How can I bear it?
Under the dark porte cochère, they entered Miss Anne’s car noiselessly, not even daring to close the doors until after she had backed out of the driveway and they had gone several blocks down the street.
“Did you remember to bring that old tarpaulin?” she asked into the darkness. “No telling what condition the roof is in, and you may need it to keep the rain off yourself.’’
“I remembered,” Mr. Oto said.
“And how about that liniment you use on your knees?” she asked.
“I remembered,” Mr. Oto repeated, wondering to himself how Miss Anne knew about that.
After that, Miss Anne said nothing more, and they drove in silence out beyond the end of town and down the same sandy road he and Sophie had walked on for the past Sunday mornings. When they passed that place where Mr. Oto knew the giant live oak was standing, his throat tightened.
“Now don’t you worry about a thing,” Miss Anne said, as if she could feel his sadness. “I’m sure people will come to their senses soon and realize that Americans are Americans... no matter where their families came from before they came here.’’
But, of course, that wasn’t what was making Mr. Oto sad, and so once again, he felt guilty. How could it be that at a time when so many other things should be on his mind, his only thought was of Sophie? And what about her? What would happen when she heard, as everyone else would hear, about his going away to Canada? Would she care?
On they drove, until, not more than two miles beyond the live oak tree, Miss Anne stopped the car and peered ahead of her into the darkness while the idling engine hummed quietly.
“It’s been a long time. I hope I can still find it. Used to be a big palm tree around here, and right on the other side of it was a little trail led off through the palmettos—not much more than a path, even that long ago. By now, it might be all grown over.’’
She shifted the gears and the car lumbered ahead, its blazing headlights cutting through the darkness to reveal increasingly thick undergrowth on either side of the narrow road. Then, another half-mile farther on, she stopped again.
“This has to be it,” she said, as if she were arguing with herself. “Shine the flashlight over there.” She directed Mr. Oto’s attention to the far side of the road. Sure enough, the beam of light pointed out a thin, sandy trail that led off into the underbrush. Still, he did not move, but sat silently until Miss Anne spoke.
“You go on ahead now, Mr. Oto. And be careful where you’re stepping. I’ll come back on Sunday night and leave more groceries for you right on the other side of that palm tree, where nothing will be visible if anyone comes along the road.’’
“And,” she added, “anything special you need, you just write it down on a piece of paper and stick it right in that same place.’’
“Thank you,” he said, and as quickly as he could, he got out of the car, ran across the road in the glare of the headlights, and shone the flashlight beam toward the trail. Then he turned and waved at Miss Anne before he went off through the palmettos, following a thin, overgrown path. Behind him in the darkness, he heard the grinding of gears as Miss Anne turned around and headed back toward town, where he knew she would take the turn in the road that would lead her all the way to Brunswick. And just for him.
Then there was nothing but silence, the sound of his feet in the sand, and his own breathing.
In the darkness and the silence that was broken only by the beam of the flashlight and by faint and mysterious scurrying in the underbrush, he moved forward along the sandy path, only occasionally raising the beam of the light to try and penetrate the velvet darkness ahead of him, throwing into relief palmetto fronds that tangled together like interwoven fingers and higher up, gray moss-beards in the trees—old Spanish ghosts waiting to drop onto him, to press him into the sand and chuckle triumphantly, “The enemy!”
On and on, deeper and deeper into the brush, until he began wondering if perhaps Miss Anne had been wrong about how far it was from the road to the cabin. Worse, perhaps the cabin wasn’t even there anymore, had fallen in upon itself long years ago. Or maybe it had never been there at all.
And what would happen to him if that were true, he wondered. Daylight would come, eventually, after he had walked all night trying to find a place that didn’t even exist, and he would have to find someplace to hide, where he could wait until the dark came again and then... what? Go back to Miss Anne’s house in town? No. He couldn’t endanger her by going back. Besides, by tomorrow, she probably would have started telling people that he had gone to Canada. Would have lied for him.
No. This time I will not dishonor those who have trusted me.
As if in confirmation of his resolve, the sand became firmer under his feet, and slowly, the palmettos thinned, the scrub pines grew taller, and he could smell the river somewhere ahead of him, the fertile-sour aroma of black mud alive with fiddler crabs.
When he shone the flashlight beam ahead of him once more, its long finger of light barely touched the weathered side of a small shack built up on concrete blocks near a grove of live oak trees hung with moss. A shack that blended in with the gray trees and the gray moss almost completely. Miss Anne was right. It was completely concealed and far away from where anyone would come to fish in the river. With a feeling that was a mixture of elation and of a certain sadness, Mr. Oto had to admit that no one—other than Miss Anne, of course—would ever know where he had gone.
As it turned out, Matilda was the first one to ask Miss Anne about it, of course.
“Where’s your Chinaman gone off to?” she demanded of Miss Anne in her typical straightforward manner only a few hours after Miss Anne had returned from her early— and solitary—drive to Brunswick and back.
“Why, he’s gone to Canada,” Miss Anne answered quickly, and she silently berated herself for not even thinking about Matilda and how she would notice—right away—any change in the household or the routine of the days. But as far as people in the town were concerned, Miss Anne knew that Mr. Oto had always been so quiet and unobtrusive, it would be a few days before anyone noticed he was gone. Miss Anne had been depending upon a few days of respite before she had to start telling the lie. But she had forgotten about Matilda.
“Good riddance!” Matilda bellowed, startling Miss Anne out of her thinking. “Didn’t like that Chinaman one little bit. No, ma’am, not one little bit!”
Matilda said nothing more and neither did Miss Anne, but later in the morning, when Miss Anne passed through the kitchen, she heard Matilda slamming the iron down hard against the ironing board and muttering, “Canada... humph!’’
Sophie made herself wait until Wednesday before she walked past Miss Anne’s house, hoping to see Mr. Oto working in the garden. Of course, she knew that Miss Anne was trying to keep him out of sight. He had told her that much himself. But still, she hoped to catch a glimpse of him and didn’t wonder to ask herself why. And when she couldn’t find him anywhere, a feeling of disappointment crept over her, as if the sun had suddenly gone behind a cloud.
“But Miss Anne is wise,” Sophie whispered to herself as she went on down the sidewalk. “She is protecting him. And he probably needs protection, right now, at least. So I know he’s safe, and that’s all I need to know. Besides, I’ll see him on Sunday. He promised he would come!”
And in that way, Sophie comforted herself.
She tried her best to stay busy, but that next week turned out to be the longest week of her entire life.
When she tended her crab traps, the mere perfume of the salt marsh brought with it the crisp aroma of his spanking-clean shirt, and when she worked in her garden, it was his strong, brown fingers that tended the plants so carefully. The poetry she read aloud arrived in her ears bearing his precise, gentle voice.
On Saturday, when she went to the hardware store to buy light bulbs, he seemed to be standing beside her, holding a packet of pink petunia seeds and smiling. So she bought light bulbs, but she also
bought a new packet of pink petunia seeds, which she propped against the sugar bowl on her kitchen table.
And finally, when Sunday came, she was awake long before daylight. So that in the quiet warmth of her own kitchen, she sipped her tea gratefully and studied the seed packet with joy.
As soon as the sky had turned a bright gray, she started for the river. On the way, she plucked a small twig of baby-pink bougainvillea and carried it along until she reached the sanctuary of the riverbank. Then she stuck the sprig of flowers into her hair.
Because she had arrived so early, the river still held the last remnants of the night, with the light pale and uncertain, wavering through the trees in milky glimmers. And the face of the river was uncommonly smooth, so that she placed her paper and paints in the chair and walked to its very edge.
Across the expanse of smooth, silver water, the seemingly unending sea of golden sawgrass, with the blades barely distinguishable in the early light, and far up the river, a massive live oak that arose from the golden grasses and in whose slate-gray branches perched a multitude of snowy egrets, like white candles in a twilight cathedral.
Near her, a quick swishing sound in the water, where a fish briefly rippled the surface, and then she looked down at her own reflection in the ever-enlarging rings on the disturbed surface. Her dark brows undulating in the moving water and the pink flower in her hair like a wavering, pink sun arising over her left ear. Behind her, Mr. Oto’s face appeared, the gentle eyes and the Botticelli-cherub smile so delightfully misplaced in the broad, oriental face.
She turned, but he was not there. Only the silence and shadows all around her.
She even tried, then, to start her painting, thinking that once again, she would attempt capturing the distinct characteristics of the sky over where the river and the ocean came together, but her mind refused to take seriously any of the lines or the colors she anticipated putting on the paper. Instead, only his face moved before her, gently undulating as if it were reflected in the deep, dark water of the slow-moving river.
The long minutes dragged by—becoming decidedly less lovely because he was not there. The minutes became hours.
“Grove?” she whispered to the empty riverbank. “Grove? Where are you?”
Then the fear began to descend upon her. What if something had happened to him? But wouldn’t she have known? Such a small town can’t keep many secrets. If something had happened to him, Miss Anne would have told her. She was sure of it.
Finally, she gathered her unopened paints and packed away the still pristine paper and wondered what had happened. He promised to come... and then she remembered the condition upon which he made the promise: “if I am able.”
Perhaps he was ill?
On her way back home, she walked slowly, thinking about how to find out what was wrong, and she remembered to remove the sprig of bougainvillea from her hair before she passed through town. She put it carefully into her pocket and wondered yet again where he could be. Because his not coming was more than just that.
Somehow, it was much more.
Chapter Seventeen
By Monday, she could think of nothing else.
Get hold of yourself, Sophie! she admonished in a silent voice that sounded strangely like her mother’s voice. You’re acting like a child! You must remember to act like a lady!
No ma’am, Mama, another part of her responded. Not like a child. And not like a lady, either. Like a woman.
So that the whole day, the voices argued within her. And all the while, the sprig of pink bougainvillea wilted quietly on her dresser.
Finally, she decided that perhaps she would just make a call on Miss Anne. That would certainly be nothing new, though she hadn’t been to see her old friend in several weeks. But in that way, she could ask about Mr. Oto right in the course of casual conversation. Still, she finally rejected that idea, because she felt certain that Miss Anne would notice that her inquiries about Mr. Oto, no matter how lightly phrased, were more than just polite conversation. Especially if Sophie were right there in Miss Anne’s own parlor, seated in a chair and maybe with her hands making the cup clatter against the saucer. Miss Anne knew her far too well. Miss Anne would know right away, and then what would Sophie do? Confess? Confess what? That she cared very much about him? And what would her old friend say to that? Her own gardener!
On Tuesday morning, as she walked toward the library, Sophie saw Miss Anne herself digging among the marigolds Mr. Oto had planted and tended so carefully. And she hesitated only for a moment before she stopped by the fence and called out, “Miss Anne? Is Mr. Oto ill?” She did everything she could do to keep her voice light and sound casual, but still, it held a faint tremor that would not have been lost on Miss Anne one bit, if Miss Anne hadn’t been rather startled by the fact that once again, she was facing the telling of the big lie.
And who would have thought it would be so hard? And especially, having to lie to Sophie!
Miss Anne came to the fence, all the while looking at the handful of weeds she had pulled from the flower beds, as if they were the only thing in the world worthy of her interest.
“Mr. Oto has gone to Canada,” she said matter-of-factly. “To be with his family,” she added, still studying the handful of weeds.
“Oh.” It was a small utterance from Sophie, but the way she said it surprised Miss Anne somehow—she couldn’t have said exactly how. But she wondered briefly why the word seemed to be wreathed in a sigh of the smallest magnitude.
Sophie, on second thought, noticed that Miss Anne didn’t look at her when she spoke of Mr. Oto. Why was her old friend acting so distant and cool about it? For after all, Miss Anne had never made a secret about her genuine fondness for him. But somehow, everything about Miss Anne felt different now to Sophie. Of course, Sophie would never pry, but she couldn’t help but wonder about it. What on earth was wrong? And how could she possibly ask Miss Anne more about him?
She couldn’t, that’s all. So they stood there, the two old friends, separated by a white, picket fence and by a silence that neither of them could fill.
“Well,” Sophie said at last. “I’m sure you’ll miss him. He always took such good care of your garden. You need for me to bring you anything from the store?’’
Mama was right, Sophie was thinking. Nothing lasts.
Miss Anne’s strange aloofness seemed to relax a little. “I’ll certainly miss him,” she agreed, still studying the weeds, “And no, thank you—I’ll be going to the store a little later myself. But I appreciate it.”
Sophie moved on a little down the sidewalk, wishing that there were some way of asking the questions she wanted to ask—but there wasn’t. It was just that simple. Finally, she just waved her hand and walked on. But she could feel Miss Anne’s eyes upon her as she walked away, and her gait felt awkward and unnatural, so she raised her arm and studied her watch, as if she were late for an appointment.
And indeed, Sophie’s feelings were accurate, for Miss Anne still stood at the fence, watching her walk away down the sidewalk.
My, Miss Anne thought, she certainly looks pretty this morning, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. She lingered for yet another moment, wincing at the feeling of isolation wrought by the telling of the lie. Sophie! I want so very much to tell you. But I can’t involve you in this. It’s far too serious.
At the cabin, Mr. Oto had settled in as well as he was able, doing everything exactly as Miss Anne directed him. He had torn a blanket apart and tacked the pieces over the windows and over the doorway, so the light from the kerosene lamp couldn’t be seen at night. He never went out during the daylight, and he carefully buried his empty cans in among the palmetto bushes, away from the faint path.
He propped up his painting of the Crane-Wife on a small, wooden box against the wall and even gathered a few mature stalks of golden dune-grass, which he placed on the floor in front of the painting -almost like a shrine before which he spent long hours in meditation.
It was a
time of surprising and profound grief for him. And shame. Shame that the deepest grief in him was not for his father and his brothers, their wives and sons and grandsons, not even for the war— terrible war. But for the loss of those precious hours with Sophie, a loss that was a thousand times more painful than he had ever anticipated. His mind returned over and over to every moment they had spent together on the riverbank, so that in his memory, he walked along a strand of silken thought that occasionally held a perfectly round, luminous pearl. Her face in one, her laughter on another, her pale arms in the morning light, her deep green eyes. And finally, her soul’s hunger for that dome of sky over where the river and the ocean came together.
Finally, without even a flashlight to guide him—for he feared that the beam would be seen by someone—he walked one dark night all the way back to the big live oak tree, to that place where he and Sophie had been together on those glorious Sunday mornings, and there, he sat in Sophie’s chair, trying to draw her presence forth and to wear it on his body like another skin. He fancied that he could breathe her perfume and that somehow the chair still held the warmth of her. So he stayed in her presence until the dawn was coming fast, and he had to hurry to get back to the shack, where he slept deeply and peacefully until almost noon.
Later that day, a breeze lifted out the blanket over the window and allowed the bright light of day to fall upon his sleeping face. He sat up, groggy and a little confused, wondering what time it was and what day it was and what seemed to be calling to him.
Cautiously, he stuck his head out through the blanketed doorway, and the glare of a totally clear day made him rub his eyes and the earth was so hushed and still that he wondered for a moment if his hearing had suddenly gone bad. Like watching a silent movie, he saw the palmetto bushes and the gray-beard moss hanging motionlessly.
Sophie and the Rising Sun Page 9
