He thought of the scene late in the poem in which a haggard old woman has cast a spell upon the poet; left to wander in a thick mangrove forest, he can no longer remember his beloved’s name, can no longer construct in his head even a single feature of her face or hands. He knows that he is racked with loneliness but can’t remember who it is he longs to be with, so when his beloved finally discovers him resting by the bank where three rivers meet, he runs away despite her protestations of love, believing she is the old woman in disguise. He later discovers that the old woman had in fact been his beloved, that she had been under her own miserable spell, one that stripped from her both her youth and her beauty until the poet returned, as indeed he would, to forgive her for stealing his memory.
Was there not a message in this for Henry? It now seemed possible to him—he was now willing to believe—that some divine, inscrutable force had been guiding him, that the life he had wrecked and then abandoned could, if he somehow managed to discern a proper path, if he could figure out exactly what he should do next, be restored to him. Was that what all his dreams of wandering had been about? Was it possible that he had been meant all along to undertake this journey, to rid himself of his every possession just as the young Buddha had done before achieving enlightenment?
Amy, he thought, where are you now?
And he imagined her magically hearing his voice, following the echo of his words across the mountains, through the woods, down below the earth. He imagined her following the echo and finding this motel, stepping into this dark room, kneeling before this cot, whispering, I’m here, Henry, I’m here.
Why couldn’t his life, his story, be as triumphant as the work Latangi’s husband had created? Why couldn’t he and Amy, hero and heroine, be reunited through the wonders of mystery and magic and improbable grace? Oh, Amy, where are you now? he would say, and she would answer, I am here, Henry. I have been here all along. You simply had to call for me. You simply had to remember.
Oh God. What a lousy hero he was, the lousiest anyone could ever imagine: a coward and a lunatic and a fool. He was no hero at all, in fact; he was a man who had left his wife, who had thrown his money away on nothing, on an abandoned grocery store, who had endlessly dreamed not of peace or grace or redemption but of wandering and seduction, who had conjured a girl from thin air, molded her purely from the coarsest clay, an adolescent boy’s version of mystery and allure: peppermint breath and petite pointy breasts and tiny hands to wrap around his cock and guide him up between her legs and shove him inside her, a girl with dark curly hair cascading across her face as she whispered and moaned with seductive schoolgirl pleasure.
What girl, what woman, would ever want such a man?
He thought of Don Quixote, but of course he hadn’t actually read Don Quixote, so what he saw was not whatever figure Miguel de Cervantes had created but the gaunt and craggy Peter O’Toole in Man of La Mancha, sword in hand, proudly perched on his old mare. Henry had seen the movie with Amy at the Prytania. She’d leaned her head on his shoulder as Peter O’Toole, face caked with absurd makeup to create the illusion of age, sang “Dulcinea,” as Sophia Loren spit and cursed at the old lecher but then, moved by his strange, sad protestations of love, by his pathetic romantic ardor, listened to the words: I have sought thee, sung thee, dreamed thee, Dulcinea. And Amy had held his hand as if they were teenagers, as if he were the one singing to her.
But no matter his infirmity, his delusions, his foolishness, Don Quixote possessed a noble and loving heart, a regal bearing. Henry did not. He possessed nothing.
No. He now possessed this manuscript, this beautiful remarkable epic entitled The Creator’s Mistress. Couldn’t he deliver this work to Amy, offering it as it had been offered to him: by sheer chance, by blind good fortune? Had he ever believed until now that a life could be changed by a story? Wasn’t that what the English teacher guiding his students through a novel was supposed to believe? And the hysterical pastor, the ecstatic congregation, they believed it as well—that a story, a single story, could possess such power that as a result of its telling, of its words being pronounced, a life would be transformed.
How absurd to imagine that in a single empty room of a rural Virginia motel, such a story, a manuscript wrapped in colored thread, would be waiting in a drawer for a sad and lonely and pathetic man to discover it. But isn’t that precisely how such extraordinary stories always unfolded, a great work rescued from oblivion, salvaged by a wayfarer, a nomad, a hermit?
Couldn’t he just find Amy and say again that he was sorry? Couldn’t he tell her that now, finally, once and for all, he understood how very much he had hurt her, how much he had given up when he’d left?
Couldn’t he offer to her Mohit’s poem? Read this, he could say. It is the story of my love, of love itself, of a love lost and regained, of a life restored.
The words had been waiting for him. Could they not, then, be waiting for Amy as well?
Our story, he could say to her.
And what would she say to him? How would she answer? Would she declare, once again, that he was a fool?
And his sister? How desperate Mary must be. By now, she had to be certain that he was dead, that he had failed to leave and had drowned, alone. Had she already begun to grieve, to forgive him, to think back over their strange, sad childhood? He thought of the time she had stayed out late one Saturday night and come home to discover her mother, still awake, sitting up in bed. Angry, threatening, she had said, “Where were you, Mary Claire? Tell me this very minute where you were.”
“You know where I was, Mama. I told you,” Mary said. “I was babysitting. I was at the Broussards’.”
“You were not at the Broussards’!” her mother shouted with such certainty, such anger, that Henry, overhearing this exchange from his bedroom, had rushed to his mother’s room and stood in the doorway, sure that Mary’s lie had finally been discovered.
“I was,” Mary said quietly, and Henry could hear the fear in her voice, the same pleading tone she’d used when he’d first learned what she was doing. She did not turn around, so he did not know if she even realized he was there.
“Well, I’ll tell you this. Mr. Broussard called the house,” her mother said to Mary. “He called here tonight. He said he hadn’t seen you in weeks.”
Oh God, Henry thought, confused. He called. How could he have called?
But he saw Mary’s shoulders relax, saw her step toward her mother and climb next to her on the bed. “He didn’t call, Mama,” she said, running her hand through her mother’s graying hair, tucking the loose strands behind her ear. “You know he didn’t call. I was there tonight. They went out.” She sat up now and held her mother’s hand. “They went to a dinner party. Some politician’s birthday, I think. There might be something about it tomorrow in the paper. It was at the Peristyle in City Park. Mrs. Broussard said there was a lovely string quartet and paper lanterns. She said she and Mr. Broussard danced and danced all night until their feet were sore.”
Mary continued to stroke her mother’s hair but looked over at Henry. He nodded and stepped away from the door without saying anything. How was it, he wondered, that even though he knew this family did not exist, he had nevertheless believed for a moment that Mr. Broussard had called, had spoken to his mother? She had sounded so angry, so certain. Had she suspected that Mary had been lying about something but had no idea what the lie was and so had tried this bluff? Or had she truly believed that Mr. Broussard had called? Had she been swept up into the lie simply because she had wanted to believe that lives like the Broussards’ were possible, that her daughter could indeed enter the constellation of such shimmering stars?
It was only a few weekends later, though, that Mary came home and told her mother that the Broussards were moving away, that Mr. Broussard had gotten word that he was being transferred. She said that he couldn’t tell her where they were going, that they would return to New Orleans someday but didn’t know when that would be. And Mary had pretended to cry an
d had let herself be comforted by her mother. “You’re going to miss them so,” her mother had said, holding on to Mary, and Mary had nodded and continued to cry, an act so convincing that her mother had begun to cry as well.
He hadn’t understood what Mary was doing, why she had devised an end to her story, but now, so many years later, lying on this metal cot, with the images from Mohit’s poem racing through his head, Henry believed that he did finally understand. Mary had no doubt become afraid of the story she had invented, afraid of the power it had gained over not just her mother but her own mind, her own imagination. She hadn’t pretended to be sad that the Broussards were leaving, he now realized; her tears, her weeping, had not been a performance. They were real; it had all become real to her.
His eyes were closed, but he heard the rumble of thunder outside, and then, a few moments later, the rain begin to fall. He heard it striking the low, flat roof of the motel and the parking-lot pavement. He heard the metallic ringing of the gutters, the rainwater rushing down, spilling out. He imagined the storm—perhaps the final vestiges of the hurricane—sweeping up from the South, the clouds stretched across the mountains like a dark sheet. He opened his eyes, and he felt the emptiness of the room. The girl Clarissa Nash was gone, and she would not, he now understood, come back, just as the ghost of his father playing the bass had not come back.
No, this was different. He had called out for his father, had lain in bed and closed his eyes and prayed that he would return. The girl, though, would not come back because he would not summon her again, would not ask again for that absurd, ghostly seduction. He wanted Amy, wanted his wife here at his side—no one else. Nothing else. Could it be that simple?
Then he slept. He slept and, for the first time in months and months, did not dream, did not have to fend off desire, did not have to wander aimlessly from one place to another, did not have to listen to his own voice spouting nonsense. He slept and woke up feeling restored to himself, clearheaded. How could it be that it was all this simple?
And that very day, beginning in the morning and stretching out until late afternoon, he watched in dumb astonishment as there arrived at the motel, at the door to his room and inside the office and even out front near the highway, one gift after another: shirts and pants and jackets and shoes and ties, bags of razor blades and shampoo and cologne and toothpaste, a clock radio and a toaster oven, paperback books and a stack of yellow legal pads and a box of pencils, a miniature refrigerator stocked with cans of iced tea and ginger ale and Dr Pepper, boxes of cereal and granola bars, bags of potato chips, cans of soup and baked beans, three tall plastic plants in ceramic pots, a red toolbox with a hammer and screwdriver and wrench, a teddy bear with a note pinned to its chest that said Get well soon!, a fishing rod, a backpack, a reading lamp, a wooden rocking chair, two folding beach chairs, a folding TV table, a folding card table, three rolls of quarters rubber-banded together, a handwritten gift certificate for a meal at What a Blessing, all brought by men and women and children waving shyly at Henry, haltingly stepping toward him and handing over whatever they’d brought—an ice chest, a thermos, a twenty-dollar bill—the adults shaking his hand and wishing him good luck, saying they were truly sorry for his loss, saying they understood what it meant to be down on your luck, saying they were ashamed at what the government was allowing to happen down there in Louisiana and Mississippi and the whole Gulf Coast and couldn’t they just send in every soldier or National Guardsman and rescue those poor starving and scalded and thirsty folks, and Henry saying, Thank you, thank you so much for everything, and Yes, I wish they would just do something soon, I’m sure they will, I’m sure it will end, and Thank you so very much for your generosity and kindness.
And then, when Henry was sure there couldn’t possibly be anything else, a final gift: an old, dusty, rusted, dented pale blue pickup truck, with Marge beaming in the driver’s seat, honking the horn to summon Henry from his room, a Baltimore Orioles baseball cap perched ridiculously on her mop of tight blond curls.
“For you, Henry,” Marge said, leaning out the window, giddily banging her hand against the door. “It’s not a beauty, I know, but it hasn’t been stolen either.”
Marge jumped out like she was leaping from a horse and handed the keys to Henry. “Now, you can’t go too far with it,” she said, and she walked Henry around to the back of the truck. She pointed to the license plate, which said Farm Use Only. “It’s a thirty-mile limit or something like that, Jim Ponton said. But maybe that’ll be far enough for now. He said you could use it as long as you like.” She led Henry to the front of the truck and patted the hood as if she were coaxing a nervous dog not to bark. “Maybe it will be good anyway for you to have a few days more before deciding what, where, and when.”
“Maybe it will,” Henry said. “And all these gifts, Marge. The food and clothes and everything.”
“Folks just want to help,” she said, and she looked out to the highway as a white van turned into the parking lot. “I know it’s too much. I know it is. But that’s what folks here do.”
The van pulled into a spot. The man driving put the window down and stretched his arm out and waved.
“That’s Charlie,” Marge said.
Henry waved and called out hello. Charlie waved back and then looked away, leaning forward as if he were busy searching for a station on the radio.
“He won’t get out,” Marge said. “He’ll just sit there like a bump on a log till we’re done talking, but he won’t get out.”
“That’s fine,” Henry said.
“Usually, I’d just make him wait awhile, stew in his own juices.” She looked over at her husband and held up a finger to let him know she’d be there in a minute. He saw her and nodded. “But he drove all the way out to the Pontons and then followed me back here. He’s lost half a day’s work.”
“You go ahead,” Henry said. “I don’t know what to say.”
Marge held her arms out, and Henry stepped into her embrace. “You’re going to get yourself better,” she said, “then you’re going to set about fixing all that’s gone awry.”
“I don’t know about that,” Henry said, feeling Marge release him from her grip.
“Oh, yes, you will,” Marge said. “Like it or not, I’ve made you my own personal project.”
Henry laughed. “A reclamation project.”
“That’s right,” Marge said. “One hundred percent.”
“That’s a big job.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Marge said. She looked over at her husband again.
“Will you thank him for me?” Henry said.
“I will,” Marge said, and she took Henry’s hand. “I’ll check back with you tomorrow, but if you need something before then, I left my number in Jim Ponton’s truck. And a little more cash—it’s from Charlie’s wallet—to tide you over until this bank thing is straightened out.” She patted Henry’s hand, then turned and headed toward her husband’s van.
“Marge,” Henry said, “you’ve done too much.”
“Oh, just cut it out,” she called over her shoulder to him, opening the van door. Her husband backed out but stopped in front of Henry. Marge had rolled her window down. “You think I don’t have my own failings to make amends for?” she said in a kind of stage whisper, as if her husband somehow wouldn’t hear her. “You’re not the only one with a soul that needs saving.”
“I think yours is well saved by now,” Henry said.
Marge laughed. “I’m not so sure. You don’t know how bad I once was.” She turned to her husband. “He doesn’t know, does he, Charlie?”
The man shook his head and smiled. “He don’t know.” Then he pulled away and Henry caught a glimpse of Marge throwing her head back and laughing.
Henry had not yet had a moment to speak to Latangi, to tell her that he had read Mohit’s manuscript, to explain that she had been right about it somehow waiting for him. She had stepped outside of the office when the gifts began to arrive, and she had helped Henry
store them—first in his room and then in the room adjoining it, unlocking the two interior doors between them. Henry had almost said something then about Mohit’s poem, but she’d explained that she had an appointment—“A small business matter with an attorney,” she had said, shaking her head but smiling—and he had watched her drive off in her car, a small blue Honda in which she seemed comically large. She leaned forward with both hands clutching the steering wheel, her wrists adorned with dozens of golden bracelets and bangles encrusted with colored stones, costume jewelry Henry had seen overflowing in bamboo baskets on the floor when he’d had dinner in her apartment.
He had wanted to say something to Latangi before she left to convey his gratitude. He imagined kneeling before her, touching the hem of her sari with his forehead, and proclaiming the beauty of Mohit’s poem, explaining the great gift this work had bestowed upon him, the transformation he believed it had brought about. But it was as if Latangi knew what he wanted to say but was not prepared to hear it. She greeted with great enthusiasm those who arrived with gifts, bowing and repeating, “Shuprobhat, shuprobhat, dhonnobad,” and then “Good morning and thank you, yes, for your charitable offerings.” It sounded to Henry as if Latangi was speaking with a stronger accent and in more halting English than she had spoken to him, as if she were an actress performing a role. Some of the people bowed back at Latangi, smiling but clearly feeling awkward and uncomfortable. He wondered what they’d thought when Mohit and Latangi purchased the motel, if they had greeted these foreigners with kindness and friendly curiosity or with suspicion and distrust.
A Thousand Miles from Nowhere Page 15
