A Ring of Endless Light

by Madeleine L'engle

  I wasn't going to say so to Adam, but I wasn't about to make the first move.

  Basil nosed tentatively toward me, smiling benignly. Do dolphins ever frown? Very gently, he butted against me.

  And suddenly I was not afraid. As clearly as though the dolphin had spoken to me, I understood that he wanted me to pet him. And I was, as clearly as I can express something that is really unexpressible, out on the other side of fear. I reached out and touched the top of his head, gently patting, then stroking. As I stroked, the eyes, one on each side of his beaming mouth, closed. He wriggled closer to me, and I kept on stroking.

  Adam dove down, almost like a dolphin, and came up on the other side of Basil and me, shaking water from his head and wearing an expression of delight, and, I thought, of surprise. "He likes you. I thought he might."

  I nearly asked, 'What would you have done if he hadn't?' But Basil gave a wriggle that seemed to say, Go on stroking me, so I decided to save all questions till later.

  "Tell me what he feels like to you," Adam urged.

  How can anybody describe the feel of a dolphin? "Something strange, alien," I murmured, "like touching a creature from a different planet--and yet completely familiar, too, as though I've always known what a dolphin feels like. Do you suppose there are planets which are all water, and no land, and only dolphins and fish and no people?"

  "Very likely." Adam was leaning back in the water, comfortably, almost as though he were sitting in a rocking chair. "Go on. What else does he feel like?"

  I kept on stroking. "Like--like a balloon, but a balloon filled with something much heavier than air."

  "What else? Anything familiar?"

  "Like--like a wet inner tube, the kind kids use when they're learning to swim. And--and--what he feels most like is polished pewter, only pewter is rigid. Like resilient pewter."

  "Terrif!" Adam applauded. "Resilient pewter. I like that. Jeb will appreciate that." And he added, "When I tell him."

  The dolphin rolled over.

  "He likes to have his chest scratched."

  But I already knew why Basil had rolled over. I didn't know how I knew, but I knew. And I was no longer in the least afraid. I scratched under Basil's great jaws, and then a little farther down toward his chest, scratched gently, and something a little gritty, like dolphin dandruff--no, that's not right; dolphin pollen--came off on my fingers, but when I raised my hand out of the water there was nothing there, and no odor, either.

  Basil bumped me, the way Ned butts his hard little head against you when he wants you to go on scratching, so I began again, asking, "What keeps coming off on my fingernails?"

  "His skin. As I said, dolphins continually shed skin, and that's likely another reason they can swim faster than we think they ought to be able to, because they don't have the skin resistance to water that we do."

  Again I lifted my hand from the water, but I couldn't see anything, and this time when I stopped scratching, Basil dove down, his great fluke flicking so that again I was drenched in spray, and appeared far beyond us, leaping up in a great and glorious arc before diving down again.

  "He's gone to join his pod," Adam said.

  "Pod?" I was still treading water and feeling more exhilarated than I have ever felt in my life.

  "His--community, you might call it. Hey, Vicky, you were terrific. You were so terrific I can hardly believe it. You exceeded my wildest expectations. Let's swim in. I want to talk." And he turned and headed for shore.

  Leo was a strong swimmer, but Adam's crawl was tidier. There was almost no splash as he cleaved through the water nearly as cleanly as Basil. I followed, not trying to keep up, but doing the Australian crawl because I like the respite of the scissors kick. And I was happy. Sometimes when you're happy you don't realize it till later. But swimming into shore after my meeting with Basil, I was shiningly aware that I was happy.

  Adam was doing cartwheels along the edge of the water. My cartwheels are floppy and inelegant, but his were perfect, as tidy as his swimming, and full of joie de vivre. When I splashed out of the water, he landed on his feet, beaming.

  He led the way to a low dune in the shelter of a scrubby kind of tree. He spread his towel out in the shade, and we sat. He looked at me with his probing look. "Maybe I was taking a risk in having you meet Basil. I didn't tell Jeb I was going to do it, because I was positive he'd have told me not to. A dolphin in a pen is one thing; a dolphin in the wild is another. But I trust Basil. I thought he might ignore you completely, but I knew he wouldn't hurt you. And I did ask John."

  "Has John met Basil?"

  "Yes. But Basil's never stayed with John as long as he did with you--and the very first time, too. He wouldn't come near John the first few times. Are you sure you've never met a dolphin before?"

  "Sure I'm sure. We saw the dolphin show at Sea World, and we went to the petting tank, but it was so crowded we couldn't get near."

  "John thought you might be afraid."

  "I was. Terrified. At first."

  "But you didn't show it, not for a minute."

  "Well--in a funny way Basil reminded me both of Mr. Rochester and Ned."

  "So at least you've always been used to animals?"

  "Sure. But none of them's ever talked to me the way Basil did." As soon as I said that, I realized how peculiar it sounded.

  Adam pounced on it. "What do you mean?"

  I shrugged. There was no way I could explain. "I just--it was just--I knew he was my friend. I knew--I knew how he wanted me to scratch him. It was as though--oh, Adam, I don't know!" I felt totally frustrated that I couldn't put any of what I had felt into reasonable words.

  "Have you read much about dolphins?"

  "No."

  "Has John talked to you much about them?"

  "No. John's thing has always been space and astrophysics. And this summer he's talked about starfish some, but he always gets back to cosmology and dimensionless numbers and mass energy and stuff that's way over my head."

  "How about your hearing?"

  "My hearing? It's okay."

  "I mean, did you hear Basil when you were petting him?"

  I thought for a moment. "I don't remember. It was more like knowing what he wanted than hearing it. Though he was sort of chirruping, wasn't he?"

  Adam had a twig and was drawing triangles in the sand. "When dolphins talk with each other, a great many of their sounds are supersonic, way beyond human range."

  "Like birds?"

  "Somewhat. And when Una and Nini are trying to communicate with Jeb they lower their sounds to within human range. Which shows consideration as well as intelligence. I was wondering about your hearing range."

  "I can't hear birds any better than anybody else, so I guess it's just normal."

  Adam broke his twig into small pieces. "If I'd been an objective observer this morning, I'd have said that you'd probably been in close contact with dolphins for years. I might even think you were lying to me, if it wasn't for John."

  "Why would I lie?"

  "You wouldn't," he assured me. "Let's dress and I'll take you along to the cafeteria. The food's horrendous, but you can't do much to ruin a hot dog." He ran swiftly to the hard sand near the water, stood on his head, balanced himself, and began waving his legs in great semaphore Vs.

  He gave a little flip and landed on his feet. "Hey, Vicky--you can mention it to John, but I'd rather you didn't to anybody else."

  I wanted to tell the entire world about my encounter with Basil.

  But Adam said, "I'm going to tell Jeb, even if he yells at me after the fact. Basil is my special project for this summer, and Jeb's pretty well given me free rein. I report to him, but he doesn't make suggestions. He leaves it all to me." He grinned. "That's how I justified not telling him I was going to take you to meet Basil. So, for my project's sake, I really have to limit Basil to you and John."

  I thought about Suzy, and her passion for animals, and what it would mean to her to stroke a dolphin. And at the same instant I f
elt a surge of jealousy when I thought Basil might prefer Suzy to me.

  "You're thinking about your sister, aren't you?" Adam asked.

  I looked at him in surprise. "How'd you know?"

  "Last night she was pretty obvious about wanting to come over to the lab. After Ynid's had her baby I'll bring Suzy over to see all the dolphins in the pens."

  "And Rob."

  "Sure. Rob, too."

  "I was feeling mean about Suzy," I said. "I didn't really want to have to share Basil with her. Suzy's--"

  "Suzy's what?"

  "I don't think I'm an idiot or a freak or anything, but Suzy did better in the Austin gene pool than I did."

  "You're out of your mind," Adam said. "Suzy's got plenty going for her, you're right, but it's all out there, on the surface. I prefer to dig for gold. Let's go eat. The thing is, Victoria Austin, that I had a hunch you could help me with my dolphin project, and my hunch was more than right." He turned another cartwheel. "I'm glad you and Basil got along."

  "So'm I."

  The cafeteria was as bad as Adam said.

  He looked at me and made a ferocious grimace. "Did I tell you they couldn't do much to ruin a hot dog? Wrong again. This is pure plastic."

  He was right. "Is this where you eat all the time?"

  "Where else? John and I don't get paid enough even to eat at a hamburger joint. Food is part of our pay check."

  "But John comes home for dinner. Is it this bad in the evening?"

  Adam smeared mustard and catsup on his hot dog. "I'm not writing home about the cuisine."

  I looked around at the white-coated people sitting at the tables. Some were reading, some talking intently. Nobody seemed to be paying much attention to the food. I didn't see John. "Adam, how did you get to know Basil? I mean, he didn't just swim up to you and introduce himself, did he?"

  "Getting to know Basil--or at least a bottle-nosed dolphin--was part of my project. Commander Rodney gave me the use of one of the small Coast Guard launches, and I'd go out to sea and then cut the motor and float there. Quite often I'd see dolphins playing at a distance, but they didn't come near me and I was about to give up and think I'd wasted all that time and energy for nothing. And then one afternoon Basil's pod came over to investigate."

  I leaned on my elbows. "What'd you do?"

  "Nothing much. I talked to them. And then--maybe you'll think it's wacky--but I sang to them."

  "What'd you sing?"

  "Oh, anything that came into my mind. Folk songs and rock and country--and then I talked to them again, and they made noises at me and then they all dove down and that was that."

  It was easy for me to imagine Adam singing to a pod of dolphins in the same nice strong baritone I'd heard him use the night before. I liked the image. "And then what?"

  "Then I came on back to the lab. And went out again the next day. No luck. They came again the third day, and then they began coming regularly. As soon as I'd cut the engine, they'd come over to me. And then I began to reach out to pet them, and, as you saw, Basil likes to have his chest scratched. One afternoon I was scratching him and--well, I'm sure he did it on purpose. I had to lean further and further out to reach him and suddenly I fell in."

  "Were you scared?"

  "It was so sudden I didn't have time to be scared. The others didn't come near me, only Basil. And that's how it began."

  I shivered with pleasure.

  A hand came down on my shoulder and I turned around and there was John, looking relieved. "You're okay."

  "Sure. Oh, John, it was--I can't tell you how exciting it was."

  "Okay," John said. "I'm glad it was exciting. But I've felt anxious ever since I told Adam he could take you out to meet Basil."

  "Basil didn't hurt you, did he?" I demanded.

  "No, but--"

  "Cut it, you two," Adam said. "Vicky made a big hit with Basil. Are you sure you didn't tell her anything about him, John?"

  John and I both started to protest, indignantly.

  Adam apologized, "Sorry, sorry. Vicky just acted as though she'd been palling around with dolphins all her life."

  John pulled out a chair. "Are you through, or shall I join you?"

  "We're going to have ice cream. So join us. But don't have a hot dog."

  "What else?"

  "Ham and cheese?"

  "They leave the plastic wrapping on both the ham and the cheese. Maybe I'll have a BLT."

  "You won't find much B and the T won't be ripe and the L will be wilted."

  "You can't win." John went off to get in line. Adam took our tray.

  I felt relaxed and happy and definitely older than not-quite-sixteen. I liked this world in which John and Adam were living. I liked the fact that Adam was pleased and surprised at Basil's reaction to me.

  Adam and John came back. Adam said, "Dr. Nutteley approved of Vicky."

  "But he didn't say anything--"

  "If he hadn't approved, he'd have said something. He sizes people up in less than a second. And you're part of my experiment, Vicky. John doesn't have the time to give--Dr. Nora's a hard taskmaster--and anyhow, you and Basil quite obviously tune in to each other. Can you come again?"

  "I'd love to come again. As long as Mother doesn't need me to help with Grandfather."

  "Dad told me he'd asked you not to take a job this summer so you can help out at home. But he didn't mean you couldn't ever get away."

  "I can't think of anything I'd like better than being part of Adam's experiment."

  "You're a good kid, Vic." John isn't one for giving compliments and I could feel myself flushing. "It's easiest for me, with my job keeping me busy and out of the house all day. I think Suzy's an idiot for not taking the job at the Woods', which would have paid her better than anything else she can get, but she'll get something, probably helping Jacky Rodney service the launch and being general girl Friday."

  "Well, Suzy loves boats and machines and things like that."

  "Sure," John said, "and it will give her a legitimate reason to make herself scarce around home."

  I put down my ice-cream spoon. I'm the one John usually criticizes, not Suzy.

  As though reading my mind, he said, "I'm not criticizing Suze. She has a healthy sense of self-preservation. And that's okay. If Nora wants me to stay late and do some extra work, I don't protest that I ought to get home to help out. So what I'm getting at is that it's you and Mother who have to be available for Grandfather."

  "And Rob," I added.

  "Sure. And Rob. But Rob has his own special way of handling the--oh, I guess you might call them major life problems."

  "And I don't?"

  "You're pretty vulnerable, Sis."

  Adam said, "But that's one of the nicest things about her. It means she's very much alive."

  I smiled him my thanks.

  John nodded. "I'm pretty miffed that Basil took to Vicky faster than he did to me. But, Vic--you're the one Mother's going to need to lean on. Did you see the look in her eyes last night when Grandfather forgot, and called you Victoria?"

  Adam spoke gently. "He's had his threescore years and ten and quite a bit more, Vicky. It's never easy, but it's comprehensible when someone has had a full life, like your grandfather."

  I said slowly, "I don't want to be like those Immortalists in California, wanting to live forever, and going in for cryonics ..."

  "What's that?" Adam asked.

  I looked at John and he told him, and I loved John because he didn't use it as an excuse to demolish Zachary. He ended, "I think it's easier to understand Commander Rodney, buried here on the Island, than Mrs. Grey, frozen in California."

  "When Grandfather--" I started, and could not go on.

  "What Grandfather wants, and what Mother wants for him"--John's voice was level--"is to have it all as simple as possible. A plain pine box, and he'll be at the church, not in a funeral parlor, and be buried next to our grandmother. He says they'll be good for the land. That's a lot better than freezing him, trying to
hold on to something which isn't there."

  "You mean you agree with Zachary, and when you die it's nada, nada, nada?"

  "No, Vicky, I didn't say that at all. But whatever it is, it won't be anything we can understand or talk about in the language of laboratory proof." He took his tray and stood up. "I've got to get back to work. Nora's waiting. Adam?"

  "I'll walk Vicky out to her bike. Then I'm going to go report to Jeb."

  John left from one door of the cafeteria, Adam and I from the other. We walked without talking till we came to the bike stand.

  Then he said, "It's been a good morning for me, Vicky."

  I was still feeling choky. "For me, too."

  Adam gave me his probing look, the look I was beginning to think of as his scientist-looking-through-a-microscope look. "Have you cried about your grandfather?"

  "I'm not sure." I didn't feel free to tell him about crying with Leo. But surely my tears had been as much for Grandfather as for Commander Rodney.

  Adam took both my hands in his, a firm, warm grasp. "It's hard to let go anything we love. We live in a world which teaches us to clutch. But when we clutch we're left with a fistful of ashes."

  I wanted to clutch Adam's hands, but I didn't. I withdrew mine, slowly. "I guess I have a lot to learn about that."

  "At the end of the summer, when I go back to California, I'll have to say goodbye to Basil. That's not going to be easy. Maybe Basil will be able to teach us both something about letting go."

  I thought of the great, smiling mouth, and the lovely feeling of resilient pewter as I scratched Basil's chest. "If anybody can teach us, Basil can."

  Five

  I biked along slowly, partly because it was uphill almost all the way to the stable, and partly because I wanted to hold on to the morning, not the troubling conversation in the cafeteria, but feeding Una and Nini, and seeing Ynid, who was going to have a baby.

  And meeting Basil.

  Meeting Basil was so special that it colored the entire day.

  And somehow meeting Basil made a difference to how I felt about Adam. The strange thing was that, while I felt excited about Basil, I felt comfortable with Adam, comfortable in a strengthening way, a way that made me feel that growing up and becoming an adult was not so terrible, even though we grow up and sooner or later we die; sooner, like Commander Rodney, or at the traditional threescore and ten like Grandfather.