The Arm of the Starfish

by Madeleine L'engle

  “At first.”

  Joshua patted the controls fondly. “She’s a good old crate. I’ll get you there in one piece. I hope.”

  They plunged into another cloud and dropped headlong toward the ocean.

  10

  It was not precisely a relaxing trip, but Adam caught Joshua’s exhilaration; he held on tight and the thought that they might not reach Gaea left him.

  “This is better than the roller coaster at Palisades Park,” he shouted.

  “Rather!” Joshua called back, then burst into song again.

  Adam did not know how long a routine flight to Gaea ought to last; it took Joshua, battling through the clouds in the little plane, the better part of two hours before the sky cleared again and there below them was the green of land with a great, curving, golden beach. “Gaea,” Joshua called. “Hold on tight, Adam. Tide’s out, all’s clear, and I’m coming down on the beach.”

  Joshua accomplished the landing with skill and grace. The wheels touched the hard-packed sand gently and rolled along the water’s edge to a smooth stop. He sat for a moment over the controls, breathing deeply, flexing his hands, deliberately relaxing. Then they unstrapped themselves, took off helmets, goggles, leather jackets. As Adam climbed out he realized that his legs were stiff and that, unconsciously, he must have been bracing them against the footboards during most of the trip.

  “That was a great ride,” he shouted, though the noise of the engine had stopped. “I loved every minute of it.”

  Joshua stretched, a great wide gesture of well-being. “I love to fly. Heaven, as far as I’m concerned. Adam—”

  Adam was looking about, at the ocean, the sand, the dunes, and beyond the dunes to scrub and pine. “Hm?”

  Joshua was looking at him directly, questioningly, bringing him back from the excitement of the flight to this moment of the arrival on Gaea, so different from the arrival he had anticipated when he left Woods Hole.

  “Josh,” he asked, “this Eliphaz Ball creep: what was he up to?”

  Joshua stared out to sea, his eyes squinting a little against the brilliance. “I’m not sure. My guess is that he wanted to—well, you might call it indoctrinate you—before you had a chance to talk to Dr. O’Keefe. To get you firmly sewed up in the Cutter camp.” He paused, again looking at Adam questioningly, then said, “Before I take you to the O’Keefes do you want to tell me who you opened the door to at the Avenida Palace?”

  Adam, too, stared out to sea, his eyes almost closing against the radiance of sun and water. “I haven’t told you, have I?”

  “Not.”

  “Oh, Joshua—” Adam started, then trailed off.

  “You can’t make only part of a decision,” Joshua said gently. “You have to go all the way.”

  “I have decided,” Adam said.

  “I know you have.”

  “Do you know what I’ve decided?”

  “To work for Dr. O’Keefe.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because you wouldn’t come here to work as his assistant and work against him in any other way.”

  A cloud moved across the sun; its shadow slid murkily over the beach, draining the gold from the sand; the blackness was reflected in Adam’s mind. He looked down at his feet, the city shoes darkly incongruous against the damp sand. “Do I have to work for him in order not to work against him? You don’t understand, Joshua. Or I don’t understand. I don’t see why I have to take sides at all. I know I couldn’t work against you, and if that means not working against Dr. O’Keefe, then I won’t work against him. But I didn’t come over here to take sides about anything. I came to assist a scientist in some experiments in marine biology because that’s what Dr. Didymus wanted me to do. You said yourself he didn’t know about anything else.”

  Joshua shoved his hands into his pockets. The cloud moved past the sun and the sea was again dazzled with brilliance. “That’s quite true, Adam. But you are involved, whether you want to be or not. In the end you’ll have to take sides, and it’ll be easier for you if you don’t keep putting it off.”

  Adam scowled. “It would help if somebody would tell me what I’m supposed to be taking sides about.”

  “Adam,” Joshua said with heavy patience, “if you’re as bright as you’re supposed to be you ought to know without my telling you that it’s because Dr. O’Keefe has, in his work, come across certain far-reaching discoveries that certain irresponsible people are trying to steal.”

  “But you can’t keep scientific discoveries secret,” Adam protested.

  “You have to try to keep them from being misused.”

  “You can’t do that, either.”

  Joshua gave a rather wry smile. “That sounds more like jaded old Josh than a kid fresh out of school who ought to have all his illusions intact. If you’d been working for a scientist who was in charge, say, of antibiotics for a hospital, would you have sat back while self-interested men stole them, diluted them, and sold them for high black-market prices to doctors who gave them to children who died in agony as a result?”

  “I’ve read The Third Man,” Adam said, “and I’ve seen it on the Late Late Show.”

  “So don’t you see that it’s not a joking or a casual matter? You cannot be uncommitted, Adam, believe me, you cannot.”

  Adam’s jaw set stubbornly. “I have to be clear about things.”

  Suddenly Joshua shrugged, and wheeled around from the ocean, kicking at the thin remains of a broken golden conch shell. “Okay. Forget it. Come on. We have a three-mile hike to get to the O‘Keefes’.”

  Adam’s scowl settled into stubborn sullenness. He did not understand his own blind lack of decision, but he knew that he hated having Joshua disappointed in him, and he knew that Joshua was disappointed. He was striding across the sand to the dunes; on the crest was a dead and rusty palm toward which he headed. One branch of palm, brown fronds drooping like feathers, seemed to point inland. There was nothing for Adam to do but follow, feet slipping as they reached the deep, soft sand at the foot of the dunes.

  Supporting himself on coarse tufts of beach grass Joshua climbed the dune, standing, waiting until Adam caught up. Then he started ahead, moving slowly through what seemed to be no more than an animal track in the undergrowth. Thorny branches stretched across their way, and these Joshua held aside for Adam. Forest creepers looped from tree to tree, and although machete scars showed that the path had recently been cleared, the creepers were tenaciously starting to block the way again. Joshua untangled them, pausing occasionally to see that Adam was behind him. Above them were intermittent flashes of brilliant color, scarlet, orange, gold, and the alarmed shrieks of birds. Shadows moved constantly as the leaves stirred in the slightest breath of air. Joshua was caught in a shifting pattern of shadows, so that his sandy hair, his white shirt, his tanned skin flickered with green, purple, gold.

  After a half mile or so of jungle they reached a clearing, a wide savannah of golden grasses. At the edge of the clearing a cloud of multi-colored butterflies hovered. One brushed against Adam’s face, startling him so that he jumped. A herd of small animals was grazing placidly in the distance, but ran pelting through the grasses and into the underbrush at the scent of human beings. At the far side of the savannah was a grove of palms, and beyond this a hill, which Joshua climbed without slackening his pace. At the top of the hill there was a plateau where monolithic slabs of stone caught the full blast of the sun, glinting with gold. A large flat slab like a table or altar stood in the center, with smaller stones circling it. Joshua went up to the table stone and put his palm on its sun-baked surface, asking in a low voice, “Not going to be a Mordred, are you, Adam?”

  “I’ve read King Arthur, too,” Adam said. The sun beat down on his bare head; his upper lip was beaded with sweat.

  Joshua looked at him, seemed about to say something in reply, instead straightened up and spoke in his conversational, social-young-man-of-the-Embassy voice. “This is the highest point on the island. Over
there, to your left, you can get a glimpse of the Hotel Praia da Gaea. It’s getting a bit of a reputation as a resort in spite of the heat. Sunbathing and tennis, and dancing at night if there’s enough breeze. Straight ahead, where you can see a kind of promontory, is the native village. They’re a gentle people, a mixture of original islander and Portuguese, with a touch of African thrown in. Some people think these stones were brought here by their remote ancestors and represent a kind of primitive religion. On your right, through the trees, that flash of white is the O’Keefes’ house and laboratories. By the way, Dr. O’Keefe happens to be doing his work here with the blessing of the President of the United States, though not many people know this, or are supposed to know.”

  “Why are you telling me?” Adam asked.

  Joshua answered quietly, “To try to counteract some of the things I am going on the assumption you have been told.”

  “By whom?”

  “The people you were with from the time you opened the door at the Avenida Palace to the time Poly fell into your arms on the sidewalk in front of the Ritz.” There was no longer any censure in his voice. “Until the hotel was built a year ago there was complete privacy here and ideal conditions for Dr. O’Keefe’s experiments. After this summer it will probably be necessary for him to move again. Pity.”

  “Joshua, don’t hate me,” Adam said.

  “I don’t.”

  “I promise you I—are you going to be staying here in Gaea at all?”

  “No. I have to fly back to Lisbon tonight.”

  “In-in that?”

  “Wind’s quieting down. It won’t be a bad flight.”

  “Is there any way I—I could get in touch with you if I needed you?”

  “Yes. I’ll give you my phone number at home and my special extension at the Embassy. They’re both pretty classified, so keep them to yourself. I don’t think you’re apt to need me. A few days with the O’Keefes will clear things up for you. I was wrong to try to push you. This is all very new for you. I had no right to expect you to leap into understanding.”

  “I’d still like to have those numbers,” Adam said.

  Joshua pulled a small pad out of his shirt pocket, a stub of pencil, and wrote. “Here. But please don’t lose them. Keep them with your passport.”

  “Okay.”

  Joshua took another sweeping glance around. “All right. Let’s go.”

  A footpath, only slightly wider than that leading through the scrub, took them down from the hill. The sun was heavy and hot and pressed on Adam with tangible weight. It seemed that they were walking far more than three miles. Then, suddenly, they were at a series of low, rambling, dazzling white bungalows, joined together by breezeways.

  Joshua whistled, the melody Canon Tallis had whistled in Madrid, the melody the rabbi had whistled on the plane.

  “What is that?” Adam asked.

  Joshua grinned. “The Tallis Canon, of course.”

  Without being able to control himself Adam burst into laughter. “Of course! What an idiot I am! I knew I knew it. We used to sing it in choir when I was a kid.” Now that memory had returned he did not see how he could have forgotten. The simple melody Thomas Tallis had written in the sixteenth century had been one of the choirmaster’s favorites, and singing it in canon had been like singing a round, so the boys had enjoyed it, too. But Adam’s choirboy days had ended in the seventh grade, so perhaps it wasn’t too strange that Thomas Tallis’ canon had not been remembered.

  Joshua joined him in laughter. “Polyhymnia’s idea. Naturally.” He sobered. “That’s the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they’ve been all along.”

  Before Adam needed to reply a bevy of scantily dressed children came bursting around the corner of the bungalow and Joshua, calling, hurried to meet them. Behind the children, carrying a baby, came a tall, strikingly beautiful woman, smiling in greeting. Children were climbing all over Joshua, inspecting Adam, and then Poly came running out of the bungalow, holding the hand of a very small child she had evidently been tending, since he was dressed only in a torn white undershirt, and she carried a diaper in her hand.

  “Josh! Adam!” she cried joyfully. Joshua was kissed with exuberance, then Adam. “You’re late! We’ve been waiting for ages and ages!”

  “We ran into a bit of weather,” Joshua explained. “Mrs. O’Keefe, this is Adam Eddington.”

  Mrs. O’Keefe shook hands warmly, laughing. “Poor Adam, this must seem a formidable welcome. But it is a welcome. We’re all happy to see you, and that you’ll be with us this summer. Poly’s told us so much about you. Come on in and I’ll show you your room. Are his things still in the plane, Josh? Good. I’ll ask one of the boys to ride over and get them.” She explained to Adam, “It’s twice as long by the beach, but you can’t ride a horse through the brush. I expect you found it rather scratchy walking. We’re much more primitive on our part of the island than they are at the hotel, but we like it.” She led Adam along a breezeway and into the largest of the bungalows. They went into an enormous white room with comfortable and shabby-looking chairs and sofas. One wall was filled with books, another was all windows looking out to sea. At one end was a huge fireplace faced with the same lovely blue-and-white tile Adam had seen in Lisbon. The floor was rose-beige marble. Everything was light and open and clean, and a soft ocean breeze blew through.

  “The living room,” Mrs. O’Keefe said, “obviously lived in.” She went through an arched doorway into a hall off which Adam could see a series of cubicles. “We don’t go in for large bedrooms, but everybody has his own. This is the boys’ section. Then the doctor and I have our room, and then there’s the girls’ wing. Your room is nearest the living room. It’s a tradition in our family that the rooms go up in age, the youngest being nearest our room. Of course each time we have a new baby the rooms have to be shifted, but that’s part of the fun for the children.”

  She preceded Adam into the first of the cubicles. There was a gayly embroidered spread on the bed, a chest of drawers, a chintz-covered armchair with sagging springs. A small, empty bookcase waited by the bed with a lamp on it, and a bouquet of beach grasses in a glass jar. “Poly’s offering,” Mrs. O’Keefe said.

  Adam looked at Mrs. O’Keefe’s tranquil, lovely face. “Is Poly really all right?”

  “Yes, Adam. She’s fine. And she’s very fond of you.” Was there a question in the way this was said?

  “She wasn’t hurt at all?” Adam asked. “You’re sure?”

  “Quite sure. Only frightened. And you mustn’t blame yourself. You had no way of knowing that there was any danger when Tom—Canon Tallis—put you on the plane.”

  “Is his name really Thomas Tallis, like the composer’s?”

  “No. It’s John. But his last name really is Tallis, so of course he gets called Tom. Do you know the Tallis canon?” Again: was there more to her question than the words?

  “Yes, but I’d forgotten what it was until just now. Joshua was whistling it and I asked him. It was very stupid of me; we used to sing it in choir.”

  “Like to sing?”

  “Sure, but I’ve been a bass now for quite a while, and a sort of rumbly one.”

  “Oh, splendid, we need a bass.”

  Out of doors Adam could hear the children calling and laughing and then they trooped into the house and in and through the living room. “May we come in?” Poly called. “Adam hasn’t been properly introduced.”

  “Maybe he’d rather wait and get his breath for a few minutes first.”

  “No.” Adam smiled at the crowd of children clustered in the doorway. “I’d like to be introduced.”

  “May I do it?” Poly asked her mother.

  “Go ahead.”

  “We’ll go down in age this time,” Poly stated categorically. “After Father Tom gave me my horrendous name mother and daddy wouldn’t let him name any of the rest of us, so don’t worry. Charles comes next; he’s ten, and we’re the redheads; we’d give
n up on having any more carrot tops till we came to the baby, but we haven’t come to her yet as far as introductions are concerned.”

  A stocky, freckle-faced boy in tan shorts and a white shirt shook hands with Adam.

  “Hello, Charles,” Adam said.

  “Sandy comes next.” Poly paused for handshaking, “and then Dennys. This is Peggy. She’s four; and Johnny; he’s two. And there’s the baby on mother’s shoulder. Father Tom was determined he was going to name her, and if he had it would have been something awful; he has a weird sense of humor. We all call her Rosebud, because that’s what she is, aren’t you, Rosy? But she was baptized Mary. Lots better than Polyhymnia, don’t you think? Isn’t it, Rosy?”

  The baby opened her toothless mouth in an ecstatic smile and held out her dimpled arms to Poly. The soft fluff on her head was rosy gold and she did indeed have the look of a tiny, perfect bud. Looking at the baby and the other children Adam felt a pang of envy: it would have been nice to have brothers and sisters.

  “Not now, Rosy,” Poly said. “Mother, may I take Adam out to the lab to daddy?”

  “No, Poly, let Josh do it. Come help María get some lunch ready.”

  “But Josh already is in the lab.”

  “We’ll just point it out to Adam, then. It’s not very difficult, Pol.”

  For a moment Poly scowled; then she took the baby from her mother, holding it up and gently rubbing noses, which apparently delighted Rosy, who crowed with soft laughter.

  “Come, Adam,” Mrs. O’Keefe said. “I’ll show you the way.”

  The bungalows, the boy realized, formed three sides of a square, with the fourth side a cement sea wall. The center bungalow contained living room, dining room, and kitchen. The right arm was bedrooms, the left the lab. Through all of the rooms the salt sea wind blew, and the sound of the slow breakers was a constant background. Adam left the living quarters and walked through the breezeway into an enormous cluttered room; it had the messy maze of tubes, retorts, pipes, files, bottles, acid-scarred counters with which he was familiar in Old Doc’s lab, and the same smell of the sea beneath and around the acrid odors of chemicals and Bunsen burners. One wall was lined with tanks, and Dr. O’Keefe and Joshua were looking soberly into one of these.