Property Of, the Drowning Season, Fortune's Daughter, and At Risk

by Alice Hoffman

  ESTHER the White had no real money of her own—Solomon Rath was in control of that—but she did have the jade pendant hidden somewhere in the pine grove, and that could bring several thousand dollars. She would give the jade pendant to Esther the Black, as soon as the girl returned to the Compound. Then Esther the Black would have options in her life, and more: she would trust Esther the White, she would love her, remember her.

  She wished she had had something to give before, when Phillip was young; but it was not too late. First, she must find Cohen and get a shovel or a spade. They would dig up the entire pine grove if they had to. But, when she reached the porch of the main house, Esther the White had to stop. Her head was light, her stomach was filled with icy air, and the pain was heavier than the earth she would have to dig.

  Esther the White walked into the dark hallway of her house; when she reached the stairs, she held onto the banister and counted backward from one hundred, a method she had been using since the pain began. But today she could no longer count backward, she could not remember what number followed eighty-six, she could not even feel the wooden banister beneath her hand.

  Esther the White did not carry a shovel to the pine grove that day; she did not call Cohen. Instead, she walked up the stairs and into her room; she locked the door behind her and crushed Demerol into a glass of warm fruit juice she had left on her bureau. As the pain was dulled, as the Demerol moved through her bloodstream, Esther the White silently thanked Phillip for allowing her another chance, for convincing her she still had something to give. True, the girl had disappeared, but Esther the White had nothing to worry about; Esther the Black would return; she had to. That was all there was to it. All through the night Esther the White slept dreamlessly, although, when she awoke, she could have sworn she had been dreaming of something sweet.

  Chapter Three

  IN the morning, Cohen’s plans were disrupted. He had hoped to catch the ferry to Manhattan, where he would sell the jade pendant, and perhaps the small earrings as well, and buy shotguns; instead, he found a note from Esther the White asking him to meet her at the shed. Esther the White was waiting for him under a pine tree, her sunglasses were tilted far back on her white hair, and she held a shovel in her hand.

  “As usual,” she said, “whatever goes on between us is private.”

  Cohen swallowed; the jade pendant, hidden in his work boot, began to burn through the bone of his shin. “It’s too hot a day to be working outside, let’s go in and have a glass of lemonade. Tea is good on a day like this—it warms up your intestines, so they don’t know whether they’re coming or going.”

  Esther the White shook her head. “My granddaughter’s missing, did you know that?” she asked.

  Cohen waved his hand in the air. “Don’t worry,” he said. “She’s probably with her Ira Rath. Although, maybe you should worry; I’m not too crazy about him.”

  Esther the White now thought of her decision, such a long time ago, to bury the past in the earth, to forget her own childhood and let the Compound honeysuckle—its odor so strong it had hung over the ice as Esther the White’s fingers cracked with the cold as she buried the jewels—take over everything, even her memory. And now, as she stood with Cohen by her side, the odor of that same flower filled her, as if memory and pain could both be erased with a flower, with a scent.

  Cohen wanted more than anything to get Esther the White away from the pine grove; he needed time—time to get to the city, pawn the jade stone, and rescue the eastern section. He took the shovel from Esther’s hand and held her shoulder lightly. “Pretty soon your husband may decide to sell the rest of the Compound. I’m old, I won’t have a job anymore, I’ll have to sit around and watch flowers grow like a bluejay. So, let’s take a rest. Why should we hurry around on such a hot day?” He sat on a large stone and rested the shovel on the ground.

  “Listen to me,” Esther the White said, and she seemed to tower above him, her shadow covered him. “I want to give my granddaughter something. That time I buried a stone, a jewel in the pine grove. It’s worth quite a lot. Esther the Black can go to Europe, she can go to college, she can do whatever she wants to do.”

  Cohen closed his eyes. Why now? he thought. After all these years, why does she need to look for it now? “A jewel?” he said.

  “That’s right,” Esther nodded.

  “Worth quite a lot?” he repeated. And when Esther nodded, he said, “Why wouldn’t you use it yourself?” He cleared his throat, swallowing was like chewing dust. “You could sell the jewel and leave the Compound.”

  “Leave?” Esther the White said. “I’m too old for that.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why would I ever want to leave here? I spent my whole life trying to get here.”

  “I was afraid you would leave,” Cohen said softly. “I was always afraid.”

  “Cohen,” Esther the White said. “I have to admit that I don’t remember where I buried it.”

  She was not about to leave him; still, he had promised the fishermen guns, and he would have to let her know the truth—that he had stolen from her, that he had kept the jewels captive all this time.

  “Cohen,” she was saying. “Do you remember?”

  Cohen shrugged his shoulders. “I have to think,” he said.

  Esther the White sat next to Cohen and sighed. “I’m tired,” she said.

  “It’s the heat,” Cohen told her. He wondered what was happening; why Esther the White had suddenly decided to look for the jewels; why they should be sitting together on a large gray rock on an August afternoon. But, the woman who sat next to him lighting a cigarette and coughing gently had white hair, and he himself was nearly bald; there was no time to figure out what to do next. He merely spoke. “Listen,” he said. “I don’t have much time. The Compound is dropping to its knees—soon your husband will need a landscape artist like he needs a hole in the head. I’m an old man,” Cohen said, and then he corrected himself. “I’m almost an old man.” He fumbled for words, he did not look her in the eyes. “Listen,” Cohen said quickly, “maybe you should marry me.”

  Esther the White had been thinking of Esther the Black’s look of surprise when she received the jade pendant; when Cohen spoke, Esther the White gripped one hand with the other; the pale blue veins in her wrist turned violet. She spoke like a dreamer. “But, I’m already married,” she said.

  Cohen lit a cigarette, he waved the smoke in the air. “All right,” he said. “We could just live together. Nowadays that’s done all the time. And frankly, I don’t need the government to have a record of my life. But think about it, because I certainly think we should be together.”

  “Why?” Esther the White said.

  “Why?” Cohen repeated. “Because we should do it. We should have done it a long time ago.”

  Cohen’s words echoed in his head; it was as if someone else had spoken them, someone else had screamed them in the vacuum of the pine grove. Both Esther and Cohen were silent, embarrassed; some lunatic, some crazy man had just ripped their mutual silence with his teeth, and Esther and Cohen were now politely ignoring the wounds.

  Esther the White could not help but wonder what might have happened if Cohen had spoken these same words years before, when they were still young, when she first began to know that Cohen stayed at the Compound because of her.

  “I don’t know,” Esther the White said softly.

  Cohen was ready to take any word from Esther the White as encouragement. “You’re not a snob,” he said. “I don’t think it means a thing to you that your husband pays my salary. It’s true,” Cohen shrugged, “he hasn’t paid me in months.”

  Esther nodded; Cohen was a gentleman, who else would have stayed on at the Compound? The pain began again in her left side, and she pushed hard against her ribs. “I don’t know,” she said absently. “I’m married.”

  Esther the White knew that she would have never said yes to him years ago. She would have had to give everything away to love him. Still, she remembered how he had looked
that night as he knelt on the ice, as he watched her in the grove of black pine. “It’s too late,” she said. “Too late.”

  “Who says?” Cohen demanded.

  “Let’s go,” Esther the White said, smoothing back her pale hair, and reaching for the shovel. “Let me get at least one thing settled.”

  “Esther,” Cohen called. “What would you have said if I had asked before? When we were younger?”

  Esther the White smiled and leaned on the shovel. “I might have considered,” she lied.

  The morning grew later; as Cohen watched Esther the White shovel out earth the heat began to rise until it was obvious that this would be a record-breaking day, and even Esther the White, who was always chilled by the pain that ran through her, removed her sweater and fanned herself with a pale limp hand.

  Cohen reached into his boot and walked across the pine grove. His heart was beating, his legs felt stiff. “Esther,” he said. Esther the White stopped digging and stood by his side. “I promised the fishermen I would help them fight Gardner and his bulldozers,” he said.

  “Cohen,” Esther the White said, “you didn’t.”

  “I did,” Cohen said. “Of course I did. Are the fishermen supposed to drop dead, should they take a midnight train to Miami Beach on your husband’s say-so?”

  “Please don’t say ‘your husband,’” Esther the White said; the phrase grated on her nerves.

  “Of course,” Cohen said, “the fishermen can raise plenty of trouble without my help. I’d like to see the day anyone takes this harbor away from the fishermen.”

  Esther the White turned from Cohen to stare at the holes she had dug. “I really can’t remember,” she said to herself.

  “You’re pretty good with a shovel,” Cohen said.

  “Do I have a choice?” Esther the White felt tired and hot, and she wished that a rain would fall, or that a tidal wave would wash away the pine grove, and she would simply have to lean down and pluck out the treasure from the earth. She felt certain that it was only the heat which forced Cohen to speak of love. Heat did strange things, Esther the White thought. It might have mixed up Cohen’s memory; he was not so young anymore.

  And when she turned, from staring at the pine grove, when she was about to ask Cohen one more time if he remembered where he had seen her so long ago, Cohen dropped the jade pendant into Esther the White’s hand.

  “Just remember,” Cohen said to her. “You don’t owe me anything. When you decide to marry me, which would be a very good idea, just remember not to do it because you owe me anything.”

  Esther the White sat down; she had to, she did not think her legs would hold her. She sat in the grove, in the earth, as if she were a child. She did not ask Cohen how he came to have the pendant, she did not thank him; but she began to think his offer stemmed from more than mere memory.

  “Cohen,” she said, and the landscape artist had to kneel in the earth to hear her voice, “was there a pair of diamond earrings, too?”

  Esther the White now wondered if she would even recognize the one gift Solo had given her. She wondered if the small stones were pear-shaped or oval; if they had ever existed at all.

  Cohen pulled his beret out of his pants pocket and placed the hat on his head to protect against the sun. But his head was dizzy, light as air. He had always imagined that the diamonds had been a gift from Mischa; or perhaps a lover, perhaps someone Esther the White had once adored. “Do you want there to have been earrings?” he said.

  Esther the White answered quickly. “No,” she said, not wanting to remember Solo, or the gift he had given her.

  “No,” said Cohen. “No earrings.”

  The landscape artist helped Esther to her feet, and as he walked with her across the lawn, she listened to his problems with the fishermen, and she nodded when he explained that he now had to go across to the eastern section. She stayed at the sea wall to watch as he crossed through the pine grove, but Esther the White did not see Cohen toss the diamond earrings over the sea wall, she did not see that they fell among a thousand green stones. And while Esther watched Cohen, as she held the jade pendant in her fingers, she made another decision: she would accept Cohen’s offer. She had decided to love him.

  Cohen did not know what to expect from the young fishermen when he told them of his decision. He found the group on the beach, drying woven nets on the rocks, discussing the low quality of the mussels in the harbor that season. The heat wave grew stronger; and the women wore halter tops and shorts, their long hair was tied up with the blue headbands in long dark manes.

  Cohen sat on a large algae-coated rock that was still cool and wet with the tide.

  “So,” a young woman who was retying torn strands in a large fishing net said, “here is our hero.”

  Cohen shrugged. “Not such a hero.”

  “Please,” the young fisherman, Daniel, who had come to sit with Cohen, said. “Why such modesty, Cohen?” He placed his bare feet on the dark, wet rock and opened a paper bag; he had been to the McDonald’s on Route 16, and had brought back lunch for nearly everyone on the beach. Daniel ate a hamburger. “If I knew you would be here,” he apologized, “I would have picked up something for you.” He offered Cohen french fries. “This meal is a celebration, because construction is scheduled to begin tomorrow.”

  “I can’t eat those kinds of hamburgers,” Cohen said. “Stomach.”

  Daniel nodded and chewed. Some of the young men and women came to sit with Cohen; the older fishermen avoided him, and called him troublemaker to themselves. Cohen took off his sleeveless undershirt and mopped his face. He chewed a pale french fry, but it stuck to his throat like paper. He suffered from heat, and sadness, and joy. He wished the fishermen’s eyes did not look up at him, expecting his words to drip deliciously about their ears. But he had asked for it, no one had begged him to help.

  When he told them there were no guns, could he also explain that he wasn’t a traitor, that he did not love the Compound and the eastern section any less? Could he tell them that, for him, Esther the White was the Compound; when he saw her he saw the pine grove in winter, coated in ice, he saw the harbor sand move in the lines of her face, each pale vein contained the scales of harbor fish, and the gardenias he had fed nails to for years were carried in her plain blue scarf.

  The young fishermen grew restless. “When do we get the guns? When do we figure out our plans?” one of them asked.

  Cohen stared at the clear outline of Connecticut across the Sound. “There aren’t any guns,” he told them.

  “You’re kidding?” Daniel said.

  “No kidding,” Cohen told him. “It didn’t work out.”

  Under a birchwood tree, three old fishermen played Bolo in the shade; when voices on the beach were raised, the old-timers left their fishbones game to see what trouble was stirring.

  “You’re a traitor,” Esther the Black’s friend Terry said.

  “Are you working against us now?” a woman stopped cleaning mussels to ask. “Are you on the side of the family? How much did they pay you?”

  Cohen lowered his eyes; no one could have paid him with more than Esther the White’s clear gaze, with the touch of her fingers when he slipped the pendant into her palm.

  The oldest fisherman, the Bolo expert who had ignored Cohen in the clearing when he had first made his announcement, pushed his way through the young men and women. He stared at Cohen through sun-small dark eyes. “Don’t yell at him,” the old man said. “Don’t make so much noise. You’re like seagulls. Screaming and screaming.”

  “I promised them guns,” Cohen explained to the old man.

  “I know,” the fisherman said.

  “And he didn’t get them,” a boy of seventeen said accusingly.

  “Good,” said the old fisherman. “We don’t need them.” He smiled at Cohen. “But it was a very nice idea. Very romantic. Never would have worked, but romantic.”

  “What do we do?” Daniel called out. “Just walk away?”

 
; “Yes.” The old fisherman squinted in the sun.

  “These old men,” Daniel said to his friends, “they’re as good as dead.”

  Cohen laughed, because minutes before he had been imagining making love to Esther the White. The old fisherman looked over at him. “Dead?” he said. “Too much the opposite. More alive than you would like to think, boy.” He tapped his forehead. “And smart.”

  “So smart that we just walk away and leave everything behind?” someone called.

  “That’s right,” the old fisherman said. “But I didn’t say where we walk to, did I?”

  These words silenced the group, which had turned from Cohen. Even the landscape artist was curious. Even he could see a better plan than his gun-running in the old man’s smile.

  “So?” Cohen asked. “What is your plan?”

  The fisherman tapped his head again. In his hand he held a dried fishbone from the Bolo game, and it left traces of sand on his cheek.

  “Sorry,” he said. “You’ve got divided loyalties. Let me make it easier for you by saying this plan is only for us.”

  For a while Cohen sat alone on the wet stone and bathed his feet in the tide, but he felt deserted. So he pulled on his damp undershirt and walked across the beach. He climbed over the sea wall and turned; the fishermen were like shadows under the birchwood tree; they had already forgotten him. Cohen walked across the lawn, thinking that the old fisherman was right—it was better not to know. Some things. Some things it was better to know. Like what was going to happen with his life, with Esther the White. Anything could happen, Cohen thought, as he crossed the wide lawn. Nothing could happen.

  At his window, where he had pulled up a soft chair so that he could view the Compound more comfortably, Phillip could see Cohen’s shoulders stoop, he could see the rings of sweat on the landscape artist’s undershirt. And he could also see his mother sitting on the porch in the fading light. Esther the White sat before a wicker table. “Cohen,” she called, and she signaled to him, “I made tea.”

  “Tea?” Cohen said. He scratched his head and strained to see what expression might be on her face, but her eyes were as pale and as clear as ever.