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

by Alice Hoffman

  Phillip moved closer to his window, he pressed his nose against the glass. Across the room Rose watched the TV, but the only thing Phillip wanted to see was the Compound, the way the shadows fell against the trees.

  “That’s right,” Esther the White said, as she poured another cup of tea into a china blue cup. “Peppermint,” she said.

  Across the Compound, Phillip unearthed his binoculars. He became glued to the window. He could see the movement of Cohen’s throat as he gulped hot tea in the last of the sunlight; he could see the seagulls perched in the birch trees and on telephone wires. Phillip smiled when he saw Cohen reach over and touch Esther the White’s hand; if his mother was feeling something—now a drowning might mean something to her, a drowning might leave its mark. It was perfect timing, really; but Esther the White’s reaction was not the most important thing—it was merely an interesting coincidence. So, Phillip turned his binoculars away from Cohen and Esther the White; he let them have their tea alone, without any outside observer, and he turned his attention to the Compound gates.

  He had begun to hear the rumbling as soon as Esther the White informed him of the sale of the eastern section of the Compound. Across the lawn, past the mimosa and the pines, just outside of the iron gate, the bulldozers now began to arrive. Phillip checked his watch. He had calculated that the bulldozers would appear in the evening, near dinnertime, gathering like deer at a cool, dark pool. Not bad, Phillip smiled; his timing had been nearly exact. He stared through his binoculars, far past Esther the White, who now poured honey into the peppermint tea with her fragile, tentative hands. Phillip moved his binoculars closer to the window; he had the senses of a fish—he had heard the bulldozers when they were still invisible to the naked eye, still silent to any other ear. And he sat so silently, so calmly, that he could have surprised any fly that rested on his hot, damp skin with one flick of his tongue.

  Chapter Four

  ESTHER the Black was not trained for the unusual. No one had told her that the sun does not always rise over the harbor, and that all fathers do not try to kill themselves once a year, regularly as clockwork. She could never have imagined that her grandmother spent hours sitting in front of a smoky Italian mirror, practicing a speech she hoped to deliver to Esther the Black when she presented the girl with the jade pendant. Esther the Black would never have guessed that Cohen had decided to lay the fishermen’s friendship on the line for the woman he loved—or if, in some romantic hour, Esther the Black could have imagined that much, she would never have guessed that the woman was her own grandmother, Esther the White.

  And when she first arrived in Manhattan and walked down Tenth Avenue, she would never have guessed that Ira Rath would fall in love with her. When she went to the apartment where Ira now lived with The Quick and the Mad, Esther the Black had a purpose. She had come to ask for a loan—she was certain the accountant, Solomon Rath, would give in to any whim of Ira’s—and if he were asked, the elder Rath could come up with enough cash to settle Phillip and Rose far away from the Compound, before Phillip’s drowning impulse was pushed to the limit by the construction that would level the eastern section. So, Esther the Black had knocked on Ira Rath’s new front door; she had run a hand through her hair, using her fingers as a comb. She waited in the dark hallway. The lock clicked three times; Ira opened the door.

  He stared at her, surprised. “You smell like fish,” he said.

  “The ferry,” Esther the Black explained. “Can I come in?”

  “Of course.” He motioned her into the apartment. “Please,” he said. Esther the Black looked past him, at the huge, old apartment littered with the back-up band, The Quick and the Mad; she hesitated. “Esther,” he assured her, “you have picked the perfect night for a visit. Tonight I am famous. I can have the world,” he said confidently. “And it never would have happened, if not for you.”

  “Ira,” Esther the Black said, once she was inside, “I came here to ask for help.” She spoke loudly, so that she could be heard over the voices of The Quick and the Mad, who were seated on the floor with a bottle of tequila and a sliced grapefruit.

  He raised a finger to his lips. “Ssh,” he said. “They call me Pagan here. Not even my bass player knows my real name.”

  Pagan sat on a red leather drum seat. “Esther,” he said. “I don’t think you understand that I have a hit on my hands. The night I left your family’s dinner, I thought about what my father had done—and I realized that if he could steal from your family—I could steal from him. Why should I struggle like every other starving musician, when all I had to do was ask the old man for the cash? He fought me, sure, but I laid it on the line. I told him, ‘Pop, you either cough up two grand, or I’ll peddle my ass if I have to.’ Peddle my ass, that’s what I said. He came up with the cash, and we recorded ‘Nova Scotia Avenue.’ We’ve got a distributor, and Sam Goody’s has already ordered the record. WNEW’s been playing the demo. At least twice a day. And I’ve got no guilt, Esther, thanks to you. None. I walked right out of the old man’s apartment yesterday, and when he said, ‘How can you leave me after all I’ve done for you, after I gave you the money to cut your goddamn record,’ I turned, and do you know what I said to him?”

  Esther the Black swallowed hard. “No,” she said.

  “I said, ‘If I thank anyone it’ll be Esther the Black. It was her money and not yours that paid for “Nova Scotia Avenue.”’ I can have the world, Esther,” Pagan said. “I’m famous.” He sighed.

  “Great,” Esther the Black said. “Wonderful. But, Ira, the truth is, I need some money too. I’ve got to get my father away from the Compound before he knows it was sold. Just a couple of hundred,” she said. “Just a loan.”

  Trucks en route to New Jersey shook the street as Esther the Black waited for an answer. Finally, Pagan Rath shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but you’ve got to understand, the record business is expensive. I’ve got my agent’s fees, a road manager, new outfits for The Quick and the Mad, and my advance for the album we’re cutting hasn’t come through yet. There’s no money, Esther. I thought you understood that. Nothing left now—but soon I’ll be rich—soon I can lend you whatever you need. Forget about lending—I’ll give it to you.”

  Esther the Black lit a cigarette and closed her eyes. What was she doing in an apartment with someone who could have the world, when her own world seemed to be growing smaller by the minute. Esther leaned close to the dingy wall, and she wished that there was some way for her to crawl inside the plaster.

  “You’re sending out very negative vibes, Esther. Money isn’t everything, you know.” Pagan Rath swung his suede boots away from the drum set and stood by her. “They’re playing my song on WNEW. On the fucking radio.”

  Esther the Black apologized for her reaction; she wished she could congratulate him on his good luck, but she couldn’t, her heart wasn’t in it. She ran her fingers up and down the yellow wall; all her plans had turned to dust. She had been fighting the Compound and her grandmother for a lifetime, and now there was no more time, now the eastern section had been sold, and Phillip’s reaction might be anything, anything at all.

  “I have everything I always wanted,” Ira Rath was saying. “Everyone calls me Pagan now. It’s like I’m a different person.”

  One of The Quick and the Mad now suggested that the band celebrate its success at a party going on in Newark. “Let’s go, Pagan,” the drummer called. “New Jersey is waiting for us.”

  But Pagan Rath shook his head and turned to Esther. “Stay,” he said.

  “Me?” Esther the Black said.

  “I’m not going to that party in Newark,” Pagan Rath said. “I’d rather stay here, with you.”

  The Quick and the Mad picked up their tequila, their guitars, and their girlfriends; they scuttled out of the apartment, leaving tracks of cigarette ash and success in crazy circles. Esther the Black felt she didn’t have a friend in the world; she couldn’t face the ferry ride back to St. Fredrics with no success
of her own, and no new plans. She decided to stay. She took off her clothes, and agreed to make love with Pagan Rath on a mattress without sheets.

  “Sorry,” he apologized, “but I’ve just moved into this apartment, and I haven’t had time to go to the Laundromat. This has been a hectic week.”

  But Esther the Black didn’t mind; she sighed, because when Pagan Rath touched her breasts she was able to forget the color of the harbor sand in late morning. And because when he moved inside of her, Esther the Black could no longer hear the owls in the pine grove calling. “Thank you,” she said to him when they had finished; but when she reached for her clothes, which lay on the floor near the mattress, Pagan Rath stopped her hand. “You don’t have to go,” he said. “Don’t leave tonight.”

  Pagan Rath’s eyes were tired and red; Esther could see her own reflection in their centers.

  “Are you ever afraid of the dark?” Esther the Black asked, thinking of her grandmother’s bedroom light, which was always burning, in the latest night, in the earliest morning.

  “I’m afraid of ‘Nova Scotia Avenue,’” Pagan Rath said.

  She told him she would stay, but only till morning. But in the morning, Pagan begged her to accompany him to the recording studio, where The Quick and the Mad were taping their album, Dog in Pain.

  Esther the Black soon realized that Ira could not get through the recording session without a bottle of Jack Daniels, or without holding her hand.

  And later, during lunch at a deli on Seventh Avenue, Pagan asked if she thought she could love him.

  “I don’t think so,” Esther answered.

  “I think it might work,” Pagan said as he ordered a corned beef sandwich. “I think it could work. You changed my life; you opened my eyes; you taught me that if you want something bad enough you’ll take it—even if it comes from your father. You’re good for me; I just know it.”

  “Ira,” Esther the Black said, “I can’t talk myself into loving you.”

  Pagan Rath held her hand tightly. “Love can happen if you want it to—if you really try.” He stopped and pulled out a notebook from the pocket of his leather jacket. “That’s a great lyric,” he said. “You see, you inspire me. Come on the road with me. My manager’s set up four concert dates in California. You’re the only one who really knows me. You’re the only one who calls me Ira.”

  “I don’t know,” Esther the Black said, although the truth was she would have liked to say yes—she liked the way his tongue moved up and down on her skin, she liked the way he needed her.

  “Think about it,” Pagan said, and he hummed the first bar of the title song from Dog in Pain.

  But Esther did not love Pagan, and she could not desert the Compound. When they walked back down Seventh Avenue, she could not forget the mimosa trees, or her father’s eyes, or the cool stone beach at low tide. She stayed with Pagan for the rest of that day, but she had decided to go home.

  IN the morning when the sun had not yet risen, and Pagan was still asleep, Esther the Black dressed and walked quickly through the living room, where the lead guitarist had fallen asleep on the couch with a tequila bottle still in his hand. She sat in the kitchen and began to write Ira a note; Esther was trying to explain why they weren’t meant for each other when the telephone rang.

  The evening before, the family had discovered that Esther the Black was not the only missing person in the Compound. Phillip was not at home with Rose, he was not in his recovery cottage, he was not sitting on the lawn or on the stone beach. Cohen had searched for him all night; and, in the morning, when Sam Gardner’s bulldozers, which had been parked outside the gate on Route 16 all night, first entered the gate, Cohen suggested to Esther the White that Esther the Black be found. Cohen had believed, from the start, that Esther the Black would be found with Ira Rath—she did not have many friends to choose from. He called Solomon Rath and jotted down Ira’s new phone number.

  “Esther?” Cohen said, when Esther the Black picked up the receiver. “Esther?” Cohen repeated, though he had not yet heard her voice. Outside, on Tenth Avenue, no buses ran. The city was dark, black as night; but across the river, a pale light glowed above New Jersey.

  “What happened?” Esther the Black asked. She knew something was wrong; it was too early, too dark.

  “I’m pretty smart,” Cohen said. “I figured out where you were.” His voice was low; he sounded like an old man.

  “Something’s happened,” Esther said.

  “Your father,” Cohen said. “Phillip is missing.”

  Esther the Black ran down the three flights of stairs; she hailed a cab on Twentieth Street; her knuckles were white as the driver sped through the empty morning streets to the pier where the St. Fredrics ferry docked. After she had bought her ticket, Esther waited on the pier for the ferry to board. As the sky turned from gray to summer blue, she tried to distract herself, she tried to think of Ira Rath, but she felt no love, she felt only guilt, for having left him asleep in the dark apartment, dreaming of “Nova Scotia Avenue.” She wondered if he seemed to need her so much only because she still called him Ira; but even that was past: he had now become Pagan to her too.

  By the time the ferry had boarded and had begun straining its engines, by the time it pulled slowly away from the pier, Esther the Black could no longer avoid it—she looked across the moving water and thought of Phillip. And she found herself wishing, over and over again, that it was not too late; although she knew that for some things, it was always too late. She knew that even if she had been at the Compound the evening before, she could never have stopped Phillip. She might not even have wanted to.

  It was a well-known fact that Phillip’s drowning attempts happened only once a year, but this year was not like all other years, this year the earth trembled and the pine trees waited to be cut down, one by one. No one could have known that Phillip really would walk down to the sea wall so late in the season, or that he would have the strength to climb it. But his bare feet had held to the sandstone like barnacles. When he reached the beach, Phillip’s breathing was heavy; he slipped on the slick green stones and cut the soles of his feet. He would have liked to stop, to wait for a while, not because of the blood which oozed from his feet, but because he would want to look closely at the harbor. But there simply wasn’t time. There hadn’t been since he had first heard the rumbling.

  And so, he walked along the rocks; the sun was strong, his head was light, and behind him he left a thin trail of blood over the algae. It was low tide; the smell of sea lavender and seaweed circled the beach like a fist. Phillip’s feet sank into the wet sand; around his toes were the strands of seaweed and the battered shells dropped by high-flying gulls. The centers of his eyes were like fine dark pins, seeing only the horizon, the center where blue meets with blue, where everything joins. Now he knew that everything else had been practice, everything else had been for this one evening in the last week of August.

  Before, a part of him had been playing—he had not swum far enough, or not quickly enough, in a river or sea that was slow-moving or warm. Before there had been plenty of time. And he had had a daughter to worry about. But now, Phillip felt that Esther the White would take care of the girl; and now the bulldozers were waiting to push their way through the eastern section of the Compound to the harbor. There was no time.

  Phillip stood waist high in water. His pale beige slacks turned to fins, the hair on his legs and genitals was washed away with the cold August tide. And in front of him was the blue where it met with itself, and behind him was the family which still believed that he was just trying to kill himself. Phillip smiled at that thought, as horseshoe crabs moved around him, guarding him like underwater tanks. He breathed as deeply as he could, waves wet his T-shirt until the material stuck to him like a film.

  The blue light from the horizon stayed with him, protectively, as Phillip dove deeper; and soon he did not have to dive—he was carried with the tide, around and down. He was carried like a dancer, down like a dance
r, with his clear eyes closed. The harbor did not give him up until late the next afternoon, when the current had taken him miles down the beach, and the leg of Phillip’s slacks had caught on a wooden piling of the St. Fredrics docks.

  Ferries to Manhattan and Connecticut rushed past him, seagulls rested on his knees. Finally he was found by two dock workers who had their lunch each afternoon on the same dock stairs. On the day when Esther the Black arrived back at the Compound the two dock workers shared sandwiches, beer, peaches, and pie; and as they chewed and threw crumbs and pieces of crust into the water, they did not know quite what it was that rolled beneath the dock with calm movements, as elegantly as some huge fish. By the time they realized that it was a man, Phillip’s hair was moving in slow curls, and his face was as clear and smooth as a stone.

  Part Four

  GATHERING THE NETS

  Chapter One

  THEY buried him quickly. They had to; Mischa was afraid that the rabbi he had finally persuaded to officiate at Phillip’s funeral would discover the possibility of suicide. The spot they chose was as close to the sea wall as the sand would allow; they could hear the bulldozers droning like flies. No one wore black. Mischa leaned on a fine wooden cane, Rose wore a pastel cotton dress, Esther the White’s bowed head was draped with pale blue silk, Esther the Black wore sunglasses and her denim cap. From afar, the family appeared to be setting out for a picnic, but two gravediggers leaned on their shovels, and they cursed at the heat and at the fine, sandy earth, which kept refilling the hole they dug.

  No one cried; except for Rose, who had been drinking heavily all morning, and who worried about her financial situation as she waved aside the drooping veil of pink chiffon which fell from the brim of her straw hat. Esther the Black did not cry because she could not believe that her father was inside the coffin, which was placed on two wooden boards above the open grave; she imagined that they had found the wrong man. Phillip could not be inside that box; he was somewhere adrift in the waters of the harbor. And if he was in there, Esther the Black thought, then all she had to do was to find a knife and slit the black ribbon which was wrapped like a seal across the coffin’s center; then she would see him one more time, she would watch as Phillip sprang forth, surviving yet another drowning.