata.”

  There was no answer, none at all.

  “Mrs. Halpern, are you there?”

  She was crying and it took several moments before she could form the words. “You haven’t heard then, Sidney?”

  “Heard what, Mrs. Halpern?”

  “Sidney, she’s dead. Two years ago, Renata killed herself by jumping in front of a subway train in the East Village. She had been so depressed. We tried everything to help her, but nothing worked. Our hearts are broken.”

  “She was a wonderful girl, Mrs. Halpern. I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you so much. She looked up to you, Sidney.”

  “Please tell Mr. Halpern how sorry I am.”

  “I will. It was so kind of you to call. It would have pleased Renata so much. You’re the only one from her class that’s ever called. That’s enough.”

  “Goodbye, Mrs. Halpern. And good luck to you. I’m so sorry. Renata was such a sweet girl.”

  “But so sad, Sidney, so very sad.”

  I hung up the phone and instantly called Susan Lowenstein’s number. After three rings, Susan answered herself.

  “Dr. Lowenstein,” I said, “we’re not talking about my family tomorrow.”

  “Why, Tom. What’s wrong?”

  “Tomorrow you’re going to tell me all about the Queen of Hearts, Renata Halpern.”

  “We’ll talk about it,” she said.

  I hung up the phone and opened the children’s book once again. This time I read slowly and took
scrupulous notes.

  The Southern Way

  BY R. HALPERN

  On an island off the coast of South Carolina a black-haired mother lived alone with her three brown-haired daughters. The mother’s name was Blaise McKissick, and she was beautiful in that quiet way that pleases children when they are very small. Blaise had passed this gift generously to her three daughters and their faces looked like three different varieties of the same flower.

  Blaise’s husband, Gregory, was lost at sea during a storm at the beginning of June. He had gone off to the Gulf Stream to fish for albacore and dolphin and had simply not returned. When he failed to come home, Blaise alerted the Coast Guard and her townsmen put off in a much smaller boat in search of her husband. For two weeks every boat in the county searched the Atlantic, with all its coves and bays and inlets, hoping to find some trace of Gregory McKissick or his craft. Each night, the three girls awaited their mother at the dock, awaited her in sunlight and in rain, watching her emerge out of the mists that arose in the cooling air.

  After the fourteenth day with no sign and no reason for hope, the search was abandoned and Gregory was declared dead. They had a funeral service, and as was the custom among the fishermen of the village, they buried Gregory McKissick in an empty coffin beneath the oak tree near the white house. The whole town turned out for the funeral. Small towns have good hearts.

  But after the funeral, the townsmen, their wives and children, went back to their lives and their homes. The white house on the island was silent, where once it had been a house of laughter. Each night the girls would watch as their mother went out to visit the grave. The air around the grave smelled like their mother’s dressing table where she kept crystal vials and mysterious scents. She would always sit at that table before she went to visit her husband. Her passage through the house was always fragrant and sad. But more troubling to her daughters was the fact that their mother had stopped speaking after her husband’s death. When they talked to her, she smiled and tried to speak, but could not.

  Soon they became accustomed to silence, and they grieved for their father in the same way. When they did talk to one another, it was always in whispers. They felt the sound of their voices reminded their mother of when their father was alive. They did not wish to add to her sadness. The days passed and they passed wordlessly.

  The three girls were as different from one another as it was possible to be. Rose McKissick was the oldest, the prettiest, and the most talkative. The silence of the house troubled her the most, but so did the death of her father. She had known him the longest and had been his special favorite, since she had been born first. It was not easy for her to stop talking about anything that came into her mind. She wanted to talk about her father, to fix in her mind exactly where heaven was and what her father would be doing there and if anyone thought he had had time to talk to God and what they would talk about. But there was no one to ask and it made her afraid. She was twelve and her breasts were beginning to grow and she wanted to discuss this astonishing fact with her mother. She wanted to understand what it meant. She also wanted to ask her mother why it was so easy to forget her father’s face. Already, Rose was finding it difficult remembering it exactly as it was. Sometimes, when she slept, she could see it clearly. He would be laughing and holding her, telling her one of his silly jokes and tickling her ribs. Behind him she could see storm clouds moving toward them and she knew one of those clouds contained the terrible cutlery of light that would kill her father. Dark clouds were enemies of the McKissick children now and Rose lived in a house that feared storms. But for her, particularly, it was difficult to learn to be happy in a house of silence.

  Lindsay McKissick had never had any trouble being quiet. She had received this gift at birth and had nurtured it wisely through her ten years. Like her mother, she measured every word before she spoke. It was not even a habit. As she explained it after thinking about it for a long time, “That’s just the kind of girl I am.” Besides, she said, “Who can talk when Rose is around anyhow?” Even when she was an infant she hadn’t cried often. She had a serenity that both troubled and attracted adults. Grownups always suspected that she was judging them and finding them ridiculous. They were usually right. She found adults both too large and too loud. She was perfectly happy being a child and taking her time about things. She worried that she had taken too much time with her father and that he had died without knowing how much she loved him. This knowledge troubled her and helped make a naturally quiet girl even more withdrawn and introspective. She would lie in the hammock in the front yard and stare out at the river. Her blue eyes looked fierce and seemed to burn with the fury of pure water or wildflowers in storm. But there was no fury there. Only the love of a father she would never see again, a father who did not know her and never would.

  Sharon McKissick was eight years old and felt the full weight of being the youngest. She thought that no one in her family ever took her seriously because she was so small and fragile. Everyone had called her “Baby” McKissick until she was six and reminded everyone that she had a name and it was Sharon. No one had taken the time to explain her father’s death to her because they thought she was too little to understand. On the day of her father’s funeral, her mother had come to her room and in a trembling voice told her that her father had gone to sleep. She had made her mother cry by answering, “For how long?” So she had been afraid to ask any more questions. She had watched the grass grow over her father’s grave. At first it was a few blades coming out of the earth, then one day, it was all green, like a pretty bedspread covering the place where he was sleep ing. She could see her father’s grave from her window and it bothered her at night that he might be lonely. When the wind would rise off the river, she would climb from her bed and gaze out the window toward his grave. In moonlight, she could see it, though it seemed to have nothing to do with her father. She tried to imagine angels gathering around his tombstone, helping him survive the solitude of the windswept night. But nothing helped and she vowed to herself if she ever had an eight-year-old, that child would know everything there was about life, death, and everything in between. She would show them all when she was nine. At nine, they would listen to her and she certainly had some things to say.

  The island was called Yemassee after the tribe of Indians who lived there before the white men came and took it away. Before he died, Gregory McKissick would tell his daughters the stories of the phantom tribe who still roamed the forests at night. You could still hear the chief cry out when the owl hooted in the trees. The women gossiped when the cicadas screamed in the forest surrounding the house. The Indian children rode on the backs of the deer who wandered the island in silent herds. But there were no Indians on the island, only arrowheads, which would surface each spring when their father plowed the rich acres in the center of the island. They were like prayers tossed up for the dead. Each of the girls had her own private collection of arrowheads, tokens of extinction gathered by pale-faced girls. But their father told them that the tribes ad survived in the lowcountry of South Carolina because of words. Some of the Indian’s language survived, in fragments, in symmetrical forms, like arrowheads, like razor-sharp poems. “Yemassee,” their father said. “Yemassee and Kiawah. Combahee,” he whispered. “Combahee and Edisto and Wando and Yemassee.” The girls grew up on the island fluent in arrowheads and the lost words of tribes.

  Each of the girls thought about their father when they studied their personal collections of arrowheads. The tribes were extinct, but so was their father. He had left no arrowheads for them to remember him by. If only they were quiet enough, they would hear his voice again. He would come as an owl or a mockingbird or a hawk. They would hear him again. They would see him. They were sure. They knew. Shamans had worked magic on these islands, their father had told them. They would look for their father riding on the backs of deer or sitting on the backs of the great green dolphins who played in the streaming tides beside their island.

  They believed in m
agic, these girls, and they found it. Each of them, alone, in her own time, in her own way, in her own world, found it. Because they were watchful and silent.

  Rose found it one day as she was patching a bird’s wing in her animal hospital. She had founded her hospital when she discovered the puppies of a wild dog who was killed one night, run over by her father’s truck. She had taken the puppies, fed them with an eyedropper, and raised them to be proper house pets with good manners. When they were old enough, she placed them in proper homes with people who knew how to appreciate well-trained dogs. That was only the beginning. She found that the whole kingdom of nature seemed to require her services. Baby squirrels and birds were constantly falling out of their nests. Hunters, shooting out of season, would kill mother possums and raccoons, leaving the babies to starve to death in the hidden places. Something always led her to these trees and stumps where the orphans awaited the return of their parents. She would walk in the forest and hear voices calling to her, “A little further, Rose. A little to the left, Rose. Near the pond, Rose.” She would follow these voices. She could not help it. She knew how it felt to be abandoned. She discovered she possessed a gift to cure, to soothe the fright of small creatures, to comfort the wounded. None of this surprised her. What did surprise her was that she could speak to all of them when they were in her care. She saw a fox in the river, wounded, pursued by hounds, swimming toward Yemassee Island. The fox’s blood stained the water and trailed behind him like a banner. The hounds were almost on him when the fox looked up and saw Rose watching from the shore.

  “Help me,” the fox said.

  There was a strange murmuring in her throat, something inhuman and unnatural. “Stop,” Rose commanded the hounds.

  The dogs looked up startled. “This is our job.”

  “Not today. Return to your master.”

  “It is Rose,” said one of the hounds.