Gift of the Golden Mountain

by Shirley Streshinsky

  These days between Christmas and New Year's have been sunny and warm. Emilie and I sat in the yard under the old pepper tree, our arms bare, and peeled apples for the pies as the others moved about us, small groups going this way and that.

  One morning Kit and May, Phinney and the twins saddled up and went off for a long ride into the mountains. When they returned in the afternoon even Phinney, for once, was at a loss for words. Later that day Amos sought me out to tell me, in that quiet way of his so touched with awe, "Aunt Kit took us to the top of this ridge, to a place that looked out over all of the Pacific—it was just . . . vast. And peaceful, and that was all there was: us, and the grasses blowing in the wind, and the ocean. I think I've never felt so . . ."—he frowned, groping for the right word, then shrugged and grinned—"large . . . and small, at the same time."

  While this has been a joyous time, it has also been a time of revelations. Of glimpses, impressions, fast takes. Karin and Philip are too polite to each other. I know they quarreled when Dan left, and they have not made up, though they do a good job of hiding it. It is times like these—watching a couple contend with the tensions between them, at the same time hiding it from the rest of us—that make me glad I didn't marry again. But I am wrong, of course. Dan needs Karin, and so does Thea. Pity the poor child who connects with neither parent, and praise God Emilie and I were good for each other. Yet I know, and it saddens me, that Emilie is not close to her daughter. I know Annie needs her dad.

  Glimpses, impressions, fast takes, caught over these past few days from my perch on the verandah: May and Karin, carrying the long tables back into the house, one on either side. May stumbles, tumbles, swears. Karin moves to help her up. May takes the offered hand but gives her a hard tug and Karin goes sprawling too. The two lie flat on their backs on the grassy lawn, laughing.

  Impressions: Philip and Phinney in the library, examining the volumes. Philip leaning against the big desk, slowing turning the pages of an old book; Phinney on a ladder, reading the titles out loud from the top shelves. Revelation! They are the same, these two, of an age, Eastern educations, a certain attachment to the New England tradition, to the classics. They have the same stance, move with the same certain stiffness of the joints. The difference is in execution: Philip is what Phinney might have become, or the other way around. Philip followed the marked path, doing what was expected of him: the ancient discipline, the distinguished career. Phinney rejected that course in favor of a hardware store and a community, of hearth and home and an active life as husband, father, friend. Roaming the woods, reading, discovering; Philip may have read The Golden Bowl, Phinney can quote long passages from it. Phinney's ambitions parted company with Philip's—when? The war had something to do with it, that is what Em thinks. Philip is trying to understand, I'm certain of it. He is watching Phinney; he pretends to read the book, but really he is watching Phinney.

  Fast takes: Amos sitting on the barnyard fence, working to untie a knot. Thea standing nearby, her coltish young body swaying tentatively, ready to jump back, move away, skittish. She watches him. He does not discourage her.

  In a few hours now this holiday will be over. I can hear Josepha in the kitchen, rattling pans. Israel will be up soon to make the first trip to the airport. I wish I could hold them all here, together, but that of course is the impossible dream. Enough that I have had this time with them, this perfect Christmas.

  EIGHTEEN

  SHE READ THE directions on the package: Plant September-February, one inch deep and space eight inches apart in a sunny or part shade location. Blooms in spring, produces many double flowers up to five inches across. Perfect, she thought, for the space along the edge of the back patio. She loved renunculus, their gaudy color, the layered petals that looked so much like crepe paper, but most of all she loved the long, elegant stem that seemed too fragile to hold the perfect big blossom.

  She probed in the newly turned earth with her fingers and set the first bulb. She fell into the rhythm of planting, humming, and probing and setting the bulbs, shifting slightly as she moved along the patio edge, aware of the sun on her back and the soft, warm sound of the breeze as it rattled the dry leaves of the sycamore tree. She would have to go in early to shower and clean her hands. They had tickets for the symphony tonight, she should probably start putting things away now, but she couldn't. The garden had become her favorite place. Philip teased her about it, but he was pleased, she knew, that she had become so absorbed in what he called "the flower art." She wondered if he understood that it was an escape of sorts, a place where she needn't think, where she could wear jeans and get dirt on her hands and sometimes her face, where she could feel more like the Karin she used to be.

  "Karin," he called to her.

  She sat back on her heels and turned to the door. "Time got away from me," she called back. "I've only a few more renunculus to plant."

  "You're fine on time," he said, "I'm home early." He took off his jacket and hung it with precision on the back of a lawn chair, then he stretched out on the chaise, his hands behind his head.

  "Hard day?" she asked.

  "Not so much hard as disquieting," he answered. "Have you ever met Dr. Offenbach? He's an emeritus professor in the department, I suppose he must be in his mid-eighties."

  She shook her head and continued her probing in the earth, setting the bulbs as she listened.

  "No, I suppose you wouldn't have met him . . . since we haven't been to the kind of department functions he would still be invited to. He asked me today why we have been 'keeping ourselves aloof.'"

  "And that bothers you?"

  "No," he said, squinting and pinching the place between his eyes. "What bothers me is that here is this fine old man who has always been the soul of civility. Suit, immaculate white shirt, bow tie trademark. He was a fine scientist in his day. He's collected any number of awards over the years and he deserved them all. He has always been the sort of man you just naturally respect. Except that lately he's been turning up on campus wearing an aloha shirt with blazing purple orchids on it, and a head full of what he calls new ideas. He says he has had this surge of new energy, that he's just brimming over with projects—but it's all crackpot stuff. And he wants to talk about it—for hours, to anybody who will listen. And that's not even the worst of it—his wife died last year, and he's started to ask some of the secretaries to go out to lunch with him. His standard line seems to be, 'You have such beautiful, soulful eyes.'"

  "He's fighting it," Karin said, taking comfort in the soft, damp earth on her fingertips.

  "Fighting what?" Philip asked.

  "Old age. Impotence. Time."

  Philip sighed. "I guess. His mind is going, maybe he knows it . . . that would be frightening as hell. How do you know . . ." He stopped, pinched his eyes again, sighed. "I'm not sure how to handle this. It's so damned sad."

  "Gently," Karen told him, rising and stretching. "You handle it very gently. As you said yourself, he's earned it."

  Philip frowned.

  "Another headache?" Karin asked, carefully.

  He didn't answer, but lay his head back and closed his eyes.

  "Let me get you some iced tea, then you can rest before the symphony."

  "I forgot! The symphony . . ." he started to get up.

  "Please Philip, don't get up. Maybe we should skip it this time," she added, hopefully. "I know the Brauns would love to take our tickets."

  He shook his head, "No. The Reshauers are counting on us. Besides, they're playing two of the old war-horses tonight. Beethoven's Ninth, Schubert's Unfinished, you know me—I'm a sucker for those, no taste at all."

  She tried to laugh. "That's you, no taste at all." Then, working to keep her voice even, added, "Dan is coming in tonight . . . it is his birthday, and it might be nice if we were here when he arrives."

  "You've planned a party for him tomorrow, that's enough," Philip came back, too quickly, clipping off the words.

  "I just thought . . ." she began, but stopped
when he pressed his temples with the fingertips of both hands, a sign that his headache was getting worse.

  She held her own hands out, palms down. "Just look at all the dirt under my fingernails," she said in a teasing tone of voice, meant to restore the mood. "Now that was a problem I never had before you came along."

  "I'd say that hardly offsets the problem you inherited," Philip answered glumly.

  She pulled her chair close to the chaise and would have taken his hand in hers, had hers not been caked with mud. "Philip, please . . . I wish I could make you understand that I don't consider Dan to be a problem. Not for me, anyway . . . it's the two of you who need . . ."

  "I almost forgot," Philip interrupted brusquely, "there's a letter from May in my coat pocket. It was in the mailbox here—I guess you didn't check. Why don't you read it while I close my eyes for a few minutes? You can tell me all her news while we get ready for the concert."

  Karin looked at him, bit her lip, and nodded. She felt a weight shift on her chest, press in on her. She cupped one hand under her breast, as if to relieve some pressure, knowing even as she did it that the pressure was not physical. Gingerly, not to get mud from her hands on his coat, she lifted the letter from his pocket, tore it open, and took note of the sudden rush of comfort she felt, seeing the familiar handwriting.

  September 14, 1971

  Dear K,

  I'm on a Pan Am flight to Japan, the first real chance I've had to write in a thousand years. I didn't realize my postcard habit would make all of you so crazy—even Faith is after me to give her "more than twenty-six words and a picture of Mt. Fuji." And as you know, from my last 4 a.m. (your time) call from New Guinea, I'm not all that good about figuring out time differences. So here's your letter, parts of which I expect you to share with the others.

  Under ordinary circumstances right now I would be working like mad on a sheaf of reports delivered to me a few minutes before takeoff, to be studied en route so I know exactly what I am coming into. But the Japanese are nothing if not organized. All their reports arrived in plenty of time, so I don't have to review them on the plane at the last minute. Not only that, but I'll be met by a car, my bath will have been drawn, my favorite mineral water will be waiting, nicely cooled, in my room. At the office a young man named Miko will answer my every question, and we will proceed to the field where I will find everything in perfect working order. If only I could transfer Miko to the Philippines, where I must put up with a second cousin of Imelda Marcos, who gives new dimensions to the word "inept."

  Even so, the real problem in the Philippines is not this Marcos flunky, but the fact that there is nobody at all on the project who has taken charge. I've discovered an interesting thing, working with so many different groups in so many countries—when the work is being done at all well, you can almost always trace it to one person who has taken charge. And almost never is that person the number-one man. Miko, in Japan, is in fact the assistant to the director. In New Guinea, a fifty-year-old woman clerk is the one who sets the tone, who knows where everything is, who keeps all the rest of the staff heading in the right direction. And of course she hides it all very well! My first job was to discover who these main movers were, and to spend as much time as possible with them without jeopardizing their positions. If only I didn't have to waste so much time with the "superiors." I am not cut out for diplomacy, and of course in most of these countries being a woman does not help one bit. You will be pleased to know that I am called "the Dragon Lady" in certain quarters (echoes of Mt. Holyoke!). Did you know that Asians, for the most part, have a profound disdain for mixed races? When I challenge them on anything, I can see it in their faces—which are not at all inscrutable. There have been a few indirect complaints issued through channels, and Dr. Obregon shoots them down, which only goes to show how little they know if they think he is running this program.

  The good doctor is happy to sit in Honolulu with his old dog at his feet and a stack of reports to ignore. Not long ago he happened to mention he had never played backgammon, so I gave him a set. The directions say that you can learn the game in half an hour but it takes a lifetime to learn the strategy. Well, I'm content to stick to the fundamentals but Obregon, of course, immediately became enthralled with strategy. No matter the time of day or the urgency of the work, I must play a game with him before he will do anything. And the funny thing, of course, is that I just plop along, moving the stones with cheerful abandon while you can almost hear his mind grinding away. It doesn't seem to matter to him that I am not really playing—at least not the way he is playing. He says that my unpredictability adds a certain piquant challenge to the game. It is amazing to me that he is able to play so well, because he is faltering in other areas.

  You remember I told you I was puzzled about why a man of his age would want to leave his country and start all over in Hawaii, alone? I think now that when his wife died a year ago, the rest of the family gathered around and became suffocating. They harass him. Every now and then he will ask me to call one or the other and say he's out of town, but wanted them to know he got one letter or the other and to do whatever they think best.

  I'm rattling on, I know. No rhyme or reason to this letter, I suppose what's on top of my mind is just sort of oozing out. I do have some news.

  Sam showed up in Honolulu last week. I'd had messages from him a couple of times when he was passing through, on his way to or from Vietnam, but always before I'd been away. This time he caught me in town, and we had dinner together before his plane left, back to the front again.

  The whole thing was a little surreal. Not a word was said about the way we parted last time, there was no hint that anything at all had gone wrong. He introduced me as May Reade, not Wing Mei-jin as I had asked, and said I was his 'Berkeley roommate,' purposely, I thought, not bothering to explain what our relationship had been. I did not contradict him, I think because I am still so disturbed about the defacement of the bathroom.

  Those slick press corps boys in their standard-issue bush jackets play a wonderful game of "men-at-war." I had a terrible urge to deflate them, but I didn't. Sam is full of himself, but at the same time, I think I have never seen him happier. He even looks different—he is more relaxed and that has given him a kind of style he didn't have before. I've always thought he was terrifically good looking, but the anger seemed to keep him from being genuinely handsome. Now the anger is gone, and he cuts a very glamorous, even dashing figure. Sam Nakamura, combat photographer. The girls stop and stare, and one even asked, "Are you somebody important?" I thought it was funny, Sam didn't. Took me awhile to figure out that what he wanted to answer was yes.

  You will be pleased to know that he paid me back much of what he owed me. I tell you this only because I know it bothered you. I told him it wasn't necessary, but he insisted—so I guess it was necessary for him, as of course it always has been for you. Money. What a nuisance. But of course without it I could never afford to be doing the work I am doing. I don't even like to think about that. I do love this job, even with all the headaches. The other day someone in the office asked me how I liked being the "pulse-taker of the Ring of Fire?" Sometimes when I'm roaming around one of the volcanoes, I actually feel that way!

  At mention of headaches Karin glanced at Philip. His eyes were closed and he was breathing regularly. Good, she thought, he needs the sleep. She turned back to the letter.

  Sam told me quite a few harrowing war stories. He has been at the front, and has won a press photographers' award for his picture of a young marine, holding his dead friend in his arms and sobbing.

  This last trip home, Sam said, he went to see Hayes's parents and was surprised that Mrs. Diehl was drinking less, not more, which is what he clearly expected after the awful jolt of Andy's death. She has, Sam said, thrown her considerable energies into refugee work. I think Sam wanted to question me about Hayes, but he didn't—and I was glad.

  He would know from the Diehls that Hayes is in Paris working on some esoteric research
project for the OECD—the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. I told you that, didn't I? The idea for the organization, according to Hayes, is to stimulate the economies of developing nations, mainly by collecting information. He says he's not sure he's going to help anybody, but he's pretty certain he won't hurt anyone either.

  I've had several long letters from him. In his last he told me he isn't reading anything written after 1900, and to get him in the proper frame of mind he doesn't listen to any music written after that time, either. He said he lives in a damp little room on the third floor of a gray building, he and Proust and Beethoven, and that he always feels slightly mildewed. I've suggested he come to Hawaii to dry out, and he says that he thinks after all that sunshine I may need a little damp chill in my life. I could never, ever think of Hayes as a damp chill. I wish I could take time to fly to Paris. I would if I could!

  Still no luck on my China visa front, as Kit will have told you. She is doing everything in her power, and with Kit that's a prodigious lot. I know she thought Kissinger's secret trip to China to set up a meeting with Nixon might help, but so far no. Then again, Kit is so firmly viewed as in the Kennedy camp it is no wonder she has made little headway with the Nixon people. She abhors the man, actually. I figure if she can't manage it, no one can, but I can't get her to accept that. She's scared I will do something "rash" and she's made me promise to give her a year. In the meantime, I am taking lessons in Mandarin so I can speak without accent, and learning Cantonese at the same time. I hope that by the time I can get into China, I will be fluent in both dialects. Sam thinks it might be better to go in through Thailand. He knows of some who have done it, he says. There's supposed to be a network of people who can help you get in, for a price. I don't mind the price, but I do mind trusting somebody with my life in return for money.