The Garden Party

by Grace Dane Mazur

  “You would live with me in my house in the compound. That is how it’s done upriver. It wouldn’t be awkward at all. It’s not like here. We would live openly. It is a small house, but beautifully adequate. There is a desk for you, a place to work. Please say that you will consider it.”

  “I will consider it,” she said. But she was still puzzled. “Three weeks…If you really wanted me to come, why did you wait until so late to ask me?”

  “Pure selfishness,” he said. “I wanted to leave it as late as I could so that I could keep my hopes up as long as possible. As long as I didn’t ask you, you couldn’t refuse.”

  “And after?” Sara said. “What happens to us when we get back?”

  “We will face that territory when we get to it. I think we would hate ourselves if we didn’t try this.”

  * * *

  —

  LEAH LISTENED TO all the sounds around her, the distant laughter of the children at the pond, the needles of the pine trees brushing against one another in the grove behind the garden, and the breathing of the dinner party itself: the clamor of forks on plates, the muttering of the chairs, the creaking of the old tables where they rubbed up against each other under the white cloth, the flickering of the candles, the rising of the bubbles in the mineral water, the shifting of lettuce leaves in the wooden salad bowl. And she noticed that the noise that had always been in her head, the sound like an alarm with no name, had stopped suddenly, and though she had never been conscious of it while it was there—it had been with her all her adult life and maybe longer—now its absence made her notice it and allowed her to name it to herself. And she knew it was some sort of sign, this new inner stillness, and though she was not a worrier by nature she wondered if the previously unnoticed noises of the evening were what she should be listening to, or if she had been granted this silence in order to be able to hear some new and different thing. Now, for the moment, her head was clear and without echo.

  Off in the woods, away from the garden party, where their parents and grandparents were sitting at the long table eating asparagus and drinking wine, the children’s time became their own. The sky was still bright, as though it would never darken, but at the pond twilight spread itself between the trees as though it had no beginning and no end.

  Seven-year-old Liam was the first of the children to walk into the pond. He had taken off his shorts and sandals, and now he stood there in his underpants, in water up to his waist, his feet rejoicing in the sweet muck at the bottom. The evening air was warm and the water was warm and smelled of leaves and mud and fish, and he liked, too, the occasional flick of a fish against his bare legs. He was glad that they had all had the sense to slide away from the grown-ups, although he liked his aunt Lizzie and the man she was marrying. It was clear, though, that the asparagus would go on forever. He had lost hope of any other food.

  Liam’s three-year-old cousin, Eli, sat on the grass at the edge of the water, working at his shoes, wondering about his shoelaces and the nature of the knots they got into without any help from him. Sometimes the laces refused to unwind, even when they didn’t seem locked up, and other times what seemed to be knots were really loops that came apart with only a pull; there was no telling. There was also no asking, as Eli had chosen to live without speaking when other people were present. At first he had wondered whether it was worth the trips to doctors and clinics and speech therapists, but those had tapered off now with only weekly trips to the speech lady. He sometimes gave her a grunt or a squeak, sensing that these would keep her interested, but nothing more, and he did this only when she had her back to him, so she could never be quite sure.

  Liam’s sister, Emily, hung her yellow dress over the back of the garden bench and placed her shoes and socks beside it. She pranced about in underpants, her eight-year-old body tight and long as a string bean. She cartwheeled on the grass, then knelt to help her cousin Eli with his laces, telling him to take his clothes off and put them far from the water in case there was splashing. She didn’t talk to him as though he were deaf or stupid, and he was grateful to her. The pond was shallow and clear at the edges; farther out its surface was ribbed with reflections of the apple green of dusk. Emily stepped in and walked to deeper water, chanting, “It’s not cold, it’s not cold.” She scanned for dragonflies but found only a water skeeter and followed it instead.

  Liberated from shoes and trousers and button-down shirt, little Eli slid into the pond and began a slow paddling around the edge, hands touching the soft old leaves on the bottom. Emily waded over to him to make sure he didn’t go too deep.

  The older girls, the ten-year-olds, had remained at the table in the garden for a while, but soon they, too, slipped away and went running through the woods, their bright-colored dresses glinting through the trees. Laurie had not stayed behind to eat all their desserts as she had threatened, and now, silent and quick, feeling the absurd freedom of having left the grown-ups, she felt like laughing aloud but kept herself from sound. Beside her, dark-haired Harriet ran gracefully as soon as she was out of sight of her parents.

  At the pond the trio of ten-year-olds began to strip as though for a well-known ritual: shoes off, socks in the shoes. Laurie stalled a bit, stricken now by the problem of getting undressed in front of the others. She peered over at her little brother, Eli, to make sure he was safe, and then looked down at the grass as she pulled off her dress and hugged her unbudded breasts as she skittered off toward the water.

  Harriet, having cast off her skirt and blouse, no longer seemed disordered or askew; her brown frizzy hair fanned out around her face, framing her loveliness, crowning her. In semi-nakedness she walked along the verge like a young queen. Feeling the warm evening breeze on her body, she smiled. And noticing how tentative and body-shy her quick-tongued cousin Laurie was, she gloated.

  Leila, the pale girl who had accompanied them, was the only one who removed all her clothes. Her white form moved through the shadows. Harriet wanted to say something to her, ask her something crucial, but Liam was asking Emily, “What shall we make for dinner? Should it be firefly soup or are we really going to catch fish?”

  “It’s too early in the year for fireflies, even though it’s so hot,” Emily said. “Let’s see what kind of fish are here and how they behave.”

  Liam put his arms out from his sides, hands lightly touching the water’s surface as though to quiet it.

  “Aren’t they all carp?” asked Laurie, crouching down in the pond so as to stay submerged up to her chin. No one must see her breasts, even though she didn’t have them yet. She knew they wouldn’t grow if they were looked at.

  “Maybe. But there are many carps. Besides…” Liam paused, not wanting to frighten the girls.

  “Besides?” said Harriet. She stepped in, wondering why she didn’t live in the water, it was so welcoming and warm.

  Liam, lover of fish, kept silent.

  “What he means,” began Leila, “what he means is that carp can get to be dreadfully ancient.”

  “A hundred years?” asked Emily.

  “More,” said the pale girl. “If you like.”

  “Well,” said Laurie. “Do we want to catch a young one or an old one?” She tried to sound matter-of-fact, but the notion of ancient fish spooked her. She stood up now, arms across her chest. “You know,” she said. “Right there”—she gestured—“no, over to the left a bit. That’s it. The center. That’s where the water goes all the way down. That must be where the really old ones come from.”

  They all looked where she pointed. Although the pond had seemed clear before they all entered the water, now it was murky. They shivered. Harriet at ten was wise enough to know that her cousin was up to something, Laurie usually was, but Harriet did not quite know what, and disarmed by the bald-faced lie—if it was one—she kept silent, taken by the moment. Emily, two years younger, giggled from seriousness and fright.

  “
Down to China?” Liam croaked. His older cousin Laurie had always been able to bind him with fears.

  “At least,” Laurie said gravely.

  “But it can’t be farther than China,” Harriet said, her innate sensibleness coming to the surface. “Then it would be out the other side.”

  “Yes,” said Laurie.

  “And into the sky?” asked Liam.

  “Exactly,” said Laurie. “A sort of geyser.”

  Liam thought he knew better, but he wasn’t sure. He knew quite a bit about fish, and rather less about fluids and geometries at the core of the earth.

  They all gazed into the water, wanting to believe that the bottom, though not evident, was close.

  Laurie held up one finger. “You know,” she began. She was desperate to back off as she knew that she couldn’t sustain this mischievous story. “It could have been a different pond. I saw the description in a book, but I didn’t pay enough attention. Besides, I think it’s rather small, a few inches or so—maybe even the size of a quarter—that forms the really deep part of the exact center. It’s easy to miss.”

  The others didn’t know whether to be relieved or not.

  “So which kind of carp do we want, anyway?” asked Laurie. “Old or young?” She had been caught off guard by what Liam and the pale girl had said about ancient fish, and wondered if fish could live to be a hundred, and what one ought to do with really old ones. Perhaps her cousins, too, were shaky on their facts.

  “Oh, it’s hardly a matter of what we want,” said the pale girl, Leila.

  “Yes,” said Liam. “It’s what the fish are willing to let us do.”

  Little Eli, the silent one, had been navigating the margins, but now he turned toward them, listening. He wasn’t sure why hundred-year-old fish were important, but the conversation made his skin prickle.

  Laurie said now, scaring herself, “Old fish with a long white beard, swimming around and watching us and whisking our legs with his old white hair.” She stopped, overcome with shivers. Eli reached his small hands out into the water to see if he could touch such a whiskered fish, then drew his arms back close to his body.

  White-skinned Leila, standing on the edge, still had not entered the water. She ran back to the bench and fumbled in her clothes, looking for something in her pockets. It was the candle and matches that she had brought from the party where she was supposed to be, the one with all the music. She had told her parents she was going exploring in the woods, and they had seemed happy that she had found something to do. She hadn’t quite told them that she was going off alone, but they had been dancing to the band and hadn’t asked. She lit the wick and made a puddle of wax on a rock by the edge of the pond, then held the candle upright in it until the wax had hardened.

  “Is that for the fish or for us?” Liam asked.

  “Look.” Leila pointed. A curved shape swam under the surface toward the light she had just made.

  Liam threw himself onto the fish in a scuffle of kicking and splashes. He held on as it dragged him away from the banks and down, and he could feel the smooth skin of the body and the thin spines of the fins and the pulsing of the muscles. Then his foot got tangled in some weeds and their tug was enough to make him lose his grip. He surfaced to breathe, then dived under again, looking for the fish, reaching his hands in all directions, but the water was too cloudy to see anything and he felt his lungs would burst. Snorting and coughing he emerged, face and shoulders smeared with mud. “It was immense,” he said. “I didn’t realize…” He could not continue. He took deep breaths, still heaving. Then, calmer, “I think I lost my watch.”

  “Realize what?” said Laurie, her teeth chattering.

  “That this pond would be that old. Or the fish in it so huge. I mean, it was really, really…it was as big as Eli.”

  Hearing this, Eli stood up in the shallows, proud of the comparison. He put his small hand to his chest.

  “Yes,” said Liam, panting for breath. “Your size, Eli.” He turned to the others. “The thing is, he wasn’t afraid of me. He didn’t mind that I was holding him. But he didn’t want to be caught, either. It felt like he just wanted me to notice.” Liam stood there while his breath caught up with him.

  “Maybe he was just playing with you?” Laurie asked. “But then why did he take your watch?”

  “He didn’t take it,” Liam answered quickly. “It just got lost. It lost itself.”

  “The sensible thing to do,” said Harriet, “would be for us to walk around and see if we can feel your watch with our feet.”

  They slurred their feet through the feathery ooze, keeping near the grassy edge. After a while Laurie said, “You know, we could try the losing-finding trick—my mother did it once with her contact lenses. She let the second one fall on purpose to see if it would lead her to the first one. It’s just a matter of repeating the conditions and paying attention.”

  “But did it work?” asked Harriet.

  “I don’t think so,” Laurie replied. “I don’t remember.”

  “But we’d need another huge fish,” Liam said.

  “I think I’d rather not throw my watch,” said Harriet.

  “Me neither,” said Emily. “But we could throw a shoe or something.”

  The others laughed.

  “Sorry,” said Emily.

  Laurie gave a small shiver. She turned to Leila, who shook her head with a smile and held up her wrists to show that she had no watch.

  “Okay then,” said Laurie. “You’re right. Besides,” she said darkly, “you know what would happen if we all lost our watches.”

  The others looked at her.

  “If all our watches were gone,” she said, drawing out the words, “everything would happen all at once.”

  But this they could not allow. “Laur-ie!” yelled Liam, and he started splashing her. The others joined in, relieved to break the tension that she was so expert at wrapping around them. Laurie dived in and skirting what she thought might be the center of the pond swam to the other side.

  Finally Harriet said, “But we are forgetting the fish.”

  “Why don’t you try again,” fair-skinned Leila said to Liam. “And see who else is down there.”

  Liam walked back to the water nearest the rock with its burning candle. He bent down and swept his arms slowly from side to side, sieving the water through his fingers. He was jittery, all of a sudden, and hoped not to feel the slightest nibble.

  The moon was up now, freed from the tree branches, though barely visible against the sky, which was shifting toward yellow.

  “What?”

  “It jumped into my hands. I didn’t even try for it.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s wiggling.”

  “Bring it over to the candle.”

  The fish was the size of an acorn squash but orange with yellow stripes from head to tail. Liam thought it looked more like a red snapper than a carp, but he thought that snapper did not live in sweet water. Fins and tail, too, were yellow. A strange dark eye, rimmed in black, looked at him unblinking. He didn’t know what it was.

  “Now what?” said Emily. “What do we do now?”

  “Now we cook it,” said Harriet. “Hurry and find sticks while there is still light.”

  “We’ll need a knife,” said Laurie. “Who’s got one? There’s something you do with a knife.”

  Liam held on to the fish and shook his head. He looked around at the others. Eli stood up again, clambered out of the water, and ran to his clothes, where he took a jackknife from his pocket. He offered it to his sister.

  Laurie grabbed the knife from him. “Eli, where did you get that?” said Laurie. “Three-year-olds don’t have knives.”

  Proud to have a big knife, Eli smiled and nodded. He had taken it from his father’s desk.

  “Getting the guts
out of a fish is not easy,” said Laurie. “If you do it wrong, it can make you sick. There are fish in Japan where you die right away if they don’t get every speck of the liver out before you eat it. People fall backward off their counter stools in the restaurants. Poof. Like that. Nothing can revive them. I’ve seen pictures.”

  “I can do it,” said Harriet. “I’ve gone fishing with my dad a lot. He showed me. It’s a matter, he says, of slitting it from its guggle to its zatch. And scooping at the innards until they’re all out.”

  “But do you kill it first?” asked Laurie.

  “I forget,” said Harriet.

  Liam told them what had to be done. The life and death of fish were his intimate knowledge. They were what he knew. He took the fish to a farther rock and dashed it until it was still. He slit it open and gutted it. This night, in the summer before his eighth birthday, he was still a fisherman. He had decided a couple of years ago that he would eat no other animal until he was a teenager, and after that he would figure out what to do.

  Liam brought the unusual golden fish back to the others and rinsed it in the pond. The light had not yet gone from the day, and he could see the swirl of lifeblood in the water. Eli stood watching in silence while the others gathered sticks and branches and made a fire with Leila’s matches in the nook of a few rocks.

  Using Eli’s knife, Liam whittled the ends of a forked stick. He jabbed the fish to skewer it, then held it over the fire. It grew heavier as it cooked. Soon he asked the others to spell him. Leila brought the candle over so they could see as it began to char and blacken.

  Finally, when the fish was done, Liam put more branches under it to help lift it onto a bigger rock. The older children poked at it with their sticks.

  “Come, Eli,” Laurie said to her brother. “Come and have some dinner.”